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Diversity of the world’s languages (SASH26)/Världens språk (LINB03)

Dept. of Linguistics

Course on language typology for international studentsand first-term students in linguistics

Spring term/Vårterminen 2008

Lecturers:Lars-Åke Henningsson

(lars-ake.henningsson@ling.lu.se)

Arthur Holmer (arthur.holmer@ling.lu.se)

Merle Horne (merle.horne@ling.lu.se)

Jan-Olof Svantesson(jan-olof.svantesson@ling.lu.se)

Student Administration:1. Registration/Grades

Gunilla Ek-Werner(Exp_lk1@sol.lu.se)

2. Student CouncellingÅsa Wikström

(Asa.Wikstrom@nordlund.lu.se)

3. International Student mattersCarlos Tuesta-Soldevilla

(Carlos.Tuesta-Soldevilla@kansliht.lu.se)

Student Services:1. Library

-Questions concerning course literature, etc.

Ann-Sofi Green (Ann-Sofi.Green@htbibl.lu.se)

2. Reception(receptionen@sol.lu.se)-General information

-Cards for copying machines-Cards for access to computer rooms in library

(2nd, 3rd floor)

Course literatureEnglish

Lyovin, Anatole. 1997. Introduction to the languages of the world. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of theWorld. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/

SwedishVamling, K. & Svantesson, J-O. (ed.): Världens språk. En typologisk och

geografisk översikt. Lunds universitet: Institutionen för lingvistik(Can be purchased at the Reception desk)

Lectures 1-2 Review of central concepts in the

study of language structure

-Clause/Sentence structure (Syntax) -Word structure (Morphology)

-Sound structure (Phonetics/Phonology)-Meaning structure (Semantics)

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Clause/Sentence structureClause (’Sats’)

-A grammatical unit expressing a complete proposition(a complete thought which can be true or false)

-Consists of different parts (’satsdelar’):Subject Verb Object Adverbial

The governor bought a mansion yesterdaySubject Verb Object Adverbial

Word Order-One way a language expresses grammatical functions

Subject -Verb -Object -Adverbial

-Word order differs in different languages

SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS-order differs sometimes in main clauses and

subordinate/embedded clauses

Word Order

Swedish: SVOA in main clauses:

Han läser den alltid (He reads it always)

S V O A SAVO in subordinate clauses:

Jag vet att [han alltid läser den](I know that he always reads it)

S A V O

Clauses are built up of words fromdifferent word/lexeme classes

Word classes1. Content words (express lexical meanings)

Nouns (boy, girl, car, table, tree, happiness, etc)Verbs (run, look, write, read, go, swim, sleep, think,etc.)

Adjectives (beautiful, little, yellow, long, difficult, intelligent, etc.)Adverbs (slowly, quickly, often, never, suddenly, osv.)

2. Function words (express grammatical meanings)Prepositions (in, on, under, over, between, to, from, etc.)

Articles (the, a, etc.)Auxiliary/modal verbs (will, can, do, may, etc) Pronouns (he, she, him, her, I, their, our, etc.)Conjunctions (and, but, that, when, while, etc.)

Morpheme: the smallest unit of language that combinesboth a form (the way it sounds) and a meaning

Morphemes are either ’free’ (occur as independent words) or’bound’ (e.g. tense, case, number affixes) :

Allomorph: phonetic variant of a morphemeE.g.: plural morpheme allomorphs

in Swedish: flicka ’girl’ flick+or ’girl+s’pojke ’boy’ pojk+ar ’boy+s’

Words consist of Morphemes

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Languages are classified typologicallyon the basis of how they combine

morphemes into words:

1. Isolating languages 2. Synthetic languages

Isolating languages

Each word consists of a single morpheme, i.e. has aclearly defined meaning (common in Southeast

Asia), e.g. Vietnamese:Toi lam hai toiI make injury I

’I hurt myself’

Synthetic languages

Words can consist of several morphemes:a. Inflecting languages, b. Agglutinating languages

a. Inflecting languages: grammatical morphemes(inflections) can express several meanings

E.g. most European languages e.g. French: all + ons

’go’+ ’plural’, ’1st person’

Synthetic languages (cont.)

b. Agglutinating languages: morphemes (form-meaning relationship) are clearly distinguished (e.g.

Turkish):

Cocuk-lar Ali-yi gör - ebil - me - di - ler child - Pl Ali-Acc see - can - Neg - Pret - Pl

’The children could not see Ali’

Pl = Plural, Acc = Accusative, Neg = Negation, Pret = Preterite

Word formation processes 1. AFFIXING:

a. Inflection through affixes that change a word’s grammaticalfunction: (e.g. Swedish pojk+ar +na + s ’boy + Pl. + Def. +

Gen.’)b. Derivation through affixes that change the lexical meaning or

word class: pojk+aktig (boy + ish), snabb+t (quick + ly)

2. REDUPLICATION:Copying of a part of a word to change the word’s

grammatical function or lexical meaning: (common in SoutheastAsia), e.g. Tagalog: takbuh ’run’ - tatakbuh ’will run’

3. COMPOUNDING: Two or more content words (lexical morphemes) put together to

make a new word: e.g. train + station => train-station

Grammatical meanings commonlyexpressed by affixes

-Case-Person-Number-Gender-Tense-Aspect

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-CASE affixes (Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Locative, etc.):

express different grammatical functions (Subject, Object)

E.g. German: der Hund (Nom.) den Hund (Acc.)Der Hund beißt den Mann. ’The dog bites the man.’Den Mann beißt der Hund. ’The dog bites the man.’

-PERSON affixes (distinguishes entities referred to in an

utterance: e.g. 1st person (speaker), 2nd person (addressee), 3rdperson (everything else); often combined with NUMBER:

E.g. Polish: kocham ’I love’ (1sg) kochamy ’we love’ (1pl) kochasz ’you love’ (2sg) kochacie ’you (pl) love’ (2pl)

kocha ’he/she loves’ (3sg) kochaja ’they love’ (3pl)

-NUMBER affixes (Singular, Plural, Dual etc.)

E.g. Slovenian: mesto (Sing.) ’city’mesti (Dual) ’two cities’mesta (Plural) ’cities’

-GENDER affixes (Distinguishes two or more classes of nouns)

E.g. German: der junge Mann (masc.) ’the young man’die junge Frau (fem.) ’the young woman’das junge Mädchen (neut.) ’the young girl’

-TENSE affixes (locate an event or state in relation to a point in

time, typically the moment of speaking):

French: nous chantons ’we sing’ (Present)nous chanterons ’we will sing’ (Future)

-ASPECT affixes (Distinguishes an action or event as

completed, ongoing, repeated or habitual)

French: Jean lisait ’Jean was reading’ (Past Ongoing)Jean lut ’Jean read’(Past Completed)