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As we point out in the Preface to Linguistics for Everyone, linguis-
tics isn’t just for linguists anymore. More and more interdisciplin-
ary linguistics programs and departments are cropping up across the
country, and introductory linguistics courses often include students
from a variety of majors, many of whom have had no prior expo-
sure to the scientific study of language described in this book. Nev-
ertheless, as the many features of this book illustrate, linguistics has
broad application across a number of different fields, in addition to
being an area of study in and of itself. As we mention in the Preface,
I. Features of the Book
Several innovative features will help you organize material and de-
sign classroom activities and assignments.
• The “At a Glance” and “Key Concepts” features will help you
organize your approach to each chapter and will prime your
students to address its concepts; they offer the opportunity
for lively discussions that engage students’ natural interest in
language and tie that to their study of linguistics. These features
are a way to prepare students for the chapter’s topics and get
them focused, as well as giving you a preview of the chapter
topics to help with organization.
PART
Instructor’s Resource Manual
and Answer Key
2 • PART 1 Instructor’s Resource Manual and Answer Key
• Students will find the “Language Alive!” “Did You Know ...?” and “Linguistics
in the News” features both interesting and instructive. They are intended to
• The “Hwæt!” features are pure gravy. They are peripheral bits of
information that are interesting or curious and not necessarily “linguistic”—
fun facts related to material in the chapter. You could challenge students
to contribute their own features, indicating their (valid) sources, of course.
Perhaps these could be used in future editions of the text.
• The marginal definitions of terms (boldfaced in the text) will help you
construct quizzes and exams; at a glance, you can see where terms have
been introduced, which indicates the topics students have studied. The
• All exercises are keyed to the relevant areas in the text so that you can assign
them as students progress through the chapter for immediate review and
reinforcement, or you can assign some or all of them at the end of the chapter
for a comprehensive review and an opportunity to pursue points of particular
interest. We recommend taking advantage of the exercise keys and assigning
the RPE (or a selection thereof) along with class reading assignments. This
encourages students to come to class prepared and promotes more active
Chapter Overview • 3
learning; students not only complete daily reading assignments but also must
actively engage the material prior to coming to class.
II. Possible Course Organization and Schedules
Different instructors will choose, of course, to organize the course material in dif-
ferent ways, depending on the length of the term, the goals of the course, and the
goals of the instructors. As discussed above, the core material of any introduction
to linguistics course is included in Chapters 3–9 (phonetics, phonology, morphol-
ogy, syntax, semantics), which is one possible focus, and which could involve
III. Chapter Overview
We devote two chapters to each core area (phonetics/phonology, morphology,
syntax, and semantics), which allows several options: You can teach both chap-
ters as a unit, pick and choose sections from each to make up a single unit, or
teach sections and assign others to students for presentations, group work, and
so on. We also weave language change and variation throughout each chapter, in
addition to including chapters that focus on these topics.
Chapter 1: “What Is Language and How Do We Study It?” addresses the na-
ture of human language (versus other communication systems) and also includes a
4 • PART 1 Instructor’s Resource Manual and Answer Key
discussion of the origins of linguistic science (a topic other textbooks often omit)
and an introduction to how linguistics differs from other approaches to the study
Chapter 2: “The Human Capacity for Language” is an important chapter for in-
troducing students to the study of linguistics, which is why we have included it as
the second chapter in the book. This chapter provides an overview of the contri-
butions of both psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics to the study of language.
The material presented is an excellent “hook” for students, piquing their curiosity
Chapter 3: “Describing Sounds” provides an introduction to English phonet-
ics, with a unique twist: an emphasis on language change and variation. In addi-
tion to providing an overview of English consonants and vowels, minimal pairs,
and allophones and phonemes, the chapter illustrates language change over time
and space exemplified by both historic and contemporary vowel shifts: the Great
Vowel Shift of the sixteenth century, and the ongoing Northern Cities Vowel Shift
(among others, discussed in the Research, Practice, and Explore section). You
Chapter Overview • 5
transcription is enriched by the discussion of dialect variation and the history of
English, actively engaging them in listening to and analyzing their own speech
and that of others. The approach to phonetics in this chapter provides you with
a way to tackle early on the underpinnings of language discrimination based on
accent (supplemented by some of the fine activities on the PBS Do You Speak
American? website, such as Test Your Vowel Power), or to focus more specifically
on phonetics (exploring, along with the material in the chapter, Peter Ladefoged’s
phonetics website). Our decision to use the symbols /š fi ǰ ž / instead of their IPA
counterparts comes after years of using both and finding that there is much less
confusion for students to not use digraphs. It’s quite simple for students to modify
to the traditional IPA symbols if they continue study in linguistics.
