Module 8 Flashcards
Typology
-Involves classifying languages into categories or types based on their features
-All languages have a phonetic/phonological system
~Small units (handshapes or sounds) that are used and combined in specific ways to create words, phrases, sentences, extended discourse
-All languages have a morphological system
~Morphemes are used and combined in specific ways to create words
-All languages have a grammatical system
~Morphemes and words are categorized and combined in specific ways to create phrases and sentences
-All languages incorporate meaning in terms of semantics, pragmatics discourse
~The way these structures manifest across languages is highly variable
-Dispite this variation, there is a great deal of regularity
~It is possibly to identify different types of language based on how each language is structured
-Languages are structurally different, and itcan be difficult to make sense of some types of languages if they are vastly different from your native language
~But one type on language is in necessarily better, easier, or more or less complex than another
~It is not harder or easier for children to acquire one language or another
*Children learning a polysynthetic language acquire it as easily as children learning an analytic one
Phonological typology
-Categorizing languages based on their sounds and sound patterns
Morphological typology
-Categorizing languages based on the way they form words
-Looking at how the words in the language are structured
~Are there a lot of small words that contain a small amount of meaning or a lot of long words that contain a lot of meaning
Syntanctic typology
-Categorizing languages based on the way morphemes or words are organized
Semantic/Lexical typology
-Categorizing languages based on the type of meaning they express or the types of words they have
Types of morphological spectrum
-Analytic
-Synthetic
-Remember that these morphological types exist along a spectrum
~It is possible to be somewhere in between categories
*It is possible for one language to exhibit some analytic and some synthetic morphology
Analytic
-Words are single morphemes
Synthetic
-Words consist of multiple morphemes
Analytic/Isolating Side
-Languages have a very low morpheme per word ratio (one morpheme per word) ~Most (or all) morphemes are words- words are single morphemes ~There are very few, if any, bound morphemes (affixes) ~Usually rely heavily on word order ~Mandarin, Vietnamese *Toi an com **I eat rice *Toi da an com **I past eat rice ***I ate rice *Toi se an com **I future eat rice **I will eat rice
Synthetice Side
-Have high morpheme per word ratio
~Words are composed of multiple morphemes
~Word order is typically not important with synthetic languages
~Can be further divided into
*Agglutinative
*Fusional
*Polysynthetic languages
Agglutinative languages
-Words usually have more than one morpheme
-Single morphemes have single meanings, and can be stacked to create new words
-Morphemes don’t change form when they are combined
*Hungarian, Malay, Turkish, Tamil, Quechua
-Turkish
~ev
*house
~ev- ler- iniz- den
*house- plural- your- from
**From your houses
Fusional languages
-Most words have ore than one morpheme
-Morphemes have multiple meanings, and sometimes morphemes change from when they are ‘fused’ together
~Spanish, Sanskirt, Punjabi, Estonian
-Spanish
~Comer
*to eat
~ yo com-o
*I eat-1st person.sg.indicative.present
**I eat
~Comi
~Eat-1st person.sg.indicative.preterite (past)
*I ate
~Tener
*I have
~Teng-o
*have-1st person.sg.indicative.present
**I have
~Tuv-e
*have-1st person.sg.indicative.preterite (past)
**I had
Polysynthetic language
-Are ‘extreme’ cases of synthtic languages
~The furthest towards the ‘synthetic’ side of the spectrum
-Words are composed of a very high number of morphemes- often what would be described in a sentence in other languages is contained in a single word
-Can be agglutinative or fusional
~Greenlandic, Yupik, Chukchi, Ainu
-Greenlandic
~Aliikusersuillammassuaanerartassagaluarpaalli
aliiku-sersu-i-llammas-sua-a-nerar-ta-ssa-galuar-pall-li
**entertainmante-provide-SEMITRANS-one-good.at-COP-say.that-REP-FUT-sure.but-3.PL.SUBJ/3SG.OBJ-but
**However, they will say that he is a great entertainer, but
Syntactic Typology
-We can also categorize languages based on their syntactic structure
~Word order is more important in some languages than in others
*Some languages have flexible syntactic structure, with others have syntactic structures that are more fixed
*But most languages do have preferred word or morpheme order
-One common way of categorizing syntax is based on the way the language tends to order subject (S), verbs (V), and objects (O) in a sentence
~Subjects and objects are nouns phrases that serve specific functions in a sentence
~Some languages (analytic languages) have separate words for each of these components, so we look at word order
~Some languages (polysynthetic languages) have all of these components in a single word, so we look are morpheme order
In English, we usually put the verb between the subject and the object
**I ate Pizza = SVO-Most common
**Pizza ate I = OVS-Possible but rare
**Pizza I ate = OSV-Possible but rare
**^Ate pizza I = VOS
**^Ate I pizza = VSO
**^I pizza ate = SOV
**English is considered an “SVO” language
**^ means it doesn’t occur in native speech
**Other SVO languages include Bulgarian, Mandarin, Swahili
**Mandarin
**Ta xihuan mao
**S V O
**He likes cats
-SOV languages start with the subject, then the object, with the verb last
