1. science
2. social science
3. linguistics

The
Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special
Education of the Repulic of Uzbekistan
Karakalpakstan State University
The Faculty of Foreign Languages
English Department
Lectures on General Linguistics
Docent : Yuldashev N.Y.
NUKUS - 2007
Letcure - 1
Language and Speech
Problems and Questions for Discussion:
1. What is language?
2. Definitions of language made by different thinkers
3. Language isthe system
4. Speech is the manifestation of Language
What is Language?
Interest in language how it originated, how works and develops, has existed
from time immemorial. For al ong time the word "language" was a general notion used
to mean the ntire comunicative means of man. There is no language outside society.
Language can be understood properly if it is studied in close connenction with the
history of human society. Language reflects the character, mentality and social activity of
the people who use it.
Language is a human and only a human. The latest reseach has shown that some
species of animals also communicate, but they do not talk in the sense in which we
usually use this word. lnguage is the normal form and means of communication and it
is determined by the social, economic and and cultural history of the people speaking
it. As language is closely connected with thinking and iss considered a vehicle of
thought it has fallen under the scrutiny. philosophers. Logcians study the laws of
thinkingand their reflections in language. Language is of social character by its origin
and hus draws the attention of sociologists.
Many definitions of language have been made by different thinkers:
Hegel (1770-1831). The prominent German philosopher said that "language is the
art of theoretical intelligence in its true sense, for it is its outward expression".
F. de Saussure (1857-1913), the famous French linguist, defined the language as
a system of signs expressing ideas.
D. Bloomfield (1887-1949), the American linguist, stated that language enabled
one person to express a reaction to another's stimulus.
E. Sapir (1884-1939), an outstanding American linguist considered language to
be a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicting ideas, emotions and
desires by means of a system of voluntary produced symbols. any definitions of
language have been put forward, but those given above are enough to show that none
of them are exclusive. They bring out
different aspects of language and supplement one another, but they do not give a
comprehensive definition.
In defining
language
everything
depends
on
the investigator's
methodological starting-point and the aims with which he sets out Language, an
important medium having a close relationship to thinking and an essential social
function, makes man human and fundamentally distinguishes himfrom the animals.
That is why language is the most important means of human communication. the
distinction between language and speech, which was first introduced by F. de
Sausure in his book on eneral linguistctics. His book has since become one of the
cornerstones of modern linguistics.
Language is the system, phonological, lexical and grammatical, which lies at
the base of all speaking. It is the source, which every speaker and writer has to draw upon
if he is to be understood by other speakers of the language.
Speech is the manifestation of language, or its use by various speakers and
writers of the given language. waht we have before us, in oral or in written form, as
material for analysis, is always a produact of speech, namely something either
pronounced or written by some individual speaker or writer.
But here we are only concerned with grammar, we will not dwell on the problem
of a language system in phonology, orthography and lexicology. But the system of
grammar can never, appear isolated from phonology and lexicology.
In stating that English nouns hav a distinction of two numbers, singulr and
plural, an that there are several ways of expressing the category of plural number in
nouns. We are stating facts of Language, that is, elements of that system on which a
speaker or writer of English has to dram.
In English there are phrases of pattern "adverb + adjective + noun", is
statement about language, namely, about the syntactical system of English on the phrase
level. In building such concrete phrases as, very fine weather, extrmely interesting
book, etc., a speaker draws, as it were, on the stock of phrase patterns existing in the
language and familiar to its speakers. And at last a speaker chooses the words existing
in the language in accordance with the thought and he expresses.
It may perhaps be said the the actrual sentences pronounced by a speaker are
the result of organizing words drawn from the language's word stock, according to a
pattern drawn from its grammatical system. So the material which a scholar takes up
for investigation is always a fact of speech. It is scholar's task to analyse the speech facts
which are at his disposal, in a such manner as to get through them to the understanding
language system, without which they could not have been produced.
Lecture 2
The origin of language
Problems and questions for discussion:
1. Plato's cratylus
2. Gesture language and other means of communication.
3. The philosophical point of view of explaining the origin of language.
4. The development of language is a historical process with its own objective
laws.
The origin of language
The origin of languageis hidden in the depth of antiquity. But the ancient
civilized peoples tried to answer the question: how did language originate? Man's search
for the origin of language is deeply rooted. As we have pointed out, the first impulse in
ancient Greeceto understand the origin of language was based not on scientific research
but on general philospophical premises.
The ancient Greeks made bold and persistent speculations on the origin, history
and structure of language, and there were many legends among them on which
language was the first to be spoken on the globe.
The greek historian Herodotus (5th century B.C.) tells us that King Psammetichus
of Egypt isolated two newborn infants to find out by their language which was the
oldest nation on the earth; when they began to speak they uttered the word "bekos"
which turned out to be phrygian for "bread".
This was the first naire attempt to determine which was the earliest language.
In his dialogues Cratylus Plato (427-347 B.C.) discusses the origin of words, and
particularly the question of whether relationship between things and thw words which
name them is natural and necessary, or merely the result of human convention.
Neverthless, many profound thinkershave proposed solution of their own to this
problem. All linguists are agreed that the problem of the origin of the human speech is
still unsolved.
There is no people on earth that even primarily let alone exclusively uses gesture
language as a means of communication. It is true that gesture language seems to be
widespread form of speech among primitive although only a few of them really deserve
the name "gesture language".
From thepoint of view of practical lifethat the unscientific theory of the
priority of gesture language is really absurd, because this would have allowed
communication only with people in the immediate neighbourhood, necessarily
excluding conversation with people at a distance or in the dark.
When prehistoric Man became aware that ppointing gestures were no longer
adequate fo intercourse with others of this kind he began to search for more
appropriate means of communication. This means at his disposal were sound and
gesture. so it is thought that he had to adapt these means of expression for his purposes.
Sound and gesturecame to be used simultaneously in the very earliest stage of speech.
Ancient Greeks tried to explain the origin of language from the philosophical
point of view. To be more exact, they did not deal with the problem of the origin of
language but with the destignation of the things which surrounded them. The ancient
philosophers thought that a word must ave a meaning either by nature or by
convention. Either there was something in the nature of the thing described that made
particular the right one for it, or there was no natural connection between the word and
its meaning, and the thing was described by suchand-such a word only became a
number of people had agreed on this meaning. These two different philosophical point of
view maybe called the natural school and the conventional school.
A correct understanding of the essence of language depends upon one's
approach to the great fundamental questions of philosophy as a whole. the basis of
all schools of philosophy is connected with the relation between thought and existence,
spirit and nature.
Now the question arises why language is the most important means of
human communication. The answer will become clear if we analyse non-linguistic means
of communication.
Some linguistic forms of communication come close to spoken language. The
whistling language used by the natives Gomera, in the Canary Islands, who
communicate in it over very long distance (about six miles). Other kinds of non-linguistic
forms of communication come close to written language and are supposed by some to
have been its embryonic form. The "quipu" or "knots" used by Perurian Incas, for
instance, had red ropes to symbolize soldiers, yellow ropes for gold, white ropes for
silver, with a single knot signifying 10, two knots for 20 and so on.
A third important field of non-linguistic communication is gestures which have
no connection with either spoken or written language. Gestures accompany all over
our speech. American Indian tribes, for instance, accompany language with gestures,
strange to us, but quite intelligible to them: the hand, palm in, thumb up; two fingers
initiate a man walking, and four fingers means the running of a horse.
Gesticulation As an aid to spoken language is universally used by all human
communities on earth. To the Uzbek or Karakalpak, for instance a downward nod
of the head means "Yes", and a shaking of the head from side to side means "no". On the
other hand, the Moderm Czechs express "no" by a downward jerk of the head.
1. Language is total means of expressing ideas and feelings and
communicating messages from one individual to others, used by all people in all their
spheres of activity.
2. language conveys not only the essence of the facts, but the speaker's attitude
towards them, his estimation of reality and his will. Language is connected not only
with logical thinking but with psychology of people too.
3. All sign-systems apart from language are artificial and they are created and
changed by convention. They are made not by the people as a whole, but by a relatively
small group of representatives of the given speciality. The development of language does
not depend upon the will of the members of the society. each generation adapt the
language it is given historically, and the development of the language may be
characterized as a historical process with its own objective laws.
Lecture 3
National Languages and dialects
Problems and questions for discussion:
1. The main ages in the development of man
2. The nomadic life of tribes
3. The political and cultural life of tribes in establishing dialects
4. Greek dialects and dialects of Britain.
languages are officially accepted as national means of expression.
National languages and dialects
language came into being as a means of communication among members of a
community joined together in hunting, getting food, generally producting their means
of subsistence. Scientists lay down the three main ages in the development of Man:
savagery, Barbarism and civilization.
