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

Impersonal reports in formal registers

502b

Formal styles such as journalism and academic English often use impersonal

constructions to report and quote other people’s words. These include passive

voice constructions and constructions with it:

Someone once said that there’s nothing as old as yesterday’s news.

Many royal watchers predicted then that Isabel’s chances of becoming Queen of

Spain had been dashed by the embarrassing affair, and 

it was said that Felipe’s

mother, Queen Sofia, was particularly keen to bring an early end to the romance. 

(we are not told who said this)

It is claimed that any small retailer who wants to cut prices is threatened with

the withdrawal of supply. 

Û

146d Hedging and impersonal constructions in Grammar and academic English

824 | Speech representation

Cambridge Grammar of English

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Appendices

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

---

Appendices

Appendix: Word clusters and

grammar

Introduction

503

Common types of cluster

504

Preposition + article 504a

Subject + verb 504b

Subject + verb with complement 

items 504c

Noun phrase + of 504d

Other types 504e

Functions of clusters

505

Relations of time and place 505a

Other prepositional relations 505b

Interpersonal functions 505c

Vague language 505d

Linking functions 505e

Turn-taking 505f

Clusters in academic English 505g

Appendix: Punctuation

Introduction

506

Common punctuation marks: 

symbols and typographic

conventions 506a

Capitals and full stops 506b

Question marks and exclamation 

marks 506c

Commas 506d

Colons and semi-colons 506e

Direct speech 506f

Citations 506g

Apostrophes 506h

Dashes and other punctuation 

marks 506i

Numerals and punctuation 506j

Appendix: English spelling

Spelling and prefixes

507

Spelling and suffixes

508

Rule 1: consonant is doubled before 

a suffix 508a

Rule 2: dropping the final -e 508b

Rule 3: plurals of nouns and -s forms 

of verbs 508c

Rule 4: changing y to i 508d

Rule 5: spelling of verb forms: 

-ed forms 508e

Rule 6: spelling of verb forms: -ing

forms 508f

Rule 7: the suffix -ally 508g

Spelling and short and long 

vowels

509

Doubling 509a

Addition of final e to indicate long 

vowel 509b

Spelling checks

510

Panel: One word or two? 510a

Panel: i before e except after c 510b

Panel: British and American English

spelling

511

Appendix: Numbers

Ordinal and cardinal numbers

512

Fractions and decimals

513

Singular and plural with fractions 

and decimals 513a

Percentages

514

Telephone numbers

515

Uses of and

516

Uses of commas

517

A and one

518

Round numbers and dates

519

British pounds sterling

520

Measuring areas

521

Spoken calculations

522

Roman numerals

523

Panel: Spoken forms of 0

524

Panel: Singular forms with plural

meanings

525

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Appendix: Referring to the

time

Telling the time

526

The twenty-four-hour clock 526a

Appendix: Units of

measurement

Non-metric measures

527

Approximate values of non-metric 

units 527a

Usage 527b

Appendix: Nationalities,

countries and regions

Introduction

528

Examples of countries and regions, 

and associated adjectives and 

nouns 528a

Some main exceptions 528b

Appendix: Irregular verbs

Introduction

529

Table of irregular verbs 529a

Appendix: North American

English grammar

Introduction

530

Modal verbs and other modal

expressions

531

Shall

531a

Must

531b

Have got to 

and have to 531c

Had better

531d

Be going to

531e

I guess

, I suppose, I reckon 531f

Other verbs

532

Be

532a

Have 

and have got 532b

Go (and)

532c

Get

532d

Fit

532e

Learn, burn, dream, 

etc. 532f

Other verbs 532g

Tags and tails

533

Adverbs, adjectives

534

Really, real

534a

Well, good

534b

Likely

534c

The present perfect

535

Concord

536

Prepositional usage

537

Exclamative expressions

538

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828 | 

Appendix:Word clusters and grammar

INTRODUCTION

503

Language use is very repetitive. Words cluster together, those clusters of words

repeat themselves time and time again, and some of the most frequently repeated

clusters reveal grammatical regularities. However, the most frequently repeated

clusters often lack grammatical completeness, in the sense that they are not

complete phrases or clauses. They merit special consideration outside of the

normal structural rules as described in the rest of this grammar book, since they

perform important basic functions in everyday usage.

In this conversational extract, clusters of words which occur with high

frequency in the spoken corpus used in the preparation of this book are shown in

bold, with adjacent clusters separated by /:

[a tennis player is talking about his match tactics]

I think, erm, when I’m on court sometimes there’s / a lot of things that kind of

determine how I play. 

