Lecture: Language and communication

Question 1

What is the structural description of language?

Answer 1

a set of symbols that can be arranged in certain ways

Question 2

What is the functional description of language?

Answer 2

a complex code by which agents can communicate information

Question 3

What is natural language?

Answer 3

created by cultures of humans

Question 4

What is artificial language?

Answer 4

created by individuals or small teams

Question 5

What is computer language?

Answer 5

an artificial language for communication with computers, typically lacking ambiguity

Question 6

What is animal communication called and how does it work?

Answer 6

“zoosemiotics” and works through gesture, expression, gaze following, vocalization, olfactory, communication, and electric, colouration

Question 7

What is the function of animal communication?

Answer 7

dominance, courtship, ownership, food alert, alarm, metacommunication

Question 8

What is human language like?

Answer 8

We all know how to do it, but we don’t know how we do it, so we have to study it like any other phenomenon. Our knowledge of how to speak is implicit, not explicit

Question 9

How is language a brain interface?

Answer 9

Like a computer programming language, natural languages allow interfacing between what might be two very different brains

Question 10

What is phonology?

Answer 10

How sounds are organized and used in language

Question 11

What is morphology?

Answer 11

How sound and meaning interact in words

Question 12

What is syntax?

Answer 12

How sentences may be put together in a language

Question 13

what is semantics?

Answer 13

the meaning in language

Question 14

What is pragmatics?

Answer 14

How sentences interact with context to change meaning (e.g.,”how are you”? Or “do you have the time”?)

Question 15

How many phonemes does the english language have?

Answer 15

44

Question 16

In english do prefixes change part of speech?

Answer 16

No, for example husband with the prefix ex doesnt change the fact that its a noun. Where as suffixes do.

Question 17

What are the rules for using affixes?

Answer 17

You can’t use it if its blocked

Question 18

What do some english verbs have (semantics)?

Answer 18

Some english verbs have manner (e.g., manner of motion) like rolled, slip, limped etc. French can have motion and path

Question 19

What is logic/ symbolic logic?

Answer 19

Logic is a formal, normative system of reasoning. Symbolic logic specifies ways that sentences can be represented unambiguously. For all x (if cat (x) then mammal (x)). But typical logic

Question 20

What does chomsky say about animal’s learning communication?

Answer 20

Chomsky says that getting non-human animals to try to talk is like tying to teach bees to build beaver dams. Linguistics agree that animals do not have a language- what they do is primitive compared to what humans do that it is not even deserving of this word

Question 21

How are animals different from children in terms of learning language?

Answer 21

Animals require hundreds of trials. They have to use associative learning to associate a sound or picture with a concept. With humans, they do it naturally (you don’t need to teach a child language, they just learn it from hearing)

Question 22

Intrabrain communication: the language of thought

Answer 22

Jerry fodor put forward the notion that our minds use “mentalese” or a language of thought. The fact that you have trouble sometimes expressing what you want to say supports this view. How could you know what you wanted to say if the internal language were natural language. It remains contorversial