English traditional grammars an international perspective (J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 1991)
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references and index
"Why can't someone write a nice simple grammar?" / Gerhard Leitner -- More than enough English grammars / Ian Michael -- Trends that shaped the development of 19th century American grammar writing / Charlotte Downey -- W.D. Whitney's Essentials of English grammar, for the use of schools (1877) / Kurt Wächtler -- E.A. Sonnenschein and grammatical terminology / John Walmsley -- Factors in the growth of the English language in 18th and 19th century Ireland / Charlotte Downey -- The Fowler Brothers and the tradition of usage handbooks / Robert Burchfield -- American English grammars in the twentieth century / John Algeo -- English grammar writing : the Belgian contribution / Guy A.J. Tops & Xavier Dekeyser -- E. Kruisinga / Arthur van Essen -- English grammars in postwar Czechoslovakia / Libuse Dušková -- German grammars of English prior to 1860 / Wolfgang Strauss
E.A. Maetzner / Gerhard Leitner -- Karl and Max Deutschbein's English grammar manuals / Konrad Macht -- Adolf Lamprecht's (German) grammar of English / Hans Kirsten -- Traditional grammars of English : facts and explanations / Flor Aarts -- Reference and articles / Christopher Lyons -- Tense and aspect in German grammars of English in the past fifty years / Jochen Niemeyer -- Modality and the modals in traditional grammars of English / Alan Walton -- The rôle of American English in traditional grammars of English / Heinrich Ramisch
Until recently grammars of English have received surprisingly little scholarly attention, while a lot of research is done on dictionaries. It appears, however, that learners of English shy away from modern grammars and prefer to consult dictionaries or traditional reference grammars instead. This raises questions as to the relationship between theoretical linguistics and grammar writing and calls for more research into this area, especially for the period from 1800 onwards, which was crucial for the development of grammatical thinking and its acceptance (or rejection) at all educational levels