语言学笔记.doc

《简明英语语言学》笔记
Chapter 1 Introduction
¤ What is linguistics?
l Definition: the scientific study of language.
l A discipline that data and theory stand in a dialectical complementation; that is, a theory without the support of data can hardly claim validity, and data without being explained by some theory remain a muddled mass of things.
l The scope of linguistics:
² General linguistics: study language as a whole
² Specific aspects:
1) Phonetics: the study of sounds
2) Phonology: how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning
3) Morphology: how symbols are formed and combined to form word
4) Syntax: study the rules of how to form grammatically correct sentence
5) Semantics: the study of meaning
6) Pragmatics: the study of meaning in the context of language use
² Interdisciplinary branches:
1) Sociolinguistics
2) Psycholinguistics
3) Applied linguistics
l Important distinctions
² Prescriptive and descriptive:
1) Descriptive: Describe and analyze the language that people actually use
2) Prescriptive: Lay down rules for correct and standard behavior in using language
3) Modern language is mostly descriptive. Modern language, which is scientific and objective, describes language people actually use, be it correct or not.
² Synchronic and diachronic
1) Synchronic: describe language at some point of time in history, always in its current existence.
2) Diachronic: the description of language as it changes through time; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time.
3) In modern linguistics, synchronic approach enjoys priority.
² Speech and writing
Speech is prior to writing in linguistics, for it is more natural and reveals more true feature of language.
² Langue and parole
1) Langue: abstract system shared by all members of language community; it is the set of conventions and rules that language users have abide by
2) Parole: Concrete use of language.
3) Saussure: 1) parole is simply a mass of linguistic language facts; 2) linguist should abstract langue from parole, i.e. to discover the regularities governing the actual use of language
² Competence and Performance-American linguist Chomsky
1) Competence: knowledge of rules of language
2) Performance: the realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication
3) The imperfect performance is caused by social and psychological factors.
² Traditional grammar and modern linguistics
1) Linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive.
2) Modern linguistics regard spoken language as primary.
3) Modern linguistics does not force languages into Latin-based framework.
¤ What is language?
l Definition of language
² Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.
1) Language is a system, which means elements of language are combined according to rules.
2) Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between a linguistic symbol and what the symbol stands for.
3) Language is vocal because the primary medium for all language is sound.
4) Language is human-specific.
l Design feature
1) Arbitrariness: logical connection between meaning and sounds. While some words are motivated: the first are onomatopoeic words, such as rumble, crash, bang; the second are compound words, e.g. photocopy. This kind of words only make up small percentage of vocabulary. The arbitrary nature of language is a sign of sophistica- tion of language and make it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions.
2) Productivity: language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.
3) Duality: basic level: a structure of sounds
Higher level: sounds of language can be rearranged into morphemes and words
4) Displacement: 不受时空限制的
5) Cultural transmission: human have to be learned and taught be acquire language.
l Functions of language
² Descriptive function: convey factual information

Expressive function: supplies information

Social function: maintain social relations between people
² Structural linguist Roman Jakobson
Addresser---emotive: addresser express his attitude towards the topic or situation
Addressee---conative: the addresser aims to influence addressee’s action
Context---referential: addresser conveys a message or information
Message---poetic: use language to display the beauty of language
Contact---phatic communication: it tries to establish or maintain interpersonal relations
Code---metalinguistic: make clear the meaning of language itself

² In early 1970 British linguist M.A.K. Halliday
7 function in children.
3 in adults:
Ideational function: organize one’s experience, attitude, evaluation, feeling, and emotions
Interpersonal function: establish and maintain interpersonal relations
Textual function: organize written or spoken English in such a manner that they are coherent within themselves and fit the particular situation in which they are used
Chapter 2 Phonology
¤ The phonic medium of language
² Limited range of sounds constitute the phonic medium of language.
² The individual sounds within the range are the speech sounds.
¤ Phonetics
l What is phonetics?
² Phonetics is defined as the study of the phonic medium of language; it is concerned with all the sounds that occurs in the world’s languages.
² Articulatory phonetics: studies the sounds form speaker’s point of
View, i.e. how the speaker uses his speech organs to articulate the sounds
Auditory phonetics: studies from the hearer’s point of view, i.e. how the sounds are perceived by the hearer
Acoustic phonetics: the way sounds travel by looking at the sounds waves.

Chapter 4 Syntax
¤ What is it?
l Syntax is a branch of linguistics that studies the rules the govern the formation of sentences.
¤ Words categories
l In traditional grammar, there are 8 categories (called parts of speech). Non-traditional categories as determiner (Det), degree words (Deg), and qualifier (Qua).
l Two division
² Major lexical categories: the heads around which phases are built. Noun, verb, adjective, preposition.
² Minor lexical categories: determiner限定词, degree words, qualifier限定语, auxiliary, conjunction.
l Criteria：
² Meaning: 1) nouns often designate its entity; verbs often designate action, sensation, and states. 2) the property or attribute of a noun can be elaborated by adjectives, those of verbs, adverbs.
Deficiencies: 1) some words do not have entity such as dilemma, friendship.
2) some words belong to more than one categories
3) words with same or similar meaning belongs to different categories, e.g. be aware of and know
² Inflection: 1) noun à -s or –es indicating plural
2)adjectivesà-er or –est indicating comparative degree and superlative degree
3)verbà-ing and –ed indicating progressive and past tense
Deficiency: some words do not take inflections
² Distribution: it is reliable, which indicates what type of elements can co-occur with certain words.
Noun co-appear with determiner, e.g. a girl, the pen
Verbs with auxiliary, e.g. should open
Adjectives with degree words, e.g. very cool
¤ Phrase categories and their structure
l XP rule
XPà Specifier ——head—— complement
NPà (Det) N (PP) …
VPà (Qual) V (NP) …
APà (Deg) A (PP) …
PPà (Deg) P (NP) …
l Coordination rule
² No limit on the number of coordinated categories prior to the conjunction.
² A category at any level (head or XP) can be coordinated.
² Coordinated categories must be of the same type.
² The category type of coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of elements being conjoined.
² Structure: Xà X, X, X… Con X
¤ Phrase elements:
l Specifiers
² Role：1) semantically, make more precise the meaning of head; 2) syntactically, mark the phrase boundary.
² Different term of specifiers before different heads.
Specifiers
Heads
Examples
Determiners
N
The book, no water, this book
Qualifiers
V
Always, never fail

Degree words
A
Less interesting, quite good, very sensitive
P
Almost in, quite above
l Complements
² Provide information and location, attached to right of the head
² Monotransitive: open the door
Ditransitive: send me the mail
Comlex transitive verbs: put it on the wall
² Complement clause
Miss Herbert believes that she will win.

Matrix clause complementizer complement clause

² CP complement

Items
Heads
Examples
Adj.
Afraid, certain, aware
I am afraid that nobody would believe me.
Nouns
Fact, claim, belief
She can’t believe the fact that she would fail in the exam.
Prepositions
Over, about
They argued over whether she had come to class.

l Modifiers
² To modifier nouns à adj. phrases
² To modifier verbs à adv. Phrases and prepositional phrases

Position of modifiers
Modifiers
Positions
Examples
AP
PP
AdvP
Precedes the head
Follow the head
Precedes or follow
A very careful girl
Open with care
Read carefully; carefully read
¤ Sentences (the S rule)
Inflp= (s)

NP Inlf VP