EL1101 Linguistics Lecture Notes PDF

Linguistics – the scientific study of language as a system and as a social phenomenon It is descriptive not prescriptive and involves a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research methods Prescriptive lays down rules on how language is used. Big qns – 1. Do all languages share a common...

Linguistics – the scientific study of language as a system and as a social phenomenon It is descriptive not prescriptive and involves a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research methods Prescriptive lays down rules on how language is used. Big qns – 1. Do all languages share a common underlying structure 2. Is the way you think shaped by the language(s) you speak 3. Is language learned and processed in the brain differently from other skills Standard and non-standard language varieties are equally systematic and rule-governed Knowing a language: - Its function (knowing how to communicate) - Its form (knowing words and rules for putting them together) Phonetics – study of speech sounds [s] [l] [ai] [d] [z] Phonology – study of sound patterns /slaidz/ Morphology – study of structure or words and their parts slide-s Syntax – study of structure of phrases and sentences “these slides are amazing” Semantics – meaning these slides are a member of the set of all amazing things Pragmatics – study of how context contributes to linguistics this is a compliment about the slides Factives – the presuppose that something is true. Eg “realise” in I realised she is a doctor. She has to be a doctor then for the statement to hold. Performative utterance - sentences that perform certain actions but only when in the right context Key features: 1. Arbitrariness Explanation: Language is arbitrary, meaning that the connection between words and their meanings is not natural or inherent. There’s no reason why a dog is called a “dog” in English, or why the word “cat” refers to a specific animal. These words don’t have any inherent connection to the animals they describe; they are just symbols that people have agreed upon. Example: The word “dog” could have been any other word, like “cat” or “table.” The meaning comes from social convention and shared understanding, not from any natural connection between the sound of the word and the animal itself. Exception: Onomatopoeia are words that imitate sounds, like “buzz” (which sounds like a bee), “meow” (the sound a cat makes), or “sizzle” (the sound of something cooking). These words are less arbitrary because they sound like what they represent. 2. Discreteness Explanation: Discreteness means that language is made up of separate, distinct units. These units can be sounds (phonemes), words, or phrases. Each unit has a specific meaning or function and can be combined in different ways to form larger structures like sentences. The key idea is that language is built from these smaller parts. Example: In English, the word "cat" can be broken down into three separate units: "c," "a," and "t." These letters, or phonemes, are discrete units that we combine to form a meaningful word. If we change one unit (for example, changing "c" to "h"), we get a completely different word ("hat"). Why It’s Important: Discreteness allows us to create a wide variety of meanings by combining these basic units in different ways. It’s a bit like building with blocks — small pieces that can form many different things.  3. Rule Governedness Explanation: All languages have rules that govern how words and phrases are put together. These rules tell us how to form sentences, how to use tenses, how to order words, and much more. These rules ensure that the language is consistent and understandable. Example: In English, there’s a rule that says we usually put the subject (like "I" or "she") before the verb (like "eat" or "run"). So, we say "I eat" instead of "eat I." This rule helps make the sentence clear. Why It’s Important: Without rules, communication would be chaotic. Rules help us understand each other and create meaning from words. 4. Productivity Explanation: Productivity refers to the ability of language to create new and unique sentences, even if you’ve never heard them before. We have a finite set of rules and words, but we can use them to generate infinite sentences. This shows how flexible and creative language is. Example: You can take the basic structure "I have a [something]" and fill in the blank with almost anything, like "I have a car," "I have a dream," "I have an idea," etc. You can keep creating new sentences with the same rules. Why It’s Important: Productivity makes language dynamic. We can use language to express new ideas, invent new words, and describe new situations, even if they’ve never existed before. Speech – often referred to as a speech stream LINGUISTIC → PHYSIOLOGICAL → ACOUSTIC → PHYSIOLOGICAL → LINGUISTIC Phonetics: Articulatory – study of how speech sounds are produced Speech production: 1. Voice is powered by air coming up from lungs 2. Voice is created by the way the air is molded by parts of vocal tract and comes out through mouth and nose larynx or voice box: vocal folds can be manipulated to configurations, and vibrates when air passes through to produce sound voiced – speech that causes vocal folds to vibrate (all vowels are) voiceless – speech that doesn’t cause vocal folds to vibrate nasal – velum (back soft part of mouth) lowered air goes through nose oral – velum raised air goes through the oral consonants – airflow through oral cavity is obstructed in some ways vowels – airflow through oral cavity not obstructed (all are voiced) Key features / Maximum info to identify any consonant (some need lesser info to identify) 1. Voicing (voiced or voiceless) 2. Place of articulation (where is airflow obstructed)  3. Manner of articulation (how is airflow obstructed) includes nasality and for liquids there is central and lateral Articulators – obstructions are created using them (all throughout the mouth) Location place of articulation Theres an active articular and passive articulator eg tongue and roof of mouth Lips → labial Teeth → dental 1. Bilabial – sound that use both lips eg. Pet, Bet, Wet (oral), Met (nasal) Alveolar ridge → alveolar 2. Labiodental – combi of teeth and lip eg, Fine (voiceless), Vine (voiced) Hard palate → palatal 3. Interdental – tongue btwn/behind teeth eg, Thin (voiceless), This (voiced) Soft palate (velum) → velar THin [θ] and THis [ð] 2 diff “th” sounds, differentiated by international phonetic Glottis → glottal alphabet (IPA) 4. Alveolar – Tune, Rune, Soon, Zoo, [l], [d], (oral), Noon (nasal) 5. Post alveolar – SHip [ʃ], Genre/meaSure [ʒ], CHip [tʃ], Gym[dʒ] (using IPA) 6. Palatal – Yes[j] (only one sound in english) 7. Velar – Kit (Voiceless), Gift (voiced) (orals), kiNG / thiNk [ŋ] (nasal) **in eng, engmas nvr appear at the start of word or syllable. 