Chapter 01 LING

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1 Chapter 01 (Ling) What is ‘linguistics’? Linguistics is the study of one aspect of human knowledge, specifically, knowledge of language. Because linguistic science concerns human knowledge, it falls under the scope of the broader field of Cognitive Science. As is usual in scientific enterprises, ‘language’ has a very specific sense in linguistics. the object of study in linguistics is not your language or Fred’s language or any specific instantiation of ‘language’, but rather the general principles which govern all languages. Specific individual languages, like specific entities in the physical universe for a physicist, are intended to follow from this general model of language. the knowledge that linguists have about languages (other than their native language) is what we might call explicit or conscious knowledge. By contrast, the knowledge that a native speaker has is tacit or unconscious knowledge. ‘Language’ vs. languages the term ‘language’ in everyday speech is in such collocations as ‘the English language,’ ‘the French language,’ ‘the Swahili language,’ etc. These notions of ‘language,’ which we will call ‘socio-political,’ turn out to have no clear referent and thus provide no meaningful basis for scientific inquiry, and hence irrelevant. See the difficulty of the everyday use of ‘language’ for linguistic inquiry wrt to Joyce’s quote from Finnegan’s wake, and Kellet’s quote from Basic Broad York Where is ‘language’ ? Linguists recognize the important role that all linguistic systems play in the scientific pursuit of attempting to understand in general what a possible linguistic system is. Through an examination of the diversity of human linguistic systems, linguists have learned that there are no ‘incorrect’ linguistic systems, no ‘primitive’ languages, and, most importantly, that language is not something ‘out there’ but rather something ‘inside’ a human being – a piece of mental machinery. Each individual has a particular knowledge state with respect to language. As a result, there are at least as many ‘languages’ as there are humans. What linguists have observed is that no matter how superficially different the languages are (in the sounds or words they use, for example), there are striking similarities among them. Where is ‘language’ ? Prescriptive vs Descriptive Grammar Formal, careful speech is grammatically more sophisticated than casual, everyday speech. False! Linguists distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive rules. Linguists are interested in descriptive rules.

2 Prescriptive Grammar : Rules that tell people how they SHOULD speak (and write, i.e. textbook language) Prescriptivism in English 1. “Older is better.” 2. “Latin is better.” Attributed to John Dryden: “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” No English-speakers follow Dryden’ s rule naturally. - What is she talking about? (Normal) - About what is she talking? (Weird!) Some (positive or negative) effects of Prescriptive Grammar: - Standardization - Social Power! Where is ‘language’: Descriptive Grammar Descriptive Grammar : Rules describing how a language is actually spoken by native speakers Native Speaker: - A native speaker of a language L is a person who grew up speaking L, from early childhood on. Grammaticality - If a sentence sounds natural to a native speaker – something he/she would utter – it is grammatical; otherwise it is ungrammatical. - Mary eats chocolate. * Mary chocolate eats. (Note: the * indicates ungrammaticality) Linguistics: Descriptive Grammar represents what you know as a native speaker (tacit knowledge) Goal of Linguistics : To come up with a set of rules that correctly predicts grammaticality. Hypothesis : Like can be inserted (only) at the left edge of a major syntactic constituent . THIS SHOWS…. … that even in casual, everyday speech, and even when they aren’t aware of it, people are following extremely sophisticated and subtle grammatical rules. Mental vs. Physical Reality The difference between physical reality and mental construct: the optical illusion. Illusion picture (example): - The eye cannot manipulate the stimuli themselves. - it is your mind that is causing you to perceive this picture as having moving black dots. - This, and the countless other examples of its type, suggests that the mind has a system for creating mental perceptions out of the stimuli that the eye provides to it. Beyond this, all of the sub-fields within Cognitive Science are also united by the fundamental assumption that the mind can best be modelled as a computational system . The computational approach to human knowledge has proved fruitful and still provides the general framework within which each of the sub-fields is explored.

3 Consider those occasions when you happen to overhear people speaking a language that you do not speak or understand. It is impossible to determine how many ‘words’ they are saying, all you hear is a stream of unintelligible sounds. If there were actually ‘words’ in their speech, you should be able to count them, at least, even if you don’t know what the words mean. The fact is that there are no physical entities that correspond to ‘words,’ instead, ‘word’ is a mental construct (like moving black dots) that your linguistic system builds for you based upon experience with specific language data. Some Further Implications… - The mind vs physical world wrt language: - Competence vs Performance - aj ʤəs rili ɪt ɪts ðə bɪgəst θrɪl - I just really it it’s the biggest thrill Competence vs Performance Our approach will be concerned with speakers’ linguistic competence - the knowledge in their minds which allows language to be generated, responsible for the output of their grammar (a mental representation). We abstract away from linguistic performance , which is distorted by memory, false starts, fatigue, alcohol, etc. theses lapses/disturbances do not reflect parallel lapses /disturbances in the processes of the grammar. What is a linguistic system? The linguistic system is stored in the human mind – it is some type of knowledge. Each person’s linguistic system is somewhat different from another’s but, at the same time, there are striking similarities in human linguistic systems. The set of possible human linguistic systems appears to be highly restricted. These restrictions on human linguistic systems can be accounted for if we assume that innate (i.e., genetically given) knowledge restricts the types of linguistic systems humans can create. The genetically-determined portion of the system must necessarily be supplemented by data acquired from the environment. One way to answer the question of what ‘language’ is, in the linguistic sense, is to explore what one must know to know a language. The Components of Language The basic subfields are: - Phonology - Morphology - Syntax - Semantics

