Linguistics For Everyone - Chapter 1 - Language/grammar

Front 1

Linguistics

Back 1

- the scientific study of language.

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Language acquisition

Back 2

- takes place unconsciously without direct instruction

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Language learning

Back 3

- conscious process requiring practice and study

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Hockett's design features that characterize human language

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- semanticity
- arbitrariness
- discreteness
- displacement
- productivity
- duality of patterning

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Semanticity

Back 5

- specific signals can be matched with specific meanings (i.e. words have meanings)

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Arbitrariness

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- no logical connection between the form of the signal and the thing it refers to (e.g. cat in English is chat in French and gato in Spanish)

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Discreteness

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- messages in the system are made up of smaller, repeatable parts rather than indivisible units (i.e. a word can be broken down into units of sound)

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Displacement

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- the language user can talk about things that are not present (i.e. in the past or future, here or not here)

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Productivity

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- language users can understand and create new utterances (never heard before)

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Duality of patterning

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- a large number of meaningful utterances can be recombined in a systematic way from a small number of discrete parts of language (e.g. suffixes can be attached to many roots; words can be combined to make new sentences)

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Grammar

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- a complex system of rules that governs how speakers organize sounds into words, and words into sentences
- the set of rules a speaker knows that allow him/her to produce and understand sentences in a language

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Components of grammar

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- phonetics
- phonology
- morphology
- syntax
- semantics

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Phonetics

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- the inventory of sounds in a language

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Phonology

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- rules of how sounds are combined in a language

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Morphology

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- rules of word formation in a language

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Syntax

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- rules of sentence formation in a language

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Semantics

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- rules that govern how meaning is expressed by words and sentences in a language

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Grammatical sentence

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- a possible sentence in the language

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Ungrammatical sentence

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- a setnence that is impossible in a given language, i.e. that a native speaker would never utter naturally

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Prescriptive grammar

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- set of grammatical rules prescribed by a language authority

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Descriptive grammar

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- set of grammatical rules based on what we SAY, not on what we SHOULD SAY according to some language authority

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Modification

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- adjustment, change and modification of grammatical systems based on various social factors

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Continuum of language varieties

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- grammars that share enough of an historical and grammatical relationship to be recognized as varieties of one language - e.g. N American English contrasted with Cockney English

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Dialect

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- a variety of a language that differs from other varieties in grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary, and that is spoken and understood by a particular group which might be identified by region, ethnicity, social class, etc.
- generally, speakers of different dialects can understand each other (not always true)

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Universal grammar

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- set of linguistic rules common to all languages, hypothesized to be part of human cognition

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Linguistic parameters

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- binary ("on/off") settings of universal grammatical principles proposed to accoung for differences among languages
- examples: word order (SVO or SOV), null subjects

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Universal principles or rules shared by all languages

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- consonants and vowels
- conversation is made up of sentences
- subset of sounds (from a much bigger possible group of sounds humans make)
- similar ways of categorizing meaning distinctions

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Scientific method

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- examine data
- form a hypothesis
- test the hypothesis against additional data
- formulate theories (collections of hypotheses) that can be tested against competing theories.

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Generative grammar

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- system of grammar rules that allow speakers to create possible sentences in a language
- some generative rules may be part of universal grammar
- associated with Noam Chomsky, "Syntactic Structures"

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Rationalism

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- philosophy based on the idea that we use innate knowledge, or reason, to make sense of the world

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Language-specific rules (English)

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Sentences have subjects and predicates
Imperatives have no subject