Working with Language Peter J. Silzer WWL2003

Working with Language An interactive guide to understanding language and linguistics

Supplementary course materials for ISAL 520 / ENGL 351 / INAL 300 / INCS 310 Spring 2003

Dr. Peter J. Silzer SIL at Biola Department of TESOL and Applied Linguistics School of Intercultural Studies Biola University

These notes are written for classroom purposes only. Copyright © Peter J. Silzer 1995-2003

Scripture verses are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society

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Working with language

Table of contents

Preface.............................................................................................................................. 1 Language in the Bible.....................................................................................................13 Study questions ...................................................................................................................... 13 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 13 Language, God and man ....................................................................................................... 14 How God uses language ........................................................................................................ 15 How people use language ...................................................................................................... 16 How God wants people to use language............................................................................... 17 Human languages and God’s Word..................................................................................... 18 Pike’s axioms on language and the Bible............................................................................. 20 Key points............................................................................................................................... 21 Internet resources .................................................................................................................. 21 Exercises ................................................................................................................................. 22

What is language?...........................................................................................................23 Study questions ...................................................................................................................... 23 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 24 Language: a definition .......................................................................................................... 24 Language: four distinctive characteristics .......................................................................... 25 Language: eleven functions................................................................................................... 27 Language: a model ................................................................................................................ 30 Linguistic knowledge or competence ................................................................................... 31 Locating language in the brain............................................................................................. 31 Key points............................................................................................................................... 32 Internet resources .................................................................................................................. 32 Exercises ................................................................................................................................. 33

What is linguistics? .........................................................................................................35 Study questions ...................................................................................................................... 35 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 35 Definitions .............................................................................................................................. 36 Linguistic method(s) .............................................................................................................. 38 Pike’s 4 basic concepts about language ............................................................................... 39 Linguistics Creed ................................................................................................................... 42

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Goals of linguistics ................................................................................................................. 43 Linguistics through the ages ................................................................................................. 45 Key points............................................................................................................................... 46 Internet resources .................................................................................................................. 46 Exercises ................................................................................................................................. 46

Phonetics .........................................................................................................................47 Study questions ...................................................................................................................... 47 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 47 Definitions .............................................................................................................................. 48 Components of speech production ....................................................................................... 48 Consonants ............................................................................................................................. 50 Vowels ..................................................................................................................................... 53 The IPA................................................................................................................................... 56 Suprasegmentals .................................................................................................................... 58 How to take phonetic notes ................................................................................................... 60 Key points............................................................................................................................... 61 Internet resources .................................................................................................................. 61 Exercises ................................................................................................................................. 62

Phonology........................................................................................................................67 Study questions ...................................................................................................................... 67 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 67 Definitions .............................................................................................................................. 68 Three possible relationships.................................................................................................. 70 Natural classes........................................................................................................................ 73 Distinctive features ................................................................................................................ 74 Symmetry ............................................................................................................................... 75 Phonological rules.................................................................................................................. 76 Solving phonological problems............................................................................................. 77 Prosody ................................................................................................................................... 77 Phonotactics ........................................................................................................................... 78 Hierarchy in phonology......................................................................................................... 79 Universals of phonology ........................................................................................................ 80 English Tongue Twisters....................................................................................................... 81 Key points............................................................................................................................... 82 Exercises ................................................................................................................................. 82

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Morphology .....................................................................................................................83 Study questions ...................................................................................................................... 83 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 83 Definitions .............................................................................................................................. 84 Morphological analysis ......................................................................................................... 86 Types of morphemes.............................................................................................................. 89 Words...................................................................................................................................... 90 Inflectional versus derivational affixes ................................................................................ 93 Inflectional morphology ........................................................................................................ 93 Derivational morphology ...................................................................................................... 98 Some limitations on derivational processes......................................................................... 99 Other word formation processes ........................................................................................ 100 Allomorphs........................................................................................................................... 101 Hierarchy in morphology.................................................................................................... 102 Typology of languages......................................................................................................... 103 Key points............................................................................................................................. 105 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 105

Syntax ............................................................................................................................107 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 107 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 107 Definitions ............................................................................................................................ 108 Analyzing phrases and clauses ........................................................................................... 109 Tree diagrams ...................................................................................................................... 110 Phrase structure rules ......................................................................................................... 111 Subcategorization ................................................................................................................ 111 Transformations .................................................................................................................. 113 Syntactic universals of language ........................................................................................ 115 Key points............................................................................................................................. 121 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 121 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 122

Semantics & Pragmatics...............................................................................................123 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 123 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 123 Definitions ............................................................................................................................ 124 Semantic features................................................................................................................. 125

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Relations between words..................................................................................................... 127 Figurative language ............................................................................................................. 130 Ambiguity ............................................................................................................................. 132 Thematic roles and verbs .................................................................................................... 133 Pragmatics............................................................................................................................ 135 Key points............................................................................................................................. 137

Language acquisition....................................................................................................141 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 141 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 141 Definitions ............................................................................................................................ 142 First language acquisition ................................................................................................... 143 Key points............................................................................................................................. 145 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 145 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 146

Language learning........................................................................................................147 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 147 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 147 Differences between children and adult learners.............................................................. 148 Motivation ............................................................................................................................ 148 Temperament and language learning ................................................................................ 149 Sensory preference and language learning........................................................................ 150 Brain dominance and language learning........................................................................... 151 Key points............................................................................................................................. 151 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 151 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 152

Language variation and sociolinguistics .....................................................................153 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 153 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 154 Definitions ............................................................................................................................ 154 Language varieties............................................................................................................... 155 Language attitudes .............................................................................................................. 159 Strategies for measuring language attitudes ..................................................................... 160 Attitudes and group identity............................................................................................... 161 Key points............................................................................................................................. 161 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 161

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Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 162

Languages in contact ....................................................................................................163 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 163 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 163 Bilingualism.......................................................................................................................... 164 Diglossia................................................................................................................................ 169 Pidgins and creoles .............................................................................................................. 169 Key points............................................................................................................................. 171 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 171 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 171

Language change..........................................................................................................173 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 173 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 173 All languages change ........................................................................................................... 174 Methods of historical linguistics......................................................................................... 175 How languages change ........................................................................................................ 179 Language survey .................................................................................................................. 184 World language statistics .................................................................................................... 186 Key points............................................................................................................................. 186 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 187 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 187

Language and culture...................................................................................................189 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 189 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 189 Key points............................................................................................................................. 192 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 192 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 192

Translation ....................................................................................................................193 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 193 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 193 What is translation? ............................................................................................................ 194 Bible translation through history....................................................................................... 197 Translation needs................................................................................................................. 200 Key points............................................................................................................................. 201 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 202

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Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 203

Language planning .......................................................................................................205 Study questions .................................................................................................................... 205 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 205 Definitions of ‘language planning’ ..................................................................................... 206 Who plans what for whom and how?” .............................................................................. 206 The role of history in language planning........................................................................... 210 Key points............................................................................................................................. 212 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 212 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 212

Language and writing...................................................................................................213 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 213 Oral versus written language.............................................................................................. 214 Types of writing systems ..................................................................................................... 215 The English orthography .................................................................................................... 217 Key points............................................................................................................................. 221 Internet resources ................................................................................................................ 221 Exercises ............................................................................................................................... 222

Appendix A: Faith and learning ................................................................................ 223 Appendix B: Language project.................................................................................... 251 Appendix C: Scripture references about language.....................................................267 Appendix D: Quotations about language....................................................................269 References .....................................................................................................................271 Abbreviations.................................................................................................................281

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Preface

Introduction This course provides an opportunity to study one of the most amazing aspects of human life: language. These course notes attempt to cover a wide variety of topics concerning what language is, how it is organized, how it is learned, how it changes over time and how it is used in society. To facilitate your studies each chapter is presented in a similar format: •

Study questions to guide your reading in the textbook

•

Lecture notes to follow during class

•

Quotations for thought (“What do YOU think?”)

•

Key points about the topic

•

Internet resources for further study

•

Exercises pertaining to the topic presented in class

Study questions Study questions at the beginning of each chapter can guide your textbook reading before class. If you can answer these questions you will have a good grasp of the main points of the topic. By answering these questions through your reading and participation in class, you will be well prepared for the quizzes and exams. Example: What are the major topics discussed in this course?

Course outline The major points of each chapter will be presented in an outline form with room for you to take additional notes. You should read through Working with language

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the lecture notes before class and jot down any points from the readings that fit a particular topic. The following outline shows the major topics that will be discussed in our class. Note that several topics do not have corresponding sections in the Language Files textbook. Unit one: Introduction •

Preface: What will this course cover?

•

Language in the Bible What does the Bible teach us about language?

•

What is language? How is language different from other forms of communication?

Unit two: Descriptive linguistics •

What is linguistics? How does a linguist study language?

•

Phonetics How can we describe the sounds used in different languages?

•

Phonology What sounds are significant in a particular language?

•

Morphology What are words formed?

•

Syntax How are phrases and sentences put together?

•

Semantics and pragmatics How is the form of a word or phrase related to its meaning?

Unit three: Applied linguistics •

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Language acquisition How does an infant learn to speak a language? How do adults learn to speak a second language? Working with language

•

Language variation and sociolinguistics How does language relate to society?

•

Language change How (and why) do languages change?

•

Languages in contact What happens when languages come in contact?

•

Language and culture How does language reflect culture?

•

Translation What is good translation?

•

Language planning Can languages be changed intentionally?

•

Language and writing How are spoken and written language related?

Key points Each chapter ends with a series of summary statements about the content of the chapter. By the time you finish reading the textbook and these course notes you should understand these main points and be able to explain them to someone else. These key points also make a good review for examinations. For example: This course is only an introduction to the study of language. You will benefit most by doing the assigned readings and exercises before class.

Additional materials This course pack contains additional materials to help you in your studies.

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Appendix A Language in the Bible exercises These exercises will guide you in a study of the role of language as presented in the Bible.

Appendix B The Language Project Each student will apply the knowledge and skills of the course as they work with speakers of a language they want to learn. Details of the language project will be explained in class.

Appendix C Scripture references about language

Appendix D Quotations about language

References Books and articles about language and linguistics These materials, and many others, are available at Biola. You are encouraged to browse the library shelves (especially P and PA in the Library of Congress system on the second floor and 401-410 in the Dewey Decimal system in the basement) and the materials available through the SIL program office.

Materials for further study

Print media

A complete list of sources used for this course can be found in the References section at the end of these notes.

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There are several excellent encyclopedias about language and linguistics: Bright, William, ed. 1992. International encyclopedia of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [IEL is these notes] Collinge, N. E., ed. 1990. An encyclopaedia of language. London: Routledge. [EL in these notes] Crystal, David, ed. 1987. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [CEL in these notes] Malmkjaer, Kirsten, ed. 1991. The linguistics encyclopedia. London: Routledge. [LE in these notes] There are also a number of dictionaries about linguistics, including: Bussman, Hadumod. 1996. Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics. London: Routledge. Crystal, David. 1991. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. 3rd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. _____ . 1992. An encyclopedic dictionary of language and languages. Oxford: Blackwell. Richards, Jack C., John Platt, and Heidi Platt. 1992. Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. Longman. Trask, R. L. 1993. A dictionary of grammatical terms in linguistics. London: Routledge.

You may also want to look at the following general books: Black, David Alan. 1988. Linguistics for students of New Testament Greek. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. Comrie, Bernard. 1990. Major languages of the world. New York: Oxford University Press. (This book includes detailed description of Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Pashto,

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Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Sanskrit, SerboCroat, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, and Yoruba.) Comrie, Bernard, Stephen Matthews and Maria Polinsky, eds. 1996. The atlas of languages: the origin and development of language throughout the world. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Cotterell, Peter and Max Turner. 1989. Linguistics and biblical interpretation. Downers Grove: InterVarsity. Eastman, Carol M. 1990. Aspects of language and culture. 2nd edition. Novato, CA: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc. Katzner, Kenneth. 1995. The languages of the world. London: Routledge. Parker, Frank and Kathryn Riley. 1994. Linguistics for non-linguists. 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Pinker, Stephen. 1994. The language instinct. New York: William Morrow and Company. Silva, Moisés. 1990. God, language and Scripture: reading the Bible in the light of general linguistics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House.

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Non-technical Christian books on language Baker, William R. 1996. Sticks & stones: the discipleship of our speech. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Christensen, Chuck and Winnie Christensen. 1990. Careful! Someone’s listening: recognizing the importance of your words. Chicago: Moody Bible Institute. Durham, Ken. 1986. Speaking from the heart. Ft. Worth, TX: Sweet Publishing. Flynn, Leslie. 1971. Did I say that? 2nd edition. Wheaton, IL: Key Publishers. Komp, Diane M, M.D. 1998. Anatomy of a lie. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Koopman, LeRoy. 1972. Beauty care for the tongue. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing Company. Mains, Karen Burns. 1988. You are what you say. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Mayhall, Carole. 1986. Words that hurt; words that heal. Colorado Springs: NAVPress. Stafford, Tim. 1995. “That’s not what I meant.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. Stowell, Joseph M. 1998. The weight of your words. Chicago, IL: Moody Press. Taylor, Florence M. 1975. The bridled tongue: Bible words about words. New Canaan, CN: Keats Publishing, Inc. Tripp, Paul David. 2000. War of words: getting to the heart of your communication struggles. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

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Journals Important journals relating to linguistics include the following: Applied Linguistics The Bible Translator International Journal of Linguistics Language Language in Society Language Problems and Language Planning Notes on Linguistics (SIL) Notes on Translation (SIL) TESL Reporter TESL Talk TESOL Journal TESOL Matters TESOL Quarterly

Non-print media

CD ROM There are several useful CD-ROM and on-line indices of articles and dissertations regarding language and linguistics, including: Academic Abstracts ATLA Religion Index Dissertation Abstracts First Search MLA International Bibliography

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VIDEOS Many movies illustrate language and how language relates to culture. The library has a number of non-fiction videos about language and linguistics. Deborah Tannen History of the English language

Two videos about Dr. Tannen’s research on male-female speech and other topics in sociolinguistics A 20-minute video with readings from Old English and Middle English.

The Human languages series

A 6-part series covering a wide range of topics

In search of the first language

A NOVA presentation about historical linguistics

Language development

A discussion about how children acquire language A 5-part series on English

The story of English

There are also fictional videos that illustrate key elements of language. The following list should not be taken as an endorsement of the movies mentioned. Dances with wolves (1990)

Lakota Sioux language examples

The Gods must be crazy (1980)

Phonetic “click” sounds

The Miracle Worker (1962)

How Helen Keller first understood the concept of language, sign language

My Fair Lady (1964) or Pygmalian (1939)

The attitudes people have about dialects, phonetic transcription, phonetic research, research ethics

Nell (1994)

The affect of adult models on children’s speech

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Internet resources BUBBS Our class will use BUBBS for communication and discussion. Students should check in the Linguistics folder at least once a week for announcements and supplementary materials. You are also encouraged to send your questions to the class folder so that other students can benefit from the interaction. You are most welcome to contribute items to the folder if you find something that may be of interest to our class discussions. The Linguistics folder is located under Conferences – School and Academics – School of Intercultural Studies – Linguistics courses – Linguistics. You can put the folder on your personal desktop or in a Favorites folder to make it easier to find. The Internet The Internet has thousands of linguistic resources. The following four sites relate specifically to this course: ♦ The author’s home page (http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/) lists the most important sites for this course. Note: if you use the on-line version of these course notes the hyperlinks will take you directly to the websites mentioned in the text. ♦ You will also find a list of Scripture references that illustrate or talk about language (http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/linguistics/verses.pdf) and a list of quotations about language (http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/linguistics/Quotes.pdf). ♦ The Language Files textbook also has a website and you are encouraged to use its resources: http://ling.ohio-state.edu/files/files.html . Some other places to start include: ♦ The Ethnologue, a resource site on the 6800+ living languages of the world www.ethnologue.com

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♦ Yahoo’s language and linguistics page www.yahoo.com/Social_Science/Linguistics_and_Human_Langua ges/ ♦ I love languages (formerly the Human Languages page) www.ilovelanguages.com/ ♦ Linguistic Olympics darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tpayne/lingolym/index.htm ♦ The Linguist List language analysis page http://linguistlist.org/sp/LangAnalysis.html ♦ The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) home page www.sil.org See the end of each chapter for other resources by topic.

Exercises Each chapter ends with exercises to help you apply the main points of the topic. These are meant to supplement the exercises in the textbook.

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Working with language

Language in the Bible

Textbook readings None

Study questions How is language related to the “image of God”? How many languages did God use to convey the original Scriptures? Did the Israelites all speak the same way? (See Judges 12:5-6) What language(s) did Jesus speak? What language(s) did Paul speak? What role does language play in spreading the Gospel?

Introduction What does the Bible have to do with language? Why start a course on linguistics with a chapter about the Bible? In what ways can a Christian integrate his or her faith (the Bible) with learning (linguistics)? These are some of the many questions that this chapter addresses. We will see that the Bible provides dozens of case studies about language as well as hundreds of verses that present an ethical approach

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to language use. Rather than putting this part of our life to the side while we study human language, we will seek to integrate what we can learn from the Bible with what we can learn from linguistics. We will see that language is at the very core of being human, of being created in the image of God, and that language has a moral and ethical side in addition to the features normally discussed in linguistics.

Language, God and man Moisés Silva, in his book God, language and Scripture, addresses the question of God and language: ...the real question is not “How can God speak (since he does not have a body)?” but “How can we speak?” The answer to this is: We are made in the image of a God who speaks. (Silva 1990:23) Silva (1990:16) gives the following three perspectives on language: language is intrinsic to God’s own being and activity language is clear evidence of the fact that Adam and Eve were distinctive creatures made in God’s image language is inseparable from the mandate to Adam and Eve to rule creation If we are to understand a “biblical” view of language, we will need to consider what Scripture says about language use and the examples it gives of how God uses language to communicate.

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How God uses language The Bible shows God using human language from the beginning of Creation in Genesis through the vision of heaven in the Book of Revelation. The following few verses give an indication of the ways in which God uses language.

Personal

Acts 2:5-12 Acts 26:14 Mark 5:41

Purposeful

2 Timothy 3:15-17 John 20:31-32 1 John 5:13

Powerful

Genesis 1 Jeremiah 23:29 Matthew 4:1-11 Hebrews 4:12

Permanent record

Exodus 17:14 Jeremiah 30:2 Habakkuk 2:2

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How people use language The Bible shows people using language from the beginning of Creation in Genesis through the vision of heaven in the Book of Revelation. The following few verses give an indication of the ways in which people normally use language.

Control over nature

Genesis 2:19-20

Control over people

Esther 1:22

Conflict

Judges 12:5-6

Idolatry

Genesis 11:1-9

Deceit

Psalm 50:19-20

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How God wants people to use language The Bible speaks very specifically about right and wrong in language use. There are some ways of using language that are discouraged and others are encouraged.

Talk with God

Matthew 6:9-13

Testify about God

Psalm 145:4-6 1 Timothy 4:13

Study God’s Word and teach others

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 Joshua 1:8 Psalm 1:1-2

Tell the truth

Exodus 20:16 Leviticus 19:11, 14, 16 Ephesians 4:25-5:4

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Over the past twenty years a number of Christian and Jewish writers have addressed the topic of language ethics in light of the Scriptures. Koopman (1972), Caird (1980), Mayhall (1986), Mains (1988), Christensen and Christensen (1990), Stafford (1995), Baker (1996), Telushkin (1996) Komp (1998), Stowell (1998), Poythress (1999), and Tripp (2000) discuss many other Scripture passages about the proper use of language. Most of these books are available in the Biola learning resource center. If you are interested in further studies in this topic, you can also find information under "Speech Ethics" on: http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/linguistics/ethics.htm

Human languages and God’s Word God used three languages to convey His written message, the Bible: ♦ Hebrew ♦ Aramaic ♦ Greek Each was capable of conveying what God wanted to convey, even though they were normal human languages. Hebrew and Aramaic are fairly closely related (much as English is related to German, or Spanish to Portuguese). Both are members of the larger language grouping called Northwest Semitic, which also encompasses Phoenician and Moabite. Other languages in the larger Semitic family include Arabic, Babylonian and Akkadian. Greek is not at all related to Hebrew or Aramaic; it belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, which includes (very distantly from Greek) English, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, and even Sanskrit. The biblical languages were once considered to be unique languages. Linguistic studies show that they are not unique in any structural way. The fact that God used these three languages to convey the Scriptures says more about God’s desire to communicate to particular groups of people than it does about the uniqueness of the languages. Since God had chosen Abraham and his descendants, He used their Hebrew language for most of the Old Testament. The Aramaic sections of the Old Testament (Daniel 2:4b-7:28; Ezra 4:8-6:18, 7:12-26) show the wide spread importance of Aramaic during and after the Exile.

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During the time of Jesus and the disciples, Greek was a language of commerce and Aramaic was the language used in Jewish homes. Hebrew was known as the language of the Old Testament, but Jesus and the disciples also knew of the Greek translation, the Septuagint. Jesus was multilingual, using Aramaic predominantly in his ministry in Israel (e.g., Talitha kumi ). There is good reason to believe that Jesus spoke Aramaic and Greek and also knew Hebrew. Paul was probably also multilingual and used these same three languages, although his primary language appears to have been Greek rather than Aramaic. The Greek used in the New Testament is very similar to the ordinary working language of the common people of the time, although Paul’s writings show more formal structures. New Testament Greek is thus referred to as koine or ‘common’ Greek. Again, God’s apparent desire to reach a wide range of people might explain the shift from the narrow focus of Hebrew and Aramaic to the better known Koine Greek.

What do YOU think? If the student of the New Testament is to become something more than a well-trained technician, he must sooner or later develop a solid perspective on linguistic study and on the nature of language itself. (Black 1988:21)

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Pike’s axioms on language and the Bible Kenneth L. Pike, a renowned Christian linguist and former President of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, presents twenty-one axioms concerning how God uses language and how language is used by people (Pike 1974:47f). Here are several of Pike’s axioms: •

Bible language is human language, normal in pattern, rules, and use.

•

Jesus spoke ordinary human language. Jesus in his incarnation accepted the constraints of human language, just as he accepted constraints as to walking in time and space in a body.

•

Jesus’ message was incarnate in human language, yet ‘without sin’.

•

As part of the result of man’s being created in the image of God, the communication system of God and that of man are not disjoint. .... by creation God has made man’s language sufficiently like his own internal communication system, whatever that may be, that man’s is a pale reflection of his own and allows talk across the barrier in both directions.

•

Human language is a sufficient vehicle for carrying communication from God in propositional form.

•

The scriptures are translatable in their crucial intent and content. If the Greek and Hebrew of Scriptures had to be special languages, due to some inherent defect in Hebrew and Greek as natural languages, then the same defect would carry over into all translations.

♦ God can speak English or any other language.

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Key points Language is a part of the “image of God”. The Bible is full of examples of language in use, both by God and by people. God uses language in an intimate, clear way. The Bible uses normal human languages. The Bible describes the ethical (and unethical) use of language.

Internet resources ♦ The author’s website about speech ethics. It includes a seminar paper presented at Biola University. http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/linguistics/ethics.htm ♦ A leadership site sponsored by Christian academics. It contains several papers about telling the truth. www.leaderu.com/focus/truthfeature.html ♦ A commercial, non-religious site addressing “cussing.” www.cusscontrol.com/ ♦ A non-profit organization that promotes good speech www.wordscanheal.org

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Exercises 1. Look up the following Scripture passages and summarize what each one illustrates or teaches about language. a. Genesis 2:19 b. Genesis 11:1-9 c. Judges 12:5-6 d. 2 Kings 18:26-28 e. Mark 14:70 f. John 19:19-20 g. Acts 2:5-12 h. Acts 21:37 - 22:1 i. Revelation 5:9, 7:9 2. Look at the “Words Can Heal” website (www.wordscanheal.org) and share the information with your friends or family. Write a onepage report on your experience. 3. Look up the words “language” and “tongue” in a Bible concordance. What Hebrew words have been translated with this English word? What Greek words have been translated with this English word? Comment on what you find. 4. Look up Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in one of the recommended linguistic encyclopedias. For each language note several key features emphasized in the article. 5. Write a one-page reflection paper on “How God wants to change the way I use language.” Note pertinent Scripture passages. Outline steps you plan to take.

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What is language?

Textbook readings Language Files 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 9.1

Study questions What is language? How is human language different from the communication systems of other animals? Why is language called productive? What are the major functions of language? How is “linguistic knowledge” different from “linguistic performance”? In what ways is language innate or instinctive? What is the significance of Broca’s area? Wernicka’s? What is aphasia? What do studies about aphasia indicate about language?

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Introduction Before we begin a study of linguistics, we need to pause to establish an understanding of the nature of language. What is language? Do all people use language? What about people who cannot hear or speak? Are there any common traits shared by all languages? Can we find language somewhere in the brain? This chapter will provide an overview of language: what it is, its basic characteristics, how it functions in daily use, and how it relates to the brain.

Language: a definition There are numerous definitions of language. David Crystal, a prolific writer and editor on the topic of linguistics, defines language as: “The systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs or written symbols in a human society for communication and self-expression.” (Crystal 1992) We will look at some of the key words in this definition: Systematic Every language has structure. Actually, each language has only a subset of the possible structures found in the entire set of human languages. These structures (e.g., how a word is made, how a phrase is organized) follow consistent patterns. Conventional/Arbitrary The connection between the sounds of a word (or the shape and movement of a sign in a sign language) and the meaning(s) associated with the word is arbitrary. That is, there is no absolute reason that the particular sounds represent a certain meaning. Rather, a society agrees to the association; it is a “convention” of society. Even such ideas as animal sounds vary in their sound from language to language. Sounds, signs, symbols Every language uses units of sound or signs (hand movements) as symbols to represent ideas. Written symbols are a separate topic and secondary to normal communication in the over 6800 languages of the world (of these over 70 are sign languages according to the Ethnologue).

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Human society It is people who use language, and it is their societies which shape what words mean and how language is structured. Human language is markedly distinct from other forms of communication found in other species of animals. Communication The most general way of describing what language does for society is that it helps people “communicate”. This cover term is understood to include giving out and receiving information, sharing feelings, etc. Self-expression In addition to the more general idea of “communication” it is important to recognize that people use language as a means of identifying themselves with others, to express their identity. Here we might think of the more social role of language in establishing and maintaining relationships, forming solidarity with peers, etc.

Language: four distinctive characteristics Human language can also be described in terms of four major distinctives, aspects of human language that distinguish it from other forms of animal communication: Arbitrariness Hierarchy Displacement Productivity Human language is arbitrary in terms of how certain sounds represent certain meanings in a society. Except for onomatopoeia (and even these forms are culturally accepted approximations of the real world sounds they represent), most words are simply a set of sounds used as a symbol to represent an agreed upon meaning. The grammatical structures of language are also arbitrary in that there is no single pattern for clauses or noun phrases, etc. that all languages must follow. (Later, we will look at language universals, which show some limits to this general statement.)

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The hierarchy or discreteness of language refers to the fact that every ‘piece’ or unit of language fits into larger ‘pieces’ or units. Sounds fit into syllables, syllables into phonological words, words into phrases, etc. In grammar, morphemes fit into stems and words, words fit into phrases, phrases into clauses, clauses into sentences, etc. Even in semantics, we can see a hierarchy of smaller units fitting into larger units. We also recognize the fact that linguistic units are not constantly changing; there are limits within in which change occurs. Thus, we can identify the sounds, the syllable types, the clause types, etc. The number of total patterns is both limited and identifiable. Pinker notes: Non-human communication systems are based on one of three designs: a finite repertory of calls...a continuous analog signal that registers magnitude of some state... or a set of random variations on a theme.... human language has a very different design. The combinatorial system called ‘grammar’ makes human language infinite... digital... and compositional.... (Pinker 1994:334) At the same time, we must also recognize that units do vary around a norm. A speech sound such as [ k ] is not always pronounced in exactly the same way; the pronunciation can vary within certain limits. When another unit, such as [ g ], is also significant in the language both speaker and hearer are aware of keeping each sound sufficiently separate to communicate effectively. Displacement in language refers to the fact that humans can talk about things that are not physically present at the time. Thus, we can refer to the past and the future and to ideas, as well as to people and places. Human language is also productive: speakers can always add (within limits) more words or phrases or substitute synonymous forms in a sentence to make a “first time in the history of the universe” statement, such as the one you are now reading. Pinker says: The principle underlying grammar is unusual in the natural world. A grammar is an example of a ‘discrete combinatorial system.’ A finite number of discrete elements (in this case, words) are sampled, combined, and permuted to create larger structures (in this case, sentences) with properties that are quite distinct from those of their elements. (1994:84)

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Language: eleven functions Language is used in many ways. Nida (1986:15f) discusses eight ways that language is used (aesthetic, cognitive, emotive, expressive, informative, imperative, interpersonal, performative). Caird (1980) proposes five major functions of language (cognitive, cohesive, expressive, informative, performative). The following discussion incorporates their ideas and adds others. Aesthetic People like to use language in aesthetically pleasing ways (e.g. poetry, advertising). We like “clever” ways of saying things. Poetry is often valued for the non-standard way it expresses ideas. Story tellers are often respected for their skills in relating well known stories in an entertaining way. Cognitive We also use words to think. A. R. Luria, a researcher in the relation of the brain and language, says: Regardless of how primitive or abbreviated language may be, it is pivotal to cognition: by means of it we designate numbers, perform mathematics, calculations, analyze perceptions, distinguish the essential from the nonessential, and form categories of distinct impressions. Apart from being a means of communicating, language is fundamental to perception and memory, thinking and behavior. It organizes our inner life. (A. R. Luria) We will come back to the relationship between language and thought in a later chapter. Documentary Language helps us to record or document information. Whether in the form of oral literature or in writing, language preserves information from the past and for the future.

