UNIVERSIDAD FASTA

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIN

LICENCIATURA EN INGLS
LINGSTICA
Trabajo Prctico #3
Language Universals

Read pages 298-318 from Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. & Hyams, N. (2011) An
Introduction to Language. 9th Edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Chapter 6 (available at http://www.mediafire.com/view/?aevd3ceydmna9ll)
and answer the following questions:

1. The South American indigenous language Pirah is said to lack numbers beyond two and
distinct words for colors. Research this languageGoogle would be a good startwith
regard to whether Pirah supports or fails to support linguistic determinism and/or linguistic
relativism.

2. Choose 5 (five) facts about language from the list on pages 315-6 and
exemplify them with examples of your own (it will not be possible to
exemplify all of them)

1-I believe that this language needs to be more studied to draw any conclusion
about linguistic relativism. In my personal view, I am inclined to believe that
Pirah speakers are perfectly capable of seeing the colour difference between
objects and count. The environment in which this people live

2-

Wherever humans exist, language exists. Language is a universal human

characteristic, present in all societies from Prehistoric times to the present day.

All languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing

any idea. The vocabulary of any languages can be expanded to include
new words for new concepts. English language constantly creates
neologism to name new things. Selfie and e-commerce are to examples of new
words incorporated in the English language vocabulary.

All languages change through time. The language of Anglo-Saxons became

the English we spoke today through ten centuries of complex social and
cultural processes. The same happened with Latin, which evolved into the
modern romance languages like Spanish and French.

The relationship between sounds and meanings of spoken languages

are for the most part arbitrary. The link between words like dog (En), perro
(Sp), or cane (It) with the definition is totally artificial and conventional. There
is no a natural relationship between the two.
Every spoken language has both vowel sounds and consonant sounds.
Spanish, like all languages, has consonantal sounds like /p/, /s/ and /t/, and also
five vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/.