Literature :

Fromkin, Victoria ; Rodman Robert (2002) An Introduction to Language. Sixth edition

Bauer, Laurie The Linguistics Student's Handbook

What is Language?

The functions of language:

Informative/communicative: the communication of information

Expressive: reporting feelings or attitudes of the speaker/writer

Directive: causing (or preventing) action.

Performative: performing the action it reports [I'm making you KING lol]

Phatic: maintaining contact

Metalinguistic: using language to talk about language

The main levels of language

Lexicon – speakers mental dictionary [+ information on how to use it]

Syntax – study of the structure of sentences

Morphology – study of the structure of words [how words are built up]

Phonetics – study of the concrete characteristics of sounds [language production perception and translation]

Phonology – The study of how sounds function in a systematic way in a particular language. [more abstract than phonetics]

Semantics – the study of the meanings of words

Pragmatics – the study of how context influences the interpretation of utterances

Graphology – spelling and punctuation

Utterance [wyrażenie] - any speech sequence consisting of one or more words and preceded and followed by silence: it may be coextensive with a sentence.

Structure pragmatics use

medium of grammar meaning (semantics)

transmission morphology syntax lexicon discourse

phonetics + phonology

Grammar is a set of principles or rules governing the form and the meaning of words, phrases, clauses and sentences.

Description VS Prescription

Description does not change anything and prescription imposes rules.

Prescriptivists want to tell you how you ought to speak and write.

Descriptivists want to tell you how people actually do speak and write.

The Saussurean [sosjo :D ] (1857 1913) dichotomies [division into two]

Langue VS parole

Langue is that part of the language which is not complete in any individual, but exists only in the collectivity

Parole is observable in the behaviour of the individual. [the way people use language]

Competence VS Performance

(Chomsky's) I-language E-language (internalised / externalised)

Synchrony VS Diachrony

Synchronic approach - language studied at a particular point in time. [currently or before]

Diachronic approach – how the language changes in the course of time

Grammar 1 Grammar 2 Grammar 3

[ex] 1700 1800 1900

Historical approach - (can be used to describe both approaches)

Paradigmatic VS Syntagmatic

Syntagmatic relationship: present in linearly / sequentially ordered units

Paradigmatic relationship: language is structured in terms of the words (or other elements) which are not there but which could be.

Paradigmatically related elements optionally fill the same structural slot.

This dog bit my foot

S – you can't put this after the dog

P – you can substitute the dog with a cat or a lamb/giraffe/mosquito/

The cat sat on the mat

This girl sits across your bed

Signifier (signifiant) VS Signified (signifié)

Every linguistic sign, every word has its concept [meaning] and its acoustic image (the actual string of sounds).

The relation between the signifé and the signifiant is arbitrary. It means that there is no natural link between a sound sequence and the meaning.

SIGN Sign

signifier signified /gla:s/

(form) (concept) <glass>

Arbitrariness – absence of any necessary connection between a linguistic form and its meaning.

English tree, German baum and French arbre. [if there was no arbitrariness they would probably all sound the same as you would associate the same form with the same meaning]

(vice versa)

The phonetic string of segments /mi:n/ mean vs min (strojenie)

The decision as to which words shall have which meanings is entirely a matter of convention. Different languages have different conventions (that's a part of the reason they are different languages), and conventions can and do change.

Iconicity is a direct correlation between form and meaning. [in science of signs]

Example the signs on toilet doors and oral/aural ones especially sound symbolism and onomatopoeia.

An exception to the university of the Saussurean image of a linguistic sign is the case of onomatopoeia defined in Bolinger as a […] direct imitation of a sound 'in nature' whether it represents the sound itself (bang, whoosh, cough) or something for which the sound stands (a relationship of metonymy).

Wykład 2 21.10.11 READ MORPHOLOGY CHAPTER FROM THE BOOK

Noam Chomsky (1928) – Father of modern linguistics.

Competence and performance [I-Language and E-Language]

Competence – the whole linguistic (subconscious) knowledge of the speaker.

Performance [speech production] – actual use of the knowledge [the act of speaking or writing].

Performance is often taken as a poor guide to competence but competence is the object of study for linguistics.

Generativism and Transformationalism

Generative (approach) – attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences.

“Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.” - Grammatical but not acceptable

“Fearless red foxes attack furiously” - Grammatical and Acceptable

“Furiously sleep ideas green colourless” - NOT OK

Grammaticallity and acceptability

Grammaticallity – When a linguist thinks the sentence can be generated by the rules of the given language.

Acceptability – When a native speaker judges a sentence to be a part of their language.

Correct and incorrect – are terms used in prescriptive grammar.

Deep structure VS Surface structured

Deep structure – the underlying order of elements. It is any level more abstract than the actually occurring surface form. /John write book/

Surface structure – the observable output of the full set of rules /John has written a book/

Language as a mental organ

• Except in pathological cases it is universally present in humans.

• Faults in the language faculty may be inherited.

• It is present only in humans.

• Language is learned extraordinally quickly and probably tiwh critical periods

• We appear to lrean far more than we have evidence for in our linguistic surroundings this is often referred to the problem of poverty of stimulus

• Despite different inputs speakers of the same variety seem to end up with very close

Universal Grammar

Humans have a facility to acquire language rather than the facility to acquire a particular language. Children must have, at birth, certain specifically linguistic expectations in order for them to develop a language from the impoverished data they will actually be provided with. The set of expectations or pre-programmed knowledge is Universal Grammar [UG].

