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Unraveling the Mysteries of Language

Explore the intricate properties of language acquisition, duality, arbitrariness, creativity, and hierarchy. Discover the fascinating structures and meanings within communication.

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Unraveling the Mysteries of Language

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  1. ENG2003 Introduction to Linguistics

  2. What is language? • Language = communication? • Is language a type of communication? • Is communication a type of language?

  3. Language must be composed of recognizable speech sounds? bird songs? sign languages?

  4. Properties of Language • Everyone acquires language • Double Articulation/Duality • Arbitrary • Creative • Hierarchical • Displacement • Meaningful silence • Recursion

  5. Some key concepts and properties of language (1) All non-pathogenic (i.e., normal) human beings acquire language upon exposure to a speech community. Despite the best efforts by some parents to “teach” language to their children, children acquire language at their own rate, whether their parents try to teach it to them or not. Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy. Adult: You mean, you want the other spoon. Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy. Adult: Can you say, “the other spoon”? Child: Other…one…spoon. Adult: Say, “other”. Child: other Adult: “spoon” Child: spoon Adult: “other…spoon” Child: other…spoon. Now give me other one spoon.

  6. Other forms of communication also seem to be universally acquired, however. No known instances of some bees performing waggle dances better than other bees. Lack of exposure to language: A child must be exposed to a speech community before the onset of puberty for language acquisition to take place. Genie: Child found at age 13 who had been completely sheltered from language. Her father would only make barking noises, and her mother and older brother were forbidden to speak to her at all. To this day, Genie cannot use language. She can only communicate in short sentences that lack the structure found in normal speech.

  7. (2) Double Articulation/Duality Language consists of units of sound and units of meaning. SOUND MEANING cat 고양이 /kæt/ /kojaŋi/ The units of sound do not bear any meaning. They can be re-arranged to form other units of meaning (words). /ækt/ act /tæk/ tack /tækt/ tact or tacked

  8. Are the units of “sound” and units of meaning divorced in other forms of communication? Hand gestures of traffic police? Bird songs? Dogs’ barks, howls and whines? (and tail movements, etc.)

  9. (3) Language is “arbitrary” This is related to Martinet’s concept of “double articulation” where the signifier (the word in a language used to refer to a concept) and the signified (the concept in question) are related by an arbitrary sequence of sounds. There is no intrinsic property of a cat that leads us to necessarily call it a “cat” SOUND MEANING die Katze el gato cat le chat

  10. Sound Symbolism/Iconicity Some aspects of language do seem relate sound and meaning. Onomatopoeic words: buzz, splash, meow, 쉿, 두근두근, 땡땡땡, etc. Turkish: şıp – plop şak – clap, crack Hewbrew: yimyum – meow Basque: kukurruku – cock-a-doodle-doo Arbitrariness in animal communication? Bee’s waggle dance – which aspects are iconic and which are arbitrary?

  11. (4) Language is creative You can understand or create any novel sentence. It is highly unlikely that any of you has heard the following sentence before: Last night several pink elephants flew in through my bedroom window and poured champagne into a hollowed out grapefruit. Nevertheless, you understand exactly what it means. Creativity is also found below the level of the word. Yesterday, John found a wug in the forest. You may not know what a wug is (since it’s made up), but once you do, you will automatically understand the following sentences. Yesterday, John found several wugs in the forest. This creature is rather wuggish. Mary evaluated the degree of wuggishness of this creature.

  12. (5) Language is hierarchical A language does not consist of a linear sequence of words – it has internal structure. Johnis happy. The man over thereis happy. The girl I gave $10 to is happy. IsJohn happy? Isthe man over there happy? Isthe girl I gave $10 to happy? The subject of these sentences (underlined) can be simple or complex – in either case, we move the auxiliary (boldface) over it to make a yes/no question. There is no language in the world that has a rule such as “move the auxiliary two words to the left”.

  13. (5) Language is hierarchical A language does not consist of a linear sequence of words – it has internal structure. 철수가 내 사과를 먹었다. Chelswu-ka nay sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta Chelswu-NOM my apple-ACC eat-PST-DECL ‘Chelswu ate my apple.’ 내 사과를 철수가 먹었다. nay sakwa-lul Chelswu-ka mek-ess-ta my apple-ACC Chelswu-NOM eat-PST-DECL ‘Chelswu ate my apple.’ Move the object one word to the left?

  14. (5) Language is hierarchical A language does not consist of a linear sequence of words – it has internal structure. 이 학생이 내 사과를 먹었다. i haksayng-i nay sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta this student-NOM my apple-ACC eat-PST-DECL ‘This student ate my apple.’ 내 사과를 이 학생이 먹었다. nay sakwa-lul i haksayng-i mek-ess-ta my apple-ACC this student-NOM eat-PST-DECL ‘This student ate my apple.’ *이 내사과를 학생이 먹었다. *i nay sakwa-lul haksayng-i mek-ess-ta this my apple-ACC student-NOM eat-PST-DECL (‘This student ate my apple.’)

  15. (5) Language is hierarchical A language does not consist of a linear sequence of words – it has internal structure. 이 학생이 내 사과를 먹었다. i haksayng-i nay sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta 내 사과를 이 학생이 먹었다. nay sakwa-lul i haksayng-i mek-ess-ta *이 내사과를 학생이 먹었다. *i nay sakwa-lul haksayng-i mek-ess-ta Move the object to the left of the subject – a hierarchical unit. No rule such as ‘move a phrase one word to the left.’

