What is the nature of language? Characteristics of human language Language acquisition Empiricism and nativism Language structure Deep and surface structures Language and thought

Semanticity Generativity Displacement Arbitrariness Flexibility of symbols Naming

B. F. Skinner vs. Noam Chomksy “Parentese” Larynx Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area Pidgin Creole Phonemes and morphemes

The boys hit the ball. Words: Morphemes: The boy s hit the ball Phonemes: s th   h  t  b  l

“The professor crawled under the desk.” “The crawled desk professor the under.” “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Some of Chomsky’s own examples:

Generative-transformational theory:

Meaning Deep-structure sentence Surface-structure sentence Generative rules Transformational rules

Deep-structure sentence Meaning Generative rules Transformational rules Surface-structure sentence

Different surface structures related to the same deep structure: “The boys hit the ball.” or “The ball was hit by the boys.”

Theboyshittheball. noun phrase articlenounverb articlenoun verb phrase Sentence

Theballhittheboys.bywas noun phraseverb phrase noun phrasearticlenounauxiliaryverbpreposition articlenoun Sentence

Different deep structures related to the same surface structure: 1. “They are flying planes.” 2. “Visiting patients can be boring.”

Linguistic relativity Benjamin Whorf