What do YOU think? Words can do wonderful things. They sound purr. They can urge, they can wheedle, whip, whine. They can sing, sass, singe. They can churn, check, channelize. They can be a hup, 2, 3, 4. They can forge a fiery army out of a hundred languid men. (Gwendolyn Brooks, Contending Forces, 1968)

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Emotive People use language to influence the emotive state of others. Using “strong” or “loaded” words in an argument is often an attempt to sway people’s attitudes and feelings.

What do YOU think? Speech is power; speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Expressive People use language to express their emotions. “I’m really, really happy about my new job!” adds an additional positive emphasis to what might be a more prosaic report of the same idea. Identifying Language helps people expressing their identity. People choose to speak in particular ways to show who they are. Friends share common phrases. Members of social organizations use “in” terms as a mark of identity. Dialect differences are maintained as ways to identify with others from the same region or social class. Imperative If we expand on the general word “communication” we recognize that language is used to influence behavior or to stimulate action. We might not always use an imperative structure (“Close the door!”), but we do try to get others to do things we want them to do. (“Could someone please shut the door?” “It’s too noisy with the door open.”) Informative Conveying information is often seen as the primary function of language. I would rather see it as one of the many uses language has in society. Interrogative Asking people questions and obtaining information is also a function of language. Again, we may not use an interrogative marker or a question structure to do this (“Tell me about yourself.” “I’d be interested in knowing more about you.” “That’s enough about me.”)

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Performative Language actually makes things happen. It can modify the state of the receptors. Thus, a person is sentenced in court when the judge says, “I sentence you to five days in the city jail.” We accuse and blame people with our words, just as we forgive and excuse them. Words perform the action. Phatic Language is a key in making and maintaining relationships with others. The “How are you?” and “What’s up?” that we extend to strangers can be likened to a verbal handshake. Such phrases are not truly interrogative since they don’t expect much information in reply.

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Language: a model What actually happens when we speak? How do our thoughts become words? Webb (1986) presents a model that shows what factors come into play when a person speaks. In his model, presented below, a speaker starts with an intent to say something (A). Depending on the social situation (B) and physical setting of the speech event (C), the speaker chooses from his or her repertoire of words and grammatical constructions (D) and puts these together using the rhetorical device deemed appropriate (E) and adds non-linguistic communication (F) during the speech event (G). The following chart is adapted from Webb (1986:51) A. Psychological factors: intentions of the speaker, and the speaker’s opinions, attitudes, etc.

+

B. Social factors: social properties of the speaker (and hearer[s]). The traditional role of speech in the society, the social roles of the participants, the social setting, etc.

+

C. Situational factors: e.g. the physical setting

+

F. Nonlinguistic communicative resources: gestures, facial expressions, body language, clothes

ARE PROCESSED THROUGH THE D. The total set of linguistics resources available to the speaker

+

E. Rhetorical devices: discourse genres, conversational routines, strategies, forms and norms TO CREATE G. The Text or linguistic message

The same intent (A) (e.g., asking for directions) may take vastly different shapes (G) if the speaker perceives the hearer to be from a higher social class (B) or if the speech event takes place across a noisy highway rather than on a telephone (C). Some speakers are limited in their choice of vocabulary (D) and rhetorical skills (E). Whether the speaker gestures or touches the hearer (F) also influences communication.

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Linguistic knowledge or competence What does it mean to say someone ‘knows’ his or her language? ♦ Knowledge of the sounds of the language (i.e., phonemic structure, which word shapes are possible) ♦ Knowledge of the meaning of words in the language ♦ Knowledge of sentences and non- sentences (i.e., grammaticality, which phrases and clauses are well-formed) This linguistic knowledge is referred to as competence. How is linguistic knowledge or ‘competence’ different from linguistic performance? ♦ Competence refers to a person’s cognitive ability to understand language. (langue) ♦ Performance refers to what people do with language (parole).

Locating language in the brain Neurolinguistic studies have shown that there are a number of areas in the brain which are used primarily for producing and comprehending language. By studying how damage or injury to the brain (aphasia) affects language behavior, researchers have found that language is primarily a function of the left hemisphere. Wernicke and Broca were pioneers in the study of the relationship between injuries to the brain and speech disorders (aphasia). See the textbook for drawings of the brain and these two regions. Two main types of aphasia suggest that language may be organized in terms of a lexical (word meanings) and a grammatical (word and phrase structure) part. Wernicke’s aphasia is characterized by semantic and lexical difficulties such as word substitutions, difficulty comprehending speech, etc. We might think wrong word as a memory connection to Wernicke. Broca’s aphasia “is characterized by labored speech, word-finding pauses, loss of ‘function’ words (grammatical morphemes), and, quite often, disturbed word order” (Fromkin and Rodman 1993:440). The

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mnemonic broken speech might help you make the connection to the Broca’s area of the brain.

Area of the brain

Primary function

Aphasia symptoms

Wernicke's area

Word meaning

"Wrong" words e.g. noun form used for verb, related word substituted inappropriately

Broca's area

Syntax and morphology

"Broken" speech Halting, ungrammatical

Key points All human societies have language. Language is a learned human behavior. Languages share certain universal traits. The relationships between sounds or signs and meaning are basically arbitrary. Language uses a finite set of elements to create an infinite set of possible sentences. People use language for a wide variety of purposes. Linguistic knowledge includes knowledge of sounds, forms and meaning. Language ability is related to specific areas of the brain.

Internet resources Many of the general sites mentioned in the Preface have links to sites about the general features of language.

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Exercises 1. Describe the sound made by the following animals in at least three languages. (There are examples in Language File 1.3.) In what way are these sounds arbitrary? a. cats “meow” b. dogs “bark” c. cows “moo” 2. Make a “first in the history of the world” sentence.” Describe how this sentence illustrates language productivity. 3. Contrast the communication system of bees with your understanding of human language. (See File 2.2) 4. Describe an “identificational” use of language that you have used in the last week. 5. Write a one-page reflection paper on the topic “The productive aspect of language and the image of God.” 6. Use Webb’s model of language to create two scenarios for when someone might say “I hear you.” Consider what the sentence means in different situations.

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What is linguistics?

Textbook readings Language Files 1.2

Study questions What is “linguistics”? What are the major sub-disciplines of linguistics that relate to your interests? In what ways are linguistic methods similar to the physical sciences such as physics and chemistry? How are the “etic” and “emic” perspectives different?

Introduction What exactly is linguistics? What do linguists “do all day”? This chapter will present an overview of the general field of linguistics and some of the skills and attitudes that a linguist uses to study language. We will see that linguistics includes a wide variety of emphases and that its focus has changed over the years.

What do YOU think? Linguists are no different from any other people who spend more than nineteen hours a day pondering the complexities of grammar and its relationship to practically everything else in order to prove that language is so inordinately complicated that it is impossible in principle for people to talk. (Langacker 1973:109)

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Definitions Linguistics is the scientific study of language. This general statement indicates that some studies of language might be un-scientific. Philosophers, for example, might also talk about the idea of language without using any of the typical methods of science. Linguistics, at least in its modern form, seeks to apply such ideas as sampling, inductive data research and forming hypotheses as it studies how languages are constructed (e.g., the sounds, the words) and used (e.g., dialect differences, language attitudes). The major sub-disciplines of linguistics cover a wide range of topics. One way to divide the larger study of linguistics is to think of some of the tasks as descriptive and others as applied. Descriptive linguistics is defined by Jannedy, Stefanie, et. al. (1994) as: The study of how language is actually organized and used; an objective description of the language as opposed to a prescriptive list of rules imposed on language speakers. Descriptive linguistics includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse studies, semantics, historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, and a few others areas. The following notes on these descriptive disciplines are from Jannedy, Stefanie, et.al. (1994:5). Anthropological linguistics

The study of the interrelationship between language and culture.

Historical linguistics

The study of how languages change through time and the relationships among languages.

Morphology

The study of the ways in which words are constructed out of smaller units that have a meaning or grammatical function.

Neurolinguistics

The study of the brain and how it functions in the production, perception, and acquisition of language.

Phonetics

The study of speech sounds.

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Phonology

The study of the sound system of language; how particular sounds used in each language form an integrated system for encoding information and how such systems differ from one language to another.

Pragmatics

The study of how meaning conveyed by a word or sentence depends on aspects of the context in which it is used.

Psycholinguistics

The study of the interrelationship of language and cognitive structures; the acquisition of language.

Semantics

The study of meaning; how words and sentences are related to the (real or imaginary) objects they refer to and the situations they describe.

Sociolinguistics

The study of the interrelationships of language and social structure, of linguistic variation and of attitudes toward language.

Syntax

The study of the way in which sentences are constructed; how sentences are related to each other.

Applied linguistics is defined as: The application of the methods and results of linguistics to such areas as language teaching, national language policies, lexicography, translation, language in politics, advertising, classrooms, and courts, and the like. (Jannedy, Stefanie, et.al. 1994:5) Each of these areas of applied linguistics require a prior descriptive study of language. Teaching English to speakers of other languages can benefit from an understanding of the sounds and structures of the person’s native language so that appropriate emphasis can be given to mastering the sounds the student finds difficult. Translation depends on a prior understanding of how the words and structures of the source language encode meaning and how the receptor language can express that meaning effectively.

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Linguistic method(s) Descriptive linguistics uses common scientific tools such as observation, data collection and hypothesis formation. Observation

What sounds are used? Who says what to whom? Is an adjective placed before or after the noun it modifies? What differences are there between male and female speakers in terms of word choice?

Collection

Lists of words that begin or end in a certain sound (pin, pen, pan, pun). Lists of words that begin or end with similar sounds (pin/bin, pen/ben, pan/ban, pun/bun). Lists of phrases that contain a common item (the big child, the small child, the happy child).

Comparison

By comparing lists like those listed above, a linguist would form a working hypothesis about the patterns or contrasts.

Forming hypotheses

A working hypothesis might state that the initial sound in ‘pin’ and ‘bin’ makes a difference in meaning or that the adjective word in English occurs between words like ‘the’ and nouns, even though the sample only includes the noun ‘child’.

Testing hypotheses

By eliciting and comparing more data, a linguist can “prove” or “disprove” a working hypothesis.

We will use these skills in our study of phonology, morphology and syntax. They can also be applied to other topics.

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Pike’s 4 basic concepts about language Kenneth L. Pike is a pioneer in many areas of descriptive linguistics. Soon after Bloomfield published his book Language in 1933 and other American linguists started describing the indigenous languages of North America, Pike joined the newly formed Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). As he studied indigenous languages of Mexico and helped other field linguists around the world, he developed a theory of language that recognized the interaction between linguistic forms and meaning. He also noted the role the observer plays in looking at data. The following notes summarize Pike’s major linguistic principles expressed in his 1982 book Linguistic concepts.

Perspectives are complementary

The linguist chooses to view data in one of three ways: as a distinct, contrastive unit (particle), as a set of variant forms (wave), or as a part of a larger pattern (field). Elements can be viewed as particles or units. A sound, for example, can be studied as if it were a distinct, unchanging unit. Linguists often refer to a phonetic sound as if it were stable and unchanging, even though the same sound is pronounced in varying ways by the same speaker. A morpheme, such as English plural on cat-s an dog-s, can also be considered to be the same, contrastive unit. Elements can be viewed as waves. In this view, the linguist recognizes that units actually vary around some norm. A phonetic sound can vary to some degree without causing the native speaker to consider it another unit. Phonetic sounds also blend into surrounding sounds, making it difficult or impossible to determine when a particular sound stops and the next begins. Phrases such as “Ed edited it” are not typically spoken with clear demarcation between the sounds, nor between the words. In phonology, the alternate forms of a phoneme (allophones) illustrate this feature of language. Elements can be viewed as fields or sets of relationships. Elements are best understood in light of the surrounding system. A phonetic sound is defined by its relationship to other sounds, especially similar sounds ( [ p ] and [ b ], [ i ] and [ e ], for example.) Words such as “kitten” are defined in relation to “cat” and “feline” and to “juvenile” and “mature”.

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Units are structured

Pike continues by observing that these units have “contrastiveidentificational” features. The word ‘man’ contrasts with ‘boy’ in terms of age, and with ‘woman’ in terms of gender. The sound [ p ] contrasts with [ b ] in voicing, and with [ t ] in place of articulation. Units also have different or variant manifestations. A sound may vary without becoming a different phoneme, as in the alternate pronunciations of [ k ] in ‘kick,’ ‘cock’ and ‘kook’. The plural suffix -s in English in cats, dogs, and boxes, likewise has a predictable change in phonetic shape of [ s ], [ z ] and [ z ] respectively. Finally, units are distributed within certain classes, sequences and systems. A noun, in English, can be the subject of a clause, but a verb cannot. The class of adjective, in English, occurs between a determiner (a, the, some) and a noun (the quick animal), but adverbs do not (*the quickly animal). The sounds [ p , t, k ] form a natural class of voiceless stops which normally act and are treated in similar ways.

Units fit into larger and larger hierarchies

Pike notes that there are three distinct hierarchies in language: the phonological, the grammatical and the referential. Sounds, syllables, sound phrases, etc. belong to the phonological hierarchy. Smaller units of sound fit into larger units of sound. The distinctive syllable patterns of a haiku, a limerick, or a sonnet form higher-level phonological units much as a phoneme and a syllable are smaller units. Morphemes, stems, words, phrases, clauses, etc. belong to the grammatical hierarchy. Again, smaller grammatical (and morphological) units fit into larger units. A word can consist of multiple morphemes (antidisestablishmentarianism) just as a phrase consists of words (the exceptionally large old house). Concepts, situations, etc. belong to the referential hierarchy, which Pike develops to a lesser degree. This hierarchy deals with meaning (semantics) and the real world events communicated through the phonological and grammatical forms. The three hierarchies do not necessarily have matching borders. A morphological unit is not always a separate syllable. Thus, ‘walk’ and ‘walked’ each have only one syllable (phonological hierarchy) even though ‘walked’ has two morphemes (grammatical hierarchy). The

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two syllables and one phonological word of [ ditjt ] in rapid speech in understood as “Did you eat yet?”, four words in the grammatical hierarchy.

Context is always relevant

Context is important in discussing form-meaning composites. The phonetic environment in which a sound occurs is important in defining the sound. The grammatical distribution of a word class (e.g., adverbs) is essential to defining which words are adverbs in a given language. Context is important in discussing change. The phonetic environment of a phoneme helps to explain the allophonic changes in undergoes. Historical change also requires an examination of the context, since changes are related to the phonological and grammatical context. Context is important in discussing the universe of discourse. Misunderstanding is often based on a lack on shared information. When I hear someone say, “Guess who I ran into today?” I need to know more about the context of the statement to disambiguate the alternative meanings of “I happened to meet someone” and “I hit someone (with my vehicle.)”

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Linguistics Creed Dr. Benjamin F. Elson, another early SIL linguist, wrote the following “creed” in September 1987 to summarize his thoughts on the importance of linguistic study and of language. We believe that language is one of God’s most important gifts to man, and of all human characteristics, language is the most distinctly human and the most basic. Without language, culture and civilization would be impossible. We also believe that any language is capable of being a vehicle for complicated human interaction and complex thought, and can be the basis for a complex culture and civilization. Therefore, all languages deserve respect and careful study. As the most uniquely human characteristic a person has, a person’s language is associated with his self-image. Interest in and appreciation of a person’s language is tantamount to interest in and appreciation of the person himself. All languages are worthy of preservation in written form by means of grammars, dictionaries, and written texts. This should be done as part of the heritage of the human race. Every language group deserves to see its language in print and to have some literature written in it. Minority language groups within a larger nation deserve the opportunity of learning to speak, read, and write the national language.

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Goals of linguistics What are the goals of linguistics? How does a linguist determine if his or her analysis is “good”? To what degree does an analysis of a language reflect the truth about the language?

Adequacy

We can look at language descriptions in terms of three tasks: observational adequacy, descriptive adequacy, and explanatory adequacy. Matthews summarizes these three levels of adequacy as follows: “a generative grammar is observationally adequate if it generates the sentences of a language correctly, and it is descriptively adequate if, in addition, it describes their structure correctly. A theory of grammar is explanatorily adequate if it explains how speakers can arrive at a descriptively Adequate knowledge of their language.” (1997:204) Explanatory adequacy is a concept promoted by Noam Chomsky and his followers. He proposed that a description of the grammar of a particular language was not sufficient. He sought to create a theory that provided a “principled basis, independent of any particular language, for the selection of the descriptively adequate grammar of each language” (1964:923-924). The question of why a form occurs and why a change occurs goes beyond the observation of these facts and the description of the forms. We might consider the relationship of active and passive sentences in English as an example. After one has described the differing patterns for active and passive statements and how the passive can be “derived” from the more basic active form, the question remains: “Why do people use a passive form in this situation?” We may find this challenge beyond the scope of many of the linguistic studies to date.

Etic versus emic

Another important concept in regards to adequacy is that on etic versus emic. An outside observer has no idea what small differences might be meaningful in a language (or in a culture, for that matter). Some people may speak with more volume or with less expression. Working with language

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Some speakers may use a wide range of intonation. These variations may be insignificant within a particular language. The linguist seeks to understand (from the inside, as it were) which observable differences are significant or meaningful. These observable differences are often called etic (as in phonetic). The significant differences are called emic (as in phonemic). Carol Eastman outlines the difference between etic and emic as follows: ...what is etic is everything that is out there—all the sounds the linguist hears produced by speakers of a language. What is etic is what the linguist needs to gather initially in order to have a body of data with which to work. Indeed, the only thing that is etic to the linguist is the initial phonetic transcription done as data-gathering. Thereafter—from the time the linguist has his or her body of data—the rest of the process of descriptive linguistic analysis is the task of finding out what the emic units are at the various levels of the structure of speech that the linguist assumes to exist. (Eastman 1990:25) The linguist wants to be able to see the significant patterns of a language. Rather than imposing his or her own language patterns on the description, the linguist seeks to find the ways in which the speakers themselves understand the forms and the patterns they use. One of the major challenges in linguistic analysis is being impartial and open to the unique ways in which languages organize things. As we look at phonology, for example, we will recognize that each phoneme (significant sound) in a language has several phonetic alternate shapes (allophones). Although phonetically distinct, the sounds are perceived by the native speaker as being the “same”. In morphology we will encounter an often bewildering variety of ways in which languages organize nouns and verbs into classes (by gender, by animacy, by shape). Syntactic patterns also present many patterns that differ from the linguist’s own native language patterns.

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Linguistics through the ages st

Linguistics as we know it in the 21 century is a relatively new area of scientific study. Nevertheless, there is an impressive array of linguistic pioneers who should be recognized for their contribution. The following list outlines a few of the major figures in linguistics and their contribution(s). For more details on the development of linguistics, see Robins (1990). Linguist(s)

Main contribution

Panini (4th/5th century BC)

studied Sanskrit in India identified the chief parts of the vocal tract used to produce sounds, studied vowel length, tone, syllables

Dionysius Thrax (2nd century BC)

produced the first known Greek grammar identified word classes, case, tense, gender in nouns

William Jones (late 18th century)

compared Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and English

Grimm brothers (early 19th century)

noted sound changes (Grimm’s Law) among IndoEuropean languages

de Saussure (late 19th/early 20th century)

synchronic/diachronic langue/parole syntagmatic/paradigmatic signifiant/signifié

American structuralists (Boaz, Sapir, Bloomfield, etc.)

emphasized describing Native Amerindian languages developed discovery procedures

Kenneth L. Pike

Etic versus emic phonetic and phonology procedures tone language analysis Tagmemics, a theory of form-meaning units

Noam Chomsky (1928-)

deep versus surface structure subcategorization (e.g. eager to please/easy to please) competence versus performance innateness

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Key points Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistic studies are descriptive, not prescriptive. Linguists seek to explain how language is organized and used in a society.

Internet resources There are a number of extensive web sites by and for linguists. You might start with the following: ♦ SIL, Inc. linguistic links www.sil.org/linguistics/ ♦ Linguistic Society of America www.lsadc.org ♦ a list of sites useful for students of linguistics www.newpaltz.edu/linguistics/toolbox.htm ♦ The Rosetta Project, “building a near permanent archive of 1,000 languages” www.rosettaproject.org ♦ A dictionary of linguistic terms from SIL www.sil.org/linguistics/glossary/

Exercises 1.

Look at the Linguistic Society of America homepage (www.lsadc.org) and comment on three items of interest to you.

2.

Look up a language you know on the Rosetta Project website (www.rosettaproject.org) and comment on what materials (if any) are available.

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Phonetics

Textbook readings Language Files 3.1 – 3.7

Study questions What is “phonetics”? How are articulatory, acoustic and auditory phonetics different? How are the parts of the mouth related to the way consonants are categorized? How is the International Phonetic Alphabet useful?

Introduction Human languages are primarily a compilation of sounds. (Sign languages are an exception, but they use hand shapes and movements in a comparable way). These speech sounds are made in a relatively small area of the human body and in a relatively restricted way. Thus, of all the noises that people can make, only a small subset is actually used in language. Despite the prejudice that leads people to say that a particular language is “only grunts” or that it “sounds like birds chattering”, human languages all work which the same small set of tools to make speech sounds. Phonetics studies these speech sounds.

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Definitions Phonetics is the study of linguistic sounds. We will contrast phonetics and phonology in the next chapter. For the moment we can say that phonetics is a tool for discovering how sounds are made and phonology is a tool for learning which of these many sounds end up being significantly different in the mind of native speakers of a particular language. The larger field of phonetics can be divided into several specialty areas: acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics, and articulatory phonetics. ♦ Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds. ♦ Auditory phonetics is the study of the perception of speech sounds. ♦ Articulatory phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made. We will emphasize articulatory phonetics in the remainder of this chapter.

Components of speech production Human speech sounds involve a relatively small set of body parts: the respiratory system, the larynx, the vocal tract, and the parts of the mouth (e.g. tongue, teeth, lips). We will use a face diagram or sagittal sections to compare and contrast speech sounds. Sounds can be described in terms of the source and direction of the airstream and the degree and location of any impedance of the airstream.

See Language File 3.1 to see how the various parts of the speech mechanism work together. See File 3.4 for examples of face diagrams.

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All languages distinguish between consonant and vowel sounds. O’Grady, et. al. 1993:18 presents the following chart distinguishing these two major types of sounds:

Vowels

Consonants

Are produced with relatively little obstruction in the vocal tract

Are produced with a narrow or complete closure in the vocal tract

Are more sonorous

Are less sonorous

Are syllabic

Are generally not syllabic

A doctor might tell you to say “ah”, but certainly not “p” or “k” when he or she wants to look in your mouth or at the back of your throat. The vowel [ a ] is a very open sound, there is very little obstruction of the air that is coming up from your lungs. The sounds [p] and [k]. On the other hand, temporarily stop all the air as some part of the mouth gets in the way of the airstream. Vowels are also typically “sonorous,” they are noisier than most consonants. Compare [a] and [s] or [o] and [n]. Syllables by definition contain a vowel. Sometimes a consonant (or more) can precede the vowel or follow it, but the vowel will be the main part or “nucleus” of the syllable. There are also sounds such as [w] called glides that are like consonants in some ways and like vowels in other ways; they are also referred to as semi-vowels. If you say [ua] slowly it sounds like a series of two vowels; if you say it more rapidly, it begins to sound like [wa], a consonant followed by a vowel. Note that [w] and [u] are produced in approximately the same way: the lips are rounded and the back of the tongue is near the velum. The vowel [i] and the palatal consonant (semivowel) [j] are likewise similar.

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Consonants All consonants can be distinguished in terms of where and how the sound is produced. A chart of consonants is an analog of a face diagram: it shows where and how sounds are made. The columns of a consonant chart are analogous to the various places of articulation (bilabial, labiodental, etc.); i.e. the where. Thus, sounds on the left side of the chart are produced in the front of the mouth (e.g., bilabial sounds) and sounds more to the right are produced further back. In actual fact, the chart would be better in more of an inverted L shape since the last two columns refer to places within the throat, not in the mouth itself. The rows of a consonant chart indicate the manner of articulation; i.e. how sounds are made (stop, fricative, etc.). This order is also significant: sounds towards the top of the chart obstruct the airstream more than sounds towards the bottom of the chart. Thus, the very top line is “stops”. Fricatives allow air to keep escaping and are lower of the chart; glides hardly impede the air at all, and are on the very bottom.

WHERE?

Lips

Teeth Hard Palate Velum

Throat

HOW? Air completely blocked Air partially blocked

The following chart is a partial list of the consonants of English using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Where the textbook differs from IPA, we will note the alternate symbols.

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Glottal

Uvular

Velar

Palatal

Alveolar

Labiodental

Interdental

Bi-labial

WHERE

HOW Stop Voiceless Voiced Nasal

p

t

c

b

d



m

n



Fricative Voiceless Voiced



f



v

Sibilant Voiceless Voiced Affricate

s



z



ts

t d

l

Liquid

 Glide

w

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j

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k

q



We can sort consonants by similar features or characteristics: voicing, place of articulation, manner of articulation, aspiration, air direction, and air mechanism. Voicing

voiced voiceless

bd ptk

Place of articulation

bilabial

pbm

labiodental

fv

interdental

 

alveolar

tds

alveo-palatal



velar

k

uvular

q

glottal



stop/plosive

pbtdk

fricative

fvs z

sibilant

s  z 

affricate

t d

nasal

mn

liquids

l

glides

wj

aspirated/ unaspirated

p p

Manner of articulation

Aspiration

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Vowels All languages distinguish between consonant sounds, in which the air stream is constricted, and vowel sounds, in which the air stream is basically unconstricted. Vowels are also distinguished in terms of how and where each sound is produced, but they involve fewer parts of the overall vocal apparatus. In fact, all vowels sounds are made between the palatal and the velar columns of the consonant chart. Thus the highest, most “front” vowel [ i ] would occur just under the glide [ j ] if the two charts were placed next to each other. Likewise, [ u ] would be just under the glide [ w ]. The consonant version of each pair is somewhat shorter is duration and the vowel more “syllabic”. Vowels present a major difficulty to learners because there are no clear “places of articulation” as there are in consonants. A student has to hear and mimic the relative differences between similar vowels, more like a sliding whistle than a flute.

Tongue height

Vowels can be grouped by the relative height of the tongue: high, mid, low. High vowels are produced with the tongue close to the top of the mouth; low vowels are produced with the tongue almost flat against the bottom of the mouth. Height

Symbols

English examples

high

i

beat



bit

u  mid

boot foot

ei

bait



bet

 

but bought boat

ou low

æ

bat

a

bot(fly)

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Tongue advancement

Vowels can also be grouped by the relative front-back relationship to other vowels. The front vowels are produced with the tongue blade under the hard palate; back vowels are produced with the back of the tongue under the velum. front

central

i e

back u



o

a

Lip rounding

Vowels can be grouped by the shape of the lips: rounded (as in [ o ] and [ u ]) and unrounded (as in [ i ] and [ e ]). unrounded

rounded

i

o

e

u

(Notice that in English there are unrounded front vowels and rounded back vowels. Other languages, including French and German, have these sounds plus rounded front vowels and unrounded back vowels.)

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Tenseness

Some languages have pairs of vowels that are produced in the same area of the mouth (e.g., high and front) that are distinguished by the fact that one sound is more ‘tense’ and the other more ‘lax’. English is such a language. The following examples show the importance of this difference in English:

tense

lax

English examples

i



beat – bit

e



bait - bet

u



boot - foot

o



boat - bought

In some varieties of English the following examples illustrate 14 distinct vowels and 9 distinct diphthongs:

“Who would know aught of art must learn, act, and then take his ease.” “Fear the poor outside the door; beware of power, avoid desire.”

