Books in the Cambridge Studies in Linguistics series

'Markedness' refers to the tendency of languages to show a preference for particular structures or sounds. This bias towards 'marked' elements is consistent within and across languages, and tells us a great deal about what languages can and cannot do. This pioneering study presents a groundbreaking theory of markedness in phonology. De Lacy argues that markedness is part of our linguistic competence, and is determined by three conflicting mechanisms in the brain: (a) pressure to preserve marked sounds ('preservation'), (b) pressure to turn marked sounds into unmarked sounds ('reduction'), and (c) a mechanism allowing the distinction between marked and unmarked sounds to be collapsed ('conflation'). He shows that due to these mechanisms, markedness occurs only when preservation is irrelevant. Drawing on examples of phenomena such as epenthesis, neutralisation, assimilation, vowel reduction and sonority-driven stress, Markedness offers an important insight into this essential concept in the understanding of human language.

This critical survey questions two fundamental assumptions in syntactic theory: firstly, that a sentence comprises a hierarchy of phrases, forming a 'tree' structure; and secondly, that phrases have 'heads', on which subordinate units depend. An essential and thought-provoking read for students, researchers in linguistic theory as well as non-specialists.

The 'subject' of a sentence presents great challenges to linguists. This volume takes a fresh approach to subjects, examining them from both a formal and typological perspective. Drawing on data from a wide range of languages, it explains why, even across very different languages, certain core properties can be found.

The study of syntactic change has been much neglected in the past. Historical linguists have tended to concentrate on phonology, lexis and morphology whilst most theoretical studies of syntax have been deliberately synchronic in intention.

Matthew Chen's study, first published in 2000, offers a most comprehensive analysis of the rich and complex patterns of tone used in Chinese languages. His book, the culmination of a ten-year research project, explores a range of important theoretical issues against a wealth of empirical data not previously accessible to linguists.

This book is concerned with the relationship between semantics and surface structure and in particular with the way in which each is mapped into the other. Jim Miller argues that semantic and syntactic structure require different representations and that semantic structure is far more complex than many analysts realise.

In Vox Latina and Vox Graeca Professor Allen was concerned primarily with the pronunciation of the individual vowels and consonants of classical Latin and Greek. In this major work he analyses in depth and in detail all the prosodic features of these languages.

In every language there are descriptive lexical elements, such as evening and whisper, as well as grammatical elements, such as the and -ing. The distinction between these two elements has proven useful in a number of domains, but what is covered by the terms, lexical and grammatical, and the basis on which the distinction is made, appear to vary according to the domain involved. This book analyses the grammatical elements ('functional categories') in language, a topic that has drawn considerable attention in linguistics, but has never been approached from an integrated, cross-disciplinary perspective. Muysken considers functional categories from the perspective of grammar, language history, language contact and psychology (including child language and aphasia). Empirically based, the book examines the available converging evidence from these various disciplines, and draws on comparative data from a wide range of different languages.

One of the major arenas for debate within generative grammar is the nature of paradigmatic relations among words. Intervening in key debates at the interface between syntax and semantics, this book examines the relation between structure and meaning in words.

This volume sets out a phonetic description of voice quality, which has largely been neglected in other studies. Dr Laver's integrative approach is a major advance in general phonetic theory and his standardisation of descriptive terminology for the voice will be welcomed by students and specialists in speech science, phonetics and phonology.

Rochelle Lieber discusses the lexical semantics of word formation in a systematic way, allowing the reader to explore the nature of affixal polysemy, the reasons why there are multiple affixes with the same function and the issues of mismatch between form and meaning in word formation.

This is a full-length study of a Celtic language from the standpoint of modern linguistic theory. Dr Awbery particularly discusses a topic - the passive form of the verb - which has itself been of central interest in previous work on transformational grammar. She is thus able to test certain tenets of transformational theory against data from a previously unconsidered language.

