1. Language and Cognition Colombo, June 2011
Day 1
Introduction to Linguistic Theory, Part 1

2. Plan Structure in Language Phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax
Pragmatics and the interface of the language system with other systems of knowledge
Competence and performance

3. Language
There is structure in language – just like structure in (the rest of) nature

4. Components of Language
Different kinds of structure & knowledge within language
Phonology (sounds)
Morphology (word structure)
Semantics (aspects of meaning)
Syntax (phrase structure)
Pragmatics (language in use)

5. Linguistic structure
features  phonemes  morphemes  words  phrases  discourse
Structure at every level – and there may be many commonalities between the structures
Theories of the nature of linguistic structures are theories of mental representations

6. The structure of sounds
Phonology

7. Articulation, phonetics and phonology
Articulation: the act or manner of producing a speech sound; bringing articulatory organs together so as to shape the sounds of speech
Phonetics: how the sounds of language are articulated and perceived
Phonology: the mental representation of sounds and their structures; operations across these representations

8. Knowledge about the properties of sounds physical - mental events &
sequences representing representing physical interactions
properties & processes
like a lexicon like grammar
Articulation Phonetics Phonology
Articulation is physical – a process determined by muscles, nerves, physiology
Phonetics and phonology are to do with mental representation : phonetics is concerned with (the mental representation of) acoustic, articulatory and perceptual properties of sounds, and phonology is concerned with the system of sounds within a language

9. Phonological theories 1: distinctive feature theory
Chomsky & Halle’s system classifies sounds according to five sets of features:
- major classes: sonorant, syllabic,
consonantal
- manner: continuant, lateral, nasal
- cavity: anterior, coronal, high, low, back,
round
- tongue root: tense/lax
- laryngeal: voiced/voiceless

10. Phonological theories 1: distinctive feature theory
Attempt to delineate the properties of sounds used contrastively in a particular language
Features are ‘atomic’ and binary
Looking at similarities and differences between sounds
E.g. /k/ /g/ /s/ /n/ /i/
consonantal
vocalic
stop
voicing
nasal
anterior

11. Phonological theories 2: nonlinear phonology
Time is the critical unit
Sounds are made up of features
Features which are realized together at a particular time will be realized as a sound (a ‘segment’)
Features are always present (though may not be realized) and are hierarchically organized

12. Feature Geometry
A way of indicating the interdependence of features involved in sound structure representation
Root
sonorant
consonantal
laryngeal
lateral
nasal
continuant
voice
spread glottis
constricted glottis
place
labial
coronal
dorsal
round
labiodental
anterior
distributed
grooved
high
back
low

13. time Root sonorant consonantal laryngeal lateral nasal continuant
voice
spread glottis
constricted glottis
place
labial
coronal
dorsal
round
labiodental
anterior
distributed
grooved
high
back
low

14. /p/ time Root sonorant consonantal laryngeal lateral nasal continuant
voice
spread glottis
constricted glottis
place
labial
coronal
dorsal
round
labiodental
anterior
distributed
grooved
high
back
low

15. /z/ time Root sonorant consonantal laryngeal lateral nasal continuant
voice
spread glottis
constricted glottis
place
labial
coronal
dorsal
round
labiodental
anterior
distributed
grooved
high
back
low

16. /i/ time Root sonorant consonantal laryngeal lateral nasal continuant
voice
spread glottis
constricted glottis
place
labial
coronal
dorsal
round
labiodental
anterior
distributed
grooved
high
back
low

17. The structure of words
morphology

18. Internal structure of a syllableσ
rime
onset
peak
coda c a t

19. Syllables joined together = feet Feet joined together = words

20. Morphology
Inflectional morphology: variations in the forms of words for grammatical purposes
Derivational morphology: word formation, changing word class, changing meaning

