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  3. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics

The aim of this series is to provide discussions of the main topics in general or theoretical linguistics through books of moderate size covering single topics. The level of treatment is uniform, and suitable for undergraduate students taking linguistics as part of an introductory course and the editors will oversee the entire series to ensure that the treatments are integrated and the overlap between works is minimal. It will be possible for a complete course to be developed around the texts and it is likely that universities will do so.Topics singled out for treatment are morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and semantics as well as aspects of historical linguistics.

  • General Editors: Umberto Ansaldo, Peter Austin, Bernard Comrie, Roger Lass, David Lightfoot, Keren Rice, Ian Roberts, Suzanne Romaine, Michelle Sheehan, Ianthi Tsimpli

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79 results in Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics

Page 3 of 4

Cognitive Linguistics
  • William Croft, D. Alan Cruse
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    22 January 2004
  • Cognitive Linguistics argues that language is governed by general cognitive principles, rather than by a special-purpose language module. This introductory textbook surveys the field of cognitive linguistics as a distinct area of study, presenting its theoretical foundations and the arguments supporting it. Clearly organised and accessibly written, it provides a useful introduction to the relationship between language and cognitive processing in the human brain. It covers the main topics likely to be encountered in a course or seminar, and provides a synthesis of study and research in this fast-growing field of linguistics. The authors begin by explaining the conceptual structures and cognitive processes governing linguistic representation and behaviour, and go on to explore cognitive approaches to lexical semantics, as well as syntactic representation and analysis, focusing on the closely related frameworks of cognitive grammar and construction grammar. This much-needed introduction will be welcomed by students in linguistics and cognitive science.

Grammaticalization
  • 2nd edition
  • Paul J. Hopper, Elizabeth Closs Traugott
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    31 July 2003
  • This is a general introduction to grammaticalization, the change whereby lexical terms and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions, and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. The authors synthesize work from several areas of linguistics, including historical linguistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics. Data are drawn from many languages including Ewe, Finnish, French, Hindi, Hittite, Japanese, Malay, and especially English. This 2003 second edition has been thoroughly revised with substantial updates on theoretical and methodological issues that have arisen in the decade since the first edition, and includes a significantly expanded bibliography. Particular attention is paid to recent debates over directionality in change and the role of grammaticalization in creolization. Grammaticalization will be a valuable and stimulating textbook for all linguists interested in the development of grammatical forms and will also be of interest to readers in anthropology and psychology.

Tone
  • Moira Yip
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    15 August 2002
  • The sounds of language can be divided into consonants, vowels, and tones - the use of pitch to convey word 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. It provides students with a basic grasp of the simple phonetics of tone, and covers key topics such as the distinctive feature systems suitable for tonal contrasts, allophonic and morphophonological tonal alterations, and how to analyze them within Optimality Theory. The book also examines the perception and acquisition of tone, as well as the interface between tonal phonology and the morphosyntax.

Language Contact
  • Yaron Matras
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    10 September 2009
  • Most societies in today's world are multilingual. 'Language contact' occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence each other. This book is an introduction to the subject, covering individual and societal multilingualism, the acquisition of two or more languages from birth, second language acquisition in adulthood, language change, linguistic typology, language processing and the structure of the language faculty. It explains the effects of multilingualism on society and language policy, as well as the consequences that long-term bilingualism within communities can have for the structure of languages. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, the book provides a clear analysis of such phenomena as language convergence, grammatical borrowing, and mixed languages.

Syntax
  • Structure, Meaning, and Function
  • Robert D. van Valin, Randy J. LaPolla
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    11 December 1997
  • This book is an introduction to syntactic theory and analysis which can be used for both introductory and advanced courses in theoretical syntax. Offering an alternative to the standard generative view of the subject, it deals with the major issues in syntax with which all theories are concerned. It presents syntactic phenomena from a wide range of languages and introduces students to the major typological issues that syntactic theories must address. A generous number of exercises is included, which provide practice with the concepts introduced in the text and in addition expose the student to in-depth analysis of data from many languages. Each chapter contains suggestions for further reading which encompass work from many theoretical perspectives. A separate teaching guide is available.

