REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION: 'This introductory textbook offers a solid exposition of the foundational topics required for the investigation and study of English sentence structure ... it is clearly written in an accessible style.' - Language 'An ideal introduction to syntax.' - The Year's Work in English StudiesABOUT THE BOOKA lucid textbook on syntax which gives students a thorough grounding in the basics of sentence structure while acquainting them with the essentials of syntactic argument. The text is written in a user-friendly style, and progresses through a range of relevant topics of increasing difficulty from the building blocks of language - words and phrases - to constituency and argumentation. This new edition is completely revised with the chapter on X-bar syntax now split in two to give greater prominence to clauses. It also contains many new exercises, which are now graded in terms of level of difficulty. Each chapter has a section on suggested further reading material, and there is a bibliography and list of recommended reference works for students to explore the subject further.CONTENTSPrefacePART ONE: FUNCTION AND FORMIntroductionFunctionsThe Building Blocks of Language: Words, Word Classes and PhrasesThe Building Blocks of Language: Clauses and SentencesThe Function-Form InterfacePART TWO: ELABORATIONPredicates, Arguments and Thematic RolesCross-Categorial Generalisations: X'-SyntaxMore on ClausesMovementPART THREE: ARGUMENTATIONSyntactic ArgumentationConstituency: Movement and SubstitutionConstituency: Some Additional TestsPredicates and Arguments RevisitedPART FOUR: APPLICATIONCase StudiesGlossaryReference Works: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and Grammars BibliographyIndex