8. Uvular – English doesn’t have this sound 9. Glottal – narrowing or closing vocal folds eg. Hat, uh-oh [ʔ] “glottal stop” Manners of articulation Stops: 1. Oral (plosive) – [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g], [ʔ] test: can you hold out the sound? 2. Nasal – [m], [n], [ŋ] Fricative – partial obstruction, causing turbulence (buzzing) eg [f], [v], [z], [s], [h], [ʃ], [θ], [ð], [ʒ] Affricative – a stop plus a fricative eg. [tʃ], [dʒ] Approximants: 1. Liquids – constriction but not turbulence eg [l] lateral liquid(lateral because air comes from side of the mouth), [r] central liquid (central because air is coming into the centre of the mouth) 2. Glides – aka semi vowels eg [j], [w] International phonetic alphabet – special set of alphabetic characters representing all speech sounds in every language, to phonetically transcribe the language Why? Because english is very inconsistent, same spelled words are pronounced differently Write IPA in square brackets, for this mod focusing only on broad trascription No single correct IPA for English as words can be pronounced differently and thus transcribed differently element on the left in the cell is voiceless while right one is voiced To type: https://westonruter.github.io/ipa-chart/keyboard/ use this link Key features of vowels: 1. Lip rounding – some vowels are rounded eg MOO and some are unrounded eg MEE, different for countries 2. Height of tongue – [i] is high vowel, [ε] is mid vowel and [α] is low vowels, these 3 lvls are arbitrary but common 3. Frontness of tongue – [i] is front vowel, [u] is back vowel. 3 lvls – front central and back  4. Tenseness – tense means more extreme tongue position, longer duration, produced w greater articulatory effort, lax is the opposite. Singapore English doesn’t hv tense lax distinction - in English one syllable words that end with vowels are usually tense. 5. Monophthongs vs diphthongs – mono means vowels with steady state like [i], dip are vowels which change sound within the word like cOw horizontal represents frontness and vertical represents height of tongue (there are an infinite number of possible vowels) Variable vowels - Prone to variation between people, regions etc – vowel shifts, mergers and splits o Shift : vowel changed position o Merger : vowels that used to be distinct merged into a single vowel (e.g. FOOL and FULL) o Split: one vowel splits into two (e.g. dedorant, lion, altruistic) General American Vowels Received Pronunciation Lavender coloured : only appear as dipthongs  GenAm Monophthongs GenAm Diphthongs [i] sheep, key, seize [aɪ] my, side, aisle, choir [ɪ] ship, kit, rip [eɪ] face, weight, steak [ɛ] set, mess [ɔɪ] boy, coin [aʊ] mouth, crowd, flower [æ] trap, ham, arrow [oʊ] goat, sew, stove [u] goose, few, who [ʊ] foot, full, look, could [ʌ] strut, cub, hum [ɔ] thought, hawk [ɑ] lot, stop, calm [ɜ] nerd, hurt [only occurs before r in stressed syllables] [ə] writer, accomplish [for unstressed, reduced vowels] (considered tense due to longer duration and greater articulatory effort) Postvocalic r - Rhotic : [r] following a vowel is retained - [r] changes the sound of preceding vowel - [ɔ:] – colon used to indicate long vowel - RP is non-rhotic - When r comes after a vowel and before a pause or a consonant, it is deleted and realized as a schwa [ə] or replaced with a long vowel (:) Phonology - study of structures and patterns of speech sounds within languages - Speech sounds aka “Phone”, every symbol in IPA is a phone, which is the most basic unit of speech - Not every language uses every phone in IPA Phone: surface realization of a speech sound written in [], all phones have some underlying phonemic pronunciation and A phone can be the allophone for more than 1 possible phoneme Phoneme: underlying abstract representation of a sound written in //. they are the smallest contrastive unit of sound, not universal, abstract collection of phones. Allophones: possible phonetic pronunciations/realizations of phoneme. eg [t], [ɾ] Key concept: there is a difference between underlying sound and how it is phonetically realized on surface level Eg. [t] and [th] are allophones of /t/ in English, they are also in complementary distribution Minimal pair ^^: changing of one Phone in a word that creates a new word (don’t look at spelling it is always abt pronunciation) If 2 phones don’t create a minimal pair it is said “they cannot appear in the same phonological environment” Phonological environment - refers to phonological surroundings and positionings within a particular word: 1. Phones that come before or after 2. Location within the syllable and the word 3. Is its syllable stressed or unstressed etc Eg. for [s] in “seed”, it is word-initial, syllable initial, it occurs in stressed syllable( as it is a one syllable word) and it precedes [i]. Contrastive distribution: 2 phones can occur in the same phonological envrm = yields minimal pairs eg. [b] and [p] Complementary distribution: 2 phones cannot exist in the same phonological environment= no minimal pairs Free variation: 2 phones can exist in same phonological environment but as alternative pronunciations of the same word, swapping the phones does not result in a new word. Eg “then” [dɛn] or [ðɛn] Identification of allophones of the same phoneme: 1. Not in contrastive distribution != complementary distribution eg [h] and [ŋ] although complementary but not allophones of same phoneme 2. Phonetically similar eg place and manner of articulation Aspiration – the little h in [th] represents burst of air. Eg tar and retire compared to star(no aspiration) All 3 voiceless plosives t/p/k all follow this pattern Phonological rules – aim to create simplest set of rules that captures all data (maximize parsimony) For [th], it goes at the beginning of stressed syllable, otherwise use [t]. Simplest rule - therefore, [t] is the more default realisation of /t/ as [th] is more restricted. [t] is basic allophone of /t/ which is why /t/ is written as /t/. Natural classes- group of phones that can be defined by some phonological similarity. [b,d,g] are all voiced plosives. They can be represented using feature matrix like [+voice, +plosive] or Composing rules: 1. Describe the class of phonemes involved eg high vowels (height of tongue) 2. Describe the change (devoiced) 3. Describe the environment (between voiceless consonants) Eg. high vowels are devoiced between voiceless consonants Japanese example Rules can be written