Chapter 1  Invitations to Linguistics

Teaching aims: let the students have the general idea about language and linguistics.

Teaching difficulties: design features of language ; some important distinctions in linguistics

Teaching procedures

1.     language

1.1  Why study language?

A tool for communication

An integral part of our life and humanity

If we are not fully aware of the nature and mechanism of our language, we will be ignorant of what constitutes our essential humanity.

1.2  What is language?

1.2.1        different senses of language

what a person says( concrete act of speech)

a person’s consistent way of speaking or writing

a particular level of speaking or writing   e.g. colloquial language

an abstract system

1.2.2        definitions

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

What is communication?

A process in which information is transmitted from a source (sender or speaker) to a goal (receiver or listener).

A system----elements in it are arranged according to certain rules. They cannot be arranged at will.

          e.g. He the table cleaned. (×)  bkli  (×)

Arbitrary----there is no intrinsic (logic) connection between a linguistic form and its meaning.

Symbols----words are just the symbols associated with objects, actions, and ideas by convention.

Vocal--------the primary medium for all languages is sound, no matter how well developed their writing systems are.

          Writing systems came into being much later than the spoken forms.

          People with little or no literacy can also be competent language users.

Human ----language is human-specific.

         Human beings have different kinds of brains and vocal capacity.  

“Language Acquisition Device”(LAD)

1.3 Design features of language 语言的结构特征

Design features refers to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication.

a. arbitrariness----the form of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning. The link between them is a matter of convention.

  E.g. “house”     uchi (Japanese)

                 Mansion (French)  

                 房子(Chinese)

conventionality----It means that in any language there are certain sequences of sounds that have a conventionally accepted meaning. Those words are customarily used by all speakers with the same intended meaning and understood by all listeners in the same way.

There are two different schools of belief concerning arbitrariness. Most people, especially structural linguists believe that language is arbitrary by nature. Other people, however, hold that language is iconic, that is, there is a direct relation or correspondence between sound and meaning, such as onomatopoeia.(cuckoo; crash)

For the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be  a clear connection between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it, And for them, the sets of signals used in communication is finite.

b. duality----language is simultaneously organized at two levels or layers, namely, the level of sounds and that of meaning.

the higher level ----words which are meaningful

the lower or the basic level----sounds which are meaningless, but can be grouped and regrouped into words.

Dog: woof  (but not “w-oo-f ” )

          This duality of levels is, in fact, one of the most economical features of human language, since with a limited set of distinct sounds we are capable of producing a very  large number of sound combinations (e.g. words) which are distinct in meaning.

          The principle of economy

c. Creativity----language is resourceful. It makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.(novel utterances are continually being created.)

    non-human signals ,on the other hand, appears to have little flexibility.

e.g. an experiment of bee communication:

The worker bee, normally able to communicate the location of

a nectar source , will fail to do so if the location is really ‘new’.

In one experiment, a hive of bees was placed at the foot of a

radio tower and a food source at the top. Ten bees were taken

to the top, shown the food source, and sent off to tell the rest of

the hive about their find. The message was conveyed via a bee

dance and the whole gang buzzed off to get the free food. They

flow around in all directions, but couldn’t locate the food. The

problem may be that bee communication regarding location

has a fixed set of signals, all of which related to horizontal

distance. The bee cannot create a ‘new ’ message indicating

vertical distance.

d. Displacement----human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present at the moment of communication.

 Bee communication:

 When a worker bee finds a source of nectar and returns to the

hive, it can perform a complex dance routine to communicate to

the other bees the location of this nectar. Depending on the type

of dance (round dance for nearby and tail-wagging dance, with

variable tempo, for further away and how far), The other bees can

work put where this newly discovered feast can be found. Bee

communication has displacement in an extremely limited form.

However, it must be the most recent food source.

e. Cultural transmission----genetic transmission

    You acquire a language in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes.

The process whereby language is passed on from one generation to the next is described as cultural transmission.

1.4  functions of language

2.     linguistics

2.1   What is linguistics?

Linguistics is a scientific study of language .It is a major branch of social science.

Linguistics studies not just one language of any society, but the language of all human society, language in general.

A scientific study is one which is based on the systematic investigation of data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure.

    observation------generalization-----hypothesis------tested by further observation------theory

2.2  Main branches (scope) of linguistics

phonetics  语音学

phonology   音系学（音位学）

morphology  词法学

syntax      句法学

semantics    语义学

pragmatics   语用学

2.3  Important distinctions in linguistics

a.       Descriptive vs. prescriptive  “描写式”和 “规定式”

They represent two different types of linguistic study.

If a linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; if the linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct and standard” behavior in using language, i. e. to tell people what they should say and what they should not say, it is said to be prescriptive.

b.      Synchronic vs. diachronic   “共时”和 “历时”

The description of a language at some point of time in history is a synchronic study; the description of language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A diachronic study is a historical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time.

c.       langue & parole      “语言” 和 “言语”

The distinction was made by the Swiss linguist Saussure in the early 20^th century.

Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of language in actual use.

What linguists should do is to abstract langue from parole, i. e. to discover the regularities governing the actual use of language and make them the subjects of study of linguistics.

d.      Competence and performance    语言能力和语言运用

The distinction is discussed by  the American linguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950’s.

