Detailed Contents
Inside Front Cover Consonant Phonemes of English, Vowel Phonemes of English, Phonetic Alphabet for American English
Inside Back Cover Brief Timeline for the History of the English Language
List of Symbols, Linguistic Conventions, and Common Abbreviations xviii
Preface to Instructors xxiii
Letter to Students xxix
Chapter 1 A Language like English 1
The Story of Aks 2
Language, Language Everywhere 4
The Power of Language 4
Name Calling 5
Judging by Ear 5
A Question to Discuss: What Makes Us Hear an Accent? 6
The System of Language 7
Arbitrariness and Systematicity 8
A Scholar to Know: Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) 9
Creativity 10
Grammar 11
Linguistics 12
Human Language versus Animal Communication 13
Birds and Bees 14
Chimps and Bonobos 15
Distinctive Characteristics of Human Language 18
The Process of Language Change 20
Language Genealogies 20
A Question to Discuss: Do Languages Have Families? 23
Mechanics of Language Change 23
Progress or Decay? 24
Attitudes about Language Change 25
Special Focus: Evolution of Human Language 26
Summary 30
Suggested Reading 30
Exercises 31
Chapter 2 Language and Authority 35
Who Is in Control? 36
Language Academies 36
Language Mavens 37
A Question to Discuss: Does the SAT Know Good Grammar from Bad? 39
Defining Standard English 40
Descriptive versus Prescriptive Grammar Rules 42
Case Study One: Double Negatives 43
Case Study Two: Ain't 43
Case Study Three: Who and Whom 44
The Status of Prescriptive Rules 45
Spoken versus Written Language 46
A Question to Discuss: Which Is More Permanent, the Written or Spoken Word? 46
Language and Society: Are We Losing Our Memories? 48
Dictionaries of English 48
The Earliest Dictionaries of English 48
The Beginnings of Modern Lexicography 49
Historical Lexicography 50
American Lexicography 51
A Question to Discuss: Should Dictionaries Ever Prescribe? 53
English Grammar, Usage, and Style 54
The Earliest Usage Books 54
Prescriptive versus Descriptive Tendencies in Grammars of English 54
Modern Approaches to English Usage 56
Special Focus: Corpus Linguistics 57
Origins of Corpus Linguistics 58
Corpus Linguistics in the Twenty-first Century 59
Summary 62
Suggested Reading 62
Exercises 63
Chapter 3 English Phonology 67
Phonetics and Phonology 68
The Anatomy of Speech 70
The International Phonetic Alphabet 72
English Consonants 73
Stops 74
Fricatives 75
Language Change at Work: Is /h/ Disappearing from English? 76
Affricates 73
A Question to Discuss: Does English Have Initial /Z/? 73
Language Change at Work: Who Drops Their g's? 77
Nasals 77
Liquids and Glides 77
Syllabic Consonants 78
English Vowels 79
Front Vowels 79
Back Vowels 80
Central Vowels 80
Diphthongs 81
Language Change at Work: The cot/caught and pin/pen Mergers 81
Natural Classes 82
Phonemes and Allophones 82
Sample Allophones 84
Minimal Pairs 85
Phonological Rules 86
Assimilation 86
Deletion 87
Insertion 87
Metathesis 87
Language Change at Work: Is larynx Undergoing Metathesis? 88
Syllables and Phonotactic Constraints 88
Perception of Sound 89
Special Focus: History of English Spelling 92
Should English Spelling Be Reformed? 94
Summary 95
Suggested Reading 95
Exercises 96
Chapter 4 English Morphology 104
Morphology 105
Open and Closed Classes of Morphemes 106
A Question to Discuss: Exceptions to the Closedness of Closed Classes? 108
Bound and Free Morphemes 110
Language Change at Work: Bound Morphemes Becoming Free 110
Inflectional and Derivational Bound Morphemes 111
Inflectional Morphemes 111
Derivational Morphemes 112
Language Change at Work: The Origins of Inflectional -s 112
Affixes and Combining Forms 113
Morphology Trees 114
A Question to Discuss: What about Complex Words That Seem to Have Only One Morpheme? 116
Ways of Forming English Words 116
Combining 117
Shortening 118
A Question to Discuss: Is It Clipping or Backformation? 119
Language Change at Work: Alice in Wonderland and the Portmanteau 120
Blending 120
Shifting 120
Language Change at Work: Success Rates for New Words 121
Reanalysis, Eggcorns, and Folk Etymology 121
Reduplication 122
Frequency of Different Word-Formation Processes 123
Borrowing and the Multicultural Vocabulary of English 123
A Question to Discuss: What's Wrong with amorality? 125
