Intorduction To Linguistics - Lecture notes, lectures 1 - 8 PDF

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1 – Introduction to Linguistics Linguistics = the scientific study of language  observe, describe, theorise, analyse, explain  Factual  Objective  Systematic Famous linguists throughout history:  Panini  Plato  Aristotle  Aristophanes  St Augustine  Descartes  Chomsky Research Questions in Linguistics:  What do we know about our language?  How do we come to know this? (Language acquisition)  How do we use this linguistic knowledge? (Psycholinguistics)  How is this knowledge stored in our brains? (Neurolinguistics) "Language should be seen as a rule-based system" - Chomsky  Every native speaker of a language has internalised such a rule-based system Internalised language (I-language) = competence (tacit knowledge of language) Externalised language (E-language) = performance (actual use of the language) EXAMPLES OF RULES Statements and tag questions cannot be both positive or both negative  John is clever, isn't he? +ve -ve  John isn't sad, is he? +ve -ve Bi-syllabic words have different syllable stress depending on their word class  I want an increase in my salary - increase is a noun and the stress is on the first syllable  I want my salary to increase - increase is a verb and the stress is on the second syllable Properties of Human Language: 1. Learnability - all human languages are learnable (as opposed to formal languages) 2. Creativity/Discrete Infinity - there is no limit to producing sentences/sentence length 3. Displacement - one is able to talk about things outside of the present moment past/future/conditional etc 4. Arbitrariness - because of the differences in languages, the word/sound used to represent an object in one language has an arbitrary relationship with that object (exceptions include onomatopoeic words and signs/symbols used and understood universally) 5. Structure-dependency - e.g. Forming yes/no questions from statements:  John is clever ➡Is John clever? (The copular verb "is" is moved to the beginning to form the question)



It is raining ➡Is it raining? (The auxiliary verb "is" is moved to the beginning to form the question) General rule: take the auxiliary or copular verb to the beginning to form a yes/no question from a statement

What you know when you say you speak a language:  Phonetics (sound)  Phonology (sound systems)  Semantics (meaning)  Syntax (sentence structure/word categories)  Morphology (word structure/distribution and combination)  Pragmatics (usage)

2 – Core & Applied Linguistics Core Linguistics  Syntax (grammar and morphology)  Phonetics and phonology  Semantics and pragmatics Applied Linguistics  Historical linguistics  Sociolinguistics  Psycholinguistics (language processing and acquisition)  Neurolinguistics  Computational linguistics  Linguistics as applied to teaching, translation, text analysis etc Approaches to the study of linguistics  Purist: lays down rules/regulations e.g. don't use ain't, double negatives or split infinitives, don't end a sentence on a preposition  Descriptive: linguists are interested in describing languages as they find them, objectively  Diachronic: the study of language through time  Synchronic: the study of language at one point in time Syntactic Knowledge  The basic unit of syntax is a word (a unit separated by space on a page, positionally mobile but internally stable)  Basic claim in syntax: words in a language can be classified into different categories or classes (parts of speech) Categories/Word Classes:  Open classes/lexical categories - noun, verb, adjective, adverb (substantives)  Closed classes/grammatical categories - preposition, determiner (article/pronoun/quantifier), conjunctive, complementiser (functives) I know that John is sick - "that" is the complement as it introduces the complement of the verb ("John is sick") Defining & Identifying Categories  A category is a group of words that share the same linguistic (semantic, syntactic, morphological) properties  Categories can be identified in different ways: semantic (meaning-based), morphological (formbased), syntactic (distribution-based). There is some question as to how reliable these methods are, and syntactic-based methods are most reliable. Semantic  Nouns denotes entities  Verbs denote action  Adjectives denote state or a property  Adverbs denote manner  Prepositions denote location However  The noun 'happiness' denotes a state not an entity  'China' denotes a location yet is a noun not a preposition

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Some adjectives when before the noun (pre-modifying adjectives) determine what kind of that noun yet they are not determiners

