English Comparative Correlatives

Thomas Hoffmann is Professor and Chair of English Language and Linguistics at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. He is author of Preposition Placement in English (Cambridge, 2011) and he is currently writing the textbook Construction Grammar: The Structure of English for the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics series.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Previous research; 3. The diachronic evolution of English CCs: a constructionist account; 4. Synchronic properties of the standard British and American English CC construction network; 5. A contrastive view: German versus English comparative correlatives; 6. Variation and mental grammars: the view from World Englishes; Conclusion: the role of constructional networks.

'For any reader who wants the full treatment of the CC, it is all here, and served up in a most palatable form. Hoffmann's prose is clear and straightforward, a quality which cannot be praised enough in linguistic treatises. The separate chapters can be read as stand-alone units for those who may only be interested in one aspect of the CC and may already have some familiarity with the construction. For those who are not already familiar and require some introduction, the preliminary chapters of the book give an admirable foundation.' Sheila Dooley, Constructions and Frames