Lebanese University English Department Introduction to Linguistics

Instructor: Mrs. Denise Khoury Student: Marie-Rose Zeenny

Session 1- Wednesday November 3, 2004 The instructor gave the assigned textbook:

An Introduction to Language. 5th edition, by Victoria Fromkin & Robert Rodman.

PART I: THE NATURE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS LANGUAGE 0- Introduction: This course deals with language; it is more scientific than being literary. Language is a means of communication. Mainly, it represents a specific part of a certain culture. Through languages, we are able to communicate. It is a specific ability to human beings. Language is made of sounds (set of words). It is a means of expression. In a language, we alter sounds in a way that they have meanings. I- Linguistic Knowledge: When we know a language, we can speak and be understood by others who know that language. That is we produce sounds that signify certain meanings, and understand or interpret the sounds produced by others. We need rules to connect words together. There is a certain set of rules we use when we connect words together. Yet, most speakers are unaware of the profound knowledge of their conversation. Therefore, they can produce a sentence having two relative clauses without knowing what a relative clause is or means. What then do speakers know? 1. Knowledge of the sound system:

Now, knowing the sound system is not just knowing the inventory of sounds, it does know what sounds are in this language, and what sounds are not. This is why some people mispronounce some words. 2. Knowledge of the meaning of words:

Knowing a language is knowing that certain sounds sequences signify certain concepts or meanings. It is then how to relate sounds and meanings. Let us analyze the relationship between sounds and meanings in the word house? 1

Here, the relationship is arbitrary (subjective or illogical). The relation between speech sounds and the meaning they represent is for the most part an arbitrary one. It means there is no relation between the sound and the concept. For example: house in English, maison in French, dom in Russian, bayt ( )in Arabic, doon in Armenian, and casa in Spanish. Such words are only given meanings by the language in which they occur. Neither the shape nor the other physical attributes of objects determine their pronunciation in any language. This arbitrary relation between the form (sounds) and meaning (concept) of a word in spoken language is also true of the sign language used by the deaf. When they use a sound with their hands, it is also arbitrary. Signs that may have been mimetic or iconic (with a non-arbitrary relationship between form and meaning) change historically as words do and the iconicity is lost. These signs become conventional. Shape or movement of the hands does not reveal the meaning of the gestures (of the hands) in sign languages.

The bolded words interpret the real sound of these selected animals.

The roars of a lion The buzzing of a bee The door bangs The birds tweeter

These bolded words are called onomatopoeia. However, there is a sound symbolism in language. A few words in most languages are onomatopoeic. The sounds of the words imitate the sounds of nature. Even here, when people are imitating the same element, the sounds differ from one language to another. E.g.: In English, we say cock-a-doodle-doo to imitate or represent the roasters crow, but in Russian, they say Kukurico for the same purpose. Sometimes, particular sound sequences seem to relate to a particular concept. For example: Glands Glance Glitter Glaze Glimpse Glimmer All these words begin with the same sound gl, they seem to belong, and in fact they do belong to the area of meaning of sight. However, such words are a very small one part of any language and gl may have nothing to do with sight in another language or even in other words in English such as: Glory Glass Gladiator Gloves Glue Glossary 2

