Linguistics FOR DUMmIES‰ Linguistics FOR DUMmIES‰ by Strang Burton, Rose-Marie Déchaine, and Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson Linguistics For Dummies® Published by John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. 6045 Freemont Blvd. Mississauga, Ontario, L5R 4J3 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this book, including interior design, cover design, and icons, may be repro- duced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., 6045 Freemont Blvd., Mississauga, ON L5R 4J3, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. For authorization to photo- copy items for corporate, personal, or educational use, please contact in writing The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). 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For general information on John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., including all books published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., please call our distribution centre at 1-800-567-4797. For reseller information, including discounts and premium sales, please call our sales department at 416-646-7992. For press review copies, author interviews, or other publicity information, please contact our publicity department, Tel. 416-646- 4582, Fax 416-236-4448.For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books. Burton, Strang Linguistics for dummies / Strang Burton, Rose-Marie Déchaine, Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-118-09169-2 1. Linguistics. 2. Language and languages. I. Déchaine, Rose-Marie, 1960– II. Vatikiotis-Bateson, Eric III. Title. P121.B87 2012 410 C2011-907371-4 ISBN 978-1-118-09169-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-10157-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-10158-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-10159-9 (ebk) Printed in the United States 1 2 3 4 5 RRD 15 14 13 12 11 About the Authors Strang Burton (Ph.D. Linguistics, Rutgers University, 1995) is a linguist and multimedia developer specializing in documentation and re-vitalization work for severely endangered languages. Working with elders and community members to document the Upriver Halq’emeylem (Halkomelem) language, he contributes to a community-run language revitalization program, the Stolo Shxweli Halq’emeylem Language Program, at the Stolo Nation, in Chilliwack, British Columbia. He is a multi-media trainer and technical consultant for many endangered-language documentation projects and teaches linguistics and language documentation at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. Rose-Marie Déchaine (Ph.D. Linguistics, University of British Columbia, 1994) is a linguist who specializes in the formal analysis of language, with a focus on Native American and African languages. She is particularly interested in understanding how the languages of the world distinguish parts-of-speech and what this reveals about the relation between categorization and cognition. Her current research explores how gesture and speech are woven together in the course of performing language in communicative interaction. She teaches in the linguistics and cognitive systems programs at the University of British Columbia. Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson (Ph.D. Linguistics, Indiana University, 1987) is Director of the Cognitive Systems Program at the University of British Columbia. He has developed experimental and analytic techniques for laboratory and field evaluation of communicative performance. Eric’s empirical studies of the production, perception, and neural processing of multimodal speech focus on spatial and temporal coordination in spoken communication and musical performance at different scales ranging from conversation to ensemble performance to rock concerts. Authors’ Acknowledgments Nothing worth doing is ever done alone. All three authors express their heartfelt thanks to the many people who provided (often lively and colorful!) advice, feedback and comments on different aspects of this book, including Peter Ackema, Outi-Bat-tel, Molly Babel, Eric Bakovic, Mauro Chiesa, Bryan Gick, Louis Goldstein, Laurence Horn, Ives Goddard, Lisa Matthewson, Shana Poplack, Bill Poser, Douglas Pulleyblank, Michael Rochemont, Philip Rubin, Hotze Rullmann, and Martina Wiltschko. We are deeply grateful to the Wiley editors — Robert Hickey and Laura Peterson Nussbaum — who patiently guided us through this project, and to Laurel Fais who assisted with the final revision of large chunks of the book. Too numerous to mention are the teachers who, in different ways, transmitted their passion for knowledge to each us. Our debt to them is the greatest, and this book is our way of carrying forward the rich intellectual traditions that they individually embody. Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Composition Services Vertical Websites Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees Acquisitions Editor: Robert Hickey Layout and Graphics: Carrie Cesavice, Project Editor: Laura Peterson Nussbaum Joyce Haughey, Corrie Socolovitch, Production Editor: Lindsay Humphreys Laura Westhuis Technical Editor: Steve Winters Proofreaders: Laura Bowman, Susan Moritz Editorial Assistant: Jeremy Hanson-Finger Indexer: Christine Karpeles Cover Photo: © iStock / José Luis Gutiérrez Figure Credits: Cartoons: Rich Tennant Fig 1-1: © International Phonetic Association; Figs 15-1 and 15-2: © 2011. Used with (www.the5thwave.com) permission of Philip Rubin and Haskins Laboratories (www.haskins.yale.edu); Fig 16-2a: Reprinted from NeuroImage, 14(3), Pulvermuller, F., Kujala, T., Shtyrov, Y., Simola, J., Tiitinen, H., Alku, P., Alho, K., Martinkauppi, S., Ilmoniemi, R.I. & Naatanen, R., Memory Traces For Words As Revealed By The Mismatch Negativity (MMN), 607- 616, Copyright (2001), with permission from Elsevier; Fig 16-2b: Lee Osterhout. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. Deborah Barton, Vice-President and Director of Operations Jennifer Smith, Vice-President and Publisher, Professional & Trade Division Alison Maclean, Managing Editor, Professional & Trade Division Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel Publishing for Technology Dummies Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Composition Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services Contents at a Glance Introduction ................................................................ 1 Part I: Looking at Language through the Lens of Linguistics .............................................................. 7 Chapter 1: Knowing a Language Versus Knowing What Language Is ..........................9 Chapter 2: Communicating with Language: The Design Features .............................21 Part II: The Building Blocks of Language .................... 33 Chapter 3: Building Sounds: Phonetics .........................................................................35 Chapter 4: Putting Sounds Together: Phonology ........................................................57 Chapter 5: Building Words: Morphology ......................................................................77