1.

Language and its functions

- language is the most important and unique system of communication among people -
distinguishes us from animals
- can be spoken or written = use of words in a structured and conventional way
- is a system of communication used by a particular community or a country
- effective communication requires an understanding and recognition of the connections
between a language and the people who use it
- natural
- artificial

features of communication systems

- a mode of communication
- semanticity
- pragmatic function

1. language is uniquely human

2. language is a system of rules
3. language is creative
4. language is social
5. language always changes
6. languages are related
7. there are no primitive languages

Functions of language
interactional x transactional

ideational = to construct our knowledge and beliefs, to represent the world

interpersonal = to construct social relationships and social roles
textual = to construct coherent and cohesive texts

- expressing emotions
- social interaction
- recording the facts
- instrument of thought
- expression of identity

communicative signals
= signals you use intentionally to communicate something

informative signals
= signals which you have not intentionally sent - body language
unique properties of human language
- displacement
- arbitrariness (the quality of being based on chance rather than being planned or based
on reason)
- productivity/creativity
- cultural transmission
- discreteness
- duality (double articulation)
- semanticity (usage of symbols)
- structure dependence

properties of human language not unique to it

- interchangeability
- reciprocity (behavior in which two people or groups of people give each other help and
advantages)
- non-directionality (not of, relating to or indicating direction in space)
- rapid fade (the instant disappearance of language utterances-sth that someone says)
- asymmetric animal communication: color of feathers, male bird cries

2.Origin of language

- The divine source:

- Egyptians, Babylonians, Judeo-Christians, The Hindus
- Monogenetic theory - the tower of babel
- The natural sound source
- Bow-wow theory: primitive words started as imitations of the natural sounds early
humans heard around them
- Criticism: how would soundless things and abstract concepts have been
referred to? Language is more than only a set of names
- Pooh-pooh theory: original sounds may have started as natural cries of emotion
such as pain, anger and joy
- Criticism: there are produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is not
the case for ordinary speech
Social interaction
 - Yo-he-ho theory: rhythmic grunts of people working together when lifting heavy
objects
- Criticism: apes and other primates also live in groups and use these
sounds without having developed speech/the capacity for speech
- La-la theory: language originated from songs as an expressive rather than a
communicative need

Physical adaptation source

- Physical features that distinguish humans from other creatures
- Teeth, lips, mouth, tongue
- Larynx = ‘voice box’ in the throat containing the vocal folds or vocal chords
- Pharynx = the cavity above the vocal folds, acts as a resonator

Criticism: certain birds and parrots are able to also produce a wide variety of sounds

Tool making source (hands)

Tool making source (brain) - left hemisphere of the brain, there may have been an evolutionary
connection between the use of tools and the use of language in early humans

The genetic source

- ‘Language gene’ that only humans possess
- This would mean that language did not result from gradual change bud happened rather
quickly as a crucial genetic mutation (unlike physical adaptation)

Glossogenetics - study of the formation and development of human language

3. Language Acquisition

Stages of Acquiring a Language

1. Crying
2. Cooing (earliest use of speech-like sounds - vowel-like sounds, 4 months - velar
consonants k and g)
3. Babbling (baba gaga)
4. Holophrastic (one-word)
5. Two-word stage (cat bad)
6. Early multiword stage (no eat that)
 7. Later multiword stage (adult like phonology, still many overgeneralizations - goed,
mouses)
8. Telegraphic speech (this shoe all wet, lexical morphemes, grammatical inflections)

Errors, Morphological Development

- Overgeneralization
- Overextension (baby- own reflection in a mirror, photos)
- Underextension (kitty- the family pet, not to other cats)

Caregiver speech: simplified speech style adopted by someone who spends alot of time
interacting with children

2nd language acquisition - learning

- Second language vs foreign language
- Already have a first language, being exposed to a second one
- Methods: grammar-translation, audiolingual, communicative
- Transfer: use of sounds, expressions or structures from the 1st l. While performing the
2nd l.
- Interlanguage
- Communicative competence = general ability to use language accurately, appropriately
and flexibly
- Bilingualism, codeswitching

4.Spoken vs. written language

Spoken language:
- Diachronically : primary
- Presence of an interlocutor
- Form of a dialogue
- Human voice comes into play, gestures

Written language:
- Secondary
- Absence of an interlocutor
- Form of a monologue
- More explanatory, has to be explicit enough
Ludicrous effect = the use of peculiarities of the spoken variety in written language

Types of writing:
- Pictograms - picture writing, direct image of the object

- Ideograms - idea-writing
- Logograms - @, %

First known writing system - cuneiform

- Hieroglyphics
- Rebus writing
- Syllabic writing (japanese)
- Alphabetic writing
- Each symbol = one sound unit
- Cirilic alphabet (russia)
- From greeks - creating a writing system
- roman/latin alphabet
- Runic alphabet
- Ogham

Written english
- A correspondence between single symbol and single sound type
- 15th century cca

5.Language and the brain

- Neurolinguistics = relationship between

language and the brain
Problems and Malfunctions of the system (brain vs. speech production)
- Tip of the tongue phenomenon: general phonological outline of the word, can get initial
sound, know the number of syllables
- Malapropisms: near-misses, comic effect
- Slips of the tongue: errors of articulation, letters or syllables get switched
- Slips of the ear: making sense of the auditory signal the brain receives (grey tape x great
ape)

