introduction linguistics

1

Introduction to Linguistics

Down, dirty, quick

Linguistics

• is systematic study of human language• lies at the crossroads of the humanities

and the social sciences• combines intuition and scientific

approaches to analyze language

Linguists

• are not polyglots—do not study various languages in order to speak them

• are not translators• are interested in areas including cognitive

psychology, philosophy, logic, literature, computer science, and anthropology

• describe and explain language and are not concerned with the prescriptive rules of the language (i.e., do not split infinitives)

Branches of Linguistics • Phonetics (production of sounds) • Phonology (the use of sounds) • Morphology (word formation) • Syntax (sentence and phrase formation) • Semantics (meaning) • Pragmatics (effect of situation) • Other

– Theoretical Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Neurolinguistics, Anthropological Linguistics…

Linguistics Circle Phonetics• study of the production and perception of

speech sounds• concerned w/sounds of language, how these

sounds are articulated and how the hearer perceives them.

• three sub-disciplines of phonetics: – Articulatory Phonetics: the production of speech

sounds– Acousitc Phonetics: the study of the physical

production and transmission of speech sounds– Auditory Phonetics: the study of the perception of

speech sounds

2

Phonology

• study of the sound patterns of language• concerned with how sounds are organized in a

language• examines

– what occurs to speech sounds when they are combined to form a word

– how these speech sounds interact with each other• endeavors to explain what these phonological

processes are in terms of formal rules.

Lynn isn’t in love with phonology. . .

. . .but some of it is important to AmE

• Not all varieties of a language have the same phonemic inventory:– Mary, merry, marry– cot, caught; tot, taught

• or, if they do have the same phonemic inventory, they don’t have the same allophonic alternations

Where/Why does [ ] rise across the country?

Sounds into writing rules. . .Simple Vowels

IPA Chart

3

It gets worse. . . .simple English vowels . . .see what I mean?

Morphology• studies word formation and structure• Studies

– how words are put together from their smaller parts– rules governing this process

• elements that are combining to form words are called morphemes

• morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning you can have in a language– cats, for example, contains the morphemes cat and

the plural -s

Morphology

• dog, dogs, bulldog

• walk, walks, walked, walking, moonwalk

• red, reddish, redden, reddens, redder

Morphemes• Dog 1 morpheme• Dogs 2 morphemes dog + -s [pl]• Bulldog 2 morphemes bull + dog• Walk 1 morpheme walk• Walks 2 morphemes walk + -s [3rd per sing.]• Walked 2 morphemes walk = -ed [past tense]• Red 1 morpheme red• Reddish 2 morphemes red + -ish [deriv. adj]• Redder 2 morphemes red + -er [comparative]

…or looked at another way

4

Phonology vs. Morphology

/tich/ + /Ur/ = teacher (2 morphemes)

/t/ + /i/ + /ch/ + /U/ + /r/ (5 phonemes)

/e/ = a (1 morpheme)/e/ (1 phoneme)

/pat/ + /s/ = pots (2 morphemes)/p/ + /a/ + /t/ + /s/ (4 phonemes)

/be/ = bay (1 morpheme)/b/ + /e/ (2 phonemes)

MorphemesPhonemes

Morphemes: base, root, free, bound, inflectional, derivational. . .

• Derivational– change the meaning of

a morpheme– Change the part of

speech of a morpheme

– can be prefixes or suffixes

• Prefix: un-, in-• Suffix: -ly, -ness

• Inflectional– do not change the

meaning – Do not change the

part of speech of a morpheme

– strictly provide grammatical

– Always suffixes

Contemporary AmE has 8 or 9 inflectional morphemes


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense]


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks– -ed [past tense]

5


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks– -ed [past tense] drank


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks– -ed [past tense] drank– -ing [progressive]


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks– -ed [past tense] drank– -ing [progressive] [is] drinking


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks– -ed [past tense] drank– -ing [progressive] [is] drinking– -en [perfective participle]


• Go with verbs:– -s [3rd person singular, present tense] drinks– -ed [past tense] drank– -ing [progressive] [is] drinking– -en [perfective participle] [has] drunk



• Go with adjectives:– -er [comparative]

6



• Go with adjectives:– -er [comparative] bloodier



• Go with adjectives:– -er [comparative] bloodier– -est [superlative]



• Go with adjectives:– -er [comparative] bloodier– -est [superlative] bloodiest


• Go with nouns:– -s [plural]


• Go with nouns:– -s [plural] vampires


• Go with nouns:– -s [plural] vampires– -’(s) [possessive]

7


• Go with nouns:– -s [plural] vampires– -’(s) [possessive] vampire’s


• Go with nouns:– -s [plural] vampires– -’(s) [possessive] vampire’s– ‘s’ [plural possessive]


• Go with nouns:– -s [plural] vampires– -’(s) [possessive] vampire’s– -s’ [plural possessive] vampires’



• Go with adjectives:– -er [comparative] bloodier– -est [superlative] bloodiest

• Go with nouns:– -s [plural] vampires– -’(s) [possessive] vampire’s– ‘s’ [plural possessive] vampires’

Put another way: Mod AmE Verbs

Verbs

Regular Irregular

Add some endings,Change vowels

Stay regular

Add regular endings:-s present, 3rd person singular

-ed past tens

lovelaughsmile

besingwrite

Derivational? Too many to list…• Change meaning

– Re-• reorganize, restate,

remark, reconvene, repaint, retry, return. . .

