What is linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The word was first used in the middle of the 19th century
to emphasize the difference between a newer approach to the study of language that was then
developing and the more traditional approach of philology. A philologist is concerned primarily with
historical development of language as it is manifested in written texts and in the context of the
associated literature and culture. A linguist, on the other hand, may be interested in written texts and in
the development of languages over time; he tends to give priority to spoken languages and to the
problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time, without relevance to their history.

“Linguistics is the scientific study of language”. The word language here des not refer to any particular
language but can be any language in general.

In the introductory lectures, we begin to consider the ways that linguists think about language,
especially the idea that linguists strive to make systematic observations of human language behavior.
Linguists don’t spend time prescribing how people should or shouldn’t use their language!

The scientific way of thinking about language involves making systematic, empirical observations, i.e.
linguists observe data to find the evidence for their theories. Those are the theories of why people say
certain things or make certain sounds but not others. Consequently, linguists never make judgements
about how people use the language.

What makes our language unique?

It is worth noting that humans have some important differences to all other species that make our
language unique.

Firstly, what we call the articulatory system: our lungs, larynx & vocal folds, and the shape of our
tongue, teeth, lips, nose, all enable us to produce speech. No other species can do this in the way we
can, not even our closest genetic relatives the chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans.

Secondly, our auditory system is special: our ears are sensitive to exactly the frequencies that are most
common in human speech. There are other species that have similar patterns of auditory sensitivity, but
human newborns pay special attention to human speech, even more so than synthetic speech that is
matched for acoustic characteristics.

And most important of all, our neural system is special: no other species has a brain as complex and
densely connectedas ours with so many connections dedicated to producing and understanding
language.

Humans’ language ability is different from all other species’ communication systems, and linguistics is
the science that studies this unique ability.

Mental grammar
We know now that linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It’s also important to know that
linguistics is one member of the broad field that is known as cognitive science, which studies the human
mind. Therefore, it seems natural that linguists show particular interest in the mental grammar of every
language that includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Microlinguistics
Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds. It studies how speech sounds are articulated,
transmitted, and received.

Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function in a language, it studies the ways speech sounds
are organized. It can be seen as the functional phonetics of a particular language.

Morphology is the study of the formation of words. It is a branch of linguistics which breaks words into
morphemes. It can be considered as the grammar of words as syntax is the grammar of sentences.

Syntax deals with the combination of words into phrases, clauses and sentences. It is the grammar of
sentence construction.

Semantics is a branch of linguistics which is concerned with the study of meaning in all its formal
aspects. Words have several types of meaning.

Pragmatics can be defined as the study of language in use. It deals with how speakers use language in
ways which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone, and how hearers arrive at the
intended meaning of speakers. PRAGMATICS =MEANING-SEMANTICS.

Macrolinguistics
Socilinguistics (language+sociology) studies the relations between language and society: how social
factors influence the structure and use of language.

Psycholinguistics (language+psychology) is the study of language and mind: the mental structures and
processes which are involved in the acquisition, comprehension and production of language.

Neurolingistics is the study of language processing and language representation in the brain. It
typically studies the disturbances of language comprehension and production caused by the damage of
certain areas of the brain.

Stylistics is the study of how literary effects can be related to linguistic features. It usually refers to the
study of written language, including literary text, but it also investigates spoken language sometimes.

Discourse analysis, or text linguistics, is the study of the relationship between language and the
contexts in which language is used. It deals with how sentences in spoken and written language form
larger meaningful units.

Computational linguistics (language+computers) is an approach to linguistics which employs

mathematical techniques, often with the help of a computer.

Cognitive linguistics is an approach to the analysis of natural language that focuses on language as an
instrument for organizing, processing, and conveying information.

Applied linguistics is primarily concerned with the application of linguistic theories, methods and
findings to the elucidation of language problems which have arisen in other areas of experience.
THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE (Yule, Ch1)
We simply do not know how language originated. We do not know that spoken language developed well
before written language. Yet we have no physical evidence relating to the speech of our ancestors and
because of this absence of evidence, speculations about the origins of human speech have been
developed.

The Divine Source

The basic idea of the theory is that : “If infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language,
then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language.“

The Natural Sound Source

“Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard
around them “ Examples : cuckoo, splash, bang, boom. This view has been called “ bow-wow theory “ of
language origin and these words echoing natural sounds are called “onomatopoeic words“
A similar suggestion: “ The original sounds of language came from natural cries of emotion such as pain,
anger and joy. Examples : Ouch! , Ah!, Hey!

Yo-heave-ho Theory
The sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of our language, especially when
that physical effort involved several people and had to be coordinated. The importance of yo-heave-ho
theory is that it places the development of human language in some SOCIAL CONTEXT.

The Oral-Gesture Source

The theory comes from the idea that there is a link between physical gesture and orally produced
sounds. First of all a set of physical gestures was developed as a means of communication. Then a set of
oral gestures specially involving the mouth developed in which the movements of the tongue, lips and
so on were recognized according to patterns of movement similar to physical gestures.

Glossogenetics
The focus is on the biological basis of the formation. In the evolutionary development there are certain
physical features, best thought of a partial adaptation, that appear to be relevant for speech. By
themselves, such features would not lead to speech production, but they are good clues that a creature
possessing such features probably has the capacity for speech.

