1 LIN 1310B Introduction to Linguistics Prof: Nikolay Slavkov TA: Qinghua Tang Acknowledgements: Many of the slides for this course are based on Eta Schneiderman’s slides. CLASS 3, Jan 12, 2007

2 Today Announcements and Reminders: - finish chapter 1, start reading chapter 4 (Morphology). -DGDs are mandatory as of next week (see participation mark on syllabus). -If you missed the first two classes, review the notes online and see me if you have questions. Today’s Lecture: -Basic Linguistic Concepts

3 Review from last time Creative aspect of language Infiniteness vs. finiteness Competence vs. performance Grammar (and its components) Descriptivism vs. Prescriptivism Every language has a grammar (there are no ‘primitive’ languages or languages without a grammar or with an underdeveloped grammar) All grammars are equal Dialects of a language have their own grammar There are no inferior dialects/grammars

4 WRITTEN VS SPOKEN LANGUAGE Spoken language: 1) The basis for written language 2) Children learn to speak first 3) Very few children fail at speaking 4) Many languages have never been written 5) Oral culture pre-dates the written tradition 6) Usually the object of descriptive linguistics, i.e. usually linguists do not care about written language or orthography.

5 WRITTEN VS SPOKEN LANGUAGE Written language: Tends to be more resistant to change Supports prescriptivists’ arguments against language change Prescriptivists often cite written forms in support of their pronouncements Prescriptivists view written language as the basis for spoken language Example – persistent archaisms in written English include few contractions, preserved subjunctives and the use of “whom”: If I were King, I would be rich. Whom shall I give the book?

6 IMPORTANCE OF STANDARD LANGUAGE The standard is generally the most widely accepted and broadly understood form of a language In some cases, it is officially sanctioned by a government If a language is standardized, it usually has a writing system. The standard is most often used for second language teaching

7 SYNCHRONY VS DIACHRONY Synchronic approach to language: Study of a language at a single point in time Usually, but not necessarily, the present Most linguists today focus on language as it is spoken at one point in time

8 SYNCHRONY VS DIACHRONY Diachronic approach to language: Historical Linguistics Study of the process of language change Comparison of a language at 2 or more points in time Compare related languages and look at how they diverge from earlier form Reconstruct earlier or proto forms

9 METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS VS. LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE Difference between LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE and METALINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE of a language: Competence: speaker’s unconsciously acquired knowledge of the grammar of a language Metalinguistic awareness/knowledge: conscious knowledge about one’s own unconscious competence

10 EXAMPLES: LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE: fix + -able = fixable; do + -able = doable; understand + -able = understandable beauty + able = *beautyable quick + able = *quickable =>Our linguistic competence tells us that beautyable and quickable are non-words. =>But our linguistic competence is subconscious, so it doesn’t tell us why the suffix –able can attach to words like fix, do and understand, but cannot attach to words such as beauty and quick.

11 EXAMPLES METALINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE:  the suffix –able attaches to verbs but not to adjectives.  therefore, fixable, doable and understandable are grammatical (V+ -able), while *beautyable and *quickable are ungrammatical (*N or Adj + -able)  Metalinguistic knowledge is explicit, conscious knowledge about how language works.  We acquire metalinguistic knowledge by thinking about our language in an analytical way, or by observing the systematic linguistic patterns.

12 METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS Linguists possess more metalinguistic awareness than the average person Children’s metalinguistic awareness increases as they mature One does not need to have metalinguistic awareness to have competence (i.e. native speakers usually know very few linguistic rules/constraints that apply to their language)

13 GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS Competence allows people to judge what is grammatical in a language and what is not Grammaticality judgments are independent of metalinguistic knowledge Speakers can only make accurate grammaticality judgments for utterances from their native dialects

14 GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS EXAMPLES *Cat chasing dog up tree the is the the. The dog is chasing the cat up the tree. *He wash the dishes last night. He washed the dishes last night. *I have three record. I have three records. ? He ain’t got no money. For some dialects: He doesn’t have any money.

