Intro to Linguistics { Basic Concepts of Linguistics

Jirka Hana { October 2, 2011

Overview of topics
Language and Languages

Speech vs. Writing

Approaches to language: Descriptive vs.

Prescriptive Grammar and its parts
Arbitrariness (conventionality)

1 Language
Language is a system that associates sounds (or gestures) with meanings in a way that
uses words and sentences.

Linguistics is the scienti c study of human language. It tries:

rst, to observe languages and to describe them accurately,

then, to nd generalizations within what has been described,
nally, to draw conclusions about the general nature of human language.

Applied linguistics attempts to make practical use of the knowledge derived from general
linguistic research { in order, for example, to:

improve the ways in which a student's native language is

taught help people learn foreign language more e ciently
write better dictionaries

improve therapy for people with language problems

search the Internet more e ciently and successfully

Linguistics overlaps and (ideally) cooperates with: psychology, sociology, anthropology,

phi-losophy, logic, mathematics, computer science, speech pathology, acoustics, music,
crypt-analysis, etc.

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 2 Speech vs. Writing
2.1 Why it is sometimes claimed that writing is primary
Written texts tend to be more carefully worded and better organized than spoken texts,
they contain fewer errors, hesitations, and incomplete sentences, because writing is
usually planned in advance, is subject to fewer time constraints, is proofread, etc.
However: How about instant messaging, quick e-mails?

Spelling is more uniform across di erent individuals, places and times using the
same language than is pronunciation.
However: Swau lasku slawjk ruzi pel { Ruzinu gewil wonny wzdech. { Gezero hladke w
krowjch stinnych [K.H.Macha: Mag 1836]
However: UK: tyre, draught, colour,
dialogue, penalise, centre, defence, . . .
USA: tire, draft, color, dialog, penalize, center, defense, . . .
Moreover: Is uniformity the same as primacy?

Written texts last and can be preserved for a long time.

However: CDs, youtube . . . can preserve speech

Writing styles change much more slowly than speech styles, and so writing seems
more \permanent" and \authoritative".
However: This can be is also disadvantage { writing lags behind the times.

2.2 Linguists' reasons for claiming that speech is primary

Historically, spoken language existed much earlier than writing.
Writing was most likely invented in Sumer (Mesopotamia, current Iraq) about 5500
years ago. Language probably exists for 40,000 or more.

There are many societies which only speak their language and do not write it. And
no society uses only a written language (with no spoken form).
We learn to speak before we learn to write.

Most people say more during one month than they write during their entire lives.
Writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired automatically.

Psycholinguistic evidence suggest that the processing and production of written lan-
guage is overlaid on the spoken language centers in the brain (plus certain other
cen-ters).

Speech contains information that writing lacks { intonation, stress, voice quality . . .

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3 Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Approach to Language
3.1 Descriptive Approach
Linguists attempt to describe the grammar of the language that exists in the minds
of its speakers, i.e. to create a model of speakers' mental grammar.

The resulting descriptive grammar describes person's basic linguistic knowledge. It

explains how it is possible to speak and understand and it summarize what
speakers know about the sounds, words, phrases and sentences of their language.

Creating a descriptive grammar involves observing the language and trying to

discover the principles or rules that govern it.

Descriptive rules accept as given the patterns speakers actually use and try to
account for them. Descriptive rules allow for di erent dialects of a language and
even variation within one dialect.

3.2 Prescriptive Approach

Prescriptivists tell you someone's idea of what is \good" or \bad".

Prescriptive rules make a value judgment about the correctness of certain

utterances and generally try to enforce a single standard. For example:
English:
{ Don't split in nitives; don't say: to easily understand
{ Don't end a sentence with a preposition; don't say Where are you from?

Czech:

{ Proto je treba jednoznacne odm tnout a do slusne spolecnosti nepoustet predevs m

hruzy typu chromozom ci lyzozom, nebot ty mohou uz vat pouze malo gramotne
osoby neznal zakladu "s~oma-s~omatos". Stejn odpudiva a neprijateln je ale
napr. i dizertace.
Jaroslav Horejs : Plac jazyka ceskeho. 1 Feb
2010 http://blog.aktualne.cz/blogy/jaroslav-horejsi.php?itemid=8790
{ Don't use misticka, use the correct misticka [1930's]
The people who prescriptive grammar make up the rules of the grammar.

They attempt to impose the rules for speaking and writing on people without much
regard for what the majority of educated speakers of a language actually say and write.

So-called prescriptive grammar usually focuses only on a few issues and leaves the
rest of a language undescribed (unprescribed?). In fact, from the linguistic point of
view, this is not grammar at all.

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3.3 Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism
In summary: Linguists describe language, they do not prescribe it.

As a science, linguistics:

is not in the business of making value judgments about language use.

studies how language really is used and then attempts to describe the facts, in order
to analyze and, eventually, explain them.

An Analogy:

Physicists:

{ don't complain that objects fall to earth

{ simply observe and describe the fact of falling, then try to discover the laws that
are behind it.
Linguists:

{ don't say that people shouldn't use ain't or bysme `colloq. would 1pl'
{ simply observe that some people in certain situations do use ain't (without judg-
ing, although they do note any systematic correlations of such use with
particular groups, regions, situations, styles, etc.)

