Intro: Who am I? Who are you?

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• Intro Who am I? Who are you?

• The nature of this course and various courselike
  business
• Syllabus website http//web.pdx.edu/connjc/
• Please come to class
• Do the homework and problem sets (even if late)
• There will be TAs for this course with special
  study sessions info will be available at my
  website
• Language Mini-Research Project and HW1

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• What is linguistics?
• The study of how language works

But what is language?
communication
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• Human language different from animal
  communication
• Speech organs designed for eating breathing AND
  speech
• Humans also geared for speech perception

• But what is language?
• Native speakers
• Creativity of language
• Creativity within systematic constraints

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• Systematic Creativity

Nouns used as verbs The boat is on the beach The
captain will beach the boat Keep the airplane on
the ground The pilot will ground the airplane Put
the wine in the bottle You will bottle the
wine I watched a tv show on my TiVO I will Tivo
Heroes on Monday night Can say jail the robber
but not prison the robber because we already
have the word imprison
Why limitations to creativity? If new words
constantly being made, then we wouldnt
understand each other - loss of systematicity
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• Systematic Creativity

Patterns of sounds a. Prasp d. psapr b.
clib e. bfli c. trav f. tlick
Word formation, pronunciation and meaning Traveme
- a small trip Travemic ? Travemicize
? Travemicization ?
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• Linguistic competence - what you know about
  language as a native speaker
• a subconscious set of rules, units, and mental
  constructs that enables the native speakers of a
  language to produce and understand an unlimited
  number of both familiar and novel utterances.

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Grammar the mental system that allows human
beings to form and interpret the sounds, words
and sentences of their language. (all elements of
linguistic competence)

• Components of a grammar
• Phonetics - the articulation and perception of
  speech sounds
• Phonology - the patterning of speech sounds
• Morphology - word formation
• Syntax - sentence formation
• Semantics - the interpretation of words and
  sentences

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Myths about language Some languages are
ungrammatical Some languages are better than
others

• All languages have grammar (generality)
• If no grammar, no system and if no system, no
  communication and no language

All grammars are equal (parity) No such thing as
a primitive grammar or language No such thing as
good grammar or bad grammar
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Linguistics is descriptive Goal is to describe
and explain the facts of languages and
varieties Not prescriptive To prescribe the
correct way to say something
The English words Mary, merry and marry should be
pronounced differently because they are spelled
differently Some dialects of English do not make
vocalic distinctions in certain words before /r/
when /r/ is followed by another syllable.
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Linguistics is descriptive vs. prescriptive Coffe
e shop with a signWere sorry - no blended
drinks today. The blender is broke.
The past participle of the verb to break should
be broken Variation is found in the past
participle of the verb to break and we hear
broken and sometimes broke
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• All grammars have things in common (Universality)
  
• Universal traits that exists in all varieties of
  language
• All languages can have subjects, objects and
  verbs, but what order they can occur in in a
  sentence is language specific

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Grammars change over time (mutability) Language
is changing all the time
English Changes Before 1200 -- Ic ne sey not (I
dont say) He ne speketh nawt (He doesnt
speak) 1400 -- I seye not the wordes We saw
nawt the knyghtes. About 1700 -- I will not say
the words. (I will say not the words.) He did
not see the knights. (He saw not the knights.)
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• Grammatical knowledge is subconscious
  (inaccessibility)
• hunted, slipped, buzzed
• Something is grammatical in linguistics if a
  native speaker can say it in a natural way - this
  grammatical knowledge is what you feel like you
  can and cant say (possible/impossible not
  should/shouldnt)
• The blender is broke
• Something is ungrammatical in linguistics if a
  native speaker of a language would never say it
  in that way
• broke the is blender

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• Prescriptive attitudes about language

The Oregonian Regarding Jeff Conn's opinions
about whether or not Portlanders are developing
their own unique dialect - Piffle! I've lived in
Portland - and other western locations - and
here's my take Intelligently spoken "western
speech" that is free of recently introduced
speech influences from other regions (i.e.
southern, Bostonian, ethnic, etc.) is the purest
and most accent free English in the whole world.
If you doubt me, go to England and converse with
normal, everyday folks. Most have terrible
pronunciation. Many of them are borderline
unintelligible. London east-ender "Cockney" is
totally indecipherable! Then go north to
Scotland. Delightful people, but what they speak
sounds nothing like what the dictionary
pronunciation guide says it should sound like.
Same thing in Ireland, and Australia. Lovely
people. Terrible speech habits. But back to the
U.S. There are too many people moving from other
regions into our western stronghold to justify
calling any bad speech habits as being anything
but temporary. By far the biggest influence on
Pacific Northwest speech is the same as with
other western regions - and probably other parts
of the country namely, teenagers develop their
own subnormal vocabulary and way of speaking.
Although much more extreme than with previous
generations, subnormal has always been associated
with teenagers. The big difference now is that
when young people eventually mature, they don't
drop their language in favor of adult speech. Our
adult language has become the prisoner of
"teenspeak," and that is an utter
abomination. True, languages evolve but adults
copying the speech of rebellious anti-social
youth is not the hallmark of a great society. And
this decline of the American language will
probably continue indefinitely when was the last
time you heard a teenager say "It's time for me
to speak good, correct English?" Like, man, it'll
never happen. "'S'up?" "He goes," "She goes." Our
language is dying, but it had a pretty good run.
Luckily for me, most of my life has been during
the good part.
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• Ch 1 Review
• Linguistic competence
• Prescriptive grammar/attitudes
• Descriptive grammar/attitudes
• Universality

• Video American Tongues

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REVIEW

• Components of a grammar (fields of linguistics)
• Phonetics - the articulation and perception of
  speech sounds
• Phonology - the patterning of speech sounds
• Morphology - word formation
• Syntax - sentence formation
• Semantics - the interpretation of words and
  sentences

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REVIEW

• All languages have grammar
• If no grammar, no system
• and if no system, no communication and no
  language

All grammars are equal No such thing as a
primitive grammar or language No such thing as
good grammar or bad grammar
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REVIEW
Linguistics is descriptive Goal is to describe
and explain the facts of languages and
varieties (What we really do and dont do) Not
prescriptive To prescribe the correct way to say
something (What we should or ought to do and
not do)
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For next timeRead chapter 1 to go over what we
talked about today Start chapter 2 and we will
start on phonetics.