Contents in Detail
Preface xxi
Chapter 1 | Languages and Linguistics 1
What Do You Think? 1
How Many Languages Are There in the World? 2
Does the United States Have an Official Language? 3
What Is Human Language? 5
Three Faces of a Language System 5
Language: Mental and Social 6
Signs: Arbitrary and Nonarbitrary 6
Arbitrary Signs 7
Representational Signs 7
Language—A System of Arbitrary Signs 8
Languages as Patterned Structures: Grammatical Competence 8
Discreteness 9
Duality 9
Displacement 9
Recursion and Productivity 10
Speech as Patterned Language Use: Communicative Competence 10
Languages and Dialects 11
What Are Social Dialects? 11
Different Dialects or Different Languages? 12
What Is a Standard Variety? 13
Is There Right and Wrong in English Usage? 15
Modes of Linguistic Communication 17
Speaking 17
Writing 17
Signing 18
Do Humans Alone Have Language? 20
How Animals Communicate in Their Natural Environment 21 Can Chimpanzees Learn a Human Language? 21
Project Nim 22
The Origin of Human Languages: Babel to Babble 23
What Is Linguistics? 25
What Are the Branches of Linguistics? 26
Summary 27
What Do You Think? REVISITED 28
Exercises 29
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 31
Other Resources 32
Internet 32
Films and Videos 33
Suggestions for Further Reading 34
Advanced Reading 34
References 34
Part One
Language Structures 37
Chapter 2 | Words and Their Parts: Lexicon and Morphology 38
What Do You Think? 38
Introduction: Words Are Tangible 39
What Does It Mean to Know a Word? 39
Lexical Categories (Parts of Speech) 40
How to Identify Lexical Categories 40
Verbs 41
Nouns 42
Adjectives 42
Pronouns 42
Determiners 43
Prepositions and Postpositions 44
Adverbs 44
Conjunctions 45
Morphemes Are Word Parts That Carry Meaning 46
Morphemes Can Be Free or Bound 46
Morphemes That Derive Other Words 47
Inflectional Morphemes 49
How Are Morphemes Organized Within Words? 49
Morphemes Are Ordered in Sequence 49
Morphemes Can Be Discontinuous 50
Portmanteau Words Contain Merged Morphemes 50
Morphemes Are Layered Within Words 50
How Does a Language Increase Its Vocabulary? 52
Some Word Classes Are Open, Some Closed 52
How to Derive New Words 52
Compounds 54
Shortening 55
Back Formation 57
Conversion or Functional Shift 57
Semantic Shift 57
Borrowed Words 58
Inventing Words 59
What Types of Morphological Systems Do Languages Have? 60
Isolating Morphology 60
Agglutinating Morphology 61
Inflectional Morphology 61
Variant Pronunciations of a Morpheme: Allomorphy 65
Summary 68
What Do You Think? REVISITED 68
Exercises 69
Practice Exercise 69
Based on English 70
Based on Languages Other Than English 73
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 77
Other Resources 78
Internet 78
Suggestions for Further Reading 79
Advanced Reading 79
References 80
Chapter 3 | The Sounds of Languages: Phonetics 81
What Do You Think? 81
Sounds and Spellings: Not the Same Thing 82
Same Spelling, Different Pronunciations 82
Same Pronunciation, Different Spellings 82
Whys and Wherefores of Sound/Spelling Discrepancies 83
Phonetics: The Study of Sounds 86
Phonetic Alphabets 86
The Vocal Tract 86
Describing Consonant Sounds 89
Voicing 89
Manner of Articulation 90
Place of Articulation 90
Kinds of Consonant Sounds 91
Stops 91
Fricatives 92
Affricates 93
Obstruents 93
Approximants 94
Nasals 94
Clicks, Flaps, Trills 95
Vowel Sounds 96
Vowel Height and Frontness 96
Diphthongs 97
Other Articulatory Features of Vowels 97
Summary 102
What Do You Think? REVISITED 103
Exercises 104
Practice Exercise 104
Based on English 104
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 108
Other Resources 109
Internet 109
Suggestions for Further Reading 109
Chapter 4 | Sound Systems of Language: Phonology 111
What Do You Think? 111
Introduction: Sounds in the Mind 112
Phonemes and Allophones 114
Distribution of Allophones 116
Phonological Rules and Their Structure 119
Generalizing Phonological Rules 120
Natural Classes of Sounds 122
Underlying Forms 122
Rule Ordering 123
Syllables and Syllable Structure 126
Sequence Constraints 128
Stress 130
Syllables and Stress in Phonological Processes 131
Morphology and Phonology Interaction: Allomorphy 132
English Plural, Possessive, and Third-Person Singular Morphemes 132
English Past-Tense Morpheme 134
Underlying Phonological Form of Morphemes in the Lexicon 135
What the Brain Knows in Going from Lexical Entries to Surface Realizations 138
Summary 139
What Do You Think? REVISITED 140
Exercises 141
Practice Exercise 141
