th century: structuralism european structuralism · early 20 th century: structuralism • european...

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Early 20 th century: Structuralism

• European schools (functionalism)– Prague school: Jakobson, Trubetzkoy,

Mathésius, Trnka

– French school: Martinet

• American schools– Anthropological linguistics (Boas, Sapir)

– Formal linguistics (Bloomfield, Army Program, Hockett, Harris)

European structuralism

Prague school:

phonology, theory of features + functions (Jakobson, Trubetzkoy)

general theory of linguistic functions (Jakobson)

syntax (Mathésius, Trnka)

stylistics, poetics (Jakobson)

historical linguistics (Jakobson)

Trubetzkoy’s system of features

binary (+/–) ↔ gradual (0,1,2...)e.g. V openness

privative equipollentpresence symmetrical contrastvs. absence of property e.g. voicinge.g. nasality

Trubetzkoy’s system of features

The privative vs. equipollent distinction:• implicational universals (e.g. more non-

nasals than nasals in all languages)• patterns of neutralisations (if a contrats

typically neutralises one way, privative contrast, unmarked direction)

(Not always unequivocal, e.g. voicing can neutralise both ways but there are implicational universals.)

Jakobson’s theory of linguistic functions

Context

Speaker Message Recipient

Channel

Code

Jakobson’s theory of linguistic functions

Context REFERENTIAL

Speaker Message Recipient

EMOTIVE POETIC CONATIVE

Channel PHATIC

Code METALINGUISTIC

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Elements of functional syntax

Theme vs. Rheme (or Topic vs. Comment, Focus etc.)

John loves Mary ~ JÁNOS szereti MaritJohn loves Mary ~ János SZERETI MaritJohn loves Mary ~ János MARIT szereti

Structuralist historical phonology

Types of sound change: split, merger, shift

A AA A A > B

B B

OE k > č /_i,e,æ ME y,i > i eMoE ī > ai(k > k elsewhere)


ī > aiy,i > iunconditioned

a > e /_(C)ik > č /_i,e,æu > y /_(C)i

conditioned

shiftmergersplit

Splits can lead to phonologisation as well as morphologisation →


PGmc Pre-OE OE ME MoE

*mus *mus mus mouse mouse

*musiz *mysiz mys mice mice

↑ ↑

Allophony Phonologisation (/u/ ≠ /y/)

(/u/ = [u ~ y]) and morphologisation


Functional load (A. Martinet: Economie des changement phonétiques, 1955):

extent to which a contrast is utilised, i.e. number of minimal pairs:

p≠b high (pin≠bin, lap≠lab...)

θ≠ð low (thigh≠thy?)

Contrast of a low functional load more likely to merge


Syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic aspects of sound change (or of phonology in general)

e

p i t ← syntagmatic relation

æi˘

�˘

↑

paradigmatic relation

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Example: Late Latin vowel length

V > VV in open syllables (pă.ter > pā.ter ‘father’)

VV > V in closed syllables (āc.tio > ăc.tio ‘action’)

mā.ter ‘mother’, ăt.que ‘and’ etc. unchanged

How does one analyse this in syntagmatic and paradigmatic terms?


paradigmatically:

/ă/ [ă]

/ā/ [ā]

Conditioned merger: both [ă] and [ā] remain after the change but they are no longer contrastive (dephonologisation)


syntagmatically: syllable types (rhymes)

Rh Rh Rh Rh

V VV VC VVC

pă.(ter) mā.(ter) ăt.(que) āc.(ti.o)

light heavy heavy superheavy


syntagmatically: syllable types (rhymes)

Rh Rh Rh Rh

V > VV VC < VVC

mā.(ter) ăt.(que)pā.(ter) ăc.(ti.o)

light heavy heavy superheavy

Only heavy rhymes remain!


Symmetry of system; e.g. parallel changes in back and front vowels ― Great Vowel Shift

time i˘ u˘ house

�i �ufeet e˘ o˘ goose

clean ε˘ �˘ home

name a˘

American linguistics in 20th century

Mid- and late 19th century: comparative and historical linguistics (W. D. Whitney)

Turn of the century, early 1900’s:

anthropological linguistics– comprehensive study of native American tribes

• oral traditions; literacy (if any)• language• clothes, decorative arts• religion, beliefs, mythology• material civilisation• ...