Under the tribal system, language was closely connected with the tribe- the
highest organisational unit of which the members were aware of their mutual kinship.
In fact tribe and dialect are substantially co-extensive and the tribe identifiable by it
peculiar dialect. At this stage there came a rapid increase of the population and dense
population in small areas. In search for their living the tribesmen had to go to other
arable and pasture bands. Those sections that have severed relations with their tribe
began eventually from their former kinsmen. Splits in the tribes led to splits in their
languages; language diverged. The divergence would be enough to result in what we
call a difference in dialect. Where the separation of the tribesmen remained over a
much longer period, different languages developed.
The nomadic way of life compelled separate families and tribes to be constantly
in touch with each other, and the permanent contact between kindred tribes
checked the centrifugal forces and preventedthe languages from splitting completely.
the Eskimo language (the number of eskimois less than 40.000) retains considerable
similarity over its whole vast area of distribution.
An Eskimo living in East Greenland would understand his counterpart from
West Alaska even though they live some 5.000 km away from each other.
The situation in Ancient Greece was quite different. There were several Greek
dialects divided by linguists into four groups: Aheian, Aeolic, Doric, Ionian-Attic.
The political and cultural role of Athens in Greece led to the predominance of
the Attic dialect. When large numbers of Greeks began to move to East after the cnquest
of Alexande the Great.
It should be noted that the notions of literary language and common language do
not coincide. Literary language is opposed to the colloquial spoken language, while
common language is opposed to dialect. The spread of a common language
normally implies the existence of a literary
language, though the latter may exist without the first. Several dialects can exist of
one language with a corresponding literary language for each one; at the same time
there may be no common language. It goes without saying that a common language can
only arise when the actual prerequisites for a geographical division of labour exist and
when the need appears for a common medium of communication used not by a narrow
circle of civilized people but by the broad masses of the population. These conditions
arose in the East Mediterranean in the 3rd century B.C., but the development of the
Eastern Roman Empire (Bysantine), the return to the natural ecnomy, and the Arab
and Turkish conquest contributed to the dsappearance of this common language,
which disintegrated into various dialects.
The conquest of Italy by Rome brought and the related Italian languages and
dialects together, Latin won and became the common language in Italy, and later in
other areas conquered by Rome side by side with the classical latin, vulgar latin went
on developping, as the common spoken language of Italy, Gallia, Iberia, North Africa
and some parts of the Balkan Peninsula.
As for American English, some American linguists recognize three main
varieties of dialect: Eastern, Southern and midwestern, Most American speaker
distinguish
in pronuncation between horse hoarse, for and foar, morning and
moarning. The dialects of Britain are for more numerous than anything we have in
America. There are nine principal dialects in Scotland, three in Ireland, and thirty in
England and Wales. Among the chief English dialects are Cornwell, Devon, Somerset,
Dorset,
Gloucestershire,
Oxfordshire,
Shropshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland,
Northumberland,
Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Lockney and Sussex. Some of the
English dialects still use "thou and thee" instead of you. "Thik" is is Wexfordshire
dialect for "this".
The question is often asked: what is the difference between a language and a
dialect? One might answer that languages are officially accepted as nationalmeans
of expression, while dialects are not.
Once a unified language has been established, dialects tend to lose their social
status.
Lecture 4
The Historical Comparative Method (H.C.M.) in Linguistics
Problems and questions for discussion:
1. The discovery of Sanskrit.
2. The great linguists in comparative linguistics in Europe.
3. The H.C.M. and the general laws of language development.
4. The H.C.M. and the reconstruction of Proto-Indo -European language.
5. J.Grimm's and K.Verner's Laws.
6. The existence of genetic ties between Baltic and Slavonic Languages.
7. The Method of glottochronology.
The Historical Comparative Method in Linguistics.
There are many languages on the earth, both great and small. According to to
modern calculations, the number of living languages exceeds 2500. There are
developped national languages with ancient writing and literature and there are
languahes having no writing and no recorded history. Here belong the spoken
languages of tribes and small nationalities in America, Asia, Africa, Australia. Many of
the spoken languages are dying out together with their peoples. On the other hand, the
number of known languages is still growing, as new languages and dialects come to be
recorded and studied by science.
Observing the fact that some of the languages are very similar to one another in
their forms, while the others are quite dissimilar.
A scientific proof and study of the actual relationship between languages became
possible only when the H.C.M. of language of study was created in the 1st quarter of
the 19th century.
The H.C.M. developped in connection with the comparative observation of
languages belonging to the Indo-European family, and its appearence was stimulated
William Jones (1746-1794), a prominent British orientalist and Sanskrit scholar was the
first to point out in the form of rigorously grounded scientific hypothesis that Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin, Gothic and some other languages of India and Europe had spring from
the same source which no longer existed.
William Jones wrote in 1786: "The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity,
is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more capious than the Latin, and
more exquisitively refined than either; yet hearing the to both of them a stronger
affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar; than could possible be
produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all
three without believing them to have sprung them from some common source, which
perhaps, no longer exists. There is similar reason though not quite so forcible, for
supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different
idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit"(Asiatic Research, 1788,1. p 422).
The climax of the language research in the 18th century heralded the full
blossoming of philology in the 19th century. We have good grounds for saying that
linguistics as a science was created in the 19th century, especially comparative
linguistics.
The first of the great pioneers in comparative linguistics of the last century in
Western Europe was the Danish Rasmus Rask. His work (Investigation on the origin
of Old Norse or Icelandic, 1818) maybe called a comparative In-
do-European Grammar. In this book Rask clearly demonstrated the significance of laws
of sounds as a proof of linguistic kinship. The relations between the languages of the
Indo-European family were studied systematically and scientifically at the beggining
of the 19th century by Franz Bopp(1791-1867), Rasmus Rask (1787-1832),
Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and A.Ch.Vostokov (1781-1864).
These scientists not only made comparative and historical observation of the
kindred languages, but they defined the fundamental conception of linguistics "kinship"
(relationship) and created the historical comparative method in linguistics.
The Historical Comparative Linguistics was further developed in the works of
such scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries as F.Dietz (1794-1876), A.F.Pott (18021887), A.Schleicher (1821-1868), F.L.Buslayer (1848-1897), F.F.Fortunatov (18481914), F. de Saussure (1857-1913), A Meilett (1866-1936) and other linguists.
The H.C.M. is used to analyse and discover the relationship of different languages
and group of languages, to reconstruct pre-historic lingual elements. The H.C.M. as a
Science collects materials for studying general laws of language development.
I. The historical com. method proceeds from the possibility for different
languages to have been originated from the same source. The division of one language
into two or more languages is brought about by the division of the language speaking
community due to political and economic factors.
Such division of languages is characteristic of the tribal epoch in the history of
peoples. The actual process of language division is connected with repeated mixings,
crossings and re-divisions of tribes and nationalities throughtout centuries and
milleniums and accompanied by the disappearance of some languages, and the spread of
other languages over vast territories.
The native words of Indo-European languages that evidence their kinship:
Russ
Eng
G
Sanskr
Lat
Ўа в
¬ вм
brother
erm bruden
bhra'ta(r)
frater
вл
mother
mutter
ma'ta(r)
mater
you
du
tuvam
tu
The IE [b,d,g] correspond to the Germanic [p,t,k]
Russ ¤ў
Eng two
Germ zwei
ваЁ
three
drei
¤Ґбпвм
ten
zehn
As early as the middle of the 18th century, the great Russian scientist
M.V.Lomonosov (1711-1765) started on a comparative and historical study of
languages. It is interesting to point out that Lomonosov proved the existence of genetic
ties between Baltic and Slavonic languages by comparing not only words, but also
grammatical forms.
There is an important concept of comparative linguistics in Lomonosov's
Grammar. He claimed that all related languages - Russian, Greek, Latin, German
Languages had a common source, and the process of their development took thousand
of years. Although Lomonosov didn't use the method of comparative linguistics in his
work, he created a basis for further investigations in this field in Russia.
The German Philologer Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) who establishedthe principle
of the sound shift in the phonetic history of the Germanic group of languages or as he
called it, the Lautverschiebung in his book Deutsche Grammatik (1819). In his
opinion there were two sound-shiftings. The first occured before the 4th century, the
second had been completed by the 8th.
Indo-European becomes in Low German, in High German
bh
dh
gh
b
d
g
p
t
k
b
d
g
p
t
k
f
th
n
p(b)
t
k(g)
ff(f)
zz(z)
hh(h)
In 1877 Karl Verner added to Grimm's Law a suppllementary Law that has
become known by his name. He explained certain irregularities in the Grimm series with
refrence to the position of accent in the Indo-European word.
