Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge

1. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge • People do not speak using isolated words • Knowledge of how to combine words to form phrases and sentences • phrase = syntagme, groupe • sentence = phrase • clause = proposition

2. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge • Ability to produce and understand sentences you have never heard before “Daniel Boone decided to become a pioneer because he dreamed of pigeon-toed giraffes and cross-eyed elephants dancing in pink skirts and green berets on the wind-swept plains of the Mid-west.”

3. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge • No upper bound on the size of sentences • This is the house. • This is the house that Jack built. • This is 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.

4. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge • No upper bound on the size of sentences • The old man came. • The old, old man came. • The old, old, old, old, old man came

5. Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences • John kissed the little old lady who owned the shaggy dog. • *Who owned the shaggy dog John kissed the little old lady. • John is difficult to love. • It is difficult to love John. • John is anxious to go. • *It is anxious to go John.

6. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge • No upper bound on the size of sentences • The old man came. • The old, old man came. • The old, old, old, old, old man came.

7. Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge Once there was this little boy who asked his father To tell him that old, old, old, old, old, old story. Yoko Ono, A Little Story

8. Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences • Je le connais bien. • *Moi connaître bien lui. • *Je connais le bien. (vs. I know him well.) • Hier Marie a rencontré Paul. • *Hier a Marie Paul rencontré. • Gisteren heeft Marie Paul ontmoet.

9. Linguistic Knowledge and Performance • Linguistic competence • Linguistic performance • “What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?” “I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.” “She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

10. Competence and Performance • Distinction between knowledge and one’s ability to put that knowledge to use. • Ferdinand de Saussure : • Langue vs. Parole • The ice melted in the sun was ruined. • The ice melted in the sun. • The ice [which had] melted in the sun was ruined.

11. Purpose of linguistics • Describe and explain the unconscious knowledge (competence) that speakers have, which allows them to produce and understand sentences. • This knowledge is extremely complex

12. Morphology: The Words of Language

13. Knowledge of words • Speakers know tens of thousands of words • Average 6 year old : 13.000 words • Average high school graduate: 60.000 words • Speakers continue to learn words throughout their lives • Knowledge of a language is not just knowledge of the words

14. What do you know when you know a word? • Knowledge of the form (string of sounds, ‘signifiant’) [l^v] • (Knowledge of the spelling : love) • Knowledge of the meaning (‘signifié’)

15. What do you know when you know a word? • Knowledge of the grammatical category (syntactic class, part of speech)

16. Knowledge of grammatical categories • Love is a verb: Mary loves books. • Love is a noun: Love is the most beautiful emotion. • Like is a verb: Mary likes books. • Like is not a noun: *Like is the most beautiful emotion.

17. Mental lexicon vs. dictionary • Speaker’s linguistic knowledge of words • Books produced by lexicographers • Spelling • ‘Standard’ pronunciation • Definitions representing the word’s meanings • Part of speech • (Etymology) • (Register: non standard, slang, vulgar, obsolete, archaic)

18. Dictionaries • General dictionaries • Technical dictionaries • Dictionaries of slang • Etymological dictionaries • Bilingual dictionaries • Etc.