An Introduction to Language and Linguistics · An Introduction to Language and Linguistics This accessible new textbook is the only introduction to linguistics in which each chapter

An Introduction to Language and LinguisticsThis accessible new textbook is the only introduction to linguistics inwhich each chapter is written by an expert who teaches courses on thattopic, ensuring balanced and uniformly excellent coverage of the fullrange of modern linguistics. Assuming no prior knowledge, the textoffers a clear introduction to the traditional topics of structurallinguistics (theories of sound, form, meaning, and language change), andin addition provides full coverage of contextual linguistics, includingseparate chapters on discourse, dialect variation, language and culture,and the politics of language. There are also up-to-date separate chapterson language and the brain, computational linguistics, writing, childlanguage acquisition, and second language learning. The breadth of thetextbook makes it ideal for introductory courses on language andlinguistics offered by departments of English, sociology, anthropology,and communications, as well as by linguistics departments.

RALPH FASOLD is Professor Emeritus and past Chair of the Department ofLinguistics at Georgetown University. He is the author of four books andeditor or coeditor of six others. Among them are the textbooks TheSociolinguistics of Society (1984) and The Sociolinguistics of Language (1990).

JEFF CONNOR-LINTON is an Associate Professor in the Department ofLinguistics at Georgetown University, where he has been Head of theApplied Linguistics Program and Department Chair. He supervises amulti-section introductory linguistics course and the pedagogicaltraining of graduate students in the Linguistics Department.

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An Introductionto Languageand Linguistics

Edited byRALPH FASOLD AND JEFF CONNOR-LINTON






cambridge university pressCambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

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Detailed contents viiAcknowledgments xvi

Introduction 1Ralph Fasold and Jeff Connor-Linton

1 The sounds of language 13Elizabeth Zsiga

2 Words and their parts 55Donna Lardiere

3 The structure of sentences 97David Lightfoot and Ralph Fasold

4 Meaning 137Paul Portner

5 Discourse 169Deborah Schiffrin

6 Child language acquisition 205Kendall A. King

7 Language and the brain 235Michael T. Ullman

8 Language change 275Shaligram Shukla and Jeff Connor-Linton

9 Dialect variation 311Natalie Schilling-Estes

10 Language and culture 343Deborah Tannen

11 The politics of language 373Ralph Fasold

12 Writing 401Jeff Connor-Linton

Contents






13 Second language acquisition 433Alison Mackey

14 Computational linguistics 465Inderjeet Mani

Glossary 493References 519Index 533

vi CONTENTS






Introduction 1

Universal properties of language 1Modularity 2Constituency and recursion 2Discreteness 3Productivity 4Arbitrariness 4Reliance on context 5Variability 6

The descriptive approach 7Defining language 9The diversity of linguistics 10How to approach this book 11

1 The sounds of language 13

Key terms 13Chapter preview 13Goals 14Articulatory phonetics 14

The tools of phonetics 14The vocal tract 14Articulation 17Manners of articulation 18Writing sounds: transcription 20Consonants 22Vowels 25

Suprasegmentals 28Length 28Tone and intonation 29Syllable structure 30Stress 31

Acoustic phonetics 32Sound waves 32Simple and complex sounds 33Hearing 34Measuring speech 35

Phonology 38Phonemes and allophones 38Phonotactics 41Alternation and allomorphs 43Types of phonological alternations 44

Detailed contents






viii DETAILED CONTENTS

Phonological theory 47Chapter summary 49Exercises 50Suggestions for further reading 53

2 Words and their parts 55

Key terms 55Chapter preview 55Goals 56What is a word? 56Morphology: the study of word-structure 59

Morphemes 61The forms of morphemes 64

Some morphological operations of the world’s languages 66

Affixation 67Other types of affixation 66Reduplication 69Ablaut and suppletion 71Tone and stress 72

Two purposes of morphology: derivation and inflection 72Derivation 74Inflection 80Acquiring inflectional contrasts 90

Chapter summary 92Exercises 93Suggestions for further reading 96

3 The structure of sentences 97

Key terms 97Chapter preview 97Goals 98Poverty of the stimulus 98

The amazing robot basketball player 98Applying the metaphor to the structure of sentences 99

Compositionality 100Projection 100Merger 101Adjunction 107Movement and deletion 109

Grammars are finite; language is not 111Recursion 112The significance of recursion 113

Restrictions 113You can do without that, but not always 113Heavy Determiner Phrase movement 116The Binding Theory 117Summary 121






