A short story of linguistic Flashcards

1
Q

Linguistic

A

the scientific study of languages

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2
Q

the prehistory of linguistics?

A

Ancien Greece: Philosophers had a strong interest in language, but not in the sense of linguistic today:
- Socrates, Plato and Aristotle examined the relationship between speech and the thoughts that it communicated
- Plato made a distinction between two categories of words (verbs and nouns)

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3
Q

Port Royale perspective on language

A

A philosophical perspective on language similar to Ancient Greece perspective.

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4
Q

Port Royale

A

17th century scholars : grammatical categories and structures = relatable to universal logical patterns of thought

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5
Q

What made the ideas of Port Royale widely known?

A

Chomsky who drew parallells between them and his own conception of the relationship between language and mind

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6
Q

How did European people describe languages they encountered while exploring the world?

A

Problem: most of these people were hampered by an understandable assumption that “language” was, essentially, the way European languages worked.
They described languages in the manner of classical ones (greek/latin)

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7
Q

The common beliefs of the prescriptive tradition

A

There is a well-defined correct way of speaking
But people walk around making mistakes when they use language.

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8
Q

Prescriptivism

A

→ prescribing = monitoring people’s use of language and how they must speak.

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9
Q

Descriptivism

A

objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used by a speech community

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10
Q

Who was the first English grammarian? What did he do?

A

Robert Lowth (self-proclaimed)

A short introduction to English grammar > his book was used for centuries.
> a prescriptive grammarian
> His aim was to prove that English was a “real” language like Latin or ancient Greek, worthy of study and use in serious discourse.
> Many of the rules were just his preferences & based on the latin language.

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11
Q

Philology

A

the study of the history of language. → how language develop (oral, lexical & grammatical changes)

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12
Q

What was the linguistic situation during the 19th/20th century?

A

the study of language was mostly philological

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13
Q

What marks the beginning of modern linguistic?

A

Saussure.

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14
Q

Who is Saussure and why is he important?

A

He was a specialist in Indo-European languages. In 1916.
Known for his Cours de Linguistique Générale
⇒ foundation of what is now known and practised as modern linguistics.

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15
Q

Explain the signifier & the signified

A

the signifier : the acoustic image
the signified : the meaning the concept

together = the sign

The link between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, no intrinsic link

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16
Q

What did Saussure mean by the linguistic “system”?

A

each sound or word/morpheme has value in the fact that it has a meaning different from other sounds and morphemes;
A cat is not a mouse ; /k/ is not /r/ ; pig is not pork…

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17
Q

The syntagmatic axis of language (by Saussure)

A

The signifier has to be articulated. It has an order, a beginning, a middle and an end. So the signifier is linear.
The syntagmatic axis of language is the chain on which words follow each other along a temporal line. Things need to be said in a certain order.

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18
Q

Paradigm

A

a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles
e.g. “a book” or “his book”.

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19
Q

Syntagmatic relations (by Saussure)

A

The relationships between constituents in a construction
the → catS → are → eating
The determine cat, cat is plural so we use “are”, are implies ing.

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20
Q

Paradigmatic relationships (by Saussure)

A

the relations between any given unit of the utterance and the unit(s) that we might have chosen instead.
e.g. cats vs mice / eating vs. playing

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21
Q

Phonemes

A

distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another.

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22
Q

When can we say that two words are contrastive?

A

When a different phoneme disctincts those two words.

23
Q

Allophones

A

when two different prononciation are not contrastive, not different phonemes. It is “what happens” to a phoneme in certain environments.
e.g. [p] and [ph] in English

24
Q

Synchrony

A

the study of a language at a particular time ==> introduced by Saussure. Before Saussure, historical linguistics (diachrony) was considered the main task of linguists, rather than synchrony.

25
Q

Does written language change along with spoken language?

A

No, it doesn’t change as quickly, and sometimes it doesn’t make it to written language. It might eventually. /katr/ pronounced [kat] in french for exemple.

26
Q

Why can we say each language is unique

A

each language has a different “system” of differenciation

27
Q

Difference between langue & parole

A

a distinction between a language as known and understood by all of its speakers in the sense of a social “agreement” (langue) and the actual production of speech by individuals (parole).

28
Q

Why was langue the main interest of Saussure?

A

The “real” language, as opposed to the way language actually comes out of people’s mouths which is “imperfect” language.

29
Q

Structuralism

A

Linguistic features can be described in terms of structures and systems.

Structuralists measure, classify items, label them, typologies are created. The speaker is not individually taken in account.
Inductive approach.

