Beginning Linguistics

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this core textbook, Laurie Bauer's engaging style brings linguistics to life and introduces readers to the fundamentals of the subject. Each essential area of linguistics is dealt with in turn, thereby providing readers with a clear and comprehensive overview of all the core topics, including semantics, syntax, phonology and pragmatics.Alongside definitions of key terms and explanations of how various issues slot together, this text also empowers readers by teaching them how to apply their knowledge to new data. Richly illustrated with examples from multiple languages and packed with interactive activities, this user-friendly book helps readers to master the basics and sets them up for further study in the field.This is an invaluable resource for those studying linguistics for the very first time. Equally, it provides a firm reference point for those with more experience in the field.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Illustrative Material (p. viii)
• A Note for the Teacher (p. xii)
• A Note for the Student (p. xiii)
• Acknowledgements (p. xiv)
• Symbols and Abbreviations (p. xv)
• The Chart of the International Phonetic Association (p. xvii)
• 1 Introduction (p. 1)
• 1.1 A gentle start (p. 1)
• 1.2 What are the bits? (p. 6)
• 1.3 What is this book attempting to do? (p. 7)
• 1.4 A user's guide to the book (p. 8)
• 2 Semantics (p. 11)
• 2.1 The difficulty of meaning (p. 11)
• 2.2 Dictionaries and definitions (p. 12)
• 2.3 Representations and models (p. 17)
• 2.4 Reference (p. 25)
• 2.5 Words together (p. 28)
• 2.6 Sentence semantics (Advanced) (p. 35)
• 2.7 Summing up (p. 37)
• 3 Phonetics (p. 39)
• 3.1 Getting the phonetics right (p. 39)
• 3.2 The organs of speech (p. 41)
• 3.3 Describing consonants (p. 49)
• 3.4 Describing vowels (p. 55)
• 3.5 Secondary articulations (p. 58)
• 3.6 Suprasegmentals (p. 60)
• 3.7 Acoustics (Advanced) (p. 66)
• 3.8 The sounds of languages (Advanced) (p. 71)
• 3.9 Summing up (p. 81)
• 4 Phonology (p. 85)
• 4.1 Learners' problems and related matters (p. 85)
• 4.2 Same but different: the importance of contrast (p. 86)
• 4.3 Transcribing English (p. 95)
• 4.4 The elements of sounds (p. 101)
• 4.5 Sonority (p. 109)
• 4.6 More phonotactics (p. 112)
• 4.7 Syllabification (p. 114)
• 4.8 More or less than a syllable (p. 116)
• 4.9 Rules (p. 118)
• 4.10 Tone (Advanced) (p. 124)
• 4.11 Summing up (p. 128)
• 5 Morphology (p. 131)
• 5.1 The legal importance of analysing words (p. 131)
• 5.2 The bits of words (p. 132)
• 5.3 Two types of affix and their implications (p. 142)
• 5.4 The same but different revisited (p. 146)
• 5.4 Phonological effects in morphology (p. 148)
• 5.5 Compounds (p. 151)
• 5.6 Where do the affixes go? (Advanced) (p. 155)
• 5.7 Reduplication (Advanced) (p. 158)
• 5.9 Summing up (p. 166)
• 6 Syntex (p. 169)
• 6.1 Why we need syntax (p. 169)
• 6.2 Substitution and word-classes (p. 171)
• 6.3 Sticking words together (p. 182)
• 6.4 Rules: Observed regularity returns (p. 193)
• 6.5 Form and function: You look familiar, but what are you doing here? (p. 195)
• 6.6 Ergativity (Advanced) (p. 202)
• 6.7 The order of sentence elements (Advanced) (p. 207)
• 6.8 Summing up (p. 213)
• 7 Pragmatics (p. 217)
• 7.1 The interface with the world (p. 217)
• 7.2 Speech acts (p. 218)
• 7.3 Gricean principles (p. 220)
• 7.4 Being polite (p. 223)
• 7.5 Drawing conclusions (p. 228)
• 7.6 Texts (p. 233)
• 7.7 Doing gender (Advanced) (p. 241)
• 7.8 Summing up (p. 244)
• 8 Conclusion (p. 247)
• 8.1 A summing up and a new start (p. 247)
• 8.2 Some fundamental problems in linguistics (p. 248)
• 8.3 Some problems of doing linguistics (p. 252)
• 8.4 Some links between modules (p. 255)
• 8.5 Where to go? (p. 256)
• 8.6 Envoi (p. 259)
• Appendices (p. 261)
• A Glossary (p. 261)
• B Languages mentioned (p. 281)
• C Answers to questions (p. 291)
• D Assignments and study questions (p. 315)
• Bibliography (p. 321)
• General Index (p. 327)
• Language Index (p. 333)