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Gender is a fascinating category, central and pervasive in some languages and totally absent in others. In this new, comprehensive account of gender systems, over 200 languages are discussed, from English and Russian to Archi and Chichewa. Detailed analysis of individual languages provides clear illustrations of specific types of system.

This lively introduction to figurative language develops new analytical tools and proposes a cohesive view of a broad range of concepts, including metaphor, metonymy, simile, and irony. Comprehensive and practical, the book provides definitions of major concepts, offers in-depth analysis of examples and surveys figurative structures in different discourse genres.

The definitive introduction to relevance theory. It covers the theory from the basics up, building a complete picture and providing the basis for further research in one, easy-to-read textbook. Worked examples in the text support student learning and exercises test understanding.

Analyzing Sound Patterns is a clear and concise introduction to phonological phenomena, covering a wide range of issues from segmental to suprasegmental problems and prosodic morphology. Assuming no prior knowledge of problem solving, this textbook shows students how to analyze phonological problems with a focus on practical tools, methodology and step-by-step instructions. It is aimed at undergraduate and beginning graduate students and places an instructional focus on developing students' analytical abilities. It includes extensive exercises of various types which engage students in reading and evaluating competing analyses, and involves students in a variety of analytical tasks. This textbook: * is designed around related phonological problems and demonstrates how they are analyzed step by step * presents and compares competing accounts of identical problems, and discusses and evaluates the arguments that distinguish one analysis from another * details how a broad array of sound patterns are identified and analyzed.

Corpus linguistics is the study of language data on a large scale - the computer-aided analysis of very extensive collections of transcribed utterances or written texts. This textbook outlines the basic methods of corpus linguistics, explains how the discipline of corpus linguistics developed and surveys the major approaches to the use of corpus data. It uses a broad range of examples to show how corpus data has led to methodological and theoretical innovation in linguistics in general. Clear and detailed explanations lay out the key issues of method and theory in contemporary corpus linguistics. A structured and coherent narrative links the historical development of the field to current topics in 'mainstream' linguistics. Practical tasks and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter encourage students to test their understanding of what they have read and an extensive glossary provides easy access to definitions of technical terms used in the text.

This useful textbook serves as a guide to different types of language acquisition: monolingual and bilingual first language development and child and adult second language acquisition. The essential guide to studying first and second language acquisition, it will be used on courses in linguistics, modern languages and developmental psychology.

Stylistics is the linguistic study of style in language. It aims to account for how texts project meaning, how readers construct meaning and why readers respond to texts in the way that they do. This book is an introduction to stylistics that locates it firmly within the traditions of linguistics. Organised to reflect the historical development of stylistics from its origins in Russian formalism, the book covers key principles such as foregrounding theory, as well as more recent developments in cognitive stylistics. It includes an examination of both literary and non-literary texts, and substantial coverage of methodologies for stylistic analysis. Throughout the book, the emphasis is on the practicalities of producing stylistic analyses that are objective, replicable and falsifiable. Comprehensive in its coverage and assuming no prior knowledge of the topic, Stylistics will be essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students new to this fascinating area of language study.

Since the publication of F. R. Palmer's first edition of Mood and Modality in 1986, when the topic of 'modality' was fairly unfamiliar, there has been considerable interest in the subject. In this book, Palmer investigates the category of modality, drawing on a wealth of examples from a wide variety of languages.

Agreement in language relates to the correspondence between words in a sentence, in terms of gender, case, person, or number. This textbook offers an insight into how agreement works, and how it varies cross-linguistically. It will be essential reading for all those studying the structure and mechanisms of natural languages.

Language is a skill that young children master with incredible ease and speed, and the remarkable way in which they achieve this has long fascinated linguists and developmental psychologists alike. This accessible new textbook introduces the field of child language acquisition, exploring language development from birth.

Understanding Minimalism, first published in 2005, is an introduction to the Minimalist Program - the model of syntactic theory within generative linguistics. Accessibly written, it presents the basic principles and techniques of the minimalist program in a step-by-step fashion. Over 100 exercises are provided, encouraging students to put these new skills into practice.

This is an introduction to the phonology of present-day English, dealing with three varieties of English: 'General American', Southern British 'Received Pronunciation' and 'Scottish Standard English'.

Semantics is a bridge discipline between linguistics and philosophy; but students are rarely able to reach that bridge, let alone cross it to inspect and assess the activity on the other side. Professor Kempston's textbook deals with the standard linguistic topics such as componential analysis, semantic universals and the syntax-semantics controversy.

This book provides a clear and accessible introduction to formal, and especially Montague, semantics within a linguistic framework.

Frank Palmer's new book is a typological survey of grammatical roles, such as Agent and Patient, and grammatical relations, such as Subject and Direct Object. A great wealth of examples is used to show that the grammatical systems of the familiar European languages are far from typical of many of the world's languages.

This new edition of Richard Hudson's widely acclaimed textbook Sociolinguistics will be welcomed by students and teachers alike. To reflect changes in the field since publication of the first edition in 1980, the author has added new sections on politeness, accommodation, and prototypes; and he has expanded discussion of sex differences, culture and general theory. There remains coverage of classic topics such as varieties of language, speech as social interaction, the quantitative study of speech, and linguistic and social inequality. Like the first, the second edition of Sociolinguistics is an exceptionally clear and helpful overview of the relationship of language and society.