Based on English 142
Based on Languages Other Than English 144
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 147
Other Resources 148
Internet 148
Suggestions for Further Reading 149
Advanced Reading 149
References 150
Chapter 5 | The Structure and Function of Phrases and Sentences: Syntax 151
What Do You Think? 151
Introduction 152
Constituency 153
Tree Diagrams 153
Major Constituents of Sentences: Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases 155
Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase 156
Active and Passive Sentences 157
Testing Constituency 158
Phrase-Structure Expansions 160
Expanding Noun Phrase 160
Expanding Prepositional Phrase 160
Expanding Sentence and Verb Phrase 161
Phrase-Structure Expansions and Tree Diagrams 162
Grammatical Relations: Subject, Direct Object, and Others 163
Immediate Dominance 163
Subject and Direct Object 164
Grammatical Relations 165
Passive Sentences and Structure Dependence 165
Surface Structures and Underlying Structures 165
Syntactic Operations: Question Formation and the Auxiliary 166
Embedded Clauses 168
Relative Clauses 170
COMP Node 171
Types of Syntactic Operations 173
Functions of Syntactic Operations 173
Yes/No Questions and Echo Questions 174
Active and Passive Structures 174
Recursion and Novel Sentences 175
Summary 176
What Do You Think? REVISITED 177
Exercises 178
Practice Exercises 178
Based on English 178
Based on Languages Other Than English 183
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 184
Other Resources 185
Suggestions for Further Reading 185
Advanced Reading 185
References 186
Chapter 6 | The Study of Meaning: Semantics 187
What Do You Think? 187
Introduction 188
What Is Meaning? 188
Linguistic, Social, and Affective Meaning 189
Linguistic Meaning 190
Social Meaning 191
Affective Meaning 191
Word, Sentence, and Utterance Meaning 193
Meaning of Words and Sentences 193
Scope of Word Meaning 193
Meaning of Utterances 194
Lexical Semantics 195
Semantic Fields 196
Hyponymy 197
Meronymy: Part/Whole Relationships 199
Synonymy 200
Antonymy 201
Converseness 202
Polysemy and Homonymy 203
Metaphors 205
Lexical Semantics: Discovering Relationships in the Lexicon 207
Function Words and Categories of Meaning 207
Tense and Modality 207
Reference 209
Deixis 209
Semantic Roles and Sentence Meaning 214
Semantic Roles and Grammatical Relations 217
Summary 221
What Do You Think? REVISITED 222
Exercises 223
Practice Exercise 223
Based on English 224
Based on English and Other Languages 226
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 228
Other Resources 228
Internet 228
Suggestions for Further Reading 229
Advanced Reading 230
References 230
Chapter 7 | Language Universals and Language Typology 231
What Do You Think? 231
Similarity and Diversity Across Languages 232
Why Uncover Universals? 232
Language Types 233
Semantic Universals 234
Pronouns 235
Phonological Universals 238
Vowel Systems 238
Nasal and Oral Vowels 240
Consonants 241
Syntactic and Morphological Universals 242
Word Order 242
Possessor and Possessed Noun Phrases 243
Prepositions and Postpositions 244
Relative Clauses 244
Overall Patterns of Ordering 245
Relativization Hierarchy 246
Types of Language Universals 248
Absolute Universals and Universal Tendencies 248
Implicational and Nonimplicational Universals 249
Explanations for Language Universals 249
Original Language Hypothesis 249
Universals and Perception 250
Acquisition and Processing Explanations 250
Social Explanations 251
Language Universals, Universal Grammar, and Language Acquisition 252
Summary 255
What Do You Think? REVISITED 256
Exercises 257
Practice Exercise 257
Based on English and Other Languages 258
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 264
Other Resources 264
Suggestions for Further Reading 264
Advanced Reading 264
References 264
Part Two
Language Use 267
Chapter 8 | Information Structure and Pragmatics 268
What Do You Think? 268
Introduction: Encoding Information Structure 269
Categories of Information Structure 270
Given Information and New Information 271
Topics 273
Contrast 274
Definite and Indefinite Expressions 275
Referential Expressions 278
Generic and Specific Expressions 278
Categories of Information Structure 279
Information Structure: Intonation, Morphology, Syntax 279
New-Information Stress 279
Information Structure Morphemes 280
Fronting 281
Left-Dislocation 282
It Clefts and wh Clefts 283
Passives 285
Word Order 287
The Relationship of Sentences to Discourse: Pragmatics 288
