LINA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Persian Language, Arbitrariness, Structure Formation
LINA01
Lecture 1
What does it mean to know a language?
Knowing a language is being able to speak and be understood by others who know
that language
The capacity to produce some sounds (or signs for deaf and mute people) that have a
certain meaning and to understand and interpret the signs produced by others
The capacity to understand what linguistic constructions (sounds or signs, words,
sentences) are possible in a specific language and what constructions are not
The linguistic knowledge is unconscious knowledge: people speaking a specific
language are able to explain what constructions are correct or incorrect in that language,
but they are not able to explain why
Competence vs. Performance
When analyzing language, we need to distinguish between competence, defined as a
speakers unconscious knowledge of what can and cant be said in their language, and
Performance (how the speaker actually uses his/her linguistic competence to produce
and understand speech).
How is Language Different from other Forms of Communications?
Language is a linguistic rule system with the following characteristics:
(i) Arbitrariness
(ii) Creativity
(iii) Displacement
Arbitrariness
The relationship between sound/word (form) and its meaning is arbitrary (things are
not named based on their properties). For example, the concept for is represented by the
word main in French, by the word dast in Farsi, by the word hand in English, and the
word käsi in Finnish.
Creativity
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In spite of the arbitrariness of linguistic signs, humans are able to produce new sentences
never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before. For example, you
are (hopefully) able to understand the content of this PowerPoint document, although
you have never heard/seen its sentences before. Language is, therefore, characterized by
creativity.
This aspect is also related to the ability to combine words to form phrases and phrases to
form sentences. No dictionary of any language contains all the possible sentences. A given
language has only a certain specific number of sounds and allows these sounds to
combine in certain specific ways.
This aspect refers therefore to the creative character of language: out of a limited
inventory of signs (words), an infinite number of sentences can be created.
Von Humboldt (1836): language makes "infinite use of finite means".
Because of the creative capacity of language, the number of some elements in a sentence
might be reiterated as many times as wanted (and this observation is valid for all
languages). For example, a phrase like: The old house might be expanded by replicating
the concept for old (and this element is called an adjective), even ad infinitum:
The old, old house or
The old, old, old house or
The old, old, old, old, old, old, old house. (et c.)
Displacement
Language allows us to talk about things that are not immediately present.
We can discuss things that took place days, weeks or years ago and can also discuss
the future.
Linguistic Knowledge
Language is therefore a complex cognitive system. The purpose of this course is also to
look into its nature. But for this, we still need to introduce several concepts. One of them
is the concept of grammar.
Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammar What is in a mental grammar?
What is grammar?
A complex system of rules that governs how speakers organize sounds into words and
words into sentences
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Document Summary
Knowing a language is being able to speak and be understood by others who know that language. The capacity to produce some sounds (or signs for deaf and mute people) that have a certain meaning and to understand and interpret the signs produced by others. The capacity to understand what linguistic constructions (sounds or signs, words, sentences) are possible in a specific language and what constructions are not. The linguistic knowledge is unconscious knowledge: people speaking a specific language are able to explain what constructions are correct or incorrect in that language, but they are not able to explain why. When analyzing language, we need to distinguish between competence, defined as a speaker(cid:495)s (cid:523)unconscious(cid:524) knowledge of what can and can(cid:495)t be said in their language, and. Performance (how the speaker actually uses his/her linguistic competence to produce and understand speech). Language is a linguistic rule system with the following characteristics:
