英语语言学讲义25页

●Final examination (60%)Homework (via email) and attendance (40%)●36 classes, 9 weeks, 9 Sunday mornings, basically 4 classes every two weeks, 8weeks for classes, 1 week for question-discussion, 16 lectures●Syllabus:Unit 1 Language: a preview (1 lectures)Unit 2 Syntax (4 lectures)Unit 3 Phonetics (3 lectures)Unit 4 Phonology (3 lectures)Unit 5 Morphology (1 lectures)Unit 6 Semantics (2 lecture)Unit 7 First and second language acquisition (2 lectures)Unit 1 Language: a preview•Teaching Objects:Make the students understand the properties of language.Make the students interested in linguistics.•Difficulty:the creativity of languageUniversal grammarthe biological property of language•What is linguistics? the discipline that studies (the nature and use) of language. •What is language?(ask the students to find out some answers to this questions)A system of communication? A medium for thought? A vehicle for literary expression? A matter for political controversy? A catalyst for nation building?•Is there language in other animals than human beings? Can other animals than human beings can create tools?◆Language is a creative system: language can enable us to produce andunderstand new words, phrases, and sentences as the need arises. •Examples: (p. 2)1)to create verbs from nouns, e.g.:(1) Julia summered in Paris.(2) Harry wintered in Mexico.(3) Harry and Julia honeymooned in Hawaii.constraint:(4) *Jerome midnighted in the streets.(5) *Andrea nooned at the restaurant.•The examples show that when a verb is created from a time expression, it must be given a very specific interpretation----roughly paraphrasable as “to be somewhere for the period of time X”. Thus, “to summer in Paris” is “to be in Paris for the summer”. Since “noon”and “midnight”express points in time rather than extended periods of time, they cannot be used to create new verbs of this type.2)Ask the students to find another example to show the creativity of languages.(hint: embedding)1.Grammar:Why is language a creative system?What are characteristics of Grammar?•Grammar and Linguistic competence•Speaker of a language are able to produce and understand an unlimited number of utterances, including many that are novel and unfamiliar (creativity). This ability, which is often called linguistic competence, constitutes the central subject matter of linguistics.•In investigating linguistic competence, linguists focus on the mental system that allows human beings to form and interpret the words and sentences of their language. This system is called a grammar.•The grammar can be divided into the following components:Component DomainPhonetics the articulation and perception of speech soundsPhonology the patterning of speech soundsMorphology word formationSyntax sentence formationSemantics the interpretation of words and sentencesGenerality: all languages have a grammar•If a language is spoken, it must have a phonetic and phonological system; since it has words and sentences, it must also have a morphology and a syntax; and since these words and sentences have systematic meanings, there mustobviously be semantic principles as well.Syntactic examples:(6) The two dogs now see several kangaroos.(7) Dogs two now see kangaroos several.(8) See now kangaroos several dogs two.(9) Kangaroos several now dogs two see.(10) Kangaroos several now see dogs two.(6) could be translated by the equivalent of any of sentences in ((7-10)). Phonological examples:•Ask the students to give an example to show the grammar of English sounds (hint: spr-)2.2 Equality: all grammars are equal•From the point of view of modern linguistics, it makes no more sense to say that one variety of English is better than another than it does to say that the grammar of English is better (or worse) than the grammar of Thai.•Why?•All languages and all varieties of a particular language have grammars that enable their speakers to express any proposition that the human mind can produce. All varieties of langue are absolutely equal as instruments of communication and thought.•Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. This means that linguists seek to describe human linguistic ability and knowledge, not to prescribe one way of speaking in preference to another.•The way to determine whether a construction is “grammatical”is to find people who speak the language and ask them.Changeabiligy: Grammars change over time•The grammars of languages are constantly changing.•Some of them are relatively minor and occur quickly (e.g., the addition of new words: Internet, e-mail…to the English vocabulary)•Other changes have a more dramatic effect on the overall form of the language and typically take place over a long period of time. E.g., the formation of negative structures in English has undergone this type of change.By 1400 or thereabouts, not or nawt typically occurred by itself after the verb.(11) a. I seye not the wordes.b. We saw nawt the knyghtes.It was not until several centuries later that English adopted its current practice of allowing not to occur after only certain types of verbs (such as do, have, will, and so on).(12) a. I will not say the words.(versus *I will say not the words.)b. He didn‟t not see the knights.(versus * He saw not the knights.)These modifications illustrate the extent to which grammars can change over time. The structures exemplified in 11) are archaic by today's standards.•Through the centuries, individuals and organizations who believe that certain varieties of language are better than others have frequently expressed concern over what they perceive to be the deterioration of English. In 1710, for example, the writer Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver's Travels) lamented "the continual Corruption of our English Tongue." Among the corruptions to which Swift objected were contractions such as he's for he is, although he had no objection to Tis for It is.•In the nineteenth century, Edward S. Gould, a columnist for the New York Evening Post, published a book entitled Good English; or, Popular Errors in Language, in which he accused newspaper writers and authors of "sensation novels" of ruining the language by introducing "spurious words" like jeopardize and underhanded.•Linguists reject the view that languages attain a state of perfection at somepoint in their history and that subsequent changes lead to deterioration and corruption. As noted above, there are simply no grounds for claiming that one way of speaking is somehow superior to another. There is therefore no reason to think that language change can or will undermine the adequacy of English (or any other language) as a medium of communication.2.4University: grammars are alike in basic ways•There are many differences among languages, as even a superficial examination of their sound patterns, vocabularies, and word order reveals.But this does not mean that there are no limits on the type of grammars that human beings can acquire and use. Quite to the contrary, current research suggests that there are important grammatical principles and tendencies shared by all human languages.•(Noam Chomsky‟s famous Universal Grammar)•One such universal principle involves the manner in which sentences are negated. With unlimited variation, one would expect 'negators' (the equivalent of English not) to occur in different positions within the sentence in different languages. Thus, we might predict that each of the following possibilities should occur with roughly equal frequency.13)a. Not Pat is here.b. Pat not is here.c. Pat is not here.d. Pat is here not.As it happens, the first and fourth patterns are very rare. In virtually all languages, negative elements such as not either immediately precede or immediately follow the verb.•The relative ordering of other elements is also subject to constraints. To see this, we need only consider the six logically possible orders for a simple three-word statement such as Canadians like hockey.14)a. Canadians like hockey.b. Canadians hockey like.c. Like Canadians hockey.d. Like hockey Canadians.e.Hockey like Canadians.f. Hockey Canadians like.Interestingly, more than 95 percent of the world's languages adopt one of the first three orders for basic statements. Only a handful of languages use any of the last three orders as basic. This once again reflects the existence of constraints and preferences that limit variation among languages.•These are not isolated examples. As later chapters will show, some grammatical categories and principles are universal. And where there is variation (as in the case of word order), there is typically a very limited set of options. Contrary to first appearances, the set of grammars learned and used by human beings is limited in significant ways.2.5 Tacitness: Grammatical knowledge is subconscious•Ask the students to say out the difference between the following two expressions:*人来了。