Language Universals and Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology

by Bernard Comrie

Book Overview

Since its first publication, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology has become established as the leading introductory account of one of the most productive areas of linguistics--the analysis, comparison, and classification of the common features and forms of the organization of languages. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by Greenberg and others, Bernard Comrie is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226114333
• ISBN13: 9780226114330
• Release Date: July 1989
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A magnificent introduction and reference.

Along with Paynes "Describing Morphosyntax" (ISBN: 0521588057), this book will help any student -- or entertain any enthusiast --of languages or linguistics. It treats various types of syntactic theory in a manner that (rarely among such useful works) is clear, engaging and (in places) enthralling. While drawing on the familiar "old standards" for grammatic comparison (Russian, Dyirbal, Yakut, Hikxaryana, Japanese, etc), the way comparisons are drawn between systems reveals isomorphisms and patterns that are certainly elegant and perhaps beautiful. Comrie has, as ever, produced a thing of wonder.