What is Language &

How Do We Study it?

Morphology & Syntax
Chapter 1
Ubaidullah A Qazi
Spring 21
  What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a Language
 Human Language Vs Animal Communication
 Is language unique to humans?
 Design Features of Language (Charles Hockett)

Chapter 1  What is Grammar

 The Components of Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive Grammar
 Universal Grammar
 Sign Language Grammar

 The Scientific Study of Language

 Chomsky & Generative Grammar

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 The Essence of Human Language
 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language
 Human Language Vs Animal
Communication Language is to convey various kinds of
 Is language unique to information from the everyday to the highly
humans?
 Design Features of academic.
Language (Charles Hockett)
 What is Grammar
 The Components of
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive Language provides a means for us to describe
Grammar
 Universal Grammar
how to cook, how to remove cherry stains, how
 Sign Language Grammar to understand English grammar, or how to
provide a convincing argument.
 The Scientific Study of
Language
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar 3

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 Defining Language
 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a Language is a primarily human and non-instinctive
Language method of communicating ideas, emotions and
 Human Language Vs Animal desire by means of a system of voluntarily produced
Communication symbols’ (Sapir, 1921)
 Is language unique to
humans?
 Design Features of
Language (Charles Hockett)
 What is Grammar ‘Language may be defined as the expression of
 The Components of thought by means of speech sounds’ (Sweet,
Grammar 1993)
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Grammar
 Universal Grammar
 Sign Language Grammar
 The Scientific Study of ‘Language is a system of conventional, spoken or
Language written symbols by means of which human beings, as
 Chomsky & Generative members of a social group and participants in its
Grammar culture, communicate’ (Encyclopedia Britannica)
4

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 Language is made up of socially shared rules
that include the following:
 What words mean (e.g., "star" can refer to a bright
object in the night sky or a celebrity)
 How to make new words (e.g., friend, friendly,
What is a unfriendly)
Language?  How to put words together (e.g., “Aslam walked to
the new store" rather than “Aslam walk store new")
 What word combinations are best in what situations
("Would you mind moving your foot?" could quickly
change to "Get off my foot, please!" if the first
request did not produce the required results)

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  How many languages are there in the World?
 Is there a definitive answer?
 How do you define a language?
 Similar languages
 At what point it is a different language?
What Counts
as a  How do we classify/identify languages?
Language?  Are all languages similar (can be equated)
 Look at the word ‘Fruit’
 What is it that all fruit share?
 What is it different?
 How can you classify them into groups?
 Do they have equal weightage (as members of that group)

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 The answer has to be:
 It depends!
 Depends on what? The answer depends on who you are
listening to as your expert because there are two main ways
of defining languages.
How many
languages 1. We may distinguish language A from language B on
the basis of structural (linguistic) criteria.
are there?
Or
2. We may distinguish the two languages according to
the socio-political criteria, or because they’ve been
differentiated historically.

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 We usually separate one linguistic variety from
another when the differences in their various
Structural linguistic systems are so great that speakers of
(Linguistic) one language can’t understand speakers of
the other variety.
criteria  linguistic systems
 phonology (pronunciation),
 Morphology (word structure),
 syntax (word order),

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THE THREE MAIN
SYSTEMS OF ANY
LANGUAGE
(for language
classification)

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  Although there are many similarities across the systems in
languages, especially in closely related languages, you can
understand that if these systems are quite different, an
addressee can’t work out what the speaker means.
 And if languages are being defined by structural criteria, then
if any one system of variety X has very different rules than those
in a similar system of variety Y, the two are called two different
languages.
 When understandability fails, it usually means the speaker is
literally “speaking a different language” – at least if we’re
defining languages by considering structure. From a structural
point of view, we use mutual intelligibility to group together
linguistic varieties and label them as a single language.
 Mutual intelligibility means that two speakers can understand
each other; it equals understandability. When there are two
varieties showing enough structural overlap so that mutual
intelligibility is possible, we say we have two dialects of one
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Name the 1
2
Major 3
Languages of 4
Pakistan 5
6

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 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language
 Human Language Vs Animal The process of language acquisition is different
Communication
from the process of language learning
 Is language unique to
humans?
 Design Features of  Language Acquisition
Language (Charles Hockett)
 natural, unconscious process of language
 What is Grammar development in humans that occurs without
 The Components of
Grammar instruction
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Grammar
 Universal Grammar
 Language Learning
 Sign Language Grammar  process of gaining conscious knowledge of
 The Scientific Study of language through instruction
Language
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar

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  Need to define ‘talk’ properly
Talk

Do animals ‘to utter words’ ‘to use language in a

meaningful way’
talk???
 Some animals can talk in the first sense
 Parrots can talk: simple phrases ‘good morning’
 Budgerigars can talk in the first sense
 Do animals talk in the second sense of this word?