Language Universals are characterised as a set of constraint interactions with the basic hypothesis that there is a set of universal constraints.

A set of wired-in principles that all languages shared along with a set of parameters that they also share but whose values vary cross-linguistically and need to be set upon exposure to language-particular data.

[like every language has to have nouns and verbs / consonants and vowels]

Human and animal languages

The trait which most decisively distinguishes human beings from all other creatures on the planet is perhaps language.

Nearly every creature on the planet seems to have some kind of signalling system some way of communicating with other members of the same species and occasionally even with members of other species.

All human languages are constructed in the way in which bu combining a very small set of meaningless speech sounds in various ways we can produce a very large number of different meaningful items: words. This type of structure is called duality of patterning.

No other species on earth has a signalling system based on duality.

Open-endedness – is our ability to use language to say anything at all, including lots of things we've never said or heard before.

Only human language has the property of stimulus-freedom, which is the ability to say anything you like in any context.

Displacement – is the use of language to talk about things other than the here and now.

Lacking: duality, displacement, open-endedness, stimulus-freedom, - animal signalling systems are almost certainly different from human language.

Creative aspect of language – our ability to create infinite number of sentences /rom a finite number of words and rules.

MORPHOLOGY

Morphology – is the study of the internal structure of words.

A word is what a native speaker thinks a word is.

Word – meaning, form [sound], grammatical category, ortography.

Lexicography – writing or editing dictionaries.

Types of dictionaries:

Classes of words

Lexical content words / open calss words [you can easily add new words like “rozkminić”] : N, V, Adj, Adv

Function words / grammatical words / closed class words [it's difficult to add new words (but it's not le impossible): prepositions, conjunctions, articles, pronouns.

In|differ|ent

My stupid dog has eaten a mouse.

Morpheme – smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function. [eg. “up, “dis”(ability), (just)”ify”, “crocodile” [ as it cannot be divided in any way].

Free morphemes: single morphemes that are words [eg. Shoe]

Bound morphemes [Affix]: cannot appear on their own and have to be attached to other morphemes [“dis” / “ify”]

Types of word-formation

• Potentially productive, rule governed methods of word-coinage such as affixation, compounding, internal modification, back derivation, conversion.

• Not rule-governed word-manufacturing : “More or less arbitrary parts of words may be welded into an artificial new word.” Blending, acronymization, clipping.

Affixation – attaching a bound morpheme to a stem or a root [main part of the word] morpheme.

Root morpheme – the base of the word, lexical content morpheme, happy work

Stem morpheme – the root + derivational affixes (but without inflectional affixes) eg. Unhappy worker

Inflectional Affixes :

s – third singular present “she waits at home”

ed – past tense

ing – progressive “she's eating the doughnut”

en – past part. “she's eaten the doughnut”

s – plural

s – possessive

er – comparative

est – superlative

[do not change the cognitive meaning or the category of words /are more regular (more productive as you can add them to many words ) / convey the grammatical meaning ]

All other morphemes are derivational affixes. [may change the meaning of the word and its category / also they stand closer to the root of the word than the inflectional affixes “workser” / convey ]

Types of affixation:

Suffix – an affix (bound morpheme) attached after the root or stem of the word [actors / happiness] [eg. Ness in happiness is a suffix that changes an adjective into an abstract noun]

Prefix – an affix (bound morpheme) attached before the root or stem.

[eg. Unhappy]

Infix - an affix (bound morpheme) inserted into another morpheme. [not “into another word”]

Interfix – an affix (bound morpheme) inserted between two root morphemes (G. Geburtstag / PL śrubokręt]

Circumfix – an affix (bound morpheme) attached before and after a root or stem of a word G. Geliebt.

[additional info: in- im- ir- il- are one morpheme that is “in-”

im-possible – bilabial sounds

ir-responsible – if the next sound after /r/

il-literate – if the next sound is /l/

in-convenient [/v/s/d/shwa/f//n/k] used by default in all other cases

^ allhomorphs

Complimentary distribution – might be applied to morphology and to phonology. If one thing appears another thing cannot.

Diminutive [zdrobnienie] vs Augmentative

Diminutive – piglet, sapling, duckling, kitchenette, birdie,

COMPOUNDING – Combining two independent words (N, V, Adj) to form a new lexeme.

In compounds the first part is stressed “White house” where the president whereas “a white house” is any house.

Hyponym – is a member of a class.

Types of compounds:

Endocentric – modifier + head (paraphrasable by “a kind of) eg. Pipe tobacco, garden party, strongman

Exocentric (bahuvrihi) – Someone or something marked by what is expressed in the composite determinant eg. Greenhorn, highbrow, pickpocket, sawbones, skinhead,

The head of the compound is not expressed in the root morphemes. [Pickpocket is not a type of a pocket but a person]. You cannot guess the meaning of the word when you look at what is combined.

Appositional – both elements are equally important eg. Girlfriend, woman doctor.

