An Introduction to Language,9781413017731

An Introduction to Language

by ; ;
Edition: 8th
ISBN13: 9781413017731
ISBN10: 1413017738
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2006-05-31
Publisher(s): Wadsworth Publishing
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Summary

An Introduction to Language is the ideal text for students at all levels and in many different areas of instruction, including linguistics, English, education, foreign languages, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). Continuing the authors' tradition of making each edition the most current, complete, and informative on the market, this Eighth Edition reflects the best and most recent research in all areas of linguistics while retaining its signature student-friendly style.

Table of Contents

Preface xv
About the Authors xxi
PART 1 The Nature of Human Language
What Is Language?
3(32)
Linguistic Knowledge
4(7)
Knowledge of the Sound System
4(1)
Knowledge of Words
5(1)
Arbitrary Relation of Form and Meaning
5(3)
The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
8(2)
Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences
10(1)
Linguistic Knowledge and Performance
11(2)
What Is Grammar?
13(4)
Descriptive Grammars
13(1)
Prescriptive Grammars
14(2)
Teaching Grammars
16(1)
Language Universals
17(4)
The Development of Grammar
18(1)
Sign Languages: Evidence for the Innateness of Language
19(1)
American Sign Language
20(1)
Animal ``Languages''
21(4)
``Talking'' Parrots
22(1)
The Birds and the Bees
23(2)
Language and Thought
25(3)
What We Know about Language
28(1)
Summary
29(2)
References for Further Reading
31(1)
Exercises
31(4)
Brain and Language
35(36)
The Human Brain
36(13)
The Localization of Language in the Brain
37(1)
Aphasia
38(5)
Brain Imaging Technology
43(2)
Brain Plasticity and Lateralization in Early Life
45(1)
Split Brains
46(2)
Other Experimental Evidence of Brain Organization
48(1)
The Autonomy of Language
49(3)
Other Dissociations of Language and Cognition
50(1)
Laura
50(1)
Christopher
51(1)
Genetic Basis of Language
52(1)
Language and Brain Development
52(4)
The Critical Period
53(2)
A Critical Period for Bird Song
55(1)
The Evolution of Language
56(5)
In the Beginning: The Origin of Language
57(1)
God's Gift to Mankind?
58(1)
The First Language
58(1)
Human Invention or the Cries of Nature?
59(1)
The Development of Language in the Species
60(1)
Summary
61(2)
References for Further Reading
63(1)
Exercises
64(7)
PART 2 Grammatical Aspects of Language
Morphology: The Words of Language
71(44)
Dictionaries
73(1)
Content Words and Function Words
74(2)
Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning
76(7)
Bound and Free Morphemes
78(1)
Prefixes and Suffixes
78(2)
Infixes
80(1)
Circumfixes
81(1)
Roots and Stems
81(1)
Huckles and Ceives
82(1)
Rules of Word Formation
83(8)
Derivational Morphology
84(1)
The Hierarchical Structure of Words
84(2)
More about Derivational Morphemes
86(2)
Lexical Gaps
88(1)
Rule Productivity
89(2)
``Pullet Surprises''
91(1)
Sign Language Morphology
91(1)
Word Coinage
92(6)
Words from Names
93(1)
Back-Formations
94(1)
Compounds
95(1)
Meaning of Compounds
96(1)
Universality of Compounding
97(1)
Blends
97(1)
Reduced Words
98(1)
Inflectional Morphemes
98(5)
Exceptions and Supplections
100(1)
Morphology and Syntax
101(2)
Morphological Analysis: Identifying Morphemes
103(2)
Summary
105(1)
References for Further Reading
106(1)
Exercises
107(8)
Syntax: The Sentence Patterns of Language
115(58)
What the Syntax Rules Do
116(5)
What Grammaticality Is Not Based On
120(1)
Sentence Structure
121(29)
Constituents and Constituency Tests
122(2)
Syntactic Categories
124(3)
Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
127(4)
Some Conventions for Building Phrase Structure Trees
131(2)
The Infinity of Language
133(6)
Heads and Complements
139(1)
Selection
140(2)
What Heads the Sentence
142(3)
Structural Ambiguities
145(2)
More Structures
147(3)
Sentence Relatedness