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  Let us compare animal communication
systems with human language to see if
animals can be said to talk in any real
Are we the sense.
only species  If we want to find out whether animals
which use a language in a meaningful way,
possesses we have to understand what a
language is not.
language?
 What is language?

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  Charles Hocket in the 1960s suggested that we can
characterize language by means of a set of design
features.
 A definition of a language should be based on these
design features (essential characteristics).
Design Features  What are these Design Features of Human
of Human Language?
Language
1. Vocal-Auditory Channel 9. Structure Dependence
2. Arbitrariness 10.Prevarication
Charles Hockets 3. Semanticity 11.Medium Transferability
(1960) 4. Displacement 12.Reflexiveness
5. Duality or Double 13.Turn Taking
Articulation
14.Stimulus-Freedom
6. Productivity
15.Learnability
7. Cultural Transmission
8. Discreetness
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  It is perhaps the most obvious characteristics of a language.
 Sounds are made with the vocal organs and a hearing
mechanism receives them.

1.
Vocal-
auditory
channel  Is this design feature of a language unique to humans?
 The use of sound is widespread as a means of animal communication
 Vocal auditory signals are common among birds, cows, apes, foxes
etc.
 Some animals and birds produce sounds even without using vocal
organs like rattlesnakes and woodpeckers

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  Even in a human communication vocal-auditory channel is
not so all-important since language can be transferred
1. without loss to visual symbols (sign language, writing,
Braille). Patients with their vocal cords removed,
Vocal- communicate mainly by writing which means that they have
auditory not lost their language ability.
channel
 vocal-auditory channel is of little use in an attempt to
distinguish animal from human communication.

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  Arbitrariness means no logical connection between the form
(word) and its meaning (human languages use neutral symbols)
 when you meet a Martian will he know what you mean when you say
a dog – will he deduce the meaning of this word from its form?
 Hund in German,
 Canis in Latin,
2.  Rhodon in Greek,
 Pies in Polish, and
Arbitrariness
 ‫ اتک‬in Urdu.
 Exceptions:
 Onomatopoeic words in which there is a relationship between their
form and what they mean CUCKOO, POP, BANG, MOO.
 Onomatopoeic words imitate natural sounds and have meanings
that are associated with such sounds of nature.

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  Is arbitrariness unique to a human language?
 No, arbitrary symbols are not unique to humans and it
cannot be regarded as a critical distinction between
human and animal communication.
 For instance: A crab which wishes to convey extreme
2. aggression will extend a large claw, a less angry crab only
Arbitrariness raises a leg.
 Gulls indicate aggression by turning away from their
opponent and uprooting beakfuls of grass
 So arbitrariness is not unique to humans.

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  Semanticity is the use of words/symbols to mean
or to refer to objects and actions.
 When we say ‘chair’ we refer to any object which is a chair,
when we say ‘jump’ we refer to an action of jumping.
3. Semanticity  When a parrot says ‘chair’ does it refer to an object or is it
only reacting to some stimulus or is it imitating someone?
 Some writers have claimed that semanticity is exclusively
human. Animals usually do not refer to objects but to the
whole situations (of danger for example).

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  Let us consider Vervet monkeys:
 They have an interesting system of communication: different ALARM
CALLS for different types of predators
 TYPE I – alarm call signaling the presence of a SNAKE: A vervet gives one
call when it sees a snake. Other members of the troupe then stand on their
hind legs and scan the ground.
 TYPE II: an alarm call signaling the presence of a leopard. Other members
3. Semanticity of the troupe immediately climbed to the smallest branches of nearby
trees, safe from the heavy leopard.
 TYPE III: an eagle cruising the sky. They climb the tree and stay near the
trunk, deep in the tree, or alternatively dove into dense bushes.
Can we say that vervet monkeys use a language which features
semanticity? Do vervet monkeys make calls to refer to particular types of
objects or are they signaling different types of situations (situations of
danger)
Conclusion: The communication of vervet monkeys is not characterized
by semanticity.
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 We are able to use language about events which are not
related to now and here, we can speak about abstract
objects and events. We can talk about someone or something
which is far away or about an event which happened in the past
or will happen in the future.
 Imran Khan will visit the US next week.
4.  Can we find displacement in animal communication? Is it
unique to human language?
Displacement
 Animals normally cannot speak about things which happened
far away or yesterday.
 An interesting exception are honey bees.