Dvandva – No subordination between two nouns ('and' could be inserted in between) eg. Bosnia-Herzegovina, speaker-listener,

“wynieś, przynieś, pozamiataj”

INTERNAL MODIFICATION (APOPHONY) – Replacing within a word a phonological segment with another one..

vowel modification:

ablaut – grammatically conditioned: ring – rang / sing – sang / bind – bound

umlaut – phonologically conditioned: foot – feet / tooth – teeth / man – men

Consonant modification – belief – believe / advice – advise / wreath – wreathe

Mixed modification – catch – caught / teach taugh / life - live / bath – bathe/

Total modification (suppletion) – [is a part of inflectional morphology only]:

go – went / good – better [it's the same word but in a different tense]

BACK-DERIVATION / FORMATION

The formation of a new lexeme by the delition of a (supposed) suffix from an apparently complex form by analogy with other lexemes.

Editor → edit

Negation → negate

Television → televise

Glob-trotter → glob-trot

Laser → light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

Proofreading → proofread

bułka → buła

piłka → piła

CONVERSION – no formal change between the putative base and the derivative.

A pilot → to pilot

to cook → a cook

empty → to empty

Linguistics 5

BLENDING

It's a process which is not rule-governed. A process of word-coinage whereby phonetic fragments of two (or more) basic words, usually isolated with complete disregard for morphological boundaries, are put together to make a single lexeme.

sm(oke) and (h)aze > smaze

sk(irt) and (sh)ort > skort

sn(ow) and (s)urfing > snurfing

ba(gno) and (jez)ioro > bajoro

alcohol and holiday > alcoholiday

Maria and Magdalene> Marlene

haker and aktywista > haktywista

ACRONYMIZATION

Acronyms are pronounced as word, while alphabetisms/initialisms are pronounced letter by letter.

Alphabetisms/initialisms:

e.g. < exempli gratia

GI < government issue

OD < on duty

Acronyms:

NIMBY – not in my back yard

PESEL – Powszechny Elektroniczny System Ewidencji Ludności

CLIPPING – a polysyllabic lexeme is shortened in an arbitrary fashion and the form thus obtained usually retains the semantic and syntactic function of the original.

Back-clipping – the beginning of the lexeme is preserver and the 'cut' is made irrespectively of morphological boundaries.

civvy = civilian

disco = discotheque

gas = gasoline

info = information

Fore-clipping – the final part of the word is kept and the beginning is severed irrespectively of morphological boundaries.

Beth = Elizabeth

berg = iceberg

burger = hamburger

bus = omnibus

plane = aeroplane

Clipping-compounds

Amerind = Amer(ican) Ind(ian)

Comintern = com(munist) intern(ational)

Eurasia = Eur(ope) Asia

paratrooper = para(chute) trooper

pixel = pict(ure) el(ement)

sitcom = sit(uational) com(edy)

Circumclipping – both the beginning and the end of the word that are clipped.

Liz = Elizabeth

Ves = Sylvester

Zeke = Ezekiel

flu = influenza

fridge = refrigerator

specs expectations

tec = detective

mid-clipping – an arbitrary central part of a word is removed.

nietomny = nieprzytomny

psor = profesor

Ik, Ike = Izaak, Isaac

Fr. mise = merchandise 'commercial goods', 'commodities'.

Eponyms – words derived from proper names

sandwich < Earl of Sandwich

denim < de Nemes

boycott < Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott

chauvinism < Nicolas Chauvinism

lenonki < John Lennon

Lexical gap – a possible form without a meaning or a meaning without a form.

Tler, sprond, theng

dead human – corpse

dead animal – carcass

dead plant – (lexical gap)

lexeme vs. word-form

Lexeme – abstract, general sense of a word (GO)

Word-form – physical manifestation of a lexeme (go, goes, went)

MATK- > matka

ŁADN- > ładny

Productivity

-et/-ar, ex-, un, -ness, - dom, -th, -ric

bishop > bishopric

Blocking stealer – thief

SYNTAX

Constituency: the idea that syntactic units are not simply arbitrarily grouped and ordered but form identifiable units.

Four different levels of structure at which constituents can occur:

sentences → clauses → phrases → words

The linear and hierarchical nature of syntax

foreign language specialist – syntactic/structural ambiguity

(a)

foreign language specialist

(b)

foreign language specialist

Constituents have forms at all four levels of structure:

Word Classes: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, etc.

Phrases: noun phrase verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase

Clauses: main, dependent

Sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory

Parts of the sentence

subject vs. predicate

Some features of the subject: the subject has a close general relation to “what is being discussed” the “theme” of the sentence.

The subject determines concord and changes its position.

Predicates are divided into auxiliary (operator) and predication

The verb ohrase may have several auxiliaries:

I should have been informed about it. (the first is the operator)

Two types of objects and compliments:

Direct object / indirect object

subject complement / object complement

The direct object is more frequent and it must always be present if there is an indirect object in the sentence.

The indirect object almost always precedes the direct object it is characteristically a noun referring to a person and the semantic relationship is receptive.

[Cs → subject complement Co → object complement]

The girl is now a student (Cs) at a large university.

His brother grew happier (Cs) gradually.

The Cs has a straightforward relation to the subject of the sentence.

They make him the chairman (Co) every year.

Co has a similar relation to an Od (which it follows) as the Cs has to a subject.

Categories of verbs:

Intensive vs. extensive

Intensive verbs take subject complements:

His brother (S) grew (V) happier (C) gradually.

Extensive divide into transitive and intransitive.

[intransitive verb in a sentence don't take objects] → It rained steadily all day.

