Transcript Words and sentences

WORDS AND SENTENCES
Chapter 4
INTRODUCTION
Words change and words mean different things in different languages
Combining words in another language can give you unexpected results
This is why linguistic anthropologists must use immersion in fieldwork so they
understand how the language works
In this lecture we will focus on
 Morphology: discovering and analyzing words
 Syntax: knowing how to analyze phrases and sentences
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is the analysis of words and how they are structured
Is a word the smallest unit of meaning in a language?
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is the analysis of words and how they are structured
Is a word the smallest unit of meaning in a language?
 No
The smallest unit of meaning in a language is a morpheme
Review: What is the smallest unit of sound? (from last week)
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is the analysis of words and how they are structured
Is a word the smallest unit of meaning in a language?
 No
The smallest unit of meaning in a language is a morpheme
Review: What is the smallest unit of sound? (from last week)
 phoneme
MORPHEMES
A word can include one or more morphemes:
Example:
 Help
 Helpful
 Unhelpful
 The word unhelpful has two morphemes attached to it
 While ‘ful’ and ‘un’ are not words, they have meaning and are therefore morphemes
MORPHEMES
When learning a new language, understanding morphemes is more helpful
than memorization and can help you create and recognize new words
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
There are two parts to morphological analysis:
 Identifying/Describing morphemes
 Analyzing the way morphemes are arranged in words
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Identifying Morphemes:
The trick is to find the minimal units of meaning by comparing words or short phrases
Look at pg. 86 example of Shinzwani and English
Hufua
to work metal
Hujua
to know
Hulagua
to speak, talk
Huloa
to fish
What do you notice?
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Identifying Morphemes:
‘hu’ seems to mean ‘to’ (as in to do something); the other part of the word is
what is being done
From this understanding or ‘rule,’ you could predict or identify other words in
this language
If ‘farm’ is ‘lima,’ how would you say ‘to farm’?
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Identifying Morphemes:
‘hu’ seems to mean ‘to’ (as in to do something); the other part of the word is
what is being done
From this understanding or ‘rule,’ you could predict or identify other words in
this language
If ‘farm’ is ‘lima,’ how would you say ‘to farm’?
hulima
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Describing Morphemes:
Generally they are described in terms of whether they function as a base or
affix
Bases are the foundation of words and
Affixes are attached
Examples:
 Sing is a base
 ‘er’ is an affix
  singer
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Describing Morphemes:
Bases can be roots or stems
Roots are morphemes that serve as the underlying foundation for other words
Stems are words (or many morphemes together) that are derived from a root
 Additional affixes can be attached
Example:
 Farmers
 Root: farm
 Affix: er
 Affix: s
 Therefore farmers is a stem
WORDS AND MEANING
What can you tell me about these?:
 un
ed
 pre
s
 non
ing
 anti
ist
 What do they mean?
 Where do they attach?
WORDS AND MEANING
 The left column are prefixes and the right are suffixes
 If you add –ist to words like “novel” or “art” it means a person who makes
that particular item
 There are 2 kinds of morphemes:
Free morphemes: stand alone as words (education, anthropology)
Bound morphemes: are attached to free morphemes to modify meaning
(dis-, -er, -ly)
Possible
Impossible
Impossibility
Woman
Womanly
Womanizer
VIDEOS
The word “doubt”: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/beyond-the-shadow-of-a-doubt-ginacooke
Spelling: free and bound morphemes: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/making-sense-ofspelling-gina-cooke
“Foreign” Morphemes
Free morphemes are most easily passed from one language to another
Groups often “borrow” words
Because of trade and politics, English has spread into many other languages
English also has many borrowed words
Remember the activity we did earlier in the semester
HOW MORPHEMES ARE ARRANGED
Affixes are basically bound morphemes
Affixes can be categorized by where they attach
Prefix: at the beginning; ‘unpopular’
Suffix: at the end; ‘quickly’
Infix: into the middle; ‘absofreakinlutely’
Portmanteau: blended words; smoke + fog = smog
 More on pgs. 90-91
HIERARCHY
Every language has a specific order in which affixes can attach
This is a hierarchy
In English, suffixes are usually added before prefixes
 Help  helpful  unhelpful
(not help  unhelp)
To figure this out, you first derive words and then inflect them
 Help + er +s = helpers
(not help + s + er = helpser)
DERIVATION AND INFLECTION
Derivation is the process of creating new words
Inflection is the process of modifying existing ones
Words that are used in the same way fit into the same category
Example:
 The cat in the bed
 The cat in the _____
 What words can go here?