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 When a worker bee finds a source of nectar she returns to the hive to
perform a complex dance which informs the other bees of its location: a
‘round dance’ – the nectar is close to the hive; a ‘waggle dance’ in which
she wiggles her tail from side to side if it is far away.

4.
Displacement
 But…
 A bee cannot say ‘The day before yesterday I visited a lovely clump of
flowers’.
 She can only say come to the nectar I have just visited located 10 meters
from the hive.
 Bee communication features (limited) displacement so we can say
displacement is quite exclusively human capacity.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U 23
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  Duality of patterning refers to the ability of human language, to form
discrete meaningful units (morphemes) from discrete non-meaningful
segments (phonemes).
 No naturally occurring system of animal communication exhibits this basic
feature of human language in its entirety.
 Basic units of speech – sounds b, a, t are normally meaningless by
themselves. They only become meaningful when combined into sequences
5. Duality of such as bat.
Patterning  Is duality of patterning unique to human communication?

 No, duality of patterning is not unique to humans, when birds produce

single notes they are meaningless, but when they are combined they convey
meaningful messages.

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  The ability to produce and understand an indefinite number of novel
sentences.
 What is the longest sentence you can produce?
 E.g. My mum said that Mary thinks that Bill is aware of the fact that what I found
6. Creativity in his room under the carpet in a tiny box under a symbol of a rose was a
Christmas present for Sue which she asked for in her letter to a Santa Claus.

 Our syntax allows us to produce never-ending sentences thanks to the

also known as process of RECURSION
Recursion
 When a linguistic unit (e.g. a sentence) can contain a smaller linguistic unit
Productivity of the same kind (a sentence contains another sentence:
John said that Mary said that .....).
 CREATIVITY is the most important feature of a human language.
 Most animals have a fixed number of signals which convey a set number of
messages, sent in clearly definable circumstances.
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  It is a tradition of transferring languages from one
generation to other.
 Children can learns from parents, human beings
hand their language down from one generation to
7. Cultural another.
Transmission  On the other hand, in animals and birds, language is
believed to be innate.
 For example: A child brought up in isolation does not
acquire language but birds reared in isolation sing
songs.

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  The basic idea of the theory is that : “If infants were allowed to
grow up without hearing any language, then they would
spontaneously begin using the original God-given language.”
 A number of people tried to test this hypothesis whether the
language is built-in.
 600 BC. Psammetichus, an Egyptian Pharaoh, tried to
Is language experiment with two new born babies. (isolated but could hear
innate in goats… produced word ‘bekos’ meaning bread in Phrygian
language… an older language spoken in parts of modern turkey.
Humans?
 1500 AD. King James the Fourth of Scotland… spoke Hebrew
confirming King’s belief.
 1600 AD. Mughal Emperor Akbar experimented with children
being raised in silence… they couldn’t produce any language.
 Very young children living without access to human language
in their early years grow up with no language at all. 27
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  language consists of isolatable units

Two birds sneezed:

Sounds t u: b э: d z s n i: z d
8. Morphology [two] [bird]-[s] [sneeze]-[ed]
Discreetness Syntax [ [two birds] [sneezed] ]

Very limited discreetness is found in animal

communication.

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  Human language has proper patterns and rules for
organisation
 Human beings when speak, they automatically
recognise the patterned nature of language and
9. Structure manipulate structured chunks
Dependence  We have structure dependent operations
 I gave a carrot to a donkey
 A donkey was given a carrot
 Animals do not use structure dependent
operations.

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10.  Humans have the ability to tell lies (not present in
Prevarication animal communication)

11. we can switch from writing to speech – we can

Medium – express what we want to say and we can also write it
transferability down.

12. we can use language to talk about language.

Reflexiveness
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  We take it in turns to speak.
 Hello! John. What are you doing here.
 Well! I am looking for a workshop around.
13.  Oh! There’s one on your left side.

Turn Taking  It is quite human language’s characteristics but yes there are
certain evidences in birds
 Birds sing duets together (antiphonal singing)

 We can say whatever we like.

14.  What do you think of that book?
Stimulus-  We can answer whatever we want – there is no strict response
attached to this stimulus.
freedom  In animals, there is no stimulus freedom.

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  Ability to learn different number of human languages

Can we teach a human language to animals?

