Lingwistyka

Phonetics – the study of speech sounds; how they are articulated; their physical properties and how they are perceived.
Phonology – The study of the sound system of language: how the particular sounds used in each language form an integrated system for encoding information and how such system differ from one language to another.
Morphology – The study of the way in which words are constructed out of smaller meaningful units.
Syntax – The study of the way in which sentences are constructed. How sentences are related to each other.
Pragmatics – How the meaning conveyed by a word or a sentence depends on aspects of the context in which it is used (such as time, place, social relationship between speaker and hearer and speaker's assumptions about the hearer's beliefs).
Semantics – the study of meaning: how words and sentences are related to the (real and imaginary) objects they refer to and the situations they describe.
Neurolinguistics – The study of the brain and how it functions in the production, perception and acquisition of language.
Sociolinguistics – The study of the interrelationship of language and social structure, linguistic variation and attitude towards language.
Psycholinguistics – The study of the interrelationship between language and culture.
Historical linguistics – The study of how languages change through time. The relationship of languages to each other.
Anthropological linguistics – the study of interrelationship of language and cognitive structures; the acquisition of language.
Applied linguistics – The application of methods and results of linguistics to such areas as language teaching, national language, policies, lexicography, translation and language in politics, advertising, classrooms courts, and the like.

LANGUAGE – arbitrary system of vocal signs (structure) used for communication (purpose)
a) Arbitrary = conventional
NATUAHL – language used in N. Mexico (Aztec lg.)
tetlazohtlani – refers to the one who loves people
tlatlazohtlani – refers to the one who loves things
This is just a convention – in different languages it could be broken.
HUPA – Indian lg. used in N. California. In this language nouns are marked for time (not verbs).
xonta – house existing now
xontate – house which will exist in the future
xontateen – house that was used to exist
However, there are some exceptions of arbitrary words (eg. onomatopoeic words).
cuckoo – it is not arbitrary word; it is universal
Certain phrases are more arbitrary than others:
white cat white wine white lie
the least arbitrary the most arbitrary
Arbitrary about language – nothing is forced upon us.
b) System – refers to a certain code used and shared by people which has an internal organisation, that is systematics. Jargons are also systems which must be shared by all the members of the community (if you know the code – you can communicate). Grammar organizes the language (formal code).
c) Sign = symbol – anything that represents something
Meaning – relationship between a linguistic form and actual object.
lg. signs Mental reality Reality
table mental reality of a table (a picture of a table)
dwarf mental image of a dwarf - - -
love - - - - - -
It doesn't matter if the signs have an extension in the reality.
d) Historical argument – hunters used sounds to communicate between one another, when they didn't see one another very well (huge distances between them). Spoken language is primate to written language – there is primacy of signal (vocal) language over written one.
- half of adults on Earth are illiterate but they are able to communicate – another argument of primacy;
- many languages don't have written language at all – no writing system;
- writing is important in order to save the language and culture;
e) Communication – the most essential feature of the human language. It is felt immediately when there is no communication, but it is usually unnoticed.
Primary goal if it is transfer of knowledge (transfer is carried out without the loss of the knowledge).
- interactional function – in order to establish social contact (relationship);
- trasactional function – transfer of ideas

THE ORIGINS OF THE LANGUAGE
1. The divine source – a gift from God
It might be true – only a grain of truth. A few experiments have been carried out to rediscover the original, divine source. Hypothesis: if infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language, they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language. Results: child adopts the sheep sounds when put alone among them for two years. We are unable to reconstruct the beginnings of the language. There are only some drawbacks.


2. The natural-sound source
a) "bow-wow theory" - primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around them (onomatopoeic words – cuckoo, splash, boom, buzz, hiss). However, it is hard to see how most of the soundless (or even abstract) things in our world could have been referred to in a language that simply echoed natural sounds.
b) "pooh-pooh theory" – original sounds of language came from natural cries of emotion, such as pain, anger and joy. They are produced in the ingressive stream of air and this is not how we normally produce sounds. The expressive noises people make in emotional reactions contain sounds that are not otherwise used in their language and, consequently, seem to be unlikely candidates as source-sounds.
c) "yo-heave-ho theory" – concerns people involved in physical effort. A group of early humans might develop a set of grunts, groans and swear words which they used when lifting and carrying bits of trees or lifeless mammoths – it places the development of human language in some social context. It doesn't, however, answer the question regarding the origins of the sounds produced. Apes and other primates have grunts and social calls, but they do not seem to have developed the capacity for speech.
3. The oral-gesture source
It involves a link between physical gesture and orally produced sounds. Many of our physical gestures, using body, hands and face, are a means of non-verbal communication still used by modern humans, even with developed linguistic skills. It is claimed that originally a set of physical gestures was developed as a means of communication. Then a set of oral gestures (involving mouth) developed, in which the movements of the tongue, lips and so on were recognized according to patterns of movement similar to physical gestures ('goodbye' – movement of the tongue as a representative of the wa ing of the hand).
4. Glossogenetics This focuses mainly on the biological basis of the formation and development of human language. There is a concentration on some of the physical aspects of humans that are not shared with any other creatures (upright, bipedal posture, pharynx – lower and longer, the shape of teeth – to produce sounds, brain – lateralization [specific areas responsible for certain functions]; language is placed left hemisphere).

