Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics [antikvár]

PREFACE My purpose in writing this book has been to provide a relatively self-contained introduction to the most important trends in contemporary linguistic theory. Although the book is intended primarily for students of linguistics, I hope that it will also prove useful to students of psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology, computer science, and a number of other disciplines which are concerned, in various ways, with the analysis of human language, as well as to students of literature and the 'humanities', with which linguistics (or 'philology') has an association of longer standing. I should like to think that the book will be of some interest also to the general reader who wishes to learn something of modern linguistics. This is an introductory book in the sense that it does not presuppose any previous training in the subject. But it does assume that the reader—especially the reader whose educational background, like my own, is more in the 'humanities' than in mathematics and ' science'—is prepared to make a certain intellectual effort with respect to the use of symbols and formulae. Few subjects suffer more than linguistics from the separation of the 'sciences' and the 'humanities' that is still maintained in the curricula of most of our schools and universities. For contemporary linguistic theory draws simultaneously, and in roughly equal measure, upon the more traditional approach to language that is characteristic of the 'humanities' and the more 'scientific' approach that has developed recently in connexion with advances that have been made in formal logic, computer science and automata theory. Readers of a 'literate' rather than a 'numerate' turn of mind may be discouraged by the proliferation of arcane symbols and formulae in certain sections of the book. Let them take heart from the thought that they probably have a considerable advantage over their ' numerate' brethren in their intuitive appreciation of the nuances of language, and perhaps also in their knowledge of the historical and philosophical background. Both groups of readers, I trust, will benefit from an occasional excursion into the other's territory. Every textbook must be selective. Let me say something, therefore, about the scope and emphasis of the present book. I have restricted its coverage to what, by common consent, is most central to linguistic