Physiological Adaptations
Human teeth, lips, mouth, tongue, larynx, pharynx and brain have been created in such a way to
coordinate in producing speech sounds. Their places, connections and coordinating functions make
humankind different from all the living creatures.

Interactions and Transactions

There are two major functions of language:
 Interactional Function : It is related with how human use language to interact with each other
socially or emotionally, how they express their feelings or their ideas.
Transactional Function : It is related with how human use their linguistic abilities to transfer
knowledge from one generation to the next.

Communicative vs. Informative

Communicative: To convey a message intentionally. e.g. All the things you say for communicating.

Informative: Unintentional messages.e.g. If you sneeze the person you are talking to can understand
that you have a cold. / If you have a strange accent the person you are talking to can understand you are
from some other part of the country.

Unique Properties of A Language

The following features are uniquely a part of human language.

Displacement
Talking about things that happened in the past, happens now or will happen in the future.
There is no displacement in animal communication. Exception: Bee communication has displacement in
an extremely
limited form. A bee can show the others the source of the food.

Arbitrariness
The word and object are not related to each other. e.g. dog. Cat

However, no arbitrary examples: Onomatopoeic sounds e.g. cuckoo, crash, squelch or whirr. Majority of
animal signals have a clear connection with the conveyed message. Animal communication is non-
arbitrary.

Productivity
(Creavity / open-endedness ) Language users create new words as they need them. It is an aspect of
language which is linked to the fact that the potential number of utterances in any human language is
infinite.
Animal have fixed reference. Each signal refers to sth, but these signals can not be manipulated.

Cultural Transmission
Language passes from one generation to another. In animals there is an instinctively produce process
but human infants growing up in isolation produce no instinctive language. Cultural transmission is only
crucial in the human acquisition process.

Discreteness
Individual sounds can change the meaning. e.g. pack – back , bin – pin. This property is called
discreteness.
Duality
To use some sounds in different places. e.g. cat – act . Sounds are the same but the meanings are
different.
There is no duality in animal communication.

Other Properties

Vocal- auditory channel: Producing sounds by the vocal organs and perceiving them by ears.
Reciprocity: Any speaker / reader can also be a listener / receiver.
Specialization: Language is used linguistically.
Non-directionality: Unseen but heard messages can be picked up by anyone.
Rapid fade: Linguistic signals are produced and disappeared quickly.

Chomsky’s postulated dichotomy between general linguistic ability and individual language use, which is
connected to de Saussure’s distinction langue vs parole.

Competence is that knowledge about the native language which is acquired along with the language
used by an ideal speaker/listener of a homogeneous speech community (i.e. free from dialectal and
sociolectal variations). Due to an infinite inventory of elements (sounds, words) and syntactic rules, the
speaker can theoretically produce and understand an infinite number of utterances. Performance refers
not only to this, but also to the ability of the speaker to pass judgment on the grammaticality of
sentences, on ambiguity, and paraphrases. The goal of transformational grammar is to formulate a
grammar that illustrates as truly as possible the ability of a speaker’s competence, and at the same time
to offer a hypothesis about language acquisition. Linguistic theories based on the notion of competence
have been reproached for being too idealistic, which has led to a broadening of the original concept to
mean communicative competence. Whereas the terms ‘performance’ (Chomsky) and ‘parole’ (de
Saussure) can be used almost interchangeably, their counterparts ‘competence’ and ‘langue’ are quite
different from each other. ‘Langue’ is a static system of signs, whereas competence is understood as a
dynamic concept, as a mechanism that will generate language endlessly.

Source: Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (Routledge)

Langue vs parole (Ferdinand de Saussure)

A term introduced in de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale to distinguish between language (Fr.
langue) as an abstract system of signs and rules, and the spoken word (Fr. parole) as the concrete
realization of language as it is used. Langue is characterized as a static system of symbols with broad
(social) value, due to the invariant and functional nature of its elements. Instances of parole are based
on this system of langue and vary according to register, age, dialect, among other factors.

The goal of structuralist linguistics is to research the systematic regularities of langue using data from
parole (corpus), while parole itself can be researched in various disciplines, like phonetics, psychology,
and physiology. This requirement for autonomy in a purely theoretical inner- linguistic view of language,
such as that proposed by Chomsky with competence vs performance, has met with much criticism and
has been heavily revised.

Source: Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (Routledge)

After the distinction langue vs parole, the most important methodological distinction established by F.
de Saussure for the interpretation and investigation of language as a closed system. It is only on the axis
of simultaneity (i.e. a fixed moment in time) that language can be analyzed as a system of values in
which the value of an individual element results from the relational context of all values in the system.

Synchrony vs diachrony
Synchrony refers to a state fixed in time, while diachrony refers to changing states of a language
between different time periods. While descriptive synchronic research investigates the relationship of
individual elements to a balanced linguistic system that can be described structurally, historically
oriented diachronic investigations can, according to de Saussure, only address the replacement of single
elements by other elements, or the change of individual elements.

Mental Grammar
What is grammar and why do we actually need it?

