I’m considering buying the book “Practical English Grammar” by Michael Swan.

http://www.bookdepository.com/Practical-English-Usage-Michael-Swan/9780194420983

Before I do that, I was wondering if anyone had any other recommendations or experiences with language reference books that they would like to share.

I have found “Oxford Modern English Grammear” by Bas Aarts to be particularly detailed.

Bruce Wilcox - Dec 8, 2011:

I have found “Oxford Modern English Grammear” by Bas Aarts to be particularly detailed.

Thanks Bruce, I’ve added that book to my shopping list.

How are your own parser and grammar writing efforts coming along? Are you satisfied with the progress that you have been making?

I was satisfied back with progress back in July, when I had passible but not great parsing and 350 rules + code for phrases. Then I had to stop and focus on the Loebner’s, and this is the month I am supposed to return to finish the job.  The 97% accuracy of statistical parsers like Brill is nowhere near satisfactory, so I’m a combination of rules of grammar to get most of the way and statistical when grammar can’t solve it.

Current one handles as examples:

Our pet alligator has been stalking neighborhood pets because my brother Billy forgets to feed the poor reptile.

Of the 20, 17 like the product.

Now the can is open and we can eat in the light of the fire.

He can can a can.

Although Zachary is much too inexperienced for the managerial position, he is a willful young man and obdurately refuses to withdraw his application.

And that’ll get us all the way over to the person with pneumonia or the person who needs the generator.

The men dressed in red ate first.

Isadora Duncan a great American dancer of the early twentieth century has become almost as famous for her death as her dancing.

I’ve checked these reference books and generally they’re great, but still some practical (at least for me) issues not addressed at all, some examples on the top:

1. is there any limitation on the levels of indrect quotation? eg John said Mary told David to call Peter to help Bob finish the job tonight. How many verbs like “think”, “say”, “tell”, “call” etc can appear in the same sentence before everyone get confused?

2. similiar to 1, any limitation on the levels of ownership? eg He sent the invitation to the uncle of one of his wife’s classmates…or is it better to say “his wife’s classmate’s uncle”? When to use “of” and when to use ‘s or s’? Is this more like a habit or a rule?

3. if “both first- and second-grade students” is fine, then how to split 3 and more dash-connected-word by “and”? eg
“first-, second-, and third-grade students”, or “first, second, and third-grade students”?

BTW I’m still far from making my bot chating, currently working hard to PARSE the input.

My personal view is that handling those are not high priority. Odds of running across them in chat are slight.  And my personal answer to how many verbs ... before one gets confused is 2. I’d be confused on the 3rd

Thanks Bruce for the prompt answer, I’m still editing…

Yes I agree with you, they’re definitely not the high priority.