4 The parts of Grammar

Grammar is a language system, a set of principles (rules) that underlie a language.

Mental Grammar { the knowledge of language that allows a person to produce and un-
derstand utterances

Grammar can be described as having di erent parts:

phonetics

phonology

morphology

syntax

semantics
pragmatics

Since linguists study all of these, the terms are also used to refer to sub elds of linguistics.

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4.1 Phonetics & Phonology
Phonetics { the production and perception of speech sounds as physical entities.
E.g., [v] is pronounced by bringing the lower lip into contact with upper teeth and forcing
air out of the mouth while the vocal folds vibrate and nasal cavity is closed o .

Phonology { the sound patterns (the sound system of a particular language) and of
sounds as abstract entities.
In Czech, a word never ends with a voiced obstruent (e.g., zubu [zubu] `tooth gen' but zub
[zup] `toothnom').
In English, a word never starts with [kn] (note that knife starts with [n] not [k]), while in
German it is possible (e.g., Knabe `boy')
In Setswana (a language of southern Africa), a consonant is always followed by a vowel
{ when the speakers adopted the word Christmas from English, they pronounce as kirisimasi.

4.2 Morphology
Morphology { the word structure and of systematic relations between words.
Morpheme { the building-blocks of words, the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning
or grammatical function.
Words are composed of morphemes (one or more).
Sing-er-s answer-ed un-kind-ly
uc-i-tel-k-u `she-teacheracc'
In comparison with many other languages, English has rather simple morphology.

4.3 Syntax
Syntax { phrase and sentence structure
Syntacticians try to discover rules that govern:
word order: The book is on the table. *Table book on is the the.
agreement: I am here. *I are here.
subject/object forms (cases): I like her. *I like she.
etc.
Note: In linguistics, placing an asterisk (*) before a sentence marks that sentence as
ungrammatical, i.e., not of the kind normally used by most speakers of that language.

4.4 Semantics
Semantics is the literal meaning of sentences, phrases, words and morphemes.
E.g., What is the meaning of the word vegetable?
E.g., How does the word order in uence meaning of sentence in English? How about Czech?

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4.5 Pragmatics
Pragmatics studies language usage, especially how context in uences the interpretation
of utterances { the same sentence can be used to do di erent things in di erent situations.
E.g., Gee, it's hot in here! can be used either to state a fact or to get someone open a
window.

Simply put: semantics is the literal meaning and pragmatics is the intended meaning.

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5 Arbitrarness

The relation between form and meaning in language can be either:

arbitrary (conventional), in which case:

{ the meaning is not deducible from the form

{ the form is not deducible from the meaning
{ the connection between the form and meaning must be learned via memorization
nonarbitrary

{ the meaning is (at least partly) derivable from the form, and vice versa E.g.,
En Cz
buzz , bzucen { `sound of the type made by (the wings of) bees'
iconicity { the most extreme example of nonarbitrary form/meaning connection: the
form shows a physical correspondence to the meaning and vice versa

Non-language examples:

arbitrary: tra c lights, warning siren

nonarbitrary: a \no-smoking" sign (with a crossed-out cigarette), a deer-crossing
sign (with a silhouette of a deer)

Language is overwhelmingly arbitrary.

If language were not arbitrary, then:

di erent languages would not use di erent words for the same thing (in fact, there
would be just one language), as they obviously do:
English tree, Czech strom, French arbre, German Baum, Japanese ki, Korean namu.
word forms would not change over time.
Old English (before 1100) hus ! Modern English house
word meanings would not change over time
Middle English (before 1500) girle `child' ! Modern English girl `girl'
Middle English nice `ignorant' ! Modern English nice `pleasant' Old
Czech letadlo `bird' ! Modern Czech letadlo `airplane'

5.1 Limited Exceptions: Onomatopoeia and Sound Symbolism

There are two very limited and partial exceptions to the arbitrariness of language:

Onomatopoeia = words whose sound imitates either the sound they denote or a sound
associated with something they denote. These words are not entirely arbitrary.
However, di erent languages represent the same natural sounds in slightly di erent
ways (e.g., . English cock-a-doodle-doo 6= Czech kykyryk ), which shows that they
are not completely nonarbitrary, either.

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 Sound symbolism refers to the very vague, elusive way in which certain sounds \feel"
more appropriate for describing certain objects or meanings than do other sounds.

{ the vowels [i] or [I] seem to suggest smallness teensy-weensy,

wee, little, Tommy (vs. Tom), squeak; but: big
{ to English speakers, gl- suggest brightness:
glint glitter, gleam, glow; but: glove, glue, glum, glop

5.2 Why is arbitrariness is an advantage?

It allows user of a communication system to adopt the most convenient means
available for communicating, since it obviates any need for the forms of signs to
bear an inherent relationship to their meanings.

It also makes it much easier for users of a communication system to refer to

abstract entities, since it is hard to nd a combination that involves an inherent link
between a form and an abstract meaning.