Special Focus: Slang and Creativity 126
Summary 128
Suggested Reading 129
Exercises 129
Chapter 5 English Syntax: The Grammar of Words 134
Syntax and Lexical Categories 135
Open-Class Lexical Categories 137
Nouns 137
Adjectives 139
Language Change at Work: Is It fish or fishes, oxen or oxes 140
A Question to Discuss: Am I Good or Well? 141
Verbs 142
A Question to Discuss: Did I Lie Down or Lay Down? 148
Adverbs 149
A Question to Discuss: If I Do Badly, Why Don't I Run Fastly? 150
Closed-Class Lexical Categories 151
Prepositions 151
Conjunctions 152
A Question to Discuss: What Is the up in call up? 152
Pronouns 153
Complementizers 155
Language Change at Work: Himself, Hisself, Hisownself 155
Determiners 156
Auxiliary Verbs 157
Challenges to Categorization 159
The Suffix -ing 159
Noun Modifiers 160
Yes and No 160
A Question to Discuss: What Can Phonology Reveal about Modifying -ing Forms? 160
Special Focus: Descriptive Syntax and Prescriptive Rules 161
Hopefully 161
Split Infinitive 162
Sentence-Final Prepositions 162
Its/It's 163
Singular Generic They 163
Summary 164
Suggested Reading 165
Exercises 165
Chapter 6 English Syntax: Phrases, Clauses, and Sentences 171
Generative Grammar 172
Universal Grammar 174
A Scholar to Know: Noam Chomsky (1928- ) 175
Constituents and Hierarchies 175
Constituent Hierarchies 176
Clauses and Sentences 176
Constituency Tests 177
Phrase Structure Rules 179
Form and Function 181
Clause Types 181
Basic Phrase Structure Trees 183
Complex Phrase Structure Trees 187
Adverbial Clauses 188
Relative Clauses 188
Language Change at Work: Which Is It, Which or That? 190
Complementizer Clauses 191
Reduced Subordinate Clauses 192
Infinitive Phrases 192
Gerund and Participial Phrases 193
Tense and Auxiliaries 194
A Question to Discuss: What Is the It in "It Is Raining"? 195
Transformations 195
Wh-Questions 196
Negation 196
Yes-No Questions 197
Tag Questions 198
Passive Constructions 198
A Question to Discuss: How Did This Passive Sentence Get Constructed? 199
Relative Pronoun Deletion 199
Phrasal Verb Particle Movement 200
Does Generative Grammar Succeed? 201
Special Focus: Syntax and Prescriptive Grammar 203
Sentence Fragments and Run-on Sentences 203
Colons, Semicolons, and Comma Splices 204
Dangling Participles 205
Summary 206
Suggested Reading 207
Exercises 207
Chapter 7 Semantics 214
Semantics 215
The Limits of Reference 217
The Role of Cognition 217
The Role of Linguistic Context 218
A Question to Discuss: How Do Function Words Mean? 218
The Role of Physical and Cultural Context 219
Language Change at Work: The Formation of Idioms 212
A Brief History of Theories of Reference 220
Deixis 220
Plato and Forms 221
Repairing Plato 221
From Reference to Discourse 222
From Reference to Translation 223
Componential Analysis 224
Lexical Fields 224
Hyponym to Homonym (and Other Nyms) 226
Hyponymy 226
Meronymy 227
Synonymy 228
Antonymy 228
Homonymy 229
A Question to Discuss: Does the Thesaurus Have a Bad Name? 230
Organization of the Mental Lexicon 230
Prototype Semantics 232
Lexical Prototype Semantics 232
Analogical Mapping 233
Conceptual Metaphor 233
The Intersection of Semantics, Syntax, and Discourse 234
Projection Rules 234
Thematic Roles 235
How Sentences Mean 236
Sentences and Context 236
Processes of Semantic Change 237
Generalization and Specialization 237
Metaphorical Extension 240
Euphemism and Dysphemism 240
Pejoration and Amelioration 241
Linguistic Relativity 242
Special Focus: Politically Correct Language 245
Summary 247
Suggested Reading 247
Exercises 248
Chapter 8 Spoken Discourse 251
Defining Discourse Analysis 252
Speech Act Theory: Accomplishing Things with Words 253
Scholars to Know: J. L. Austin (1911-1960) and John Searle (1932- ) 254
Components of Speech Acts 252
Direct and Indirect Speech Acts 256
Performative Speech Acts 257
Evaluating Speech Act Theory 259
The Cooperative Principle: Successfully Exchanging Information 260
Conversational Maxims 261
A Scholar to Know: Robin Tolmach Lakoff (1942-) 262
Conversational Implicature 262
A Question to Discuss: Entailment and Implicature 263
Relevance 264
Politeness and Face: Negotiating Relationships in Speaking 266
Positive and Negative Politeness and Face 266