Causes of speech disorders

- Hearing loss, neurological disorders, brain injury, stroke, viral disease, mental
retardation, drug abuse, physical impairments such as cleft lip or palate
- Consequences: problems in communication from simple sound substitutions to the
inability to use or understand the oral-motor mechanism for functional speech

Speech disorders
- Articulation disorders: difficulties with the way sounds are formed and strung together,
usually characterized by substituting one sound for another (wabbit - rabbit)
- Voice disorders: inappropriate pitch, loudness or quality
- Dysgraphia: a neurological disorder, incorrection in persons writing
- Dyslexia: problem in learning to read, can also affect the childs social skills
- Acquired dyslexia (Alexia)
- Disorder in adulthood as a result of disease or injury
- Deep dyslexia (pays attention to wholes) - cannot read abstract words,
fails to see small differences
- Surface dyslexia (pays attention to details) - opposite

Aphasia
- An inability to perceive, process or produce
language because of physical damage to the
brain (left hemisphere)
- Brocas aphasia (motor aphasia) - non-
fluent, hesitant, halting speech,
difficulty to complete words, basic word
order correct, most lost ability to name
persons or subjects
- Wernickes Aphasia (sensory aphasia) -
difficulty in understanding the speech of
others, fluent but semantically
incoherent speech, cannot repeat words or sentences

Boy, I'm sweating, I'm awful nervous, you know, once in a while I get caught up, I can't
get caught up, I can't mention the tarripoi, a month ago, quite a little, I've done a lot well, I
impose a lot, while, on the other hand, you know what I mean, I have to run around, look
it over, trebbin and all that sort of stuff. Oh sure, go ahead, any old think you want. If I
could I would. Oh, I'm taking the word the wrong way to say, all of the barbers here
whenever they stop you it's going around and around, if you know what I mean, that is
tying and tying for repucer, repuceration, well, we were trying the best that we could
while another time it was with the beds over there the same thing…

- Conduction Aphasia - mispronunciation of words, but typically no articulation

problems, disrupted rythm because of pauses and hesitations
- Global Aphasia - total loss of language

6.Linguistics

- Scientific or systematic study of language

- rules , systems and principles of human languages
- Study of language as a system od human communication
- Language structure, language acquisition, processed when producing/understanding
language
- Use in the production and comprehension of messages
- Changes over time
- Properties all human languages have in common
- Nature of languages, how languages differ, to what extend these differences are
systematic

Knowledge of linguistics x knowledge of a language

A linguist a polygot

General
Descriptive
Synchronic
Diachronic
Applied
Comparative
Contrastive

Linguistic Disciplines
- Phonetics
- Articulatory
- Acoustic
- Auditory

- Phonology
- How sounds function in a given language
- Distinctive sounds within a language
- Value of sound systems across languages
- Phoneme

- Etymology

- Onomatology

- Lexicology

- Morphology
- Morpheme
- Grapheme
- Syntax

- Discourse study/Discourse and Conversational Analysis

- Semantics
- Lexical
- Syntatic

- Pragmatics

- Sociolinguistics
- Language variation (standart x dialect x idiolect)
- Language and social interaction
- Language vs. the real world

- Psycholinguistics

- Neurolinguistics

- Computational linguistics

- Stylistics
 - Historical linguistics

- Anthropological linguistics

- Applied linguistics

Metalanguage = used for talking about language itself, for example verb, noun - the words
themselves

7. Morphology

Information Encoded in a Word

- Phonological information
- Morphological information (tree x trees)
- Syntactic information
- Semantic information
- Pragmatic information

Morphology as a linguistic discipline

Morphology
- Morph (form)
- Ology (science of)
Subfield of linguistics studying internal structure of words

Morphemes
BROTHERS (complex word) brother plus -s

Morpheme = minimal unit of meaning: the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of language

Kinds of morphemes
Morphemes
FREE BOUND
Lexical (open classes) Derivational
Functional (closed classes) Inflectional
(affixes, contracted forms)

Free Morphemes
- lexical/content morphemes (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs - carry the ,content’ of messages
we convey, e.g. boy, house, long, break)=open class words
- functional/grammatical morphemes (conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns, e.g. end,
when, because, on, above, that, the, it)=closed class of words

Derivational Morphology
- Derivational morphemes - new meanings to an existing word
- Change in grammatical class:
- Noun to adjective: alcohol + ic
- Verb to noun: sing + er
- Adjective to adverb: quiet + ly
- Noun to adverb: moral + ize
- No change in grammatical class:
- Ex + wife

Inflectional Morphology
- Inflectional morphemes = bound grammatical morphemes
- Never change the syntactic category of the words or morphemes to which they are attached
- Always attached to complete words (-ed, -ing, -s)
- Typically follow derivational morphemes
- Derivationally complex word un + like + ly + hood + s (inflectional morpheme)
- Inflectional morphemes:
- ‘S = possessive
- -s = plural
- -s = 3rd person
- -ing = present participle
- -ed = past
- -en = past participle
- -er = comparative
- -est = superlative
- Words composed of one or more morphemes:
- One morpheme = boy
- Two = boy + ish
- Three = boy + ish + ness
- Four = un + desire + able + ity
- More than four = anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism

Analysis of words into morphemes

UNDRESSED = un- (prefix, bound) + dress (stem, free) + -ed (suffix, bound)

