Universal Grammar from a Martian's point of view
A Martian meets
a terrestrial. They start conversing.
The terrestrial
is surprised: ‘You speak my language very well. I guess, I am not the first
human who you have conversed with.’
The Martian:
‘It’s true. I have met many humans from all over the world. They claimed to
speak different languages and they also claimed that they don’t understand each
other without having to learn each other’s language by making a big effort. It
is very strange to me. I can understand all the languages that you claim are
different. They sound the same.’
The terrestrial:
‘Noam Chomsky has already made a statement that a Martian would perceive our
languages as one single language. Finally, you are the proof that universal
grammar really exists. There are big debates on the question’
The Martian: ‘Or
simply I am so intelligent that I can understand every language in the world,
don’t you think? Because I am more intelligent, I can help you with the
universal grammar issue. Let me ask you some questions which can be fundamental
to investigate it. Describe a language. It doesn’t have to be a specific
language, but any language. My aim is to understand the common properties of
the world’s languages.
The terrestrial:
A language always distinguishes nouns from verbs, or distinguishes function
words from content words.
The Martian: Because
of the universal properties of all
languages. And how did you learn your language? Were you copying your mother’s
sentences exactly as she was saying them? Was your mother correcting you?
The terrestrial:
No, I wasn’t copying exactly what my mother was saying. My mom wasn’t
correcting me, the opposite in fact, she was happy if I could say something. In
addition, my neighbor, Simon who is a 9 year old boy, is deaf. His parents are
also deaf but they learned sign language in their teens. That’s why they
couldn’t learn it well and they make a lot of mistakes. However, surprisingly,
Simon could learn sign language well. It is very interesting, isn’t it?
The Martian: So,
you don’t learn everything from the environment as the behaviorist theory
claims. It means children know things about
language which they could not have learned from the input available to them. It
is poverty of the stimulus. Do
you understand sentences that you haven’t heard before?
The terrestrial:
Of course. I form sentences that I have haven’t heard before.
The Martian: So
you can form infinite sentences using finite rules of the language. There
should be a mental grammar then. You
potentially could form countless sentences, this is your competence, but you form counted sentences in your usage, this is
your performance.
So we can state
that there are universal properties which all languages share. The child doesn’t
only learn from his or her environment and his or her mistakes, but there must
be an innate knowledge about the
grammar that gives him or her access to learn any language. A human could form
and understand sentences that he or she hasn’t heard before. This is the core
idea of universal grammar.
If human
language is innate, then why is there such a variety of languages? What do you
think? Leave me a comment!
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Sound symbolism: the end of the dynasty
The first pretender, Clustering made his
presentation:
‘I am able to create semantic groups of words using
only one letter. For example I have created the words which contain the letter
‘h’ and are related to housing like hut, home, hovel, habitat.’
The second pretender was Iconism:
‘I create words which contain meaningful
letters. Look at these examples: 'stamp', 'stomp', 'tamp', 'tromp', 'tramp',
and 'step'. If you put ‘m’ before ‘p’, it makes the action more powerful. I
have created a meaning for every letter. For example: the front vowels such as
i, e represent gentle narrow subjects and back vowels such as o, u represent strong
broad subjects.’
The last pretenders were the twins, Phenomimes
and Psychomimes:
‘We are the most powerful creators. We create
words from intangible and invisible senses.
We imitate soundless states. Phenomime creates words that depict states,
conditions, or manners of the external world such as "damp" or
"stealthily". Psychomime creates words that depict psychological
states or physical feelings.’
Well, the counsellors, the Korean and Japanese languages had already encountered the twins because they had infected their structure with these types of words. For example, Japanese was full of the so-called i-type adjectives which represent emotive states like kanashii "sad" or sabishii "lonely". For that reason, the two wise languages chose the twins for the throne of Glottaland. However, their reign didn’t last long because Arbitrariness arrived to govern the kingdom of languages. He was the creation of Ferdinand de Saussure, the linguist who destroyed the magic of Glottaland and founded modern 'scientific' linguistics.
Ideophone vs Onomatopoiea: The Civil War
However, as he grew up, he started showing
interest in other things beyond the sounds. He liked the colors of the grass
and the sky, he liked how flowers smell, so he liked nature very much. One day,
he discovered how to imitate these properties of nature and from that moment,
he learned how to create words from colors and smells. Every day he learned something new, every day
he created new words. But he did all his activities in secret because he feared
his mother’s reaction.
Once Ideophone went to the city to visit his
people and see how they lived. As he was walking, he saw people moving. He
couldn’t resist: he created words from the movements he saw. After that he saw
a girl laughing. He immediately created a new word. Then he saw a man crying. A
new word arose again. He became capable
of making words which resembled movements and emotions. Ideophone’s talents
went very far beyond Onomatopoiea’s.
The queen learned about Ideophone’s talent and
his disobedience to the rules, because some languages came to the queen to
complain. The Korean language complained because Ideophone created a new
separate word class in the Korean structure. The Mundang language complained because
the prince infected several of her word classes. The Japanese language
complained because Ideophone’s creations occur within her utterances and they
are inseparable from the other elements of the utterance.
Onomatopoiea got very angry because she couldn’t
allow him to create new words in different ways. She couldn’t allow to develop
new abilities. She wanted him to follow the queen’s way of creation. She got so
angry that she decided to punish him by forbidding from using his talents.
