An Introduction To Linguistic Typology

Offers an introduction to linguistic typology that covers various linguistic domains from phonology and morphology over parts-of-speech, the NP and the VP, to simple and complex clauses, pragmatics and language change. This title also includes a discussion on methodological issues in typology.

Ideal in introductory courses dealing with grammatical structure and linguistic analysis, Introduction to Typology overviews the major grammatical categories and constructions in the world's languages. Framed in a typological perspective, the constant concern of this primary text is to underscore the similarities and differences which underlie the vast array of human languages.

This textbook provides an introduction to language typology which assumes minimal prior knowledge of linguistics.

This textbook provides a critical introduction to major research topics and current approaches in linguistic typology. It draws on a wide range of cross-linguistic data to describe what linguistic typology has revealed about language in general and about the rich variety of ways in which meaning and expression are achieved in the world's languages.

Here, Comrie (linguistics, U. of Southern Cal.) is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals, devoting chapters to word order, case marking, relative clauses, and causative constructions. This second edition takes full account of new research into generative grammatical theory. Acidic paper. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Few issues in the history of the language sciences have been an object of as much discussion and controversy as linguistic categories. The eleven articles included in this volume tackle the issue of categories from a wide range of perspectives and with different foci, in the context of the current debate on the nature and methodology of the research on comparative concepts – particularly, the relation between the categories needed to describe languages and those needed to compare languages. While the first six papers deal with general theoretical questions, the following five confront specific issues in the domain of language analysis arising from the application of categories. The volume will appeal to a very broad readership: advanced students and scholars in any field of linguistics, but also specialists in the philosophy of language, and scholars interested in the cognitive aspects of language from different subfields (neurolinguistics, cognitive sciences, psycholinguistics, anthropology).

This new introduction to linguistics presents language in all its amazing complexity, while guiding students gently through the basics. Students emerge with an appreciation of the diversity of the world's languages as well as a deeper understanding of the structure of language, and its broader social and cultural context.

The three volumes of Language typology and syntactic description offer a unique survey of syntactic and morphological structure in the languages of the world. Topics covered include parts of speech; passives; complementation; relative clauses; adverbial clauses; inflectional morphology; tense; aspect and mood; and deixis. The major ways these notions are realized u=in the languages of the world are explored, and the contributors provide brief sketches of relevant aspects of representative languages. Each volume is written in an accessible style with new concepts explained and exemplified as they are introduced. Although each volume can be read independently, together they provide a major work of reference that will serve as a manual for field workers and anyone interested in cross-linguistic generalizations.