Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. The background of historical linguistic study. 3. Genealogical classification. 4. Linguistic communities. 5. The comparative method. 6. On opacity. 7. Ambiguity and word meaning. 8. Language and communication. 9. Models of language. 10. Words. 11. Sentences. 12. Relations between sentences. Sentences.

"For pedagogical reasons, we distinguish between historical linguistics and descriptive linguistics, as well as sub-branches with special emphasis, such as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. But the distinctions are artificial, as a survey of the study of language demonstrates. Unless one limits oneself to an ideal form, all languages are changing. Linguistics, then, is properly a historical science, in much the same way as are geology, astronomy and other sciences that observe, describe and explain through experimentation. While we are concerned in this book with highlights in historical study, we cannot disregard the intimate relationship between historical and descriptive study. In many ways historical study is built on descriptive study. Many of the basic problems in the history of language require detailed description for solution, as we see in the following.

"Whatever the effort and conclusions of individual scholars, historical linguistics today is vigorous, favoured with many problems and hopeful of solutions, especially when further information is discovered. For useful work and contributions, students must be thoroughly grounded in writing systems, methods of classification and principles of change throughout the systems of language. Having acquired such competence, they will find many opportunities to apply it and provide still further advances." (jacket)