final Flashcards
What types of words belong to an open class category? To a closed class category? (Give 1 example of each.)
open class: the class of lexical content words; a category of words that commonly adds new words: e.g. nouns, verbs closed class: a category, generally a functional category, that rarely has new words added to it: e.g. prepositions, conjunctions
What is a determiner? (Give at least 2 examples.)
the syntactic category, also functional category, of words and expressions, which when combined with a noun form a noun phrase. includes the articles “the” and “a”, demonstratives such as “this” and “that”, quantifiers such as “each” and every”, etc.
In Latin, the (singular) subject of the sentence is typically marked with a suffix –s, while the object is marked with a suffix –m. Are these suffixes inflectional or derivational? Why?
inflectional-because they don’t change the tense (both nouns) or the meaning
Give an example of a parameter and how two languages could differ on how this parameter is set.
parameter: the small set of alternatives for a particular phenomenon made available by Universal Grammar. For example, Universal Grammar specifies that a phrase must have a head and possibly complements; a parameter states whether the complement precedes or follows the head.
An example of a parameter is English and Japanese using different orders of the head. In English, it’s head-initial, whereas Japanese is head-final.
What does the existence of phrase-structure rules in different signed languages tell us about the human brain and language?
The fact that sign languages appear to be subject to the same principles and parameters of UG that spoken languages are subject to shows us that the human brain is designed to acquire and use language, not simply speech.
Use either the ‘stand alone’ or ‘pronoun substitution’ tests to identify the constituents in the following sentence: “The man with the flowing hair sang a long song”
The man with the flowing hair sang a long song. What did the man with flowing hair sing? A long song. Who sang a long song? The man with the flowing hair. OR He sang it. So, what are the constituents? “the man with the flowing hair”, “sang”, and “a long song”
Please provide Phrase Structure rules for the following sentence: ‘The cat likes fresh fish and clean water. ‘
S→ NP VP NP→ Det (the), N (cat) VP→ V (likes), NP, NP NP1→ AP, N (fish) AP→ A A→ fresh NP2→ AP, N(water) AP→ A A→ clean
What is the HEAD of phrase [walk quickly]? Why is it the head of the phrase?
The head is “walk” because it defines the type of phrase as a verb phrase and is the most important part of the phrase as it describes what is being done and can exist without its adverb.
How many morphemes are there in the noun phrase [the incredibles]? Also, identify the derivational and inflectional morphemes in this phrase.
the, incredible, s-3 morphemes
inflectional, derivational, inflectional
In English, what types of morphemes tend to be free? What types of morphemes are bound?
what types of morphemes tend to be free?: roots
what types of morphemes are bound?: inflectional and derivational morphemes
Name and describe one source of productive morphology in English.
inflectional morphology is extremely productive-can add s to anything to make it plural, even to nonsense words
Is the -s found in the words “cars” (e.g., ‘Jerry Seinfeld owns many cars’) and “car’s” (e.g., ‘My car’s tire is flat’) the same morpheme? Why or why not?
No, because it has a different meaning in each. The first uses s to indicate plurality while in the second sentence the car is the subject and the -’s is added to indicate the object, the tire, as belonging to the subject.
What is a bound root? Give an example from English.
A bound root is a word’s root or head morpheme that is bound, meaning that it cannot stand alone without an affix. An example is receive. The root is “ceive” but that is not a word. Ungainly and nonplussed are also examples.
What are the two possible things a derivational morpheme can do?
A derivational morpheme can either changes the meaning or the tense/category of a word.
Name two open class categories and two closed class categories.
open class: nouns, verbs
closed class: generally a functional category-prepositions, conjunctions
Why is it that an utterance can be grammatical and lack meaning, but not have meaning and lack correct grammatical structure?
Being grammatical doesn’t necessarily mean that something will hold meaning or be intelligent or true. The sentence will flow well and sound right to us, but that doesn’t mean we will know the meaning. If it lacks grammatical structure, it could still make some sense, but it’s possible that i may not. Correct grammar does not mean something has meaning.
In the sentence “Maria’s hair is longer than Ichiko’s,” is the –er suffix in italics an example of an inflectional or derivational morpheme? How do you know?
-er is an inflectional morpheme because it doesn’t change the tense of meaning of “long”.
In the sentence “Maria is a swimmer for the school team,” is the –er suffix in italics an example of an inflectional or derivational morpheme? How do you know?
It’s derivational, because it changes the tense from a verb to a noun.
The following sentence contains an instance of recursion: “The student read a book about an inventor”. Explain precisely which part shows recursion in which manner.
A recursive rule is a phrase structure rule that repeats its own category on its right side: e.g. VP→ VP PP, hence permitting phrase structures of potentially unlimited length, corresponding to that aspect of speakers’ linguistic competence.
This sentence shows this because the VP, leads to a verb and a NP. The NP has branches of NP and PP. Because the NP is repeated down from the NP, it shows recursion.
Explain why we can’t simply say that nouns are persons, places and things.
There are exceptions to this, like activities, like the word “run” when it is used as a noun. A noun is better defined by where in the sentence they occur.
Apply at least two different constituency tests to the phrase “these books” of the following sentence: “Cynthia borrowed these books at the library”.
Cynthia borrowed them at the library.
What did Cynthia borrow at the library?
These books.
Define ‘morpheme’.
smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function: e.g. sheepdogs contains 2 morphemes, sheep, dog, and the function morpheme for plural, s.
