语言学1.docx

1、语言学1Chapter 11What is language?Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication2. Design features of language ？a) Arbitrariness: It refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.b) Duality: the property of having two l

2、evels of structures. Such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organizationc) Productivity/creativity: Language is resourceful because of its duality and recursiveness. Language has its potential to creat

3、e endless sentences.d) Displacement: Human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication.3. Functions of language1) Informative: The speakers use language to talk about their thoughts, ideas, beliefs or

4、 what they believe, they see, they hear.e.g. Water boils at 212 degree Fahrenheit.2) Interpersonal function: people use language to establish and maintain their status in society.e.g. It includes forms of address, speech function, modality, etc.3) Performative: Language is used to “do things”, to pe

5、rform actions.4) Emotive function: It is crucial in changing the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or something.5) Phatic communion: The speaker will use seemingly meaningless expressions to establish a comfortable relationship between people without involving any factual conten

6、t.6) Recreational function: The language is used for the sheer joy.7) Metalingual function: Language can be used to talk about language.Language is self-reflexive.E.g. paraphrase: (order change, similar expressions)definition: (/a:/ is a vowel and /b/ is a consonant.)4.Main branches of linguistics1)

7、 Phonetics-speech soundsIt studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is, how the speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and received, the sounds of speech, the description and classification of speech sounds, etc.2) Phonology -phonemeIt studies the rules governing of the

8、structure, distribution and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. Simply put it, it studies how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning in communication.3) Morphology-morphemeIt is concerned with the internal organization of words. It studies the minimal units of meaning

9、-morphemes and word-formation process.4) SyntaxIt studies the rules in the formation, organization of a sentence. Or specifically, it studies the word order of a sentence.5) SemanticsIt concerns the study of meaning in a language.6) PragmaticsIt is the study of meaning in a context, in a particular

10、situation.5.Macrolinguistics:Linguistics is a discipline. It has relationships with other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, computer science and so on.1)Psycholinguistics: It investigates the interrelation of language and mind.2) Sociolinguistics: It concerns the relationship between langua

11、ge and society, including the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its users.3) Anthropological linguistics: It uses the theories and methods of anthropology to study language variation and language use in relation to the cultural patterns and beliefs of man.6. Important di

12、stinctions in linguistics1) Descriptive vs. prescriptiveThe distinction lies in prescribing how things ought to be and describing how things are. Descriptive linguistics describes and analyzes the facts observed. Prescriptive linguistics tries to lay down rules for “correct” behavior.2) Synchronic a

13、nd DiachronicA synchronic description takes a fixed instant as its point of observation. That is, if we study language at some point in time, it is synchronic study.Diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through the course of its history. That is, if we study language as it exists in diff

14、erent historical periods, it is diachronic study.3) Langue and paroleLangue is the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, including rules, conventions; It is stable and systemic.Parole is the concrete use of rules. Parole is subject to personal and situational co

15、nstraints4) Competence and performanceCompetence refers to the language users underlying knowledge about the system of rules.Performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations.Chapter 21. Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived.Articulatory P

16、honetics is the study of the production of speech sounds.Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds.Perceptual or Auditory Phonetics is concerned with the perception of speech sounds.2. Consonants and vowelsConsonants are produced with some form of obstruction of the

17、 air passage, with or without the vibration of the vocal cords.By contrast, a vowel is produced without any obstruction of the air stream in the mouth, so that air escapes in a relatively unimpeded way through the mouth or nose voicedThe distinction between vowels and consonants lies in the obstruct

18、ion of airstream.Place of articulation(1).Bilabial (双唇音): p, b, m, w(2). Labial-dental（唇齿音: f, v(3).Dental（齿音）: , (4).Alveolar（齿龈音）: t, d, s, z, n, l(5).Post-alveolar（后齿龈音）:, 3(6). Retroflex (卷舌音): r eg. Chinese(7). Palatal（硬腭音）: j(8). Velar（软腭音）: k, g, (9). Uvular (小舌音)：r eg. French(10). Pharyngeal

19、(喉音): h eg. Arabic(11). Glottal（声门音）: h3. What is minimal pair?two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place.4. Allophonesp, ph are two different phones and are variants of the phoneme /p/. Such variants of a phoneme are called allophones

20、of the same plementary distribution : they never occur in the same context:Phonetic similarity: the allophones of a phoneme must bear some phonetic resemblence.5. Assimilation: Nasalization, dentalization, and velarization are all instances of assimilation, a process by which one sound takes on some

21、 or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound.6. Suprasegmentals features are those aspects of speech that involve more than single sound segments. The principle suprasegmentals are stress, tone, and intonation.7. The syllable structure :All syllables must have a nucleus but all syllables conta

22、in an onset and a coda. A syllable that has no coda is called an open syllable while a syllable with coda is a closed syllable.8. Tone: languages like Chinese are known as tone languages.Chapter 31.Morpheme（词素）: the smallest meaningful unit in composition of words.Morphology（形态学）: the study of word-

23、formation, or the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed from smaller components - morphemes.1. types of morphemes1)free morpheme and bound morpheme（自由词素和粘附词素）Free morphemes -morphemes which may occur alone or may constitute words by themselves, e.g. dog, nation, desk,

24、close.Bound morphemes - morphemes which can not occur alone and must appear with at least another morpheme, e.g. dis-, un-, -ed, -ment.2)root, affix and stem (词根、词缀和词干)Root- the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total loss of identity. It is the part of the word left when a

25、ll the affixes are removed. All words contain a root.Affix- the morphemes that can be used only when added to another morpheme (the root or stem). There are three subtypes: Prefixes, Suffixes & Infixes.Stem- any morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be added. Or it

26、is the part of word form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed.3).inflectional affix and derivational affix（屈折词缀和派生词缀）Inflectional affix- affixes which often only add a grammatical meaning to the stem.Derivational affix- affixes which change the lexical meaning. Two fields of

27、 Morphology: Inflectional morphology (屈折形态学): the study of inflections. Derivational morphology (派生形态学): the study of word-formation.2.what is word1)stability2)relative uninterruptbility3)a minimum free form(A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound, meaning and syntactic fu

28、nction.)3.classification of words1)Variable & invariable wordsVariable: words with ordered and regular series of grammatically different word forms. Part of the word remains relatively constant.Invariable: words without inflective endings.e.g. since, when, seldom, through, etc.2)Grammatical words an

29、d Lexical wordsGrammatical / Function words: words which express grammatical meaning; to link different parts together.连，介，冠，代词Lexical / Content words: words which have lexical meaning, or which carry the main content of a language名，动词，形容词，副词3)Closed-class & open-class wordsClosed-class: whose membe

30、rship is fixed or limited, i.e., new members cannot normally be added, such as pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, auxiliaries.Open-class: whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited, i.e., new members can be added, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs4) Word class: k

31、nown as Parts of Speech in traditional grammar, which establishes nine word classes, such as noun, verb, adjectives, adverbs, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection and article.Pro-form: substitutes for other terms. Pro-adjective: Your car is red. So is his. Pro-verb: He speaks English bett

32、er than he does. Pro-adverb: He hopes to win and I hope so too. Pro-locative: He went there, under the tree.4. Lexical Change 1) Invention/Coinage 发明法2) Blending混成法:3) Back-formation逆构词法 4) Clipping /Abbreviations缩写词 5) Acronym缩略语6) Analogical creation类推构词7) Borrowing借词5.Compound refers to a word that is composed of more than one morpheme,