If you're interested in natural language processing (NLP), but don't have a linguistics background, I would suggest reading Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. It will introduce you to the necessary terminology and concepts for NLP in an easy-to-digest way. (The NLTK book has been free online for quite some time as well.)
The Language Instinct is a great book, but unless the content of newer editions has changed significantly, it's more of an overview of linguistics in general, and language acquisition in particular. There's not much -- if any -- practical NLP. For example, looking at Amazon's statistically-improbable phrases (SIPs), I see nothing related to NLP, nor do I see any terms related to practical NLP during a quick glance of the book's index. The index includes references to a few pages on "statistics of language", but I honestly don't remember what those were about.
Also, the Language Instinct was written in the early 1990s, so although new editions have been released, it's a bit dated. It's a classic read for linguists and people interested in language, but I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to NLP.
Oh no, I didn't intend for The Language Instinct as an introduction to NLP, but as a basic introduction to the fundamentals of linguistics. I mainly had in mind terms like morpheme, phoneme, scope, etc. A basic understanding of these concepts will make reading the NLTK book much easier, although it isn't necessary.
Ok, that makes more sense. I read your comment as being a recommendation of The Language Instinct to learn the fundamentals of NLP. But point taken, it's a good book about language.
