{"id":309,"date":"2004-06-09T07:27:28","date_gmt":"2004-06-09T13:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/?p=309"},"modified":"2005-01-07T05:34:52","modified_gmt":"2005-01-07T11:34:52","slug":"review-a-target_blank-hrefhttpwwwamazoncomexecobidosasin0521588057fantasistnetdescribing-morphosyntax-a-guide-for-field-linguistsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/2004\/06\/09\/review-a-target_blank-hrefhttpwwwamazoncomexecobidosasin0521588057fantasistnetdescribing-morphosyntax-a-guide-for-field-linguistsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Describing Morphosyntax : A Guide for Field Linguists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I finished <a target=\"_blank\" HREF=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0521588057\/fantasistnet\">Describing Morphosyntax : A Guide for Field Linguists<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I could reccomend it whole-heartily and without reservation, but I just can&#8217;t.  First, it is a <i>very<\/i> techinical book.  When this book was reccomended to me, it was with the idea of learning various aspects of language so that I could create a more realistic conlang.  And, it will do that, I have to admit, but it will help me as a reference book.  So, imagine reading a dictionary of linguistic terms with some examples, primarily in languages that you&#8217;ve never heard of before.  (Well, okay, that part is actually cool.  Some of those languages were really interesting!)  Not the easiest thing to read.<br \/>\nSecond, it reads like a textbook, which, of course, it is.  At least, of a sort.  The author intended this to be a guide for amatuer linguists in the field trying to save dying languages.  And, I&#8217;m sure it serves that purpose quite well, if those linguists have a fair amount of linguistic study under their belt already.  This is definately <b><i>not<\/i><\/b> for the first time linguistic reader.  I have read several books on linguistics and I still found myself overwhelmed more than once.  <\/p>\n<p>So, while it was certainly a challenge for me to get through, I will absolutely refer back to sections of this book while working on conlangs.  It really presents information and ideas that no other book on linguistics seems to touch.  A little dry at times, but worth the effort.<br \/>\nIn short, <a target=\"_blank\" HREF=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0521588057\/fantasistnet\">Describing Morphosyntax<\/a> is not for the begginer, but the dedicated amatuer linguist or conlanger (conlinguist?).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I finished Describing Morphosyntax : A Guide for Field Linguists this week. I wish I could reccomend it whole-heartily and without reservation, but I just can&#8217;t. First, it is a very techinical book. When this book was reccomended to me, it was with the idea of learning various aspects of language so that I could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,19,23,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constructed-languages","category-criticism-marginalia-and-notes","category-review","category-science-and-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}