Transcript Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge

Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
• People do not speak using isolated words
• Knowledge of how to combine words to
form phrases and sentences
– phrase = syntagme, groupe
– sentence = phrase
– clause = proposition
Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
• Ability to produce and understand
sentences you have never heard before
“Daniel Boone decided to become a
pioneer because he dreamed of
pigeon-toed giraffes and cross-eyed
elephants dancing in pink skirts and
green berets on the wind-swept plains
of the Mid-west.”
Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
• No upper bound on the size of sentences
– This is the house.
– This is the house that Jack built.
– This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack
built.
– This is the dog that worried the cat that killed
the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house
that Jack built.
– Etc.
Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
• No upper bound on the size of sentences
– The old man came.
– The old, old man came.
– The old, old, old, old, old man came
Knowledge of Sentences and
Nonsentences
• John kissed the little old lady who owned
the shaggy dog.
• *Who owned the shaggy dog John kissed
the little old lady.
• John is difficult to love.
• It is difficult to love John.
• John is anxious to go.
• *It is anxious to go John.
Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
• No upper bound on the size of sentences
– The old man came.
– The old, old man came.
– The old, old, old, old, old man came.
Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge
Once there was this little boy who asked his father
To tell him that old, old, old, old, old, old story.
Yoko Ono, A Little Story
Knowledge of Sentences and
Nonsentences
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Je le connais bien.
*Moi connaître bien lui.
*Je connais le bien. (vs. I know him well.)
Hier Marie a rencontré Paul.
*Hier a Marie Paul rencontré.
Gisteren heeft Marie Paul ontmoet.
Linguistic Knowledge and
Performance
• Linguistic competence
• Linguistic performance
• “What’s one and one and one and one
and one and one and one and one and
one and one?” “I don’t know,” said
Alice. “I lost count.” “She can’t do
Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
Competence and Performance
• Distinction between knowledge and one’s
ability to put that knowledge to use.
• Ferdinand de Saussure :
– Langue vs. Parole
• The ice melted in the sun was ruined.
• The ice melted in the sun.
• The ice [which had] melted in the sun was
ruined.
Purpose of linguistics
• Describe and explain the unconscious
knowledge (competence) that speakers
have, which allows them to produce and
understand sentences.
• This knowledge is extremely complex
Morphology: The Words of
Language
Knowledge of words
• Speakers know tens of thousands of
words
• Average 6 year old : 13.000 words
• Average high school graduate: 60.000
words
• Speakers continue to learn words
throughout their lives
• Knowledge of a language is not just
knowledge of the words
What do you know when you know
a word?
• Knowledge of the form (string of sounds,
‘signifiant’) [l^v]
– (Knowledge of the spelling : love)
• Knowledge of the meaning (‘signifié’)
What do you know when you know
a word?
• Knowledge of the grammatical category
(syntactic class, part of speech)
Knowledge of grammatical
categories
– Love is a verb:
Mary loves books.
– Love is a noun:
Love is the most beautiful emotion.
– Like is a verb:
Mary likes books.
– Like is not a noun:
*Like is the most beautiful emotion.
Mental lexicon vs. dictionary
• Speaker’s linguistic knowledge of words
• Books produced by lexicographers
– Spelling
– ‘Standard’ pronunciation
– Definitions representing the word’s meanings
– Part of speech
– (Etymology)
– (Register: non standard, slang, vulgar,
obsolete, archaic)
Dictionaries
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General dictionaries
Technical dictionaries
Dictionaries of slang
Etymological dictionaries
Bilingual dictionaries
Etc.