Who am I?

Bridget Jankowski

Department of Linguistics (St. George)Department of Language Studies (UTM)bridget.jankowski@utoronto.ca

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What I do

Linguistics Sociolinguistics Language variation Language change Corpus construction

Overview of today’s lecture

What is language? Yule’s definition (6 features) of language

What is linguistics? What are the different levels of language? What are the different fields of linguistics?

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Overview of today’s lecture, cont.

What is grammar? prescriptive vs. descriptive the book vs. the mental model The Innateness hypothesis universal vs. language specific

• Linguistic Universals

Grammaticality (judgments)

Performance vs. Competence

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What is language?

Signals: informative vs. communicative “It is a very remarkable fact that there are none

so depraved and stupid, without even exceptingidiots, that they cannot arrange different wordstogether, forming of them a statement by whichthey make known their thoughts; while, on theother hand, there is no other animal, howeverperfect and fortunately circumstanced it maybe, which can do the same.” (Descartes, 1637)

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Yule’s 6 features of (human) language

Displacement Arbitrariness Productivity (creativity) Culturally transmitted Discreteness Dual articulation

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Yule’s 6 features of (human) language Displacement

Animal communication does not seem to be ableto refer to events that happen outside a specific(present) moment.

Arbitrariness Productivity (creativity) Culturally transmitted Discreteness Dual articulation

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Yule’s 6 features of (human) language Displacement Arbitrariness

the relationship between a sound or signrepresentation of a concept in a language andthe concept itself is arbitrary

Productivity (creativity) Culturally transmitted Discreteness Dual articulation

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The flirtatious glossary of the fan:Can this system be considered “language”?

This woman signals, “I love you” to a secret suitor. By the late 19th

century, the fan had evolved from its origins as a cooling aid andfly chaser to a fashion accessory and, finally, to a device withwhich to send complex messages. In Spain, France, England andthe United States, codes of fan language developed. Here is theglossary for one of them, used in Europe and America.

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Symbol MeaningCarrying in left hand desirous of acquaintancePlacing it on left ear you have changedTwirling in left hand I wish to get rid of youDrawing across forehead We are watchedCarrying in right hand You are too willingDrawing across the cheek I love youDrawing through the hand I hate youDrawing across the eyes I am sorryLetting it rest on left cheek NoWith handle to lips Kiss meDropping We will be friendsClosing it I wish to speak to youOpen and shut You are cruelOpen wide Wait for me

Iconicity in language

Iconicity: non-arbitrary relationship betweenform and meaning Sound symbolism Onomatapoeia

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Yule’s 6 features of (human) language Displacement Arbitrariness Productivity (creativity)

Knowing a language means being able to produceand understand utterances never spoken before.

Culturally transmitted Discreteness Dual articulation

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Yule’s 6 features of (human) language Displacement Arbitrariness Productivity (creativity) Culturally transmitted

The language we speak is not genetically inherited

Discreteness Dual articulation

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Yule’s 6 features of (human) language Displacement Arbitrariness Productivity (creativity) Culturally transmitted Discreteness

The sounds of our language are discrete.

A pronunciation that falls within the physically possiblerange of sounds in our respective languages will beinterpreted as a linguistically specific and meaningfullydistinct sound.

Dual articulation13

Yule’s 6 features of (human) language Displacement Arbitrariness Productivity (creativity) Culturally transmitted Discreteness Dual articulation

Language is organized at two levels simultaneously.

We recombine a small set of sounds for manymeanings.

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Linguistics is:

- The study of how language is organized in themind, and how social structures of humancommunities shape language.

All varieties are equally interesting and equallycomplex because they are human language

What do linguists study?

Spoken language, in order to formulate Descriptive rules of language Theories about how language works

Spoken vs. Written languageSpeech is:

- Ancient- Exists in all societies- Automatically acquired (innate)- Writing is not any of these.

