Ling%20001:%20Linguistic%20Typology

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Ling 001 Linguistic Typology

• Part 1 Review and Introductory Notions

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Following our look at grammatical structures

• To this point we have examined linguistic
  structures at various sizes
• Sound structure
• Word Structure
• Sentence Structure
• Interpretation and Meaning
• This investigation, while dealing with different
  areas, shows common components

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Properties of the different areas

• Some common themes
• Linguistic representations involve abstract
  structures (i.e. structures that we dont hear or
  see per se)
• E.g. the way that speech sounds are organized
  suggests an analysis in terms of dimensions like
  place and manner of articulation
• In addition, the way that linguistic objects
  (speech sounds, morphemes, words) function in
  combination provides evidence for the abstract
  structures and rules employed by speakers
  (although of course without their explicit
  knowledge)

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Relating this to the central point

• Remember in addition that there is a central
  argument that we began with
• Language is not a cultural invention it is
  something that the human brain develops along the
  lines of walking
• Language learners are guided in learning the
  (abstract!) rules of how language is structured
  by innate linguistic competence
• In an abstract sense, all languages are the
  same, that is, they accomplish the same things
  and are all reflections of this innate endowment

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Further considerations and questions

• At the same time, we know that languages differ
  from one another (i.e. when we dont make the
  abstraction above)
• Question How do we talk about these differences
  in light of the hypothesis that there is
  something universal and innate to human language?

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Plan

• Review some facts about languages of the world
• Examine different areas in which languages differ
• Talk about the nature of such differences

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Languages Basic Facts

• How many languages are there? According to the
  Ethnologue database, there were in 2000 a total
  of
• 6,809 living languages in the world
• Naturally the different languages have distinct
  geographical distributions

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Geography

• Distribution
•   

Americas 1013 Africa 2058 Asia 2197 Europe
230 Pacific1311
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Comments

• When the numbers of languages are given in such
  terms, it is to be assumed that the number of
  speakers varies greatly
• E.g. Mandarin Chinese is reported to have 874
  million speakers, whereas some languages have
  only a single speaker remaining
• In addition, counts are subject to questions of
  what counts as a (first) language and so on, and
  are thus not absolute (see below)

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The Ethnologue Top 10

• Top 10
• Language n(million)
• Mandarin Chinese 874
• English 341
• Spanish 322-358
• Bengali 207
• Hindi 181
• Portuguese 176
• Russian 167
• Japanese 125
• German 100
• Korean 78

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Counting

• It was noted above that the numbers depend a lot
  on how the counting is defined
• Consider e.g. Arabic, one of the worlds major
  languages
• Grouped together, all of the different varieties
  of Arabic have 219 million speakers (this would
  be number 4)
• However different local varieties of Arabic are
  not mutually intelligible, and are therefore
  counted separately
• The difference between e.g. Algerian Colloquial
  Arabic and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic is reported
  to be like that between e.g. Spanish and
  Portuguese

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Endangered Languages

• Many of the 6,000-odd "living" languages cited in
  Ethnologue are endangered or nearly extinct.
• Roughly half of the world's languages are
  moribund, in the sense that new generations of
  children are not being raised to speak them.
• Within a century, it is likely that the number of
  living languages will be cut at least in half,
  and may well be fewer than 1,000.
• Thus the current rate of extinction for languages
  is much greater than the rate of extinction for
  biological species. Most people believe that this
  loss of linguistic/cultural diversity is a bad
  thing.
• For languages that can't be saved, it is still
  possible to document them for scientific purposes
  and for the sake of future generations who might
  want to study or even revive them.

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Talking about differences

• In light of the number of languages found in the
  world, our hypothesis about innateness has to say
  something about this kind of variation
• The idea is going to be that the variation isnt
  absolute rather languages show fixed points of
  difference
• This is illustrated in several examples of such
  differences in this and the following lecture

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Basic Difference Sound/Meaning Connections

• One obvious point is that languages differ in
  terms of how sounds are paired with meanings
• For instance, one thing we have to learn when we
  learn a foreign language is what the words of
  that language are (obviously)
• Examples
• English German
• Dog Hund
• Cat Katze
• Tree Baum

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Differences

• This is just the arbitrariness of sound/meaning
  connections viewed across languages
• It may be that languages have different
  vocabularies for different things
• This has caused some to think that the language
  that we speak fundamentally affects how we think
  about or categorize reality
• This is the so-called Whorfian Hypothesis
  language determines thought
• This hypothesis has been largely discredited, as
  discussed in various places

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Interpreting this

• Given that languages are simply going to vary in
  terms of their set of sound/meaning connections
  some further questions
• What other types of variation are there?
• Variation in inventories
• Variation in e.g. word-order requirements
• How much variation is there when we are looking
  at rules rather than inventories?