Face-Threatening Acts 267
A Question: A Question to Discuss: How Do Compliments Work? 268
Discourse Markers: Signaling Discourse Organization and Authority 269
Function of Discourse Markers 269
Language Change at Work: fDiscourse Markers rom Beowulf to Dude 270
Types of Discourse Markers 270
Language Change at Work: Like, I Was Like, What Is Going On with the Word Like? 271
Conversation Analysis: Taking Turns and the Conversational Floor 272
Structure of Conversation 273
Turn-Taking 274
Turn-Taking Violations 275
Maintenance and Repair 276
Style Shifting: Negotiating Social Meaning 277
Indexical Meaning 277
Style and Creativity 278
Special Focus: Do Men and Women Speak Differently? 280
Early Language and Gender Research 281
Different Models for Gender Difference 282
Queer Sociolinguistics 283
Language and Identity 283
Summary 284
Suggested Reading 284
Exercises 285
Chapter 9 Stylistics 291
Stylistics 295
Systematicity and Choice 295
The World of Texts: Genres and Registers 296
Variation among Text Types 298
Which Comes First? 298
Textual Unity: Cohesion 300
Elements of Cohesion 300
Cohesion at Work 303
Telling Stories: The Structure of Narratives 303
The Components of a Narrative 305
Investigating Speakers and Perspective 307
Varieties of Perspective 308
Speech: Direct and Indirect 309
Investigating Actions 310
Types of Action 310
Action at Work 312
Investigating Word Choice 313
Diction 313
Metaphor 314
Modality 315
Language Variation at Work: Literary Forensics 316
Rhythm and Rhyme in Poetry 317
Poeticity and Its Axes 317
A Scholar to Know: Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) 318
Meter, Rhythm, and Scansion 319
Prosody and Verse Structure 320
Sound, Meaning, and Poetic Technique 321
A Question to Discuss: What Makes the Tongue Twist? 321
Language Change at Work: Hip Hop Rhymes 322
Special Focus: What Makes "Good Writing"? 323
Summary 324
Suggested Reading 325
Exercises 325
Chapter 10 Language Acquisition 339
Theories about Children's Language Acquisition 330
Imitation versus Instinct 331
Noam Chomsky and Universal Grammar 332
Debates about Language "Hard Wiring" 333
Language and the Brain 333
Children Learning Sounds 335
Language Acquisition Tests 336
Acquisition of Phonemic Differences 337
Children Learning Words 338
Babbling and First Words 338
Language Acquisition at Work: Imitating Faces 340
Language Acquisition at Work: Deaf Children Learning ASL 342
Acquisition of Words and Word Meaning 334
A Question to Discuss: Why Do We Talk with Our Hands? 343
Aquistion of Words and Word Meaning 345
Children Learning Grammar 346
Patterns of Children's Errors 346
Acquisition of Complex Grammatical Constructions 48
The Role of Parents in Language Acquisition 348
Features of Parentese 349
Role of Parentese 350
Language Acquisition in Special Circumstances 350
Pidgins and Creoles 350
Nicaraguan Sign Language 351
Critical Age Hypothesis 352
Critical Periods 353
A Case Study: Genie 353
Acquisition of Languages Later in Life 354
When Things Go Wrong 355
Broca's Aphasia 355
Language Variation at Work: Verbal Slips 357
Wernicke's Aphasia 358
Dyslexia 358
Special Focus: Children and Bilingualism 360
Children Learning Two Languages 360
Bilingual Education Programs 361
Summary 362
Suggested Reading 363
Exercises 363
Chapter 11 Language Variation 366
Dialect 367
Dialects versus Languages 369
Standard and Nonstandard Dialects 369
A Question to Discuss: Is American English a Dialect or a Language? 370
Dialectology 371
Variationist Sociolinguistics 373
Language Change at Work: Pop versus Soda 374
William Labov's Research 376
Sociolinguistics versus Generative Grammar 376
A Scholar to Know: William Labov (1927- ) 377
Speech Communities and Communities of Practice 377
Variationist Sociolinguistic Methodologies 378
Sampling 378
Soliciting Language 379
Analyzing Results 380
Ethical Issues 382
A Question to Discuss: Should We Preserve Dialects? 383
Major Factors in Language Variation within Speech Communities 384
Age 384
Gender 384
Class 386
Race and Ethnicity 388
Social Networks 389
Effects of Language Contact 389
Dialect Contact 389
Language Contact 390
Pidgins and Creoles 390
Speaker Attitudes and Language Variation 392
A Question to Discuss: What Does "Linguistic Equality" Mean? 395
