Introduction Basic linguistic concepts

What is linguistics?

Goal of Linguistics Performance Competence Phonology Morphology Syntax etc... Hypothesis Observation Data Collection Prescriptive Grammar vs. Descriptive Grammar

Different Kinds of Ungrammaticality 1. I aksed you that before! 2. That is a great idear! 3. It ain’t true at all! 4. *I walks to the park everyday!

Features shared by all communication systems  A mode of communication: All communication system has the means (organs) to transmit the messages.  Semanticity: The signals/communications have a meaning or function.  Pragmatic function: All system of communication serves some useful purpose.

Properties of Human Language  Displacement: You can refer to past/present/future and other location  Arbitrariness: No connection between a linguistic form (signal) and its meaning  Productivity: You can understand/say any number of sentences that you may not have heard before.

Properties of Human Language  Cultural transmission: Children’s ability to learn language is innate but they must learn it through communicative interaction with other users of the system.  Discreteness: We can combine discreet units in order to create larger communicative units (such as speech sounds, words, sentences).

Human Language is unique Communication SystemAnimalHuman Language Mode of communicationYes Smell, touch, facial expression Yes SemanticityYes Pragmatic functionYes DisplacementNoYes ArbitrarinessNoYes DiscretenessNoYes Cultural transmissionNoYes ProductivityNoYes

Language=speech language≠writing SpeechWriting NO specific instruction or learning required Must be taught Does not exist everywhere Can be edited Physically stable More rules Association with education

Pictographic writing system  Spoken human language 50, ,000 BC  Pictures on the walls 25,000-30,000 years BC

Pictographic writing system  BCE Cuneiform in Mesopotamia  4000 BC Hieroglyphics in Egypt

Early Chinese Characters  4500 years ago

Writing (orthographic) systems  Writing system: a. Idiographic/logographic b. syllabic c. alphabetic

Ideo(logo)graphic writing system  4500 years ago in China Light: Forest: Foot of mountain: Walk:

Syllabic and Alphabetic writing system  Syllabic (cf. syllable) 1 syllable = 1 character Banana: ba.na.na  バナナ Sushi: su.shi.  すし  Alphabetic 1 sound (ideally) = 1 character Banana: b.a.n.a.n.a  6 characters

Hiragana Vowels, consonants [+/-voi] Any inconsistencies or problems?

Kanji and Katakana Katakana derived from abbreviated Chinese characters used by Buddhist monks to indicate pronunciations of Chinese text in the 9 th century. What are the usages of Katakana in Modern Japanese?

Japanese Writing System: Mixture of innovation and tradition  What made Japanese to use ideographic and syllabic writing system? I go to school. I went to school. I went to school yesterday. keywords: isolating language, morpheme, syllable, inflections

Biology of Speech Sounds

The articulators

Vowel Sounds  Components of vowels  Height of the tongue (high, mid, low)  Advancement of the tongue (front, mid, back)  Roundness of lips (rounded or unrounded)  Tense or lax (long or short)

English Vowel Chart

Two Kinds of Speech Sounds 1. Consonants 2. Vowels

Consonant Sounds  3 components of consonant articulation  Voiced or Voiceless [+/- voi]  Where the air stream gets constricted?  place of articulation  How the air stream gets constricted?  manner of articulation

English consonants

Japanese Consonants

English Vowels

Japanese Vowels