- Stem = a part of the word that is left when you take off the affix, free morpheme
- Affixes = bound morphemes which attach to stems (prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix)
Infix – affix inserted within a word stem (kangabloodyroo; absobloomin´lutely – Eliza Doolitle)

English:

- only expletive infixation – the effect of adding emphasis (The most commonly inserted
English expletives are adjectives/participles fucking, freaking, blooming, bleeding,
damned, bloody)
- infix may only be inserted into words with more than two syllables
- gets inserted before the syllable that receives the most stress (abso-flippin´-lutely)

when the first syllable is the one with the primary stress, the infix is inserted before the
syllable that receives the secondary stress (basket- * * *-ball; pick- * * *-pocket)

Circumfix (discontinuous morpheme)

- morphemes attached to another morpheme both initially and finally; surround another
morpheme (German: past participle of regular verbs: geliebt (ge- = prefix; -t = suffix)

Allomorphs

- Morphemes - PLURAL and PAST have different pronunciations — morphemes have

allomorphs = phonetic realizations of a morpheme which manifest a morpheme in its
different phonological or morphological environments

BOOKS /-s/ PIGS /-z/ BOXES /-iz/

—2 different spelling forms, 3 different phonological forms representing the same grammatical meaning
(plural)

Derivational Morphology

Derivational morphemes - new meanings to an existing word

Change in grammatical class:

- Noun to adjective: boy + ish, alcohol + ic, health + ful
- Verb to noun: clear + ance, sing + er, predict + ion, free + dom
- Adjective to adverb: exact + ly, quiet + ly
 - Noun to verb: moral + ize, vaccin + ate

No change in grammatical class:

- A + moral, auto + biography, ex + wife

Inflectional morphology
Inflectional morphemes = bound grammatical morphemes

- Never change the syntatic category of the words or morphemes to which they are attached
- Always attached to complete words (-ed, -ing, -s)
- Typically follow derivational morphemes
- Derivationally complex word un + like + ly + hood + s (inflectional morpheme)

Inflectional morphemes
- 8 inflectional morphemes
- ‘S possessive
- -s plural
- -s 3rd person
- -ing present participle
- -ed past
- -en past participle
- -er comparative
- -est superlative

Words composed of one or more morphemes

8.Word formation

1. Derivation (Affixation)
- Prefixation: e.g. exwife, superhero, uneasy
- Suffixation: e.g. needles, hopeful, sickness
- Infixation: e.g. absobloominglutely
- Circumfixation e.g. enlighten
 2. Compounding
- Joining words together
- A word that consists of more than one base/stem
I saw a black bird x I saw a blackbird

Adj. black modifies the noun bird blackbird = a noun (a compound noun)
Black bird = a noun phrase (NP) - stress falls on the first word

- Compounds are typically affixed - plural-s, possessive-’s, past tense-ed, present participle-ing…
- Unusual compounds - attorney general, sister-in-law (head first compounds)

Classification of compounds

- endocentric (A + B denotes a special kind of B)

consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound,
and modifiers, which restrict this meaning (smalltalk, doghouse - the same part of the speech as the
head)

- exocentric (A + B denotes a special kind of an unexpressed semantic head)

do not have a head; their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts
(skinhead, redneck, white-collar (head: person))

- copulative/coordinative

(A + B denotes „the sum“ of what A+B denote; compounds with two semantic heads); sleepwalk,
bittersweet – the relation between members like the one of coordination

- appositional

(A + B provide different descriptions for the same referent; the parts of the compound refer to the same
referent); actor-director; maidservant; player-coach (maidservant refers to a maid who is a servant)

Conversion
- A word changes its class without any change of form (e-mail to e-mail)

Typical cases of conversion

- Noun verb (e.g. mail – to mail)
- Verb noun (e.g. to call – a call)
- Adjective verb (e.g. better – to better)
- Adjective noun (e.g. crazy – a crazy)

Marginal cases of conversion

 - A shift of stress: verb noun (transfer)
- Change of fricative: noun verb (belief–believe)

Back formation
- What happens to be a suffix is removed from the word to form a new lexical item
- Editor (noun)--to edit (verb)
- Donation (noun)--donate (verb)

Blending (portmanteau / telescopic words)

- Combination of parst of two separate words to produce a single new term
- Brunch (breakfast + lunch), blog (web + log)

Clipping
- Shortening of polysyllabic words often to a single-syllable words
- Shortened words retains the class
- Advertisement–ad

Acronym / Initialism
Acronym
- Forming a new word from initial letters of constituent(=being a part of a whole) words
- Pronounced as a word (PIN)

Initialism
- Pronounced with the letters (USA)

Coinage / Neologisms
Coining
- speakers /companies invent (coin) new words (radar, laser, hoover)
- Common in the case of product names (Kodak, Exxon)
- Often, words that are called coinages are really not: blog is a neologism, a blend of existing
words

Neologism
- ,new word’ in a language
- E.g. google

Reduplication
- Doubling either an entire free morpheme (total reduplication) or a part of it (partial reduplication)
- Baby talk (wawa for water)
- Words derived from the original meaning of a word (knock knock, bye bye)

Eponyms / Retronyms
Eponyms
- Words from names of (usually) famous people (the system of Braille, Morse code, Achilles heel,
Alzheimer, atlas) or places (Cheddar, Champagne)
Retronyms
- Words that provide a new name for something to differentiate the original word from a more
recent form or version (coined in 1980 by journalist Frank Mankiewicz)
- The original word typically gains a modifier, rather than being completely replaced by a new word,
to account for developments of the object or concept (analog watch-to differentiate from digital
watch)