Transitive verbs take objects and divide further into: transitive, ditransitive and complex transitive

Some parts of speech

Adjunct: an optional element of sentence structure. [usually adverbial in nature]

Adposition: prepositions (Np: Eng. To the concert)

postpositions (NP: as ni in Jap. Konosaato ni (to the concert)

Adverb: Literally adverb modifies a verb e.g. She ran quickly. They also modify adjectives “a particularly intelligent person” or whole sentences “unfortunately they could not come”

Article: E definite the and indefinite a(n). A type of determiner.

Conjunctions: link elements together. Divide into coordinating conjunctions and, but, or or subordinating conjunctions because, if, when

Determiner: associated with nouns and express notions such as quantity, definiteness and possession.

Interjection: e.g. Ow! Gosh! - no relations with the other words in the sentence, standing aside

Participle: has verbal fatures and nominal or adjectival features loving (gerund) desired (PPP)

Particle: short uninflected grammatical words:

Pronoun: something which stands for a noun (phrase)

Pro-sentence: yes and no standing for complete sentences.

Quantifier: Some linguist separate out quantifiers such as each, all, every and numerals from the set of determiners and treat them as a different class.

Syntactic category: an expression that can substitute another without loss of grammaticality.

Sentence, noun, verb, article, noun phrase, verb phrases, adjective, pronoun, proper noun, adverb, preposition, prepositional phrase

My dog is what I'm looking for. - Noun / Noun phrase

I can't take it. - verb

I will do it. - modal verb

The pretty girl. - Adjectives

MUCHO IMPORTANTE

XP

(Specifier) X

X (Complement(s))

[head of the phrase]

Speaker a: What is the government planning to do?

Speaker b: Reduce taxes.

The grammatical properties of reduce taxes are determined by the verb reduce, and not by the noun taxes > reduce is the head of the phrase reduce taxes and conversely the phrase reduce taxes is a projection of the verb reduce (I.e a larger expression whose head word is the verb reduce)

Labelled bracketing:

[VP [V reduce] [N taxes] ]

VP

V N

Reduce Taxes

speaker a: What's the government's principal objective?

Speaker b: To reduce taxes.

To reduce taxes is an infinitive phrase not a VP because of a different distribution from Vps:

1 They ought [to reduce taxes]

2 They ought [reduce taxes] [WRONG]

3 The should [reduce taxes]

4 They should [to reduce taxes] [WRONG]

What kind of word is infinitival “to” ? It is similar to the modal verb will [both refer tu a future event / they appear in the same position ]

Everyone expects [ the government will reduce taxes before the election]

Everyone expects [ the government to reduce taxes before the election]

The core function of an auxiliary is to mark tense > finite auxiliaries [e.g. will] and infinitival to both belong belong to the category T of Tense-marker.

T (infinitival) tense particle, TP = (infinitival) tense phrase

TP

T VP

to

V N

reduce taxes

TP

Specifier T'

T Complement

[will/to/many/be]

Similarities between infinitival to and auxiliaries like will/would, can, etc

-to typically occupies the same position in a clause as an auxiliary

-both require a V in the inf. Form to/will show

-inf. To behaves like a typical auxiliary (eg. Will) but unlike a typical verb (e.g. want) in allowing ellipsis [omission] of its complement:

a. I don't really want to go to the dentist's, but I know I eventually will

b. I know I should go to the dentist's, but I just don't want to

c.I know I should go to the dentist's, but I just don't want. [WRONG]

speaker a: What will the government do?

Speaker b: Will try to reduce taxes. [WRONG]

Will try to reduce taxes is an incomplete phrase – only complete phrases can answer questions.

Tests for constituency

co-ordination -

a. [fond of cats] and [afraid of dogs]

b. [slowly] but [surely]

c. [to go] or [to stay] ← tense phrase

a: what did he do?

B: run up the hill and up the mountain.

A: what did he do?

B: Ring up the electricity company and up the gas company. [WRONG]

up the hill is a PP

up the electricity company is not a constituent of the phrase ring up the electricity company

ring up forms a complex verb “to telephone”

Constraint: Only similiar constituents can be conjoined; non-constituent strings cannot be conjoined.

Agreement, case assignment and selection

a. He has resigned [NOT have]

b We have resigned [NOT has]

TP

T'

PRN T V

He / We has/have resigned

A finite T constituent agrees in person and number with its specifier/subject.

He has resigned.

Him has resigned [WRONG]

She wants [him to be there].

Nominative-subject clauses are finite he has resigned (by virtue of containing a finite T constituent has / have) whereas accusative-subject clauses are not.

Case assignment conditions in English

A noun or pronoun expression is assigned:

a. A nominative case if the specifier of a finite T (i.e. the subject of a finite clause)

b. Genetive case if a possessor (i.e. an entity possessing something)

c. Accusative case otherwise (by default, if ineligible for nominative or genitive case)

a. A:You've been lying to me. B: What! Me lie to you? Never!

b. I have never understood syntax, me.

c. A: Who has finished the assignemt? B:Me.

d. A:Who is it? B it's me.

In (a) me is the subject of the non-finite lie clause (lie here is a non-finite infinitive form) and so receives accusative case by the default.

In (b) the topic pronoun me at the end of the sentence receives accusative case by default.

In (c) me is used as a sentence fragment and hence carries default accusative.