Competence----the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language.

Performance----the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.

e.       Traditional grammar and modern linguistics

Modern linguistics started with the publication of F. de Saussure’ s book “Course in General Linguistics” in the early 20^th century. So Saussure is often described as “father of modern linguistics”.

The general approach traditionally formed to the study of language before that is roughly referred to as “traditional grammar.” They differ in several basic ways:

Firstly, linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive. A linguist is interested in what is said, not in what he thinks ought to be said. He describes language in all its aspects, but does not prescribe rules of “correctness”.

Secondly, modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written. Traditional grammarians, on the other hand, tend to emphasize, may be over-emphasize, the importance of the written word, partly because of  its permanence.

Then, modern linguistics differs from traditional grammar also in that it does not force languages into a Latin-based framework. To modern linguists ,it is unthinkable to judge one language by standards of another. They are trying to set up a universal framework, but that would be based on the features shared by most of the languages used by mankind.

Homework

Questions and Exercises1,4,6,12

Self-study guide

Read  “A New Concise Course On Linguistics For Students Of English”  Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2   Speech Sounds

Teaching aims: let the students have the general idea about phonetics and phonology.

Focal points:  description of consonants and vowels; basic knowledge about phonology

Teaching difficulties: phoneme; allophone; minimal pair; complementary distribution

Teaching procedure

Language is a “system of vocal symbols”. Speech sounds had existed long before writing was invented, and even today, in some parts of the world, there are still languages that have no writing systems. Therefore, the study of speech sounds is a major part of linguistics.

As we know, there are two branches in linguistics, which deal with speech sounds. They are phonetics (the study of sounds) and phonology (the study sound patterns). In this chapter, we will discuss these two branches.

1. Phonetics

1.1 Speech production and perception

3 sub-branches of phonetics:

Articulatory phonetics----the study of the production of speech sounds

Acoustic phonetics----the study of the physical properties of the sounds produced in speech

Auditory phonetics----the study of the perception of speech sounds

1.2 Speech organs (vocal organs)

refers to the parts of the human body involved in the production of speech.

The three cavities of the vocal tract: the pharynx (pharyngeal cavity), the mouth (oral cavity), and the nose (nasal cavity). The air- stream coming from the lungs is modified in various ways in these cavities, resulting in the production of various sounds.

The pharyngeal cavity

Larynx: at the top of the trachea, the front of which is the Adam’s apple. This is the first place where sound modification might occur.

vocal folds (vocal cords): Vocal cords are two membranes, the positions of which gives different sounds.

●When the vocal cords are apart, the air can pass through easily and the sound produced is said to be voiceless. e.g. [p, s, t ]

●When they are close together, the airstreams causes them to vibrate and produces voiced sounds. e.g. [b, z, d]

●When they are totally closed, no air can pass between them, then produce the glottal stop [?]

The oral cavity

The oral cavity provides the greatest source of modification.

Tongue: the most flexible

Uvula, the teeth and the lips

Hard palate, soft palate (velum)

Alveolar ridge: the rough, bony ridge immediately behind the upper teeth

Various obstructions created within the oral cavity lead to the production of various sounder [p] [b]; [s] [z]; [k] [g]

The nasal cavity

The nasal cavity is connected to the oral cavity at the back of the mouth .The soft part of the roof of the mouth, the velum (soft palate) can be draw back to close the passage so that the air can only go through the mouth and produce vowels and most consonants. The passage can also be left open to allow air to exit through the nose and produce nasal consonants [m] [n] [g]

1.3 phonetic transcription 标音法

 a method of writing down speech sounds in a systematic and consistent way.

1.3.1 IPA (International phonetic Alphabet)

IPA: the abbreviation of International Phonetic Alphabet, which is devised by the International Phonetic Association in 1888 on the basis of the phonetic alphabet proposed at the time. It is a standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.

The Danish grammarian Jespersen first proposed the idea in 1886.

The first version of IPA was published in August 1888.

The latest version was devised in 1993 and corrected in 1996.

The basic principle: using a separate letter selected from major European languages for each distinctive sound and the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears.

1.3.2 Two ways to transcribe speech sounds

Broad transcription: transcription with letter-symbols only.  

This is the transcription normally used in dictionaries and teaching textbooks.

Narrow transcription: transcription with letter-symbols together

with the diacritics.

This is the transcription required and used by the phoneticians in their study of speech sounds.

Diacritics: A set of symbols added to the letter-symbols to show that it has a sound value different from that of the same letter without the mark.

1.4 English speech sounds

1.4.1 Classification

Consonants: sounds produced by constricting and obstructing the vocal tract at some place.

Vowels: sounds produced with no obstruction.

pure vowels (monophthong)—vowels where the quality      remains constant throughout the articulation.

vowel glides----vowels where there is an audible change of quality

Semi-vowels ( semi-consonants) : the sounds produced with little obstruction.(also called glides or transition sounds)   

e.g. yet  wet  hot

1.4.2 Description

Consonants (P39-44)

Three parameters to identify a consonant:

 ①place of articulation: place in the mouth where obstruction occurs

 ②manners of articulation: ways in which articulation can be accomplished

 ③state of vocal cords: voiced VS. voiceless

Vowels (P45-52)  

the quality of vowels depend on position of tongue and the shape of lips.

