A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

by Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, Brett Reynolds

A new edition of a successful undergraduate textbook on contemporary international Standard English grammar, based on Huddleston and Pullum's earlier award-winning work, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002). The analyses defended there are outlined here more briefly, in an engagingly accessible and informal style. Errors of the older tradition of English grammar are noted and corrected, and the excesses of prescriptive usage manuals are firmly rebutted in specially highlighted notes that explain what older authorities have called 'incorrect' and show why those authorities are mistaken. Intended for students in colleges or universities who have little or no background in grammar or linguistics, this teaching resource contains numerous exercises and online resources suitable for any course on the structure of English in either linguistics or English departments. A thoroughly modern undergraduate textbook, rewritten in an easy-to-read conversational style with a minimum of technical and theoretical terminology.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Writing, Reference, Textbooks

420 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 17, 2005

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book that takes you step by step through English grammar, provides examples and explications. Despite the fact that is quite well written and all, there is one thing which makes me re-think my buying it. There are exercises at the end of each chapter, but the answer key is not provided. At the back of the book it says, that there is web support available. So I went to the web page of the book and found the answer key BUT I had to register myself in order to download it. I though OK no problem, but to my big surprise after registering I had to ask for a lecturer account to download the material. Is this a new form of harassment of customers? It was asking me also for official address to my work for verification! At my work we do not have such a thing, does it mean I am going to be discriminated? And if I would not be working as a English Teacher but I would be a student, I don't have a permission to access the answer key? Cambridge if you want to get paid for the answer key then do it, but do not put unnecessary obstacles under legs of people who buy your publications.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rodney Huddleston’s A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar is one of the most intellectually substantial yet accessible grammar references I have used in my teaching career.

As an instructor of English, I benefitted immensely from its modern, linguistically informed approach. The book bridges traditional grammar with contemporary syntax, giving me a framework that is both rigorous and classroom-friendly.

One of the key advantages I gained was conceptual precision. Huddleston avoids outdated or inconsistent terminology that appears in many traditional textbooks. Instead, he provides a consistent, logical system for describing grammatical structures. This consistency improved my teaching by giving me stable definitions to rely on—whether explaining clause structure, verb complementation, or different types of phrases. Students appreciated the clarity, and I appreciated the coherence.

The book’s method of introducing grammar through patterns and structures, rather than through isolated “rules,” influenced how I designed my lessons. Huddleston encourages the reader to think of grammar as a system governed by predictable relationships. This helped me shift from rule-driven teaching to pattern-based teaching. As a result, my students developed stronger analytical skills and became better at internalizing structures through observation rather than memorization.

Huddleston’s examples, taken from authentic English rather than artificial textbook sentences, helped me ground my lessons in real usage. I began incorporating examples from news articles, essays, and student writing, following Huddleston’s philosophy that grammar should reflect actual language. This made students more aware of English as it is truly spoken and written.

A particularly significant benefit came from the book’s treatment of clauses and sentence structure. The diagrams and explanations improved my ability to break down complex sentences in a way students found approachable. This had a direct impact on their writing skills: they learned how to expand sentences thoughtfully, maintain coherence, and avoid fragments or run-ons.

Huddleston’s focus on function—why a particular structure is used—helped me rethink my feedback strategies. Instead of simply correcting an error, I began explaining the effect or purpose of a structure. This encouraged deeper understanding and more conscious writing, especially among advanced learners.

Ultimately, A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar enriched my teaching by giving me a modern, logically consistent, and intellectually satisfying framework for grammar instruction. It made me a clearer teacher, a more confident explainer, and a more reflective practitioner. The book remains one of my most valued teaching companions.

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like to think I'm fairly bright. I've taken several science classes and taught myself straight out of the textbook with ease. A good textbook should provide examples and help you to understand a subject with very little trouble.

That's why this textbook is shite. The science of language is all over the place. Half the time I don't understand what is being said and the examples provided are not clearly explained. The glossary is incomplete. Every page produces a new way to analyze a sentence. The order in which this text teaches its reader grammar is also unclear. I feel like an idiot while reading this textbook, and I am a third year university student majoring in English who excelled in Intro to Linguistics.

This text had potential. I just wish it were actually clear.

If I could, I would gladly burn all copies of this book. And I LOVE books.

P.S.- An answer key to those chapter exercises would have been nice.

