ILO is for the International Linguistics

Olympiad
• One of 12 ‘academic’ Olympiads (in order of age: Mathematical, Physics, Chemistry,
Informatics, Biology, Philosophy, Astronomy, Geography, Junior Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics,
designed to stretch competitors’ subject knowledge
Earth Science)

• 5 ‘problems’ – non “language-specific,” i.e. usually in unfamiliar

or imaginary languages [2-6 hours allowed!]
• Tests ‘structural linguistic’ skills – the ability to recognize and
put into practice the deep ‘rules’ of language[s]
• The UKLO runs in the spring – Round One in college, round
Two in Edinburgh - with the aim of ‘selecting’ competitors for
the ILO in Sweden next summer
• SO, we’ll be looking at ‘structural linguistics’ – what languages
are & how they work – to improve your understanding of
languages in general, to improve your facility in the languages
you study in particular, and, possibly, to enter the UKLO….
A is for Apple, Arbitrariness & Ox
• Why is ‘A’ for ‘Apple’?
• What is ‘apple’ in other languages?
• So, what is the relationship between ‘A’ and
‘apple’?
• For linguists, a word is a signifier
• What does ‘apple’ signify? That is, what do you
think when you think ‘apple’?
A is for Apple, Arbitrariness & Ox
• For linguists, what you think of when you think of
a word is its signified [not a thing, but an idea of
a thing…]
• The first principle of linguistics is [according to
Saussure, who started it!] ‘the arbitrariness of
the sign’ - that is, the ‘arbitrariness of the
relationship between the signifier and the
signified’
• Meaning? Well, meaning that we could choose
ANY word to refer to ANY thing…
(As long as we all agreed)
A is for Apple, Arbitrariness & Ox
• WHAT we all need to agree on are the
‘rules’ – HOW we are going to organise
our language…
• So a language is a rule-governed system
of relationships between signifiers
• ‘A green apple’ – what is the rule for
adjectival modification in English?
• …and in other languages?
A is for Apple, Arbitrariness & Ox
• What is ‘A’ ‘for’ in other languages?

• In the Phoenician alphabet, from which ours

ultimately derives, the ‘A’ was ‘for’ the head of an ox
…
• The ‘alphabet’ thus begins as a pictographic system,
before becoming a symbolic system…
• Cattle were common in Egypt, where Phoenician
originated, just as apples were common in medieval
England:
• Agreed signifieds for agreed signifiers…
A is for Apple, Arbitrariness & Ox
• If a word [or a letter, or a sound…] is a signifier and
• What the word refers to is its signified
• Then, using a word to refer to something is a
signification
• For Saussurian or ‘structural’ linguists, the only
useful definition of a language is ‘a system of shared
significations’
• When you work out the system, you work out the
language…
 What’s the system…
• … of symbol/letter correspondence here?

bx’tt wx bxsx
Or here?
pbx’tt gxfxs wx dx
 R is for Regularity, Roots & recognition
• What does it mean when we say that a language, or a
linguistic form, is regular?
“I love to skink.”
• When we acquire a language, what we acquire is the ability
to recognise & reproduce its regular patterns
If “skink” is a regular verb, what form does it take in the
following…?
1. “He ……….. for a living!”
2. “They’ve tried …………., and they didn’t like it.”
How many regular forms could “skink” take in the following…?
3. “John & Julie ………….. for the first time yesterday.”
4. “He has ……………, but won’t do it again!”
How would you describe the ‘rule’ in each example?
R is for Regularity, Roots & recognition
•“skink” is a morpheme - a ‘base unit’ or ‘root form’ or ‘brick’ that
cannot be meaningfully divided into smaller units [or forms or bricks]
– all languages are systems of relationships between
morphemes
•Because it is free to stand alone, linguists call it a free
morpheme.
•Because alterations to its form would produce an alteration
to its meaning, linguists call it a semantic morpheme.
•The additional ‘s,’ ‘ing,’ ‘ed’ in ‘skinks,’ ‘skinking,’ ‘skinked’
need to be bound on to something to work, so each is a
bound morpheme.
•Because changing which one of these is ‘bound’ to any
free morpheme modifies the grammatical tense or
number, linguists call each a grammatical morpheme.
 R is for Regularity, Roots & recognition
• Morphemically, nouns are also ‘regular’ or ‘irregular’:
• Which ONE noun could be modified by having ALL of the following
morphemes bound to it? Note down your answers to EACH and why
they reduce as you go along…
• “step……..”
• “grand…….”
• “……less”
• “……ly”
• “……board”
• “……ship”
• Which of these morphemes are grammatical/bound, and which
semantic/free?
• How does each of the grammatical morphemes modify the
semantic morpheme “mother”?
R is for Regularity, Roots & recognition

• What would you know about a

noun to which the following
morphemes could be bound…?
1. “step……..,” AND “grand……..”?
2. “……free,” AND “…..rich”?
 …what’s the system here?
[A Drehu/English problem from the 2008
Linguistics Olympiad!]
drai-hmitrötr sanctuary [holy place]
gaa-hmitrötr bunch of bananas
i-drai calendar
i-jun bone
i-wahnawa church
jun coast
ngöne-gejë awl [a tool for making
ngöne-uma holes]
nyine-thin Sunday
uma-hmitrötr skeleton
wall
(an
Austronesian
language with
about 12,000
speakers on
Lifou Island,
New
Caledonia.)
 The solution
• The REGULAR PATTERN = the modifying
morpheme, follows its semantic morpheme or head.
• drai-hmitrötr = Sunday (holy day)
• gaa-hmitrötr = sanctuary (holy place)
• uma-hmitrötr = church (holy house)
• ngöne-uma = wall (house border)
• ngöne-gejë = coast (water border)
• nyine-thin = awl (tool to poke)
• jun = bone
• i-jun = skeleton (multitude of bones)
• i-wahnawa = bunch of bananas (multitude of bananas)
• i-drai = calendar (multitude of days)
 C is for Carroll & Chomsky
• PRINCIPLE 1: arbitrariness - Saussure
points out that all linguistic units are arbitrary
(there is no necessary connection between
any signifier & any signified)
• PRINCIPLE 2: regularisation - Chomsky
points out that when we acquire a language,
what we acquire are the ‘principles’ or ‘rules’
of the language as well as the arbitrary
symbols to which they apply
• Meaning? Meaning that whenever you look at
a word or phrase, your mind instantly
searches for its ‘rules’ in order to make sense
of it
 C is for Carroll & Chomsky
• Before Saussure, & long before Chomsky, Lewis
Carroll wrote Jabberwocky:
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!“
1. What do you know about ‘Jabberwock’?
How? [what rules identify it?]
1. What do you know about ‘frumious’?
How? [what rules identify it?]
1. What do you know about ‘Jubjub’?
How? [what rules identify it?]
 Am I dantier than I am cloovy? (a problem
•
from the NALCO 07 Olympiad
Jane is molistic and slatty.
• Jennifer is cluvious and brastic.
• Molly and Kyle are slatty but danty.
• The teacher is danty and cloovy.
• Mary is blitty but cloovy.
• Jeremiah is not only sloshful but also weasy.
• Even though frumsy, Jim is sloshful.
• Strungy and struffy, Diane was a pleasure to watch.
• Even though weasy, John is strungy.
• Carla is blitty but struffy.
• The salespeople were cluvious and not slatty.

Which of the following are you (most) likely to hear?

• Meredith is blitty and brastic.
• The singer was not only molistic but also cluvious.
• May found a dog that was danty but sloshful.

What quality or qualities would you be looking for in a person?

• blitty
• weasy
• sloshful
• frumsy

Explain!