Lecture 5
The Indo-European Language and Languages
Problems and Questions for Discussion:
1. The Migrations of Ancient People.
2. The Language of American Indians.
3. Proto-Indo-European was an Inflective Language.
4. The Centum and Satam Language.
5. The Indo-European languages are divided into ten branches.
6. A.Schleicher's tree-stem theory.
The Indo-European Language and Languages.
There are more than 2.700 distinct languages to be found in the world today, and
all these fall into linguistic groups which are part of linguistic families which may have
appeared in different parts of the globe simultaneously.
The fact that people speak
the same, or related, languages do not mean that there is a link of race or blood. It is
therefore completely unscientific to establish any connection between racial origin and
language.
We can not say that the Mongolian race the same as the Mongolian languages. It
is quite probable that no such thing as an Indo-European race ever existed. In the course
of the migrations of ancient peoples, numerous linguistic and racial mixtures took place.
Many non-Indo-European peoples of European and Asia abandoned their own
languages and adopted the Indo-European.
The Basque language, which is spoken in the north of Spain and the South of
France, resisted the assimilation of Indo-European in the past and is not genetically
related to the Indo-European language.
The tribal migrations which took place in the distant past completely obscured
the linguistic state of antiquity and resulted in the disappearance of whole peoples and
emergence of new tribes with theirown languages.
Some modern scientists hold that the ancestors of the American Indians came
from Asia and reached America by crossing the narrow and often frozen Bering Straits
the migrations of these travellers, advancing in small groups, lasted over about the last
10 millionia B.C. Then the new-comers from Asia advanced to the South via the
Cordilleras valleys. In the last thousand years B.C. Asian peoples occupied the whole of
America, reaching its eastern and southern regions. The Primitive peoples of America
brought with them the languages which they had spoken earlier in Asia. the Striking
resemblances in the whole structural systems of Asiatic and American Indians languages
suggest that they might once have had the same linguistiuc origin.
In the 19th century, it was usually held that the original home of the IndoEuropean people lay in Central Asia, and that successive waves of emigration from there
carried the various members of the family to Europe. Most Indo-European Languages
have common words for animals like bears and wolves, for plants like pine-trees, for
phenomens like snow. But there are no common words for elephants, crocodiles, or
palm-trees.
The comparative method allows us to state that Proto-Indo-European (PIE)was
a highly infective language. Nouns and verbs were richly varied in their paradigms.
There wereeight case-forms-nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative,
oblative and instrumental. Verbs made extensive use of many suffixes. Nouns and verbs
had distinct forms for the dual number the forms of the pronouns already showed
different roots like I, me, we, us in English. There were no separate inflections for the
passive, but only for the middle voice, which expressed the idea that the speaker was
specially interested in the action denoted by the verb. Word order was free as in Greek
and Latin. Subject, verb, object might stand first, attribute preceed substansive.
Numerals are especially reliable in obtaining information about the close genetic
kinship of certain languages within a lingustic group. This may be seen from the
following scheme:
The Comparitive Method
Indo-European Languages
Numeral
2
3
4
10
100
Greek
dyo
treis
tettares
Sanscrit
Slavonic
dran
d(u)va
trayos
tri
catvaras
cetyre
dasa
desat
satan
sato
Latin
German(Gothic)
duo
twai
tres
threis
qualtor
fidwor
deKa
decem
taihum
he-katon
centum
hund
Words which express family relationships:
Modern English Snascrit
Slavonic
father
pitar
mother
matar
mati
brother
bhratar
brat(r)к
daughter
duhitar
drshti
Greek
Latin
German(Gothic)
pater
pater
fadar
meter
mater
modar
phrator
frater
brother
thygater
daughter
Shnortly after 2000 B.C. the Indo-Europeans had to make great migrations, being
pressed by other tribes and they began to migrate in different directions. Some of its
members moved as far as South-East Asia, entering the Indian Peninsula through the
Khyber Pass in the second millenium B.C., probably before 1.500 B.C. This group spoke
a language which became known at a larger stage as Sanscrit. On their way these IndoEuropeans split upenough to leave several related languagesscattered along their route in
Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Modern Iran.
One section seems to have gone directly westward, then down into the Balkan
Peninsula, arriving at the coast of the Ionian Sea, giving asclassical and then Modern
Greek. The Italic people south from the Alps. The Proto-Germans followed the Calts
and left their languages all over northern Europe. It should not be forgotten that before
Indo-European speach spread across Europe there were many earlier languages (e.g.
Basque, Etruscan and others).
The question of the early Indo-European dialects has been the subject of
considerable study and some useful results have been obtained. It is possible to form a
fair idea of other distribution in the period preceding the emergence of Separate
languages. The earliest and best-known dialect distinction is that which separates the
satam-languages from the centum languages.
These two groups are so named from the way they treat the Indo-European
guttural in the word for "hundred" which appe ars as an occlusive in one group of
languages. Lat. centum, greek hekaton, goth. hund, where as in another group of
languages it corresponds to spirants sibilants. Zend. Satem, O.slav. suto, skr. satam.
The languages involved in this change are Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavonic, Armenian and
Albanian (possibly with ancient Illyrian, Thracian and probably Phrygian). Since this
feature is so widespread and occurs without any variation of the conditions in any of the
languages concerned. It must be assumed that the change took place in the IndoEuropean period, before the dispersal of the separate languages, and that affected a
group of related dialects within the Indo-European area. The Indo-European languages
are divided into major branches.
Lecture 6
The Morphological Classification of Languages
Problems and Questions for Discussion:
1. The classification of languages by their structure.
2. The isolating languages.
3. The agglutinative group of languages.
4. The Hexigonal languages-synthetic and analytic.
5. The polysynthetic languages (incorporating languages).
6. Linguists classified different types of languages. (A.Schlegal, W.Humboldt,
O.Jesperson, E.Sapir, F.F.Fortunatov)
The Morphological Classification of Languages.
From the grammatical point of view, the most familiar is the Morphological
classification based on the structure of a word. Comparing the conjugation of the
Russian word "stol"-table (nom-stol, gen-stola, dat-stola, acc-stol, instr-stolom, prepstole) with that of the French word "la table", there are no corresponding forms in
French. the relations between words in French are expressed by means of
prepositions:gen- de la table (of the table), dat-acc- a la table (to (on) the table) and so
on. This is the situation in English, too. So languages like Russian, in which the
relations between words in a sentence are expressed by flexions are called flexional or
synthetic. The French and English languages are analytic. But this does not mean that
group of languages is purely flexional and the other purely analytic. In flexional
languages we sometimes observe analytic tendencies. In no single language do we find
either synthetic or analytic tendencies manifested purely and consistently. Russian is
synthetic in comparison with English, but if we examine it, we can certainly find many
analytic features:the future tense of the verb "chitat-to read" in its imperfective aspect is
expressed analytically -ya budu chitat -I shall read- by means of an an auxiliary verb.
In spite of these complications, the most familiar classification of languages by
their structure, all the languages of the world, contains four grooups: a)isolating (e.g.
chinese), b)flexional (e.g. Latin, Russian, to some extent English);c)agglutinative (e.g.
Turkish, Karakalpak, Uzbek); d) incorpora-ting or polysynthetic (like some American
Indian languages, in which the distinction word and sentence is partly effaced of
course, strictly speaking it is impossible to set up a defimitive number of standart types
that would do justice to the peculiarities of the thousands of languages and dialects in the
world. A flexional language may still be analaytic, synthetic or polysynthetic.
Nevertheless, this classification is quite reasonable, because it considers the
grammatical forms of languages.
The isolating languages are sometimes called amorphous (from Greek "a"not,"morphem"- form ) or formless and grammatical relations are expressed in these
languages by word-order. The words in these languages do not depend upon one
another, became they are invariable in themselves and, so to speak, "isolated" in the
sentence. Chinese leng tiangi- cold weather, tiangi leng -the weather is cold. Chinese is
a tonal language and the meaning of the word of the same structure are distinguished by
tones which indicate the part of speech to be understood. A chinese root like "da" can be
used as a noun to mean "greatness". "da" can be used as an adjective to mean "great",
"da"-a verb"-"to great";"da"-"an adverb"-"greatly". The exact meaning made is made
clear by where it stands in the sentence. Another group of languages like Turkish and
Finnish is called the Agglutinative group. A characteristic feature of these languages is
large number of so-called "stickers"-suffixes which are added to the unchangeable root
of the word. These suffixes are very important, because they express the relations within
the sentence. Turkish-soguk mu dur-is it cold?; bu sut mu dur -is this milk?; "de yor"
means he is saying; suffix "yor" expresses the jaspect. In "de-yor-lar-they are saying,
the suffix-"lar" signifies plurality.