However, Ideophone had already created so many
new words which showed a high degree of grammatical independence, that he could
initiate a civil war against his mother. He got stronger and stronger because
he never stopped the creation. In the end, Ideophone usurped the queen and
became the king of Glottaland. However, there were other pretenders to the
crown too…
Onomatopoeia: the true story
It was said when she was just a child, she was playing on the street of the village when she saw a man “slapping” a door. Suddenly she started saying “knock knock”. She was inventing her first word inspired by an action.
With time she had learned how to repeat human vocal sounds like babbling and coughing.
She developed a special talent to create words which resemble the very noise or sound itself. Her name was Onomatopoeia.
One day, as she was walking towards the town,
she saw a group of languages who were talking about a legend. They were telling
an ancient Greek myth about the creator of languages. According to this myth
the one who could imitate the sounds of the nature, is the real creator of the very
first human language and for this reason he/she would have the right to
govern Glottaland, the kingdom of
languages where all languages originated.
As she was listening, her heart started to beat
faster and faster. This story felt so familiar that she couldn’t stop thinking
about it. Yes, of course! She was the creator of all languages. In addition, her
name had a symbolic meaning: ὀνοματοποιία in the Greek language means
"making or creating names".
She yelled: ‘Glottaland! Here I am. Your only
creator! I am Onomatopoeia. I am the creator of all human languages in the
world. I have created the very first words by imitating their nature. I am the evidence
for how natural a language is. The legend is true. Greek philosophers also knew
the truth: that language itself is derived from natural sounds in the world
around us. You have to kneel down before me!’
The folk of Glottaland laughed.
‘You are no one, young lady!” – said
someone from the crowd – “ It’s only a myth. Nobody believes in this story
anymore.”.
”If you had created the words from their
sounds, how would you explain that different languages refer to the same thing
with different words? Why don’t all languages use your words?’
‘I have
created the very first words imitating their natural sounds.” – replied
Onomatopoeia –“I have shown a way of creation to you, ungrateful languages. All
of you are different, all of you have different characteristics, you are
different from each other typologically,
you have founded different language families. If you are different, you
certainly approach the world differently. You certainly perceive the noises
differently, you name things differently.”
A wise
old language showed up from the crowd. He was very angry and he was yelling
around: ‘Shut up, stupid modern languages. You are so sceptical that you can’t
see the truth! The myth is true!’ And while he was saying it, he took out the
crown of Glottaland.
Form that moment begins the story of the royal
dynasty of Glottaland.
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Animal communication vs. human language 2. – differences
Charles Hockett was disappointed because he
couldn’t find the main distinguishing characteristics between animal
communication systems and human language. However, at the end he seemed to have
found a solution and he wanted to share it with Tarzan.
Hockett: ‘I thought about our discussion on animal
communication and human language differences last time. I reached some
conclusions. I made a list thanks to you! I am going to share the main design
features of human language. First of
all, I must tell you that the basis is the same: signs! We both communicate
based on signs. The key difference here is that the sign system for animals is
inborn, while we acquire these signs from the society and transmit them
culturally. Only the capacity to create these signs, is inborn. This is called
traditional or cultural transmission. ‘
Tarzan: ‘OK, it’s true the way that animals
communicate is biological. Although some animals living in isolation, are
unable to develop the calls for their species. It seems to be community
dependent, doesn’t’ it? ’
Hockett: ‘But there is more. Another important
human language characteristic is interchangeability. To my knowledge, males of
some species produce different signs from females and they are not able to
interchange the signs of the other gender.’
Tarzan: ‘Yes, as you said, there are some
species which are unable to interchange the male sign with the female sign.
However, it’s not universal for animal communication. I can accept it as a
relative feature of human language, but not absolute.’
Hockett: ‘Ok, it’s true. There is another
feature. Human language is symbolic. The signs of human language are arbitrary
and there is no meaningful connection between a sound form and its meaning. We
can call it arbitrariness.’
Tarzan: ‘It’s not an absolute feature for human
language. Think about onomatopoeias: words that resemble the sounds that they
refer to. The way these words have been created are not arbitrary.’
Hockett: ‘By the way, creation! Listen to this.
Here you cannot object! The animal calls
always depend on their genes, hence biology. Animals always produce the same
signs. Human signs can change even rapidly depending on language change
features. New words can be invented, while animals have to evolve in order that
their signs change. For animals, each meaning can be expressed in only one way,
while for humans, one meaning can be expressed in many ways. We can call it
productivity or creativity.’
Tarzan: ‘Hmm. It’s very interesting! But it
seems, it’s about the human mind, not the language itself. Human language is a
result of the mind, a creation of mind. Creativity is a characteristic of humans,
not a characteristic of language. So, to find a solution for the description of
human language, we should start by studying the mind!’
Hockett: ‘OK, Tarzan. You will not object to the
upcoming feature. I have found a very interesting characteristic of language:
duality of patterning. It means, meaningful messages contain meaningful smaller
units like words or morphemes, however these meaningful units can be divided in
meaningless units like phonemes.’
Tarzan: ‘You are right. No objection. In
addition, I would add that the grammar could be an absolute characteristic of
human language. I have heard about Chomsky who claims that humans possess an
innate universal grammar that is not possessed by other species.’
In the end, professor Hockett developed the design
features of language by having long discussions with his wild friend who lacked
a human language. The design features contain sixteen features, but we have
discussed only the most important ones here.
Do you know all the sixteen features? Write them in the comments!
Animal communication vs. human language 1. - Similarities
Tarzan had many animal friends who he was
communicating with. He was told he wasn’t using a language but a different kind
of communication system because animals don’t have languages. But he didn’t
believe that his communication system wasn’t a language and he decided to pursue
it.
