Preface

The English language and linguistics

1 Facts about English
1.1 English world-wide
1.2 Regional and social variation
1.3 Historical variation
1.4 The character of English
1.4.1 English as a Germanic language
1.4.2 Language typology
1.5 The linguistic analysis of English
2 Principles of modern linguistics
2.1 Basic concepts of linguistic structuralism
2.1.1 Principles of linguistics since de Saussure
2.1.2 The character of the linguistic sign
2.1.3 Synchronic and diachronic study of language
2.1.4 The importance of relations
2.1.4.1 The value of the linguistic sign
2.1.4.2 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships
2.1.5 Schools of structuralism
2.2 Linguistics and descriptivity
2.3 The principles of structuralism and foreign language teaching
2.4 Areas of investigation
3 Language, intuition and corpora
3.1 Language
3.1.1 Some basic distinctions
3.1.2 Competence and performance: the language of the individual
3.1.3 Language as a social phenomenon
3.1.4 System and Norm – language use
3.2 Finding data: traditional methods
3.2.1 Principal options
3.2.2 Introspection and elicitation
3.2.3 Authentic language material: citations and corpora
3.3 Corpus linguistics
3.3.1 Corpora of English
3.3.2 What we can do with corpora
3.3.2.1 Corpus analysis
3.3.2.2 Corpora and foreign language teaching
3.3.3 Corpus design and corpus size
3.4 Introspection, corpus analysis and views of language

Sounds

4 The sounds of English: phonetics
4.1 Sounds as the starting point of linguistic analysis
4.2 Phones
4.3 Articulatory, auditive and acoustic phonetics
4.4 Description of sounds in articulatory terms
4.5 Syllables
4.6 Suprasegmental elements
5 Phonology
5.1 The function of speech sounds
5.1.1 Phonemes and allophones
5.1.2 Phonetics and phonology
5.2 The description of phonemes
5.2.1 Consonant phonemes
5.2.2 Vowel phonemes
5.2.3 Phonemic principle of pronunciation dictionaries
5.3 Phonotactics
6 Phonetic “reality”
6.1 Problems of the phoneme concept
6.1.1 The problem
6.1.2 Phonetic value of phonological features
6.1.3 The bi-uniqueness requirement
6.2 Pronunciation in connected speech
6.2.1 Weakening of elements
6.2.2 Linking phenomena
6.2.3 Weak forms
7 Contrastive aspects of phonetics and phonology
7.1 Levels of contrast
7.2 Phoneme and phone inventories of English and German
7.3 Rule-governed differences
7.4 Suprasegmental differences
7.5 Pedagogical implications

Meaning-carrying units

8 Morphology
8.1 The concept of the morpheme
8.2 Types of morpheme
8.3 Problems of a static morpheme concept
8.3.1 The problem
8.3.2 Portmanteau morphs
8.3.3 Zero-morphs
8.3.4 Morphological and phonological conditioning
8.4 Inflectional morphology: historical background
8.5 Further problems of morphological analysis
9 Word formation
9.1 Words
9.1.1 Words and lexemes
9.1.2 New words
9.2 Word formation
9.2.1 Introduction
9.2.2 Formal types of word formation: a survey
9.2.3 Semantic description of word formations
9.3 Word formation and morphology
9.3.1 The overlap between word formation and morphology
9.3.2 Explanatory value of the analysis
9.4 Productivity and restrictions
9.5 Possible words – nonce formations – institutionalized words
9.6 Psychological aspects of morphology
10 Phraseology
10.1 Prefabs
10.2 Statistically significant collocations
10.3 Institutionalized collocations
10.4 Idioms
10.5 The idiom principle and the mental lexicon
10.6 Phraseological units


