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Linguistic Theory and Theories
Linguistic Theory and Theories
Lecture 1
Introduction:
Linguistic Theory and Theories
Course Outline
• Two characteristics:
– Very impressed by Behaviourism/Empiricism
– Studied Native American Languages
Behaviourism
• Strong empiricist view:
– All knowledge comes from experience
• Therefore:
– Human behaviour is learned from the environment
– We can only study what we can observe
• We cannot observe the mind, so we must assume that it
does not exist
• We can observe the environment and behaviour, so let’s
assume this is all that exists
• Behaviourism was the only school of psychology
to define away its subject matter
Structuralists and Empiricism
• We can only study what we can observe
• We can observe sound
– So we can study phonetics
• If we assume that phonology is based on
phonetics, we can study phonology too
• If we assume that morphology is based on
phonology, we can study morphology
• If we assume that syntax is based on morphology,
we can study syntax
• We can’t study semantics – leave that to
philosophers
• Therefore:
– The unit of phonology (phoneme) is a
collection of phones (observable) and
distinguished in terms of the distribution of
phones
– The unit of morphology (morpheme) is a
combination of phonemes and distinguished
in terms of distribution
– The unit of syntax (word) is a combination of
morphemes, distinguished by distribution
Strucuralists and Native
Americans
• There were not many native Americans left
by 1900 and their languages were
disappearing fast
• There was therefore and urgent need to
record their grammars
• American languages were very different from
Indo-European languages and it was thought
that classical linguistic concepts did not apply
• So what was needed was a set of ‘field
tools’ that could be applied to any
language which would accurately yield
grammars
• As all linguistic units were identified by
distribution patterns, distribution was the
most important ‘discovery procedures’ to
produce a grammar
Generative Linguistics
• Rationalist approach
– The mind exists and can be studied
– Some knowledge comes from the mind itself
• Discovery procedures are foolish and
limiting
– You get your data from wherever you can find
it (not limited to observable data – i.e. Intuition
also acceptable)
• The notion of structure stays
– Words group into phrases
– Phrases group into sentences
• New type of rule for producing structure
– S NP VP
• A set of such rules makes a Phrase
Structure Grammar
– Grammar is a set of rules that are part of the
mind
• But phrase structure rules are not enough
to describe human languages
– Discontinuous constituents
• [A man with blue eyes] walked into a shop
• [A man] walked into a shop [with blue eyes]
• To describe this phenomena we need
transformations
– Rules which alter structures to form other
structures (e.g. By moving things about)
Generative grammar and
language acquisition
• From a rationalist perspective, knowledge
of language could be innate
• But clearly this is not totally true as there is
more than one language
• Chomsky supposed that some aspects of
language are innate but some are learned
• Language learning must be easy
– Children do it in about 5 years with no formal
instruction
• But transformational grammars which are
capable of describing even basic linguistic
facts were very complicated
• How can we square these facts?
Developments of the 1970s
• Competition
– non-absolute grammaticality
– Grammaticality based on the ‘best’ of several
options
– E.g.
• It is better to not move than to move
• It is better to move short distances than long ones
• What does the grammar manipulate?
– From structuralism we have always assumed
that words are the basis of syntax
– But transformational analyses started to
discover that units smaller than words
undergo syntactic processes:
• He is always sad
• He always phones his mother
– Some have suggested that this leads to a
theory where syntax always manipulates
items smaller than the word and that words
are constructed by syntax