Chapter one

The study of language Linguists and non linguists have always been interested in the nature and origins of the various uses of language, which has been some kind of a .mystery to them The difference between linguists and non linguists in the way they choose to investigate the mysteries is that linguists relate language scientifically; .whereas, non linguists relate to language with all kinds of myths One myth is the biblical story of God's diffusion of tongues following the .destruction of the tower of Babel Theorists with an inclination toward experimentation have gone so far as to try to recreate the conditions which they consider necessary for the origin of language. Herodotus , the Greed historian tells how Psammetichus, an ancient Egyptian king, raised two children in complete isolation from human speech so to see what language they would naturally speak. The first word they uttered was "Bekos", The Phrygian word for bread; consequently, he decided that children naturally speak Phrygian and that Phrygian was an older language than Egyptian. Of course, needless to say that such experimentation does not qualify as .scientific inquiry, as inquiry is understood today In Modern world, people still continue to have only the vaguest notions of what language is. They associate English with commerce, French with women, German with warfare, Italian with friends and Spanish with worshipping God. Many people still regard Italian as "musical", German as "guttural"(harsh), French as "flowing" and American Indian languages as "monotonous." In fact, we have poorly developed vocabularies for talking about linguistic matters and we do not know which linguistic matters are significant. In our actual use of language we reveal our attitudes about language and the functions of language. We regard some expressions as taboo, so we carefully avoid them by using euphemisms (substituting a mild word for a harsher one); nevertheless, we consider other expressions to be permissible in certain circumstances. We adopt pseudo names & nicknames. We continue to worship in special languages such as Arabic Latin and Sanskrit. We allow ourselves to be controlled by formulas such ".as " I now pronounce you man and wife" or " I divorce thee thrice We are told to think positively, constructively , or imaginatively, but there .little agreement on how language is to be used in such thinking .A definition of language

Language is being defined by linguists as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. The definition is rather imprecise in that it contains considerable redundancy , particularly in employing .both the terms system and arbitrary

Language as a system The key term in the above definition is "system". It is also the most difficult term to discuss. We may observe that a language must be systematic, for otherwise it could not be learned or used consistently. However, we must ask in what ways language is systematic. A very basic observation of any language shows that each language contains two systems: A system of sounds and a system of meanings. Only certain sounds are used by speakers of a language and only certain combination .of those sounds are possible Linguists are concerned not only with the characteristics of the two systems but also with how these systems relate to each other within the overall system of a particular language. one such relation would demand of us nothing more than making a catalogue of certain kinds of linguistic phenomena according to a preconceived plan. A dictionary is such a catalogue of observations about words and their meanings. Various dictionary- makers follow different plans concerning what is to be included and how included material is to be described. However, we could not possibly make a dictionary of the words in a language: the supply of words is finite but their possible combinations are infinite. Consequently, we must search for satisfactory ways of describing sentences and parts of .sentences, and also sound and combinations of sounds Similarly, we can ask what kind of system is required to account for the occurances of several negatives or how do we resolve sentence ambiguity .syntactically rather than situationally In another case we should be prepared to explain how sounds such as .name and night have had different pronunciations at different time Linguists are also concerned with the units and processes within the system. An utterance is not a continuous phenomenon: it is broken into discrete units of various sizes and these units are arranged by various processes. We must seek to understand what these units and processes are very unlike the educated public by whom these units are described as letters and words and such processes are described as sentences .constructed according to some making sense formula Language as arbitrary The term "arbitrary" does not mean that everything about language is unpredictable for languages do not vary in every possible way. It means

