This popular introductory linguistics text is unique in the way various themes are integrated throughout the book. One primary theme is the question, "How is a speaker's communicative intent recognized?" Rather than treat phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics as completely separate fields, the text shows how they interact in principled ways. Similarly, language variation and acquisition are informed by results in these fields. The text provides a sound introduction to linguistic methodology while also revealing why people are intrinsically interested in language—the ultimate puzzle of the human mind.

he fourth edition of Linguistics has been thoroughly updated and revised to reflect the increasing confluence of linguistics and cognitive science. This is especially evident in the chapter on language acquisition, which now includes sections on the acquisition of morphology, syntax, and pragmatic competence. More special topics have also been added to give teachers greater freedom to shape courses to their own interests. The basic structure of the book, however, remains unchanged, with its focus on a small set of linguistic concepts that are fundamental to the field and that will allow students to get a feel for how work in different areas of linguistics is actually done. A new and expanded third edition of the companion Linguistics Workbook adds complementary material on universals and cross-language data. Linguistics is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the structural and interpretive aspects of language: morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, language variation, and language change. The second part is cognitively oriented and includes chapters on pragmatics, the psychology of language, language acquisition, and language and the brain. This new edition adds special topics to the chapters on morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, acquisition, and language and the brain.