Introduction to Linguistics

Fakry Hamdani
 LINGUISTICS
Linguistics (n.) The scientific study of language;
also called linguistic science. (David
Crystal:2008)
Linguistics is a comparatively new science, or
new, at least, in the form it has taken in recent
years. The science seeks to answer the
following questions: (a) what exactly do we
know when we know a language (b) how is this
knowledge acquired and (c) how is such
knowledge used? (Petra)
 Langage, Langue & Parole
langage /lFap/ (n.) A French term introduced by
Ferdinand de Saussure to refer to the human
biological faculty of speech. (David Crystal:2008)
It is distinguished in his approach from langue,
the language system of a speech community.
langue denotes a system of internalised, shared
rules governing a national languages vocabulary,
grammar, and sound system;
Parole designates actual oral and written
communication by a member or members of a
particular speech community.
Contexts in which linguistics arose

philosophy (Greece)
language teaching (Alexandria)
philology (study of ancient texts,
often of sacred nature) (India,
Greece)
 Cratylus: a Socratic dialogue
Protagonists:
Cratylus: words are natural signs, some names
are correct others are not
Hermogenes: names are arbitrary/
conventional
Socrates: middle position: there is such a
thing as a correct name, but names may be
corrupted, and yet be used
 Etymology of theos god

Socrates: It seems to me that the first

inhabitants of Greece believed only in
those gods in which many foreigners still
believe today the sun, the moon, earth,
stars and sky. And, seeing that these were
always moving or running, they gave them
the name theoi because it was their
nature to run (thein).
 Modern View (F. de Saussure)
words and expressions are basically
conventional: arbitrary by agreement in a
speech community
no Humpty-Dumpty
partial motivation of signs possible:
1. when they are complex
2. onomatopoetic words
3. (maybe) sound symbolism
Study of human language
The interdisciplinary nature of modern Linguistics
 Determining Sincerity
In an essay that looks at media
coverage in the aftermath of
the death of Princess Diana on
31 August 1997, Martin
Montgomery discusses ways in
which audiences constructed
their own ideas about the
sincerity of what they saw and
heard on radio and television.
The essay examines ways in
which members of the British
public reacted to the three
highest-profile tributes
broadcast by the BBC in the
days following Dianas death.
 The first of these was a television
interview given by Tony Blair.
Standing in the open air, Blair spoke
without notes direct to camera, his
voice trembling and hesitant with
emotion.
On 5 September came the second
major broadcast, a speech to the
nation by the Queen. She expressed
her sadness at the death of her
daughter-in-law and declared that
she was speaking as your Queen and
as a grandmother.
This broadcast was made live, using a
teleprompter and showed the Queen
composed and speaking clearly and
fluently.
 The third speech
analyzed was the
address by Dianas
brother, the Earl
Spencer, at her funeral
service in Westminster
Abbey, when he pledged
that her blood family
would do all they could
to raise her sons as she
would have wished and
appeared to be on the
verge of breaking down
in tears towards the end
of his oration.
 What is language?
A system of symbols with standard meanings.
Allows humans to communicate and is the
main vehicle of transmission of culture.
Language provides context for symbolic
understanding.
 Other Communication
Human:
Direct
Body language (kinesics), tone of voice, personal space
(proxemics), gesture
Indirect
Writing, mathematics, music, painting, signs
Nonhuman:
Sounds, odors, body movements
Call systems, ethologists
ASL American Sign Language
 Nonhuman Communication - ASL
American Sign Language taught to chimps and
gorillas
Physiologically and developmentally similar to
humans.
Chimps taught: Lana, Nim, Kanzi, Washoe
Gorillas taught: Koko
Nonhuman Communication - Washoe
Born 1965
Taught ASL 1966
Mastered 100s of
signs
First nonhuman to
learn language
Nonhuman Communication - Lana
Taught with keyboard,
1970s
Able to use and
combine signs
Nonhuman Communication - Koko
1970s, first gorilla
taught ASL
IQ of 85 at 4 years old
Koko learning ASL
Koko on AOL
 Nonhuman Communication
Nim Chimpsky
1980s taught ASL
Wouldnt initiate
conversation
Never signed to other
chimps
Nim Chimpsky and his
namesake, the famed
linguist Noam Chomsky
Nonhuman Communication - Kanzi
1980s, communicates
with lexigrams
Vocabulary of 90
symbols
Could understand
English
Command of syntax
 Nonhuman Communication
Jane Goodall

Gombe Game Reserve

Chimps need stimulus
to make sounds
Since 1960s
 Animal v. Human Communication
Four differences:
Productivity (infinite expressions)
Displacement (past, present, future)
Arbitrariness (no link between word and sound)
Combining sounds (phonemes)
Dime versus dine or lock versus rock in English
English has 45 phonemes; Italian 27; Hawaiian 13
Nonhuman animals cannot combine sounds (1:1 correspondence
of sounds)
 Anatomy of Language
Motor cortex

Brain
Size
Laterality
Wernickes area
Brocas area
Motor cortex
 Anatomy of Language
Respiratory System
Larger lung capacity
Larynx, pharynx
Tongue, lips, nose
Hyoid
 Structure of Language
Phonology (sounds)
Morphology (words)
Syntax (sentence structure)
Semantics (meaning)
Pragmatics or grammar (rules)
 Structure of Language - Phonology

The study of sounds of a language.

