ANTH 1150 Chapter 4: Chapter 4

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 1150
• Professor: R.Sylvain

Document Summary

Semantic universality is a unique aspect of human communication it refers to the communicative power of language the fact that language provides for nearly infinite combinations that express different experiences and thoughts in different ways. Productivity refers to the infinite capacity of human language to create new messages never before uttered to convey information about an infinite number of subjects in greater and greater detail. Displacement refers to the ability to send or receive a message without direct sensory contact with the conditions or events to which the message refers conveying abstract information. Arbitrariness refers to the fact that there is seldom a connection between the abstract symbols employed by humans and the events and properties they signify. Although surface forms may differ, all human languages have grammar. A linguists grammar is called descriptive because it doesn t judge how a language should or should not be used; it describes how people talk.