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES
I. Genealogical classification
It deals with the history of the language and studies similarities between them. Most visible in basic-core-vocabulary (family terms, kingship terms, domestic animals, lower numerals) – similar words in different languages. Sir William Jones discovered it first. In 1876 he noticed the similarities – that situation cannot happen due to a chance (coincidence is not possible). All languages derive from one common language. He proposed to classify languages in common genealogical group or family (monogenetic source).
Cognate – word which means the same in all languages. A cognate of a word in one language is a word in another language which has a similar form and is, or was, used with a similar meaning: mother – Mutter, father – Vater, etc. These close cognates must be a clue to a common ancestor in some specific branch.

II. Typological classification
- structural similarities (the basis of typological classification);
There are many typological classifications depending on different criteria (e.g. lexical semantic – concrete; abstract).
Inuit (Eskimo) people have about 100 different words describing snow – it is much more concrete than Polish (abstract language).

We are concerned about the classification based on morphological properties – the most common and popular one.
Morpheme
a) lexical morpheme – can stand alone and has its own meaning: beautiful – beauty;
b) grammatical morpheme – can't stand alone; only mark the grammatical category;

Criteria:
- the degree of linkage between lexical and grammatical morphemes;
- the degree of cumulation on of functions within a grammatical morpheme;

1. Isolating languages (also called analytic) – Vietnamese, Chinese
The degree of linkage between morphemes as well as cumulation of functions are very weak (if not equal to zero).
"Wo-men sy cung-kuo-zen" – means China (państwo środka)
Exact translation: Ja dużo być państwa środek

Every single morpheme is separate and every single morpheme has only one function.
2. Agglutinating languages – Turkish, Japanese
All morphemes are glued together. The degree of linkage and accumulation of functions is stronger than in isolating languages.
In Hungarian: eb – dog
ebek – dogs
ebeknek – (dative – celownik)
Particular morphemes are glued together. ek stands for plural, nek – for dative (different separate grammatical functions).


3. Inflectional languages (synthetic languages) – Latin, Polish, Sanscrit
The cumulation of functions is very strong. The degree of linkage between morphemes is also very strong.
panów - plurality
- possession
- accusative
a lot of functions within the small grammatical morpheme
4. Polysynthetic languages


THE PROPERTIES OF LANGUAGE
Communicative sig als – intentional; when you are asking for something you are normally considered o be intentionally communicating something.
Informative signals – unintentional; a person listening to you may be informed about you via a number of signals which you have not intentionally sent (sneezing, unbrushed hair, strange accent, etc.)
Unique properties (for humans):
1. Displacement – animal communication is almost exclusively designed for this moment ('here and now'). It cannot effectively be used to relate events which are far removed in time and place. Human beings can refer to past and future time, and to other locations ('here & now, there & then'). It allows the users of language to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment.
However, it is claimed that bee communication does have the property of displacement – 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 (it must be the most recent food source).
2. Arbitrariness – there is no 'natural' connection between a linguistic form and its meaning. You cannot look at a word and from its shape determine that it has a natural meaning of e.g. dog. The linguistic form has no natural or 'iconic' relationship with that four-legged barking object out in the world. Exception: onomatopoeic words (natural sound source). There aren't any traces of arbitrariness among animals. There is limited set of gestures which are not arbitrary and it's finite (they represent signs but in small area).
3. Productivity – language-users manipulate their linguistic resources to produce new expressions and new sentences (child is especially active in producing utterances which he/she has never heard before). Ability to create new vocabulary – creation of the new language, infinite number of expressions. Animals have the so-called fixed reference (each signal is fixed as relating to a particular object or occasion).
4. Cultural transmission – language is not inheritable. You acquire a language in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes (Korean child brought up in England may have physical characteristics inherited from its natural parents, but it will inevitably speak English).
5. Discreteness (discrete – separate) – the sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct. E.g. the difference between a p sound and a b sound is not actually very great but when these sounds are part of a language, they are used in such a way that occurrence of one rather than the other is meaningful (pack – back). Each sound in the language is treated as discrete.
6. Duality – language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously.
a) physical level of sounds (limited; we can produce individual sounds)
b) abstract level of meanings (endless; we can produce sounds in a particular combination, as in bin or as in nib, which is different in meaning). The range of sounds is about 40 while the range of meanings is endless. (woof/foow – it is not possible for a dog to produce this utterance in different way)
7. Other properties (not only human characteristics)
a) vocal-auditory tract – many other species use it; linguistic communication can also be transmitted without any sound, via writing or via sign languages;
b) reciprocity – any speaker/sender of a linguistic signal can also be a listener/receiver
c) specialization – linguistic signals do not normally serve any other type of purpose, such as breathing or feeding; when we speak – we don't use it for anything else;
d) non-directionality – linguistic signals can be picked up by anyone within hearing, even unseen;
e) rapid fade - linguistic signals are produced and disappear quickly;

ANIMALS AND HUMAN LANGUAGE
Scientists still don't know what is exactly "to use language":
- to take part in interaction;
- to understand some rules;
- to use grammatical rules properly;
- to use speech sounds;

That is the matter of attitude whether animals can use the language (the question how we define language, what is language).
- according to conventional definition the answer is NO;
- as far as communication is concerned, the answer is YES;
THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE
1. Articulatory phonetics – the study of how speech sounds are articulated.
2. Auditory phonetics – deals with the perception of speech sounds.
3. Acoustic phonetics – deals with the physical properties of speech as sound waves 'in the air'.

4. Forensic phonetics – has applications in legal cases involving speaker identification and the analysis of recorded utterances.

flood, floor, fool
There is no 'one to one' correspondence between letters and sounds and therefore we need the phonetic alphabet (in case of Polish it is less visible but still exists).

Mechanism of producing speech sounds
- lungs;
- ingressive (breathed in) and egressive [spelling] (breathed out) stream of air;
- voiced & voiceless sounds

There is no-one who speaks RP!!! It's an ideal model and even BBC speakers only try to imitate it.

