Linguistics 110 - Introduction To Linguistics - Zhang, Öztürk, Quin

Linguistics 110 Zhang/Öztürk/Quinn
Class 1 (9/18/02)
(1) Linguistics: the scientific study of human language.

• Scientific
• Scientific study
• Language
(2) A linguist is someone who:

a. speaks many languages (‘polyglot’, ‘multilingual’).
b. speaks fluently the languages he or she studies.
c. studies the languages he or she speaks fluently.
d. study languages in order to teach people how to speak correctly.
e. studies natural languages for the purpose of understanding their structure.
(3) What does it mean to “know a language”?
(a) Sound system
• Sound inventory:
German: Bach, Süd ‘south’, rot ‘red’.
Mandarin Chinese: ma@ ‘mother’

ma! ‘hemp’
ma# ‘horse’
ma~ ‘to curse’
Navajo: ch’ah ‘hat’, k’ai’ ‘willow’.
Sindhi: ∫ńi ‘field’, ∂inu ‘festival’. (Indo-European, Pakistan)
!Xo!o): !oo ‘knife’, ||ahm ‘freckle’. (Khoisan, southern Africa)
English: this, that—the sound for ‘th’ is not in French.
• Sound combination:
zl: ok in Polish—zloty ‘a unit of currency’, not ok in English.
pt: ok at the beginning of the word in Polish—ptak ‘bird’, not ok in the same
position in English.
st: ok in English—stop, rest, not ok in Mandarin Chinese.

(b) Words
• The lexical meanings of words.
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(i) English: tree (ii) /dog/ English: ‘dog’
German: baum Hebrew ‘fish’
Hausa: bishiya
Korean: namu /soos/ Hebrew: ‘horse’
Mandarin: shu~ Latin: ‘pig’
Taiwanese: tÇ¸!u a~
Arabic: shajara /moon/ English: ‘moon’
Russian: derevo Korean: ‘door’
Q: What do these tell you about the relationship between form and meaning?
• How to combine morphemes into words.

Morpheme: smallest meaningful unit in a language.
• Interaction between knowledge of how to combine morphemes and

knowledge of sounds—how does the shape of a morpheme change in different
contexts?
Plural book book[s] *book[z] *bookedistas

chair chair[z] *chair[s]
ax ax[Iz] *ax[s]
mouse mice *mouse[Iz]
sheep sheep *sheep[s]
Past ask ask[t] *ask[d]

ban ban[d] *ban[t]
pat pat[Id] *pat[t] *pat[d]
do did *do[d]
hold held *hold[Id]
(c) Sentences and non-sentences
a. I am going to give you a presentation on language.

b. I am going to give you.
c. John is difficult to love.
d. It is difficult to love John.
e. John is anxious to go.
f. It is anxious to go John.
g. I have seen Maria and Juan.
h. Who have you seen?
i. Who have I seen Maria and?
Q1: How many grammatical sentences are there in English?
Q2: How do we make these grammatical judgments?
(4) How do we acquire the knowledge of our language?

(a) By imitation?
• One type of knowledge we discussed in (3) clearly shows that children cannot
learn their language by purely imitation the adults. What is it?
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Thank you very much for stepping on my toe because I was afraid I had
elephantiasis and now that I can feel it hurt I know it isn’t so.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like
underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
• Children produce ungrammatical sentences to adults’ ear.
My nose is crying.
Don’t giggle me.
I am barefoot all over.
What the boy hit?
Other one pants.
Mommy get it my ladder.
Cowboy did fighting me.
• Knowledge of words and sound structures cannot be acquired by pure

imitation either.
(i) Jason breaked my toy.

There are many sheeps in the picture.
I holded the baby rabbits.
(ii) pajamas → jimamas

camera → gemda
Rebecca → fibeca
here → heel
banana → nana
pajama → jama
Amita → Mita
(b) By reinforcement?
• Child: Nobody don’t like me.

Mother: No, say “Nobody likes me”.
Child: Nobody don’t like me.
(dialogue repeated eight times)
Mother: Now, listen carefully, say “Nobody likes me”.
Child: Oh, nobody don’t likes me.
• Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.

Father: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.
Father: Can you say “the other spoon”?
Child: Other…one…spoon.
Father: Say… “Other”.
Child: Other.
Father: Spoon.
Child: Spoon.
Father: Other…spoon.
Child: Other…spoon. Now give me other one spoon?
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(c) By analogy—we can form new, previously unheard sentences because they are
like the ones we have heard before?
The child hears… By analogy, the child might produce…

I painted a red barn. I painted a blue barn.
I saw a red barn.
I painted a barn red. I painted a barn blue.

*I saw a barn red.
• There are certain mistakes that children never make:
• A unicorn is in the garden.

Is a unicorn in the garden?
A unicorn that is eating a flower is in the garden.

Is a unicorn that is eating a flower in the garden?
* Is a unicorn that eating a flower is in the garden.
Children never make mistakes like the last sentence.

No language moves the first auxiliary verb to the front to form questions.
No language reverses the order of the words to form questions.
Î These things are not hard to do!
• Jim ate ice-cream and cookies. Jim ate what?

What did Jim eat?
Jim ate ice-cream and what?
*What did Jim eat ice-cream and?
Children never make mistakes like the last sentence.

No language does what the last sentence does.
• The poverty of the stimulus: children learn aspects of the grammar for which they
never receive information!
“How come it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief and
personal and limited, are nevertheless able to know as much as we do know? Is
the belief in our knowledge partly illusory? And if not, what must we know
otherwise than through the sense?” —Bertrand Russell
• These facts point to the possibility of the following:
• Our language ability is biologically innate.
• Some grammatical structures are already hard-wired in our brain when we are
born. These form the Universal Grammar (UG), as termed by Chomsky.
• Our ability to use language is an instinct, like the instinct to walk and see. In
this sense, we can say that humans have specialized “organs of language” in
the same way they have “organs of walking” or “organs of vision”.
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• Children’s task in language-learning is to fill in the part of the grammar not
specified by UG. They acquire language the same way they acquire the
ability to walk.
(5) Modularity
• The claim: the brain is divided into distinct anatomical faculties that are directly
responsible for specific cognitive functions, including language.
• Q1: Given the claim, where will the crucial evidence come from?
Q2: If there is really a language module in the brain, what will we expect from
patients with brain damage? How many types of patients do you expect to
see?
Q3: If there is no language module, and language is simply a consequence of

general human intelligence, how many types of patients with brain damage
do you expect to see with respect to their language ability?
(6) Mr. Ford
• Stroke victim, damage to lower parts of the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere.
• Language severely impaired.
Interview with Howard Gardner, where Gardner asked about his work as a Coast
Guard radio operator.
“I’m a sig … no … man … uh, well, … again.” These words were emitted
slowly, and with great effort. The sounds were not clearly articulated; each
syllable was uttered harshly, explosively, in a throaty voice…
……
“Were you in the Coast Guard?”
“No, er, yes, yes, … ship… Massachu … chusetts … Coast guard … years.” He
raised his hands twice, indicating the number “nineteen.”
“Oh, you were in the Coast Guard for nineteen years.”
“Oh … boy … right … right,” he replied.
“Why are you in the hospital, Mr. Ford?”
“Arm no good. Speech … can’t say … talk, you see.”
……
“Can you tell me, Mr. Ford, what you’ve been doing in the hospital?”
“Yes, sure. Me go, er, uh, P.T. nine o’ cot, speech … two times … read … wr …
ripe, er, rike, er, write … practice … get-ting better.”
• Omits endings like -ed, -s and grammatical function words like or, be, and the.
• Ok with content words, like oar, bee.
• Can name objects well.
• Understands “does a stone float on water?”—can deduce meaning from the
content words.
• Cannot answer questions like “The lion was killed by the tiger. Which one is
dead?”—requires grammatical analysis.
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• Other cognitive abilities not affected.
• Nonverbal IQ in high average region.
• Fully aware of where he was and why he was there.
• Can calculate, read maps, set clocks, make constructions, carry out command.
• Can we claim the modularity of language solely by observing cases like Mr.
Ford?
(7) Denyse
• Born with “split spine”—leaves spinal cord unprotected, causes brain damage.
• Severely retarded:
• never learned reading or writing;
• cannot handle money or other daily functioning.
• Has unimpaired language development.
“I like opening cards. I had a pile of post this morning and not one of them was a
Christmas card. A bank statement I got this morning!”
“My mum works over at the, over on the ward and she said ‘not another bank
statement.’ I said ‘it’s the second one in two days.’ And she said ‘Do you want
me to go to the bank for you at lunchtime?’ and I went ‘No, I’ll go this time and
explain it myself.’ I tell you what, my bank are awful. They’ve lost my bank book,
you see, and I can’t find it anywhere. I belong to the TSB Bank and I’m thinking
of changing my bank ’cause they’re so awful.”
• With cases like Mr. Ford and Denyse, can we claim the modularity of language?
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Class 2 (9/23/02)
Introduction Continued
(1) Review of last class:

• Linguistics: the scientific study of human language.
• What constitutes our knowledge as a native speaker of language X?
• How do we acquire the knowledge?
(2) These facts about language acquisition point to the possibility of the following:
• Our language ability is biologically innate.
• Some grammatical structures are already hard-wired in our brain when we are
born. These form the Universal Grammar (UG), as termed by Chomsky.
• In a sense, the parts of the brain that are responsible for language processing can
be seen as the specialized “organs of language” in the same way legs can be seen
as “organs of walking” and eyes as “organs of vision”. And our ability to use
language is an instinct, like the instinct to walk and see.
• Children’s task in language-learning is to fill in the part of the grammar not
specified by UG. They acquire language the same way they acquire the ability to
walk.
(3) Modularity
• The claim: the brain is divided into distinct anatomical faculties that are directly
responsible for specific cognitive functions, including language.
• Q1: Given the claim, where will the crucial evidence come from?
Q2: If there is really a language module in the brain, what will we expect from
patients with brain damage? How many types of patients do you expect to
see?
Q3: If there is no language module, and language is simply a consequence of
general human intelligence, how many types of patients with brain damage
do you expect to see with respect to their language ability?
(4) Mr. Ford

• Stroke victim, damage to lower parts of the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere.
• Language severely impaired.
Interview with Howard Gardner, where Gardner asked about his work as a Coast
Guard radio operator.
“I’m a sig … no … man … uh, well, … again.” These words were emitted
slowly, and with great effort. The sounds were not clearly articulated; each
syllable was uttered harshly, explosively, in a throaty voice…
……
“Were you in the Coast Guard?”
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“No, er, yes, yes, … ship… Massachu … chusetts … Coast guard … years.” He
raised his hands twice, indicating the number “nineteen.”
“Oh, you were in the Coast Guard for nineteen years.”
“Oh … boy … right … right,” he replied.
“Why are you in the hospital, Mr. Ford?”
“Arm no good. Speech … can’t say … talk, you see.”
……
“Can you tell me, Mr. Ford, what you’ve been doing in the hospital?”
“Yes, sure. Me go, er, uh, P.T. nine o’ cot, speech … two times … read … wr …
ripe, er, rike, er, write … practice … get-ting better.”
➥ Omits endings like -ed, -s and grammatical function words like or, be, and the.
➥ Ok with content words, like oar, bee.
➥ Can name objects well.
➥ Understands “does a stone float on water?”—can deduce meaning from the
content words.
➥ Cannot answer questions like “The lion was killed by the tiger. Which one is
dead?”—requires grammatical analysis.
• Other cognitive abilities not affected.

➥ Nonverbal IQ in high average region.
➥ Fully aware of where he was and why he was there.
➥ Can calculate, read maps, set clocks, make constructions, carry out command.
• Can we claim that there is a language module solely by observing cases like Mr.
Ford?
(5) Denyse
• Born with “split spine”—leaves spinal cord unprotected, causes brain damage.
• Severely retarded:
➥ never learned reading or writing;
➥ cannot handle money or other daily functioning.
• Has unimpaired language development.
“I like opening cards. I had a pile of post this morning and not one of them was a
Christmas card. A bank statement I got this morning!”
“My mum works over at the, over on the ward and she said ‘not another bank
statement.’ I said ‘it’s the second one in two days.’ And she said ‘Do you want
me to go to the bank for you at lunchtime?’ and I went ‘No, I’ll go this time and
explain it myself.’ I tell you what, my bank are awful. They’ve lost my bank book,
you see, and I can’t find it anywhere. I belong to the TSB Bank and I’m thinking
of changing my bank ’cause they’re so awful.”
• With cases like Mr. Ford and Denyse, can we claim that there is a language
module?
(6) Let’s zoom in closer— language is controlled by the left hemisphere.

• Hemiplegic children
• Hemidecorticate children
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• Split-brain patients
• Dichotic listening
➥ Left hemisphere: better for language, rhythmic perception, temporal-order

judgments, mathematical thinking.
Right hemisphere: better for nonverbal stimulus, pattern matching, visuo-spatial
abilities.
• Right hemisphere is better for pitch perception. But what happens when pitch is
used linguistically?
Tone languages: Mandarin Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese etc.?
• Right hemisphere is better for spatial perception. But what happens in sign
language processing?
➥ Left hemisphere handles abstract rules, hierarchical structure of language, not just
sounds on the surface.
(7) Let’s zoom in even closer—Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area

• Mr. Ford’s aphasia: damage to lower parts of the frontal lobe in the left
hemisphere—Broca’s area.
➥ Characteristics of Broca’s aphasia:

• slow, labored speech;
• loss of function words;
• disturbed word order;
• ok with object-naming;
• ok in comprehension of speech.
• Wernicke’s area: back portion of the left hemisphere.
Interview between psycholinguist Howard Gardner and Wernicke’s aphasia

patient Mr. Gorgan:
Gardner: “What brings you to the hospital?”
Gorgan: “Boy, I’m sweating, I’m awful nervous, you know, once in a while I get
caught up, I can’t mention the tarripoi, a month ago, quite a little, I’ve done a lot
well, I impose a lot, while, on the other hand, you know what I mean, I have to
run around, look it over, trebbing and all that sort of stuff.”
Gardner: “Thank you, Mr. Gorgan. I want to ask you a few—“
Gorgan: “Oh sure, go ahead, any old think you want. If I could I would. Oh, I’m
taking the word the wrong way to say, all of the barbers here whenever they stop
you it’s going around and around, if you know what I mean, that is tying and
tying for repucer, repuceration, well, we were trying the best that we could while
another time it was with the beds over there the same thing…”
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➥ Characteristics of Wernicke’s aphasia:
• fluent stream of more or less grammatical sentences;
• speech makes little sense;
• has problems with object-naming/lexical selection;
• has serious comprehension problems.
• Q: What do the different charateristics of Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia tell us

about language in the brain?
• PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging):
• Locate which part of the brain is more active when speech is being produced
or processed—show there is a language module.
• Locate which part of the brain is more active when different aspects of the
grammar are being produced or processed—show language itself is modular.
• TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)
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Class 3 (9/25/02)
Last Introduction
(1) Language is controlled by the left hemisphere.

• Hemiplegic children
• Hemidecorticate children
• Split-brain patients
• Dichotic listening
➥ Left hemisphere: better for language, rhythmic perception, temporal-order

judgments, mathematical thinking.
Right hemisphere: better for nonverbal stimulus, pattern matching, visuo-spatial
abilities.
• Right hemisphere is better for pitch perception. But what happens when pitch is
used linguistically?
Tone languages: Mandarin Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese etc.
• Right hemisphere is better for spatial perception. But what happens in sign
language processing?
➥ Left hemisphere handles abstract rules, hierarchical structure of language, not just
sounds on the surface.
(2) Let’s zoom in even closer—Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area

• Mr. Ford’s aphasia: damage to lower parts of the frontal lobe in the left
hemisphere—Broca’s area.
➥ Characteristics of Broca’s aphasia:

• slow, labored speech;
• loss of function words;
• disturbed word order;
• ok with object-naming;
• ok in comprehension of speech.
• Wernicke’s area: back portion of the left hemisphere.
Interview between psycholinguist Howard Gardner and Wernicke’s aphasia

patient Mr. Gorgan:
Gardner: “What brings you to the hospital?”
Gorgan: “Boy, I’m sweating, I’m awful nervous, you know, once in a while I get
caught up, I can’t mention the tarripoi, a month ago, quite a little, I’ve done a lot
well, I impose a lot, while, on the other hand, you know what I mean, I have to
run around, look it over, trebbing and all that sort of stuff.”
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Gardner: “Thank you, Mr. Gorgan. I want to ask you a few—”
Gorgan: “Oh sure, go ahead, any old think you want. If I could I would. Oh, I’m
taking the word the wrong way to say, all of the barbers here whenever they stop
you it’s going around and around, if you know what I mean, that is tying and
tying for repucer, repuceration, well, we were trying the best that we could while
another time it was with the beds over there the same thing…”
➥ Characteristics of Wernicke’s aphasia:

• fluent stream of more or less grammatical sentences;
• speech makes little sense;
• has problems with object-naming/lexical selection;
• has serious comprehension problems.
• Q: What do the different charateristics of Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia tell us

about language in the brain?
• PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging):
• Locate which part of the brain is more active when speech is being produced
or processed—show there is a language module.
• Locate which part of the brain is more active when different aspects of the
grammar are being produced or processed—show language itself is modular.
• TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)
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Articulatory Phonetics
(3) We begin with the type of knowledge that involves the smallest unit—the
knowledge of sound structure.
Phonology—the study of the rule systems by which languages employ sounds. The
phonology of a language is the “grammar of sound” for that language.
• Tacit rules for how sounds vary in context.
• Tacit rules determining legal sequences of speech sounds.
• Tacit rules for rhythmic structure.
a. We know where the stresses are in Appalachian, Mississippi, obstreperous

and onomatopoetically.
b. We know the difference between 'permit and per'mit, 'pervert and per'vert,
'subject and sub'ject.
c. We know how to change the stress pattern when affixes are added.
diplomat diplomacy diplomatic

photograph photography photographic
monotone monotony monotonic
To better understand phonology, especially the “why” of phonology, we first need to

have some basic understanding of the speech sounds themselves.
(4) Phonetics—the scientific study of properties of sounds (that occur in human

languages).
The speech chain: speaker → atmosphere → hearer

| | |
3 branches of articulatory acoustic speech
phonetics: phonetics phonetics perception
| | |
how made physical how decoded
structure of
speech sounds,
as wave
Here, focus mostly on articulatory phonetics.
(5) How are speech sounds produced in general?

• Use the respiratory system to push air out of the lung.
• Air from the lungs goes up the windpipe (the trachea) and into the larynx, at
which point it passes between two small muscular folds (vocal cords, glottis).
voiceless vs. voiced
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• The air passages above the larynx are called the vocal tract. How many passage
ways are there in the vocal tract that can let the air out?
oral vs. nasal
• Ways to shape the air passage in the vocal tract to produce different sounds:
Î The size of the air passage.
Î Where to block the air.
(6) Consonants and vowels.

• Consonants: produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract when the
air is pushed out of the lungs.
• Vowels: articulators do not come very close together, and the passage of
airstream is relatively unobstructed.
(7) Places of articulation of consonants—where the air is blocked.
• Principal parts of upper surface of vocal tract:

lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate (velum), uvula, pharynx wall
Principal parts of lower surface of vocal tract:

lip, tongue tip, blade, front, center, back, root, epiglottis
• Bilabial: lower lip, upper lip.

The bilabial sounds in English are:
They are represented in English orthography by:
• Labiodental: bottom lip, upper teeth.

The labiodental sounds in English are:
• Dental: tongue tip, upper and lower teeth (or behind upper teeth)
The dental sounds in English are:
• Alveolar: tongue tip or blade, alveolar ridge.