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One way to remember the main phonetic symbols for vowels is to use the following phrase in English: “Eat it, may get fat. But, ah, you look so awesome!” If we put these English words in a phonetic chart format, they remind us of the values of the vowels.

i

eat

u

you



it



look

e

may

o

so



get



awesome

æ

fat



a

but

ah

The IPA The International Phonetic Alphabet is useful as a tool to describe the speech sounds of any human language. Phoneticians from around the world have agreed on (and continue to discuss) separate symbols for each sound known thus far. The IPA symbols provide a fairly accurate representation of speech if properly used. Although the writing systems of languages may vary, a transcription of the speech sounds in IPA will be understandable by any linguist who knows the system. It is also important to recognize the difference between phonetic transcription and orthography. Phonetic transcription is a tool for description and analysis; orthography is a socially acceptable means of encoding the (significant) sounds of a language for common use. Phonetic writing is helpful because orthographic writing is often ambiguous or unclear. In English the sequence –ough can have six different pronunciations. Can you think of some of them?

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Likewise, the same sound can have numerous “spellings”, as in the sound [ si ]:

ce

cedar

cea

cease

cei

ceiling

cy

juicy

sce

scenic

se

senile

sea

sea

see

see

sei

seize

sie

siege

sy

glossy

There is also an Americanist tradition in phonetics that has slightly different symbols for certain speech sounds. Note that the Language Files textbook uses non-IPA symbols for six consonants. We will explain the differences between the IPA and the textbook symbols as they occur. Pullum and Ladusaw’s book (1983) provides a cross-reference between the several systems of phonetics symbols.

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Suprasegmentals Certain aspects of human speech are described as occurring above the other sounds; i.e. as suprasegmental. These suprasegmental features include length, intonation, tone, and stress.

Length

Length is a phonetic feature that affects vowels and consonants within a syllable. In phonetics length refers to the duration of the sound. This is not the same as talking about a “long A” or a “long O” in learning to read the English writing system. In Finnish there are long and short vowels and consonants. See Language Files 3.7 for examples.

Intonation

Intonation is a phonetic feature involving changes of pitch over a phrase or sentence. Intonation normally adds emotional rather than lexical meaning. In English, a simple statement can be transformed into a Yes/No question by a change in intonation: Jan went to the store. Jan went to the store? Draw lines above the words to indicate where the intonation goes up or down. One particular difficulty native English speakers have in learning other languages is that they try to “ask questions” by using the English question intonation rather than following the patterns of the foreign language. This is especially hazardous when the foreign language has tone differences as in Mandarin, Thai, etc.

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Tone or pitch

Tone refers to changes in pitch at a syllable or word level. It is estimated that up to one half of the world’s languages use pitch/tone differences to differentiate words. Mandarin, Thai, Vietnamese and many other languages of Asia are “tone” languages. There are also tone languages in Mexico (e.g., Mixtec, Mazatec) and in Africa (e.g., Zulu, Luganda, Yoruba, Kikirewe). Some languages (as illustrated by Thai below) use a change in pitch to distinguish words which have the same pronunciation otherwise (i.e., the same consonants and vowels). [naa] with low tone

a nickname

[naa] with mid tone

‘rice paddy’

[naa] with high tone ‘young maternal uncle or aunt’ [naa] with falling tone ‘face’ [naa] with rising tone ‘thick’

Stress

Stress is a combination of several phonetic features that may include increased volume, higher pitch and longer length depending on the particular language. In English stress follows certain basic patterns and is predictable (to a native speaker). A few noun/verb pairs have contrastive stress patterns: 'import (n)

“They’re in imports.”

im’port (v)

“They import silk.”

Russian has pairs of words that have different meanings depending on the stress: ‘zamok za’mok

‘castle’ ‘lock’

‘ruki ru’ki

‘hands’ ‘hand (GENsg)’

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How to take phonetic notes Phonetic transcription is a useful tool for describing and analyzing language. It can help you improve your pronunciation in a foreign language. Taking accurate phonetics notes is challenging, even for experienced linguists. A key factor is accurate observation of how the sound is made. This involves not only listening, but also watching the speaker’s mouth. You can often see articulatory elements that you cannot hear (e.g., interdental versus dental articulation). Listen carefully several times. Watch the speaker’s mouth. Mimic the sounds you hear. Write the word or phrase as best you can at the moment. Listen again to catch sounds that you may have missed the first time. Watch the speaker again for additional clues. Mimic the word or phrase again. Correct your transcription. Keep experimenting with the mimicry and the transcription to determine the exact pronunciation.

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Key points Speech sounds can be described in terms of how they are produced. Phonetic charts are analogs of speech production. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can help you transcribe and reproduce speech sounds accurately. All languages use only a finite set of speech sounds. Phonetics can help you speak another language more accurately.

Internet resources ♦ The University of Marburg has an interactive IPA chart that allows you to hear the sounds: www.unimarburg.de/linguistik/dgweb/phonology/demos.htm ♦ SIL provides a similar site for practicing IPA sounds: www.sil.org/computing/speechtools/ipahelp.htm ♦ CalPoly has an interactive phonetic site: http://multiweb.lib.calpoly.edu/medialib/ipa/ipap.html ♦ Another interactive site for phonetics: http://www.fonetiks.org

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Exercises 1.

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Write the correct IPA symbol for the initial consonant sound of each of the following words. First say the word to yourself, then choose the correct symbol. Look at the consonant chart to remind yourself where the sound in produced and whether the sound is voiced or voiceless. Examples: cat [k] throw [] a.

circle

b.

photograph

c.

hair

d.

thorough

e.

than

f.

witch

g.

library

h.

zoo

i.

giraffe

j.

goo

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2.

3.

Write the correct IPA symbol for the final consonant sound of each of the following words. First say the word to yourself, then choose the correct symbol. Look at the consonant chart to remind yourself where the sound in produced and whether the sound is voiced or voiceless. Examples: back [k] wealth [] a.

wash

b.

watch

c.

bag

d.

badge

e.

bone

f.

ring

g.

hiss

h.

haze

Write the correct IPA symbol for the initial vowel sound of each of the following words. First say the word to yourself, then choose the correct symbol. Look at the vowel chart to remind yourself where the sound in produced. Examples: eagle [i] ant [æ] a.

eye

b.

elephant

c.

ear

d.

icicle

e.

igloo

f.

ooze

g.

ugly

h.

another

i.

unhappy

j.

any

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4.

5.

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Write the correct IPA symbol for the final vowel sound of each of the following words. First say the word to yourself, then choose the correct symbol. Look at the vowel chart to remind yourself where the sound in produced. Examples: see [i] who [u] a.

saw

b.

bough

c.

sea

d.

coo

e.

pretty

f.

America

g.

hay

h.

hoe

i.

bah

j.

Joe

Transcribe the following words using IPA symbols. Your answer may differ from others. a.

creek

b.

Coke

c.

pin

d.

merry

e.

Mary

f.

marry

g.

coffee

h.

either

i.

ether

j.

garage

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6.

Give the technical definition of each of the following IPA symbols. Examples: [b]

voiced bilabial stop

[s]

voiceless alveolar fricative

a.

[p]

b.

[d]

c.

[l]

d.

[f]

e.

[]

f.

[]

g.

[t]

h.

[j]

i.

[]

j.

[]

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Working with language

Phonology

Textbook readings Language Files 4.1 – 4.6

Study questions What is “phonology”? How is phonology related to phonetics? What is a “phoneme”? How are “minimal pairs” useful in phonology? What is an “allophone”? Give an example from English.

Introduction The sounds of human languages can be described by phonetics. A linguist can take exacting notes of the minute differences between how different individuals speak and even of the ways in which the same speaker varies his or her speech. These differences do not always carry over to a difference in meaning. The same meaning can be conveyed by a variety of pronunciations. Phonological studies take phonetic data and add the dimension of meaning to our discussions of language.

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Definitions Phonology is the study of how speech sounds are organized and how they function. Note the differences between phonetics and phonology in the chart below: Phonetics

Phonology

Main focus

How sounds are made (e.g., voiceless, unaspirated, nasalized)

How sounds are used (pit vs. bit in English)

Normal scope

All languages

A particular language

Role of native speaker

Native speaker pronunciation of sounds (variation even by the same speaker and especially between speakers)

Native speaker reactions to sounds (Does a change in phonetics create a change in meaning, a different word?)

Role of linguist

Record sounds accurately (Detailed transcription of sounds)

Describe significance of sounds and sound changes

Position in relation to language

Outsider

Insider

Etic

Emic

Phonetics can use machines to distinguish sounds; phonology uses meaning to distinguish significant sounds or phonemes in a particular language. Phonetics looks at etic material; phonology or phonemics looks for emic material. Phonology looks for the sound system within a particular language. In every language there is variation, even within one speaker’s pronunciation. The same word may be pronounced in a number of ways and still be considered to be the same word; i.e., there is variation around some norm. I said [bæt ]

vs.

I said [bæt ]

In the example above, the presence or absence of word final aspiration does not change the meaning of the word ‘bat’. However, in - 68 -

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I said [bæd ] the change in the final consonant from [t] to [d] would change the meaning of the word. ‘Minimal pairs’ such as [bæt] and [bæd] are useful in phonology to determine which sounds are distinctive in a particular language; i.e., which sounds distinguish meaning. Note the list of words in English that shows contrasts between the different vowel sounds: beat boot bite bout bit but (put) bait boat bet bought bat bot (fly) A phoneme is a distinctive sound unit of a language. In linguistics we distinguish phonemes from phones by placing phonemic forms between slashes /fonimk/ phonetic forms between square brackets [fonrkh].

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Three possible relationships There are three basic relationships possible between two phonetically similar sounds:

contrast

complementary distribution

free variation

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Explanation

Example in English

Two sounds that are similar make the difference between two different meanings; e.g. rhyming words, words that are all the same except for one consonant sound or one vowel sound.

'tie' vs. 'die'

Two sounds that are similar that never occur in the same phonetic environment (e.g., one occurs at the beginning of a word, but the other never does; one occurs after an [s] but the other never does).

The 'p' sound in 'pot' vs. the 'p' sound in 'spot'

Two sounds that are similar that may be substituted for one another in the same word without changing the meaning.

For some people, the 'k' sound at the end of 'kick' may vary between an aspirated 'k' and an unreleased 'k'

'bus' vs. 'buzz' 'put' vs. 'putt'

The nasalized vowel in 'bean' vs. the nonnasalized vowel in 'bee'

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Contrastive sounds

Within each language there are phonetically similar sounds that prove to be contrastive phonemically; i.e., the phonetic difference between them is linguistically meaningful in that language. Minimal pairs are frequently used to ‘prove’ that sounds are phonemic or contrastive:

[p]

[p] ‘pig’

[b]

[b] ‘big’

[p]

[ped] ‘paid’

[b]

[bed] ‘bade’

[s]

[sp] ‘sip’

[]

[ip] ‘ship’

Words that “rhyme” are good illustrations of contrast, especially onesyllable words like those above. Other pairs of words show a contrast in vowels: []

[sp] ‘sip’

[i]

[sip] ‘seep’

[æ]

[pæn] ‘pan’

[]

[pn] ‘pen’

Normally, only phonetically similar sounds are contrasted; vowels and consonants are not usually contrasted since they often do not occur in the same position in a word. Likewise, sounds that are already phonetically quite distinct are not considered as variants of one sound; they are assumed to be two separate sounds (e.g., [m] and [r]). These phonetically similar pairs are sometimes called "suspect pairs."

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Complementary distribution

Some phonetically similar sounds are used as variant shapes of the same sound or phoneme. Each of these occurs in a distinct location or environment; they never occur in contrast. These variants are called allophones. For those of you familiar with the stories of Superman and Batman, allophones might be seen as the Clark Kent versus Superman guise on the one hand or the Bruce Wayne versus Batman guise on the other. The particular shape that occurs depends on the situation (e.g., when someone need help, the superhero appears.) The phoneme /p/ in English, if studied phonetically, has several different phonetic shapes depending on where it occurs in a word.

At the beginning of a word, /p/ occurs with aspiration

[ pn ]

After an /s/ the /p/ is unaspirated

[ spn ]

As the last sound of a word, the /p/ sound can be either aspirated or unreleased (indicated with a small bracket after the symbol [  ].

[ sp ] or [ sp ]

But the presence or absence of aspiration never changes the meaning of an English word; it is not phonemic. Other allophonic variation can be caused by the location of word stress, by the surrounding vowels or consonants, etc. In the following examples, note where [s] and [z] occur. Remember that the data is written in phonetic symbols, not in the normal Spanish writing system. Spanish (Data from Burquest and Payne 1993:22) [sapo] ‘toad’

[mizmo]

‘same’

[poso] ‘well’

[azno]

‘donkey’

[pas]

[izla]

‘island’

[kozmos]

‘universe’

‘peace’

[listo] ‘ready’

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Since [s] and [z] never occur in the same type of position in a word in Spanish (e.g., only [z] occurs before a nasal or a lateral), we can say that the two sounds are mutually exclusive or that they are in complementary distribution.

Free variation

Other phonetically similar sounds can be used interchangeably without changing the meaning of a word; they are not phonemic. In English, the last consonant of a word may be pronounced more or less emphatically or with an extra degree of aspiration without changing the meaning of the word. For example, the final /p/ in the word ‘stop’. Notice that the examples look like minimal pairs, but that the meaning does not change when the pronunciation is changed.

Natural classes When linguists write phonological rules to explain a phonetic change, they look for the broadest generalizations they can make about the data. Rather than say [p] changes to [b] and [t] changes to [d], they would want to make a rule about all stops. 'Stops' are a natural class of sounds. Classes of sounds typically change in the same ways. Nasals, for example, may all cause preceding vowels to become nasalized, as in English. Linguists do not expect only one nasal to cause such a change when the other nasals do not. The following chart shows five major natural classes of sounds. Each class is distinguished by binary 'features' that are either true (+) or not true (-) about that set of sounds.

Obstruents

Vowels

Glides

Liquids

Nasals

[consonantal]

+

-

-

+

+

[vocalic]

-

+

-

-

-

[sonorant]

-

+

+

+

+

Examples:

p b z t

i a e

j w

l 

m n

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Obstruents Sounds produced with an obstruction of the airstream are called obstruents. This class of sounds includes stops [ p b ], fricatives [ z ] and affricates [ t ]. Sonorants Sounds made with a relatively open passage for the airstream are called sonorants. This class of sounds includes all vowels and the nasal, liquid, and glide consonants. Sibilants A shared auditory feature makes a natural class of sibilants in English. This class feature helps explain why the English plural marker on words such as house, rose, bush and rouge (that all end on a phonetic sibilant sound) is not the same as the plural marker on nouns such as 'dog' or 'cat.' We will look at this at the end of the chapter on morphology.

Distinctive features To discuss the distinctive or meaningful sounds of a particular language, we can use a set of distinctive features much as contrastive features are used in semantics to distinguish words with similar meanings. The set of distinctive features may vary from language to language. In choosing distinctive features, linguists look for ‘natural’ classes of sounds; groups of sounds that ‘make sense’ phonetically. Voiced stops, for example, often undergo similar changes when they are the last sound in a word (pre-pause), and so a description of the consonants might group voiced stops as a natural class.

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Symmetry The sound system of a particular language will exhibit some form of symmetry. A linguist or a language student can anticipate a symmetrical set of vowels or consonants in any language he or she studies. No language, for example, has only front vowels; the vowels will tend to be evenly distributed front and back, high and low. Likewise, no language has only bilabial consonants; consonants will typically be spread across the available range of places of articulation (e.g. [p t k], rather than only [p] and [k]). Vowel systems typically make up a symmetrical pattern. Spanish, for example, has 5 vowels: [ i ] and [ e ] in the front, [ u ] and [o ] in the back and [ a ] on the bottom: i e

u o a

The symmetry of vowel sounds tends to place sounds in such a way that they are more readily distinguished from each other rather than in relative close proximity. This feature of vowel patterns helps hearers distinguish the vowels more easily. As the number of vowels in a particular language increases, of course, the space between vowels becomes smaller. English, for example, has more vowels than Spanish and the difference between some English vowels is hard for Spanish speakers to hear (e.g., the vowels in 'hip' and 'heap' and in 'bad' and 'bed').

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Phonological rules Phonological rules are used to express phonetic changes that occur in language (e.g., Spanish voiced stops become fricatives between vowels). The phonological rules are expressed as simply and as meaningfully as possible; only the salient features are mentioned in the rule. The general shape of a phonological rule is: original sound ¤ changed sound / environment where the original sound is expressed in terms of its phonological class and the phonetic change is described using only the distinctive features that undergo a change (i.e., features which stay the same are not listed). The environment or location which ‘causes’ the change is explained in terms of the significant features of the sound or syllable. In English, vowels become nasalized before a nasal consonant. This can be expressed: V ¤ [+ nasal] / ______ [+ nasal] Note that this rule implies that English vowels are ‘normally’ nonnasal. Note also that the change occurs only before sounds that are nasal. There are a number of basic phonological changes, including the following: assimilation C [- voice] ¤ [+ voice] / V ___ V A voiceless consonant becomes voiced between two vowels.

weakening

[+voice] ¤ [+continuant] / V ___ V [-continuant]

A stop becomes a continuant between two vowels (e.g., in Spanish).

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Solving phonological problems 1.

Organize the data, putting similar words together. Look for “minimal pairs” in which only one sound is different between the two words and there is a difference in meaning. Such pairs of words “prove” that the two sound being compared are contrastive in the language being studied. We call these contrastive sounds “phonemes.”

2.

If there are two words that have all but one sound the same and still have the same meaning, the sounds being compared are in “free variation.”

3.

Look at the other pairs of similar sounds that are not in contrast nor in free variation. These sounds may be “allophones” or alternative shapes of the same phoneme. Look at the location where each sound occurs. Try to explain the change from one sound to the other in terms of where each one occurs (e.g. between vowels, before a nasal consonant).

4.

Write a phonological rule that summarizes the changes in the allophones. For example, in Spanish: /d/ ¤ [  ] / V ___ V

The phoneme /d/ has a variant pronunciation [ ] between vowels. This rule could also be expressed in terms of features; e.g. [continuant] ¤ [+continuant].

Prosody As in phonetics, certain features of language are best described as occurring on a larger unit than the phoneme. Such features as stress and intonation are called prosody or prosodic features. Stress can differentiate word classes, as in English: ‘subject

(noun)

‘import (noun)

sub’ject

(verb)

im’port (verb)

Stress can also be used in predictable positions in words; e.g. always on the final syllable or always on the syllable just before the last

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syllable. In Spanish, most words have the main stress on the syllable just before the last syllable: ro 'deo

'rodeo'

'casa

'house'

a'migo

'friend'

Phonotactics Every language system has rules about which sounds can begin and end a syllable or a word and which sounds can occur next to each other. A native speaker knows these patterns as a part of their linguistic knowledge. English allows multiple consonants [ C ] to occur together within a syllable, as in: CCCVCC strength

Note that the last four letters represent only two phonetic sounds [  ]

CCCVC splash Note, however, that if the first consonant is [ s ] the second consonant is a voiceless stop/plosive and the third consonant is a liquid. Other English examples include: CCVC

CCVCC

spoon

spoons

stool

stools

scoot

scoots

Other languages may allow only “homorganic” consonants (those pronounced at the same place of articulation) to occur next to each other and then only when they end and begin different syllables, as in Ambai, an Austronesian language of Indonesia: em.bai ‘moon’

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ran.do ‘banana’ agadi ‘coconut’ Many languages also restrict consonants in particular environments, such as word final position. Ambai allows only the velar nasal [ N ] in word final position. [ ra ] ‘path’ Hawaiian has relatively few consonants and vowels and normally has CV syllables. Thus, there are often very long words, such as humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the Hawaiian word for 'triggerfish.'

Hierarchy in phonology Phonological forms can be discussed in relation to smaller and larger units. We might begin with the “feature” as a part of a “phoneme.” Phonemes can be combined to make syllables, and syllables can be put together into phonological phrases. At a rather large level, we recognize such phonological units as limericks and haiku, each of which has a structured shape. A limerick has a certain number of syllables and a prescribed rhythm pattern in each of the five lines; a haiku (in Japanese) has five syllables in the first and third lines and seven in the middle line.

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Universals of phonology Despite the many variations among languages, there are still certain general patterns (often called 'universals') that are evident. Implicational universals predict that a certain pattern or sound will occur if another similar pattern or sound is present in a given language. Such implicational universals include generalizations about sound inventories, the distribution of sounds, the acquisition of sounds by infants, and the process of language change. The following table gives some examples of implicational universals.

Sound inventories

If a language uses an “uncommon” sound such as a nasalized vowel or an interdental obstruent, there will also be a more common sound similar to it (e.g., a non-nasalized vowel, an alveolar obstruent).

Distribution of sounds

Sounds that are less common will occur in a more restricted set of positions in a syllable or word.

Acquisition of sounds

Uncommon sounds are mastered later than the more common sounds.

Sound change

Less common sounds tend to be less stable than common sounds and are more susceptible to change.

Substantive universals posit that every human language will have certain features or sounds. For example: ♦ All languages distinguish vowels from consonants. ♦ All languages also have at least one stop consonant.

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English Tongue Twisters 1. A big black bug bit a big black bear. 2. A bitter biting bittern bit a better brother bittern, and the bitter better bittern bit the bitter biter back. And the bitter bittern, bitten by the better bitten bittern, said, “I’m a bitter biter bit, alack!” 3. A bootblack blacks boots with a black blacking brush. 4. A critical cricket critic. 5. A cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee cup. 6. A tree toad loved a she-toad that lived up in a tree. She was a three-toed tree toad, but a two-toed toad was he. The two-toed toad tried to win the she-toad’s friendly nod, For the two toed toad loved the ground on which the three toed toad trod. But no matter how the two-toed tree toad tried, he could not please her whim. In her tree-toad bower, with her three-toed power, the she-toad vetoed him. 7. Barbara burned the brown bread badly. 8. Beth believes thieves seize skis. 9. Blame the big bleak black book! 10. Blue black bug’s blood. 11. Cheap ship trips. 12. Copper coffeepot. 13. Double bubble gum bubbles double. 14. Herr Hurd hurt his head as he herded his herd. Herr Hurd’s heir, airing her hair, heard Herr Hurd err ere Herr Hurd heard her. 15. I said, “a knapsack strap,” not “a knapsack’s strap.” 16. If a weary witch wished a weird wish with a withered wizard’s whip, where is the withered wizard’s whip, with which the weary witch wished? 17. Shave a thin cedar shingle. 18. She sawed six slick sleek slim slender saplings. 19. She says she shall sew a sheet. 20. Six shaved sheep shivered sheepishly. 21. Soldiers’ shoulders shudder when shrill shells shriek. 22. Sure the ship’s shipshape, sir. 23. The bootblack brought the book back. 24. The seething sea ceaseth seething. 25. The sixth sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick. 26. The sow's stout snout snores snorts. 27. Thin tinsmith Tim thinks Tillie’s thin twin thinks Tim’s twin thinner than Gillie’s thin twin. 28. Three tree twigs. 29. Tie twine to three tree twigs. 30. Tuesday is stew day. Stew day is Tuesday. Working with language

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31. Unique New York. 32. When wicked witches whisk switches, which witch whisks switches swiftest? 33. Where is the big black bear the big black bug hit? 34. Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?

Key points Phonology is the study of how speech sounds are organized and how they function. Phonological analysis can determine which sound differences are significant in a language. Speech sounds tend to adjust to nearby sounds in systematic ways. Speech sounds tend to vary around a norm. The sound system of a language tends to be symmetrical. Phonological analysis is an essential part of determining how to write a language.

Exercises 1. The word game called “Hink-Pink” can be helpful in helping you understand minimal pairs. A “Hink-Pink” is a pair of one-syllable words that rhyme. The game consists of one person giving a verbal clue that helps the other player guess the correct rhyming pair. For example, one player could give the clue “obese feline” to elicit the answer “fat cat.” The game can be extended to include 2-syllable words (“Hinky-Pinky”) and 3-syllable words (Hinkety-Pinkety). Try playing this game with some friends who are not in class. 2. An extension of “Hink-Pink” could be called “Hink-Hank” or any other such name that showed that the two words are the same except for the vowel. For example, the clue “a joke about an evergreen tree” might elicit “pine pun.” (Note: the game is about phonetics, not spelling.) Make up a Hink-Hank and a HinkyHanky.

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Morphology

Textbook readings Language Files 5.1 – 5.6

Study questions What is “morphology”? What is a “morpheme”? What is an “allomorph”? What is an “affix”? How can I analyze data to determine the meaning of morphemes? What is the difference between inflection and derivation? What are the four major ways languages handle word formation?

Introduction People often think of words as the smallest unit of grammar. We think in words. We converse in words. We write words. Why isn’t the word the smallest unit on meaning? Most languages construct words from smaller units we will call “morphemes.” These smaller parts are not always spoken on their own; some may only occur as a part of a larger unit, the word. In this chapter we will look at Working with language

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these smaller units and see how they are combined to make words. We will note that languages have preferred patterns for constructing words and that there are a wide variety of ways in which languages put words together.

Definitions Morphology is the study of the structure of words. A morpheme is the minimal linguistic unit of a language that carries meaning. The English word ‘houses’, for example, consists of two pieces: house-s. The –s adds the idea of ‘plural’. It also adds a syllable of sound. Similarly, ‘walked’ is made up of walk+ed (pronounced [ t ] in this case). The idea of past tense is not even a separate syllable. Morphemes may be as short as one sound (walk-s) or the change of a sound (sing, sang, sung). Consider the following examples from a variety of languages:

Koine Greek

lu-o

‘I loose/untie’

lu-eis

‘You (sg.) loose’

e-lu-on

‘I was loosing’

e-lu-es

‘You (sg.) were loosing’

lu-s-o

‘I will loose’

lu-s-eis

‘You (sg.) will loose’

Note the changes in the Greek form and corresponding changes in the English gloss. The idea of “I” versus “you (sg.)” is indicated by suffixes. These suffixes change when the activity is in the past ( -on and –es) versus when it is in the present or future ( -o and –eis).

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Classical Hebrew

higat - i

‘I arrived’

higat - a

‘You (masculine) arrived’

higat

‘You (feminine) arrived’

higat - em

‘You (plural masculine) arrived’

higat - en

‘You (plural feminine) arrived’

In Hebrew the difference between something “I” do and something “you (masculine)” do is indicated by a change in the final vowel of the verb. Note that when “you (feminine)” do something, the final vowel is missing.

Longer morphemes

A morpheme may be more than one syllable. In English, for example, some morphemes have two syllables: un-fortune-ate-ly un-gentle-man-li-ness Here the [ – ] indicates a morpheme break. Note that some of the morphemes have more than one (phonetic) syllable (fortune, gentle).

Morphemes are not necessarily easy to determine

Some words appear to have smaller parts, but are really only one morpheme. In English: hammer is not ham+er

finger is not fing+er

There are also words that have more than one meaning component without a clear separation between the several parts. In English, many verbs have a past tense morpheme written -ed: walk-ed, rant-ed. Other verbs do not show a separate -ed morpheme when they are in the past tense: Working with language

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teach > taught write > wrote eat

> ate

Morphological analysis How do we analyze words? Elson and Pickett (1988) suggest the following three steps: ♦ collect similar data (e.g. plural forms of nouns, possessed forms) ♦ compare changes in form with changes in meaning ♦ draw lines to indicate parts of words which stay the same and which change ♦ define each part of the language data (the morphemes) Let's apply these steps to the following two examples. First, we collect data that are similar. The Sierra Popoluca data is all about someone's cornfield. Sierra Popoluca (Mexico) angkama

‘my cornfield’

ingkama

‘your cornfield’

ikama

‘his cornfield’

Secondly, we need to compare what has changed in the Popoluca data with changes in the English meaning. We see that the part before kama changes when the English meaning changes from 'my' to 'your' to 'his.' angkama

‘my cornfield’

ingkama

‘your cornfield’

ikama

‘his cornfield’

Thirdly, we can draw lines between the first part (or morpheme) and the second part of the Popoluca word to show what we hypothesize are morpheme boundaries or breaks:

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ang | kama

‘my cornfield’

ing | kama

‘your cornfield’

i | kama

‘his cornfield’

Fourthly, we make a hypothesis about what the parts or morphemes of the word mean. In this case, we might say that ang- in Popoluca indicates that I own something. We could 'define' ang- as 'my' or state that it refers to 'first person singular possession.' while the latter phrase is a bit long, it is a more technically accurate statement. Such a statement can also be abbreviated to '1sg POSS.' Use the same four steps to analyze a similar set of data in Ambai, a language of Indonesia. Note that the first step has already been completed for you. Ambai (Indonesia) nuhu

‘my head’

numu ‘your head’ nung

‘his/her head’

Step 2: Compare changes in form with changes in meaning. What part of the Ambai word changes? What changes in the English translation? nuhu

‘my head’

numu ‘your head’ nung

‘his/her head’

Step 3: Draw lines to indicate the parts of the Ambai words that stay the same in all three words and the parts that change. nuhu

‘my head’

numu ‘your head’ nung

‘his/her head’

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Step 4: Define each part of the Ambai words ______ means _________ ______ means _________ ______ means _________ ______ means _________ Constituents and trees Some words can be analyzed in more than one way. In such a case, the linguist must determine which morphemes are most closely connected. The English word 'unlockable,' for example, can be understood in two ways: un - lockable un‘not’

'not lockable'

unlock - able un‘reverse the action of the verb’

'able to be unlocked'

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Types of morphemes Morphemes can be grouped in several ways. One way is by whether the morpheme is the primary component of the word (a root) or a less basic part (an affix). Affixes are futher divided by where they occur in relationship to the root:: affixes (prefix, infix, suffix, circumfix) pre-ROOT un-happy RO-in-OT (No example in English, but common in Tagalog.) ROOT-suf happi-ness cir-ROOT-cum) No example in English, but common in Indonesian root

circumfixed form

meaning

baik ‘good’

ke – baik - an

‘goodness’

tinggi ‘tall’

ke – tinggi - an

‘height’

kenal ‘know’

memper - kenal - kan

‘to introduce’

roots e.g. tree, climb, tall Morphemes can also be grouped in terms of whether a morpheme can occur by itself (free) or only occurs connected to other morphemes (bound). bound Affixes are always bound. Some roots are bound (e.g., huckle-berry free Most roots are free forms.