Sentences – models of grammar

11 Syntax: traditional grammar
11.1 Syntax and grammar
11.1.1 Descriptive frameworks
11.1.2 Sentence and clause
11.1.3 Subject and predicate
11.2 The elements of clause structure in CGEL
11.2.1 Elements of clause structure as functional units
11.2.2 Criteria for the distinction between different elements of clause structure
11.2.3 CGEL’s clause types
11.2.4 Problems of traditional terminology
11.3 Phrases
11.3.1 Types of phrase
11.3.2 The role of the phrase
11.4 Word classes
11.4.1 Criteria for the establishment of word classes
11.4.2 CGEL’s word classes
11.4.3 Verbs
11.4.4 Central and peripheral members of word classes – word classes as prototypes
11.4.5 Multiple-class membership
11.4.6 The distinction between determiners and pronouns
11.4.7 The distinction between prepositions and subordinating conjunctions
11.4.8 Word classes in English
12 Valency theory and case grammar
12.1 Two types of hierarchy
12.1.1 Constituency
12.1.2 Dependency
12.1.3 Case grammar and valency theory
12.2 Case grammar: semantic roles
12.2.1 Basic principles of case grammar
12.2.2 Advantages and drawbacks of case grammar
12.2.3 Some useful participant roles
12.3 The basic principles of valency theory
12.3.1 Introduction
12.3.2 Complements and adjuncts
12.3.3 Qualitative and quantitative aspects of valency
12.3.4 Valency carriers
12.3.5 Components of a valency description
12.3.6 Valency patterns
12.4 A valency based approach to English syntax
12.4.1 Combining aspects of clause structure and valency
12.4.2 A modified view of phrase structure
12.4.2.1 Head complexes
12.4.2.2 Noun phrases, adjective phrases and adverb phrases
12.4.2.3 Particle phrases
12.4.2.4 Clauses as verb phrases
12.4.3 Description of units
12.4.4 Example
13 Theories of grammar and language acquisition
13.1 Chomsky’s approach
13.1.1 Basic assumptions
13.1.2 Transformations – deep structures and surface structures
13.1.3 Claims and evidence
13.1.4 Language acquisition
13.1.4.1 The language acquisition device
13.1.4.2 Universal grammar
13.2 Usage-based approaches
13.2.1 Construction grammar
13.2.2 Argument structure constructions
13.2.3 The usage-based view of language acquisition

Meaning

14 Semantics: meaning, reference and denotation
14.1 Meaning
14.2 Meaning and reference
14.2.1 Bloomfield’s misconception of meaning
14.2.2 Denotation
14.2.3 Reference
14.2.3.1 The general notion of reference
14.2.3.2 Definite and indefinite reference
14.3 The scope of meaning
15 Meaning relations
15.1 Polysemy and homonymy
15.1.1 Polysemy and homonymy in linguistic analysis
15.1.2 Psycholinguistic and lexicographical implications
15.2 Ambiguity
15.3 Problems of identification of meanings and lexical units
15.4 Structural semantics
15.4.1 The idea of contrast
15.4.2 Semantic relations
15.4.2.1 Hyponymy: unilateral entailment
15.4.2.2 Synonymy: bilateral entailment
15.4.2.3 Semantic oppositions
16 Ways of describing meaning
16.1 Componential analysis
16.2 The structure of vocabulary
16.3 Vocabulary and conceptualization
16.4 Prototype theory
16.4.1 Colour terms
16.4.2 Prototypes
16.4.3 Basic level categories
16.4.4 Problems of prototype theory

Utterances

17 Pragmatics
17.1 Word, sentence and utterance meaning
17.1.1 Sentence meaning
17.1.2 The meaning of utterances
17.2 Principles
17.2.1 The co-operative principle and conversational implicature
17.2.2 Further principles
17.3 Speech acts
17.3.1 Performatives and constatives
17.3.2 Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts
17.3.3 Felicity conditions
17.3.4 Types of speech act
17.3.4.1 Searle’s taxonomy
17.3.4.2 Direct and indirect speech acts
17.3.4.3 Problems of classification
18 Texts
18.1 The notion of text
18.1.1 Cohesion and coherence
18.1.2 Texts as utterances
18.2 Cohesive relations
18.2.1 Explicit linking expressions
18.2.2 Grammatical aspects of relating referents and meanings
18.2.3 Lexical aspects of cohesion and coherence
18.3 Thematic structure and information structure
18.3.1 Theme and rheme – given and new information
18.3.2 End-focus and marked focus
18.4 Spoken and written texts

Variation

19 Variation in language
19.1 Registers and dialects
19.2 Accent, dialect, standard and prestige
19.2.1 Standard English and its pronunciations
19.2.2 Quality judgements
19.3 Levels of differences between regional and social varieties
20 Linguistic change
20.1 Types of linguistic change
20.2 Sound change
20.2.1 The phoneme systems of Old English and RP
20.2.2 Types of sound change
20.2.3 Important sound changes in the history of English
20.2.3.1 I-mutation
20.2.3.2 The Great Vowel Shift
20.2.3.3 Quantitative changes
20.2.3.4 Present-day reflections
20.3 Lexis
20.3.1 New words
20.3.2 Changes of meaning
20.3.3 Homonymy
20.4 Grammar
20.4.1 Differences between Old English and Modern English
20.4.2 Analogy
20.4.3 Grammaticalization


Postscript
Bibliography
Index