The alveolar sounds in English are:
[l] is produced with the tongue raised to the alveolar ridge and the sides of the
tongue down, permitting the air to escape laterally over the sides of the
tongue.
• Palato-Alveolar (post-alveolar): tongue blade, back of the alveolar ridge.

The palato-alveolar sounds in English are: [S], [Z], [tS], [dZ].
[S]:
[Z]:
[tS]:
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[dZ]:
• Retroflex: tongue tip curled up, behind alveolar ridge before hard palate.
For some English speakers, orthographic r is a retroflex sound [®].
right, rye, row, hour, hire, air...
• Palatal: tongue center, hard palate.

Orthographic y and ll are sometimes a palatal sound [j].
y—year, young
ll—La Jolla, El Pollo Loco
• Velar: back of the tongue, soft palate (velum).

The velar sounds in English are:
• Uvular: back of the tongue, uvula.

English does not have uvular sounds. But languages like Hebrew and Quechua
do.
• Pharyngeal: tongue root, pharyngeal wall.

English does not have pharyngeal sounds. But languages like Hebrew and
Montana Salish do.
• Glottals: articulators in the vocal tract stay in relatively neutral position. When
the glottis is open—[h]; when the glottis is closed—[/].
English examples: [h]—house, who, hat.
[/]—button, Latin, bitten.
(8) Manner of articulation of consonants—how the air is blocked.

• Stops: sounds during whose production the air is completely stopped in the oral
tract for a brief period.
(a) [p], [t], [k], [b], [d], [g], [/] are obviously stops.
(b) What about [m], [n], [N]?
(c) What about [T], [D], [S], [Z], [h]?
(d) What about [tS], [dZ]?
(e) What about [l], [r], [j], [w]?
• Fricatives: the air passage during the production of these sounds is very narrow,
causing friction or turbulence.
[T], [D], [S], [Z], [h] are fricatives of English.
[T]: thatch [TœtS]
[D]: that [Dœt]
[S]: sheep [Sip]
[Z]: measure [mEZ„]
[h]: heat [hit]
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• Affricates: produced by a stop closure immediately followed by friction.
[tS] and [dZ] are affricates of English.
[tS]: chair [tSE®]
batch [bœtS]
[dZ]: jeep [dZip]
orange [O®ńdZ]
• Trills: tongue tip set in motion by the current of air, written as [r].
Some dialects of English, like Scottish English, have trills.
• Taps and Flaps: tongue makes a single quick contact with the alveolar ridge,
written as [|].
(a) butter, later, latter, ladder, writer, rider...
(b) dirty, sorting, party...
• Approximants: there is some obstruction of the airstream in the mouth, but not
enough to cause real constriction or friction.
(a) [l], [®], [j], and [w] are approximants of English.
(b) [l] is a lateral approximant.
(9) Summary for American English consonants:

Bilabial Labio- Dental Alveolar Palato- Retro- Palatal Velar Glotta
dental Alveolar flex l
Stop (oral) p b t d k g /
Stop (nasal) m n N
Tap or Flap |
Fricative f v T D s z S Z h
Affricate tS dZ
Approx. ∑ w ® j ∑ w
Lateral l
Approx.
[∑] represents some speakers’ pronunciation of the first sound in words like which.
These speakers distinguish which [∑ItS] from witch [wItS].
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Class 4 (9/30/02)
Articulatory Phonetics Continued
(1) Places of articulation of consonants—where the air is blocked.
• Principal parts of upper surface of vocal tract:

lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate (velum), uvula, pharynx wall
Principal parts of lower surface of vocal tract:

lip, tongue tip, blade, front, center, back, root, epiglottis
• Bilabial: lower lip, upper lip.

The bilabial sounds in English are:
• Labiodental: bottom lip, upper teeth.

The labiodental sounds in English are:
• Dental: tongue tip, upper and lower teeth (or behind upper teeth)
The dental sounds in English are:
• Alveolar: tongue tip or blade, alveolar ridge.

The alveolar sounds in English are:
[l] is produced with the tongue raised to the alveolar ridge and the sides of the
tongue down, permitting the air to escape laterally over the sides of the
tongue.
• Palato-Alveolar (post-alveolar): tongue blade, back of the alveolar ridge.

The palato-alveolar sounds in English are: [S], [Z], [tS], [dZ].
[S]:
[Z]:
[tS]:
[dZ]:
• Retroflex: tongue tip curled up, behind alveolar ridge before hard palate.
For some English speakers, orthographic r is a retroflex sound [®].
right, rye, row, hour, hire, air...
• Palatal: tongue center, hard palate.
Orthographic y and ll are sometimes a palatal sound [j].
y—year, young
ll—La Jolla, El Pollo Loco
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• Velar: back of the tongue, soft palate (velum).
The velar sounds in English are:
• Glottals: articulators in the vocal tract stay in relatively neutral position. When
the glottis is open—[h]; when the glottis is closed—[/].
English examples: [h]—house, who, hat.
[/]—button, Latin, bitten.
(2) Manner of articulation of consonants—how the air is blocked.

• Stops: sounds during whose production the air is completely stopped in the oral
tract for a brief period.
(a) [p], [t], [k], [b], [d], [g], [/] are obviously stops.
(b) What about [m], [n], [N]?
(c) What about [T], [D], [S], [Z], [h]?
(d) What about [tS], [dZ]?
(e) What about [l], [r], [j], [w]?
• Fricatives: the air passage during the production of these sounds is very narrow,
causing friction or turbulence.
[T], [D], [S], [Z], [h] are fricatives of English.
[T]: thatch [TœtS]
[D]: that [Dœt]
[S]: sheep [Sip]
[Z]: measure [mEZ„]
[h]: heat [hit]
• Affricates: produced by a stop closure immediately followed by friction.

[tS] and [dZ] are affricates of English.
[tS]: chair [tSE®]
batch [bœtS]
[dZ]: jeep [dZip]
orange [O®ńdZ]
• Trills: tongue tip set in motion by the current of air, written as [r].
Some dialects of English, like Scottish English, have trills.
• Taps and Flaps: tongue makes a single quick contact with the alveolar ridge,
written as [|].
(a) butter, later, latter, ladder, writer, rider...
(b) dirty, sorting, party...
• Approximants: there is some obstruction of the airstream in the mouth, but not
enough to cause real constriction or friction.
(a) [l], [®], [j], and [w] are approximants of English.
(b) [l] is a lateral approximant.
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(3) Summary for American English consonants:
Bilabial Labio- Dental Alveolar Palato- Retro- Palatal Velar Glotta
dental Alveolar flex l
Stop (oral) p b t d k g /
Stop (nasal) m n N
Tap or Flap |
Fricative f v T D s z S Z h
Affricate tS dZ
Approx. w ® j w
Lateral l
Approx.
(4) Tongue position of vowels.

• Vowels in English:
beet [i] boot [u]
bit [I] put [U]
bait [e] boat [o]
bet [E] bore [O]
bat [œ] bomb [A]
butt [ø] sofa [´]
• Position of the tongue in producing [i], [u], and [A].

(a) [i] and [u] are produced with the tongue very high in the mouth.
(b) In [i] the front of the tongue is raised; in [u] the back of the tongue is raised.
(c) [A] is produced with the back of the tongue lowered.
• Other vowels in relation to [i], [u], and [A].
(a) [I] and [U] in bit and put are similar to [i] and [u], but with slightly lowered
tongue position.
(b) [e] and [o] in bait and boat are produced by raising the tongue to a position
about midway between [i] and [A] and between [u] and [A] respectively.
(c) [E] and [O] in bet and bore are slightly lower than [e] and [o].
(d) [œ] in bat is produced with the front part of the tongue lowered. It’s lower yet
than [E] and [O].
(e) [ø] and [´] in butt and sofa are produced with the tongue close to the resting
position, i.e., not high, low, front, or back.
• [u], [U], [o], [O] are produced with the lips protruded. They are called rounded
vowels.
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(5) Summary of American English monophthongal vowels:
Part of the Tongue Involved
Tongue Height Front Central Back
High i beet boot u
I bit put U
Mid e bait boat o Rounded
E bet ´ sofa
ø butt bore O
Low œ bat bomb A
(6) Diphthongs in English.

• [aI] write [raIt] [OI] boy [bOI] [aU] bout [baUt]
bite [baIt] soil [sOI:] brow [braU]
• Sometimes linguists consider the vowels [e] and [o] in English to be

diphthongs [eI] and [oU] respectively.
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Class 5 (10/2/02)
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
(0) Homework: Fromkin p.480—11.1, 11.2; p.485—11.5; p.492—11.7, 11.8, 11.9;

p.514—11.16. Due 10/7 (Mon) in class.
(0)’ • Section classroom move: Boylston 104 → Boylston 103

• Need volunteers to go to the Robinson 107 section.
(1) Spelling and speech:

• Did he believe that Caesar could see the people seize the seas?
The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine.
• though, tough, bought, cough, through, bough

George Bernard Shaw’s joke about ghoti.
• A combination of letters may represent a single sound:

shoot character Thomas physics
either deal rough nation
coat glacial theater plain
• Some letters have no sound in certain words:

mnemonic whole resign ghost
pterodactyl write hole could
psychology sword debt gnaw
bough lamb island knot
• We are concerned with pronunciation, not orthography!

We need a system for writing the pronunciation—transcription.
—IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
(2) Purposes of IPA:

• show pronunciation in a dictionary;
• record a language in linguistic fieldwork;
• form the basis of a writing system for a language.
(3) Principles of IPA:

• a set of symbols for representing all the possible distinctive sounds in the
world’s languages; (about 90 consonants and 26 vowels)
• one symbol ⇔ one sound;
• use ordinary Roman letters as much as possible;
• use of diacritics for suprasegmentals, minute shades of a sound.
→ economy of the system
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(4) Some IPA symbols for non-English sounds
• Stops: p’, t’, k’ (ejectives)
∫, Î, ƒ (implosives)
• Trills: ı, R
• Clicks: >, ˘, <, ¯, ≤
• Vowels: y, P, {, ¨, Ø
(5) Some useful IPA diacritics

• aspirated Ó noise in the glottis, especially at end of consonant ([pÓ])
• nasalized ) air flows through nose as well as through mouth ([a)])
• long … longer duration ([a…])
• voiceless 9 partial or no vocal cord vibration in an otherwise voiced
sound ([l9])
• unreleased } release of consonant as mouth opens not heard ([d}])
• rhoticity ± r-coloring ([„])
• dental 1 upper teeth used as passive articulator ([d1])
• syllabic ` a syllable without a vowel ([®`]).
(6) Suprasegmentals and how they are marked in IPA

• Stress:
"permit per"mit
"pervert per"vert
"subject sub"ject
"content con"tent
ÆAppa"lachian, ÆMissi"ssippi, ob"streperous, ÆonoÆmato"poetically
• Tone:
Mandarin: ßoUâ ‘to collect’
ßoUü ‘ripe’
ßoUÄ ‘hand’
ßoUë ‘thin’
• Intonation:
Ã ã
That’s a cat. That’s a cat?
a. ‘Who’s over there?’

‘Laura.’
b. Question = ‘Did you say Laura?’
c. Calling Laura’s name when she’s far away.
d. Reprimand: ‘How could you have done that?’
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Laboratory Studies of Phonetics
ARTICULATORY INFORMATION FROM THE LAB
(7) Static Palatography:

• Purpose: to study the region of upper surface of vocal tract or tongue contacted
for a certain speech sound.
• Method: paint palate OR tongue with mixture of charcoal and olive oil. When
tongue touches palate, the coated surface transfers coating to the other surface.
• Palatogram: paint tongue, data from palate. Need mirror.
• Linguogram: paint palate, data from tongue.
• Any precautions?
a. If you are interested in the difference in place of articulation between [s] and
[S] in English, should you use sop-shop or sot-shot?
b. Anything about the vowel contexts?
(8) Dynamic Palatography—Electropalatography (EPG)

• Subject wears a custom-made pseudo-palate that has electrodes embedded in its
surface.
• When an electrode is contacted, a circuit is completed, current flows, and the
contact is recorded.
• The information is sampled over time (typically 40-200Hz, i.e., every 25-5 msecs)
• Advantages over static palatography: quantitative, time-varying information.
• Disadvantages: expensive (around $1,300 per speaker), pseudo palate might alter
speech.
(9) Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA)

• Purpose: to track articulator movements over time during speech production using
alternating electromagnetic fields.
• Physical principle the device is based on: the electromagnetic field strength in a
receiver is inversely proportional to the cube of its distance from a transmitter.
• Method:
a. Three transmitter coils placed equidistant from one another so that they
generate a radially symmetric alternating electromagnetic field at different
frequencies.
b. A number of receiver coils (sensors) placed on the subject’s articulators
(tongue, jaw, lips and teeth) along the midsagittal plane.
c. The induced voltages on receiver coils are sampled at a high frequency.
d. These voltages provide a measure of each receiver’s distance from each
transmitter.
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e. The Cartesian coordinates of each receiver can be calculated as the point
where the radii of three circles from the three transmitters intersect.
(10) Other means of studying the vocal tract:

• X-ray.
• Ultrasound.
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
(11) Articulatory study of the larynx.

• Fiberscopic laryngoscope.
• Electroglottography (EGG).
a. Purpose: to study vocal fold behavior such as f0, closed and open quotients,
non-invasive.
b. Method: place a set of skin electrodes on both sides of the larynx; glottis open
→ increased impedance; glottis closed → decreased impedance.
AERODYNAMIC INFORMATION FROM THE LAB
(12) Using flow masks to collect aerodynamic data:

• Purpose: to study timing, magnitude or aspiration, nasalization, frication, etc. To
infer articulatory information when such information is hard to collect (e.g.,
movement of velum).
• Method: flow masks (separate masks for oral and nasal, or one mask with split
channels). A pressure transducer translates pressure to electrical volt.
ACOUSTIC INFORMATION FROM THE LAB
(13) Source and filter:

• Source: vocal fold vibration—f0 and high frequencies that are multiples of f0.
• Filter: vocal tract—amplifies certain frequency components and weakens others
depending on its configuration.
(14) Spectrogram and waveform:

• A spectrogram is a graph representation showing frequency, amplitude and time
information.
• A waveform is a graph showing the amplitude of variation of air pressure of a
specific point in a time course.
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Class 6 (10/7/02)
Laboratory Studies of Phonetics
ARTICULATION
(1) Static Palatography:

• Purpose: to study the region of upper surface of vocal tract or tongue contacted
for a certain speech sound.
• Method: paint palate OR tongue with mixture of charcoal and olive oil. When
tongue touches palate, the coated surface transfers coating to the other surface.
• Palatogram: paint tongue, data from palate. Need mirror.
• Linguogram: paint palate, data from tongue.
• Any precautions?
a. If you are interested in the difference in place of articulation between [s] and
[S] in English, should you use sop-shop or sot-shot?
b. Anything about the vowel contexts?
(2) Dynamic Palatography—Electropalatography (EPG)

• Subject wears a custom-made pseudo-palate that has electrodes embedded in its
surface.
• When an electrode is contacted, a circuit is completed, current flows, and the
contact is recorded.
• The information is sampled over time (typically 40-200Hz, i.e., every 25-5 msecs)
• Advantages over static palatography: quantitative, time-varying information.
• Disadvantages: expensive (around $1,300 per speaker), pseudo palate might alter
speech.
(3) Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA)

• Purpose: to track articulator movements over time during speech production using
alternating electromagnetic fields.
• Physical principle the device is based on: the electromagnetic field strength in a
receiver is inversely proportional to the cube of its distance from a transmitter.
• Method:
a. Three transmitter coils placed equidistant from one another so that they
generate a radially symmetric alternating electromagnetic field at different
frequencies.
b. A number of receiver coils (sensors) placed on the subject’s articulators
(tongue, jaw, lips and teeth) along the midsagittal plane.
c. The induced voltages on receiver coils are sampled at a high frequency.
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d. These voltages provide a measure of each receiver’s distance from each
transmitter.
e. The Cartesian coordinates of each receiver can be calculated as the point
where the radii of three circles from the three transmitters intersect.
(4) Other means of studying the vocal tract:

• X-ray.
• Ultrasound.
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
(5) Articulatory study of the larynx.

• Fiberscopic laryngoscope.
• Electroglottography (EGG).
a. Purpose: to study vocal fold behavior such as f0, closed and open quotients,
non-invasive.
b. Method: place a set of skin electrodes on both sides of the larynx; glottis open
→ increased impedance; glottis closed → decreased impedance.
AERODYNAMICS
(6) Using flow masks to collect aerodynamic data:

• Purpose: to study timing, magnitude or aspiration, nasalization, frication, etc. To
infer articulatory information when such information is hard to collect (e.g.,
movement of velum).
• Method: flow masks (separate masks for oral and nasal, or one mask with split
channels). A pressure transducer translates pressure to electrical volt.
ACOUSTICS
(7) Source and filter:

• Source: vocal fold vibration—f0 and high frequencies that are multiples of f0.
• Filter: vocal tract—amplifies certain frequency components and weakens others
depending on its configuration.
(8) Spectrogram and waveform:

• A spectrogram is a graph representation showing frequency, amplitude and time
information.
• A waveform is a graph showing the amplitude of variation of air pressure of a
specific point in a time course.
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Static Palatography Setup
Page 27
Palatogram
Page 28
Linguogram
Page 29
More Linguogram
Page 30
Pseudo-Palate for EPG
Page 31
EPG Data Display
Page 32
EPG Study of French
• Ui Paul aime Tata. Nadia les protége en secret.
‘Paul loves Tata. Nadia protects them in secret.’
• IPi La pauvre Tata, Nadia et Paul n'arriveront que demain.

‘Poor Tata, Nadia and Paul will arrive only tomorrow.’
• APi Tonton, Tata, Nadia et Paul arriveront demain.

‘Tonton, Tata, Nadia and Paul will arrive tomorrow.’
• Wi Paul et Tata-Nadia arriveront demain matin.

‘Paul and Tata-Nadia will arrive tomorrow morning.’
• Si Tonton et Anabelle arriveront demain matin.

