Books in the Edinburgh Advanced Textbooks in Linguistics series

Designed as a quick yet thorough introduction to one of the most vibrant areas of research in modern linguistics today this volume reveals the beauty and elegance of the mathematical study of meaning. It introduces the essential principles and techniques of formal semantics.

Tackling theoretical approaches including Construction Grammar and the Minimalist Program, this volume focuses on processes and phenomena. Each chapter covers the main concepts through example data, before discussing the pros and cons of the approach. Topics covered include: units, inflection, derivation, compounding, the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis and the interfaces of morphology with phonology and semantics. Taking your understanding of the form and meaning of words to the next level, this book is ideal for linguistics students interested in learning more about morphology.Key Features* Discusses variety of theories* Exercises and further reading in each chapter

A gentle introduction to programming for students and researchers interested in conducting computer-based analysis in linguistics, this book is an ideal starting point for linguists approaching programming for the first time. Assuming no background knowledge of programming, the author introduces basic notions and techniques needed for linguistics programming and helps readers to develop their understanding of electronic texts.The book includes many examples based on diverse topics in linguistics in order to demonstrate the applicability of the concepts at the heart of programming. Practical examples are designed to help the reader to:*Identify basic issues in handling language data, including Unicode processing*Conduct simple analyses in morphology/morphosyntax, and phonotactics*Understanding techniques for matching linguistic patterns*Learn to convert data into formats and data structures suitable for linguistic analysis*Create frequency lists from corpus materials to gather basic descriptive statistics on texts*Understand, obtain and 'clean up' web-based data*Design graphical user interfaces for writing more efficient and easy-to-use analysis tools.Two different types of exercise help readers to either learn to interpret and understand illustrative sample code, or to develop algorithmic thinking and solution strategies through turning a series of instructions into sample programs. Readers will be equipped with the necessary tools for designing their own extended projects.Key Features:*Ideal introduction for students of linguistics attempting to process corpus materials or literary texts for dissertations, theses or advanced research work*Linguistic examples throughout the text clearly demonstrate the application of programming theory and techniques*Coverage ranging from basic to more complex topics and methodologies enables the reader to progress at their own pace*Two chapters on the advantages of modularity and associated issues provid