CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1 What is linguistics? 1
1.1 Definition 1
1.2 The scope of linguistics 2
1.3 Some important distinctions in linguistics 5
2 What is language? 9
2.1 Definitions of language 9
2.2 Design features 13
Review questions 17
Suggested answers 17
CHAPTER 2 PHONOLOGY 20
1 The phonic medium of language 20
2 Phonetics 21
2.1 What is phonetics? 21
2.2 Organs of speech 22
2.3 Orthographic representation of speech sounds 23
2.4 Classification of English speech sounds 26
3 Phonology 31
3.1 Phonology and phonetics 31
3.2 Phone,phoneme,and allophone 33
3.3 Phonemic contrast,complementary distribution,and minimal pair 35
3.4 Some rules in phonology 36
3.5 Suprasegmental features—stress,tone,intonation 38
Review questions 41
Suggested answers 43
CHAPTER 3 MORPHOLOGY 46
1 Definition 46
2 Morpheme 47
2.1 Morpheme:the smallest meaningful unit of language 47
2.2 Types of morphemes 49
3 Compounding 54
3.1 Types of compound words 55
3.2 Features of compounds 56
Review questions 58
Suggested answers 59
CHAPTER 4 SYNTAX 63
1 Syntax as a system of rules 64
2 Sentence structure 65
2.1 The basic components of a sentence 65
2.2 Types of sentences 66
2.3 The linear and hierarchical structures of sentences 69
3 Syntactic categories 72
3.1 Lexical categories 73
3.2 Phrasal categories 73
4 Grammatical relations 74
5 Combinational rules 76
5.1 Phrase structure rules 77
5.2 X-bar theory 79
6 Syntactic movement and movement rules 81
6.1 NP-movement 81
6.2 WH-movement 82
6.3 AUX-movement 83
6.4 D-structure and S-structure 83
6.5 Move α—a general movement rule 84
7 Toward a theory of universal grammar 84
7.1 The General principles of Universal Grammar 85
7.2 The parameters of Universal Grammar 86
Review questions 87
Suggested answers 89
CHAPTER 5 SEMANTICS 94
1 What is semantics? 94
2 Some views concerning the study of meaning 94
2.1 The naming theory 95
2.2 The conceptualist view 95
2.3 The contextualist view 96
2.4 The behaviorist view 98
3 Lexical meaning 98
3.1 Sense and reference 99
3.2 Major sense relations 100
4 Sense relations between sentences 107
5 Analysis of meaning 109
5.1 Componential analysis—a way to analyze lexical meaning 109
5.2 Predication analysis—a way to analyze sentence meaning 110
Review questions 113
Suggested answers 115
CHAPTER 6 PRAGMATICS 117
1 What is pragmatics? 117
1.1 Definition 117
1.2 Pragmatics vs.Semantics 118
1.3 Context 119
1.4 Sentence meaning vs.utterance meaning 119
2 Speech act theory 121
3 Principle of conversation 127
Review questions 130
Suggested answers 131
CHAPTER 7 HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 133
1 The purpose and significance of the historical study of language 133
2 The nature of language change 134
3 The historical development of English 135
3.1 Major periods in the history of English 135
3.2 Linguistic change of English 139
4 Language family 155
4.1 Classifying genetically related languages 156
4.2 The Indo-European language family 158
5 The causes of language change 159
5.1 Sound assimilation 160
5.2 Rule simplification and regularization 161
5.3 Internal borrowing 162
5.4 Elaboration 163
5.5 Sociological triggers 164
5.6 Cultural transmission 164
5.7 Children's approximation toward the adult grammar 165
Review questions 166
Suggested answers 168
CHAPTER 8 SOCIOLINGUISTICS 172
1 Language variation 172
1.1 Speech community 173
1.2 Speech variety 174
1.3 Regional variation 175
1.4 Social variation 175
1.5 Stylistic variation 176
1.6 Idiolectal variation 177
2 Standard and nonstandard language 177
2.1 The nature of standard and nonstandard language 178
2.2 Lingua franca 179
2.3 Pidgin 180
2.4 Creole 181
3 Diglossia and bilingualism 181
3.1 Diglossia 182
3.2 Bilingualism 183
4 Ethnic dialect 184
5 Social dialect 186
5.1 Education varieties 186
5.2 Age varieties 187
5.3 Gender varieties 188
5.4 Sexist language 189
5.5 Register varieties 191
5.6 Address terms 194
5.7 Slang 196
5.8 Linguistic taboo 197
5.9 Euphemism 199
Review questions 201
Suggested answers 203
CHAPTER 9 PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 207
1 The biological foundations of language 207
1.1 The human brain 208
1.2 Brain lateralization 209
2 Linguistic lateralization 210
2.1 Left hemispheric dominance for language 210
2.2 Dichotic listening research 211
3 The language centers 212
3.1 Broca's area 212
3.2 Wernicke's area 213
3.3 The angular gyrus 214
3.4 Language perception,comprehension and production 214
4 The critical period for language acquisition 215
5 Language and thought 217
5.1 Early views on language and thought 217
5.2 The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 218
5.3 Arguments against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 220
5.4 Understanding the relationship of language and thought 224
Review questions 228
Suggested answers 230
CHAPTER 10 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 234
1 First language acquisition 235
1.1 The biological basis of language acquisition 235
1.2 Language acquisition as the acquisition of gramma-tical rules 236
1.3 The role of input and interaction 237
1.4 The role of instruction 238
1.5 The role of correction and reinforcement 239
1.6 The role of imitation 241
2 Stages of first language acquisition 242
2.1 The prelinguistic stage 243
2.2 The one-word stage 244
2.3 The two-word stage 245
2.4 The multiword stage 247
3 The development of the grammatical system 249
3.1 The development of phonology 249
3.2 The development of syntax 250
3.3 The development of morphology 251
3.4 The development of vocabulary and semantics 252
4 Second language acquisition 253
4.1 Acquisition versus learning 254
4.2 Transfer and interference 255
4.3 Error Analysis and the natural route of SLA development 257
4.4 Interlanguage and fossilization 258
4.5 The role of input 259
4.6 The role of formal instruction 260
4.7 Individual learner factors 261
Review questions 265
Suggested answers 267
Model Test A 274
Model Test A—Suggested Answers 280
Model Test B 285
Model Test B—Suggested Answers 292
An English-Chinese Glossary 297