[Masaaki Shima · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I am an English teacher, I read a lot of grammar books. This book stands out as one of the good grammar books in that it gives me a new perspective. First and foremost, I find that the author's attitude toward the issue of theory versus practice makes sense. I would even say, "I am on the same page." Also he gives me insight on the usage about much and some other areas. I will add this to a "I-will-read-once-a-year-or-two" book list.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a grammar book for everyone. When the title says Student's it's talking about incoming students at Cambridge University whose major is not linguistics, not young kids. It's sort of a precursor to a full course in linguistics, and the book is distilled from an enormous book for dedicated professionals or professional wannabes in the field of linguistics. The nomenclature used, right down to the names for and numbers of the parts of speech, are different from what most people are acquainted with. Punctuation is not even mentioned except once in passing in the middle of a single paragraph near the end. Which makes sense, because punctuation is truly not a part of a study of a language, which is more properly about words, their types, and the ways they are structured within syntactical units (phrases, clauses, sentences, etc.) to create meaning.

The book certainly provides an education for persons who are deeply interested in the underpinnings of the English language -- as I am myself, or at least sufficiently so to have struggled through this book a few pages at a time now and then for many months.

[Angélique Maréchal · Rating 2 out of 5]

But like? When do they kiss? I was waiting for the ennemies to lovers to ennemies-to-lovering? The VP never cracked the NP… anyways (useful book it’s great 👍🏻)

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's clear that the authors know their stuff, and I was very interested to read a descriptive grammar. Read this for a book exam at a Finnish university. Don't know what the Finnish students' background has been like with English Grammar, but as an American school kid, then an editor and EFL teacher, I've dealt mostly with prescriptive grammars and style guides.

It's possible that the amount and variety of English grammars in my head interfered with the absorption of Huddleston and Pullum's approach. The structure and presentation of this book did nothing to help. I suppose the authors faced some pretty severe space constraints trying to fit a huge subject into a slender book, but many sections are so terse as to be nigh undecipherable. While the superficial structure is reasonable, when the book gets down to details, it become scrambled.

I forked over 35€ for this book, but would gladly have paid 50€ if they'd doubled the length, broken up more information into tables, kept examples closer to explanations (sometimes you have to leaf back several pages to see the sentence they are referring to), evened out the granularity of the chapters and sections, and put more than the bare minimum of words into their description.

To sum up my feelings: I taught myself Finnish from Karlsson's Finnish an Essential Grammar, which uses only a few more pages than A Student's Intro. I still return to Karlsson's book when I need an explanation for some tricky tidbit uttered by a lecturer, written in the newspaper, or presented in another Finnish textbook. I feel very sorry for the plight of any but the highest level non-native English speaker trying to come to grips with English through the aid of A Student's Intro.

[G. Branden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything your primary and secondary school teachers told you about grammar was wrong.

Well, not everything. But a lot of it was. Huddleston and Pullum distill their very large (and very expensive) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language into a reasonably digestible and affordable form.

Descriptivists to the core, H&P support their arguments with countless examples to aid their readers in rethinking grammar.

I counter-recommend the Kindle version, which I had hoped to keep around for reference in electronic form as an argument settler, but the conversion was--surprise, surprise--poorly done. The "displayed" examples, to use TeX jargon, were inconsistently rendered, and footnotes mis-numbered and their return points incorrectly anchored on multiple occasions. Stick with a paper copy.

[Dennis Podryadchikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful guide about English grammar, based on a much larger work "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language". If one wants just an introduction, this work suits well by explaining main grammar rules and the way English language works. Learners of English as Second Language will benefit the most from this book as the authors provide simple and concise explanations filled with examples.

[Ivan Komarov · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very clean, descriptive overview of English grammar for non-linguists with tons of examples drawn from various sources. Geoff and Rodney know their stuff.

[Ivan Panchenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Errata in the second edition:

• Page iv: Replace “K. author” by “K., author”.

• Page 25: Replace “object but” by “object, but”.

• Page 38: Replace “are have numbers” by “have numbers”.

• Page 98: Replace “clauses) the indirect” by “clauses), the indirect”.

• Page 121: Replace “about it.)” by “about it).”.

• Page 127: “but the corresponding noun” should not be italicized.

• Page 154: Maybe replace “Creme” by “Cream”.

• Page 179: Replace “of a type of known” by “of a type known”.

• Page 217: Replace “answers covers” by “answers cover”.

• Page 227: Replace “sotoo” by “so too”.

• Page 239: Replace ��Homo Sapiens” by “Homo sapiens”.

• Page 280: Replace “day[(that)” by “day [(that)”.

• Page 282: Replace “in Chapter 7.)” by “in Chapter 7).”

