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

S V

O

I | cut | 

my finger.

Û

Object; Indirect object

Direct speech Refers to a reconstruction of the exact words a speaker has said,

usually involving quotation marks and without making any grammatical changes.

Actual utterance: ‘Keep quiet!’ Direct speech: The teacher said, ‘Keep quiet!’

Direct speech is contrasted with indirect speech.

Discontinuous adjective phrase Refers to an adjective phrase which is split into

two parts, with one part pre-head and the other post-head:

pre-head     

post-head

He is

| as 

| tall | as his father.

Discourse Any naturally occurring stretch of language, spoken or written. Some

linguists use the term to distinguish speech from writing, in which ‘discourse’ is

used to refer to speech, and ‘text’ is used for writing.

Discourse marker A lexical category made up of words (well, right), phrases (at

the end of the day

), or clauses (to be precise). Discourse markers function to

organise and monitor an ongoing discourse, most commonly in speech, by

marking boundaries between one topic and the next (so, right), by indicating

openings (well, right) and closure and pre-closure (okay) of topics, by

indicating topic changes (well) or by bringing a conclusion to the discourse

(anyway, so). They also function to mark the state of knowledge between

participants (you know, you see, I mean).

Disjunct An adverbial expression which indicates the speaker’s viewpoint

towards or evaluation of what is said (oddly, personally, fortunately, frankly,

indeed

). Syntactically, it is less integrated in the clause structure and may

modify the whole sentence or utterance:

What was more, 

oddly, he seemed to have bought enough for two. 

(evaluative)

Personally, I don’t think she’s capable of doing the job.

(viewpoint)

Ditransitive A term for verbs that are used with two objects to complete the

meaning. In My mother made |

me

|

a cake.

| , made is ditransitive, with a direct

object a cake and an indirect object me. Other verbs used ditransitively include

promise

(I promised |

the kids

|

a treat.

| ) and give (I gave |

the beggar

|

some

money.

| ).

Downtoner A downtoner is a sub-class of intensifier that is used to mark a

lessening effect on a particular aspect of meaning. This is achieved by adverbs

such as barely, hardly,