VOWELS are produced with relatively free flow of air (no obstruction, no narrowing). All vowels are voiced. To describe them we must determine:
- vertical dimension – degree of raising tongue;
- degree of lip-rounding – back vowels are rounded;
a) Diphthong – contain two sounds; it begins with a vowel sound and ends with a glide. RP has a large number of diphthongs, sounds which consist of a movement or glide from one vowel to another. Diphthongs are like long vowels. The most important thing to remember is that first part is much longer and stronger than the second part. The last part of English diphthongs must not be made too strongly.
b) Triphthong – is a glide from one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced rapidly and without interruption. The most important cause of difficulty is that in present-day English the extent of the vowel movement is very small. Because of this, the middle of the three vowel qualities of the triphthong (that is, the I and U part) can hardy be heard and the resulting sound is difficult to distinguish from some of the diphthongs and long vowels.

CONSONANTS – features:
1. Sources:
a) pulmonic – the air originates in the lungs;
b) oral source – originates in the mouth (e.g. horse imitation);
c) originates in the larynx;
2. Place of articulation – a place where the stricture is made
3. Manner of articulation – the way you the sound is produced
4. Vibration of vocal cords – voiced/voiceless
5. Direction of stream of air
Names of sounds:
theta [Tit«] stands for T
eth [eD] stands for D
angma [QNm«] stands for N

Dental – is not precise – should be interdental because the tongue is placed between the teeth.
Stops – connected with hold phase;
Plosives – connected with release phase;
Flaps – (sounds in Am.E.) – the tongue hits the palate;

BRITISH DIALECTS
The order of presented fragments:
- East Ender, Cockney;
- Edinburgh;
- Belfast;
- Lowland Scots;
- Cockney – film (accent denotes class and origin); 3-5% of English speak RP (it is dying) – upper English class and Queen's English;


Phonology – description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in the given language (abstract units). Phonology is theoretical science (contrary to phonetics which is practical one). It is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in language rather that with the actual physical articulation of speech sounds – concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language which allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say and hear.
Phoneme – the smallest meaningful unit (capable of distinguishing the meaning). If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes. Phonemes function contrastively.
Substitution test:
pin /pIn/
tin /tIn/ substitution shows two different meanings

Distinctive features of phonemes:
e.g. /t/
a) – voice;
b) + alveolar (place of articulation);
c) + plosive (manner of articulation);
When two sounds share some features they are sometimes described as members of a natural class of sounds (phonemes). Phonemes which belong to the same natural class of sounds behave in similar way.
We expect phonemes will behave in the same way (similar way) in the same phonological environment:
/kl/ ; /gl/ ; /pl/ - all velar, all stops (common beginning of the word)
/vl/ - this cluster does not belong to the same natural class of sounds as /k/, /g/, /p/ (very rare beginning of the word – only Vladimir)

Phone – while the phoneme is the abstract unit or sound-type ('in the mind'), there are many different versions of that sound-type regularly produced in actual speech ('in the mouth'). Phones are represented in square brackets [ ]. Each phone is allophone and the other way round. We can only produce phones – not phonemes (they are abstract).
[sid] [sIn]
I is influenced by nasal /n/ - allophonic influence in English (doesn't change the meaning)

mets [me] main [mE)] (meanings: dish – palm)
E) is nasal but in French it is phonemic influence (change of meaning)
In French nasalization is phonemic (changes the meaning).

Allophone – it doesn't change the meaning of the word – it is just a variation of the same phoneme.
The main difference between phonemes and allophones is that substituting one phoneme for another will result in a word with a different meaning (as well as a different pronunciation), but substituting allophones only results in a different (and perhaps odd) pronunciation of the same word.
Minimal pair – when two words are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme occurring in the same position. Two words with identical form that differ with one phoneme in the same place.
Minimal set – a set of words (the rest of the definition is the same as in minimal pair).

Phonotactics – knowledge of some constraints (ograniczenia) on a sequence or position of sounds in a given language. It is recognizing the language that you don't now at all. Based on your knowledge, you think that this particular word is a 'candidate' to be an English, Polish, etc. word.

SYLLABLE – it must contain a vowel (or vowel-like) sound.
CCCVCCCC
onset (beginning; 0 to 3 C) | coda (0 to 4 C)
nucleus
(the most important)
C – consonant
V – vowel

Syllable:
a) onset (consonant(s))
b) rime
- nucleus (vowel)
- coda (consonant(s))

nucleus + coda = rime

Open syllable – syllable with onset and nucleus, but with no coda (me, or, no).
Close syllable – when the coda is present (up, cup, hat).
Consonant cluster – when there is more than one consonant.

Phonotactics rule – the only sequence in onset cluster is:
p w
s t r
k l

Co-articulation – the process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next one.
a) Assimilation – when we find a phoneme realised differently as a result of being near some other phoneme belonging to a neighbouring word. It is more likely to be found in rapid, casual speech and less likely in slow, careful speech. In most cases assimilation affect consonants.
b) Elision – under some circumstances sounds disappear; the 'omission' of the sound which would be present in the deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation.

DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING

1. Pictograms – represent particular images (e.g. sun) in a consistent way;
2. Ideograms – more fixed (than pictogram, of course) symbolic form used for 'heat', 'daytime' or 'sun';
The more 'picture-like' forms are pictograms, the more abstract, derived forms are ideograms.
Key property of both pictograms and ideograms:
They do not represent words or sounds in a particular language.
3. Logograms – symbols that came to be used to represent words in a language;
- cuneiform writing – logographic writing used by Sumerians; form of their symbols gives no clue to what type of entity is being referred to (clear example of word-writing – logogram); "the earliest known writing system";
4. Logographic system – a set of symbols representing words;
5. Phonographic system – a set of symbols representing sounds;
6. Rebus writing – using existing symbols to represent the sounds of language; the symbol for one entity is taken over as the symbo for the sound of the spoken word used to refer to that entity;
7. Syllabic writing – set of words which represent the pronunciations of syllables; there are n purely syllabic writing systems in use today (except modern Japanese written with a set of single symbols which represent spoken syllables – system often described as syllabary);
8. Alphabetic writing – a set of written symbols which each represent a single type of sound
- Cyrillic alphabet – modified version of Greek writing system is the basis of the writing system used in Russia today;
9. Written English – frequent mismatch between the forms of written English and the sounds of spoken English.
Reasons:
- historical influences (Latin and XV century French);
- Dutch printers of English works (no knowledge about English pronunciation);
- substantial changes of spoken English since XV century;
- 'recreation' of XV century works by XVI spelling reformers;

WORDS AND WORD-FORMATION PROCESS

1. Coinage – the invention of totally new terms;
Invented trade names for one company product which become general terms (without initial capital letters). Those words tend to become everyday words in the language.
Examples: aspirin, nylon, zipper, kleenex, teflon, xerox.
2. Borrowing – taking over of words from other languages; one of the most common sources of new words in English.
Examples: alcohol (Arabic), boss (Dutch), croissant (French), lilac (Persian), piano (Italian), pretzel (German), robot (Czech), tycoon (Japanese), yoghurt (Turkish), zebra (Bantu).
a) loan-translation (or calque) – special type of borrowing; a direct translation of the elements of a word into borrowing language;
Examples: un gratteciel (French) literally translates as 'a scrape-sky' – skyscraper (English)
3. Compounding – joining of two separate words to produce a single form; very common in lg. as German and English (less common in French and Spanish);
Examples: bookcase, fingerprint, sunburn, wallpaper, doorknob, textbook, waterbed.
4. Blending - joining of two separate words to produce a single form (like compounding) but it takes only the beginning of one word and joins it to the end of the other word;
Examples: smog (smoke & fog), gasohol (gasoline & alcohol), bit (binary & digit), brunch (breakfast & lunch), motel (motor & hotel), Spanglish (Spanish & English).
5. Clipping – when a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form (element of reduction similar to blending);
Examples: gas (gasoline), ad (advertisement), bra (brassiere), cab (cabriolet), fan (fanatic), flu, phone, plane, pub, sitcom (situation comedy), Al, Ed, Liz, Mike, Sam.
6. Backformation – very specialised type of reduction; a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form another word of different type (usually a verb);
a) hypocorisms – forms of backformation favoured in Australian and British English; longer words are reduced to a single syllable + (-y) or (-ie) is added to the end (e.g. movie [moving te evi ion], Aussie [Australian], bookie [bookmaker], brekky [breakfast], hankie [handkerchief]).
Examples: televise (from 'television'), donate (from 'donation'), opt (from 'option'), emote (from 'emotion'), edit (from 'editor').
7. Conversion ('category change' or 'functional shift') – a change in the function of a word, e.g. when a noun comes to be used as a verb (without any reduction); this process is very productive in modern English;
Examples: paper (He is papering the bedroom walls), butter (Have you buttered the toast?), printout ( from 'to print out'), takeover (from 'to take over').
8. Acronyms – words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words;
Examples: where pronunciation consist of a set of letters: CD (compact disc), VCR (video cassette recorder); pronounced as single words: NATO, NASA, UNESCO; acronyms that have lost their capital letters: laser, scuba, zip code, radar (radio detecting and ranging); organisation names specially designed: MADD (mothers against drunk driving), WAR (Women Against Rape?)
9. Derivation – accomplished by means of a large number of affixes (un-, mis-, -ful, -less, -ish, -ism); the most common word-formation process in English;
Affixes: prefixes, suffixes, infixes.
Examples: unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful, careless, boyish, sadness.


MORPHOLOGY

1. Morphology – literally 'the study of forms', it is investigating of forms in language
2. Morphemes – a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.
A) free morphemes – morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words (e.g. open, tour); set of separate English wor -forms.
- lexical morphemes – set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs which carry the 'content' on messages we convey; 'open' class of words (we can easil add new lexical morphemes to the language);
Examples: boy, man, house, tiger, sad, long, yellow, sincere, open, look, follow.
- functional morphemes – set that consists largely of functional words (conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns); 'closed' class of words (we almost never add new functional morphemes to the language);
Examples:
B) bound morphemes – morphemes which cannot normally stand alone, but which are typically attached to another form (e.g. re-, -ist, -ed, -s = affixes). All affixes in English are bound morphemes.
When free morphemes are used with bound morphemes, the basic word-form is technically known as stem.
Example:
undressed carelessness
un- dress -ed care -less -ness
prefix stem suffix stem suffix suffix
(bound) (free) (bound) (free) (bound) (bound)
Remember that it is simplification!
- derivational morphemes – set of affixes used to make new words in the language and often used to make words of different grammatical category from the stem.
Affixes: -ful, -less, -ness, -ish, -ly, -ment, re-, pre-, ex-, dis-, co-, un- (and more).
Examples: goodness (good + -ness), careful (care + -ful)
- inflectional morphemes – not used to produce new words in English, but rather to indicate grammatical function of a word; there are only eight inflectional morphemes in English:
Noun + -'s -s
Verb + -s -ing -ed -en
Adjective + -est -er
There is some variation in the form (those boys' bags). Inflectional morphemes never change the grammatical category of a word (old, older – adjectives)
3. Morphological description
Example: The girl's wildness shocked the teachers.

