In this chapter we will look at grammar and lexis, or vocabulary, and at the relationship between the two. I used to think that these were quite separate, that grammar was about sentences and lexis was about words. I thought that learners first learnt how to make grammatical sentences and, as they did this, they learnt to insert the words they had learnt in order to make more and more sentences. But research, particularly over the last fifteen years or so, is beginning to demonstrate more and more clearly that the relationship between grammar and lexis is much closer than this: in making sentences we may start with the grammar, but the final shape of a sentence is determined by the words which make up the sentence. Let us take a simple example. These are both likely sentences of English:

But the following are not likely sentences of English:

The verb put is incomplete unless it is followed by both a direct object, such as it, and also an adverbial of place like here or away:

Taking three different verbs, laugh, buy and put, as starting points results in sentences which are quite different in structure.

If you look back to the first sentence of this chapter you will see that the word relationship is followed by between.