An Introduction to Linguistics

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• An Introduction to Linguistics
• Bibhuti Bhusan Mahapatra

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Some Approaches to the Study of Language

• Ancient Indian thinkers paid a good deal of
  attention to the nature of language Paninis
  Ashtadhyayi is a significant work in the
  tradition.
• Saussures concept of language (Early 20th
  Century)
• Austins use-theory of language (1962)
• Chomskys biolinguistic assumptions (1957 onwards)

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Saussures Concepts about Language

• Diachrony vs. Synchrony
• Langue vs. Parole
• Signifier vs. Signified
• Associative vs. Syntagmatic Relation

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Diachrony vs. Synchrony

• Diachrony
• Studying a language at two different points of
  time relating two different stages of a language
• Synchrony
• Studying a language as a complete system at a
  particular point of time

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Langue vs. Parole

• Langue
• The system of a language exists in a speech
  community, in the collectivity it is shared by
  all the speakers of that speech community
• Parole
• An individuals use of the system of langue

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Signifier vs. Signified

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Signifier-Signified Relationship

• Signifier
• The sound/utterance which is related to a
  concept
• Signified
• The concept which is related to the
  sound/utterance
• The signifier and the signified are not
  separable together, they form a sign.
• The relation between the signifier and the
  signified is not natural, but arbitrary. Thus,
  languages are different from one another

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Language as a Form

• Language is a form shaping both thought and
  utterance simultaneously.

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Associative vs. Syntagmatic Relation

• Associative Relation
• A sign is associated with other signs of a
  language by similarity and difference. The
  associated signs are in a set of choices.
• Syntagmatic Relation
• A sign occurs with other signs in a chain (e.g.
  in a phrase or in a sentence).
• Language is organised by selecting from a set of
  choices of signs to a chain of signs.

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Some examples of the relations

• 1) The old man
• 2) The young man
• 3) The tall man
• In (1), the sign old is in syntagmatic relation
  with the and man
• As (2) and (3) show, the sign old in (1), is
  associated with young and tall, and is
  substitutable by them.
• The associative relations are not visible in a
  construction they are related in absentia the
  syntagmatic relations are in presentia.
• Concept of sign applies to every unit of a
  language, such as a phoneme, a morpheme, etc.

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Austins Use-theory of Language(How to Do Things
with Words)

• Language does not merely refer to things it is
  used in the society to perform certain
  communicative functions.
• The use theory of language attempts to arrive at
  a restricted set of conditions for the language
  use.
• Using language means doing things

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Utterance types

• Constative vs. Performative
• Constative
• Constative utterances are statements their
  function is to describe some event, process or
  state-of-affairs and they (or the propositions
  expressed by them) have the property of being
  either true or false.
• Performative
• Performative utterances, by contrast, have no
  truth value they are used to do something,
  rather than to say something is or is not the
  case. They refer to the fact of their own
  successful performance.

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Speech Acts

• Locutionary,Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Acts
• Locutionary act
• Uttering noise you know have meaning
• Illocutionary act
• Utterance invokes a conventional force. Doing
  something in saying something. Some examples
• Asking a question
• Making a promise
• Making an appeal
• Perlocutionary act
• Utterance brings about an effect on the hearer.
  Doing something by saying something. Some
  examples
• Warn someone
• Persuade someone

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Generative GrammarandChomskys Biolinguistic
Assumptions

• Language is a biological endowment
• It is innate
• It interacts with other cognitive systems

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Innateness

• As a part of our brain, there is a Faculty of
  Language (FL).
• A human child is born with innate biological
  abilities to learn any human language.
• A child does not learn language but it matures
  by being exposed to the linguistic environment,
  in the same way as the vision matures. In both
  the cases the innate biological abilities mature.

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Some Speculations about FL

• FL is relatively a recent biological development.
• The basic nature of the FL is symbolic it has no
  direct correspondence to physical objects.
• Its development may not be strictly for
  communication. (Chomsky, 2004)

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FL Its Initial State and Modifications

• FL has an Initial State L0
• The L0 can be modified. But, the possible
  modifications are highly regulated.
• L0 is modified with the exposure to the target
  Language.
• L1, L2, L3. are modifiable states they
  correspond to different natural languages.
• A natural language is an instantiation of one
  such modifiable states of L0

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Principles and Parameters

• The set of initial properties available to the L0
  is called the set of principles.
• The set of variations possible within the
  principles are called parameters, which allow the
  languages to be different from one another.
• This approach in generative grammar is called the
  Principles and Parameters (PP) approach.

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Adequacies

• To account for a particular language the grammar
  has to meet Descriptive Adequacy.
• To account for the L0, the Universal Grammar
  (UG), the grammar has to meet Explanatory
  Adequacy.

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The Architecture

• The Faculty of Language (FL) interfaces with two
  other systems they are
• Sensory Motor (Articulatory-Perceptual) system
• it is expressed by the Phonetic Form (PF)
• Systems of thought (Conceptual-Intentional
  system)
• It is expressed by the Logical Form (LF)
• FL
•  
• PF LF

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FL should be Legible to Other Systems

• For FL to be usable by the PF and LF interface
  systems, it should be legible to them
• Language is an optimal solution to legibility
  conditions. (Chomsky, 2002)

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What principles are available to the Faculty of
Language?

• A possible Principle
• The Structure Dependency
• Language shows a hierarchical structural
  organisation.
• So an underlying structures has to be assumed
  behind the linear sequence of elements.

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Thank you