Prescriptivism and Knowledge of Language

1. Prescriptivism and Knowledge of Language September 21, 2012

2. Current Work with Bonobos • After Nim Chimpsky, funding for primate language studies mostly dried up. • …although a few experiments went on. • One project involves bonobos, a sub-species of chimpanzees. • Bonobos Sherman and Austin have also been trained to use lexigrams. • Kanzi learned just by watching Sherman and Austin’s training! • But the Bonobo project is now in trouble—check out: • http://news.iowapublicradio.org/post/bonobo-hope-great-ape-trust-sanctuary

3. Mission Objectives • Wrap up Prescriptivism ~ Descriptivism • Try to figure out how language can be creative. • The previous problems with prescriptivism: • Confusion about application of prescriptive rules • (they’re not natural) • Hypercorrection • Standards can shift over time • Prescriptive rules form a poor understanding of natural language.

4. Problem #3: Missing Patterns • Prescriptivist rules do a poor job of accounting for many of the patterns we find in natural language. • Here’s one prescriptive rule which misses a consistent pattern: • “Incorrect”: I feel bad (about the accident). • “Correct”: I feel badly (about the accident). • Why? The verb “feel” should be modified by an adverb (“badly”), not an adjective (“bad”). • But is bad/badly modifying the verb or the subject of the sentence?

5. Linking Verbs • How about these examples? • Bob is happy. (*Bob is happily.) • Susie looks hot. (*Susie looks hotly.) • The water seems fine. (*The water seems finely.) • I feel sleepy. (*I feel sleepily.) • James Brown feels good. (*James Brown feels well.) • The verbs in these sentences are known as linking verbs. • They connect the subject to some property describing the subject. • (They do not modify the verb itself.)

6. Different Standards • Rules for a standard form of a language… • Normally describe the variety of language used by the group in power. • Other forms of the language are non-standard. • And are often identified with social, regional or ethnic groups. • Linguists have discovered that all forms of language (standard or not) are rule-based and orderly. •  Non-standard forms of the language are not simply mistake-ridden versions of the standard form. •  There is no linguistic reason to consider one variety of language superior to another.

7. Quick Write:Appalachian English • Appalachian English is a variety of English traditionally spoken in the Appalachian mountains. • Developed (and maintained) unique features due to isolation from outside communities. • One interesting feature: • a-prefixing…

8. “a” prefixing, part 1 a. The man likes sailing. b. The man went sailing. Correct answer: (b) (83-5) a. William thinks fishing is silly. b. William goes fishing every Sunday. Correct answer: (b) (82-6) Rule: [a-] form cannot be a noun.

9. “a” prefixing, part 2 a. The woman was coming down the stairs. b. The movie was shocking. Correct answer: (a) (76-12) a. The movie was fascinating. b. The movie kept jumping up and down. Correct answer: (b) (68-18) Rule: [a-] form cannot be an adjective.

10. “a” prefixing, part 3 a. He makes money by building houses. b. He makes money building houses. Correct answer: (b) (71-16) a. Sally got sick cooking chicken. b. Sally got sick from cooking chicken. Correct answer: (a) (71-16) Rule: [a-] form cannot be preceded by a preposition.

11. “a” prefixing, part 4 a. Sam was following the trail. b. Sam was discovering the cave. Correct answer: (a) (80-7) a. The man was hollering at the hunters. b. The man was recalling what happened that night. Correct answer: (a) (79-8) Rule: first syllable of [a-] form must be stressed.

12. “a” Prefixing Summary • [a-] form cannot be a noun (#1 and #5) • [a-] form cannot be an adjective (#2 and #6) • [a-] form cannot be preceded by a preposition • (#3 and #7) • first syllable of [a-] form must be stressed (#4 and #8) • Note: people often consider speakers of Appalachian English to be unsophisticated • …but the proper use of the [a-] prefix involves a relatively complex set of conditions.

13. AAVE • Another variety of English that has (traditionally) been low on the prestige scale is African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). • a.k.a. Black Vernacular English (BVE), Ebonics • Predominantly spoken by African-Americans • but not all African-Americans… • and some others, as well. • AAVE has a variety of interesting features... • some familiar: multiple negation, ain’t as an auxiliary • others are less familiar…

14. AAVE Verbs • Verb conjugation: third personal singular verbs lack an [-s] marker. • Ex: He look, it do, she have • “Paradigm leveling” • = making a set of related forms more uniform • (similar to “he don’t”/”she don’t”) • Under certain conditions, the verb “to be” can be deleted. • Ex: you so crazy, she workin’, he lucky • In the same conditions, “to be” can be contracted in standard English: • You’re so crazy, she’s working, he’s lucky…

15. To Be Deletion • What are the right conditions for deletion/contraction? • AAVEStandard English • You so crazy. You’re so crazy. • *He as nice as he say he. *He’s as nice as he says he’s. • *Here I. *Here I’m. • They mine. They’re mine. • *How beautiful you. *How beautiful you’re. • The verb needs to link the subject to something after it.

16. AAVE: Habitual Be • AAVE also has a form of “to be” that standard English does not. • “habitual” be • Habitual be expresses something that the subject does on a regular basis. • Examples: • He be working at Tim Horton’s. • She be late. (= She is usually late.) • She late. (= She’s late (right now).) • Do you be tired? (=Are you often tired?)

17. Descriptive Benefits • Language tends to operate in patterns, even if they are non-standard. • Important: Appalachian English and AAVE speakers are not just speaking English with mistakes. • Descriptive linguistics enables us to understand how those patterns work. • Even if you want to change the world, you’re better off understanding how it works to begin with. • History of economics analogy.