The girl -'s wild -ness shock -ed
(funct.) (lexic.) (inflect.) (lexic.) (deriv.) (lexic.) (inflect.)

the teach -er -s
(funct.) (lexic.) (deriv.) (inflect.)

4. Morph – the actual form used to realise morphemes;
cat – a single morph realising a lexical morpheme
cats – consists of two morphs, realising a lexical morpheme and an inflectional morpheme ('plural' -s).
5. Allomorph - any of the phonological representations of a single morpheme. Example: the final (s) and (z) sounds of "bets" and "beds" are allomorphs of the English noun-plural morpheme.
6. Reduplication – this repetition device serves as a means of inflectional marking
bflag (life) – bfbflag (lives)
mula (plant) – mumula (plants)

GRAMMAR

1. Grammar – system of rules describing the structure of sentences and phrases which represent all the grammatical sequences and rule out all the ungrammatical sequences.
2. Types of grammar
a) 'mental grammar' – a for of internal linguistic knowledge which operates in the production and recognition of appropriately structured expression in that language. It is subconscious and is not a result of any teaching;
b) 'linguistic etiquette' – the identification of the 'proper' or' best' structures to be used in a language;
c) grammar in linguistics – involves the study and analysis of the structures found in a language, description of a grammar and comparison with other grammar.
3. Parts of speech
a) nouns – words used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places, qualities, phenomena and abstract ideas as if they were all 'things';
b) adjectives – words used (typically with nouns) to provide more information about the 'things' referred to (happy people, large objects, endless love);
c) verbs – words used to refer to various kings of actions (run, jump) and states (be, seem) involving the 'things' in events;
d) adverbs – words used to provide more information about the actions and events (slowly, suddenly); some adverbs (really, very) are also used with adjectives to modify the information about 'things' (really mad about somebody);
e) prepositions – words (at, in, on, near, with, without) used with nouns ion phrases providing information about time, place, and other connections (location, source, goals, purpose);
f) pronouns (words, me, they, he, himself, this, it) – used in place of noun phrases, typically referring to things already known (he likes himself, she is really amazing);
g) conjunctions – words (and, but, although, if) used to connect, and indicate relationships between events and things;
4. Traditional grammar – has its origins in the description of languages like Classical Latin and Greek. Grammar of these languages was taken to be 'the best grammar'.
5. Traditional categories – parts of speech, number, person, tense, voice, gender
a) Agreement in terms of:
- number – John loves Mary (3rd person singular);
- person – The boy likes his dog (verb likes agrees with the noun boy);
- tense – likes (instead of liked);
- voice – passive/active;
- gender – natural gender (biological distinction between male and female), grammatical gender (nouns are classified according to their gender class);
6. Prescriptive approach – set of rules, patterns for the 'proper' use of a language; everything is described according to them; approach based on Latin & Greek grammar (however, it is different from English language – that's why there are some gaps in applying those rules in English);
Rules: You must not split an infinitive. You must not end a sentence with a preposition.
7. Descriptive approach – analysing the structure of a language as it is used, not as it should be used; the basis of most modern attempts to characterise the structure of different languages (especially useful in Indian languages);
a) Structural analysis – type of descriptive approach; investigating the distribution of forms (e.g. morphemes) in a language;
'Test frames':
The _________ makes a lot of noise.
(noun, noun phrases) (e.g. donkey, car, dog, child)

John _________ his dinner (e.g. ate, vomited, is digesting)
(verbs)

b) Immediate constituent analysis – the same descriptive aims (as above); distribution of forms + how smaller forms go together in sentences;
constituent (component) – part of a sentence
Example: Her father brought a shotgun to the wedding.
(her father) [brought (a shotgun)] [to (the wedding)]

Art = article, N = noun, V = verb,
S = sentence NP = noun phrase VP = verb phrase
Diagrams: page 94/95 Yule


SYNTAX

1. Syntax – concentration on structure and ordering of components (structures) within a sentence;
2. Generative grammar – simple algebraic expression (e.g. 2x +3y) can generate an endless set of values, by following the simple rules of arithmetic; sentences can be seen as a comparable set;
Properties:
- grammar will generate all the well-formed syntactic structures (e.g. sentences) and fail to generate any ill-formed structures (all and only grammatical sentences);
- finite number of rules and infinite number of well-formed structures;
- recursion – capacity to be applied more than once in generating a structure (e.g. This is a dog that chased the cat that killed the rat...);
- surface structure – two superficially distinct structures are closely related
Example: Charlie broke the window.
The window was broken by Charlie.
The deep structure is the same but the surface structure is different.
- deep structure – abstract level of structural organisation in which all the elements determining structural interpretation are represented;
Language is not fully logical so mathematical model of language is not correct – theoretical model (ideal for hearer/speaker). It is claimed that more than 90% of language is metaphysical.
3. Symbols – Yule, page 104
4. Labelled tree diagrams – Yule, page 105

5. Phrase structure rules – enable us to generate a large number of sentences with only a small number of rules;
S®NP VP
VP®V NP (PP) (Adv)
PP®Prep NP
VP®V S
V®Vb particle
6. Transformational rules – systematic changes in patterns; a set of rules which will change or move constituents in the structures derived from the phrase structure rules (taking a 'branch' of the 'tree' away from one part of the tree diagram and attach it to a different part);
Example: George helped Mary yesterday. Dobbie picked up the magazine.
Yesterday George helped Mary. Dobbie picked the magazine up.


