Useful terms in phonetics and phonology:
phone - a sound, not necessarily meaningful; the number of them used in any given language is variable
phonetics: both acoustic (sound quality of speech) and articulatory phonetics (production of speech)
phoneme - the smallest, basic unit of sound structure that signals differences in meaning between words (a category of sounds heard as the same); not the same as a letter in writing
phonemic inventory - lowest about 14 (Austronesian); highest over 70 (Caucasus languages)
minimal word pairs - differ by one distinctive phonetic feature (this is how we find the phonemes of a language)
distinctive feature - smallest phonetic feature; e.g., voicing is a distinctive feature in English (/p/ versus /b/), but not in some Athabaskan (Dene) languages
phonology - study of the sound system of a language
phonological rules - tell a speaker how to pronounce words, and what is a possible word in the language (i.e., what order of sounds is okay)
Sound classification -
1. Stops (blocked air) - consonants
2. Constricted sounds - liquids, affricates, fricatives - also classified as consonants
3. Open sounds - vowels
Consonants characterized by
a. place or point of articulation
b. mode of articulation
c. voicing
d. aspiration
e. glottalization
f. others
Vowels defined by various dimensions, including
a. height (high/low)
b. front/back
c. nasality
d. roundedness
e. length
f. others
Morphology
morpheme - unit of meaning; not the same as a word, which can consist of several morphemes
lexical items - dictionary entries - also carry meaning
language types and processes:
1) agglutinative - combining (e.g., Luo, Quechua, Turkish ... ); ex. English affixation
2) synthetic - inflecting (e.g., Greek, German ...); e.g., English pronoun case
3) isolating - no suffixation, inflection, grammatical change of phonological shape (e.g., Chinese, Mande ... ); e.g., English prepositions
grammatical categories or form classes (parts of speech):
N - noun (substantive), includes terms for things, proper names, etc.: "cat" "John" "justice"
Pro - pronoun acting as a noun (subject, object): "you, him"; demonstratives such as 'this' also replace nouns: "This is my book."
Adj - modifier of nouns, including possessive pronoun: "fat dog", "my dog"
Art - article 'a, an the' acts as a modifier of nouns
V - verb, words for acting/doing/being in any tense; then add tense and other grammatical information in Auxiliary or with Verb
Adv - modifier of verbs: "eat slowly"; can be head constituent of an adverbial phrase: "after we went to the fair"
Prep - preposition such as 'to, behind, in ... ', introduces prepositional phrase whose object is a noun phrase NP
Conj - conjunctions such as and, but ... coordinate clauses (including sentences) and phrases within clauses
AFFIXES - include prefixes, suffixes, infixes
in English, about 75 prefixes; also large number of suffixes; exs.:
1. noun plural /s/
2. noun possessive /'s/
3. 3P sing. present tense /s/
4) Vb past tense /ed/
5) Vb present participle /ing/ used to form the progressive
6) Vb past participle /en/
7) comparative /er/
8) superlative /est/
9) adverbial /ly/
Syntax - study of sentences
See sentences from class for examples.
syntactic structure: linear order (string) of words
- phrase structure (idea of sub-groups of words in a sentence)
- rules for combining words (parts of speech); morphological categorization
- relationships between 'different' sentences (active/passive, etc.)
The different types of structural information can be encoded into a tree diagram or phrase marker (structure).
Noam Chomsky developed the concepts of deep (structure underlying the relationship among units of the sentence) and surface (arrangement of units in uttered sentence) structure in his theory of transformational generative grammar. Transformation involves rules that may alter the order or combination of morphemes in the deep structure. Ambiguity and the possibility of saying things differently tell us of the 'existence' of deep structure in utterances.
All languages have S -- NP & VP
NP -- (art) (adj) N
VP -- tense V & (NP)
These rewrite rules break down each phrase into its constituent structure.
Sentence types:
active affirmative declarative "He wants tuna for lunch."
passive negative declarative "Tuna isn't wanted by him for lunch."
interrogative "Does he want tuna for lunch?"
imperative "Have tuna for lunch!"
tag question "He wants tuna for lunch, doesn't he?"
Design Features of Language
1. vocal-auditory channel
2. broadcast transmission and directional reception
3. rapid fading
4. internchangeability
5. total feedback
6. specialization
7. semanticity
8. arbitrariness
9. discreteness
10. displacement
11. productivity
12. traditional transmission
13. duality of patterning
Others? prevarication, categorization, negation, spontaneity, ambiguity, grammar itself
Such chimps as Kanzi and Washoe challenge our idea that language is uniquely human.
In order to establish whether chimpanzees are capable of understanding human language we first must define what human language is. The noted linguist Noam Chomsky offers perhaps the best comprehensive definition of human language. First, he says that human language has structural principles such as grammar or a system of rules and principles that specifies the properties of its expression. Second, human language has various physical mechanisms of which little is known but it does seem clear that "laterization plays a crucial role and that there are special language centers, perhaps linked to the auditory and vocal systems"(Chomsky, 1980). The third quality of human language is its manner of use. Human language is used for expression of thought, for establishing social relationships, for communication of information and for clarifying ideas. Another characteristic of human language is that it has phylogenetic development in the sense that language evolved after humans had separated from the other primates. Therefore language must have had a selective advantage and must coincide with the proliferation of the human species. Finally, human language has been integrated into a system of a cognitive structure(Chomsky,1980).
Speech Act Theory (Austin, Searle)
Utterance acts (make sound)
Illocutionary acts (promising, reporting, asking ...)
Perlocutionary acts (intimidating, persuading, deceiving ...)
Propositional or locutionary acts (referring, predicating ...)
Performatives are speech acts that accomplish social business in and of themselves, such as christening.
Speech acts can be literal or non-literal, direct or non-direct, as well.
1. I'm hungry (as a report). - direct, literal
2. Go to hell (as an expression of feeling). - direct, non-literal
3. I pronounce you husband and wife. - performative
4. I'm hungry, mom (as a request). - indirect, literal
5. That was a great idea to park in the handicapped place (sarcastic). - indirect, non-literal
Hymes' Mnemonic: Components of a Speech Event
S - situation
P - participants
E - ends
A - act sequence
K - key
I - instrumentalities
N - norms
G - genre
ethnography of speaking - description of speech community begins with social structural and social interactional characteristics
- inventory of language(s), dialect(s), styles, any other variations (e.g., professional jargon, underworld argot), nonverbal communication
- purposes and functions of communication in this society
- symbolic activity and social ritual
- rules for use, as well as structure; relation of these rules and structures to social groups