‘Tonton and Anabelle will arrive tomorrow morning.’
Page 33
French Result
Page 34
EMA Principle
Page 35
EMA Setup
10
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Receiver Coil Placement
11
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You think this is easy?
12
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EMA Data
Croatian: Kuda Mimi pada?’ (‘Where does Mimi fall?’)
13
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Laryngoscopic Data on Vocal Cords
14
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EGG Principle
15
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EGG Setup
16
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Aerodynamic Equipment
17
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Aerodynamic Study Setup
18
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Aerodynamic Data
[wo ßwo cÇiN ÊßØ kØ tsÈ]
audio
D
oral flow
gi
g1
gn
nasal flow fn
f1
fi
ms 250 500 750 1000 1250
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Acoustics: Spectrogram
20
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Acoustics: More spectrogram
21
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Acoustics: More spectrogram
22
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Acoustics: Pitch
23
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Mandarin Tones
1 2 3 4
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Class 7 (10/9/02)
Phonology
(1) Phonetics vs. phonology

• Phonetics studies the events of speech close to the level of observability: what is
happening? (articulation, acoustics, aerodynamics, perception)
• Phonology studies the rule systems by which languages employ sound. The
phonology of a language is the grammar of its sounds.
(2) Phonological knowledge is rule-governed

• The Null Hypothesis:
No phonological component of the grammar is necessary. Syntactic and
morphological rules, which specifies the order of the morphemes in the sentence,
and the lexicon, which specifies the pronunciation of each morpheme, jointly
produce the pronunciation of each sentence.
• English plural morpheme:

dog[z] cat[s] match[Iz]
day[z] book[s] bus[Iz]
bird[z] cap[s] orang[Iz]
dam[z] lip[s] languag[Iz]
nun[z] task[s] ax[Iz]
lung[z] bat[s] nos[Iz]
→ Morpheme memorization?
→ Word memorization?
What’s the plural form for [wug], [fip], [nIs]?
• Chukchee (Paleo-Siberian, spoken on Kamchatka Peninsula in Eastern Siberia)

Stem Locative Gloss (Locative ≈ ‘the location of’)
quli quli-gjit ‘voice’
milute milute-gjit ‘rabbit’
jara jara-gjet ‘tent’
wopqa wopqa-gjet ‘moose’
Incorporation:
n´-mejŃ-qin galgajN-ń ‘big bird’
majŃ-galgajN-ń ‘big bird’
n´-teN-qin aacek ‘noble youth’
taN-aacek ‘noble youth’
jejvel ‘orphan’
jajval-aacek ‘orphaned youth’
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• Idiosyncratic properties vs. systematic regularities: in cat [kÓœt], the velarity of
the first sound vs. the aspiration of the first sound.
Motivation for the differences between the two:

a. Second language learning:
What often happens to English learners of French: pas → [pÓa], *[ta], *[ka].
b. Slips of the tongue—psychological reality of systematic regularities:

tail spin [tÓeIl spIn] → [pÓeIl stIn]
(3) Two kinds of phonological knowledge we’ll be focusing on:

• Allophonic variation of a phoneme. E.g., [pÓ] vs. [p] in English.
• Morpheme alternation. E.g., [z], [s], [Iz] for plural in English.
(4) Phonemic distinction, Contrast

• Two sounds contrast if they can be used to distinguish words.
• They belong to two different phonemes in the language.
• In a sense, phonemes are the basic sounds of a language.
(5) Minimal pairs

• A minimal pair is a set of two distinct words differing in only a single sound.
• Minimal pairs establish a contrast.
• Analogy of scientific experiments: keep everything constant, except what you’re
investigating.
Sibyl s I b ´ l
civil s I v ´ l
• Can you think of other pairs of words like these?
(6) Minimal 17-tuplet for English consonants

[p] pail [t] tail [tÉS] — [k] kale
[b] bail [d] dale [dÉZ] jail [g] gale
[f] fail [T] — [s] sale [S] shale [h] hail
[v] veil [D] — [z] — [Z] —
[m] male [n] nail [N] —
[l] —
[®] rail
[w] wail [j] Yale
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In general, the missing words in the chart (shown with —) are potential, if
nonexistent, English words. (How would you spell them?) Are there any missing
forms that are not potential English words?
(7) Phonemes vary

• Variants of phonemes are called allophones.
• The variation is predictable, and can be analyzed by means of phonological rules.
• [t] and [tÓ] in English:

stop [stAp] took [tÓUk]
stool [stu:] tool [tÓu:]
step [stEp] tame [tÓem]
steep [stip] tone [tÓon]
• Zoque (American Indian, Mexico)

pata ‘mat’ ngjunu ‘you fell’
tatah ‘father’ liNba ‘he slashes’
kunu ‘he fell’ kenba ‘he sees’
kaN ‘jaguar’ mjaNdamu ‘you came’
kama ‘cornfield’
What positions can the voiced stops [b, d, g] occur in?
Can voiceless stops [p, t, k] occur in these positions?
Why?
(8) Complementary distribution

• Phones X and Y are in complementary distribution if no X’s occur in any of the
environments in which Y’s occur.
• Complementary distribution implies there could be no minimal pair to
differentiate these phones.
• Thus, if there’s complementary distribution, there cannot be contrast.
(9) Languages have different phonemic systems

• They may have different sets of phonemes.
• They may have different allophones for phonemes.
• Two sounds can be allophones in one language, distinct phonemes in another.
➥ Methods are needed to figure out the phonemic system of a particular language.
(10) [t,tÉS,d,dÉZ] in Papago (or Tohono O’odham, Uto-Aztecan, Arizona)

• What is the status of these four sounds in Papago?
• Hint: make a vowel chart first.
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a. [»bidÉZim] ‘turn around’ l. [»hˆwgid] ‘smell’
b. [»ta˘pan] ‘split’ m.[»tÉSihaN] ‘hire’
c. [»hidoÍ] ‘cook’ n. [»to¯i] ‘become hot’
d. [»tÉSˆkid] ‘vaccinate’ o. [»wiÍut] ‘swing’
e. [»gatwid] ‘shoot’ p. [»ta˘taÍ] ‘feet’
f. [»tÉSuku] ‘become black’ q. [»ki˘tÉSud] ‘build a house for’
g. [»dagßp] ‘press with hand’ r. [»do˘dom] ‘copulate’
h. [»toha] ‘become white’ s. [»ta˘tam] ‘touch’
i. [»dÉZu˘ki] ‘rain (noun)’ t. [»dÉZˆwˆd] ‘soil, earth’
j. [¥wˆ˘mt] ‘help, marry’ u. [¥td5ˆ˘gig] ‘name, reputation’
k. [¥ddZˆ˘k] ‘taste’ v. [¥td5i˘wia] ‘settle, establish residence’
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Class 8 (10/16/02)
Phonemic Analysis
(1) Review of last class: phonological knowledge is rule-governed.

• English plural morpheme realization.
• Chukchee incorporation.
• Idiosyncratic properties vs. systematic regularities.
• Idiosyncratic properties and systematic regularities correspond to two kinds of
sound differences—phonemic (or contrastive) vs. allophonic.
• Two sounds are in phonemic distinction (or two sounds contrast) if they can be
used to distinguish words. Contrasts can be established through minimal pairs.
(2) Minimal 17-tuplet for English consonants

[p] pail [t] tail [tÉS] — [k] kale
[b] bail [d] dale [dÉZ] jail [g] gale
[f] fail [T] — [s] sale [S] shale [h] hail
[v] veil [D] — [z] — [Z] —
[m] male [n] nail [N] —
[l] —
[®] rail
[w] wail [j] Yale
In general, the missing words in the chart (shown with —) are potential, if
nonexistent, English words. (How would you spell them?) Are there any missing
forms that are not potential English words?
(3) Phonemes vary—systematic regularities

• Variants of phonemes are called allophones.
• The variation is predictable, and can be analyzed by means of phonological rules.
• [t] and [tÓ] in English:

stop [stAp] took [tÓUk]
stool [stu:] tool [tÓu:]
step [stEp] tame [tÓem]
steep [stip] tone [tÓon]
• Zoque (American Indian, Mexico)

pata ‘mat’ ngjunu ‘you fell’
tatah ‘father’ liNba ‘he slashes’
kunu ‘he fell’ kenba ‘he sees’
kaN ‘jaguar’ mjaNdamu ‘you came’
kama ‘cornfield’
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What positions can the voiced stops [b, d, g] occur in?
Can voiceless stops [p, t, k] occur in these positions?
Why?
(4) Complementary distribution

• Phones X and Y are in complementary distribution if no X’s occur in any of the
environments in which Y’s occur.
• Complementary distribution implies there could be no minimal pair to
differentiate these phones.
• Thus, if there’s complementary distribution, there cannot be contrast.
(5) Languages have different phonemic systems

• They may have different sets of phonemes.
• They may have different allophones for phonemes.
• Two sounds can be allophones in one language, distinct phonemes in another.
➥ Methods are needed to figure out the phonemic system of a particular language.
(6) [t,tÉS,d,dÉZ] in Papago (or Tohono O’odham, Uto-Aztecan, Arizona)

• What is the status of these four sounds in Papago?
• Hint: make a vowel chart first.
a. [»bidÉZim] ‘turn around’ l. [»hˆwgid] ‘smell’

b. [»ta˘pan] ‘split’ m.[»tÉSihaN] ‘hire’
c. [»hidoÍ] ‘cook’ n. [»to¯i] ‘become hot’
d. [»tÉSˆkid] ‘vaccinate’ o. [»wiÍut] ‘swing’
e. [»gatwid] ‘shoot’ p. [»ta˘taÍ] ‘feet’
f. [»tÉSuku] ‘become black’ q. [»ki˘tÉSud] ‘build a house for’
g. [»dagßp] ‘press with hand’ r. [»do˘dom] ‘copulate’
h. [»toha] ‘become white’ s. [»ta˘tam] ‘touch’
i. [»dÉZu˘ki] ‘rain (noun)’ t. [»dÉZˆwˆd] ‘soil, earth’
j. [¥wˆ˘mt] ‘help, marry’ u. [¥td5ˆ˘gig] ‘name, reputation’
k. [¥ddZˆ˘k] ‘taste’ v. [¥td5i˘wia] ‘settle, establish residence’
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(7) The vowel system of Papago
front central back
unrounded rounded
high i, i˘ ˆ, ˆ˘ u, u˘
mid o, o˘
low a, a˘
(8) The consonants

labial alveolar palato-alveolar retroflex palatal velar glottal
voiceless stops p t k
voiced stops b d Í g
voiceless affricates tÉS
voiced affricates dÉZ
voiceless fricatives s ß h
nasals m n ¯ N
liquids R
glides w j
(9) The data sorted by immediate context

t tÉ S d dÉZ
b,p,s [word ___a˘ m [word ___ i c i ___ o a i ___ i
h,n [word ___ o d [word ___ ˆ d,e,l i ___ ]word i [word ___ u˘
o u ___ ]word f [word ___ u o u ___ ]word k [word ___ ˆ˘
e a ___ w q i˘ ___ u g [word ___ a t [word ___ ˆ
p,s a˘ ___ a u,v [word ___ ˆ˘ r [word ___ o˘
j m ___ ]word r o˘ ___ o
t ˆ ___ ]word
(10) Some points that emerge

• Parallel behavior of phonetically similar sounds.
• Appearance of allophones that occur as separate phonemes in other languages (for
example, English).
(11) Formalizing to achieve generality

• Assume underlying /t,d/: these are what you get if no rule perturbs the basic
pattern. In general: the elsewhere allophone is set up as underlying form.
• State the rule as simply as possible, leaving out whatever is not needed (always do
a post-check on this point).
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• It’s good to give rules names, for easy reference. Improvise a name if you are not
sure of standard terminology.
Alveolar Palatalization
stop     
  → affricate  / ___ vowel
alveolar palato-alveolar high 
(12) Notation
X
 
a. C = consonant b. Y = “segment having the phonetic features X, Y and Z”
Z 
V = vowel
c. / = “in the environment”

/ ___ X = “in the environment before X”
/ X ___ = “in the environment after X”
(13) Phonemic representations

• These show the underlying representation of the phoneme, which is what you
have before rules apply.
• They are traditionally written in slant brackets: / /
[»bidÉZim] = /»bidim/ [»ta˘pan] = /»ta˘pan/
(14) Illustrative derivations

‘split’ ‘vaccinate’ ‘press’ ‘turn around’
Underlying forms: /»ta˘pan/ /»tˆkid/ /»dagßp/ /»bidim/
Alveolar Palatalization: — »tSˆkid — »bidZim
Surface forms: [»ta˘pan] [»tSˆkid] [»dagßp] [»bidZim]
(15) The “why” of alveolar palatalization

• It is common for alveolars to affricate before high vowels. Examples: Japanese,
Quebec French, Cockney English.
• High vowels have a narrow air channel, and when a /t/ is released into a high
vowel, the burst is noisy (say [ti], [ta] to yourself to check). Affrication is
possibly an exaggeration of this natural effect, for the purpose of rendering the /t/
more audibly distinct from “quieter” stops like /p,k/.
• Sometimes affrication can change the point of articulation.
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Class 9 (10/21/02)
Phonemic Analysis Continued
(1) The generalization for Papago:

“The palato-alveolar affricates occur before high vowels, and the alveolar stops
occur elsewhere.”
(2) Some points that emerge

• Parallel behavior of phonetically similar sounds.
• Appearance of allophones that occur as separate phonemes in other languages (for
example, English).
(3) Formalizing to achieve generality

• Assume underlying /t,d/: these are what you get if no rule perturbs the basic
pattern. In general: the elsewhere allophone is set up as underlying form.
• State the rule as simply as possible, leaving out whatever is not needed.
• It’s good to give rules names, for easy reference. Improvise a name if you are not
sure of standard terminology.
Alveolar Palatalization
stop  affricate  vowel

     
alveolar → palato-alveolar / ___ high 
(4) Notation
X
 
a. C = consonant b. Y = “segment having the phonetic features X, Y and Z”
Z 
V = vowel
c. / = “in the environment”

/ ___ X = “in the environment before X”
/ X ___ = “in the environment after X”
(5) Phonemic representations

• These show the underlying representation of the phoneme, which is what you
have before rules apply.
• They are traditionally written in slant brackets: / /
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UR of [»bidÉZim] = /»bidim/ UR of [»ta˘pan] = /»ta˘pan/
(6) Illustrative derivations

‘split’ ‘vaccinate’ ‘press’ ‘turn around’
Underlying forms: /»ta˘pan/ /»tˆkid/ /»dagßp/ /»bidim/
Alveolar Palatalization: — »tSˆkid — »bidZim
Surface forms: [»ta˘pan] [»tSˆkid] [»dagßp] [»bidZim]
(7) The “why” of alveolar palatalization

• It is common for alveolars to affricate before high vowels. Examples: Japanese,
Quebec French, Cockney English.
• High vowels have a narrow air channel, and when a /t/ is released into a high
vowel, the burst is noisy (say [ti], [ta] to yourself to check). Affrication is
possibly an exaggeration of this natural effect, for the purpose of rendering the /t/
more audibly distinct from “quieter” stops like /p,k/.
• Sometimes affrication can change the point of articulation.
(8) The “why” of allophones in general

• Ease of articulation.
/aI/ Raising: /aI/ → [√I] / ___ [-voice]
Nasalization: V → [+nasal] / ___ [C, +nasal]
/s/ Palatalization: /s/ → [sÉS] / ___ S (optional)

Chris Schaefer, Russ Schuh, miss Sheila
• To make a phoneme more perceptually distinct from the other phonemes in a

particular context.
Alveolar palatalization in Papago
Pre-/w/ Affrication: /t/ → [tS] / ___ w in twin, twine, twice...
• Helping out a neighbor.
/bit/ /bid/ Underlying forms

i( — Vowel Shortening: V → [short] / ___ [-voice]
— z8 Final Devoicing: [-son] → [-voice] / ___]word
[bi(t] [bid8] Surface forms
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(9) Rule ordering
Often it is crucial to apply the rules in a particular order.
Yana (American Indian, Hokan, Upper Sacramento Valley, California):

Final Vowel Devoicing: V → [-voice] / ___ ]word
Voicing Assimilation: C → [-voice] / ___ [-voice]
/aba/ → [apa•]
The Phonetic Similarity Principle
(10) Sounds that are accidentally in complementary distribution

/h/ occurs: initially: hear [hi®], Horatio [h´»®eÉISioÉU]
after consonants: adhere [´d»hI®]
medially before stress: ahead [´»hEd], prohibit [p®oÉU»hIbˆt]
/N/ occurs: finally: sing [sIN], willing [»wIlIN]

before consonants: Bingley [»bINli], hunger [»h√Ng‘]
medially before unstressed: singer [»sIN‘], thingy [»TINi], Singapore
[»sIN´«pHç®]
(11) Ignore complementary distribution here—The Phonetic Similarity Principle

[h] and [N] are never felt by speakers to be the “same sound”.
Plausibly, this is because they are fantastically different phonetically.
Conclusion: in phonemic analysis, we should be reluctant to group phonetically-

dissimilar sounds into phonemes.
(12) What is the cut-off point?

Bruce Hayes (UCLA Linguistics Professor) and his 4-year old son Peter Hayes:
BH: “Please say [kHæ/t|] backwards.”

PH: “[tHæ/k|]”
BH: “Please say [fI…] backwards.”
PH: “[…If]. ([dæ|i kˆn wi stAp duIN DIs naÉU]?)”
A couple years later: “[lIf]”
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Class 10 (10/23/02)
The Phonetic Similarity Principle
(0) Midterm postponed to Nov 6 (Wed).
(1) Sounds that are accidentally in complementary distribution

/h/ occurs: initially: hear [hi®], Horatio [h´»®eÉISioÉU]
after consonants: adhere [´d»hI®]
medially before stress: ahead [´»hEd], prohibit [p®oÉU»hIbˆt]
/N/ occurs: finally: sing [sIN], willing [»wIlIN]

before consonants: Bingley [»bINli], hunger [»h√Ng‘]
medially before unstressed: singer [»sIN‘], thingy [»TINi], Singapore
[»sIN´«pHç®]
(2) Ignore complementary distribution here—The Phonetic Similarity Principle

[h] and [N] are never felt by speakers to be the “same sound”.
Plausibly, this is because they are fantastically different phonetically.
Conclusion: in phonemic analysis, we should be reluctant to group phonetically-

dissimilar sounds into phonemes.
(3) What is the cut-off point?

Bruce Hayes (UCLA Linguistics Professor) and his 4-year old son Peter Hayes:
BH: “Please say [kHæ/t|] backwards.”

PH: “[tHæ/k|]”
BH: “Please say [fI…] backwards.”
PH: “[…If]. ([dæ|i kˆn wi stAp duIN DIs naÉU]?)”
A couple years later: “[lIf]”
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Morphology and Alternation
(4)A little bit of morphology

• Derivational rules: form new words from old.
• Inflectional rules: add morphology that is relevant to the syntax (number,

gender, tense, person, etc.).
(5) Persian (Farsi) verbs (formal style)

[»mixQRQm] ‘I buy’ [xQ»RidQm] ‘I bought’
[»mixQRi] ‘you (sg.) buy’ [xQ»Ridi] ‘you (sg.) bought’
[»mixQRQd] ‘(s)he buys’ [xQ»Rid] ‘(s)he bought’
[»mixQRim] ‘we buy’ [xQ»Ridim] ‘we bought’
[»mixQRid] ‘you (pl.) buy’ [xQ»Ridid] ‘you (pl.) bought’
[»mixQRQnd] ‘they buy’ [xQ»RidQnd] ‘they bought’
(6) Categories that are often inflectional

• Verbs: tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, person
• Nouns: number, gender, case
• Adjectives: number, gender (in agreement with nouns they modify)
(7) Commonplace relative ordering of derivation and inflection

• English:
Darwinians, *Darwin-s-ian, *Darwin-ian-s-ism.
class-ifi-es, *class-es-ify.
• Tolkapaya (Yuman, Arizona):

Paa’’úuvchma ‘we see them’
Paa- ’- ’úu -v -ch -ma
pl. obj. 1st sub. look -able pl. sub. non-future
(8) The phonological material of morphology classified

• Suffixation
• Prefixation
• and…
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(9) Kharia (Munda, India)
[bhore] ‘be full’ [bhobre] ‘fill’
[Íoko] ‘sit’ [Íobko] ‘seatV’
[remag] ‘call’ [rebmag] ‘make someone call’
[tÉSuwe] ‘leak’ [tÉSubwe] ‘cause to leak’
(10) Chickasaw (Muskogean, Oklahoma)

[tSokma] ‘he is good’ [iktSokmo] ‘he isn’t good’
[lakna] ‘it is yellow’ [iklakno] ‘it isn’t yellow’
[palli] ‘it is hot’ [ikpallo] ‘it isn’t hot’
[tiwwi] ‘he opens (it)’ [iktiwwo] ‘he doesn’t open (it)’
(11) The ordering of morphological and phonological rules

The central question:
Do morphological rules concatenate phonemic or allophonic representations?
(12) Some morphological rules of English

/mIs-/ + V → V Meaning: ‘to Verb in a bad way’
V + /-„/ → N Meaning: ‘one who Verbs’
X → XIN when [verb, +present participle]
(13) Two phonological rules of English (approx.)

