Week 1 Lecture Notes - JAL328H PDF

Introduction What is Writing? JAL328H – Lecture 1 January 6, 2025 1 Topics of the Day Course Overview Syllabus, course schedule & course policies What is Writing? Writing vs. Language Linearity Variability...

Introduction What is Writing? JAL328H – Lecture 1 January 6, 2025 1 Topics of the Day Course Overview Syllabus, course schedule & course policies What is Writing? Writing vs. Language Linearity Variability in writing direction Graphemes Free vs. Bound graphemes Allographs Orthography & Transliteration Scripts vs. Orthographies Transliteration vs. Transcription 2 Course Overview What is This Course About? This course is not about: Literature Style, tone, or grammar in essays or papers How to “write better” This course is about: How writing systems work Their internal rules and structure Their relationship to linguistics structure How they got that way Historical development Language change vs. Writing change 3 Course Overview A series of 12 lectures (Janhuary 6 to March 31) Graded assessments: 2 Assignments (12% each) 3 Quizzes (10% each) – in-person Final exam (40%) – in-person Engagement (6%) + Be sure to read the course syllabus and understand any course-specific policies 4 Course Overview Lecture slides will be posted immediatelly after lecture Don’t worry about writing everything down! Do take notes on important points & main ideas, rather than trust you’ll be able to reconstruct them in a few weeks by glancing through the slides 5 Course Overview What is “Grace Period”? (relevant to our Assignments) A 120-minute window that immediatelly follows the submission deadline (ex., If an Assignment is due 5pm, then its Grace Period will be 5-7pm) Students may submit their Assignment by the end of the Grace Period without any penalty No consideration of redistribution/extension will be made after the original deadline regardless of any issues that may arise during the Period 6 Course Overview There will be three in-person Quizzes in this course On these days, we will meet instead in the EX (Exam Centre) roooms at the start of our lecture hours Each quiz will be about 40 minutes long It will be followed by a 20-minute break before resuming our lecture for the rest of the meeting hours No midterm test 7 Course Overview Engagement will be worth 6% of your course grade at the end of the semester Engagement will be assessed based primarily on attendance and active participation in class with the help of a “ticket-out-the-door” A “ticket-out-the-door” must be submitted to the instructor at the end of each lecture (No extension is permitted) 8 What is Writing? What is Writing? 9 What is Writing? Xavier: “I think Theat tigers are the Best anomoot. becus they jump hi and they run fast” 9 What do we mean by “writing”? 9 What is Writing? By “writing”, we may refer to... Penmanship skill at drawing letters Literary style linguistic eloquence Graphic marks representing language 10 What is Writing? + Writing is not language All cultures use language – universal Not all cultures use writing – not universal Writing is an invention or technology Writing represents language Specifically, writing represents an utterance – a particular series of sounds – rather than a semantic concept or meaning There are many symbolic representations of meaning that are not writing 11 What is Writing? Newspaper Rock, Utah 12 What is Writing? Picture Writing Symbols or pictures which convey meaning Can be very complex, and can be interpreted by those trained in the (cultural) symbology Often a mnemonic for a narrative or meaning that is already known Language-neutral: No systematic correspondence to linguistic structure 13 What is Writing?: Picture Writing Picture writing is prevalent today Convenient as it is not tied to any one language 14 What is Writing?: Picture Writing Picture writing is prevalent today Convenient as it is not tied to any one language Although you might all come up with the same phrases, this is not writing 14 What is Writing: Picture Writing 15 What is Writing?: Picture Writing Cultural background and training are needed to parse each sign Consider... 