Prof.
Safieh Moghaddam
Assistant Professor
Department of Language Studies
University of Toronto, Scarborough
LINA01:
Introduction to Linguistics
Introduction: What is Linguistics?
All materials presented are subject to copyright. Students may not distribute the slides outside the course.
Hello!
I am Prof. Safieh Moghaddam
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“A language is not just words. It's
a culture, a tradition, a
unification of a community, a
whole history that creates what a
community is. It's all embodied in
a language.”
- Noam Chomsky
“
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1 Introductions
What is this course about?
A basic introduction to the structure of language
◉ the story of language
◉ how language changes over time
The purpose of this course is also to provide you with
basic linguistic research tools that could explain in a
scientific way why some constructions are
correct/incorrect in a given language/languages
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What is this course about?
It is clear that when people use human language, they follow
certain principles (rules)
A sentence like:
a. The man has seen the dog is grammatical in English
b. *Seen man the has dog the is NOT
(the asterisk * placed in front of a sentence signals that it is bad or ungrammatical)
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What is this course about?
The task of linguistic research is to understand what these
principles are and how they are instantiated in language or
individual languages.
Some Questions:
1. What is linguistics?
2. What is language?
3. What are the different aspects of language?
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Now… What does it mean to know a language?
◉ Knowing a language is being able to speak and be
understood by others who know that language
◉ The capacity to produce some sounds (or signs for
deaf and mute people) that have a certain meaning
and to understand and interpret the signs produced
by others
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Now… What does it mean to know a language?
◉ The capacity to understand what linguistic constructions
(sounds or signs, words, sentences) are possible in a
specific language and what constructions are not
◉ The linguistic knowledge is unconscious knowledge:
people speaking a specific language are able to explain
what constructions are correct or incorrect in that
language, but they are not able to explain why
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Competence vs. Performance
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Competence vs. Performance
When analyzing language, we need to distinguish
between competence, defined as a speaker’s
unconscious knowledge of what can and can’t be said in
their language, and …
Performance - the speaker’s actual language use
(production and comprehension) based on their linguistic
competence.
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Linguistic Competence
Let’s “test” your linguistic competence:
Which of the following “words” are possible in English?
mbood claf plofn spruck flube zdras
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Linguistic Competence
Which of the following Max picked up the phone.
utterances are possible in
English? Max picked the phone up.
Max walked up the stairs.
Max walked the stairs up.
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Linguistic Competence
What is the past form of the How is the past tense marker
following verbs? pronounced in each?
Walk
Beg
State How about the verb ‘frall’?
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Linguistic Competence
Which of the following Jason’s mother left himself with
utterances are possible in nothing to eat.
English?
Who did you give the book to?
Colin made Jane a sandwich.
Is the dog sleeping the bone again?
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Linguistic Knowledge
Language is a complex cognitive system. The
purpose of this course is to look into its nature.
In order to do this, we still need to introduce several
concepts. One of them is the concept of grammar.
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Linguistic Knowledge
◉ What is a mental grammar?
◉ What are the components of grammar?
◉ Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammar
◉ Standard vs Non-standard forms
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What is grammar?
‘A complex system of rules that
governs how speakers organize
sounds into words and words into
sentences’
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Mental Grammar
The conventional term for grammar has a variety of different
meanings.
For linguists, grammar is a mental system of rules stored in
the mind of a native speaker. These rules allow us to
interpret novel sentences that we’ve never heard before!
This mental system is also known as mental grammar.
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Components of Grammar
Linguists typically break (mental) grammar down into 5
components:
1. Phonetics
2. Phonology
3. Morphology
4. Syntax
5. Semantics
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Approaches to Grammar
There are also two
approaches to grammar:
1. Prescriptive
2. Descriptive
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Prescriptive Grammar
Prescriptive Grammar: 1. One form is more logical than
another
the shoulds and shouldn’ts of
language. 2. An appeal to classical forms
(in reference to Latin)
Some of the arguments put
3. A preference for older forms
forth by prescriptive of the language
grammarians in defense of
their preferences… 4. Injunction against the use of
foreign words
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Prescriptive Grammar
Example of prescriptive grammar:
BAD! ‘Me and John went to the movies.’
It “should” be ‘John and I went to the movies.’
In this course we are NOT concerned with prescriptive grammar
(although we acknowledge that prescriptive rules have their use!).
Instead we make appeal to the concept of Descriptive Grammar.
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Descriptive Grammar
A descriptive approach is one which studies and
characterizes the actual language of specific groups of
people in a range of situations.
It does not bring any preconceived notions of correctness to
the task or favors the language of one social group as
somehow better than those of others.
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Descriptive Grammar
Descriptive Linguists counter the above prescriptive claims with
the following:
1. All varieties of a language are valid systems with their own logic and
conventions.
2. There is no strong reason to expect one language to match the mold of
another.
3. Languages are continually changing in subtle ways without reducing their
usefulness, preciseness or aesthetic value.
4. All languages have adopted words from other sources.
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Characteristics of Grammar
There are five (5) characteristics of grammar:
1. Generality
2. Parity
3. Mutability
4. Inaccessibility
5. Universality
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Characteristics of Grammar
Generality: all languages/dialects (and speakers/signers)
have a grammar. Individual grammatical systems differ in
the use of structure formation rules.
American Sign Language, African American Vernacular
English, Nishnaabemwin, Mandarin Chinese, etc.
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Generality
In Warlpiri (an indigenous language of Australia) a sentence like
The two dogs now see several kangaroos.
could be translated by the equivalent of any of the following sentences:
Dogs two now see kangaroos several.
See now dogs two kangaroos several.
See now kangaroos several dogs two.
Kangaroos several now dogs two see.
Kangaroos several now see dogs two.
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Parity
Parity: all grammars are equal.
There is no such thing as a “primitive” language. We find
some of the most complex linguistic phenomena in societies
that have not developed either writing or electricity.
There is no such thing as a “good grammar” or “bad
grammar”. All grammars (unconsciously) instruct people on
how to form and interpret words and sentences of their
language.
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Mutability
Mutability: grammars change over time
Moreover, when grammars change, they do so within strict
limits. Also, it cannot be the case that that older varieties of
language are better than the new ones.
There are no grounds to accept the hypothesis that
“languages attain a state of perfection at some point in their
history and that subsequent changes lead to deterioration
and corruption”.
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Inaccessibility
Inaccessibility: grammatical knowledge is unconscious. It
cannot be figured out just by thinking about it.
Recall the examples from linguistic competence!
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Universality
Universality: all grammars are alike in basic ways in spite of
apparent distinctions. All languages share an inventory of
principles and properties (including the so-called universals)
Some examples:
◉ All languages use a small set of contrastive sounds to help
distinguish words from each other (in English: to as
opposed to do)
◉ Any language that has a [b] sound, almost certainly has a
[p] sound 32
Any questions?
Visit Office Hours for content questions (see Quercus for
details)
Course email TBA
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