Morphological  A noun is a word that can take the plural '-s' suffix  A verb is a word that can take the past tense '-ed' suffix  An adjective is a word that can take the comparative '-er' suffix However  What about prepositions or other categories?  What about exceptions to these rules?  Some languages such as Creoles or Chinese do not follow these rules Syntactic  A noun occurs in the following blank space: "the …… is tall"  A verb occurs in the following blank space: "he will …… later"  An adjective occurs in the following blank space: "Mary became extremely ……"  An adverb occurs in the following blank space: "he drives very ……"  A preposition occurs in the following blank space: "he is right …… the tree"  An auxiliary verb occurs in the following blank space: "…… you stop fighting?" Evidence that Categories Exist  Stress placement on monosyllabic words (a phonological rule) relies on categorical information whether the word is a noun, adjective or a verb  Suffixing comparative form '-er' to a word (a morphological rule) depends on whether the word is an adjective or not  Interpreting ambiguous strings such as 'mistrust wounds' or 'the men looked hard'  What position a word can occur in (its syntactic distribution) depends on its category (e.g. only an adverb or an adjective can follow 'very') Why do we need categories?  To know the category of a word means you can predict where it occurs in a phrase or sentence  Different linguistic rules apply to different categories  Having categories enables us to state linguistic generalisations Subcategories Nouns:  Count / non-count or mass  Common / proper  Abstract / concrete  Animate / inanimate

   

Verbs: Transitive (needing an object) / intransitive Stative / non-stative Ergative / unergative Unnaccusative

 

Adjectives: Transitive / intransitive Stative / non-stative or dynamic Prepositions:



Transitive / intransitive

3 - Syntax Topicalisation John likes books ➡Books, John likes (Topic construction) Books = noun These books = NOUN PHRASE Word-level categories: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, complementiser, determiner Phrasal categories: NP, VP, AP, ADVP, PP, CP, DP What is a phrase?  A word or string of words that behave as a syntactic unit

(Mary reads books) Phrases have heads: the head of an NP is a noun, the head of a VP is a verb etc. Criteria for Identifying Heads:  Meaning: the meaning of the head determines the meaning of the phrase)  Distribution: heads occur in the same position as phrases  Obligitariness: heads are obligatory  Selection: the head selects the compliments in a phrase  Category label: the category of the head is the category of the phrase Phrases have dependants: e.g.

(These books)



'books' is the head and the determiner ('these') would change depending on the amount of the head

Dependants as complements:  He bought a book  She is fond of syntax 'bought' and 'fond' are heads and their dependents are complements (Dependants as complements are obligatory unless with nouns, unless the noun comes from an adjective) Dependents as adjuncts:  The tin on the shelf  'On the shelf' is an adjunct as it is optional, extra information COMPLEMENTS MUST BE NEXT TO THE HEAD (Adjuncts may follow) How to differentiate between complements and adjuncts:  Obligatory (except with several nouns) / optional  Selected by heads / not selected  Linearly adjacent to heads / may or may not be next to the head Why do we need phrasal categories?  Syntactic reasons: pronouns can only replace strings of words which are phrases The man / he is reading the magazine John went to Paris and Mary went to Paris / went there / did too Pronouns can be pro-VPs (so), pro-NPs (he, she, etc), pro-pp (to…)  Semantic reasons: ambiguity e.g. 'The man looked very hard' - 'hard' could be an AP or an ADVP  Morphological reasons: e.g. Ken's hat The mayor's hat Does the ''s' go at the end of the noun or the NP? The mayor of New York's hat Representing the Internal Structure of Sentences: Constituents: words in a sentence are grouped into units (phrases) and these units are combined to form the sentence [Martin [reads [his book] [in the library]]

[Constituents] This can also be represented in a Phrase Marker:

(Martin reads his book in the library)

A phrase marker is a set of nodes liked by lines and it reveals the internal structure of a given sentence. Why do we need them?  Phrase markers can be used to explain ambiguity e.g. [we [saw [the man [with the telescope]]]] = the man had a telescope [we [saw [the man] [with the telescope]]] = the telescope was used to see the man

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Phrase Structure Rules: S ➡NP, VP VP ➡ V, NP, PP PP ➡P, NP NP ➡ (D), (AP), N AP ➡A

4 - Morphology

Morphology = how the smallest grammatical units (roots and affixes) combine to form words Two areas of Morphology Inflectional: how new forms of words are formed Word Formation: how new words are formed - derivation morphology/compounding Morphemes  The basic unit of morphology  The smallest unit with some meaning or grammatical function e.g. '-er' in 'roller' or '-ing' in 'reading' A morpheme is a unit that:  Has some meaning or grammatical function  Recurs (appears in more than one word)  Is interchangeable with other morphemes Roots and Affixes: Roots:  Mostly free, however some are 'bound' (can't occur as independent words - latinates) Affixes:   

All bound Prefix: occurs before the root Suffix: occurs after the root

A bi- or multi-morphic word can be analysed (segmented) in terms of its root and affixes Kind + ly = kindly Un + kind = unkind Un + kind + ly = unkindly Un + kind +li +ness = unkindliness Morphs  A morph is a physical realisation of a 'morpheme', which may be realised in more than one way E.g. The '-ed' morpheme realises the past tense, and can be pronounced [t] e.g in ‘parked’, as k and t are both voiceless consonants, [d] e.g in cleaned, as n and d are both voiced consonants, or [Id] e.g in wasted, as the root verb ends in a t/d. Lexemes  A 'lexeme' is a vocabulary item (an item/entry you would find in the dictionary) E.g.'GO' = lexeme goes, going, gone, went = forms of the lexeme GO Words can be analysed in terms of their morphemes:

Affixes can be derivational or morphological

Inflectional morphemes/affixes  Provide grammatical information  Give different forms of a word  Are class maintaining  Are productive ('-s' can be added to many nouns)       

emic) word

Deri         

sitions Can be prefixes or suffixes Form a large and potentially open set mic words

E

-

D (

| er | s

R B S

Allomorphy:  Can be phonologically conditioned (pronounced differently): cats, dogs, horses  Can be grammatically conditioned (different depending on gender/number): le/la/les  Can be lexically conditioned (the word determines the plural form it takes): infants, children, tooth/teeth

Word-formation processes:  Derivational: a derivational affix yields a new word when affixed to a root  Compounding: two or more morphemes combine to make a new word e.g. book+shop, zoo+keeper, black+mail (these can be single words, two separate words or hyphenated) Types of compound: N + A/N/P/V (headstrong, teapot, chin-up, price check) V + A/N/V/P (speakeasy, swear word, stir-fry, turnoff) A + A/N/V/P (white-hot, high school, dry-clean, blackout) P + A/N/V/P (under-ripe, outdoor, overthrow, within) Endocentric: have a semantic head (one component is more important than the other e.g. handbag or bookshelf) Exocentric: no semantic head (e.g. breakthrough or mainstream)

5 - Semantics 

The study of word meanings of words and the relationships between words

Principle of Compositionality: The meaning of an expression can be determined by the meaning of its individual parts, the way in which they combine and the order in which they occur. Exceptions: idioms, lexicalised compounds (e.g skindeep) or lexically derived words (e.g considerable) Lexical (sense) relations between words  Studies the relationships between words  Synonymy = different words, same meaning  Homonymy = same form, different meanings  Polysemy = same form, different but related meanings  Hyponymy = a specific word and a more general term  Meronymy = part-whole relationships  Antonymy = opposites, which can be complementaries e.g dead and alive, gradables e.g hot and cold, reversives e.g start and stop, conversives or relational e.g above and below Componential analysis  Meanings of words are analysed in terms of their semantic features or primes  Relationships between words can be captured by comparing the semantic features that characterise them  Man [+MALE, +ADULT, +HUMAN]  Woman [-MALE, +ADULT, +HUMAN]  Girl [-MALE, -ADULT, +HUMAN]  Used in computational linguistics  Only really useful for nouns Predicate calculus  The meaning of 'to give' e.g John gave Mary the book [X cause [Y [have Z]]] AND [X cause [X [not have Z]]]  Works best with verbs

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The study of sentence meanings of words and the relationships between sentences

TRUTH CONDITIONS: to understand the meaning of a sentence, one must know in what circumstances the sentence is true or false Sentence Relations 1. Entailment "John is a bachelor" entails that  John is male  John is an adult  John is an adult  Only true if all the entailments are true 2. Contradiction "John killed Bill and Bill didn't die"  Part 1 implies that bill dies  Part 2 negates this

3. Presupposition "Who stole my chair?"  Presupposes that the chair exists 4. Ambiguity "We saw the witches flying over the river"  The subject of 'flying' could be 'we' or could be 'the witches' 5. Paraphrase "John bought 5 cars" "5 cars were bought by John"  Different ways of writing sentences which mean the same thing

6 - Phonetics 1. Acoustic phonetics: physical properties (pitch/frequency/intensity/volume) 2. Auditory phonetics: how we perceive and process speech sounds 3. Articulatory phonetics: how speech sounds are produced/made PHONETICS =/= PHONOLOGY Phonology = how speech sounds and systems/patterns of speech sounds are organised in particular languages Applications of phonetics  Mispronunciations in early childhood See [ti] Bed [beg] Climb [baiɱ] Spoon [buŋ] 

Mispronunciations in anyone with a speech impediment Cabbage [gabi] Cheese [fi] Cage [geiv] Chimney [fimni]

These mispronunciations can be identified, explained and helped with the help of phonetics. Word pronunciations also change over time, phonetics is useful in identifying and understanding these changes. Speech sounds can also be described using:  Place of articulation (where it is made in the oral tract)  Manner of articulation (how it is made)  Voicing IPA = International Phonetic Alphabet Consonants:

     

p

m

v

b

n

s

t

l

z

d

r

h

k

f

w

dʒ e.g the g in gym ŋ e.g the ng in sing ʃ e.g the sh in fish θ e.g the th in thin ð e.g the th in then j e.g the y in yes

 

Ʒ e.g the s in measure tʃ e.g the ch in chain

Vowels:  i: e.g bean  ɑ: e.g barn  ɔ: e.g born  ɜ: e.g burn  ɪ e.g pit  e e.g pet  æ e.g pat  ʌ e.g put  ɒ e.g pot  ʊ e.g put  ə e.g another Primary Cardinal Vowel Chart:

Dipthongs (a shift from one vowel to another):  eɪ e.g bay  ɑɪ e.g buy  ɔɪ e.g boy  əu e.g no  au e.g now  ɪə e.g peer  ɛa e.g pair  uə e.g poor

The Vocal Tract:  Larynx = the glottis and the vocal chords  Mouth and nose = superglotal cavities  ORAL CAVITIES: luvula, velum (the soft palate), hard palate, alveolar ridge, teeth, lips, tongue (tip/apex, front/blade, back/dorsum)  THE NASAL CAVITY: velum is lowered

Active articulators:  Lips (rounded, unrounded or neutral)  Tongue (raised or lowered)  Velum (raised or lowered)  Glottis (vocal chords vibrating or not)

Passive articulators:  Upper teeth  The alveolar ridge  The palate Criteria for classifying consonants  Place of articulation  Manner of articulation  Voicing Criteria for classifying vowels  Place of articulation  Shape of lips Describing Speech Sounds Place of articulation:  Bi-labial - lower and upper lips  Labio-dental - lower lip + upper teeth  Alveolar - alveolar ridge  Palatal - hard palate (n)  Velar - soft palate (ŋ)  Pharyngeal - pharynx  Glotal - glottis/inside the larynx Manner of articulation:  Oral - air pushed through mouth  Nasal - air escapes through nose  Stops - obstruction in vocal tract (can be bilabial, alveolar, velar, glotal, nasal)  Plosives - bilabial, alveolar and velar  Fricatives - articulators brought close enough to produce friction Describing Speech Sounds Vowels Tongue height  High/close e.g [i]  Low/open e.g [a] Front or back of tongue  Front/close [i]  Back/close [u] Lip rounding  Rounded [u]  Spread [i]  Neutral [er] (hesitative) Phonology  Every language has its own phonological system  The basic unit of phonology is the phoneme  Another important concept is the syllable Syllables  Words can be analysed in terms of syllables

  

A syllable is an intermediate between a single sound (phoneme) and a word: a unit of pronunciation Vowels can be syllables on their own Syllables can be consonant-vowel (CV) or vowel-consonant (VC) e.g 'do' [du:], egg [eg], or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) e.g pat [pæt], cool [ku:l], meet [mit]

Segmenting words:  a | nimal = V [CV]  ab | sent = [VC] [CV]  ab | stain = [VC] [CCVC] Describing syllables Three key units:  Onset  Nucleus  Coda

 

Syllable structure is binary The nucleus is always a vowel sound

1.

Central

[s ɛntr əl]

Phonemes:  Abstract unit of phonological analysis  Placed in forward slashes: / /  Two sound segments are phonemes if substituting one for the other results in a change in meaning e.g 'minimal pairs' like pat & bat, lip & lid, line [lain] & lime [laim]

7 – Child Language Acquisition (One of the applications of linguistics) Logical problems of language acquisition:  Children acquire adult language with ease, without help, in a short period of time  Adult grammar is complex  Input undermines the grammar they require (Poverty of Stimulus)  Input is often degenerate  Input contains no negative evidence Acquisition path Pre linguistic stage  Babies who are just a few days old can recognise the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds. Early months: stimulus-controlled noises (crying, cooing etc) 6 months: babbling (primarily CV babbling; [ba] [da] etc)  10/12 months: speech (1st word) Linguistic stage  12-17 months: holophrastic stage (1 word at a time)  On average, a baby will know around 70 words by the time they are 17m old, some children will prefer referential words (mummy, teddy etc), others will favour expressive words (hi, bye etc)  18-22 months: telegraphic stage (words are gradually brought together e.g 'more drink', pred...