Four criteria (parameters) of vowel description:

①the height of tongue raising: high, middle, low

②the position of highest part of the tongue :front, central, back

③the shape of the lips (the degree of lip-rounding ) : rounded, unrounded

④the length or tenseness of the vowel : tense vs. lax or long vs. short

2. Phonology

2.1 phonology and phonetics

Phonetics and phonology are the two disciplines dealing with speech sounds. While both are related to the study of sounds, they differ in their approach and focus. Phonetic studies how speech sounds are made, transmitted and received. Phonology, on the other hand, is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds. It aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.

Phonology is concerned with the abstract and mental aspect of the sounds in language rather than with the actual physical articulation of speech sounds.

Phonological knowledge permits a speaker to produce sounds which form meaningful utterance, to recognize a foreign accent, to make up new words.

2.2 phonemes, phones and allophones

phone: the speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. It’s a phonetic unit or segment. (in the mouth)

Conventionally, phones are placed within square brackets “[]”(phonetic transcription)

Phones do not necessarily distinguish meaning. Usually phones of different phonemes distinguish meaning.

phoneme: A sound which is capable of distinguishing one  word or one shape of a word from another in a given language is a phoneme. It’s a basic unit in phonological analysis. It is not any particular sound, but an abstract segment. In actual speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone. (the sound type in the mind)

The phoneme is the smallest meaning-distinguishing unit.

Phonemes are placed in slashes “/  / ”  (phonemic transcription)

e.g.Neither the sound [p] in pit or the sound [b] in bit is a phoneme. They are phones; they are the phonetic realization of the phoneme /p/ and /b/.

allophone: when we have a set of phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme, we refer to them as the allophones of that phoneme.

One phoneme may have several allophones, but the choice of an allophone is rule-governed.

2.3 Minimal pairs and complementary distribution

  Phonetically similar sounds might be related in two ways. If they are two distinctive phoneme, they might form a contrast; e.g. /p/and /b/ in [pit] and [bit]; If they are allophones of the same phoneme, then they don’t distinguish meaning, but complement each other in distribution, i.e. they occur in different phonetic context.

Strictly speaking, every sound is different from every other sounds. But in phonology some of the difference may be ignored

A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one sound for another result in a change of meaning.

2.3.1        Minimal pairs (最小对立体)

When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment, which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair.

When two words such as pat and bat are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same position, the two words are described as a minimal pair.

Minimal pairs are established on the basis of sound and not spelling.

Three requirements for a minimal pair:

same number of segment

one phonetic difference in the same place

different meaning

e.g. a  minimal pair : lit-lip; phone-tone; pill-bill

a minimal set:  beat, bit, bet, boot, but, bite

The minimal pair test helps establish which sounds contrast in a language.

2.3.2 Complementary distribution

Not all speech sounds occur in the same environment, when the two sounds never occur in the same environment they are said to be in complementary distribution.

Not all phones in complementary distribution are considered to be allophones of the same phoneme. They must be phonetically similar and in complementary distribution.

2.3.3        Free variation

A phone may sometimes has free variants.

If two sounds occurring in the same environment do not contrast, that is, the substitution of one for the other does not produce a different word form, but merely a different pronunciation of the same word, then the two sounds are in free variation.

2.4  Distinctive features

The features that a phoneme possesses, making it different from other phonemes, are its distinctive features.

Distinctive features are language-specific.

e.g. “ba” (爸) “pa”(怕)

In Chinese, these two sounds are distinguished by aspiration , while in English they are distinguished by “voicing”

2.5 suprasegmental features 超音段特征

The phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments

Homework

Questions and Exercises 1,2，3, 4

Self-study guide

Read “Modern Linguistics” by He Zhao-xiong

 Chapter 2  Phonology

Chapter 3     Lexicon

Teaching aims: let the students have a brief knowledge about morphemes and the basic word-formation methods

Focal points: definition and classification of morphemes; major word-formation methods

Teaching procedure

Lexicon：In its most general sense, lexicon is synonymous with vocabulary. In its technical sense, it deals with the analysis and creation of words.

1.      Word

1.1 What is word

A unit of expression that has universal intuitive recognition by native-speakers, whether it is expressed in spoken or written form.

1.2 Three senses of “word”

a.       a physical definable unit: a cluster of sound segments or letters between two pause or blank

b.      the common factor underlying a set of forms

c.       a grammatical unit

e.g. It is kind of you ,Miss Hou.

Every word plays a grammatical part in the sentence.

1.3 Classification of word

a.       Variable vs. invariable words

b.      Grammatical words vs. lexical words

c.       Closed-class words vs. open-class words

2.      The formation of word

2.1  Morphology

Definition：Morphology is a branch of linguistics, which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.

The two fields (p88)

   Inflectional morphology: the study of inflections

   Derivational morphology: the study of word-formation

2.2  Morpheme: the minimal unit of meaning

2.2.1        Definition

Morpheme is the smallest meaning-bearing unit.

2.2.2        Types of morphemes

morpheme  free:  free root       

           bound   bound root    root

                      affix       inflectional  

                             derivational    prefix

                                        suffix

Free morphemes: morphemes which may constitute words by themselves

Bound morphemes: morphemes which can not be used by themselves, but must be combined with other morphemes to form words

Inflectional morpheme: a kind of bound morphemes which manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree and case.