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Types of morphemes free

bound

content/lexical forms (open)

function words (closed)

nouns

conjunctions

verbs

articles

adjectives

demonstratives

adverbs

prepositions

bound roots (closed)

affixes (closed)

cran-(berry)

prefixes infixes suffixes circumfixes

contracted forms (we)’ll, (I)’d, (you)’ve

Words What is a word? Surprisingly, this is not an easy question to answer. CEL points out the following four features which characterize words: •

potential pause word

Pauses are typically not allowed within a

•

indivisibility typically be

Words may follow one another, but cannot inserted within another word

•

minimum free form stand alone

Words (not morphemes) can typically

•

phonetic boundaries

Words have typical stress patterns

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Lexical content words

Lexical content words form an open class, including (in English): nouns

leg, belief, beauty

verbs

eat, blink

adjectives

tall, old, blue, wise

adverbs

slowly, soon

Note that these classes must be defined by linguistic factors, not by meaning. Some languages do not have a class of adjectives, for example, but express ideas such as ‘old’ and ‘tall’ with verbs.

Function words

Function words form closed classes of words, including: pronouns (inclusive/exclusive)

I, you (sg.), you (pl.) we

conjunctions

and, but

prepositions/ postpositions

to, from, in

determiners

a, the

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Word types

Words can also be classified by how they are made. The following table shows some of the ways in which English words are made from different kinds of roots and affixes.

Simple words

Complex words

Compound words

Base only

mouse silver aspirin

Base + inflectional affix

run-s tall-est radio-s

Free stem + derivational suffix

bake-er read-able woman-ly

Prefix + bound stem

circum-vent in-ert

Bound stem + derivational suffix

leg-ible plac-ate

Prefix + free stem

un-natural pre-history

Two elements, both free

black-board

Compound- Compound word + derivational suffix dry-clean-er complex forthrightwords ness folklore-ist Prefix + compound word

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re-broadcast

Inflectional versus derivational affixes Affixes can be divided into two sets based on their relationship to the rest of the word and to the surrounding words. The following chart presents an overview of the main differences between inflectional and derivational affixes. Inflectional affixes

Derivational affixes

Word class

Do not change class of word

Typically change class of word

Function

Indicate relations between words

Indicate relations within the word

Productivity

Normally very productive

Typically limited

Position

Typically at edges of Typically close to word the root

Meaning

Regular

Irregular

Inflectional morphology Inflectional affixes add grammatical information to a word and tie a word to other parts of a clause. Inflectional markings may be used to indicate many things, including: tense

present, past, far past, future

aspect

completed, incompleted, durative

voice

active, passive

number

singular, dual, trial, plural

gender/class masculine, feminine, neuter, arbitrary classes person

first, second, third, fourth, inclusive, exclusive

case

nominative, accusative, ergative, absolutive, genitive

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English has only eight inflectional affixes (listed in the chart below). Four of these affixes are attached to verbs, two to nouns, and two to adjectives.

Suffix

Meaning

Word class

-s

3s present

verbs

-ed

past

verbs

-ing

progressive

verbs

-en

past participle

verbs

-s

plural

nouns

-’s

possessive

nouns

-er

comparative

adjectives

-est

superlative

adjectives

Note that three of the eight English inflectional affixes have the same phonetic shape [ -s, -z, -z ]. English also has words that do not add a separate morpheme to indicate number or person. English pronouns, for example, use suppletion to indicate case on pronouns.

Singular

Plural

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Nominative

Accusative

Genitive

I

Me

My

You

You

Your

he

Him

His

She

Her

Hers

It

It

its

We

Us

Our

You

You

Your

They

Them

Theirs

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Many Indo-European languages use inflection to mark case on nouns (e.g., German, Russian, Greek). (The case endings on nouns were dropped before Middle English.) Koine Greek has inflectional affixes that mark case on nouns, pronouns, adjectives and determiners. Nouns belonged to one of three classes, each of which had a separate set of case endings. The following chart shows the different patterns for singular nouns.

Singular

Class I

Class II

Class III

Nominative

fon –e

anthrop -os

som –a

Accusative

fon –en

anthrop -on

som –a

Dative

fon –ei

anthrop –oi

som – ati

Genitive

fon -es

anthrop -ou

som -atos

The adjective in Koine Greek is also inflected for these same categories and “agrees” with the noun it modifies; i.e. the adjective receives the same case markings that the noun does.

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Finnish uses inflectional affixes to distinguish 15 cases on nouns [data from Macauley 1994:153]. Note how difficult it is even to make terms in English to cover these different relationships. The following chart lists a few of these obligatory choices Finnish speakers must make whenever the word 'house' is used in a sentence: Case

Finnish word

English translation

Nominative

talo -t

‘the houses’

Genitive

talo -jen

‘belonging to the houses’

Partitive

talo -ja

‘(part) of the houses’

Inessive

talo- issa

‘in the houses’

Elative

talo- ista

‘from inside the houses’

Illative

talo- ihin

‘into the houses’

Adessive

talo- illa

‘at or on the houses’

Ablative

talo- ilta

‘from the houses’

Allative

talo- ille

‘to the houses’

Comitative

talo -ine

‘together with houses’

Instructive

talo -in

‘by means of houses’

Nootkan, an Amerindian language spoken in northwest Washington state, has inflectional affixes that mark verbs to indicate whether the speaker has actually witnessed a certain occurrence or merely heard about it. Such inflectional markers are called ‘evidentials’. [Data from Macauley 1994:156]

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1.

wiki:caxa - u

‘It’s bad weather’ (I know from my own experience)

2.

wiki:caxa - k?u

‘It was bad weather’ (I experienced it)

3.

wiki:caxa - kpi:d

‘It looks like bad weather’ (That’s the conclusion I draw)

4.

wiki:caxa - kqad?i

‘It sounds like bad weather’ (I hear rumblings in the distance)

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5.

wiki:caxa - kwa:d

‘I’m told there’s bad weather’ (Someone told me)

6.

wiki:caxa - kitwa:d ‘I’m told it was bad weather’ (Someone told me)

Ambai (Indonesia) has inflection on pronouns to indicate how many people are involved:

1in

singular

dual

paucal

plural

yau

turu

toru

tata

auru

antoru

amea

1ex 2

wau

muru

muntoru

mea

3

i

uru

itoru

ea

Notice the –ru in the dual, the –toru in the paucal (limited plural), and the –a in the plural forms. These parts of the pronouns are the same as the endings in the Ambai numerals for two (boru, mandu), three (botoru, mantoru) and four (boa, manea).

Black (1988) lists seven basic affix positions or 'slots' in Koine Greek (not including what he calls prepositional affixes and the root itself).

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ENDING

7 SPEC-IFIER

6

ASPECT

5

FUTURE TIME

4

PASSIVE

ROOT

3 Redup-lication

2 PAST TIME

1

The following verbs show the inflectional affixes for Future and the Ending morpheme that includes information about the person and number of the Subject as well as about the Tense of the verb:

lu lu e

-s

lu

7 ENDING

ROOT

FUTURE TIME

4 PAST TIME

1

-o

‘I loose’

-o

‘I will loose’

-on

‘I was loosing’

Derivational morphology Morphology also studies how words are derived from other words. These processes and affixes are much less regular than inflection. It is difficult to determine the combined meaning of derived forms and to predict which derivational affix will be used. Note the following English examples: Nouns to adjectives affection-ate, but not *love-ate alcohol-ic, but not *water-ic boy-ish, but not *youth-ish, (?) man-ish (normally man-ly) Elizabeth-an health-ful life-like pictur-esque virtue-ous

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Verbs to nouns accus-ation acquitt-al broil-er ‘tool that broils something’ rather than ‘person who broils something’ clear-ance confer-ence conform-ist free-dom, but not *captive-dom predict-ion sing-er Adjectives to adverbs exact-ly quiet-ly Nouns to verbs vaccin-ate

Some limitations on derivational processes In addition to the limitations of derivational affixes mentioned above (limited distribution, semantic variation) there are also many examples of words in which roots can only occur with a derivational affix; the roots are bound and cannot occur on their own. In English, for example, we can only say "I was dis-gruntled"; we cannot say "I was gruntled." Other examples in English: dis-consolate in-capacitated non-chalant non-descript un-shevelled un-gainly

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*consolate *capacitated *chalant *descript *shevelled *gainly

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Notice that all of these examples begin with a prefix indicating negation. Another set of these bound root + derivational affix words include: un-furl

*furl

Other word formation processes In addition to derivation, languages can also form words by less productive patterns. In English, words can be made in the following ways: Acronyms NATO scuba apparatus Back formation television

North Atlantic Treaty Organization self-contained underwater breathing

>

televise

Blending breakfast + lunch

> brunch

Clipping examination >

exam

Coinage (e.g. trademarks) Xerox Kodak Compounding black + bird >

blackbird

Functional shift position (noun)

>

position (verb)

Morpheme internal processes goose geese ring rang rung Morphological misanalysis hamburg + er >

ham + burger turkeyburger

Suppletion go went am was

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Allomorphs Morphemes may have more than one form. These variant forms are called allomorphs and can be explained in terms of their phonetic or lexical environment. In this section we will see that the English plural suffix -s, can be explained in terms of the phonetic qualities of the final sound of the noun root. Other languages exhibit allomorphs that change depending on the grammatical features of the root they modify. Each of these patterns of change remind us of the principle that linguistic units can have variations.

Phonetically determined allomorphs

The English plural suffix on words like cats, dogs and roses changes phonetic shape due to the sound that immediately precedes it. Morphophonemic rules have to do with the phonetic changes that may take place in morphemes. The English plural suffix -s is an example of this process. Write the phonetic symbol for the last sound of each of the following singular forms and then write the phonetic symbol for the sound of the plural ending: Singular

Plural

tab

[ ]

tabs

[ ]

pod

[ ]

pods

[ ]

bag

[ ]

bags

[ ]

cup

[ ]

cups

[ ]

pot

[ ]

pots

[ ]

book [ ]

books [ ]

class

[ ]

classes [ ]

rose

[ ]

roses [ ]

Morphophonemic rules can explain when each of the different phonetic shapes of the plural suffix will occur.

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Lexically determined allomorphs

English nouns normally take the –s ending discussed above. There are a number of words, however, that take other endings. These endings are lexically determined. Some examples include: child

children

ox

oxen

English also has nouns that are borrowed from Latin and still maintain Latin plural inflectional markers: alumnus

alumni

datum

data

In (Ki)Swahili singular and plural is marked on nouns by sets of affixes. A different set of affixes is used for nouns belonging to different arbitrary noun classes.

Noun

Singular

Plural

toto ‘child’

m-toto ‘the child’

wa-toto ‘the children’

tu ‘man’

m-tu ‘the man’

wa-tu ‘the men’

su ‘knife’

ki-su ‘the knife’

vi-su ‘the knives’

kapu ‘basket’

ki-kapu ‘the basket’ vi-kapu ‘the baskets’

Koine Greek case endings mentioned above are also examples of lexically determined allomorphs; the shape of the case marker depends on the class of the root noun.

Hierarchy in morphology Words are intermediate structures between smaller and larger grammatical units. In this chapter we have seen that the smallest grammatical unit is the morpheme. Morphemes can be combined to make stems and stems can be combined to make words. Some morphemes are in themselves already complete words; i.e., there are no additional morphemes in the word. - 102 -

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As units within a hierarchy, morphemes also exhibit variation. Allomorphs may occur in specific phonetic/phonological or lexical environments and still convey the same meaning. Morphemes can also be studied in terms of their distribution; i.e. where they occur. Prefixes, for example, occur before the root of the word.

Typology of languages Languages can be grouped by the way they handle morphology. Such groupings do not imply that the languages are genetically related.

Analytic/Isolating

Some languages have few or no words that contain more than one morpheme; each word consists of just one morpheme. Such languages are called analytic or isolating. These languages use separate words, rather than affixes, to indicate concepts such as time, number, etc. Mandarin is a good example of an isolating language: Ta chi fan le he eat meal past meal’ (Data from O’Grady, et. al 1994:314)

‘He ate the

Agglutinating

Languages that typically construct words from clearly defined morphemes are called agglutinating languages. In these languages, the breaks between morphemes (e.g. between root and affix) are usually easy to identify. Turkish is a good example of this kind of language (data from O’Grady, et. al. 1994:314): ev

‘house’

ev-ler

‘house-s’

ev-ler-de

‘in the house-s’

ev-ler-den

‘from the house-s’

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Fusional

Other languages construct words by using morphemes which often indicate more than one grammatical idea at the same time; e.g. tense and number might be indicated with the same suffix. Latin, Spanish, and Russian verbs all illustrate this fusional pattern. Koine Greek combines tense, mood, person and number into fused verb endings. The following chart shows the present tense, active, indicative forms of lu- ‘to loose’. Note that the endings also show number (singular/plural) and person (first, second, third). Singular

Plural

lu-o

‘I loose’

lu-eis

‘You (sg.) loose’

lu-ei

‘He/she looses’

lu-omen

‘We loose’

lu-ete

‘You (pl.) loose’

lu-ousi(n)

‘They loose’

Polysynthetic

A final type of language (based on morphological patterns) is called polysynthetic. The key here is on the prefix poly-, since these languages typically combine many morphemes to form very long words. A good example (from O’Grady, et. al. 1994:315) is the following word from Inuktitut, an Amerindian language: qasuiirsarvigssarsingitluinarnarpuq qasu

-iir -sar -luinar

-vig -nar

-ssar -puq

tired

not cause.to.be place.for suitable completely someone 3rd.sg.

-si

-ngit

find

not

‘Someone did not find a completely suitable resting place.’

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Key points Morphology studies how words are formed. Words may be inflected to indicate number, gender, time, etc. Words may be derived from other words. Each language uses at most a limited number of inflectional and derivational affixes. Each language has a limited number of word classes. Languages can be characterized by how they form words.

Exercises 1.

Identify the morphemes in the following English words. Example: dishonesty dis- derivational prefix honest root -y derivational suffix charity Christianity reflections rearranging real unreasonableness immortality philosophical unfriendly underpinnings

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2.

State whether the underlined segment of the following English words is an affix: houses bus butter better biter unity unwise selfish shellfish cranberry

3.

State whether the underlined segment of the following English words is a derivational or an inflectional suffix: sells bigger digger bells ringing ringlike comical dog’s children wisdom

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Syntax

Textbook readings Language Files 6.1 – 6.7

Study questions What is “syntax”? How is the term “grammatical” used in linguistics? Why is word order important in English grammar? How can Phrase-Structure trees be used to differentiate ambiguous sentences or clauses? How are Phrase-Structure trees and Phrase Structure rules similar? How can language universals help you study another language?

Introduction Words seem to be the building blocks of language. People often think of sentences as being a string of words, much like a string of pearls on a necklace. In actual fact, sentences are not strings of words; they are combinations of phrases.

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Definitions Syntax is the study of the structure of phrases, clauses and sentences. How are syntax and grammar different? Grammar can be defined more widely as the overall pattern of a language, including morphology, syntax and other aspects. Syntax studies how phrases and clauses are constructed; e.g., the order of the words, agreement between subjects and verbs, head vs. modifiers, etc. The big old black bear *The black big old bear

John gave Mary the book.

Mary gave John the book

John gave the book to Mary.

Mary gave the book to John.

*John Mary the book gave.

*Mary John the book gave.

Word order is important in English grammar because it tells us "who did what to whom." If John is in front of the verb 'gave' and Mary is after the verb, we know that John was the once who gave the book and Mary did not give the book to John. Grammaticality A native speaker’s linguistic knowledge or ‘competence’ helps to distinguish ‘well-formed’ sentences from ‘ill-formed’ sentences. These judgments are based on word order constraints, obligatory agreement, valence (transitivity), etc. The term ‘grammaticality’ does not refer to prescriptive notions. The term ‘grammaticality’ is not based on logic. “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” is grammatical, whereas, “*Sleep ideas furiously green colorless” is ungrammatical in English.

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If we substitute a set of more logical words for the first example, we could say: Spotless green frogs sleep soundly. This makes us feel happier that the order of these words is indeed grammatical. If we move these new words into the following order: *Sleep frogs soundly green spotless. we again see that the order of words is important in English

Analyzing phrases and clauses Phrases and clauses (and even larger units) are made up of smaller pieces or units, not simply of words. Syntax studies the hierarchical structure and the arrangement of these units.

Linear order

Each language has a limited set of syntactic patterns it uses to make phrases and clauses. Noun phrases, for example, will usually have the noun followed by an adjective or visa versa; the pattern will not keep changing. Likewise, languages may prefer the Subject of the clause to precede the verb.

Hierarchical structure on syntax

Phrases and clauses are not strings of words; they have an internal structure. We also recognize again that smaller units can be combined to make larger units, just as in phonology and morphology. In this chapter we will see how words can be combined to form phrases and phrases to form clauses. We could also study combinations of clauses as sentences and higher structures such as paragraphs and episodes, but we will leave this for advanced studies.

Constituents

To ascertain the boundaries of the various units of a phrase or clause, a linguist looks for appropriate syntactic tests. These constituents are

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used in particular environments or locations; i.e., their distribution may be limited.

Ambiguity

Phrases and clauses may be either lexically or structurally ambiguous.

Tree diagrams

Reading tree diagrams

Tree diagrams are useful because they can disambiguate ambiguous sentences. For example, the phrase “large circles and squares” is ambiguous. The reader does not know whether the circles and squares are large, or only the circles. A tree diagram must disambiguate these two meanings since it can only represent one set of constituents at a time. See Language Files, page 156 for two examples.

Constructing tree diagrams

To construct a tree diagram: 1.

Start at the bottom on the tree, by labeling each word by its grammatical function (e.g. Noun, Verb, Article)

2.

Join elements that belong to the same phrase, working from right to left.

3.

Label the phrases.

4.

Continue joining and labeling items until you reach the top of the tree.

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Phrase structure rules Sentences are composed of syntactic structures (such as noun phrases, verbs, etc.) placed in particular orders as determined by the grammar of the language. The syntactic structures and the order of the elements vary from language to language. Phrase structure rules specify the constituency of syntactic categories in the language. In English an NP → Art N, since the article always precedes the noun. How are phrase structure trees and phrase structure rules similar? they both show the hierarchical structure of a sentence they both show the linear order of elements within a sentence they both show which elements are most closely related they both show the categories of words or phrases which occur in a particular position

Subcategorization Subcategorization of words, especially verbs, is useful. This information is often put in the lexicon. For example, some verbs must occur with an object, others never take an object. Verbs exhibit limitations based on their subcategory. Some of the typical complement structures of English verbs are listed below:

What do YOU think? Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest— adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs— however, I can manage the whole lot!’ (Lewis Carroll)

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Complement

Verbs

Example

NP NP

give

give the child a book

send

send the child a book

give

give a book to the child

send

send a book to the child

buy

buy a book for the child

cook

cook a meal for the child

put

put a book on the table

place

place a book on the table

NP PP to

NP PP for

NP PP loc

fast slow quick

Human propensity

Speed

Physical Property hard soft heavy light hot

happy kind clever rude proud

Color

big large long thick

Age

good bad excell ent poor

Dimension

Type

Value

English adjectives can be grouped in different subclasses by how they function in noun phrases. See Dixon (1977) for more discussion about adjective classes in a variety of languages.

new young old

black white red

Thus, an English speaker might say “a nice, big, new red wagon”, but not “*a red new big nice wagon”.

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Transformations It is obvious that some sentences are related; e.g., “Francis went to Colorado” and “Did Francis go the Colorado?”. “Transformational” or “generative” grammar seeks to explain how such forms are derived from the same basic proposition.

Yes-No questions

X can Y. Can X Y? The transformation of simple statements with an AUX verb (e.g. can, will, may) can be expressed as the AUX moving to the front of the subject (X). Francis will read the entire textbook. Will Francis read the entire textbook? Chris can read well. Can Chris read well?

Wh- questions

X helped the instructor. Who helped the instructor? The transformation of a simple statement to a WHO question can be expressed as replacing the Subject (X) with the question word ‘who’. X will read Y. *X will read what? What will X read? The transformation of a transitive statement to a WHAT question involves first a replacement of the Object (Y) by the question word and then a shift of the question word to the front of the Subject (X). Other WH- words show similar patterns in English. For example:

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Dana will leave tomorrow. *Dana will leave when? (acceptable in emphatic sense) When will Dana leave? (the more normal pattern)

Indirect Object movement

Certain bitransitive verbs in English allow the indirect object to move ahead of the direct object, immediately following the verb. Chris gave the plate of cookies to Francis. Chris gave Francis the plate of cookies. The teacher taught linguistics to the students. The teacher taught the students linguistics.

Particle movement

Certain verbs in English consist of a verb plus a particle (e.g. run up, sew up). The particle can be moved behind the Direct Object. X ran up the bill. X ran the bill up. X sewed up the wound. X sewed the wound up. Note that there are also times when a verb plus a following preposition are not a verb+particle: X ran up the hill. *X ran the hill up.

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Syntactic universals of language There are general truths about all human languages and general tendencies in language patterns. Often, these tendencies are called universals. They help a linguist make preliminary hypotheses about the grammatical patterns in a language.

Types of universals

Formal or substantive universals Formal universals deal with the grammatical patterns in languages, such as word order. On Greenberg’s list of universals, statement 42 says: All languages have pronominal categories involving at least three persons and two numbers. (e.g., speaker, addressee and other; singular and non-singular) This and other universals about the existence of certain elements in every language are substantive universals. Others include the existence of categories such as N, V; certain phonological features, etc. Implicational universals (if X then Y) On Greenberg’s list of universals, statement 40 says: When the adjective follows the noun, the adjective expresses all the inflectional categories of the noun. Spanish illustrates this universal: maestr -o viej -o teacher - masc. maestr -a viej -a teacher - fem. maestr –o -s viej –o -s teacher - masc. – pl. maestr –a -s viej –a -s teacher - fem. – pl.

old - masc. old - fem. old - masc. –pl. old - fem. – pl.

These words show that Spanish nouns and adjectives are both marked for gender and number.

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Absolute universals versus tendencies Statement 4 on Greenberg’s list of universals is a tendency, not an absolute: With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional. There are logically six possible combinations of the three elements of a transitive clause (Subject, Verb, Object). All six orders occur, although Object-initial languages are very uncommon.

Verb before Object

SVO

English French Hausa Vietnamese Thai

VSO

Welsh Tongan Hebrew (Classical) Arabic (Classical) Tagalog

VOS

Malagasy Tzotzil (Mexico) Cakchiquel (Guatemala)

SOV

Japanese Korean Amharic Tibetan Turkish Georgian

OVS

Hixkaryana (Brazil) Barasano (Colombia)

OSV

Xavante (Brazil) Apurina (Brazil)

35%

Verb before Object 19%

Verb before Object 2% Object before Verb 44%

Object before Verb less than 1% Object before Verb less than 1%

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Types of languages

Linguists are interested in several types of relationships between languages. In the chapter on language change, we will see that some languages are genetically related; that is, they share a common ancestor. Typically such languages share many words, have similar sound systems, and have many grammatical features in common. Sometimes languages that are not genetically related also exhibit similar grammatical patterns. Linguists are interested in these nongenetically inherited features because they may indicate how human language is structured at a deeper level. The study of these features is called language typology. Some universals have to do with word order. Languages that have a basic clause order in which the Object follows the Verb (VO) tend to have similar patterns elsewhere in the language. Typically, in VO languages the Adjective follows the Noun it modifies, the Adverb follows the Verb it modifies, etc. as seen below. These two categories of language are referred to as Head-Initial and Head-Final based on whether the main element of the phrase appears at the beginning or end of the phrase. Head-Initial language patterns Spanish

Koine Greek

V

O

a)

AUX

V

b)

V

Adv

c)

N

Adj

casa blanca house white

zoe aionios life eternal

d)

N

Pos

casa de Juan house of Juan

Hios theou son of God

e)

N

Rel

f)

Prep

N

en casa in house

en theou in God

poieson taxion do quickly

Irish (O’Grady et. al. 1994:317) is a VSO language; it also has prepositions as in (f) above: Working with language

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Chonaic saw

mé I

mo my

mháthair. mother

‘I saw my mother.’ sa in

teach house

‘in the house’ Koine Greek is said to have relatively free word order. This is made possible by the systematic case marking system that indicates the grammatical function of each word (e.g., Subject, Direct Object). Nevertheless, Koine Greek follows many of the characteristics of the VO pattern above:

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N life

Adj eternal

N hios

Pos theou

son God.of

Prep en

N theou

in God

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Other languages place the Object before the Verb. These languages typically have postpositions, place the Adjective before the Noun, etc. as summarized below: Head-Final language patterns Japanese

O

V

a)

V

AUX

b)

Adv

V

c)

Adj

N

d)

Pos

N

e)

Rel

N

f)

N

Post

Korean

Japanese, Korean, Turkish and many other languages are OV languages. The following data (from O’Grady, et. al. 1994:317) illustrates postpositions in Guugu Yimidhirr, a language of Australia: gudaangun dog boy

jarrga djindaj bit

‘The dog bit the boy’

juwaal nganh beach from ‘from the beach’

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Some universals of grammar

(Adapted from Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Universals of language. nd 2 . ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pages 110-113.) Topic

#

Statement of the universal

Agreement

40.

When the adjective follows the noun, the adjective expresses all the inflectional categories of the noun. In such cases the noun may lack overt expression of one or all of these categories.

Case

41.

If in a language the verb follows both the nominal subject and nominal object as the dominant order, the language almost always has a case system.

Clause order 1.

In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is almost always one in which the subject precedes the object.

Gender

43.

If a language has gender distinctions in the noun, it has gender distinctions in the pronoun.

Gender

45.

If there are any gender distinctions in the plural of the pronoun, there are some gender distinctions in the singular also.

Morphology

28.

If both the derivation and inflection follow the root, or they both precede the root, the derivation is always between the root and the inflection.

Morphology

29.

If a language has inflection, it always has derivation.

NP

2.

In languages with prepositions, the genitive almost always follows the governing noun, while in languages with postpositions it almost always precedes.

NP

17.

With overwhelming more than chance frequency, languages with dominant order VSO have the adjective after the noun.

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NP

20.

When any or all of the items—demonstrative, numeral, and descriptive adjective—precede the noun, they are always found in that order. If they follow, the order is either the same or its exact opposite.

Number

34.

No language has a trial number unless it has a dual. No language has a dual unless it has a plural.

PP

3.

Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional.

PP

4.

With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional.

PP

27.

If a language is exclusively suffixing, it is postpositional; if it is exclusively prefixing, it is prepositional.

Pronouns

42.

All languages have pronominal categories involving at least three persons and two numbers.

Key points Syntax is the study of how words are combined to form phrases, clauses and larger units. Every language has a limited number of ways to form phrases, clauses and other syntactic units. Certain syntactic patterns are predictable from other aspects of the syntax of a language.