Moreover, knowing a language does not mean memorizing more than 450,000 words from Webster Dictionary in isolation. We need combinations of words together in order to make sentences. We might memorize the dictionary but we cannot memorize all the combinations. By memorizing the rules, we can generate combinations as many as we can. Session 2- Wednesday November 10, 2004 II- The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge: Knowledge of a language enables us to combine words to form phrases which could be nominal, and phrases to form sentences, (dictionaries cannot list all the sentences of any language), then to produce an infinite number of new sentences never spoken before, and to understand sentences never heard before. The Linguist Noam Chomsky refers to this as part of the creative aspect of language use. This creative ability which is a universal property to human language is due to the fact that language use is not limited to stimulus-response behavior. E.g.: If someone hits you, you say ouch or akh: This is a stimulus-response behavior. These are automatic responses. These sounds, which are the automatic responses to stimuli, are not really part of language, although akh is not part of the Arabic Language but it belongs to it. Some of them are constrained (controlled) by our language system. For example, English people when they want to think about something to say, they say eh or you know. Also, knowing a language includes knowing what sentences are appropriate in various situations. E.g.: When someone steps on your toe, your reaction could not be: I am hungry, I want to eat, there is a particular response to it. Few sentences can be stored in our brain because our brain is finite (limited), but most sentences can be generated, so, new sentences never spoken or heard before are created by the speaker. If we want to extend the following sentences: 1- The old man came. Yesterday, the old man with a white barb came to our house. 2- I ate an apple. I ate the green apple. Anyway, it is not recommended to say or hear extremely long sentences. III-The Knowledge of Sentences and Non-sentences: Vocabulary is finite however large it is and it can be stored, but words are not enough to make a language. Language is not a set of words put one after the other. Linguistic knowledge must then include rules for forming sentences. The rules must be finite in length and in number so that they can be stored in our finite brains. Yet, they must permit us to form and understand an infinite set of new sentences. When we know a language, we must know: Refer to the book page 10 set (1). 3 The sounds The words The rules for their combinations.

c & e are parallel in structure and give us a certain meaning. d & f are parallel in structure but do not give a meaning. In conclusion, we can say that what is correct for one structure is not correct for the other one. A structure with one adjective could not be the same with another adjective. IV-Linguistic Knowledge and Performance: Our linguistic knowledge permits us to form longer and longer sentences which are theoretically possible but highly improbable. Because you: - lose track of your point or idea - become boring - will be tired and your audience too. - will be out of breath.

Thus, there is a difference between what we know that is our linguistic competence and how we use the language in actual speech production and comprehension which is our linguistic performance. Linguistic knowledge is in the most part not conscious knowledge. The language system is learned subconsciously (it means that the learner is unaware that rules are being learned). This knowledge represents a complex cognitive system.

Related to the mind

V- What is Grammar? There are types of grammar throughout the times. 1- Observation Grammar is based on: 2- Analysis 3- Acquiring competence 4- Describing the grammar of the language Descriptive Grammar: Grammar represents:
How it is

1- The sounds and sound patterns 2- The units of meanings such as words 3- The rules that we combine to form new sentences.

The descriptive grammar constitutes the grammar of a language. Knowing the grammar of a language means that we are developing our linguistic competence. When linguists describe a language, they describe its grammar that is the speakers linguistic capacity. This is called descriptive grammar describing the grammar of a language.
How it should be

Prescriptive Grammar: 4

Purists believed that language change is corruption ( )because they say: correct forms should be used by all educated in speaking and writing. These purists wished to prescribe rather than describe the rules of grammar which gave rise to prescriptive grammars. One of these purists is Bishop Robert Lowth in his book, A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes in 1762, influenced by Latin grammar and by personal preference prescribed a number of new rules for English. People of different classes used to say I do not have none You was wrong You are more intelligent than me What they used to say became I do not have any You were wrong You are more intelligent than I

Linguists object to prescriptivism, because prescriptivists are not aware of the history of language and less about the nature of language. Teaching Grammar: We teach the rules explicitly (clearly) We teach the pronunciation of words We teach the spelling of words We teach the mechanics of a language (punctuations capitalizations) eYou assume that the student already knows one language and one way of teaching this language is comparing the grammar of the target language with the grammar of the native language By giving 1- A parallelism (parallel structures) 2- The spelling of words by referring to a similar word in the native language 3- A comparison 4- A translation

The meaning of a word is given by providing a gloss which is the parallel word in the students native language. Session 3- Wednesday November 17, 2004 VI- Language Universals: (common points to all languages) The grammar includes everything speakers know about their language. 1- The sound system which is called phonology 2- The system of meanings called semantics 3- The rules of word formation called morphology 4- The rules of sentence formation called syntax 5

