标题：Beyond the great tradition of English grammars Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, by Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finegan
摘要：Since its publication in 1985, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language
(CGEL; Quirk et al 1985) has established itself as the standard reference
work in the field of English grammatical description. CGEL is the last in a series
of grammars that were produced by a team of eminent linguists, informally also
known as ‘the gang of four’ – Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey
Leech and Jan Svartvik, who started their collaborative work as early as the
1960s and saw the publication of CGEL as the culmination of their joint work.
The grammar has exerted a powerful influence in the field both through its
descriptive framework, its concepts and terminology, and its grammatical
description.
