STEP 1 – INTRODUCTON TO MAIN TERMS

STUDENT:
KAROL YULISSA CANTILLO FAJARDO
1001815171
GROUP 32

TUTOR:
VIVIANA ANDREA OSPINA GIRALDO

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL ABIERTA Y A DISTANCIA – UNAD

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS
FEBRUARY 2020
ANSWERS OF THE 5 QUESTIONS

1.When people wants to define Language, it is common that they easily confuse it with
other concepts such as grammar, written language or thought; in the video, Professor
Pinker talks about it, please, explain in your words, how or why Language is not
exactly those other things.

Language cannot be confused with the concept of written language because written
language must be taught and built in school and the spoken language is built little by little,
it is learned spontaneously.
Steven Pinker said: “children acquire spoken language instinctively but written language
with great effort because spoken language is found in all human cultures throughout history
for dozens of years while written language was a recent invention and it spread very
slowly”
Language neither can’t be confused with the concept of grammar because grammar is the
rule for the use of language, grammar serves to know how people speak and how people
should talk. Finally language can’t be confused with thought because the language is only a
way of expressing thought.

(From minute 4:10 in the video)

2. In a very concise form and according to the video, say what language is?

Language is one of the most important topics in the human science because language is the
trait that most conspicuously distinguishes human from other species. With language you
can achieve good thing by sharing the knowledge. Language is the most distinctive human
talent and it is a window to human mature.
Language is a formal, universal and innate mechanism; it is a process like memorizing
words and using those words through grammar rules. Language is a miracle of the world
because it allows us to exchange an unlimited number of ideas using a finite set of mental
tools. Finally language is a set of sentences and a communication system where we can
communicate ideas, emotions and desires.

(It is based on the whole video)

3. According to the video, please explain what concept is developed with the famous
Noan Chomsky’s phrase “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.

 Language is creativity, productivity and the ability to produce and understand new
sentences
 Language has a syntax that can’t be identified with it’s meaning.
 Syntax does not consist of a string of word by word associations as in stimulus
response theories in psychology, where producing a word is a response which you
then hear and it becomes a stimulus to producing the next word, and so on.
(From minute 16:05 in the video)
4. What is the basic explanation for the fact that a person speaks a foreign language
with a specific accent?
I think that it is for the phonology, because when you acquire English as a foreign language
or you can acquire a foreign language in general, you carry over the rules of phonology of
your first language and you apply it to your second language and it is called “accent”

(From minute 34:00 in the video)

5. Despite computational linguistics have had great advances, what have been some
typical linguistic difficulties to computers process human language?

Dictated on computers:
 Co-articulation: there are two main contributors one of them is the fact that each
phony, each vowel or consonant actually comes put very differently depending on
what comes before and what comes after.
 Segmentation and word boundaries: we have an illusion when listen to speech that
consists of sequence to sounds corresponding to words, but if can actually were to
look at the wave form of a sentence on a oscilloscope there would not be little
silence between the words the way there are little bits of white space in printed
words on a page but rather a continuous ribbon in which the end of one word leads
right to the beginning of the next

(From minute 40:20 in the video)

CREATE THREE MORE QUESTIONS AND GIVE THEIR RESPECTUVE
ANSWERS BASED ON THE VIDEO

1. In the video Steven Pinker named some grammar mistakes, ¿what are those
mistakes or rules that were used?

 A famous rule is the rule not to split infinitives. This mistake was made by Captain
Kirk, he said “to boldly go where no man has gone before” and the correct way was
“to go boldly where no man has gone before”. You can’t split an infinitive because
it is a single word.
 Other famous rule is the rule that never use a so-called double negative. This
mistake was made by Mick Jogger, he said “ I can’t get not satisfaction” and the
correct way was “ I can’t get any satisfaction” this is often promoted as a rule of
logical speaking but “can’t and “any” is just as much of a double negative as “can’t”
and “any” the only reason that “can’t get any satisfaction” is deemed correct and
“can’t get no satisfaction” is deemed ungrammatical is that the dialect of English
spoken in the south of England in the 17 century used “can’t” “any” rather than
“can’t” “not”.

(From minute 5:27 in the video)

2. According to the video, name some language rules.

1. Syntax: it allows assembling words into phrases and sentences,

2. Morphology: it allows assembling bits of words like prefixes and suffixes into complex
words.
3. Phonology: it allows combining vowels and consonants into the smallest words.

(From minute 12:55 in the video)

3. ¿why are rules important in language?

Because rules allow for open-ended creativity of language, Also rules allow for expression
of unfamiliar meaning. And the rules allow for production of vast numbers of
combinations. Moreover the number of different thoughts that we can express through the
combinatorial power of grammar is not just humongous, but in technical sense. It is infinite.

(From minute 20:20 in the video)

 REFERENCIA BIBLIOGRAFICA

 [Big Think]. (2012, October 6). Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to

Understanding the Brain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-
B_ONJIEcE&feature=youtu.be