9.Semantics and Pragmatics

- Both deal with aspects of meaning in language

- Semantics = real meaning of words/sentences
- Pragmatics = intended meaning

Semantics
- Conventional (literal) meaning conveyed by words and sentences
- Meaning of words/sentences:
- Conceptual meaning (denotative, referential)
- Associative (connotative, emotional)
Needle - 1. Thin, sharp, steel = concept
2. Painful = association
Learning a language = learning the ‘agreed-upon’ meanings of certain things of sounds + how to
combine them in larger units conveying meanings

- Words + morphemes have meanings

- The mental storehouse of information about words and morphemes = lexicon

Semantic features

doctor dean uncle father professor bachelor parent baby child

Semantic feature – human young / adult / parent

The same semantic feature may occur in words of different categories:

Female: – mother (N); breast-feed (V); pregnant (Adj)

Semantic feature Verbs having it

motion bring, fall, walk, run, stalk ...

contact hit, kiss, touch ...

creation build, imagine, make …

woman father girl mare stalk

+female +male +female +female +motion

+human +human +human -human +slow

-young +parent +young -young +purposeful

... ... ... +horseness ...

Words may be in intersecting semantic classes:

woman – female

child – young

girl – 2 properties – female, young (in the intersecting class)

Semantic roles

The boy kicked the ball.

verb → an action

nouns → entities (people, things) involved in the action.

_____________
The hamburger ate the man.

My cat studies linguistics.

A table was listening to some music.

- syntactically good, semantically bad

The man ate the hamburger. conceptual meaning

Semantic roles: Agent, Patient

The boy kicked the ball.

The boy → entity that performs the action (AGENT)

the ball → entity involved in or affected by the action (PATIENT)

- agent – typically human; non-human forces (the wind blew the ball away); machines (the
car ran over the ball); creatures (the dog caught the ball)
- patient – can be also human: The boy kicked John.

_________

The boy kicked himself.

The boy = AGENT

himself = PATIENT→ the same physical entity – two different roles

Semantic roles: instrument, experiencer, location, source, goal

He (A) cut the rope (P) with scissors (INSTRUMENT)

Did you hear that noise?

you = EXPERIENCER

that noise = PATIENT

the entity is on the table, in the room → LOCATION

where an entity moves from → SOURCE

where an entity moves to → GOAL

Semantic roles examples

Mary saw a mosquito on the wall.

EXPERIENCER PATIENT LOCATION

She borrowed a magazine from Peter

AGENT PATIENT SOURCE

and she hit the mosquito with the magazine.

AGENT PATIENT INSTRUMENT

She handed the magazine back to George.

AGENT PATIENT GOAL

Semantic relations
Conceal - Hide Shallow - Deep Daffodil - Flower

- Synonymy

- Antonymy

- Hyponymy / Hyperonymy

- Homonymy / Polysemy

- Homophony / Homography

- Ambiguity

- Incompatibility
Synonymy - Synonyms

chair x seat; cat x feline; baby x infant (nouns)

go x leave (verbs)

quickly x rapidly; quickly x speedily (adverbs)

long x extended; tremendous x remarkable (adjectives)

war x armed conflict

- expired could have the synonym no longer fresh (milk that's past its sale date)

Vs.
- expired could have the synonym dead (no longer alive)

Cathy had only one answer correct in the test.

Cathy had only one reply correct in the test.

formality:

My father purchased a large automobile.

My father bought a big car.

regional variations:

petrol – Br. E. x gasoline – Am.E.

Antonymy - Antonyms

words which have opposite meanings

hot x cold; up and down; short and tall

short x tall (if you are referring to a person's height)

short x long (if you are referring to the length of something)

- real and unreal; flexible x inflexible

- exceptions to the rules: flammable / inflammable are synonyms!

Complementary pairs (non-gradable antonyms): mortal/immortal; single/ married, not

pregnant/pregnant; male/female; true/false

Gradable pairs: good/bad, hot/cold; possible to be a little/very; bigger than/smaller than

Relational opposites: tie/untie, buy/sell, give/receive, teacher/pupil, father/son.

Reversives: up – down; north – south; enter – exit

!! one word doesn´t need to mean the negative of another (dress – undress: untie doesn´t
mean not dress)
 Hyponymy - Hyponyms/Hyperonyms

daffodil – flower; dog – animal; poodle – dog; carrot – vegetable

- looking at the meanings of words in some type of hierarchical relationship

- if any object is a dog, then is necessarily an animal - the meaning of animal is included
in the meaning of dog → dog is a hyponym of animal (hyperonym)
- cut, punch, shoot, stab = co-hyponyms of the superordinate term injure

Homonymy, Polysemy

homonymy

bank (of a river/financial institution); pupil (at school/in the eye); race (contest of speed/ethnic
group); mean (an average/nasty); punch (a drink/a hit)

polysemy

foot of person, of bed, of mountain; run – person does, water does, colours do

Dictionaries: if a word has multiple, related meanings (polysemous) – single entry, numbered
list of different meanings

- if two words are treated as homonyms – two separate entries

- date: - oblong, fleshy fruit; point in time → homonymous BUT

date polysemous in terms of a particular day and month; an arranged meeting time
(appointment); a social meeting

Homophony, Homography

homophony

bare – bear; meet – meat; flour – flower; sew – so; there – their – they're
 - puns

homography

wind – wind; lead – lead

Incompatibility
- Red / green
- Black / white
- Cat / dog

Semantic relations

- Words are synonyms → sentences are paraphrases.

