Language & MindHU2910

Summer 2011

IndoEuro expansion: 4th m BCE

IE expansion: 4th-3rd-2nd m BCE

IE expansion: 4th m 1m BCE

IE Lx: circa 1000 BCE

Ch 1 Introduction

Linguistics: The scientific study of language. Rooted in our everyday knowledge of,

thinking about, and talking about Lx Takes a descriptive approach (vs.

prescriptivist school-based approaches) Empirically based: describes and accounts

for patterns in speech and language

Linguistics-linked to many fields:

Humanities: philology & philosophy; language teaching

Social sciences: sociology, psychology, anthropology, & archaeology

Physical sciences: biology, physiology, physics, mathematics, & speech production/perception (cf. neurology)

Branches of linguistics

Phonetics: how to make sounds, the physics of sound waves, & how they are perceived.

Phonology: how sounds pattern in a Lx

Morphology: how words are made up of smaller meaningful units.

Branches of linguistics

Syntax: how words form sentences & how they relate to each other (with morphology, this is the core of grammar).

Semantics: involves the aspects of meaning in words and grammar.

Pragmatics: involves those aspects of meaning when put to use.

Branches of linguistics

Psycholinguistics: mental processes underlying Lx processing.

Neurolinguistics: focuses on the brain’s language processing activities.

Branches of linguistics

TypologyHistorical linguisticsSociolinguisticsDiscourse analysisEvolutionary linguistics

Signs (= form/meaning)

E.g. # $ % & hand gestures, words Like a coin – both sides essential.

Iconic signs

Symbolic signs

Icons:

a form resembling its meaning in some way: the form shows some characteristic of the corresponding concept. It shows salient features in stylized ways, ignoring other features.

Some manual gestures are iconic: using digits for numbers, tight fist for fighting

Symbols

Form and meaning are related purely by convention, being established and acquired by repetition.

N.B. Icons also always involve some degree of convention and arbitrariness.

Lx as a sign system

Symbolic signs in Lx: Phonetic or orthographic does not equal

‘meaning’

Iconic signs in Lx: Onomatopoeia – bowwow, wanwan Word lengthening - loooong Reduplication

Onomatopoeia in Nihongo

Giseigo: sound imitation that reflects physical, audible noises relating to the action or mvmt of (in)animate objects.

Gachagacha = rattle Chirinchirin = tinkle Kasakasa = rustle

Onomatopoeia in Nihongo

Gitaigo: manner imitation that refers to feelings and figurative expressions about objects and natural surrounding, in which sound plays no part.

Tobotobo = plodding Furafura = roam Kirakira = twinkle Betabeta = stick to Gisshiri = packed full, crowded

Onomatopoeia in Nihongo

Often meaning has multiple layers:Barabara = very strong rain; or things

broken up, scattered or disorganized

Gorogoro = purring cat, rumbling noises but also manner, e.g discomfort caused by a lump, the way things are strewn around in abundance, or being idle

Reduplication – various derived meanings

Plural tree-> treesRepetition kiss -> kiss a lotIntensity see -> look at carefullyScattered distribution house -> disprs’dSpace gnaw at -> on all sidesContinuation flash once -> is flashingSmallness club -> small clubPast tense I leave -> I left

Relation b/w Lc signs – signs interrelate to form a coherent whole

Syntagmatic: signs occur in combination with other signs

Paradigmatic: alternative signs could be used to replace any member of the syntagm a word’s meaning is related to close

alternates in the paradigm (cf. ‘we’)

Design features – of all Lx

ArbitrarinessDisplacement (imagination)Cultural X-mission (genes aside)Duality (patterned @ 2 levels)Productivity (creativity)Reflexivity (meta analysis permittable)

Evolution of Writing

Pre-Writing Cave paintings

Proto-Writing Ideographs

Early Writing Cuneiform

Pre-Writing Cave Paintings

Lascaux, France (16k yrs ago)

Pre-Writing Cave Paintings

Altamira, Spain (16-14k yrs ago)

a

Proto-Writing (9k yrs ago)

Ideographs/mnemonic symbols:

Wayfinding signs (airports/train stations)Arabic numerals Formal Languages (in math & logic)

* used “worldwide” regardless of how theyare pronounced in different languages.N.B. Iconicity

Chinese Radicals (+ semantic)

口 Mouth 父 Father 疒 Sickness 竹 Bamboo 米 Rice 耒 Plow 革 Leather 花 Flower (top horizontal w/ 2 marks)

Early Writing

Cuneiform script (2700-2500 BCE)Begins in Sumerian civilization of

southern Iraq. Originally pictographic. Derives from Mesopotamian accounting system (10k yrs ago).

Inventory becomes streamlined in number (approx 400 by 3rd m BCE) & in form (pictographs become convention–alized linear drawings cf. e.g.).

Ugaritic alphabet (c. 1500 BCE)

Cuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world.[1] Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC [2] during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the Ancient Near East. [3]

The development of cuneiform writing was an evolution of an earlier Mesopotamian accounting system that had been used for five thousand years before. [4] Clay tokens had been used for some form of record-keeping in Mesopotamia since as early as 8,000 BC. [5][6] Cuneiform documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a reed stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped," from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge").

Cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period spanning three millennia. In the course of the 3rd millennium BC the script became successively more cursive, and the pictographs developed into conventionalized linear drawings, the number of characters in use also refined from around 1,000 unique characters in the Early Bronze Age to around 400 characters in Late Bronze Age (Hittite cuneiform).

pajama, sandal

Borrowed into English (later)

Cuneiform evolution c. 3rd m.

Cuneiform shift (in form)

Stage 1 shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC. Stage 2 shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 BC. Stage 3 shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 BC, & stage 4 is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3.

Stage 5 represents the late 3rd millennium, & stage 6 represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite. Stage 7 is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction.

Semantic extension

Pictograms originally referred to a concrete object, then activities and abstract concepts related to it (becoming morphograms – N,V, Adj…)

Perennially productive (in language and throughout our sign systems)

Phonological extension

Morphographic characters originally symbolized entire words but came to be associated more with pronunciations.

Hence we began to graph: the (much more limited number of) phonemes, instead of

the (innumerable) morphemes.

Morphs ----------- Phones

Graph this:

Morphographic WS

Best example: ChineseDue to massive challenge of graphing all

the morphs in a language, only a small number of kanji are ‘all morph’ (approx 90% are mixed with phonetic part).

Using the rebus principle allows us to use existing morphographic kanji as a spring board for their homophones (cf. ‘I see’)

Phonographic WS

‘Mostly’ sound-based (cf. spelling conventions –through vs. though)

What parameters for ‘graphing the phone’ syllables (syllabary) consonants only (abjads) consonants with diacritics (abugidas) consonants and vowels (alphabets) what else?