Grammars and corpora

This paper surveys developments that have occurred in the major ‘corpus-informed’ English reference grammars of the past three decades. During this time there has occurred not simply a massive increase in the size of the corpora available to grammarians and an increasing sophistication in the methods by which they are able to analyse and present quantitative data, but, more fundamentally, a shift in the attitudes of authors towards their object of description. No longer is it considered that a single variety—typically standard educated English—will suffice for the description of language use: sensitivity to usage across a range of registers and dialects is now accepted as essential.