Meaning and the English Verb

Geoffrey Leech is Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at Lancaster University. He has published 20 books with Longman, including 'A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry' and 'A Communicative Grammar of English'.

This new updated third edition confirms Professor Leech's pre-eminence in the field. The book is still the clearest and most authoritative statement of meaning in the verb phrase, and the revised extended treatment of modality and mood constitutes a new standard for English language study. The writing is clear, precise and combines complexity with accessibility. Descriptive linguists, applied linguists, critical discourse analysts, teachers and students of the English language across the world will continue to reach for this book again and again. Professor Peter Stockwell, University of Nottingham This new edition, taking into account recent studies on English grammar, is elaborately organized with lucid and insightful descriptions of the relationship between form and meaning - indispensably valuable work that will no doubt greatly benefit teachers and students of English as a second/foreign language. Professor Miyazaki Akio, Mie University, Japan

• AcknowledgementsKey to SumbolsPreface to Third EditionIntroduction1. Simple Present and Past Tenses2. Progressive Aspect3. The Expression of Past Time4. The Expression of Future Time5. The Primary Modal Auxillaries6. Modality Continued7. Indirect Speech8. Mood: Theoretical and Hypothetical MeaningFurther ReadingIndex