Contents

[]()_Introduction_

_Only got a minute?_

_Only got five minutes?_

Part one: Starting out

1 What is linguistics?

What is a linguist?

How does linguistics differ from traditional grammar?

The scope of linguistics

2 What is language?

Use of sound signals

Arbitrariness

The need for learning

Duality

Displacement

Creativity (productivity)

Patterning

Structure dependence

Human language versus animal communication

Origin of language

The role of language

3 The study of language

Nineteenth century: historical linguistics

Early- to mid-twentieth century: descriptive linguistics

Mid- to late-twentieth century: generative linguistics and the search for universals

Twenty-first century: future trends

4 Deciding where to begin

Language as a game

Single-language specialists versus universalists

[]()Part two: The inner circles

5 Sound patterns

Sorting out the basic sounds

The phonemes of English

Allophones

Sound combinations

Shared properties of phonemes

Non-segmental phonemes

Metrical phonology

6 Words and pieces of words

Defining words

Identifying words

Morphemes

Recognition of morphemes

Types of morpheme

Allomorphs

Word classes

Major word classes

7 Sentence patterns

Linking words together

Constituent analysis

Tree diagrams

Rewrite rules

Identifying constituents

NP tests

Adding in extra patterns

Layers of branches

Complex sentences

Verbs: the syntax–meaning overlap

8 Meaning

Word meaning

Semantic fields

Coping with overlaps

Synonyms and opposites

Classification (inclusion)

Fuzziness and family resemblances

Making sense of the world

The meaning of sentences

[]()Part three: The outer rings

9 Using language

The cooperative principle

Speech acts

Remembered frameworks

Discourse analysis

Taking it in turns

Repairs

Politeness

10 Language and society

The notion of a language

Dialect and accent

From high to low

Speech versus writing

Charting phonological variation

Phonological variation in British English

Social networks

Language and sex

Power talking

Change in language styles

Multilingual communities

Pidgins and creoles

11 Language and mind

Psycholinguistic evidence

Acquiring language

The content–process controversy

The rule-governed nature of child language

Learning the meaning of words

Doing it by hand

Recognizing words

Understanding syntax

Speech production

Speech disorders

Language and the brain

12 Language and style

Style and stylistics

The same bright, patient stars

Ways with words

[]()Twisting words

Gluing it all together

Saying it again, but subtly

Searching for the skeleton: poems, news

The language of advertising

Part four: Changes and comparisons

13 Language change

How language changes

Spread of change within a language

Causes of language change

Natural tendencies

Therapeutic changes

Changes that trigger one another

Interacting changes

Reconstruction

14 Comparing languages

Contrastive linguistics

Language similarities

Genetic similarities

Building a family tree

Reconstructing the parent language

Unreliability of reconstructions

Linguistic areas

Language types

Morphological criteria for language classification

Word-order criteria

15 Attitudes towards change

A tradition of worry

Progress and decay fallacies

Proper behaviour

Standard English

Non-standard English

Part five: Towards a universal grammar

16 Seeking a suitable framework

Simple models of grammar

Deep and surface structures

[]()Transformational grammar

Deep structure

Transformations

17 Trouble with transformations

Waving a magic wand

Preserving the meaning

Generative semantics

Trace theory

Limiting the power of transformations

Sharing out the work

Offloading

Combining

Slimmed-down transformations

18 Back to basics

Universal Grammar (UG)

From deep structure to D-structure

Government and binding

Broadening the range

The bare bones

_Where now?_

_Further reading_

_List of symbols and abbreviations_

_Phonetics: the study of speech sounds_

_Index_