Language 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.

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).

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.

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

This new edition of Understanding Morphology has been fully revised in line with the latest research. It now includes 'big picture' questions to highlight central themes in morphology, as well as research exercises for each chapter. Understanding Morphology presents an introduction to the study of word structure that starts at the very beginning. Assuming no knowledge of the field of morphology on the part of the reader, the book presents a broad range of morphological phenomena from a wide variety of languages. Starting with the core areas of inflection and derivation, the book presents the interfaces between morphology and syntax and between morphology and phonology. The synchronic study of word structure is covered, as are the phenomena of diachronic change, such as analogy and grammaticalization. Theories are presented clearly in accessible language with the main purpose of shedding light on the data, rather than as a goal in themselves. The authors consistently draw on the best research available, thus utilizing and discussing both functionalist and generative theoretical approaches. Each chapter includes a summary, suggestions for further reading, and exercises. As such this is the ideal book for both beginning students of linguistics, or anyone in a related discipline looking for a first introduction to morphology.

This book is intended as a systemic functional contribution to language typology both for those who would like to understand and describe particular languages against the background of generalizations about a wide range of languages and also for those who would like to develop typological accounts that are based on and embody descriptions of the systems of particular languages (rather than isolated constructions). The book is a unique contribution in at least two respects. On the one hand, it is the first book based on systemic functional theory that is specifically concerned with language typology. On the other hand, the book combines the particular with the general in the description of languages: it presents comparable sketches of particular languages while at the same time identifying generalizations based on the languages described here as well as on other languages. The volume explores eight languages, covering seven language families: French, German, Pitjantjatjara, Tagalog, Telugu, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese.

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

Language typology is concerned with the construction of theoretical frameworks capable of delimiting the range of human languages and of capturing constraints on cross-linguistic variation. This text offers accounts of the theoretical foundations and findings of leading scholars in this field.