  16. Thus, languages do not make reference to the linear sequence of words, but the hierarchical structures in the language. Consider the following sentence: The girl who is playing is named Rosie. How do we make a yes/no question out of this? the girl who is is playing is named Rosie? = Rosie Move the auxiliary that appears after the subject. Move the first auxiliary? Move the second auxiliary? is named Rosie? the boy is saying that the girl is

  17. (6) Language exhibits displacement We can talk about events in the past or future, or possible events, or counterfactual events. Last week, John and Mary went to the opera together. They thought the tenor was amazing. Next week, they will attend the opening of Carmen. It might rain tomorrow. 눈이 올둥말둥 하네요. (It may or may not snow.) If John hadn’t hurt his leg last week, he could have run in yesterday’s race. Displacement refers to away from the here and now (in terms of time, space and truth). We can talk about things that aren’t here, that don’t happen now or aren’t true. This distinguishes human language from animal communication. Bees cannot communicate possible sources of nectar or discuss last week’s source of nectar. But they can discuss sources of nectar that aren’t present. Dogs cannot communicate their intended actions if a burglar were in the house. They can only do so if a burglar is actually in the house at the time.

  18. Blackfoot – Algonquian language spoken in Montana and southern Alberta. Determiner system encodes (among other things) present vs. absent Annáhka John áako’toowa that.invisible John will.arrive ‘John will arrive.’ Determiner encodes that John is not visible (not here). Anná John ihpomma that John buy ‘John bought something.’ (John must be present)

  19. (7) Meaningful Silence Some linguistic concepts are not paired up with a sound correspondence. John washed the glasses. John washed the glass. John washed some glass. John is a glass-washer. /-es/ - plural marker  means “more than one” refers to one glass refers to a quantity of the material glass can refer to either one glass, more than one glass, or the material glass Lack of an overt marker does not imply absence of concept denoted by that marker. Other forms of communication are not known to make use of meaningful silence.

  20. (7) Meaningful Silence Some linguistic concepts are not paired up with a sound correspondence. 먹었어요 – obligatory past tense reading mek-ess-e-yo eat-PST-INFORMAL-POLITE ‘ate’ 먹어요 – absence of tense marking does not indicate lack of tense… must be interpreted as present mek-e-yo eat-INFORMAL-POLITE ‘eats’

  21. (8) Recursion Recursion in language refers to the ability to embed smaller structures in larger structures repeatedly. John’s hat John’s brother’s hat John’s brother’s baby’s hat This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. etc.

  22. Recursion A sentence is typically composed of a subject and a predicate: subject predicate John Mary ate the apple. left the room. S – sentence NP – noun phrase VP – verb phrase S NP VP John ate the apple S  NP VP

  23. Recursion VP often consists of a verb and a direct object (another NP) report a crime, a robbery, a story, a piece of gossip NP S VP  V NP report that John left work early, that the knives were missing, that a fire broke out, that it might rain later on Now we can see how recursion comes about: S NP VP and VP V S The ‘S’ inside the VP itself contains an NP and VP

  24. Recursion Now we can see how recursion comes about: S NP VP and VP V S The ‘S’ inside the VP itself contains an NP and VP John reported a crime. John reported that Mary witnessed a crime. John reported that Mary heard that Susan witnessed a crime. John reported that Mary heard that Susan told Bill that Alice thinks that… John’s sister John’s sister’s friend John’s sister’s friend’s brother John’s sister’s friend’s brother’s piano teacher …

  25. Recursion Limits on recursion: Recursive structures do not go on forever People need to breathe, eat and sleep, etc. Listener may get bored or confused and walk away if speaker keeps going on… Once upon a while back there was an ambitious contortionist who made up his mind he would try to conquer the twenty-seventh highest dead volcano on Neptune, with his tongue secretly hiding behind his overweight postman’s Swedish Hi-Fi set and the shoelaces of his Persian Ugh boots stubbornly caught on the corner of the round Toongabbie equestrian sports complex, while he would try to breed miniature brown cicadas inside a quickly rotating water-heater with seven silk pillowcases hanging from his uneducated vacuum cleaner which would be chained around his navel, and ask if his second grand-stepfather has heard of any orange-flavoured Portuguese atomic submarines in the neighbourhood lately that have precisely half of their crews attempting to break the 1958 record for mass voluntary electrocution whilst being sponsored by the dangerous chrysanthemum division of Interflora, who have recently gone bankrupt due to the discovery of an overcrowding of rebellious screwdrivers in the Martian stratosphere last week, when salamanders controlled nine hours forty-seven minutes of the 1978 Pakistani croquet final between the lower Philadelphia fishmonger recruiting officer and Karl Marx’s younger brother Harpo, who has not seen his bedroom since the Mexican figure-skating champion booked fourteen tomatoes for exceeding the post-war speed limit and lost his balance whilst trying to hunt abominable snowmen at the Olympics with a soggy sultana hidden inside his chaperone’s nightshirt which, in 1947, when John Lennon first washed his face and socks in the same country, had its only steel-plated sleeve melted off by the self-appointed chairman of Doubtful Drainpipes Destruction Company under the New Moscow Harbour Bridge which is, at present, rusting severely, due to a heavy downpour of talcum powder over at Disneyland and also due to sixteen undernourished lizards going into a deep, meditating coma without asking their mothers, who were not about to stand for this caper and sat down immediately, squashing Winston Churchill’s scale model of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which…

  26. Recursion Are the limits on recursion a property of language itself? Or are the limits on recursion merely a by-product of external factors (such as the need for clarity and conciseness)? Pragmatic limits on recursion? Is pragmatics part of the language faculty? Shampoo directions: 1. lather 2. rinse 3. repeat Or is this just common sense?

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