Language comes in various modalities, i.e. most languages are vocalized and their users simply speak
(they use their speech apparatus to send and receive the signals) to communicate, some other
languages are signed and their users resolve to gestures or move their fingers and hands. Those two
modalities, no matter how different, they share many properties in their grammars.

On top of that, communication in each of the modalities is segmented, i.e. the information expressed is
made up of some smaller meaningful units - sounds and cluster of sounds in case of spoken modality,
and individual gestures or signs in the signed one. Now, if we take a closer look at each of them you can
soon figure out that a particular sequence of sounds or gestures recurs in this language, and that some
consistent meaning is associated with that sequence. For example, maybe you’ve noticed that the
language users you’ve encountered make the sounds “desk” as they talk about that flat or sloping piece
of furniture, typically with drawers, they sit at when reading or working. Or maybe you’ve noticed that
when that word has a [s] sound at the end of it, desks, you’re referring to more than one of them, just
like we have a bunch of them in our classes!

The part of the grammar that links up these forms with meanings is referred to as the mental lexicon.
You can think of it like a dictionary in your mind. Knowing a word in a language involves recognizing its
form – the combination of signs or sounds or written symbols, and its meaning. For the majority of
words in the world’s languages, the link between form and meaning is arbitrary.

Let's look at this but with a slightly bit different example, the one that might be soon seen as a timely
one, though, due to the forthcoming Halloween.

For example, the English word for this thing is pumpkin and the Portuguese word is abóbora. There’s
nothing inherently orange or round or vegetabley about either of those word forms: the pairing of that
meaning to that form is arbitrary in each language. (But there are words whose form has an iconic, less
arbitrary relationship their meaning; we talked about them in our classes and we referred to them as
onomatopoeias, e.g. splash).

So, what we do when we talk about 'desks' or 'pumpkins', we actually masterfully control the muscles of
our mouth, tongue, and lips to speak the word for desk, or if we are to communicate that at a person in
a signed language we have to know how to use your hands, fingers, wrists and forearms to sign the
word. In other words, you need to know something about the articulatory phonetics of the language.
This brings up an important point about grammar: when we know a language fluently, a lot of our
grammatical knowledge is unconscious, or implicit. For the languages that you know, your knowledge
of the lexicon is probably fairly conscious or explicit, and probably also some of your knowledge about
your language’s morphology: that’s the combinations of meaningful pieces inside words (like how if you
refer to more than one desk you say desks with a s). But you’re probably not as conscious of things like
how you use your articulators to make the sounds k or s.

Our implicit knowledge of language also includes phonology, information about how the physical units
of language can be combined and how they change in different contexts. Syntax is the part of your
mental grammar that knows how words can or can’t be combined to make phrases and sentences,
much of which is implicit. Syntax works hand in hand with semantics to allow the grammar to calculate
the meanings of these phrases. And the pragmatics part of the mental grammar can help you to know
what meanings arise in different contexts. For example, “I have some news,” could be interpreted as
good news or bad news depending on the context.

All of these things are parts of the grammar: the things we know when we know a language. So, what
do people actually mean when they say they don't like (or even hate!) grammar? Truth be told, we're
most often afraid of the things we don't understand, aren't we?

But a lot of this knowledge is implicit, and the thing about implicit knowledge is that it’s hard to observe.
One of the most important jobs we’re doing in this introduction to linguistics course then is trying to be
explicit about what mental grammar is like, and about what kinds of evidence we can use to figure that
out. I really hope for you to help me do that it our class possibly with any examples from your language
experience.

Hey, but wait! What about reading and writing?

Some of you might be wondering here why we didn’t include reading and writing as part of the mental
grammar in our class or above. After all, as a student you probably invested a lot of time into learning
how to read and write. And those skills are indeed part of the grammatical knowledge you have about
your language. But language users don’t actually need to know how to read and write to have a mental
grammar. It’s common for kids across the world to start learning to read and write around age five, but
they are pretty competent in the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of one or
more languages before they ever go to school.

What is more, language users could start using a different writing system without changing anything
else about the grammar. Mongolian, for example, presently uses two different writing systems: the
Cyrillic alphabet and traditional Mongolian script, which is written vertically. Speakers of Mongolian
understand each other’s speech no matter which script they use to record the language in writing.

And there are plenty of human languages that just don’t have written forms. Signed languages like ASL
and Makaton, for example, don’t have written forms. Most signers are bilingual in their sign language
and in the written form of another language.
So, because not every human language has a reading and writing system and not every language user
has access to reading and writing systems, we consider these skills to be secondary parts of the
mental grammar. If you’re literate in your language, then that literacy is certainly woven into your
mental grammar. But literacy isn’t necessary for grammatical competence.

Paradigms: In linguistics, they refer to sets of interchangeable elements that share a common
grammatical feature (e.g. words, forms, or grammatical structures). Paradigms offer a systematic way of
organizing and understanding the variations within a language. These elements are considered
interchangeable within a given grammatical category. For example, verb conjugation provides a
paradigm where different forms of a verb (e.g., "am," "is," "are", "was", "were") can substitute for one
another. Recognizing paradigms aids in language learning by identifying patterns in how words or forms
change based on grammatical features.