- Words have antonyms → sentences can be negated.
- Words are homonyms → sentences may be ambiguous.

- Ambiguity: lexical

She cannot bear children.

How is bread made?”

“I know that!” Alice cried eagerly.
“You take some flour“
“Where do you pick the flower?” the White Queen asked. “In a garden, or in the
hedges?”
“Well, it isn´t picked at all,” Alice explained; “it´s ground.“
“How many acres of ground?” said the White Queen.

(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

- Ambiguity: structural

It takes two mice to screw in a light bulb.

Breaking semantic rules

Walls have ears. (Cervantes)

In some sense the sentence is ambiguous but listeners stretch their imagination for another
interpretation:

Dr. Jekyll is a butcher.

Time is money. (metaphors)

Pragmatics

- the study of invisible’ meaning

- interpreting what speakers mean
- study of the meaning of language in context
- the two primary forms of context:

linguistic context and situational context

Linguistic context - refers to the language surrounding the phrase in question. The importance
of linguistic context becomes exceptionally clear when looking at pronouns:

Joe also saw HIM.

Jerry said he saw a guy riding an elephant.

Jerry saw the bank robber.

Jerry saw your dog run that way.

Situational context - refers to every non-linguistic factor that affects the meaning of a phrase.

It's cold in here. - a simple statement of fact (semantics)

- a request to turn up the heat (pragmatics)

Anaphora

I love Jane and Jack loves HER too.

Kate hugged Jackie and Paul DID too.

“If only I hadn’t gone to the market that day, if only I hadn’t dropped my bag, if only we hadn’t
met.”

Deixis
You´ll have to bring it tomorrow because he is not here today.

- Personal deixis:
- pronouns: I my mine you your yours him ..
 - Time (temporal) deixis:
- now, then, tomorrow, this time, that time, seven days ago, two weeks from now,
last week, next April
- Place (spacial) deixis:
- here, there, this place, that place, this ranch, this city, those towers over there

10.Grammar, Parts of speech

Linguistic competence x Linguistic performance

(knowledge) (performance)

Sounds, structures, meanings, words, rules for putting them

Together are learnt unconsciously, with no awareness that rules are being learnt

Grammar
- Mental system that allows human beings to form and interpret the sounds, words and sentences
of their language
- The rules to combine sounds, sound patterns, the basic units of meaning (words) to form new
sentences
- Process of describing the structure of phrases and sentences in such a way that we account for
all the grammatical sequences in a language and rule out all the ungrammatical sequences

Used in 2 ways:
1. Mental grammar
2. Description of this internalized grammar

Components of grammar
- Phonology
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Pragmatics

Grammars of languages
- All languages have grammar
- All grammars are equal
- Universality
- Grammars change over time

What is grammatical?
- Grammar of a language
 - Grammatical sentence vs. an ungrammatical sentence
Claire dont know nothing.
— a sentence is grammatical if a speaker would naturally produce it, regardless of its social
value

- Ungrammaticality is a consequence of our having a fixed code for interpreting sentences

Types of grammar

- Prescriptive grammar
- Prescribes rather than describes the rules of grammar

I don't know WHOM to see

- Descriptive grammar
- A systematic description of a language as found in a sample of speech or writing

I don't know WHO to see

Teaching grammar
- States the rules of the language, helps in learning a new language or dialect
- Assumes that the student already knows one language

Language universals, Universal grammar

- Language universals = set of linguistic rules common to all languages
- Universal grammas = laws representing the universal properties of all languages
- One of the goals of modern linguistics

Universal principles of all languages, language universals

- Combination of subjects and predicates

Subject Predicate Object

The cat ate the rat.
 - Expressing subject (English, French) x null subject languages (Czech, Slovak)
- Parts of speech
- Subset of sounds
- Similar ways of categorizing meaning distinctions

Lexical
Categories
- Major
parts of
speech
- Open
class
words
- Conten
t words
- Nouns
- Verbs
- Adjecti
ves
- Adverb
s

Functional Categories
- Closed class words
- Words belonging to grammatical/function classes

pronouns (they, he, she)

numerals (one, five)

auxiliary verbs (have, be, do)

modal verbs (may, might, can, could, will, would, shall, should, must)

prepositions (in, on, from, to, at, with)

conjunctions (and, or, but, because, if)

determiners

Determiners

- noun modifiers, express the reference of a noun or noun phrase in the context

articles (a, an, the)

demonstratives (this, that, these, those)

possessive pronouns (my, our, your, her, his, its, their, whose)

quantifiers (all, few, many, several, some, every, each, any, no)

numerals (one, two, fifty; first, second, last, next)

Telegraphic language

- Having a wonderful time, hotel great, send money

11.European and American Linguistic Schools, 19th and 20th century

Linguistic Studies from the Time Perspective Diachronic Linguistics/Diachronic Approach

- diachronic approach (diachronic linguistics) - historical development of a language

- English: study of the language within a longer period of time (development, changes of
the sound system/morphology/semantics of words/syntax etc.)
- typical until the end of the19th century
- 19th century:

new approaches to languages and to their relations; research methodologies applied

historical development of languages, changes of languages, comparing languages historically,
proto-languages

historical study of the Indo-European language family

Diachronic Approach

historical study of the Indo-European Language family connected with the discovery of Sanskrit

William Jones (English lawyer in India) „discovered“ Sanskrit for Europe

similarity with Greek and Latin → the three languages must have originated in one common source.

