Introductory general linguistics INTRODUCTORY GENERAL LINGUISTICS COURSE AIM INSTRUCTOR EVALUATION EVALUATION. Linguistics 288b Winter 2006

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1 INTRODUCTORY GENERAL LINGUISTICS Winter 2006 Introductory general linguistics Description: after introducing the basic tools for analyzing language (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), this course illustrates common linguistic phenomena in each of these areas. Students also apply their analytic skills to data from a variety of languages. Prerequisite: at least one first year course Antirequisite: Anthropology 027a/b; the old French 288b 2 INSTRUCTOR ILEANA PAUL ileana@uwo.ca Phone: (519) x85360 Office: UC 136b Course website: Office hours: TBA COURSE AIM This course is an introduction to linguistic theory and analysis. Topics covered include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The goal is to familiarize you with current tools of linguistic analysis. You will be required to show understanding of these tools by applying them to language data. The main type of evaluation, therefore, will be problem solving either through homework assignments or in class tests. 3 4 EVALUATION EVALUATION 10 Homework Sets 2 Problem Sets 2 Assignments Mid-term exam Final 10% 20% 10% 20% 20% 30% Notes: Students do not have the option of doing additional work to bring up their grade. I will attempt to answer all messages promptly, but cannot guarantee a response within 24 hours. TOTAL 100% 5 6 1

2 ASSIGNMENTS Problem sets and assignments may be done in groups. Each student must write up his/her assignment individually (i.e. each student should pass in a separate assignment), and put at the top of the page the list of students who were in the same working group. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. PLAGIARISM Collaboration is normal in linguistics as in other sciences; plagiarism is a serious academic offense at UWO and elsewhere, sanctionable by consequences up to and including expulsion. Please see the detailed information in the UWO Calendar as well as for more information on this subject. 7 8 ASSIGNMENTS All assignments must be passed in at the beginning of class. Assignments will not be accepted after this unless you have a medical excuse and I have been notified within 24 hours of when the assignment was due. Messages may be left at x85360 at all times. I recommend that you keep a copy of your finished assignment in case the assignment is lost. EXAMS NO make-up examinations will be given to anyone who does not have a certified medical excuse. These will all be verified by phoning the doctor. I must be notified within 24 hours of a missed test EXAMS Any issue about grading or missing assignments/tests must be addressed within a week of the scheduled return of the assignment/ test. NO answer to any graded assignment or examination question will be re-assessed unless the answer is written in ink and it has not been written over. HOMEWORK You will be assigned homework each week. One question will be handed in for grading and the others will be discussed in class

3 COURSE MATERIAL TEXTBOOK (Available at the Bookstore) O Grady, William and John Archibald. Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An introduction (Fifth edition). Pearson Longman. COURSE MATERIAL WEBSITE I will post lecture notes and other information on the website. You are responsible for all the information on the website. You must print out the lecture notes and bring them to class. If you have any problems with the website, please contact me as soon as possible LINGUISTICS LET S GET STARTED THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE TODAY S CLASS What is linguistics? What linguists do. What linguists do not do. You do not have to know the examples you will see today; they are intended to show you how linguistics works; details will follow later in the course. WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? Scientific study of language Language plays an important role in communication, conveying thoughts, emotions, etc., differentiating social groups, defining national identity; etc., and can be studied from these perspectives The perspective we will take in this course is on language as a system regulated by rules a grammar

4 WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? Basic question: What do we know when we know a language? WHAT LINGUISTS DO Linguistic analysis Goal: discover the rules governing the properties of language (phonological, syntactic, semantic, etc., rules) Goal of this course: Introduce you to the methods of investigating language scientifically Introduce you to general facts of the structure of human language LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS Linguistic analysis involves the following steps: I. Formulation of generalizations II. Formulation of hypotheses III. Testing and revising the hypotheses IV. Formulation of rules V. Explanation of the generalizations GENERALIZATIONS Generalizations are based on linguistic data Generalizations: proposals about the nature of the laws or rules governing the properties of language Generalizations form the basis for the formulation of hypotheses EXAMPLE You do not have to know the following examples, they are intended to show you how linguistic analysis works A: John found a mouse in the basement yesterday B:??? found a mouse in the basement yesterday Who found a mouse in the basement yesterday? B: John found??? in the basement yesterday What did John find in the basement yesterday? B: John found a mouse in??? yesterday Where did John find a mouse yesterday? B: John found a mouse in the basement??? When did John find a mouse in the basement? GENERALIZATION HYPOTHESIS Who found a mouse yesterday? What did John find yesterday? Where did John find a mouse? When did John find a mouse? Generalization: In the previous examples, the word on which the question bears is replaced by a question word a wh-word and the wh-word is put it at the beginning of the sentence Hypothesis A: To form a question in English, replace the word on which the question bears by a wh-word and put it at the beginning of the sentence