• /l/ Devoicing: /l/ → [-voice] / [-voice] ___
slice [sl8aIs] clinch [kÓl8IntÉS] acclimate [QkÓl8´meIt]

blind [blaInd] glitch [glItÉS] igloo [Iglu]
• /l/ Darkening: /l/ → […] / ___ ]word
fall [fO…] will [wI…] tell [tÓE…] Al [Q…]

loft [lçft] limb [lIm] allow [´»laU] alloy [»QlçI]
(14) Some words that illustrate the interaction of phonology and morphology
fall [fO…] falling [fOlIN]
call [kÓO…] caller [kÓOl„]
lead [lid] mislead [mIsl•id]
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(15) Definitions
• A morpheme alternates if it takes on different forms in different environments.
• Allomorph = one of the different forms of a morpheme
• A phoneme alternates if it is the “changing part” of an alternating morpheme.
(16) Interaction of morphology and phonology

• Morphological rules normally precede phonological rules.
• Therefore morphemes alternate (reason: morphological rules put them in
different environments, so different phonological rules apply)
• Therefore morphology is a useful area of “experimentation” for exploring the
phonological rule system.
The Organization of Grammar, Briefly
(17) Does syntax also set up environments for phonology?

a. in Buffalo e. in the subway
b. on Park St. f. ten things
c. one fish, two fish g. on Causeway St.
d. can violets grow here? h. on Garden St.
(18) Componential organization

Component: a rule system of language largely independent of other components.
Conjectured components: syntactic, semantic, derivational morphology, inflectional

morphology, phonological, phonetic.
I. Derivational morphology: extracts words from the lexicon:
/bIl/N ‘name’
/lid/V ‘go before’
/kçl/V ‘...’
/Iz/V,Aux ‘copula’
etc.
Forms new words with morphological rules.
II. Syntax: concatenates words to form sentences; also assigns morphological

features, e.g., [ddZ¡mp][Verb, +3rd person, -plural, +present] (semantic component assigns the
meaning)
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III. Inflectional morphology: creates inflected forms of the words (example:
[ddZ¡mp][Verb, +3rd person, -plural, +present] → [[ddZ¡mp]z])
IV. Phonology: phonological rules apply in order to derive phonetic form
V. Phonetics: converts phonological representations to articulatory and perceptual

representations
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Class 11 (10/28/02)
The Organization of Grammar, Briefly
(1) Does syntax also set up environments for phonology?

a. in Buffalo e. in the subway
b. on Park St. f. ten things
c. one fish, two fish g. on Causeway St.
d. can violets grow here? h. on Garden St.
(2) Componential organization

Component: a rule system of language largely independent of other components.
Conjectured components: syntactic, semantic, derivational morphology, inflectional

morphology, phonological, phonetic.
I. Derivational morphology: extracts words from the lexicon:
/bIl/N ‘name’
/lid/V ‘go before’
/kçl/V ‘...’
/Iz/V,Aux ‘copula’
etc.
Forms new words with morphological rules.
II. Syntax: concatenates words to form sentences; also assigns morphological

features, e.g., [ddZ¡mp][Verb, +3rd person, -plural, +present] (semantic component assigns the
meaning)
III. Inflectional morphology: creates inflected forms of the words (example:

[ddZ¡mp][Verb, +3rd person, -plural, +present] → [[ddZ¡mp]z])
IV. Phonology: phonological rules apply in order to derive phonetic form
V. Phonetics: converts phonological representations to articulatory and perceptual

representations
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Neutralization
(3) Some Japanese verb paradigms ([u] = [µB])

negative volitional present past
a. Sin-anai Sin-itai Sin-u Sin-da ‘die’
b. in-anai in-itai in-u in-da ‘go back’ (archaic Japanese)
c. sum-anai sum-itai sum-u sun-da ‘live’

d. jom-anai jom-itai jom-u jon-da ‘read’
e. kam-anai kam-itai kam-u kan-da ‘bite, chew’
f. um-anai um-itai um-u un-da ‘produce (as of children)’
g. tanom-anai tanom-itai tanom-u tanon-da ‘ask’
(4) Testimony of one native speaker: The neutralizing direction

Linguist: “Let’s set up a scenario, with the idea of imagining a word that is true, real
Japanese, but just happens to be a word you don’t know. Imagine that we go out to
the countryside near Tokyo, and find an elderly farmer who remembers all the old
traditional ways. He shows you a particular method of irrigating the fields, uses the
word for this, as it happens, in the negative form. The word is [tamanai]. Later you
return to Tokyo, and want to use this verb in the past tense, in talking to others about
your visit. How do you say the past tense of [tamanai]?’
Consultant:
Linguist: “Let’s continue the scenario. The farmer shows you a particular way of
putting a bell on a cow. In the negative, this is [tananai]. What is the past?”
Consultant:
(5) The anti-neutralizing direction

Linguist: [same scenario] “… The farmer shows you a particular method of
preparing seeds for planting, and uses the word for this, as it happens, in the past
tense. The word is [kinda]. Later you return to Tokyo, and want to use this verb in
the present tense, in talking to others about your visit. How do you say the present
tense of [kinda]?’
Both consultants:
Linguist: “Would [kimu] also be ok?
Both consultants:
(6) How should the consultants’ testimony be interpreted?
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(7) Neutralization
Defn: the realization of two different phonemes as the same phone in the same
environment.
m n
[n]
(8) Some further encouraging Japanese data

[hoN] ‘book’
[hommo] ‘book-too’
[honda] ‘is book’
[honda] ‘famous brand of automobile’
[honni] ‘in book’
[hoNka] ‘book?’
[hoj)ja] ‘bookstore’
[how)wa] ‘book-topic’
(9) A commonplace scenario for neutralization

• Language L has a certain phonological contrast, but this contrast can only be
realized in a limited contexts (e.g., Japanese nasal place contrast can only be
realized before a V).
• The morphology of L provides the environment that permits the contrast, but only
some of the time.
• Therefore the contrast is neutralized when the morphology does not provide the
crucial environment.
(10) Data on English Flapping

a. data [»deIR´] b. detain [di»teIn]
throttle [»T®ARl`] Sawtelle [sç»tEl]
butter [»b√R´’] deter [di»tŒ’]
ditty [»dIRi] petition [p´»tISń]
notify [»noUR´«faI] rotisserie [®oU»tIs´®i]
c. vanity [»vQn´Ri, »vQn´ti]

marital [»me®´Rl`, »me®´tl`]
inheritance [In»he®´Rńs, In»he®´tńs]
Sheraton [»Se®´Rń, »Se®´tń]
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(11) Further Flapping Data
a. Ida [»aIR´] b. reduce [®´»dus]
idle [»aIRl`] Adelle [´»dEl]
rudder [»®√R´’] predict [p®´»dIkt]
Daddy [»dQRi] reduction [®´»d√kSń]
edify [»ER´«faI] idolatry [aI»dAl´tri]
c. parody [»pe®´Ri, »pe®´di]

comedy [»kAm´Ri, »kAm´di]
precedence [»p®Es´Rńs, »p®Es´dńs]
Sheridan [»SE®´Rń, »SE®´dń]
(12) Alternations from Flapping

write [»®aIt] writing [»®aIRIN]
ride [»®aId] riding [»®aIRIN]
white [»waIt] whiter [»waIR´’]
wide [»waId] wider [»waIR´’]
lout [»laUt] loutish [»laURIS]
loud [»laUd] loudish [»laURIS]
POLISH VOWEL ALTERNATIONS
(13) Class I examples1

[sveteR] ‘sweater’ [svetR-ˆ] ‘sweater-nom. pl.’
[vjadeR] ‘pail-gen. pl.’ [vjadR-o] ‘pail-nom. sg.’
[meandeR] ‘meander’ [meandR-a] ‘meander-gen. sg.’
[RobeR] ‘rubber’ [RobR-em] ‘rubber-instr. sg.’
[bimbeR] ‘moonshine’ [bimbR-u] ‘moonshine-gen. sg.’
[vihaisteR] ‘thingummy’ [vihaistR-a] ‘thingummy-gen. sg.’
[sen] ‘dream’ [sn-u] ‘dream-gen. sg.’
[len] ‘flax’ [ln-u] ‘flax-gen. sg.’
[mex] ‘moss’ [mx-u] ‘moss-gen. sg.’
[tew] ‘background-gen.pl.’ [tw-o] ‘background-nom. sg.’
1
All unaffixed forms are nominative singulars.
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(14) Class II examples
[kRateR] ‘crater’ [kRateR-ˆ] ‘crater-nom. pl.’
[lideR] ‘leader’ [lideR-a] ‘leader-gen. sg.’
[oRdeR] ‘order’ [oRdeR-u] ‘order-gen. sg.’
[vapje¯] ‘limestone’ [vapje¯-a] ‘limestone-gen. sg.’
[teRen] ‘terrain’ [teRen-u] ‘terrain-gen. sg.’
[t˛enj] ‘shadow’ [t˛enj-a] ‘shadow-gen. sg.’
[kRet] ‘mole’ [kRet-a] ‘mole-gen. sg.’
[SmeR] ‘rustle’ [SmeR-u] ‘rustle-gen. sg.’
[bjes] ‘devil’ [bjes-a] ‘devil-gen. sg.’
(15) Polish: Socratic queries

• From the data given so far, epenthesis or deletion?
• Is the underlying form the isolation form?
• What is the neutralizing rule?
(16) What’s the procedure that we followed for Polish?

a) Split up root and affixes: [sveteR] ~ [svetR-ˆ], [krateR-ˆ], [sen] ~ [sn-u], [t˛enj] ~
[t˛enj-a]
b) Locate all allomorphs of roots and/or affixes: [sveteR] ~ [svetR], [krateR], [sen]
~ [sn], [t˛enj]. (Affixes don’t alternate.)
c) Determine which segments alternate: [e] ~ ∅.
d) Hypothesize underlying forms (consider multiple hypothesis where useful).
e) The “Two Hypothesis Method”: if A alternates with B, consider deriving B from
underlying A, and A from underlying B: either ∅ → e, or e → ∅
f) Reconstruct underlying representations by stringing together underlying forms,
following the rules of the morphology: if insertion, these are /svetR/, /svetR-ˆ/,
/krateR/, /krateR-ˆ/, /sn/, /sn-u/, /t˛enj/, /t˛enj-a/. Where no alternation, assume
“what you hear is what you get.” Where alternation, go by the hypothesis you
are working with.
g) Figure out rules and environments. If necessary, sort environments in the same
way one does for allophonics problems.
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Class 12 (10/30/02)
Neutralization Continued
(1) What is neutralization? What causes it? Examples?
POLISH VOWEL ALTERNATIONS
(2) Class I examples1

[sveteR] ‘sweater’ [svetR-ˆ] ‘sweater-nom. pl.’
[vjadeR] ‘pail-gen. pl.’ [vjadR-o] ‘pail-nom. sg.’
[meandeR] ‘meander’ [meandR-a] ‘meander-gen. sg.’
[RobeR] ‘rubber’ [RobR-em] ‘rubber-instr. sg.’
[bimbeR] ‘moonshine’ [bimbR-u] ‘moonshine-gen. sg.’
[vihaisteR] ‘thingummy’ [vihaistR-a] ‘thingummy-gen. sg.’
[sen] ‘dream’ [sn-u] ‘dream-gen. sg.’
[len] ‘flax’ [ln-u] ‘flax-gen. sg.’
[mex] ‘moss’ [mx-u] ‘moss-gen. sg.’
[tew] ‘background-gen.pl.’ [tw-o] ‘background-nom. sg.’
(3) Class II examples

[kRateR] ‘crater’ [kRateR-ˆ] ‘crater-nom. pl.’
[lideR] ‘leader’ [lideR-a] ‘leader-gen. sg.’
[oRdeR] ‘order’ [oRdeR-u] ‘order-gen. sg.’
[vapje¯] ‘limestone’ [vapje¯-a] ‘limestone-gen. sg.’
[teRen] ‘terrain’ [teRen-u] ‘terrain-gen. sg.’
[t˛enj] ‘shadow’ [t˛enj-a] ‘shadow-gen. sg.’
[kRet] ‘mole’ [kRet-a] ‘mole-gen. sg.’
[SmeR] ‘rustle’ [SmeR-u] ‘rustle-gen. sg.’
[bjes] ‘devil’ [bjes-a] ‘devil-gen. sg.’
(4) Polish: Socratic queries

• From the data given so far, epenthesis or deletion?
• Is the underlying form the isolation form?
• What is the neutralizing rule?
1
All unaffixed forms are nominative singulars.
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(5) What’s the procedure that we followed for Polish?
a) Split up root and affixes: [sveteR] ~ [svetR-ˆ], [krateR-ˆ], [sen] ~ [sn-u], [t˛enj] ~
[t˛enj-a]
b) Locate all allomorphs of roots and/or affixes: [sveteR] ~ [svetR], [krateR], [sen]
~ [sn], [t˛enj]. (Affixes don’t alternate.)
c) Determine which segments alternate: [e] ~ ∅.
d) Hypothesize underlying forms (consider multiple hypothesis where useful).
e) The “Two Hypothesis Method”: if A alternates with B, consider deriving B from
underlying A, and A from underlying B: either ∅ → e, or e → ∅
f) Reconstruct underlying representations by stringing together underlying forms,
following the rules of the morphology: if insertion, these are /svetR/, /svetR-ˆ/,
/krateR/, /krateR-ˆ/, /sn/, /sn-u/, /t˛enj/, /t˛enj-a/. Where no alternation, assume
“what you hear is what you get.” Where alternation, go by the hypothesis you
are working with.
g) Figure out rules and environments. If necessary, sort environments in the same
way one does for allophonics problems.
(6) Tonkawa
[picen] ‘castrated one; steer’
[picno/] ‘he cuts it’
[wepceno/] ‘he cuts them’
[kepceno/] ‘he cuts me’
[picnano/] ‘he’s cutting it’
[wepcenano/] ‘he’s cutting them’
[kepcenano/] ‘he’s cutting me’
(7) Degrees of complexity in diagnosing underlying forms

• Degree 1: take the isolation form, and undo allophonic rules.
• Degree 2: take an affixed form and peel off the affix, and undo allophonic rules.
• Degree 3: cobble the underlying form together from multiple allomorphs.
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Phonological Representation—Features
(8) Representation = formal device intended as a model of internalized knowledge

• There are mental representations for vision2, music3, etc. Representations are the
common currency of cognitive science.
• They help to present the analysis in an explicit fashion so as to make precise and
testable predictions.
• Intuition and insights are great, but only useful to science when presented
explicitly.
In one phonological theory, representations are sequences of columns of features,

each column forming a segment:
mop: = -syllabic +syllabic -syllabic

+sonorant +sonorant +sonorant
+contin. +contin. -contin.
+nasal -nasal -nasal
+labial +low +labial
+voice +back -voice , abbreviated /mA*p/
-round
➥ What are the claims of this representation?
(9) What is the main justification for features in phonological theory?

• Because phonological rules manipulate natural classes (see previous lectures,
readings).
• The features are a way of stating our understanding of natural classes: How are
sounds categorized into groups in languages?
2
See, for example, Vision, by David Marr.
3
See A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, by Fred Lerdahl (a composer) and Ray Jackendoff (a
linguist).
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Class 13 (11/4/02)
Phonological Representation—Features
(1) Representation = formal device intended as a model of internalized knowledge

• There are mental representations for vision1, music2, etc. Representations are the
common currency of cognitive science.
• They help to present the analysis in an explicit fashion so as to make precise and
testable predictions.
• Intuition and insights are great, but only useful to science when presented
explicitly.
In one phonological theory, representations are sequences of columns of features,

each column forming a segment:
mop: = -syllabic +syllabic -syllabic

+sonorant +sonorant +sonorant
+contin. +contin. -contin.
+nasal -nasal -nasal
+labial +low +labial
+voice +back -voice , abbreviated /mA*p/
-round
➥ What are the claims of this representation?

• Segments exist.
• Features exist.
• Each segment is simply the sum of its properties.
• Rules are well-defined formal operations on representations of this type.
(2) What is the main justification for features in phonological theory?

• Because phonological rules manipulate natural classes (see previous lectures,
readings).
• The features are a way of stating our understanding of natural classes: How are
sounds categorized into groups in languages?
1
See, for example, Vision, by David Marr.
2
See A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, by Fred Lerdahl (a composer) and Ray Jackendoff (a
linguist).
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(3) Manner features: A classification based on sonority (acoustic energy)
vowels glides liquids nasals fricatives stops
incl.
affr.
[+syllabic][ -syllabic ]
[ -consonantal ][ +consonantal ]
[ +sonorant ][ -sonorant ]
[ +continuant ][-contin. ]
(4) French
petit ami [p´tit ami] ‘small friend’
petit oiseau [p´tit wazo] ‘small bird’
petit livre [p´ti livr] ‘small book’
petit navet [p´ti navE] ‘small turnip’
petit chef [p´ti Sef] ‘small chief’
petit tableau [p´ti tablo] ‘small picture’
(5) Indonesian
N → ∅ / ___ {m, n, ≠, N, l, r, w}
but not before {h, stops, affricates, fricatives, vowels}
cf. goreN mŃ-goreN

NeoN m´-NeoN
(6) Turkish
Nom. Acc. Gloss Nom. Acc. Gloss
/kitab/ [kitap] [kitab-¨] ‘book’ /at/ [at] [at-¨] ‘horse’
/reng/ [reNk] [reNg-i] ‘color’ /fevk/ [fevk] [fevk-i] ‘drive’
/tadZ/ [tatS] [tadZ-¨] ‘crown’ /go¥f/ [go¥f] [go¥f-y] ‘golf’
/ev/ [ev] [ev-i] ‘house’ /va¥s/ [va¥s] [va¥s-i] ‘waltz’
/dZeviz/ [dZeviz] [dZeviz-i] ‘walnut’
(7) Classifying the stops, affricates, and fricatives

fricatives affricates stops
[ +delayed release ][ -delayed release ]
[ +continuant ][ -continuant ]
(8) Stop Deletion in Indonesian

{p, t, k} → ∅ / [+nasal] ___ but not {b, d, dZ, g, tS, f}
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(9) Chumash
osos ‘heel’ *osoS, *oSos
at°s’is ‘bear’ * at°S’is, *at°s’iS
SuS ‘fur’ *suS, *Sus
t°S’umaS ‘islanders’ *t°s’umaS, *t°S’umas
k-iSkin ‘I save it’ k-at°skaw ‘I sin’

k-iskin-us ‘I save it for him’ at°Skaw-iS ‘a sin’
(10) Phonology conclusion

• Phonemic analysis.
(a) Why? Allophones happen for good reasons. Distinction between phonemic
status and allophonic status can be established psycholinguistically.
(b) How to do phonemic analysis?
• Alternation.
(a) What is alternation? Why does it happen?
(b) How to solve an alternation problem?
• Neutralization.
(a) What is neutralization?
(b) How to solve a neutralization problem?
• Phonological representation—features.
(a) Motivation for representations in general.
(b) Motivation for phonological features.
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Class 14 (11/13/02)
Morphology
(1) What is a word?