Differences in syntax across languages 122Head–complement order in Hindi 122Immobile-WH-words in Thai 123Gender in languages 123

Functional Syntax 126A functional analysis of pronouns 126Contrasting formal and functional analyses 128


4 Meaning 137

Key terms 137Chapter preview 137Goals 138Speaker’s meaning and semantic meaning 138Semantics 139

Fundamental semantic concepts and compositionality 140

Subjects, predicates, and arguments 141Thematic roles and lexical semantics 143Logical words 146Modifiers 147Quantification 149Intensionality 152Semantics summary 156

Pragmatics 1: meaning and context 157Indexicality, context-dependency, and anaphora 157Presupposition 158

Pragmatics 2: meaning and the intention to communicate 159

The Gricean view of meaning 159Implicature 160Speech acts 162Pragmatics summary 163

Philosophical issues 163The psychological view 163The referential view 165


5 Discourse 169

Key terms 169Chapter preview 169Goals 170Language use above and beyond the sentence 170Data: language use in everyday life 172

Detailed contents ix






Spoken and written discourse: a first look 175Spoken discourse 176

Sequential and distributional analyses 177Repair and recipient design 178Comparing transcripts 180Adjacency pairs 182Participation frameworks 183Narratives 184Summary: spoken discourse 185

Written discourse 186Fragmentation and integration 186Writing to be read 187

Language functions 192Planes of discourse 194

Participation framework 195Exchange structure 195Act structures 196Information state 196Idea structure 196Linking together planes of discourse 197


6 Child language acquisition 205

Key terms 205Chapter preview 205Goals 206Gathering data on language acquisition 206

Parental diaries 206Observational studies 207Experimental studies 209

The data: milestones in child language development 210The first sounds 210The first words 212First sentences: morphological and syntactic

development 213Crosslinguistic and crosscultural aspects of language

acquisition 219Explaining the data 224Behaviorism 224Nativism 225Connectionism 227Social interactionism 228What’s at stake in the child language debate? 230Chapter summary 231Exercises 231Suggestions for further reading 233

x DETAILED CONTENTS






7 Language and the brain 235

Key terms 235Chapter preview 235Goals 236The biology of the brain 236

The cerebrum 237The cerebral cortex and its neurons 238Cytoarchitectonics: the distribution of neurons

in the cortex 238The cerebellum, subcortical structures, and networks

in the brain 241Questions about the biology of language 242

Biological substrates: what are the biological bases of language? 242

Biotemporal dynamics: what does brain activity during language use look like? 244

Separability: do different language functions depend on different biological substrates? 244

Domain specificity: are the biological substrates of language dedicated exclusively to language? 245

Methods in the study of the biology of language 246The lesion method 247Hemodynamic neuroimaging 248Event-related potentials 251Magnetoencephalography 253Direct brain recording and stimulation 253Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation 254

Evidence and explanations 255The lexicon, conceptual-semantics, and phonology 256Syntax 264Morphology 270


8 Language change 275

Key terms 275Chapter preview 275Goals 276Languages change 276Causes of language change 277

Articulatory simplification 277Regularization 278Language contact 278

Kinds of language change 280Phonological change 281Morphological change 283Syntactic change 284

Detailed contents xi






Semantic change 284Mechanisms of language change 285

Sound change 285Borrowing 294Analogy 296

Linguistic reconstruction and language families 298The comparative method 300Internal reconstruction 303

Historical linguistics and culture 304Chapter summary 305Exercises 306Suggestions for further reading 310

9 Dialect variation 311

Key terms 311Chapter preview 311Goals 312The nature of dialect variation 312

Languages, dialects, and standards 312The regular patterning of dialects 314Why are standards held in such esteem? 314Why dialects? 315Inherent variability 316

Levels of dialect variation 319Lexical variation 320Phonological variation 321Morphosyntactic variation 323Pragmatic variation 324Shared features among dialects 324

Types of dialect variation 326Social class and social network 326Gender-based patterns of variation 328Ethnicity-based variation 329Dialect and style 332

Age-based variation and language change 333The fate of dialect variation 334Chapter summary 337Exercises 337Suggestions for further reading 341

10 Language and culture 343

Key terms 343Chapter preview 343Goals 344Culturally-influenced aspects of language 344Language, culture, and framing 347Crosscultural miscommunication 349Politeness and interaction 351

xii DETAILED CONTENTS






High-involvement and high-considerateness styles 354Overlap 354Back-channel cues 356Turn-taking 357Asking questions 360Indirectness 361Mutual stereotyping 362