16 What is Writing?: Picture Writing 17 What is Writing? Picture Writing Shortcomings of picture writing: Can’t easily convey abstract notions (or even complicated concrete ones!) Ambiguity (e.g., between instruction and warning) Cannot reproduce any string of words in language 18 What is Writing?: Picture Writing Real writing must often supplement pictures for clarity 19 What is Writing? Writing... Is a systematic representation of language Represents specific linguistic utterances Can be read and reproduced by anyone literate in the language Has internal structure and rules separate from those of language 20 Linearity Linearity Linear flow Speech and writing are both linear Speech flows along a single dimension: time Writing flows from grapheme to grapheme across the writing surface Directionality can be: Writing direction along a line Line order on the page Page order within a document Label direction within an image 21 Linearity: Horizontal, left-to-right lines The majority of writing systems use horizontal lines, starting at the top of the writing surface and continuing downward Latin, Cyrillic, Modern Greek, Indic scripts, Ethiopic, and many more... ARMA virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; Virgil, Aeneid Linearity: Horizontal, left-to-right lines The majority of writing systems use horizontal lines, starting at the top of the writing surface and continuing downward Latin, Cyrillic, Modern Greek, Indic scripts, Ethiopic, and many more... ARMA virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; Virgil, Aeneid 22 Linearity: Horizontal, right-to-left lines Some writing systems, notably those descended from Aramaic, have a right-to-left direction Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac... ُ ‫وأسـمـعـت كـلـمــاتي مـن به صـم‬ ‫ـم‬ ‫أنـا الـذي نـظـر االٔعمى إلـى أدب ــي‬ ‫ـم‬ ُ ‫والـسـيــف والـرمـح والقـرطـاس والـقـل‬ ‫الـخـيل والـلـيـل والـبـيداء تـعـرفـن ــي‬ ‫أبو الطيب أحمد بن الحسين المتنبّي الكندـي‬ Abū aṭ-Ṭayyib ’Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Mutanabbī al-Kindi Linearity: Horizontal, right-to-left lines Some writing systems, notably those descended from Aramaic, have a right-to-left direction Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac... ُ ‫وأسـمـعـت كـلـمــاتي مـن به صـم‬ ‫ـم‬ ‫أنـا الـذي نـظـر االٔعمى إلـى أدب ــي‬ ‫ـم‬ ُ ‫والـسـيــف والـرمـح والقـرطـاس والـقـل‬ ‫الـخـيل والـلـيـل والـبـيداء تـعـرفـن ــي‬ ‫أبو الطيب أحمد بن الحسين المتنبّي الكندـي‬ Abū aṭ-Ṭayyib ’Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Mutanabbī al-Kindi 23 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon Boustrophedon: “as the ox ploughs” Ancient manuscripts & inscriptions Most notably Ancient Greek Note: Writing may or may not start from L → R on the first line; reversal of direction is the important property here WRITING IS LEFT-TO-RIGHT ON ODD-NUMBERED DEREBMUN-NEVE NO TFEL-OT-THGIR DNA SENIL LINES, WITH LETTERFORMS REVERSING DIRECTI NOITCERID GNITIRW EHT HTIW GNOLA NO Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon Boustrophedon: “as the ox ploughs” Ancient manuscripts & inscriptions Most notably Ancient Greek Note: Writing may or may not start from L → R on the first line; reversal of direction is the important property here WRITING IS LEFT-TO-RIGHT ON ODD-NUMBERED DEREBMUN-NEVE NO TFEL-OT-THGIR DNA SENIL LINES, WITH LETTERFORMS REVERSING DIRECTI NOITCERID GNITIRW EHT HTIW GNOLA NO 24 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon Gortyn Code inscription, Gortyn, southern Crete 25 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon Gortyn Code inscription, Gortyn, southern Crete 25 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon Gortyn Code inscription, Gortyn, southern Crete 25 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon enhanced front side of Rongorongo Tablet G (Small Santiago tablet) Rongorongo—discovered on Easter Island in the 19th century Irregular wooden tablets, often driftwood Undeciphered! 