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A very, very brief introduction to linguistics

A very, very brief introduction to linguistics. What is linguistics?. The study of language in all its manifestations Usually focuses on spoken language CL often depends on written language

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A very, very brief introduction to linguistics

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  1. A very, very briefintroduction to linguistics Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  2. What is linguistics? • The study of language in all its manifestations • Usually focuses on spoken language • CL often depends on written language • Borders on computer science, psychology, medicine, sociology, law, history, mathematics, philosophy, gender studies, physics, politics… • Has many fields covering very diverse areas Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  3. Phonetics • Phonetics studies the sounds used in spoken language • What are their physical properties? • How are they produced? • How are they perceived? • Phonetic problems: • How to classify and describe sounds? • What are the differences between English, German, French and Russian “r” sounds? • What position does the tongue take when we produce “th”? • How and why can you feel the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants? • CL: How to teach a computer to distinguish between sounds? Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  4. Phonology • Phonology studies the role sound plays in speech • Abstracts away from purely acoustic properties • Looks at what distinct sounds (phonemes) there are in a language • Minimal pairs: words differing in a single sound • Free variation: sounds that can be pronounced differently without a change in meaning • Allophones: sounds that are pronounced differently in different contexts • Looks at stress, tone, intonation… • Phonologic problems: • Why are homophones (weak-week, son-sun)? • What are the rules behind pronounciation? • CL: How do we tell the computer where to stress words? Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  5. Morphology • Morphology studies the structure of words • What is a word? • Minimal sound-meaning unit: morpheme • Bound morphemes: prefixes, suffixes, inflections… • Free morphemes: “words” • Derivational morphology • Construction of words from roots and affixes • inter+national  international • International + ize  internationalize • Internationalize + ation  internationalization • Inflectional morphology • bottle  bottles Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  6. Morphology • Morphological problems: • Ambiguity • What does „scarcity“ mean? • What can we find out about an unknown word? • unadd • embiggens • cromulent • What are the rules for noun plural or 3rd person singular verbs? • CL: How to teach the computer to analyze words? Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  7. Syntax • Syntax studies the structure of sentences • How can we put words together to get sentences? • Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. (N. Chomsky) • How do we understand the meaning of a sentence given the meanings of its words? • What syntactic theory is right? Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  8. Syntax • Syntactic problems: • Ambiguity • The woman saw the man with the binoculars • I made her duck • Control • I asked her to call Marta. • I promised her to call Marta. • Coordination • John and Alex and Chris and Alice are married. • “Garden paths” • The prime number few. • The horse raced past the barn fell. • The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi. Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  9. Semantics • Semantics studies the meaning of utterances • What meanings do words have? • How does meaning change in different contexts? • May be a question for progmatics… • Semantic problems: • Word sense ambiguity • Round, bank, on… • Scope ambiguity • Every man loves a woman • Co-reference and anaphora • Jim hit John, and after that he ran away. • The two men met. After he hit him, John ran away. • John loves his wife, and so does Jim. Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

  10. Pragmatics • Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said. • What do we imply by an utterance? • “John regrets that he voted for Clinton”. • “How old are you?” – “Closer to 30 than to 20.” • When is an utterance true or false? • “The current king of France is bald”. • What do we intend by an utterance? • “Could you pass me the salt?” • “It’s quite cold here, isn’t it?” • CL: Is not really capable of having pragmatics problems yet Computational Linguistics, NLL Riga 2008, by Pawel Sirotkin

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