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2 - Basics of a language

from Part I - System and function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2014

By
R. M. W. Dixon
Edited by
N. J. Enfield ,
Paul Kockelman  and
Jack Sidnell
N. J. Enfield
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute
Paul Kockelman
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Jack Sidnell
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

This chapter tries to show why any decent linguist must invoke a fair dose of anthropology, and that, in order to achieve significant results, an anthropologist should harness the essentials of linguistics. It focuses on real linguistics, the cumulative paradigm in terms of which grammars are written, programs of language teaching expounded, and examines the social role of language. The main unit of every language is the clause. Every language has a number of word classes. There will be a number of small closed classes, pronoun and demonstrative in all languages, article, preposition, postposition in some. Every language has thousands of nouns; this is an open class to which new words are continually being added. A very important point is that word classes must be recognized separately for each language, based on internal grammatical criteria in that language.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology , pp. 29 - 47
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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