In (d) me is used as the complement of the verb be and carries default accusative case.

He is taking French

He has taken French

He will take French

TP

T'

PRN T VP

He is/has/will

V N

taking/taken/take French

Auxiliaries have selectional properties which determine the kind of complement they select.

Sentence formation not only involves merger operations, but also a series of other operations involving agreement, case-marking and selection.

Syntactic structures can also contain covert, null or empty constituents - “silent” constituents which have no overt phonetic form.

a. He was laughing and she was crying.

b. He was laughing and she – crying.

The auxiliary was has been omitted in (b) to avoid repetition. (a kind of ellipsis known as gaping)

TP

T'

PRN

She

T V

ɸ Crying

PRO: the empty subject of infinitive clauses

We would like [you to stay].

We would like [to stay].

Apparently subjectless inf. Clauses contain an understood null subject. Since the null subject found in inf. Clauses has much the same grammatical properties as pronouns, it is designated as PRO.

TP

T'

VP

TP

T'

We would like you

We would like PRO

T V

to stay

to stay

The null subject PRO in (b) is controlled by (refers back to) the subject we of the would clause (we is the controller or antecedent of PRO)

Verbs such as like which an infinitive complement with a PRO subject are said to function (in the relevant use) as control verbs, and the clause containing the PRO subject is..........

Empty complementiser (Conjunctions): All clauses contain an overt or null T constituent.

Clauses can be introduced by clause-introducing particles (if/that/for) (traditionally conjunctions but now complementisers)

Apparently complementiserless clauses can be argued to be Cps headed by a null complementiser.

a. We didn't know [if he had resigned]

b. We didn't know [that he had resigned]

c. We didn't know [he had resigned]

Clause in (c) can only be interpreted as synonymous with (b).

CP

TP

C

if/that/ɸ

T'

PRN

He

T V

had resigned

Evidence: co-ordination (only constituents of the same type can be co-ordinated):

We didn't know [he had resigned] or [that he had been accused of corruption]

so "he had resigned" is also a complementiser.

ɸ – empty complementiser

What about main (= root = principal = independent) clauses?

I am feeling thirsty.

A Uniformity Principle requires that all expressions of the same type belong to a uniform category. Since a declarative that-clause is clearly a Complementiser Phrase (CP) it follows from the Unifromity Principle that all other declarative clauses (including declarative main clauses) must be Cps.

A declarative main clause like I am thirsty is a CP headed by a null declarative complementiser.

CP

C TP

PRN T'

T VP

V A

Feeling Thirsty

This kind of behaviour, nobody can tolerate it.

The topic (this kind of behaviour) of the sentence appears to be positioned somewhere outside the comment clause.

CP

DP C'

this

kind C TP

of

behaviour PRN T'

nobody

T VP

can

V PRN

tolerate it

What about non-finite clauses? (clauses in which the verb is not inflected) [the main topic will be movement].

a. I will arrange [for them to see a specialist]

b. She wanted [him to apologise]

For-to infinitive clauses such as (a) are Cps, since they are introduced by the infinitival complementisers for.

The complement of want is indeed introduced by for when the infinitive complement is separated from the verb want in some way:

She wanted more than anything for him to apologise.

A pseudo-cleft sentence:

What she really wanted was for him to apologise.

Pseudo-cleft sentences: "What John bough was a car" where the italicised expression is said to be focused and to occupy focus position within the sentence.

She wanted [CP] [Cɸ] [TP him [T to] apologise]]

Control clauses must be Cps headed by a null infinitival complementiser.

I will arrange [PRO to see a specialist]

CP

TP

T'

C PRN T VP

for them to see a specialist

Evidence:

I will arrange [to see a specialist] and [ for my wife to see one at the same time]

Brackets can be co-ordinated so they are the same constituents.

Empty Determiners

Speaker a: What did you learn from visit to Milan?

Speaker b: That the Italians do love the opera. (reply 1)

Italians love opera. [reply 2]

The Italians and thd the opera comprise a determiner (D) and noun (N), and so can be analysed as determiner phrases (Dps)

CP

C TP

That

ɸ DP T'

D N T VP

the Italians do

ɸ ɸ V DP

love

D N

the opera

ɸ

Evidence:

a. Egss are fattening.

b. Bacon is fattening.

c. I had eggs for breakfast.

d. I had bacon for breakfast.

The nouns eggs and bacon in (a,b) have a generic interpretation (eggs / bacon in general)

In (c,d) they have a partitive interpretation (' some eggs/bacon)

If we say that indeterminative nominals are DPs headed by a null generic/partitive determine ɸ , we can say that the semantic properties of ɸ determine that bare nominals will be interpreted as generically or partitively quantified.

N. kot

G. kota

D.kotu

Acc. Kota

Ins. Kotem

The lack of the inflectional ending in the first one [zero morpheme] marks the Nominative case so it is meaningful.

Speaker a : What did our president telll your prime minister?

Speaker b: That we Brits do envy Yanks. (reply 1)

We anvy you. (reply 2)

CP

C TP

That

DP T'

D N T VP

We Brits do

V DP

envy

D N

you yanks

CP

C TP

ɸ

D T

We

T VP

ɸ

V D

envy you

As all clauses as C-projections, all nominals are D-projections:

Determinate nominals are DPs headed by an overt determiner;

Indeterminate nominals are DPs headed by a null determiner

Pronouns are determiners used without a complement

The null pronoun PRO is a null determiner used without a complement

DP

D N

ɸ eggs

the bacon

I

PRO

Movement:

Clauses typically have a CP+TP+VP

speaker a: What did he want to know?

