An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics

Language -- English Consonants -- The English Vowel System -- English Stress And Intonation -- The Morpheme -- The Identification Of Morphemes -- Classing Allomorphs Into Morphemes -- Outline Of English Morphology -- Some Types Of Inflection -- Immediate Constituents -- Syntactic Devices -- Transformations -- Language And Grammars -- Some Inflectional Categories -- Articulatory Phonetics -- The Phoneme -- Phonemic Analysis -- Phonemic Field Work -- Interpretations Of English Phonemics -- Phonemic Systems -- Phonemic Problems In Language Learning -- Acoustic Phonetics -- The Process Of Communication -- Variation In Speech -- Writing Systems -- Written Languages -- Language Classification -- Some Languages And Language Families. Includes Bibliography. Linguistics courses are ceasing to be appendages to single specialized curricula, and are attracting an ever more diverse enrollment. This textbook was written with this development in mind. It is not directed to prospective linguists alone; rather, widely various academic backgrounds and interests are assumed. Many of the students who use it will be particularly interested in understanding the place of descriptive linguistics among related disciplines, but will not be able to take specialized courses in these related fields. It has therefore been thought best to interpret the field rather broadly. - Preface.