Linguistics: An Introduction

This is the new edition of Linguistics: An Introduction. It is a bestselling introductory textbook for all students of linguistics and language studies. This reworked edition features: -new chapters on sign languages, writing, and text and discourse -coverage of writing in electronic media -revised and updated chapters on languages of the world and psycholinguistics Firmly based around taught courses and catering to student needs, it addresses all the topics that a student will need in their study of language. With key terms, further reading, questions at the end of each chapter, exercises and key paragraphs in stand-out boxes, this is a firmly pedagogic text that takes difficult concepts and explains them in an easy to understand way. It features examples taken from a range of languages across the world. Global in its scope and comprehensive in its coverage, this is the textbook of choice for linguistics students. The book comes with a large Companion Website, also extensively revised and expanded. For lecturers and instructors, a comprehensive Answer Book is also available to go along with the questions throughout the chapters.

In English, verbs can be distinguished by the fact that they make past tense forms
regularly by the suffix -ed (and irregularly by other means, including suppletion);
many take the agentive derivational suffix -er to form nouns (thinker, walker, ...