• A word is the sequence of letters between two blanks.
The good can decay many ways. The good candy came anyways.
It’s hard to recognize speech. It’s hard to wreck a nice beach.
The stuffy nose can lead to problems. The stuff he knows can lead to problems.
• The units of language that are the products of morphological rules, and which are
unsplittable by syntactic rules. (syntactic atom)
(a) black board (a board that is black) very black board

blackboard (the board teachers write on) *very blackboard
pick pocket (the act of picking pocket) pick his pocket

pickpocket (one who steals from pocket) *pick-his-pocket
poor house (a decrepit house) poor gray house

poorhouse (housing for the homeless) *poor-gray-house
(b) He picks pocket. Question “pocket”: What does he pick?
He’s a pickpocket. Question “pickpocket”: What is he?

Question “pocket”: *What is he a pick?
• “Listemes”, i.e., the things in a language you learn as a rote list.
(a) Root words: man, woman, dog, cat, truth, fiction, red, tall, run, walk, live, die,
hippopotamus, magenta, procrastinate, etc.
(b) Proper names: Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, George Burns, England, Bantu,
Harvard, Pentium, etc.
(c) Compounds: box boy (carries boxes)

box score (summary of statistics)
box car (enclosed railroad car)
box office (ticket office at a theater)
box seat (special seat in a stadium)
box spring (has square frame)
box turtle (has square shell)
shoe box (shoes come in it)
tackle box (keep fishing tackle in it)
(d) Idioms: Go fly a kite!
kick the bucket
spill the beans
bite the bullet
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kill two birds with one stone
out to lunch
go bananas
a pain in the neck
• What are the differences between the last two definitions of “word”?
(2) What does it mean to know a word (listeme)?

• The arbitrary relationship between form and meaning: words are symbols.
English: Tree [dOg] English: dog [bE®] bear (an animal)

French: Arbre Hebrew: fish bear (give birth)
German: Baum bare (naked)
Russian: Derevo [su:s] Hebrew: horse
Hebrew: Ets Latin: pig [beI:] bail (money)
Arabic: Shajara bail (bucket)
Hausa: Bishiya [mu:n] English: moon bale (bundle)
Korean: Namu Korean: door
Taiwanese: tÇ¸!u a~ [tÓu] to (toward)
Mandarin: shu~ two (2)
too (also)
[mit] meet (join)

meat (flesh)
mete (allot)
• Shared knowledge about meaning and appropriate use:
In Hausa, one would kaÎa … In English, one would break …

milk (English churn) a pot (Hausa fasa)
thread (English spin) a stick (Hausa karya)
a coat (English shake) a rope (Hausa tsinke)
a tail (Englsih wag) a watch (Hausa ∫ata)
one’s head (English nod) a horse (Hausa hora)
lie to someone.
commit perjury in court.
prevaricate in a literary society.
You might fail to avoid an untruth as a political candidate.
fib to your little brother.
con someone to get money.
bullshit someone you don’t respect.
(3) Morphemes: the meaningful elements of a word

• Some words cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units:
Eat, print, apple, uncle, word, tall, soon, on, free, real, …
Some words can:
Eats, printed, apples, taller, reality, transformational, uncontrollably, callousness, …
• Roots and Affixes:
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Roots: morphemes that represent the core meaning of words, to which other morphemes
can be added to modify their meaning.
Affixes: morphemes that attach to roots or combinations of roots and affixes.
• Free morphemes and bound morphemes:
Free morphemes: morphemes that can stand alone.
Bound morphemes: morphemes that only function as parts of words.
• Are free morphemes the same as roots, and bound morphemes the same as affixes?
nonchalant, uncouth, disgruntle, overwhelm, inept, cranberry…
Free Bound
Root dog, cat, man, woman, truth, lie, nonchalant, uncouth, inept,
hippopotamus, procrastinate, cranberry, lukewarm, disgruntle,
fast, slow, pink, mauve … overwhelm
Affix cats, falsehood, untrue, pinkish,
pinker, pinkness, slowly, reconfirm,
confirmed, formation
(4) Classifying affixes 1—positions of affixes

• Prefixes: non-conformist, unfortunate, anticatholic, reconfirm, disfavor
• Suffixes: cats, falsehood, pinkish, slowly, confirmed, formation
• Infixes:
Bontoc (Austronesian, spoken in the Philippines):
fikas “strong” fumikas “to be strong”
kilad “red” kumilad “to be red”
fusul “enemy” fumusul “to be an enemy”
• Circumfixes:
Chickasaw (Muskogean, spoken in Oklahoma):
chokma “he is good” ikchokmo “he isn’t good”
lakna “it is yellow” iklakno “it isn’t yellow”
palli “it is hot” ikpallo “it isn’t hot”
tiwwi “he opens (it)” iktiwwo “he doesn’t open (it)”
• Interleaving morphemes:
Arabic:
kitaaba “writing” kataba “he wrote”
kaatib “writer” kaataba “he corresponded with”
maktab “office” maktaba “library”
miktaab “typewriter” kutubii “bookseller”
English borrowings from Arabic: Moslem, Islam, salaam. (cf. slm ‘peace’).
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(5) Classifying affixes 2—functions of affixes
• What are the differences between the following two kinds of affixes in terms of:
(a) Does the meaning of the derived form differ from that of the base form?
(b) Does the suffixation change part of speech?
Affix type 1 Affix type 2

false → falsehood cat → cats
form → formation sit → sits
confirm → reconfirm walk → walked
nation → national break → broken
national → nationalist walk → walking
• Derivational affixes—Affix type 1:

a.
b.
• Inflectional affixes—Affix type 2:

a.
b.
(6) A closer look at English derivational affixes

• Some derivational affixes of English:
-ly -ness -al -able
-ize -ation un- re-
• What do you know about these affixes?
-ly: change Adj to Adv (quick-quickly)

change N to Adj (friend-friendly, ghost-ghostly)
-ness: change Adj to N (clean-cleanness)
-al: change N to Adj (ration-rational, nation-national)

change V to N (dismiss-dismissal)
-able: change V to Adj (read-readable)
-ize: change Adj to V (rational-rationalize)

change N to V (subsidy-subsidize, creole-creolize)
-ation: change V to N (rationalize-rationalization)
un-: change V to V (do-undo, tie-untie)

change Adj to Adj (happy-unhappy)
re-: change V to V (do-redo, adjust-readjust, wind-rewind)
• In rule notation:
Adjective + -ly → Adverb
Adjective + -ness → Noun
Verb + -able → Adjective
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re- + Verb → Verb
(7) A closer look at inflectional affixes.

• Some languages have dozens or even hundreds of inflectional affixes. They typically
mark such things as:
person of subject and object;
number of subject and object;
class of noun;
tense of verb;
negation of verb;
causation of an action;
doing something on behalf of, etc.
• San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (Oto-Manguean, Oaxaca, Mexico):

r-guèe’ez ‘hugs …’ (unmarked)
r-guèe’ez-a’ ‘I hug …’
r-guèe’ez-yuu’ ‘you (sg. formal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-ùu’ ‘you (sg. informal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-iny ‘he (reverential) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ëb ‘he (formal) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ahzh: ‘he (respectful) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ëng ‘he (proximate) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ih ‘he (distal) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ëmm ‘he (animal) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ënn ‘we hug …’
r-guèe’ez-yud ‘you (pl. formal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-ad ‘you (pl. informal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-riny ‘they (reverential) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rëb ‘they (formal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rahzh: ‘they (respectful) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rëng ‘they (proximate) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rih ‘they (distal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rëmm ‘they (animal) hug …’
• Finnish (Finno-Ugric):
Case Function Example Translation

Nominative basic form auto car
Genitive possession auto-n of the car
Accusative object ending häne-t him, her
Partitive indefinite maito-a some milk
quantity vet-tä some water
perhe-ttä some family
Inessive inside auto-ssa in the car
Elative out of auto-sta out of the car
Illative into auto-on into the car
Adessive on pöydä-llä on the table
Ablative off pöydä-ltä off the table
Allative onto pöydä-lle onto the table
Essive state opettaja-na as a teacher
Translative change of state opettaja-ksi become a teacher
Comitative accompanying vaimo-ine-ni with my wife
(-ine = comitative, -ni = 1st sg. possessive)
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• Swahili (Bantu, East Africa):
hatutawapikishia cakula ‘we will not have food cooked for them’
ha- tu- ta- wa- pik- ish- i- a- c- akula

NEG we FUT them cook CAUS APPL INDIC CL7 food
• Grammatical functions of inflections:
(a) Consider English:
The lizard caught the fly.

The fly caught the lizard.
(b) Consider Latin:
Nominative Accusative Genitive

‘lizard’ lacertus lacertum lacerti
‘fly’ mosca moscam moscae
Lacertus moscam cepit.

Moscam lacertus cepit.
Lacertus cepit moscam. ‘The lizard caught the fly’
Cepit lacertus moscam.
Cepit moscam lacertus.
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Class 15 (11/18/02)
Morphology II
(0) Midterm distribution:

90-100 12
80-89 6
<79 6
Average = 86.75
(1) Homework 4:
• Read Chapter 2 of Fromkin.
• Do the following exercises, due Nov 25 (Monday):
p.30: Ex. 2.3
p.36: Ex. 2.5
p.59: Ex. 2.18
(2) A closer look at inflectional affixes (continued).

• Swahili (Bantu, East Africa):
hatutawapikishia cakula ‘we will not have food cooked for them’
ha- tu- ta- wa- pik- ish- i- a- c- akula
NEG we FUT them cook CAUS APPL INDIC CL7 food
• Grammatical functions of inflections:
(a) Consider English:
The lizard caught the fly.

The fly caught the lizard.
(b) Consider Latin:
Nominative Accusative Genitive

‘lizard’ lacertus lacertum lacerti
‘fly’ mosca moscam moscae
Lacertus moscam cepit.

Lacertus cepit moscam. ‘The lizard caught the fly’
Cepit lacertus moscam.
Cepit moscam lacertus.
• Where do inflectional affixes occur in relation to derivational affixes?
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English:
Darwinians, *Darwin-s-ian, *Darwin-ian-s-ism.
class-ifi-es, *class-es-ify.
Tolkapaya (Yuman, Arizona):

Paa’’úuvchma ‘we see them’
Paa- ’- ’úu -v -ch -ma
st
pl. obj. 1 sub. look -able pl. sub. non-future
(3) Morphology (the process of word-formation) is hierarchically structured

• Long distance dependency: unpalatable—which structure is correct?
(a) Adjective (b) Adjective

ei ei
un- Adjective Noun -able
ei ei
Noun -able un- Noun
| |
palat palat
How about unattractiveness?
(a) Noun (b) Noun

ei ei
un- Noun Adjective -ness
ei ei
Adjective -ness un- Adjective
ru ru
Verb -ive Verb -ive
| |
attract attract
(c) Noun
ei
Adjective -ness
ei
Verb -ive
ei
un- Verb
|
attract
• Ambiguity: undoable—which structure is correct?
(a) Adjective (b) Adjective

ei ei
Verb -able un- Adjective
ei ei
un- Verb Verb -able
| |
do do
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• Long distance dependency and ambiguity can be accounted for by a hierarchically
structured system, but not by a linear system.
(4) Trees with inflectional affixes

Can you draw trees for Darwinianisms and itemized?
(5) Trees for compounds

Noun Noun Noun Noun
ru ru ru ru
Noun Noun Adjective Noun Verb Noun Preposition Noun
| | | | | | | |
peanut butter black board kill joy over shoot
• English compounds are “head-final”.
• Can you draw the tree for feminist writer critic?
(6) Other forms of morphological marking

• Reduplication
(a) Lakhota (Siouan, South Dakota)
Sg. Pl. Gloss

gí gigí ‘to be rusty brown’
ská skaská ‘ ‘to be white’
shá shashá ‘to be red’
thó thothó ‘to be blue or green’
zí zizí ‘to be yellow’
(b) Agta (Austronesian, The Philippines)
bari ‘body’ barbari-k kid-in ‘my whole body’

mag-saddu ‘leak’ mag-sadsaddu ‘leak in many places’
ma-wakay ‘lost’ ma-wakwakay ‘many things lost’
takki ‘leg’ taktakki ‘legs’
ulu ‘head’ ululu ‘heads’
(c) Yoruba (Niger-Congo, Nigeria)
lo¢ ‘to go’ lílo¢ ‘(nominalization)’

dùn ‘to be tasty’ dídùn ‘(nominalization)’
Reduplication often marks plurality, repetition of action, etc. But not always.
• Ablaut
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sing ~ sang cling ~ clung wear ~ wore
ring ~ rang fling ~ flung swear ~ swore
spring ~ sprang sting ~ stung bear ~ bore
mouse ~ mice locus ~ loci tooth ~ teeth

louse ~ lice focus ~ foci foot ~ feet
Noun Verb
house house
life live
teeth teeth
bath bathe
➥ Ablaut is often irregular.

wing ~ winged spouse ~ spouses booth ~ booths boot ~ boots
➥ Irregular related forms are called suppletion.

English be is fully suppletive: be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been.
• Tone marking
Chichewa (Banta, Malawi)
ndi- 1st sg. subj. fotokoza ‘explain’
ndi-ná-fótokoza simple past

ndi-na-fótókoza recent past
ndí-nâ:-fótókoza remote past
ndi-ku-fótókoza progressive
ndí-ma-fotokózá present habitual
ndi-ma-fótókoza past habitual
ndí-dzá-fótokoza future
(7) Types of morphological systems

• Isolating morphology: lacks derivational and inflectional morphology; each word tends
to be a single isolated morpheme.
Chinese: does not mark gender, number, case on nouns or pronouns;

does not mark tense on verbs;
these are usually expressed by separate words.
wo# ge#i le ta@ sa@n be#n shu@

I give past him three meas. book
“I gave him three books.”
ge#i: give, gave → tense not marked
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ta@: he, him, she, her → gender and case not marked
shu@: book, books → number not marked
• Agglutinating morphology: words are typically polymorphemic, but are easily separable
into morphemes, and each morpheme corresponds to a single lexical meaning or
grammatical function.
(a) Greenlandic Eskimo:
qajar-taa-va asirur-sima-vuq
kayak-new-his break-done-it
“His new kayak has been destroyed.”
(b) Turkish:
ev “house”
ev-ler “houses”
ev-ler-de “in the houses”
ev-ler-den “from the houses”
tanis#tirildilar “they were introduced to each other.”
tani -s# -tir -il -di -lar

know recip. caus. pass. past 3 pl.
• Inflectional morphology: words are also polymorphemic, but the parts often fuse
together several meanings or grammatical functions. (These morphemes are sometimes
called portmanteau morphemes.)
Russian:
(a) Noun inflections:
Case Singular Plural

Nominative Zena Zëny
Accusative Zenu Zën
Genitive Zenu Zën
Dative Zene Zënam
(b) Present-tense verb inflections:
Person Singlular Plural

1st person piSu piSem
2nd person piSeS piSete
3rd person piSet piSut
• What kind of morphology does English have??
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Class 16 (11/20/02)
Syntax Introduction
(1) Syntax:
• the way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences;
• the branch of linguistics that deals with …
(2) How do we study syntax?

• Grammaticality judgments of native speakers.
E.g.: The police dispersed the crowd.

*Police crowd the dispersed the. (* = ungrammatical)
j¸#ngchá qu@sàn le rénqún.
• We say that a sentence is:

grammatical ungrammatical
acceptable unacceptable
well-formed ill-formed
in the grammar not in the grammar
(3) What is “grammatical”?

• “Grammatical” in the linguistic sense ≠ “grammatical” in the sense of school grammar.
Proscribed as ‘colloquial’: Where do you live at?

Me and Bill went to the movies.
Proscribed as ‘non-standard’: I ain’t never been there before.

I seen him yesterday.
• “Grammatical” ≠ “meaningful”
(a) The child seems sleeping.

It raining.
This sentence no verb.
Don’t giggle me.
John ate five cookie.
I put the book.
Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese Food with Chopsticks:
the traditional and typical of Chinese glorious history and culture.
(b) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

The lizard conveys excellent essays.
The table eats the concept on which rules are painted.
(c) Cats fly.

Four plus five is ten.
The earth is flat.
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This triangle has four sides.
Jie must speak many languages since he’s a linguist.
(4) What kind structure does syntax have? Can it be a word chain?
• Part of a possible word-chain device for English:
happy
the boy ice cream
a girl eats hot dogs
one dog candy
• Crucial properties of a word-chain device:

➥ A realistic word-chain (e.g., used in industry) encodes “transition probabilities”
between one word and another.
➥ Local dependency/Linearity.
(5) Transition probability is not a valid notion in grammaticality judgment:

• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
• House to ask for is to earn our living by working towards a goal for his team in old New-
York was a wonderful place wasn’t it even pleasant to talk about and laugh hard when he tells
lies he should not tell me that reason why you are is evident.
(6) Long distance dependency in natural language:

• Friends who loved and trusted John were startled by his arrest.
Daddy, what did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?
If the boys eat ice cream, then the girls eat candy.
Either if the boys eat ice cream, then the girls eat candy, or if the girls eat ice cream, then the
boys eat candy.
• How can the if-then, either-or sentences be incorporated in a word-chain device?
• What’s missing from the system?
• Anyway to solve the problem within the word-chain device?
• What’s wrong the fix-up?
(7) Ambiguity in natural language:

• I saw the man with a telescope.
Do you have any books on antique furniture?
We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.
I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
For sale: Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient
beating.
Yoko Ono will talk about her husband John Lennon who was killed in an interview with
Barbara Walters.
• Can the ambiguity be expressed by a word chain device?
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(8) Lessons learned:
• We identify categories such as noun, verb, adjective, etc.
• The word categories are not linearly pieced together, there must be an overarching structure
to the sentence.
(9) Some word categories:

Noun (N) → boy, girl, balloon, ideas, ice cream, candy, basketball, dam, exam
Verb (V) → eats, likes, play, pass, build, turn, write, attack, fall, burglarized
Adjective (A) → happy, big, colorless, green, wonderful, erudite, tall, beautiful
Adverb (Adv) → carefully, slowly, very, never, again, luckily
Determiner (D) → a, the, one, this, that
Preposition (P) → at, about, for, on, in onto, under, of
Pronoun (Prn) → I, me, we, we, us, you, he, him, she, her, it, they, them
(10) Constituent—a group of words function together as a unit; overarching structure

beyond word categories
• What’s in common between the big white balloon and a colorless green idea?
Preliminary rule notation: NP → Det A* N (to be revised)
Preliminary tree structure: (to be revised)
NP
rgu
D A N
| | |
the big balloon
• What’s in common among play basketball, pass the exam, build a dam, turn the doorknob,
and write a book?
Preliminary rule notation: VP → V NP
Preliminary tree structure:
VP
ei
V NP
| ty
pass D N
| |
the exam
• What’s in common among the following grammatical sentences?
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Two students passed the difficult exam.
The beavers built a dam.
An invisible man turned the doorknob.
The erudite historian wrote a wonderful book.
Preliminary rule notation: S → NP VP
Can you draw the tree for:

(11) Properties of constituent structures:

• Constituent structure is hierarchical:
(a) Words combine to form constituents.
(b) Constituents combine to form larger constituents.
I.e., constituents may be contained within other constituents.
• A constituent consists minimally of just a head, and maximally of a head and several
dependents.
[ badgers ]
[ large brown badgers ]
[ those large brown badgers ]
[ those large brown badgers from Wisconsin ]
The head of a constituent determines the environment where that constituent can
occur—this captures long distance dependency.
Environments for different constituents:
Noun Phrase: Can be the subject of a sentence
[ badgers ] came into the room

[ large brown badgers ] came into the room
[ those large brown badgers ] came into the room
[ those large brown badgers from Wisconsin ] came into the room
[ Carlos ] came into the room
[ we ] came into the room
Verb Phrase: Can come after auxiliaries like “must”
Gunther must [ leave ]

Gunther must [ leave right now ]
Gunther must [ finish the assignment ]
Gunther must [ eventually finish the assignment ]
Prepositional Phrase: Can come after the direct object of the verb “put”
Gunther put the book [ outside ]

Gunther put the book [ on the table ]
Gunther put the book [ right beside the window ]
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Exercise: Identify the head of the constituent and assign it its proper label:
this book
David’s older brother
on the table
extremely fat
just above the bookcase
kill the cobra with a stick
the destruction of the city
dance all night long
an old wrinkled newspaper
come slowly into the ballroom
(12) How is recursion handled in constituent structure?