Primary areas of Linguistic Structure

Phonetics = sounds Phonology = sound patterns Morphology = structure of words Syntax = structure of phrases Semantics = meaning Pragmatics = meaning in context Discourse level = conversation

What do linguists study? Phonetics = sounds Phonology = sound patterns Morphology = structure of words Syntax = structure of phrases Semantics = meaning Pragmatics = meaning in context Discourse analysis = conversation analysis Acquisition Language variation Language change Relationship of language and society/social

constructs

Some Basic Principles about Language

All language varieties are rule-governed, systematic

All language varieties are qualitativelyequivalent– there are no “primitive” languages, all languagesare equally complex and equally capable ofexpressing any idea. They simply do it differently.

All languages change over time

What is a rule?

“It is certainly the business of a grammarian to find out, and not to make,the laws of a language.” (John Fell 1784, Essay towards an EnglishGrammar).

“phrase book” vs. the mental model of language learning Prescriptive vs. descriptive reference grammar books

i.e. “teaching” vs. “reference” grammar books

Mental grammar: the internalized grammar that adescriptive grammar (book) attempts to model

Prescriptive rule =What you’re supposed to do

e.g., Don’t end sentences withprepositions!

Descriptive rule =What you actually do

e.g., In casual speech, sentences often endwith prepositions. That’s an ok thing toend them with.

“Grammar”

Our internalized grammar is the soundsand sound patterns, the basic units ofmeaning, such as words, and the rulesthat are used to combine them to formnew sentences. Grammar is what weknow.

Universal vs. language-specific rules

Some rules are universal, some arelanguage specific.

Let's look at a few language-specificpatterns:

The Wug Test

This is a wug.

Now there is another one.There are two of them.There are two ___ .

This is a blik.

Now there is another one.There are two of them.There are two ___ .

What is the rule for Englishplurals?

Underlying /z/ is realized as /s/ when thefinal consonant of the stem is voiceless andnot a sibilant (/s z ʃ ʒ/), and is realized as/ǝz/ if the final stem is a sibilant.

Italian plural nouns

Singular Cortello knife Tavolo table Naso nose Piatto plate

Plural Cortelli Tavoli Nasi Piatti

•Forchetta fork•Gonna skirt•Tazza cup

•Forchette•Gonne•Tazze

What is the rule for Italian plurals?

Nouns ending with -o (or -e) are pluralizedwith -i.

Nouns ending with -a are pluralized with -e (if feminine, or with -i if masculine).

Universal vs. language-specific rules

Some rules are universal, some are languagespecific.

Universal: Languages use consonants and vowels. Conversation is made up of sentences. Languages have words for certain kinship terms. Others?

Competence vs. Performance

Competence: what we know (our grammar) Performance: how we use that knowledge

Language performance is less than language competence.

What do we know about our owngrammars?- We know what sounds exist in our language- We know certain constructions are ungrammatical (next slide)- We know grammatical categories (slide after next)

Which sentences do not seem to conform to therules of your grammar?

a. Robin forced the sherriff go.b. Napoleon forced Josephone to go.c. The Devil made Faust go.d. He passed by a large sum of money.e. He came by a large sum of money.f. He came a large sum of money by.g. Did in a corner little jack Horner sit?h. Elizabeth is resembled by Charles.i. Nancy is eager to please. n. Has the nurse slept the baby yet?j. It is easy to frighten Emily. o. I was surprised for you to get married.k. It is eager to love a kitten. p. I wonder who and Mary went swimming.l. That birds can fly amazes me. q. Myself bit John.m. The fact that you are late to class

is surprising.

What are the parts of speech in thebolded words?

Jabberwockyby Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabeAll mimsy were the borogrovesAnd the mome raths outgrabe...

Goal of linguistics

to explain the structure of an arbitrarysystem that allows children to learnlanguage so quickly without instructionor correction This ability suggests that language is rule-

governed (= patterned) and innate (i.e.innateness hypothesis).

A good book about this: Steven Pinker’s The LanguageInstinct.

Course objectives broad understanding of human language. What it is, what it’s used

for scientific study of language: not like studying literature or poetry lead you to examine your own linguistic beliefs and attitudes make you aware of both the diversity of language systems and their

fundamental similarities Give you a reasonable taste of a number of subfields of linguistics:

phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, acquisition, historical,sociolinguistics

equip you with some tools and techniques of linguistic analysis,give you some practice using these to discover some organizingprinciples of human language

First assignment: Chapter 1, #3, #5 & #7. (Duein tutorial Monday or Tuesday