Alessandro Duranti introduces linguistic anthropology as an interdisciplinary field which studies language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice. Linguistic Anthropology will appeal to both undergraduates and graduate students.

This is a general introduction to grammaticalization, the change whereby lexical terms and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions, and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. The authors synthesize work from several areas of linguistics, including historical linguistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics. Data are drawn from many languages including Ewe, Finnish, French, Hindi, Hittite, Japanese, Malay, and especially English. This 2003 second edition has been thoroughly revised with substantial updates on theoretical and methodological issues that have arisen in the decade since the first edition, and includes a significantly expanded bibliography. Particular attention is paid to recent debates over directionality in change and the role of grammaticalization in creolization. Grammaticalization will be a valuable and stimulating textbook for all linguists interested in the development of grammatical forms and will also be of interest to readers in anthropology and psychology.

This authoritative 2003 textbook provides a linguistic perspective on second language acquisition. It argues for a role for Universal Grammar in second language acquisition. Theories as to the role of Universal Grammar and the extent of language transfer are presented and discussed, together with relevant empirical research.

Cognitive Linguistics argues that language is governed by general cognitive principles, rather than by a special-purpose language module. This introductory textbook surveys the field of cognitive linguistics, presenting its theoretical foundations and the arguments supporting it. Clearly organised and accessibly written, it provides a useful introduction to this fast-growing area.

An introduction to the general linguistic study of aspect. Topics covered include the relation of tense and aspect, the morphology and the semantics of aspect, and structuralist and philosophical approaches. The first study of aspect as a general linguistic phenomenon, it is intended for students of individual languages and linguistics.

This is an updated and substantially revised edition of Peter Matthews's well-known Morphology, first published in 1974. It includes chapters on inflectional and lexical morphology, derivational processes and productivity, compounds, paradigms, and much new material on markedness and other aspects of iconicity. As in the first edition, the theoretical discussion is eclectic and critical: its scope ranges from the ancient grammarians to the work of Chomsky and his followers, the disintegration of the classical Chomskyan scheme, and the renewed standing of morphology and historical linguistics in recent years. The examples are drawn from English and other European languages, ancient and modern. The work will appeal both to specialists in particular languages - it contains much original material - and students of general linguistics. For this new edition much now obsolete discussion has been removed and replaced by discussion of current trends, and the further reading sections have been thoroughly updated.

Those aspects of language use that are crucial to an understanding of language as a system, and especially to an understanding of meaning, are the acknowledged concern of linguistic pragmatics. This textbook provides a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics - deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. A central concern of the book is the relation between pragmatics and semantics, and Dr Levinson shows clearly how a pragmatic approach can resolve some of the problems semantics have been confronting and simplifying semantic analyses. The exposition is always clear and supported by helpful exemplification. The detailed analyses of selected topics give the student a clear view of the empirical rigour demanded by the study of linguistic pragmatics, but Dr Levinson never loses sight of the rich diversity of the subject. An introduction and conclusion relate pragmatics to other fields in linguistics and other disciplines concerned with language usage - psychology, philosophy, anthropology and literature.

This book, first published in 2000, provides an introduction to the grammatical category of number, surveying many languages to reveal that the world's linguistic resources are richer than even many linguists realise. Aimed at linguistic students, it is the first book-length treatment of this topic and can serve as an entry to linguistic typology.

This textbook deals with the grammatical category of person. Drawing on data from over 700 languages, it compares the use of person across different languages, examines the factors underlying this variation, and looks at different types of person forms in the grammatical and social contexts in which they are used.

When first published in 1986, this book was the first to survey intonation in all its aspects, both in English and universally. This updated edition remains the basic reference book on the subject for linguists, phoneticians, speech therapists and all those concerned with speech in any way.

William Croft presents a comprehensive introduction to the method and theory used in studying typology and universals. The second edition of this essential textbook has been thoroughly rewritten and updated to reflect advances in typology and universals in the past decade.

When first published in 1980, Dialectology broke new ground by integrating urban dialectology (sociolinguistics), dialect geography and spatial variation into a cohesive discipline. As a comprehensive account of all aspects of dialectology this updated edition makes an ideal introduction to the subject.

Interest in word-formation is probably as old as interest in language itself. As Dr Bauer points out in his Introduction, many of the questions that scholars are asking now were also being asked in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there is still little agreement on methodology in the study of word-formation or theoretical approaches to it; even the kind of data relevant to its study is open to debate. Dr Bauer here provides students and general linguists alike with a new perspective on what is a confused and often controversial field of study, providing a resolution to the terminological confusion which currently reigns in this area. In doing so, he clearly demonstrates the challenge and intrinsic fascination of the study of word-formation. Linguists have recently become increasingly aware of the relevance of word-formation to work in syntax and semantics, phonology and morphology, and Dr Bauer discusses - within a largely synchronic and transformational framework - the theoretical issues involved. He considers topics where word-formation has a contribution to make to other areas of linguistics and, without pretending to provide a fully-fledged theory of word-formation, develops those points which he sees as being central to its study. The book draws on a wide range of sources, and general points are illustrated from a variety of languages. As the title suggests, though, the exposition is principally illustrated with material drawn from English, including close analysis of a number of sets of neologisms. A survey of the types of word-formation found in English is also included. Some background in linguistics is assumed, but students of linguistics and English language with no previous knowledge of word-formation or of morphology at all will find English Word-Formation an accessible and stimulating textbook.