The Properties of Language

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The Properties of Language

• Lecture 2

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Do you remember?

• What is Language (big-L)?
• What is a language (little-L)?

• The systematic rules and patterns that govern
  word ordering.
• The body of knowledge that allows one to produce
  a particular language

grammar
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Grammar

• A Body of Linguistic Knowledge
• How to
• Combine sounds
• Create words
• Build sentences
• Construct texts
• Participate in conversations

Language is axiomatic to being human.
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Communicative Signs
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Core Properties of all Communication

• Form
• Meaning
• Function

sign
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Analyze this Non-Linguistic Sign
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Three Types of Signs

• Iconic
• Signifier (form) resembles signified (meaning)
• Indexical
• Signifier gives directional information
• Arbitrary
• No inherent relationship between form and meaning

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How About This Sign?
? ? ?
Q If words are signs and they are what kind
of sign are they?
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Arbitrariness

• the connection between the signifier (form) and
  the signified (meaning) is arbitrary
• these arbitrary relationships are agreed upon by
  speakers, i.e. a matter of convention (consensus)
• even interjections and onomatopoetic signs are
  arbitrary
• ouaoua bow-wow mong-mong wan-wan
• aïe! ouch! aigo! aiya!

signified
signifier
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Arbitrariness
yueiliang
mwezi
lune
luna
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Arbitrariness
shoe shu
two/too/to tu
all tu
cabbage shu
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Productivity (a.k.a. Creativity)

• How many utterances are there in a language?
• Humans are capable of unlimited expression.
• We routinely create and comprehend novel
  utterances.
• Rule Governed Creativity
• An infinite number of utterances can be created
  by a limited number of rules / patterns.

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Duality

• Linguistic units have a dual nature
• They are observable physical events ?
  noise or image
• They are more than simple physical events
• They are produced in order to communicate meaning
• They are connected to a concept

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Discreteness

• What is discrete vs. continuous?
• Discrete entities have clear boundaries theyre
  units categorical.
• Continuous entities dont have clear boundaries.
• Language is

DISCRETE

• Language is made up structured units if
• you have knowledge of the system!
• Otherwise, utterances can sound like continuous
  streams of sound, without discernible units.

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The Last Three Design Features

• Displacement
• We can communicate beyond the here and now
• We are not stimulus bound
• Cultural Transmission
• Grammars are transmitted from one generation to
  the next
• Acquiring a language requires involvement in a
  culture
• COMPARE ? Genetic Transmission of big-L
  Language
• Each human is born with Language its a
  biological instinct.
• Interchangeability
• All members of the community are physically
  capable of transmitting and receiving messages

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Assessing the Design Features

• Arbitrariness
• Productivity
• Duality
• Discreteness
• Displacement
• Cultural Transmission
• Interchangeability

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Focus on Sentences

• Consider the following finite lexicon
• hugged
• saw
• laughed
• dog
• cat
• the
• a
• cute
• big
• baby
• we

The we laughed a cute. A a a baby cat dog the
the. Cat the hugged baby the.
Create two different sentences using only these
words
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Which of the Following Strings are Grammatical?

• I shall speak to her tomorrow
• I shall her tomorrow speak.
• Tomorrow her to speaking do shall.
• Speak shall I with her tomorrow.

• Ik zal haar morgen spreken. Dutch
• Naeil ke-ege mal-ha-gessumnida.
  Korean
• Falar-ei com ela
  amanhã. Portuguese

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What do we Mean by Grammatical?

• Prescriptive Grammar (Prescriptively
  Grammatical)
• The set of rules (or patterns) that are deemed to
  be the correct or proper way to use a
  language
• Set by members of the community that possess the
  power to enforce the rules teachers, editors

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What do we Mean by Grammatical?

• Descriptive Grammar (Descriptively Grammatical)
• The set of rules (or patterns) that characterize
  observed language behavior
• Determined by observing language users and
  extracting relevant generalizations

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Determine the Grammaticality of
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Grammaticality vs. Semantically Odd

• We believe that each men were created equal.
• The industrious bunnies baked a delicious cake
  for Mimis birthday.
• The red roses are yellow.

v
!
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Relationship between Prescription and Description
Universe of all word combinations in language X
Combinations that are officially sanctioned by
the authorities
Combinations that speakers actually produce
Descriptively ungrammatical but prescriptively
grammatical
Descriptively grammatical but prescriptively
ungrammatical
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Comparing Languages Whos is Better?

• Do you have the right to say that somebody elses
  language is too hard or backwards or illogical or
  ugly?
• We have to be wary of 2 traps
• Because language is changing, it is getting
  corrupted.
• My language variety is more X than another.
• All languages are capable of communicating what
  they need to communicate.

Who gets to judge what is good?