Suggestions

[Roland Pfau]

Dear Adam,

you are right in pointing out that only few introductory linguistics
textbooks bother to give an overview over different approaches to the study
of language.

Three good sources I know of which you may wanna check out are the following:

Van Valin, R.D. & R. LaPolla (1997), Syntax: structure, meaning, and
function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[chapter 1: Goals of linguistic theory]

Van Valin, R.D. (2001), An introduction to syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
[chapter 6: Theories of syntax]

Newmeyer, F.J. (1998), Language form and language function. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
[chapter 1: The form-function problem in linguistics (maybe not that good
for undergraduates?)]

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Roland.


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Dr. Roland Pfau
Department of General Linguistics
University of Amsterdam
Spuistraat 210
1012 VT  Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Tel: +31 (0)20 525 3022
E-mail: pfau at hum.uva.nl
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