1. Review Knowledge of Language (Competence) Sound system (Phonetics & Phonology) Word structure and formation (Morphology) Phrase structure and sentence formation (Syntax) Meaning (Semantics)

2. Design Features of Language Those common to all communication systems Those exhibited by some communication systems Those found only in human language

3. Features Common to all Communication Systems Mode of communication Human languages: => Auditory-oral => Visual-gestural

4. Semanticity => Fixed association between elements of messages and features or situations of the world. Ex: ‘fire’, ‘sleep’ Pragmatic function Use of communication

5. Vervet monkeys 3 alarm calls for different predators –‘snake’ –‘eagle’ –‘leopard’ http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/media/vervetcalls.html

6. Features exhibited by some communication systems Interchangeability Cultural transmission Arbitrariness Discreteness

7. Interchangeability Individuals can both transmit and receive messages. Cultural transmission Some aspects of the system are learned from the community.

8. Arbitrariness ‘big’ is a little word. ‘miniscule’, ‘microscopic’ are big words. => The connections between these words and their meanings are arbitrary, not iconic.

9. Discreteness ‘apt’, ‘tap’, ‘pat’ => [æ], [p], [t] [ S [ NP She] [ VP runs]] ‘He runs.’ ‘She eats.’

10. Features found only in human language Displacement Ability to talk about things not present in space or time

11. Productivity I have a cat… with only one eye… that killed a dragon… that was living in my basement… that has a passageway to an alternate universe.