What is the difference between an inflectional morpheme and a derivational morpheme.
A derivational morpheme changes the meaning or category of the word while an inflectional morpheme does not change the meaning or category and is just added according to the rules of syntax (like adding an -s for 3rd person singular verbs).
What is the main claim of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
-language directly influences thought
Name one of the major differences between human language and animal communication?
-discreteness-can’t talk about beyond the here and now
Identify one similarity between spoken and signed languages that supports language universals.
-same linguistic stages-have babbling stage
What does a wug test tell us about how children learn language?
-told us children not just memorizing and regurgitating words they hear-know grammar rules even if can’t articulate-applied a regular rule to a new word
What kind of linguistic information is stored our mental lexicon?
-includes specific info about particular words and even particular parts of words-indicate pronunciation, category/part of speech, and idiosyncratic info (like irregular endings), and possibly a personal or emotional association-also things like “s”, morphemes
What is the Universal Grammar Hypothesis?
-There are rules that hold in all langs-give us a window into the human faculty of lang which enables us to learn and use any particular language-part of biologically endowed human faculty
Name and explain one major difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammars.
- a prescriptive grammar lists the rules that we are supposed to follow
- a descriptive grammar describes the language as it is naturally spoken
What is the difference between a person’s linguistic competence and performance?
- we KNOW when we have erred
- our performance does not = our competence
- our knowledge about language is different than what we actually produce
Why is the notion that ‘some languages don’t have grammar’ false?
- as long as can’t complete rearrange words and letters and still make sense, it has a grammar
- if had no grammar, the speakers would not know what the other speakers intended-of little use
Is the following a descriptive or prescriptive rule of English? Why?: “In a normal declarative sentence, the subject should be placed before the verb; i.e. ‘The boy runs’, not ‘Runs the boy’.”
both-rule we are supposed to follow about word order, and that we do in natural lang-instinctive though so more descriptive
Is the following a descriptive or prescriptive rule of English? Why? “When conjoining a first person pronoun (I or me) with another noun, the first person pronoun always comes last; i.e. ‘Sally and me’, not ‘me and Sally.”
prescriptive-rule we are supposed to follow, not as it is spoken
According to linguistic theory, how are children able to acquire a complex, adult-like grammar in a relatively short amount of time simply by hearing the ambient language in their environment (something that much more intelligent and educated adults often find very difficult)?
-critical period-LAD-the innateness hypothesis
In the chapter “Some languages have no grammar”, the authors mention several elements that the grammar of a language should have. List two elements and provide brief descriptions/definitions for the elements.
- have rules for placement of words in sentences-which subject comes first-john hits matt or matt hits john
- diff between nouns and verbs, etc.
- prefixes and suffixes-rules for forming words-pots vs spot vs psot
- particles-conjunctions-like and
- tone changes, punctuation-?
What are some similarities between how some birds acquire language and how humans acquire language?
birds communicate vocally-communicate important info to other members or even other animals-but there is no evidence of any internal structure to these songs-can’t be segmented into discrete meaningful parts and rearranged to encode diff messages as can the words, phrases, and sentences of human lang-also, messages conveyed by the sounds/calls are limited, relating only to a bird’s immediate environment and needs–displacement
-one similarity: development-full adult version of lang is acquired in several stages, just like with kids-and has critical period-and both learned and innate structure-variation can develop
What is syntax in linguistics? Please provide a syntactic rule of English as an example. (p.3, Introduction to Language, w1 lecture)
the rules of sentence formation; the component of mental grammar that represents speakers’ knowledge of the structure of phrases and sentences
for forming qs: The first auxiliary verb moves to the start of the sentence-if there is no auxiliary verb, insert the auxiliary verb “do”.
What is the difference between linguistic determinism and linguistic relativism?
- Linguistic Determinism: the characteristics of a language will determine how we perceive the world-language determines thought-our perception is tied to language
- weaker form of the whorf hypothesis: linguistic relativism: diff langs encode diff categories and speakers of diff languages therefore think about the world in different ways-ex: color spectrum
What is one difference between humans and primates that makes humans better suited to language?
-primates vocal tracts do not permit them to pronounce many diff sounds-also can’t come up with creative meanings-and no displacement-can’t express anger from yesterday or anticipation of tomorrow
What is one aspect of language creativity?
being able to come up with a new sentence never said before
Explain what is meant when we say that the relation between the word’s form and its meaning is for the most part “arbitrary”. (Feel free to bring up an example if it helps.)
the same sequence of sounds can represent different meanings in diff languages-no natural meaning to a sound/word-maison and house both mean house-bis means twice in latin and devil in Ukrainian
What is the significance of the grammaticality of the sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”?
if replaced each word with a word of same part of speech then it could be a sentence that makes sense, if choose right words-it is grammatical even if it doesn’t make sense
Discuss one similarity between the human ability to talk and the human ability to walk on two feet.
humans are genetically well developed to bipedalism-but when we are born, we do not walk-the ability to walk, like the ability to talk, is innate and learned
when you teach a dog commands like “sit”, are you teaching it language?
