1. TOPIC 2: Some Basic Concepts
LIN 1310
TOPIC 2: Some Basic Concepts

2. Some Basic Concepts-Part 1
LIN 1310
Some Basic Concepts-Part 1

3. linguist
polyglot
multilingual

4. Linguistic Approach
Descriptivist
NOT prescriptivist

5. Origins of prescriptive rules
Overt prestige
Upward mobility
Overt versus covert prestige
Flight of the elite

6. WRITTEN VS SPOKEN LANGUAGE
Written language:
Tends to be more resistant to change
Supports prescriptivists’ arguments against language change
Prescriptivists often cite written forms in support of their pronouncements

7. WRITTEN VS SPOKEN LANGUAGE
Prescriptivists view written language as the basis for spoken language
Example – persistent archaisms in written English include few contractions, preserved subjunctives and “whom” ‘If I were King’ ‘Whom shall I say was calling’

8. WRITTEN VS SPOKEN LANGUAGE
1) The basis for written language
2) Children learn to speak first
3) Very few children fail at speaking
4)Many languages have never been written
5) Oral culture pre-dates the written tradition
6) Usually the object of descriptive linguistics

9. IMPORTANCE OF STANDARD LANGUAGE
The standard is generally the most widely accepted and broadly understood form of a language
In some cases, it is officially sanctioned by a government
The standard is most often used for second language teaching

10. SYNCHRONY VS DIACHRONY
Synchronic approach to language:
Study of a language at a single point in time
Usually, but not necessarily, the present
Most linguists today focus on language as it is spoken at one point in time

11. SYNCHRONY VS DIACHRONY
Diachronic approach to language:
Historical Linguistics
Study of the process of language change
Comparison of a language at 2 or more points in time
Compare related languages and look at how they diverge from earlier form
Reconstruct earlier or proto forms

12. GRAMMAR Describing a language in a systematic way
A grammar includes: Sounds – phonetics and phonology Words – morphology Sentences – syntax Meaning – semantics

13. GRAMMAR
Linguistic description is based on empirical data – what people really say
Informants or Consultants are native speakers of a language who provide this empirical data
Sometimes people violate grammatical rules that they unconsciously acquired as a child –they make mistakes
These mistakes are not systematic, they are usually noticeable and are like short circuits

14. GRAMMAR Slips of the tongue ‘Getting your mords wixed’
Examples of these mistakes
Slips of the tongue ‘Getting your mords wixed’
Stuttering or False Starts ‘Let’s…let’s go shopping’ ‘I went…I saw the birds’
Freudian slip – substituting a word you didn’t mean to say

15. GRAMMAR
Linguistic Competence • people’s sub- or unconsciously-acquired knowledge of the grammar • allows one to produce and understand a theoretically infinite number of grammatical utterances
Linguistic Performance • may contain errors that do not reflect competence
• not always an accurate representation of the competence that underlies it

16. GRAMMAR
INTUITION
Since linguistic performance may contain errors, some linguists use their own intuition to avoid this issue

17. Example of problems with linguistic intuition Garden Path Sentences
The horse ran past the barn fell.

18. The horse ran past the barn fell.
The horse (that/which) ran past the barn fell

19. METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
Difference between competence and metalinguistic knowledge of a language
Competence: speaker’s unconsciously acquired knowledge of the grammar of a language
Metalinguistic awareness/knowledge: conscious knowledge about one’s own unconscious competence

20. METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
Linguists possess more metalinguistic awareness than the average person
Children’s metalinguistic awareness increases as they mature
One does not need to have metalinguistic awareness to have competence

21. GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS
Competence allows people to judge what is grammatical in a language and what is not
Grammaticality judgments are independent of metalinguistic knowledge
Speakers can only make accurate grammaticality judgments for utterances from their native dialects

22. GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS
EXAMPLES
*Cat chasing dog up tree the is the the.
The dog is chasing the cat up the tree.
*He wash the dishes last night.
He washed the dishes last night.
*I have three record.
I have three records.
? He ain’t got no money.
For some dialects: He doesn’t have any money.

23. Examples from page 9 of O&A
(16) a. Mary ate a cookie, and the Johnnie ate a cookie too.
b. Mary ate a cookie, and she ate some cake too.
(17) *Mary at a cookie, and then Johnnie ate some cake too.
(18) Mary ate a cookie, and then Johnnie had a snack too.

24. GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENTS
It needs washed.
Grammatical or ungrammatical?
Grammatical in Pennsylvania dialects
Ungrammatical for most of us
It needs to be washed or
It needs washing

25. LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS
Common principles of organization in the human brain
Underlie the structure of all human languages

26. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR The sum total of all language universals
All languages have structures from among those permitted by UG
One goal of linguistic theory is to learn about language universals
Another goal is to identify all the properties of UG
To accomplish these goals, we use the same descriptive tools to describe all languages

27. ARGUMENTS FOR LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS
Any child can learn any language
First language acquisition is similar across languages
Children acquire language despite relative cognitive immaturity
Points 1, 2, & 3 suggest limits on language structure related to neural pre-wiring

28. BASIC TENETS OF THEORY All languages are rule governed
All languages have a grammar, even so-called non standard ones
A grammar cannot be a list of all possible words and sentences
A grammar is capable of infinite output from an organism that has finite storage capacity