English Word-Formation
  • Laurie Bauer
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    14 April 1983
  • Interest in word-formation is probably as old as interest in language itself. As Dr Bauer points out in his Introduction, many of the questions that scholars are asking now were also being asked in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there is still little agreement on methodology in the study of word-formation or theoretical approaches to it; even the kind of data relevant to its study is open to debate. Dr Bauer here provides students and general linguists alike with a new perspective on what is a confused and often controversial field of study, providing a resolution to the terminological confusion which currently reigns in this area. In doing so, he clearly demonstrates the challenge and intrinsic fascination of the study of word-formation. Linguists have recently become increasingly aware of the relevance of word-formation to work in syntax and semantics, phonology and morphology, and Dr Bauer discusses - within a largely synchronic and transformational framework - the theoretical issues involved. He considers topics where word-formation has a contribution to make to other areas of linguistics and, without pretending to provide a fully-fledged theory of word-formation, develops those points which he sees as being central to its study. The book draws on a wide range of sources, and general points are illustrated from a variety of languages. As the title suggests, though, the exposition is principally illustrated with material drawn from English, including close analysis of a number of sets of neologisms. A survey of the types of word-formation found in English is also included. Some background in linguistics is assumed, but students of linguistics and English language with no previous knowledge of word-formation or of morphology at all will find English Word-Formation an accessible and stimulating textbook.

Logic in Linguistics
  • Edited by Jens Allwood, Lars-Gunnar Andersson, Osten Dahl
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    15 September 1977
  • An elementary introduction to formal logic, particularly intended for linguists and others interested in languages. Concepts and theories developed within formal logic for the study of artificial languages have for some time been fruitfully applied to the study of natural languages and some knowledge of them is necessary for students of linguists (especially semantics). With this need in mind the authors offer a clear, succinct and basic introduction to set theory, inference, propositional and predicate logic, deduction, modal and intensional logic, and various concomitant extensions of these. There is a discussion too of the relation between linguistics and logical analysis and between logic and natural language. The authors see increasing scope for co-operation between logicians and linguistics in studying the structure of language, and it is the overall aim of the book to promote this co-operation.

Mood and Modality
  • 2nd edition
  • F. R. Palmer
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    16 April 2001
  • Since the publication of F. R. Palmer's first edition of Mood and Modality in 1986, when the topic of 'modality' was fairly unfamiliar, there has been considerable interest in the subject as well as in grammatical typology in general. Modality is concerned with mood (subjunctive etc.) and with modal markers such as English modal verbs (can, may, must etc.) and is treated as a single grammatical category found in most of the languages of the world. In his investigation of this category, Palmer draws on a wealth of examples from a wide variety of languages. He discusses in detail familiar features in a number of mainly European languages, and also looks at less familiar features including 'evidential' systems and the contrast of realis/irrealis, both to be found in unrelated languages.

Case
  • 2nd edition
  • Barry J. Blake
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    20 September 2001
  • Case is an accessible introduction for students of linguistics to the ways relations between words in sentences are marked in languages. Case is fundamental to the whole system of language. One of its most interesting features is the recurrence of apparently idiosyncratic patterns and devices in otherwise unrelated languages. This book picks out these recurring strategies and explores their significance. It provides the background against which the case-marking of particular languages can be best understood. In this revised 2001 edition, Blake refines and expands on his discussions of the most important concepts in the study of case, taking into account recent developments in the field. It incorporates significant additions to the data and includes a thoroughly revised section on abstract case in the Chomskyan paradigm.

Psycholinguistics
  • Michael Garman
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 September 1990
  • This book is an introduction to psycholinguistics, the study of human language processing. It deals with the central area of this field, the language abilities of the linguistically mature, monolingual adult. It aims to be comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with both written and spoken language, and their comprehension and production, and the nature of linguistic systems and models of processing. The book is divided into two parts. Part I identifies and investigates the main contributory areas of study, concerning the nature of the language signal, the biological foundations of language (including auditory and visual systems, the organisation of language in the brain, and articulatory and manual systems), and the sources of evidence on the abstract language system. Part II reviews a number of processing models and issues, covering perception and production of speech and writing, lexical storage and retrieval, and the comprehension and production of multiword utterances. The final chapter examines the issues that arise in the context of brain damage and the consequent impairment of language processing (in aphasia and related disorders), an additional important source of evidence and area of process modelling. Psycholinguistics provides an overview of the major contemporary issues surrounding the psychological foundations of language, most of which have roots in the last decade of research. It assumes a basic grounding in linguistic theory, but it is drawn from the author's considerable experience of teaching this subject, and has thus been designed to be accessible to students of linguistics and psychology, as well as for any reader with an interest in the psychological foundations of human language. It will be an essential work for students and specialists alike.