Internet resources ♦ “Chomskybot” is a PERL script that can generate an exhausting number of sentences based on a simple set of rules. The name is a tribute to Noam Chomsky, an early leader in generative linguistics. http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl

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♦ An interesting site called “Model Languages” talks about how an author can create a new language, much as Tolkien did in his Hobbit stories: www.langmaker.com/ml0102.htm ♦ There are a number of sites that talk about constructing languages. These show that even constructed languages have syntactic patterns: www.quetzal.com/conlang.html www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/conlang.html#Misc

Exercises 1. Describe the syntax of ordering coffee at coffee specialty stores. Note the order that is used for the size, type, flavor, etc. 2. Make a chart of at least 5 techno-babble phrases of at least three elements. For example, “integrated multitasking freeware” Note which words (and types of words) can occur in each position. Make a phrase-structure tree of one example.

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Semantics & Pragmatics

Textbook readings Language Files 7.1 – 7.4, 8.1 – 8.3

Study questions What is “semantics”? What are “semantic features”? What is the difference between “homonyms” and “polysemous” words? What are the differences between “literal” and “figurative” senses of a word? What are the three kinds of antonyms? What is a “metaphor”? What is an “idiom”? What are the differences between “thematic roles” and “grammatical roles”?

Introduction When we discuss language and linguistics we need to consider not only the sounds and the parts of words and phrases. We also need to study how these elements convey meaning. Early in our studies we noted that language consist of arbitrary symbols. Once these symbols Working with language

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(e.g., words) have a conventional meaning within a group, however, they provide a means of expression and communication. In this chapter we will look at semantics and its role in the larger study of language.

What do YOU think? All words have the “taste” of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age group, the day and hour. Each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life... (Mikhail Bakhtin in The Dialogic Imagination (Macaulay 1994:86))

Language has more than literal meaning. In this chapter we will also consider the other aspects of meaning, such as the figurative and metaphorical meanings of words and phrases.

What do YOU think? Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:3)

Definitions Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. Other disciplines discuss the reality of objects, people, etc. Semantics emphasizes how people use words to convey meaning. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) said “the meaning of a word is its use in the language”. What does a word or a phrase ‘mean’? Even the word ‘mean’ must be defined. In English we say: A green light means go Sandy means to write “Bilabial” means produced with both lips. In linguistics we are primarily concerned with the last type of meaning, linguistic meaning.

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Hearing the sentence “The assassin was stopped before he got to Mr. Jones” an English speaker already knows that Mr. Jones is an important person, since ‘assassin’ includes a semantic component of attempting to kill an important person. Every word has a number of semantic components, much as phonological words have a number of sounds and grammatical words may have a number of morphemes. A word or phrase normally refers to some object or action (called extension), etc. It also carries a particular sense or added meaning called its intension. palace reference:

a building for royalty

sense:

elaborate, expensive

Another way to look at groups of concepts is by thinking of the prototypical examples of a set. An ostrich is much less “birdlike” than a pelican, and a sparrow or a robin is even more central to the idea of “bird” in English.

Semantic features Semantic features or properties are the components of meaning of a word The following words, for example, all have the semantic component young: baby

kitten cub

foal

chick infant

We can use semantic components to distinguish synonyms and to define words. Thus, ‘man’ and ‘boy’ share the semantic component male, but are distinguished by the concept of age. (Recall Pike’s emphasis on contrast and identity.)

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One way to distinguish the particular meanings of a set of related words is to construct a matrix of semantic components such as the following chart. Note that all of the terms listed are "+ feline". That means that they are all included in the class or set of felines. Some words, however, are also "+ young": kitten, cub. To complete the chart, fill in the appropriate value (+ or -) for the feature "domesticated".

kitten

cat

lion

lioness

cub

feline

+

+

+

+

+

young

+

+/-

+/-

+/-

+

domesticated A matrix of contrastive components should be restricted to the salient features. Note that certain features are redundant (e.g., if something is +human, it is also +animate). Thus, we do not need to specify all the redundant features. Tzeltal, a language of southern Mexico, distinguishes dozens of ways of carrying objects: pach

carry on the head

cuch

carry on the back

pet

carry in the arms

nol

carry in the palm of the hand

toy

carry aloft

jelup’in

carry across the shoulders

chup

carry in a pocket or pouch

chuy

carry in a bag

lats’

carry under the arm

Although translation will be discussed later in these notes, it is interesting to note here that translating from Tzeltal into English and versa versa is a challenge because of these very specific words. - 126 -

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English, and other languages, has various specific words about cooking, including: bake, boil, broil, grill, roast, sauté.

Relations between words Words can be related in various ways. In the following sections we will look at homonyms, hyponyms, synonyms and antonyms.

Homonyms/homophones and polysemy

Due to the overabundance of meanings in any language, some separate meanings end up sharing the same phonetic shape (sound alike). These overlapping words are called homophones “words which have the same pronunciation but different meanings”, homonyms “words which have the same form but different meanings”, or homographs “words which have the same spelling but different meanings” (Crystal 1992:174). Some examples in English include: homophones (same pronunciation, different spelling, different meaning) to too two rode rowed bare bear bear

‘without clothing’ ‘carry’ ‘large ursine animal’

homonyms (same pronunciation, same or different spelling, different meaning) bat bat

‘a winged animal’ ‘a wooden object used in baseball’

bear bear

‘carry’ ‘large ursine animal’

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homographs (same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning) wind wind

noun verb

content content

noun verb

minute minute

noun adjective

Distinguishing homonyms from multiple meanings of a word

It is often difficult to determine whether two forms are actually two separate words (homonyms) or if they are separate meanings or sense of the same word (polysemy). Homophonous pairs only share similar sounds without having any meaning relations; e.g. bank ‘financial institution’ and bank ‘edge of a river’. Polysemous forms share some component of meaning: for example, dull ‘not sharp’ and dull in a secondary sense ‘not intelligent’ or ‘boring’. In a dictionary homonyms would be listed as two separate words; polysemous pairs would be listed under the same main entry.

Hyponyms

Hyponyms refer to words that are “included” in a larger set. Chair, couch and table are hyponyms of the more inclusive word furniture. Example:

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generic

hyponyms

furniture

chair, couch, table

dwelling

castle, mansion, house, cottage

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Synonyms

Synonyms have different phonetic shapes, but the same meaning in some contexts. Crystal (1992) says: “Items are synonyms if they are close enough in meaning to allow a choice to be made between them in some contexts, without this affecting the meaning of the sentence as a whole.” E.g., The book is big. The book is large. Synonyms may have different senses, some more positive than others: slender, skinny, gaunt chubby, fat, obese

Antonyms

Antonyms are typically said to be “opposites”, but there are a number of types of antonyms. Notice the differences among the following three subtypes of antonyms: complementary/contradictory either x or y alive/dead

present/absent visible/invisible married/unmarried

gradable/scalar x as compared to y large/small

hot/cold

relational/converse x as related to y larger/smaller employer/employee

give/receive parent/child

under/over buy/sell

An unusual set of antonyms are words that are actually spelled the same way, even though they have "opposite" meanings. In English, for example, we have the following such pairs of words: cleave 'to separate' cleave 'to adhere firmly' Working with language

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buckle 'to fasten together' buckle 'to fall apart, collapse' oversight oversight

'supervision' 'neglect'

Such words are sometimes called antagonyms, contronyms or "Janus words" based on the Greek myth of Janus, a two-faced god.

Figurative language To say that a line is “straight” is not literally accurate. If we could examine that line with a laser beam, we would find many parts of most lines that are not literally straight. They are, however, straight enough for our purposes. Sometimes the meaning of grammatical sentences is not the sum of the individual parts; rather, the meaning is in some way figurative. The people have ears. The walls have ears. Note that ‘ears’ in the first sentence is used in the primary sense of the word. There are also secondary as well as figurative senses of the word. A secondary sense of ‘ear’ is ‘she has an ear for music’, where there is a thread of meaning between the literal or primary sense and the secondary sense of ‘being able to hear’. There are 2 main types of figurative meaning: metaphors and similes idioms

Metaphors

A metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a term that ordinarily designates an object or idea is used to designate a dissimilar object or idea in order to suggest comparison or analogy.” (American Heritage Dictionary) Each metaphor or simile has three parts: T

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topic

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I

image

P

point of similarity

Consider the following metaphor using these three parameters: “The children were angels at lunch.” Topic

the children

Image

angel

Point of similarity

behaved well

“Your Word is a lamp...” Topic

God’s Word

Image

lamp

Point of similarity

illumines surroundings

Metaphors and similes have been discussed for many years, but recently a number of scholars, including George Lakoff (cf. 1987), have noted that much of language is metaphorical in nature.

What do YOU think? Though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genious, and obtained currency because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossilized poetry. (Emerson, The Poet ) What do YOU think? All language is rhetorical, and even the senses are poets. (George Santayana, The letters of George Santayana)

There are also countless expressions in language that express a cultural reality in a non-literal way. English, for example, has many expressions that revolve around the concept TIME IS A COMMODITY: save time, invest time, lose time, etc. It is this kind of Working with language

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metaphor that has attracted the attention of linguists and philosophers in the past twenty years. Other “conceptual metaphors” include the idea that good feelings are “up” and negative feelings are “down.” Idioms

An idiom is “an expression having a special meaning not obtainable or not clear from the usual meaning of the words in the expression” (American Heritage Dictionary). Compare the following examples: The driver stepped on the oil. The driver stepped on the gas.

The old cowboy kicked the pail. The old cowboy kicked the bucket. Note that the first sentence in each pair is normally understood literally, while the second sentence has taken on an idiomatic meaning (i.e., its meaning is not the same as the literal combination of the words in the sentence.) In many languages emotions are referred to be idioms involving body parts. A ‘hot’ head may refer to anger, but not necessarily so. A ‘large’ heart may refer to someone who is generous or someone who is proud. The meaning is idiomatic; it is not definable from the combined meaning of the words in the phrase. In Vagla, a language of Ghana, the verb diy ‘to eat’ is used in many idioms: He ate shame He ate chieftainship He ate two goals. He ate him a friend

“He was ashamed.” “He became the chief.” “He scored two goals.” “He chose him as a friend.”

Ambiguity Expressions can be ambiguous in two ways: structural ambiguity or lexical ambiguity.

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Structural ambiguity

Some phrases or sentences are ambiguous (have more than one potential meaning) because of their structure; the meaning changes depend on which units are parts of the same higher level unit. The young men and women went first. Are just the men young or does young refer to both men and women?

The teacher saw the child with the telescope. Who had the telescope, the teacher or the child?

In each case, a Phrase-Structure Tree would distinguish the two meanings because it would show which words are most closely related (e.g., young men and (young) women, or just men that were young).

Lexical ambiguity

Some phrases or sentences are ambiguous because a particular word or particular words have more than one potential meaning. “Chris walked past the bank.” Is the ‘bank’ the edge of a river or a financial institution? “Chris was mad about the flat.” In British English most people would assume Chris liked the apartment; in American English Chris is upset about a flat tire.

Thematic roles and verbs Much as a grammatical sentence has a Subject or an Object (defined in specific ways by each language), a sentence can also be viewed as having semantic parts such as an Agent, a Patient, etc. These semantic or thematic roles relate to the real world experience of "who did what to whom."

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There are 6 basic thematic roles (although some scholars identify many others):

Role

Explanation

Typical grammatical role in English

Example

agent

deliberate initiator of events

Typically Subject

Chris ran.

patient or theme

entity undergoing a change of state or transfer

Typically Object

Chris kicked the chair.

location

place at which an entity or action is located

Typically Prepositional Phrase

…in the yard.

goal

end point of a transfer

Typically Prepositional Phrase

…to the house.

source

starting point of a transfer

Typically Prepositional Phrase

…from the city.

instrument

entity used to carry out an action

Typically Prepositional Phrase

…with a shovel.

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Chris died.

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The way these real world roles are expressed in a particular sentence may change, but the semantic roles remain constant. Oftentimes the thematic Agent is the syntactic Subject, as in the first example: S

V

O

X

hit

Y

Agent

Patient

In English, however, we can express the sentence in other ways, including making the Patient the Subject of a passive sentence. In fact, a passive sentence in English can be defined as a sentence in which the Patient is the grammatical Subject.

S Y was hit by X Patient

Agent

Pragmatics Meaning is related not only to the sounds and forms of words, but also to the situation in which the words are used. Pragmatics is the study of “how people use language within a context and why they use language in particular ways” (Jannedy et. al. 1994:227).

Context

To understand an utterance we need to understand the context in which in was spoken (or written). The context can be viewed in terms of the linguistic, the social and the physical context. Linguistic context Words normally occur in a larger context, not in isolation. One part of understanding a word or an utterance is knowing what has preceded it. If we hear the sentence "The child was happy" we know that the child has already been mentioned earlier in the context.

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Social context Many languages indicate the relative status of people by affixation or other grammatical markers. We will look at this in the chapter on Language Variation. Languages may also indicate gender distinctions. In English there has been a recent tendency to reduce the number of gender specific forms such as waiter/waitress, actor/actress. We will also look at this in other places in these notes. Physical context The physical context of an utterance or a discourse also influences what is said and how it is expressed. In English the words "come" and "go" relate to the speaker and the hearer and their normal spatial relationships. For example, on the telephone we might say, "I will come to your house" or "Can you come to my house?" even though in the first example we are moving away from our own location. When both the speaker and the hearer are moving away from their present location or from their normal location, we might say, "Shall we go to a movie?" Words such as "this" and "that" also refer to the physical context of what we say.

Speech acts

Another aspect of pragmatics is that of speech acts. We often think of declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences as telling (asserting), asking (questioning) and commanding. In actual fact language is often less straightforward. Speech act theory looks at the ways in which syntactic forms are used to “get things done.” Asserting When we say "I am here" or "You are correct" we are asserting or stating that information. We might think of the words "I assert that" as being implied in such statements. Questioning We frequently use questions to ask for information, but not all questions are in fact requests for information. Note the following: "How far is it to San Jose?"

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"Aren't you ever going to stop whining?" The second question may be best understood as a command that the other person stop whining; it is not a request for information. We call such examples rhetorical questions. Commanding Commands are not always expressed in an imperative form. You might, in various contexts, have heard all the following ways people try to get someone else to close a door: (Please) close the door.

Imperative

Could you (please) close the door?

Question

I would like it if you closed the door.

Statement

Cooperation in discourse

Another aspect of pragmatics is how people cooperate as they speak together. H. P. Grice pioneered the study of cooperation in language and formulated a series of principles. In summary they discuss quantity, relevance, manner and quality. Quantity

Avoid saying too much or too little

Relevance

Avoid irrelevance

Manner

Avoid ambiguity and obscurity

Quality

Avoid falsehood

Key points Semantics is the study of meaning in language. The relationship of meaning and form is not always predictable. Words can be distinguished in terms of their semantic features. Much of language is figurative. Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. Working with language

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Internet resources

There are numerous dictionaries on-line. These can be used as a resource to find homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, etc. ♦ The Homonym Page www.finifter.com/tracy/pers/homonym/ ♦ The Homophone Base http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~kimb/dai_version/subsection3_5_4.html

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Exercises

1.

2.

Identify which of the following English words are homonyms (unrelated words that happen to share the same pronunciation) and which are related meanings of the same word (polysemous). a.

deep (water) deep (thoughts)

b.

two to

c.

bear (the animal) bare (skin)

d.

bear (the animal) bear (to tolerate)

e.

head (of body) head (of an office)

f.

foot (of body) foot (of mountain)

Metaphors and similes compare two items which are normally considered to be related. List the image, topic and point of similarity for each of the following metaphors. a.

The children swarmed like fish.

b.

Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd.”

c.

Jesus said, “You are the Light of the World.”

3.

Make a semantic feature chart that distinguishes the following words: bless, praise, thank. Use only enough categories to show how the words are distinct. Use plus or minus to indicate whether a category is important to define a particular word.

4.

Write a one-page reflection paper relating Grice’s maxims of conversation to the Scriptures. Include appropriate verses to illustrate your points.

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5.

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Idioms have a meaning that is not merely the sum of the meanings of the words in the idiom. Give an example of a common idiom and some non-idiomatic phrases that have the same form, but different words. Example: “step on the gas” (accelerate) and “step on the oil”

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Language acquisition

Textbook readings Language Files 9.1 – 9.5

Study questions How do children acquire their ‘first language’? In what ways is it true that children do not learn by imitation? What are the normal stages as children acquire their first language? Does the ability to acquire (or learn) a language disappear with age?

Introduction The fact that human infants can speak within a relatively short period of time is amazing to many people. Linguists seek to answer a number of questions about this phenomenon by applying various scientific methods to study when and how speech develops. In this chapter we will look at several aspects of child language acquisition and development.

What do YOU think? By imitating speech a subject is more easily learned than by study and books. You can see this in my little daughter. Although she is not four years old, she knows how to speak well and, indeed, clearly, about household matters. (Martin Luther)

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Definitions Many linguists distinguish language acquisition and language learning; children acquire their first language, after that people learn additional languages. Researchers have concluded that some aspects of language are innate in humans; human beings are predisposed to learn and use language. The innate form of language contains a universal grammar that is later shaped by the particular forms of the language(s) a child is exposed to. Aitchinson (1976) outlines the characteristics of biologically controlled behaviors such as language as follows: •

Language emerges before it is “necessary”.

•

Language is not the result of a conscious decision.

•

Language is not triggered by external events.

•

Language is not the result of direct teaching or intensive practice.

•

Language develops along standard lines correlated with age and other types of development.

•

Language is acquired during a “critical period”.

What do YOU think? I have...discovered by observation how I learned to speak. I did not learn by elders teaching me words in any systematic way, as I was soon after taught to read and write. But of my own motion...I strove with cries and various sounds and much moving of my limbs to utter the feelings of my heart— all this in order to get my own way. (Augustine, Confessions, I, 8)

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First language acquisition How do infants acquire their first language? What is the role of parents and siblings? How does the brain process all the stimuli the baby encounters? These questions, and more, have been asked by language acquisition researchers. They have concluded that there are a number of generalizations that can be made: ♦ Infants do not acquire language (merely) by imitation ♦ Infants do not acquire language by reinforcement ♦ Infants do not acquire language by memorizing grammar rules ♦ Infants do acquire language in stages ♦ Infants do acquire language by assimilating rules

Stages of language development

Infants acquire language in an amazing orderly way, from early prelinguistic noises through adult performance. Pre-linguistic sounds Early linguistic sounds babbling holophrastic phrases two-word phrases telegraphic speech

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Cross-language studies show that infants start babbling with certain sounds, no matter what language is spoken around them. Among the first consonants made by infants around the world are (Data from O’Grady, et. al. 1994:364): p

t

k

b

d

g

m

n

w

j

h

s

How children learn the meaning of words

Children do not immediately know what a word means. For that matter, neither do adults.) They attempt to make sense of a word by linking it to other things they know. Over generalization ‘Daddy’ as any adult male Under generalization ‘doggie’ as just the family pet Grammatical forms are also acquired as an infant assembles language from the bits and pieces of information he or she hears. A typical overgeneralization is the use of the “regular” past tense marker with verbs that are “irregular” in adult speech: ‘sleep-ed’ instead of ‘slept’ ‘see-d’ instead of ‘saw’

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The critical age hypothesis

Most adults are aware of the difficulty of learning another language after childhood. A common idea is that at some age humans are less able to learn a new language. In this regard Pinker notes: “...acquisition of a normal language is guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty, and is rare thereafter.” (1994:293) Susan Schaller presents a fascinating case study of an adult who learned to use language for the first time in her 1995 book A man without words. Linguists put such ideas to more scientific tests. Pinker, who has written many books about language, presents many aspects of the critical age hypothesis in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct. In summary, he says: Thus, language acquisition might be like other biological functions. The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age is the price we pay for the vigor of youth. (Pinker 1994:296)

Key points Children acquire language in stages and these stages appear to be universal. The ability of children to acquire language is not generally dependent on race, social class, geography, or intelligence. At some point the ability to acquire language decreases.

Internet resources ♦ The Johns Hopkins University Infant Language Research Lab has a website that addresses a number of the topics in this chapter: www.psy.jhu.edu/~jusczyk/lab_website/

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Exercises 1.

Observe the speech of a child under two years old and record at least five examples of his or her speech. Comment on the differences between these examples and adult speech.

2.

Ask a parent of a young child about their child’s speech. What do they think is “funny”? What concerns them?

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Language learning

Textbook readings None

Study questions How are adults different from children in regard to language acquisition? What are some methods that can help an adult learn another language? What are your personal strengths and weaknesses in learning languages?

Introduction Most adults in North America find it hard to learn another language. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world’s population, even those without formal education, are bilingual. This chapter will address some of the questions about how adults learn languages.

What do YOU think? Then the king ordered Ashpenaz…to bring in some of the…young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. (Daniel 1:3-4)

We will look at the differences between adults and infants as they relate to language acquisition and at some of the ways adults can utilize their particular strengths to learn another language.

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Differences between children and adult learners The study of how adults learn language must look at significant differences between adults and infants, including:

Infants

Adults

Linguistic patterns

Emotional makeup

Situational variety

Time

Types of input

Motivation The role of motivation in language learning plays an important part in adult language learning. Martin Luther, a leader in the Protestant Reformation, said: I am not at all in sympathy with those who cling to one language and despise all others. I would rather train youth and people to be the kind that could also be of service to Christ in foreign countries and could converse with natives there. (Martin Luther) Luther’s quote reminds us of a significant purpose of language learning: service to speakers of other languages. A recent book, The Gift of the Stranger, (Smith and Carvill, 2000) gives a detailed

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discussion of the role of language learning and language teaching in the Christian tradition. Throughout the history of the Church, believers have chosen to learn other languages in order to share the Gospel message. Learning other languages also puts us in a position of learning and serving other people (cf. Philippians 2).

What do YOU think? These natives are unintelligent—We can’t understand their language. (Chinweizu, “Colonizer’s Logic” in Voices from Twentieth-Century Africa, 1988) What do YOU think? In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. (Mark Twain)

Even without a religious motivation, people have chosen to learn other languages to benefit from the experience of knowing another culture.

What do YOU think? Charles V said that a man who knew four languages was worth four men. (Lord Macauley) What do YOU think? Language is the building block of consciousness. To accurately understand the soul of a people, you not only search for their outward manifestations …but you examine their language. (Haki Madhubuti, “Lucille Clifton: Warm Water, Greased Legs, and Dangerous Poetry,”)

Temperament and language learning Your basic temperament has a great influence on how you relate to other people and how you learn. It is important to understand your temperament and how it both helps and hinders you as you learn another language. There are two well-known tests of temperament: the Myers-Briggs inventory and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Both use a set of dichotomies to define your particular personality traits (e.g., Introvert versus Extrovert.)

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Sensory preference and language learning An important part of learning another language is to utilize one’s own learning style(s). The three main learning style preferences based on sensory preference are: visual, auditory, and tactile. Each learner has ability to learn in more than one way, but often has a tendency to learn better using one or more of these strategies.

Style

Strengths

Weaknesses

Visual

Auditory

Tactile

There are many ways someone can adapting his or her language learning to fit their best learning patterns.

Style

Hints

Visual

Auditory

Tactile

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Brain dominance and language learning People look at and process information in different ways. The brain dominance studies divide people into two primary groups: those who primarily use a logic-based, sequential flow of ideas (left brain) and those who see a big-picture view rather than the details (right brain). These patterns will also influence how you process new information in language learning.

What do YOU think? He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. (Francis Bacon)

Key points Adults can learn additional languages given sufficient opportunity. Adults learn in different ways than children. Adult language learners benefit from using their preferred learning style(s).

Internet resources ♦ SIL’s website includes many articles and additional references to language learning: http://www.sil.org/lglearning/ ♦ A personality test can be taken on-line at http://www.advisorteam.com/user/ktsintro1.asp ♦ For a variety of information about temperament types, but without the personality test, see: http://keirsey.com ♦ The UCLA Language Materials Project provides a searchable database of resources (books, tapes, videos) for less commonly taught languages of the world: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/

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♦ The Language Impact website has articles on how to learn a language and also provides a free newsletter: www.languageimpact.com ♦ A marvelous collection of words and phrases in a variety of languages can be found on "Jennifer's Language Page": www.elite.net/~runner/jennifers On this page you can find out how to say "hello" in over 800 languages, "thank you" in over 500, "goodbye" in more than 450, etc.

Exercises 1.

Take a learning style inventory. Comment on the results and how your learning style preference(s) can help you learn a foreign language.

2.

Take a brain dominance inventory. Comment on the results and how your brain dominance preference(s) can help you learn a foreign language.

3.

Take the Myers-Briggs personality inventory. Comment on the results and how your personality type can help you learn a foreign language. (This test is available through Biola’s Student Services office.)

4.

Write a one-page reflection paper on a past experience learning a foreign language. Discuss your feelings as well as your activities.

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Language variation and sociolinguistics

Textbook readings Language Files 10.1 – 10.9

Study questions What is “sociolinguistics”? What are some of the areas of study within sociolinguistics? What is the difference between a dialect and a language? How does our discussion on prescriptive vs. descriptive linguistics relate to the varieties of American English? What is the difference between slang and jargon? How might a person’s attitude influence his or her actions in regard to a language? How can language attitudes be studied or measured?

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Introduction Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The study of the formal patterns of language is of interest to descriptive linguists and theoreticians. Language is more than grammatical structures, however. The performance of individuals and the ways individuals adjust their speech to different situations must also be studied. An observationally adequate sociolinguistic study would describe the competence factors of native speakers: those social factors which affect which lexical, phonological, and grammatical forms they use to convey a particular idea in a particular setting.

What do YOU think? A living language is a throbbing, vital thing, ever changing, ever growing and mirroring the people who speak it and write it. It has its roots in the masses, though its superstructure may represent the culture of a few. (Jawaharlal Nehru)

Definitions Sociolinguistics can be defined in a number of ways. In general, sociolinguistics is the study of how language is used within a society. Sociolinguistics can include the study of: dialects attitudes toward language bilingualism language planning The tools of phonetics and grammatical analysis still come into play, but other skills, such as social science research methods, are at least as important to sociolinguistic research. Nida summarizes sociolinguistics as follows: Sociolinguistics looks at language from the standpoint of its social context. In other words, it is concerned about speakers, receptors, setting, content, form, and the relation of language to other codes. The focus is not so much upon the sentence or text

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but upon the speech event as such. In other words, this is language in action. (Nida 1986:1) Nida (1986:4) notes sixteen topics of interest to sociolinguistics, including the following: bilingualism and bidialectalism code switching jargons registers amount of verbalization in a society language planning

Language varieties Each individual speaks in a variety of ways, even within the same ‘language’ or ‘dialect’. These variations may be due to a number of factors, including:

age

Old terms vs. new terms (slang)

geographical region

e.g., Texas, New York City, Chicago

occupation

Insider talk (jargon)

social situation

Formal vs. informal

social status

Talking with “equals” vs. talking with “superiors”

The different social settings that affect speech are called domains (at home, at school, at church, at the office.)

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What do YOU think? It [is] necessary to acquire the skills needed for communicating in a mixed society, and…this requires a melting and blending of vernacular and…standard speech, and a grasp of the occasions in which each, or both, [are] called for. (Ralph Ellison, Going into the Territory, 1986)

Dialects and languages

Dialects can be defined in terms of geography or various social parameters. Blair (1990:2) explains the difference between a dialect and a language as follows: Dialects are “speech varieties which are linguistically similar enough to be intelligible to speakers of a related variety.” Languages are “speech varieties which are so linguistically dissimilar as to be unintelligible to speakers of related varieties.”

What do YOU think? A language is a dialect that has an army and navy. (Max Weinreich, 1894-1969)

Dialects can be analyzed in terms of their distinctive sounds, words, or syntax. Sounds phonetic differences (e.g., higher or lower vowels) phonological differences (e.g., no consonant clusters) Syntax different word order variant Phrase-Structure Rules Semantics different inflectional rules different meanings (e.g., a carbonated beverage = soda, pop,

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soft drink, etc.)

Standard dialects versus other forms

Differences between language varieties often have more than a descriptive aspect. Speakers of one variety consider one or the other of the various ways of speaking to be a standard or a non-standard form of speech. Linguistic aspects Descriptive studies of the sounds, words and syntax

Social aspects Studies of the opinions of people towards different ways of speaking Studies of how people become “insiders” in a particular group of speakers

Educational aspects Studies of the effect of particular ways of speaking (or writing) on learning in a school setting Studies of government policies towards language variety in school

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Appropriate language forms

The words people use vary in many ways, as mentioned above. In addition to regional and social distinctions, we can also consider types of language that people consider offensive or impolite. In any discussion on language ethics, however, we cross over into other disciplines, including ethics and theology. Jargon Jargon or argot is “technical terms and expressions used by a group of specialists, which are not known or understood by the speech community as a whole” (Crystal 1992:200-201). Jargon is more for ease of communication than for excluding others, although insiders need to remember that they are using specialized words when they attempt to communicate with people from other professions.

Slang Slang is “informal, nonstandard vocabulary, usually intelligible only to people from a particular region or social group” (Crystal 1992:355) and is often seen by outsiders as crude or impolite. It serves as a way of identifying “insiders”.