No, I would not be teaching it a language. Yes, they would understand different gestures and sounds and tones, but would largely learn through behaviorism and rewards, not through some language mechanism they were born with. They also wouldn’t understand if I changed “sit” to “take a seat” or another phrase or word that means the same thing. There is no internal structure or discreteness. They cannot pick apart our individual sounds or create new words or phrases out of them or even understand when we do so. They also would only be able to understand direct commands for the present and not displacement, which has to do with messages unrelated to the here and now. They wouldn’t be able to understand phrases even if they recognized the words, they would instead only be able to assess a certain phrase they had been taught in terms of them. Just because an animal can understand a word does not mean they have acquired a human language. They cannot understand sentences of words not directly taught through rewards. They do not understand the meanings of words and have not acquired a symbolic system like children do. Instead, they learn to associate a certain sound with an object or movement. They do not understand the concept of a ball, but rather that when they hear the sound of the word they must grab that particular object. A child, in contrast, would understand what a ball is when they hear the word. They would understand that the concept of ball exists outside that one object.
do Phrase Structure Rules specify ordering?
Phrase Structure Rules do not necessarily specify ordering. Let’s take a look at an example-“the boy drank milk”-easy to make a tree of this in english-but what about korean? still have S–> NP, VP-but under VP, have NP (then N then milk) first, then V-so “the boy the milk drank”-because korean word order is SOV instead of SVO like it is in english
Principles and Parameters
-there is a basic skeletal structure of grammar that exists across languages. These principles of grammar are part of our innate knowledge of language.
But there are specific ways in which structures can vary, parameters, that are set by the child acquiring language.
example of principles and parameters
Principle: All languages contain VPs
Those VPs MUST contain a V head and may additionally contain NP / PP complements.
Parameter: Languages may differ in terms of whether the relative positions of heads and complements.
A language could be head-intial (e.g., the V head precedes its NP complements) or head-final (e.g., the V head follows its NP complements).
“Like all primitive languages, Chinese has no grammar.” why did L. James Hammond believe this?
the plural form of the chinese word comes in the form of a diff word-same with past tense
why was Hammond wrong when he said “Like all primitive languages, Chinese has no grammar”?
- but we know that diff langs express the same concepts in diff ways
- just because a language doesn’t share the same grammatical constructs as those we are familiar with, that doesn’t mean that it somehow “doesn’t have grammar”
- A lawless lang would work about as well as a lawless state
- in a lawless state, there would be no such thing as crime
- w/ grammar, means no such thing as grammar error-but there is, in every lang, so every lang must have grammar
What does it mean to be “Grammatical”?
- Grammatical means something is very specific to a linguist
- a grammatical utterance is one that is considered natural to a native speaker-includes descriptive grammar-and this doesn’t just have to do with meaning!
- Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
- Green sleep furiously ideas colorless.
What is the significance of “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”
- Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
- Green sleep furiously ideas colorless.
- native speakers of english perceive these very differently-the first actually adheres to grammatical rules while the second doesn’t-could substitute each word with with of same category and make a sentence
what implicit knowledge do we have about language
- there are so many things that we know about our lang, but it isn’t conscious knowledge
- we know things about the sound system, the words we can form
- ”color-ize” “colorless-ize”-second can’t possibly be a real word-can just tell-but if you think about it, color’s part of speech is a noun-can create a verb by adding “ize”-but “colorless” is an adj, and can’t add -ize to an adj.-that’s the reasoning but even if don’t know that, can just tell
- about the sentences we can produce
- ”retelevise” words but not “retelevision”
3 Basic Components of any lang
- a lexicon: the words we know and information about those words (like dictionary entries)
- a computational system: the rules that tell us how to put elements of a lexicon together to create sentences
- a language medium: most languages are spoken but many are spoken with hands
Wug Test
- rules inherent part of any lang
- from early age, ppl learn to master these rules
- test to see whether 2 year olds knew these rules-the Wug Test
- chose “wug” cuz it’s a non-word, not real
- ”here’s 1 wug…now there are 2 ___”-they wrote wugs-illustrated an important fact on what children know/what’s in their heads-not just memorizing and regurgitating words-applied a regular rule to a new word
Noam Chomsky
- proposed idea of universal lang-humans born w lang device in lungs, blueprint-allows us to learn these rules-attuned to learn rules
- then will learn lang hear growing up
- using these rules we internalize unconsciously, we can form sentences, change to plural, produce new utterances, generate lang
- maybe lang was part of us all along
- LAD-lang assisted device
- the innateness hypothesis
Noam Chomsky
-proposed idea of universal lang-humans born w lang device in lungs, blueprint-allows us to learn these rules-attuned to learn rules
-then will learn lang hear growing up
-using these rules we internalize unconsciously, we can form sentences, change to plural, produce new utterances, generate lang
-maybe lang was part of us all along
-LAD-lang assisted device
-the innateness hypothesis-the theory: Maybe language was part of us all along. This means that there is an innate component of language.
What properties do all languages share?
The Computational System
- knowing words is 1 thing-putting them together to make coherent sentences is another entirely
- even constructing words is part of the computational system-putting morphemes together-wug+s=wugs
is there a comprehensive descriptive grammar of any lang in existence?
- no-there’s not
- grammar is a hard thing to describe
- descriptive vs prescriptive grammar? could have list of prescriptive grammar, but harder w descriptive to characterize the rules
- Here’s the problem: look, if not even Chomsky can come up w a comprehensive descriptive grammar of any single lang, how on earth did we learn such a grammar?
What makes lang so special?
it operates according to rules of which we’re largely unconscious
though it has rules we use it creatively
we are not born speaking but somehow as infants we develop the ability to speak
-like walking
What makes lang so special?
- it operates according to rules of which we’re largely unconscious-like forming a yes/no question from a statement
- though it has rules we use it creatively-can create sentences never uttered before by adding infinite “very”s or just saying a strange sentence like “I really thought I saw a guy with a trombone at the back of the classroom, but it turned out just to be a scooter.”