• Recursion: A syntactic category can contain a category of the same type which can contain
a category of the same type which can contain a category of the same type which …
• How should the if-then, either-or sentences be expressed structure-wise?
• Can you draw the tree for:

If the boys eat ice cream, then the girls eat candy?
• How about:
boys eat candy.
• What is the constituent structure for:

on the desk;
in the pond;
next to the garden;
for Jason.

the book on the desk;
the fish in the pond;
the tall building next to the garden;
a beautiful cake for Jason.
• What kind of recursion do we have now?

the lizard on the rock in the grass near the pond in the park …
(13) How is ambiguity handled in constituent structure?

I saw the man with a telescope.
• What are the two readings?
• What does “with a telescope” modify in the two readings?
• Can you account for the ambiguity for different constituent structures?
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(14) Interim conclusion:
• Sentences are formed by putting constituents together.
• Constituents refer to word categories.
• The head of a constituent determines where it can occur.

➥ Handles long-distance dependency
• Constituents are hierarchically structured.

➥ Allows recursion
➥ Handles ambiguity
(15) Where are we heading?

• How to identify constituents.
• Detailed structure within a constituent—Trees.
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Class 17 (11/25/02)
Constituent Structure
(1) Lessons learned from the word-chain exercise:

• We identify categories such as noun, verb, adjective, etc.
• The word categories are not linearly pieced together, there must be an overarching structure
to the sentence.
(2) Some word categories:

Noun (N) → boy, girl, balloon, ideas, ice cream, candy, basketball, dam, exam
Verb (V) → eats, likes, play, pass, build, turn, write, attack, fall, burglarized
Adjective (A) → happy, big, colorless, green, wonderful, erudite, tall, beautiful
Adverb (Adv) → carefully, slowly, very, never, again, luckily
Determiner (D) → a, the, one, this, that
Preposition (P) → at, about, for, on, in onto, under, of
Pronoun (Prn) → I, me, we, we, us, you, he, him, she, her, it, they, them
(3) Constituent—a group of words function together as a unit; overarching structure

beyond word categories
• What’s in common between the big white balloon and a colorless green idea?
Preliminary rule notation: NP → Det A* N (to be revised)
Preliminary tree structure: (to be revised)
NP
rgu
D A N
| | |
the big balloon
• What’s in common among play basketball, pass the exam, build a dam, turn the doorknob,
and write a book?
Preliminary rule notation: VP → V NP
Preliminary tree structure:
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VP
ei
V NP
| ty
pass D N
| |
the exam
• What’s in common among the following grammatical sentences?

The beavers built a dam.
An invisible man turned the doorknob.
Preliminary rule notation: S → NP VP
Can you draw the tree for:

(4) Properties of constituent structures:

• Constituent structure is hierarchical:
(a) Words combine to form constituents.
(b) Constituents combine to form larger constituents.
I.e., constituents may be contained within other constituents.
• A constituent consists minimally of just a head, and maximally of a head and several
dependents.
[ badgers ]
[ large brown badgers ]
[ those large brown badgers ]
[ those large brown badgers from Wisconsin ]
The head of a constituent determines the environment where that constituent can
occur—this captures long distance dependency.
Environments for different constituents:
Noun Phrase: Can be the subject of a sentence
[ badgers ] came into the room

[ large brown badgers ] came into the room
[ those large brown badgers ] came into the room
[ those large brown badgers from Wisconsin ] came into the room
[ Carlos ] came into the room
[ we ] came into the room
Verb Phrase: Can come after auxiliaries like “must”
Gunther must [ leave ]

Gunther must [ leave right now ]
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Gunther must [ finish the assignment ]
Gunther must [ eventually finish the assignment ]
Prepositional Phrase: Can come after the direct object of the verb “put”
Gunther put the book [ outside ]

Gunther put the book [ on the table ]
Gunther put the book [ right beside the window ]
Exercise: Identify the head of the constituent and assign it its proper label:
this book
David’s older brother
on the table
extremely fat
just above the bookcase
kill the cobra with a stick
the destruction of the city
dance all night long
an old wrinkled newspaper
come slowly into the ballroom
(5) How is recursion handled in constituent structure?

• Recursion: A syntactic category can contain a category of the same type which can contain
a category of the same type which can contain a category of the same type which …
• How should the if-then, either-or sentences be expressed structure-wise?

If the boys eat ice cream, then the girls eat candy?
• How about:
boys eat candy.

on the desk;
in the pond;
next to the garden;
for Jason.

the book on the desk;
the fish in the pond;
the tall building next to the garden;
a beautiful cake for Jason.
• What kind of recursion do we have now?

the lizard on the rock in the grass near the pond in the park …
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(6) How is ambiguity handled in constituent structure?
I saw the man with a telescope.
• What are the two readings?
• What does “with a telescope” modify in the two readings?
• Can you account for the ambiguity for different constituent structures?
(7) Interim conclusion:

• Sentences are formed by putting constituents together.
• Constituents refer to word categories.
• The head of a constituent determines where it can occur.

➥ Handles long-distance dependency
• Constituents are hierarchically structured.

➥ Allows recursion
➥ Handles ambiguity
(8) Where are we heading?

• Detailed structure within a constituent—Trees.
Constituency Tests
(9) Questions:
• How do we access our knowledge of constituent structure?
• How do you know if a particular string of words is a constituent or not?
— Sentence fragment test

— Movement (displacement) test
— Coordination test
— Deletion/replacement test
— Pseudocleft test
(10) Sentence fragment test

Only constituents may occur as utterances by themselves.
Q: “Why do I have to eat my vegetables?”

A: “You have to eat your vegetables because I said so.”
A: “Because I said so.”
More examples:
Q: “Who did you run into yesterday?”

A: “A man with a wooden leg and a scar on his left cheek”
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Q: “Where did you meet him?”
A: “By the loading docks.”
Q: “How did he seem to you?”
A: “Half crazy.”
Q: “What was he doing when you saw him?”
A: “Selling cocaine to the police commissioner.”
A difference in constituency:
“We will walk up the hill.”

“We will give up our citizenship.”
In both cases, we have “up” + NP. Is this string a constituent?
More problematic case:
Q: “Where are you guys going on your date?”

A: “To the movies”
A: “The movies.”
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Class 18 (11/27/02)
Constituency Tests
(1) Questions:
• How do we access our knowledge of constituent structure?
• How do you know if a particular string of words is a constituent or not?
— Sentence fragment test

— Movement (displacement) test
— Coordination test
— Deletion/replacement test
— Pseudocleft test
(2) Sentence fragment test

Only constituents may occur as utterances by themselves.
Q: “Why do I have to eat my vegetables?”

A: “You have to eat your vegetables because I said so.”
A: “Because I said so.”
More examples:
Q: “Who did you run into yesterday?”

A: “A man with a wooden leg and a scar on his left cheek”
Q: “Where did you meet him?”
A: “By the loading docks.”
Q: “How did he seem to you?”
A: “Half crazy.”
Q: “What was he doing when you saw him?”
A: “Selling cocaine to the police commissioner.”
A difference in constituency:
“We will walk up the hill.”

“We will give up our citizenship.”
In both cases, we have “up” + NP. Is this string a constituent?
More problematic case:
Q: “Where are you guys going on your date?”

A: “To the movies”
A: “The movies.”
(3) Movement (displacement) test

Only constituents can undergo movement.
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• NPs and PPs can be fronted in topicalization sentences:
I know Josh’s brother quite well.

Josh’s brother I know quite well.
*Brother I know Josh’s quite well.
*Josh’s I know brother quite well.
I put the textbook in my book bag.

In my book bag I put the textbook.
The textbook I put in my book bag.
The textbook in my book bag I put.
Up the hill we will go!

Up our citizenship we will give!
• VPs and APs can also be fronted:
She most certainly will learn Japanese.

She definitely is afraid of heights.
If Mona wants to learn Japanese, then learn Japanese she most certainly will.
Mona said she was afraid of heights, and afraid of heights she definitely is.
If Mona wants to learn Japanese, then learn she most certainly will Japanese.
Mona said she was afraid of heights, and afraid she definitely is of heights.
(4) Coordination test

Only constituents (of the same category) can be conjoined by conjunctions like and and or.
I bought [ a new jacket and a pair of winter gloves ]

I found an [ old and badly damaged ] umbrella in my back yard.
On Saturday night, we will either [ go out to the movies or go bowling ].
We put the books on the table.
We put the books on the table and under the chair.

We put the books on and under the table.
We put the books on this table and under another table.
We put the books on this and under another table.
We put the and John saw some books on the table.
We went up the stairs.

We went out the door.
We went [up the stairs] and [out the door]
We gave up our citizenship.

We gave out our names.
We gave [up our citizenship] and [out our names].
(5) Deletion (ellipsis) test

Only constituents can be deleted under identity:
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Deletion of VPs in conjoined sentences (VP-ellipsis):
Carlos couldn’t finish the crossword, but Alice could finish the crossword.
Carlos couldn’t finish the crossword, but Alice could _____ .
Bill will be taking his exams later this week, but Alice won’t ____ until next month.
You may like lima beans in your succotash, but I don’t ____ .
The Academy will give him a major award.
The Academy will give him a major award, and the Institute will give him a major award too.
The Academy will give him a major award, and the Institute will ____ too.
The Academy will give him a major award, and the Institute will give him a cash prize.
The Academy will give him a major award, and the Institute will ____ a cash prize.
(6) The replacement test

Only constituents may be replaced with pro-forms (where the type of pro-form used depends
on the lexical category of the constituent):
• If a string is a NP constituent, it may be replaced with a pronoun:
The brown badger fell down the stairs.

It fell down the stairs.
I put the books on the table.

I put them on the table.
I put the books on the table.

I put them.
I put the books on the table in my book bag.

I put them in my book bag.
I put the books about physics in my book bag.

I put the them in my book bag.
Books about physics are very difficult to read.

They are very difficult to read.
• If a string is an NP constituent, it may be replaced with one(s):
I visited this young student of syntax.

I visited this one.

I visited this young one.

I visited this young one of syntax.
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• If a string is a PP constituent, it can often be replaced with a locative pro-form such as here,
there, then, now, thus, like this/that:
Angus put the coats on the bed.

Angus put the coats there.
Angus screamed with rage for hours on end.

Angus screamed like that for hours on end.
• If a string is a tensed VP constituent, it may be replaced with a pro-verb expression such as

do, do it, or do so:
Larry bought a new coat, and Rachel bought a new coat too.
Larry bought a new coat, and Rachel did too.
Flora took the exam on Friday, and Roy took the exam on Monday.
Flora took the exam on Friday, and Roy did (it) on Monday.
Alice gave money to the poor, and Angus gave money to the university.
Alice gave money to the poor, and Angus did to the university.
(7) Pseudo-cleft test

Only a single constituent can be focused in a pseudo-cleft sentence:
The structure of pseudo-clefts: X is/was [{who,what,where,...} ... ]

[{who,what,where,...} ... ] is/was X
The X slot may contain one and only one constituent.
Molly really wants to travel to Budapest.
Budapest is [ where Molly really wants to travel (to) ].

[ Where Molly really wants to travel (to) ] is Budapest.
To Budapest is [ where Molly really wants to travel ].

[ Where Molly really wants to travel ] is to Budapest.
Travel to Budapest is [ what Molly really wants to do ].

[ What Molly really wants to do ] is travel to Budapest.
To travel to Budapest is [ what Molly really wants ].

[ What Molly really wants ] is to travel to Budapest.
To travel is [ what Molly really wants (to do) to Budapest ].

[ What Molly really wants (to do) to Budapest ] is to travel.
Molly really wants is [ what to travel to Budapest ].
[ What to travel to Budapest ] is Molly really wants.
Up the hill is where we really want to go.

Up our citzenship is where/what we really want to give.
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(8) These constituency tests are not always 100% reliable
We will go up the stairs, and you will go up the stairs too.
*We will go up the stairs, and you will go ____ too.
(9) Where are we?

• Sentences are composed of constituents that are hierarchically structured.
• We now have some tests that help us identify constituents.
The X’ Theory of Tree Structure
(10) Tree structures

• Series of nodes, joined by branches
• Each node represents a constituent; nodes are labeled with the category of that constituent
• Root node, terminal node
• Branching node
• Hierarchical relations among nodes:
— Dominance
— Immediate dominance
— Immediate constituent of
— Mother, daughter, sister
(11) Tree structure of an NP

• What could an NP look like?
(a) man, book, Mary, exercises
(b) a man, every book, those exercises, no student
(c) Mary’s book, the man’s dog, this computer’s hard drive
(d) pictures of my dad, the destruction of the city, the nectar of the gods, the man in black
(e) those rumors that Professor West will leave Harvard

the fact that he has not shown up for work for three days
Bill’s complaint that the service was poor
• It looks like…
NP
egi
Spec N Compl
• the picture of my dad and video of my mom

the destruction of the city and massacre of its people
the man in black and woman in blue
These rumors that Professor West will leave Harvard are not as detailed as those ones.
Bill’s complaint that the service was poor was not as effective as Roy’s ___.
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NP
ru
Spec N’
ru
N Compl
• More NPs:
the beautiful garden, the tall, young, talented actor, every interesting book about language
What should the AP be attached to in the tree?
Compare:
The book was worth buying.
*The a book was worth buying.
*Book was worth buying.
The exciting book was worth buying.
The exciting new book was worth buying.
The exciting new little book was worth buying.
The exciting new little red book was worth buying.
➥ AP in an NP can be repeated essentially without limit.
The old books and new CDs are on sale in the bookstore.
Hank bought an exciting book yesterday and bought another one today.
➥ AP forms a constituent with the noun.
➥ AP is an adjunct in an NP.
NP
ru
Spec N’
ru
Adjunct N’
ru
N Compl

every book, every interesting book, every interesting book about language, Bill’s book?
(Consider Bill’s as a PossP—possessive phrase)
• More adjunct in NP:

every interesting book about language in my backpack
the destruction of the city in two days
pictures of my parents on my desk
How do you draw the trees for these?
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Class 19 (12/2/02)
The X’ Theory of Tree Structure
(1) Tree structures

• Series of nodes, joined by branches
• Each non-terminal node represents a constituent; nodes are labeled with the category of that
constituent
• Root node, terminal node
• Branching node
• Hierarchical relations among nodes:
— Dominance
— Immediate dominance
— Immediate constituent of
— Mother, daughter, sister
root mother → daughter daughter

branchei node mother
terminal branchei branch ru
node terminal terminal daughter daughter
node node
(2) Tree structure of an NP

• What could an NP look like?
(a) man, book, Mary, exercises
(b) a man, every book, those exercises, no student
(c) Mary’s book, the man’s dog, this computer’s hard drive
(d) pictures of my dad, the destruction of the city, the nectar of the gods, the man in black
(e) those rumors that Professor West will leave Harvard

• It looks like…
NP
egi
Spec N Compl
• the picture of my dad and video of my mom

the destruction of the city and massacre of its people
the man in black and woman in blue
These rumors that Professor West will leave Harvard are not as detailed as those ones.
Bill’s complaint that the service was poor was not as effective as Roy’s ___.
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NP
ru
Spec N’
ru
N Compl
• More NPs:
the beautiful garden, the tall, young, talented actor, every interesting book about language
What should the AP be attached to in the tree?
Compare:
The book was worth buying.
*The a book was worth buying.
*Book was worth buying.
The exciting book was worth buying.
The exciting new book was worth buying.
The exciting new little book was worth buying.
The exciting new little red book was worth buying.
➥ AP in an NP can be repeated essentially without limit.
The old books and new CDs are on sale in the bookstore.
Hank bought an exciting book yesterday and bought another one today.
➥ AP forms a constituent with the noun.
➥ AP is an adjunct in an NP.
NP
ru
Spec N’
ru
Adjunct N’
ru
N Compl

every book, every interesting book, every interesting book about language, Bill’s book?
(Consider Bill’s as a PossP—possessive phrase)
• More adjunct in NP:

every interesting book about language in my backpack
the destruction of the city in two days
pictures of my parents on my desk
How do you draw the trees for these?
(3) Tree structure of a VP?

• What could a VP look like?
(a) run, sleep, eat, jump
(b) eat breakfast, read a book, watch a movie
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(c) put the book on the table
give a book to Jason
show an example to the class
(d) thought that Gore would win
hope that the he will call me
wait for Dan to cook dinner
(e) promised my parents that I will visit them soon

whispered to Balkiz that I hated syntax
tell Mary that I will be there
• VP structure:
VP
Ru
SSppeecc V’
ru
V Compl
• Can you draw the trees for eat breakfast, put the book on the table, give a book to Jason?
ATTENTION:
We adopt Stabler’s approach to double complements, not Crain and Lillo-
Martin’s. I.e., we use ternary branching!
• Adjuncts in VP:
Compare:
I gave a book to Jason.
*I gave a book.
*I gave Jason.
I played basketball on Sunday.

