1. Langston Psycholinguistics Lecture 2
What is language?

2. What is language?
We can define it by its properties. This list is pretty common (Hockett, 1966):
1. Rapid Fading:
2. Interchangeability:
3. Feedback:
4. Semanticity:
5. Arbitrariness:
6. Discreteness:
7. Displacement:

3. What is language?
We can define it by its properties. This list is pretty common (Hockett, 1966):
8. Productivity:
9. Cultural transmission:
10. Duality (of Patterning):
11. Prevarication:
12. Reflexiveness:
13. Learnability:

4. What is language? More information:
Here they are with pictures (?!):

6. What is language?
Note that it is kind of arbitrary to rule out animal communication systems on the basis of this list since it was developed to distinguish between human language and animal communication.

7. What is language?
Another thing about this list is that if you look around you see people claiming that certain features are “the” ones that matter, but they tend to have different lists.

8. What is language?
We are going to consider language as rule-described (contrasted to rule-governed). We'd like to see in the descriptions:
Grammar:
A set of elements
Rules for combining those elements

9. What is language? A “good” grammar: Simpler is better.
Should conform to users' intuitions about language:
John kicked the ball.
The ball was kicked by John.
Rules should apply to many languages.

10. What is language? We can think of grammars for: Phonology. Morphology.
Syntax.
Semantics.
Pragmatics.

11. Grammar Fallacies 1. Only some languages have a grammar.
The ball kicked the boy.
The boy kicked the ball.

12. Grammar Fallacies 1. Only some languages have a grammar.
Warlpiri (Pinker, 2000, p.232):
This man speared a kangaroo.
Man this kangaroo speared.
Man kangaroo speared this.
Man speared kangaroo this…

13. Grammar Fallacies 2. Some grammars are primitive.
French versus English:
Le livre, les livres
The book, the books

14. Grammar Fallacies
3. People must be taught the grammatical rules of language.
We've addressed this one.

15. Grammar Fallacies 4. Grammatical rules are logical.
I don't have nothing.
Yo no tengo nada.
Tree trees
Book books
Sheep sheeps

16. Grammar Fallacies 5. Grammars deteriorate with the passage of time.
We've discussed this, it's more a matter of evolution than deterioration, and these concerns are not about the fundamentals but the paint.

17. Grammar Fallacies 6. Grammars differ in unpredictable ways.
Not Pat is here.
Pat not is here.
Pat is not here.
Pat is here not.
a and d are very rare.

18. Grammar Fallacies 6. Grammars differ in unpredictable ways.
Dogs like bones (SVO).
Dogs bones like (SOV).
Like dogs bones (VSO).
Like bones dogs (VOS).
Bones like dogs (OVS).
Bones dogs like (OSV).
Most a-c, some d and e, none use f for dominant form.

19. The End