He went to discuss this with Charles Hockett
who was a linguistic anthropologist and was studying the distinguishing
characteristics of human language from animal communication.
Tarzan: ‘How are the forms of communication used
by animals different from human language?’
Hockett: ‘You know the vocal-auditory channel
is for human language. We hear and speak, right?’
Tarzan: ’So, are you saying that sign languages
are not languages? Aren’t there sign languages?’
Hockett: ‘Hmm. You are right. There are sign
and even written languages. Let’s look for something else! Aha! Humans
communicate with signs! Think about words! Words are the most commonly used signs
for human communication. ‘
Tarzan: ’Sorry, Mr. Hockett, but you are
confusing me. Do you mean that animals don’t use signs for communication? I
know many species that use them. For example, foxes have 20 distinct forms of
vocalization.’
Hockett: ‘Ok then. The difference lies in the
sounds. Humans express emotions by adding different tones to their words.’
Tarzan: ‘Actually, it’s a similarity again. My
vervet monkey friends use three distinct alarm calls depending on the type of
predator. Their babies use the same cry/ call for an incoming eagle and any
birds when they are very small, but then they learn distinct warning calls to
distinguish an eagle from other birds. Exactly the same way that a human baby
learns to call his/her mother with a different cry from the rest.’
Hockett: ‘Ok, but humans can communicate about
distant things in time or space. Animals cannot do that. We can call this
feature displacement’.
Tarzan: ‘Can they not? Well, listen to this.
Honeybees have two kinds of dances to communicate the distance of the food.
They dance in a circle if the food is 50-60 meters away and they use the waggle
dance if the food is further away. In addition, they point out the direction
where the food is located with their dance. They demonstrate displacement,
don’t they?’
Hockett: ‘Oh yes. There is one thing more. Can
animals lie? They can’t lie or deceive. It’s a specific human ability which is
called prevarication.’
Tarzan: ‘I am really sorry, but I have to
correct you again. Many of my animal friends lie or deceive continuously. Think
of insects that imitate being leaves. Isn’t it deception? Or don’t you know
Koko, the sign gorilla? She claimed that her kitten did something bad that she
(Koko) actually did.’
Hockett: ‘Oh no! So, what is the difference
between human language and animal communication?’
What do you think? Write your answer in the comments!
The human language
Tarzan was told that he had to learn a human language.
He got very upset because he didn’t even know what a language was. So, first he
decided to learn what language means.
On his way, he encountered a language
philosopher with whom he started to communicate in mentalese (as he lacked a
human language). Tarzan asked him whether he knew what language was.
The language philosopher obviously knew what
language was:
‘A natural language can be spoken, written or
signed. Language is a mental faculty which makes a human capable of learning, of
understanding and of producing a language. This faculty is universal for all
humans. It means, every cognitively sane children can learn a language because
the ability to acquire a language, is innate. Of course, the environment also plays
a very important role because we learn from the society.’
As Tarzan heard it, he got upset again because
he lost hope that he could learn a language. He wasn’t a child anymore and all
his efforts to understand what people said, were in vain. But he didn’t give up
and he asked where to go to get more information.
The language philosopher: ‘Go to cognitive sciences
and neurolinguistics as they approach the language from this innatist point of
view. You have to learn about universal grammar and the theories of Noam
Chomsky if you want to know more about this view. Other cognitive scientists,
for example, Steven Pinker, claim that language is an instinct. Others again
think that there is a language organ somewhere in the brain. Or Terrence W.
Deacon says that languages are like viruses. Other approaches view the language
as a tool for communication which was developed to serve humans in order to
express themselves. Language is a means for manipulation: humans manipulate
objects and each other by using languages. The grammar of the language has gone
through an adaptive process to serve the communicational need of human. ’
Tarzan became sad. He had thought language was
like music and a means for expressing emotions as Rousseau and Herder said. Or
at least the result of a logical expression of rational thought as Kant and
Descartes approached it. But in any case, not looking at language as an
inferior system subordinated to humans.
The language philosopher continued: ‘According
to the structuralist view of Ferdinand de Saussure language is a closed
structural system. It means, language has rules which link particular signs to
particular meanings. Chomsky worked out the generative theory of grammar which
is based on the assumption that language is a construction of sentences that
can be generated by transformational grammar.’
Tarzan was becoming sadder and sadder and he
was going to give up understanding all these definitions, when he got the last
stab.
The language philosopher: ’Whatever the
language is, it’s certain that language is unique to humans.’
Tarzan collapsed. He had thought he had been communicating with his animal friends, but the language philosopher said, it wasn’t a language. He didn’t understand what the difference between animal and human communication was. The only thing he clearly understood was that he knew nothing about language. His mind was full of questions, doubts and curiosity. That’s why, he decided to clarify the position of languages…
Linguistics and linguist: the investigation
The linguist and linguistics
A group
of linguists were caught because they have stolen a human language from the
language bank . The police is interrogating one of them.
The policeman: “Well, you claim that you are a
linguist. We have heard about you and your band before. Nobody knows what a
linguist does, but the police! Some linguists work for us too: they translate
documents, they interpret at the court. So, basically you are a translator, is
it true?”
The linguist: “No, I am a general linguist. I
study languages like Noam Chomsky. I study the language as a phenomenon. I
examine the functions of language in general, I analyze language form, language
meaning, and language in context.”
The policeman: “Hmm. But you know many
languages, don’t you?
