Design Features of Human and Animal

Communication systems

The Properties of Language

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• What is Language (“big-L”)?

• What is a language (“little-L”)?

{
• The systematic “rules” and
grammar patterns that govern word
ordering.
• The body of knowledge that
allows one to produce a
particular language
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Grammar
• A Body of Linguistic Knowledge
▫ How to:
 Combine sounds
 Create words
 Build sentences
 Construct texts
 Participate in conversations

Language is axiomatic to being human.

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Communicative Signs
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Core Properties of all Communication

}
• Form

• Meaning sign
• Function
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Analyze this Non-Linguistic Sign

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Three Types of Signs

• Iconic
▫ Signifier (form) resembles signified (meaning)
• Indexical
▫ Signifier gives directional information
• Arbitrary
▫ No inherent relationship between form and meaning
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How About This Sign?

???

Q: If words are signs – and they are –

what kind of sign are they?
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Arbitrariness
• the connection between the signifier
(form) and the signified (meaning) is
signified
arbitrary
• these arbitrary relationships are agreed
upon by speakers, i.e. a matter of
convention (consensus)
• even interjections and onomatopoetic
signs are arbitrary moon
▫ ouaoua ~ bow-wow ~ mŏng-mŏng ~ wan-
wan
signifier
▫ aïe! ~ ouch! ~ aigo! ~ aiya!
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Arbitrariness

moon mwezi yueiliang

luna lune
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Arbitrariness

shoe two/too/to
“shu” “tu”

cabbage all
“shu” “tu”
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Productivity (“Creativity”)
• How many utterances are there in a language?
• Humans are capable of unlimited expression.
• We routinely create and comprehend novel
utterances.
• “Rule Governed Creativity”
▫ An infinite number of utterances can be created by a
limited number of rules / patterns.
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Duality
• Linguistic units have a dual nature:
1. They are observable physical events
 “noise” or “image”
2. They are more than simple physical events
 They are produced in order to communicate meaning
 They are connected to a concept
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Discreteness
• What is “discrete” vs. “continuous”?
• Discrete entities have clear boundaries; they’re
units; categorical.
• Continuous entities don’t have clear boundaries.
• Language is…
DISCRETE
 Language is made up of structured units if…
… you have knowledge of the system!
Otherwise, utterances can sound like continuous streams of
sound, without discernible units.
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The Last Three Design Features

• Displacement
▫ We can communicate beyond the here and now
▫ We are not “stimulus bound”
• Cultural Transmission
▫ Grammars are transmitted from one generation to the next
▫ Acquiring “a language” requires involvement in a culture
▫ COMPARE  Genetic Transmission of big-L “Language”
 Each human is born with Language; it’s a biological instinct.
• Interchangeability
▫ All members of the community are physically capable of
transmitting and receiving messages
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Assessing the Design Features

• Arbitrariness
• Productivity
• Duality
• Discreteness
• Displacement
• Cultural Transmission
• Interchangeability
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Focus on Sentences
• Consider the following finite lexicon:
▫ hugged
▫ saw
▫ laughed
▫ dog *The we laughed a cute.
▫ cat *A a a baby cat dog the the.
▫ the *Cat the hugged baby the.
▫ a
▫ cute
▫ big
▫ baby Create two different
▫ we sentences using
only these words
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Which of the Following Strings are Grammatical?

a. I shall speak to her tomorrow

b. I shall her tomorrow speak.

*

• Ik zal haar
c. Tomorrow morgen
her to spreken.
speaking do shall. Dutch
*

d. Speak shall I with

• Naeil her tomorrow.
ke-ege mal-ha-gessumnida. Korean
*

• Falar-ei com ela amanhã. Portuguese

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What do we Mean by “Grammatical”?

• Prescriptive Grammar
(Prescriptively Grammatical)
▫ The set of rules (or patterns)
that are deemed to be the
“correct” or “proper” way to
use a language
▫ Set by members of the
community that possess the
power to enforce the rules:
teachers, editors
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What do we Mean by “Grammatical”?

• Descriptive Grammar
(Descriptively Grammatical)
▫ The set of rules (or patterns) that
characterize observed language
behavior
▫ Determined by observing
language users and extracting
relevant generalizations
 Determine the Grammaticality of…

Prescriptively Descriptively
Grammatical Grammatical

If a student is sick, they should go to the No Yes

school nurse.
What are you talking about? No Yes
Nancy danced a jig. Yes Yes
I’m going to just quickly finish my lunch. No Yes
I haven’t never been to New York. No Yes/No

Bubba ain’t very bright. No Yes/No

Her I saw the house in. No No

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Grammaticality vs. Semantically Odd

• We believe that each men were created equal.
*

• The industrious bunnies baked a delicious cake for

√ Mimi’s birthday.

• The red roses are yellow.

!
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Relationship between Prescription and Description

Universe of all word combinations in language X

Combinations Combinations
that speakers that are
actually officially
produce sanctioned by
the authorities

Descriptively Descriptively
grammatical but ungrammatical
prescriptively but prescriptively
ungrammatical grammatical
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Comparing Languages: Who’s is Better?

• Do you have the right to say that somebody else’s
language is too hard or backwards or illogical or ugly?
• We have to be wary of 2 traps:
▫ Because language is changing, it is getting “corrupted.”
▫ My language variety is more X than another.
• All languages are capable of communicating what they
need to communicate.

Who gets to judge what is good?