I recall someone(s) on this site studying this subject. Any books you could recommend to a prospective autodidact?
That would be our resident madman Limetom. Wonder if he's still about...
The Conlanger's Library (http://library.conlang.org/).
He's in Japan right now, isn't he?
If you just want some quick and dirty (and useful!) linguistics information because you're designing languages for your setting, I'd also recommend the Language Construction Kit (http://www.zompist.com/kit.html).