that we cannot predict exactly which specific features we will find in a particular language if we are unfamiliar with that language or with a related language. There will be no way of predicting what a word means just from hearing it, or knowing in advance whether or how nouns will be inflected, or of saying whether pronouns will fall into any particular pattern, or predicting what sounds will occur, or knowing the ration of consonants to vowels will be, or saying if the nasal passage will be .involved in the production of certain vowels If languages were completely unpredictable in their system, we could not even talk about nouns, verbs, pronouns, consonants and vowels at all. All the phenomena previously mentioned is found in any language we choose .to examine The process of deletion, that is, the permissible omission of a part of a sentence when that part can be predicted from what it remains can be found in many languages but the particular variation depends on that particular language. Similarly, we can talk about the process of negation. Language is unpredictable only in the sense that the variations of the .processes that are employed are unpredictable Language as vocal The term "vocal" refers to the fact that the primary medium of language is sound for all languages no matter how their writing systems are developed. Writing is based on speaking based on the evidence we have from the continuous existing of the preliterate societies , children language acquisition & historical records. Writing systems are attempts to capture sounds and meanings on paper. The primary purpose of writing is .to lend some kind of permanence to the spoken language in any way Language as symbol This definition refers to the fact that there is no connection between sounds that people use and the objects to which these sounds refer. Language is a symbolic system in which words are associated with objects, ideas and actions by convention so that "a rose by any other name would smell sweet." In only a few cases onomatopoeic words indicate some direct representational connection between a word and some phenomenon in the "real" world. Words such as bang, crush and roar are examples from English, yet they mean nothing to a Chinese of an .Eskimo Language as human The term "human" refers to the fact that the kind of system that interest us is possessed only by human beings and is very different from the communication systems that other forms of life possess. No system of animal communication makes use of the duality features of sound and

meaning. Moreover, none allows its users to do all that language allows .human to refer to the past, speculate the future and tell lies Language as communication Language allows people to say things to each other and express their communicative needs ranging from a nice-day greetings , small talks at parties and general attitudes toward life. We need only to notice how absurd it would be to take each of the following expressions literally: "how ."do you do ", or "where have you been all my life The communication of most interest to us is the communication of meaning. A language allows its speakers to talk about anything within the realm of their knowledge. We must therefore take an interest in the topic .of meaning, even when formulated

The scope of linguistic theorizing The definition of a language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication still allows a wide range of scientific inquiries into language and its functions. What is then that we claim to be describing? Should we describe only what we observe or should we filter ?out some important principles from these observations Linguistics is a science only if linguists adopt scientific attitudes toward language. Scientific attitudes require objectivity; the investigator must not deliberately distort or ignore data but must try to see things clearly and see them whole admitting his theoretical inclinations influence his view of the data (Be quiet vs. be tall). These theoretical inclinations should be quite uninfluenced by the scientist's emotions. A scientific statement should be verifiable and the techniques and experiments on which it is based should be replicable since explicitness is an essential requirement of the scientific method. A scientist must be thorough in his treatment of .problems and reject arbitrary solutions

Some basic distinctions

Description and prescription The description-prescription distinction relates to the fact that we must try to explain unfamiliar sentences linguistically rather than criticize them

socially. We should describe the occurrence of such sentences and if we .can to account for it in some way within a general theory Synchrony and diachrony Synchrony refers to a language phenomenon at one period of time. Diachrony refers to the changes that took place in a language over a .period of time Meet and meat are homophones. It is irrelevant in a synchronic statement that they were pronounced once differently, a fact to which their spelling .indicates Valid diachronic or historical work must be based on food synchronic or descriptive work because no valid statements bout linguistic change can be made unless good descriptions exist of a language for at least two .discontinuous stages of development Form and substance The form substance-distinction is the distinction between the system we invent and the actual data. The system is the theory and the data is the events in real world. Of course we must assume that there is some correspondence between the two , that the empirical justifications exists .for our clams, and therefore that the system accounts for certain data

Competence and performance The competence- performance distinction is closely related to that between form and substance. Linguists believe that the correct approach not to describe the utterances of a native speaker of a language, but to describe the underlying system or competence which leads a speakerlistener to produce such utterances and understand them. (how a speaker .(gets sidetracked in the middle of a sentence

Linguistics and related disciplines

Linguistics and anthropology The tie with anthropology is first of all a historical one in that much linguistic effort grew out of a necessity for understanding the language of primitive peoples. Today the relationship between anthropology and linguistics is less close than in the past. Languages no longer appear to vary in all sorts of unpredictable ways as we find out more about different languages and some of the ideas which greatly interested early

anthropological linguists such as the relationship between language and .culture no longer generate the same kind of excitement Linguistics and philosophy if the relationship of linguistics to anthropology has weakened in recent years, the one between linguistics and philosophy has strengthened during the same time Although we can acknowledge that a language is system for relating sounds to meanings, we encounter great difficulty in .understanding how this relationship is effected We still know very little about what is involved when we say that .something means something .Linguistics and psychology Languages seem to share some universal constraints. Children apparently learn languages in the same way no matter how different the cultures in which they are raised. Such universal learning is of interest to both psychologists and linguists. Language is probably the most creative system created by man; therefore psychologists and linguists have an interest in linguistic phenomena; Linguists to explain behavior in general .and the latter to explain linguistic behavior in particular Linguistics and teaching Although languages are learned, they must occasionally be taught, or there must be some teaching about linguistic matters, because linguists .can contribute to some understanding of language teaching