DERIVATION AND INFLECTION
Derivation is the process of creating new words
Inflection is the process of modifying existing ones
Words that are used in the same way fit into the same category
Example:
 The cat in the bed
 The cat in the _____
 What words can go here?
 Chair, window, yard, etc.
 All these would go into the same language category
DERIVATION AND INFLECTION
What if we substitute cats for cat? Does it still make sense?
Then cat and cats are in the same category
What about catty? Does that make sense?
DERIVATION AND INFLECTION
What if we substitute cats for cat? Does it still make sense?
Then cat and cats are in the same category
What about catty? Does that make sense?
No, so it is in a different category AND is it a derivation. Catty was made out
of the word cat
What about the cat sat in the wonderful? In the happy? In the time?
These are not in the same category as chair, yard, bed, etc.
ALLOMORPHS
Remember allophones from last week? What are they?
ALLOMORPHS
Remember allophones from last week? What are they?
They are variations of phonemes
So what do you think allomorphs are?
ALLOMORPHS
Remember allophones from last week? What are they?
They are variations of phonemes
So what do you think allomorphs are?
They are variations of morphemes
Sometimes they are predictable and sometimes they are not
General pattern:
 Im- goes with words that begin with [p]
 Il- goes with words that begin with [l]
 In- goes with words that begin with [d], [t], [s]
 Can you think of examples?
SYNTAX
Syntax examines and describes how words are arranged into phrases and
sentences
One way to do this is to study substitution frames, grammatical frames in
which you can place related words
Think back to our example the cat in the _____
We would label and describe each category we find from these frames AND
note the way the frames are arranged
SYNTAX
We have determiners (the, a)
We have verbs (sat)
We have nouns (cat, bed)
But nouns have to be further divided into subject nouns and object nouns
 Subject: cat
 Object: bed
SYNTAX
There are different frames and
different categories in each
language
For example, grammatical genders
are categories into which words
(usually nouns) are classified
Example:
 Czech: neuter, feminine, masculine
 Shinzwani has 8 genders, including
humans, body parts, and more
 Does English have this (for nouns)?
SYNTAX
Obligatory categories are categories that have to be expressed
Some languages you have to indicate gender; in other you don’t
In some you have to indicate singular/plural; in others you don’t
SYNTAX
We also have to look at the ordering of words in a sentence
Sentences have Subjects, Objets, and Verbs, but they can be in different
orders
SVO: English, French, Russian, Swahili
VSO: Classical Arabic, Hebrew, Irish, Tagalog
SOV: Japanese, Persian/Farsi, Turkish
GRAMMARS
Words can change and word order can change
Prescriptive grammars are designed to be the models of proper speech;
anything that diverges from this is ‘bad grammar’
English used a model based on Latin
In the 1700s and 1800s limitations of this model were apparent
In the 1800s Franz Boas developed descriptive grammar, which says we
should not judge a grammar as good or bad but learn it on its own terms
HOW LANGUAGE WORKS
Elements and rules for their use is grammar
Grammar is all the knowledge shared by those able to speak and understand
a language.
In English, there are many dialects, usually based on region or ethnicity
The Standard American English (SAE) dialect is accepted as “most proper”
Is there such a thing as superior/inferior dialects?
HOW LANGUAGE WORKS
No, there is not
Each dialect and each language is capable of communicating information
 “I do not have a computer”
 “I ain’t got no computer”
These are both linguistically valid, but people make judgments based on
cultural beliefs about class, education, and status
WORDS AND MEANING
Video: Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understand the Brain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE
 Min 13-24
 Discuss what grammar is
 Is there a correct and incorrect grammar? Explain
ASSIGNMENT
Article “Sorry, But There’s no Such Thing as Correct Grammar” an answer questions
HW#4: “Expletive Deleted” (on Portal)