E.g. workers, children; walking, walked; biggest ; John’s

Derivational morpheme: a kind of bound morphemes , added to existing forms to create new words. There are three kinds according to position: prefix, suffix and infix.

prefix: change meaning   dis-; un-; mis-

suffix: change part of speech    -ly; -ness; -tion

infix:  some languages also have infixes, affix morphemes that are inserted into root or stem morphemes to divide them into two parts.

tatawa   “a person who will laugh”

tumatawa   “a person who is laughing”

ngitad       “dark”

ngumitad     “to be dark”

In this language, the infix –um- is inserted after the first consonant of a noun or adjective. (fikas- “strong”   fumikas-- “to be strong”)

2.3  morpheme and phoneme (p93-95)

2.3.1  allomorph

A morpheme is a linguistic abstraction; it is a concept. It needs to be represented in certain phonological and orthographic forms. Those forms are called morphs.

In morphemic transcription, morphemes in the abstract notion are put between braces like

Allomorph: A morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms. The variant forms of the same morpheme are called its allomorphs.

2.4  Lexical change

2.4.1        Lexical change proper

Major ways to create new words:

Compounding: a process of combining two or more words into one lexical unit.

blackboard   godfather   baby-sit  cross-cultural

Derivation: the process by which new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots or words.

   e.g. finalize   widen   hospitalize  clockwise (顺时针)

Blending : a process of forming a new word by combining parts of other words.

smog(smoke+fog); brunch smaze(smog+haze); telecast(television+ broadcast); motel (motor +hotel)

Abbreviation: a shortened form of a word or phrase which represents the complete form.

        e.g. TV(television) Dr(doctor) hr(hour)  ft(foot or feet)

clipping: a kind of abbreviation of longer words or phrases

        e.g. telephone---phone    memorandum---memo

           electronic mail---e-mail  high fidelity---hi-fi

Acronym: a word created by combining the initial letters of a number of words.

e.g. UNESCO  APEC  Sars  CD   laser  radar (radio   detecting and ranging)

 Initialism: VOA  BBC  WTO

Back-formation: a process by which new words are formed by taking away the suffix of an existing word.

        televise (from television) donate (from donation) enthuse (from enthusiasm)

Borrowing: the taking over of words from other languages

Coinage : the invention of a new word

2.4.2        Phonological change

Changes in sounds lead to changes in form

(1)vowel sound change: Great Vowel Shift in history

(2)sound loss

(3)sound addition

(4)metathesis

2.4.3        Morpho-syntactical change

2.4.4        Semantic change

The change of meaning of a word

Broadening

Narrowing

Meaning shift: a process in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related meaning.

Class shift (conversion):

Elevation and degradation

Homework

Questions and Exercises 1,2,3,5,13

Self-study guide

Further reading

Adams,V. 1973. An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation.

Dai Wei-dong, 2002  A New Concise Course On Linguistics For Students Of English      Chapter 3  Morphology

Chapter 4  Syntax

Teaching aims: enable the students to understand and describe the internal structures of sentences

Focal points: different treatment of sentence structure by different linguistic schools

Teaching difficulties: IC analysis, deep structure, surface structure, tree diagram

Teaching procedure

 Syntax is the study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences.

Since sentence is usually regarded as the largest grammatical unit of a language, syntax has long been the center of grammatical study. In this chapter, we introduce some of the representative approaches to syntax.

1. The traditional approach

The traditional approach is based on the earlier grammars of Latin or Greek (the traditional grammar is a grammar of prescription).

1.1  Sentences and categories

The traditional view of a sentence:“a series of words in connected speech or writing, forming the grammatically complete expression of a single thought”.

     ? an apple

     ? John was late, because he overslept.

Lexical categories: part of speech.

e.g.:  n, v, adj, det. etc.

Syntactic categories: usually refers to a word or a phrase that performs a particular grammatical function. 

e.g. subject, predicate, object etc.

Grammatical category: a class or group of items which fulfil the same or similar functions in a language.

    e.g.   Number, gender, case: for nouns, pronouns.

Tense, aspect, voice:  for verbs

1.2 Concord and government

Concord: agreement. The requirement that the forms of two or more words in a syntactic relationship should agree with each other in terms of some categories.

     a book, this book, some books, three books

     He speaks English. They speak English

Government: is a type of control over the form of some words by other words in certain syntactic constructions. It is a relationship in which a word of a certain class determines the form of others in terms of certain category.

She gave him a book; She gave a book to him.

1.3  One method used in traditional grammar to describe sentence structure is parsing.

2. The structural approach

The origin:  the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, “father/founder of modern linguistics”

The beginning of the 20th century, Course in General Linguistics.

The structural approach: regards linguistic units as interrelated with each other in a structure or system.

Structuralism or structural linguistics is a term used in linguistics referring to any approach to the analysis of language that pays explicit attention to the way in which linguistic features can be described in terms of structures and systems.

2.1 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

                child

                   girl

              The  boy is smiling.

                 farmer

                    old man

Syntagmatic relation (structure, horizontal, chain

 )

组合关系

a relation between one item and others in a sequence (the sequential arrangement of words in a language.)