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4 Phonology: Rules that govern the sound system of a language: Distinctive speech sounds constraints on sound combinations (eg: word initial consonant clusters), syllable structure, sound interactions. intonation stress Morphology = word formation  morpheme = smallest meaningful unit eg: dog [canine], -s [ more than one]  morphemes may be free (roots dog ) or bound (affixes –s; bound roots –ceive )  Affixes: prefix, suffix, circumfix, (infix).  All roots belong to a certain grammatical category (N, V, Adj…)  Affixes are of two types: derivational : either change the grammatical category of the stem (eg: Agent Noun suffix –er turns a V into a N: drive > driver), OR changes the meaning of the word (eg: the prefix un-: lock vs unlock, both are V, but the prefixes changes the meaning). inflectional : does not change the meaning, but puts a word in a grammatical relationship with others within a sentence: case, number, tense, mood, comparative, superlative. Morphology = word formation  compounding: two roots or stems to build a word. Eg: lipstick, skyscraper, pickpocket, roller blade, runner-up…  functional shift: fun N > fun Adj; slow Adj > slow Adv etc…  clipping: prof ( <professor), doc (<doctor)  blending: RuPaulogize, Rusical, Rudemption, Glamdiculous.  Some non-Ru Paul blending: glamping, brunch, guesstimate, mansplaining… Syntax how words are grouped into larger units (phrase: Noun Phrase (NP), Verb Phrase (VP)), and these phrases are grouped into clauses (Main Clause, Subordinate clauses). Clause type: Declaratives, Interrogatives, Exclamatives, Negation, passive/active constructions. Word order typology: SOV, SVO, Verb second etc… Syntax and morphology are tightly connected and depend on hierarchical structure. Semantics study of lexical and grammatical meaning (there is also compositional semantics, but we will not concern ourselves with that topic in this course). intension vs extension of a word. - intension = set of properties shared by all members of the word’s extension (think dictionary definition). Eg. intension of dog = ‘a four legged mammal belonging to the genus Canis ’. - extension = all the entities to which the word refers. eg. extension of dog includes: Great Dane, Pitbull, Greyhound, Collies, Dalmatians, Chihuahua etc… denotation vs connotation of a word.

5 - denotation = literal, objective meaning. Eg. denotation of dog = ‘a four legged mammal belonging to the genus Canis ’ (note that this holds for the intensional meaning of dog as well). - connotation = Subjective associations that a word evokes, based on personal individual or group experience, or cultural factors. eg. connotation of dog for me is a loyal and loving companion; for someone else, a dog might be a terrifying, fear-inducing, filthy flea bag. Semantics Universal features: [± ANIMATE], [± HUMAN], [± ADULT], etc… stallion : [+ANIMATE –HUMAN +EQUID +ADULT +MALE] mare : [+ANIMATE –HUMAN +EQUID +ADULT –MALE] foal : : [+ANIMATE –HUMAN +EQUID –ADULT ± MALE] Pragmatics Not part of UG itself, but is related to semantics and is the study of language in use: - intention of the speaker, assumptions of the listener - Gricean maxims of communication (Quantity, Quality, Relevance, Manner) - how social, political and cultural institutions shape language use - discourse analysis What linguistics is NOT about… Communicative systems (Morse code, whistle “language”, picture drawing etc…) are not relevant to our scope of investigation. Writing systems. Defining our Focus: A Definition of Language: Human language is a structured system that operates according to a set of principles. Each language is governed by a set of finite rules (grammar). Human language (universal grammar) is innate feature of the human brain. However, one must be exposed to a language to acquire it. Human language is unique to humans, differing from animal communication. - All human beings have language - All languages are creative and symbolic All languages use finite sets of discreet sounds - All languages are governed by a finite set of rules - All languages have similar grammatical categories (N, V, Adj…) - All languages contain semantic universals (animate, inanimate…) - All languages make grammatical distinctions (tense, number, negation) - All languages may be used to perform various speech acts (questions, commands, expressing promises or wishes) - All languages change over time - There are no primitive languages.