Analyzing Grammar: An Introduction
P.R. Kroeger
Cambridge University Press
2005
ISBN: 0-521-01653-3
i-xvii – 364 pages

Reviewed by: Luciana Diniz
Georgia State University

Analyzing Grammar: An Introduction is an introductory level textbook geared towards advanced undergraduate and/or beginning level graduate linguistics students. The book is divided into 17 short chapters, which can be easily spread out through a one-semester morphology/syntax course. The chapters encompass a wide range of topics in syntax and morphology, including: (1) grammatical form, (2) analyzing word structure, (3) constituent structure, (4) semantic roles and grammatical relations, (5) lexical entries and well-formed clauses, (6) noun phrases, (7) case and agreement, (8) noun classes and pronouns, (9) tense, aspect, and modality, (10) non-verbal predicates, (11) special sentence types, (12) subordinate clauses, (13) derivational morphology, (14) valence-changing morphology, (15) allomorphy, (16) non-linear morphology, and (17) clitics.

Chapter 1 both explains some basic linguistics concepts, such as the difference between prescriptive and descriptive rules of grammar, and situates the context of the book. The author makes it clear in this chapter that the textbook will focus on language form, particularly syntax and morphology, and, therefore, not a lot of attention will be given to the sociolinguistic aspects of language.
In chapters 2 and 3, Kroeger presents a brief introduction on morphology and syntax, reviewing concepts to which students should have been previously exposed, such as types of morphemes, contrastive analysis, constituency, and tree diagrams. These two chapters contain a great amount of information, which is rather difficult for students to grasp if this is their first exposure to linguistics. These two chapters include a wide variety of examples. A major strength of these chapters is the way that the text is pedagogically organized. The author solves morphology problems as if he were doing it together with the students, explaining each step separately. The examples are simple and the steps are easy to follow. Additionally, this section contains a superb approach to undergraduate students’ potential struggle with morphology problems in introductory linguistics classes.

Chapters 4 to 12 focus on syntax. In these chapters, the author presents a variety of examples, most of them focusing on the English language. Chapter 4, for instance, does not include any examples of languages other than English. However, one (out of the two) exercises at the end of the chapter focuses on Indonesian. The list of topics in syntax incorporated in this book differs from other traditional introduction to syntax ones. It covers semantic roles and grammatical relations, as other books, but it also focuses on the specifics of noun phrases, case and agreement, the pronoun system, tenses, modality, special types of sentences (e.g., commands, questions, negation), coordinate and subordinate clauses, direct vs. indirect speech, and relative clauses. On the other hand, the syntax component of this textbook does not incorporate traditional topics such as X-bar theory and transformations and movements.

Chapters 13 to 17 focus on morphology. Once more, much of the information the author presents is done pedagogically. All chapters in morphology include examples of many languages, illustrating how the various morphological processes work in languages other than English. As the author points out in the preface, this textbook includes more topics than a standard morphology and syntax book. The issues of typology of case and agreement systems, gender systems, pronoun systems, for example, are explained. The main objective is to “help students write good descriptive grammars.” The activity located in the appendix well applies this main goal of the book. In this section, the author proposes that students analyze some data from Swahili, and write a short “grammar sketch” of the language, containing aspects of morphology, basic clause structure, and sentence patterns. Through this project, students are invited to apply the content of all chapters to a real life situation. This assignment can be used by the instructor as a final project for the course.
Even though Analyzing Grammar is an introductory level textbook, it assumes some previous knowledge from the part of the students. The book defines some basic terminology, but does not explain essential concepts in detail. Therefore, this textbook is a good resource in a Morphology and Syntax course, for example, after students were previously exposed to some basic concepts of Linguistics in an introductory class.

Overall, the language of Analyzing Grammar is clear and straightforward. A wide variety of examples, including both English and languages other than English, illustrates most new concepts presented in the book. There are also tables throughout the text summarizing important concepts. These tables make it easier for students to locate information when studying for quizzes and tests. A helpful glossary is present at the end of the book, containing key words and their location in the chapters.
Another positive characteristic of Analyzing Grammar is its high interactivity. Throughout the chapters, the author invites students to try out a problem or to answer a question which will be answered later on in the chapter. Furthermore, each chapter includes a concluding section, in which the author summarizes important concepts. Exercises are also provided at the end of each chapter, along with suggestions of additional exercises from other books for students and instructors who would like to have extra practice. The exercises are appropriately challenging, and they focus mainly on languages other than English.