There are syntactic and semantic conditions the words in a syntagmatic relation must meet.

Paradigmatic relation (system, associative, vertical, choice)

聚合关系

relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular place in a structure.

聚合关系和组合关系一起共同确立一个语言单位在语言系统中的特征。

2.2 Immediate constituent analysis (IC analysis)   直接成分分析法

2.2.1 The linear and the hierarchical structure of sentence

       The linear structure of sentence

is concerned with the word order of sentences: the sequence in which grammatical elements  such as subject, verb, and object occur in sentences.

The hierarchical structure of sentence

    A sentence can be analyzed into constituents. Conversely, constituents at different levels can combine to form increasingly larger units.

sentences                   sentences

are analyzed into             are used to built

clauses                    clauses

are analyzed into             are used to built

phrases                    phrases

      are analyzed into             are used to build

words                      words

are analyzed into             are used to build

morphemes                  morphemes

2.2.2 Immediate constituent analysis

The technique of breaking up sentences into smaller units by making successive binary cutting is called Immediate Constituent (IC) Analysis

. It reveals the hierarchical relations , as well as sequential relations, among words or groups of words in a sentence.

Construction: any linguistic form which is composed of constituents and is able to be segmented.

A construction may be a sentence, a word group or a word. In other words, a construction is a relationship between constituents

Constituent:  component elements in a construction.

Immediate constituents: constituents immediately, directly, below the level of construction.

Ultimate constituent: the smallest grammatical unit obtained through segmentation.

2.3 Endocentric and exocentric constructions

Distribution: the positions or contexts in which a particular unit of language (e.g., a word) can occur.

Head: the central part of a phrase. The central element which is distributionally (functionally) equivalent to the phrase as a whole.

e.g. the fat lady in the park

Endocentric construction: headed construction

Subordinate constructions: endocentric constructions in which there is only one head, with the head being dominant and the other constructions dependent. Noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases.

Coordinate constructions: endocentric constructions in which there are more than one head, and they are of equal syntactic status, with no one dependent on the other. In other words, both are capable of serving as the head.

Exocentric construction: a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole. (There is no definable ‘center’ or head inside the group.)

 e.g.The basic sentence structure: The man fell

Subordinate clause: If he is going

Prepositional phrase: on the table

Verb + Object: kick the ball

Verb + adjective: seemed angry

2.3   

3.     The generative approach

Originated with American linguist Noam Chomsky

3.1 Deep and surface structures

Each sentence is considered to have two levels of structures.

Deep structure: The underlying level of structural organization displaying all the factors that govern how it should be interpreted.

Surface structure: The syntactic structure of a sentence we actually articulate or hear. It is the final stage in the syntactic derivation of a sentence.

This distinction is used to explain the alternative interpretations of sentences which have the same surface structure but are related to different deep structures.

Flying planes can be dangerous(Planes which fly…/To fly planes…)

The shooting of the hunters was terrible.

The love of God.

He is anxious to teach.    He is eager to please.

He is difficult to teach.    He is easy to please.

This distinction is also used to relate sentences that have different surface structures but the same deep structure, as in the case of active and passive sentences.

3.2 PS-rules and T-rules

How does grammar work?

Grammar operates by generating a set of abstract deep structures, and then converting these underlying representations into surface structures by applying a set of transformational rules.

①PS-rules

The special type of grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule.

The phrase structure component has phrase structure rules (PS rules, rewrite rules, categorial rules) for the generation of deep structure:

S         NP + VP

VP        V + NP

NP        Det + N

Det      the, a, this, that, …

N        man, tree, …

V        hit, took, …

a.S         the  N  V  DET   N

b.S         the dog  V DET  N

c.S         the dog chased  DET  N

d.S         the dog chased the N

e.S         the dog chased the cat

②Transformational rules (T-rules)

The transformational component has transformational rules, which change the deep structures generated by the phrase structure component into surface structures.

NP1 + Aux +V + NP2

John + will + finish + the paper.

NP2 + Aux + be +en + V + by + NP1

The paper + will + be + en + finish + by + John

3.3 The Standard Theory

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965)

3.3.1 Why?

①ill-formed vs. well-formed sentences:

John drinks wine.

Wine drinks John.

②Passive forms:

John married Mary.

Mary was married by John.

John resembles his father.

His father was resembled by John.

Language is seen as consisting of three major parts: syntax, semantic, phonology

The syntactic component is made up of the base component and the transformational component.

The base component: categories and lexicon

Category: a concept such as a sentence, a noun phrase, a verb. (That part of the base component of the grammar which specifies such syntactic categories as S, NP, VP.)

The category component contains rewriting rules more or less the same as the phrase structure rules in the classical model.

The Lexicon

The lexicon gives information about the class that a word belongs to, eg N, V, and information about the grammatical structures with which the word may occur. For example, the English verb sleep cannot have an object after it.

Sub-categorization (子语类化/次范畴化): features which specify further restrictions on the choice of lexical items in deep structure.

Subcategorization can ensure the generation of sentences like a week elapsed, but not The boy elapsed.

n

Selectional restrictions: constraints on what lexical items can combine with what others. They govern the selection of lexical items for insertion into deep structures.

