PSY374H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Arbitrariness, Vervet Monkey, Honey Bee
Document Summary
Issue: people speak different language may or may not understand each other. Examples: words in sentences all have meanings, same mechanism of grammar to talk. Show direction, distance, and quantity of the food. Discuss the meaning about the language: arbitrariness. Arbitrary = no reason why we call dog as dog . Vary with languages: dog french, german, and italian. Differ from pictures, which directly show the meaning: picture of dog. Honey bee communication is not arbitrary, their dance use distance to show distance. Languages have the similar sounds to present the same thing: pig in japanese and english: discreteness = separate. Language are distinguish and separate using different words represents different meaning. E. g. , change the sound to call the big dog and small dog . Vervet monkey"s cry is not discreteness: duality of patterning (human unique) Complex units made up by small meaning units. Small meaning units made up by smaller meaningless units.