I played basketball.
I played basketball on Sunday in the gym.
I played basketball on Sunday in the gym near MIT.
I played basketball on Sunday in the gym near MIT for hours.
VP
Ru
SSppeecc V’
ru
V’ Adjunct
ru
V Compl
• More adjuncts in VP:

I quickly ate an apple.
I greatly enjoyed the game.
I truly madly deeply passionately deliciously love you.
I half-heartedly played basketball on Sunday.
How do you draw the trees for half-heartedly played basketball on Sunday?
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(4) Tree structure of a PP
• What could a PP look like?
(a) in, up
(b) on the stage, up the hill, by car
(c) on the stage of the theater, up the hill in LA
PP
Ru
SSppeecc P’
ru
P Compl
• Can you draw the trees for on the stage, on the stage of the theater?
(5) Tree structure of an AP

• What could an AP look like?
(a) afraid, angry, important
(b) afraid of him, afraid of heights, fond of Mary, angry at Dan, important to Bill
(c) afraid of him in some ways, fond of Mary for no particular reason
(d) terribly afraid of him, totally angry at Dan, truly important to Bill
• AP structure:
AP
Ru
SSppeecc A’
ru
A’ Adjunct
ru
Adjunct A’
ru
A Compl
(6) X’-Theory
• All phrasal categories (XP) have the same structure.
• Each XP must contain a head of the same lexical category (X).
• Each XP can contain a specifier, and must contain an intermediate level category (X’).
XP → (Spec) X’
• X’ introduces X, and possibly a complement; i.e., a complement is a sister of the head X.
X’ → X (Compl)
• Adjuncts combine with X’ to form another X’; i.e., an adjunct is a sister of X’.
XP
ru
Spec X’
ru
X Compl
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• Different languages have the same structure for phrasal categories, but may have different
orders between a head and a complement, or a specifier and a X’.
➥ Korean:
I noin-i hakkyo ey kassta
this man-Nom school to went
‘This man went to school.’
What’s the order between a head and complement in PPs and VPs in Korean?
➥ Selayarese (Austronesian, Indonesia):

La/allei doe/ injo i-Baso.
took money the Baso
‘Baso took the money.’
What’s the order between a specifier and an N’?
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Class 20 (12/4/02)
The X’ Theory Continued
(1) Tree structure of a PP

• What could a PP look like?
(a) in, up
(b) on the stage, up the hill, by car
(c) on the stage of the theater, up the hill in LA
PP
Ru
SSppeecc P’
ru
P Compl
• Can you draw the trees for on the stage, on the stage of the theater?
(2) Tree structure of an AP

• What could an AP look like?
(a) afraid, angry, important
(b) afraid of him, afraid of heights, fond of Mary, angry at Dan, important to Bill
(c) afraid of him in some ways, fond of Mary for no particular reason
(d) terribly afraid of him, totally angry at Dan, truly important to Bill
• AP structure:
AP
Ru
SSppeecc A’
ru
A’ Adjunct
ru
Adjunct A’
ru
A Compl
(3) X’-Theory
• All phrasal categories (XP) have the same structure.
• Each XP must contain a head of the same lexical category (X).
• Each XP can contain a specifier, and must contain an intermediate level category (X’).
XP → (Spec) X’
• X’ introduces X, and possibly a complement; i.e., a complement is a sister of the head X.
X’ → X (Compl)
• Adjuncts combine with X’ to form another X’; i.e., an adjunct is a sister of X’.
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XP
ru
Spec X’
ru
X Compl
• Different languages have the same structure for phrasal categories, but may have different
orders between a head and a complement, or a specifier and a X’.
➥ Korean:
I noin-i hakkyo ey kassta
this man-Nom school to went
‘This man went to school.’
What’s the order between a head and complement in PPs and VPs in Korean?
➥ Selayarese (Austronesian, Indonesia):

La/allei doe/ injo i-Baso.
took money the Baso
‘Baso took the money.’
What’s the order between a specifier and an N’?
(4) The structure of sentences

• How do you combine an NP and a VP do form a sentence? What kind of phrasal category
does a sentence have?
NP = he, VP = laugh
*He laugh.
• The inflection (I), which is missing from the sentence, is the head of the sentence. A
sentence is an IP.
• The NP occupies the specifier position of the IP.
• The VP is a complement of I.
IP IP IP
ru ru ru
NP I’ NP I’ NP I’
| ru | ru | ru
N’ I VP N’ I VP N’ I VP
| | | | | | | {pres} |
N will V’ N -s V’ N V’
David | David | Students |
V V V
run Affix run run
hopping
• What are the arguments for giving a sentence this type of structure?
I will go and Mary will too. (VP ellipsis)
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Bill is anxious for [IP Mary to [VP leave town and forget about him]]. (Coordination of VP)
Bill is anxious for [IP Mary [I’ to leave town and to forget about him]]. (Coordination of I’)
John expects [IP[NP a poet] and Bill expects [IP[NP a linguist] [I’ to win the race]].
(Shared constituent coordination of I’)
(5) Complementizer phrases

• those rumors that Professor West will leave Harvard
• thought that Gore would win
hope that the he will call me
wait for Dan to cook dinner
• The phrases in italic are Complementizer Phrases (CP).
The complementizer (such as that, for) is the head of a CP. It introduces a sentence (IP) by
taking it as a complement.
• We’ll see later for the use of the specifier position of CP.
• Note: complementizer and complement are not the same thing.
IP
ru
NP I’
| ru
N’ I VP
| {past} |
N V’
Roy ru
Affix V CP
hopping wait |
C’
ru
C IP
for ru
NP I’
| ru
N’ I VP
| to |
N V’
Dan ru
V NP
cook |
N’
|
N
dinner
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Subcategorization
(6) What is missing in phrase structure rules?

*Agnes slept Larry. (cf. Agnes hit Larry)
*Agnes put. (cf. Agnes ran.)
*Agnes put the book. (cf. Agnes bought the book.)
*Agnes put in her pocket. (cf. Agnes stared at the TV screen.)
• These are not bad because they violate phrase structure rules. The structures in question are
acceptable. They’re bad because they violate the requirements of the verbs which have been
inserted in the structures.
• I.e., there are constraints on the syntactic contexts in which different words can occur. E.g.,
verbs tend to be picky about how many (and what kind of) dependents they occur before.
• These constraints are idiosyncratic (i.e. not based entirely on semantics):
I looked at the man. *I watched at the man.
*I looked the man. I watched the man.
• This shows that there’s more to sentence structure than phrase structure (what can combine
with what, and in what order).
• Phrase structure rules capture facts about linear and hierarchical structure, but they fail to
capture the distribution of verbs and other elements, which also contributes to the
grammaticality of sentences.
(7) Solution:
• Lexical heads fall into different classes, depending on the kind of dependent(s) (if any)
which they must occur with.
• We say that a head subcategorizes for the dependent(s) which it must occur with.
• Dependents which are subcategorized for are called complements.
Prepositions:
Daniel put the magazine [PP away].
*Daniel put the magazine [PP into].
Daniel put the magazine [PP into the wastebasket].
away: [PP __ ] (these are sometimes called subcategorization frames.)
into: [PP __ NP]
Verbs:
Daniel [VP died ].
*Daniel [VP found ].
Daniel [VP found the body ].
Daniel [VP put the book on the table ].
Adjectives:
Daniel is [AP tall ].
*Daniel is [AP fond ].
Daniel is [AP fond of music ].
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Subcategorization options:
Daniel [VP ate ].
Daniel [VP ate sushi ].
*Daniel [VP handed ].
*Daniel [VP handed a pencil ].
Daniel [VP handed a pencil to John ].
Daniel [VP handed John a pencil ].
Daniel threw the ball [PP over ].
Daniel threw the ball [PP over Jason’s head ].
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Class 21 (12/9/02)
Subcategorization
(1) What is missing in phrase structure rules?

*Agnes slept Larry. (cf. Agnes hit Larry)
*Agnes put. (cf. Agnes ran.)
*Agnes put the book. (cf. Agnes bought the book.)
*Agnes put in her pocket. (cf. Agnes stared at the TV screen.)
• These are not bad because they violate phrase structure rules. The structures in question are
acceptable. They’re bad because they violate the requirements of the verbs which have been
inserted in the structures.
• I.e., there are constraints on the syntactic contexts in which different words can occur. E.g.,
verbs tend to be picky about how many (and what kind of) dependents they occur before.
• These constraints are idiosyncratic (i.e. not based entirely on semantics):
I looked at the man. *I watched at the man.
*I looked the man. I watched the man.
• This shows that there’s more to sentence structure than phrase structure (what can combine
with what, and in what order).
• Phrase structure rules capture facts about linear and hierarchical structure, but they fail to
capture the distribution of verbs and other elements, which also contributes to the
grammaticality of sentences.
(2) Solution:
• Lexical heads fall into different classes, depending on the kind of dependent(s) (if any)
which they must occur with.
• We say that a head subcategorizes for the dependent(s) which it must occur with.
• Dependents which are subcategorized for are called complements.
Prepositions:
Daniel put the magazine [PP away].
*Daniel put the magazine [PP into].
Daniel put the magazine [PP into the wastebasket].
away: [PP __ ] (these are sometimes called subcategorization frames.)
into: [PP __ NP]
Verbs:
Daniel [VP died ].
*Daniel [VP found ].
Daniel [VP found the body ].
Daniel [VP put the book on the table ].
Adjectives:
Daniel is [AP tall ].
*Daniel is [AP fond ].
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Daniel is [AP fond of music ].
Subcategorization options:
Daniel [VP ate ].
Daniel [VP ate sushi ].
*Daniel [VP handed ].
*Daniel [VP handed a pencil ].
Daniel [VP handed a pencil to John ].
Daniel [VP handed John a pencil ].
Daniel threw the ball [PP over ].
Daniel threw the ball [PP over Jason’s head ].
Transformation
(3) A problem for subcategorization:

(a) Felicia will [VP discuss this book in class ].
(b) *Felicia will [VP discuss in class ].
(c) This book, Felicia will [VP discuss in class ].
• Why is sentence (b) bad?

• Why is sentence (c) good?
(4) Solution: The sentence is arrived at via a two-step process:

• The verb was originally in a VP structure containing an NP complement of the appropriate
type.
• After the phrase structure rules (restricted by subcategorization) have applied to create the
basic sentence structure, the complement is then moved to the front of the sentence.
➥ This solution solves the problem with subcategorization (not violated because the NP
complement was there at the stage when subcategorization is evaluated).
➥ Also captures the intuition that ‘this book’ fulfills the same semantic function in (a) and
(c).
Transformational rules: rules which manipulate phrase structures following the application
of phrase structure rules, but prior to pronunciation.
Deep Structure = input to transformation

Surface Structure = output of transformation
(5) Yes/No questions

(a) David will run.
(b) Will David run?
• The transformational rule:

Subject-Auxiliary Inversion (SAI), or I-to-C Movement.
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Deep Structure: Surface Structrue:
CP CP
| |
C’ C’
ru ru
C IP C IP
ru will ru
NP I’ NP I’
| ru | ru
N’ I VP N’ I VP
| will | | |
N V’ N V’
David | David |
V V
run run
(6) Affix-hopping and do-support

(a) David ran.
(b) Did David run?
• Affix-hopping is restricted to adjacent affix and verb.

• “Do” is inserted to save a stranded tense affix—do-support.
do+{past} = did
(7) Do-support in negative sentences

(a) David will run.
(b) David will not run.
• Consider the negation of a VP to be a NegP, with the negation word as the head (Neg), and
the VP as the complement. What’s the tree structure of (b)?
• Did the structure you came up with agree with the following data?
(c) David ran.
(d) David did not run.
(e) *David not ran.
WH-Movement
(8) Another subcategorization problem

(a) I wonder who John likes.
(b) *I wonder John likes.
(c) *I wonder who John likes Mary.
(d) I wonder whether John likes Mary.
(e) Karla knows what Leila found.

(f) *Karla knows Leila found.
(g) *Karla knows what Leila found the dog.
(h) Karla knows that Leila found the dog.
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• Why do sentences (a) and (e) pose a problem for subcategorization if they are generated by
brute force?
• What do sentences (b) and (f) tell you?
• What do sentences (c) and (g) tell you?
• What do sentences (d) and (h) tell you?
(9) Solution—WH-movement
• WH-words in English: who, what, where, when, why, how, which
• WH-phrases belong to different categories:
who, what NP
which book, what book NP
how tall AP
in which year PP
where, when, why, how AdvP (PP)
• WH-elements can occupy normal dependent positions, acting as complements and other
dependents (i.e. no movement transformation involved):
Echo-questions: You bought what?

Quiz-show questions: Tchaikovsky was born in what year?
• Constituents containing WH-elements often occur in moved positions:
IP
ru
NP I’
| ru
N’ I VP
| {pres} |
N V’
I ru
V CP → CP
wonder ru ru
Spec C’ NP C’
ru g
C IP N’
ru g
NP I’ N
| ru [+WH]
N’ I VP who
| {pres} |
N V’
John ru
V NP → NP
like | [+WH]
N’ t
|
N
[+WH]
who
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(10) Why not to C?
• Direct questions:
(a) Who does John like?
(b) Which book did John buy?
(c) In what year was Tchaikovsky born?
• Sentences (a)—(c) provide two reasons why WH-elements don’t move to C, what are they?
• Restrictions on movement: head-to-head, XP-to-XP.
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Class 22 (12/11/02)
WH-Movement
(1) WH-movement
• WH-words in English: who, what, where, when, why, how, which
• WH-phrases belong to different categories:
who, what NP
which book, what book NP
how tall AP
in which year PP
where, when, why, how AdvP (PP)
• WH-elements can occupy normal dependent positions, acting as complements and other
dependents (i.e. no movement transformation involved):
Echo-questions: You bought what?

Quiz-show questions: Tchaikovsky was born in what year?
• Constituents containing WH-elements often occur in moved positions:
IP
ru
NP I’
| ru
N’ I VP
| {pres} |
N V’
I ru
V CP → CP
wonder ru ru
Spec C’ NP C’
ru g
C IP N’
ru g
NP I’ N
| ru [+WH]
N’ I VP who
| {pres} |
N V’
John ru
V NP → NP
like | [+WH]
N’ t
|
N
[+WH]
who
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(2) Why not to C?
• Direct questions:
(a) Who does John like?
(b) Which book did John buy?
(c) In what year was Tchaikovsky born?
• Sentences (a)—(c) provide two reasons why WH-elements don’t move to C, what are they?
• Restrictions on movement: head-to-head, XP-to-XP.
(3) Subject questions

(a) Who ran the marathon?
(b) Who talked to John?
Which surface tree structure is correct?
CP CP
ru ru
Spec C’ NP C’
ru | ru
C IP N’ C IP
ru | ru
NP I’ N NP I’
| ru [+WH] [+WH] ru
N’ I VP who t I VP
| {past} | {past} |
N V’ V’
[+WH] ru ru
who V NP V NP
run @ run @
the marathon the marathon
(4) Long distance movement

(a) (Which book)i do you think Bill likes ti?
(I think Bill likes Moby Dick.)
(b) *Which book do you think who likes?
(c) Who do you think likes Sarah?
Question: does I-to-C movement occur in a subject question? Assume that the [+WH] trace
t in Spec of IP can block affix hopping.
(5) WH-movement (or lack thereof) in other languages

• Chinese: WH-words remain in their Deep Structure position (WH-in-situ)
Ni shi shei?
you are who
‘Who are you?’
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Ni xihuan shenme?
you like what
‘What do you like?’
Shei pao-le malasong

who run-ASP marathon
‘Who ran the marathon?’
Ta shuo Zhangsan xihuan shei?

He said Zhangsan like who
‘Who did you say Zhangsan likes?’
Wo xiang zhidao Zhangsan xihuan shei.

I want know Zhangsan like who
‘I want to know who Zhangsan likes.’
• French: WH-words can optionally move to the Spec of CP.
tu as vu qui
you have seen who
‘Who did you see?’
qui as-tu vu
who have-you seen
‘Who did you see?’
• One theory of WH-structure:

➥ WH-elements universally move to Spec of CP, either overtly (from Deep Structure to
Surface Structure, as in English), or covertly (not in Surface Structure, but in Logic
Form, or LF, as in Chinese).
➥ LF is the representation that provides information for the semantics, or meaning, of the
utterance.
Deep Structure
Surface Structure
Phonetic Form Logic Form
➥ Reasoning behind LF:
English:
WH-element as indirect question—Spec of embedded CP
WH-element as direct question—Spec of matrix CP
What gives you the direct vs. indirect distinction in Chinese?
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Zhangsan zhidao Lisi xihuan shei.
Zhangsan know Lisi like who
‘Zhangsan knows who Lisi likes.’
Zhangsan juede Lisi xihuan shei?

Zhangsan think Lisi like who
‘Who does Zhangsan think Lisi likes?’
(6) Syntax conclusion

• Hierarchical structure.
Long distance dependency, ambiguity, recursion.
• Constituents within constituents. X’-Theory.
• Inadequacy of phrase structure rules that build constituents.
Subcategorization.
Transformation.
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Class 23 (12/16/02)
Semantics
(1) Thumbnail definition of semantics:

The study of the relation between linguistic form and meaning.
In fact, the scope of semantics is narrower than that…
(2) So what does semantics deal with?

Central insight of semantics (Gottlob Frege): Meaning is compositional – the meaning of
an expression is calculated on the basis of the meanings of its parts + the meaning
contributed by the combinatory rules.
The girl fixed the fence.
The girl fixed the glork.
If “The girl fixed the glork” is true,

then “The glork was fixed by the girl” must also be true.
If “The girl fixed a blue glork” is true,

then “The girl fixed a glork” must also be true.
• So semantics considers questions like:

➥ Given the meanings of words, how do we compute the meanings of larger units?
Taking into account the contribution of:
—Constituent structure (rules for combining words)
—Functional elements
➥ What aspects of meaning have to be learned, and what do we ‘get for free’ as part of the
Universal Grammar that we’re born with?
(3) How do we study semantics?

• In syntax, we appealed to grammaticality judgments (intuitions about the acceptability of
hypothetical sentences).
• We also have intuitions about truth-value relations between sentences.
Truth value—Whether or not a sentence is true or false.
• Some sentences are necessarily true:
Either there is a book on the table, or there isn’t a book on the table.
Every hedgehog is a hedgehog.
Every six-pointed triangle is a six-pointed triangle.
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➥ Truth value doesn’t depend on whether there are hedgehogs or whether triangles are
six-pointed.
• ... or necessarily false:
Lois read the book, and Lois didn’t read the book.
No hedgehog is a hedgehog.
• What is semantically true may not be necessarily the same as physically true, morally true,
legally true, etc.
Lois read the book.

Paris is the capital of France.
The moon is made of green cheese. (Could be true in some fairy-tale world.)
Cf. The moon is made of green cheese, and the moon is not made of green cheese.
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light. (Could be false in some science fiction
world.)
➥ For most sentences, truth-value depends on the situation or state-of-affairs (possible

world) to which the sentence refers.
• Hmm… if the truth of an expression is determined by a whole network of activities in a

specific possible world, doesn’t the prospect of semantics seem terribly slim, since we
cannot hope to provide an account of all the activities that involve language?
➥ Many of the most important relations that a sentence enters into are purely linguistic.
Beyond the scope of linguistic theory to say whether “I have a yellow pencil” is true.
Not beyond the scope of linguistic theory to account for the fact that if “I have a yellow
pencil” is true, then so is “I have a pencil.”
• We can define a number of relations pertaining to the truth-values of sentences, about which
native speakers have intuitions. We can make use of these relations to investigate how the
meanings of expressions are computed on the basis of the meanings of words.
(4) Entailment
• Sentence S1 entails sentence S2 if and only if whenever S1 is true in a situation, S2 is also
true in that situation. (Or whenever S2 is false in a situation, S1 is also false in that
situation.)
(S1) Beidao is a Chinese poet entails

(S2) Beidao is a poet
(S1) Beidao killed his wife entails

(S2) Beidao’s wife died
➥ Part of knowing the meaning of a sentence is knowing what the sentence entails.
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In some cases, entailment is determined by meaning relations between words: If word X
includes the meaning of word Y, then a sentence containing X will entail a sentence in which
X has been replaced by Y:
(S1) Kangaroos are marsupials entails

(S2) Kangaroos are mammals
• Does S1 entail S2 in the following pairs?
(S1) I have a yellow pencil

(S2) Either 5 is a prime number or 5 is not a prime number

(S2) I have a yellow pencil and 5 is an odd number
(S1) Two is an odd number

(5) Assertion and presupposition

• Assertion—What the speaker is claiming to be true or false by uttering the sentence.
• Presupposition—What the speaker assumes to be true, as ‘background’ to the sentence
s/he is uttering.
• My brother bought a new stereo.
Presupposition: The speaker has a brother.