15.
Learnability  At first scientists tried to teach apes to speak, without
noting that the vocal tracts of apes are not capable of
producing human sounds (properly!).
 Once scientists realized the vocal limitations of apes,
future experiments focused on teaching apes sign
language (invented sign languages or American Sign
Language - ASL.

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15.
Learnability:
 One of the most famous experiments began in 1972, when Francine
teaching an Patterson began teaching ASL to a gorilla named Koko. Koko now
ape knows more or less 1000 signs. Koko uses a lot of ASL signs. But
does she know ASL? Does she know language?
 It is controversial. Even though she uses the signs, she does not use
the syntactic structure of ASL. As far as syntax goes, she is stuck in
the two-word stage.

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 Dr. Noam Chomsky, the M.I.T. linguist
whose theory that language is innate and
unique to people forms the infrastructure
of the field, says that attempting to teach
15. linguistic skills to animals is irrational - like
Learnability trying to teach people to flap their arms
and fly.
"Humans can fly about 30 feet -- that's
what they do in the Olympics," he said
in an interview. "Is that flying? The
question is totally meaningless.
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 20th century hypothesis: Maybe chimps (and
Chimp (and other primates) don’t use human language
other because of lack of opportunity to learn it.
primate) Chimp vocal tracts not suited to speech, but
studies sign language okay

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  Can learn to associate referents with arbitrary signs
 Can learn to use signs spontaneously
 Can learn to use signs creatively
 Washoe (at CWU): 'water bird' (for swan)
Chimps’  Can invent totally new signs
accomplishments  Washoe: a new sign for 'bibs'
 Can come up with creative solutions to problems
 Kanzi: When friend Austin the chimp was moved out of
compound, Kanzi got lonely, typed 'Austin TV' to request
videotape of Austin.

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  Syntax
 length: 2-3 sign utterances
 inconsistent word order
 See also https://www.koko.org/communication/
Chimps’ main  Noam Chomsky (“I told you so”)
limitation  It is hardly likely that some species has this capacity but has
never thought to use it until instructed by humans…the
evidence suggests that the most rudimentary features of
human language are far beyond the capacity of otherwise
intelligent apes, just as the capacity to fly or the homing
instinct of pigeons lie beyond the capacity of humans.

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  Animals communication has certain features like
sound production ability, arbitrariness, duality, etc
 But….. No creativity, displacement, structure,
stimulus freedom……etc
Recap
 To characterize animal communication system a
kind of language, it should have all features
Animal  We can conclude ‘animals do not have a language
Communication like humans’.

 Human language seems to be qualitatively different

from animal communication systems
 Human vocal tract even seems designed for speech
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 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language
 Human Language Vs Animal
Communication
 Is language unique to  Phonetics
humans?
 Design Features of  Phonology
Language (Charles Hockett)
 Morphology
 What is Grammar
 The Components of  Syntax
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive  Semantics
Grammar
 Universal Grammar
 Sign Language Grammar
 The Scientific Study of
Language
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar

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 What is Language? What is Grammatical?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language
• Grammar is essentially a set of rules that a speaker knows
 Human Language Vs Animal
which allow him or her to produce and understand sentences
Communication in the language.
 Is language unique to • A grammatical sentence is therefore a possible sentence in
humans?
 Design Features of the language.
Language (Charles Hockett)
• An ungrammatical sentence is one that is impossible in a
 What is Grammar
 The Components of given language
Grammar Aslam was reading a book last night.
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Grammar * Aslam was read a book last night.
 Universal Grammar
 Sign Language Grammar
It is a convention to use * (asterisk) to indicated that a sentence is
 The Scientific Study of
ungrammatical.
Language
 Chomsky & Generative • Sheba don’t know nothing.
Grammar

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 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language
 Human Language Vs Animal
Descriptive grammar
Communication  set of grammatical rules based on what we
 Is language unique to
humans? say, not on what we should say according to
 Design Features of some language authority
Language (Charles Hockett)
 What is Grammar
 The Components of Prescriptive grammar
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive  set of grammatical rules prescribed by a
Grammar
 Universal Grammar
language authority
 Sign Language Grammar  I don’t know who to see.
 The Scientific Study of  I don’t know whom to see.
Language
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar

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  Continuum of Language Varieties
 Grammars that share enough of a historical and
grammatical relationship are to be recognized as varieties
of one language
 Language variation
Grammar  No two speakers of a language speak exactly the same
Across Space way
 No individual speaker speaks the same way all the time
and Time  Language variety refers to the various forms of language
triggered by social factors.
 Language may changes from region to region, from one
social class to another, from individual to individual, and
from situation to situation. This actual change result in the
varieties of language.

