19. Properties of language (design features of lg)
communicative & informative -
lg is used for communication (o, rly?) and passing information. You combine sounds into words, words into phrases, phrases into sentences. We can talk about things different that the here and now (displacement). We know which sentences make sense and which doesn't, which to use in particular context etc. We know therefore we know the language so we are able to communicate. Makes sense.
productivity
The duality of patterning (use of a small number of meaningless elements in combination to produce a large number of meaningful elements) allows us to express an unlimited number of different meanings. If we were using one sound for one meaning, that would be pointless.
Thanks to lg we can communicate everything, with no particular reason and in any context, and technically there's nothing that could stop you (stimulus freedom). The number of possible sentences to create is limitless - technically you can say everything, only sometimes it would make no sense, but language allows you to do that. The ability of saying (communicating) and understanding things you never heard/said before is called open-endedness
signal arbitrariness
The connection between a linguistic form (word) and its meaning is only an agreement. Speakers of one lg agree that “spider” means “that ugly creature that makes cobwebs” and use it in this way and it's fine as long as they agree about it. However, it may change with time - “spider” may got new meaning, connotation may change etc.
Language has also “non-arbitrary” elements. Those are iconicities -
onomatopoeia - the representation of sounds by words of similar sound. Moo, blah, boom.
phonoaesthesia - the sound of the word reflects (correlates to) features of the `meaning'. So with a spider - in language X the sound of a word for cat will remind you of fluffy, purring predator.