Linguistics Exam 1 02 17 2014 The divine source with language In more religions there appears to be a divine source who provides humans Adam named things in the book of Genesis Hindu came from the creator of the universe s wife Hypothesis If infants can grow up without being spoken to then they will still speak the god given language Support all languages have some words with pronunciations that echo naturally occurring sounds The social interaction source Yo he ho theory sounds involved in making a physical effort is a source of language especially when in a group and grunts and sounds become necessary to become coordinated with one another This theory places the development of language in a social context Groups are necessarily social organizations and communication is required in social organizations Apes and other primates live in social groups and use grunts and social calls but have not developed the capacity for speech The physical adaption source Instead of looking at types of sounds as the source of human speech we can look at the types of physical features humans possess and those that are distinct from other creatures The significant transition to upright posture with bipedal on two feet locomotion and revised role for the front limbs arms Sound distinctions from the skull of a gorilla and Neanderthal man These partial adaptions are relevant for speech and efficient versions of features found in other primates o Such features would not necessarily lead to speech production but are good clues that a creature possessing such features probably has the capacity for speech Teeth lips mouth larynx and pharynx Teeth upright and not slanting inwards like apes Lips much more intricate muscle interlacing than found in other primates Mouth small compared to primates can be opened and closed rapidly Tongue thick and muscular can be used to shape a wide cariety of sounds flexible contains the tongue inside the oral cavity These differences make the mouth capable of a wider range of shapes and ore rapid and powerful delivery of sounds produced through these different shapes Larynx Voice box contains the vocal folds and cords Differs from primates when humans stood in upright posture the head was more directly abouve the spinal column and larynx dropped to a lower position created the pharynx Pharynx acts as a resonator for increased range and clarity of sounds produced via the larynx Larger range of sound distinctions The tool making source Some believe that manual gestures may have been a precursor of language 2 million years ago preferential right handedness and stone tool making a brain at work Brain large relative to the human body size and lateralized Lateralized specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres The speaking section and tool making section of the brain are close together on the left hemisphere Humans may have first developed a naming ability by producing a specific and consistent noise for a specific object The additional step of bringing another specific noise into combination with the first to build a complex message o beer beer good this beer is good The genetic source variety of language Innateness hypothesis human offspring are born with an innate ability for language that no other creature seems to have and it isn t tied to a specific Young children easily and often learn sign language if deaf The natural sound source Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around them When an object flew by making a caw caw sound the early human tried to imitate the sound and used it to refer to the thing associated with the sound Onamatopeia words that sound similar to the noises they describe Examples Splash bang boom rattle buzz hiss screech It has also been suggested that the original sounds of language may have come from natural cries of emotion such as pain anger and joy Examples Ouch Yuck Ooh Wow This is not a likely hypothesis because we normally produce spoken language on exhaled breath and you usualy make these noises on intakes of breath o Sounds not otherwise used in speech production Chapter 17 Language history and change Philology study of language history and change Philology dominated language study in the 19th century and created family trees to show how languages were related Family Trees Sir William suggested that a number of languages from very different geographical areas must have some common ancestor Hypothesized on the basis of similar features existing in records of languages that were believed to be descented Proto Indo European a term to describe the common language ancestor Incorporated the idea that this was the original form proto of a language that was the source of modern alnguages in the Indian subcontinent Indo and in Europe European Great great grandmother Language family with the largest population and distribution in the About thirty language families containing more than 6 000 different world individual languages 6 912 Family connections Looking at records of older languages like Latin and Sanskrit help to understand the connection between languages in the indo european family The fact that close similarities occur especially in the probably pronunciations of the words is good evidence for propping a family connection Cognates 02 17 2014 02 17 2014