In agglutinative languages each of the suffixes ha its definite, strictly limited
meaning i.e. each one must express one grammatical meaning, and each grammatical
meaning is expressed by the same affix in whatever word it is required. Karakalpak ®Єлг-ил-« а-¬л§-Ј .
The Turkish verb "de" which means "say". "De-yor" means "he is saying' the
suffix "yor" expresses the aspect. In "de yor-lar" -they are saying, the suffix-lar signifies
plurality.
The agglutinative (From the Latin verb agglutinare-"to stick" this term was
introduced by Franz Bopp, a German philologist) languages are peculiar in the degree of
coalescence between the morphemes; that allows a definite line to be drawn between the
root and the suffix, root and the prefix and so on.
The essential characteristic of flexional languages is the inner flexion which has
a grammatical meaning in many flexional languages; i.e. foot-feet; The German
kommen "to come", kam-"came".
The flexional languages are divided into synthetic from the Greek "synthesis"combination and analytic from the Greek "analysis"-separation. In the synthetic
languages the grammatical relations between words are expressed by forms of the words
themselves. In analytic languages the sentence is of prime importance and grammatical
meannings are expressed by the words arranged in a fixed order. But, as we pointed out
we never find pure synthesis or analysis in any language. Latin is notably synthetic, but
on the other hand, its modern descendants Italian and French are analytic.
A polysunthetic language, as its name suggests, is more than ordinarily synthetic.
Sometimes these languages, for example, some North American Indian Languages and
Eskimo, are called incorporating. Because the incorporation of affuxes expressing
different grammatical meanings into the verb is carried to such an extend that the whole
expression forms one unseparatable unity which can hardly be called either a word or a
sentence, into which several elements enter in hardly recognizable shape. E.Sapir, a
great specialist in polysynthetic languages, gives the following example. The idea
expressed in English by the sentence: “I came to give it 1to her" is renedered in
Chinook an Indian language of the Columbia River i-n-i-l-u-d-a-m. This word consists
of the root -d- "to give", -i- indicates recently past time, n-the pronominal subject "I",
the other -i- the pronominal object "it", -a- the second pronominal object "her", -l- is a
prepositional element indicating that the preceding pronominal prefix is to be
understood as an indirect object (her to, i.e. to her) and -u- indicates movement away
from the speaker. The suffix -am modifies the verbal content in a local sense (I.E.Sapir.
Language . New York, p.73). We see from this example that the distinction between
word and sentence in these languages is partly obliterated and an entire series of concepts
is contained within a single "word sentence".
Wilhelmvon Humblodt (1765-1835) a prominent German linguist and philosopher
with a considerable knowledge of languages tried to discover the general law of liguistic
development. In the introduction to his book "On the Kawi Language on Java Island" he
followed the classification put forward by A. Schlegel, making it more exact.
W.Humboldt was a follower of the German philosopher Hegel and as a Hegelian he
wanted to keep the three-fold classification. W.Humboldt's scheme of classification,
as interpreted by O. Jespersen, runs as follows:
Class I- isolatimg or root languages:
a) R(=root)-chinese
b) R+r(=root+auxiliary word)-Burmese
Class II- agglutinative languages:
synthetic type
a) Rs (=root+suffix)-Turkish and Finnish
b) R/x(=root+infix)
c) pR(=prefix+root)-the Bautu languages
analytic type
d) Rs(or pR)+r-Tibetian
Class III- Flexional languages:
synthetic type
a) R x (pure inner flexion)- semantic languages
b) pRx (Rxs inner and outer flexion)-Indo-European languages
analytic type
c) pRx (Rxs)+r-Romance languages, English
Lecture 7
Some Concepts of Phonetics and Phonology
Problems and Questions for discussion:
1) The biological aspect of speech-sounds.
2) The acoustic study of speech-sounds.
3) The meaning of speech-sounds.
4) The classification of sounds: vowels, consonants.
5) The accentuation- the stress.
6) The ablaut (gradation).
7) Baudouin de Courtenay's Theory of Phonological distribution of phonemes.
8) Englisdh Phonetician D.Jone's theory of phoneme.
9) The definition of the phoneme given by L.Scerba, N.Trubezkoy, R.Jacobson.
Phonetics comes from the Greek word phone "sound". Phonetics is a science
dealing with the analysis and classification of speech-sounds.
Speech-sounds may be examined from different points of view: 1)the biological
aspect presupposes the study of the organs of speech which help to produce the sounds;
2) the acoustic study deals with such phenomena as the pitch of the sounds, which
depends directly on the frequency of vibrations in a given period of time, the timbre of
the sounds, that differentiates two sounds of the same pitch, the tone and the noise of
the sounds which are the results of the vibrations that produce them; if vibrations are
regular we have a tone; if the vibrations are irregular the result is a noise; 3) sounds of
speech may be studied from the point of view of their meaning, the semiological of
specifically linguistic aspect of speech.
The process of the formation of speech.
The sounds that constitute speech are produced by a series of rhythmical
pressures of air on the ear-drum of the listener. Air is of an elastic nature and these
pressures or rather variations of pressure are caused by a rhythmical disturbance of the
air at the point at which the sound originates.
Sound is caused by a stream of our passing from the speaker's lungs, upwards
along the trachea (or windpipe). On its way through the trachea the air passes through the
laryna which contains the vocal cords, along the chamber known as the pharynx; and
from there out over the tongue and through the mouth, or behind the veilof the soft
palate and through the nose. In the process of the formation of the voice, the role of the
lungs is merely to serve a source of air, which is emitted at a controlled rate and pressure.
The stream of air, pressed from the lungs, passes along the trachea (or wind-pipe)
to the larynx, where the sides of the trachea are narrowed until they meet. Within the
larynx there are two mobile membranes running horizontally. These are vocal cords.
The sound waves resulting from the vibration of the vocal cords are called the voice. A
sound accompanied by a voice (like the English b, d, r, z) is called a a voiced sound, a
sound not accompanied by voice (like English p, t, f, s) is called voiceless sound. The
primary groupping of sounds divides them into two broad types- vowels and consonants.
Vowels are modifications of the voice-sound the production of which the air is allowed
to flow through freely, with no, or hardly any friction or contact of the tongue or lips.
Vowels are classed according to the position of the tongue when they are pronounced.
According to the particular section of the mouth toward which the articulating tongue is
raised, we distinguish the following vowels: 1) front vowels, 2) back vowels, 3) central vowels.
According to the degree of mouth openning, the vowels sounds are classified
into: 1) high or open vowels, 2) middle vowels, 3) low or closed vowels.
A simple diagram may represent the classification of English vowels in the
following manner:
Open
Close
Front
Central
Back
Unrounded Unrounded Rounded
High vowels - [i]
Middle vowels -[e]
Low vowels - [a:]
[u]
A consonant is a sound produced by friction, or stop-page of the breath in
some part of the vocal passage. Consonants are classified according to three major
criteria:
1) the point at which the friction is made (place of articulation);
2) the way in which it is made (manner of articulation);
3) the presence or absence of vibration in the larynx (voicing).
Consonants can be voiced or unvoiced, i.e. they can be made with or without the
vibration of the cartilages; [p,t,k] are unvoiced When we pronounce them and place the
finger lightly upon the "Adam's apple (larynx)", we feel no vibrations; [h,d,g] are voiced
consonants. When we pronounce them we feel a vibration.
Sounds as [p,t,k,b,d,g] are known as explosives, becauase they are accompanied
by explosions. Consonants are classified according to the organs which take part in the
production of their sounds. Consonants are made by the teeth, the gums, the hard, the
soft palate, the uvula and the lips.
A consonant made by both lips closing is called bi-la-bial(bi is "two" and labium
is "lip" in Latin). These are the English [w,p,b,m] the Russian - [p,b,m].
A consonant made by the lower lip articulating against the teeth, is called labiodental. The English [f,v], the Russian [f,v].
A consonant made by the blade of the tongue which touches the upper teethis
called dental. The English [ ], the Russian [t,z,d,n].
A consonant is called palatal when it is made by the front tongue against the
hard palate (Latin palatum "roof of the mouth"), such as the English [j,s.z].
The glotal spirant [h] is produced by a narrowing or closure of the vocal cords.
Sounds [m,n] are nasals, in which both the mouth and the nose allow the air to
escape freely while the buccal passage is temporarily blocked.
