aeo Written by twelve linguists all internationally recognized as leaders in their fields of specialization. aeo Exercises and data--analysis problems within and at end of each chapter help students learn what it means to actually do linguistics. aeo Includes the latest developments in theoretical linguistics; for example, Optimality Theory.

Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory is a textbook, written for introductory courses in linguistic theory for undergraduate linguistics majors and first-year graduate students. Twelve major figures in the field bring their expertise to each of the core areas of the field - morphology, syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, and language acquisition.

In each section the book is concerned with discussing the underlying principles common to all languages, showing how these are revealed in language acquisition and in the specific grammars of the world's languages. Theoretical concepts are introduced through the analysis of a wide set of language data from Arabic to Zulu. The student will learn how to "do" linguistics by working through real linguistic data. Each section explains how to define and solve a problem; organizes the data into paradigms revealing the structured patterns in the data; formulates generalizations based on these patterns; proposes rules or principles to account for the generalization; seeks independent evidence in its argument for the proposed theoretical construct.

The book brings the latest developments in theoretical linguistics to bear in its discussion of the traditional issues. It covers these subjects in greater depth than is found in most introductory texts permitting the student to proceed directly, after using this text, to graduate courses in the field. It contains problems, a glossary, and a bibliography for further reading.

Linguistics is supported by an instructor's manual.