5- The vocabulary of words called lexicon The laws that pertain to all languages representing the universal properties of language constitute a universal grammar. The major aim of linguistic theory is to discover the nature of this universal grammar whose principals characterize all human languages. VII-Animal Languages: Many speeches communicate through a specific system of communication. Humans also use systems other than their language to relate to each others and to send messages (body language, sign language, code, and facial expression). Parrots can repeat the same words without understanding the meaning; they are able to imitate not to learn. Spiders have their special system of communications. The male make some gestures to the female to show her that he loves her and he is not an enemy to be eaten. This system of communication or gestures is invariant. It means they cannot mix a gesture with another one to create something new. They are not generators. Crabs have the claw waving (a movement to make a signal to another member of the clam). The movement, its timing, and the posture of the body of the crab never change. Whatever the signal means, it is fixed, so there is no set of crab sentences. Birds communicate through calls and songs. The calls mean one note or more. Short notes aim to send the message of danger, nesting, and feeding The songs are a more complex pattern of notes. These songs can be used for example to attract mates through a sound but without any internal structure. (A sentence can be segmented into meaningful words but the song of a bird cannot be segmented into meaningful parts. Therefore, the number of messages that can be conveyed is finite and the messages are stimulus-controlled. I mean that each note of the song does not mean anything although the song can be segmented, then no meaningful segments. The songs of some species of birds appear to be innate. N.B.: To what degree human language is biologically conditioned or innate and to what degree is it learned is one the fundamental tasks of linguistic. Bees communicate by a dance. The bee is able to return to the hive and tells the others where the source of food is located and the quality of the food source through a dance on a wall of the hive. For one speech of Italian Honey Bee, the dance is of 3 possible patterns: 1. The round dance to tell that the locations are near the hive specifically within 20 feet. 2. The sickle dance ( ) means that the locations are 20 to 60 feet from the hive. 3. The tale wagging dance means that the locations from the hive exceed 60 feet. In order to be more precise about distance, we count exactly the number of tale wagging per minute. If the wagging is slowing, then the distance is longer and vice versa.

The system of communication is more complicated and varied than other animals and they have many different messages like human language but unlike human language they are all restricted to only one subject which is distance. N.B: The philosopher and mathematician Ren Descartes XVII century confirms that one of the major differences between human and animals is that human language is not just a response to external or even internal emotional stimuli like the sounds and the gestures of animals. Humans possess a linguistic creative ability. VIII-The Origin of Language: One who study humans

Anthropologists believe that the species has existed for at least one million years and perhaps for as long as 5 or 6 million years, but early deciphered (decoded) written records are barely 6 thousand years old. Therefore, scholars bend (eliminate) discussions of language origin. Some people say that language is of divine origin, but there is no way to prove or disprove this hypothesis. Christians believe that God gave Adam the power to name all things on Earth. Egyptians believe that God Thoth is the creator of speech. Hindus believe that Brahma is the creator of the universe while his wife Sarasvati is the creator of language. Babylonians believe that language was given by the God Nabu. The origin of language is closely related to the magical properties of some words such as abracadabra. Some words have the power of casting away the evil such as , , Even for many religions, only special languages may be used in prayers and rituals. The Hindus believe that vivid sanskscript has to be used in their prayers and their rituals so Panini the 1st linguist in the 4th century B.C. brought a detailed grammar of sanskscript (.) IX- The First Language: For millennia, scientific experiments have been devised to verify particular theories of the 1st language (the language of God). There was a certain experiment repeated for many times which is the raising of 2 children in the mountain in an isolated place by a mute servant. This was done by the Egyptians Pharaoh Psammetichus (664 to 610 B.C.) in the 6th century. According to the story that was told by a Greek historian, the first word uttered (expressed) by the children was bekos which is the word bread spoken in what is Modern Turkey so they thought that this was the original language. In the 13th century, the Roman Emperor Frederick the 2nd carried out the same experiment but the children died before they spoke. From 1473 to 1513 (end of 15th and beginning of 16th century), James the 4th of Scotland carried out the same experiment and what the children said gave evidence that Hebrew was the language used in the Garden of Eden. So, the origin cannot be traced. In the 16th century, Becanus argued that German must have been the primeval (original) language since God according to them would have used the most perfect language. 7

In the beginning of the 19th century, Noah Webster believed that the Arameic language ( )is the language spoken in Jesus time in Jerusalem. Joseph Elkins (late 19th century) believed that no language was better than the Chinese language to be the original language. Linguists are no more along in discovering the origin of language given the obscurities of prehistory.

