1、Chapter 11. Language can be generally defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is a system. Systematic- rule-governed, elements in it are arranged according to certain rules; cant be combined at will. e.g. *bkli, *I apple eat.Language is arbitrary. Arbitr
2、ary- no intrinsic connection between the word and the thing it denotes, e.g. “pen” by any other name is the thing we use to write with.Language is symbolic in nature. Symbolic- words are associated with objects, actions ideas by convention. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”-Shakespeare
3、 2. The design/defining features of human language (Charles Hockett)ArbitrarinessNo logical (motivated or intrinsic) connection between sounds and meaningsOnomatopoeic words (which imitate natural sounds) are somewhat motivated ( English: rumble, crackle, bang, . Chinese: putong, shasha, dingdang )S
4、ome compound words are not entirely arbitrary, e.g. type-writer, shoe-maker, air-conditioner, photocopyProductivity/CreativityPeculiar to human languages，users of language can understand and produce sentences they have never heard before, e.g. we can understand sentence like “ A red-eyed elephant is
5、 dancing on the hotel bed”, though it does not describe a common happening in the world.A gibbon call system is not productive for gibbon draw all their calls from a fixed repertoire which is rapidly exhausted, making any novelty impossible. The bee dance does have a limited productivity, as it is u
6、sed to communicate about food sources in any direction. But food sources are the only kind of messages that can be sent through the bee dance; bees do not “talk” about themselves, the hives, or wind, let alone about people, animals, hopes or desires DualityLower level-sounds (meaningless)Higher leve
7、l-meaning (larger units of meaning)A communication system with duality is considered more flexible than one without it, for a far greater number of messages can be sent. A small number of sounds can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning (words), and the units of meaning ca
8、n be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences. (We make dictionary of a language, but we cannot make a dictionary of sentences of that language.DisplacementLanguage can be used to refer to things, which are not present: real or imagined matters in the past, present or future, or
9、in far-away places. A gibbon never utters a call about something he ate last yearThere is something special about the bee dance though. Bees communicate with other bees about the food sources they have found when they are no longer in the presence of the food. In this sense, the bee dance has a comp
10、onent of displacement. But this component is very insignificant. For the bees must communicate about the food immediately on returning to the hive. They do not dance about the food they discovered last month nor do they speculate about future discoveries.Cultural transmissionLanguage is culturally t
11、ransmitted (through teaching and learning; rather than by instinct).Animal call systems are genetically transmitted. All cats, gibbons and bees have systems which are almost identical to those of all other cats, gibbons and bees.A Chinese speaker and an English speaker are not mutually intelligible.
12、 This shows that language is culturally transmitted. That is, it is pass on from one generation to the next by teaching and learning, rather than by instinct.The story of a wolf child, a pig child shows that a human being brought up in isolation simply does not acquire human language. 3. Some import
13、ant distinctions in linguistics Prescriptive vs. DescriptiveDescriptive - describe/analyze linguistic facts observed or language people actually use (modern linguistic)Prescriptive -lay down rules for “correct” linguistic behavior in using language (traditional grammar)Synchronic vs. diachronicSynch
14、ronic study- description of a language at some point of time (modern linguistics) Diachronic study- description of a language through time (historical development of language over a period of time) Speech vs. writingSpeech - primary medium of languageWriting - later developedLangue vs. parole (F. de
15、 Saussure)Langue - the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of the speech community.Parole - the realization of langue in actual use.Saussure takes a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.Competence and performance (Chomsky)Competence -
16、the ideal users knowledge of the rules of his language Performance - the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.Chapter 21. Speech organs: three i
17、mportant areas Pharyngeal cavity - the throat; The oral cavity - the mouth; Nasal cavity - the nose. 2. The diagram of speech organsLips Tip of tongue Teeth Blade of tongue Teeth ridge (alveolar) Back of tongue Hard palate Vocal cordsSoft palate (velum) Pharyngeal cavityUvula Nasal cavity 3.Minimal
18、pair-when two different forms are identical (the same) in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair, e.g. beat, bit, bet, bat, boot, but, bait, bite, boat.4. Phone, phoneme, allophoneA phone is a p
19、honetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. Phones do not necessarily distinguish meaning, some do, some dont, e.g. bI:t it is a unit of distinctive value; an abstract unit, not a particular sound, but it is represented by a certain
20、phone in certain phonetic context, e.g. the phoneme /p/ can be represented differently in pIt, tIp and spIt. Allophones - the phones that can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments5. The features that a phoneme possesses, making it different from other phonemes, are its distinctive f
21、eatures. Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, and minimal pair6. Suprasegmental features（the phonemeic features that occur above the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features）Stress Word stress The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, e.g. a shift in stress i
22、n English may change the part of speech of a word:Verb: import; increase; rebel; record Noun: import; increase; rebel; record Similar alteration of stress also occurs between a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same elements:Compound: blackbird; greenhouse; hotdogNoun phrase: black bird;
23、green house; hot dogThe meaning-distinctive role played by word stress is also manifested in the combinations of -ing forms and nouns:Modifier: dining-room; readingroom; sleepingbag Doer: sleeping baby; swimming fish; flying planeSentence stressSentence stress-the relative force given to the compone
24、nts of a sentence. Generally, nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals and demonstrative pronouns are stressed. Other categories like articles, person pronouns, auxiliary verbs prepositions and conjunctions are usually not stressed. Note: for pragmatic reason, this rule is not always right,