The ritual nature of conversation 362Language and gender 363Complementary schismogenesis 365Language and cultural relativity 366Chapter summary 369Exercises 370Suggestions for further reading 371

11 The politics of language 373

Key terms 373Chapter preview 373Goals 374Identity politics and language 374

Identity in language 375Key concepts 375Interpreting some of the cases 377

Language standardization 378Minimum and arbitrary standards 380Nonstandard language: Ebonics 381Language issues in China and Singapore 383The politics of standardization 385Diglossia 385

“Languages” and “dialects” 386The politics of languages and dialects 388

Official English 389Language rights in the United States 391Bilingualism 391Bilingual maintenance: continuing immigration 392Bilingual maintenance: group identity 393

Controlling the content of speech 395Blasphemy and cursing 396Hate speech 397


12 Writing 401

Key terms 401Chapter preview 401Goals 402Writing and speaking 402

Detailed contents xiii






Types of writing systems 404Logographic systems 405Syllabic systems 409Alphabetic systems 411Consonantal alphabetic systems 414

The development of writing 416Protowriting 416Cuneiform 419Egyptian hieroglyphs 421Early alphabets 423

The consequences of literacy 425Conservatism 425Democratization 426Standardization 427Relative advantage 428


13 Second language acquisition 433Key terms 433Chapter preview 433Goals 434Theories of second language acquisition 434

Behaviorism 434Comprehensible input and the natural order

hypothesis 435The interaction hypothesis 438Socioculturalism 440Universal grammar 441Frequency-based approaches 443Summary 445

Individual differences in second language acquisition 446First language (L1) 446Age 446Gender 447Working memory 448Motivation 448Context of second language learning 449

SLA processes 450Attention 450Developmental sequences 450Fossilization 452

Instruction 454Teaching methods 455Bridging the theory–pedagogy gap 458Task-based language teaching and learning 458

Chapter summary 459

xiv DETAILED CONTENTS






Exercises 460Suggestions for further reading 463

14 Computational linguistics 465Key terms 465Chapter preview 465Goals 466The computational perspective 466Morphological processing 467

Tokenization 468Morphological analysis and synthesis 468

Syntactic processing 471Context-free grammars 471Parsing 472Part-of-speech tagging 474Beyond context-free grammars 474Statistical parsing 476

Semantic processing 478Word meaning 478Sentence meaning 479

Natural language generation 481Probabilistic theories 482Related technologies 484

Information extraction 485Speech recognition 485Speech synthesis 486Machine translation 487

Major challenges in computational linguistics 488Chapter summary 489Exercises 490Suggestions for further reading 491

Detailed contents xv






Chapter 6 Child language acquisition

Thanks to Donna Lardiere, Alison Mackey, andGigliana Melzi for their many helpful com-ments on this chapter, and to Rebekha Abbuhlfor excellent research and editorial assistance.

Chapter 7 Language and the brain

This chapter was written with support from NSFSBR-9905273, NIH R01 HD049347, and researchgrants from the National Alliance for AutismResearch, the Mabel Flory Trust, and Pfizer, Inc.The author thanks Paul Aisen, Sherry Ash,Harriet Bowden, Stefano Cappa, AlfonsoCaramazza, Jeff Connor-Linton, AntonioDamasio, John Drury, Ivy Estabrooke, AngelaFriederici, Jennifer Ganger, Matthew Gelfand,Jordan Grafman, Yosef Grodzinsky, GregoryHickok, Argye Hillis, Peter Indefrey, Edith Kaan,Amy Knight, Sonja Kotz, Alex Martin, RobbinMiranda, Matthew Moffa, Susan Nitzberg Lott,

Aaron Newman, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, DavidPoeppel, Brenda Rapp, Ardi Roelofs, Ned Sahin,Karsten Steinhauer, Tamara Swaab, MichaelThomas, Sharon Thompson-Schill, John vanMeter, Jill Weisberg, and particularly MatthewWalenski, for useful suggestions and help inpreparing this chapter.

Chapter 9 Dialect variation

Thanks to: Philip Carter, North Carolina State UniversityKirk Hazen, West Virginia UniversityAida Premilovac, Georgetown UniversityRyan Rowe, North Carolina State UniversityDaniel Schreier, University of RegensburgWalt Wolfram, North Carolina State University

Chapter 14 Computational linguistics

Thanks to Jonathan Frank for comments on adraft version of this chapter.

Acknowledgments






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An Introduction to Language and Linguistics · An Introduction to Language and Linguistics This accessible new textbook is the only introduction to linguistics in which each chapter