26 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon enhanced front side of Rongorongo Tablet G (Small Santiago tablet) Rongorongo—discovered on Easter Island in the 19th century Irregular wooden tablets, often driftwood Undeciphered! 26 Linearity: Horizontal, boustrophedon enhanced front side of Rongorongo Tablet G (Small Santiago tablet) Rongorongo—discovered on Easter Island in the 19th century Irregular wooden tablets, often driftwood Undeciphered! 26 Linearity: Vertical Some writing systems can have a vertical direction The lines can be ordered to the right in some languages or to the left in others Left-to-right lines: Mongolian Right-to-left lines: Chinese, Japanese 27 Linearity: Vertical Mongolian Chinese 28 Linearity: Vertical Mongolian Chinese 28 Linearity: Vertical Variability There can also be optionality in writing direction Chinese, Japanese, and Korean can be written... Columns: Top to bottom, ← Rows: Left to right, ↓ Sometimes apparently right to left...? 其表現形式是依附於 漢字的藝術，而漢字 屬於表意文字，筆劃 的組合變化多端，與 其他民族的拼音文字 相比較，漢字更富於 造形性。 Stone rubbing of 九成宮醴泉銘 Dragon Throne of the Emperor of China, (Jiucheng Palace Liquan Inscription) Palace of Heavenly Purity, by 歐陽詢 (Ouyang Xun) Forbidden City, Beijing 正大光明 ⟨zhèng dà guāng míng⟩ “let the righteous shine” 29 Linearity: Vertical Kam Wah Cafe & Bakery 45–47 Bute St, Mong Kok, Hong Kong 30 Linearity: Vertical Kam Wah Cafe & Bakery 45–47 Bute St, Mong Kok, Hong Kong 30 Linearity: Vertical The shop is called 金華冰廳 (“Golden Flourishing Cafe”). Why do we see the name apparently written in the reverse direction at the top of the shop? 31 Linearity: Vertical Kowloon Flour Mills (九龍麵粉廠) (image from @explorehongkong) 32 Linearity Variability in direction Vertical writing is possible in Latin alphabet too, where horizontal space is similarly constrained You can think of these as multiple L → R rows (Capital letters are preferred here) Coffee Shop Union Square, New York (closed 2018) 33 Graphemes Graphemes You might be familiar with the use of brackets to prevent ambiguity if you’ve studied any linguistics We will use different brackets for different kinds of representations: Sound Phonetic: [fəˈnɛɾɪk] Phonemic: /fowˈnimɪk/ Writing Graphemic: ⟨graphemic⟩ 34  “Graphemes” Minimal contrastive units of writing (cf., phonemes, morphemes) 34 Graphemes Graphemes can be free or bound Free graphemes occur on their own e.g., letters of English alphabet, Chinese characters Bound graphemes must occur along with another grapheme (although they can sometimes be shown separately for illustrative purposes) e.g., accents on letters 35 Graphemes Diacritics are bound graphemes that modify free graphemes Placement of diacritics varies widely, and they may interrupt the linearity in the flow of graphemes ⟨ó⟩ ⟨o⟩ ⟨ơ⟩ ⟨ǫ⟩ 36 Graphemes Devanāgarī (Indic) Written left-to-right Vowels are indicated by diacritics Can be placed above, below, after, or before ⟨तती⟩ /ti:/ ⟨ितत⟩ /ti/ ⟨ततु⟩ /tu/ 37 Graphemes Diacritic vs. Whole Graphemes German uses a diacritic ⟨ ̈ ⟩ called an umlaut ⟨ä⟩ = ⟨a⟩ + ⟨ ̈ ⟩ ⟨für⟩ ‘for’ contains four graphemes Finnish ⟨ä⟩ is a single grapheme ⟨hän⟩ ‘he’ contains three graphemes Same visual elements, different graphemic status 38 Graphemes Digraphs / polygraphs—2+ graphemes for one phoneme Diphones / polyphones—2+ phonemes for one grapheme Two: di– Multiple: poly– ⟨X⟩ ⟨E⟩ ⟨E⟩ /k/ /s/ /i/ ⟨ X ⟩ is a diphone. ⟨EE⟩ is a digraph. As in ⟨explain⟩ /ɛksplejn/. As in ⟨need⟩ /nid/. 