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 Language
dialect dialect dialect
Language

Dialect idiolect idiolect idiolect

Dialect : A language variety, spoken by a speech community, that is
Idiolect characterized by systematic features (e.g., phonological, lexical,
grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties of that same language.
Or: variety of a language that differs from other varieties in grammar,
pronunciation, and vocabulary and that is spoken and understood by a
particular group, which might be identified by region, ethnicity, social class,
etc.
Idiolect: the speech variety of an individual speaker
 Language vs.
dialect?
Linguistic criterion
Mutual intelligibility
YES? = dialects
NO? = languages
e.g., British vs. American
vs. Irish vs. Australian (=
dialects of English)

44
 What is Language? Universal Grammar
 Acquiring vs Learning a  It is a theory that suggests that some rules of grammar
Language are hard-wired into the brain, and manifest without
 Human Language Vs Animal being taught.
Communication
 the set of linguistic rules common to all languages;
 Is language unique to hypothesized to be part of human cognition
humans?
 Design Features of  All languages seem to combine subjects and predicates to
Language (Charles Hockett) form larger unites, clauses. Word order within the clause
can differ across languages. Two most common word
 What is Grammar orders are:
 The Components of
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive Subject Verb Object (SVO, English)
Grammar The cat ate the rat
 Universal Grammar
 Sign Language Grammar  Subject Object Verb (urdu)
 The Scientific Study of
‫یلب‬ ‫وچاہ‬ ‫اھکیتےہ‬
Language
 It appears to be a principle (rule) of UG that clauses in all
 Chomsky & Generative languages have subjects, though languages my differ in
Grammar how subject is expressed (formed).
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 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language
 Human Language Vs Animal
Communication  Linguistic parameters
 Is language unique to
humans?  Binary (on–off) settings of universal
 Design Features of
Language (Charles Hockett) grammatical principles proposed to
 What is Grammar account for differences among languages
 The Components of
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Grammar
 Universal Grammar  Null Subject: on/off
 Sign Language Grammar
 SVO: on/off
 The Scientific Study of
Language
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar

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Sign Language
  Used primarily by hearing-impaired people,
SIGN  Uses a different medium: hands, face, and
eyes (rather than vocal tract or ears).
LANGUAGE
 NOT derived from spoken language

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  Sign Language exhibits same functional properties
and follows same universal principles as spoken
language—possible evidence of universal
grammar (UG).
 Study of sign language provides unique insight
Why Study Sign into the nature of language itself.
Language?  Brain function similarities indicate language not
based on hearing and speech.

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  It’s universal: NO. ASL =/= British sign language =/= Spanish
sign language
 It’s like mime: NO. Some signs may be iconic, but others are
not (e.g.,‘apple’ in ASL). Mime can use the whole body; sign
language uses only an area between the waist and head.
MYTHS about  Has no grammar on its own. NO. ASL is NOT “English on the
hands”. English grammar and ASL grammar are very different;
sign language e.g., ASL has a free word order; ASL does not have tense
markers.
 Cannot convey the same meaning/complexities as spoken
language. NO. ASL speakers can express anything they want in
ASL.

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 •A signed language is not the same as a sign language
•ASL (American Sign Language) is one of the world’s many sign
languages

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  ASL phonology
 Hand-shape, location, movement, palm orientation (features on
their own may mean nothing)
 There’s also assimilation, syllabic constraints, etc, (as in the in the
phonology of spoken languages).
 ASL morphology
 Parts of speech are also nouns (N),verbs (V), adjectives (A),
pronouns (Pro), adverbs (Adv).
 A basic form can be inflected in ASL
ASL Grammar  Also, nouns are associated with spatial points. Moving between
those mark subject/object and pronominal relations.
 ASL signs can form compounds
 ASL Syntax
 Word order: SVO (same as English). However, ASL tends to be a
free word order language.
 ASL allows PRO drop (“subjectless” sentences).
 Facial expressions express emotions, but also signal syntactic
relationships. “Today snow. Trip cancel.”
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  Dialects and Registers
 There are differences between groups within the same
language. Black ASL may have properties (handshapes,
certain position of certain fingers, size of spaced used, etc)
different from other forms of ASL.
Sign Language  Also, formal vs informal contexts affect some properties
of ASL. For example, deletion is not common in formal
contexts; the signing space is bigger in formal contexts,
etc.

