Beginning Morphology and Syntax

by Benjamin F. Elson

This textbook, Beginning Morphology and Syntax has the basic purpose of preparing students with no linguistic background to discover the grammatical structure of an unwritten language. The Americanist symbols are used. The Laboratory Manual for Morphology and Syntax, 7th ed, 9781556711497 (revised, 2003) is a practical supplement to accompany the textbook. It contains 298 datasets of problems taken from 117 spoken languages. (IPA) symbols replaced the Americanist symbols in some datasets. Preface
Acknowledgements
Some abbreviations and symbols 1. The morpheme
2. Word structure
3. Some semantic categories
4. Allomorphs
5. Phonological alternation
6. Simple sentences and grammatical function
7. More on simple sentences
8. The phrase
9. Kinds of simple sentences with active verbs
10. Stative and impersonal sentences
11. Modal differences
12. Internal relationships
13. Word order
14. Complex and compound sentences
15. Derivation
16. Underlying structure and semantic roles
17. Word boundaries
18. Discourse
19. Grammatical description
20. The dictionary
21. Field methods Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Bibliography
Index

Genres: Linguistics

Paperback

First published June 9, 1988