21. Morphology affix example prefix undo prefix-root suffix
looking root-suffix
infix
(Tagalog Root: dugo blood) dinugo ro<infix>ot
circumfix
Kabyle θissliθ "bride" (compare to issli "groom") circumfix>root<circumfix
suprafix
produce (noun) produce (verb) (changing stress)

22. Derivational Morphology
adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow → slowness)
adjective-to-verb: -ise (modern → modernize)
noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation → recreational)
noun-to-verb: -fy (glory → glorify)
verb-to-adjective: -able (drink → drinkable)
verb-to-noun: -ance (deliver → deliverance)

23. Inflectional morphology
To apply an inflection is to change the form of a word for a grammatical function:
Number Tense
Person Mood
Case Aspect
Gender Voice
English is relatively poor in inflectional morphology. Other Indo-European languages have a richer system of inflection morphology – cf. Latin (word order vs morphology)
Number: I have an apple. I have six apples. ALLOMORPHS: dog-z, cat-s, dish-EZ
Person: I walk vs he walks (1st vs 3rd person marking on the verb)
Case: not realized much in English, except on pronouns which we’ll mention in a bit
Gender: ditto; but cf Spanish: nino vs nina
Tense: we walk vs we walked
Mood: relation of a verb with its intention or reality. E.g. imperative (Walk!) vs Conditional or declarative or subjunctive or counterfactual…
Aspect: related to tense, but refers to the flow of time (or not) being expressed. E.g. I swam all morning vs I was swimming all morning. Completed vs uncompleted actions, bth past tense.
Voice: active vs passive is the major distinction: The man ate the fish vs The man was eaten by the fish.

24. Bound and free morphemes
Bound morphemes are morphemes that can occur only when attached to root morphemes.
Affixes are bound morphemes. Common English bound morphemes include: -ing, -ed, -er, and pre-.
Morphemes that are not bound morphemes are free morphemes

25. Word classes
“A grammatical category is a class of expressions which share a common set of grammatical properties.” (Radford 1997:37)
How do we decide what class a certain word belongs to?
What you were taught in school may not be much help.
Noun = person, place, thing - but what about isolation? complexity? intuition?
Verb = a doing word - but what about being? meaning? having?
Preposition = space and time - but what about by? of? about?
Adverb = a word that ends in –ly - but what about fast? well? often?
Sentential context is crucial
He can lift that.
I have opened this can.
These definitions may help you to keep things clear in your head, and that’s fine. But you will find that there are many times when they break down, and cannot help you decide. We are going to discuss some more reliable ways of telling the difference between the various grammatical categories; and we shall also be introducing some grammatical categories you may not have heard of before.
What class does can belong to? We cannot answer this question without looking at the context in which the word appears. Words are slippery; many of them can belong to different classes on different occasions. So when we identify a word class, we do so for a particular sentential context.

26. Morphosyntactic evidence
morphological (derivational / inflectional) and syntactic (structural, distributional)
Inflectional morphology: variations in the forms of words for grammatical purposes
Derivational morphology: word formation: adding affixes to existing words or stems (prefixes; infixes; suffixes)
Why do we need morphological and syntactic evidence to identify word classes?
Morphological evidence can be very helpful. But note that the morphological system of English is impoverished – lots of words don’t get inflected. And if you think about it carefully, you will be able to come up with exceptions for most of the morphological evidence we discuss below. So although morphological evidence is useful, sometimes it’s not conclusive – and therefore we have to use syntactic evidence too.
Syntactic evidence includes information about the distribution of word classes; the other kinds of words they can appear with; and the kinds of structures we can use the words in. Such criteria naturally vary cross-linguistically, and may even vary across different dialects of the same language. So, all of this evidence should be used with caution, and sometimes we resort to semantic and phonological knowledge to help us out.