- we are not born speaking but somehow as infants we develop the ability to speak
- like walking
Case marking
the subject of the sentence has one form and the direct object has a diff form
-In some languages, this goes beyond pronouns. In such languages, all nouns change form depending on whether they are the subject or object of the sentence.
Masha uvidela Sashu
-Masha saw Sasha
Sasha uvidela Mashu
-Sasha saw Masha
-in 1st sentence, Sasha=direct object, in second=subject-opp for Masha
-the direct object ends with -u
-gives us the ability to have free word order
-so how come we don’t have flexible word ordering in english
-in langs with rich case inflection, we can reorder the words more
ALL LANGUAGES ARE _____
- complex
- But the complexity of language can manifest in different ways.
- Let’s look at one of the arguments people have raised to defend the notion that aborginal languages are “primitive”.
- in Kayardild, spoken in Queensland-use word endings to denote direct object and subject instead of word order-not primitive, just diff way of doing things
So, how come we don’t have flexible word ordering in English?
How come we can’t say “The tail wags the dog” to mean “The dog wags the tail”?
In languages with RICH CASE INFLECTION, we get greater flexibility in word ordering.
Inflection?
The form of the word changes to reflect some grammatical feature.
Case-marking reflects the word’s grammatical role in the sentence.
But there are other grammatical features that can be reflected in a word’s form, or MORPHOLOGY.
Morphology
The Study of the Forms of Words: how and why do words change their forms?
-not just nouns
-spanish:
-1st person singular=camin-o, 1st person plural=camin-amos
-2nd person sing.=camin-as, 2nd person plural = camin-ais
-3rd person singular=camin-a, 3rd person plural=camin-an
-While 1st person refers to the speaker,
2nd person refers to the addressee, and
3rd person refers to someone besides the speaker and the addressee!
What does “-o” mean on a Spanish verb?
1st person singular subject, present tense.
What does “-an” mean?
3rd person plural subject, present tense.
morphemes
Words are not the smallest pieces of language.
Smaller than words, we have MORPHEMES.
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language.
does english have morphology?
We have now looked at Nominal morphology (morphology of nouns) in Russian and Kayardild and Verbal morphology in Spanish.-now english
- back to wugs-We certainly have a morpheme that makes nouns plural: “-s”.
- What morpheme gives us the past tense? “-ed”
- so yes-all langs do
Another way to say “bound morpheme” is …
affix
-Affixes (a.k.a. bound morphemes) have to attach to another morpheme.
how to affix an affix
There are several ways for an affix to affix! PREFIX SUFFIX CIRCUMFIX INFIX
prefix
an affix that comes before the word
X-root
E.g. re-call
suffix
an affix that comes before the word
root-X
E.g. call-er or call-ed
circumfix
an affix that comes before and after the word (diff parts of it-word splits it up-if just have 1 part, beginning or end, not meaningful)
X-root-X
E.g. em-blaz-on, em-bold-en
infix
an affix that comes in the middle of a world
-ro-X-ot
E.g. Cali-fuckin’-fornia!
what can affixes do
-depends on if inflectional or derivational
inflectional morphemes
-either reflect some grammatical feature(s), like Case, Person, Number, Gender, or Tense
-We’ve seen a bunch of these:
In Russian, the –u Case Affix indicates that a Noun is acting as the Direct Object of a Verb.
In Spanish, the –o Verbal Affix indicates 1st Person Singular Subject, Present Tense.
In English, the –ed Verbal Affix indicates Past Tense.
derivational morpheme
- change the Category of a word or the basic Meaning of a word
- There are two types of derivational morpheme:
1. Category Change: One type of derivational affix changes the lexical category of a word!
2. Meaning Change: The other type of derivational affix changes the meaning of a word!
derivational morpheme-category change
What does the suffix –able adjoin to and what does it create?
Understand-able
Approach-able
Love-able
*Chair-able
-able adjoins to VERBS and creates ADJECTIVES.
-What about –ance, as in defiance? takes a verb and makes it into a noun-annoy+ance=annoyance-verb to noun
derivational morpheme-meaning change
What happens when we add the following morphemes to a word: Re- Over- De- Un- Re-invent Over-eat De-activate Un-reasonable
combining morphemes-problems with
What does the word ‘unzippable’ mean? HINT: “Ziplock baggies are easily unzippable.” unzippable = able to be unzipped. “This suitcase is broken. The top compartment is unzippable.” unzippable = unable to be zipped. MANY AMBIGUITIES CAN BE DESCRIBED IN TERMS OF THEIR STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES. UNABLE TO BE ZIPPED ABLE TO BE UNZIPPED
COMPOUNDS!
Compounds can be another source of language-related confusion!
What does the following compound mean:
Oregon Trail Slug
N N N slug N N Oregon trail
N
A N Oregon N N trail slug As soon as there are more than two morphemes, more possibilities emerge! (But one is ruled out!) The order in which things attach matters. We see this in all polymorphemic words, including compounds:
A Phrase is a
Constituent
Every PHRASE has some category, which is defined by its
head
The HEAD is the only required part of a phrase.
We saw a Noun Phrase could just have a single Noun Head in it (i.e., Snape or Harry).
BUT a Phrase could be a constituent containing more than just the Head.
Phrase Structure Rules
Any Phrase can be broken into subcomponents.
We saw how this works with Noun Phrases; they crucially MUST contain a Noun.
