Introduction to

English Linguistics

by
Ingo Plag
Maria Braun
Sabine Lappe
Mareile Schramm

Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin • New York
Table of Contents

Preface v
Abbreviations and notational conventions x
Introduction xi

1. The sounds: phonetics 1

1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. Spelling vs. pronunciation: the representation of speech sounds 2
1.3. Producing sounds 5
1.3.1. The nature of speech sounds 5
1.3.2. The vocal tract 6
1.4. How sounds differ from each other:
the classification of speech sounds 8
1.4.1. The classification of consonants 8
1.4.2. The classification of vowels 14
1.5. Conclusion 22
Further reading 22
Exercises 23

2. The sound system: phonology 27

2.1. Introduction 27
2.2. Introducing order into the chaos: the phoneme 28
2.3. The key to finding the order 33
2.3.1. Minimal pairs 33
2.3.2. Distributional characteristics of allophones 34
2.3.3. Observing allophonic alternations in different word forms 37
2.4. More about the sound system of English 40
2.4.1. Allophones of IV 40
2.4.2. Stop phonemes 43
2.4.3. A slightly more complex case: 111 46
2.5. The syllable 50
2.5.1. The structure of the syllable 50
2.5.2. Syllabification 55
2.5.3. The syllable and allophonic processes: IV revisited . . 59
2.6. Conclusion 60
Further reading 61
Exercises 61
viii Table of Contents

3. The structure of words: morphology 65

3.1. Introduction 65
3.2. Minimal building blocks: morphemes 65
3.3. Types of morphemes 70
3.4. Morphological analysis of words 73
3.5. Realisation of morphemes: allomorphs 77
3.6. Morphological processes: inflection and derivation 84
3.7. Word-formation 88
3.7.1. Introduction 89
3.7.2. Affixation 89
3.7.3. Compounding 94
3.7.4. Conversion 99
3.7.5. Shortening 100
3.8. Conclusion 103
Further reading 103
Exercises 104

4. The structure of sentences: syntax 106

4.1. Introduction 106
4.2. The building blocks: words and phrases 109
4.2.1. Constituency tests and phrases 109
4.2.2. The internal structure of phrases 116
4.3. The functional level:
subjects, objects, adverbials, predicates 123
4.4. The mapping of form and function 130
4.5. Conclusion 131
Further reading 132
Exercises 132

5. The meaning of words and sentences: semantics 135

5.1. Introduction 135
5.2. What does 'meaning' mean?
Words, concepts, and referents 135
5.3. Compositional and non-compositional meaning 144
5.4. The network: organising word meaning 150
5.4.1. Words and other words 150
5.4.2. Same or different? 157
5.5. Conclusion 165
Further reading 166
Exercises 166
 Table of Contents ix
6. Studying language in use: pragmatics 170
6.1. Introduction 170
6.2. Expressing intentions through language 171
6.2.1. Using language to act: speech acts 171
6.2.2. Speech acts: a closer look 173
6.2.3. Classifying speech acts 175
6.2.4. Realisation of speech acts: direct and indirect speech acts 180
6.2.5. Performing speech acts successfully: felicity conditions 182
6.3. Understanding utterance meaning 185
6.4. Exploring pragmatic principles 188
6.4.1. The Cooperative Principle 188
6.4.2. Politeness 195
6.5. Conclusion 199
Further reading 200
Exercises 200

7. Extensions and applications:

historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics . . . . 203
7.1. Introduction 203
7.2. Historical linguistics: how languages develop 203
7.3. Sociolinguistics: the social significance of language 212
7.4. Psycholinguistics: how do we store and process language? . . 217
7.5. Conclusion 220
Further reading 221
Exercises 221

Glossary 224
References 238
Subject index 243