"Accentuation" a term which in most modern languages is synonymous with
stress. In the Germanic languages the stress is usually on the first syllable of a word
stem, consiting of two or more syllables. French has the stress on the last syllable of the
word. Czech has an initial stress, for example: pryskat- to stray. In Russian the place
of the stress is irregular, or free, it may fall any syllable of the word. Secondary stress
common in English, French and German. The stress in Russian is enough to
distinguish different words the phonetic forms of which are in other respects indentical:
muka-flour, muka-torment; zila-she lived, zila-vein. Some analogies can be found in
English, in which in some cases the stress serves to distinguish the verb from the noun or
adjective, as in present-present, increase-increase.
Some languages have musical pitch, with the accentual syllable pronounced on
a highest note than the surrounding syllables. The musical pitch is discernible in such
languages a Swedish and Serbo-Croatian. In the Chinese language the voice pitch is
used to convey semantic distinctions: mapronounced in one tone means "mother", in
another tone means "flax-«с-", and in a third tone means "horse". There are also phonetic
changes which do not take place while we speak, but which happened long before which
are known as historical-phonetic changes. In German there is the vocalic phenomenon
known as я3Umlautя0. Umlaut (the word was invented by the German linguist Jacob
Grimm from two german words: Laut-"sound", um-"about", refers to the influence
upon a preceding vowelof a later one. The German for "man" is Mann; for "men" is
Manner, pronounced (menner). The "a"of Mann under the influence of an old "ir" in the
plural ending, becomes "e". If today we say "men" as the plural of "man", and "feet" as
the plural of "foot", and "geese" as the plural of "goose", it is because, before these
words came into modern English, they were affected by umlaut- by the influence oif a
final vowel that has since disappeared.
Ablaut. German "ab" means "off". Ablaut is known in English as "vowel
gradation". Ablaut refers to the regular gradation of vowels in the root in different
forms of the same word. For example, sing, sang, sung; drive, drove, driven. These verbs
are called strong in German. In old English this verbal irregularity was a more vital factor
than it is today.
The phenomenon itself goes back to era before the Indo-European parent
language split up into independent languages; it is probably due to differencies in accent.
Many phonetic changes are so striking, so uniform in their workings. that they
have been grouped into phonetic "laws", of which the famous German philosopher and
linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt spoke as early as in 1826 as general tendencies and
patterns in linguistic events.
The reasons for these phonetic changes are still obscure. Some linguists were
inclined to explain these changes by the environmental factor, for instance, by climatic
conditions. Naturally, it is unlikely that a chage in the climate could have any influence
on language. Nor is there good evidence for the theory that phonetic change is due to
modifications in the speech organs. These theories are groundless, because the reasons of
these changes must be sought in language itself, not in these externasl factors. A new
linguistic science which came into being in Russia at the end of the 19th century and
was developed by Russian and later by foreign scientists helps us to understand the
essence of sound itself. the name of this science is phonology, which is the theory of
sound change in general and deals with the study of phomemes. If in the 19th century
linguists spoke of the sounds of language, now they prefer to speak about the phonemes.
The distinction between phonetics and phonology is now generally accepted.
It was observed long ago that not all the sounds in any language have the same
value. Two people speaking the same language and pronouncing individual sounds
exactly alike could hardly be found. But this diversity should not be noticable by an
average observer Sometimes
sounds
differ slightly in pronouciation but this
difference is quite irrelevant. In English the [t] in the word "time" is distinctly different
from the [t]in the word "sting". but the difference is not important. In such words "back"
and "bog", the meaning is different. What makes it different? Probably the two ending
sounds.
All these considerations lead us to the conclusion that in language not all sounds
have equal values. Sounds must be cclassified according to the function they perform in
the language and from this point of view speech sounds and phonemes ought to be
distinguished. The first linguist to point out the distinction between the "phone"(speech
sound), Russian "zvuk", and the "phoneme"(russian "fonema") was Jan Baudouin de
Courteney (1845-1929), the famous Russian philologist of Polish origin, who
established himself in Russia, first as a privat docent at St. Petersburg then as Professor
for eight years (1875-1883) at Kazan, where he created his famous school of linguists.
Later he held professorships at Karpat (1883-1893), Cracow (1893-1900), and
eventually St. Petersburg (1901-1918) where he continued to develop his teaching. He
spent his last years of his life in Poland. Baudouin de Courteney stated that the word
"phoneme"was invented by his student Kruszewsky. Baudouinde Courteney published
his work "Proba Toerij Alternacyj Fonetycznych". A german translation of this book
"Versuch einer Theorie phonetischer Alternationen" was published in Strassburg in
1895. In his theory Baudouin de Courteney subordinated the phonetic side of speech to
the social functionof language as a
means of communication. He stated not only the mutual relationship of phonemes, but
also the ways in which they are formed historically.
The one radical fault of his theory was the psychological concept of the phoneme.
In one of his works (Some Branches of the Comparative Grammar of the Slavonic
languages, 1881) he showed the the possibilty of working out a theory of phonemes and
phonetic alterations without recourse to any subjective idealistic premises.
The well-known English phonetician D.Jones points out in his book "The
Phoneme:Its Nature, Development and Origin" that the term phoneme as used by
Baudouin de Courtenay was a phonetic one.
This phonetic concept can be viewed in two ways in his works- "Psychologically"
and "physically". viewed "psychologically", a phonemeis a speech- sound pictured in
one's mind and aimed at in the process of talking. Baudouin de Courtenay recognized
two kinds of phonetics:one was called "psyc
ho-phonetics" and related to the pictured sounds; the other was called "physiophonetics"
and related to concrete sounds actually uttered. Viewed from the "physical" point of
view, a phoneme is a set of sounds utteredin a particular language which for practical
purposes as if they were one and the same. Baudouin de Courtenay's theory of the
phonological distribution of phonemes is very important, especially in its relationship
to the construction of phonetic transcriptions, the devising of alphabets for languages
hitherto unwritten and in general to the practical teaching of spoken foreign languages.
Baudouin de Courtenay's idea was developed by his immediate follower
L.Shcherba in 1912, in his book "Russian vo wels in their qualitative and quantitive
aspects". The definition of the phoneme given by Scherba, as the smallest general
phonetic representation of the given language which is able to associate with the
meaning representation and to differentiate words was a semantic character.
The group of Eastern Eouropean scholars who on the initiative of the Czhech
linguist V.Mathesius formed themselves in 1926 into the Circle "Linguistique de
Prague". Among them there were Russian scientists N.Trubezkoy (1890-1938), R.
Jacobson and S.Karcewsky. They were not pupils of B. de Courtenay, but they were
familiar with his work and influenced by it.
The phoneme is the smallest unit of language, because it can not be divided any
smaller; but it is a complex phenomenon.
The presence in English of such a binary opposition as [n-n] is proved by the use
of such pairs of words as kin-king; sun-sung. Clearly [n] and [n] are two phonemes in
English, because one can be substituted for the other to form a different word. The
phonology of any language is not a chaotic enumeration of speech-sounds and sound
combinations but a system embracing the quantity and pattern of phonemes, different
kinds of distinctive features and their distribution.
Lecture 8
Words and Their Meanings
Problems and questions for discussion:
1. What is the word?
2. What is the Meaning?
3. Narrowing of Meaning.
4. Extension of Meaning.
5. The use of Meaning Terms.
6. The problem of polysemy andthe problem of homonyms
7. Types of homonyms
8. A.I.Smirnitsky's system of classifying homonyms
9. Types of synonyms.
10. Groups of antonyms.
Words and thier Meanings
The is the fundamental unit of language, representing the things of the real
wored and psychological life of Man. The word is a sequence of human sounds
conveying a certain concept, idea or meaning,which has gained general acceptence in a
social group of people speakingthe same languageand historically connected. Eac
word has its own meaning. A word which devoid of meaning is not a word. This
definition takes meaning as the most essential aspect of a word. So the question
arises, what meaning is. You should stress that meaning is inseparable from the
word itself, because it reflects the reality of things. The reality of thought which is
also a material phenomenon manifests itself in language.
The meaning of a word is the expression of a concept things fixed in sounds, a
word from this point of view may be considered a form of a concept's material existence.
The study of meaning is complicated by the fact that there are a lot of words with more
than one meaning. That is quite natural When a man perceives the word surrounding him
he uses the same word to denote varios inner features of the thing for which the word
is used. If there is a need to name a thing or phenomenon in any way connected
with an object already designated by a word, the word is used in another meaning. The
meaning of the word "house" absorbs of such word as hut cottage, palace, bungalow.
In the process of further development the meaning of a word which appeared
later my lose its connection with the original one and, be infinitely distant from it or
entirely new.
A "pen" was originally a "feather", but when steel pens were invented for the
purpose of writing the original meaning was lost in the current usage. On close
analysis it can be seen that the meaning of any words has changed while their phonetic
expression has remained unchanged.
