Properties of Human Language

Properties of Human Language

• Human languages share five key properties that set them apart from other forms of communication. These properties are: arbitrariness, transferability, duality, displacement, and creativity.
• Arbitrariness: There is usually no connection between the sound of a word and the object it represents. For instance, "box" does not sound like a box.
  • Exceptions to this rule are onomatopoeic words, which imitate the sounds they describe, such as "buzz," "hiss," and "rattle."
• Transferability: Human language can be expressed in three forms: speech, writing, and sign language.
  • Speech uses sounds, writing uses symbols for sounds, and sign language uses visual gestures. All forms of language are equally important in expressing ideas.
• Duality: Language has two levels of structure:
  • The lower level consists of phonemes, which are the basic sounds of language (e.g., /b/, /i/, /g/).
  • The higher level combines phonemes into morphemes, which carry meaning (e.g., "big").
  • This dual structure allows for a practically infinite number of meaningful language sequences.
• Displacement: Language allows us to communicate about things that are not present in the current time and place.
  • We can discuss the past, future, or events happening elsewhere.
  • Words remain valid even without visual support, enabling us to discuss events beyond our immediate surroundings.
• Creativity: Humans can constantly create new expressions using existing language resources to describe new situations.
  • This means we can generate a huge amount of language by utilizing a limited set of rules.