Session 4- Wednesday November 24, 2004 X- What We Know About Language: (P. 25) This is a bilan concerning what we know about language. 1- Whenever humans exist, language exists. Humans need a means of communication wherever human exists. It is easier to communicate with others through language than through other means of communication (gestures). It is more efficient, because a wide range of people can use it. Language is peculiar (specific) to Human beings; it is not limited, because we are creative in our language. 2- There are no primitive languages all languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing any idea in the universe. The vocabulary of any language can be expanded to include new words for new concepts. Since our brain is finite, we cannot therefore store a numerous number of sentences. The brain stores also a finite number of rules from which we have the ability to generate as much sentences as we wish. Expanding a language (adding to it more words) is a must, because there are always new inventions that need new words for new concepts (new diseases with their remedies). English people used also some words borrowed from other languages (E.g.: clich stereotype/formula or milieu environment borrowed from the French language). 3- All languages change through time. Since language can be expanded, new words can be added for new concepts; similarly, some words could be lost, they became eliminated and replaced by other words (E.g.: thee you). That is why languages change over time. 4- The relationships between the sounds and meanings of spoken languages and between the gestures (signs) and meanings of sign languages are for the most part arbitrary. For the most part, words are arbitrary related or chosen with no relationship to the meaning; however, few words are onomatopoeic and are related to the meaning somehow. 5- All human languages utilize a finite set of discrete sounds (or gestures) that are combined to form meaningful elements or words, which themselves form an infinite set of possible sentences. In every language, there are a finite inventory number of sounds which we combine to form words (cluster of sounds) in a specific way (limited) for each language. From there we can generate an infinite number of sentences based on the finite number of rules specific to each language. 8

6- All grammars contain rules for the formation of words and sentences of a similar kind. Grammar is the combination of words based on the finite number of rules. From one rule, we can generate so many sentences from the same kind as much as we need. These rules allow us to combine words to generate sentences. 7- Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments like p, n, or a, which can all be defined by a finite set of sound properties of features. Every spoken language has a class of vowels and a class of consonants. Every spoken language depends on sounds and has a limited set of sounds. Each sound is classified according to properties and features that no other sounds have. P voiceless, bilabial, blocking the air passage then release. B vibration, bilabial, blocking the air passage then release. Every sound has it own peculiarity. No sound is impossible to produce; we can teach people to produce all sounds. Some of these sounds are produced with the use of certain points of articulations such as consonants whiles some others are produced with free air passage through the oral cavity such as vowels. Every language has a set of vowels and consonants. 8- Similar grammatical categories (for example, noun, verb) are found in all languages. All languages have parts of speech (subject verb). In each language, it has its own rules. 9- There are semantic universals, such as male or female, animate or human, found in every language in the world. All the languages have something in common such as these words cited above. All the languages have universals in what is related to the semantic (system of meaning). 10- Every language has a way of referring to past time, negating (opposing), forming questions, issuing commands, and so on. All languages as well as all people refer to past time to form questions of all types, but in specific or different ways they add some words and remove some others. 11- Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite set of sentences. Syntactic universals reveal that every language has a way of forming sentences such as:
Linguistics interested subject. I know that linguistics is an interested subject. You know that I know that linguistics is an interested subject. Cecilia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is an interested subject. It is a fact that Cecilia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is an interested subject.