Every Phrase must contain a Head of the same Lexical Category.
And Every Head must be contained in a Phrase of the same Lexical Category!
Other Lexical Categories,Other Phrases
An Adjective Phrase must contain a Head Adjective, but it could also contain an Adverb Phrase.
An Adverb Phrase must contain a Head Adverb, but it could also contain yet another Adverb Phrase!
NPs of all varieties could act as the subjects of sentences, but also
they can also be the direct objects of verbs.
how does a whole sentence fit together?
Every sentence must contain a Subject and a Verb.
The professor lectures.
S → NP VP
NP → Det N
VP → V
But some sentences need more.
What do we make of this sentence:
The professor liked.
What is this missing? How is it different from “The professor lectured”?
verb phrases
Verbs, like Nouns, come in Phrases. Sometimes the Verb occurs on its own, but sometimes, it requires a COMPLEMENT.
A COMPLEMENT of a Head is a Phrase that is required by that Head.
__ and ___ are Complements of Verbs.
Direct and Indirect Object
They are part of the verb phrase and required by the verb.
tree rules
S → NP VP NP → (Det) (AP) N (PP) VP → V (NP) (PP) AP → (AdvP) A AdvP → (AdvP) Adv PP → P NP
Recursion
The Computational System of EVERY LANGUAGE contains recursive sets of rules.
A recursive rule is a rule whose output can serve as its input.
-ex: VP–> NP and VP
Diagramming A Sentence:
STEP 1: Identify the lexical categories of all the words.
STEP 2: Every sentence is made up of a Noun Phrase Subject and a Verb Phrase. Identify the Subject NP and the VP.
STEP 3: Diagram the Subject Noun Phrase.
STEP 4: Determine how many complements the Verb takes.
STEP 5: Determine the Phrase Structure of the complement phrases.
STEP 6: Diagram the VP.
STEP 6: Diagram S.
do languages always have a single definition for a single word and a single word for a single definition
No language is so efficient as to have a 1-to-1 mapping of words and meanings. Here are three linguistic universals:
- Words can be ambiguous (e.g. bank)
- Words can be (near-)synonymous (e.g. curtain and drape)
- Words can have a range of meanings depending on context (e.g. Is a little big dinosaur the same as a big little dinosaur? (David Lebeaux(?))
hierarchal meanings/connections
dog-superordinate (superset-canine)
subordinate (subset-terriers)
Some connections between words are just defined as “A is a B.” This is typical for hierarchical categories: Lower level nodes will be connected to higher nodes by the “ISA” connection.
CANINE
ISA
DOG
ISA
BOXER
ISA
HANK
Any quality attributed to one node will automatically be a feature of lower nodes. Higher nodes, however, will not necessarily share this feature.
-ex: domesticated applies to dog and below, but not caninesdecompositional theory of lexical semantics.
What if we define terms by decomposing them to a set of basic binary features?
Thus, a decompositional theory of lexical semantics.
This will be useful in defining words as independent elements, however it can also be useful in assigning meanings to whole sentences
The man gave birth to a son. (-feminine)
The television placed the teddy bear on the couch.
(-animate)
associations
We can relate poodles and dachshunds because they are coordinates,
but what about poodles and leashes???
Some terms are not related based on category, but rather by associations.
a word’s denotation is ___ its connotations
different from
a word’s denotation
its basic meaning
a word’s connotations
its indirect associations
compounds
- some compounds are compositional-“bird watch” “book report” “birdhouse”
- some compositional compounds are ambiguous
- We saw that there are two ways to interpret a simple nominal compound, like “Vermont Maple Syrup”, because there are two ways to compose them! maple syrup from vermont, or syrup from vermont maple trees
Three types of compounds
Dvandva – the elements of the compound have equal weight.
Tatpurusha – the elements of the compound bear a thematic or property relationship to one another.
Bahuvrhi – the meaning of the compound as a whole is stored in the lexicon. The two elements are combined in a way in which the meaning of the two form a totally new meaning, not based on the properties of either one of the elements. Things like “block-head”.
what’s a zebra shirt? (how to figure out what relationship between 2 words in a compound is-diff types of relationships)
We could get a property relationship (where the properties of one element are ascribed to the second element).
Or we could get a thematic relationship (where they relationship between the two could be instantiated syntactically).
Thematic relations and theta-roles
We can see thematic roles (a.k.a. theta roles) very clearly when it comes to Verbs.
In the sentence Hagrid built a house, Hagrid is considered an AGENT of the verb build.
In other words, the Verb BUILD selects an AGENT subject.
Hagrid built a house on purpose.
In the sentence Harry heard a voice, is Harry an AGENT of the verb HEAR?.
In other words, The Verb HEAR selects an EXPERIENCER subject.
*Harry heard a voice on purpose.
Some sentences can actually be understood ____
compositionally.
But even that doesn’t prevent ambiguity from arising!
Just as words can contain structural ambiguities, so can sentences!!!
can have a sentence that could have 2 diff meanings-“the spy saw a suspicious man with a telescope”
sentence meanings beyond what is said
Sometimes what we mean extends beyond the words that we say in other ways, not only through metaphor or idiom-use, but rather, just by obeying the rules of polite conversation!
TWO STATEMENTS:
A: I acknowledge that Windows 7 is more user-friendly than Windows Vista.
B: I prefer Windows 7 to Windows Vista.
implicature and entailment
Implicature are Entailment are 2 types of relationships that may obtain between two statements.