The word "eye" originally meant "the organ of sight". From this semantic root
there appeared such derivative meaning as "the power of seeing", "sight", "anything
resembling an eye", like "hole of a needle", "the loop of a hook", etc.
If we take the Russian word "volk" the English "wolf", the German "Wolf", we
see that all of them go back to the sanskrit word "vrka", the root of which originally
meant "tearing". This quality of an animal was taken as a characteristic of it and
man began to name this animal "wolf". It doesn't mean that the man had a definite
"wolf" in view when he named it. Alongside with extension of meaning, there is the
process of narrowing the meaning as a result of which a word of a broad meaning
acquires a narrower specialized meaning. In old Russian, the word "kvas" meant
"acid", now it means as certain kind of beverage. The French term "chauffeur" which
meant "a man who stokes a fire" acquired the general meaning of "driver", but has
been specialized to mean the driver of a mtor vehicle. The English word "fowl", which
once meant "a board" in general is now confined to a bird of the poultry.
Narrowing of the meaning is frequently brought about by the omission of a
noun and the retention of an adjective to express the whole phrase i.e. it leads to
substuntivation: private- private soldier- а冷ў®©, б®«¤ в; native- native man; generalgeneral officer.
Words may become narrowed in meaning and their specialized often
becomes generally known through the nature of the context in which they occur. The
word "room" originally had the borad meaning "space" a meaning which survives in such
expressions like to make a room, plenty of room and so on; but room is generally a part
of a house or building. Norrowing of meaning is less common than extension of
meaning. One-meaning terms are usuallu used in branches of science and technology
and are of great importance for a deeper uderstanding of a subject. Closely connected
with the problem of polysemy is the problem of homonyms- from the Greek "homos"the same an "onyma"- name, i.e. having the same name. Homonyms are words different
in meaning but identical in their pronounciation.
Polysemy is used to describe cases where different meanings of the same
word are mutually dependent and proceed from the primary meaning in every direction
like rays. With homonymy the different meanings of words are mutually
independent. Words only have the same pronunciation and spelling. Homonyms
may be of different types. We may speak full or perfect homonyms which are
identical both in pronunciaiton and spelling:
Russian
German
English
luk- onion, luk- bow
acht- attention, acht- eight
bear-¬Ґ¤ўҐ¤м, to bear- bore- born--ҐбвЁ
Homonyms which are identical only in pronunciation:
English
Russian
knight- алж ам, night- -®зм
tri- three, tri- to wipe
Professor Smirnitsky suggested the
homonyms:
following
system
of classifying all
1) Lexical homonyms: page- one side of a leaf paper
- a boy servant
to found- to establish
found- p.p. of to find
2) Lexical- grammatical homonyms:
rose- a flower
rose- from the verb to rise
3) Grammatical homonyms which differ in their grammatical
express different grammatical categories.
meaning and
Synonyms- from greek "syn"- with and "onyma"- name - are words different in
sound and spelling, bu similar or exactly the same in meaning:
handsome- pretty- lovely; also- too
English
tube
government
lorry
post
American
subway
administration
truck
mail
Words opposite in meaning are called antonyms- greek "anti" - against and
"onyma"- name
For example: beautiful- ugly; big- small;
old- young; love- hatred;
bright- dim;
Many words of concrete meaning have no antonyms: eg. table , lamp, tree, etc.
Lecture 9
Main Grammatical Concepts and Categories
Problems and quesions for discussion:
1. The structure of words
2. The word-order
3. The process of composition
4. The relationl words: a) prepositions
b) conjunctions
c) articles
d) Auxiliary verbs
e) some form-words
5. The features of grammatical categories
6. The morphological and syntacticl categories.
Grammar is a branch of linguistics which deals with the structure of words and
their forms. Grammar is divided into Morphology (from Greek "morpha"- form and
"legos"- knowledge) which is the science of forms, and syntax (from the Greek
"syn"- withand "tassein"- to put in order) which deals the arrangement of those
stucture and forms. The grammar of any any language has a syntactical combinations
whose structure allows us to express our thoughts and attitude to reality. For a long time
grammar was considered an annex to logic. Formerly, when men tried to settle all
problems by thinking about them abstractly, it was thought that there was such a thing
as universal grammar which was patterned after the classical models. Our modern
languages are still sometimes taught in the same terms as Latin grammar was in the
Middle Ages. All the attempts made to write ou a logical grammar based on Latin,
into which th forms of every language could be fitted, have been wuite unscientific,
because languages differ in their structure and possess their own peculiarities in their
expressions of different grammatical functions. The word as the fundamental unit of
language, is not perceived as an undivisible whole. The word consists of morphemes,
i.e., separate pats with grammatical significance. The primary element of a word is
generally called the root. The root is the main unchangeable part of the word
conveying the fundamental lexical meaning of the word. Words contain affexes
expressing lexico-grammatical meaning and serving not only to make new but to show
the relations between words. We may call affixes "semantically weakened morphemes".
Affixes coming before the root are called prefixes (from Latinprafixum "fastened
before"), those coming after the root are called suffixes (from Latin suffixes "fastened
after").
Prefixes modify the meaning of words, while the addition of a suffix not only
modifies the meaning, but changes the word itself from one part of speech into
another.
The stem is the part of a word got by adding an affix to the root. In the word modi- fy., the root is mod., the stem is modi., and the suffix is fy.
Closely related to affixes are grammatical endings (inflections from Latin
flecto "to bend") which epress the different grammatical meaning implied in words.
There are languages which do not use prefixes (Finno-Ugric, Turkish)and
grammatical relations in these languages are expressed by suffixes. Take the Kirgiz
word kol- dor- um.- go ."with my hands" where the root is kol. "hand",-dor the
plural suffix, -um the possessive "my", and -go expresses the instrumental case, other
languages use prefixation. The idea expressed in English by the sentence "I came to
give it to her" is rendered in Chinook (an Indian language of the Columbia river)
by i-n-i-a-ol-u-d-a-m. This word consists of the root ol "to give" six functionally
distinct prefixes and a suffix. The prefixes, i- indicates recently past time, -npronominal subject "I", -i- pronominal object "it", -a- the second pronominal object
"her", -l- is a prpositional element indicating that the pronominal prefix is to be
understood as an indirect object (-her-to-, i.e. "to her") and -u- an eelement that
indicates movement away from the seaker, the ssuffix -am modifies the verbal content
in a local sense. It iis obvious that in this language the greater part of grammatical
relations is expressed by prefixes rather than suffixes. Some languages like Latin,
express practically all grammatical relations by means of modifications within the
body of a word itself. If we say in Latin Pater amat filium - "the father loves his
son" or amat pater filium or filium amat pater makes little or no difference. In
other languages th eword order will be different. In English wird order may make
little grammatical difference if we say Yesterday the man saw the dog or the man
saw the dog yesterday. If we say yesterday the man saw the dog or yesterday the
dog saw the man it is not a matter of indifference.
In this sentence the all- important indication of the subject depends entirely on
the positions of certain words in the sentence. In this case the word order is as important
a means of grammatical expression as is the use of case endings in Latin.
In some languages word order distinguishes the attribute from the word
attributed.In English the round home and the home round express quite different notions.
A common device for a word- making is the process of composition, which
consists of uniting into a single word two or more words to form a new entity.
The process of composition differs from the mere juxtapositionof words in a
sentence in that the compounded elements are felt to consitute parts of a single word.
The essence of a compound word is that expresses a single idea. But there are different
degrees of closeness in the merging of the separate elements of a compound. It is
therefore practically impossible to draw a rigid demarcation between compounds and
presyntactical groups. In the commonest compounds, the last element expresses a
general meaning, whereas the prefixed element makes it less general: matorship is a
ship, but a particular kind of ship; waterlily is a lily but a particular kind of lily.
The process
of
composition,
says
the prominentRussian linguist
A.A.Reformatsky, may have two tendencies aglutinative and fusional. The first
tendency gives us a new word which is equivalent to the sum of meanings of two
compounded words: German Kopfschmerzen "headache"(kopf - head and Schmerzen
- ache); Russian stengazeta. "wall newspaper". Under the second heading a new
word appears the meaing of which is more than tha sum of meaning of compounded
elements.
The English words я_typewriter я.and я_killjoy я.are not merely a sum of
combined meanings of type and write and kill and joy. In English the unity of the
word typewriter is further safeguarded by a predominant accent on the first syllable
and by the possibility of adding such suffixes as the plural -sto the whole word. The
English word killjoy is also an illustration of a compound word, but this resulting
word has a nominal, not a verbal function. We cannot say: He killjoys.