Syntagms: Syntagms, on the other hand, focus on the arrangement and sequential combination of
linguistic elements to form larger, meaningful units, such as phrases or sentences. It's the study of how
words come together syntactically in a given context to convey a specific meaning. For instance, in the
phrase "the fuzzy maroon pullover," the words form a syntagm, and altering their order changes the
meaning. Unlike paradigms, which deal with substitution within a category, syntagms explore the linear
and sequential relationships between words or phrases.

In a syntagmatic structure, the order and combination of elements matter significantly. Words form
syntagmatic relationships when they occur together in a specific sequence to convey meaning.
Disrupting this sequence can alter the meaning or result in grammatical incorrectness. For example, in
the phrase "Do you like it?" the words form a syntagm signalling an interrogative, and changing the
order to "You do like it." yields a different meaning of an emphatic structure of a statement.

The study of syntagmatic structures is fundamental to syntax, the branch of linguistics that deals with
sentence structure. It provides insights into how individual words or phrases come together to create
coherent and meaningful communication. A deep understanding of syntagmatic structures enhances
language production and comprehension skills by allowing individuals to navigate the intricacies of
sentence formation and interpretation.

Both concepts - paradigms and syntagms, play integral roles in understanding the structure, variation,
and systematic nature of language. Therefore you should seek at least some general understanding of
the two and make note of the key differences listed below.

Key Differences:
Paradigms: Focus on elements with shared characteristics that can substitute for one
another in a given context.
Syntagms: Focus on the arrangement and combination of elements to create meaningful
structures.

Langue and parole and other basic concepts from our lecture (as
explained by John E. Joseph)
4.1 The Distinction Between Langue and Parole
A language, une langue, is the virtual system possessed by all those who form part of the same speech
community that makes it possible for them to understand and be understood by other members of that
community. La parole is the utterances, the texts, that individuals produce and understand making use
of the system that is la langue. In addition, when Saussure refers to the language faculty that all people
possess, as distinct from the particular langues they speak, he sometimes calls this the faculté de langage;
but there is not a consistent three-way division of langue-parole-langage, particularly because he
sometimes uses la langueto mean language generally, as a pan-human attribute.

4.2 Language as a System of Signs

A langue is a system of signs in which each sign is the conjunction of two values, both entirely mental
(psychological), which he sometimes calls a concept and an acoustic image. However, these terms can
mislead readers into thinking of them as visual images, when they are meant to be pure values. Other
linguists of the time generally conceived of languages as a way of denoting things and actions. Saussure
argued that it is not things, but our conception of things, actions, and ideas, that are part of our
language; not names, but schemas in the brain capable of being evoked by certain combinations of
sounds. In one of his last lectures he introduced the terms signifiant ‘signifier’ for the acoustic image and
signifié ‘signified’ for the concept. He avoided neologism in general, but this appeared to be the best way
around the temptation to imagine, for example, the signifié corresponding to sheep as either a physical
animal or a mental image of such an animal, rather than as a value generated by its difference from
lamb, goat, ewe, mutton, and so on.

Detailed inquiry into the sign was undertaken only in Saussure’s third and last course, specifically in its
second half. From here derives the bulk of the material on the sign in the published Cours.

4.3 Value
Each signifier and each signified is a value produced by the difference between it and all the other
signifiers and signifieds in the system (see Joseph, 2014). It is not the sound as such that signifies; there
is, after all, much variation in the pronunciation of all speech sounds. The French /r/, for example,
exhibits wide phonetic variation; indeed, analysis of recordings show subtle differences in every
utterance of the “same” sound. But if when saying the word roi ‘king’ a speaker produces Standard
French /ʁwa/, or /rwa/ with a rolled r, or /Rwa/ with the Parisian working-class guttural r (as on records
by Édith Piaf), the same signifier is perceived, so long as it is distinct from moi ‘me’, doigt ‘finger’ or any
other word.

Likewise with the signified: if an animal of a certain species comes into view a French speaker would
exclaim Un mouton!, and an English speaker A sheep!. But the linguistic values of mouton and sheep are
different. The signified of mouton includes the whole animal or some of its meat, whereas the signified
of sheep covers only the animal on the hoof. Its meat is mutton, an entirely different sign. This means
that the signified belongs to a particular language just as much as does the signifier. The world we
experience with its categories of animals, things, colours and so on—does not exist before language.
The signifier and the signified are created together, with the particular segmentations that distinguish
one language from another, one culture from another.
The idea of value generated by difference was raised late in the first course, in the context of a
discussion of historical reconstruction, acquired more significance in the second course as part of its
opening discussion of the linguistic sign. It became the climax of the third course, whence the following
passage from the Cours is taken:

“in a language there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the
signifier, the language contains neither ideas nor sounds that pre-exist the linguistic system, but only
conceptual differences and phonic differences issuing from this system”

(Cours p. 166, my translation).

However, the conjunction of signifier and signified is a sign which is of a positive order, and is concrete
rather than abstract. The third course also looks in detail at just how the oppositions within the system
are structured. Every word or term or unit within the system is connected to an entourage of other
units, related to it either syntagmatically (i.e., the units that can come before or after it in an utterance)
or associatively (i.e., the units with which it has something in common in form or meaning). The
relationships of difference in these two domains generate the value of the unit. Ultimately, then, no
linguistic sign exists in isolation.

