Possible and Probable Languages: A Generative Perspective on Linguistic Typology

In this important and pioneering book Frederick Newmeyer seeks to explain the variety of languages. He combines the leading ideas of the functionalist and formalist approaches to linguistic typology, advocating principles of Universal Grammar to explain why some language types are impossible, and functional principles to explain why some grammatical features are more common than others.

Author: Frederick J. Newmeyer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 12/08/2005
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.28lbs
Size: 9.28h x 6.38w x 0.86d
ISBN: 9780199274338

About the Author
Frederick J. Newmeyer is Howard and Frances Nostrand Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington in Seattle where he has taught since 1969. He was Secretary-Treasurer of the Linguistic Society of America from 1989 to 1993 and its President in 2002. He specializes in syntax and the history of linguistics and in his current research program seeks to synthesize the results of formal and functional linguistics. He is the author of the books English Aspectual Verbs (1975), Linguistic Theory in America (1980), Grammatical Theory: Its Limits and its Possibilities (1983), The Politics of Linguistics (1986), Generative Linguistics: Historical Perspective (1996), and Language Form and Language Function (1998). He was also editor of the four-volume compilation Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey (1988).

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