• Page 291: Replace “relative, because, because” by “relative, because”.

• Page 316: Replace “(see Chapter 8)” by “(see Chapter 8))” (due to the preceding opening parenthesis).

• Page 325: Replace “behaviour it’s just” by “behaviour, it’s just”.

• Page 330: Replace “staff meeting)]” by “staff meeting])”.

• Page 375: Replace “subject) is” by “subject, is”.

Comments:

• Page 119: I think that the remark “An individual member of this class can’t be divided into bits of the exactly same kind as itself” misses the point. A rectangle can be divided into smaller rectangles, this does not make “rectangle” a non-count noun here.

• Page 139: The remark beginning with “if an actor reads” is irrelevant to the semantics, because the actor is just … acting (as if). Indeed, a sentence where the first person is used might also be ascribed to a fictional person and apply neither to the speaker nor to the author.

• There is nitpicking over the term “possessive” (as opposed to “genitive”) even though there are other grammatical terms which could be criticized in the same vein, e.g., the accusative case is not only used for accusations. I guess the issue is that the word “possessive” also happens to have a meaning well-known outside of grammar.

• To me, it seems like the unacceptability of sentences like “Her son had lost its rattle” can be explained by semantics rather than syntax: Since “son” is a (semantically) gender-specific term, it would be weird/inconsistent to use “its” rather than “his”. The word “its” also does not go well with “Max” because the name is, in effect, personifying.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise version of Huddleston and Pullum's The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. If you find something confusing, you can look it up in the Cambridge book for details. It's elaborate. This guide book is very basic actually. For traditional grammar, you can also read another book, Longman's A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language: A. They differ in some respects. Meanwhile you can refer to Chomsky's Generative Grammar. It would be interesting and inspiring.

[Robert P. Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good book, but it's a descriptive grammar, so it isn't great for ESL students and of little practical use for ESL teachers. Also, it doesn't provide answers to the exercises, so it is of limited value to native English speakers outside of a classroom environment. The authors are quite opinionated at times, but in general, they do a good job of substantiating their research. For people not required to read this for a course, I recommend reading the first chapter for free on Kindle before committing to this book. Overall, I did learn some important things about English grammar and it kept me engaged. If it came with an answer key, I'd immediately give it 5 stars.

[Bill]

This is an excellent book on English grammar by linguists that reworked English grammer from scratch and won awards for the work. This makes much more sense than the grammar that I learned in school, but has not be widely adopted that I can learn. There is a much longer version of their grammar for a person really interested in this approach. I've read the book twice and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it is so different in many ways from the traditional approach, I haven't mastered it. But it really does do English as it should be understood.

[Neal · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the instructions for the exercises of chapter one: "When you complete an exercise, it's very important to check your answers... Mastering the exercises will typically lead to better learning"

There is no way to get the solutions unless you work in academia. Do NOT buy this book if you are a self-studier.

[lou ! · Rating 1 out of 5]

pour mes cours d'english lingusitics... 0/10 ennuyant

[Andromeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this grammar. Knowing that their readers might not be very familiar with the complex rules of English syntax, the authors have endeavoured to make every rule of grammar easy to understand. Chapter 3 on Clause Structure, Complements and Adjuncts, Chapter 10 on Subordination and Content Clauses, and the Chapter on Noun and Noun Phrases are the some of the best in the text.

Prescriptivists and people who prefer the traditional approach to English grammar will, however, be disappointed by the authors' descriptivist bias and viewpoint. Notwithstanding this minor issue, one will, definitely, benefit from this excellent work that has exercises at the end of every chapter.

I am going to use this book as a reference as I study other grammars.

[Asim]

Good attemt by both the writer but proving the grammer from example rather than any standard defination although there are but inadequate moreover by giving example explain the grammer which is the best way for explaination keep it up Authors.Our grammer teacher suggest this book which solve alot of problems regarding grammer Thank you..!

[Mee Fernando · Rating 2 out of 5]

Correction- A linguistics student's introduction to English grammar. Way too complex,analytical and long winded to be of any use to a ESL/EFL student trying to learn English grammar.

I prefer their comprehensive version rather than this condensed version.

[Jenna]

Tenttikirja. Muuten en ole niin kiinnostunut kieliopista, kuivaa luettavaa, varsinkin kun kaikki pitäisi sisäistää.

[Mahmood Ahmad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to modern English grammar.

[Jitendra Pant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, but still hard to go through.

[Melchior Philips (Melchior on TheStoryGraph) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the most accessible nor elaborate textbook on grammar.