The linguist: “I know the structure of many
languages, but I don’t speak them. I only speak English. For my profession it’s
not necessary to speak the languages that I work with. Some of my colleagues have specialized in particular
languages and they speak them too. “
The policeman: “Clear. Explain your working
methods to me! How do you analyze languages? Where do you work?
The linguist: “It’s complicated. I would need a
life sentence to explain everything. Well, firstly to analyze a language we
have to describe its sounds. Phonetics deals with speech and non-speech sounds.
We have to study the meaning of the elements of the language. The field which
studies it, is called semantics. Another very important part of the language is
the grammar which is the system of governing rules in a certain language. The
grammar has three big parts: phonology, morphology and syntax. Descriptive
linguistics deals with these elements of language. There are many other
branches of linguistics: structural linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
neurolinguistics, computational linguistics, historical and evolutionary
linguistics and so on. But if you want to know more about these fields, you
have to ask my colleagues because being a general linguist doesn’t mean knowing
everything about linguistics. Well, answering your question about our working
place/spot, I can say that the places can be very different: linguists can work
inside the academy or outside. So, we can be professors at a university, we can
work for research institutes outside the academy. We can decide to teach a
language, we can be translators or interpreters as you mentioned, or we can
work as a forensic linguists. As far as physical spots are concerned, academic
linguists can do their research in a library, but they can go to work in the
field to document research about a language.”
The policeman: “Now everything is clear! The
only thing that I don’t understand is why you study languages.”
The linguist: “It’s a passion. But of course,
there are some more practical reasons as well. For example, computational
linguists study human languages in order to reproduce them. They study how to teach languages to machines
or produce automatic translations.”
The policeman: “Aha! So, you steal human
languages in order to put them inside machines, so that machines will govern
humans. It’s a crime against mankind!”
So, the linguist was arrested and he had to
defend himself in court.
How would you defend him if you were his lawyer?
Tell me in a comment!
Grammaticalization: how to destroy a language?
Have you ever
asked yourself how to destroy a language?
Well, Language
Omega has asked because he has just conquered the country of Language Alpha and
he wants to rule its people. He has very good counsellors: Christian Lehmann
who wrote a fundamental work in the field: Thoughts on Grammaticalization, and
Heine and Reh who wrote another important book: Grammaticalization and
Reanalysis in African Languages.
First of all,
the counsellors suggested not destroying
the language but deforming it. ‘Where the process of language deformation or
let’s say, change begins, you can conquer the people of that language because
they become more accepting of other changes that you want to impose on them.
One of the most powerful elements of language change is grammaticalization. It’s
a painful process because words which represent objects and actions, have to
leave their grammatical categories and enter a new grammatical category to
become grammatical markers like affixes, prepositions, etc. Sometimes a lexical
word or cluster completely loses its lexical meaning, sometimes retains it and
has both lexical meaning and grammatical function. A good example for
grammaticalization is the English ‘will’, which status as a verb also became
auxiliary.’
The counsellors
described how to do grammaticalization. There are four processes to obtain
efficiency:
‘’First, Semantic
bleaching, or desemanticization. It’s a process when a lexical item loses its
semantic content. For example, take the word ‘very’ which means ‘true’ from
Latin and use it for emphasis.
Second, Morphological
reduction or decategorialization. It is a process whereby something that is
clearly marked (either by morphology or by function) as a member of one
grammatical category shifts to be more marked or functioning as a member of
another category. Take a preposition ‘off’ and use it as a verb. For example:
‘Off the pigs’.
Third, Phonetic
erosion. It means, one expression after undergoing grammaticalization, loses
phonetic substance. For example, take the expression ‘going to’ and throw some
phonetic segments out. You’ll get ‘gonna’. The only thing you are doing is
following the principle of least effort. People are lazy, they will like this
new rule.
Fourth, Obligatorification.
Lehmann suggested to reduce "the freedom of the language user with regard
to the paradigm as a whole". It is a process when the use of a linguistic
element becomes obligatory in use. For example, the French "ne...pas"
started as a way to emphasize the negative, but became obligatory. The counsellors
warned Language Omega. ‘Use the process of Obligatorification carefully because
there are some rebels like the linguist Bybee who fights for the independent
status of Obligatorification from grammaticalization
and putting it in a wider category: language change.
The counsellors added
an important note:
‘To rule a
language, you need to know his past so that you will gain insight into how he
will develop in the future. Grammaticalization can be used for these aims too
as it plays an important role in the reconstruction of older states of a
language.’
What examples do
you have in your language for grammaticalization?
Language shift: the language cemetery
Language Alpha
went to see the language therapist because he is losing his identity and he
doesn’t know where he belongs any more. Where does his language soul come from?
The language
therapist language analyzes him by hypnotizing him in order to reveal his
origins. Language Alpha talks about his ancestors’ past in hypnosis.
‘I see a
mediaeval Empire with people who are talking a strange language, called
Bulgarian and I can understand it completely. It’s a Turkic language. Normally
I speak neither Bulgarian nor any Turkic languages. After that I see another
picture. It’s a country in the Balkans. Their language is also called
Bulgarian, but I can’t understand it. Or more precisely, I understand only few
elements of the language. It’s a Slavic language, no longer Turkic. After that
centuries passed. I can see myself desperately seeking the Bulgarian language, my real origins, my
real soul, but no hope. My real identity is the Bulgarian language and it has
disappeared.’
Language Alpha
wakes up, but he is very upset. What has happened to him? Has his language soul
change? Or has he become a different language? Or more tragically, has his
language soul died?
