Author Archive
The Mainstreaming of the Linguistic Sciences
–Article by Tyler McPeek For awhile now, I’ve been working on a site that deals with issues related to Japan, Japanology, and the Japanese language. What originally started as a kind of “Japan Fan” site, assisting and entertaining people who study Japanese, enjoy “things Japanese,” have lived in Japan, or…
The Five Minute Linguist
ed. by Rickerson and Hilton –Review by Lee Ballard The Five Minute Linguist is an excellent book to introduce beginners or laypeople to topics of current interest in linguistics. Composed completely of short chapters on subjects like what the original language was, who speaks Italian, and how children acquire grammar,…
Syntax: A Generative Introduction
by Andrew Carnie –Review by Joel Deacon Carnie’s Introduction to Syntax is a decent place to begin an exploration of syntactic theory. Carnie is often cited in many syntactic papers and proves himself to be a fairly easy read. If one is serious about syntactic theory or if you are…
Introducing Phonology
by David Odden –Review by Lee Ballard David Odden’s Introduction to Phonology text is an ok introduction to the field. Strong points include problem sets with data from a wide variety of languages, approaches to phonology from the different schools of the past hundred years (phonemicist, generative phonology with features,…
What is Grammar?
–Article by Lee Ballard If we asked people to brainstorm on what they think about when they hear the word “grammar,” I think we would get some interesting results. When the word “grammar” comes up in conversation, I’ve noticed that people I meet regularly confuse it with a few things,…
Introduction to Typology: The Unity and Diversity of Language
by Lindsay J. Whaley –Review by Dong-yi Lin Whaley’s Introduction to Typology is an excellent introductory textbook for courses that deal with language typology or linguistic structures. It assumes no prior knowledge of typology and is accessible to students who lack an advanced understanding of linguistics. Covering not only basic…