What are the necessary TRUTH CONDITIONS for each?
implicature
If A is TRUE, what does that mean about B?
A: Annette has 3 children.
B: Annette ONLY has 3 children.
Because we have certain expectations, we assume B, when someone says A. If A is TRUE, we expect B also to be True, but it is not necessarily so.
If A is TRUE, what does that mean about B?
A: Homer and Maude are married.
B: Maude is married to Homer.
Let’s see whether B is simply an implication of A!
If B is FALSE, could A still be TRUE???
Maude is not married to Homer, but Homer and Maude are married.
Is this a CONTRADICTION???
If not, then what we have is IMPLICATURE.
But if so, then what we have is…
Entailment requires that different TRUTH CONDITIONS be met.
In any situation where A is TRUE, B must also be TRUE.
A: All my friends are linguists. B: My best friend is a linguist. A: Fleur rejected Ron’s invitation to the Yule Ball. B: Ron invited Fleur to the Yule Ball.
Let’s see whether B is an entailment of A!
If B is FALSE, could A still be TRUE???
Ron did not invite Fleur to the Yule Ball and Fleur rejected Ron’s invitation to the Yule Ball.
Is this a CONTRADICTION???
If so, then A ENTAILS B.
-this is the contradiction test
Quantifiers
There is a particular type of word that linguists refer to as a Quantifier. They are words that describe quantity. Here are some examples of Quantifiers: Some No Every All Few Many Most -quantifiers have a special relationship to truth conditions and entailment
The Entailment Properties of the Quantifer “All”
A: All koalas eat eucalyptus.
Which of the following propositions does A entail?
B1: All mammals eat eucalyptus.
B2: All the koalas at the National Zoo eat eucalyptus.
The entailment goes from the more general statement to the more specific statement.
upward entailment
statement still is true when made more general (extended to superordinate category)
downward entailment
statement still is true when made more specific (extended to subordinate category)
What kind of quantifier is ‘SOME’?
Downward or upward entailing?
A: Some NP VP B1: Some (more general NP) VP B2: Some (more specific NP) VP A: Some pigs have wings. B1: Some mammals have wings. B2: Some Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs have wings.
Some pigs have wings, but it is not the case that some mammals have wings.
contradiction test:
→
Some pigs have wings, but no mammals have wings.
Some pigs have wings but it is not the case that some Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs have wings.
→
Some pigs have wings but no pot-bellied pigs have wings.
So, what are the entailment properties of the quantifier ‘some’?
A entails B1, A does not entail B2.
more general → more specific = UPWARD ENTAILMENT
“SOME” is an upward entailing quantifier.
behaviorism
- proposed by BF Skinner in 50s
- lang, like other behaviors, is learned through positive and negative reinforcement
- Skinner’s experiments on rats and pigeons-he said “why not kids too?”0but this is flawed-not the same
- will probably be rewarded for being wrong as much as right-get positive reinforcement when mispronounce things/misuse lang-”aw that’s so cute!” when say “eated”-but they still learn it’s wrong eventually, somehow
- so positive and negative reinforcement not how we learn lang
Behaviorism does not = good theory for lang
-Chomsky-disputed behaviorism, among the 1st (and 1 of the most recognized) to champion the position that lang is really diff from all other behaviors
3 basic stages of language/communication
- the stages of linguistics communication can be condensed into 3 essential parts
- Production → Transmission → Reception
Information Theory
- the transfer of info was thought of as a sequence of events that leads from an information source to the successful reception of that information to the intended target
- info source (thought) → encoding (encoding it into lang) → production (spoken vs. sign language, vocally or manually) → transmission (visually or orally) → reception (someone hears/sees it) → decoding (understanding it) → back to info source
- we’ve separated info source and encoding-thought and lang-but are they really separate?
Thought w/o words
- what happens when you think to yourself? Do you think in abstract concepts or is it formulated as words?
- Jacobsen (1932)-in fact our vocal tract muscles actually are active when we are silently thinking
- but are these movements actually necessary to our thought process? Or do they facilitate it?
How are lang and thought related?
- we have 4 reasonable options, each of which has been defended by various scholars
- lang is a component of our cognition
- lang and cognition start out as discrete entities but become linked during development
- lang determines thought-how we speak determines how we think
- lang and cognition are discrete modules
- (last 2 are 2 diff positions)
How are lang and thought related?: Chomsky’s Position
- lang is not subsumed by thought; rather, they are 2 independent things
- can animals think? YES-have deductive reasoning
- can animals talk?
- we can teach a parrot certain utterances, it is true, but just because a creature is capable of learning something, does not mean that it is naturally suited to the task
- will it use its knowledge of these utterances creatively? NO.
Do Animals have Lang?
-well it depends on how one defines lang
-but given the way we have defined lang, no
What we have and what they don’t
-structure, as always is key
-lang is a discrete combinational system (CHS)
-the sequencing of syntactic items is critical
-3 more points-not important now
Where did human lang come from?
