This complete revision and updating of Professor Robins' classic text offers a comprehensive account of the history of linguistic thought from its European origins some 2500 years ago to the present day. It examines the independent development of linguistic science in China and Medieval Islam, and especially in India, which was to have a profound effect on European and American linguistics from the end of the eighteenth century.

The fourth edition of A Short History of Linguistics gives a greater prominence to the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt, because of the lasting importance of...

The fourth edition of General Linguistics provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to linguistics.
The book considers:
- semantics and pragmatics
- dialect and style
- phonetics and phonology
- morphology and syntax, with reference both to traditional and current theories
- comparative-historical linguistics and linguistic typology
- linguistics' relation to other disciplines
- the practical application of linguistics
- the 2,500 years of linguistic thought that lies behind what we do and think today