27. Morphology exercise
Split the following words into their constituent morphemes. For each morpheme you identify, state whether it is free or bound, AND derivational or inflectional. pleasurable dematerialization redefinition hopelessness disturbances immortalizing realistically surrealist impassivity extraterrestrials

28. Lexical vs functional categories
Descriptive content
Lexical categories: entities, actions, properties
Antonym test
The closed / open class distinction
One way to decide whether a word belongs to a lexical or a functional category is to see if it has descriptive content. Lexical categories can typically pick out an entity (nouns), a property (adjectives and adverbs), or an action (verbs).
One test to see if something has descriptive content is to try thinking of its opposite (its antonym): if it has an opposite, then it has descriptive content and is therefore a lexical category. But remember that this is not a 100% reliable test.
Open classes typically have a large membership and can easily accept new members. Closed classes, on the other hand, have a much smaller membership, and do not readily accept new members. This distinction tends to correlate with the lexical vs functional distinction.

29. The structure of phrases
syntax

30. Clauses and sentence structure
A CLAUSE is a string of words which expresses a proposition
Typically consists of at least a SUBJECT and a verb
David sings
Yesterday we visited Dambulla
A SENTENCE contains one or more clauses
Each clause contains ONE lexical verb (one verb = one clause)
She retired early because she was ill
MATRIX clause
SUBORDINATE clause

31. Compound sentences Main clauses and subordinate clauses
Harry put the phone down and he stood up.
I gave him my address, but he didn’t contact me.
We could go to the cinema or we could stay at home.
Each of the main clauses (those without the connecting words and, but and or) can stand on its own as an acceptable sentence
Clauses which can stand on their own in this way and have equal importance are referred to as main clauses (includes simple sentences, which contain only one clause).
Sentences which are constructed using conjunctions (and, but, or…) = compound sentences

32. Compound sentences Main clauses and Subordinate clauses
Harry put the phone down (and) he stood up.
I gave him my address, (but) he didn’t contact me.
We could go to the cinema (or) we could stay at home.
Each of the main clauses (those without the connecting words and, but and or) can stand on its own as an acceptable sentence
Clauses which can stand on their own in this way and have equal importance are referred to as main clauses (includes simple sentences, which contain only one clause).
Sentences which are constructed using conjunctions (and, but, or…) = compound sentences

33. Subordinate clauses
After he left work, he headed straight for the hotel.
We’re going to have to take the train because the car’s broken down.
If you heat water, it boils.
Although she’s the best in the class, she did badly in the exams.
While I’m out, could you tidy up a bit?
Identify the main and subordinate clauses in each of these compound sentences.

34. The structure of meanings
semantics

35. Semantics
Semantic entities tend to be structurally realized in quite transparent ways
E.g. objects  nouns, actions  verbs, spatial relations  prepositions, etc
Children innately have access to some semantically transparent notions: person, action, object, agent, patient
Given a sentence and a co-occurring event, children build a semantic representation of the sentence
Semantic representations encode the relations between the arguments and the verb

36. Semantics Arguments have thematic information associated with them
e.g. cat chase dog
AGENT THEME
(doing the chasing) (getting chased)
Semantic functions map onto grammatical functions
AGENT = subject THEME = object

37. Semantic Roles

38. Sherlock saw the man with binoculars.
Semantics and syntax
Sherlock saw the man with binoculars.

39. IP DP I’ I VP V DP D NP N PP P DP Sherlock Ø saw the man with
the binoculars

40. IP DP I’ I VP V’ PP V DP P DP D N Sherlock Ø saw with the binoculars
man

41. Pragmatics A rule-governed system Use of language in social situations
Context of the utterance
Situation
Relationship with speaker
Function of the utterance
Providing adequate information without redundancy
Using coherent and logical sequences
Maintaining a topic
Repairing communication breakdowns

43. Pragmatics
Interface between language and other kinds of cognitive process
Memory, attention, planning, executive function, emotional and psychological factors
Interface between competence and performance

44. Competence vs Performance
What we know about language (implicitly) vs what we do with language
Competence is core linguistic knowledge
Performance involves the interaction of language and other kinds of knowledge too
Psychological and environmental factors

45. Competence vs Performance