There are errors in the first edition of our book; we have known that
for many years. But they are about to become much less important: there
is a
second edition
on the way, nearly into the printing and binding process.
We expect physical copies to be in our hands by the end of the year.
It may have its own errors, but it won't have the errors below.
We'd be most grateful if errors discovered in the second edition
could be emailed to
<pullum @ gmail.com>
and
<brettrey @ gmail.com>.
KNOWN ERRORS IN THE FIRST EDITION
Page | Error and correction | ||||||||||||||||||||
54 |
We give the wrong numbers in the text discussion that follows example
[52]. We should have referred to [ia], [iia], and [iiia]. So we should
have written this:
| ||||||||||||||||||||
81 |
In exercise 9, items iii and iv should be in the left-hand column, with vi and vii moving to the right. So it should have looked like this:
| ||||||||||||||||||||
97 |
At the third bullet in section 6, this sentence needs an addition:
The revised sentence should be:
That change makes it clear how to answer question [xiv] in exercise 5 on page 111. | ||||||||||||||||||||
147 |
Strictly, question iv of exercise 1 is not answerable at this
stage because it demands a knowledge of Chapter 14.
(The right answer concerning the category of the complement of in
as used in "My life might have been passed in ease and luxury"
is that it is a coordination.) We did not intend to make the exercises
for chapter 7 depend on knowledge of chapter 14. So in
future editions of the book we propose to replace this sentence by a
different one:
(The preposition to should be double-underlined here; your browser probably will not show that.) Please answer the question for that example instead. | ||||||||||||||||||||
238 |
The numbers in the table of contents for chapter 15 are all wrong
— they're off by 7 for some peculiar reason (possibly sunspots).
Here are the corrections:
| ||||||||||||||||||||
303 |
The glossary entry for Non-finite clause gives having written it
as an example of a non-finite clause headed by a past participle.
This is misleading: it's true that there is a past-participial clause in
there: written it is a past participial clause.
But having written it has the verb having as its head,
and so it is a gerund-participial clause. We should have underlined
written it. It is not very easy to find simple examples
of past participial clauses that have subjects; an example of one would
be the underlined part of this sentence: The letter written,
we turned to the question of when it should be sent out. But the
change we propose to make to the text of the book is simpler: we plan
to replace having written it by written by my grandmother.
That is a subjectless past participial clause.
So the entry should have read like this:
|