Minimalist Syntax
  • Exploring the Structure of English
  • Andrew Radford
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    27 May 2004
  • Andrew Radford's textbook, Minimalist Syntax, provides a concise, clear, and accessible introduction to syntactic theory, drawing on the key concepts of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Assuming little or no prior knowledge of syntactic theory, Radford takes students through a diverse range of topics in English syntax - such as categories and features, merger, null constituents, movement, case, and split projections - and shows how the 'computational component' works within the minimalist framework. Beginning at an elementary level, the book introduces grammatical concepts and sets out the theoretical foundations of Principles and Parameters and Universal Grammar, before progressing in stages towards more complex phenomena. Each chapter contains a workbook section, in which students are encouraged to make their own analyses of English phrases and sentences through exercises, model answers, and 'helpful hints'. There is also an extensive glossary of terms.

An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles
  • John Holm
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    17 August 2000
  • This textbook is a clear and concise introduction to the study of how new languages come into being. Starting with an overview of the field's basic concepts, it surveys the new languages that developed as a result of the European expansion to the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Long misunderstood as 'bad' versions of European languages, today such varieties as Jamaican Creole English, Haitian Creole French and New Guinea Pidgin are recognized as distinct languages in their own right. John Holm examines the structure of these pidgins and creoles, the social history of their speakers, and the theories put forward to explain how their vocabularies, sound systems and grammars evolved. His new findings on structural typology, including non-Atlantic creoles, permit a wide-ranging assessment of the nature of restructured languages worldwide. This much-needed book will be welcomed by students and researchers in linguistics, sociolinguistics, western European languages, anthropology and sociology.

Sociolinguistics
  • 2nd edition
  • R. A. Hudson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    13 June 1996
  • This new edition of Richard Hudson's widely acclaimed textbook Sociolinguistics will be welcomed by students and teachers alike. To reflect changes in the field since publication of the first edition in 1980, the author has added new sections on politeness, accommodation, and prototypes; and he has expanded discussion of sex differences, culture and general theory. There remains coverage of classic topics such as varieties of language, speech as social interaction, the quantitative study of speech, and linguistic and social inequality. Like the first, the second edition of Sociolinguistics is an exceptionally clear and helpful overview of the relationship of language and society.

Theories of Case
  • Miriam Butt
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    16 February 2006
  • Case, a system which marks the relationships between words in a sentence, is fundamental to every language. Looking at how different theories of syntax have accounted for the distribution of case across languages, this accessible 2006 textbook introduces the various approaches to case that have been proposed in modern linguistics. Clearly organised into topics, it provides beginning students with a solid understanding of the ideas behind the development of theories of case. For the more advanced reader, it presents theories that have been formulated about the interaction between case morphology, argument structure, grammatical relations and semantics, and offers a detailed cross-theoretical discussion of how these are motivated. Each chapter contains practical exercises, encouraging students to engage with the ideas discussed. Drawing on data from a wide range of languages and pooling together a variety of perspectives, Theories of Case is essential reading for all those studying this important area of linguistics.

Transformational Grammar
  • A First Course
  • Andrew Radford
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    26 May 1988
  • Andrew Radford's new textbook is principally for students with little or no background in syntax who need a lively and up-to-date introduction to contemporary work on transformational grammar. It covers four main topics - the goals of linguistic theory, syntactic structure, the nature and role of the lexicon, and the function of transformations and the principles governing their application. The framework takes into account the major works such as Chomsky's Knowledge of Language and Barriers written since the publication of Radford's widely acclaimed Transformational Syntax in 1981. Not only does the present book use a more recent theoretical framework, but at the descriptive level it covers a wider range of constructions and rules than its predecessor. Andrew Radford is well known for his effective pedagogical approach, and in this book even more care has been devoted to providing a sympathetic and non-technical introduction to the field. At the end of each chapter are exercises which reinforce the text, enable students to apply the various concepts, etc. discussed, or encourage them to look more critically at some of the assumptions and analyses presented. The book also has a detailed bibliographical background section and an extensive bibliography which will be a useful source of reference to the primary literature. Although intended principally as a coursebook for students of syntax or English grammar, Transformational Grammar will be invaluable to any reader who needs a straightforward and comprehensive introduction to the latest developments in this field.