Summary 398
Suggested Reading 398
Exercises 399
Chapter 12 American Dialects 401
The Politics of American Dialects 402
Speakers Who Control Multiple Dialects 403
Judgments and Humor about Dialects 403
Dialect Diversity and National Unity 404
Language Change at Work: The Inconsistency of Language Attitudes 405
Regional Variation 406
A Sample Walk 406
Language Change at Work: Why Does Unless Mean 'in case' in Pennsylvania? 408
Defining Regions 410
The Emergence of Regional Dialects 410
Retention 411
Naturally Occurring Internal Language Change 411
Language Change at Work: Regional Food Terms 412
Language Contact 413
Coining 413
Language Change at Work: A Dragonfly by Any Other Name 414
Social Factors 414
The History of Regional Dialects in the United States 415
The Beginnings of American English 415
The Northern Dialect Region 416
The Southern Dialect Region 416
The Midland Dialect Region 417
The Western Dialect Region 418
Dialects within Dialect Regions 419
Two Case Studies of Regional Variation 421
Appalachian English 421
Language Change at Work: Jack, Will, and Jenny in the Swamp 424
California English 425
Social Variation 427
Slang and Jargon versus Dialects 427
Social Dialects 428
Two Case Studies of Social Variation 429
Chicano English 429
African American English 430
Special Focus: The Ebonics Controversy 434
A Scholar to Know: Geneva Smitherman (1940-) 437
Summary 438
Suggested Reading 438
Exercises 439
Chapter 13 History of English: Old to Early Modern English 443
Old English (449-1066): History of Its Speakers 444
When Did English Begin? 444
Which Germanic Dialect Is "Old English"? 445
Language Change at Work: How English Was Written Down 447
Where Do the Names English and England Originate? 448
Old English Lexicon 448
Latin Borrowing 449
Old Norse Borrowing 451
Native English Word Formation 451
Old English Grammar 452
The Origins of Modern English Noun Inflections 452
The Gender of Things 453
The Familiarity of Personal Pronouns 453
The Many Faces of Modifiers 454
The Origins of Some Modern English Irregular Verbs 455
Variation in Word Order 456
Middle English (1066-1476): History of Its Speakers 457
The Norman Conquest 457
A Scholar to Know: J. R. R. Tolkien the Philologist 458
The Renewal of English 458
The Emergence of a Standard 459
Middle English Dialects 460
The Middle English Lexicon 462
French Borrowing 462
Latin Borrowing 463
Other Borrowing 463
Word Formation Processes 464
Middle English Grammar 464
The Loss of Inflections and Its Effects 465
The Inflections That Survive 465
Early Modern English (1476-1776): History of Its Speakers 466
The Printing Press 466
Attitudes about English 467
The Study of English 469
A Question to Discuss: How Do We Preserve the Evidence of a Language? 470
Early Modern English Lexicon 471
Greek and Latin Borrowing 472
Romance Borrowing 472
Semantic Change in the Native Lexicon 472
Affixation 473
Early Modern English Grammar 474
Older Grammatical Retentions 474
Developments in Morphosyntax 474
Language Change at Work: The Invention of pea 475
The Fate of Final-e 475
Language Change at Work: The Great Vowel Shift 476
Looking Ahead 476
Suggested Reading 477
Exercises 478
Chapter 14 History of English: Modern and Future English 484
Modern English (1776-Present): Social Forces at Work 485
Prescription and the Standard Variety 485
The Media 486
Imperialism 488
Globalization 489
Language Change at Work: The Debated Origins of O.K. 489
Modern English: Language Change in Progress 490
Word Formation 491
Lexical Borrowing 492
Phonological Changes 492
Grammatical Changes 493
A Question to Discuss: "Hey, You Guys, Is This Grammaticalization?" 494
The Status of English in the United States 495
Language Variation at Work: The Myth of the "German Vote" in 1776 496
A Question to Discuss: Official State Languages 497
The Status of English around the World 498
The Meaning of a "Global Language" 501
English as a Global Language 494
World Englishes 503
The Future of English as a Global Language 505
What Happens after Modern English? 507
Language Change at Work: Retronymy and Reduplication 508
English and the Internet 509
Suggested Readings 513
Exercises 514
Glossary 517
Bibliography 543
Credits 557
Index 560