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Anthropological linguistics: Franz Boas

• German émigré, PhD in physics (Kiel)

• Columbia University 1895

• takes over and monopolises fieldwork, projects

• by 1920’s all chairs in anthropology filled by his students

• American Anthropological Association (1902)

• Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911)


Anthropological linguistics: Edward Sapir

• German/Lithuanian/Jewish émigré

• Studies with Boas

• PhD a chapter in HAIL

• Teaches at Chicago, then Yale

• descriptions rather than fieldwork

• prominent book: Language (1921)

• many great linguists of mid-20th century his students (Mary Haas, Morris Swadesh, George L. Trager...)


Formal linguistics: Leonard Bloomfield

• born in Chicago, Harvard graduate (1906)

• PhD in Germanic linguistics, Chicago (1909)

• Leipzig, Göttingen, various universities in USA

• tries to turn linguistics into autonomous science– Linguistic Society of America (1924, Collitz, Sapir, Sturtevant...)– Language (journal, editor: George M. Bolling)– not literary languages, non-philological approach– no preconceived categories

• Linguistic Institute (= a summer university)

• Army Program →


Formal linguistics: Army Intensive Language Program

• During WW2, Federal government begins a large-scale programme for the teaching of languages relevant to war (European & Pacific; civilisation too)

• Many linguists recruited, work on 36 languages

• historical and theoretical aspects irrelevant

• methodical descriptions and teaching material

• coherent and isolated tradition, persist until 1960’s• R. Hall, B. Bloch, Z. Harris, A. A. Hill, Ch. F. Hockett, M. Joos, E.

O. Nida, G. Trager, Ch. F. Voegelin, R. Wells, Th. A. Sebeok... (Neobloomfieldians)

The three classical models of morphology:

• Item and Arrangement (IA)• Item and Process (IP)• Word and Paradigm (WP)

Structuralist morphology The structuralist models: IA

In the IA model, words can decomposed into building blocks:

[[un][[friend][li]]][ness]

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The structuralist models: IA

In the IA model, words can decomposed into building blocks, and these are the exponents of grammatical relations too.

There are three types of regularities:• distribution of morphemes• morphotactics (overlapping with distribution)• allomorphy+ the relation of exponence, i.e. what

morphemes "mean"


In the IA model, it is easy to descibe agglutinating (concatenative) structures, but not other types of structure, e.g. fusion →


‘break’ PAST ‘break’ PAST

broke broke + ∅

i.e. fusion i.e. stem allomorphy

conditioned by the ∅


In the IA model, it is easy to descibe agglutinating (concatenative) structures, but not other types of structure, e.g. fusion, truncation, templatic structures.

The structuralist models: IP

In the IP model, there are stems (bases) that undergo processes; the exponents of grammatical relations are these processes

Past tense

+ed i→a

love loved sing sang

The structuralist models: IP

In the IP model, anything can be described that can be described in the IA model, plus lots of other things.

IP IAtruncation agglutinationfusion reduplicationtemplates

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The structuralist models: WP

The Word-and-Paradigm model assumes that there is no structure at all within words

• there are word forms belonging to lexemes• these forms have properties, but are not

composed of parts• the morphology of a language is an n-

dimensional space of word forms, where n is the number of grammatical categories


pers/nu

látok láttam

látsz láttál

lát látott

látunk láttunk

láttok láttatok

látnak láttak

tense

def


pers/nu

látok láttam

látom látsz láttam láttál

látod lát láttad látott

látja látunk látta láttunk

látjuk láttok láttuk láttatok

látjátok látnak láttátok láttak

látják látták tense

def


But why would one not want to assume structure inside words when it is often really obvious (love-d, vár-t-am...)?

Because it is grammatically irrelevant: no part of syntax is ever sensitive to how a morphological category is expressed– agglutinating past (loved)

– fusional past (sang)

– zero past (cut)

Like etymology: true but irrelevant for grammar


A parallel tradition: The European Emigrés

• From 1930’s on many Europeans emigrate to US– A. Martinet, R. Jakobson, Y. Malkiel, U. Weinreich...

• Clustering around Columbia University

• Differences in scholarly attitude (less formal, more holistic approach) – also existential conflict

• Journal: Word


Noam Chomsky and Generative Grammar

• Zellig Harris’s student, + mathematics, logic

• 1957: Syntactic Structures – generally seen as the continuation of the structuralist tradition, not much syntax done by earlier generation

• 1965: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax – first real model of transformational generative grammar →

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Lexicon Rewrite rules (e.g. S → NP VP)

Deep structure

Transformations

Surface structure

Phonology

Semantics

th century: structuralism european structuralism · early 20 th century: structuralism • european...

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