15 GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS It needs washed. Grammatical or ungrammatical? Grammatical in Pennsylvania dialects Ungrammatical for most of us It needs to be washed or It needs washing

16 Are Languages Fundamentally Similar or Different? Differences: languages may differ with regard to their phonetic inventory (the sounds they use); their lexicon (the mental dictionary); the ways words are formed (morphology); the ways words are put together (syntax); the ways meanings are assigned and interpreted (semantics).

17 Examples of how languages differ (there are many ways in which languages differ but for now I’m only giving you examples with sounds and sentences) Sounds and syllables: English has sounds as in think and the, but German and French don’t. Italian ‘r’ sound is different from the English one. French has vowels that English doesn’t have. e.g. deux, bleu [Ø]

18 Examples of how languages differ Word Order (SVO, SOV, VSO p.278 of text):

19 Are Languages Fundamentally Similar or Different? Similarities: despite the many differences, languages are similar in a fundamental way. They all have a grammar which is constrained by certain common broad principles called language universals. Language universals apply to all languages.

20 Examples of how languages are similar All languages have more consonants than vowels. Any language that has a [b] sound also has a [p] sound. All languages have a vowel that sounds like [a] as in the word father. About 95% of the languages of the world fit in one of the three patterns: SVO, SOV or VSO. (VSO, OVS and OSV are extremely rare.)

21 Language Universals Common principles of organization in the human brain Underlie the grammar of all human languages

22 Examples of universals: If a language has [b], it will also have [p]. If a language has the VSO order, it will have prepositions rather than postpositions (p. 279 of text):

23 Examples of universals: If a language has the SOV order, it will have postpositions rather than prepositions (p. 279 of text):

24 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Although, in recent years this has become more and more debatable, most linguists, following Noam Chomsky, assume the existence of Universal Grammar (UG). UG is a system of general principles that apply to all languages. These principles are pre-wired or innate in all humans and they are the same for all of us (i.e. univeral). Why do languages differ then??? It is assumed that language differ because they choose different options or parameters from the general language principles provided by UG.

25 Universal Grammar: an Analogy Imagine we are all using Windows as an operating system, but we have entirely different settings: different screen savers, different fonts, different desktop organization, different size icons, different pictures associated with each program, etc. Roughly speaking the operating system (Windows) can be equated to UG. On the other hand, the different settings on our particular computer can be equated to the particular language we are speaking.

26 Some properties of Universal Grammar UG is the sum total of all language universals All languages have structures from among those permitted by UG One goal of linguistic theory is to learn about language universals Another goal is to identify all the properties of UG To accomplish these goals, we use the same descriptive tools to describe all languages

27 ARGUMENTS FOR LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS Any child can learn any language Children do not receive instruction, they just pick-up the language. However, they need sufficient input (i.e. they need to keep hearing the language) First language acquisition is similar across languages (i.e. children are guided by the same principles) Children acquire language despite relative cognitive immaturity Points 1, 2, & 3 suggest limits on language structure related to neural pre-wiring

28 Movie about Medial wh- questions Some English-speaking children produce sentences like: Who do you think who’s in the box? What do you think what’s in the box? These questions with a medial wh- word (i.e. who, what) are ungrammatical in English. But they are grammatical in other languages: dialects of German, Romani, etc. Therefore, such questions are consistent with the principles of Universal Grammar. The reason they are ungrammatical in English is because English has parameters or ‘settings’ that do not allow these questions. Young children, explore the parameters or ‘settings’ of English and discover that these utterances are not allowed, so eventually they disappear from their grammar.

29 Movie about Medial wh- questions Such medial wh- questions have been reported in the acquisition of Spanish/Basque, French and other languages. In other words, children acquiring these languages also make medial wh- mistakes, even though medial wh- is ungrammatical in the adult language. This shows that language acquisition across languages follows similar principles: the principles of UG. UG guides children in acquiring their language. Based on language input (the language that they hear around them) they choose different options or ‘language settings’ based on UG and that’s how their particular language develops. => All this is interpreted as evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar.