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Zusammenfassung Lesung: Introduction to English Linguistics...

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Introduction to English Linguistics VL 1: Key Concepts: 1. Central dichotomies: - Linguistic study can best be described by using some central dichotomies - From Greek “dichotomos”  cut in two - We can think of dichotomies as two opposing poles 2. Descriptive vs. prescriptive: - Neutral description of language use  descriptive - Try to formulate rules for “correct” language use  prescriptive 3. Synchronic vs. diachronic: - We can describe language either at one particular moment or short period of time (synchronic) or over a longer period of time (diachronic) and compare various states.

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Tod ay diachronic synchronic

diachronic synchronic

synchronic

4. Form vs. Function (language system vs. language use): - In a descriptive approach we can either - Concentrate on formal aspects, i.e. describe the structure of a language on its different levels (phonetics, syntax etc.) - Try to find out which functions linguistic structures fulfil and how we can use them for communicating ideas etc. 5. Language-specific vs. comparative: - In descriptive approach either look at one particular language or look at two or more languages, e.g. in order to find out about different structures which might hamper learning a foreign language 6. Key concepts and their most prominent figures: - Structuralism (de Saussure): language as closed system, each element of a language is defined in relation to the other elements in the system - Formalism (Chomsky): goal: “full and precise description of syntactic structures (of a given language) by means of a limited inventory of rules.” - Functionalism (Roman Jakobson): which contextual features (e.g. speakerhearer relationship) motivate the choice of one expression over another 7. Structuralism: - Langue: refers to language itself as a system which is shared by all members of a speech community - Parole: refers to the actual act of speaking a language, i.e. the concrete use - Signifiant (signifier): that which signs, i.e. the acoustic form or written word in a language - Signifié (signified): that which is signified, i.e. the concept

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Introduction to English Linguistics

Signifié Signifiant bird

Iconity: There is a relationship between sign and what it stands for, either visual or sound similarity (onomatopoetic expression), e.g. cuckoo 8. Formalism: - Also called generative linguistics or generative grammar - Developed by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s. - Main aim is to give a description of syntactic structures by means of a limited (also called: finite) inventory of rules. 8.1. Competence vs. performance: - Competence: an ideal native speaker’s entire mental knowledge - Performance: language use 8.2. Language Acquistion Device (LAD): - Every human being is born with a LAD - It allows them to acquire their native language in such a short time no matter what the surroundings (e.g. speech community, social class etc.) -  based on assumption that there exists a Universal Grammar 8.3. Universal Grammar (UG): - Attempts to specify which structural elements are present in all languages - Language is so complex, it is impossible to acquire it so quickly without there being an underlying structure 9. Functionalism: - Wants to find out… - “Why, in a particular domain of its structural system, a language, a given language or set of languages is the way it is. - What, in a particular context, motivates the choice of native users of a given language between two or more semantically equivalent alternative constructions, and/or - How communicative functions may help shape language structure.” 10. Summing up: - Language is a system of communication that is based on arbitrary symbols which are commonly agreed upon. It is used by humans - Linguistics is the scientific study of language. There are linguistic levels categorized by units and numerous areas of application - It can be described by using four central dichotomies - 20th century linguistics has been dominated by three major schools. VL 2: Phonetics and Phonology: 1. Definitions: 1.1. Definition Phonetics: - Phonetics is that part of linguistics in which we study the physical characteristics of the sounds which we hear in languages - Is interested in how we produce these sounds in mouth, throat and lungs and how the ear and the brain perceive and interpret them -

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Introduction to English Linguistics 1.2. -

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3.

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Definition Phonology: Is the study of how particular languages use these sounds and how some sounds affect neighboring sounds Phonetics vs. Phonology: Phonetics Phonology Sounds as such Sounds as parts of a sound system Not language-specific Language system Concrete Language-specific Abstract Phone [] Phoneme // Orthography ≠ pronunciation: - Why do we need phonetic transcription? - Very often the spelling of a word does not match pronunciation: - 1. Different spellings for the same sound: - Caesar quay be - 2. The same spelling for different sounds: - [i:] tear (noun) - [eᵊ ] tear (verb) - 3. Silent letters: - Debt, sword - 4. Missing letters: - [j] in use, muse Branches in phonetics: - Acoustic phonetics: concerned with what happens in the air between the speaker and the listener and about the acoustic properties of sounds - Auditory phonetics: deals with the question of how sounds are perceived by the speaker or listener - What people think they hear, and how the brain deals with the sounds - Articulatory phonetics: describes sounds with regard to the “organs of speech” - Most of them are movable (active), some are unmovable (passive) speech prgans The Speech Organs: - Lips -> labial - Teeth -> dental - Alveolar ridge -> alveolar - Hard palate -> palatal - Soft palate (velum) -> velar - Uvula -> uvular - Tongue -> lingual - Glottis -> glottal - Larynx -> laryngeal Description of consonants: 6.1. Places of articulation: - Bilabial = using both lips - /m/ as in mice - /w/ as in wet - /p/ as in pat - /b/ as in bat - Labiodental = upper teeth touch lower lip - /f/ fat 3

Introduction to English Linguistics /v/ vision Dental= tongue touches upper teeth /ᶿ / (theta) as in think /ᶞ/ (eth) that Alveolar = tongue touches alveolar ridge /t/ trap /d/ do /n/ nice /s/ Sue /z/ zoo /l/ leap Post-alveolar = tongue is right behind the alveolar ridge /ᴊ / (turned r) as in ring Palate-alveolar = tongue is between alveolar ridge and hard palate /ᶴ / (esh) shoe /ᵹ / (yogh) vision /ᶵᶴ/ chin /ᵭᵹ / gin Palatal = tongue touches hard palate /j/ yes Velar = back of the tongue touches soft palate /k/ kit /g/ goat /ᵑ/ ring Glottal = without active use of the tongue or mouth or other parts of the mouth /h/ hat /?/ (glottal stop) is in ha? [hae?], to be found in many non-standard accents of BE, most prominently in Cockney and WC Glaswegian 7. Manner of articulation: - Plosives = complete obstruction before sudden release of air: - /p/; /b/; /t/; /d/; /k/; /g/ - Fricatives = partial obstruction before airflow with friction: - /f/; /v/; /ᶿ /; /ᶞ /, /s/; /z/; /ᶴ /; /ᵹ /; /h/ - Affricates = complete obstruction before airflow causes friction: - /th/, /ᵭᵹ/ - Nasals = obstruction of airflow in oral cavity; soft palate is lowered; air is released through the nasal cavity - /m/, /n/, /ᵑ/ - Approximants = 2 articulators approaching or touching each other without audible friction -

Liquids semi-vowels =air escapes relatively = between consonants and vowels Unimpeded /w/; /j/ /l/; /r/ 8. Vocal Fold Action: - Do the vocal folds vibrate? - Yes  voiced consonant (v+) e.g. /b/ - No  voiceless consonant (v-) e.g. /p/ 4

Introduction to English Linguistics 9. Vowels: 9.1.

Vowel Classification:

Types of vowels Gliding vowels Tongue changes its position during the production of the vowel

Monophthongs Tongue has a stable position during the production of the vowel Short Tongue remains in its position for a shorter period e.g. [I]

Long Tongue remains in ist position for a longer period e.g. [I:]

9.2. -

9.3. front

Diphthongs Position of tongue changes once e.g. [ai]

Triphthongs Position of tongue changes twice e.g. [aᶷᵊ]

Cardinal Vowels: The concept of cardinal vowels was established by the famous phonetician Daniel Jones using X-ray to find out about tongue positions in the production of vowels. The cardinal vowels have a fixed position that every vowel in any natural language can be compared with Vowel Chart: central

Degre e of tongu e raising

Vowel chart = an abstract representation of the oral cavity

back

 Where the vowels are produced

Close Halfclose Halfopen open

VL 3: Morphology: 1. Definitions: - Morphology: - The field of linguistics which examines the internal structure of words and processes of word formation is known as morphology. - Morphemes, morphs, allomorphs: - Morpheme = the smallest meaning-bearing unit of language; abstract - Morph = a predictable variant of a given morpheme; concrete - Allomorphs = a group of morphs belonging to the same morpheme 1.2. Morphemes, morphs, allomorphs: 5

Introduction to English Linguistics {plural} Kits /s/

kids /z/

kisses /i:z/

morpheme 4 morphs

sheep /ᶿ/

/s/ + /z/ + /iz/ + /ᶿ/ 2. There are differences… 2.1. Morpheme ≠ syllable: - Morphological structure and syllable structure are not necessarily identical - Very often they do not match - E.g. finger  1 morpheme, 2 syllables - E.g. toys  2 morphemes, 1 syllable 2.2. Word ≠ word form: - Is singers a different word from singer? -  No. They are only two different word forms (singular/plural) - Is sing a different word from singer? -  Yes. By adding the affix –er, we form a new word which you find in a dictionary, a lexeme. 3. Type of Morphemes: - Morphemes can be classifies using three criteria: - Distribution (autonomy): can a morpheme stand on its own? - Function (meaning): does the morpheme convey lexical or grammatical information? - Position (can only be applied to bound morphemes): in which place does the morpheme occur? Types of morphemes

Free Can stand on their own

Lexical Establish a relationship between language and the outside world

Bound Have to be attached

Derivational Create lexemes via affixation Can (but need not) change word class

Functional Have a purelx grammatical meaning

prefix -

suffix

Inflectional Produce word forms Do not change grammatical category

suffix

Examples: Free lexical morphemes: Nouns e.g. {finger}, verbs e.g. {sing}, adjectives e.g. {sad} Free functional morphemes: Articles e.g. {the}, prepositions e.g. {in}, pronouns e.g. {he}, conjunctions e.g. {and} Bound derivational morphemes: E.g. prefix {-un} in unhappy, suffix {-er} in singer 6

Introduction to English Linguistics Bound inflectional morphemes: E.g. suffix {-s} in sings Conditioning: We distinguish between four types of conditioning Phonological conditioning: = the relevant allomorph arises naturally from the phonological environment E.g. cats: /s/ after all voiceless consonants that are not sibilants Causes: /iz/ after all sibilants Cods /z/ after voiced consonants that are not sibilants Lexical conditioning: = a particular lexical morpheme determines the shape of an allomorph E.g. ox  oxen Morphological conditioning: = a particular morpheme demands a special allomorph of another morpheme it combines - With e.g. /kᴧridᵹ/  /kᵊreidᵹ/ - Courage  courage –ous - Grammatical conditioning - = an inflectional affix conditions the choice of another allomorph. Here past tense affix /t/ conditions the allomorph - E.g. weep /wi:p/; wept /wep + t/ VL 4: Word Formation: 1. Definitions: - Word formation is concerned with the processes that expand the vocabulary of a language, i.e. create new lexemes. 2. Word Formation Processes – Overview:

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Word formation processes Low productivity

High productivity

Derivation A new lexeme is created via affixation

Compounding Two/more free morphemes are put together and form a new lexeme e.g. blackbird

Prefixation

Suffixation

e.g. unhappy

e.g. happily

Conversion New lexemes are formed without any morphological marker that indicates the change of word class e.g. to dry

Shortenings Output is shorter than the input

3. Derivation: - Is the most productive word-formation process 7

Coinage Lexemes are invented e.g. wug or lexemes develop from a proper name  Person e.g. sandwich  brand e.g. to hoover

Introduction to English Linguistics By adding an affix either in front of a prefix or after suffix a word a new lexeme is created 4. Shortenings:

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Shortenings Initialism A new word is formed from The initial letters of a group Of words Acronyms Read as a word e.g. AIDS

5. -

Alphabetism Every letter pronounced separately e.g. CD

clipping Omission of one part of a word e.g. examination  exam

blending Combining 2 words to form a new word (usually beginning of one word and ending of another word) e.g. smoke + fog  smog

backformation Result from taking away a real or a putative derivational suffix e.g. television  televise

Borrowing: A word from one language is taken over into another language Loan words (pizza) Loan translation (skyscraper – Wolkenkratzer)

VL 5: Grammar I: Inflectional Morphology: 1. Differences Between Inflection and Derivation in English: Inflection Derivation Usually fully productive within word class: Productive for subclasse of new words (e.g. Plural-s can be used for most (new) nouns –ity and –dom) in complementary regardless of origin distribution for words in Latin resp. Germanic origin (e.g. royalty vs. kingdom) Small inventory (very few inflectional Large inventory morphemes) Meaning of words from gained through Meaning of lexeme gained through derivation not predictable, i.e. –er not inflection is predictable: always indicating agent, c.f. sweet-er N + -s (without apostrophe) always plural V+ -ed always past tense (in nouns): further away from the root, i.e. Closer to the root after derivational morphemes Sing+er+s Sing-er-s Strongly syntactically determined; Hardly syntactically determined establishes agreement between syntactically closely related units e.g.: in that large group of kids, it is the e.g.: We saw those singers on TV years youngest girl who sings loudest (subject ago. (Singers: object) and verb, verb indicates that subject is they were famous singers even back then. (singers: predicate noun) 3SGL) (same form – singers – regardless of 8

Introduction to English Linguistics

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syntactic function of noun) 2. Inflectional Morphemes in English: Exercise Determine the inflectional morphemes in the following sentence. Three boys struggled with each other in the street. But since the old est among them was stronger, the fight ended soon. kind of inflection Inflectional morphemes Example Noun Declension Plural: -s Boys, opponents Genitive: -s Sister’s Verb Conjugation 3rd person indicative: -s Eats Past: -ed Struggled; ended Present participle: -ing Am looking sth. Up Have looked up Past participle: -ed Comparison Comparative: -er Stronger Adjectiv oldest e Superlative: -est 3. Morphological Language Types – Overview: Morphological Language Types

Synthetic: Rich inflectional system Many word forms for every lexeme Subject-object-marking: inflection Free word order

Inflectional

Agglutinating

e.g. German, Latin, Greek

e.g. Finnish, Turkish, Japanese

Analytic: Poor inflectional system Few word forms for every lexeme Subject-object-marking: word order Fixed word order

Isolating: e.g. Vietnamese, Chinese, English

3.1. Synthetic Inflectional agglutinating Different grammatical information one form – one function for grammatical On one morph morphs Often morphonemic alternation transparent morphological structure e.g. gib- gab e.g. evlerde (Turkish) clear segmentation into morphemes ev – ler - de not always possible e.g. puellarum puell-arum 3.2. Analytic: If you imagine a scale representing analytic languages, … Isolating analytic languages

Complete loss of inflectional endings Usually monomorphemic words (does not mean monosyllabic) e.g. hai ca dong ho (Vietnamese) two cl. Watch “two watches”

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Introduction to English Linguistics -

Isolating would be the most extreme case

VL 6: Contrastive Linguistics: 1. Contrastive Linguistics: - One of the four branches of comparative linguistics - Compares 2 languages on a set of parameters - Was originally motivated by the desire to predict first language (L1)-based errors. Since its predictive value turned out to be of limited use, the focus of contrastive linguistics has shifted from applied to descriptive/theoretical. 2. Other Branches of Comparative Linguistics: - Historical-comparative linguistics: establishes family relationships between languages - Areal linguistics: researches mutual influence of genetically unrelated but geographically close languages - Typology: compares many languages from various language families and areas on a select set of parameters (e.g. word order, derivational rules). Goal: to find language universals, i.e. crosslinguistic similarities and differences 3. Comparing German and English: Case marking: - German: has retained 4 cases - If the head of the NP is a noun, case is mainly marked on one of the modifiers of the NP: on the determiner (des, eines, dieses, seines) - Die Pfeife des/eines/dieses/seines alten Großvaters, - And on preposed adjectives: Er ist ein alter Großvater vs. Er hat einen alten Großvater. - Rare: case marking on the noun itself (der Kollege, des Kollegen) - Pronouns (can also be the head of a NP) have - 4 different forms of the masc. gender: er, sein, ihm, ihn - 2 for the fem. Gender sie, ihr, ihr, sie - 3 for the neuter gender n.: es, sein, ihm, es - English: - If the head of a NP is a noun, there is a 2-way distinction: common case (unmarked, regardless of syntactic function of NP) vs. possessive case (marked with possessive inflection ‘s). No case marking on determiners or adjectives. - Pronouns have a three-way distinction between subject case-possessive case- and object case, at least for masculine pronouns. (he-his-him, she-her-her). In relative and interrogative pronouns, the object case is gradually disappearing: whom replaced by zero form (The man I saw) or by who). 4. Marking of Number, Person and Mood: - German has a rich inflectional system for number and person (-e, -st, -t, -en, -t, -en in present tense) and a clear indicative/subjunctive distinction -  change in verb ending; sometimes additionally in the stem vowel: sie weiß/wise (Konj. I)/ wüsste (Konj. II) - English hast lost all inflectional endings except for plural marker –s and 3.P.Sg. marker –s - English only retains traces of the subjunctive -  if I were you… -  We demand that he leave (infinitive instead of inflected form) 5. Word Order: - Is relatively free in Germen, since syntactic roles (subject vs. object(s)) are clearly marked within the noun phrases

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Introduction to English Linguistics Is fixed in English, since there are no morphological markers specifying the syntactic roles - Both languages are verb-second in main clauses (G. not in subordinate clauses). In English, S. is mandatory, whereas German can have sunjectless sentences, e.g. Jetzt wird aber geschlafen! - Since word order is relatively free in German, a focusing effect can be achieved by simple fronting of a constituent: - Den Nudelsalat habe ich gemacht. (Nicht den Kartoffelsalat) - Do moved out of its prototypical position in the sentence - English achieves the same effect through...