This text offers an engaging introduction to the study of linguistics, focusing on the foundational areas (sound, structure, and meaning). Aimed at undergraduate or beginning graduate students, it invites the reader to think about language scientifically, through exploration of data and interactive problem sets from a wide variety of languages.
Questions linguists study -- The study of sound : phonetics and phonology -- The study of words : morphology -- The study of sentence structure : syntax -- The study of meaning : semantics and pragmatics -- Studying language change -- Studying language variation, language in society -- Studying language in the brain -- After studying linguistics
An engaging and fresh take on the rules and politics of English grammar, written in lively prose. It goes a step further than most books on grammar by providing an overview of the field, with a discussion of historical and current debates about grammar, and how we define, discuss, and approach it.