Introduction to LinguisticsChapter 1: Introduction

Week 1

Instructor: LIU Hongyong

What is Linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

What does it mean?

What does scientific mean? What does language mean?

Linguistics: the scientific study of language

the scientific study of languages

the scientific study of a language

Language = language in general, not a specific language.

What is so interesting about language?

Why should we study language?

LanguageLanguage is a uniquely human capacity. Almost all humans acquire a languageAll language share certain properties (language universals)

Language spoken by human beings differs qualitatively from communication systems used by other species (birds’ chirping, bees’ dancing, etc.) in that it is creative in nature (it uses a finite set of symbols to produce an infinite set of forms)

So what are the universals? What makes human language creative? Where does human linguistic capacity come from?

LanguageHumans are naturally endowed with linguistic capacity.

Normal children can pick up a language with relative ease. Children do not “learn” their mother tongue through formal

instruction. They acquire their mother tongue. They have to be exposed to spoken languages (“wolf child”

can never develop full language competence beyond a certain age).

How much of linguistic knowledge is inborn (preinstalled)? In what way can they tell us about the nature of our mind?

Language

World languages do not differ drastically. All languages are subject to some internal constraints.

There are mainly three basic word orders in all human languages: SOV(44%) ; SVO(35%); VSO(19%); VOS; OVS; OSV (2%)

No language allows such sound combination: uqsfdba, urlwpmgiano, ngxzvfaokwi, uaeiauo, dklghf

Not every speaker has an education in language, yet a normal native speaker is fluent in his mother tongue (children acquire a command of the spoken language before they learn how to read and write).

What observation can we make here?

Word Order

SOV languages: Japanese, Turkish, Korean, Amharic, Tibetan, Jingpo, Nuosu Yi, etc.

SVO languages: English, Portuguese, French, Chinese, Bulgarian, Swahili, Vietnamese, etc.

VSO languages: Classical Arabic, Welsh, Hawaiian.

VOS languages include Fijian and Malagasy.

OSV languages include Jamamadi.

OVS languages include Hixkaryana.

Linguistics: Research Methodology

Modern linguistics is to investigate the nature of the human species via language, the window of the human mind.

Speakers have tacit knowledge about their language.

Language is rule-governed. Often the rules are hidden and may not take regular forms. Discovering the rules is just like detection. The detective formulates a theory (hypothesis) and then test it. If the facts he observes (data; evidence) support the theory, then the theory holds. If they don’t, then he has to find another theory.

A child in the process of acquiring a language is actually experiencing a process of ‘discovering’ rules and the linguist’s task is also to uncover the rules and explain them.

Linguistics: the scientific study of language

scientific means

systematic falsifiable formal (in some way)

We need a strict terminology to say unambiguously what the facts or our hypotheses are.

Descriptive vs. Prescriptive GrammarsPrescriptive grammar rules:

Thou shalt use whom as an object relative pronoun!

Thou shalt not strand prepositions!

Thou shalt not split infinitives!

Thou shalt always use I as a subject pronoun!

etc.

Traditional school grammars are generally prescriptive. What then is the problem with prescriptive grammars.

Prescriptive approach to grammar

Prescriptive approach aims to tell people how they should speak and write—to give advice on how to use the language.

Prescriptive approach is out of date now. Why? The most important failing of prescriptive grammar books is that they do

not make the distinction between STANDARD vs NON-STANDARD dialects on the one hand and FORMAL vs INFORMAL style on the other.

When there is a conflict between a proposed grammatical rule and the stable usage of millions of adult native speakers, it is the proposed rule that is wrong, not the usage.

Descriptive vs. Prescriptive GrammarsDescriptive grammars

observe how people speakdescribe usage without value judgementsallow for variation

Linguists are interested in description rather than prescription because they want to know how language is actually used, not how some people think how it should be used.

Theoretical and descriptive approaches to grammar Theoretical approach aims to discover

abstract underlying principles to explain linguistic competence.

Descriptive approach aims to describe the grammatical system that underlies the way people actually speak and write the language.

Grammaticality Judgments

1. Peter kissed the girl who he met at the party.

2. Linguistics is a subject which I love to talk about.

3. We managed to finally complete the task.

4. In the end, it was me who drove all the way to N.Y.

5. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

6. Man the room walked into.

7. The woman chased the pickpocket with an umbrella.

8. The soldiers marched across the parade ground are a disgrace.

9. Traffic on the highways is heavy anymore.

Wrong relative pronoun (should be whom)

Grammaticality Judgments

Peter kissed the girl who he met at the party.

Grammaticality Judgments

Linguistics is a subject which I love to talk about.

Preposition stranding: sentence ends in a preposition.

Grammaticality Judgments

We managed to finally complete the task.

split infinitive: the infinitival construction to complete the task is separated by the adverb finally.

Grammaticality Judgments

In the end, it was me who drove all the way to N.Y.

Wrong subject pronoun (should be I)

Grammaticality Judgments

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Although this sentence is grammatical, it is strange. It does not make any sense and is

therefore probably not acceptable.

Grammaticality Judgments

Man the room walked into.

Although prescriptive and descriptive rules may differ, this sentence is clearly ungrammatical to every speaker of English.

Grammaticality Judgments

The woman chased the pickpocket with an umbrella.

This sentence is clearly grammatical but it is ambiguous.(Who has the umbrella?)

Grammaticality Judgments

The soldiers marched across the parade ground are a disgrace.

This sentence looks ungrammatical but it isn’t (a “garden path sentence”).

Grammaticality Judgments

Traffic on the highways is heavy anymore.

anymore is used in the sense of nowadays in certain parts of the eastern U.S.

In standard American English the word anymore is often found in negative sentences: They don't live here anymore. But anymore is widely used in regional American English in positive sentences with the meaning "nowadays": "We use a gas stove anymore" (Oklahoma informant). Its use, which appears to be spreading, is centered in the South Midland and Midwestern states, as well as in the Western states that received settlers from those areas. The earliest recorded examples are from Northern Ireland, where the positive use of anymore still occurs.

Linguistics: The core Areas

Phonetics: What are human speech sounds and how they are produced?

Phonology: How do these sounds pattern systematically in languages?

Morphology: What is the internal structure of words?

Syntax: How do words combine into sentences?

Semantics: How do words or sentences carry meaning?

Pragmatics: How is language used in context?

Linguistics: Applications

Some areas where the core areas are applied are

Psycholinguistics: how is language processed in our minds, and how do we acquire language?

Historical linguistics: how do language change over time, and what are common ancestors?

Sociolinguistics: how does language differ across sociological variables like age, gender, region?

Neurolinguistics: what is language in our brains?

Typology: What are the differences and similarities between languages?

Computational linguistics: how can we make computers talk or simply understand human language?

Questions

1. In what respect are the following sentences ambiguous?(a) They fed her dog biscuits.(b) Visiting relatives can be boring.(c) She baked a birthday cake for her mother. (d) Who did the coach want to shoot at the end of the game?(e) John did not marry Susan because she was rich.

这位牙医 一小时拔了三颗牙。这位病人 一小时拔了三颗牙。

Knowledge of ambiguity

What does this sentence mean?

Who did the coach want to shoot at the end of the game?

Subject extraction

Object extraction