Gender specific words Many languages have grammatical distinctions between “gender” (e.g., he vs. she). Sometimes the “masculine” word is used as a generic and an affix must be attached to indicate that the noun is feminine (e.g., waiter/waitress, actor/actress). These linguistics “facts” affect people in different ways. There are language planning efforts that are trying to change the forms of English in an attempt to influence people’s attitudes (See the chapter on Language Planning).

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Language attitudes It is not easy to begin discussing language attitudes without first defining attitudes and discussing how these attitudes might be measured. Attitude can be discussed in terms of three components: thoughts (cognitive) feelings (affective) predispositions to action (behavioral or conative)

What do YOU think? The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,” they said, “All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’“ If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. (Judges 12:5-6)

Advertisers seek to utilize positive language attitudes to affect behavior. Expensive items are often announced by male speakers with a proper British accent; appeals to young people are made using more informal language.

What do YOU think? “S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voofranzy—what would you think?” “I wouldn’ think nuffin; I’d take en bust him over de head...” “Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know how to talk French?” “Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?” (Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, XIV)

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When we consider the role of language attitudes we need to differentiate the significant differences that exist in any society. members of the language group spokesmen for the ethnic group mainstream population educators policy makers

Strategies for measuring language attitudes Fasold (1984) notes a number of means of measuring language attitudes. These may be either direct or indirect. Matched-guise tests A test subject listens to information in two languages or language varieties and is asked to evaluate the speaker in terms of intelligence, openness, etc. In reality, the speaker is the same person, who is fluent in both languages. Semantic differential scales A test subject is asked to evaluate varieties of language on a scale of friendliness. Questionnaires A test subject responds to a written questionnaire about language varieties. Such questionnaires might ask which language the subject uses in a given situation or what the subject feels about people who speak a certain way. Interviews The test subject is asked to talk about language and the interviewer records the basic points of the discussion. Observation The language researcher observes which language is used in which situations, what people say about language varieties, etc.

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Attitudes and group identity Our identity is related to our attitudes towards our own speech and that of others.

What do YOU think? It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman despise him. (G. B. Shaw, Pygmalion, Preface)

Key points People typically adjust their way of speaking to different situations. Language is often a powerful symbol of ethnic identity. People make language choices for a number of reasons, including economic advancement, a desire for education, intermarriage, etc. A language consists of mutually intelligible dialects. Dialects may be based on differences of geography, social class, gender, age, etc. People have strong feelings about dialect and language differences. It is important to understand people’s attitudes towards various types of language.

Internet resources A light-hearted site helps you transform a text into a variety of “dialects” such as “Redneck,” “Elmer Fudd,” “Jive,” etc. http://rinkworks.com/dialect/ The Ethnologue site: www.ethnologue.com

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Exercises 1.

Use the Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com) to find out how many languages are currently used in the following countries: Cameroon Taiwan Brazil Spain Japan

2.

List five words that you know are pronounced differently in another English dialect. Write your pronunciation and that of the other variety using IPA symbols. Example ‘oil’ [oil] and [ l ]

3.

Ask someone to write a list of five items they use in their area of expertise. First, try to guess the meaning of the terms, then record their explanation.

4.

Write a one-page reflection paper on your reactions to other ‘accents’ (e.g. British, Southern, ‘foreign’).

5.

List five words or phrases that you consider jargon from one of your areas of expertise (e.g., your job, your hobby). Explain what each term means.

6.

List five words or phrases that you consider to be slang within your social circle(s). Explain what each term means.

7.

Observe a lecture or sermon and describe the use of gender language. Give your reaction to the speaker’s choice of pronouns and examples.

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Languages in contact

Textbook readings Language Files 11.1 – 11.4

Study questions What is “bilingualism”? How can a person’s bilingual ability be measured? What is “diglossia”? What is the difference between a “pidgin” language and a “creole”?

Introduction Languages are constantly interacting with each other. Speakers of even the most remote language groups are aware of other languages around them. The interaction between languages takes various shapes depending on the relative strength of each group. Speakers of one language may choose to learn an outside language. If a small portion of the language makes this effort we would say that these individuals are (to some degree) bilingual. When a majority of a language group speak the outside language we refer to the situation as a case of diglossia. Both “bi-lingual” and “di-glossia” come from roots meaning ‘two-language’. A third possibility is that speakers of a language will not learn the outside language, but will come to a sort of compromise between the “outside” language and their own language: a Pidgin. In this chapter we will look at each of these three possibilities.

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Bilingualism Bilingualism refers to the use of two languages, typically by an individual speaker and typically relegated to different situations. The Bible describes a time in which the leaders of Jerusalem were bilingual in Aramaic while the common people only understood Hebrew.

What do YOU think? Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.” But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall--who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?” Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew; “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ (2 Kings 18:2627)

The invading forces spoke enough Hebrew to shout their demands up to the people of Jerusalem who had gathered on the city wall. The leaders of Jerusalem, bilingual in the invader’s Aramaic language, requested that the enemy forces not use Hebrew lest the common people be disturbed by their news. Bilingualism was not, and normally is not, equally spread throughout a society. In this case, only the leaders were bilingual. Such a situation resembles the use of French in England after the Norman Conquest, when the common people were still monolingual in English, even though courtiers spoke French. After the people of Jerusalem were taken captive into the Aramaicspeaking land of Assyria, they gradually shifted to using Aramaic as their primary language. When Ezra returned to see what was happening back in the area around Jerusalem towards the end of the captivity in Assyria, he found that the people who remained had intermarried with local language groups:

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What do YOU think? Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. I rebuked them and called curses down on them... (Nehemiah 13:23-25)

Bilingualism as presented here implies that the people abandoned their first language (Hebrew) when they switched to these other languages (subtractive bilingualism). This is not necessarily the only way people can become bilingual. It is a common occurrence that people add a second language (additive bilingualism).

Bilingual individuals - levels of ability

Bilingualism is not equally distributed among speakers of a language. The degree to which a person is exposed to the second language and takes steps to learn the language influences how well they speak the second language. A bilingual individual also has different areas of ability in different domains (e.g., casual conversation versus spiritual matters, reading written directions versus handling complex oral instructions). To make the term “bilingual” more objective, linguists have developed tests and measurements of bilingual ability. Among these tests are those developed by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the United States government.

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Barbara F. Grimes (1986) outlines the FSI 5-point scale for discussing levels of bilingual speaking ability. (There is a similar scale for reading ability): Speaking Ability chart S-1

Elementary proficiency

Able to satisfy routine travel needs and minimum courtesy requirements....

S-2

Limited working proficiency

Able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements. Can handle with confidence but not with facility most social situations including introductions....

S-3

Professional proficiency

Able to speak the language with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations on practical, social, and professional topics....

S-4

Distinguished proficiency

Able to use the language fluently and accurately on all levels normally pertinent to professional needs....

S-5

Native or bilingual proficiency

Speaking proficiency equivalent to that of an educated native speaker

Some differences between intelligibility and bilingualism

When we study bilingualism we also need to consider how it is different from two languages being inherently intelligible. Bilingualism implies a more active learning process of an individual; inherent intelligibility recognizes similarities in languages that any native speaker would recognize. English and German, for instance, had a degree of inherent intelligibility because they share a common ancestry through the Germanic language group. If I, however, am exposed to German for a period of time or take steps to learn German, I will end up understanding more German that an English speaker who does not have those same opportunities.

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Barbara F. Grimes (1986) provides the following comparison of inherent intelligibility and bilingualism:

Inherent intelligibility

Bilingualism

How acquired

inherent in linguistic closeness of languages

learned through contact with separate language

Spread of proficiency throughout a community

same among all speakers each individual different

Proficiency differences by domain

no differences by domain

different in each domain depending on contact

Preferred testing method

understanding of recorded text

interviewing individuals in sample groups

Test sample needed

small; 10 persons

wide sampling of all relevant groups by kinds of contact with second language

Requirement to understand Scripture

higher than marginal intelligibility

Foreign Service Institute (FSI) level 4 or above

Note the implications of this chart for literacy and translation work: before one can determine how bilingual a language group is in a second language (e.g., a language which already has the Scriptures), a proper measurement must be made of a wide and adequate sample of the population.

Mixing and switching

Code mixing is the use of two or more language or dialects in a single speech act; e.g. using both Spanish and English in a single sentence. Eastman defines ‘code-switching’ as ‘using two or more languages or dialects in a single speech situation’ (1990:171) Working with language

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Diglossia Diglossia normally refers to speech communities rather than to individuals and to two varieties of the same language (e.g. High and Low) rather than to two separate languages. The study of such societies involves determining when a particular variety of the language is used. Paraguay is often cited as an example of diglossia. The society as a whole can be characterized as using Spanish for “High” domains (government, religion) and Guarani, a native Indian language, for “Low” domains (family).

Pidgins and creoles Pidgin and creole languages have often arisen when a colonial language has interacted with smaller local languages. Speakers of neither group became adequately bilingual in the other language; each group used a mixture of features from both languages as they interacted. Macauley (1994:216) defines a pidgin as: “A language that arises in the situation where the speakers of languages that are not mutually intelligible need to communicate with each other for practical reasons but neither set of speakers learned the other’s language.” Look at the following translations of Luke 11:1-3 in two Englishbased pidgin languages. One is from Papua New Guinea, the other from the United States. If you read the words out loud use IPA values for sounds rather than American values ( ‘i’ is [ i ], ‘e’ is [ e ], etc.). Papua New Guinea – Tok Pisin Pasin bilong mekim prea Jisas i beten i stap long wanpela hap. Bihain em i beten pinis, na wanpela disaipel bilong en I tokim em, “Bikpela, yu skulim mipela long mekim prea, olsem bipo Jon i skulim ol disaipel bilong em.” Na em i tokim ol, “Taim yupela i beten, yupela i ken tok olsem: Papa, nem bilong yu i mas stap holi, Kingdom bilong yu i mas i kam. Kaikai bilong mipela inap long de, yu ken givim mipela long olgeta de.

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(Notes: ‘beten’ is a German word meaning “pray”; German missionaries were active in the area where Tok Pisin developed. –pela is a common suffix on adjectives (bikpela ‘big’) and numbers (wanpela ‘one’). Verbs end in –im (tokim ‘talk’, skulim ‘teach’, mekim ‘make’). Pronouns are not marked for case (bilong yu ‘your’, bilong mipela ‘our’). Verbs are not marked for tense (beten ‘prays’ ‘prayed’; beten pinis ‘finished praying’) United States: Sea Island Creole (Gullah) One day Jedus beena pray dey een one place. Wen he git tru da pray, one e ciple dem tell um say, “Lawd, laan we how fa pray, jes like John laan e ciple dem.” Jedus tell um say, “Wen oona pray, mus say, We Papa een heaben, leh ebrybody hona you nyame cause you da holy. We pray dat soon you gwine rule oba all ob we. Wasoneba ting you da want, leh um be een dis wol. Same like e be dey een heaben. Gee we de food wa we need dis day yah an ebry day. (Notes: The writing system retains some English spellings (one day, pray, holy) rather than changing common English spellings into a more phonetic representation. Again, pronouns are not marked for case (laan we “teach us”, all ob we “all of us”). Verbs are not marked for tense (beena pray “was praying”, John laan e ciple “John taught his disciples”. Looking at these two examples of English-based pidgins, we can see many similarities. Even though the two languages developed without interaction they share common traits found in pidgin languages elsewhere. Creoles develop from pidgins when a new generation learns the pidgin from their society. Macauley (1994:209) defines a creole language as: “A language that has developed from the combination of two separate languages.”

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Key points Languages that come in contact can result in several different outcomes: bilingualism, diglossia, or a Pidgin/Creole. Bilingualism is the norm in most of the world. Bilingualism is normally unevenly distributed in a speech community. To benefit from the written Scriptures, people need to be highly bilingual in a language form that has the Scriptures. Diglossia may be seen as “societal bilingualism” Pidgin and Creole languages share common characteristics

Internet resources ♦ The Ethnologue lists over seventy pidgin and Creole languages: http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/special.asp

Exercises 1.

Read a section of one of the Pidgin or Creole translations to a friend. How do they react? Reflect on their reaction in terms of people’s attitudes toward nonstandard language varieties.

2.

If you know French, look for materials in a Frenchbased creole and read a selection. Note the differences between the standard forms of French and those of the creole.

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Language change

Textbook readings Language Files 12.1 – 12.12

Study questions How do languages change through time? What was the “Great Vowel Shift” ? How has English morphology changed through time? How do words shift meaning through time? Why is it important to know which languages are related?

Introduction Languages are constantly changing. In fact, even at a given moment in time, a language exhibits wide diversity. If English, for example, were written phonetically, the dialect differences between Sydney, Australia and Dallas, Texas would be very obvious. There are differences in pronunciation, in morphology, in syntax and in semantics. Such present-day or synchronic differences can help us understand changes through time or diachronic changes. In this chapter we will look at some of the major topics about language change and how linguists study language change.

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All languages change Language is a vital, ever-changing element of human culture. In a real sense, each speaker of a language may be said to have his or her own variety of the language. Pronunciations change from generation to generation. Words shift in meaning. Even grammatical structures change through time (although they are normally more stable than words.)

What do YOU think? Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and lateration; some words go off, and become obsolete; others are taken in, and by degrees grow into common use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense and notion, which in tract of time makes as observable a change in the air and features of a language as age makes in the lines and mien of a face. (Richard Bentley, Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris)

The study of how languages change through time is called historical linguistics. Linguistics can “predict backwards” from current language information to earlier forms by following general principles of how languages change. They can study changes in pronunciation, phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.

What do YOU think? Words are the leaves of the tree of language, of which, if some fall away, a new succession takes their place. (Field Marshall John French)

If there are written records of a language, linguists can “see” change occurring through time. If there are no written records, linguists can still make educated guesses on what changes have taken place. In the following sections we will look at some of the changes that have occurred in English.

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Methods of historical linguistics Regular sound changes are used to determine genetic relationships between languages. By studying sets of phonetically similar words which are presumed to share a common ancestral form, linguists ‘reconstruct’ earlier forms of a given word (e.g., English ‘father’ and Latin ‘pater’ come from an earlier form in what is called ProtoIndoEuropean.) The discovery that English and other European languages were related to Sanskrit created an interest in the older forms of this group of languages, now called the IndoEuropean language family. By comparing written records and present day forms, linguists can “reconstruct” what the language of Europe might have been like before languages such as German and English became mutually unintelligible. The “proto” forms of Amerindian languages and the languages of Asia and Africa, of the Pacific and Australia, etc. have also been studied by historical linguistics.

Indo-European Language Family Sub-groups

English is a member of a larger “family” of languages, the IndoEuropean language family. As the name indicates, it includes some of the languages of India and many of the languages of Europe, although not all the languages in these areas belong to the group. If we look at the present-day languages we would notice some similarities, especially in basic vocabulary. English and German, for example, share hundreds of basic words, as do Spanish and Portuguese. The following chart, and the chart in the textbook (p. 381), summarizes some of the subgroups within this greater Indo-European family of languages.

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IndoEuropean languages Major group

Sub-group

Related languages

GERMANIC

Western Germanic

Dutch English Flemish Frisian German Yiddish

Northern Germanic

Danish Icelandic Norwegian Swedish

ITALIC

ROMANCE (Latin)

Catalan French Italian Portuguese Provençal Romanian Spanish

HELLENIC

Ancient Greek

Greek

CELTIC

Breton Irish Scots Gaelic Welsh

BALTIC

Latvian Lithuanian

SLAVIC

Bulgarian Czech Macedonian Polish Russian Serbo-Croatian Slovak Slovenian Ukrainian

Albanian

Albanian

Armenian

Armenian

INDO-IRANIAN

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Old Persian

Persian

Sanskrit

Bengali Hindi Punjabi Urdu

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Notice that Finnish is not listed in the chart of Indo-European languages. Neither is Basque. These languages do not appear to be related to the other languages around them; they do not share the same linguistic ancestry. There are also other families of languages in other areas of the world. The Austronesian family of languages includes languages spoken in Malagasy off the east coast of Africa, languages in Indonesia, the Philippines, the indigenous languages of Taiwan. These languages are related to each other in the same kind of ways that English is related to German, French, Russian and other Indo-European languages. The Niger-Congo language family includes a variety of languages of Africa. The Uto-Aztecan family includes languages of Central and South America. Mandarin is one of the languages of the Sinitic language family. Hebrew and Arabic are members of the Semitic language family.

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English: Past to present

The history of English can be studied through written documents going back over 1000 years. The following chart provides an overview of the major periods.

Stage of the language

Timeframe

Historic events

Germanic

Before 450 AD

German and English undergo systematic changes (e.g., sound shifts)

Old English

450-1100

ca. 750 Beowulf

Proto IndoEuropean

1066 Battle of Hastings 1086 Domesday Book 1096 1st Crusade Middle English

1100-1450

John Wycliffe translates from Latin into English Canterbury Tales 1400 Chaucer dies “Great Vowel Shift”

Early Modern English

1450-1700

1611 King James sponsors a translation of the Bible Shakespeare

Modern English

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1700-present

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How languages change Languages are continually in a state of change. Different generations and different regional groups speak in ways that are not shared by other segments of the society. At some point a particular way of speaking may become more or less accepted and be the standard for a period of time. These changes can relate to how words are pronounced, how words are formed (morphology), how words combine into phrases and clauses (syntax), and what words mean (semantics.)

Changes in pronunciation

Changes in pronunciation can take any of several forms. Many of these pronunciation changes tend to make words easier to say. Assimilation Non-homorganic clusters (e.g., nb, md) frequently assimilate to the same point of articulation. In Latin, the Early Latin prefix in- ‘NEG’ changed to Late Latin im- before roots beginning with a bilabial (inpossibilis -> im-possibilis). Consonant clusters also tend to assimilate to the same voicing pattern. Early Old English slaep-de changed to slaep-te. Epenthesis Difficult sequences of sounds are frequently broken up by the insertion of an additional letter (epenthesis). Old English simle became simble. Weakening Word final vowels are often deleted and other vowels are made less contrastive in unstressed syllables. Latin vivere became French vivre. Old English stanas ‘stones’ became Middle English stans (the final schwa was dropped by Early Modern English). Not all changes can be explained as being “simpler.” Sometimes a dialect/variety is merely “different” than other varieties, not easier to pronounce. Nevertheless, some sound changes have to do with a change from one sound to another nearby sound. One such example is the “Great Vowel Shift” in English.

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Shift Many words in Modern English can be explained in terms of an amazing phenomenon known as “The Great Vowel Shift” which occurred sometime between the time of Chaucer’s death (1400) and Shakespeare’s birth (1564). Much as American English and Australian English pronunciation of vowels varies ( ‘day’ is [ dej ] in American, [ daj ] in Australian), there were regional varieties in England at this time. Sometime during this period people began pronouncing long vowels a step “higher” than in the past. The names of some of our English vowels reflect this change:

Letter

Old English pronunciation (in IPA transcription)

Name of the letter today (in IPA transcription)

i

[i]

[ aj ]

e

[e]

[i]

a

[a]

[ ej ]

Each of these vowels shifted up one position in its pronunciation, and then also in name. Other long vowels also shifted up one position: Burridge and Mulder (1998) present the following chart of Middle English, early Modern English and Modern English pronunciations:

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Middle English

Early Modern English

Modern English

[ mis ]

[ ms ]

[ mas ]

‘mice’

[ met ]

[ mit ]

[ mit ]

‘meet’

[ mt ]

[ met ]

[ mit ]

‘meat’

[ nam ]

[ nm ]

[ nem ]

‘name’

[ hus ]

[ hs ]

[ has ]

‘house’

[ os ]

[ us ]

[ us ]

‘goose’

In the following pairs of words, the first item made the shift up, while the second word reflects the older pronunciation. The only vowels that shifted up were the phonetically long vowels. divine - divinity precise - precision deride - derision rhyme - rhythm crime - criminal serene - serenity thief - theft feel - felt reveal - revelation please - pleasure

Changes in morphology

Since Chaucer’s time, English has switched from a regular system of case marking on nouns and pronouns to only a residue of case marking on pronouns (he/him/his; she/her/hers, etc.) It appears that the case marking distinction between who and whom will also be dropped if the current trend continues

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We can see some of these changes in the examples of the Lord’s Prayer from Old English through to Early Modern English. (See Language Files 12.1)

Changes in syntax

Languages also change in their syntactic patterns. In English, the basic word order has changed to SVO from a freer mix of SOV and SVO in Old English when the nouns were marked for case. Once the case markers were gone, it became important to use fixed word order to keep track of which noun was the actor or grammatical subject. These changes can be seen by comparing the Lord’s Prayer in Old English to that way it is currently spoken.

Changes in word meaning

Change Words not only change in their pronunciation or morphology; sometimes their meaning shifts slightly or even completely. English ‘square’ has meant ‘nutritious’, ‘nerd-like’, etc. ‘Gay’ has shifted in very recent history from ‘happy’ to reference to homosexuality. In the biblical languages words also underwent shifts in meaning from one era to the next. The Old Testament was written over a period of over 1000 years. At one point the biblical author explained that people used to call people “seers” although the appropriate term at the time he was writing was “prophet” (1 Samuel 9:9) The philosopher J. L. Austin said: A word never—well, hardly ever—shakes off its etymology and its formation. In spite of all changes in and extensions of and additions to its meanings, and indeed rather pervading and governing them, there will persist the old idea. (J. L. Austin, “A Plea for Excuses”, Philosophical Papers, 1961) Another point of view is heard in Johnson: - 182 -

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As any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice. (Dr. Johnson, Preface, Dictionary of the English language, 1755) And from Bacon: Men converse by means of language, but words are formed at the will of the generality, and there arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. (Bacon, Novum Organum, I, 43)

What do YOU think? Why then should words challenge Eternity, When greatest men, and greatest actions die? Use may revive the obsoletest words, And banish those that now are most in vogue; Use is the judge, the law, and rule of speech. (Horace, Ars Poetica) What do YOU think? A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

What do YOU think? I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. (Samuel Johnson, Preface to the Dictionary of the English Language) [science = knowledge]

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Borrowing Language groups frequently borrow words from other languages when they encounter new materials or concepts. English has received countless hundreds of words from interaction with other major languages, for example: French beef, pork, judge, jail, fashion, ruby Hindi thug, punch, shampoo Amerindian languages toboggan, wigwam, chipmunk Also see Language Files 11.4 for more examples.

Language survey There are a variety of questions that need to be asked about a language and how it is used. Different types of surveys are needed to obtain accurate information. Different survey tools and strategies are needed for each type of survey. Casad (1992) provides details of the types of surveys that are needed to determine language boundaries, language use, and language attitudes. The following chart summarizes five phases of survey work:

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An outline of language comparison surveys Preliminary research

Study existing information about the language(s).

Vocabulary similarity survey

Determine how much of the basic vocabulary two (or more) groups share. If there is less than 60% similarity, the groups are presumed to be separate languages; over 80% similarity indicates that the groups may be dialects of the same language.

Intelligibility survey

Determine whether groups with a relatively high degree of lexical similarity can understand each other.

Bilingualism survey

Determine how proficient a crosssection of the group (old/young, male/female) is in language that already has Scripture.

Language attitude survey

Determine positive and negative attitudes towards the language varieties in question. There may be strong negative feelings against a language form that people understand well.

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World language statistics The 14th edition of the Ethnologue (Barbara F. Grimes, ed. 2000) lists 6809 living languages. Note the geographic distribution of the languages in the chart below:

Area

Number of languages

Percentage of the world’s languages

Africa

2058

30

Americas

1013

15

Asia

2197

32

Europe

230

3

Pacific

1311

19

Total

6809

100

Key points All languages undergo natural systematic change. Changes through time may result in dialects becoming separate languages. Historical/comparative linguistics studies how languages change through time. There are over 6800 distinct languages in the world today. Language surveys can ascertain linguistic relationships, degree of intelligibility between language varieties, language attitudes, degree of bilingualism, etc.

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Internet resources ♦ The premier website for learning about the world’s languages is, of course, the Ethnologue: www.ethnologue.com/web.asp ♦ An overview of historical linguistics can be found at http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~reffland/anthropology/language/hist ory1.html ♦ The Lord’s Prayer in a number of Germanic languages www.georgetown.edu/cball/oe/pater_noster_germanic.html ♦ A list of Arabic borrowings into English www.zompist.com/arabic.html ♦ An overview of the history of English www.wordorigins.org/histeng.htm

Exercises 1.

Look up a language in the Ethnologue or on the Ethnologue website (www.ethnologue.com/web.asp ). Describe the information available.

2.

Compare the following words in English and two other IndoEuropean languages. (Note: use bilingual dictionaries or on-line sources if you need to, but write your notes in phonetics, not in the writing system of the languages.) foot head father mother water Note the similarities and the differences.

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Language and culture

Textbook readings Language Files 15.2 and 7.5

Study questions What is the relation of language to culture? How does language influence thought?

Introduction People have often talked about the relationship between language and culture. Some, such as Sapir and Whorf (early 20th century), hypothesized that language constrains thought and perception. Other people consider language to be merely a “mirror” of the culture, rather than a “straightjacket.”

Linguistic determinism

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf studied Amerindian languages of North America and noticed that the lexical and grammatical structures were often quite distinct from English and other Indo-European languages. Based on their studies they proposed that language controls a person’s thinking processes in some way. In 1929 Sapir said: Human beings...are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society...the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. (Quoted in O’Grady, et. al. 1994:242)

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Whorf later stated: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. (Quoted in O’Grady, et. al 1994:242) Eastman notes: “The views of Sapir and Whorf have been taken to mean that people who speak different languages segment their world differently: thus, the French language structures French reality by constraining what French speakers pay attention to, Swahili does the same for the Swahili ‘world’—if there’s a word for ‘it’ in the language we see ‘it,’ if not we don’t.” (Eastman 1990:103) The concept of language limiting perception has become known as the “Whorfian Hypothesis” or as “linguistic determinism”. A more recent book on this topic by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) takes a similar view of the power of language to control thought: Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:3) Howard Rheingold’s 1988 book, They have a Word for it, promotes a similar theory that the words of a language constrain how people in that language perceive the world. By adding certain foreign words into English, for example, Rheingold proposes that our way of thinking would be changed (for the better).

What do YOU think? The individual’s whole experience is built upon the plan of his language. (Henri Delacroix)

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What do YOU think? What is originality? To see something that has no name as yet and hence cannot be mentioned although it stares us all in the face. The way men usually are, it takes a name to make something visible for them. Those with originality have for the most part also assigned names. (Nietzsche, The Gay Science 1882-7)

Linguistic relativity

Many linguists disagree with the strong deterministic stand of Sapir and Whorf. The fact that people often have ideas for which they have no adequate words indicates that they use words to label what they see, not that they see what they have words for. Based on Berlin and Kay’s (1967) in-depth study of color terms in a variety of languages, linguists conclude that frequently used perceptual categories receive names or words, while less frequently used concepts, while perceived, do not always have separate lexical items. Thus, as the differences between colors, for example, become important to a society, more words will be added to distinguish them. Nida notes: Whorf regarded language as largely determinative, but most other scholars have taken the position that the structure of language simply increases the facility with which people recognize certain distinctions; for example, the matter of color contrasts, kinship relations, and classifications of fauna and flora. It is certainly true that language reflects certain aspects of social structure. Relative status, for example, is marked at least in a general way in a number of European languages by means of varying forms of second person pronouns...Language is not, however, a direct inventory of a culture, but rather a kind of index, often based on what one might call ‘fossilized relics’ of the past. For the most part, language follows society rather than determining it. (Nida 1986:11) [emphasis added]

What do YOU think? The idea that the grammatical structure of a language reflects the thought structure of those speaking it and that it correspondingly reflects the differences from the thought of those speaking a language with different grammatical structure, has very great difficulties. (James Barr 1961:39)

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Since form and meaning are arbitrary for the most part, it is not helpful to interpret a culture through its grammar.

What do YOU think? The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.” (Aaron Copland, composer)

Applying the language and culture connection

When you learn a second language it is helpful to plan activities to help you understand the host culture. The ways in which a society map out kinship and relationships will provide insights into how people relate to others. The various terms for food items will likewise give you keys to understand important features of the culture. Thus, rather than randomly gathering names of objects, you can plan a strategy of learning that helps you understand the major features of the culture.

Key points Language and culture are very interconnected. Language reflects important cultural and environmental items.

Internet resources ♦ Daniel Chandler provides a chapter of his book (The Act of Writing) that addresses the Whorfian Hypothesis at www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/whorf.html

Exercises 1.

Gather five items of various shades of blue. Ask several people to name the shades. Describe the results.

2.

Discuss the concepts of linguistic determinism. Explain your own views and give examples to prove your points.

