If people encounter the term ‘syntax’, they usually think of ‘grammar’, and for many this term conjures up bad associations of schoolteachers' pronouncements about how one should and should not talk, of seemingly endless conjugations of verbs or declensions of nouns that must be mastered by rote, or of dreary repetitions of insipid phrases in a foreign-language class. This book is about none of these things. It is, rather, about the marvelous diversity of ways of expressing itself that the human mind has created during the evolution of human language. How does an Aborigine from central Australia, a Basque from Spain or an inhabitant of the island of Madagascar put a sentence together? Is it at all similar to the way an English speaker does it? Or a Spanish speaker? Or a Russian speaker? Or a Sioux speaker? Chinese and Japanese speakers use the same characters to write their respective languages; how similar is Chinese syntax to Japanese syntax? How does a scientist go about analysing the structure of all of these different languages?

These are just some of the questions that will be answered in this book. An Introduction to Syntax is first and foremost an exploration of the variety of human languages, with examples drawn from every part of the globe.