Assertion: He bought a new stereo.
• Does a sentence entail its presuppositions?
(S1) My brother bought a new stereo

(S2) I have a brother
• Does negating a sentence cancel the assertion? Does it cancel the presuppositions?
My brother didn’t buy a new stereo.
• Does the negation of a sentence entail its presuppositions?
(S1) My brother didn’t buy a new stereo

(S2) I have a brother
• More examples:
(S1) Dolores said that Frank was a spy

(S2) Frank was a spy
(S1) Dolores forgot that Frank was a spy

(S1) Dolores didn’t forget that Frank was a spy

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(6) Intersection and meaning composition
(S1) I bought a green sweater entails
(S2) I bought a sweater”
• We can model the contribution of “green” using set theory:
[[ sweater ]] = “the set of all sweaters”

[[ green ]] = “the set of all green things”
“green sweater” refers to anything which is in the intersection of these two sets (Venn
diagram):
[[ sweater ]] ∩ [[ green ]]
• Modifiers which function like this are called intersective.
• Q: Are all adjectives intersective?
a big planet
a big elephant
a big grasshopper (cf. “tall midget” vs. “short giant”)
• A rule of meaning composition: If AP is intersective, then the constituent
[NP AP NP ] is interpreted as [[ AP ]] ∩ [[ NP ]]
• We can apply this set theory approach to other kinds of meaning composition:
Dolores is a vegetarian = [[ Dolores ]] ⊆ [[ vegetarian ]]

Hindus are vegetarians = [[ Hindu ]] ⊆ [[ vegetarian ]]
Two students are vegetarians = [[ student ]] ∩ [[ vegetarian ]] = 2
(7) Extension and intension

• The set of entities which bear a property X is called the extension of X:
[[ student ]] is the extension of “student”

[[ vegetarian ]] is the extension of “(is a) vegetarian”
• Can two expressions have the same extension but different meanings?
the first person to walk on the moon

Neil Armstrong
Q: Do they pick out the same entity in the world (at least, our possible world)? I.e., do they
have the same extension?
Q: Do they have the same meaning?
(S1) We met the first person to walk on the moon

(S2) We met Neil Armstrong”
(S1) My crazy aunt thought she was the first person to walk on the moon
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(S2) My crazy aunt thought she was Neil Armstrong
(S1) Everyone knows Venus is the morning star.

(S2) Everyone knows Venus is Venus.
➥ Frege’s observation: Expressions with identical extensions can produce different truth
values.
➥ To express this difference, semanticists contrast extensions with intensions:
Extension: The set of entities/events/etc. in the world to which an expression refers (its
referents, denotation)
Intension: The ‘inherent sense’ conveyed by an expression.
(8) Modeling the semantics of determiners

• Determiners: Articles and demonstratives: the, this, that, these, those
Quantifiers: some, most, every, each, all, few, two, a dozen…
• What do determiners contribute to the semantics of an expression?
Lois is happy [[ Lois ]] ⊆ [[ happy ]]
How about:
Every student is happy.
Some students are happy.
No student is happy.
Two students are happy.
Fewer than five students are happy.
Most students are happy.
• Determiners specify relations between sets (of individuals) and sets (of properties)
• Can any possible relation between sets be encoded by a determiner?
Let’s invent a hypothetical determiner: nevery
Nevery NP VP = Everything which is not in [[ NP ]] is in [[ VP ]]
Nevery triangle has stripes.
Nevery student in this room wear glasses.
(9) Observation: No language has determiners like nevery

• Conservativity: A determiner is conservative if its meaning can be figured out just on the
basis of the extension of the NP and the intersection of the extension of the NP and the VP.
➥ A test: The quantifier Q is conservative iff “Q NP VP” can be paraphrased as “Q NP

is a NP which VP”
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Every student is happy can be paraphrased as
Every student is a student who is happy
No student is a happy can be paraphrased as

No student is a student who is happy
Nevery triangle has stripes cannot be paraphrased as

Nevery triangle is a triangle which has stripes
• The conservativity of determiners appears to be a universal semantic property of human

languages. Even though we could imagine what a non-conservative determiner might be
like, no human language actually has such determiners. Why?
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Class 24 (12/18/02)
Semantics II
(1) Bureaucracies:
• Reading: Fromkin Chapter 7.
• Exercises: p.377—7.1, p.387—7.2, p.388—7.3, p.394—7.4, p.395—7.5, 7.6
You do not need to turn them in. But make sure you know how to do them!
• Final:
➥ Jan 13 (Monday), 2:15pm-5:15pm, Sever 103.
➥ Closed-book, closed notes.
➥ Cumulative. More morphology, syntax, semantics, but you still need to know how to do
phonemic analysis and solve alternation problems in phonology. Will not test you on
phonetic equipment. You will be given IPA chart and feature chart.
➥ Similar format to midterm, with a mix of multiple-choice, short-answer, and problem-
solving questions (including trees), but longer.
• Review sessions by Balkiz, Conor, and me TBA, Jan 8-12. Will send email.
(2) Review of last class:

• Meaning is compositional: the meaning of an expression is calculated on the basis of the
meanings of its parts + the meaning contributed by the combinatory rules.
• Entailment: Sentence S1 entails sentence S2 if and only if whenever S1 is true in a
situation, S2 is also true in that situation.
S1 S2 S1 entails S2?
T T Yes
T F No
F T Yes
F F Yes
• Presupposition and assertion:

➥ Presupposition: what the speaker assumes to be true, as ‘background’ to the sentence.
➥ Assertion: what the speaker is claiming to be true or false by uttering the sentence.
➥ Both the presupposition and the assertion are entailed by the sentence.
(In fact, a sentence asserts whatever it entails minus whatever it presupposes.)
➥ Negation cancels the assertion, but not the presupposition.
• Intersective modifiers:
➥ If AP is intersective, then the constituent
[NP AP NP ] is interpreted as [[AP]] ∩ [[NP]]
➥ Not all modifiers are intersective.
Scaler adjectives: big, small, wide, narrow, tall, short…
Negative adjectives: bogus, fake, phony, false…
Conjectural adjectives: ostensible, alleged, possible, apparent, likely…
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• Extension and intension:
➥ Extension: the set of entities/events/etc. in the world to which an expression refers (its
referents, denotation)
➥ Intension: the ‘inherent sense’ conveyed by an expression.
➥ Two expressions may have the same extension, but different intensions. Extensional
semantics is not all there is to our semantic knowledge.
(3) More extensional semantics: modeling the semantics of determiners

• Determiners: Articles and demonstratives: the, this, that, these, those
Quantifiers: some, most, every, each, all, few, two, a dozen…
• What do determiners contribute to the semantics of an expression?

Lois is happy [[ Lois ]] ⊆ [[ happy ]]
How about:
Every student is happy.
Some students are happy.
No student is happy.
Two students are happy.
Fewer than five students are happy.
Most students are happy.
• Determiners specify relations between sets (of individuals) and sets (of properties)
• Can any possible relation between sets be encoded by a determiner?

Let’s invent a hypothetical determiner: nevery
Nevery NP VP = Everything which is not in [[ NP ]] is in [[ VP ]]
Nevery triangle has stripes.
Nevery student in this room wear glasses.
(4) Observation: No language has determiners like nevery

• Conservativity: A determiner is conservative if its meaning can be figured out just on the
basis of the extension of the NP and the intersection of the extension of the NP and the VP.
➥ A test: The quantifier Q is conservative iff “Q NP VP” can be paraphrased as “Q NP

is a NP which VP”
Every student is happy can be paraphrased as

Every student is a student who is happy
No student is a happy can be paraphrased as

No student is a student who is happy
Nevery triangle has stripes cannot be paraphrased as

Nevery triangle is a triangle which has stripes
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• The conservativity of determiners appears to be a universal semantic property of human
languages. Even though we could imagine what a non-conservative determiner might be
like, no human language actually has such determiners. Why?
(5) Negative polarity items and decreasing determiners:

• Distribution of words like ever, anyone, anything
No student ever laughs. *Every student ever laughs.
No student likes anyone. *A student likes anyone.
No student saw anything. *A student saw anything.
➥ Words like ever, anyone, anything are called negative polarity items. It looks like
they require a negative determiner.
But…
Less than 3 students ever laugh. *Some students ever laugh.

At most 30 students ever laugh. *30 students ever laugh.
➥ What determiners license a negative polarity item in a sentence?
• Decreasing determiners: a determiner is decreasing if whenever we have two verb

phrases VP1 and VP2 where [[VP1]] is always a subset of [[VP2]], then [D N VP2] entails
[D N VP1]. In these cases we say that [D N] forms a decreasing NP.
E.g., VP1 = sings and dances, VP2 = sings.

[[VP1]] ⊆ [[VP2]]
No student sings entails
No student sings and dances
∴ ‘No’ is a decreasing determiner. ‘No student’ is a decreasing NP.
E.g., Every student sings does not entail
Every student sings and dances
∴ ‘Every’ is not a decreasing determiner. ‘Every student’ is not a decreasing NP.
How about less than 3, at most 30, fewer than 6, no more than 2?
• Negative polarity items can occur in a sentence with a decreasing determiner.

In fact, the real NPI licensing rule is more complicated…
E.g., *No student told me that every student ever sings.
Every student told me that no student ever sings.
*Every student ever sings the song that no student likes.
No student ever sings the song the every student hates.
• More complications:
He denies he ever laughs. *He claims he ever laughs.
He doubts she ever laughs. *He believes she ever laughs.
It is false that she ever laughs. *It is true that she ever laughs.
He failed to ever reach a conclusion. *He succeeded in ever reaching a conclusion.
➥ It seems likely that the notion of ‘decreasing’ can be extended to get all of these cases.
But this goes beyond what we can cover here…
——————————————————FINIS——————————————————
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Linguistics 110, Spring 2002
Pretest Answers
1. There are five vowel sounds in English.
False. English is written with five vowel LETTERS. However, those letters serve to
represent as many as 12 to 15 SOUNDS, depending on your variety of English. For
example, the letter “u” represents 3 different sounds in the words ‘but’, ‘put’, ‘butte’.
2. Educated people speak more grammatically than do uneducated people.
False. Educated people tend to conform more closely to the norms of a “standard”
variety of a language (English in English-speaking countries, French in French-
speaking countries, etc.) than do people without formal education. If “conformity
with a standard” is what is meant by “grammatical”, then in this sense, educated
people do, by definition, speak more grammatically. However, in linguistics,
speaking “grammatically” means “following systematic patterns of sentence
construction”. EVERYONE, regardless of educational level, speaks “grammatically”
in this sense, i.e., no one speaks his or her native language in a random, non-
systematic way.
3. All linguists speak several languages.
True or False, depending on what you mean by “linguist”. One dictionary definition
of “linguist” is “someone who speaks two or more languages”. By this definition, the
statement is obviously true. However, if by “linguist” you mean “a specialist in the
science of linguistics” (the only definition which we will use in this class), it is not
necessarily the case that such a person speaks many languages any more than it is
necessary that a specialist in music theory be able to play all the instruments in an
orchestra. Language can be analyzed as an abstract object of study, which does not
require that one be able to actively communicate in that language. (One might add,
however, that because linguists get pleasure from working on a variety of languages,
most of them do speak more than one language if for no other reason than that it is
fun!)
4. The languages of primitive peoples have simpler grammars than languages such as
English or French.
False. This is nonsense. There is no relation between language structure and culture.
All languages are complex, but some of the languages which have the greatest
complexity in details of how words are put together, etc. are, in fact, spoken by
people in some of the least technologically advanced cultures, e.g. hunter-gathers of
Africa and Australia, Eskimos of Alaska and northern Canada, etc.
5. Parrots and people can both use language.
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False. Parrots have the ability to mimic sounds of various types, including words and
phrases of human languages. However, a parrot could not learn to combine the word-
like sounds that it can mimic into new combinations to create sentences which it had
not heard before. As for the sounds that parrots make as part of their native
communication system, these comprise a variety of vocalizations which may signal
things like danger, the presence of food, etc., but they cannot be analyzed in terms of
words combined into sentences or the like.
6. Intelligence is a major factor in a child’s ability to learn a first language rapidly and
well.
False. All children in all cultures acquire the languages of their cultures at about the
same rate and following similar paths, starting with one-word utterances, then
combinations of two words, then more complex utterances with the cute “mistakes”
we recognize as baby talk, and so on. Except in cases of the most severe mental
impairment or other pathological problems such as deafness, all children in all
cultures achieve very similar language abilities regardless of their aptitudes in other
areas.
7. More than two-thirds of the English vocabulary consists of “borrowed” words.
True. If one goes through an unabridged dictionary of English, one finds that as
many as 2/3 of the words listed there have come into English from other languages.
That is, these words were not part of the vocabulary of English as it was spoken, say,
1000 years ago. However, many of these words are specialized in various ways. In
speech on everyday topics, they vast majority of words that English speakers use can
be traced back all the way to Old English.
8. We should say, “It’s I,” rather than, “It’s me.”
??. The answer here is similar to that for #2 above. If “should say” means that this is
what we were taught in school and it is therefore the norm which we should follow,
then this statement is true. If “should say” means that we are not speaking “real
English” if we do otherwise, then it is false. In fact, this “rule” was INVENTED in
the 18th century by teachers who based their ideas on the grammar of Latin. Native
English speakers of English have never said, “It’s I,” as part of their natively-learned
variety of English.
9. A language which has never been written is more properly called a “dialect” than a
“language”.
False. If by “dialect” you mean “a non-written variety of speech”, this statement is,
by definition, true, but this is an incoherent and unacceptable use of the word
“dialect”. Properly used, the word “dialect” refers to “a variety of language showing
systematic differences from other varieties of THE SAME LANGUAGE”. Thus,
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“standard” English is a “dialect of English” just as much as are “Black English”,
“Southern English”, “Cockney English”, “New York English”, etc.
10. As a language is passed on from one generation to the next, it tends to get corrupted.
False. Again, a matter of definition—if “corrupted” means “changed”, then this

would be true, but normally persons who make such statements as this mean
“degenerated”. Language does change over time (the English of Chaucer, spoken in
the 14th century, is quite different from 20th century English), but all human
languages have equal expressive power in terms of the vocabulary and sentence
structures which they have available. As long as people have human brains, their
language cannot become “corrupted” in the sense of “generate in expressive
power”—it can only change in the ways that it expresses things.
11. There are 3 to 5 distinct sounds in the word thorough.
True. The sounds are

th = a single “fricative” sound made by passing air between tongue and teeth
or = for some speakers, a single sound like the “rr” sound in ‘bird’; for other speakers,
two sounds, i.e. a vowel like the vowel in “but” and an “r”
ough = for some speakers a single sound, “o”; for other speakers, two sounds, “o”
followed by “w”.
12. There are 4 units of meaning in the word disrespectfully.
True. The units are

dis- means “not, negative”
-respect- means “respect, deference”
-ful- added the noun respect makes an adjective (“full of respect”)
-ly added to an adjective, makes an adverb (“in a manner of respecting”)
One might argue that -respect- has two meaningful units: re- as in re-do and -spect as
in inspect. However, in English, -spect- doesn’t seem to carry any independent
meaning that runs across all the word in occurs in, and the re- of “respect” doesn’t
give the meaning of “again” that it has in words like “redo” or “reread”.
13. How many languages are there in the world?
Several thousand. Nobody knows exactly how many languages there are, but 5000-
6000 is a pretty good estimate. There are about 2000 on the African continent alone.
The relatively small island of New Guinea has about 800.
14. Which two languages in the following pairs are the most closely related to each
other?
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English and Yiddish. These are both “Germanic” languages. Yiddish is actually
quite similar to German.
Yiddish and Hebrew: These are not related at all linguistically—Yiddish is Germanic
and Hebrew is Semitic. However, there is a culture tie in that almost all speakers of
both these languages are Jewish. They are also both written with the Hebrew
alphabet.
English and French: These are very distantly related in that they belong to the Indo-
European family. The similarity in many words is largely a result of the fact that
English borrowed large numbers of French words after the Norman invasion of 1066.
Chinese and Japanese: Not related at all—Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan

family, Japanese to the Altaic family. Chinese has, however, exercised great cultural
influence over Japanese, the result being that Japanese has borrowed many Chinese
words (including even the numbers) and Japanese uses many Chinese symbols in its
writing system.
15. Which is the oldest language in the world?
None of those listed. It makes no sense to talk about the “oldest language”. All
languages spoken at a certain time are of equal age for the simple fact that all
languages are changing all the time—no language has the same form as it had several
centuries ago. Sumerian is the language for which we have written records dated
from the earliest time—5000-6000 years ago, but the fact that English, for example,
has written records dating back “only” about 1000 years does not mean that English is
not as old as Sumerian. The precursor of English was being spoken at the same time
that those ancient Sumerian documents were being written. The speakers of that
precursor to English just hadn’t developed a writing system yet. The only way this
question could make sense would be to ask, “Which language has the oldest written
records?” Here are the approximate dates for the earliest written records for each of
the languages listed, starting from the earliest:
Sumerian: records dating from about 3100 BC
Egyptian: 3000 BC
Sanskrit: 1500 BC
Greek: 1400 BC (oldest records in the Greek alphabet, ca. 1000 BC)
Chinese: 1300 BC
Hebrew: 1100 BC
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Linguistics 110 - Introduction To Linguistics - Zhang, Öztürk, Quin

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Linguistics 110 Zhang/Öztürk/Quinn

(1) Linguistics: the scientific study of human language.

(2) A linguist is someone who:

(3) What does it mean to “know a language”?

(a) Sound system

German: Bach, Süd ‘south’, rot ‘red’.

Mandarin Chinese: ma@ ‘mother’

Navajo: ch’ah ‘hat’, k’ai’ ‘willow’.

Sindhi: ∫´ni ‘field’, ∂inu ‘festival’. (Indo-European, Pakistan)

!Xo!o): !oo ‘knife’, ||ahm ‘freckle’. (Khoisan, southern Africa)

English: this, that—the sound for ‘th’ is not in French.

zl: ok in Polish—zloty ‘a unit of currency’, not ok in English.

st: ok in English—stop, rest, not ok in Mandarin Chinese.

• How to combine morphemes into words.

• Interaction between knowledge of how to combine morphemes and

Plural book book[s] *book[z] *bookedistas

Past ask ask[t] *ask[d]

(c) Sentences and non-sentences

a. I am going to give you a presentation on language.

Q1: How many grammatical sentences are there in English?

Q2: How do we make these grammatical judgments?

(4) How do we acquire the knowledge of our language?

• Children produce ungrammatical sentences to adults’ ear.

• Knowledge of words and sound structures cannot be acquired by pure

(i) Jason breaked my toy.

(ii) pajamas → jimamas

• Child: Nobody don’t like me.

• Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.

The child hears… By analogy, the child might produce…

I painted a barn red. I painted a barn blue.

• There are certain mistakes that children never make:

• A unicorn is in the garden.

A unicorn that is eating a flower is in the garden.

Children never make mistakes like the last sentence.

• Jim ate ice-cream and cookies. Jim ate what?

Children never make mistakes like the last sentence.

• These facts point to the possibility of the following:

• Our language ability is biologically innate.

Q3: If there is no language module, and language is simply a consequence of

(6) Mr. Ford

• Language severely impaired.

• Has unimpaired language development.

(1) Review of last class:

(4) Mr. Ford

• Other cognitive abilities not affected.

(6) Let’s zoom in closer— language is controlled by the left hemisphere.

➥ Left hemisphere: better for language, rhythmic perception, temporal-order

(7) Let’s zoom in even closer—Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area

➥ Characteristics of Broca’s aphasia:

• Wernicke’s area: back portion of the left hemisphere.

Interview between psycholinguist Howard Gardner and Wernicke’s aphasia

Gardner: “What brings you to the hospital?”

Gardner: “Thank you, Mr. Gorgan. I want to ask you a few—“

• Q: What do the different charateristics of Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia tell us

• PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging):

• TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)

(1) Language is controlled by the left hemisphere.

➥ Left hemisphere: better for language, rhythmic perception, temporal-order

(2) Let’s zoom in even closer—Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area

➥ Characteristics of Broca’s aphasia:

Interview between psycholinguist Howard Gardner and Wernicke’s aphasia

➥ Characteristics of Wernicke’s aphasia:

• Q: What do the different charateristics of Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia tell us

Plural book book[s] book[z] bookedistas