-it is possible that human lang developed from comm calls made by our primate ancestors
-there are distinct calls which may have, by means of massive evolutionary change, eventually develop into human lang
Communication → Lang
-according to any primate → human lang theory, the following must be true:
-there must’ve been natural selection for more developed comm skills
-the primate brain must’ve gone through vast changes that made our comm not simply an interactive lexicon of cries but rather a complex learned lexicon
-some of our oldest relatives showed signs og a change in these neurological formation at about the time the vocal tract also began to change
-H. Habilis-rudimentary development of Broca’s area of brain
-H. Erectus-large vocal tract, capable of more precise sounds, larger range-larger left hemisphere
-non human primates don’t have either the development in the left hemisphere of temporal lobe that we know are crucial to lang
-the frontal cortex (executive function) appears to have little or no role in their vocalizations-which might mean that those vocalizations aren’t as voluntary as others
-they also lack the descended pharynx that allows for a wider variety of speech gestures and more breath control
Birds, Bees, and Us
- all birds are equipped with a dozen or more innate calls
- these will be produced even if the bird is raised in isolation
- some birds such as the white-crowned sparrow takes the innate song and adjusts it slightly based on the “dialect of song of the other white crowned sparrow around it”
- what kind of lanng would an isolated human produce?
- bees communicate fairly complex info to one another, as noted by Karl von Frisch
- a bee, having food and good source of pollen, can fly back to the hive and tell the other bees where the pollen is and how far away
Animals and Language
- Jane Goodall and gorillas- and that dog and the toys-knew all their names, could retrieve, and when asked “where’s Darwin?” (not taught that one) could find by deduction cuz knew names of all the other toys and knew not Darwin
- but can’t really teach them language-can’t really do more than teach them, don’t pick up rules
- birds communicate with each other-learn dialect of their communities-but if not confronted with it, in isolation, can’t learn it-there’s a certain age, cutoff-after that don’t quite have ability anymore to grasp or learn that language/dialect-this is similar to humans
- humans also have a critical period-if you’re not exposed to lang very early on may never get to speak and understand the language natively
- bees communicate fairly complex info to each other-location of pollen-direction in which must fly and distance away-uses specific movements-”the waggle dance”-point in the direction of hive-because their eyes are like sundials, can see UV lights, can point to exact direction using sun-angle bee dances away from the “up” location is the angle they should dance away from the sun-and internal clock adjusts to sun moving
- but this is not quite language
- all innate, preprogrammed-bees aren’t teaching each other this-so don’t have both nature and nurture like we do
- don’t have creative aspect that we do-we are able to create new utterances all the time that reflect our thoughts-bees can’t-instinctual activity, doesn’t reflect the thoughts of the bee
- the lang of the bees, while sophisticated, while an accurate method of communication with rules, is not the same as what we have defined as language
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- Linguistic Determinism: the characteristics of a language will determine how we perceive the world
- language determines thought-our perception is tied to language
- well, do we really think all that differently from one another?
- languages are different from one another-Whorf took this as evidence that we think differently from one another
- in any strong sense, this notion is problematic, though many have offered evidence to support it:
Counting in Piraha
- Mura lang-spoken by tribe in the Amazon-very little words representing number
- all, many, much, a little, half, 1, 2, nothing
- speakers of Piraha tend to have difficulty performing tasks requiring them to assign quantity
Are dogs boys or girls?
- in Russian, the typical term for dog is “sobaka”, which is feminine for grammatical gender
- in Slovak, the typical term for dog is “pes”, which is masculine in grammatical gender
- but doesn’t seem to affect how they think of dogs
- according to this hypothesis, it should-but doesn’t-sort of disproves hypothesis
Strong and weak S-W Hypothesis
- the way we categorize things verbally may have some affect on the way that we perceive them, but there is very little evidence of true linguistic determinism
- strong version-even minute diff in our language have an effect on thought-but that is not true
- doesn’t 100% guide our thought even if has some effect
free morphemes
these can be stand-alone words-e.g. eun, panda, hear, happy, very talk
bound morphemes
these must be attached to some other morpheme-a.k.a. affix
free morphemes can also be of either a ____ type or a ____ type
grammatical type or a lexical type
Closed Class Categories
(function words)-these are the grammatical types
- Closed Class Category words are also known as Function Words-these are our grammatical free morphemes
- they serve a grammatical purpose in the sentence, but in terms of coming up with a precise definition, they are somewhat elusive
- they, too, come in a variety of flavors
- prepositions
- conjunctions
- determiners
- have nearly immutable inventories
- only think of 1 possible emerging exception: the word because may be transforming into a preposition-”because lexical change”
Open Class Categories
(Content Words)-these are the lexical types
- these come in a variety of flavors (subcategories within this category)
- noun
- verb
- adjective
- adverb
- they are open to innovation
- you can form new Verbs, Nouns, Adjectives, and Adverbs
free morphemes
what we might think of as wods
-unlike bound morphemes, they can occur on their own (without being attached to another morpheme)
Nouns
- these are often described as “people, places, and things”, which is a nice, simple way of describing them…
- but unfortunately, it is indeed too simple
- consider: “I went for a long run.”
- Is “run” really a person, place, or thing? Or does it describe an activity?
- nouns can be better identified not by their content but by their distribution (i.e. where in a sentence they can occur)
- one trick to identifying a noun is to see whether it can follow either the word “the” or “a”
verbs
-these are commonly known to denote an action
-again, this is problematic, because it’s a serious simplification
-in the earlier sentence, “run” denotes an action, but it’s a noun
-”Harry had a cold”
-What is the action in this sentence?
-“to have” isn’t really an action-it’s a description
-verbs, like nouns, are most accurately identified based upon their distribution (i.e., where they are found in the sentence)
-also, verbs have the property of agreement and tense
-agreement:
they change form to reflect agreement with the Subject of the sentence (only happens a little in English, but a lot in Spanish)
-”they runs”/”she run”-don’t work
-tense:
-they change form to reflect when the event denoted by the sentence occurred
-“Harry finds the Horcrux yesterday”-doesn’t work with tenses
Adjectives
- adjectives are actually pretty easy to identify, again based upon their distribution
- they always and only describe nouns
- A funny story, blue curtains, wise ideas, etc.