SEMANTICS

1. Semantics – the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences (objective & general meaning, not subjective and local);
2. Conceptual meaning – covers basic, essential components of meaning which are conveyed by literal use of a word.
Example: needle – 'thin, sharp, steel, instrument';
3. Associative meaning – 'associations' or 'connotations' attached to a word;
Example: needle – 'painful';
a) connotated meaning – refers to noncriterial, nondefining characteristic features of a concept: He is an early bird – not true for every bird!
b) stylistic meaning – reflected in the choice of words depends on social context; expresses what is communicated of the social circumstances of a language:
Example: Kupił sobie nowy samochód.
Kupił sobie nowy wóz.
Kupił sobie nową brykę.
Some social circumstances of an utterance.
c) affective meaning – signals that attitude of a speaker towards a listener; some social context is also present here:
Example: - Shut up!
- Could you please lower your voice a little?
d) reflected meaning – one word (lexical unit) has two meanings from which one is more prominent and makes the other meaning ambigiuous:
Example: - You must really love you wife.
- Oh, yes! I must.
e) collocative meaning – results from collocurrence of certain words together; shows what is communicated through associations with other words that tend to occur together:
Example: (when a man say – it's OK): - What a pretty girl!
(when a man says – homo): - What a pretty boy!
f) thematic meaning – which elements of a sentence we think as the most important ones; what is communicated through the way a message is organised:
Example: Chłopiec bawił się piłką. - emphasis on piłka
Piłką bawił się chłopiec. - emphasis on chłopiec
4. Semantic features
a) 'oddness' – syntactically correct, but semantically odd;
Example: The hamburger ate a man.
Noun hamburger is not capable of 'eating' (but man has it).
b) semantic features – certain nouns can only go with certain verbs; decomposition into some features (+) or (-): ±animate, ±human, ±male;
Example: The _________ is reading a book.
N (+human)
However, decomposition into features does not really work!!! What about such nouns as: advice, threat, warning?
5. Semantic roles – words are not treated as 'containers' of meaning, but we can look at the 'roles' they fulfil within the situation described by a sentence.
Example: The boy kicked the ball.
a) Agent – entity that performs the action ('the boy'); agents are typically human (non-human forces, machines or creatures also possible);
b) Theme – the entity th t i involved on or affected by the action ('the ball');
c) Instrument – entity that is used by the agent (I'm writing with a pen.);
d) Experiencer – the person who has a feeling, a perception or a state; if you see, know or enjoy something, you do not really have to perform any action (so you are not an agent);
e) Location – (on the table, in the room);
f) Source – where the entity moves from;
g) Goal – where the entity moves to;

6. Lexical relations – characterising the meaning of a word not in terms of its component features, but in terms of its relationship to other words; relations between words (other elements);
a) Synonyms – two or more forms with very closely related meanings, which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences;
Examples: broad – wide, almost – nearly, cab-taxi;
b) Antonyms – two forms with opposite meanings (quick – slow, big – small);
- gradable antonyms – used in comparative constructions (bigger than – smaller than); the negative of one member of the gradable pair does not necessarily imply the other (the dog is not old – is doesn't necessarily mean that the dog is young);
- non-gradable antonyms ('complementary pairs') – normally not used in comparative structures; the negative of one member does imply the other (the person is not dead – does indeed mean that the person is alive);
- reversives – one word in pair is not negative to the other (tie – untie); untie does not mean not tie; also: enter – exit;
c) Hyponyms – the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another – hierarchical relationship;
Examples: daffodil – flower, dog – animal, carrot – vegetable; horse and dog – co-hyponyms of animal;
d) Homophones – two or more different (written) forms have the same pronunciation: bare – bear, meat – meet, flour – flower;
e) Homonyms – words which have quite separate meanings, but which have accidentally come to have exactly the same form; one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings: bank (of a river, institution), pupil (at school, in the eye);
f) Polysemy – one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings which are all related by extension: head (object on top of the body and on top of a glass of beer), foot (of person, of bed, of mountain);
7. Metonymy – the substitution of a word referring to an attribute for the thing that is meant, as for example the use of the crown to refer to a monarch;
8. Collocation – words frequently occurred together;

PRAGMATICS

1. Pragmatics – the study of 'intended speaker meaning'; the study of 'invisible' meaning, or how we recognise what is meant even when it isn't actually said (or written);
2. Context
a) linguistic context (co-context) – is the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence:
Example: - I must go to the ban k to cash a check.
(he intends to go to an institution, not to the river's bank)
b) physical context – the 'physical' location influences the interpretation (when you see the word BANK on the wall of a building in a city);
3. Deixis – some words in the language cannot be interpreted at all unless the physical context (especially of the speaker) is known; these words are: here, there, this, that, now, then as well as most pronouns I, you, him, her, them;
Example: You'll have to bring that back tomorrow, because they aren't here now.
- person deixis - any expression used to point to a person (me, you, him, them);
- place deixis – words used to point to a location (here, there);
- time deixis – words used to point to a time (now, then, tonight);
4. Reference – act by which a speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something;
5. Inference – any additional information used by the listener to connect what is said to what must be meant.
6. Presupposition – what a speaker assumes is true or is known by the hearer; used frequently by lawyers;
Example: Your brother is waiting outside. (presupposition that you have a brother)
7. Speech acts – 'actions' such as requesting, commanding, questioning and informing;
a) direct speech act – forms beginning with: "Did he...?", "Are they...?", or "Can you...?" used to ask a question in order to receive some information;
b) indirect speech act – tend to be more polite;

LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

Neurolinguistics – the study of the relationship between language and the brain.
1. Parts of the brain
a) Broca's area – (called after a French surgeon), anterior speech cortex – damage to this part of the brain means difficulties in producing speech; Broca's area is crucially involved in producing speech;
b) Wernicke's area (also called posterior speech cortex) – damage to this part of the brain means speech comprehension difficulties; it's crucially involved in understanding the speech;
c) motor cortex – generally controls movement of the muscles; when minute electrical current was applied to specific areas of the brain, they'd interfere with normal speech production;
d) arcuate fasciculus – crucial connection between Broca's & Wernicke's areas;

2. Localisation view - it is one way of saying that our linguistic abilities have identifiable locations in the brain. But there is a lot of evidence which does not support this view (any damage to one area of the brain appears to influence other areas). Important: we are forced to use metaphors mainly because we cannot obtain direct physical evidence of linguistic processes in the brain.
Other views:
Sigmund Freud used a 'steam engine' metaphor to account for some aspects of brain's activity. He talked of "repression" – building up pressure and sudden release. Today this metaphor doesn't seem to be as appropriate as it used to be. Today the pathway metaphor seems to be more appropriate since we have electronic age and the whole process of sending signals through electrical circuits is familiar. We have to use suck metaphors because simply we don't have any access to the brain. We have to rely on discoveries via indirect methods.
3. Tongue tips & slips
Sometimes it happens that we have some difficulties in getting the brain & speech production work smoothly.
a) tip-of-the-tongue – a phenomenon in which you feel that some word is eluding (umyka); you know that word, but it won't come to the surface; this may prove that some words from our 'word-storage' are more easily retrieved than others;
b) malapropisms – when we make mistake in retrieval process;
c) slip-of-the-tongue – often results in tangled expressions as in 'long shory stort' (for 'long story short'); spoonerism – word reversals (interchange two initial sounds, words, etc.);
c) slip-of-the-ear – it results in our hearing;
4. Aphasia - a disorder of the central nervous system characterized by partial or total loss of the ability to communicate, esp. in speech or writing.
Yule's definition – Weakening of language function due to localised cerebral (i.e. brain) damage which leads to difficulty in understanding and/or producing linguistic forms.
The most common cause of aphasia is a stroke, though traumatic head injuries suffered through violence or accidents may have similar effects.
a) Broca's aphasia (also called 'motor aphasia') – substantially reduced amount of speech, distorted articulation and slow, often effortful speech. What is said consists almost entirely of lexical morphemes (e.g. nouns and verbs). Often called agrammatic aphasia – frequent omission of functional morphemes (e.g. articles, prepositions, inflections), no grammatical markers. In this type of aphasia, comprehension (zrozumienie) is typically much better than production.
Example: I eggs and eat and drink coffee breakfast – answer to a question what the speaker had for breakfast
b) Wernicke's aphasia (also called 'sensory aphasia') – results in difficulties in auditory comprehension. The person suffering from this disorder can actually produce very fluent speech which is often difficult to make sense of (difficulties in finding the correct words, using of very general terms even in response to specific requests of information).
Example: I can't talk all of the things I do, and part of the part I can go alright, but I can't tell from the other people; What's ink for? – to do with a pen.
c) conduction aphasia – damage of arcuate fasciculus; no articulation problems; comprehension of spoken words is normally good; people suffering from it are fluent, but may have disrupted (zakłócony) rhythm because of pauses and hesitations; major difficulty: problems with repeating a word or phrase (spoken by someone else) – what is heard and understood cannot be transferred to the speech production area;
All those symptoms are also characteristic for brain disease known as dementia – difficulties in speaking will be accompanied by difficulties in writing; difficulties in auditory comprehension are connected with reading difficulties. Those language disorders are almost always the result of injury to the left hemisphere.
5. Dichotic listening test – technique which uses generally established fact that anything experienced on the right hand side is processed in the left hemisphere & vice versa; so signal coming from right ears goes to left hemisphere and from left ear to tight hemisphere;
Procedure of the test
Person is given earphones and two different sound signals are emitted. When person is to say what he/she heard, the sound that came via the right ear is identified correctly. It means that the language signal received through left ear first is send to the right hemisphere and then to the left one for processing – it takes longer than direct processing through right ear to left hemisphere.
6. Critical period
Left hemisphere is in charge of the language (specialisation) which is often described as lateralization (one-sideness). It's believed that during early childhood there's a period when human brain is most ready to receive & learn particular language. If a child doesn't acquire language during this period, it will have great difficulty in learning a language later on. (Genie's case – Yule, page171).

SIGN LANGUAGE

1. Alternate sign language – older concept of sign language as a limited set of gestures used instead of real language; a system of gestures developed by speakers for limited communication in specific context where speech can't be used (i.e. some religions, Aborigines);
2. Primary sign language – the first language of a group that doesn't have access to a spoken language (e.g. ASL);
3. Oralism – a teaching method for deaf people required that students practised English speech sounds and developed lip reading skill (this method wasn't successful);
4. ASL – American Sign Language (Ameslan) – kind of underground language used in only deaf-deaf interaction; developed from French sign language used in Paris school in XVIII century and then was brought to the USA;
- ASL as linguistic system – every feature found in spoken languages has a counterpart in ASL; equivalent levels of phonology, morphology and syntax; natural language (different dialects in different regions and historical changes); wiring in ASL in difficult, but possible;
5. Signed English (Manually Coded English) – producing signs correspondingly to the words in English sentence, in English word order;
- major aim: to prepare students to be able to read and write English and enable the deaf take part in hearing world;
- designed to make the interaction between the deaf and the hearing community easier;
- production of a sentence takes twice as long as in English or ASL;
6. The structure of signs – linguistic forms of ASL involve 4 key aspects of visual information = articulatory parameters of ASL (primes):
a) shape – configuration of hands used in forming the sign;
b) orientation – describes the fact that hand is palm up, e.g. not down;
c) location – where we place hand first;
d) movement – what kind of movement;
In addition to this, there are some non-manual components like: head-movement, eye-movement, facial expression, fingerspelling (system of hand configurations used to represent the letters of the alphabet);