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Inventory Differences

• Another way in which languages differ is in terms
  of their inventories of elements
• Recall that we discussed this in our unit on
  phonology
• English 30 something phonemes
• Abkhaz A language spoken in the Caucasus one
  dialect has c. 67 consonant phonemes
• Hawaiian smaller phoneme inventory

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Inventory Differences, cont.

• Remember that we are interested in breaking down
  phonemes into more abstract units features for
• Place of articulation
• Manner of articulation
• Voicing etc.
• The idea in this type of variation is that a
  restricted inventory defined in these terms is in
  principle available, and that specific languages
  make specific choices from that inventory.

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Inventory, cont.

• Inventory differences show up in e.g. morphology
  as well consider number (recall morphology
  slides)
• English Singular and Plural
• I go, we go, etc.
• Classical Greek Dual as well
• Lu-ei he/she/it looses
• Lue-ton they-2 loose
• Luo-usi they loose
• Lihir (Oceanic)
• Wa you
• Gol you-2
• Gotol you-3
• Gohet you-PAUCAL
• Go you-PL

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Further differences

• When it comes to morphology and syntax, we see
  another way in which languages differ
• With morphology
• What is expressed in a word differs greatly
  from language to language
• Similarly, whether or not we see discrete pieces,
  or multiple adjustments to a single piece
• With syntax
• how trees are linearized (where the head of the
  phrase is)
• Fixed vs. free word order

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Syntactic differences

• In syntactic typology, we see other types of
  differences some cases that involve the order of
  words and phrases
• Whether a language has a fixed word-order or not
• What the fixed word-order of the language is in
  the first place
• Whether there have to be subject and object Noun
  Phrases in the first place

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English Word Order

• One fact that is clear about English is that
  major constituents occur in a fixed order
• Subject Verb Object (SVO)
• Other orders change the meaning put differently
• The cat chased the dog and
• The dog chased the cat.
• Describe different events altogether. In English,
  information about the Subject and the Object
  requires a fixed syntactic order
• Think carefully about e.g.
• The cat, the dog chased

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General Patterns

• The general pattern- one that accounts for part
  of the word order facts- is that in English, the
  heads of phrases precede the complements of the
  heads
• Recall that we have phrases like XP with head X
• In English we find X YP, not YP X
• E.g. PP to the store VP eat an apple

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Another way of putting this

• The trees we draw for constituent structures are
  like mobiles
• Linear orders respect these structures lines
  cannot cross
• VP
• V NP
• eat N
• apples
• Later well see languages that have this tree
  structure, but a different order for the elements

the apples eat Ok eat the apples
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Remember

• The example of inversion with auxiliaries
• Is the unicorn that is in the garden t eating
  apples?
• In order to know which is to move to the front,
  we have to know the phrase structure. The linear
  order does not tell us.
• In the way we think about syntax, the mobile is
  important for movement and other syntactic
  phenomena, but in the end it has to have a linear
  order

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English Phrases

• The fact that the head precedes the complement is
  general in English this is called the
  head-initial pattern
• In other languages, as we will see later, the
  reverse pattern is found these are head-final
  patterns
• There are sporadic examples in English in which
  the reverse appears to be found as well
• Examples with notwithstanding notwithstanding,
  English is a head-initial language

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Elsewhere

• Some languages are primarily head-final e.g.
  Hindi. Compare
• Rahul had read the book.
• Rahul-ne kitaab-ko paRh-aa thaa
• Rahul book read AUX
• Theres a kind of mirror-image effect here
  (think trees)

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Structures

• S
• NP AuxP
• Rahul Aux VP
• had V NP
• read the book
• This is the English version.

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Head final

• S
• NP AuxP
• Rahul VP Aux
• NP V had
• the book read
• This is the Hindi version. Look carefully at what
  has changed.

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A puzzle

• Which basic orders are possible?
• What about VSO
• Welsh
• Lladdodd y ddraig y dyn.
• killed the dragon the man
• The dragon killed the man.
• See the next lecture

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Free Word Order

• Some languages do not require major constituents
  to appear in a fixed order
• Such languages are sometimes described as having
  free word order
• In such languages, participants in the event and
  subject, object etc. are identified by other means

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Examples

• One language with free word order is Mapudungun,
  which is spoken in Chile and Argentina
• Here is a basic sentence
• INche pefin metawe
• I see vessel
• I see the vessel

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Word Orders

• In addition to allowing SVO sentences, all of the
  other possible arrangements are grammatical as
  well
• INche metawe pefin. SOV
• Metawe iNche pefin. OSV
• Metawe pefin iNche OVS
• Pefin metawe iNche VOS
• Pefin iNche metawe VSO

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Agreement and Free Word Order

• How are the grammatical roles of these noun
  phrases determined?
• Above the verb is given as
• pefin
• This verb actually has a lot of information in
  it
• Pe-fi-n
• See-Object.Marker-1sS
• That is, the verb says that the subject is first
  person singular, and that there is a third person
  object.
• Thus the different word orders can be understood
  as expressing the same basic proposition