LING 15 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Speech Community, Loanword, Polysemy
Linguistic diversity
Languages differ by:
➔Symbols (as phonemes and words)
➔Categorization of symbols
➔Arrangement of symbols
➔Analogous to and interdependent with cultural diversity
Linguistic history
Typology: how languages are categorized by their features
➔Syntax
Traits
➔Features or properties that characterize something
➔Organized by where languages come from
➔Not concerned with the origin of human language
➔where these traits come from
◆Inherited traits: properties of a language that transmit from previous generations
●Traits of the older generation language are passed on
◆Non-inherited traits: innovations or origins lie in language contact
●Slang
○ Differs from generation to generation
◆Innovations
● Ex: The morphosyntactic cycle and emergence of gender class
○ Form and/or meaning of symbols can change over time
○ The link between form and meaning is flexible
There are some languages known to be related
➔Spanish and Italian
➔Related: sharing lots of traits
➔Why do languages share traits
◆Shared inheritance
● Languages are related
○ Descended from a common source
◆Mutual influence
● Two communities of speakers of different languages come into social
contact with each other
◆Divergence
● One language begins to split up into multiple other ones
○ One or both has changed
Shared inheritance vs influence
➔Inheritance: Certain languages came from one single ancestor language
◆English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Romance languages
➔Influence: Languages influence each other independent of inheritance
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Document Summary
Analogous to and interdependent with cultural diversity. Typology: how languages are categorized by their features. Not concerned with the origin of human language. Inherited traits: properties of a language that transmit from previous generations. Traits of the older generation language are passed on. Non-inherited traits: innovations or origins lie in language contact. Ex: the morphosyntactic cycle and emergence of gender class. Form and/or meaning of symbols can change over time. The link between form and meaning is flexible. There are some languages known to be related. Two communities of speakers of different languages come into social contact with each other. One language begins to split up into multiple other ones. Inheritance: certain languages came from one single ancestor language. English, german, swedish, norwegian, russian, romance languages. Influence: languages influence each other independent of inheritance. European languages influence each other due to close proximity. Changes in form or meaning over time. Kakawa kakaw chakaw jokolatt chocolate. Quahweh kahve caffe cafe coffee.