150(8)
Transformational Rules
150(2)
Structure-Dependent Rules
152(3)
Syntactic Dependencies
155(1)
Wh Questions
155(3)
UG Principles and Parameters
158(3)
Sign Language Syntax
161(1)
Summary
162(1)
References for Further Reading
163(1)
Exercises
163(10)
The Meaning of Language
173(48)
What Speakers Know about Sentence Meaning
174(4)
Truth
175(1)
Entailment and Related Notions
175(1)
Ambiguity
176(2)
Compositional Semantics
178(8)
Semantic Rules
178(1)
Semantic Rule I
179(1)
Semantic Rule II
180(1)
When Compositionality Goes Awry
181(1)
Anomaly
181(2)
Metaphor
183(1)
Idioms
184(2)
Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings)
186(13)
Theories of Word Meaning
187(1)
Reference
187(1)
Sense
188(1)
Lexical Relations
189(3)
Semantic Features
192(1)
Evidence for Semantic Features
193(1)
Semantic Features and Grammar
193(4)
Argument Structure
197(1)
Thematic Roles
197(2)
Pragmatics
199(9)
Pronouns
200(1)
Pronouns and Syntax
200(1)
Pronouns and Discourse
201(1)
Deixis
202(2)
More on Situational Context
204(1)
Maxims of Conversation
204(1)
Implicatures
205(1)
Speech Acts
206(2)
Summary
208(1)
References for Further Reading
209(1)
Exercises
210(11)
Phonetics: The Sounds of Language
221(34)
Sound Segments
221(2)
Identity of Speech Sounds
222(1)
The Phonetic Alphabet
223(3)
Articulatory Phonetics
226(16)
Consonants
227(1)
Places of Articulation
227(2)
Manner of Articulation
229(5)
Phonetic Symbols for American English Consonants
234(2)
Vowels
236(2)
Lip Rounding
238(1)
Diphthongs
238(1)
Nasalization of Vowels
239(1)
Tense and Lax Vowels
239(1)
Different (Tongue) Strokes for Different Folks
240(1)
Major Phonetic Classes
240(1)
Noncontinuants and Continuants
240(1)
Obstruents and Sonorants
241(1)
Consonantal
241(1)
Syllabic Sounds
241(1)
Prosodic Features
242(3)
Tone and Intonation
243(2)
Phonetic Symbols and Spelling Correspondences
245(2)
The ``Phonetics'' of Signed Languages
247(2)
Summary
249(1)
References for Further Reading
250(1)
Exercises
250(5)
Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language
255(58)
The Pronunciation of Morphemes
256(5)
The Pronunciation of Plurals
256(3)
Additional Examples of Allomorphs
259(2)
Phonemes: The Phonological Units of Language
261(5)
Vowel Nasalization in English as an Illustration of Allophones
261(2)
Allophones of /t/
263(1)
Minimal Pairs in ASL
264(1)
Complementary Distribution
264(2)
Distinctive Features of Phonemes
266(7)
Feature Values
267(1)
Nondistinctive Features
268(1)
Phonemic Patterns May Vary Across Languages
269(1)
Natural Classes of Speech Sounds
270(1)
Feature Specifications for American English Consonants and Vowels
271(2)
The Rules of Phonology
273(13)
Assimilation Rules
274(2)
Dissimilation Rules
276(1)
Feature-Changing Rules
277(1)
Segment Insertion and Deletion Rules
278(3)
Movement (Metathesis) Rules
281(1)
From One to Many and from Many to One
282(2)
The Function of Phonological Rules
284(1)
Slips of the Tongue: Evidence for Phonological Rules
285(1)
Prosodic Phonology
286(4)
Syllable Structure
286(1)
Word Stress
287(1)
Sentence and Phrase Stress
288(1)
Intonation
289(1)
Sequential Constraints of Phonemes
290(2)
Lexical Gaps
292(1)
Why Do Phonological Rules Exist?
292(2)
Phonological Analysis: Discovering Phonemes
294(3)
Summary
297(2)
References for Further Reading
299(1)
Exercises
299(14)
PART 3 The Psychology of Language
Language Acquisition
313(50)
Mechanisms of Language Acquisition
314(4)
Do Children Learn through Imitation?
314(1)
Do Children Learn through Reinforcement?
315(1)
Do Children Learn Language through Analogy?
316(2)
Do Children Learn through Structured Input?
318(1)
Children Construct Grammars
318(24)
The Innateness Hypothesis
319(3)
Stages in Language Acquisition
322(1)
The Perception and Production of Speech Sounds
323(2)
First Words
325(1)
The Development of Grammar
326(1)
The Acquisition of Phonology
326(2)
The Acquisition of Word Meaning
328(2)
The Acquisition of Morphology
330(2)
The Acquisition of Syntax
