''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (''CGEL'') is a descriptive grammar of the English language. Its primary authors are Rodney Huddleston and

Geoffrey K. Pullum Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American linguist specialising in the study of English. He is Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Pullum is a co-author of ''The Cambridge Gram ...

. Huddleston was the only author to work on every chapter. It was published by Cambridge University Press in 2002 and has been cited more than 7,000 times.

History

Huddleston published a very critical review of '' A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'' in 1988. In his review, he wrote,

there are some respects in which it is seriously flawed and disappointing. A number of quite basic categories and concepts do not seem to have been thought through with sufficient care; this results in a remarkable amount of unclarity and inconsistency in the analysis, and in the organization of the grammar.

The University of Queensland provided a special projects grant to launch the project in 1989, when Huddleston began work on CGEL. From 1989 to 1995, "workshops were held regularly in Brisbane and Sydney to develop ideas for the framework and content of the grammar". Pullum joined the project in 1995 after Huddleston "bemoaned the problems he was having in maintaining the momentum of this huge project, at that time already five years underway". In 2005, a shorter, simpler companion volume called ''A student's introduction to English grammar'' was published. The second edition came out in 2022.

Contributors

Huddleston is the sole author on seven of the chapters and co-author on the other 13. Pullum is co-author on six chapters. The following are the authors in alphabetical order. *

Laurie Bauer Laurence James Bauer (born 9 August 1949) is a British linguist and Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington. He is known for his expertise on morphology and word formation. Bauer was an editor of the journal '' Wo ...

* Betty J. Birner * Ted Briscoe * Peter Collins * Rodney Huddleston * Anita Mittwoch * Geoffrey Nunberg * John Payne * Frank Palmer * Peter Peterson *

* Lesley Stirling *

Gregory Ward Gregory Ward is an American linguist, academic and researcher. He is Professor of Linguistics, Gender & Sexuality Studies and, by courtesy, Philosophy at Northwestern University. Ward's primary research revolves around pragmatics, with emphasis o ...

Other collaborators

David Denison David Michael Benjamin Denison (born 6 September 1950) is a British linguist whose work focuses on the history of the English language. Biography He was educated at Highgate School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics ...

* David Lee

Board of consultants

Barry Blake, Bernard Comrie, Greville Corbett, Edward Finegan, John Lyons, Peter Matthews, Keith Mitchell, Frank Palmer, John Payne, Neil Smith,

Roland Sussex Roland (Roly) Denis Sussex OAM is Emeritus Professor of Applied Language Studies at the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Sussex hosts a talkback program on language and li ...

, and the late

James D. McCawley James David McCawley (March 30, 1938 – April 10, 1999) was a Scottish-American linguist. Biography McCawley was born James Quillan McCawley, Jr. to Dr. Monica Bateman McCawley (b. 1901), a physician and surgeon, and James Quillan McCawley (b. ...

Reviews

* Aarts, Bas. (2004). Grammatici certant. ''Journal of Linguistics'', ''40'', 365–382. *Culicover, Peter W. (2004). "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (review)". ''Language, 80'' (1), 127–141. *Griffiths, Eric. (2002). "Review: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K Pullum". ''The Guardian'

* Leech, Geoffrey. (2004). A new Gray's Anatomy of English grammar. ''English Language and Linguistics'', ''8'' (1), 121–147. It also won the

Leonard Bloomfield Book Award The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

of the Linguistic Society of America in 2004.

References

External links

Cambridge University, Linguistics

Review by Peter W. Culicover
Cambridge University Press books English grammar books 2002 non-fiction books Leonard Bloomfield Book Award books Corpus linguistics {{Grammar-book-stub