Summary 290
What Do You Think? REVISITED 291
Exercises 292
Based on English 292
Based on Languages Other Than English 295
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 298
Other Resources 299
Internet 299
Suggestions for Further Reading 299
Advanced Reading 299
References 300
Chapter 9 | Speech Acts and Conversation 301
What Do You Think? 301
Language in Use 302
Sentence Structure and the Function of Utterances 303
Speech Acts 304
Types of Speech Act 304
Locutions and Illocutions 305
Distinguishing Among Speech Acts 305
Appropriateness Conditions and Successful Declarations 306
The Cooperative Principle 307
Maxim of Quantity 308
Maxim of Relevance 309
Maxim of Manner 309
Maxim of Quality 310
Violations of the Cooperative Principle 310
Indirect Speech Acts 310
Politeness 312
Respecting Independence and Showing Involvement 313
Speech Events 313
The Organization of Conversation 314
Turn Taking and Pausing 315
Adjacency Pairs 317
Opening Sequences 320
Closing Sequences 321
Conversational Routines 323
Repairs 323
Politeness: An Organizational Force in Conversation 324
Cross-Cultural Communication 325
Summary 326
What Do You Think? REVISITED 327
Exercises 327
Based on English 327
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 331
Other Resources 332
Internet 332
Video 333
Suggestions for Further Reading 333
Advanced Reading 333
References 334
Chapter 10 | Language Variation Across Situations of Use: Registers and Styles 335
What Do You Think? 335
Introduction 336
Language Varies Within a Speech Community 336
Language Choice in Multilingual Societies 336
Linguistic Repertoires in Brussels, Tehran, and Los Angeles 336
Switching Varieties Within a Language 337
Speech Situations 338
Elements of a Speech Situation 338
Registers in Monolingual Societies 340
Markers of Register 341
Lexical Markers of Register 341
Grammatical Markers of Register 345
Semantic Markers of Register 346
Similarities and Differences Between Spoken and Written Registers 349
Two Registers Compared 351
Lexicon and Grammar 353
Phonology 356
Comparing Registers 356
Summary 357
What Do You Think? REVISITED 358
Exercises 359
Based on English 359
Based on English and Other Languages 365
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 365
Other Resources 366
Internet 366
Suggestions for Further Reading 366
Advanced Reading 367
References 368
Chapter 11 | Language Variation Among Social Groups: Dialects 369
What Do You Think? 369
Language or Dialect: Which Do You Speak? 370
Social Boundaries and Dialects 370
Distinguishing Among Dialect, Register, and Accent 370
How Do Languages Diverge and Merge? 371
Language Merger in an Indian Village 372
Language/Dialect Continua 373
National Varieties of English 373
American and British National Varieties 374
Regional Varieties of American English 376
Mapping Dialects 377
Dialect Boundaries 381
Dictionary of American Regional English 382
The Atlas of North American English 384
Vowel Mergers 384
Vowel Shifts 385
ANAE Findings 387
Ethnic Varieties of American English 389
African-American English 389
Chicano English 392
Ethnic Varieties and Social Identification 393
Socioeconomic Status Varieties: English, French, and Spanish 394
New York City 394
Norwich, England 398
Montreal, Canada 399
Argentina 399
General Comments 399
The Language Varieties of Women and Men 400
Why Do Stigmatized Varieties Persist? 402
Summary 404
What Do You Think? REVISITED 405
Exercises 406
Based on English 406
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 409
Other Resources 411
Internet 411
Video and Audio 412
Suggestions for Further Reading 413
Advanced Reading 414
References 414
Part Three
Language Change, Language Development, and Language Acquisition 417
Chapter 12 | Language Change Over Time: Historical Linguistics 418
What Do You Think? 418
Do Living Languages Always Change? 419
Language Families and the Indo-European Family 420
How to Reconstruct the Linguistic Past 422
Polynesian and Pacific Background 422
Polynesian Languages and Their History 424
Comparative Reconstruction 426
Reconstructing the Proto-Polynesian Vocabulary 429
Historical Linguistics and Prehistory 433
What Are the Language Families of the World? 433
Counting Speakers and Languages 433
The Indo-European Family 435
The Sino-Tibetan Family 441
The Austronesian Family 441
The Afroasiatic Family 442
The Three Major Language Families of Sub-Saharan Africa 443
Other Language Families of Asia and Europe 443
Native American Languages 446
Languages of Aboriginal Australia 448