A language shift
has occurred. It’s a is a social phenomenon. It’s different from language
change as it’s not a structural change, but a replacement of the old language
with a new one. Usually it occurs when a community doesn’t see any reason to
maintain their ethnic language. It happens mainly in mixed-language or
bilingual areas. The reasons can be immigration or preferring the language of
the higher status. A rapid language shift happens when a minority has an urge
to learn the language of the society where learning the language is required
for success. When the speakers of one language become bilingual in another
language, and gradually shift allegiance to the second language, it is called
assimilation. When the speakers stop using their mother tongue, language death
occurs.
The therapist
calms Alpha: ‘The language is never
destroyed, only transformed. Your language soul is still alive deep inside
you.’
Do you think languages die or only transform?
Code-switching: conversation on a lonely island
The linguist asked
questions of everyone.
Dear survivors!
Tell me please, why do you switch codes within a single conversation? How do
you do that? What are the circumstances?
Of course, the
linguist answered to his own questions first:
‘Well, I have
two reasons for code-switching. I am multilingual, and sometimes it happens
that when I speak a certain language, a certain word doesn’t come to my mind,
therefore I have to switch to another language to pick up the missing word. The
other motivation is that I use technical terms or words. The terms would lose
their exact meaning if I had to translate them into the other language. I
switch to maintain the exact meaning of the word.’’
The teenager
answered then: ‘Because I belong to a hip hop group, I use certain expressions
that other people outside the group don’t understand. Sometimes, I switch when
I want to express my group-identity.
The high-school
teacher replied after him: ‘I switch codes because my son could not otherwise understand
my sophisticated language usage. I try to make clearer what I mean’
The philosopher
said that he switches codes while quoting another person. The reason why the
secret agent switches codes is because he is used to keeping secrets and speaking
about particular topics which he doesn’t want others to understand. The
volunteer worker switches to express gratitude, solidarity and feelings. She
usually does it subconsciously to create a different atmosphere. The commander
switches codes in order to strengthen commands while he speaks with soldiers
and to soften commands while he speaks with his family.
Obviously, the
linguist made a conclusion:
So, we switch
codes
If we have
lexical needs, if we express group identity, if we want to clarify something, if
we quote someone, if we talk about particular topics, if we express solidarity
and gratitude, if we soften or strengthen commands.
The linguist also
explained how he switches codes.
‘Sometimes I do
Intersentential switching. It occurs outside the sentence or the clause level.
For example: If you are late for the job interview, işe alınmazsın.
(English-Turkish code-switching).
Other times, I
do Intra-sentential switching. The shift is done in the middle of a sentence.
For example:
You are lazy
mostanában, because you spend a lot of idő on the sofa. (English-Hungarian
code-switching).
Or I also can do Tag-switching. I switch a tag phrase or a
word. For example:
Nein er kam doch
erst um neun, you know? (English-German code-switching)’
The linguist
felt the need to keep on explaining:
‘I think to
survive in code-switching situations, you definitely have to know two important
terms: the matrix language and the embedded language. Easy. The matrix language
is the dominant language used during the conversation whose grammar mostly
applied while the embedded language is one from which switches originate.’
And the linguist
has finally finished his explanation.
Do you have
other examples for code-switching?
Language change 2: types
He asks Theta to
tell him what kind of changes she experienced from Alpha’s side.
She starts the
description:
‘First of all
I’ve noticed that he uses new, strange words and expressions. But at the same
time, he has lost some old words. It’s very tragically because a language
should preserve its old forms but Alpha prefers new trends.’
The therapist:
‘Lexical change. It can happen by borrowing new words or losing old ones.
Theta continues
his description: ‘He changes the pronunciation of some words as well.’
The therapist:
‘Just like I suspected. Phonetic and phonological changes. It’s a very typical
kind of language change and it can happen in a relatively short time. The
language develops a new system among its phonemes. Has he already changed the
spelling too?’
Theta: No, he
hasn’t yet. But I’ve noticed semantic changes as well. for example, in my usage
awful means ‘inspiring wonder’, but in his usage it has a negative meaning. Or
by ‘to kill’ he means ‘to slaughter’. By
saying ‘mouse’ he doesn’t mean only the animal, but also a computer device.
The therapist: ‘Hmm.
His vocabulary is going through the process of pejoration, hyperbole and
metaphor. Pejoration is a process when a word changes its meaning in a negative
sense, hyperbole is a process when words change from weaker to stronger meaning.
Metaphor is when change occurs based on similarity of things. There are several
kinds of semantic change.’
Theta: ‘He doesn’t show grammatical relationships
through inflectional changes in his words, but he represents the grammatical
relationships through word order.
The therapist: ‘It
sounds serious. It means the changes in syntax have already started. He is
becoming an analytical language instead of synthetic.
Now I am going
to give my diagnosis:
Diagnosis:
Alpha is becoming another language while Theta, is an old language and preserves more archaic forms. You must hurry up, guys, otherwise, you will not understand and not even recognize each other soon. First of all, further diagnosis is needed. For the diagnosis of lexical change Alpha has to go to onomasiology. To understand what kind of semantic change Alpha went through I’ll send him to several places: etymology, onomasiology, semasiology, and semantics. For phonetic, phonological and syntactic analyses go to the descriptive linguistics. At the end, to have a wider overview, you have to go to the historical linguistics.’
Have you noticed
any type of change in your language?
Language change 1: Why and how
A language
couple, Language Alpha and Language Theta went to see a language therapist
because they have been experiencing trouble in their relationship.
