Morphology

By Peter H. Matthews and Peter Hugoe Matthews

Book Overview

This is an updated and substantially revised edition of Peter Matthews's well-known Morphology, first published in 1974. It includes chapters on inflectional and lexical morphology, derivational processes and productivity, compounds, paradigms, and much new material on markedness and other aspects of iconicity. As in the first edition, the theoretical discussion is eclectic and critical: its scope ranges from the ancient grammarians to the work of Chomsky and his followers, the disintegration of the classical Chomskyan scheme, and the renewed standing of morphology and historical linguistics in recent years. The examples are drawn from English and other European languages, ancient and modern. The work will appeal both to specialists in particular languages - it contains much original material - and students of general linguistics. For this new edition much now obsolete discussion has been removed and replaced by discussion of current trends, and the further reading sections have been thoroughly updated.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521422566
• ISBN13: 9780521422567
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Great update of a classic.

Peter Matthews' textbook (1st edition from 1974) is definitely THE classic textbook on morphology for its time and context (late 20th century post-Chomsky American linguistics). Unlike other introductory morphology textbooks, it places little emphasis on the latest theories of the month, focusing instead on the major problems faced in describing systematically the structure of words in various languages. It does this through extended, careful examination of concrete language data. Yet at the same time, the book has historically played an important role in the development of morphology in the US during the last 30 years, by articulating the basics of the Word-and-Paradigm approach to morphology as an alternative to the traditional structuralist dichotomy (Item-and-Arrangement vs. Item-and-Process).This is just the best place for a student of morphology to start.