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Our main present-day grammars seem to be Quirk's (1980s), Biber's (1990s) and Huddleston's (2000s). Out of historical curiosity, what were main grammar references of the preceding decades? Who or what books commanded reverence in the seventies, sixties, fifties and so on (going back to the beginning of the century)?

Thanks in advance.

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    I doubt the three "authorities" you cite are anywhere near as "definitive" as your question implies. Also bear in mind that most native Anglophones (and their English teachers) would have no concept of this decade's most authoritative grammar reference. That's something that might be relevant to Anglophone linguists, but other than that it's more a concern of TEFL teachers and students.
    – FumbleFingers
    Jan 28 at 18:18
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    (I got an honours degree in English Language & Literature back in the 70s without ever looking at any "grammar" reference books.)
    – FumbleFingers
    Jan 28 at 18:20
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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English_grammars has what looks like a partial historical overview and a list of some grammar books from the 16th to the 21st century
    – Henry
    Jan 28 at 18:22
  • It might be as well to read this answer, at 'Is grammar an exact science?'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Jan 28 at 19:38
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    I'm interested to know what modern reference books are the best. Is CGEL still the gold standard?
    – alphabet
    Jan 28 at 19:45
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    @alphabet Is modern supposed to be the opposite of historical here? What does modern mean for you in this usage? Does it mean nothing more than recent? Younger than a kindergartner? Or does it mean within living memory? Younger than a high schooler? Younger than the speaker? Younger than the audience? Does it mean universally accepted, and if so, within which universe? What is its non-pejorative antonym? Doesn't it just mean shiny and new, so not dull and old in other words?
    – tchrist Mod
    Jan 28 at 21:20
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    Any English grammar should give the reader some way to look things up, and when one is interested in a particular construction, that means using the terminology used by the grammarian in order to find it. In some grammars, notably CGEL, novel terminology is introduced, along with a theory of how to deploy it. Not everyone is willing to change their syntactic faith, however. For a generative grammar, try McCawley 1998, which leaves out the usual chomskian epicycles and just describes "The Syntactic Phenomena of English".
    – John Lawler
    Jan 28 at 22:00
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    McCawley's not online, but the table of contents and the first 3 chapters are all most people need.
    – John Lawler
    Jan 28 at 22:09
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    @tchrist The antonym is "generally considered to have been superseded by later, better works."
    – alphabet
    Jan 29 at 0:06
  • @Henry Thanks. As you can see from the list, there's a big gap between the early 50s and mid 80s.
    – user468388
    Jan 29 at 0:13
  • @alphabet Yes, CGEL is still the 'gold standard'. I take it you have a copy?
    – BillJ
    Jan 29 at 8:55
  • @BillJ I don't, but I'm interested in learning more & want to know if it's worth the cost.
    – alphabet
    Jan 29 at 14:18
  • CGEL is the biggest modern grammar (not 8 volumes like Jespersen, but one big 1.5 thousand-pager that you can't hold in one hand). Geoff Pullum tells me there's unlikely ever to be a paper version; it's just too big. But very few people except enthusiasts would call it a gold standard. Some kind of standard, sure, but not gold. It's rarely referred to in syntactic literature, and its terminology is only occasionally used. It's mostly right in how it analyzes things, but it's hard to understand (we get a lot of questions about it) because of the terminology.
    – John Lawler
    Jan 31 at 18:01

2 Answers 2

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Historical Grammars

If you want a reference book covering the historical syntax of our language, then you would be hard-pressed to top Frederik Theodor Visser’s monumental An Historical Syntax of the English Language, published in four massive volumes between 1963 and 1973. It covers not only present-day English syntax but also the historical antecedents from Old and Middle English as well.

More recently in the historical domain, Bettelou Los’s A Historical Syntax of English from Edinburgh University Press is a smaller and perhaps more accessible textbook that was first published in 1993 and which has been updated several times since then, including rather recently.

I recommend scanning these books’ various tables of contents to see whether they cover the things you’re looking for.

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For searchability’s sake I note that in a comment John Lawler observed:

Any English grammar should give the reader some way to look things up, and when one is interested in a particular construction, that means using the terminology used by the grammarian in order to find it. In some grammars, notably CGEL, novel terminology is introduced, along with a theory of how to deploy it. Not everyone is willing to change their syntactic faith, however. For a generative grammar, try McCawley 1998, which leaves out the usual chomskian epicycles and just describes "The Syntactic Phenomena of English".