▼▼▼

development of comparative grammar, i.e. – comparing languages with the respect to their
sound systems, grammatical structure and vocabulary.

Diachronic Approach, Rasmus Rask

- Founders of comparative grammar - Rasmus Rask and Franz Bopp

RASMUS RASK (1787-1832)

Danish philologist

studied mainly old Scandinavian languages - showed their relatedness to Germanic languages,
Greek, Latin, Slavonic languages

later he added Sanskrit, Persian, Celtic languages

to estimate the relatedness of languages the most important is their grammatical structure, not
vocabulary

FRANZ BOPP (1791-1867)

German philologist, considered the real founder of comparative grammar

reconstruction of the original proto-language

linguistics of the 19th century was influenced by biology and by biological studies – reflected
also in linguistic work of Franz Bopp

linguistics categorized as a natural science, linguists regarded languages as an order of natural

organisms.

inaccuracies

solid grounds of comparative studies of languages

JACOB GRIMM (1785 – 1863)

German philologist; younger brother Wilhelm Grimm (fairy tales, legends)

founder of historical grammar

work German Grammar - law on changes (shift) of Indo-European consonants in Germanic

languages (the Grimm´s Law)

Grimm's Law, German Dictionary

Change of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) consonants in the Germanic branch of languages in

accordance with the following rules:

PIE Germanic

voiceless stops [p t k] → voiceless fricatives [f θ x]

voiced stops [b d g] → voiceless stops [p t k]

voiced aspirates [bh dh gh] → voiced stops [b d g]

1838 - a project whose result was a creation of the German Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch),
ended 1961, 32 volumes

WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT (1767-1835)

the most famous German philologist , famous writer and a Prussian statesman (Prussian
ambassador in Rome, Vienna, London); forefather of modern linguistics

main aim to create comparative anthropology

tried to classify languages according to their structure

language - an inborn human property, an inseparable part of the human spirit, created together with the
human as a result of his brain → not only complete at its creation but also perfect

languages are different because they reflect mentalities of the nations

theory of inner and outer form in language; outer form - the raw sounds of language, inner form
- the pattern of grammar

language is dynamic activity (energia), not a product (ergon) of the activity, not a set of actual
utterances produced by speakers but the underlying principles or rules

big influence upon Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky

Further development of Historical and Comparative Grammar

Slavic languages: Josef Dobrovský (1753-1829) - founder of comparative and historical study of
Slavic languages; end of the 18th century History of the Czech Language and Literature -
analysis of the development of the Czech language

AUGUST SCHLEICHER (1821-1867)

influenced by Darwin in his linguistic research studies

language is an organism which is born, grows, develops, grows old and dies in the end

Further development of Historical and comparative Grammar, Neogrammarians

1870s - Neogrammarians (Young Grammarians)

new impulse to comparative and historical grammar, more scientific methods of research

phonetic changes and historical view of a language, relation between language and thinking

many critics (e.g. Hugo Schuchart, Otto Jespersen – refused the theory of the biological nature
of language and correctly considered language a social phenomenon)

Historical and Comparative Grammar - Contributions

strict research methodology introduced

basic questions of language development solved

genealogical classification of Indo-European languages made

basic phenomena of articulatory phonetics clarified

Synchronic Linguistics/Synchronic Approach

early 20th century

shift of focus from historical concerns of changes in languages over time to the idea that a
language can be viewed as a self contained and structured system situated at a particular point
in time

views a particular state of language at a given point in time (e.g. English today; Shakespeare´s
English), ignores the development (i.e. how a language arrives at its present form)

► ► the basis for the structural linguistics

Structuralism

Europe, the USA in 1920s and 1930s

revolutionary movement which considerably changed approach to linguistic studies, influence

upon linguistics and upon further linguistic movements

collective term for a number of linguistic approaches in the first half of the 20th century, all
based on work of Ferdinand de Saussure

language = A SYSTEM whose individual parts cannot be studied without functions that they
have in the system

new approach to facts already known – the facts are reconsidered with regard to their functions
in the system

clear distinction between historical study of languages and study of languages at a given
moment of its development, i.e. between diachronic and synchronic approach

social (i. e. communicative) function of language

idea that many phenomena do not occur in isolation, but instead occur in relation to each other,
and that all related phenomena are a part of a whole with a definite, but not necessarily defined
structure

GENEVA SCHOOL – Ferdinand de Saussure

PRAGUE SCHOOL – functional linguistics

NEO-SAUSSURIANISM – tendency to abstractness; concern is more in general theory about

the language sign than in concrete linguistic problems

Ferdinand de Saussure

Swiss linguist, one of the greatest linguistic scholars of all times; the founder of Geneva School

lectures on comparative grammar in Paris until 1891; Geneva - a professor of comparative and
historical grammar

1916 – Course in General Linguistics

 Dichotomy: Synchronic vs. Diachronic

synchronic (static) linguistics - the study of language at a particular point in time vs. diachronic
(evolutionary) linguistics - the study of the history or evolution of language

division into synchronic and diachronic and the emphasis on synchronic states – one of
Saussure’s most revolutionary ideas

cannot be separated one from another; a linguist can study a Language from a synchronic or
from a diachronic point of view, but as a rule he/she has to consider the other view.