Lecture 10
Writing and Orthography
Problems and questions for discussion:
1. The origin of writing.
2. The picture-writing (ЁҐа®Ј«ЁдЁзҐбЄ®Ґ Їёб쬮).
3. The Egyptian hieroglyphic system.
4. The Greek alphabet.
5. The phonetic alphabet.
6. The phonetic orinciple of orthography.
7. The Morphological principle of the orthography.
8. The historical principle of the orthography.
The invention of writing was one of the gretest achievements in the history
of Mankind, giving a new and better method of human intercommunication. the
significance of writing is that it helps to transmit human knowledge from one generation
to another and here lies its advantage over spoken language.
Sometimes writing is called written language, as opposed to spoken
language. But this definition is far from correct, because it is not an exact equivalent
of spoken language and sounds in spoken language do not coincide with letters in
written language and written language does not replace spoken language. Writing
was not invented by any one man in any definite place nor in any one particular period.
Its history and pre- history areas long as the history of civilization itself and it was
invented in several places and by different peoples.
Like painting and sculpture, writing s probably in its origin a ceramic art. The
origin of writing arose partly through trade among early peoples, by means of rough
and conventional pictures of commercial objects, which shows a complicated level of
social relations at that time.
Writing developped from narrative drawings, but these drawings were not what
we mean now by the word. For example, seven horizontal lines on a North American
Indian's gravestone mean the seven campaigns of the dead Chief and three perpendicular
lines indicated thw wounds he received in battles.
Before real writing there was picture writing Every word and every letter known
to us was once a picture. Primitive systems of writing like like the Egyptian and
Assyra-Babylonian were originnally based on pictorial representation pure and simple.
A pictograph is a symbol denoting a definite object like a fish or a tree or a man. The
Peruvian used a picture of a man with large ears to indicate hearing. The Sumerians,
Egyptians and Chinese alike, when they wanted to indicate in permanent pictorial form
the concept of "sun" or "moon" all drew pictures of the sun and the moon. The pictures
were simplified as in such Egyptian Hierogliphs as ____- eye; _____- sun; _____-go.
The picture writing depended entirely upon familiarity with the practice of
communication by this means, and a knowledge of the particular subject of the message.
But the number of the picturable object has definitely limits and people began to
feel the practical nececssity of recording non-picturable things. So the transition from
pictography to ideography was connected was the necessity to convey things thast
could not be painted. The Chinese combined their pictographs for "sun" and "tree" into
an ideograph signifying "east" (the sun rises through the trees). "Sun" and "moon" put
together to form "light"; "eye" and "water" to form "tear"; "woman" plus "child" gave
"good".
The Egyptian hierogliphicis foundeed on the communication of notions in the
drawings themselves, though there was a mixture of word and sound characters. The
system writitng makes it possible to convey abstract concepts.
A new stage in the development of writing historically appeared in the countries
of Near East in the form of the cuneiform of inscriptions practiced by the Sumerians
and Assyrians.
Having started with pictographic-ideogrphic system, the oldest peoplesSumerians, Assyro-Babylonians and Egyptians, soon began to isolate certain characters
and give the a phonetic value. The Egyptian symabol for "sun" was a picture of the sun.
The spoken Egyptian word for "sun" was re. The sun-picture is often found in
hieroglyphic inscriptions standing not for "sun" but for the spoken syllable re. accuring
in a long word. The apperance of an alphabet, each sign in which stood for one letter, is
one of the greatest events in human history. An alphabet or a collection of letters is far
more manageable and than pictographs and hieroglyphs.
Alphabet is a Greek word. This word is made up of the names of the first two
letters in the Greek language: "alp-ha" and "beta", which mean nothing else in Greek.
Lecture 11
The Main School in Modern Linguistics
Problems and questions for discussion:
1. The scientific study of languages
2. De-Saussure's theory of paradigmatic series of the system of language.
3. The linguistic schools:
a) The Prague School-Functional Linguistics
b) Oppositional analysis in Morphology
c) Oppositional analysis in Syntax
4. The Copenhagen School- glossematics
5. The American School- Descriptive Linguistics
The Main Schools of Modern Linguistics
The Main Method of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was
the historical comparative method. The H.C.M. gave no exact definition of linguistics as
an independent science. Logical, Psychological and Sociological considerations were
involved in linguistic studies to such an extend as to obscural linguistics proper. As
Louis Hjelmler pointed out, "The linguistics of the Past - even of the recent past- has
concerned itself with the physical and
physiological, psychological and logical, sociological and historical precipitations of
languages, not of the language itself (L.Hjelmsler, Prologomena to a Theory of
Language. Baltimore. 1952, p. 2).
The study of numerous languages of the world was neglected the research being
limited to the group of the Indo-European languages. The first linguists to speak of
language as a system or a structure of smaller systems were Beaudouin de Courtenay
(1845-1929) and Acad. F.F.Fortunatov (1848-1914) of Russia and Swiss linguist F.
de Saussure (1857-1913).
The work that came to be most widely known is de Saussure's "Course in
General Linguistics". De Saussure's main ideas are as follows:
1. Language is understood as a system of signals, interconnected and
interdependent. It is this network of interdependent elements that form the object of
linguistics as an independent science.
2. Language as a system of signals may be compared to other systems of signals,
such as writing, alphabets for the deaf and - dumb, military signals, etc.
3. Language has two aspects: the system of language and the manifestation of this
system in social intercourse- speech. The system of language is a body of linguistic
units sounds, affixes, words, grammar rules and rules of lexical series. Speech is the
total of our utterances and texts. Speech is the lineas (syntagmatic) aspect of
languages. The sytem of language is its paradigmatic aspect.
De-Saussure gave the following diagram to illustrate his theory of the
paradigmatic series of the system of language: я2educate
education; instruct; relate; debate;
educates; teach; locate; prelate;
enlighten; translate;
4. The linguistic sign is bilateral, i.e. it has both form and meaning.
5. Language is to be studied as a system in the synchronic plane, i.e. at a given
moment of its existence.
6. The system of language is to be studied on the basis of the oppositons of its
concrete- units.
There were three main linguistic school that developed these new notions
concerning language and linguistics as the science that studied it:
1. The Prague School that created Functional Linguistics.
2. The Copenhagen School- which created glossematics
3. The American School- that created Descriptive Linguistics
The immediate constituents was a further development of descriptive linguistics;
The Transformational grammar was the latest development as a new method.
1. The Prague School.
The Prague School was founded in 1929 uniting Czech and Russian linguists:
Matheus, Trinka, Nikolay Trubetskoy, R. Jacobson and others.
The basic method of this school is to use of oppositions of speech-sounds that
change the meaning of the words in which they occur. The basic definitions are given
by Trubetskoy as follows (Ќ.'. 'агЎҐжЄ®©. Ћб-®ўл "®-®«®ЈЁЁ, Њ. 1960, p. 53, 55,
56): Rule I: If in a language two sounds occur in the same position and can substituted
for each other without changing the meaning of the word, such sounds are optional
variants of one and the same phoneme.
Oppositional Analysis in Morphology
The principle of binary oppositions is especially suitable for describing
morphological categories. The principle of privative oppositions has been used by
Roman Jacobson for describing the morphological categories of the Russian language.
R. Jacobson described the Russian case system: Nominative genetive, Dative,
Accusative, Instrumental, prepositional cases.
Prof. B.Ilyish used the opposition within the category of voice, between active
and passive:
invites is invited
is inviting - is being invited
invited was invited
has invited - has has been invited
should invite - should be invited
Prof. B. Ilyish remarks: "... the passive voice is the marked member of the
opposition: its characteristic is the pattern "be + second participle". The active voice is
unmarked member of the opposition: its characteristic is the absence of the pattern".
Oppositional Analysis in Syntax
The priciple of privative oppositions has been used to present the traditional
sentence- parts of the basic two members sentence type (Ћ.Њ.Ѓ аб®ў , Ћб-®ў-лҐ
Џа®Ў«Ґ¬л 'а -б-д®а¬ жЁ®--®Ј® 'Ё-в ЄбЁб , ‚џ 1965 #4). The syntatic relations of the
senetnce parts are characterized by three distinctive features: A- subordination. Bpredicativeness, C-objectiveness.
The oppositional method has also been extended to describe different types of
simple sentences in Modern English:
a) two member sentences as against one- member sentences: "John worked" as
against "John!" or "work!".
b) sentences differing in the arrangement of the main constituents in basic
sentences: "We saw a river there" as against "There is a river there".