18. To Be Fair • Standards are useful because they provide a single form of the language to teach to non-native speakers. • They help establish uniformity in the written language. • They can help clear up confusions. • for instance: supposably • They also help to distinguish those who have mastered the arbitrary rules from those who haven’t. • (for better or worse) • Otherwise: • They are not useful for (scientific) linguistic analysis.

19. Linguistic Creativity (again) • One of the crucial design features of language was creativity (or productivity). • Charles Hockett: • “Language users can create and understand completely novel messages.” • “In a language, new messages are freely coined by blending, analogizing from, or transforming old ones. This says that every language has grammatical patterning.” • “In a language, either new or old elements are freely assigned new semantic loads by circumstances and context. This says that in every language new idioms constantly come into existence.” • How is it possible for human beings to do this?

20. To Infinity and Beyond • Last week, we found out that honeybees can produce a variety of different “dance messages”. • = “Food source beyond 65 feet, fly at 0 • degree angle with the sun.” • = “Food source beyond 65 feet, fly at 45 • degree angle with the sun.”

21. To Infinity and Beyond • The number of different messages the bees can produce is limited only by the number of angles they can differentiate: • “Food source beyond 65 feet, fly at 1 degree angle with the sun.” • “Food source beyond 65 feet, fly at 2 degree angle with the sun.” • …………… • “Food source beyond 65 feet, fly at 359 degree angle with the sun.” • Q: Can the bees dance at angles they haven’t seen before? • If so, how?

22. To Infinity and Beyond • A: yes, if they dance according to rule. •  Their dances have to fit into a meaningful pattern. • The rule = “Food source beyond 65 feet, fly at X degree angle with the sun.” •  The bees have to know the rule. • Knowing the rule enables them to exhibit “creativity”, in a sense.

23. Different Infinities • What kind of infinities exist in human language? • Note that we can say (translations of) everything the bees can say: • Fly at a 1 degree angle with the sun. • Fly at a 2 degree angle with the sun. • …………… • Fly at a 359 degree angle with the sun. • • We can get as detailed as we want to about it, too: • Fly at a 45 degree, 13 minute, 27.6685 second angle with the sun.

24. Infinity + 1 • In addition to the infinity of things the bees can say, we can say other things, too. • Examples (borrowed from Ray Jackendoff): • A numeral is not a numbskull. • A numeral is not a nun. • A numeral is not a nunnery. • …………… • A nun is not a nursery. • …………… • An oboe is not an octopus.

25. Linguistic Infinities • These are uninteresting, but novel sentences. • In order to understand them, you must know the rule by which they are constructed. • Rule: • [Sentence] = A X is not a Y. • Point: • Knowledge of rules is more abstract than just knowledge of sentences.

26. Language Model #1 • In this model, all we “know” are the individual sentences we can use in language. • (no rules) • This is a good enough model to describe the vervets’ (or prairie dogs’) “language”. A nun is not a nursery. Fly at a 45 degree angle with the sun. I like linguistics.

27. Language Model #2 • In this model, we “know” all the rules we can use to combine words to form sentences in a language. • This is a good enough model to describe the bees’ “language”. • Is it good enough for human language? A X is not a Y. X at a Y degree angle with the Z. X likes Y.

28. What do you think? • No. There are even bigger infinities. • Check out these sentences: • Bill thinks that Beth is a genius. • Sue suspects that Bill thinks that Beth is a genius. • Charlie said that Sue suspects that Bill thinks that Beth is a genius. • Jean knows that Charlie said that Sue suspects that Bill thinks that Beth is a genius. • ad infinitum... • Some “real” examples:

29. How many rules do we need? • X verbs that Y is a Z. • W verbs that X verbs that Y is a Z. • V verbs that W verbs that X verbs that Y is a Z. • and so on… • Q: Can we store all these patterns in our heads? • A: No, because no matter how many we store, there is always a longer one… • So how do we know all of these sentences?

30. Language is Recursive • Recursive = involving a procedure that can refer to itself. • In language, rules for producing sentences can be used in rules for producing sentences. • Humans have to know rules of the following kind: • [Sentence] = X verbs that [Sentence]

31. Language Model #3 • Jackendoff: “We know not just patterns of words, but patterns of patterns.” • This is how we can be infinitely creative with a finite set of rules. S = X likes Y. S = A X is not a Y. S = X verbs that S.

32. Check it out • Included among the infinite number of things we can say is a lot of complete nonsense. • Examples (from Chomsky and Lewis Carroll): • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • I’m memorizing the score of the sonata I hope to compose someday. • ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves • Did gyre and gimble in the wabe… • Check out the postmodernism generator: • http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

33. What’s the difference? • Nonsense sentences work because they fit in with the patterns formed by the sentences that actually do make sense. • (and that we use every day) • Compare with the following: • Large green lizards sleep soundly. • I’m memorizing the score of the sonata I hope to perform someday. • ‘Twas evening, and the slimy toads • Did squirm and wiggle in the cage…

34. What’s the difference? (part 2) • But the following sentences don’t work at all: • Green sleep ideas furiously colorless. • I’m memorizing the perform of the score I sonata to hope someday. • Brillig and, slithy and the toves • Wabe gimble in the gyre and did… • Note: just because we can say an infinite number of things, we can’t just say anything…

35. Technical Terminology • The set of rules that we know for creating sentences in a language is the grammar of that language. • The rules of grammar that we know are very abstract. (patterns of patterns) • Strings of words which do not adhere to these rules are ungrammatical. • Q: If these rules are so abstract, how did we figure out what they are? • How do we learn language?