Speaker b: If the president was lying.

CP

C TP

If

DP T'

D N T V

the president was lying

Head movement:

speaker a: What's the question that everyone asking?

Speaker b: Was the president lying?

What position does an inverted auxiliary was move into?

If the inverted auxiliary moves into the head C position of CP, an inverted auxiliary and a complementiser are mutualy exclusive.

Speaker a: What did the journalist from the Daily Dirge ask you?

Speaker b: If was the president lying [WRONG]

CP

C TP

DP T

the president

T V

was lying

Head movement – movement of a word from the head position in one phrase into the head position in another phrase.

What happens to the head T position of TP once it is vacated by movement of the inverted auxiliary into C?

It's not an empty constituent any longer.

When a constituent moves from one position in a structure to another, the position out of which it moves remains intact and is filled by a silent copy of the moved constituent (a trace of the moved constituent (t)).

a. They have gone

b. They've gone

a. Will they have gone?

b. Will they've gone? [WRONG beacuse you have to have a full have]

Movement of will into C leaves a silent copy behind in the T position out of which will moves:

[CP [C will] [TP they [T will] have gone]]?

CP

C TP

ɸ

DP T'

They

T V

Have gone

Operator movement:

Where are the bold-face pre-auxiliary constituents positioned in:

a. What languages can you speak?

b. No other colleague would I trust

Each of the pre-auxiliary phrases contains a determiner which is said to have the semantic function of being an operator:

what – an interrogative operator (wh-operator)

no – a negative operator

Expressions containg such operator are called operator expressions.

Each of the operator expressions functions as the complement of the verb at the end of the sentence.

a. You can speak what languages? An wh-in-situ question [everything is in place with no movement]

b. I would trust no other colleague.

They are moved into some position preceding the inverted auxiliary

Inverted auxiliaries occupy the head C position in CP.

+ preposed operator phrases aremoved into some pre-head (specifier) position within CP.

= preposed operator phrases occupy the specifier position within CP (spec-CP)

CP

Spec C

DP

What languages C TP

can

D T

you

T VP

V DP

speak

1. – head movement (of a head from T to C0

2. - operator movement (wh-movement) (of an operator expression into the specifier position within CP)

Operator movement:

I'm not sure which senators the president has spoken to.

The wh-operator expression"which senators" originates as the complement of the preposition "to".

But where does it move to?

CP

DP C'

which senators

C TP

ɸ

DP T

the president

T VP

has

V PP

spoken

P DP

to t

The head C position is filled by a covert complimentiser ɸ

/////////////

Who do you think will say what?

What who do you think will say? [INCORRECT]

CP

D C'

who

C TP

do

D T'

you

T VP

t

V TP

think

D T

t

T VP

will

V D

say what

Economy Principle

Minimise grammatical structure and movement operations (i.e. Posit as little structure as possible, and move as few constituents as possible the shortes distance possible)

Topicalisation

This kind of behaviour no teacher can tolerate.

CP

DP C'

this kind of beh.

C TP

ɸ

DP T'

no teacher

T VP

can

V DP

tolerate [this kind of behaviour]

Other types of movement:

Passivisation

a. The press reported [that the thieves stole the jewels.]

b. The press reported [that the jewels were stolen (by the thieves)]

Four properties distinguishing passive from active clauses.

*passive + the auxiliary be

*passive + the -n participle form

*passive +/- a by-phrase

*the complement of the active verb becomes the subject in the passive construction.

Passive subjects are moved from complement position within VP into the subject/specifier position within TP. [Tense Phrase]

CP

C TP

that

DP T'

the jewels

T VP

were

V DP

stolen

Arguments of verbs – subjects and complements

Passivisation: because the passivised DP moves from complement position to subject position (from one argument position to another); it is referred to as A-movement (Argument movement).

A-bar movement -i.e. movement of a constituent to the specifier in CP (a non-argument position = a non-subject specifier position at the beginning of the clause), e.g. operator movement and topicalisation.

PRACTICE AT HOME

My students I do like.

Have you met my father?

When are you going home?

The soldier was shot.

SEMANTICS

Types of meaning :

Grammatical meaning = the meaning of a word by reference to its function within a sentence rather than a world outside the sentence.

A dog barked. A dog barks. Did a dog bark? Etc.

Pragmatic meaning describes meaning as product of the social context in which language takes place.

(the same sentence may mean different things depending on the context)

We're going to be late > a polite way to tell sb to “hurry up”.

“What are you drinking?” > offering something to drink

Eng, Thank you, Pol. Dziękuje, Fr. Merci

Lexical meaning: the meaning of a word in relation to the physical world or to abstract concepts, without reference to any sentence in which the world may occur.

Semantics is the study of meanings as stored in language, waiting to be put to use. Pragmatics focuses on how speakers and writers actually use their language knowledge to convey meanings.

Semantic features

table horse boy man girl woman

Animate - + + + + +

Human - - + + + +

Female - - - - + +

Adult - - - + - +

Semantic feature – the common element of meaning

Redundancy rule: redundant information can be left unspecified in the grammar.