If I’m tired I might shout and that sort of thing. Erm, I

think, I prepare better you know. Er, like, before, you know er, maybe I wouldn’t

push myself 

like that / you know but now, erm, I’ll go on court, right, with the

game plan, erm, and I’ll use that as, like, the base of what 

I’m going to do and

then if that’s not working then obviously I’ve got to, kind of, I’ve still got to / try

and stick with it because I know er, I know that that’s what / I’ve got to do. But

if the guy is, 

you know, finding it quite easy to cope with, or I, kind of like,

break down or it’s, 

kind of, five four or something / and I’m doing the right

thing 

but I’m not doing quite well enough, I might / try and change a couple of

things / here and there. Erm, I might er try and put a bit more pressure on the

guy if er he’s serving and it’s fifteen thirty, 

and then / I might stand over a bit

more, / so I / try and invite him to hit it to my forehand, that sort of thing.

All informal conversations contain a high number of such clusters, and many of

the clusters occur more frequently than some of the common, everyday single

words. Clusters also occur in written texts; however, the most common clusters

differ between written and spoken texts. It can be argued that clusters such as

those highlighted are retrieved from memory as whole units; they are formulaic,

and are very possibly not assembled afresh each time they are used. They make an

important contribution to fluency. The language use of native speakers and expert

users always contains a high number of such clusters, especially in speech.

The 20 most frequent co-occurring pairs of words (two-word clusters) in 

the spoken texts in the corpus used in this grammar book are shown in the table

below. Hesitant speech, recasts and exact repetitions, which often occur in

unplanned speech, such as and–and, or you–you–you are excluded from the

tables. Contractions such as don’t and it’s are not counted as separate words.

---

Two-word clusters in spoken texts

1

you know 

2

I mean 

3

I think 

4

in the 

5

it was 

6

I don’t 

7

of the 

8

and I 

9

sort of 

10

do you 

All of these pairs occur more than 5,000 times in the spoken corpus, the top seven

occur more than 10,000 times and you know occurs more than 28,000 times. 

In the case of three-word clusters, the top 20 clusters all occur more than 1,000

times, and I don’t know occurs more than 5,000 times.

Three-word clusters in spoken texts

1

I don’t know

2

a lot of

3

I mean I

4

I don’t think

5

do you think

6

do you want

7

one of the

8

you have to

9

it was a

10

you know I 

These clusters reveal how patterns are repeated time and time again in

conversation, even though they may be fragmentary and grammatically

incomplete. The same applies to writing, though the patterns are in many cases

different and the overall frequency of the top clusters is lower.

Two-word clusters in written texts

1

of the 

2

in the

3

to the

4

on the

5

it was

6

at the

7

and the

8

to be

9

for the

10

from the 

Û

539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

Appendix: Word clusters and grammar | 829

11

I was 

12

on the 

13

and then 

14

to be 

15

if you 

16

don’t know 

17

to the 

18

at the 

19

have to 

20

you can 

11

you want to 

12

you know what

13

do you know

14

a bit of

15

I think it’s

16

but I mean

17

and it was

18

a couple of

19

you know the

20

what do you 

11

he was

12

in a

13

with the

14

of a

15

by the

16

was a

17

she was

18

I was

19

had been

20

with a 

---

Three-word clusters in written texts

1

one of the

2

out of the

3

it was a

4

there was a

5

the end of

6

a lot of

7

there was no

8

as well as

9

end of the

10

to be a

When we come to four-word clusters, all the clusters occur less than 1,000 times

and there are considerably fewer of them. 

Four-word clusters in spoken texts

1

you know what I 

2

know what I mean 

3

I don’t know what 

4

do you want to 

5

do you know what 

6

I don’t know if 

7

a bit of a 

8

I think it was 

9

I don’t know whether 

10

what do you think

Four-word clusters in written texts

1

the end of the

2

at the end of

3

for the first time

4

the rest of the

5

in the middle of

6

at the same time

7

the back of the

8

at the top of

9

the top of the

10

the bottom of the 

The tables below show the top 20 five-word spoken and written clusters.

Five-word clusters in spoken texts

1

you know what I mean

2

at the end of the

3

do you know what I

4

the end of the day

5

do you want me to

6

in the middle of the

7

I mean I don’t know

830 | Appendix: Word clusters and grammar

Cambridge Grammar of English

11

it would be

12

in front of

13

it was the

14

some of the

15

I don’t know

16

on to the

17