Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory is a textbook written for undergraduate and graduate students of lingiustic theory. Twelve major figures bring their expertise to each of the core areas of the field - morphology, syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, and language acquisition.

The book is concerned with discussing the underlying principles common to all languages, showing how these are revealed in language acquisition and in the specific grammars of the world's languages. Theoretical concepts are introduced through the analysis of a wide set of language data from Arabic to Zulu. The student will learn how to 'do' linguistics by working through real linguistic data. Each section explains how to define and solve a problem; organizes the data into paradigms revealing the structured patterns in the data; formulates generalizations based on these patterns; proposes rules or principles to account for the generalization; and seeks independent evidence in its argument for the proposed theoretical constructs. Also included in each section are chapters on how children acquire these theoretical principles and concepts.