Ditochromy: Langue vs. Parole

distinction between langue (language) and the parole (activity of speaking)

speaking - an activity of the individual; language - the social manifestation of speech

Langue - a system of all rules which are generally recognized and followed by the speakers of
the language

langue is a social phenomenon

Parole - a concrete speech made by an individual at a given moment

parole is individual

Semiology
Dichotomy: syntagmatic vs. pragmatic

Saussure defines semiology as the study of signs

linguistics is a part of semiology

linguistic sign = a combination of a concept and a sound-image. The concept is what is signified
(signifié), the sound-image is the signifier (signifiant). The combination of the signifier and the
signified is arbitrary; i.e., any signifier can be connected with any signified

language is a structured system of arbitrary signs

relations between linguistic signs can be either syntagmatic (linear, sequential, or successive),
or paradigmatic (associative, substitutive)
Saussure views language as having an inner duality, which is manifested by the interaction of
the synchronic and diachronic, the syntagmatic and associative, the signifier and signified
(dichotomies)

Dichotomies = two parts of a phenomenon, opposite in nature, which cannot exist

simultaneously, but are interconnected with each other

Saussure´s dichotomies:

synchrony diachrony

langue (= grammar + vocabulary + pronunciation) parole (= speech)

syntagmatic relations (linear, sequential) paradigmatic relations (substitutive)

He - can - leave - tomorrow. → SYNTAGMATIC

She - may - come - soon. ↓ PARADIGMATIC

You - should - sleep - now.

Signs of one and the same subsystem are mutually exclusive.

You he can leave tomorrow.

Influence of Saussure

- ideas very influential among linguists

- influence upon different linguistic schools (Danish school - LOUIS HJELMSLEV; Prague
Linguistic School)

American Structuralism
 - period of its bloom from 1920s to the end of 1950s
- stress upon the systemic character of language, i.e. searching language phenomena in
their interrelations
- stress on anthropology and ethnography; anthropological orientation of American
linguistics; studies of languages of American Indians
- preferring the form to the contents (grammatical contents, keep the lexical contents
aside)
- disinterest of American linguists in language development, and thus also in diachronic
methods of research
- effort to apply mathematical methods (building of grammatical description models)
- pioneered by Franz Boas, Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield

Franz Boas (1858-1942)

- father of American linguistics and American anthropological orientation of linguistics

- Handbook of American Indian Languages - key ideas of American structuralism
- description of any Language has to be based on its own structure and features known
from other languages should not be looked for in it

Edward Sapir (1884 – 1939)

- Boas´ student, founder of American structuralism together with Leonard Bloomfield

- excellent anthropological linguist, first field work on many American Indian languages
- Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921)

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897 – 1941)

- famous for his hypotheses regarding the relation of language to thinking

- Mexican, Mayan languages and especially the Hopi Language
- differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers
perceive and conceptualize the world

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

hypothesis of linguistic relativity

- human languages determine the structure of the real world as perceived by human
beings - how we think is influenced by the language that we speak
- people who speak significantly different languages view the world differently
- the Hopi have a different metaphysical worldview which does not conceptualize time as flowing
from the past through the present into the future, as the European worldview does; their language
does not contain the words for time that English does → the English language and the Hopi
language are incomparable. The Hopi worldview cannot be completely expressed in English and
vice versa

Leonard Bloomfield (1887 – 1949)

- the most important founder and representative of American structuralism; influence upon
American linguistics from the middle of 1920s to the middle of 1950s
- Language (1933) – a bible of American structuralists, a milestone in linguistics
- influenced by Behaviourism (a school of psychology which seeks to explain animal and
human behaviour entirely in terms of observable and measurable responses to
environmental stimuli and adapted it to the needs of linguistics)
- strictly scientific description of grammatical phenomena, a very detailed and original
grammar analysis
Noam Chomsky (1928)

- American linguist, philosopher, historian, cognitive scientist, political critic

- over 100 books on linguistics, on war, politics (he criticized the US foreign policy,
Vietnam War, capitalism, mass media)
- considered one of the most influential American linguists
- founder of the transformational-generative grammar - developed from his interest in
modern logics and mathematics

Transformal-generative Grammar

- Syntactic Structures (1957) - revolution in linguistics

- based on questions about language that were very different from those asked by the
scholars before him
- designed a completely new approach to language
- tried to explain what underlies the human ability to speak and understand language
- designed to describe a finite set of rules that we use to generate the possible sentences
in our language.
- the term generative means a kind of grammar that views language as a creative process
in which individual sentences are generated according to the before given rules; the set
of these rules is considered the grammar of Language
- there is a limited amount of the rules as well as the Language units, however these
enable to generate an unlimited number of sentences, in accordance with the speaker´s
needs.
- in order to create and understand newly generated sentences, we must depend on our
language competence; our competence derives from our knowledge of grammar:
 grammar shapes each of our utterances, setting the boundaries for what is acceptable
and ensuring that we will be understood.

we don't memorize all the sentences in a language in order to speak it, rather we learn/acquire
a system of rules that allow us to „generate“ new sentences in our language and to understand
the new sentences produced by other speakers

John read the book. X The book was read by John.