The language
therapist asked them to tell him their story.
Obviously,
Language Theta, the female language grabbed the occasion and started to tell
the story.
“We had lived in
the same town but I moved to another country. Language Alpha remained in the
town. After several years, I moved back. We started a committed relationship.
But that’s way the problems have arisen. I didn’t really understand what he was
talking about. He has always had a slightly different variant of the standard
but in any case, it was shocking to me because we had grown up in the same
environment, we had used same idioms, expressions, grammar rules, etc.”
The language therapist
interrupted to make his very important comment: ‘Hmm. I am sure that your usage
of language has changed because of the Geographic Separation.’
Theta continued:
‘Well, despite the misunderstandings we continued the relationship. However,
Alpha started to work as a trader and he was in touch with other languages. He
brought new words and phrases home. I had difficulties acquiring his new
vocabulary but I made an effort and I did it.’
The therapist
needed to label this phenomenon: ‘Of course! Language Contact. Alpha borrowed words
and constructions from other languages. ‘
Theta kept
talking: ‘Alpha has a new approach for communication. He reduces some sounds
like vowels and clusters in his speech. He says gonna instead of going to. He
says it’s an accepted form abroad and now this is the new trend.’
The therapist knows
about the phenomenon: ‘Sure. Economic reasons and effective communication. Speakers
tend to make their utterances as efficient and effective as possible to reach
communicative goals.’
Now it’s Alpha’s
turn to speak about his problems.
‘Well, Theta
tends to reduce word forms and reshape them. For example she formed the past
tense form of dive as dove to copy the same structure such as drive: drove. Or
she created the word ‘underwhelm’ after overwhelm. ‘
The therapist:
‘it’s called analogy. It means reducing word forms by likening different forms
of the word to the root.’
Alpha added: ‘I
have asked her million times not to use her strange accent that she got while
she was living abroad with a rich, prestigious family. She is not willing to
change it.’
The therapist:
‘Due to the social prestige. And also the cultural environment the speech is
affected. Groups of speakers will reflect new places, situations, and objects
in their language, whether they encounter different people there or not.’ Now,
Alpha, please tell me about your childhood experiences! How was your mother
tongue?
Alpha: ‘My
parents were immigrants and they didn’t speak the language of the new country
well, therefore they developed a kind of pidgin language. I myself speak the
language of our country but I learned some incorrect forms as well.’
The therapist:
‘Clear. Migration and imperfect learning. Speakers create new languages like
pidgin and creoles when they migrate and as a result, their children are
exposed to imperfect learning. In addition, children regularly learn the adult
forms imperfectly, and the changed forms then turn into a new standard.’
At the end of
the session, the therapist makes his diagnosis:
Language change.
Reasons: Geographic Separation, Language Contact, Economy, Analogy, Social
prestige, Cultural environment, Migration/Movement and Imperfect learning.
Do you know what types of language change there are? I will tell you on the next video.
Cognates, false cognates, false friends
Another time,
Language Alpha needed to borrow a word for ‘dish’ too. Therefore, he went to
his sister again. Language Beta gave him the word ‘Tisch’ however when Alpha
returned home, he realized that ‘Tisch’ actually meant ‘table’. As Alpha had
already a word for table, it decided to use it for referring to something else,
so he used it for ‘dish’. He didn’t like the hard ‘t’ in the beginning, so he
changed its pronunciation a little bit. So the word got a similar form but
different meaning. These words are also called cognates in linguistics.
Alpha lacked
words for colors too. This time, Alpha decided to go to Language Delta to
borrow a word. Delta lent the word biały which means ‘white’, however, Delta
lived very far away and Alpha forgot the original meaning of the word on his
way home. He remembered exactly the opposite meaning: black. Of course, as
always, he made some changes in the form as well. Although, the meaning is the
opposite, these kind of words are also cognates.
Not everything
is as it seems. Once upon a time there was an etymological dictionary which
wanted to collect cognate words which share the same origin. He collected words
like English bad and Persian bad because they have the same meanings and forms.
He added the word English emoticon and Japanese 絵文字 emoji¸ Inuktitut kayak and Turkish kayak, etc. However, other
etymological dictionaries started to complain because they also contained the
same words but with different etymologies. So, our dictionary had to accept
that the words that he chose, were not real cognates. They were only false
cognates.
Once upon a time,
Language Gamma went to visit the country of Language Alpha as a tourist. She
heard some words that sounded familiar to her and she thought she could use her
tongue there because the words share the same origin. She met a pregnant woman
and she wanted to make friends with her. She yelled: ‘Embarazada’. However, the
pregnant woman got angry and yelled too: ‘How dare you? You are embarrassing’.
Gamma drew the conclusion: ‘Well, it’s impossible to make friends here. Maximum
false friends’.
We learned three
similar linguistic terms:
Cognates: words
with same origin, but maybe they have different meaning, and maybe different forms.
False cognates:
words with similar sounds and meaning but different etymologies.
False friends:
similar-sounding words with different meaning but etymologically related.
But how do we know false cognates are really false for sure? Can we be sure that similarities are the result of coincidences or is there something more?
Calque - loan translation: words in the mirror
Mirror mirror
show me the water of life: whiskey.
In Scotland and
Ireland, whiskey is still called usquebaugh. It literally means water of life.
The term is short for whiskybae, which is another spelling of usquebaugh, from
Gaelic uiscebeatha.
These are
literally word-for-word translations. In linguistics, we call them loan
translations.
