Are Some Languages Better Than Others?

List of contents

• Preface


• 1: Setting the scene


• 2: How languages work


• 3: What is necessary


• 4: What is desirable


• 5: What is not (really) needed


• 6: How about complexity?


• 7: How many words should there be?


• 8: The limits of a language


• 9: Better for what purpose?


• 10: An ideal language


• 11: Facing up to the question


• Notes and sources


• Abbreviations


• Acknowledgements


• References


• Index

About the author

R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. He has written extensively on a number of Australian and Amazonian languages, as well as on ergativity, semantics, and English grammar. His many books include The Rise and Fall of Languages (CUP 1997), Basic Linguistic Theory (OUP 2010-2), Making New Words (OUP 2014), and Edible Gender, Mother-in-Law Style, and Other Grammatical Wonders (OUP 2015). Dixon's academic biography I am a Linguist was published by Brill in 2011.

Summary

This book sets out to answer a question that many linguists have been hesitant to ask: are some languages better than others? Written in the author's usual accessible and engaging style, the book outlines the essential and optional features of language, before concluding that the ideal language does not and probably never will exist.

Additional text

“A veritable compendium of linguistics, a collection of concise but detailed information about the essential components of human languages. It is written in an accessible, enjoyable, and refreshingly clear style. It also brings many other important questions into focus, for example, the varying extents to which speakers of diverse tongues make use of the vast potential resources of human language.

Product details

• Authors: R. M. W. Dixon, R. M. W. (Adjunct Professor and Deputy Dire Dixon, Dixon R. M. W.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 14.12.2017
• EAN: 9780198817833
• ISBN: 978-0-19-881783-3
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Grammar & Punctuation, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax, Grammar, syntax & morphology, Historical & comparative linguistics, Grammar, syntax and morphology, Historical and comparative linguistics