formally like so. This means phoneme A is realised as allophone B when it occurs aft environment 1 and before environment 2, otherwise it is realised by default as A. the underscore shows placement of A. Japanese example: [+high] -> [-voice] / [+cons, -voice] _ [+cons, -voice] If rule involves specific phoneme, more practical to write it using IPA rather than its distinctive features Common environmental factors: V and C represent vowels and consonant - Preceeding or following sound - Location within syllable $ represent syllable boundary - Location within word # represents word boundary eg C -> ∅(null symbol) / C _ # like sent become sen in sg English this representation is saying the 2nd consonant deletes in a word final Steps to create phonological analysis: 1. Identify the phones that alternate 2. Organise data by alternation 3. Identify the environments where each allophone occurs 4. Decide which allophone corresponds to the underlying phoneme choose the least restricted one to write the rule on 5. Create the simplest, most general rules Common phonological processes: (can happen synchronically or diachronic over time 1. Assimilation – 2 nearby sounds become more similar eg intolerable, inpossible becomes impossible 2. Dissimilation – 2 nearby sounds become more different eg peregrinus becomes pilgrim. First r becomes l 3. Epenthesis – a phone is added eg plosives often added between nasal and fricatives (pronunciation only) 4. Deletion – underlying phoneme is not realised on surface level eg deletion of a t/d in word-final consonant clusters common in Sg English 5. Metathesis – 2 sounds are switched eg iron = [aɪərn], comfortable = [kʌmftərbel] Process are common because they increase articulatory ease, increase perceptual clarity, or sometimes they just help bring pronunciation into alignment with similar words. Eg Scone cone bone. Phonotactics - Constraints on where phonemes can appear in a language, syllable is an impt unit of it Syllable – primary prosodic unit in most languages, prosody means rhythm stress and intonation (represented by “.” In the transcribed) Onset Rime Code Spr I nt = sprint P aɪ n = pine aɪ =I ** onset and coda are optional humans have tendency to prefer CV or CVC syllables, divide words such that each syllable gets a consonant onset if possible some constraints: 1. if the first consonant in a complex onset (2 or more consonants) is not an /s/, the second consonant must be a glide or liquid 2. if the second consonant in a complex coda is voiced, then so is the first sonority hierarchy – phonotactic rules tend to follow the hierarchy where louder phonemes tend to be closer to syllable nucleus. Vowels > approximants > nasals > fricatives > affricates > plosives ** b and t are consonants that are furthest away from nucleus where L and s are closer then vowel is closest Morpheme – the smallest mnpful unit in a language A word must contain at least one morpheme, but morpheme don’t need to be able to occur in isolation - Bound morpheme: cannot exist on its own independently like s in dogs and cats, usually affixes - Free (unbound) morpheme: can exist on its own as a word like dog and cat Affixes and their criteria: (js a subset of bound morphemes) 1. Occur more than once in a language’s vocabulary 2. Have an identifiable grammatical function or meaning 3. Be added to a word to modify its core meaning Types: - Prefix attached to the start of the word like PREamble, IMportant, INconceivable, REorder - Suffix attached to the end of the word like artIST, parkING, laborATORY - Infix go in the middle of the word (ENGLISH DOESN’T HV INFIXES) - Circumfix it goes at the back and front of the word eg GEsprochEN in german Productive affix – new words are commonly or easily made using this affix otherwise it is unproductive Eg of productive is “pre” and “able” Eg of unproductive is “ile” and “lock” Inflectional affix – used to express certain grammatical information like changing tenses past to present, word stays the same part of speech like walkS, walkED, walkING 3rd person singular present Walk-S VERB Progressive Walk-ING Past participle Eat-EN Past tense Walk-ED NOUNS Plural Dog-S Possessives John- ’S ADJECTIVES Comparative Tall-ER superlative Tall-EST Derivational affix – creates new word with different meaning, often diff part of speech eg walkABLE all other affix not listed above in english is all derivational can also be split into class changing and class maintaining affixes. Allomorphs – irregular affix forms which are alternative surface forms of the regular inflectional affixes eg alumn-I, ox- EN, antenn-AE all are allomorphs of plural -S - Any type or morpheme can have allomorphs but usually is affixed as they occur many times in diff environments - In English, subset of inflectional and derivation affixes have allomorphs like IR vs IL, IN vs IM - Choice of allomorph not always determined by phonological environment, some can be due to other factors like gender alumn-I for plural men and alumn-AE for plural female Bound roots – form the core meaning of a word it is bound morpheme that isn’t an affix other type of bound morpheme – cranberry morphemes: - Cranberry, but “cran” has no meaning and doesn’t occur much in the language - Twilight, but “twi” has no meaning and doesn’t occur much in the language These are results of language change overtime cran came from crane and twi came from two Grammaticalization - morpheme gradually changes to serve a fixed grammatical function over time like “able” when it is a suffix is a bound morpheme because phonologically it is pronounced [əbəl] thus not a free morpheme. The morpheme undergoes phonological reduction and loses syntactic freedom becoming a bound from a free morpheme. Eg of grammaticalization, happy-like = happily, hope-full = hopeful Roots – morphemes that serve as a primary meaning unit of a word, cannot be further divided into smaller morphemes, in English roots are almost always free morphemes (all free morphemes are roots but not all roots are free morphemes) Compound word – words that contain more than 1 root, eg ChinaTOWN or CARpark. Roots in compound words can also have affixes attached to them before they are combined into compound words like awe-inspiring, inspiring comes from inspire + ing then got combined. Orthography (writing) does not matter in whether it is a compound word or not like having a ‘-‘ between words doesn’t mean living-room is not a compound word, it is a OPEN COMPOUND word, which are words in English that are considered 1 but written out as 2 orthographic words like ice cream, frying pan. - Got closed compound words - Got hyphenated compound words Verb + -able = Adjective Un- + Verb = reverse the process Verb eg untie undo Un- + Adjective = not Adjective eg uncool, unfair Eg unproblematic, un- cannot attach to problem which is a noun so the process is problem → problematic → unproblematic. This is how the complex word was created, represented as a hierarchical tree. Hierarchical tree has binary branching, each node is labelled, each stage must be a well formed word Eg unlockable has 2 meanings: 1. Not lockable 2. Can be unlocked Word – smallest meaningful unit that can occur in isolation in a language, segment surrounded by spaces in written language aka “orthographic words” How to identify words: - Orthography - Phonology – is there a stress pattern, phonological rules - Divisibility – can this sequence be divided to insert more material - Pause – can speakers put a pause here? Adjective form = lexical Vocabulary of language = lexicon = particular language’s entire collection of lexemes Walk, walks, walked, walking = this whole set is a unit of lexeme, all forms of WALK share the same lexeme. Deriv affix creates new lexemes, walk vs walk-ER Part of speech/word class: Noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, determiner (a, an, the, this, my, one, noun’s), conjunction (and, but, or), auxillary verb (subclass of verb) it comes before the main verb (I HAVE gone, I WILL go) Word classes can be split into: 1. Content words – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs - open-class (new words can be formed easily) - contentful (words are defined easily) 2. Function words – determiner, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliary verbs - closed-class (lexicon is relatively stable) - serve grammatical functions, indicate relationship btwn content words - without these words, language becomes very difficult to understand Word formation: 1. Affixation 2. Compounding 3. Conversion (word changes word class without addition of morpheme, eg “can u FACETIME me” facetime is Noun but become verb 4. Backformation (word can look like it is made up of morphemes but it actually isnt) eg hamburger shld be hamburg-ER but became ham-BURGER new word burger created 5. Clipping and blending (cutting off parts of a word) eg rizz from charisma or (combining clippings) like Breakfast and lUNCH = brunch 6. Acronym (initials pronounced as a regular word) eg NASA. Golf is not an acronym for gentlemen only ladies forbidden 7. Initialisation (words pronounced as letters) eg tv, in sg we have IC, MC, HDB. Syntax – study of the rules 1. Top down, start with the whole sentence then break it down 2. Bottom up, starting with individual words and using rules, figure out how they fit together Bottom up: Morphological tests - eg. Any word that can take plural -s is a noun. If a word passes a morphological test, it is a member of a category, but if it fails, we do not know whether It is a member of not. Eg Not all nouns can take -s for its plural version Eg. Syntactic test – eg I have a ______. This is a syntactic frame where a blank suggests a word to be placed in it, clearly only nouns can fill the blank but if a word fails this test it doesn’t mean it is not a noun Top down: Sentence structure is not just about word order, there are additional units between the level of the word and the sentence. And these units are nested within each other hierarchically. Constituents – general term for units that group together in a sentence structure 1. Sentence largest unit 2. Word smallest unit 3. Phrase intermediate type consisting of a group of words Constituency tests: (not 100% reliable) 1. Topicalization test – moved to the front of the sentence. Eg turn left to get to the library. To get to the library, turn left. 2. Clefts – add the potential constituent between “it is” and “that” and continue with remaining sentence 3. Pseudoclefts – add “is what” behind the potential group and continue with the remaining sentence 4. Substitution test – replace the potential constituent with a pronoun or other unit that we know is a constituent 5. Deletion test – can the unit be deleted. Hao went to the store, Rebecca went to the store as well. Hao went to the store, Rebecca went as well. What is most important in the phrase, it is called the head of the phrase. Eg the tutor, tutor is the noun and most impt this head of the phrase “the tutor”. This is called a NOUN phrase. Phrases type are named after its head. NOUN phrases, VERB phrases, PREPOSITIONAL phrases tc Test for head in phrase: - A Y is a type of X. where Y is the phrase and X is the potential head Constructing phrases: Elements of Noun phrases: - If a determiner is in the phrase, it must come first - Number of ADJ, appear to be unlimited Phrase structure rule Eg Proposal for NP structure NP -> (det) (Adj)* N (Prepostional Phrase) () means optional, * means repeatable Verb phrases: Sentence structures can be represented as trees as it can contain many different phrases eg in a sentence can have both noun and verb phrases. To choose which tree is the right representation, check for constituents in the sentence and see if the tree reflects this constituent. Eg. In this case, c is the right answer as “eats an apple” is a a constituent, supported by substitution test thus since the node VP in (c) properly and only encapsulates “eats an apple” this is the right tree to choose. Rule for VP: Rule for PP: (specific to English) VP -> V (NP) (NP) (PP) PP -> P NP (could extend a sentence through recursion as NP is nested in PP and PP can also be nested in NP as seen in NP rule Rule for sentences: S -> NP VP (to generate a grammatically “complete” sentence, does not apply to statement fragments like “yes.” “possibly.” Trees: Nodes are labelled and corresponds to a constituent If node x is above node y and connected to it then it “dominates” node y (mother daughter rls) 2 daughters are sisters X is a constituent if there is some node that dominates x and NOTHING ELSE Types of sentence constituents: Sentences above have NP VP rule which is also Subject and Predicate Crucial component of predicate is MAIN VERB AUXILIARY VERBS modify grammatical func and meaning of main verb like “will”, “did”, “could” Verbs: Differ in how many arguments they take in which are expressions that are necessary to complete the meaning of the predicate. - intransitive verbs – only 1 argument needed, the subject but no need object, Eg “she waited” “I am working” - transitive verbs – 2 argument, 1 subject 1 object, eg “she likes cats” - ditransitive verbs – 3 arguments, 1 subject and 2 object, eg “she gave him a cat” Can have alternation, direct object is “a cat” usually in its NP, then the indirect object “him” as