~Korean, Mongolian, Turkish, Persian, Quechua, Bengali, Albanian
~Albanian
*Agimi librin e mori
*Agimi the book took
*S O V
* Agimi took the book
-VOS languages start with the verb, followed by the subject, then the object
~Classical Arbic, Hawaiian, Irish, Scottish Gaelic
~Classic Arabic
*yaqra’u I-mudarrisu I-kitaba
* reads the teacher the book
*V S O
*The teacher reads the book
-VOS languages start with the verb, followed by the object, then the subject
~Fijian and Malagasy
~Malagasy spken in Madagascar
*namunji azi ahu
*help.out him I
*V O S
*I help him (Help him out)
-OVS languages start with the object, followed by the verb, then the subject
~Hixaryana, Apalai
~Hixkaryana, spoken in Brazil
*toto yonoye kamara
*Person ate jaguar
*O V S
*The jaguar ate the person
-OSV languages start with the object, followed by the subject, then the verb
~Xavante, Warao, Apurina
~Apurina, spoken in Brazil
*anana nota apa
*pineapple I fetch
*O S V
*I fetch the pineapple
-SOV is the most common word order cross-linguistically (across all languages)
~SVO word order is also relatively common
-OVS is the rarest type of word order
~These classifications are based on a language’s preferred word order
*But it is possible for languages to use a variety of word orders in different contexts
Morphological and syntactic types
-Are just two wyas to categorize language
~We can also categorize languages based on elements of their grammar, semantics, or their phonetic inventories
Language and Culture
-There are about 6500 spoken languages in the world, and they all emerged from highly varied and distinctive cultures
-There are many similarities among languages and there are also many difference
-All spoken languages use consonants and vowels
-All languages have certain types of words or concepts
~All languages have verbs, but there is some debate about weather all languages have nounss
*In some languages, noun-like concepts are expressed in verb-like words
-All languageshave words for certain universal concepts- night/day, parents/children, sun, moon, rain
-All languages have words for at least two colors- black and white
~but, the way different concepts are expressed is different from culture to culture
What do all languages have in common?
-All languages have the featres and levels of structure discussed thus far
~Features of human language (displacement, reflexivity, arbitariness, productivity, cultural transmission, duality)
~Structural components (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pargatis, grammar)
*Note: sign languages don’t have phonetics and phonology in the traditional sense as they don’t use sounds
**Instead of sounds they use handshapes, hand oritations, hand locations, and movements- and these can be studied individually and in relation to each other the same way we study and sound patterns in spoken language
Cuture
-Can be generally defined as all the ideas and assumptions about the nature of people, things, and the world that we learn as members of social groups
~”social acquired knowledge”
~Remember that human language itself is culturally transmitted- the language you acquire depends on the culture in which you are raised
~We also use language to talk about and categorize the world around us and how we experience it
Big questions in linguistics
- How is language shaped by culture? How is culture shaped by language?
- Does the language you speak influence the way you speak influence the way you perceive the world?
- Does the language you speak determine the way you think?
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (also called the theroy of ‘linguistic relativity’)
-Suggest that the language we speak shapes our worldviews
~For example, it has been suggested that syntactic structure of languages impacts the way people perceive ‘objects’ or ‘things’ vs ‘events’ or ‘actions’
~Is “lightning” a thing or an event?
Speakers of English often think of ‘lightning’ as a thing, rather than an event, even though, physically, it is more of an event than a thing
**Do we think of ‘lightning’ as a thing because it is syntactically categorized as a noun?
**If we categorized it as a verb, would we think of it as an event or action?
**There was lightning outside vs it lightninged outside
-If we perceive ‘lightning’ as a ‘thing’ rather than an ‘event’ because of the way we refer to it in our language, that would be evidence in favor of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
**The structure of our language shapes the way we view the world
Inuit language difference in snow and ice compared to English
-Utuqaq
~Ice that lasts for years
-Siguliaksraq
~The type of ice that forms when the sea begins to freeze
-Auniq
~Ice that is filled with holes
-Aqilokoq
~Softly falling snow
-Piegnartoq
~Snow that is good for driving sleds
-Is it because snow and ice are more prominent in Inuit culture?
-Are Inuit speakers more aware of subtle differences between types of ice and snow?
~Are English speakers able to perceive the subtal differences in ice and snow? Can they identify the type of ice that forms when the sea begins to freeze, and differentiate it from other types of ice (even though we don’t have a widely accepted word for it)?
