Andrew Radford’s books are very good for beginner of Generative Grammar.
Those who study Generative Grammar are supposed to read books and articles written by Noam Chomsky. However, Noam Chomsky’s books tend to be very difficult. As time passes, his works tend to get more and more difficult. For example, his Lectures on Government and Binding – The Pisa Lecture, which was written in 1980s is not so difficult. But The Minimalist Program, which was written in 1995 is difficult. Especially, chapter 4 of this book is too difficult for beginners of this field. I read the book three times, but I couldn’t fully understand the final chapter. The question is what book is suitable for beginners.
There are many textbooks of transformative grammar. For example, Lilian Haegeman wrote many good introductory course books in this field, which are published by Willy Blackwell company. However, there are even better books than these. Andrew Radford’s books are great.
Andrew Radford is a researcher who specializes in Generative Grammar. He teaches in Essex University in the UK. His books are very clear. The explanations are thorough and in depth. If you read the books written by him, I believe you are good at Generative Grammar. The list of textbooks which I read is as follows. Sometimes I comment about the books.
Radford, A. (1981) Transformational Syntax—A Student’s Guide to Chomsky’s Extended Standard Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [This is probably the oldest he has written. About half of what is on this textbook is out of date today. However, the way he analyzes English is interesting. This is worth reading.]
Radford, A. (1988) Transformational Grammar – A First course, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [This is a masterpiece of transformative grammar textbooks. You should read this book. This book is full of ingenious ideas. The way he analyzes English is worth your effort. About 80% of things in this book is usable even today (2022).]
Radford, A (1997) Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English – A Minimalist Approach, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press. [ This book is moderately good. The field of Generative Grammar is under difficulties at that time. You can understand what I mean when you read this book.]
Radford, A. (2004) Minimalist Syntax, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Fairly good. Some chapters are difficult. Especially, Agreement was difficult for me when I first read this book.]
Radford, A. (2009) Analyzing English Sentences – a Minimalist Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [This is a refined version of his 2004 textbook. Some difficult sections are rewritten and more accessible to beginners.]
Radford, A. (2016) Analyzing English Sentences second edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [This is a masterpiece. You should read this book. This book is probably the best introductory course book.]
Radford, A. (2020) An Introduction to English Sentence Structure second edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [This is abbreviated version of his 2016 textbook. Some concepts are refined and clearer than his 2016 book.]