25、e.g. we may stress any part in the following sentences.He is driving my car. My mother bought me a new skirt yesterday. ToneTones are pitch variations,which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords.English is not a tone language, but Chinese is.m 妈 (level)m 麻 (the second ris
26、e)m 马 (the third rise)m 骂 (the fourth fall)IntonationWhen pitch, stress and length variations are tied to the sentence rather than to the word, they are collectively known as intonation.English has three types of intonation that are most frequently used:falling tone (matter of fact statement)rising
27、tone (doubts or question)the fall-rise tone (implied message)For instance, “Thats not the book he wants.”7. The manner of articulationStops/plosives: p, b, t, d, k, g; Fricatives: f, v, s, z, W, T, F, V, h;Affricates: tF, dV; Liquids: l(lateral), r; Nasals: m, n, N; Glides/semivowels: w, j. Chapter
28、31. Morpheme-the minimal unit of meaningWords are composed of morphemes. Words may consist of one morpheme or more morphemes, e.g.1-morpheme boy, desire 2-morpheme boy+ish, desir(e)+ble3-morpheme boy+ish+ness 4-morpheme gentle+man+li+ness, un+desir(e)+abl(e)+ity5-morpheme un+gentle+man+li+ness 6-mor
29、pheme anti+dis+establish+ment+ari+an+ism AffixPrefix - morphemes that occur only before others, e.g. un-, dis, anti-, ir-, etc. Suffix - morphemes that occur only after others, e.g. -ful, -er, -ish, -ness, -able, -tive, tion, etc.Free morpheme they never change their syntactic category, never add an
30、y lexical meaning, e.g.a) number: tables apples cars b) person, finiteness and aspect: talk/talks/talking/talked c) case: John/Johns3. Some points about compoundsNoun compoundsdaybreak (N+V) playboy (V+N) haircut (N+V) callgirl (V+N) windmill (N+N)Verb compoundsbrainwash (N+V) lipread (N+V) babysit(
31、N+V)Adjective compoundsmaneating (N+Ving) heartfelt (N+Ved) dutyfree (N+adj.)Preposition compoundsinto (P+P) throughout (P+P)When the two words are in the same grammatical category, the compound will be in this category, e.g. postbox, landlady, icy-cold, blue-blackWhen the two words fall into differ
32、ent categories, the class of the second or final word will be the grammatical category of the compound, e.g. head-strong, pickpocketCompounds have different stress patterns from the non-compounded word sequence, e.g. red coat, green houseThe meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the meaning
33、s of its parts.Chapter 41. Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb. The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, parts of speech
34、) Word-level categories Major lexical categories: N, V, Adj, Prep.Minor Lexical categories: Det, Deg, Qual, Auxi, Conj. Phrase categories and their structures Phrase categories-the syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrase categories, such as NP(N), VP(V), AP(A)
35、, PP(P). The structure: specifier + head + complement Head- the word around which a phrase is formedSpecifier- the words on the left side of the headsComplement- the words on the right side of the headsChapter 51. The conceptualist viewThe conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link betwee
36、n a linguistic form and what it refers to (i.e. between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. 2. The contextualismMeaning should be studied in terms of situation, use, contextelements closely linked with
37、language behavior. Two types of contexts are recognized:Situational context: spatiotemporal situationLinguistic context: the probability of a words co-occurrence or collocation.For example, “black” in black hair “The president of the United States” can mean either the president or presidency in diff
38、erent situation.3. Behaviorism Behaviorists attempted to define meaning as “the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer”.The story of Jack and Jill:Jill JackS_r-s_R4. Sense and referenceSense and reference are both concerned with the study of word meani
39、ng. They are two related but different aspects of meaning. Sense- is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested in.
40、Reference-what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. 5. Major sense relations Synonymy Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in
41、meaning are called synonyms. 1) Dialectal synonyms- synonyms used in different regional dialects, e.g. autumn - fall, biscuit - cracker, petrol gasoline 2) Stylistic synonyms-synonyms differing in style, e.g. kid, child, offspring; start, begin, commence3) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or ev
42、aluative meaning, e.g. collaborator- accomplice4) Collocational synonyms, e.g. accuseof, chargewith, rebukefor; 5) Semantically different synonyms, e.g. amaze, astoundAntonymy 1) Gradable antonyms-there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair, e.g. old-young, hot-cold, tall-sh
43、ort 2) Complementary antonyms-the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other, e.g. alive-dead, male-female 3) Relational opposites-exhibits the reversal of the relationship between the two items, e.g. husband-wife, father-son, doctor-patient, buy-sell, let-rent, employer-emp
44、loyee, give-receive, above-below 6. Sense relations between sentences (1) X is synonymous with YX: He was a bachelor all his life. Y: He never got married all his life.X: The boy killed the cat. Y: The cat was killed by the boy.If X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false.(2) X is inconsistent
45、 with YX: He is single. Y: He has a wife.X: This is my first visit to Beijing .Y: I have been to Beijing twice.If X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true.(3) X entails YX: John married a blond heiress. Y: John married a blond.X: Marry has been to Beijing. Y: Marry has been to China.Entailmen
46、t is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, then the meaning of X is included in Y.If X is true, Y is necessarily true; if X is false, Y may be true or false.(4) X presupposes YX: His bike needs repairing. Y: He has a bike.Paul has given up smoking. Paul once smoked.If X is true, Y must be true; I
47、f X is false, Y is still true.(5) X is a contradiction*My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.*The orphans parents are pretty well-off.(6) X is semantically anomalous*The man is pregnant.*The table has bad intentions.*Sincerity shakes hands with the black apple.7. Analysis of meaningComponenti
48、al analysis- a way to analyze lexical meaning. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. For example,Man: +HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALEBoy: +HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALEWoman: +HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALEGirl: +HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALEPredication analysis1) The meaning of a sentence is not to be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its component