No human language uses all the sounds humans can
make.
IPA International Phonetic Alphabet
Phonemes and phones
/l/ and /r/ = phonemes (English has 40)
/p/ and /ph/ = phones
Ghoti = fish (tough, women, position)
Other sounds
Tones, nasals, clicks (Genesis in the !Kung language)
 Structure of Language - Morphology
Morphemes are the smallest units of language.
Words (dog, cat) = free morphemes
Prefixes (un-, sub-)
Syllables (-s, -ly )
Declining and conjugating
= bound morphemes
Verbs are conjugated (am, are, is)
Nouns are declined in some languages
Latin, Greek, German, Russian, etc.
Word form changes based on position in sentence.
Structure of Language - Syntax
Rules for how to put together sentences and phrases.
Six possible arrangements, based on Subject, Verb,
Object
English is SVO = The girl will hit the boy.
Forming questions: English = V1SV2O?
 Structure of Language - Syntax
Example of syntax
Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Verb Noun Adjective

Structure of Language - Semantics
The meaning of symbols, words, phrases, and
sentences of a language.
Ethnosemantics and kinship terms
Aunt/uncle versus non-gendered cousin
 Evolution of Language
Old Theories:
bowwow and ding-dong
Locke, B.F. Skinner, Descartes
New Theories:
Noam Chomsky
Universal and generative grammar
Principles and parameters
Creoles, pidgins, and Ebonics
Sapir-Whorf
 Historical Linguistics
Focuses on how language changes over time and
how languages relate to one another.
Anthropologists are interested in cultural features
that correlate with language families.
Reconstruction of languages:
Proto-Indo-European
Sino-Tibetan
Linguistic divergence
Gradual or by force
PIE
 Historical Linguistics Old English
Compare Old, Middle, and Modern English
Beowulf (Old English):

Hwt! We Gardena in geardagum,

eodcyninga, rym gefrunon,
hu a elingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaena reatum,
monegum mgum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas.
Lo, praise of the prowess of people-
kings of spear-armed Danes, in days
long sped, we have heard, and what
honor the athelings won! Oft Scyld
the Scefing tore the mead-bench
from squadroned foes, from many a
tribe awing the earls.
 Historical Linguistics
Middle English
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English):
This worthy lymytour, this noble Frere,
He made alwey a maner louryng chiere
Upon the Somonour, but for honestee
No vileyns word as yet to hym spak he.

This worthy limiter, this noble friar,

He turned always a lowering face, and dire,
Upon the summoner, but for courtesy
No rude and insolent word as yet spoke he.
 Descriptive Linguistics
Also called structural linguistics
Tries to discover the rules of phonology,
morphology, and syntax of another language,
especially those with no written dictionary or
grammar.
Seeks to discover language rules that are not
written down but are discoverable in actual
speech.
 Sociolinguistics
Like descriptive linguistics in a way, in that
sociolinguists are concerned with the ethnography of
speakingcultural and subcultural patterns of
speech variation in different social contexts.
Examples:
Pronunciation and dialects
Honorifics and social status
Gender differences
Multilingualism
 Fun Stuff

Language as art
Calligraphy
Illumination

Left to Right:
Chinese
Greek
Arabic
English
 Semiotics:
Some Points of Reference
 Semiotics
Science of signs
Signification: systematic, structural aspects of
signs; meaning-bearing potential
Communication: transactional aspects of signs;
cf. Jakobsons codes and messages, source and
destination, channel and context
 The Sign [N]
Saussure: signifier-signified; arbitrary and
conventional signs; (mentalistic)

Peirce:
Representatum (perceptible object) stands to
somebody, for something
Object in some respect
To create an interpretant [itself a sign]
Categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness
 Saussures Theory of the Sign
Sign = Linguistic form + Meaning

The word cat = [kh t] +

 Signification

The word cat = [kh t] +

SIGN = SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED

 Signs are Arbitrary
/li:/
Water lit in French =
Wasser bed
Eau Question marker in
Russian
Shui meadow,
side sheltered from
the wind, or
proper name Lee
in English
 Onomatopoeia

[kakodudldu] [miauw]
[kikiRiki] German [miauw] German
[kokoRiko] French [meauw] Chinese
[niauw] Japanese
[kukuku] Spanish
 Linguistic Relativity
English has 11 basic color terms.
Russian has 12 siniy (dark blue),goluboy
(light blue).
Shona (a language of Zimbabwe) has 3: citema
(black), cicena (white),cipswuka (red).
Bassa (a language of Liberia) has 2: hui and
ziza.
 Semioticians
Saussure Hjelmslev Greimas, Metz and Eco
structuralism; content-expression (signified-signifier); linguistic bias;
paradigms and syntagms
Peirce Morris rich typologies of signs; emphasis on process of
semiosis (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic dimensions); semiotic typology of
discourse
Eco toward a logic of culture; a theory of codes and a theory of sign
production
Sebeok how the body interacts with the mind to produce signs,
messages, thought and ultimately cultural behaviour
 Summary: Five Notions of Semiotics [ENC]
The syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of
the sign
A theory or discipline studying these properties
Theories about how to study these properties
Methods: method of formalization; method of
language analysis; method of interpretation
Application: use semiotics to analyze some
fragment of reality, e.g. arts, architecture, film
fashion, folk customs, etc.
 Summary [ENC]
Semiotics, depending on whether it is defined as a
type of research or as a doctrine, as a theory or as a
set of methods, can use the tools of several sciences
or doctrines, from logic and metamathematics to
linguistics, aesthetics, and all the social sciences.
But, it must refer constantly and consistently to any
of its possible objects through sign and sign
functioning, using methods implying a theory of
signs and sign function