[for example all of them are under category “things” so it does not change our analysis.

Application:

We can say that at least part of the meaning of the word girl in English involves the elements [+human / +female / -adult]

We can predict which nouns make some sentences semantically odd:

The is reading the newspaper. N [+human]

SENTENCE, UTTERANCE, DISCOURSE

I'm hungry – a beggar who has not eaten all day

I'm hungry – a child who hopes to put off going to bed

The same sentences but different utterance

An utterance = an act of speech or writing ; it is specific event, at a particular time and place and involving at least one person, the one who produces the utterance, but usually more than one person. An utterance happens just once.

An utterance is often part of a larger discourse – a conversation, a formal lecture, a poem, a short story a business letter, a love letter etc.

Semantic roles ('thematic roles') [IMPORTANTE]

The boy kicked the ball.

The boy – the entity that performs the action, The Agent.

The ball – the entity that is involved in or affected by the action' the Theme / Patient

The boy cut himself.

The boy is agent and himself is theme. (even though they are they same entity)

The boy cut the rope with an old razor.

He drew the picture with a crayon.

“an old razor” and “a crayon” are instruments

The boy feels sad.

The semantic role of experiencer = an entity as the person who has a feeling, perception or state.

Did you hear that noise?

“you” - experiencer

“that noise” - patient / theme

Where an entity is (on the table, in the room) fills the role of location.

We drove from Chicago to New Orleans.

Where the action started and where it is directed.

Chicago is source (where it moves from)

New Orleans goal (where it goes)

I transferred money from savings to checking.

I – agent

money – patient

savings – source

checking – goal

Causative – a natural force that causes a change

The wind damaged the roof.

Possessor – one who has something

The tail of the dog got caught in the door.

The Theta-Criterion:

A particular thematic role may occur only once in a clause.

Experiencer, theme, location

Agent, theme, possessor [source]

Agent, theme, instrument

Agent, theme, goal

Agent

REFERENCE : what an expression stands for in a certain utterance

This pen – [the pen you can see in my hand.]

DENOTATION: the whole class of individuals named by this lexeme

pen [the whole class of pens]

SEMANTIC RELATION

Synonymy: words having the (near) same meaning:

help/assist

common / ubiquitous

hard / difficult

almost / nearly

Synonyms can often be substituted for each other in sentences.

Antonymy: words having opposite meanings (light/dark, big small)

Binary and non-binary antonyms

Binary : on/off, open/ shut, dead/alive

With non-gradable antonyms (complementary pairs) comparative constructions are not normally used (there is no middle ground) (alive/dead)

Non-Binary antonyms (polar antonyms) :old/young, wide/narrow

They are opposite ends of a scale that includes various intermediate terms

long short / tall short / high low / old young /

In each of the pairs of measure adjectives, one member is marked and one unmarked (global member). (the member which is used normally – neutral)

How old are you? (there is no additional meaning saying that someone is old or young, a neutral question)

Binary antonyms

Converse antonyms (relational opposites)

Converseness is a kind of antonymy between two terms.

For any two converse relation terms X and Y, if [a] is the X of [b] then [b] is the Y of [a].

Husband of / wife of

employer of / employee of

buy/sell

parent/child

Directional opposites:

above / below

in front of / behind

left of / right of

west / east

Reversives:

Enter / exit

pack / unpack

lenghten / shorten

tie / untie

Hyponymy describes what happens when we say “Something is a kind of something” (meaning inclusion).

The included terms are the Hyponyms.

Hyponyms – words whose meanings are included in the meaning of a more general word.

The lexeme at the top is the superordinate term, or hypernym.

E.g. apple → fruit = apple is the hyponym of fruit ; fruit is the hypernym / superordinate of apple

dog → animal

actress → woman

daisy, rose, tulip are co-hyponyms of flower

desk, table, sofa → furniture

Meronymy – the semantic relation that holds between a part and the whole.

Arm → body (arm is a part of body [Meronym] / Body is the holonym of arm)

petal → flower [petal = Meronym / flower = Holonym]

Prototypes: Among any group of co-hyponyms, certain words will be more prototypical than others. While the words canary, cormorant, dove, duck, flamingo, parrot, pelican, and robin, are all equally co-hyponyms of the superordinate bird. They are not all considered to be equally good examples of the category “bird”. The most characteristic instance of the category “bird” seems to be robin.

The idea of 'the characteristic instance' of a category is known as the prototype. (resemblance to the clearest example).

A prototype is an object or referent that is considered typical of the whole set. Thus, if you encounter the lexeme door in isolation and immediately think of a door swinging on hinges rather than one that slides or rotates, that kind of door, is for you, the prototype of all doors.

Polysemy – one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings that are all related by extension (conceptually and/or historically).

E.g.

Mouth

• part of a river

• entrance of a cave

• part of the body
  
  

(all are openings to different things)

Homonyms : Two or more words that are pronounced the same and spelled the same but have different meanings

Homophones: Two or more words that are pronounced the same but have different spellings and different meanings.

Homonymy:

Two or more words are homonyms if they either sound the same (homophones), have the same spelling (homographs) , or both, but do not heave related meanings.

Homographs:

bank (of a river) – bank (financial institution)

bat (flying creature) – bat (used in sports)

homophones:

bear / bare

flour / flower

to / too / two

meat / meet

Polysemous words have a single entry in a dictionary.