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Translation

Textbook readings None

Study questions What is "translation"? How is translation related to semantics? What is a “good” translation? What is the significance of translation to missions?

Introduction Translation is one of the many sub-disciplines of applied linguistics. In this chapter we will look at the difficulties of translation and the role of translation in society, especially in the development of Christianity.

What do YOU think? Whoever would speak German must not use Hebrew idioms; but if he understands the Hebrew writer, he must see to it that he grasps his meaning and must think: Now let me see. How does a German speak in this case? When he has the German words that serve the purpose, then let him dismiss the Hebrew words and freely express the sense in the best German he is capable of using. (Martin Luther)

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What is translation? Translation can be defined as the process of recommunicating the message of a particular speaker or writer of one language to people who speak or read a different language. The key concept is the accurate transmission of the original message. That message was encoded in various arbitrary signs (words) and in various acceptable syntactic constructions in one language; translation involves finding the appropriate words and forms in the second language that will communicate the same message. Translation is the process of “reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” (Nida and Taber 1969:12)

The mismatch of languages

Each language has structure and words which people use to communicate within that language group. Structures and words are never 100% the same in any two languages. Individual words in one language may be more specific than in another language. Indonesian

English

padi

‘rice’ in the field

beras

‘rice’ harvested, but uncooked

nasi

‘rice’ that has been cooked

In Indonesian one cannot simply refer to “rice.” If the rice is still on the plant, it is referred to as padi. In the store, it is beras, and after being cooked it is nasi. To translate into Indonesian from English, we would have to choose the appropriate Indonesian word. Translating from Indonesian into English, however, we may be able to merely use ‘rice’ for the three different Indonesian words. In Ambai, a language of Indonesia, there are six words that refer to the concept English calls ‘we’. Each of these six words has a narrower meaning than ‘we’.

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Ambai

English

turu

‘we’ two people, including the hearer

totoru

‘we’ three-five people, including the hearer

tata

‘we’ six or more people, including the hearer

auru

‘we’ two people, excluding the hearer

antoru

‘we’ three-five people, excluding the hearer

amea

‘we’ six or more people, excluding the hearer

If we were to translate from Greek (or from English) into Ambai, we would need to determine from the context how many people were involved each time Greek said 'we,' 'you,' or 'they.' We would also have to consider whether the listener/reader were included. Words in one language may be more generic than words in another language: Greek English guné

woman wife

Grammatical forms often have more than one meaning: I eat ice cream with my cake.

while also eating my cake

I eat ice cream with my spoon.

using my spoon

I eat ice cream with my wife.

at the same time my wife is eating ice cream

Greek and English both use a “genitive” form to indicate a wide variety of meanings: my hand

my stars

my house

my book

my pastor

my name

my child

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The translation process

Translation has three steps: Analyzing the grammar and words of the source text Restructuring the meaning of the text in the receptor language Testing the translation

The three main characteristics of a good translation

1. Accurate conveys the original message 2. Clear is understandable by the new audience 3. Natural follows the normal patterns of the new language

What do YOU think? God has in his wisdom spoken to us in the Bible through human languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). If we ignore the character of human language, we will likely misunderstand Scripture. (Silva 1990:17)

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Bible translation through history The following chart is adapted from Smalley (1991:34). Century beginning

Languages with some Scripture

Some of the languages added

300 BC

1

Greek (Septuagint)

-0-

2

200

6

Old Latin

300

10

Latin Vulgate, Gothic, Coptic

400

12

Syriac (Aramaic), Georgian, Armenian

600

14

Ethiopic

800

17

Slavic, Arabic, Bohemian

1000

19

German

1100

22

Dutch

1200

26

Spanish

1300

32

English (Wycliffe), Persian, Norwegian

John Wycliffe 13301381

1400

35

Hungarian

Gutenburg press 1450

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Notes

NT written

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Jerome, Ulfilas

Cyril

Century beginning

Languages with some Scripture

Some of the languages added

Notes

1500

50

English (Tyndale), German (Luther), French, Persian, Yiddish

Erasmus edits Greek manuscripts into the Textus Receptus, Luther, Tyndale

1600

61

Spanish, Czech, Italian, Malay, Massachusetts

King James version 1611

1700

74

Tamil, Urdu, Arawak

1800

81

Tahitian, Chinese, Malagasy, Yoruba, Mohawk, Aymara

1900

620

1995

2123

2000

2261

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Many Bible societies founded Wycliffe Bible Translators founded 1941

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Make your own graph: take the information from the chart and make a graph of the Bible translation progress over the past 2000 years: 2200 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 _________________________________________________________ 0

500

1000

1500

1800

1900

2000

What do YOU think? While there are a good many reasons for the growth of the Church during the first five centuries, it appears that the sacred Scriptures in the language and in the hands of the laity had a good deal to do with it. (Watkins 1978:34)

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Translation needs The Ethnologue (Barbara F. Grimes, ed.), a record of the known languages of the world, has a companion volume titled Bible Translation Status. The following chart presents the status of Bible translation and the need for further language survey around the world.

Status

Number of languages

Percentage of the world’s languages

6809

100

Adequate Bible Adequate New Testament Translation in progress Nearly extinct Adequately bilingual Unlikely need Need revision Definite need Probable need Possible need Totals

What do YOU think? Translation is profoundly related to the original conception of the gospel: God, who has no linguistic favorites, has determined that we should all have the Good News in our native tongue. (Dr. Lamin Sanneh)

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The languages which are considered to have an immediate definite need for Bible translation are distributed as follows:

Region

Number of languages

Percentage of the world's languages

The Americas Africa Europe Asia The Pacific Total

What do YOU think? I had perceaved by experyence how that it was impossible to stablysh the laye people in any truth, excepte the scripture were playnly layde before their eyes in their mother tongue. (William Tyndale)

Key points Translation requires knowledge of both the source language and the receptor language. Bible translation has been an integral part of Christianity throughout history. A good translation is accurate, clear and natural. At least 300,000,000 people have no written Scripture in a language they understand well.

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Internet resources ♦ Wycliffe Bible Translators-USA includes links to various topics about Bible translation: www.wycliffe.org ♦ Wycliffe Bible Translators-Canada includes audio files of Scripture portions in a number of languages: www.wbtc.org ♦ The Ethnologue lists each of the world’s 6809 known languages and gives information about the language and its speakers, including the status of Bible translation. A chart of the geographical distribution of the world’s languages in found at http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp ♦ The National Bible Association maintains a page called “About the Bible” that provides statistics on Bible translation around the world: www.nationalbible.org/atb/ ♦ The United Bible Society homepage (www.biblesociety.org) lists statistics on Bible translation as of the year 2000: http://www.biblesociety.org/wr_358/slr_2000.htm ♦ Wayne Leman maintains a very comprehensive site about Bible translation at www.geocities.com/bible_translation/ ♦ Biola hosts the world famous Unbound Bible www.unboundbible.org ♦ Papers on translation issues can be found on the author’s website http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes ♦ The Lord’s Prayer has been translated into hundreds of languages. See some of them at www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/index.html Sites related to translation in general include: ♦ American Translators Association www.atanet.org ♦ The Translator’s Home Companion www.rahul.net/lai/companion.html

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Exercises 1.

Ask three people to explain why they regularly use a particular translation. Record their answers and give your personal response.

2.

Compare John 1:1 in three English translations. List any differences. Evaluate the translations in terms of clearness and naturalness.

3.

Use the Book of a Thousand Tongues (on reserve) to find a language of interest to you. Write a one-page report on your findings, including an accurate bibliographical citation.

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Language planning

Textbook readings Language Files 10.6 and 11.5

Study questions What is “language planning”? What is an example of language planning in the United States or in another country you know well? How does Cooper’s question “Who plans what for whom and how?” help you understand language planning? In what ways is the push toward nonsexist language a type of language planning?

Introduction Although language is a normal human phenomenon, there are constant attempts to modify this behavior. In this chapter on language planning we will look at some of the ways people seek to change how people use language.

What do YOU think? Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross…the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. (John 19:20)

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Definitions of ‘language planning’ According to Robert L. Cooper’s formal definition language planning is: the deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes (1989:183)

Who plans what for whom and how?” Cooper (1989) asks “Who plans what for whom and how?” The answers to this question provide significant insights into language planning activities.

WHO?

Many different types of organizations and individuals attempt to change language behavior. French language academy

What do YOU think? Academies have been instituted to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse invaders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. (Samuel Johnson, Preface to the Dictionary)

Israeli government When the state of Israel was established, the government chose to have its citizens use Hebrew as a standard language. Since most people spoke other languages, steps had to be taken to teach Hebrew and to add modern terminology to what was an ancient language. Informal movement against sexist language Many changes have taken place since the 1970s in regard to how English speakers talk to and about women. In the early stages of this change there was no government edict, no official sanctions, only

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individuals who began to change their own speech and recommend changes to others. Since that time, editors have established new style guides and government agencies have weighed in on the issue.

What do YOU think? Whenever possible, use plurals (people, they) and feminine pronouns, rather than only masculine pronouns and “pseudo-generics” such as man, unless referring specifically to males… (Linguistic Society of America, Guidelines for nonsexist language)

WHAT?

The goals of language planning efforts often focus on one particular aspect of language: ♦ how the language is written or formed (corpus planning) ♦ the relative status of the language compared to other languages (status planning) ♦ how to teach a language and to whom (acquisition planning) Corpus planning graphization - how the language is written, including punctuation modernization - bringing new terms into a traditional language standardization - coordinating how a language is spoken and taught Status planning UNESCO (1951:689-690) formulated definitions for the relative status of languages as follows: National language “languages of a political, social, cultural entity” Official language “what governments use to do their business”

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Vernacular languages “first languages of people socially or politically dominated by a group with a different language.” Acquisition planning Governments and educational institutions make decisions about which languages are taught and to whom they are taught. Bilingual education programs in the United States are an example of acquisition planning as is the (limited) number of languages taught at Biola and other universities.

FOR WHOM?

The people who are the subject of language planning efforts are normally lower in the power structure than those who are exerting pressure to change.

What do YOU think? Linguistic unity based on a foreign language is cultural abortion. (Cheikh Anta Diop, The cultural unity of Black Africa, 1978)

In The Gift of the Stranger, the authors suggest that the unity of language in Genesis 11 was a result of an imposed lingua franca on speakers of the many languages mentioned in Genesis 10; the language was imposed on conquered people by the government (cf. Smith and Carvill 2000:210f.)

HOW?

The steps taken to influence language change vary with the purpose of the program.

What do YOU think? So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, II)

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Case studies: ♦ Korean romanization (1994 and 2000) ♦ Indonesia orthography change of 1972 ♦ Liturgical language shift away from male dominance (see Strauss 1998 for a discussion about Bible translation and gender issues) ♦ The "English only" movement in the United States ♦ The bilingual English/French policy of Canada Cooper (1989:98) expands on the basic question of “Who does what for whom and how?” as follows: 1.

What actors (e.g. formal elites, influentials, counterelites, nonelite policy implementers)

2.

attempt to influence what behaviors A. structural (linguistic) properties of planned behavior (homogeneity, similarity) B. purposes/functions for which planned behavior is to be used C. desired level of adoption (awareness, evaluation, proficiency, usage)

3.

of which people A. type of target (e.g. individuals v. organizations, primary v. intermediary) B. opportunity of target to learn planned behavior C. incentives of target to learn/use planned behavior D. incentives of target to reject planned behavior

4.

for what ends A. overt (language-related behaviors) B. latent (non-language-related behaviors, the satisfaction of interests)

5.

under what conditions

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A. situational (events, transient condition) B. structural (political, economic, or social/demographic/ecological) C. cultural D. environmental (influences from outside the system) E. informational (data required for a good decision) 6.

by what means (e.g. authority, force, promotion, persuasion)

7.

through what decision-making process (decision rules)

8.

with what effect

The role of history in language planning Joshua Fishman (1969) discusses the relationships between the linguistic background of countries and the types of language planning decisions that have been made. The pre-existing circumstances of each country influenced the government to choose one or more languages as a “national” or “official” language.

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Type of language situation

A-modal

Uni-modal

Multi-modal

Examples

Indonesia Cameroon Philippines

Israel Thailand Ethiopia

India Pakistan Malaysia

Perceived sociocultural integration

No integrating Great Tradition at the national level

One Great Tradition at the national level

Several Great Traditions seeking separate socio-political recognition

Selection of Need for political national integration: language nationism

Need for authenticity: nationalism

Need to compromise between integration and separate groups

Language planning concerns

Modernization of traditional language

Modernization of several traditional languages

Standardization of Language of Wider Communication (LWC)

In Indonesia, for example, there are over 700 language groups. Even in the early 1900s nationalists realized this diversity and the need to develop a unifying language for their future state. In 1918 young nationalists from a variety of language groups pledged to develop a unifying language around the form of Malay that many people already spoke as a second language. This pledge came to fruition after their independence from the Dutch and is now called Bahasa Indonesia.

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Key points Language planning involves formal and informal activities to change the way people use language. Governments and other groups make language planning decisions based on a variety of reasons.

Internet resources ♦ The University of Hawaii has a website devoted to the discussion of Pidgin (English) and its role in Hawaiian society. A paper entitled “Pidgin and Education” is available online at www.lll.hawaii.edu/esl/pidgin.html ♦ There are many sites that discuss sexism in language and provide style guides for writers to help them avoid using politically incorrect forms. One such site is from the National Council of Teachers of English: http://www.ncte.org/positions/gender.shtml

Exercises 1.

Find an example of language planning (e.g., a multilingual sign, a government regulation about language, an editorial about proper speech). What does this example show about language planning? Give your reaction.

2.

Write a one-page response paper on the current trend to avoid terms that may be offensive to certain groups of people (e.g., crippled). What do you think about these attempts? Do you think that our language will be changed as a result of these efforts?

3.

Study the style guide of your department or school and discuss this is light of language planning.

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Language and writing

Textbook readings Language Files 15.1

Study questions What are the major types of writing systems? Name a language that uses each type. In what ways do writing systems ‘fit’ different languages? In what ways does the English orthography help English speakers to communicate across dialect boundaries?

Introduction The fact that some languages have been encoded in writing is a fascinating historical topic. Linguistic studies of writing tend to focus on the differences between written and oral communication and on how the written language handles verbal speech. In this chapter we will consider these topics and look at the major writing systems of the world.

What do YOU think? ...man has the advantage of intellectual cognition, which abstracts from the here and now, and as a consequence, is concerned with things distant in place and future in time as well as things present according to time and place, Hence the use of writing was necessary so that he might manifest his conceptions to those who are distant according to place and to those who will come in future time. (Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s “On Interpretation,” I, 2)

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Oral versus written language A discussion of human language normally refers to spoken or oral language use. Even to this day, a majority of the world’s languages function primarily as oral modes of communication, even though many now have written forms as well. Written forms of language are by nature secondary to oral forms and may be properly understood as (sometimes inadequate) representations of oral language.

What do YOU think? The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They cannot spell it because they have nothing to spell it with but an old foreign alphabet of which only the consonants—and not all of them—have any agreed speech value. (G. B. Shaw, Pygmalion, Preface)

Written language generally lacks adequate ways to represent meaningbearing intonation and stress. While words can be underlined and punctuation inserted, the written form of language can not always convey the same meaning as the original oral communication. Written communication allows a culture to communicate with its ancestors and with its progeny. Written communication can cross physical boundaries. The written form of a language often takes on a life of its own in a way.

What do YOU think? Those who write as they speak, even though they speak well, write badly. (Comte de Buffon, Discours sur le style, 1753)

Written style can be less redundant than the oral mode, since the reader can always go back and read the sentence again. Written styles may be more formal and less free than oral styles; readers do not always like seeing informal expressions in written texts.

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Written forms develop conventions such as punctuation and paragraph divisions to clarify the structure of the message (which might be less obvious in the original stream of speech.)

What do YOU think? The notion of representing a sound by a graphic symbol is itself so stupefying a leap of the imagination that what is remarkable is not so much that it happened relatively late in human history, but that it happened at all. (Jack Goody and Ian Watt in “The consequences of literacy.” Macaulay 1994:78) What do YOU think? Because words pass away as soon as they strike upon the air, and last no longer than their sound, men have by means of letters formed signs of words. Thus the sounds of the voice are made visible to the eye, not of course as sounds, but by means of certain signs. (Augustine, Christian Doctrine, II, 4)

What do YOU think? The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing. Printing hath destroyed education… (Benjamin Disraeli, Lothair, Chapter 29) What do YOU think? All epoch-making revolutionary events have been produced not by the written but by the spoken word. (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf)

Types of writing systems There are 3 basic types of writing systems: word writing or logographs syllabic writing alphabetic writing

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Sometimes a fourth system is recognized: consonantal writing

Summary chart of writing systems Writing system

Languages

Strategy

Benefits

Drawback s

Word-based

“Chinese” Japanese kanji

characters represent words or concepts

allows discrete languages to communic ate via writing

reader must recognize hundreds of symbols

Syllablebased

Japanese katakana Japanese hiragana Cherokee

characters represent syllables

works well with limited syllable types

not useful in languages with complex syllable patterns

Alphabetbased

English Russian (Cyrillic) Hindi Greek Korean

characters represent individual sounds

ease of learning

spelling difficulties due to dialect or historical changes

Consonantbased

Hebrew Arabic (w/o vowels)

characters represent consonants

ease of learning

reader must supply correct vowels

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Writing systems also vary in terms of how words are written on a page: Left to right, top to bottom

1 4 7

2 5 8

3 6 9

English (Many other alphabetic systems)

Right to left, top to bottom

3 6 9

2 5 8

1 4 7

Arabic Hebrew

Top to bottom, Right to left

7 8 9

4 5 6

1 2 3

Classical Chinese

Left to right then Right to Left, Top to bottom

1 6 7

2 5 8

3 4 9

Classical Greek

The English orthography The orthography of English represents an amalgam of information from a number of layers of English history. Many words are written in ways that show earlier pronunciations. Some forms caused a change in pronunciation as people tended to use “spelling pronunciation”. Many words beginning with /h/ were th pronounced without the /h/ sound as late as the 18 century, but then people started adding the initial /h/ sound (hospital, heretic, habit) while some words continued without the initial /h/ (honest, hour). Some aspects of English orthography help a reader disambiguate homophones. bear/bare

air/ere/heir

hear/here

ate/eight

hair/hare

clause/claws

tracked/tract friar/fryer reed/read red/read Working with language

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The English orthography helps people recognize morphologically related words, even though their pronunciation changes: photograph versus photography divine versus divinity write/writer/written The orthography keeps pairs of words the same even though the pronunciation changes when stress moves: 'compound vs. com'pound 'record vs. re'cord English differentiates between compound words and noun phrases by a space between words in a noun phrase: 'greenhouse vs. 'green 'house The English orthography allows written communication across dialect boundaries. If English were written to more adequately reflect its pronunciation, the written forms of the various dialects (e.g. Texan versus New England versus Australian) would be much less intelligible. Australian ‘mate’ nearly rhymes with American ‘might’; Australian ‘today’ sounds like American ‘to die’. The English orthography allows written communication across time. This allows us to read material that would otherwise be much less intelligible if the words were written as they were pronounced in the past.

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An ode to Spell Checkers Anonymous I have a spelling checker. It came with my PC. It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot see. Eye ran this poem threw it. Your sure real glad two no. Its very polished in its weigh, My checker tolled me sew. A checker is a blessing. It freeze yew lodes of thyme. It helps me right awl stiles two reed, And aides me when aye rime. Each frays comes posed up on my screen Eye trussed too bee a joule. The checker pours o’er every word To cheque sum spelling rule. Bee fore a veiling checkers Hour spelling mite decline, And if we’re lacks oar have a laps, We wood bee maid too wine. Butt now bee cause my spelling Is checked with such grate flare, There are know faults with in my cite, Of nun eye am a wear. Now spelling does not phase me, It does knot bring a tier. My pay purrs awl due glad den With wrapped words fare as hear. To rite with care is quite a feet Of witch won should be proud, And wee mussed dew the best wee can, Sew flaws are knot aloud. Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays Such soft wear four pea seas, And why eye brake in two averse Buy righting want too please. (Author Unknown)

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How about changing the English orthography? (Author unknown) Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC (now officially the European Union, or EU), the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments. European officials have pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult. For example: cough, plough, here, hear, bow, bough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased program of changes to iron out these anomalies. The program would be administered by a committee of top level staff chosen by the participating nations. In the first year, for example, the committee might suggest using “s” instead of the soft “c”. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. The hard “c” could then be replased by “k” sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. This would not only klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters and keyboards kould be made with one less letter, a signifikant savings. In the sekond year, bekause of growing enthusiasm, it will be announsed that the troublesome “ph” would henseforth be written “f”. This would make words like “fotograf” twenty persent shorter in print. In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. We would al agre that the horible mes of silent “e”’s in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor, we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing “th” by “z”. Perhaps zen ze funktion of “w” kould be taken on by “v”, vitsh is, after al, half a “w”. Finaly, ze unesesary “o” kuld be dropd from vords kontaining “ou”. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer konbinations of leters. Kontinuing zis proses yer aftr yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten stil. Aftr tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrion vud fin it ezi tu understan esh ozer. Ze drems of ze E.U. vud finali kum tru.

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Key points Oral and written language have different functions. There are basically three kinds of writing systems. Writing systems may be more or less appropriate for different kinds of languages. The choice of a writing system involves social and political as well as linguistic concerns.

Internet resources ♦ SIL’s website includes numerous pages concerning literacy: www.sil.org/literacy ♦ Omniglot provides on-line examples of hundreds of writing systems, including a variety of alphabets and syllabaries: www.omniglot.com/writing/ ♦ The Museum of the Alphabet, in Waxhaw, North Carolina, illustrates many of the major developments in writing systems: www.jaars.org/museum/alphabet/index.htm ♦ The syllabary of Cherokee www.atypical.net/CherTabl.html ♦ Fonts used in science fiction www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/4965/

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Exercises 1.

Using a chart of Japanese hiragana symbols, write the following English words: Tennessee Iowa who shoe nobody Why would it be difficult to write most English words in hiragana? Hint: hiragana is a syllabary.

2.

Using a chart of Korean letters, write the English words in exercise 1. Discuss the difference between the hiragana and the Korean alphabet for these words.

3.

Write a one-page paper on the topic “What I think should be changed about the English writing system.” Discuss any educational and dialect implications of your ideas.

4.

Punctuate the following series of words in a way that they make sense. (Some may have more than one solution.) a.

that that is is that that is not is not is that it it is

b.

woman without her man is nothing

c.

Chris said he will go tomorrow

What does this exercise illustrate about oral versus written speech?

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Appendix A: Faith and learning The following pages are designed to help you think through a number of issues regarding language and the Bible. The main focus is on your personal growth and on your ability to think about language as it relates to the examples and instructions given in the Scriptures. Take time to meditate on the verses and to pray about what they mean in your personal life. Share these insights with your friends and with the class as you are able to do so. May God bless you as you work through these assignments.

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Language in the Bible 1

Name _________________

Look up the following verses. Read and meditate on them for 20 minutes. What do these verses tell you about God’s word in either its spoken or written form? Write your insights below. Do not just explain what happened, describe general characteristics. Genesis 1:1-31; Jeremiah 23:29; Matthew 4:1-11; Hebrews 4:12

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Language in the Bible 2

Name _________________

Look up the following verses. What do you see as the recurring theme here about language and its use? What is God teaching us about language in these verses? Isaiah 55:11; John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:15-17

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Language in the Bible 3

Name _________________

Look up the following verses. Write a sentence or two stating the main theme of this group of verses regarding language and its use. What is God teaching us about language in these verses? Exodus 17:14; Jeremiah 30:2; Habakkuk 2:2

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Language in the Bible 4

Name _________________

Answer one of the following two questions: 1. Read and meditate on John 1:1-18, and then discuss the concept of Jesus as the Word, relating it to language and/or communication. 2. Consult a commentary on John’s use of the Greek word Logos for ‘the Word’ in this passage. Briefly state the commentator’s views. In addition, what are your own thoughts on this?

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Language in the Bible 5

Name _________________

Look up the following passages. Find a general theme that relates to language and its use, and discuss it briefly. What is God teaching us about language in these verses? Deuteronomy 30:12-14; Isaiah 45:18,19; Acts 17:27

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Language in the Bible 6

Name _________________

Look up the following passages. Suggest a general theme relating to language and its use, and discuss it briefly. What is God teaching us about language in these verses? Mark 5:41, Acts 2:5-12, Acts 26:14

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Language in the Bible 7

Name _________________

What can we learn about man’s use of language from the following passages? For the Esther passage, also comment on the use of the mother tongue for the proclamation. Genesis 2:19-20, Esther 1:22

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Language in the Bible 8

Name _________________

Read Judges 12:5-6. 1. How does this passage relate to dialects and language varieties? 2. Share your reflection about your own attitudes about people who speak English differently than you do.

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Language in the Bible 9

Name _________________

Look up the following passages. What can we learn about language or our use of language from these verses? In the light of these verses, ask God to show you how your behavior should change in this area, and share your thoughts. Psalm 50:19; Colossians 3:8,9; James 3:6-8

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Language in the Bible 10

Name _________________

From the following passages, what do you see about how God wants you to use language? Which of these areas needs the most work/attention in your life? You are encouraged to take one step this week to improve that area according to the Spirit’s leading. Share your decision and your experience. Psalm 145:4-6, Matthew 6:9-13, Ephesians 5:19, 1 Peter 3:15

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Language in the Bible 11

Name _________________

From the following passages, what can you say about how God wants you to use language? How are you or should you be applying this in your daily life? Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Matt. 28:19, 20; 1 Timothy 4.13; 2 Timothy 2:2

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Language in the Bible 12

Name _________________

Read Genesis 1:26-27. Reflect on the relationship of language to the image of God. In what one way might you change your speech to better reflect a life made in the image of God?

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Language in the Bible 13

Name _________________

What is the thread running through the following passages related to language, and what is one way you think God wants you to improve in this area? Exodus 20:16; Leviticus 19:11, 14, 16; Ephesians 4:25, 29, 5:4

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Appendix B: Language project

Overview Over the course of the semester you will collect and analyze language data to describe New Testament Greek in designated areas. See the syllabus for more guidelines. Hints to make a better write-up: Start writing early. Turn in all preliminary notes when they are due so that you can get at least one round of feedback, and so that you can fill in the gaps in your data without being rushed at the end. It would help if you would also get feedback from your classmates on one draft of your write-up before the final copy is due. This outline is also available on BUBBS and on the author’s website.

Language Project Write-up The goal of this project is for you to use the tools you learn in class to discover a few things about the structure of a language you don't know yet. In the write-up, then, you will be showing the discoveries you made as you worked with language data in each area. Specifically, the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and language learning sections of the write-up should be original work. The conclusions should be drawn from your data. For the introduction, language relations, translation, and writing sections you will need to consult at least five outside sources and cite them in the bibliography. Use the following outline to organize your notes. The outline is available on BUBBS in the Linguistics folder. Use normal MLA style or the style sheet for your program for citations and bibliographical entries. Preface the write-up with a title page. For the title page, use the style sheet found in your student handbook. Include your name and ID number as well as the name of the language you are studying. Out of a possible 100 points on the language project write-up, 10 points are given for format. Part of proper format is using prose and examples to lead the reader through each section step by step. Lack of sufficient prose or examples will lower the quality of the write-up. The number of points possible in each section is indicated in this outline after the section heading.

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How to Present Examples

Your examples should done in such a way that it is easy to identify each word or morpheme with its meaning (the process of ‘interlinearization’). An easy way to do this is to put in a 'shift-return' after your example and type in the meaning of each word (the gloss) underneath. Use spaces or tabs as needed to line up the IPA line with the gloss line. If you use abbreviations in the glosses—or anywhere else in the write-up—it is best to use the abbreviations listed in the textbook. Explain any new abbreviations if you must use them. Number your examples throughout the write-up. For example: (1)

(2)

kt =-s

sak

Kit = POS.Sg

sock

Kit’s sock

sm

hlp =s

donz

Smith

help = PRES.Sg

Jones

Smith helps Jones

Before each example or set of examples, or after, if you choose, you should explain what you intend to illustrate with the example(s). Your prose explanations should make it clear why you are providing these examples.

Introduction (5 points)

Overview of the Language

Give a brief overview of the language in terms of its location, number of speakers, etc.

Personal Interest

Highlight some aspect of the language that you find especially interesting or different from English.

Acknowledgements

Explain who was responsible for which parts of the project and what the role of the language resource person was.