Chapter 4: “The Sound Patterns of Language” requires as a prerequisite the ma-
terial in Chapter 3; students will need a basic understanding of allophones and
phonemes, and literacy in the IPA in order to navigate the material here. The
chapter provides accessible examples of a number of different phonological pro-
cesses (assimilation, deletion, epenthesis and metathesis rules, etc.) and a general
introduction to suprasegmental phonology (syllable structure, stress, and intona–
Chapter 5: “Words and Their Parts” introduces students to the ways in which
words can be divided into (free and bound) morphemes, and focuses on the
kinds of knowledge we use to understand word structure (etymology, recurrence
of a root or suffix in another word, etc.). We also introduce content and function
words here, as well as syntactic categories, an important foundation for Chapter 7
on syntax. We discuss derivational and inflectional morphemes; the section on
6 • PART 1 Instructor’s Resource Manual and Answer Key
content words, and syntactic categories can form a core unit, and instructors
can choose how much additional material they wish to include. You can choose
to introduce derivational morphology, for example, without also discussing tree
Chapter 6: “Morphological Typology and Word Formation” includes a section
on synthetic and analytic languages, which provides a preview of how inflectional
morphology interacts with syntax, and how languages vary according to how in-
flectional information is expressed. This chapter also provides a good foundation
for the discussion of the changes that took place during the development of Eng-
lish in Chapter 11, as English moves from a synthetic language to a more analytic
Chapter 8: “Syntax: Phrase Structure and Syntactic Rules” offers a number of
different teaching alternatives, depending on your focus.
The discussion of syntactic categories in Chapter 7 overlaps neatly with the
introduction of syntactic categories in Chapter 5, though in Chapter 7, we include
syntactic evidence for each category and a set of simple phrase structure rules to
illustrate them. Beyond the discussion of categories, this chapter focuses on what
Chapter Overview • 7
© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
phrase structure rules takes more guidance and time. We therefore recommend that
students have ample time to practice reading and using phrase structure rules prior
to moving on to Chapter 8. The decision to include “old style” phrase structure
rules is informed by years of experimentation with using them and trying other
alternatives. Their use has shown us that they do provide a good way of represent-
ing the unconscious structural rules we have in English, while providing a way to
constrain the complex system to make it most accessible for this level.
Chapter 8 focuses on aspects of syntactic structure that are not explained by
phrase structure rules alone, and what we can learn about syntax by examining
more data and evidence, and by using scientific investigation to answer questions
about sentence structure. It begins with a discussion of evidence for hierarchical
structure (ambiguity) and goes on to address substitution, coordination, movement,
and deletion. These concepts and the evidence we present to illustrate them are best
navigated in class, with instructor guidance, on a par with Chapter 4 on phonology.
Again, as with Chapter 4, you may wish, depending on your focus, to spend time
on each syntactic operation presented in this chapter, or to choose one or two, to
illustrate the concept of a syntactic operation more generally (you might, for ex-
ample, choose to discuss only deletion or only movement, but not both).
Chapter 9: “Semantics: Making Meaning with Words” focuses on word mean-
ings, and includes discussion of meaning relationships (the various “nyms”),
but also focuses on the fact that word meanings change over time, offering ex–
amples of various types of meaning change throughout the history of Eng–
lish. So here again, language change—with specific examples from Middle and
Chapter 10: “Semantics and Pragmatics: Making Meaning with Sentences” fo-
cuses on how we construct meaning from sentences themselves and from the con-
text in which they are uttered. As with other chapters, it is possible here to focus
on formal linguistics or to broaden the focus to utterance meaning more gener-
ally. The first section of the chapter, on sentence meaning, focuses on propositions
and their truth conditions, entailment and paraphrase, and presupposition. The
next section, on thematic roles and argument structure, forms a bridge between
semantics and syntax, outlining how these two grammatical components overlap.
8 • PART 1 Instructor’s Resource Manual and Answer Key
The chapter then moves from semantics of sentences to pragmatics (meaning in
context). These divisions allow for different teaching options; you might choose
to teach sentence meaning and argument structure for a more formal linguistics
focus, and have students pursue the section on pragmatics on their own, through
group or individual assignments. Alternatively, you might choose to put more
focus on meaning in context, conversational maxims, politeness, and Speech Act
Theory, and to introduce students to the complex interplay of social and linguistic
factors in forming meaning, including our cultural expectations, as well as atti-
tudes about power and solidarity, social conventions, and so on. Also in this chap-
ter is a discussion of the research on the ways in which language might (and might
not) shape how we think and view the world—a topic of interest to everyone, and
an important topic to discuss in the context of the science of language, in order to
dispel myths (about numbers of words for snow, for example). The question of
whether our language influences how we think is an excellent topic for debate,
discussion, and research projects.