2. The Copenhagen School
The Copenhagen School was founded in 1933 by Louis Hjelmsler (1899-1959)
and Viggo Brondal (1887-1942). In 1939 the Prague and Copenhagen Schools founded
the magazine "Acta Linguistica" that had been for years the international magazine of
Structural Linguistics. In 1943 Hjelmsler published his main work "Principles of
Linguistics" which was translated into Russian. A Russian translation was published in
1960 in the first volume of "Ќ®ў®Ґ ў ‹Ё-ЈўЁбвЁЄҐ".
Glassematics sought to give more exact definition of the object of linguistics.
Tho sides of the linguistics sign recognized by de Saussure are considered by Hjelmler to
have both form and substance. This leads to the recognition of a bilateral character of
the two planes- "the plane of content" and "the plane of expression", namely:
ЪДДДДLanguageДДДДДї
і
і
plane of
plane of
content
expression
і
і
ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДБДДДї
і
і
і
ГДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і
Form: linguistic substancesubstance- formforms
sounds,letters, human thoughts meanings,
etc.
lexical and
grammatical
The object of the linguistic science is limited to the two inner layer- the form in
the plane of content and the from in the plane of expression.
Descriptive Linguistics in the USA
Descriptive Linguistics from the necessity of studying half- known and unknown
languages of the Indian tribes. At the beginning of the 20th century these languages
were rapidly dying out under the conditions of what is known as "American Culture",
or "American way of life", which had brought the Indian peoples poverty diseases and
degradation. The kstudy of these languages was undertaken from the purely scientikfic
interests. The Indian languages had no history. The C.H. method was of little use here.
Furthermore, the American languages belong to type that has little in common
with the Indo-European languages.
Lecture 12
The Develoment of Descriptive Linguistics
Problems for discussion:
1. The practical activity of linguists of studying and deseribing languages.
2. The necessitiy of studying half-known and unknown languages.
3. Franz Boas is the predecessorof American Descriptive Linguistics and later
developing his ideas.
4. L. Bloomfield's main concepts of Modern Grammar.
5. The main methods of descriptive linguistics:
a) the Distributional method
b) the method of Immediate Constituents
The spokemen of old- fashioned Indo- European linguistics argued that the socalled Indo- European nations weretied by bonds of blood and had created and
preserved the most advanced culture of the world. By force of their racial and spiritual
supremacy, these nations had subjected other smaller nations and tribes to their rule from
time immemorial and had become their masters, bringing them to a higher materialand
cultural level. All the achievements of human society were in one way or another
ascribed to the Indo- European nations. In the opinion of German linguists who put
forward the Indo- European theory, the historical mission of these nations was that of
rulers and masters over non- Indo-European nations, whose racial peculiarities prevented
them from working out consistent policies and making social progress.
In spite of these ideas Descriptive linguistics developed from the necessity of
studying half- known and unknown languages of the Indian tribes. At the beginning of
the 20th century these languages were rapidly dying out under the conditions of what
is known as "American way of life", which had brought the Indian people poverty,
diseases and degradation. The study of these languages were undertaken from purely
scientific interests. The Ameraican linguistic policy has nothing in common with the
purpose of developing national culture, literature and arts of the peoples.
The Indian languages had no writing and, therefore, had no history. The
Historical Comparative Method was a little use here, and the first step of work was to
be keen observation and rigid registration of linguistic forms.
The American Indian Languages belong to a type that has little in common with
the Indo- European languages. These languages are "agglomerating" languages, which
devoid morphological forms of separate words and of corresponding grammatical
meanings. Therefore Descriptive Linguistics had to give up analysing sentences in
terms of traditinal parts of speech.
It was by far more convenient to describe linguistics forms according to their
position and their co- occurence in sentences.
The concept of phoneme was worked out by the Russian linguists Baudouin de
Courtenay and his student Kruszewski, and developed by the linguists of the Prague
School (R. Jacobson 1929, Trubetskoy 1939).
Franz Boas, linguist and anthropologist (1858-1942) is usually mentioned as the
predecessor of American descriptive linguistics. His basic ideas were later developed by
Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and L. Bloomfield (1887-1949). Bloomfield's main work
"Language" was published in 1933. All linguists of the USA at one time or or other felt
the influence of this book.
The American descriptive school began with the works of Edward Sapir and
Leonard Bloomfield. American Linguistics developed under the influence of these two
prominent scientists.
E.Sapir studied a great variety of languages (Indian and Malayo- Polynesian),
he had many students who now teach in many universities in the USA and continue hiks
work. His most known work is "Language". An Introductory to the study of Speech
(1921).
L.Bloomfield is considered to be a more rigid theorist. His book of the same title
as Sapir's "Language"is more systematic than Sapir's book, and Bloomfield's treatmentof
linguistic problems is more modern. Bloomfield's "Language" is a complete methodoly
of language study, approaching the language as if it were unknown to th lignuist. The
idea laid down in Bloomfield's book were later developed by Z.S.Harris, Ch.C.Fries
and other contemporary linguistic students. To have a deeper understanding of modern
grammar student must get acquainted with the main concepts of Bloomfield's
book:
1. Bloomfield understood language as a workable system of signals, that is
linguistic forms by means of which people communicate. ... every language consists of a
number of signals, linguistic forms (Language, 1955,p.158).
2. Boolmfield's understanding of "Meaning" seemed to be very unusual at that
time.
Later his concept of "meaning" was developed by Ch. Fries, but even now
"meaning is one of the problems linguistics seeks to solve. Bloomfield writes: "... by
uttering a linguistic form a speaker promts his hearers to respond to a situation; this
situation and the responses to it are the linguistic meaning of the form. Each linguistic
formhas constant and definite meaning, different from the meaning of any other linguistic
form in the same language".p.158.
This point of view can be illustrated by the following: 1. The selection of
"none" instead of "someone" changes the meaning of an affirmative statement into
negative (someone has come- None has come); the selection of of an affirmative noun
instead of the inanimate is possible only with a changed meaning of the verb:
The wind blew (the leaves away)
The man blew his nose.
2. Bloomfield understood grammar as meaningful arrangementof linguistic forms
from morphemes to sentences. The meaningful arrangement of forms in a language
constitutes its grammar and there seem to be four ways of arranging linguistic forms: 1order; 2-modulation: John (call), John? (question), John (statement); 3- phonetic
modification (dodon't); 4-selectionof forms which contributes the factor of meaning.
3. Bloomfield writes: "The syntactic constructions of a language mark off large
classes of free forms, such as, in English, the nominative expressionor finite verb
expressi on...". In modern linguistic works the nominal phrase of a sentence is marked
as the symbol "NP", and the finite verb phrase - as "VP". The long form- class of "V" is
subdivided into intransitive verbs - "VI", transitive verbs- "VT" and the latter are again
divided into the "V"of the "take, type", the "give type", the "put type"and the "have
type", etc.
4. The first mentioning of the Immediate Constituents (IC) can also be found in
Bloomfield's book. This theory of the IC which in the Middle of our century
fascinated the minds of the linguists, and has only been obscured by the
Transformational grammar, was first propounded by Bloomfield. We may suppose that
the idea of the IC arose under the influence of Panini's grammar because in the first
chapter of his book Bloomfield says that Panini's grammar taught the Europeans to study
the IC of the languages.
Panini was a famous Hindu scholar, who gave a detailed description of Sanskrit,
and partly of the Vedic language. Panini canonised the forms of Sanskrit as the "sacred"
language, the language of religious worship. But later the use of Sanskrit went beyond
these limitsand great secular literature was created in it. The language of this period is
called "classified Sanskrit", to distinguish it from the Vedic language.
Some knowledge of Sanskrit and of Panini's grammar reached Europe in the 16th
and 17th centuries. Toward the end of the 18th century it was studied by European
scholarsorientalists. At the beginning of the 19th century Panini's
grammatical treatise "Eight Readings" was published in Europe.
The Hindu grammar of Panini helped to formulate one of the most principles of
scientific linguistics: to study the constituent parts of a language without any
predetermined coonclusions. It was not accidental that L.Bloomfield, the father of
American Descriptive Linguistics, called Panini's grammar - "one of the greatest
monuments of human intelligence"(L.Bloomfield, Language.Ld 1955.p.11).
These are the main ideas of Bloomfield's "Language" which make the book a
predecessor of American Descriptive linguistics. A recent development of Descriptive
linguistics gave rise to a new method - the Transformational Grammar. The TG was
first suggested by Harris as a method of analysing the "raw material" and was later
elaborated by Noamchomsky as a synthetic method of "generating" (constructing)
sentences. The Transformational grammar refers to syntax only, and presupposes the
recognition of such linguistic
units as phonemes, morphemesand form- classes, the latter being stated according to
the distributional and the IC analysis or otherwise.
The most widely known for this syntactic studies is Zelling S. Harris.
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