Linguistics Flashcards
Syntax
Covers the structural properties of language
Eg word order
English (SVO)
Tom watches TV
Semantics
Word and sentence meanings
Compositionality
The meaning of the whole sentence is composed of the meaning of the parts
The queen likes corgis - true
The queen likes Daschounds - not true
Differs by one word and holds diff meaning
Pragmatics
The study of language in context
Meaning can arise from context
Eg ‘do you want to see mission impossible?’
‘I don’t like action movies ‘
Check lecture
Verb
Determines syntax (structure) of sentence
Syntax depends on meaning of verb (semantics)
Prescriptive grammars
How we should speak
Ie no double negatives
But this isn’t necessarily correct, double negatives in Spanish for example, well understood and doesn’t cause confusion
Also
The dog looked hopefully at the food vs hopefully it won’t rain in the morning - the first has a normal adverb and was deemed correct but the second has a sentential adverb, which used to be deemed unacceptable - Lang changes
Dialectal terms
Innit - single form tag question
He does be going - Irish
Dialectal terms are not an error
AAVE
African American vernacular English
Ebonics
He be working Tuesdays
Mental grammars
The underlying system
The form you’ve been taught be form you use
Jack and I vs me and jack
Communicative view
Constant linguistic structures consistent with their speech community that allow expression of thought = fine