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Where do Rules Come
From
  What is Scientific?
 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a What we mean is that it is a systematic way to
Language
 Human Language Vs Animal studying language based on scientific processes of
Communication
making observation, making hypothesis,
 Is language unique to
humans? conducting tests, establishing theory
 Design Features of
Language (Charles Hockett)
 What is Grammar
 The Components of
Steps for discovering rules
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Grammar
 Universal Grammar Step I: Observing Data
 Sign Language Grammar
 The Scientific Study of
Step II: Forming a Hypothesis
Language Step III: Checking the Hypothesis
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar Step IV: Revising the Hypothesis
(c) Ubaidullah A Qazi - Foundation University Islamabad 55
 [Step I: Observing Data] To discover a grammar
rule, the first thing we need to do is to check out
grammatical and ungrammatical variants of the
expression in question. For example, let us look at
the usage of the word evidence:
a. evidence cannot be used in the plural.
*The professor found some strong evidences of
water on Mars.
b. evidence cannot be used with the indefinite
article a(n).
*The professor was hoping for a strong evidence.
c. evidence cannot be referred to by the pronoun
one.
*The evidence that John found was more helpful than
the one that Smith found.
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Find another contrast example
a. clue can be used in the plural.
The professor gave John some good clues for the
question.
b. clue can be used with the indefinite article a(n).
The student was hoping for a good clue.
c. clue can be referred to by the pronoun one.
The clue that John got was more helpful than the one
that Smith got.

Unlike evidence, the noun clue can be used in the test

linguistic contexts we set up.
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[Step II: Forming a Hypothesis] From the data and
observations we have made so far, can we make any
hypothesis about the English grammar rule in question?
One hypothesis that we can make is something like the
following:
Hypothesis:
“English has at least two groups of nouns, Group I (count
nouns) and Group II (non-count nouns), diagnosed by
tests of plurality, the indefinite article, and the pronoun
one”.

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 [Step III: Checking the Hypothesis] Once we have formed
such a hypothesis, we need to check out if it is true of other
data, and also see if it can bring other analytical
consequences.
 A little further thought allows us to find support for the two-
way distinction for nouns. For example, consider the usage
of much and many:
a. much evidence, *much clue
b. *many evidence, many clues
 As observed here, count nouns can occur only with many,
whereas non-count nouns can combine with much. Similar
support can be found from the usage of little and few:
a. little evidence, *little clue
b. *few evidence, few clues
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 Temporary Conclusion:
 The word little can occur with non-count nouns like evidence, yet
few cannot. Meanwhile, few occurs only with count nouns.
 Consider the following examples with cake:
a. The mayor gave John some good cakes.
b. The president was hoping for a good cake.
c. My mom says I ate too much cake.
d. We recommend to eat less cake and pastry.
 The data mean that cake can also be used as non-count nouns
since that can be used with less or much.

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 [Step IV: Revising the Hypothesis]:
The previous examples imply that there is
another group of nouns that can be used as both
count and non-count nouns. This leads us to
revise the hypothesis in the following:

“There are at least three groups of nouns:

Group 1 (count nouns), Group 2 (non-count
nouns), and Group 3 (count and non-count)”.

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 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
Language some of the basic facts about language
 Human Language Vs Animal  We all have unconscious knowledge of a linguistic rule system.
Communication
 Languages exist independent of writing systems.
 Is language unique to
humans?  All languages have grammar (morphology, syntax, semantics,
 Design Features of
Language (Charles Hockett) phonetics, and phonology).
 What is Grammar  All languages have the same expressive power.
 The Components of
Grammar  All children acquire language if exposed to it, without
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Grammar
instruction.
 Universal Grammar  All languages change over time, no matter how hard we try to
 Sign Language Grammar stop that change.
 The Scientific Study of  A language is really a continuum of language varieties.
Language
 Chomsky & Generative  All languages have a common set of basic grammatical
Grammar properties (Universal Grammar).
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 What is Language?
 Acquiring vs Learning a
 Generative Grammar
Language  The capacity to use language is infinite. One can
 Human Language Vs Animal produce and understand ‘never heard before’
Communication sentences.
 Is language unique to
humans?  How does that happen?
 Design Features of
Language (Charles Hockett)
 What is Grammar  There are a limited number of rules, that allow us
 The Components of to generate (produce/understand) and infinite
Grammar
 Prescriptive vs Descriptive number of sentences.
Grammar
 Universal Grammar
 Sign Language Grammar  A description of these rules is Generative Grammar.
 The Scientific Study of
Language
 Chomsky & Generative
Grammar

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