Frommer Paul R., Finegan Edward. Looking at Languages: A Workbook in Elementary Linguistics

4th edition. — Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. — 373 pages. — ISBN10: 1-4130-3085-8; ISBN13: 978-1-4130-3085-3.Looking at Languages examines data from thirty natural languages, including Akan, Wichita, and a few others that might be considered exotic by the majority of readers. For most beginning students, however, the phenomena of better-known languages like Arabic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Persian, and Turkish are exotic enough, and the accessibility of native speakers—sometimes sitting right next to you in class—who can pronounce the examples, offer observations about them, and provide you more data can infuse an exercise with immediacy and added life. Besides these natural languages, this book lets you tackle such fictitious ones as Spiiktumi and Klingon.A useful feature of Looking at Languages is the opportunity for you to hear most of the data as well as see it, whether or not you have access to a speaker of the language. When you see the sound icon in an exercise, point your browser to www.thomsonedu.com/english/finegan, click on Sound Files, find the data reproduced there, and click on each example to hear it pronounced authentically by a native speaker. Although the problems can be solved without recourse to the sound files, hearing speakers pronounce their own languages will bring the printed page to life, making the exercises more interesting and exciting for you. Particularly in the case of the phonology problems, it will also add clarity and understanding. Books play a crucial role in university education, but human languages are, in the first instance, produced by the vocal apparatus and captured by the earExercises are arranged in order of increasing complexity. An answer key is included.