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Week1 2

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22 views16 pages

Week1 2

Uploaded by

2487601343
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Linguistics 1A03

Intro Linguistics: Sounds, Speech & Hearing

Lesson 2
Today’s goals

◉ Properties of mental grammar


◉ Properties of language
◉ Language change
Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism

◉ Give a prescriptive rule and a descriptive statement regarding the placement of


adjectives with respect to the nouns they modify in English. Explain how each
type of statement might change if, at some point in the future, younger speakers
of English began saying things like shirt green or idea brilliant.
How likely are these invention names?

◉ killitosh
◉ nbick

◉ governed by systematic principles


Mental grammar

◉ a shared system
◉ a generative system
◉ governed by systematic principles
A Paradox?

• Linguists don’t make rules about grammar.


• Mental grammar is governed by systematic principles.
What’s a rule?

Prescriptive rules are like the criminal code or the traffic code.
• Don’t steal things! Don’t park here!
• Don’t split an infinitive! Don’t end a sentence with a preposition!
• Or you’ll get in trouble!
What’s a rule?

The rules of mental grammar are like the laws of physics.


• Apples never fall upwards. Hot air never sinks.
• English speakers never say, “Myself am a McMaster student.” French
doesn’t include the sound [θ].
• Some things just never happen.

◉ Linguistics describe these rules


Mental grammar

◉ a shared system
◉ a generative system
◉ governed by systematic principles (unconscious)
Fundamental properties of grammar

◉ All languages have a grammar.


◉ All languages & grammars are equally valid, in linguistic terms.
◉ All languages have some universal properties in common.
◉ Every language changes over time.
◉ Most of our knowledge of the mental grammar of our language is unconscious
Discuss the properties of language

◉ Poll!
Fundamental properties of language: Typology

◉ Linguistic typology studies the commonalities that all languages share.


○ All languages have consonants and vowels.
○ All languages makes distinctions between nouns and verbs.
○ In nearly all languages, the subject of the sentence comes before the verb and
the object of the sentence.

○ Discuss with a partner: Why do you think that it is important to study language
typology?
Fundamental properties of language: Language acquisition

◉ According to the videos for this week, is the following statement true or false?
Discuss with a partner and write your answer on Avenue.

‘Children learn a language in a conscious manner. Caregivers


make an effort to explain the rules of language to their
children.’
Fundamental properties of language: Language change

◉ Discuss whether the following changes happen in the lexicon, the sound
system, the morphology, or the syntax of a language
○ A change happened in Italian such that in initial consonant clusters, the l that originally followed p
and f changed to i. Thus Italian words like fiore 'flower'; fiume 'river'; pioggia 'rain'; and piuma
'feather' are cognates with the French fleur; fleuve; pluie; and plume, respectively, and with
Spanish flora, fluvial (adj. 'riverine'); lluvia (by a later change); and pluma respectively.

○ In the Romance languages below, the word for 'mother' is a cognate in all the six contemporary
languages considered, however the word for 'father' is a cognate only in four of the five: in
Rumanian, the original word inherited from Latin pater has been replaced by a completely
different word, tata
English Portugues
French Italian Spanish Rumanian Catalan
Gloss e
mother mer madre madre mae mama mare
father per padre padre pae tata pare
Fundamental properties of language: Language change

◉ Discuss whether the following changes happen in the lexicon, the sound
system, the morphology, or the syntax of a language

○ A number of verbs can take a complement with another verb in either the “-ing”
form or the “to” form, for example “they liked painting/to paint”, “we tried leaving/to
leave”, “he didn’t bother calling/to call”. Both of these constructions are still used and
have been for a long time but there has been a steady shift over time from the “to” to
the “-ing” complement.

○ For many speakers of English, the short e vowel (as in bet) has, in some words,
been replaced by a short i vowel (as in bit), For these
speakers, pin and pen, him and hem are homophones (words pronounced the
same). This change is conditioned because it occurs only in the context of a
following m or n; pig and peg, hill and hell, middle and meddle are not
pronounced alike for these speakers."
Language change

◉ How would linguists respond nowadays to the following prescriptive


comment? Write your answer in the chat.

"I see no absolute Necessity why any Language would be perpetually changing."
(Jonathan Swift, Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the
English Tongue, 1712)

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