The semantic component makes semantic interpretations on the deep structure, and the phonological component makes phonological interpretations on the surface structure.

Homework

Questions and Exercises1, 2, 5, 9

Self-study guide

Further reading

Chomsky, N. (1957)  Syntactic Structures

He Zhao-xiong (1999) Modern Linguistics  Chapter 4  Syntax

Chapter 5   Meaning

Teaching aims: enable the students to have a better understanding of semantics and wording meaning.

Focal points: Leech’s seven classifications of meaning, semantic triangle, sense relations between words and sentences

Teaching difficulties: sense relations between sentences, different types of antonymy

Teaching procedure

The subject concerning the study of meaning is called semantics. In this chapter, we will study another branch of linguistics-----semantics.

1. An Introduction

Definition: In linguistics, it is the

study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular. Its goal is to reveal how language is matched with their proper meanings by the speakers of that language.

Semantics is an old and young branch.

Dating from Plato, the study of meaning has a long history. Philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists all claim a deep interest in the study of meaning, although they differ in their focus of interest.

Philosophers: the relation between linguistic expression and what they refer to in the real world and evaluation of the truth value of it.

Psychologists: understanding the working of human mind through language.

So you many find several books bearing the title “semantics” but talking about different things. Here we just focus on linguistic semantics.

In linguistics, compared with other branches we have discussed, semantics is very young and new. The term semantics is a recent addition to the English language.

It has only a history of over 100 years.

1893    French linguist Breal coined “semantique”

1897    Breal first use it as the science of meaning.

1900    its English version came out

1980s   semantics began to be introduced into China “Cinderella of linguistics” (Kempson)

One of the most famous books on semantics is The Meaning of Meaning published in 1923.

2. Meanings of “meaning”  P158

2.1 what is meaning?

What is the meaning of “desk”?   √

      I didn't mean to hurt you. (intend)

      Life without faith has no meaning. (value)

      It was John I mean not Harry  (refer to )  √

2.2   7 Types of meaning (G. Leech)

Denotation: the core sense of a word or a phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world.

Connotation: some additional, esp. emotive meaning.

3. The referential theory

Relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to, or stand for.

3.1 Semantic triangle

Proposed by Ogden & Richards in their “The Meaning of Meaning”. They saw the relationship between the word and the thing it refers to is not direct. It’s mediated by concept.

                 thought or reference

         symbol

                 referent

In this diagram, the symbol or form refers to linguistic elements (words, phrases), the referent refers to the things in the real world, and thought or reference refers to “concept”.

e.g. The dog over there looks unfriendly.

The word “dog” is directly associated with a certain concept in our mind, i.e. what a “dog” is like, but it is not directly linked to the referent (the particular dog) in this particular case. Thus, the symbol of a word signifies thing by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the mind of the speaker of a language, and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.

3.2 Sense & reference

sense and reference are the two terms often encountered in the study of word meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning.

Sense-----the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; It’s abstract and de-contextualized. It’s the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested in. It is concerned with the intra-linguistic relations.

Reference-----What a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; It deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements and the non-linguistic world of experience.

For example, the word “dog” is given the definition “a common domestic animal kept by human beings for work, hunting etc or as a pet”. This doesn’t refer to any particular dog that exists in the real world, but applies to any animal that meets the features described in the definition, so this is the sense of the word “dog”. But if we say “The dog is barking”, we must be talking about a certain dog existent in the situation, the word “dog” refers to a dog known to both the speaker and the hearer. This is the reference of the word “dog” in this particular situation.

To some extent, we can say every word has a sense, i.e. some conceptual content. But not every word has a reference e.g. grammatical words like but if etc, don’t refer to anything.

Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations.

e.g.   I was one bitten by a dog.

Mind you. There is a dog over there.

Here the two “dog” bear the same sense, but have two different references in the two utterances.

Sometimes linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense

e.g. “morning star” and “ evening star” can refer to the same star “Venus”

3.      Major Sense relations

Words are in different sense relations with each other

There are generally 3 kinds of sense relations: sameness relation,

oppositeness relation and inclusiveness relation

4.1. synonymy

Sameness or close similarity of meaning.

Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.

4.2  Antonymy

Oppositeness of meaning

Words that are opposite in meaning are antonyms.

Oppositeness can be found on different dimensions.

①Gradable antonymy (mainly adj.)

good/ bad,  long /short, narrow/ wide

They are gradable. That is, the members of a pair differ in terms of degree. The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion of the other. There are often intermediate forms between them.

②Complementary antonymy

alive/ dead,  male/ female,  present/ absent, pass/ fail , boy/ girl

It is characterized by the feature that the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other and the assertion of one means the denial of the other.

In other words, it is not a matter of degree between two extremes, but a matter of either one or the other.

③Converse antonymy (relational opposites)

buy/ sell,  lend/ borrow, before /after, teacher/ student,  above /below

The members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities.

4.3 Hyponymy ( a matter of class membership)

the sense relation between a more general,more inclusive word and a more specific words .

cow/ animal,  rose/ flower, honesty/ virtue

The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate, and the more specific word are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the same super-ordinate are co-hyponyms to each other.

4.      Sense relations between sentences

 Sense relationships also exist between sentences

4.1 A entails B ( A is an entailment of B )

A: He has been to France.