4.4 The Arbitrariness of the Linguistic Sign

It is specifically the link between a signifier and a signified that is radically arbitrary. Saussure calls this
the first principle of the linguistic sign. It is an ancient doctrine, yet not self-evident, given the existence
of apparently mimetic signifiers such as French fouet (an example inserted into the Cours by its editors)
and its English counterpart whip, in each of which can be heard the crack of a whip. That is, some people
hear it. It is a matter of interpretation: for someone who hears the sound, the mimetic link is real,
despite the French word’s etymological derivation from Latin fagus ‘beech’ (strips of beech wood having
been used as whips). The Saussurean principle of the arbitrariness of the sign maintains that, whether
or not there is such a mimetic link, the sign operates in the same way: fouet and whip are no more “true”
for those who hear the crack of a whip in the word than for those of us who do not hear it. Nor are they
more or less true than a word such as livre or book, in which a mimetic link between sound and idea
seems far-fetched (see Joseph, 2015).

Later passages constrain the principle of arbitrariness by showing that it does not necessarily apply in
the relationships among signs, and by pointing out that, even if the linguistic sign is arbitrary, it is
impossible for anyone to change it (see the section on Mutability and Immutability). However, time can
change the sign, specifically by bringing about a shift in the relationship between the signified and
signifier. Saussure himself remarked on the apparent contradiction between these two statements.

Saussure says that, before language, human thought was an amorphous, indistinct, nebulous mass, a
floating realm; and human sound was no different. Only with the appearance of language do thoughts,
in conjunction with sounds, become distinct. He argues that

the choice which calls up a given acoustic slice for a given idea is perfectly arbitrary. If this were not so,
the notion of value would lose something of its character, since it would contain an element imposed
from without. But in fact the values remain entirely relative, and that is why the link between the idea
and the sound is radically arbitrary.
(Cours, p. 157)

In his annotated edition of the Cours (p. 464, n. 228), De Mauro points out that the last sentence turns
the argument into a circular one, and shows that it is the result of a poor decision by the editors.
Saussure did not try to explain the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. By positing it as the first principle,
he accepted it axiomatically as the primordial fact about language that need not and cannot be
explained.

Moreover, he treats arbitrariness not just as a principle but as a problem that the whole structure of a
language is geared toward limiting: “everything having to do with language as a system demands […] to
be treated from the point of view […] of limiting the arbitrary” (Cours, p. 182). “Only some signs are
absolutely arbitrary; with others, a phenomenon intervenes which permits the recognition of degrees of
arbitrariness without doing away with it: the sign can be relatively motivated” (pp. 180–181, italics in
original). He gives a series of examples, all from morphology:

Thus vingt ‘twenty’ is unmotivated, but dix-neuf ‘nineteen’ is less so, since it evokes the terms which
compose it and others associated with it, for instance dix ‘10’, neuf ‘9’, vingt-neuf ‘29’, dix-huit ‘18’ […].
Likewise for poirier ‘pear tree’, which recalls the simple word poire ‘pear’, and whose suffix ‑ierbrings to
mind cerisier ‘cherry tree’, pommier ‘apple tree’, etc. […]. The English plural ships recalls through its
formation the whole series flags, birds, books etc., whereas men, sheep recall nothing […].

(p. 181)

Left without restriction, arbitrariness would result in supreme complication. But “the mind manages to
introduce a principle of order and regularity into certain parts of the mass of signs, and therein lies the
role of the relatively motivated” (p. 182). More than anything, this approach is reminiscent of the
Neogrammarians who taught Saussure in Leipzig. According to them, languages evolve blindly, following
laws of sound change that admit no exceptions but are occasionally contravened by analogy—precisely
the process of the mind finding and introducing order into what is otherwise an arbitrary procedure.
Saussure believed that some languages, like Sanskrit, are highly grammatical in structure and therefore
lean more to the side of motivation, whereas others, like Chinese, are more lexicological and therefore
lean more to arbitrariness. However, “within the interior of any given language, the whole movement of
evolution can be marked by a continual passage from the motivated to the arbitrary and back again” (p.
183).

4.5 The Linearity of the Signifier and the Associative and

Syntagmatic Axes
Linguistic signs unfold in a single dimension, a linear one. This frame has a fundamental implication for
a language: it has two axes. Each element of a language occupies an associative axis, which determines
its value vis-à-vis other elements, and a syntagmatic axis, which specifies which elements can and
cannot precede it and follow it in an utterance, sometimes inflecting its meaning. The associative axis,
the name of which may have connections with the associationist psychology that has various
resonances in Saussure (see Joseph, 2016b), has tended to be known as the “paradigmatic” axis since it
was rechristened as such by the Danish linguist Louis Hjelmslev in the 1930s (see Koerner, 2000, p. 126,
n. 18).
4.6 Mutability and Immutability
Every element of a language is subject to change, to evolution; no language is in the same state as it was
100 years previously, still less 500 years previously. Yet paradoxically, a language is immutable: no
speaker can change it on his or her own. One can introduce an innovation into parole, the level of the
individual utterance; but for this innovation to enter into the language requires it to be accepted by the
entire speech community. Because the value of each element derives from its relation to all the other
elements, any change in the system produces a new system, a new langue.

