Ps music continuing problem answers

The first eight editions of An Introduction to Language succeeded, with the help of dedicated teachers, in introducing the nature of human language to tens of thousands of students. This is a book that students enjoy and understand and that professors find effective and thorough. Not only have majors in lin- guistics benefited from the book’s easy-to-read yet comprehensive presentation, majors in fields as diverse as teaching English as a second language, foreign lan- guage studies, general education, psychology, sociology, and anthropology have enjoyed learning about language from this book.

Highlights of This Edition This edition includes new developments in linguistics and related fields that will strengthen its appeal to a wider audience. Much of this information will enable students to gain insight and understanding about linguistic issues and debates appearing in the national media and will help professors and students stay cur- rent with important linguistic research. We hope that it may also dispel certain common misconceptions that people have about language and language use.

Many more exercises (240) are available in this edition than ever before, allowing students to test their comprehension of the material in the text. Many of the exercises are multipart, amounting to more than 300 opportunities for “homework” so that instructors can gauge their student’s progress. Some exer- cises are marked as “challenge” questions if they go beyond the scope of what is

Preface Well, this bit which I am writing, called Introduction, is really the er-h’r’m of the book, and I have put it in, partly so as not to take you by surprise, and partly because I can’t do without it now. There are some very clever writers who say that it is quite easy not to have an er-h’r’m, but I don’t agree with them. I think it is much easier not to have all the rest of the book.

A. A. MILNE, Now We Are Six, 1927

The last thing we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.

BLAISE PASCAL (1623–1662)

xiv PREFACE

ordinarily expected in a first course in language study. An answer key is avail- able to instructors to assist them in areas outside of their expertise.

The Introduction, “Brain and Language,” retains its forward placement in the book because we believe that one can learn about the brain through lan- guage, and about the nature of the human being through the brain. This chapter may be read and appreciated without technical knowledge of linguistics. When the centrality of language to human nature is appreciated, students will be motivated to learn more about human language, and about linguistics, because they will be learning more about themselves. As in the previous edition, highly detailed illustrations of MRI and PET scans of the brain are included, and this chapter highlights some of the new results and tremendous progress in the study of neurolinguistics over the past few years. The arguments for the autonomy of language in the human brain are carefully crafted so that the student sees how experimental evidence is applied to support scientific theories.

Chapters 1 and 2, on morphology and syntax, have been heavily rewritten for increased clarity, while weaving in new results that reflect current thinking on how words and sentences are structured and understood. In particular, the chapter on syntax continues to reflect the current views on binary branching, heads and complements, selection, and X-bar phrase structure. Non-English examples abound in these two chapters and throughout the entire book. The intention is to enhance the student’s understanding of the differences among languages as well as the universal aspects of grammar. Nevertheless, the intro- ductory spirit of these chapters is not sacrificed, and students gain a deep under- standing of word and phrase structure with a minimum of formalisms and a maximum of insightful examples and explanations, supplemented as always by quotes, poetry, and humor.

Chapter 3, on semantics or meaning, has been more highly structuralized so that the challenging topics of this complex subject can be digested in smaller pieces. Still based on the theme of “What do you know about meaning when you know a language?”, the chapter first introduces students to truth-conditional semantics and the principle of compositionality. Following that are discussions of what happens when compositionality fails, as with idioms, metaphors, and anomalous sentences. Lexical semantics takes up various approaches to word