Chapter two
Communication

Non linguistic human communication Human beings learn to communicate with each other through nonlinguistic means as well as linguistic ones. All of us are familiar with the saying. " It wasn't what he said; It was the way that he said it". Sometimes what is said can mean the opposite of any literal interpretation, employing a certain tone or gesture or a provocative manner. We also tend to stereotype people who come from other linguistic and cultural backgrounds on the basis of impressions about their language, gestures, .customary movements, and uses of space

The interesting questions to be asked concern how a particular bit of communication has been affected, the ways in which the nonlinguistic signals are patterned and systematic, and how the patterns and systems .are learned In North American culture only female flutter their eyelashes, although no anatomic reason prevents males from doing so. A woman may weep in public but a man's tears must be shed privately. Only young children can throw tantrums (a sudden bad attack of anger) in public since such behavior is considered immature by adults. We may learn that in certain cultures men stand when women enter the room and women may kiss each other for greetings though men may not. Such behavior is learned and varies from one culture to another and within the same culture. Linguists attempt to discover in what ways certain characteristics of nonlinguistic behavior might be structured in ways resembling the structures found in language. Although language undoubtedly plays the central role in the total process, other parts of the process must be .explored so to understand how humans communicate with each other

Chapter three
Phonetics Since any spoken utterance is actually a continuum of sound, we must know how that continuum is produced and must have some procedure for breaking it down into separate parts that can be examined for their function. Consequently, we must know how human beings produce the separate parts of the continuum of sound in all their variety and we must be able to record the observations. Such knowledge and ability is a necessary prerequisite to making any statement about how the particular .sounds function in the language

Acoustic phonetics Acoustic phoneticians attempt to describe the physical properties of the stream of sound that comes out the mouth of the speaker. They record the sound on machines called sound spectrographs. The problem in such machines is that there are no readily identifiable boundaries between the sounds. Spectrographs record everything, but listeners do not listen to everything when they listen to their native language. They filter and sometimes they even add what is not there. How they do this is a puzzle that the sound spectrograph cannot solve by itself. Spectrographs can .only be used in the lab which does not refer to actual events Articulatory phonetics

Speech is produced by a sound making apparatus and that specific sounds are related to specific movements of the apparatus that produce the sounds. Since these specific movements produce speech, a systematic description of them would constitute the scope of phonetics. In this variety of phonetics, sounds would be related to the articulatory movements of the chest, throat, mouth and nose which produce them, and systems of .transcription would be necessary to record these movements The arrticulatory apparatus The lungs are important in speaking since they provide the airflow to support speech, but they seem to have no function in articulation. Lungs are used differently in speaking different languages as they employ .different kinds of muscular control in the chest The articularoty apparatus contains three important cavities: the pharyngeal cavity (throat), the oral cavity(mouth)and the nasal cavity(nose). The air stream coming from the lungs into those cavities can change which results mainly from the tongue movements and passing the .larynx or the voice box before it reaches the cavities Larynx It is a bony boxlike structure in the front of the throat which contains a valve like opening consisting of two membranous tissues, the vocal cords. The airstream proceeds to and from the lungs through this opening called the glottis. The membranous tissues can be used to close off the opening of the larynx. In certain pronunciations of "bottle" the middle consonant / t/ is pronounced by making a brief closure, called a glottal stop, symbolized by the phonetic, usually the tissues or the vocal cords are either open and vibrating (voiced)as in the initial sound of bat, vat and this or open and not vibrating (voiceless) as in pin, fat and think. A third .kind of opening is called whisper Pharyngeal cavity In the pharyngeal cavity, the epiglottis serves as protective cover for the larynx so that food does not go down the wrong way. It serves no purpose in the production of speech. It serves as a resonating chamber for the sounds produced by vibrations of the vocal cords which may vary considerably, either in different languages or in different styles of speaking within a single language. The pharyngeal cavity can also produce .complete or partial stoppages in the airstream resulting in local friction Oral cavity The greatest source of sound change of the airstream is the oral cavity. It results from the movement of the uvula, lower lip and tongue. The uvula is limited in its function in that it can only be made to vibrate to produce the uvular [R] sound. The lower lip can be moved to meet the upper lip to