Therein lies the immutability of langue: no individual can change it; the masse parlante, the mass of
speakers, have to accept a change, for it to become part of the language. In so doing, they do not make
a change withinthe language. Rather, they move the whole language forward into a new état de langue,
state of language, which is tantamount to a new language.

Both the mutability and the immutability of language, he argued, result from the arbitrariness of the
sign. Were there some rational connection between signified and signifier, it would allow speakers of the
language to intervene either to prevent inevitable change, or to initiate changes of their own. Saussure
did not deny the validity of the usual explanation given in his day for immutability, namely the historical
transmission of language. It excludes any possibility of sudden or general change because generations
always overlap and because of the amount of imitative effort involved in mastering our mother tongue.
But Saussure insisted that the essential explanation lies with the arbitrary nature of the sign, which
protects the language from any attempt at modifying it, because the general populace would be unable
to discuss the matter, even if they were more conscious of language than they are. For something to be
put into question, it must rest on a norm that is raisonnable, able to be reasoned about.

Immutability has a social dimension as well. The fact that the language is an integral part of everyone’s
life creates a collective resistance to change initiated by any individual. And it has a historical dimension:
the language being situated in time, solidarity with the past checks the freedom to choose. “It is because
the sign is arbitrary that it knows no other law than that of tradition, and it is because it is founded on
tradition that it can be arbitrary” (Cours, p. 108).

4.7 Synchrony and Diachrony

For Saussure, the reality of a language cannot be fully comprehended without taking account of both its
social and its historical dimension, in conjunction with the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. If we
attended to the historical but left aside the social, “imagining an isolated individual living for several
centuries, we would perhaps note no alteration; time would not act on the language” (Cours, p. 113). And
if we attended to the social without the historical, “we would not see the effect of the social forces acting
on the language” (ibid.). But as soon as the two are put together, “the language is not free, because time
will permit the social forces working upon it to develop their effects, and we arrive at the principle of
continuity, which annuls freedom” (ibid.).

Hence, the study of a language must be both synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic analysis is aimed at
identifying the elements of a system and their values at a given point in time, a given état de langue.
Diachronic analysis is the comparison of two or more états de langue as they exist at different times. But
the so-called ‘historical’ linguistics of Saussure’s day was not diachronic: it claimed instead to trace the
development of isolate elements across the centuries—a vowel, or an inflection—as if this element had
a history, a life, independent of the system of which it was a part at each particular moment.

It is all too common to read that Saussure’s great impact on linguistics was to replace diachronic with
synchronic analysis. On the contrary, it was he who invented diachronic linguistics, from which
moreover the synchronic approach is inseparable.

Paradigms and Syntagms

Semiotics is probably best-known as an approach to textual analysis, and in this form it is characterized
by a concern with structural analysis. Structuralist semiotic analysis involves identifying the constituent
units in a semiotic system (such as a text or socio-cultural practice) and the structural relationships
between them (oppositions, correlations and logical relations).

Saussure was 'concerned exclusively with three sorts of systemic relationships: that between a signifier
and a signified; those between a sign and all of the other elements of its system; and those between a
sign and the elements which surround it within a concrete signifying instance' (Silverman 1983, 10). He
emphasized that meaning arises from the differences between signifiers; these differences are of two
kinds: syntagmatic (concerning positioning) and paradigmatic (concerning substitution). Saussure called
the latter associative relations (Saussure 1983, 121; Saussure 1974, 122). but Roman Jakobson's term is
now used. The distinction is a key one in structuralist semiotic analysis. These two dimensions are often
presented as 'axes', where the horizontal axis is the syntagmatic and the vertical axis is the
paradigmatic. The plane of the syntagm is that of the combination of 'this-and-this-and-this' (as in the
sentence, 'the man cried') whilst the plane of the paradigm is that of the selection of 'this-or-this-or-this'
(e.g. the replacement of the last word in the same sentence with 'died' or 'sang'). Whilst syntagmatic
relations are possibilities of combination, paradigmatic relations are functional contrasts - they involve
differentiation. Temporally, syntagmatic relations refer intratextually to other signifiers co-present within
the text, whilst paradigmatic relations refer intertextually to signifiers which are absent from the text
(Saussure 1983, 122; Saussure 1974, 123). The 'value' of a sign is determined by both its paradigmatic
and its syntagmatic relations. Syntagms and paradigms provide a structural context within which signs
make sense; they are the structural forms through which signs are organized into codes.