this NP can be nested in a PP so “she gave a cat to him” works grammatically too, “to him” is the PP that nested “him” Some verbs can be transitively or intransitively used, eg “I am eating” vs “I am eating cheese” “arrived” and “sitting” is purely intransitive “bought” and “owns” are purely transitive Arguments vs adjuncts: (not all arguments are NP, can be PP, not all NPs are arguments too) Adjuncts are not required to complete the sentence it js provides more info. “the cat mysteriously vanished” or “she gave him a cat on his birthday”, those in red are adjuncts “she bought him a toy” even though “she bought him” is grammatically correct, “a toy” is not an adjunct instead it is an argument as “him” in the first sentence is a indirect object, but in the other sentence it becomes the “direct object” this structural change means “a toy” is an argument How to extend sentences: 1. Recursion (distinguishes human language from animal language) a. Coordination – linking constituents of the same syntactic class as sisters b. Subordination – adding a constituent as the daughter if another constituent Ambiguity: 1. Semantic ambiguity – relating to the meaning, eg “she was at the bank” can be river bank or the actual DBS bank 2. Syntactic ambiguity – arises from the multiple possible syntactic structures not the meaning, eg. “she saw the man with the telescope” can be she saw “the man with the telescope” or she saw “the man” with the telescope Garden path – cases when partial ambiguity causes us to misparse a sentence, causing confusion Eg. “The horse raced past the barn fell” Headlines often create garden path since shorter headlines were needed back then and words were omitted Word order: English is SVO (subject verb object) about 42% of languages are SVO Slightly more ~45% of languages are SOV eg Korean Japanese French ~10% are VS0 like Tagalog, Irish Gaelic ~3% are VOS, 1% is OVS so far no OSV People tend to prefer subject before object and verb after the subject, cld reflect how humans conceive events English has some flexibility with word order esp with adjuncts, but we rely on word order to identify syntactic role of most constituents, this is because it has no inflectional morphology. Thus, English is a analytic language Opposite of analytic is called synthetic like latin with inflectional morphology, eg. Dominus used as subject but domino is indirect object, many other variations. Synthetic languages have less strict word order, simpler syntac but richer morphology Morphology syntax tradeoff – languages tend to even out in terms of complexity Semantics – study of meaning Pragmatics – study of how context contributes to linguistic meaning Lexical semantics – study of meaning and words Frege’s puzzle: If a and b refer to the same object then a = b has the same meaning as a = a But a = b is an informative statement while a = a is a tautology. (alr known fact, redundant) this is because b and a do not have the same sense but they have the same referent 2 aspects to meaning: - Reference (the referent) object or entity to which a word refers in the “real” world - Sense (the way that the term refers to the referent) for this course sense wld mean the description that one attaches to the word/phrase “the current king of singapore” this has no referent as Singapore has not king thus a NON REFERRING expression “the current king of Singapore is bald” neither true not false statement as we cannot physically check in the real word, this is called TRUTH VALUE GAP Constant reference – some expressions will always refer to the same thing eg. “the first prime minister of singapore” Variable reference – some expressions vary depending on who is speaking and other factors eg. “my friend”, “the current PM of Singapore” since with time it will bound to change Homophones – different words that are pronounced the same way eg. site cite sight or bank, bank(river) Homographs – different words spelled the same way eg. read, read(past) or bank, bank(river) Homonyms – words that are spelled the same and pronounced the same eg. bank, bank(river) Polysemes – word with multiple related meaning, contrast to homonym eg. “to police the crowd” “the police” Define polysemes and homonyms based on how they are perceived by current speakers, not historical origins Tip: polysemes typically listed as numbered items under 1 entry in dictionary, homonyms listed under different entries Subsets ⊆ and supersets (can be easy to see with hierarchy tree) A ⊆ B if every element of A is also an element of B, then A is HYPONYM of B and B is a HYPERNYM of A A ⊆ B and B ⊆ A only true if A = B (A and B are synonyms) Synonyms: (actually very few in English) Although “little” and “small” appear to mean the same thing, there are cases where they are not used interchangeably Antonyms (opposite of synonyms) 1. Gradable antonyms – each forms one end of a continuous scale eg. short and tall 2. Complementary antonyms – either completely A or B eg. dead and alive, true and false, pass and fail 3. Relational antonyms – terms have a relationship, where one or the other plays an opposite role eg. buy and sell Good tip to identify: “If there is an A, there must be a B” Semantic shifts: 1. Narrowing – word used to mean something more general then shift to more limited meaning 2. Broadening – word used to mean something more specific then shift to more general - genericization: brand names shifts to being used generally for items of that type eg. Google, Kleenex(tissue) 3. Upgrading – word becomes more prestigious and positive over time 4. Downgrading – word becomes more negative over time eg. mistress, wench, hussy Sentence Entailment: If sentence (a) and (b) have a relationship such that if (a) is true, then (b) must be true but if (a) is false then (b) may or may not be false….. (a) ENTAILS (b) Sentence Contradiction: If (a) is true (b) must be false. (a) CONTRADICTS (b) Sentence Paraphrases: If (a) entails (b) and (b) entails (a) then they are paraphrases. Sentence Presuppositions: (A presupposes b if b must be true when both A and A’(negated) is true) Backgrounded implicit assumptions of a sentence - they are not the focus of the main proposition - they remain presuppositions even after the sentence is negated Eg. “Lawrence Wong is the prime minister of Singapore” “Lawrence Wong has a job” entailment. This loses entailment if “Lawrence Wong is NOT the prime minister of Singapore” gets negated as shown. “Singapore has a prime minister” presupposition as it remains one even after negation. Constructions that trigger certain presuppositions: 1. Regret – what comes after regret definitely happened “I regret eating the cake” presupposes “I ate the cake” 2. Realised - what comes after realised definitely happened “I realised she is gay” presupposes “she is gay” 3. Clefts – “it was my phone that burst into flame” presupposes “something burst into flames” 4. Temporal clauses (time word) – “she called me before she went to dinner” presupposes “she went to dinner” 5. Change of state – “it has stopped raining” “it hasn’t stopped raining” presupposes “it was raining at some point” Study of presupposition’s triggers – PRAGMATICS Pragmatics – study of meaning in context Arthurs classification of Speech acts: 1. Locution – what the speaker says (many ways to say smth to achieve the same goal) 2. Illocution – the speaker’s intention from the speakers POV 3. Perlocution – the resulting effect that the speech act has (the actual affect diff from intended effect) The same locution eg “I do” has different meaning in different contexts Subclass of speech acts – Performatives (they have no true or false): They change social reality when they are uttered eg “I apologise”, “I pronounce u man and wife” 1. Explicit – must involve a performative verb used in present tense and with first person subject Eg. “I Promise to go on Sunday” How to spot: add “hereby” after the first person and before the performative verb Eg. “I hereby apologize” but cannot “I hereby bought a phone” 2. Formulaic – does not include performative verb but involves conventional phrase that is used to perform an act Eg. “Congratulations”, “thanks”, “you’re fired” – they all change reality 3. Implicit – don’t have performative verb, also don’t have conventional phrases but they still do something Eg. “Stop fighting” is implicit which comes from “I order you to stop fighting” which is explicit Since performatives have no true or false, they can either be felicitous or infelicitous Conditions for felicitous: 1. The participants shld have appropriate intentions 2. The participants and setting must be appropriate 3. The procedure must be executed correctly Some performatives have very strict felicity conditions Eg “I dub thee Sir Patrick” only some can say it and itll do something Performative is felicitous if it conveyed the intended illocution but doesn’t necessarily have to achieve the intended perlocution Searle” classification of speech acts: 1. Representative – assertions, can potentially be true or false, good for story telling 2. Directives – direct the addressee to a course of action (includes questions to other people)  3. Commissives – a promise, indicates the speakers’ intentions 4. Expressives – express speakers emotional states Eg. “my condolences”, “I appreciate the thought” 5. Declarations – bring abt a state of affair Eg. “you’re fired”, “case dismissed” The cooperative principle Language is an effective communication tool, because we generally cooperate in conventions and follow conventions We assume that interlocutors will: - make contributions that contribute to purpose of the convo - make their contributions at the right time - Construct their contributions appropriately so we understand Gricean Maxims: 1. Maxim of quality – be truthful 2. Maxim of quantity – be as informative as required not more or less 3. Maxin of relation – be relevant 4. Maxin of manner – be clear and orderly. Avoid ambiguity We don’t always follow the maxim, instead we sometimes DELIBERATELY infringe a maxim to generate some additional implicit meaning. This is known as flouting A: did u contact the prof and tutor? B: I contacted the tutor “B did not contact the prof” this is the conversational implicature generated from flouting. Conversational implicatures can be cancelled by asking and getting more information as they are all just guesses to begin with Test conversational implicature – using the Eg above. The implicature is “B did not contact the prof” 1. Negate it therefore “B did contact the prof” 2. Add it back to the response B gave “I contacted the tutor, and I also contacted the prof” 3. If it is a logical statement, then it is a implicature and it can be cancelled. OR 1. Leave It as it is 2. Add “but” between og reply and the implicature “I contacted the tutor but I did not contact the prof” 3. Check if logical ** entailments and presuppositions would fail this test It is possible to flout more than one maxim at once, Eg for sarcasm, it breaks maxim of quality, quantity and manner as it is not clear Sometimes got obvious implicature sometimes, there are multiple potential ones (needs additional info to confirm) Gricean maxims meant to be universal but, in some cases, due to cultural context, it might not be. Eg some cultures prefer indirectness and see it as polite while other prefer directness. Politeness – interacting harmoniously with others, avoiding conflict and not causing offense Politeness theory: 1. Positive politeness – strategies that avoid causing offense by highlighting friendliness and closeness Eg. in US, expressions or names u wld use with someone intimate can be used to strangers “how is ur day hon?” 2. Negative politeness – strategies that avoid causing offense by showing deference, putting urself below others Eg. in Japan, formal expressions are used with customers “please come again” “sorry to hv kept u waiting” Face – reputation, public perception of u 1. Positive face – want that your self image and wants are appreciated and approved by others Eg saying I like a present to please my friend is allowing them to maintain positive face 2. Negative face – want to have freedom or action and freedom from imposition  Eg. telling my tutor I understand when she said shes too busy allows her to maintain negative face Positive politeness focuses on addressee’s positive face wants Negative politeness focuses on addressee’s negative face wants Diff cultures have diff norms about what politeness strategies is used Face threatening acts (FTA) Apologizing – threatening the speakers positive face as one is admitting that one’s actions did not meet someone’s approval Thanking – threatening the speakers negative face as one is admitting they needed help Criticism – threatens addressees positive face as one is saying one does not approve of the addressee’s actions Orders – threatens the addresses negative face as one is infringing on the addressee’s ability to do whatever they want Different ways to deliver FTAs to mitigate FTAs Eg trying to leave a party 1. Adding positive politeness: this is rly interesting but I have to get going 2. Adding negative politeness: so sorry to interrupt u but I have to get going 3. Going off record: wow look at the time 4. Or saying nothing at all Factors that shape politeness strategies used: 1. Social distance – how well do we know each other 2. Power difference – is one of us in a more powerful social position? 