produce the sound [b] as in bin, or to meet the teeth to produce the sound [f] as in fat. All parts of the tongue can be moved. The back of the tongue can be raised to meet the back top of the mouth (velum) to produce the sound [k]as in king. The forward part of the tongue can be raised to allow teeth to produce the sound [s^] as of ship. The tongue can be trilled, curled and turned back or retroflexed. So the back, center, front and tip of the tongue in combination with other parts of the mouth, the soft palate, the hard palate and the alveolar ridge are needed to describe the sounds made in the oral cavity. Upper and lower teeth and lips make up the rest of the apparatus we need to refer to in order to describe how sounds are .made in the oral cavity Nasal cavity It is connected to the oral cavity by way of the velic at the back of the back of mouth. The velic is either definitely open to let air coming of the lungs to proceed though the mouth, or definitely closed to allow the air to exit through the nose. Once air in the nasal cavity no possible exit for any further modification because no parts in the nasal cavity can produce stoppages, except for one exception. When a speaker has a severe cold, nasal sounds like [m] in mat would sound like [b] in bat and [n] in nose would sound like [d] in doze, as they have the same manner of .articulation The articulatory apparatus exists for eating and breathing and not for speaking. Anatomic features of primates' mouth resemble those of human beings but primates do not speak because language is a mental phenomenon that does not depend on the development of certain physical .organs Contoids Linguists notice one basic distinction that seems to occur universally; the distinction between consonants and vowels. Many linguists prefer to use the terms contoid and vocoid. A contoid is sound characterized by marked interruption in the airstream, ranging from a complete interruption as the beginning of din [d] through an incomplete one accompanied by friction as at the beginning of zoo[z], to various kinds of trills as in Spanish and resonant as at the beginning of red [r]. A vocoid is a continuous, un interrupted , frictionless sound as in the middle of bid [I] and bead [i]; however, the initial sounds of yet, wet, led and red are not so classifiable .as either contoids or vocoids

Voice

Sounds may be either voiced or voiceless ; i,e, the vocal cords are either .vibrating or not [bin [b] pin[p [den[d] ten[t [goal[g] coal[k [vat [v] fat [f [zip [z] sip [s place of articulation The combination of the articulator and the point of contact are called the place of articulation. For example, the bottom lip may touch the top teeth to produce labiodentals sounds as at the beginnings of fat [f] and vat [v] and so on and so forth. In each case, the articulator is located on the lower .jaw, whereas the point of articulation is located on the upper jaw Manner of articulation Manner or articulation is also extremely important. The different manners of contact produce different kinds of sounds. The principle manners of articulation are stopping the airstream completely as in the stops [t]oe and [d]oe (adult female of a deer); interfering with the airstream as in fricatives [S]ue and [z]oo; making a closure as for stops but allowing the air to be released through the nose as in nasals [m]ap and [n]ap. Other manners of articulation involve the production of different curvatures of the tongue as the airstream passes over it. With laterals, the airstream passes over the sides of the tongue nut not over the center as in [L]et ; with retroflexes the airstream passes over the tongue tip is curled back as in [r]ed ; Finally, we have trills (tongue tip /uvula) and one quick flaps as when the tongue tip is tapped to the gum ridge in the middle of American .[^English pronunciation of butter [r Airflow direction A further distinction involves the direction of the airstream, whether it is going into the lungs (egressive) or coming from the lungs (ingressive). In nearly all languages sounds are made using egressive air only. Ingressives are rare in English. They are confined to certain kinds of exclamatory .sounds made in moments of pain, surprise, or tension Teneness The tenseness and the laxness of the vocal apparatus are important in articulation. Some sounds involve some tenseness as in the [p] [f][s]; .whereas [b] [v] [z] are lax .International phonetic alphabet (IAP) chart on p37 in the book

Vocoids/ tongue and lip position The basic parameters required to discuss vocoids derive from the positions of the tongue, jaws and lips. Basically vocoids are made by holding the tongue in certain positions and sending the airstream over it without any kind of interruption or friction. A simple understanding can be gained through the pronunciation of beat followed by bat ,( the jaw drops so the tongue is lowered down) and beat followed by boot ( the tongue is pulled back and a noticeable rounding of the lips). Three basic parameters necessary to account for the production of vocoids: The relative height of the tongue, the relative frontness/backness of the tongue, and lip.rounding