Number
  • Greville G. Corbett
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    07 December 2000
  • Number is the most underestimated of the grammatical categories. It is deceptively simple yet the number system which philosophers, logicians and many linguists take as the norm - namely the distinction between singular and plural (as in cat versus cats) - is only one of a wide range of possibilities to be found in languages around the world. Some languages, for instance, make more distinctions than English, having three, four or even five different values. Adopting a wide-ranging perspective, Greville Corbett draws on examples from many languages to analyse the possible systems of number. He reveals that the means for signalling number are remarkably varied and are put to a surprising range of special additional uses. By surveying some of the riches of the world's linguistic resources this book, first published in 2000, makes a major contribution to the typology of categories and demonstrates that languages are much more varied than is generally recognised.

Corpus Linguistics
  • Method, Theory and Practice
  • Tony McEnery, Andrew Hardie
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    06 October 2011
  • Corpus linguistics is the study of language data on a large scale - the computer-aided analysis of very extensive collections of transcribed utterances or written texts. This textbook outlines the basic methods of corpus linguistics, explains how the discipline of corpus linguistics developed and surveys the major approaches to the use of corpus data. It uses a broad range of examples to show how corpus data has led to methodological and theoretical innovation in linguistics in general. Clear and detailed explanations lay out the key issues of method and theory in contemporary corpus linguistics. A structured and coherent narrative links the historical development of the field to current topics in 'mainstream' linguistics. Practical tasks and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter encourage students to test their understanding of what they have read and an extensive glossary provides easy access to definitions of technical terms used in the text.

The Physics of Speech
  • D. B. Fry
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    08 March 1979
  • The mechanism of speech is a very complex one and in order to undertake any analysis of language it is important to understand the processes that go to make up the message that a speaker transmits and a listener receives. Professor Fry therefore first takes the reader through the various stages of the speech chain: from language units to nerve impulses to muscle movements to sound waves, and vice versa as the message is received and decoded. He then explains the basic physical principles involved in the generation and propagation of sound energy and in the phenomenon of resonance. These principles are then applied to the speech mechanism itself and to the particular kinds of sound which constitute speech. There is a fully illustrated account of the use of the sound spectrograph in acoustic analysis and chapters dealing with the acoustic features of English sounds and with the way we recognise speech sounds by the acoustic cues inherent in a particular language. Professor Fry gave courses on the physics of speech to students of applied as well as theoretical linguistics and to speech therapists, and his clear account will therefore provide a basic textbook for such courses as well as being of interest to people working in departments of speech and in communications generally.

Person
  • Anna Siewierska
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    01 July 2004
  • This textbook deals with the grammatical category of person, which covers the first person, the second person, and the third person. Drawing on data from over 700 languages, Anna Siewierska compares the use of person within and across different languages, and examines the factors underlying this variation. She shows how person forms vary in substance, in the nature of the semantic distinctions they convey, in how they are used in sentences and discourse, and in the way they function to convey social distinctions. By looking at different types of person forms in the grammatical and social contexts in which they are used, this book documents an underlying unity between them, arguing against the treatment of person markers based on arbitrary sets of morphological and syntactic properties. Clearly organized and accessibly written, it will be welcomed by students and scholars of linguistics, particularly those interested in grammatical categories and their use.

Understanding Minimalism
  • Norbert Hornstein, Jairo Nunes, Kleanthes K. Grohmann
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    15 December 2005
  • Understanding Minimalism, first published in 2005, is an introduction to the Minimalist Program - the model of syntactic theory within generative linguistics. Accessibly written, it presents the basic principles and techniques of the minimalist program, looking firstly at analyses within Government and Binding Theory (the Minimalist Program's predecessor), and gradually introducing minimalist alternatives. Minimalist models of grammar are presented in a step-by-step fashion, and the ways in which they contrast with GB analyses are clearly explained. Spanning a decade of minimalist thinking, this textbook will enable students to develop a feel for the sorts of questions and problems that minimalism invites, and to master the techniques of minimalist analysis. Over 100 exercises are provided, encouraging them to put these skills into practice. Understanding Minimalism will be an invaluable text for intermediate and advanced students of syntactic theory, and will set a solid foundation for further study and research within Chomsky's minimalist framework.

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