Chapter 11: “The Early Story of English” provides an overview of the major
historical events that led to Present Day English, beginning with the origins of
historical linguistics and the comparative method, Indo-European and other lan-
guage families, and then focusing on Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. It
is an important chapter to include for English majors (especially those majoring in
English education)—and is of interest to everyone. However, because there is dis-
cussion of language change throughout the core chapters, it is possible to omit this
Chapter Overview • 9
Chapter 12: “English Goes Global” is unique in its presentation. We do not
simply march through a selection of American English dialects with sample
features. Instead, emphasis is placed on how language change (over time)
and language variation (in progress) are one and the same process. Because
Chapter 13: “Representing Language: The Written Word” focuses on the
many differences between spoken and written language. Included is a discus–
sion of the history of writing systems, including the alphabetic system of Eng-
lish. Unique among typical history of writing chapters is discussion of how
contemporary standards of spelling, writing conventions, and punctuation
Chapter 14: “The Life Cycle of Language” is a unique chapter among intro-
ductory texts—and one not to be missed! Here again, as in Chapters 11, 12,
and 13, focus is on the fact that languages are crucially affected by power.
Sample Syllabi
If instructors want to include all of the chapters, here are a few ways to include
the information within terms of different lengths. These can, of course, be
further modified in a multitude of ways, but we provide some course schedules
that we have used effectively.
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I. 11-Week Term
This organization allows all chapters to be covered, though consolidates some
pairs into single weeks, in a way that works quite well. (We’ve tried it!) Assign-
ments should be done daily or weekly, selecting RPE from each chapter. Some
of the RPEs work well for group work, so assigning some as individual assign-
ments and some as group assignments is effective.
Week 1 Chapters 1 and 2 What Is Language and How Do We Study It?;
The Human Capacity for Language
Week 2 Chapter 3 Phonetics: Describing Sounds
Week 3 Chapter 4 Phonology: The Sound Pattern of Language
Week 4 Chapters 5 and 6 Morphology: Words and Their Parts; Typology
and Word Formation
II. 10-Week Term
In this syllabus, we suggest returning to Chapters 1 and 2 at the end of the course.
This arrangement is more like some traditional approaches; after the core concepts
and technical tools are mastered, students can return to questions of UG, innateness,
and acquisition. Also, these chapters tie in well with the material in Chapter 14.
Week 1 Chapter 3 Phonetics: Describing Sounds
Week 2 Chapter 4 Phonology: The Sound Pattern of Language
Week 3 Chapters 5 and 6 Morphology: Words and Their Parts; Typology
and Word Formation
Chapter Overview • 11
Week 5 Chapters 9 and 10 Semantics: Making Meaning with Words,
Semantics; Pragmatics: Making Meaning with Sentences
Week 6 Chapter 11 The Early Story of English
III. 14-Week Term
This schedule works well if you can have time to study one chapter per week.
More frequent testing works better with this longer-term schedule; suggested
slots for quizzes are given. This also may be preferable for a large class in which
daily or weekly assignments are less practical.
Week 1 Chapter 1 What Is Language and How Do We Study It?
Week 2 Chapter 2 The Human Capacity for Language
QUIZ 1
Week 3 Chapter 3 Phonetics: Describing Sounds
Week 4 Chapter 4 Phonology: The Sound Pattern of Language
QUIZ 2
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Week 12 Chapter 12 English Goes Global
QUIZ 6
Week 13 Chapter 13 Representing Language: The Written Word
Week 14 Chapter 14 The Life Cycle of Language
QUIZ 7
IV. Shorter Term (Summer 7-Week Term, for Example)
This organization allows two chapters a week, pairing chapters that work well
together. A smaller selection of RPE assignments from each of the weekly chap-
ters can be assigned.
Week 1 Chapters 1 and 2 What Is Language and How Do We Study It?;
The Human Capacity for Language
Week 2 Chapters 3 and 4 Phonetics: Describing Sounds; Phonology: The
Sound Pattern of Language
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Nicholas Cousino, linguistics major extraordinaire, for help
with the editing of this instructor’s manual and answer key. Please don’t blame
him if there are errors, and please do contact the authors (kristin.denham
@wwu.edu, anne.lobeck@wwu.edu) with any feedback.