TEXT LINGUISTICS

Model proposed by Chomsky focused on structure, not function.
Every object has structure and function. Chomsky analysed only structure – we want to analyse language as a process in communication, functions in communication.
1. Modular (static) model of language – Chomsky concentrated on structure – views language as composed of certain parts, components so that is the reason why it is called static.
2. Interactive (dynamic) model of language – when we say something all components go together, they all occur at the same time.
3. Criticism of earlier & Chomsky's models
- neglected the function of language (it was taken by philosophers);
- within semantics – selectional restrictions (semantic composition - +/- feature); put severe limits on the productivity of language because they are based on actual relations of the real world = excludes the whole group of metaphysical expressions (90% of our language is metaphor) – "to cry one's heart out";
4. Communication – it involves:
- at least two participants (speaker/hearer);
- a message;
- place/situation in which this message is transferred;
5. TEXT – it's easier to perceive a text as a basic unit 9instead of phoneme, morpheme, etc.)
It is very difficult to give one definition because there is lots of different texts, so linguists came up with the idea to set up a number of conditions which must be fulfilled for a sequence of sounds (words, sentences) to be called "text". These conditions are often called:
6. Constitutive principles (or necessary conditions):
a) cohesion – sequence of sentences, words we expect them to be linked – surface link = connection between words and sentences on a surface level (e.g. conjunctions);
b) coherence – also connection between elements but at an abstract semantic level;
c) informativity – degree of information that is carried by some expressions; there's a tendency in every conversation – speaker says something new;
d) intentionality & acceptability – it has something to do with the attitude of a speaker that every text s produced with an intention;
e) situationality – relationship between text and situation; we have different limits of situation (physical proximity between speakers –social status, age, sex, etc.);
f) intertextuality – relationship between currently produced texts and those that already exist, e.g. between two literary texts; linguistic poetry based on sequence of sounds;
7. Cohesion – surface links between words; structural way of connecting sentences (ties and connection within the text);
Mechanisms of cohesion relationships:
a) junctives
- conjunctions (relation of, addition, and, moreover, also...);
- disjunctions – connects elements of alternative status in a text (either...or);
- contrjunctions linking elements of the same status but being in opposition in the text (but, nevertheless, however);
b) subordinating elements of all types – they overtly (jasno) show connections between sentences;
- subordinate clause – all elements that link subordinate clauses:
- if conditional subordinate clause
- when, after temporal subordinate clause
- because, cause casual clauses

c) recurrence – repetition of the same lexical item in the text;
- full recurrence – repeating the same lexical item;
- partial recurrence – the lexical form is not repeated in the same form but in a different syntactic form (the Government – the governed)
d) proforms – stand for another form;
- pronoun – the most common type; substitution for a noun;
- proverb – stands for a verb, e.g. do;
- proadjective – stands for an adjective
All these elements can corefer. We can have:
- anaphoric order – anaphora reference to already mentioned entity – lexical item precedes the noun;
Monika is.............. . She is.........
- cataphoric order – full lexical item follows the proform;
She was smiling. Lena didn't know.....
- exophoric order – reference outside the text;
I can't come here and today. I'm busy.
- ellipses – omission of certain parts of a sentence;
What did you have for breakfast? Nothing.
- verbal forms – time relationship, e.g. Present Perfect;
Describe the following examples (I'm not sure!!! Please, check it!!!):
- "and" - conjunction
- "also" - conjunction
- "or" - disjunction
- "jack-of-all-trades" - recurrence
- "do" - proverb
- "he" - pronoun
- "but" - contrjunction
8. Coherence – sometimes we don't have cohesive elements, but we can understand by reconstructing the missing elements because we are concentrating on text as a whole, not on certain elements.
a) meaning – the potential of language expression in representing & transmitting knowledge – e.g. dictionary;
b) sense – a particular use of language expressions as represented in a dictionary;



9. Spreading activation (activation of knowledge) – the way we unzip pieces of information from our brain.
We have two ways of storing the information (LTM – semantic memory; coding and packing information):
a) every single item is carried into the mind and stored separately;
b) information is stored in some clusters of knowledge – global patterns (clusters of knowledge, one item activates the other items);
On the basis of spreading activation there are three types of knowledge:
- determined knowledge – association between two items is of the highest degree, e.g. concept of immortality – everybody knows we'll die;
- typical knowledge – intermediate phase, lowed degree of association, e.g. human being & house – that they live in houses;
- accidental knowledge – association is purely accidental, e.g. human being & blond hair; Bimboo is my friend (we accidentally assume who is Bimboo)
10. Paul Grice's conversational maxims – he assumed that people do not always say what they mean
Cooperation principle (main) – our contribution to communication should be such as expected from us at a given point;
a) maxim of quantity – we should be as informative as necessary, and not more informative than necessary;
b) maxim of quality – you shouldn't say what you know is untrue or do not have adequate evidence for it (e.g. Teheran jest w Turcji. A London w Armenii);
c) maxim of relevance – what you say should be relevant in communication;
d) maxim of manner – concerns the way we handle our utterances:
- avoid obscurity (niejasność);
- avoid ambiguity (dwuznaczność);
- be brief;
- be organized