1st Edition

Foundations of General Linguistics

By Martin Atkinson, Iggy Roca, David Kilby Copyright 2014
    460 Pages
    by Routledge

    456 Pages
    by Routledge

    The first edition of this major introduction to linguistics rapidly established itself as an important student textbook, and a reference tool for those who already have some acquaintance with linguistics. This second edition has been updated and revised and includes new chapters on syntax and on current developments in generative grammar, as well as new material on the nature of language and on morphology.

    This book first provides a comprehensive critical review of the analytic tools and theories of linguistics and systematically surveys major concepts in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Having established the basic nature and structure of language, the final part of the book engages some of the wider issues concerning the use of language in speaking and understanding (psycholinguistics), language development in children, social aspects of language (sociolinguistics), and historical language choice.

    Part 1: The Nature of Language  1. Are Humans Unique?  1.1. On Origins  1.2. Rules and Creativity  1.3. Animal Communication and the ‘Design Features’ of Language  1.4. Genetic Transmission of Language  1.5. Human-Like Language in Higher Primates?  1.6. The Functional Significance of Hockett’s Design Features  1.7. Structure and Function in Language  1.8. Saussure’s Structuralist Linguistics.  Exercises.  Bibliography  2. The Data of Linguistics and the Nature of Learning  2.1. Structuralist Linguistics and Behaviourist Psychology  2.2. Objections to a Corpus-Based Approach  2.3. Rules and Intuitions – Mentalist Linguistics  2.4. Objections to Mentalist Linguistics  2.5. Native Language Learning; Empiricism v. Rationalism  2.6. External Evidence for Language Innateness  2.7. An Internal Argument for Innateness.  Exercises.  Bibliography  Part 2: The Structure of Language  3. Phonetics  3.1. Primacy of a Spoken Language  3.2. Sound Waves  3.3. Air Vibration  3.4. Voice production  3.5. Respiration and Speech Airstream Mechanism  3.6. Analysis and Classification of Vowels  3.7. Liquids and Fricatives  3.8. Places of Articulation  3.9. Stops and Affricates  3.10. Voicing and Nasalisation  3.11. Suprasegmentals.  Exercises.  Bibliography  4. Phonology  4.1. Physical Sound and Linguistic Sound  4.2. Contextual Variation of Sound  4.3. Criteria of Analysis  4.4. Daniel Jones and the Phoneme  4.5. Sapir’s Psychological Approach  4.6. Discovery Procedures  4.7. Classification of Phonemes  4.8. Distinctive Features  4.9. Rules and Formalism. Exercises.  Bibliography  5. Morphology  5.1. The Morpheme as the Basic Unit  5.2. Phonologically Conditioned Morphological Variation  5.3. Boundaries between Morphemes – the Morph  5.4. the Word – Definitional Criteria  5.5. Morphological Classification of Languages  5.6. The Priority Question – Words v. Morphemes  5.7. Lexical Productivity – the Creation of Words  5.8. Approaches to Morphological Description.  Exercises.  Bibliography  6. Syntax  6.1. The Domain of Syntax  6.2. Representing Constituency: Phrase Structure Grammar  6.3. Justifying Constituency: Empirical Diagnostics  6.4. Subcategorisation Restrictions  6.5. Transformations. Exercises.  Bibliography  7. Semantics  7.1. Word-Meaning and Sentence-Meaning  7.2. Semantic Properties and Relations of Words  7.3. Semantic Properties and Relations of Sentences  7.4. Theories of Word-Meaning  7.5. Theories of Sentence-Meaning  7.6. Semantics and Pragmatics.  Exercises.  Bibliography  8. Rules and Principles in the Theory of Grammar  8.1. Restricting the Base  8.2. Constraining Transformational Rules  8.3. Abstract Principles in Syntax  8.4. Generative Phonology  8.5. Autosegmental Representations  8.6. Template-Based Morphology  8.7. Metrical Structures  8.8. Stress in Syntax.  Exercises.  Bibliography  Part 3: The Use of Language  9. Psycholinguistics  9.1. Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Cognitive Psychology  9.2. Psychological Reality of Distinctive Features  9.3. Psychological Reality of Constituent-Structure  9.4. Psychological Reality of Deep Structures  9.5. Psychological Reality of Transformational Rules  9.6. Against the Psychological Reality of Transformational Rules  9.7. An Alternative to the Derivational Theory of Complexity  9.8. Semantics and Sentence Memory  9.9. The Psychological Lexicon  9.10 Universal Categories of Thought.  Exercises.  Bibliography  10. Language Development in Children  10.1. Description and Explanation in Language Acquisitional Research  10.2. Phonological Development  10.3. Early Syntactic Development  10.4. Transformational Rules in Language Development  10.5. Semantic Development: Relational Meanings  10.6. Semantic Development: Referential Meanings  10.7. The Development of Speech-Acts  10.8. Linguistic Environment and Language Learning.  Exercises.  Bibliography  11. Comparative Linguistics  11.1. The Problem of ‘Language’  11.2. Types of Similarity and their Significance  11.3. Universals and Typology of Language  11.4. The Nature of Language Change  11.5. Change and Reconstruction  11.6. Linguistic geography  11.7. Mechanisms of Linguistic Change.  Exercises.  Bibliography  12. Sociolinguistics  12.1. Language and Socialisation  12.2. Language Varieties  12.3. Class, Codes and Control  12.4. Variable Rules  12.5. Social Variables  12.6. Register  12.7. Community Grammars  12.8. Pidgins and Creoles  12.9. Conclusion.  Exercises.  Bibliography.  Addenda to Bibliographies.  Author Index.  Subject Index

    Biography

    Martin Atkinson, Iggy Roca, David Kilby