Natural Syntax: Stylistic contrast between two syntactic variants

Abstract

In the framework of Natural Syntax (the basics of which are summarized in the Appen‑ dix), this article focuses on certain pairs of syntactic variants between which a stylistic contrast obtains (e.g., one variant being formal, the other informal). Natural syntax can predict the assignment of stylistic contrasts within two variants. The language material is English. Altogether, sixteen cases of stylistic contrast are discussed.