– -ness• creativeness, laziness,

expressiveness, courtliness…

– Un-• undo, unpaid,

unadverturous, unadvisedly,unaerated, unaffected…

• Change part of speech:– picture (N) + esque =

picturesque (ADJ)– sing (V) + er = singer (N)– quiet (ADJ) + ly = quietly

(ADV) – vaccine (N) + ate =

vaccinate (V) – tall (ADJ) + ness = tallness

(N) – migrate (V) + ory =

migratory (ADJ)

8

Phonology vs. Morphology

/tich/ + /Ur/ = teacher (2 morphemes)

/t/ + /i/ + /ch/ + /U/ + /r/ (5 phonemes)

/e/ = a (1 morpheme)/e/ (1 phoneme)

/pat/ + /s/ = pots (2 morphemes)/p/ + /a/ + /t/ + /s/ (4 phonemes)

/be/ = bay (1 morpheme)/b/ + /e/ (2 phonemes)

MorphemesPhonemes

Put this much together and you have….syllable and word!

• Syllable: organized sequence of sounds

• Word: [hard one!] unit of language, mostly w/meaning and morphemes

Word Formation

fan (fanatic)lab (laboratory)fax (facsimile)phone (telephone)

Clipping: reducing a word to one of its parts

Word FormationNASA (National Aeronautics and Space Agency)TESOL (Teachers of English as a Second

Language)AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)ASAP

Acronyms: creating a word from initials

Word Formation

edit editorpeddle peddler enthuse enthusiasmshevelled dishevelled (Bill Bryson’s word)

Back Formation: new form from removing prefixes/suffixes

Word FormationXeroxKleenexBand-aidSandwich

Eponyms: derived from proper name of a person or place

9

Word Formationmotel = motor + hotelsmog = smoke + fogbrunch = breakfast + lunchcamcorder = camera + recorder

Blending: formed from parts of other words squished together

Word Formationpetite, genre (from French)karaoke (from Japanese)tea, tofu (from Chinese)salsa (from. . .guess where?)

Borrowing: aka: we don’t have the word so we’ll just steal it

Syntax (Lynn likes this area)

• study of sentence structure• attempts to describe what is grammatical

in a particular language in term of rules• rules detail an underlying structure and a

transformational process

Underlying? Transformational?

• underlying structure of English for example would have a subject-verb-object sentence order– S V [O]– John hit the ball

• transformational process would allow an alteration of the word order– could have something like The ball was hit by

John

Sentence: The students attended class Syntax gets interesting when

• Start using it for practical purposes such as natural language generation

• Attribute-Value Grammar tree for Mary chased John.

10

Put this much together and you have….clause and phrase!

• Clause: unit of language w/subject and verb marked for tense

• Phrase: unit of language similar to clause but lacking either subject, verb, or tense marker

Semantics

• study of meaning (loaded statement!)• concerned with describing

– how we represent the meaning of a word in our mind

– how we use this representation in constructing sentences

• based largely on the study of logic in philosophy

Pragmatics & Speech Acts

• study of the ability of natural languagespeakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated

• includes social uses of language:– eye contact, turn taking in conversation, use

of appropriate words in social conversation, taking the perspective of the listener, understanding and appropriately using body language and expressions

Lynn really likes pragmatics…

• Pragmatics depends on – the speaker– the addressee– other features of the context of utterance,

such as the following:• effect that the following have on the speaker’s

choice of expression and the addressee’s interpretation of an utterance:

– Context of utterance – Generally observed principles of communication – The goals of the speaker

Pragmatics depends on implicature

• refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though not expressed nor strictly implied (that is, entailed) by the utterance.– "Mary had a baby and got married“– strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the

wedding– …but would still be strictly true if Mary had her baby

after she got married.– Further, if we add the qualification "— not necessarily

in that order" to the original sentence, then the implicature is cancelled even though the meaning of the original sentence is not altered.

H. P. Grice & Cooperative Principle

• "Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."

• cooperative principle describes—doesn’t prescribe—how people interact with one another

11

H. P. Grice & Maxims• Maxim of Quality—Truth

– Do not say what you believe to be false. – Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

• Maxim of Quantity—Information– Make your contribution as informative as is required for the

current purposes of the exchange. – Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

• Maxim of Relation—Relevance– Be relevant.

• Maxim of Manner—Clarity– Avoid obscurity of expression. ("Eschew obfuscation") – Avoid ambiguity. ("Espouse elucidation") – Be brief. ("Avoid unnecessary prolixity") – Be orderly.

Pragmatics rather like Rhetoric

• Language intentionally used

• Concerned w/spoken language

• Concerned w/speech acts:– convince, judge,

defend. . .• Descriptive

• Language used to persuade people

• Classically concerned w/spoken language

• Concerned w/– Invention, delivery,

arrangement, style, memory

• Prescriptive

Another quickie comparison

• Pragmatics– Boast, celebrate,

praise

– argue, motivate, exemplify

– disparage, belittle, praise, accuse, annoy

• Rhetoric– Ethos: purpose is to

make the hearer trust speaker

– Logos: purpose is to use argument to persuade

– Pathos: purpose is to stir emotions

introduction linguistics

Technology