Papuan Languages 448
Nostratic Macrofamily 449
Languages in Contact 449
Multilingualism 449
Summary 455
What Do You Think? REVISITED 455
Exercises 456
Based on Languages Other Than English 456
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 459
Other Resources 460
Internet 460
Video 460
Suggestions for Further Reading 461
Advanced Reading 461
References 461
Chapter 13 | Historical Development in English 463
What Do You Think? 463
A Thousand Years of Change 464
Where Does English Come From? 466
English Is a Germanic Language 467
Morphology and Syntax in Indo-European 468
Periods in the History of English 469
Old English: 700–1100 469
Old English Script 469
Old English Sounds 471
Old English Vocabulary and Morphology 471
Inflections and Word Order in Old English 476
Companions of Angels: A Narrative in Old English 478
Vocabulary in the Narrative 479
Grammar: Syntax and Morphology in the Narrative 479
Text Structure of the Narrative 479
Middle English: 1100–1500 480
The Norman Invasion 480
Middle English Vocabulary 480
Middle English Sounds 481
Middle English Inflections 481
Middle English Word Order 483
Where Men and Women Go All Naked: A Middle English Travel Fable 484
Vocabulary in the Fable 484
Morphology in the Fable 484
Syntax in the Fable 486
Modern English: 1500–Present 486
Early and Late Modern English 486
Phonology: The English Vowel Shift 487
Modern English Morphology 488
Modern English Word Order 490
Modern English Vocabulary 491
Summary 493
What Do You Think? REVISITED 493
Exercises 494
Other Resources 497
Internet 497
Video and Audio 497
Suggestions for Further Reading 497
Advanced Reading 498
References 498
Chapter 14 | Acquiring First and Second Languages 499
What Do You Think? 499
Introduction 500
Acquiring a First Language 501
Principles of Language Acquisition 502
Adult Input in Language Acquisition 503
Stages of Language Acquisition 506
How Do Children Acquire Morphology and Grammar? 509
How Fast Do Children Acquire Vocabulary? 511
How Do Children Acquire the Sounds of Language? 511
How Do Researchers Study Language Acquisition? 515
Receptive Competence and Productive Competence 516
Wugs and Other Experimental Techniques 517
Acquiring a Second Language 517
First and Second Languages 517
Comparing First- and Second-Language Acquisition 518
The Role of Motivation in Second-Language Learning 519
The Role of Attitudes in Second-Language Learning 520
Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages 521
Summary 524
What Do You Think? REVISITED 525
Exercises 525
Especially for Educators and Future Teachers 527
Other Resources 528
Internet 528
Videos 528
Suggestions for Further Reading 528
Advanced Reading 529
References 529
Glossary 531
Index 545
Index of Languages 557
Index of Internet Sites, Films and Videos 561
Credits 563
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A Word about Phonetic Transcription
Custom in the United States favors a modified version of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and the considerable variation in published sources makes it desirable for students to appreciate that in any given treatment they must determine what the symbols stand for. To minimize differences across treatments in textbooks, dictionaries, and elsewhere, many linguists favor the IPA, more or less strictly. As in all matters linguistic, prescription must yield to practice. While generally preferring IPA symbols once they have been introduced in Chapter 3, I occasionally use alternative symbols after that, hoping that in this fashion students will be better prepared for real-world practice, including the ordinary use of dictionaries; nevertheless, IPA symbols predominate throughout this edition.
Workbook and Answer Keys
Accompanying this sixth edition of LISU is a new edition of Looking at Languages: A Workbook in Elementary Linguistics by Paul Frommer and me. Among other additions and enhancements, it contains two problems on Na’vi, the language created by Paul Frommer and spoken by the inhabitants of Pandora in
the film Avatar. The workbook (nicknamed LOLA) is useful in helping students review, apply, and extend basic concepts. Spoken-language files to accompany many of the workbook exercises are available on the LISU website via http:// www.CengageBrain.com. I encourage instructors to urge students to bookmark the LISU and LOLA websites once they click their way through to them the first time. Answer keys for LISU and LOLA are available to instructors from the publisher.