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Phonetics (10 points)

Word List

Obtain a list of 20 words from your language resource person using the method discussed in class. Transcribe these according to how they SOUND, using IPA symbols. Do NOT use the orthography of the language or English. After you have the words, take each unique sound of each word and place it in the proper place in the charts below. Include your list of 20 words written in IPA with the gloss / meaning. Remember things written using IPA should be enclosed in square brackets, in this list, within prose, and any other time when it could be mistaken for English. (In numbered examples it would not be necessary to enclose the IPA line in square brackets.) If you see 'holes' in the pattern, keep an eye out for these sounds as you gather more data and fill them in as you come across them. If you use any uncommon IPA symbols or diacritics that are not in the standard IPA chart, be sure to explain what they signify and how you are going to use them. If you have phonemic tone in the language, be sure to indicate it. Indicate primary stress on polysyllabic words as follows: Show syllable breaks with a period. Place a single straight quote mark before the stressed syllable. (3) 'ot.mil

oatmeal

(4) k.’skju.sz

excuses

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Consonants

List the consonant sounds of the language. Mention any especially interesting sounds or difference from English consonants. You may need to add more rows or columns if the language you are studying has additional sounds not found in English. See a complete IPA chart for additional symbols. Bi-labial

Voicing

-

+

Labio-dental

-

+

Alveolar

-

+

Alveopalatal

-

+

Stop Nasal Fricative Affricate Lateral Retroflex Approximant

Retroflex Flap/Tap Retroflex Trill Glide

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Palatal

-

+

Velar

-

+

Glottal

-

+

Vowels

List the vowel sounds of the language. Mention any especially interesting sounds or differences from English sounds. Front-Back Height/

Front

Central

Back

High Mid Low

Diphthongs

Document the different diphthongs you find in the language. (Usually a diphthong will consist of a central vowel and an off-glide.) If you give examples of the diphthongs occurring in words, show the syllable breaks. For example, Diphthong

Example

(5)

[aw]

haw.z

housing

(6)

[oj]

poj.z´n

poison

Intonation

Discuss the intonation patterns. Draw a pitch line above the phrase. Some areas to consider include: statement intonation Yes/No questions intonation WH- question intonation

Note: Intonation is the pitch pattern over an utterance, usually a clause or sentence. Every language has intonation. Tone is a level pitch or pitch contour/pattern over a single

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syllable, or one-syllable word. Do not mix these two concepts up. You will be discussing Tone in the Phonology section of the write-up.

Phonology (10 points)

Minimal pairs

List at least 10 minimal pairs (20 words), giving the phonetic shape and the meaning of each word. A minimal pair is a pair of words that are the same except for one sound at the same location. For example [pt] and [bt] or [tajp] and [tajm]. The phones (sounds) you compare should be phonetically similar. [ml] and [kl] is not a good minimal pair because 'm' and 'k' are not phonetically similar. If the language you are studying has tone, the same segments with different tones are excellent minimal pairs. You may find minimal pairs that differ only in stress placement as well. (Hint: Try to get words that "sound like" or are "almost the same as.") For example, in Mangseng, (8)

[p] [b] -

[pos] 'cook' [bos] 'tobacco'

Tone

Phonemic (or 'meaningful') tone is a level pitch or pitch contour on the syllable level that changes the meaning of that syllable, and thus, the word. To discover if the language has meaningful tone or not, look for words that are only distinguished by tone differences. If you think the language has meaningful tone, tell how many tones there are and describe them. Give examples of each tone.

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For example, in Mandarin Chinese, (9)

[ti]

to carry with one hand

(10)

[ti]

to substitute

The two lexical items differ only in tone; therefore, the rising tone and the falling tone are meaningful in Mandarin. (At this point you would identify all the tones you discovered.) If you do not think the language has meaningful tone, prove it with examples of two pronunciations of the same word with different tones, with a consistency of meaning. For example, in English, (11) [ti]

Tea?

(flight attendant to passenger while holding teapot, having been preceded by a flight attendant who served coffee)

(12) [ti]

Tea.

(passenger to flight attendant pushing cart with both tea and coffee service on top, in response to the question of whether he would prefer coffee or tea)

With a rising tone or a falling tone, the meaning of the word stays the same. The meaning would stay the same on any tone: high, low, mid, etc.

Stress

Explain the normal stress pattern in the language. Make notes about any the stress patterns you observe in words. Stress is indicated by an increase in pitch, volume or length or any combination of those. You may find that stress is phonemic (makes a difference in meaning). In that case you might find minimal pairs for stress. Then there might not be a 'normal pattern' for stress. It may be that stress is lexical and/or completely random in the language. Do not let writing conventions mislead you: e.g. every word in Spanish has stress, but only some are written. Talk only about the stress patterns that you have observed in your data. Do not take 'stress rules' or 'accent rules' from books. Even if you do not think your own observations about stress are insightful, report on those observations anyway. Question: Are all the words accented on the same syllable (the last, next to the last)? For example, in English, (13)

‘te.bl ‘ste.bl pi æ.no

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table stable piano

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Note that all of these have stress on the next to last syllable.

Morphology (10 points) Note: In the morphology section, it is important to indicate all obvious morpheme breaks (using a hyphen). For example, (14) hlp -t

helped

help PAST (15) hlp -

helping

help PROGRESSIVE

Morphological Type

Languages can be characterized as being mostly one of four morphological types: isolating, agglutinating, fusional, or polysynthetic. Normally a language will have characteristics of two or more morphological types. Conventionally, however, linguists use the behavior of the verb and its arguments (direct & indirect objects, objects of the preposition, obliques, etc.) to characterize the language as one or another morphological type. Main point: Is the language mostly agglutinating , fusional , isolating , or polysynthetic? Give examples to prove your point(s). Hint: Try to obtain sentences where you only change one thing at a time, like: Chris is eating a banana. Chris ate a banana. Chris ate a banana yesterday. Chris ate two bananas yesterday. They ate two bananas yesterday. This information will help you answer the main point question above. As you begin to analyze your data, you can use the following questions to help you determine the morphological type of the language: Are there any affixes on the verbs that change? on the nouns? Is it easy to tell what the various affixes mean? These are characteristics of agglutinating languages. If additionally the entire sentence seems to be pronounced as a single word, this would be a characteristic of a polysynthetic language.

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Do the verbs change, but you find it hard to identify one affix with a single piece of grammatical information, such as 'A' indicates 3rd person subject, 'B' indicates plural subject, 'C' indicates present tense, etc.? If it is hard to draw such a one to one correspondence between each piece of grammatical information and an affix, this would be characteristic of a fusional language. Do the verbs stand alone and maintain one phonetic shape no matter what the tense, aspect, subject number or subject person? This is characteristic of isolating languages.

Verb morphology

Describe how verbs are formed in this language. Is it required that the verb agree with the subject or object? (Note that subject agreement on the verb is more common than object agreement.) Question: What kind of meaning is attached to verbs ? (e.g., tense, subject person, subject number, formality, gender of speaker, etc.) Question: Does the verb change when the action takes place at a different time (e.g. present, past, future)? (change of tense) If yes, give example phrases to illustrate what happens. Question: Does the verb change if "I" do something versus "you" do something? (change of person of the subject) If yes, give example phrases to illustrate what happens. Question: Does the verb change if "I" do something versus "we" do something? (he/they, you/you all) (change of number of the subject) If yes, give example phrases to illustrate what happens.

Noun morphology

Describe how nouns are formed in this language. Is it required that the noun and the adjectives or determiners agree in some way? Question: What type of information is attached to nouns? (e.g. number, gender) Hint: Find out how to say "one banana/two bananas", "the banana/the bananas", "this/these..." Compare "the boy/the girl", "a man/a woman". Question: Does every noun need to be "marked" with an indication of the "masculine/feminine" distinction? Are there other classes or words besides male/female? If yes, give example phrases to illustrate what happens. For example, in Mangseng

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(16) NOUN NUM tuli omole 'one banana' banana one tuli oraini banana two

'two bananas' (this noun is not marked for plural)

(17) NOUN NUM seng 'woman' woman.SINGULAR sengre 'women' (this noun is marked for plural) woman.PLURAL (18) NOUN NUM DET tuli omole ake banana one this tuli oraini areke banana two these

'this one banana' 'these two bananas' (DET's are marked for plural)

Note: always indicate the meaning of the words and phrases.

Syntax (15 points)

Order within Basic Transitive Clause

Explain the basic constituent order of Subject (S), Object (O), Verb (V) in transitive clauses: SOV, SVO, VOS, VSO, OVS, OSV. Hint: Write down a number of transitive clauses which have a proper noun or a noun (not a pronoun) as the Subject and a noun or a proper noun (not a pronoun) as the Object; e.g. "Chris ate a banana", "Chris saw the tree", "The child caught the ball". What is the basic order of the Subject, Verb and Object? These grammatical constituents will be marked either by word order or by case markers. Question: Can you change the order of these three parts and still say the same thing, or does the meaning change when you move the parts around? If yes, give examples to illustrate what happens. Try sentences like "Chris hit the man" and "The man hit Chris." Question: If you move the parts around and the meaning is still the same, are there affixes on the nouns that indicate whether something is the Subject or the Object? Give examples to illustrate your point(s).

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For example, in Bahasa Indonesia, (19)

(20)

SUBJ VERB OBJ Didin makan pisang. Didin eat banana Didin melihat Sofi. Didin see Sofi

'Didin is eating a banana'

'Didin sees Sofi'

Adpositions

Describe any prepositions or postpositions in the language. These are separate words that either precede or follow the noun to form P-phrases. Underline or bold the morpheme you are focusing on. Note that if the locational morphemes associated with nouns in the language are merely affixes attached to nouns or other words, they would not be considered true adpositions, and would be described in the morphology (probably noun morphology) section. Hint: Elicit a number of clauses which have a directional verb such as 'go', 'come' (e.g., "Chris went to Seattle", "Chris came from Seattle") or which give the location of something (e.g., "Chris lives in Seattle"), or which require an instrument (e.g., "Chris ate the banana with a fork", "Chris cut the banana with a knife".) Question: Is there a marker next to the location word or the instrument word? Is it before or after that word? Give examples to illustrate your point(s). Again from Bahasa Indonesia, (21) Didin datang Didin came

PREP NOUN dari Jakarta. from Jakarta

'Didin came from Jakarta'

Genitive (The possessive construction)

Describe how the language handles noun phrases which include a possession and a possessor. Hint: Elicit a number of phrases such as "Joe's book", "the child's book", "the child's eye". Question: Where does the possessor come, before or after the possession? Are there any particles or affixes which transform the simple noun (or name) into a possessor (a particle is a free morpheme and an affix is a bound morpheme)? Does the possessor move when the topic is a body part (such as an eye)?

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In another example from Bahasa Indonesia, (22)

(23)

Noun POSS buku Didin book Didin mata anak itu eye child that

'Didin's book' 'that child's eye'

Thus, in Bahasa Indonesia, the noun phrase indicating the possessor follows the noun phrase indicating the possession. There are no connecting words or affixes between the two noun phrases.

Order within the Noun Phrase

Describe the normal order of determiners, numbers, adjectives and head nouns in noun phrases in the language. Hint: Elicit a number of phrases in which determiners, numbers and adjectives are used (e.g., "the two big bananas", "these three small books". Question: What is the order of the various parts of the phrase? Does it ever change? Give examples. From Bahasa Indonesia, (24) NUM NOUN ADJ DET dua pisang besar itu two banana big those

'those two big bananas'

Give at least two examples.

Case

Describe any case marking on nouns and how it relates to other aspects of the syntax. Question: Do affixes indicate case of noun phrases (e.g., Subject, Object)? If so, give examples. Question: Are there any differences in the noun when it is the Subject of the clause rather than the Object? (e.g., "The cat ate the rat" versus "The dog chased the cat") Question: Are there any differences in the noun when it is the Indirect Object rather than the Subject or Object? (e.g., "The child gave rice to the cat.) Question: Are these differences indicated by affixes? by prepositions/postpositions?

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Semantics (10 points)

Multiple (related) senses

Note at least 5 words in the language that have more than one English meaning and discuss the differences. For examples, in Bahasa Indonesia, Word

Meanings

Discussion

(25) ibu

'mother' and 'woman' Both contain the idea of mature female; perhaps the term 'mother' was gradually generalized to mean any mature female, or vice versa

(26) tangan

'hand' and 'arm'

These meanings are in a part-whole relationship.

(27) bulan

'moon' and 'month'

The moon can mark the coming and going of the months, if one follows the lunar calendar. Perhaps this is how the two senses came about.

Idioms

List at least 5 idioms in the language. Explain both the literal and the figurative meaning. Hint: Combinations of colors and nouns or body parts and adjectives are often a good source. Look at areas of sin or emotion. For example, in Bahasa Indonesia, Phrase (28)

mata hijau eye green

Literal

Figurative 'green eye'

'greedy'

Or in English, (29)

catch him red-handed 'capture him while his hands are red'

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'capture him in the very act'

Language Learning (10 points)

Greetings & Farewells

List several normal greetings and farewells and explain any cultural significance of the situations. Try to use situational scenarios when gathering you data. For example: Greeting/Farewell

Cultural significance

(30)

Good morning, Dr. Cook.

Deference is shown to people in authority.

(31)

How's it goin'?

Informal use between friends.

Useful phrases

List at least the following 8 "Power Tools" (Fill in the blanks with an example word.) 1. "What is this?"

5. "I want to (learn to) speak ________"

2. "What is that?"

6. "This is good/delicious"

3. "This is a ______"

7. "What is your name?"

4. "That is a ______"

8. "My name is _______"

Language relationships (5 points) Discuss the larger language group to which the language you are studying belongs. List at least two other languages that are genetically related to the language and discuss the relationship.

Bible Translation (5 points) Discuss some of the history of Bible translation in this language. Possible sources: www.biblesociety.org; www.worldscriptures.org

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Writing (5 points)

Symbols and sounds

Compare the writing system with the sound system of the language. For alphabets, list the entire alphabet and give their IPA values. For example, in English: Letter or symbol

IPA sound

x

[ ks ]

y

[j]

c

[k] [s]

ph

[f]

Sample page

Include a sample of the writing system(s) and explain how someone reads this language (e.g., left to right).

Bibliography (5 points) List the references you used in your project. There should be at least five. They may be books, articles in journals or encyclopedias, or Internet sites. If you are listing an Internet site, be sure to give it in proper format. Listing just URL's is not proper format. Follow the style sheet you use in your other Biola classes.

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Appendix C: Scripture references about language Please check the course website for a collection of Bible verses that illustrate and teach about language. http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/linguistics/verses.htm

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Appendix D: Quotations about language Please check the course website for a collection of quotations from the famous and the infamous that discuss language. http://people.biola.edu/faculty/petes/linguistics/Quotes.pdf

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References Abbreviations used: NOL Notes on Linguistics UBS SIL

United Bible Societies

Summer Institute of Linguistics

UTA University of Texas at Arlington

Aitchinson, Jean. 1976. The articulate mammal: an introduction to psycholinguistics. London: Hutchison and Co. _____. 1985. Language change: progress or decay. New York: Universe Books. Antilla, Raimo. 1972. An introduction to historical and comparative linguistics. New York: MacMillan. Appel, René and Pieter Muysken, 1987. Language contact and bilingualism. London: Edward Anthony. Arensen, Jonathan E. 1992. Mice are men: language and society among the Murle of Sudan. Dallas: International Museum of Cultures. Arlotto, Anthony. 1971. Introduction to historical linguistics. Lanham: University Press of America. Baker, Colin. 1992. Attitudes and language. Clevedon/Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Baker, William R. 1995. Personal speech-ethics in the Epistle of James. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). _____ . 1996. Sticks & stones: the discipleship of our speech. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Barnwell, Katharine. 1980. Introduction to semantics and translation. 2nd edition. Dallas: SIL. Barr, James. 1961. The semantics of biblical language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English word-formation. London: Cambridge University Press. Baugh, A. C. 1978. A history of the English language. 3rd edition. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall. Working with language

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Bergman, Ted, ed. /comp. 1990. Survey reference manual: a collection of papers on the assessment of Bible translation. Dallas: SIL. Bickford, J. Albert. 1998. Tools for analyzing the world's languages. Dallas: SIL. Black, David Alan. 1988. Linguistics for students of New Testament Greek. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. Blair, Frank. 1990. Survey on a shoestring: a manual for small-scale language surveys. Dallas: SIL and UTA Brewster, Thomas and Elizabeth E. Brewster. 1984. Language acquisition made practical. Pasadena: William Carey Library. Bright, William, ed. 1992. International encyclopedia of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Referred to as IEL is this syllabus] Brown, H. Douglas. 1991. Breaking the language barrier. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. _____. 1994. Principles of language learning and teaching. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Bullinger, E. W. 1968. Figures of speech used in the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House. Burquest, Donald and David Payne. 1993. Phonological analysis: a functional approach. Dallas: SIL and UTA. Bussman, Hadumod. 1996. Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics. London: Routledge. Caird, George Bradford. 1980. The language and imagery of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Campbell, George L. 1991. Compendium of the world’s languages. London: Routledge. _____. 1997. Handbook of scripts and alphabets. London: Routledge. Casad, Eugene H. 1992. State of the art: dialect survey fifteen years later. In Casad, Eugene H., ed. Windows on bilingualism. Dallas: SIL and UTA. Pages 147-158. Casad, Eugene, ed. 1992. Windows on bilingualism. Dallas: SIL. CEL. Cambridge Encyclopedia of language. See Crystal, David, ed. 1987. Chomsky, Noam and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.

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Christensen, Chuck and Winnie Christensen. 1990. Careful! Someone’s listening: recognizing the importance of your words. Chicago: Moody Bible Institute. Clark, John and Colin Yallop. 1990. An introduction to phonetics and phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Coates, Jennifer. 1986. Women, men and language: a sociolinguistic account of sex differences in language. London: Longman. Collinge, N. E., ed. 1990. An encyclopaedia of language. London: Routledge. [Referred to as EL in this syllabus] Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language universals and linguistic typology. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Comrie, Bernard, ed. 1990. The world’s major languages. New York: Oxford University Press. Comrie, Bernard, Stephen Matthews and Maria Polinsky, eds. 1996. The atlas of languages: the origin and development of language throughout the world. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Cooper, Robert L. 1989. Language planning and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cotterell, Peter and Max Turner. 1989. Linguistics and biblical interpretation. Downers Grove: InterVarsity. Coulmas, Florian. 1991. The writing systems of the world. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Crowley, Terry. 1992. An introduction to historical linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, David. 1991. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. 3rd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. _____. 1992. An encyclopedic dictionary of language and languages. Oxford: Blackwell. Crystal, David, ed. 1987. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Referred to as CEL in this syllabus] Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Dixon, R. M. W. 1977. “Where have all the adjectives gone?” Studies in Language 1:1, 19-80. Durham, Ken. 1986. Speaking from the heart: richer relationships through communication. Ft. Worth, TX: Sweet Publishing.

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Dutcher, Nadine. 1982. The use of first and second language in primary education: selected case studies. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 504. Eastman, Carol M. 1990. Aspects of language and culture. 2nd edition. Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp Publishers. Edwards, John. 1989. Language, society and identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. _____. 1994. Multilingualism. London: Routledge. EL An encyclopedia of language. See Collinge, N. E., ed. 1990. Elson, Benjamin and Velma Pickett. 1988. Beginning morphology and syntax. Dallas: SIL. Fasold, Ralph W. 1984. The sociolinguistics of society. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. _____. 1990. The sociolinguistics of language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Ferguson, Charles and Shirley Brice Heath, eds. 1981. Language in the USA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fishman, Joshua A. 1969. National languages and languages of wider communication. Anthropological Linguistics 11:11-35. _____. 1972a. Language in sociocultural change: essays by Joshua A. Fishman. Stanford: Stanford University Press. _____. 1972b. The sociology of language: an interdisciplinary social science approach to language in society. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers. _____. 1989. Language and ethnicity in minority sociolinguistics perspective. Clevedon/Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Fishman, Joshua A., ed. 1968. Readings in the sociology of language. The Hague: Mouton. Flynn, Leslie. 1971. Did I say that? 2nd edition. Wheaton, IL: Key Publishers. Foley, William. 1997. Anthropological linguistics. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. Frame, John M. 1974. “God and biblical language: transcendence and immanence.” In Montgomery, John Warwick, ed. God’s innerant Word. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, Inc. 159-177. Frame, John M. 1990. Perspectives on the Word of God: an introduction to Christian ethics. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed.

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Geertz, Clifford. 1968. Linguistic etiquette. In Fishman, Joshua A., ed. 1968. Pages 282295. Gelb, I. J. 1963. A study of writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Givón, Talmy. 1984. Syntax: a functional typological approach. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Goddard, Cliff. 1998. Semantic analysis: a practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greenberg, Joseph, ed. 1978. Universals of human language. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Grimes, Barbara F. 1986. Evaluating bilingual proficiency in language groups for crosscultural communication. NOL 33:5-27. _____. 1987. How bilingual is bilingual? NOL 40:3-23. Grimes, Barbara F, ed. 1996. Ethnologue. 13th ed. Dallas: SIL. _____. 2000. Ethnologue. 14th ed. Dallas:SIL. Healey, Alan, ed. 1975. Language learner’s field guide. Ukarumpa, PNG: SIL. IEL

International encyclopedia of linguistics. See Bright, William, ed. 1992.

Jannedy, Stefanie; Robert Poletto; and Tracey L. Weldon, eds. 1994. Language files: materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 6th ed. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Jeffers, Robert J. and Ilse Lehiste. 1979. Principles and methods for historical linguistics. Cambridge: MIT Press. Katzner, Kenneth. 1995. The languages of the world. London: Routledge. Kindell, Gloria, ed. 1991. Proceedings of the Summer Institute of Linguistics International Language Assessment Conference, Horsleys Green, 23-31 May 1989. Dallas: SIL. Komp, Diane M, M.D. 1998. Anatomy of a lie. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Koopman, Leroy. 1972. Beauty care for the tongue. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Lagefoged, Peter. 1993. A course in phonetics. 3rd edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

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Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things: what categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1973. Language and its structure: some fundamental linguistic concepts. 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Larson, Donald N. 1984. Guidelines for barefoot language learning: an approach through involvement and independence. St. Paul, MN: CMS Publishing, Inc. Larson, Donald N. and William A. Smalley. 1984. Becoming bilingual: a guide to language learning. Lanham: University Press of America. Lawrence, Gordon. 1982. People types and tiger stripes: a practical guide to learning styles. 2nd edition. Gainesville, FL: Center for application of psychological types, Inc. LE The linguistics encyclopedia. See Malmkjaer, Kirsten, ed. 1991. Lehmann, W. P. 1973. Historical linguistics: an introduction. 2nd edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Lenneberg, Eric H. 1978. Psychology and biology of language and thought: essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg. Edited by George A. Miller and Elizabeth Lenneberg. New York: Academic Press. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____. 1981. Language and linguistics: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macauley, Ronald. 1994. The social art: language and its uses. New York: Oxford University Press. Mains, Karen Burns. 1988. You are what you say. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Malmkjaer, Kirsten, ed. 1991. The linguistics encyclopedia. London: Routledge. [Referred to as LE in this syllabus] Marshall, Terry. 1989. The whole world guide to language learning. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, Inc. Matthews, Peter H. 1991. Morphology: an introduction to the theory of word structure. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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_____. 1997. The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mayhall, Carole. 1986. Words that hurt; words that heal. Colorado Springs: NAVPress. Moore, Hyatt, ed. 1992. The alphabet makers. Huntington Beach: SIL. Nida, Eugene A. 1986. Sociolinguistics and translating. In Louw, Johannes P., ed. Sociolinguistics and communication. UBS monograph series, no. 1. London: United Bible Societies. 1-49. O’Grady, William, Michael Dobrovolosky and Mark Aronoff. 1993. Contemporary linguistics: an introduction. 2nd edition. New York: St. Martin’s. Oller, John W. and John L. Omdahl. 1994. Origin of the human language capacity: in whose image? In J. P. Moreland, ed. The creation hypothesis. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Pages 235-269. Olson, David R. and Nancy Torrance, eds. 1991. Literacy and orality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orwig, Carol. 1995. Workbook for independent language learners. Ms. Dallas: SIL. Past, Ray. 1970. Language as a lively art. Dubuque: William C. Brown. Pike, Kenneth L. 1943. Phonetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. _____. 1947. Phonemics: a technique for reducing languages to writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. _____. 1974. The linguist and axioms concerning the language of Scripture. Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 26.2:47-51. _____. 1982. Linguistic concepts. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Pike, Kenneth L. and Evelyn Pike. 1982. Grammatical analysis. Dallas: SIL and UTA. Pinker, Steven. 1994. The language instinct. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. Poythress, Vern S. 1984. “Adequacy of language and accommodation.” In Radmacker, Earl D. and Robert D. Preuss, eds. Hermeneutics, innerancy and the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. 351-376. Poythress, Vern S. 1999. God-centered biblical interpretation. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing. Pullum, Geoffrey K. and William A. Ladusaw. 1983. Phonetic symbol guide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Pyles, Thomas and John Algeo. 1993. The origins and development of the English language. 4th ed. Ft Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Radloff, Carla. 1991. Sentence repetition testing. Dallas: SIL. Rheingold, Howard. 1988. They have a word for it: a lighthearted lexicon of untranslatable words and phrases. Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books. Richards, Jack C., John Platt, and Heidi Platt. 1992. Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. Longman. Robins, R. H. 1990. A short history of linguistics. 3rd ed. London: Longman. Romaine, Suzanne. 1988. Pidgin and creole languages. London: Longman. Rubin, Joan and Irene Thompson. 1994. How to be a more successful language learner. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Ruhlen, Merritt. 1976. A guide to the languages of the world. [Stanford, CA]: Language Universals Project, Stanford University. Sampson, Geoffrey. 1980. Schools of linguistics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Sanneh, Lamin. 1989. Translating the message: the missionary impact on culture. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Schaller, Susan. 1995. A man without words. Berkeley: University of California Press. Silva, Moisés. 1983. Biblical words and their meaning: an introduction to lexical semantics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. _____. 1990. God, language and Scripture: reading the Bible in the light of general linguistics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. Smalley, William A. 1991. Translation as mission. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Smith, David I. and Barbara Carvill. 2000. The gift of the stranger. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Stafford, Tim. 1995. “That’s not what I meant.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. Stowell, Joseph M. 1998. The weight of your words. Chicago, IL: Moody Press. Strauss, Mark. 1998. Distorting Scripture?: The challenge of Bible translation and gender accuracy. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Tannen, Deborah. 1987. That’s not what I meant!: how conversational style makes or breaks relationships with others. New York: Ballantine.

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_____. 1990. You just don’t understand: women and men in conversation. New York: Ballantine. _____. 2001. I only say this because I love you. New York: Random House. Tannen, Deborah, ed. 1982. Spoken and written language: exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Taylor, Florence M., compiler. 1975. The bridled tongue: Bible words about words. New Canaan, CN: Keats Publishing, Inc. Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph. 1996. Words that hurt, words that heal. New York: Quill. Trask, R. L. 1993. A dictionary of grammatical terms in linguistics. London: Routledge. Tripp, Paul David. 2000. War of words: getting to the heart of your communication struggles. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing. Trudgill, Peter. 1983. Sociolinguistics: an introduction to language and society. New York: Viking Penguin. UCLA Linguistics Department. 1990. Sounds of a course in phonetics. HyperCard stacks. Los Angeles: UCLA. UCLA Linguistics Department. 1990. Sounds of the world’s languages. HyperCard stacks. Los Angeles: UCLA. Voegelin, C. F. and F. M. Voegelin. 1977. Classification and index of the world’s languages. New York: Elsevier. Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1988. An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Watkins, Morris. 1978. Literacy, Bible reading and church growth through the ages. Pasadena: William Carey Library. Webb, V. N. 1986. Some aspects of the sociolinguistics of Bible translation and exegesis, and of religious language. In Louw, Johannes P., ed. Sociolinguistics and communication. UBS monograph series, no. 1. London: United Bible Societies. 5082. Whaley, Lindsey J. 1997. Introduction to typology: the unity and diversity of language. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1987. English speech act verbs: a semantic dictionary. New York: Academic Press. _____. 1997. Understanding cultures through their keywords. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Joseph. 1986. Origins of the English language: a social and linguistic history. New York: The Free Press.

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Wilson, Clifford A. and Donald McKeon. 1984. The language gap. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1995. Divine discourse: philosophical reflections on the claim that God speaks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Abbreviations CEL The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Crystal, David, ed. 1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. EL

An encyclopaedia of language. Collinge, N. E., ed. 1990. London: Routledge.

IEL

International encyclopedia of linguistics. Bright, William, ed. 1992. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

LE

The linguistics encyclopedia. Malmkjaer, Kirsten, ed. 1991. London: Routledge.

LF

Language Files.

SIL

Summer Institute of Linguistics

UBS

United Bible Societies

WBT Wycliffe Bible Translators WWL Working with Language

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