B: He has been to Europe.

A: John picked a tulip.

B: John picked a flower.

Entailment is a relation of inclusion if x entails y, the meaning of x is included in y.

In term of truth value: If x is true, y is necessarily true; If x is false, y may be true or false; If y is true, x may be true or false, If Y is false, x is false.

In formula: A→B

-B→-A

4.2 Presupposition (A presupposes B)

A: The queen of England is old.

B: England has a queen.

A: Is your father at home?

B: You have a father.

It refers to the kind of meaning which the speaker doesn’t assert but assumes the hearer can identify form the sentence.

In term of truth value: If A is true, B must be true. If A is false, B is still true; If B is true, A is either true or false. If B is false, no truth value can be said about A.

In formula: A→B

-A→B

4.3  A is inconsistent with B

A: John is married

B: John is a bachelor

In term of truth value: If A is true, B is false and if A is false, B is true.

4.4  A is synonymous with B

A: The boy killed the dog.

B: The dog was killed by the boy.

4.5  A is a contradiction

My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.

4.6  A is semantically anomalous

The table has bad intentions.

5.  Componential analysis

Componential analysis refers to an approach adopted by structural semanticists in describing the meaning of words or phrases. This approach is based on the belief that the total meaning of a word  can be analyzed in terms of a number of distinct elements or meaning components (called semantic features)

The study of meaning in any language shows that lexical items overlap in meaning and share common properties e.g. Lions and tigers both contain an element of “wild animal ness”. Calf puppy and baby can be considered as all sharing an element of non adultness, while cow, woman and tigress all containing an element of “femaleness, But because of other properties each word contains, none of them will be said as being synonymous to any one of the others.

One attempt to account for this phenomenon is to assume that lexical items, like phonemes are made up out of a number of component parts. Componential analysis is often seen as a process aiming at breaking down the meaning of a word into its minimal distinctive features or properties, which are also called components by some linguists. One way of describing the components of a word is to use feature symbols, which are usually written in capitalized letters, with “+” “-“ before them, plus sign indicates the presence of a certain property, and minus sign indicates the absence of it. e.g.

man :  + HUMAN+ ADULT+ MALE

woman: + HUMAN+ ADULT- MALE

boy:    + HUMAN- ADULT+ MALE

girl:    + HUMAN- ADULT- MALE

words like father, mother, daughter and son, which involves a relation between two entities, may be shown as follows:

father = PARENT (X,Y) & MALE (X)

mother =  PARENT (X,Y) & MALE (X)

verbs can also be analyzed in this way, for example

take = CAUSE (X, (HAVE (X,Y))

give= CAUSE (X, (HAVE (X,Y)))

•Advantages: by specifying the semantic features of certain words, we may better account for sense relations,

Synonymy ---- having the same semantic components   

Antonymy ----- having a contrasting component

Hyponymy-----having all semantic components of another.

•Disadvantages: It would be senseless to analyze the meaning of every word by breaking it into its meaning components.

6. Sentence meaning

The defining of sentence meaning has turned out to be a more complicated issue than the defining of the meanings of individual lexical items.

The meaning of a sentence is the sum total of the meanings of all it components.

The meaning of a sentence is a product of both lexical and grammatical meaning. There are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning.

Homework

Exercises: Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences:

A: Tom’s wife is pregnant.

B: Tom has a wife.

A: My sister will soon be divorced.

B: My sister is a married woman.

A: He likes swimming.

B: He likes sports.

A: John is an orphan.

B: John has no father.

Self-study guide

Read  Chapter 5  Semantics  in “ Modern Linguistics” by He Zhao-xiong

Chapter 6    Language in Use

Teaching aims: enable the students to have a better understanding of pragmatics and its two important theories.

Focal points: Speech act theory, the theory of conversational implicature

Teaching difficulties: Speech act theory, the cooperative principle and its four maxims

Teaching procedure

1. An introduction to pragmatics

Today is Sunday.

It can be 1.an answer for “what day is it today?”

2. statement

3. complaint

4. reminder

5. criticism (reproach)

6.question  “Today is Sunday?”

1.1  Sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning

1.2  Pragmatics

The study of language in use or the study of meaning of language in context

Pragmatics is a comparatively new branch of study in the area of linguistics. It developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

   Morris first proposed the word “pragmatics” in his “Foundations of the Theory of Signs”. He said that the study of semiotics includes three parts: syntax (sign---sign); semantics (sign---word); pragmatics (sign---its user).

1977  Journal of Pragmatics  published in Holland signified the start of pragmatics.

2. Speech act theory

a theory about language used to do things.

The theory originated with British philosopher John Austin in the 50’s of the 20th century and developed by J. R . Searle. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking, thus linguistic communication is composed of a succession of acts.

2.1. Performatives and constatives

Performatives: In speech act theory proposed by John Austin, it’s an utterance which performs an acts, such as

I name this ship Titanic.

I declare the meeting open.

I warn you to leave away (suggestion)

Constatives: utterances which are intended for narration, description etc.

An utterance which asserts something that’s either true or false, such as “It’s raining” “The cat is in the room”.

Later, Austin realized that such distinction is not scientific, because all sentences can be used to do things. “saying is performing”.

