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What is the nature of language?

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Presentation on theme: "What is the nature of language?"— Presentation transcript:

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

2 Semanticity Generativity Displacement Arbitrariness Flexibility of symbols Naming

3 The Skinner-Chomsky debates
“Parentese” Larynx Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area Pidgin and Creole

4 The boys hit the ball. Words: Morphemes: Phonemes:
s h t th b l

5 Generative-transformational theory

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

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

8 Different surface structures can be related to the same deep structure.
and… Different deep structures can be related to the same surface structure.

9 Sentence The boys hit the ball. noun phrase verb phrase article noun

10 Sentence noun phrase verb phrase The ball hit the boys. by was article
auxiliary verb preposition noun phrase article noun The ball hit the boys. by was

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