Previous edition: 2014.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. What is language? Linguistic knowledge ; What is grammar? ; What is not (human) language ; Language and thought -- 2. Morphology : the words of language. Content words and function words ; Morphemes : the minimal units of meaning ; Rules of word formation ; Morphological analysis : identifying morphemes -- 3. Syntax : infinite use of finite means. What the syntax rules do ; Sentence structure ; The internal structure of phrases ; Grammatical dependencies -- 4. The meaning of language. What speakers know about sentence meaning ; Compositional semantics ; When compositionality goes awry ; Lexical semantics (word meanings) ; Pragmatics -- 5. Phonetics : the sounds of language. Sound segments ; The phonetic alphabet ; Articulatory phonetics ; Major phonetic classes ; Prosodic features ; Phonetic symbols and spelling correspondences ; The "phonetics" of signed languages -- 6. Phonology : the sound patterns of language. The pronunciation of morphemes ; Phonemes : the phonological units of language ; The rules of phonology ; Prosodic phonology ; Sequential constraints of phonemes ; Why do phonological rules exist? ; Phonological analysis -- 7. Language in society. Dialects ; Languages in contact ; Language and education ; Language in use -- 8. Language change : the syllables of time. The regularity of sound change ; Phonological change ; Morphological change ; Syntactic change ; Lexical change ; Extinct and endangered languages ; The genetic classification of languages ; Types of languages ; Why do languages change? ; The history of writing -- 9. Language acquisition. The linguistic capacity of children ; The role of the linguistic environment: adult input ; Knowing more than one language -- 10. Language processing and the human brain. The human mind at work ; Brain and language ; Language and brain development ; The modular mind : dissociations of language and cognition -- Glossary.

AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE, 11th Edition, offers an entirely up-to-date look at language studies and linguistics in today's world. Written from the ground up as if it were a first edition, the book is fresh, modern, and reflective of the current state of the field. At the same time, it maintains the acclaimed light, friendly, readable style and the breadth of coverage that have made it a perennial best seller. The authors examine grammatical subjects (e.g., morphology, syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology), childhood language development and adult secondary language acquisition, and the tremendous leap in knowledge achieved in neurolinguistics. -- Publisher's website.