Paradigmatic relationships can operate on the level of the signifier, the signified or both (Saussure 1983,
121-124; Saussure 1974, 123-126; Silverman 1983, 10; Harris 1987, 124). A paradigm is a set of
associated signifiers or signifieds which are all members of some defining category, but in which each is
significantly different. In natural language there are grammatical paradigms such as verbs or nouns.
'Paradigmatic relations are those which belong to the same set by virtue of a function they share... A
sign enters into paradigmatic relations with all the signs which can also occur in the same context but
not at the same time' (Langholz Leymore 1975, 8). In a given context, one member of the paradigm set is
structurally replaceable with another. 'Signs are in paradigmatic relation when the choice of one
excludes the choice of another' (Silverman & Torode 1980, 255). The use of one signifier (e.g. a particular
word or a garment) rather than another from the same paradigm set (e.g. respectively, adjectives or
hats) shapes the preferred meaning of a text. Paradigmatic relations can thus be seen as 'contrastive'.
Note that the significance of the differences between even apparently synonymous signifiers is at the
heart of Whorfian theories about language. Saussure's notion of 'associative' relations was broader and
less formal than what is normally meant by 'paradigmatic' relations. He referred to 'mental association'
and included perceived similarities in form (e.g. homophones) or meaning (e.g. synonyms). Such
similarities were diverse and ranged from strong to slight, and might refer to only part of a word (such
as a shared prefix or suffix). He noted that there was no end (or commonly agreed order) to such
associations (Saussure 1983, 121-124; Saussure 1974, 123-126).

In film and television, paradigms include ways of changing shot (such as cut, fade, dissolve and wipe).
The medium or genre are also paradigms, and particular media texts derive meaning from the ways in
which the medium and genre used differs from the alternatives. The aphorism of Marshall McLuhan
(1911-80) that 'the medium is the message' can thus be seen as reflecting a semiotic concern: to a
semiotician the medium is not 'neutral'.

A syntagm is an orderly combination of interacting signifiers which forms a meaningful whole within a
text - sometimes, following Saussure, called a 'chain'. Such combinations are made within a framework
of syntactic rules and conventions (both explicit and inexplicit). In language, a sentence, for instance, is a
syntagm of words; so too are paragraphs and chapters. 'There are always larger units, composed of
smaller units, with a relation of interdependence holding between both' (Saussure 1983, 127; Saussure
1974, 128): syntagms can contain other syntagms. A printed advertisement is a syntagm of visual
signifiers. Syntagmatic relations are the various ways in which elements within the same text may be
related to each other. Syntagms are created by the linking of signifiers from paradigm sets which are
chosen on the basis of whether they are conventionally regarded as appropriate or may be required by
some rule system (e.g. grammar). Synatagmatic relations highlight the importance of part-whole
relationships: Saussure stressed that 'the whole depends on the parts, and the parts depend on the
whole' (Saussure 1983, 126; Saussure 1974, 128).

Syntagms are often defined as 'sequential' (and thus temporal - as in speech and music), but they can
represent spatial relationships. Saussure himself (who emphasized 'auditory signifiers' which 'are
presented one after another' and 'form a chain') noted that visual signifiers (he instanced nautical flags)
'can exploit more than one dimension simultaneously' (Saussure 1983, 70; Saussure 1974, 70). Spatial
syntagmatic relations are found in drawing, painting and photography. Many semiotic systems - such as
drama, cinema, television and the world wide web - include both spatial and temporal syntagms.

Thwaites et al. argue that within a genre, whilst the syntagmatic dimension is the textual structure, the
paradigmatic dimension can be as broad as the choice of subject matter (Thwaites et al. 1994, 95). In this
framing, form is a syntagmatic dimension whilst content is a paradigmatic dimension. However, form is
also subject to paradigmatic choices and content to syntagmatic arrangement.

Jonathan Culler offers an example of the syntagmatic relations and paradigmatic contrasts involved in
Western menus:

In the food system... one defines on the syntagmatic axis the combinations of courses which can
make up meals of various sorts; and each course or slot can be filled by one of a number of
dishes which are in paradigmatic contrast with one another (one wouldn't combine roast beef
and lamb chops in a single meal; they would be alternatives on any menu). These dishes which
are alternative to one another often bear different meanings in that they connote varying
degrees of luxury, elegance, etc.

Much of the evidence used in the reconstruction of ancient writing systems comes from inscriptions on
stone or tablets found in the ruble of ruined cities.

Pictograms and ideograms

A Picture representing a particular image in a consistent way it is called Picture-writing or Pictogram.
There must be a link between the pictogram and its meaning. So, we can easily understand what it
refers to when we look at the pictogram.
More abstracts forms of pictograms are called Ideograms. The relationship between the entity and the
symbol is not easily understood like pictograms.

A key property of both pictograms and ideograms is that they do not represent words or
sounds in a particular language.

Logograms
A good example of logographic writing is the system used by the Sumerians, in the southern part of
modern Iraq, around 5,000 years ago. Because of the particular shapes used in their symbols, these
inscriptions are more generally described as cuneiform writing. The term cuneiform means 'wedge-
shaped' and the inscriptions used by the Sumerians were produced by pressing a wedge- shaped
implement into soft clay tablets,
When we consider the relationship between the written form and the object it represents, it is arbitrary.

Rebus Writing
In this process, the symbol for one entity is taken over as the symbol for the sound of the spoken word
used to refer to the entity. That symbol then comes to be used whenever that sound occurs in any
words. One symbol can be used in many different ways, with a range of meanings. This brings a sizeable
reduction in the number of symbols needed in a writing system.

