This book is a concise and accessible introduction to the ways in which relations between words in sentences are marked in languages. The author describes the systems of suffixes familiar from languages like Latin and also the roles of prepositions, postpositions and the use of the pronominal elements on verbs. This new edition incorporates expanded discussions of the key concepts, taking into consideration current developments in the field, and includes an updated section on abstract case in the Chomskyian paradigm.

The sounds of language can be divided into consonants, vowels, and tones--the use of pitch to convey meaning. Seventy percent of the world's languages use pitch in this way. Assuming little or no prior knowledge of the topic, this textbook provides a clearly organized introduction to tone and tonal phonology. Comprehensive in scope, it examines the main types of tonal systems found in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, using examples from the widest- possible range of tone languages.

Authoritative and wide-ranging, this book examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from ancient Greece to the Renaissance. Vivien Law explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect evolving modes of thinking. Classified bibliographies and chapters on research resources are included. A survey chapter updates the coverage to the present day.

This book demonstrates the contribution that statistics can and should make to linguistic studies. The range of work to which statistical analysis is applicable is vast: including, for example, language acquisition, language variation and many aspects of applied linguistics. The authors give a wide variety of linguistic examples to demonstrate the use of statistics in summarising data in the most appropriate way, and then making helpful inferences from the processed information. The range of techniques introduced by the book will help the reader both to evaluate and make use of literature...

The second edition of this essential textbook has been thoroughly rewritten and updated to reflect advances in typology and universals over the past decade. It reviews new methodologies such as the semantic map model and questions of syntactic argumentation; discussion of current debates over explanations for specific classes of universals; and comparison of the typological and generative approaches to language.

This book is designed to provide students of phonology with an accessible introduction to the phonological architecture of words. It offers a thorough discussion of the basic building blocks of phonology--in particular features, sounds, syllables and feet--and deals with a range of different theories about these units. The book provides a more detailed analysis of this subject than previously available in introductory textbooks and is an invaluable and indispensable first step toward understanding the major theoretical issues in modern phonology at the word level.

Covering both syntax (the structure of phrases and sentences) and morphology (the structure of words), this book equips students with the tools and methods needed to analyze grammatical patterns in any language. Students are shown how to use standard notational devices such as phrase structure trees and word-formation rules, as well as prose descriptions. Emphasis is placed on comparing the different grammatical systems of the world's languages, and students are encouraged to practice the analyses through a diverse range of problem sets and exercises.

When using language, many aspects of our messages are left implicit in what we say. While grammar is responsible for what we express explicitly, pragmatics explains how we infer additional meanings. The problem is that it is not always a trivial matter to decide which of the meanings conveyed is explicit (grammatical) and which implicit (pragmatic). Pragmatics and Grammar lays out a methodology for students and scholars to distinguish between the two. It explains how and why grammar and pragmatics combine together in natural discourse, and how pragmatic uses become grammatical in time.

A new textbook written for students with no background in syntax, which introduces them to key concepts of Chomsky's Minimalist program (e.g. merger and movement, checking, economy and greed, split VPs, agreement projections), as well as providing detailed analysis of the syntax of a range of different construction types. Illustrative material is mainly drawn from varieties of English (Belfast English, Shakespearean English, Jamaican Creole, etc.). There is a substantial glossary and extensive workbook section with helpful hints and model answers.

Word grammar is a theory of language structure and is based on the assumption that language, and indeed the whole of knowledge, is a network, and that virtually all of knowledge is learned. It combines the psychological insights of cognitive linguistics with the rigour of more formal theories. This textbook spans a broad range of topics from prototypes, activation and default inheritance to the details of syntactic, morphological and semantic structure. It introduces elementary ideas from cognitive science and uses them to explain the structure of language including a survey of English...