The phenomenon of grammaticalization - the historical process whereby new grammatical material is created - has attracted a great deal of attention within linguistics. This is an attempt to provide a general account of this phenomenon in terms of a formal theory of syntax. Using Chomsky's Minimalist Program for linguistic theory, Roberts and Roussou show how this approach gives rise to a number of important conceptual and theoretical issues concerning the nature of functional categories and the form of parameters, as well as the relation of both of these to language change. Drawing on examples from a wide range of languages, they construct a general account of grammaticalization with implications for linguistic theory and language acquisition.

Language is spoken at a particular time, in a particular place, by a particular person; and certain words, the deictic terms, can only be fully defined by recourse to this extra-linguistic context. In these studies Dr Tanz investigates children's acquisition of the deictic distinctions.

In 1972 when R. M. W. Dixon's classic grammar, The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland, was published, under thirty speakers of the 'traditional' language remained. Now only some of their children and grandchildren use the language; these younger people speak a simplified version.

Dr Cheshire interviews a group of non-standard English speakers living in Reading, Berkshire. She concentrates on phonological variation in spontaneous everyday conversation. She specifically focuses on morphological and syntactic variation that contributes to the study of language in its social context. This study will interest sociolinguists, dialectologists and workers in education.

This pathbreaking study provides a comprehensive account of how children acquire complex sentences. Holger Diessel investigates spontaneous speech in English-speaking children aged between two and five, examining the acquisition of infinitival, participial and finite complement clauses, finite and non-finite relative clauses, and co-ordinate clauses.

The subject of 'contrast' in phonology is one of the most central concepts in linguistics and is of key importance to linguists working across many languages. This book offers a fascinating account of both the logic and history of contrast in phonology.

Combining insights from generative syntax, typological studies of language universals, and psycholinguistic studies of language processing, John A. Hawkins here argues that grammars are profoundly shaped by processing.

The concept of the 'onset', i.e. the consonant(s) before the vowel of a syllable, is critical within phonology. In this book Nina Topintzi presents a new theory of onsets, arguing for their fundamental role in the structure of language both in the underlying and surface representation, unlike previous assumptions.

First published in 1973, this important work was the first systematic attempt to apply theoretical and methodological tools developed in America to the acquisition of a language other than English.

The revolution in linguistic thought associated with the name of Professor Noam Chomsky centres on the theory of transformational generation, especially in grammar. This book subjects the main theory and some of its applications to a searching critique. Professor Derwing writes as a linguist particularly interested in the psychology of language acquisition.

In studying discourse, the problem for the linguist is to find a fruitful level of analysis. Carlota Smith offers a new approach with this study of discourse passages. She introduces the key idea of the 'Discourse Mode', identifying five modes and analyzing the properties that distinguish each mode.

In this book, first published in 1975, Dr Kempson argues that previous work on presupposition has been mistakenly based on a conflation of two different disciplines: semantics, the study of the meanings assigned to the formal system which constitutes a language, and pragmatics, the study of the use of that system in communication.

The Movement Theory of Control (MTC) makes one major claim: that control relations in sentences like 'John wants to leave' are grammatically mediated by movement. This book presents the main arguments for and against MTC and shows it to have many theoretical advantages.

Originally published in 1972, this was the most thorough discussion of morphological theory to appear in recent years, and one of the few to be based directly on an 'inflecting' or 'fusional' language - in this case Latin. The book is addressed to theoretical and descriptive linguists in general and no knowledge of Latin is assumed.

Professor Dixon examines the grammar of Yidin, an Australian dying language, through phonology, syntax and of a 'mixed ergative' type that cannot easily be accommodated in terms of standard syntactic theory.

David Crystal OBE provides the reader with a thorough and fascinating analysis of the patterns of intonation and prosody found within the English language. He begins by contextualising his work on prosody within existing studies, before going on to discuss voice quality and sound attributes in prosodic systems.

Originally published in 1979, this volume was the first to attempt to apply the principles of social linguistics within a British urban community. Particularly influenced by the ideas of William Labov, it puts forward the view that linguistic expression in Norwich is intimately linked to the process of social stratification.

This book, first published in 1975, examines the natural language numeral systems through generative grammar and gives specific examples with English, French, Mixtec, Hawaiian, Danish, Welsh and Yoruba languages. The book is primarily intended for linguists, but is accessible also to anthropologists and mathematicians.