39 26a  “Allographs” Non-contrastive variants of graphemes (cf., allophones) 39 Graphemes Allographs Allographs in complementary distribution can be determined based on context Vary predictably in their distribution Greek sigma ⟨σ⟩ word-initially; ⟨ς⟩ word-finally e.g., ⟨σταυρός⟩ (⟨stavros⟩) “cross” Roman long s (fell out of use 1800–1850) ⟨ſ ⟩ word-initially or medially; ⟨s⟩ word-finally or after long s e.g., ⟨ſucceſsful⟩ “successful” Virtually all Arabic graphemes... 40 Graphemes 41 Graphemes Allographs in free variation are not determined by context Different typefaces: ⟨Sans⟩ ⟨Serif ⟩ ⟨Monospace⟩ Some graphemes can have different shapes: ⟨a⟩ vs. ⟨ɑ⟩ ⟨g⟩ vs. ⟨ɡ⟩ 42 Graphemes Capitalization Some scripts have capital and lower case variants Contrastively distinguishes proper and common nouns in English ⟨Bath⟩ ‘a city in Somerset, England’ ⟨bath⟩ ‘a place for bathing’ Different languages have different capitalization rules, e.g. English vs. German Many scripts don’t have capitals! 43 Graphemes Free graphemes may be fused together into ligatures, which are grouped into three categories: Non-structural ligatures Structural ligatures Quasi-ligatures 44 Graphemes: Ligatures Non-structural ligatures Just two graphemes pressed together: entirely æsthetic e.g., ligatures in English script æsthetic; first; flower; efficient; affluent These are common in manuscripts! 45 Graphemes: Ligatures Structural ligatures Form distinct graphemes: treated as a single new grapheme e.g., Danish ⟨æ⟩, which is its own letter, ordered after ⟨z⟩ Quasi-ligatures Structural ligatures that are not actually connected! Two distinct shapes that are treated as a single letter e.g., Spanish ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩, which were treated as separate letters in the alphabet 46 Orthography & Transliteration Orthography Script—A collection of graphemes & rules to combine them Orthography—the way something is written or “spelled” in a language, using combinations of graphemes For some languages, this corresponds regularly and systematically to pronunciation You can be pretty sure about the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word e.g., Finnish, Italian, Hindi 47 Orthography For others, the correspondence between orthography and sound is less systematic, perhaps because of… Linguistic change—the orthography reflects an earlier pronunciation Tradition—the orthography reflects the etymological roots of the word, in an earlier form of the language or another language entirely Missing phonological information—the writing system does not represent all of the features that are contrastive in the language Borrowed system—the writing system was originally devised for one language but was borrowed wholesale to write another, very different language We will be discussing each of these throughout the course 48 Orthography It is extremely useful to be able to discuss sounds using consistent notation English French Orthog. IPA Orthog. IPA though [ow] sain [sæ̃] healthy through [u] saint [sæ̃] holy tough [ʌf ] sein [sæ̃] breast cough [ɑf ] seing [sæ̃] signature (archaic) bough [aw] ceins [sæ̃] I wrap bought [ɑ] ceint [sæ̃] wrapped Irish (Ulster) gheobhaidh [joiː] will get Tibetan (Kami) བསླབ་ ⟨bslab⟩ [ɬɤ́] to teach 49 Transliteration Transcription International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) In linguistics, the IPA is the standard system for transcribing speech sounds Created in 1888, and has undergone several revisions Most recent revision: 2005 The IPA has symbols that represent both segments (i.e. consonants and vowels) and suprasegments (e.g., stress, length, tone) Transcription refers to writing something down as text IPA is used to transcribe spoken language into a consistent and phonetically transparent written form Transliteration refers to transforming one kind of written text into another 50 Transliteration Transliteration Changing writing from one script to another Many writing systems have standard Roman transliteration systems e.g., Russian Cyrillic ⟨Я не говорю по-русски.⟩ Roman ⟨Ya nye govoryu po-russki.⟩ 51