Syllabic Writing
In the last example, the symbol that is used for the pronunciation of parts of a word represents a
combination (ba) of a consonant sound (b) and a vowel sound (a). This combination is one type of
syllable. When a writing system employs a set of symbols each one representing the pronunciation of a
syllable, it is described as syllabic writing.
There are no purely syllabic writing systems in use today, but modern Japanese can be written with a
single symbols which represent spoken syllables and is consequently often described as having a
syllabic writing or a syllabary.

Alphabetic Writing
An alphabet is essentially a set of written symbols which each represent a single type of sound.

Written English

The spelling of written English took place in 15th century, via printing, so Latin and French
affected the written forms.
Many of the early printers were Dutch, so they were not very successful in English
pronunciation .
Since the 15th century spoken English has undergone a lot of changes.
Language families and morphological typology of languages
Family Tree
Historical study of languages is described as philology. These studies incorporated the notion that this
was the original form (proto) of a language which was the source of modern languages in the Indian-
sub-
continent (Indo) and in Europe (European). Pro-Indo-European was established as the great-
grandmother of many modern languages (German,Italian,English).

More in-depth data on language families as well as about each individual language can be found at
Ethnologue - the large database of languages I told you about in our lecture. Be sure to explore at least
a bit of its resources!

Family Relationships
Language groups in a language family are related. So Indo-European languages are related to each
other. One way to see the relationships more clearly is by looking at records of an older generation from
which
the modern languages developed. The fact that close similarities occur (especially in the pronunciation
of the forms ) is good evidence for proposing a family connection.

Cognates
Within groups of related languages, we often find close similarities in particular sets of terms. A cognate
of a word in one language is a word in another language which has a similar form and is used with a
similar
meaning.

True Cognates: Radio, Television, Empathy

False Cognates: Apartment, Sympathetic

Morphological typology [Wikipedia]

Fusional, agglutinative, or isolating?

Inflections are affixes used to conjugate verbs and decline nouns. Examples from English are the -s we
add to verbs for the 3rd person present form, the -s added to pluralize nouns, and the -ed of the past
tense. Languages such as Russian or Latin have complex, not to say baroque, inflectional systems.

Agglutinating Languages: with these languages, morphemes within words are usually clearly
recognizable in a way that makes it easy to tell where the morpheme boundaries are. Their affixes
usually only have a single meaning. Turkish, Korean, Hungarian, Japanese, and Finnish are all in this
group.

In agglutinative languages, each affix has a single meaning. For instance, Quechua wasikunapi ’in the
houses’; the plural suffix -kuna is separate from the case suffix -pi. Or mikurani ‘I ate’, in which the past
tense suffix -ra- is kept separate from the personal ending -ni.
By contrast, in fusional languages, a single inflection may encode multiple meanings. For instance, in
the Russian домов domóv, the -óvending indicates both plurality and the genitive case; it doesn’t bear
any evident relationship with other plural endings (e.g. nominative -á) or the singular genitive ending (-
a). In Spanish comí ‘I ate’, the -í ending indicates the 1st person singular, past tense, indicative mood—
quite a job for one vowel, even accented.

Fusional Languages are similar to agglutinating languages, except that the morpheme boundaries are
much more difficult to discern. Affixes are often fused with the stems, and can have multiple meanings.
A prime example of a fusional language is Spanish, especially when it comes to verbs. In the wordhablo
"I speak", the -o morpheme tells us that we’re dealing with a subject that is singular, first person, and in
the present tense. It’s difficult to find a morpheme that means “speak”, however, since habl- is not a
morpheme. Fusional languages can be tricky!

Analytic languages: also known as isolating languages because they’re composed of isolated, or free,
morphemes. Free morphemes can be words on their own, such as cat or happy. Languages that are
purely analytic in structure don’t use any prefixes or suffixes, ever. However, it’s rare to find a language
that is purely analytic or synthetic since most languages have characteristics of both. Morphological
typology is like a spectrum in which languages fit in somewhere from analytic to polysynthetic (a
subtype of synthetic languages we’ll get to in a moment).

Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are good examples of analytic languages. […] English, on the other
hand, is one of the most analytic Indo-European languages, but is still usually classified as a synthetic
language. […]

In isolating languages, there are no suffixes at all; meanings are modified by inserting additional words.
In Chinese, for instance, wǒ chī fàn could mean ‘I eat’ or ‘I was eating’, depending on the context; the verb
is not inflected at all. For precision, adverbs or particles can be brought in: wǒ chī fàn zuótiān ‘I was eating
yesterday’, wǒ chī fàn le‘I’ve eaten (i.e. I ate and finished)’.

Polysynthetic Languages: These languages are undoubtedly some of the most difficult to learn. They
often have verbs that can express the entirety of a typical sentence in English, which they do by
incorporating nouns into verbs forms. For example, the Sora language of India has one word that means
“I will catch a tiger”. Many Native American languages are polysynthetic.

Polysynthetic language incorporate nouns or other roots within the verb. For instance, Nishnaabemwin
naajmiijme ‘fetch food’ incorporates miijim ‘food’. The incorporated form may differ from the noun
normally used as a standalone word.

In practice natural languages are all a bit mixed; some inflections in fusional languages have a single
meaning; Quechua does have a few fused inflections, and Mandarin does have a few suffixes.