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