Since human beings can produce an infinite number of sentences because of their creative ability, they are able to understand them. The forming of sentences is different from a language to another. Syntax universals can able humans to expand their sentences according to the rules of each sentence. 9

12- Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he or she is exposed. The differences we find among languages cannot be due to biological reasons. Each baby is storing sounds and words of a language to which he is exposed, then he stores the rules sub-consciously through examples and can create as many as he can. The fact of learning any language is not biological but it could be environmental. XI- Exercises: (P. 25) 1- Whenever humans exist, language exists. Formick for as in foreigner m as in ornament ick as in stick Slippard sl as in slice ip as an flip pard as in shepard

2- Distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. Grammatical Sentences b. Napoleon forced Josephine to go. c. The devil made Faust go. d. He passed by a large sum of money. e. He came by a large sum of money. j. It is easy to frighten Emily. k. It is eager to love a kitten. m. The fact that you are late to class is surprising Ungrammatical Sentences a. Robin forced the sheriff go. f. He came a large sum of money by. g. Did in a corner little Jack Horner sit? h. Elizabeth is resembled by Charles. i. Nancy is eager to please. l. That birds can fly amazes. n. Has the nurse slept the baby yet? o. I was surprised for you to get married. p. I wonder who and Mary went swimming. q. Myself bit John.

3- It was pointed out in this chapter that a small set of words in languages may be onomatopoeic; that is, their sounds imitate what they refer to: Ding-dong, tick-tock, bang, zing, swish and plop are such words in English. Construct a list of ten new words. Test them on at least five friends to see if they are truly nonarbitrary as to sound and meaning. 1) Trin 4) Plouf 7) Cratch 10) Woo 2) Tric - trac 5) Wisper 8) Pis-pis (perfume) 11) Shoup (soup) 3) Twit 6) Tom - tom 9) Hiss 12)

4- Although sounds and meanings of most words in all languages are arbitrarily related, there are some communication systems in which the signs unambiguously reveal their meaning. a) Describe (or draw) five different signs that directly show what they mean. Example: a road sign indicating an S curve.

Right

Up

Down
10

WC

School Bus Stop

b) Describe any other communication system that, like language, consists of arbitrary symbols. E.g.: traffic signals, where red means stop and green go.

PHARMACY

TRAFFIC LIGHT 4 pts

FIRE

DO NOT ENTER

5- Consider these two statements:

I learned a new word today. I learned a new sentence today.

Do you think the two statements are equally probable, and if not, why not? The two statements are not equally probable. In every language, there are a finite inventory number of sounds which we combine to form words in a specific way, so we can say that we learned a new word; but since human beings can produce an infinite number of sentences because of their creative ability, they are able to form new sentences with no need to learn them. 6- What do the barking of dogs, the meowing of cats and the singing of birds have in common with human language? What are some of the basic differences? Many speeches communicate through a specific system of communication. Humans also use systems other than their language to relate to each others and to send messages (body language, sign language, code, and facial expression). Both use the sound system. Some of the major differences between human and animals is that human language is not just a response to external or even internal emotional stimuli like the sounds and the gestures of animals. Humans possess a linguistic creative ability. The messages sent by animals are very limited in number or finite. The sound combination is not varied. 7- A wolf is able to express subtle gradations of emotion by different positions of the ears, the lips and the tail Suppose there were a thousand different emotions that the wolf could express in this way. Would you then say a wolf had a language similar to a humans? If not, why not? No matter how complex is the language of a wolf, it is still limited and much less complex than human language. It is true that it is more complex than other animals communication system, yet it is more like a stimulus response communication system. 8- Suppose you taught a dog to heel, sit up, beg, roll over, play dead, stay, jump and bark on command, using the italicized words as cues. Would you be teaching it language? Why or why not? No, we cannot teach a dog language but we are conditioning the dog to certain stimuli to respond in some way that this reflex becomes conditional. To dogs, these words are not a language, but a combination of sounds only. 9- State some rule of grammar that you have learned is the correct way to say something, but that you do not generally use in speaking. For example, you may have heard that its me is incorrect and that the correct form is its I. Nevertheless you always use me in such sentences, your friends do also; in fact, its I sounds old to you. 11

I dont have nothing (wrong for its double negation) I dont have anything. Can I go to the toilet? (Wrong) May I go to the toilet? I gonna go or Im gonna (wrong) I have got to go or I am going. Who (subject) and whom (object): it is more common to use who in both cases which is grammatically speaking wrong.

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