30
Q

What is the Chomskyan revolution?

A

Chomsky was interested in setting up formal theories of language.
- Syntactic Structures
- language is innate (neurological configuration). Your environment defines what language you will speak, but the fact that you CAN speak is genetic.

31
Q

Syntactic structure

A

the dominant approcach to syntax after Chomsky.
⇒ syntax is a way to module a sentence that is distinct from its meaning.

32
Q

Why Chomsky believed grammar was innate?

A

we are born with a set of rules about language in our minds, which he refers to as the ‘Universal Grammar’.

One of Chomsky’s crucial insights was that children show awareness of language categories at extremely early ages

33
Q

How is the underlying level of grammar called?

A

deep structures = the mental categories

34
Q

Deep structures

A

patterns in the mind from which humans generate utterances

e.g. E(something) is believed [John to be clever]

35
Q

Surface structures

A

the actual forms of language, the tranformational rules.
e.g. John x is believed x to be clever
x is a trace left by moving the constituant

36
Q

Why is “ Who do you wanna win the game” impossible?

A

Deep structure = You want who to win the game?
Who is moved to the behginning in the surface structure, it leaves a trace.
Who do you want x to win the game?

37
Q

Syntactic structure : syntax vs. meaning (Chomsky)

A

The dog bit the man
The man was bitten by the dog
= same meaning, different syntax

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
= syntactically correct but semantically meaningless

38
Q

Competence vs. performance

A

Competence = the knowledge we have of our language
Performance = the way we use language in specific situation

(Chomsky replaced Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole with competence and performance)

39
Q

Langue vs. Discours = What exists first according to Gustave Guillaume?

A

langue exists before discours ; langue exists in the speaker’s mind.

40
Q

What is the Act of language for Gustave Guillaume?

A

The transition from langue to discours

41
Q

Potential vs. Effective/actual

A

Potential
in langue = the core value
eg. can = possible

Effective
in discours = depends on the context
eg. can = capacity, epistemic value…

42
Q

According to Benevenist, the act of enunciating has properties, explain
(les traces de l’énonciation par Beneviste)

A

When I say “I”, “here”, “now”
It changes if the enonciation and the context is different.

43
Q

La grammaire énonciative

A

to explain how language works. Only working on real utterances (unlike Chomsky) & the speaker is the main interest.

44
Q

Difference between “the moment of the utterance” & “the time of the event”

A

« the moment of the utterance » = when the utterance is produced
« the time of the event » = when what you are talking about happens/happened

45
Q

Assertion

A

La prise en charge de l’énoncé. => Utilisation des marqueurs grammaticaux pour exprimer son pov & les relations intersujets

You went to the zoo yesterday. → je déclare un fait.
Perhaps you went to the zoo yesterday. →j’exprime la non certitude, je suis + présent.
You should have been to the zoo yesterday → je fais un jugement, je suis encore + présent.
Le + de marqueur, + l’énonciateur est présent. Il asserte son énoncé.

46
Q

Le nœud prédicationnel

A

l’endroit où le sujet et le prédicat vont être reliés.

47
Q

la relation prédicative

A

une « pâte à modeler », que l’énonciateur va façonner à sa manière en multipliant les « opérations ». Les marqueurs / opérateurs constituent les traces de ces opérations.

48
Q

Le concept d’opération

A

La métaphore de la maison →derrière la maison il y a eu tout un travail de préparation = les opérations
Les opérations psycho grammaticales sont inconscientes, (on sait comment faire une phrase sans savoir pourquoi on le fait). Le linguiste essaye de comprendre ce “travail de préparation”.

49
Q

Why can we say each language is unique

A

each language has a different “system” of differenciation

50
Q

que sont les opérateurs et les marqueurs

A

Les marqueurs / opérateurs constituent les traces de la mise en relation prédicative

John is going to Mary’s.
John may be going to Mary’s.
John may have been going to Mary’s.
John may well have been going to Mary’s.
= Divers effets de sens, selon le contexte.

51
Q

Quels sont les 2 sortes d’unités de la langue

A

Lexicologie : morphèmes lexicaux (lexèmes)
Morphosyntaxe : morphème grammaticaux, = marqueurs/opérateurs

52
Q

What made the ideas of Port Royale widely known?

A

Chomsky who drew parallells between them and his own conception of the relationship between language and mind

53
Q

What made the ideas of Port Royale widely known?

A

Chomsky who drew parallells between them and his own conception of the relationship between language and mind