LING 1000 Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Unit, Verb, Grammar
12 Oct 2018
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LING 1000
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
UNIT 1
Chapter 1: What is language
- its estimated that around 5000 languages are spoken around the world
- knowing a language means knwning what sound (or signs in the case of sign
language for deaf people) are in that language and what sounds are not
o this unconscious knowledge is revealed by the way speakers of one
language pronounce words from another language
- know sounds and sound patterns
- knowing a language is knowning that certain sound sequences signify certain
concepts or meanings → know how to relate sound and their meanings (ex.
boy is different from toy and girl)
- relationship between speech sounds and the relationships they represent in
the languages of the world is arbitrary so if you don’t know a language, the
sounds spoken to you will be mainly incomprehensible
Form and meaning
- linguistic Ferdinand de Saussure pointed out the conventional pairing of the
sound (form) and the concept (meaning)
- For sign language, signs that may have originally been mimetic (similar to
miming) or iconic (with a nonarbitray relationship between form and
meaning)
- These signs become conventional so knowing the shape or the movement
of the hands does not reveal the meaning of the gestures in sign language
Iconicity in language
- sound symbolism is found in words who;s pronunciation suggest the
meaning (as in the word hiss)
- onomatopoeic: sounds of the words imitate the sounds of nature
Creativity of Linguistic knowledge
- knowledge of a language enables you to combine words to form phrases and
phrases to form sentences
- Creative aspect of language use: knowing a language means to be able to
produce a sentence never spoken before and to understand sentences never
heard before
- You can make sentences as long as you want using your knowledge but it will
probably be a new sentence never heard or spoken before
Sentences and Non sentences
- linguistic knowledge includes RULES for forming sentences and making
judgments
- anyone who knows a language can produce and understand sentences that
have never been uttered before. Chomsky refers to this as the knowledge
aspect of language use
- first written words of language that have been found are 6000 years old
- when you know a language you know the sounds words and rules for
combinations
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- there is a difference between
what you KNOW which is your linguistic competence
o how you use this knowledge in actual speech production and
comprehension which is your linguistic performance
- sometimes when we speak the message gets garbled so we may stammer or
pause or produce slips of the tongue
What is grammar?
- Descriptive grammars
o The sounds and sound patterns, the basic units of meaning such as
words, and the rules to combine them to form new sentences
constitute the grammar of language
o Descriptive grammar does not tell you how you should speak, it
descrives your basic linguistic knowledge
o It explains how its possible for you to speak and understand and tells
what you know about the sounds, words, phrases and sentences of
you language
o When we say a sentence is grammatical, it conforms to the rules of
both grammars
o When we say a sentence is ungrammatical (unacceptable), sentence
deviates in some form with these rules
o No language or variety of language (dialect) is superior to any other in
a linguistic sense
- Prescriptive grammars
o Prescribe rather than using the rules of grammar, tell people what
rules they should know
o Standard dialect may be a better dialect for someone wishing to
obtain a particular job or achieving a position of social prestige
** Descriptive grammars are formal accounts of our word grammar. Mental
grammar tells us what is acceptable and unacceptable grammar use. Teaching
grammar compare the target with the native language by providing a gloss for each
foreign word to be learned. Prescriptive grammars are comprehensive accounts of
detailed grammatical facts
Teaching grammars and reference grammars
- teaching grammar is used to learn another language/dialect
- teaching grammar states the difference in singular and plural is not at the
ends of the words but at the beginning of it
- reference grammar
o tries to be as comprehensive as possible so that it can provide a
reference for those interested in establishing grammatical facts
Language universals
- Phonology: sound system
- Sematics: system of meanings
- Morphology: rules of word formation and internal structure of words
- Syntax: rules of sentence formation
- Lexicon: vocabulary of words, meaning dictionary in greek
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Unit 1 its estimated that around 5000 languages are spoken around the world. Form and meaning linguistic ferdinand de saussure pointed out the conventional pairing of the sound (form) and the concept (meaning) For sign language, signs that may have originally been mimetic (similar to miming) or iconic (with a nonarbitray relationship between form and meaning) These signs become conventional so knowing the shape or the movement of the hands does not reveal the meaning of the gestures in sign language. Sound symbolism is found in words who;s pronunciation suggest the meaning (as in the word hiss) Onomatopoeic: sounds of the words imitate the sounds of nature. Knowledge of a language enables you to combine words to form phrases and phrases to form sentences. Creative aspect of language use: knowing a language means to be able to produce a sentence never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before.