5 TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS Hypothesis A: To form a question in English, replace the word on which the question bears by a wh-word and put it at the beginning of the sentence. Prediction: When two words are questioned (simultaneously), both should be replaced by wh-words and put at the beginning of the sentence EXAMPLE A: I don t know what I should get John for his birthday. Mary bought him a book, John bought him a CD, Bill bought him a sweater, Nancy bought him a plant, Are you listening? B: Of course. I have heard every word. A: Hmm, so tell me: Who bought what? B: [trouble ] REVISING THE HYPOTHESIS??? bought??? Who bought what? Not: Who what bought? Words on which the question bears are replaced by wh-words, but only one of them can be at the beginning of the sentence Hypothesis B: To form a question in English, replace the word or words on which the question bears by wh-words and put one of them at the beginning of the sentence. 27 WHAT LINGUISTS DON T DO 28 A linguist speaks many languages Linguistics is the study of language in general, not the knowledge of specific languages Language is an abstract system regulated by rules; linguists are interested in the system per se LINGUISTS & LANGUAGES I am a linguist. I only speak French and English. I do not speak Japanese I do not know how to say e.g., The student went to the store in Japanese, since I do not know what the expressions student, store, went, to correspond to in Japanese. I do know, however, that the corresponding Japanese sentence would be said in one of the following orders: student store to went store to student went but not: student went to store student went store to WHAT LINGUISTS DON T DO A linguist knows how to speak properly A preposition is not a good word to end a sentence with It is a good idea to not split infinitives I didn t do nothing Prescriptive rules Linguistic rules are descriptive: Linguists is interested in the language system as it is, not in language as it should be We are biologically endowed to create a perfect language system; every speaker s language is proper

6 DESCRIPTIVE RULES Rules are generalizations about what utterances are possible (grammatical, well-formed) or impossible (ungrammatical) utterances in a speaker s grammar Possible: It is raining Impossible: It raining is Possible: John is working Impossible: John working is It is snowing It snowing is John has left John left has It was snowing It snowing was Rule: An auxiliary verb (e.g., is, has, was) precedes a main verb (e.g., eat, work) in English. LANGUAGE IS CREATIVE Our ability to speak a language (=our implicit knowledge of the rules governing language) allows us to form and understand an infinite number of utterances Mary suspects that I know that John thinks that it is raining Infinity of language THOUGHT QUESTION In the course of language acquisition, children hear only a finite number of utterances and do not receive explicit instructions. How can they develop the ability to classify an infinite number of sentences as grammatical or ungrammatical? How can they grow up to give consistent interpretations to novel sentence constructions that they have never before encountered? INNATE KNOWLEDGE Chomsky s hypothesis of an Innate Language Faculty of the human mind There is a separate component of the mind which is responsible solely for language i.e., it has rules that are not found in other components of the mind/brain Children acquire language without explicit instructions due to the innate Language Faculty INTUITIONS Native knowledge of a language: language acquired as a child Native knowledge allows speakers to determine whether sentences they might have never heard or said before are possible or impossible utterances of their language (syntactic knowledge) whether sentences they might have never heard or said before are true or false in certain contexts (semantic knowledge) EXAMPLE 1 John promised his mother to behave himself John convinced his mother to behave herself * John promised his mother to behave herself * John convinced his mother to behave himself English speakers know when to use himself or herself without ever having been told the rules

7 EXAMPLE 2 It is raining FALSE It is sunny TRUE Example 3 Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll Twas brillig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe. What parts of speech are these nonsense words? How do you know? THOUGHT QUESTION 39 If language is a biological property and there is an innate Language Faculty, why do languages differ? FORM AND MEANING dog chien Hund 40 dog The expression dog refers to an animate entity The dog is happy Le chien est heureux #The rock is happy #La roche est heureuse Saussure: Arbitrariness of the sign The actual words of a language are not part of the innate knowledge but have to be learned COMMONALITIES dog, Hund, chien are nouns: they occur after articles, demonstrative pronouns, numerals, quantifiers they can be modified by adjectives they can be part of the subject or object the dog le chien this dog ce chien the nice dog le chien gentil three dogs trois chiens each dog chaque chien The dog likes John Le chien aime Jean John likes the dog Jean aime le chien 41 7