Lecture notes 05 19 14 Descriptive Linguistics o Prescriptivism judgment of what is socially proper and correct pronunciation spelling grammar o Descriptivism description of language use o Linguists pay attention to productivity Refudiate verb used loosely to mean reject she called on to refudiate the proposal to build a mosque origin blend of refute and repudiate o A tool for learning and writing an unwritten language Description of the sounds pronunciation Phonology Description of the words dictionary Morphology Description of grammar text Syntax Description of use Pragmatics o Points of articulation for sounds Speech sounds can be classified based on their articulation Consonantal sounds Uvular Trill o R o Voiced vocal cords vibrate during articulation o Uvular back of the tongue at the uvula o Trill directing air over the articulator so it vibrates o French rendezvous appointment Alveolar Trill o r o voiced vocal cords vibrate during articulation o alveolar articulated at the tip of the tongue o trill manner of articulation is produced by directing air causing articulator tongue to vibrate o Esperanto tri three Voiceless velar fricative o x o voiceless produced without vibrations of the vocal cords o velar articulates back of tongue at soft palate o fricative constricts air flow turbulence o Dutch acht eight International Phonetic Alphabet Developed as a common scientific tool for comparing languages Based on Roman Latin alphabet Goal of describing all sounds some of which may not make a difference in one language or another Manners of Articulation Bilabial apicoalveolar nasal glottal patal etc Phonemic Analysis Allophones o Phonemes with two or more sounds Example p aspirated pin unaspirated spin k aspirated kin unaspirated skin t aspirated tun unaspirated stun Stress or accent o Emphasis placed on the syllable of words o Example Present noun Present verb Pitch or tone o Voice pitch accompanying a syllable s production High level High rising Low falling Falling o In English Declarative statements are characterized by contrasting Length o Continuation of a sound during its production Finnish pitches They came in They came in Tuli fire Muta mud Tuuli wind Muuta other In English Indicates exaggeration o that dog is b i i i i i ig o Orality and Literacy Orality of language Emphasis on the oral aspect of language and societies o Literacy and writing recent advances o The basic orality of language is permanent Of 3000 languages studied only 78 have literature Importance of orality Misled views Aspects of literacy Three types o preliterate o Oral histories o Logographic o Syllabic o Alphabetic Each symbol is a word Individual symbols refer to syllables Contrastive sound units phonemes Importance of understanding literacy Resistance to literacy How language works Issues of nationalism and identity construction Literacy development Literacy education o Two tricks to human language Chomsky language makes infinite use of finite media De Saussure s arbitrary language o Chomsky s generative grammar Theory that looks at ways new sentences can be generated through rules of movement and combination The creation of new sentences can be infinite You can have the largest integer and add 1 to it to have a larger one Important to know that there is still a grammar that is followed and a reasoning behind generative grammar