Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

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541 Index for individual terms not in the Glossary

Glossary | 917

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Proposition The topic and comment in a clause together constitute a proposition: 

topic comment

We | baked some potatoes in the fire.

Prosody (adjective = prosodic) Refers to variations in spoken features such as

stress, rhythm, intonation, voice quality, pitch, loudness, tempo, pauses.

Prototypical Shows that a category or representation is the most typical, usual,

or characteristic. For example, prototypical questions have interrogative form

and function to elicit information.

Pseudo-cleft A grammatical structure which allows end focus to be placed on 

the clause element. Pseudo-cleft sentences are most often introduced by a

what

-clause which provides old or given information, while the copular

complement contains the new, important information:

What we need is 

a hammer

.

What you want is

a telephone bank account

.

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Cleft

Pseudo-intransitive (or middle construction) Refers to the use of verbs

intransitively which are normally used transitively in clauses (clean, close,

cook, drive, iron, photograph, read

). In this construction, the agent is not

mentioned and the recipient/beneficiary of the action becomes the

grammatical subject. This gives endweight to the verb (and any accompanying

complement/adjunct):

Fish 

cooks quickly.

Helen 

photographs really well, doesn’t she?

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Transitive

Pseudo-passive Structures based on get and have which are more common in

spoken language. Pseudo-passives are similar to true passives in that the

grammatical subject is typically the recipient, rather than the agent/doer, of the

action:

They 

got deported.

She 

had her car damaged.

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Causative; Passive

Punctuation This involves conventions such as the comma (,), colon (:), semi-

colon (;), full-stop (.), hyphen (-), question mark (?), exclamation mark (!),

quotation marks (‘ ’), dashes (—), parentheses ( ). Punctuation functions to

separate grammatical units and paragraphs in written language, and to specify

particular properties of units through quotation marks, italics, initial capitals,

bold face, etc.

918 | Glossary

Cambridge Grammar of English

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Quantifier A word or phrase used before a noun to express a positive or negative

contrast in quantity. There are closed and open classes of quantifiers.

Closed class: all, some, many, much, few, little, several, enough, etc.

Open class:

a lot of, plenty of, large amounts of, a bottle of, two loaves of,

etc.

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Partitive

Question (yes-no, wh-, alternative, follow-up, echo, display, two-step) An

utterance (most typically in interrogative form) which requires a verbal

response from the addressee. 

Yes-no

questions ask if something is true, and require a response of yes

or no:

A: Are you ready?

B: Yes/no.

Wh

-questions are introduced by words such as who, what, why, and require

information to be given in the response:

A: What time are you leaving?

B: Six o’clock.

Alternative questions present options for the respondent to choose from:

A: Would you like tea or coffee?

B: Er, tea, please.

Follow-up questions serve to request further specification. They usually appear

as short questions with wh-words:

A: I’ve done lots of work.

B: Have you? Like what?

A: Like writing a first draft of my essay.

Echo questions seek confirmation or clarification of what has been said by

repeating part of the speaker’s utterance. They often have a declarative word

order and an end-position wh-word:

A: Pay attention to this!

B: Pay attention to what?

Display questions seek confirmation of something the speaker already knows,

with the purpose of putting knowledge or information on public display.

Display questions are common in contexts such as classrooms, quiz shows and

other tests of knowledge:

Teacher: What is the capital of France?

Pupil: Paris.

Two-step questions involve a two-stage process in which one question may act

as a preface for another question:

A: Are you going to the match tonight?

B: Yeah, I am.

A: Do you mind if I tag along?