3. Cost of imposition – how big of a favour, how sensitive is the issue Sociolinguistics – study of language functions in society / study of social word through language, emphasizes on probabilistic patterns instead of categorical rules Sociolinguistic knowledge – not js how to speak and form sentences but how to use it appropriately in diff situations, know how diff type or indiv in the community use the language Language is consistently evolving, and can be conceived as a collection of dialects Dialect: includes pronunciation and lexicon and grammar and more Accent: refers to pronunciation incld phonetics and phonology therefore there is no such thing as “not having an accent” When to classify it as dialect and when to classify as a whole other language 1. Mutual intelligibility (MI) – can speakers of these 2 varieties understand each other? Not as straightforward, sometimes A can understand B but not vice versa, it depends on experience and attitudes too 2. Political and social factors – many are MI but considered distinct languages like Swedish and Norwegian due to politics, some not MI but considered dialects like Chinese varieties Factors that influence use of language: 1. Linguistic factors – linguistic environment of a particular feature 2. Social factors – differences based on social background 3. Stylistic factors – differences within single speaker across diff situations, affected by age gender social class and others Strengths of nonstandard language (even though they are stigmatized by society), they are rated highly on solidarity: 1. Kindness, friendly, trustworthy Whereas standard language rated highly on status measures → intelligent, wealthy, educated 2. Key aspect of local identity, often a source or pride that it can be commodified (turned into product) ** all language varieties are equally systematic equally rule governed and expressive No inherent linguistic reason as to why some linguistic features are considered prestigious it depends on social meaning of sociolinguistic variant determined by the social status of people who use it Language use is a reflection of social identity or it is actually part of how we construct our social identity therefore they are co-constitutive Stylistic variation and the different theoretical approaches: 1. The amt of attention we pay to our speech, the longer the more standard features we use 2. The audience 3. The identity we r performing in a particular situation Speaker focused approach that uses linguistic features in combination w other socially meaningful resources to project and create social selves Persona – type of identity that is well known in community and has certain conventional attributes associated with it Sg persona – ahbeng/lian, xmm, yp, aunty, uncle Linguistic features linked with persona which is linked to the persona’s attributes so speaking like the persona can evoke those attributes A single feature can point to a wide range of possible social meanings Individuals can mix and match linguistic and non-linguistic features to create new styles and to convey certain social meanings Language change investigated from diff subfields: 1. Historical 2. Evolutionary 3. Sociolinguistics It is annoying because: 1. Creates comprehension difficulties 2. Leads to variation within speech community cuz not everyone adopts the changes 3. Makes writing system more opaque English underwent GREAT VOWEL SHIFT from 1400 to 1700, printing was invented thus spelling conventions existed before the shift thus spelling system so irregular What drives language change Social factors: 1. Social change – as society evolves, new words invented, new styles 2. Social structure – communities which are close knit tend to inhibit change 3. Mobility and contact – more exposed the community is to diff languages, will bring in new words/features/concepts into their language Cognitive linguistics factors: 1. Imperfect learning – children acquire slighlt diff language system from parents thus gradual shift 2. Changes trigger other changes – changes triggers larger reorganization to optimize system 3. Cognitive efficiency – certain types/features easier to process thus language tends to change in that direction 4. Neuromotor efficiency – certain articulatory sequences maybe easier to produce 2 approaches to investigate language change: 1. Real time studies – look at data from same community at diff points in time 2. Apparent time studies – data across generations/ diff age groups at the same point in time Possible because adults tend to not change their language use dramatically over their lifetime Possible outcomes of 2 communities which speak different languages come into contact: 1. Lingua franca – language used for communication between groups that do not share a native language English is common lingua franca these days 2. Borrowing – one or both languages are influenced by the other, borrowing terms, features and concepts 3. Multilingualism – one or both communities become multilingual and learn to use both language 4. Contact language – a new language that incorporates elements of the original language Multilingualism is more common Code switching – alternating between languages within a single utterance 1. Inter-sentential – between 2 sentences 2. Intra-sentential – within a sentence 3. Tag switching – a brief discourse tag that does not fit the syntax of the rest of the sentence. Not syntactically integrated into the sentence. Usually at start or end of sentences. Like “lah” or “alright” Why do people codeswitch: 1. Efficiently express concepts borrowed from other languages 2. Avoid taboo expressions 3. Mark topic changes or other discourse shifts 4. Humour, cleverness 5. Index particular social meanings 6. Index multilingual identity 7. Index local identity, solidarity in multilingual communities Benefits to code switching: 1. Increases greater cognitive flexibility Contact languages Individuals require these for contact language to happen: 1. Opportunity to learn the other language 2. Desire to learn the other language Contact language takes vocab/lexicon from superstrate language while it gets grammar/phonological structure from substrate language(s) Contact language: 1. Pidgin – type of contact language that has no native speakers, it is learned as a second language, generally simpler structure than conventional languages 2. Creoles – type of contact language that has native speakers, they are acquired as first languages, thus more complex then pidgins eg baba malay (malay superstrate and Chinese