- adverbs are modifiers, like adjectives, however, they have a different distribution from adjectives
- adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs!
- ”Harry ran quickly”
- ”quickly”- is a complex morpheme-single morpheme? ??
- ”quickly” is an adverb
- ”a very funny book”
- “funny” is an adj that modifies book
- “very” isn’t modifying the “book”-modifying “funny”
- “very” is an intensifier
- “very” is an adverb
- “Harry ran very quickly”
- “quickly” describes “ran”-describes how the running was done
- “very” modifies the adverb “quickly”
- ”very” is an adverb
- intensifying adverbs like “very” modify adjectives or other adverbs
can you always determine the category of a word alone?
- sometimes what looks like the same word can actually be words of diff categories
- “thought”-can’t identify just from word
- “Hermione had a brilliant thought”
- “thought” is a noun here
- “Hermione thought Ron was a dope”
- “thought” is a verb here
- so the word in isolation actually doesn’t tell you its category-have to look at the context in which the word appears to find out its category
- fast
- “the fast train”-adjective
- “the train moves fast”-adverb
- but if have context, sentence/phrase, even if made up words, can usually figure out category of each word
Prepositions
-mnemonic for identifying prepositions:
-“It’s what a cat can do to a tree!”
-prepositions do have the function of relating 2 entities-takes 2 open class category words and relate them
“a book ABOUT wizards”-what’s the relationship between “book” and “wizard”? “about” tells us, connects them
-the day BEFORE yesterday
-the cover OF the book
-the cat IN the tree
Conjunctions
- conjunctions are words that combine words and phrases
- but conjunctions can only combine words and phrases of the same lexical category
- “I saw Ron and Hermione”-both nouns so can combine
- “Hermione always reads or studies in the Common Room”-both verbs so can combine
- could separate either of these into 2 sentences/paraphrase them into compound sentence-”I saw Ron and I saw Hermione” and “Hermione always reads in the Common Room”, “Hermione always studies in the Common Room”
- “Harry has gone to the forest and the diary”-”Harry has gone to the forest” and “Harry has the diary”-but Harry “has gone”-verb-and “diary”-noun-if want to use “has” as verb, can’t follow with “to go” on one end, which is a verb, and “the diary” a noun, on the other-“has” is used to denote tense on the first part and as the main verb of the second-doesn’t work
Determiners
-determiners are words that precede nouns and give us grammatical information about those nouns
-for example, they can tell us about the definiteness of a noun
“Grab ___ book from the shelf”
-2 diff possible determiners to fill in the blank- a? the? (any book vs. a particular book)
-determiners come in a couple of varieties:
Articles
the (definite)
a (indefinite)
Demonstratives
This/These (Proximal)
That/Those (Distal)
-don’t always give same meaning, but always occur in the same position-right before a noun-may be separated from the noun by a modifier (adjective?) but always comes before the noun
-some languages have a medial, too! (e.g. Spanish)
are some languages inherently better than others?
- the answer is a resounding NOOO!!!
- all languages/dialects are made up of complex lexicons and even more complex rules that govern how the language words
- there is however grammatical and ungrammatical language
- a sentence is grammatical if a native speaker considers it to be natural
- but grammatical is different from meaningful
- the lines of Jabberwocky may be meaningless, but they are nonetheless grammar!
- Same goes for “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”
- While we have looked at examples of phrases that are grammatical but meaningless, what about the flip side?
- do we find examples of utterances that are meaningful but grammarless?
- (something Palin said)
- while we may know the meanings of all the words that Palin used, ultimately her response was unparsable
- even if the words are real we know and understand their individual meanings, if the syntax was corrupt, no complete meaning can be convened
- so the answer is no-there are no utterances that are meaningful by grammarless
- except for Poetry!
- poetry is diff from what we all natural language
- we can build imagery using shards of sentences (even then, most of is written is governed by rules of the English lang
phrase structure rules
- Any Phrase can be broken into subcomponents.
- We saw how this works with Noun Phrases; they crucially MUST contain a Noun.
- Every Phrase must contain a Head of the same Lexical Category.
- And Every Head must be contained in a Phrase of the same Lexical Category!
Testing for negativity:
consider the following sentences:
Ron didn’t like his potions class at all.
Dumbledore enjoyed “Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans” at all.
If got rid of “at all”, both sentences work-but adding the “at all” in the 2nd sentence violates some grammatical rule. The diff between the 2 sentences is that there’s a negation in 1 and not the other.
“Ever and “At All” are the kinds of terms that can only occur in a negative environment.
-Such terms are known as Negative Polarity Items (Or NPIs)
-Since NPIs only occur in negative environments, we can conclude that if an NPI fits, the sentence is negative
“there ain’t no heaven for you to go to”
There ain’t no heaven at all for you to go to.
The NPI “at all” can occur in this environment, which means that this sentence must convey a negative meaning!
-Double Negatives in Other Languages-In some languages, the standard way of producing a negative sentence is to include 2 negative components
-so double negatives aren’t so bad
semantic relationships:
- Category Relations (Sets of individuals coordinates that occur within Supersets and contain subsets)
- Feature-based comparisons (binary features)
- Associations
