Descriptive grammar2

Descriptive grammar

30.09.2008

I. How to discover rules governing grammar:

a) ask a native speaker

- native speakers have only tactic (subconscious) knowledge about their language

b) scientific method:

- collect data (corpora, native speakers) develop hypothesis test hypothesis against further data.

- form generalizations: reflexive nouns have to be compatible with antecedent (in number, person and gender)

- test them against further data

II. Language acquisition

- grammar must contain a highly constrained set of principles (ograniczone zasady)

- the child is born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) – is genetically programmed to learn language

*characteristic features:

a) rapidity: language acquisition is a rapid process although the child relies on incomplete evidence

b) uniformity: all children learning the language follow the same pattern

III. Universals

- language ought to share universal properties which are endowed in LAD so that the child does not have to learn them

- what a child learns are only language peculiar properties a child has knowledge of Universal Grammar (Innateness Hypothesis)

*Typology (linguistic universals): covers all branches of grammar, i.e.:

- phonology (e.g. types of sounds or syllable structure)

- morphology (synthetic vs. analytic languages)

- semantics (meaning of words)

- syntax (word-order)

- vocabulary

*Language universals discovered:

- all languages have vowels (i,u,a,e,o) maximal contrast from minimal number of features

- if a language has front rounded vowels, then it also has front unrounded vowels

- if a language has nasal vowels, then it also has oral vowels

- if a language has voiced stops, then it also has voiceless stops

- all languages have pronouns for the speaker and the addressee

- all languages have words for basic things, e.g. colors, body parts, verbs of sensory perception

- lexicon consists of unmarked and marked terms e.g. blue vs. azure

*Types of universals:

a) absolute universals – true for all languages

b) universal tendencies – true for most languages

c) implicational universals – stated as conditions

d) non-implicational universals – stated without conditions

*Beyond Universals:

- languages differ, e.g. in word-order grammar of any language contains core grammar rules (universals) plus some peripheral rules

IV. Language acquisition

- a child learns mostly from positive evidence – by observing sentences illustrating a particular phenomenon

- listening to well-formed sentences a child discovers rules functioning in a particular language

*non-negative evidence hypothesis:

- children do not learn through correction

V. Generative Grammar of English

- areas of grammar interact, e.g. English trisyllabic shortening the rule of trisyllabic shortening works only in morphologically derived contexts. trisyllabic shortening is a process in English whereby long vowels or diphthongs become short monophthongs (lax) in word formation, when followed by two syllables, of which the first syllable is unstressed.

Examples:

divine – divinity

penal – penalty

compete – competition

nation - national


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