Homonyms will typically have several entries.

Heteronyms – homographs pronounced differently:

lead – guide lead – metalinguistic

Bow – a weapon bow – bend

Figures of speech

metaphor

simile

personification

paradox

metonymy – The use of an attribute in place of the whole. (crown as the king)

oxymoron

apostrophe

chiasmus – a balanced structure, in which the main elements are reversed:

Love's fire heats water, water cools not love

Entailment

a That animal is a collie.

b That animal is a dog.

c! That animal is a collie, but it is not a dog.

(Sentence C contradicts A and B)

The inference that (b) is true whenever (a) is true – provided the animal referred to is the same one – is an example of entailment.

Today I was late for work. (it entails that I have a job)

It's a sandal.

Entails

a It's an item of footwear.

b It's got a sole.

c Its upper upper part is ventilated.

Entailments are conclusions (inferences) which are guaranteed to be true given the truth of an initial proposition. [a declarative sentence]

A sentence (S1) entails a sentence (S2) if and only if whenever S1 is true, S2 is also true.

Has Peter stopped smoking?

Would you like another cake?

Contradiction – a negative entailments

Married bachelor.

Ambiguity, context

Expressions that make crucial use of the location of entities relative to speaker are called deictic and the act of using them is called deixis.

I don't want to be here. The meanings may be different.

Person deixis

(e.g. I, me, my, you, yours, verb endings in some languages)

Time deixis

(e.g. then, yesterday, now, in five minutes, verb tenses)

Place deixis

(e.g. this, that, here, there, above, behind, left, right, come, go)

I'll meet you here tomorrow at 3 o'clock and I'll give you one.

He is putting the ball on the green.

Put – to place something

put – to hit a golf ball lightly

She cannot bear children.

Anaphora – the process of replacing a longer expression appearing in a preceding utterance with a shorter one

(coreference of one expression with its antecedent)

Cataphora – Forward references.

As he was unaccustomed to it, Jake found the pressure very hard to deal with.

Gapping

Speech act theory

When our words perform some action, we say that they are performing a speech act. A speech act as the action performed by a speaker with an utterance. These types of utterance are called performative.

Performative verbs: baptize

Marrying - [pronounce you man and wife]

Sentencing - [I sentence you to live imprisonment.

Naming - [I name this ship Titanic]

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The structure of our language in large measure affects the way we perceive the world.

The theory of culturally based “ways of speaking”

Eng. Ape, monkey – Pol. Małpa

Articulatory -how the vocal tract produces the sounds

Acoustic – the study of the physical properties of the sounds themselves

Fundamental frequency (perceived as pitch) – how fast the variations of the air pressure occurs (Hz)

Intensity (perceived as loudness) – rel. to the amplitude of the vibration.

Duration (length)

spectograms (voiceprints)

OBRAZKI

Auditory – the way listeners perceive the sounds of language

accent vs. dialect

accent – differences in pronunciation

dialect – refer not only to pronunciation but also different vocabulary

na pole vs na dwór

RP (received pronunciation), BBC pronunciation

written vs spoken language, letter vs. phoneme

Did he believe that Caesar could see the people seize the seas? (different letters same sound [i:]

dame dad father call village many (same letter different letters)

phoneme vs allophone

Phoneme : an abstract representation of a sound which changes the meaning of the word. They have several Allophones.

Phoneme /l/ > clear [l]: before a vowel as in <light> | syllabic [l] : as in <little> | dark [l] <ball> <help> | devoiced [l] : <play> <butler>

The production depends on the context.

Allophone : is a physical realisation of a phoneme. (the actual sound you produce)

complementary distribution : a phenomenon which prohibits one version of something when another version occupies the slot.

minimal pair: a pair of words which differs in one single sound (ten / den)

phonetic ([]) vs. phonemic (/ /) transcription

vowel vs consonants

phonological definition (distribution) [no C after h-, no V after BI)

phonetic definition (vowels)

median (no /l/), frictionless (no, e.g /s/) continuant (no e.g /p/)

Problems:

/j/ /w/ /r/ - phonologically Cs, phonetically Vs (semi vowels)

/n/ /l/ - phonetically Cs, phonoligcally may be Vs (syllabic Cs)

obstruents vs sonorants (noise component)

Obstruents (+ noise components) : plosives, fricatives, affricates

Sonorants (- noise component) : voiced nasals, approximants (frictionless continuants: /l/ /r/ /j/ /w/

VOWELS

Important features in vowel-like sounds:

The position of the soft palate (raised or lowered)

Oral sounds vs Nasal sounds

The kind of aperture (otwarcie) formed by the lips

Spread sea /i:/

neutral /e/ set

rounded:

close rounded /u:/ shoe

open rounded /o/ sock

The part of the tongue which is raised and the degree of raising

Final or voiced C vs. voiceless C. context

/i:/ bead, bee vs beat ~ bid /I/

Diphtongs

Centring [ending in shwa]

Closing [ending in I or U]

Consonants:

Whether the air comes from lungs: pulmonic or nonpulmonic

Airstream going outwards (egressive) or sucked inwards (ingressive)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^not importante

voiced or voicless

oral or nasal (position of the soft palate)

place of articulation : where does closure or narrowing take place?

Manner of articulation : type of closure or narrowing