Acknowledgments
I have relied on many scholars whose work provided a footing from which to address topics in LISU. References in each chapter hint at the range of scholarship I’ve invoked, and I am also indebted to the many whose work has influenced me but cannot be cited conveniently or realistically in an introductory book. I am grateful to readers of earlier editions for helpful comments and suggestions: Michael Adams and his students, John Algeo, Joseph Aoun, Anthony Aristar, Dwight Atkinson, Robin Belvin, Douglas Biber, Betty Birner, Dede Boden, Larry Bouton, Leger Brosnahan, William Brown, Paul Bruthiaux, Ronald Butters and his students, Dani Byrd, Steve Chandler, Bernard Comrie, Jeff Connor-Linton, Janet Cowal, Marianne Cooley, Carlo Coppola, Katherine Crosswhite, Nicole Dehé, Jakob Dempsey, John Dienhart, David Dineen, Alessandro Duranti, Paul Fallon, Geoff Finch, Andreas Fischer, Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Paul Frommer, John B. Gatewood, Peter Gingiss, John Hagge, Jim Hlavac, John Hedgcock, Kaoru Horie, José Hualde, Larry Hyman, Yamuna Kachru, Christine Kakava, William A. Kretzschmar, Juliet Langman, Peter Lazar, Audrey Li, Ronald Macaulay and his students, Joseph L. Malone, Erica McClure, Sam Mchombo, David Mortensen, James Nattinger, Emily Nava, Michael Newman, Thomas Nunnally, John Oller, Ingo Plag, Timothy J. Pulju, Doug Pulleyblank, Vai Ramanathan, Angela Reyes, Gregory C. Richter, La Vergne Rosow, Johanna Rubba, Robert Seward, Trevor Shanklin, Harold F. Schiffman, Deborah Schmidt, Barbara Speicher, Giedrius Subacius, Chad Thompson, Gunnel Tottie, Edward Vajda, Robert R. van Oirsouw, Heidi Waltz, Charlotte Webb, Rebecca Wheeler, Roger Woodard, Anthony Woodbury, Thomas E. Young, and Rüdiger Zimmermann.
I appreciate data provided by Marwan Aoun, Zeina el-Imad Aoun, Dwight Atkinson, Makela Brizuela, Liou Hsien-Chin, Yeon-Hee Choi, Du Tsai-Chwun, Nan-hsin Du, Jin Hong Gang, José Hualde, Yumiko Kiguchi, Yong-Jin Kim, Won-Pyo Lee, Christopher Long, Mohammed Mohammed, Phil Morrow, Masagara Ndinzi, Charles Paus, Minako Seki, Don Stilo, and Bob Wu.
I received thoughtful and much appreciated recommendations from the commissioned reviewers for this edition: Susan Garrett of Goucher College, Peter Gingiss of the University of Houston, Joseph J. Lee of Georgia State University, Thomas E. Nunnally of Auburn University, Caroline Payant of Georgia State University, and Christopher D. Sapp of the University of Mississippi.
Julian Smalley contributed the photograph in Chapter 2 and Eric Du the one in Chapter 3. William Labov contributed the map in Figure 11-11. My appreciation to them for those graphics and to Jenny Ladefoged for sharing the
photograph in Chapter 1, permission for which comes from CBS Broadcasting. The photograph in Chapter 14, taken by me, shows Joanne Smalley talking with her 4-month-old daughter Anya Smalley Lowe.
Publishers increasingly acknowledge their staff and the freelancers who contribute centrally to making a textbook all that it can be. I applaud that acknowledgment. Under the leadership of Michael Rosenberg, the publisher, Michael Lepera of Cengage and Beth Kluckhohn of PreMedia Global have been the consummate book production professionals; Marissa Falco, as the art director at Cengage, coordinated the creation of the beautiful cover; Janine Tangney, media editor at Cengage, developed the website content and eBook; and Erin Bosco was the ever-efficient and accommodating assistant editor.
A special word of thanks to Joan M. Flaherty, whose patience and guidance in her role as development editor for this edition are greatly appreciated.
For countless technical contributions and beams of solid support over the years, I am grateful to Julian Smalley, my spouse.