A loan
translation is a special kind of loan word, but each of the elements of the
phrase are translated. But as Yousef Bader says, "loan translations are
easier to understand [than loan words] because they use existing elements in
the borrowing language, whose expressive capacity is thereby enriched" (in
Language, Discourse, and Translation in the West and Middle East, 1994).
They also known
as calques. The word calque comes from French and means ‘copy’. Calque is a
construction while loans are phonetically and morphologically adapted
borrowings into the recipient language.
But do languages
borrow only compound words and phrases or do they also borrow other kinds of
elements of the language?
Mirror mirror
show me It goes without saying in French: ça va sans dire
It’s literally a
word-for-word translation of the phrase. It’s a Phraseological Calque. It means
one directly translates a phrase in a primary language into the secondary one.
Mirror mirror
show me the sentence “We’re going to the store, are you coming with?” in
German. kommen Sit mit? It’s a literal translation of the German sentence
structure. It’s a morphological Calque. Languages can borrow the structure from
a different language that is not necessarily the norm in the target
language.
Mirror mirror
show me the expression “to find guilty” in Spanish: encontrar culpable which is
literally a translation from English. It is called Syntactic Calque which
occurs in largely bilingual areas and is usually the result of mistranslation.
Mirror mirror
show me the meanings of the word ‘star’ in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Polish,
Finnish, and Vietnamese. Star has two meanings in several languages: the
astronomic body and also someone famous after the English star. It is called
Semantic Calque. It occurs where a word or phrase that has more than one
meaning in the primary language adopts the alternate meaning in another
language.
Pay attention!
Not all calque-like words are calques. Sometimes similar phrases can arise in
different languages independently. Usually, we can state that a word is a
calque almost for sure when the grammar of the calque is different from the
grammar of the borrowing language.
At the end we
can sum up what we have learned about calques.
A calque is a
literal translation of certain elements of the adopting language. We learned
that there are four types of calques:
the semantic
calque, where additional meanings of the source word are transferred to the
word with the same primary meaning in the target language;
the
phraseological calque, where idiomatic phrases are translated word-for-word;
the syntactic
calque, where a syntactic function or construction in the source language is
imitated in the target language;
the morphological calque, where the inflection of a word is transferred.
What calques do you know in your language?
Dialect
What
distinguishes dialects from language? What does dialect mean?
No definition
exists! At least it would be hard to explain what a dialect is without saying
what it is not!
Let’s take a
look at the explanation that could bring us closer to the truth!
“If you can
understand it without training, it’s a dialect of your own language; if you can’t,
it’s a different language.” So, it is a variety of a language which may differ
with its pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. Fine! But what about Swedish,
Danish, and Norwegian speakers conversing with each other? Mandarin, Cantonese,
and Taiwanese are classified as dialects. However, only the same writing system
is what makes them dialects instead of independent languages.
Let’s try
looking at this from a linguistic point of view. Language is written and has
body of literature, a dialect is oral without literature. Ok, but what about
the Iliad and the Odyssey? Aren’t they oral literatures? And, are not ancient
languages which lacked of any form literature, languages? And the tongues in small
tribes where speakers do not have an alphabet?
Ok, found! It is
the level of sophistication and complicated grammar. It simply means that
dialects are supposed to be less sophisticated than languages. Ok, then we have
to ask a ‘sophisticated’ question! Why is English considered a language with
its I walk, you walk, he walks, etc. while Archi, a Caucasian dialect is not
where a verb can occur in more than 1 500 000 forms?
Enough of linguistics!
There must be something else!
Standardization.
One dialect gets standardized not because one dialect is better than other; but,
because somebody somewhere decided that one has to be the standard one! But how,
who, and why?
"A shprakh
iz a diyalekt mit an armey un a flot" “A language is a dialect with an army and a
navy”. A famous statement by Max Weinreich, a linguist of Yiddish can explain the
reason precisely. It means that a dialect attains the status of language when
its speakers have power. It is when a dialect (usually spoken by the elite) gets
standardized because of its institutional support.
So, now it is
clear why Calabrian is a dialect and not a language. And why is Azerbaijani an
independent language and not a dialect?
Of course,
political reasons again. Because it is spoken in a different country and earned
the status of a standard language. Therefore,
a dialect is a regional or social variety of a language.
Have you noticed
that linguistics fails to give a definition in its own field?
Language
variants spoken by entire groups of people are referred to as dialects.
Dialects are often less changeable than the standard; their speakers tend to
live in stable communities and to preserve forms of the language which are
‘older’ in terms of the development of the standard.
Ok, but how to determine what language a dialect belongs to? For this, we have to rely on a sociolinguistic definition. According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of the same language if they would refer the same language to use more specific terms like the name of new inventions, or an unknown foreign species of plant. For example, speakers of Westphalian and East Franconian German might each consult a German dictionary or ask a German-speaking expert on the subject. In contrast, speakers in the Netherlands of Low Saxon varieties similar to Westphalian would instead consult a dictionary of Standard Dutch.
Let’s sum up
what we have learned about dialects!
We can state
that a language variant can be called a dialect
If it differs from the standard language with its pronunciation,
grammar, or vocabulary,
if it is rarely or never used in writing,
if it is a non-standardized variety of a language,
if the speakers of the given language do not have a state of their
own,
if it is spoken by an entire group.
And there is politics beyond linguistics!
Pidgin and creole: the recipe - how to create languages
Imagine that you need a language immediately because, otherwise, you cannot communicate with anyone else. Nobody knows your language and you don’t know the other’s language. There is more: no common language is available! You have to communicate with the indigenous people because you are a merchant and you have to sell your products. What would you do?
