The English Verbal Group

The verbal group is the most studied aspect of English grammar, but there are many contending theoretical and descriptive issues. There is no consensus on its structure and there are no studies on its textual functions. This book describes the English verbal group using spoken natural language data. It establishes the accuracy of group over phrase, identifies the verb and non-verb constituents of the verbal group structure, describes the verbal group structure and demonstrates the adequacy of the (M)H(Q) structural formula that generates the H, MH, HQ, and MHQ types of verbal group. The book also determines the proportion of each of the seven verbal group systems in the data. Significantly, it proves that whereas formal meanings are finite, textual meanings appear to be seamless. Linguists, teachers and students of the English language will find the book handy.