[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/huddleston-2002-cambridge-grammar-english-language/)

[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [docs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/) / [papers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/) / The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

# The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

**Authors:** Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum (and collaborators) · **Year:** 2002 (cited in Mova as "Huddleston & Pullum 2001") · **Venue:** Cambridge University Press (book) **Link:** unknown **License of the paper:** unknown (commercially published book, not openly licensed)

[**4079** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4301420590) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[**170** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/huddleston-2002-cambridge-grammar-english-language/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[Cambridge University Press (book)](https://openalex.org/S4306462995)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530)
- [DOI 10.1017/9781316423530](https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4301420590)

**Authors (2)**

1. [Rodney Huddleston](https://openalex.org/A5113439090) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/145231167) · h 33 · 16135 citations · 157 works
2. [Geoffrey K. Pullum](https://openalex.org/A5027234708) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7748-8847) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2770201) · h 49 · 15627 citations · 270 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## Summary

This is a large reference grammar of contemporary Standard English, written by a team led by the two authors. It describes English syntax and morphology systematically, using a carefully defined set of categories (word classes) and functions (subject, object, complement, modifier and so on). It departs from traditional school grammar in several places, for example in how it treats prepositions, determinatives and subordinators. It is widely used by linguists and computational linguists as an authoritative source on what English constructions are possible. Among many other topics, it discusses which adjectives can take a noun phrase complement directly, such as *worth*, *like* and *unlike*.

## How Mova uses it

- [Direct object: only on a verb, only one](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/seeds/verbal/core-objects/) — the rule `en.verbal.object-head-adjective` states that among adjectives only *worth*, *like* and *unlike* take a direct object (`obj`/`iobj`) in UD.
- The rule's source is given as the UD English documentation (core arguments), which itself follows this grammar, plus Poutsma 1923; the book is used indirectly, through UD's guidelines, not read directly.
- The rule is a declarative check on parsed trees with severity "warn", used to flag suspicious annotation or parser output.

## Effectiveness in Mova

Not measured separately. The book contributes one narrow constraint (a short whitelist of adjectives) to the rule-based checks; its value is in catching rare annotation/parse errors rather than in a measurable accuracy gain.

---

👨‍🔬💥

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.1017/9781316423530](https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530)

```
@inproceedings{huddleston2002cambridge,
  title = {{The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language}},
  author = {Huddleston, Rodney and Pullum, Geoffrey K.},
  booktitle = {Cambridge University Press (book)},
  year = {2002},
  doi = {10.1017/9781316423530},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530}
}
```

- [← previous Structured Perceptron with Inexact Search](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/huang-2012-structured-perceptron-inexact-search/)
- [next → COMET-ATOMIC 2020: On Symbolic and Neural Commonsense Knowledge Graphs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hwang-2020-comet-atomic-2020-symbolic-neural/)
- [↑ back to papers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/)