Language : An Introduction to the Study of Speech
, by Sapir, Edward
- ISBN: 9780156482332 | 0156482339
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 6/1/1955
Originally published in 1921, this classic is still regarded as one of the clearest, most comprehensive descriptions of language for the general reader. Index.
| Preface | p. iii |
| Introductory: Language Defined | p. 1 |
| Language a cultural, not a biologically inherited, function | |
| Futility of interjectional and sound-imitative theories of the origin of speech | |
| Definition of language | |
| The psychophysical basis of speech | |
| Concepts and language | |
| Is thought possible without language? | |
| Abbreviations and transfers of the speech process | |
| The universality of language | |
| The Elements of Speech | p. 17 |
| Sounds not properly elements of speech | |
| Words and significant parts of words (radical elements, grammatical elements) | |
| Types of words | |
| The word a formal, not a functional unit | |
| The word has a real psychological existence | |
| The sentence | |
| The cognitive, volitional, and emotional aspects of speech | |
| Feeling-tones of words | |
| The Sounds of Language | p. 32 |
| The vast number of possible sounds | |
| The articulating organs and their share in the production of speechsounds: lungs, glottal cords, nose, mouth and its parts | |
| Vowel articulations | |
| How and where consonants are articulated | |
| The phonetic habits of a language | |
| The "values" of sounds | |
| Phonetic patterns | |
| Form in Language: Grammatical Processes | p. 44 |
| Formal processes as distinct from grammatical functions | |
| Intercrossing of the two points of view | |
| Six main types of grammatical process | |
| Word sequence as a method | |
| Compounding of radical elements | |
| Affixing: prefixes and suffixes; infixes | |
| Internal vocalic change; consonantal change | |
| Reduplication | |
| Functional variations of stress; of pitch | |
| Form in Language: Grammatical Concepts | p. 64 |
| Analysis of a typical English sentence | |
| Types of concepts illustrated by it | |
| Inconsistent expression of analogous concepts | |
| How the same sentence may be expressed in other languages with striking differences in the selection and grouping of concepts | |
| Essential and non-essential concepts | |
| The mixing of essential relational concepts with secondary ones of more concrete order | |
| Form for form's sake | |
| Classification of linguistic concepts: basic or concrete, derivational, concrete relational, pure relational | |
| Tendency for these types of concepts to flow into each other | |
| Categories expressed in various grammatical systems | |
| Order and stress as relating principles in the sentence | |
| Concord | |
| Parts of speech: no absolute classification possible; noun and verb | |
| Types of Linguistic Structure | p. 97 |
| The possibility of classifying languages | |
| Difficulties | |
| Classification into form-languages and formless languages not valid | |
| Classification according to formal processes used not practicable | |
| Classification according to degree of synthesis | |
| "Inflective" and "agglutinative" | |
| Fusion and symbolism as linguistic techniques | |
| Agglutination | |
| "Inflective" a confused term | |
| Threefold classification suggested: what types of concepts are expressed? what is the prevailing technique? what is the degree of synthesis? Four fundamental conceptual types | |
| Examples tabulated | |
| Historical test of the validity of the suggested conceptual classification | |
| Language as a Historical Product: Drift | p. 120 |
| Variability of language | |
| Individual and dialectic variations | |
| Time variation or "drift" | |
| How dialects arise | |
| Linguistic stocks | |
| Direction or "slope" of linguistic drift | |
| Tendencies illustrated in an English sentence | |
| Hesitations of usage as symptomatic of the direction of drift | |
| Leveling tendencies in English | |
| Weakening of case elements | |
| Tendency to fixed position in the sentence | |
| Drift toward the invariable word | |
| Language as a Historical Product: Phonetic Law | p. 141 |
| Parallels in drift in related languages | |
| Phonetic law as illustrated in the history of certain English and German vowels and consonants | |
| Regularity of phonetic law | |
| Shifting of sounds without destruction of phonetic pattern | |
| Difficulty of explaining the nature of phonetic drifts | |
| Vowel mutation in English and German | |
| Morphological influence on phonetic change | |
| Analogical levelings to offset irregularities produced by phonetic laws | |
| New morphological features due to phonetic change | |
| How Languages Influence Each Other | p. 158 |
| Linguistic influences due to cultural contact | |
| Borrowing of words | |
| Resistances to borrowing | |
| Phonetic modification of borrowed words | |
| Phonetic interinfluencings of neighboring languages | |
| Morphological borrowings | |
| Morphological resemblances as vestiges of genetic relationship | |
| Language, Race and Culture | p. 170 |
| Naive tendency to consider linguistic, racial, and cultural groupings as congruent | |
| Race and language need not correspond | |
| Cultural and linguistic boundaries not identical | |
| Coincidences between linguistic cleavages and those of language and culture due to historical, not intrinsic psychological, causes | |
| Language does not in any deep sense "reflect" culture | |
| Language and Literature | p. 182 |
| Language as the material or medium of literature | |
| Literature may move on the generalized linguistic plane or may be inseparable from specific linguistic conditions | |
| Language as a collective art | |
| Necessary esthetic advantages or limitations in any language | |
| Style as conditioned by inherent features of the language | |
| Prosody as conditioned by the phonetic dynamics of a language | |
| Index | p. 191 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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