substrate) Colloquial SG English is structured like a creole, superstrate is English and substrates are hokkien, malay and Chinese varieties. It is considered a key emblem of local identity in SG. Singlish wont die out as media exposure does not rly affect the language we speak. In fact sgreans are increasingly orienting to local norms (endonormative stabilization) Linguistics and justice: 1. Legal – making legal arguments and interpreting written laws 2. Forensics – solving crimes 3. Societal injustice – identifying societal injustice and proposing solutions Forensics: - What type of person was likely to have witten/said that - Is it likely that the same person wrote/said A and B - Can this witness identify the suspect’s voice from a pool of similar voices? - Where was the speaker positioned based on the acoustic information in the recording Linguistic fingerprint: 1. Grammar – use of certain syntactic constructions, rare complex syntactic patterns 2. Spelling and punctuation – conventions associated with one region, distinctive misspellings and punctuation use Social injustice: Scholars use methodologies to investigate inequalities and biases in society related to language Investigative questions: 1. Are indivs discriminated against as a result of having a non standard or non native like accent? 2. In what sort of situations does this discrimination arise 3. Police biases Psycholinguistics – intersection of psychology and linguistics Stroop effect – even when trying to focus on something else, the brain will automatically process the words we see and it interferes with our ability to produce the right word Language acquisition – how do children learn language Tricky to check because babies cannot do much, one way is to see their heads turn Before birth: Newborns are familiar with sounds and rhythms of their mother’s language inside the womb After birth: as babies grow, their perception become more specialized in the phonology of language arnd them (perceptual narrowing) After 6 months, babies are still sensitive to different sounds even if they are not contrastive but after 12 months they no longer react this is because by focusing only on contrastive, they can identify new words 6 months: babbling which is repeated sound 12 months: uses one or more words with meaning (holoplastic) “expressive vocab” or understands simple instructions “receptive verbs” 18 months: produce 50 – 100 words, understand 100 -150 words 24 months: produce 150 – 300 words, understand ~500 words Can combine 2 words into sentences 3 yr old: expressive vocab of 800-1000 words, receptive vocab of ~1500 words, sentences of at least 3 words 5 yr old: expressive 2.1k – 2.2k, Receptive 10k – 20k, Can pronounce all vowels and most consonants 12 yr old – receptive of 20k to 50k words Mapping problem: So how do children learn to attach words to things in the world? Children aged 6 to 8 learn about 6 words a day, not all are taught directly They can map due to: 1. Making certain assumptions abt the words probable meaning 2. Use contextual clues Fis phenomenon: children’s comprehension of language is generally ahead of their production abilities, meaning they can hear smth is wrong and incorrect even though they cannot produce it Error patterns: 1. Overregularization -- first they learn the correct one like “I go” “I went” but then at 2 yrs old they enter a phase when they over apply regular inflectional rules “I go” “I goed” Children are producing forms of words “goed” which they have never heard thus it is true that children are developing system of grammatical rules and not just imitating what they hear Universal Grammar: As children are exposed to languages, the general grammatical principles become tailored to their particular language Evidence of UG – poverty of the stimulus Claim that children don’t receive enough data from their environment to acct for everything they end up learning Critical period – window during which organisms are particularly sensitive to particular stimuli allowing smth to occur that cannot occur outside that window Critics: 1. Young children have more time to devote to acquiring a language compared to adults 2. Language learning ability tapers off gradually 3. Children actly take many years to acquire certain linguistic features Language in the brain Methods to study: 1. Atypical or impaired brains due to stroke 2. Typical brains Either from fMRI but not very effective because it studies brain flow or indirectly via cognitive processes and linguistic phenomena **aphasia – acquired language disorder resulting from brain damage Several areas of brain involved in producing and processing language 1. Broca’s area – area in frontal lobe of the left hemisphere impt for speech production and to some extent comprehension Broca’s aphasia – damaged broca’s area leads to comprehension relatively intact but unable to express themselves, have trouble producing syntactic structures 2. Wernicke’s area – posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus in the left hemisphere, associated with comprehension Wernicke’s aphasia – can produce fluent speech with correct syntax but doesn’t make sense, trouble with comprehension Language focused on left hemisphere but right hemisphere is crucial for: 1. Emotion related tasks like understanding intonation 2. Reading Chinese characters involve both hemispheres, reading English is more left lateralized Language processing McGurk effect: We make use of visual articulatory information and combine it with what we hear Connectionist model: elements of a language function as nodes in a neural network, when one node gets activated, some activations spreads to all nodes connected to it, the node most highly activated gets output Language and thought Theories: 1. Linguistic determinism – people can only conceive of things that are describable in their language aka Strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 2. Linguistic relativism – some aspects of cognition are influenced by the language one speaks aka Weak Sapir- Whorf hypothesis 3. Linguistic universalism – thinking is not affected by the individual language differences because thinking happens in a universal metalanguage Why might language influence thought: 1. Thinking for speaking – if language uses some type of information, you get in the habit of taking note of it. Speakers rmb diff aspects of what they have seen based on what distinctions are impt in their language 2. Metaphorical mappings – humans find it challenging to conceptualise abstract domains like time and emotions so we use metaphors to talk abt it. Results show that spatial metaphors influence how we think about time