The syntax of natural spoken language is not susceptible of description with the traditional system of categories, which is tailored to the analysis and description of written language. The volume sets out to open up a new syntactic research avenue through the comparison of extensive written and spoken text corpora. On the basis of a grammar description instrumentarium allowing for the analysis of syntactic structures independently of the media in which they occur, a theoretical basis for a realistic and everyday-language-oriented approach to syntax study is proposed and empirically substantiated.