332(4)
The Acquisition of Pragmatics
336(1)
The Development of Auxiliaries: A Case Study
337(3)
Setting Parameters
340(1)
The Acquisition of Signed Languages
341(1)
Knowing More Than One Language
342(9)
Childhood Bilingualism
343(1)
Theories of Bilingual Development
343(2)
Two Monolinguals in One Head
345(1)
The Role of Input
345(1)
Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism
346(1)
Second Language Acquisition
346(1)
Is L2 Acquisition the Same as L1 Acquisition?
346(2)
Native Language Influence in L2 Acquisition
348(1)
The Creative Component of L2 Acquisition
349(1)
Is There a Critical Period for L2 Acquisition?
350(1)
Second-Language Teaching Methods
351(1)
Can Chimps Learn Human Language?
352(4)
Summary
356(2)
References for Further Reading
358(1)
Exercises
358(5)
Language Processing: Humans and Computers
363(46)
The Human Mind at Work: Human Language Processing
363(15)
Comprehension
365(1)
The Speech Signal
365(2)
Speech Perception and Comprehension
367(2)
Bottom-up and Top-down Models
369(1)
Lexical Access and Word Recognition
370(2)
Syntactic Processing
372(2)
Speech Production
374(1)
Planning Units
375(1)
Lexical Selection
376(1)
Application and Misapplication of Rules
377(1)
Nonlinguistic Influences
378(1)
Computer Processing of Human Language
378(20)
Frequency Analysis, Concordances, and Collocations
378(2)
Information Retrieval and Summarization
380(1)
Spell Checkers
381(1)
Machine Translation
381(2)
Computers That Talk and Listen
383(1)
Computational Phonetics and Phonology
384(4)
Computational Morphology
388(1)
Computational Syntax
389(5)
Computational Semantics
394(2)
Computational Pragmatics
396(1)
Computer Models of Grammar
397(1)
Summary
398(2)
References for Further Reading
400(1)
Exercises
401(8)
PART 4 Language and Society
Language in Society
409(52)
Dialects
409(23)
Regional Dialects
410(1)
Accents
411(1)
Dialects of English
411(6)
Social Dialects
417(1)
The ``Standard''
418(5)
African American English
423(4)
Latino (Hispanic) English
427(3)
Genderlects
430(1)
Sociolinguistic Analysis
431(1)
Languages in Contact
432(5)
Lingua Francas
433(1)
Pidgins
434(2)
Creoles
436(1)
Language in Use
437(14)
Styles
438(1)
Slang
439(1)
Jargon and Argot
440(2)
Taboo or Not Taboo?
442(2)
Euphemisms
444(2)
Racial and National Epithets
446(1)
Language and Sexism
447(1)
Marked and Unmarked Forms
448(2)
The Generic ``He''
450(1)
Secret Languages and Language Games
451(1)
Summary
452(1)
References for Further Reading
453(1)
Exercises
454(7)
Language Change: The Syllables of Time
461(44)
The Regularity of Sound Change
463(1)
Sound Correspondences
463(1)
Ancestral Protolanguages
463(1)
Phonological Change
464(3)
Phonological Rules
465(1)
The Great Vowel Shift
466(1)
Morphological Change
467(1)
Syntactic Change
468(4)
Lexical Change
472(6)
Addition of New Words
473(1)
Borrowings or Loan Words
474(1)
History through Loan Words
474(2)
Loss of Words
476(1)
Semantic Change
477(1)
Broadening
477(1)
Narrowing
477(1)
Meaning Shifts
478(1)
Reconstructing ``Dead'' Languages
478(7)
The Nineteenth-Century Comparativists
478(2)
Cognates
480(2)
Comparative Reconstruction
482(2)
Historical Evidence
484(1)
Extinct and Endangered Languages
485(2)
The Genetic Classification of Languages
487(5)
Languages of the World
490(2)
Types of Languages
492(2)
Why Do Languages Change?
494(2)
Summary
496(1)
References for Further Reading
497(1)
Exercises
498(7)
Writing: The ABCs of Language
505(30)
The History of Writing
506(6)
Pictograms and Ideograms
506(2)
Cuneiform Writing
508(2)
The Rebus Principle
510(1)
From Hieroglyphics to the Alphabet
511(1)
Modern Writing Systems
512(6)
Word Writing
513(1)
Syllabic Writing
514(1)
Consonantal Alphabet Writing
515(1)
Alphabetic Writing
516(2)
Reading, Writing, and Speech
518(9)
Reading
521(2)
Spelling
523(3)
Spelling Pronunciations
526(1)
Summary
527(1)
References for Further Reading
528(1)
Exercises
529(6)
Glossary 535(32)
Index 567

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