Probably you
would try to communicate somehow, right? You would use gestures and body
language at first. But you would not go a long way if you wanted to be a successful businessman. You would
able to do more than primitive negotiations if you used also a tongue for
communication. But which tongue? You have to create one. How is it possible?
For sure, on the first try, the
language should be easy and comprehensive.
Well, here is
the recipe what you need:
Take some vocabulary from your language
and the other’s language. Mix them with easy grammar which concerns all aspects
of grammar: lexicon, phonology, syntax, semantics, and morphology. The easy
grammar should contain easy clausal structure (e.g., no embedded clauses, etc.),
use of separate words to indicate tense by using temporal adverbs such as
tomorrow, yesterday, etc.! Pay attention to the word order! Follow the
Subject-Verb-Object word order. Don’t use grammatical markers for gender,
number, case, tense, aspect, mood, etc. Use reduplication to represent plurals
and superlatives. Reduce or eliminate syllable codas and consonant clusters.
Attention to phonological simplicity! Use basic vowels, such as [a, e, i, o, u]!
At the end, you will obtain an easy language.
Moreover, you would not be alone. There are other merchants and even colonizers
who share the same problem. Gather with them because together is easier.
Now, that you
have the language, it needs a name too. How would you call it? You are a
merchant. You may like to call your new creation after some characteristic of
it. What would you think about calling
it ‘business’? But it has to carry the sensation of being different from a
standard. You have to spice the word
‘business’ with indigenous style! Got it! Call it pidgin!
Now your
language is done and you are officially a pidgin’s speaker. However, you have
to face the ugly truth. Your language is too simple to get a prestige. People
would criticize your work saying that it is incomplete, broken, and corrupt, not worthy of serious
attention because reduced in structure. You could reply in this way: Attention, please, because here we can observe the
birth of languages!
Hey, should we
think that these were the characteristics of the very first human language as
well?
Well, probably
you would not go into creation. Your
child will.
Now imagine that
you are that child whose parents are pidgin’s speakers in the colony. You fall
in love with another descendent of pidgin’s speaker. You would like to express
your feelings. You need a more
complex language with more expressive vocabulary and more complicated grammar.
How would you do that?
Here is the
recipe:
Use solely of
intonation to indicate that a question is being asked. Repeat adjectives or
adverbs to indicate an increased degree of intensity. Stop using tone on
monosyllabic words, and semantically opaque word formation as your parents do. When
it is ready, you have to give it a name. Let’s call it creole.
Have you noticed
that all pidgins and all creoles work in a very similar way? They share common
features although these may never get into contact. So, is there something
universal here? Are these characteristic innate?
We arrived at our
definition:
Pidgin and creoles are both the result of mixing two or more languages, but in a different level. They arise in situations of trade or where both groups speak different languages from the language of the place. Pidgin is typically, a mixture of simplified languages or a simplified primary language with other languages' elements included. Pidgin is nobody's native language, a second language while Creole is the native language of the speakers. At least most scholars share this idea. Other scholars argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently.
Loanwords vs foreign words
What is loan word?
Let’s take a look at these Italian words: alcool,
caffè, patata. What do these words have in common? Maybe it’s a recipe of a new
cocktail? Hmm, I don’t think so. No problem, if you don’t know it. We will turn to them a little bit later.
And what about these words? How do we call them in
Italian? Computer, kebab, jeans. What do they have in common? Ok, don’t worry
if you don’t know.
Lets’ go back to the first words. We have alcool,
caffè, patata in Italian. Moreover, did you know the word alcool originally
comes from Arabic? Weird, isn’t it? So, it means we have borrowed the term
‘alcohol’ from a culture that doesn’t even drink?
Anyway, these are loanwords in Italian. A loanword is a
term in linguistics, a word that has entered from a foreign language into the
receiving language.
Computer, kebab, jeans are foreign words in Italian. A
foreign word is also a word that has entered from a foreign language into the
receiving language.
Now, let’s see what’s the difference between loan word
and foreign word!
We said that computer, kebab, jeans are foreign words
in Italian. Foreign words are not integrated, we spell them as they are. “When
most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is from another
language, the word can be called a foreign word.”
A loanword is an integrated word from a foreign
language, orthography adapted for the receiving language.
These terms are very close to each other and sometimes
it’s difficult to distinguish them because they all are born by language
contact. They all are lexical borrowings or loans from a foreign language.
Mainly, they differ from the aspect of the level of integration. A loan word is
when you don’t have the sensation that you are using a ‘strange’ word, because
it just sounds naturally.
Let’s see another example! Let’s examine the word computer!
We have just discussed and agreed that computer is a foreign word in Italian
because simply it sounds ’strange’. Italians don’t say computero, right?
Although it would be the ‘right’ pronunciation if it was a loanword. Do you
know how the word is in Spanish? Computadora. It’s a loanword in Spanish
because it is assimilated to the sound system. So, can you see the difference
between these terms?
Ok, if
everything is clear, let’s summarize what we have learned about loan word! We
found that it’s a term in linguistics, it’s a lexical borrowing. But we have
seen other types of borrowings or loans like foreign words. These also come
from a foreign language but they behave differently in the receiving language
compared to the loan words. So, we can state that loan words are lexical
borrowings which are different from other borrowings. A loanword is a word
adopted from one language (the donor language) and incorporated into another
language without translation.
Thank
you for attention!