- seem to be very different on the surface (according to their word order), however
transformational grammar tries to show that in the underlying structure (deeper relations
to one another) the sentences are very similar

- transformational grammar assigns a deep structure (= underlying structure of a sentence

that conveys the meaning of a sentence) and a surface structure (= the superficial
arrangement of constituents, which reflects the order in which the words are
pronounced) to show relationships of sentences

- transformational rules (transformations) are applied to deep structure and intermediate

structures, ultimately generating the surface structure of the sentence
 12.Prague linguistic school (circle)

- One of the most influential schools of linguistic thought in pre-war linguistics

- 1926
- Vilém Mathesius
- 1929 = the first International Congress of Slavists was held in Prague
- The Theses of th PLC presented - the main aims of the PLC - structural linguistics, stressing the
function of elements in a language
- The Theses were published in the 1st volume of the series called Travaux du Cercle Linguistique
de Prague (Prague Linguistic Circle Papers)

- General linguistic and Slavistic problems, phonology, grammar, semantics and syntax
- Functions of language
- Differences between written and spoken language
- Questions of standard language and language culture
- Language of poetry
- Typology

- Influenced by the Structuralism of Saussure,, a combination of structuralism and functionalism

- Approach to language from the synchronic point of view
- Focus on functionality of elements of language
- Social function of language highlighted

Prague Structuralism
- Application of functional approach in different parts of linguistics
- Development of Saussure’s ideas if language and parole along essentially functionalist lines (the
functions that the language has to perform shape its system)

- The classical period of the PLC: 1926-1939

- Functional approach to language phenomena thanks to Vilém Mathesius and Bohuslav Havránek
- The most important works in the classical period - PHONOLOGY, MORPHOLOGY and SYNTAX
- PHONOLOGY = independent linguistic discipline, counterpart of the dominating phonetics
- MORPHOLOGY = theory of morphemes and grammatical categories
- SYNTAX = the functional sentence perspective of Vilém Mathesius
- Differentiating the spoken language from the written language

Main ideas of PLC

- Language is a system of means of expression which serves to promote mutual understanding
- Language is a reality (i.e. an actual physical phenomenon) whose type is largely conditioned by
external (non-linguistic) factors: social environment, the audience, the subject matter, etc.
 - Language includes both the intellectual and the emotional manifestations of human personality
- Written and spoken language are not identical, each has its own specific characteristics
- Synchronic investigation should be of primary interest for linguists, because it has a direct bearing
on actual linguistic reality. However, the system must always be kept in a view in diachrony, and
diachrony in synchrony
- The comparative method should make possible work on the typology of languages, i.e.
description of particular types of linguistic structure

Vilém Mathesius
- 1911 = lecture O potenciálnosti jevů jazykových (on the potentionality of the phenomena of
language) - saussurean distinction between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’, emphasis on synchronic
language study-pioneer of the synchronic approach, established the distinguishing terms
static/dynamic (correspond to saussure’s dichotomy synchronic/diachronic)
- 1912 = the first professor of english language and literature at charles university, full professor in
1919
- Founder and president of PLC, edition-in-chief of its periodical Slovo a slovesnost
- History of english literature Dějiny anglické literatury (1910-15), Shakespearean studies
- Phonology (research on the functional load and combining capability of phonemes), semantics,
stylistics, syntax (functional sentence perspective)

Nikolai Trubetzkoy
- Crucial in establishing PHONOLOGY as a discipline distinct from phonetics
- Born in Moscow, a part of the Russian nobility, father - a professor at philosophy at Moscow
University
- Studied at Leipzig Uni - comparative linguistics
- Principles of Phonology (1939) published posthumously, unfinished
- Defined phoneme as the smallest phonological unit, the smallest distinctive unit within the
structure of a given language
- Phonology should deal with the linguistic function of sounds as members of phonemic
oppositions and with their ability to signal differences in word-meaning

Roman Jakobson
- Russian-American linguist, a representative of Structuralism and one of the greatest linguists of
the 20th century
- 1920 - moved to prague, later at MUNI in Brno
- 1928 - announced his hypothesis that phonemes, the smallest units of speech sounds that
distinguish one word from another, ale complexes of Binary features, such as voiced/unvoiced
and aspirated/unaspirated
- Together with Trubetzkoy defined phonology as an independent discipline
- Morphology - big attention his article on the structure of the Russian verb - application of
phonological theories of privative oppositions to the morphological system
- Brought PLC to America
- Development of communication in children, speech disorders, analysis of literature and poetry
- 1960s - linguistic model of effective interpersonal communication
- Highlights importance of the codes and social contexts involved
- Outlines what he regards as the six constitutive factors in any act of verbal communication
 - Proposes that each of these wix factors (addresser, message, context, contact, code and
addressee) determines a different linguistic function
- His model demonstrates that messages and meanings cannot be isolated from contextual factors

Communication Functions by Jakobson

1. Referential: describes a situation, object, mental state (CONTEXT)
2. Expressive (emotive): related to the addresser (sender) and adds information concerning the
speaker’s internal state (ADDRESSER)
3. Conative: engages the addressee (the receiver) directly - makes use of vocatives and imperatives
(ADDRESSEE)
4. Poetic: a message for it’s own sake - the code itself and how it is used in poetry,
rhyming, slogans,..
5. Phatic: language for the sake of interaction, in greetings and general chit-chat
(CONTACT)
6. Metalingual (reflective): use of language to describe and analyze itself (CODE)

Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP)

Theme and Rheme

- Syntax - less attention than phonological of morphological problems

- Theory of FSP - sentences are generally divided into thematic and rhematic elements