*Does the lack of a word for these different types of ice make it harder for English speakers to perceive the difference?
The Sami people in northern Russia and Scandinavia
-Also have many words for snow and ice
-They also have up to 1,000 words for reindeer
~leami- short, fat, female reindeer
~njirru- unmanageable female reindeer
~snarri- reindeer with short, branched antlers
*Are English speakers able to perceive these differences?
*Why does English-speaking culture not have words for these things?
When understanding other languages
-It is often impossible to directly translate from one language to another
~Elements of meaning get lost in translation- languages don’t always have ways to describe certain concepts
*‘saudade’ in Portugese- lossely translated as ‘longing’ or ‘melancholy yearning’ in English
**Can English speakers understand this concept?
*Is the inability to directly translate indicative of linguistic relativity?
Linguistic relativity study
- English speakers and Zuni speakers were asked to identify pairs of colors as belonging to the same color, or different colors
- English speakers differentiated between yellow and orange consistently (identified that they were different colors)
- Zuni speakers did not
- Does this mean the Zuni speakers cannot perceive the difference between yellow and orange?
Color Terms
-There is a continuous gradation of color from one end of the color spectrum to the other
-However, languages typically break this graduation down into discrete categories
-Some languages have more categories than others- interestingly there is a hierarchy to these categories
-All languages have at least two color terms -black and white (‘light’ and ‘dark’)
-Languages with three color terms have terms for black, white, and red
-Languages with four terms have black, white, red and either green or yellow
-Languages with five terms have black, white, red, green and yellow
-Languages wit six terms have black, white, red, yellow, green, and blue-Languages with seven terms have black, white, red, green, yellow, blue and brown
-Languages with more have some form of purple, pink, orange, or gray
-Some languages have more specific terms to narrow down within categories (with words like magenta and chartreuse in English)
-Zuni uses the same word for yellow and orange
~ihupz- inna
*one refers to things that are yellow/orange
*One refers to things that have become yellow/orange
**Due to age or decay
Kinship terms
-Refers to people who are members of the same family; all languages have kinship terms, but not all languages categorize kin in the same way
~For instnace, rather than having separate words for “father” and “uncle” one word may be used to refer to both ‘male parent’ and ‘male parent’s brother’
~In contrast, in English we use “uncle” to refer to ‘male parent’s brother’ and ‘female parent’s brother’
~There are other languages which would use separate words for these concepts
*watam: “aes” = father’s brother, “akwae” = mother’s brother
Time concepts
-Different cultures conceptualize time differently
~In English, and a number of other languages, we categorize days into units of seven days- a “week,” with the final two days of this culturally- imposed time frame being referred to as a “weekend”
-Hope culture traditionally did not organize time into seven days units, so there are no native Hope words equivalent to “week” or “weekend”
-The concepts of “hours” and “minutes” are also culturally associated- some languages do not have words for these concepts
-The Hopi language doesn’t have a word that translate as ‘time’
-But it does have words refer to temporal concepts
~paasa- ‘for that long’
~paasat- “at that time’
-Also can distinguish between future and non-future action
~But this distinction also differentiates more generally between ‘real’ vs ‘unreal’ (realis/irrealis)
*nu’ sayti- ‘I smile”/ ‘I smiled’
*nu’ saytini- ‘I will smile’
*nu’ as saytini- ‘I tried to smile, I would smile, I wanted to smile, I was going to smile’
-Rather than keeping track of minutes and hours, Hopi speakers refer to the passage of the sun and shadow observation when describing time passing
~Hopi speakers do have a concept of time and awareness of time passing
*They can tell when seven days have passed, even if they don’t have words
*But a ‘week’’ wasn’t a meaningful unit of time for them, historically
Space concepts
-Different cultures also conceptualize space differently
~In English, we use a lot of relative spatial terms- use general terms that refer to things according to their position relative to other objects
*On top of, behind, in front of, next to, to the left of, to the right of
~Other languages use relative terms specific to the community in which they live
*Towards the river, away from the mountain, upriver, downriver, etc.
~Other languages use absolute terms
*North, East, South, West
-Depending on the culture you come from, it can be hard to adjust to different types of spatial orientation
~Concepts of ‘above’ or ‘behind’ are foreign to certain cultures
~Many English speakers don’t intuitively know which way is North or South, without using specific landmarks
Classifiers
-Which indicate the ‘type’ of noun being referred to
~For example, in Swahili, there is a system of prefix classifiers which differentiate between nouns which are human (wa-), non-human (mi-), and artifacts (vi-)
~Many languages also classify nouns based on shape or function
~Japanese
*hon = long thin thing
*mia = flat thin thing
*ko = small round things