In some senses, constatives are also performatives. e.g.

The cat is on the mat. (implicit  performatives)

I tell you that the cat is on the mat.  (explicit  performatives)

I’ll be there at two o’clock. (implicit  performatives)

I promise to se there at two o’clock. (explicit  performatives)

2.2. A theory of the illocutionary act

A speaker is in most cases performing 3 acts simultaneously while making an utterance.

Locutionary act: the act of saying sth. which is meaningful and can be understood

an act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology.

Illocutionary act : the act of using a sentence to perform a function such as command,  request, etc.

Perlocutionary act: the results or effects that are produced by means of saying sth.

Illocutionary force: the intention or purpose underlying the act of saying sth. (speaker’s meaning)

e.g. You have left the door wide open

locutionary: utterance of all the word

illocutionary: expressed his intention of speaking i.e. asking sb. to close the door. “or making a complaint

perlocutionary: the hearer close the door or his refusal to comply with the request

2.3. Searle’s classification of speech acts

   Speech acts theory aroused great interest among scholars in the 1960’s and 1970’s. One of those who made notable contribution to it is the American philosopher linguist John Searle. He made classification of illocutionary acts. According to Searle, speech acts fall into five general categories.

Representatives: stating or describing, saying what the speaker believes to be true

The film is moving.

I have never seen the man before.

Directives: trying to get the hearer to do sth,

You’d better go to the clinic

Open the window!

Commisives: committing the speaker himself to some future course of action

I promise to come here at 7:00

Expressives: expressing feelings or attitude towards an existing state.

It’s very kind of you to help me.

I’m sorry for the mess I have made

Declarations: bring about immediate changes by saying sth.

I appoint you monitor of the class.

I now declare the meeting open

All the acts that belong to the same category share the same purpose but differ in their force or strength. E.g.

Close the door

Will you close the door

Do you mind closing the door?

I would be very grateful if you could

Close the door!

The door is open!

The door please!

Whatever act we perform with language can be categorized into one of these 5 kinds.

3. The theory of conversational implicature

As the objective of pragmatic study is to explain how language is used to effect successful communication, conversation, as the most common and natural form of communication, has drawn the attention of many scholars.

The theory was proposed by another Oxford philosopher H. P. Grice. in his lectures under the title of “Logic and conversation”.

3.1. The co-operative principle (CP )

Grice noticed that in daily conversation people do not usually say things directly but turn tend to imply them. He coined the term “implicature” to refer to such implied meaning. And he explored the question how people manage to convey implicature, which is not explicitly expressed.

According to Grice, in making conversation, the participant must first of all be willing to cooperate; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the task. These general principle is called the cooperative Principle, abbreviated as cp.

To specify the CP further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims. (conversational maxims)

It’s interesting and important to note that those maxims are not always strictly observed. Rather, for various reasons they are of ten violated or “flouted”, to use Grice’s term. Some of these violations give rise to “conversational implicatuses”,

3.2. Violation of the maxims

a. quality (tell lie; rhetoric device)

e.g. Paul is made of iron. (metaphor)

[Paul has some properties similar to those of iron.]

You are the cream in my coffee.

b. quantity

--when is Susan’s farewell party?

--sometime next month

--we’ll all miss Bill and Agatha, won’t we?

--well, we’ll all miss BILL.

[we didn’t miss Agatha]

tautology e.g. War is war.  [War is cruel.]

--Bob is really very mischievous.

--Children are children

c. relation

--How do you like my painting?

--I don’t have an eye for beauty, I’m afraid

[I don’t like it at all]

--what do you think of the lecture?

--I thought the lecture had was too big.

[The lecture was dull or boring.]

d. manner

--where is your mother?

--she’s either in the house or at the market.

[I don’t now exactly where]

3.3. Characteristics of implicature

3.4. Conclusion

“Conversational implicature”, according to Paul Grice, refers to the extra meaning not contained in the utterance, understandable to the listener only when he shares the speaker’s knowledge or knows why and how he violates intentionally one of the 4 maxims of the CP.

5.      The politeness principle (PP)

6.      Relevance theory

An assumption is relevant in a context iff it has some contextual effect in that context

l        The three types of contextual effect

a. Contextual implication

(1) A: Could you have a quick look at my printer––it’s not working right.

B: I have got an appointment at eleven o’clock.

(2) a. There are only five minutes until eleven o’clock.

b. The printer problem is not an obvious one, but will require opening it up.

c. Opening the printer will take more than five minutes.

(3) A is not able to have a look at the printer now.

b. Strengthening/confirmation of contextual assumption    

   (4) A: I have a hunch that Gill is looking for a new job.

      B: Yeah, she is studying job ads whenever she’s got a spare minute.

(5) Someone reading job ads is probably looking for a new job.

c. Elimination of a previously held assumption

(6) A: We have to call another meeting. I don’t think that Christine is going to come, so we’ll be one person short of a quorum.

B: No need for cancellation, I see Christine just coming up the drive.

Homework

Questions and Exercises 2, 3, 5, 6

Self-study guide

Further reading

Leech, G. N. (1983)  Principles of  Pragmatics.  London: Longman

Dai Wei-dong (2002)  A New Concise Course on Linguistics for Students of English

何自然 （1995） 语用学与英语学习

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