The Structure of Language

1. The Structure of Language Finding Patterns in the Noise Presented by Cliff Jones, M.A., Linguistics

2. What Exactly Is Linguistics? • Linguistics is the scientific study of the structure of language. • It is still a very young discipline, though grammarians and philologists have studied language for centuries. • Major branches of linguistics include: • Psycholinguistics: How is language processed in the brain? • Sociolinguistics: How does society affect language use? • Language Acquisition: How are languages learned? • Historical Linguistics: How do languages change over time? • Computational Linguistics: How can computers process language? • Applied Linguistics: How can we use what we have learned?

3. What Is Grammar? • The field of modern linguistics views grammar in a universal perspective, with all languages using essentially the same system. • Linguistic analysis is split into several domains: • Phonology: What sounds are used, and how are they combined? • Morphology: How do roots and affixes combine into words? • Syntax: How do words combine into sentences? • Discourse: How do sentences combine in speech and writing? • Semantics: How is meaning tied to structure? • “Grammar” technically includes all of this, but its study tends to focus mainly on syntax and morphology.

4. Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Grammar • In all areas, linguists are interested indescribing what speakers actually do, notprescribing rules to be followed. • Nonstandard dialects are actually more interesting to linguists because they more closely reflect our natural linguistic impulses. • According to Derek Bickerton1, creole languages are the best evidence for some sort of universal grammar: • Creoles are formed when a generation of children grow up in a linguistically chaotic environment. • In the absence of consistent grammatical patterns, young children form phrases in the way that makes sense to them. • Creoles around the world share remarkably similar grammar. • Signed languages also share similar grammar, presumably because they lack centuries of tradition.

5. My Master’s Thesis • I noticed a pattern in my two-year-old daughter’s mispronunciation of certain words: • pajamas  “too-jamas” /tudʒaməz/ • again  “too-gain” /tugεn/ • banana  “too-byana” /tubjanə/ • I conducted a study at a local preschool in which I recorded children’s pronunciation of words starting with an unstressed syllable. • Based on the results, Iposited six phonological elements, which develop in a particular order to produce all the sounds of English. • The final product was titled Developmental Variation in Children's Acquisition of Metrical Structure: How Early Treatment of Stressless Syllables Can Inform Phonological Theory2.

6. Different Levels of Interpretation

7. A Very Simple Sentence Tree

8. Trees Grow More Complex

9. And Soon Get Pretty Complicated

10. A Simpler Representation Is Needed • According to William Croft, author of Radical Construction Grammar3, there are really only three universal word types: • Nouns: denoting objects, making reference • Verbs: denoting actions, forming predicates • Adjectives: denoting properties, modifying other elements • Building on Croft’s theory, I’ve whittled English grammar down to four basic types of words and phrases: • Nominals: nouns, pronouns, determiners . . . • Verbals: verbs, modals, predicates . . . • Modifiers: adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions . . . • Sententials: clauses, interjections . . .

11. A Simple Sentence Reanalyzed The man bit the dog.

12. A Simple Sentence Reanalyzed The man bit the dog.

13. A Simple Sentence Reanalyzed The man bit the dog.

14. A Simple Sentence Reanalyzed The man bit the dog.

15. A Simple Sentence Reanalyzed The man bit the dog.

16. . . . And Another The umpires talked to the players.

17. . . . And Another The umpires talked to the players.

18. . . . And Another The umpires talked to the players.

19. . . . And Another The umpires talked to the players.

20. . . . And Another The umpires talked to the players.

21. . . . And Another The umpires talked to the players.

22. . . . And a More Complex Sentence Bob said the monkey smoked a cigarette yesterday.

23. . . . And a More Complex Sentence Bob said the monkey smoked a cigarette yesterday.

24. . . . And a More Complex Sentence Bob said the monkey smoked a cigarette yesterday.

25. . . . And a More Complex Sentence Bob said the monkey smoked a cigarette yesterday.

26. . . . And a More Complex Sentence Bob said the monkey smoked a cigarette yesterday.

27. . . . And a More Complex Sentence Bob said the monkey smoked a cigarette yesterday.

28. Parallel Analysis Across Languages When the bus stopped, I got off. Cuando el autobús se detuvo, me bajé. Als der Bus hielt an, stieg ich aus.

29. Parallel Analysis Across Languages When the bus stopped, I got off. Cuando el autobús se detuvo, me bajé. Als der Bus hielt an, stieg ich aus.

30. Parallel Analysis Across Languages When the bus stopped, I got off. Cuando el autobús se detuvo, me bajé. Als der Bus hielt an, stieg ich aus.

31. Parallel Analysis Across Languages When the bus stopped, I got off. Cuando el autobús se detuvo, me bajé. Als der Bus hielt an, stieg ich aus.

32. Further Reading • Bickerton, D. (2008). Bastard tongues: A trailblazing linguist finds clues to our common humanity in the world's lowliest languages. New York: Hill and Wang. • Jones, C.S. (2010, January 1). Developmental variation in children's acquisition of metrical structure: How early treatment of stressless syllables can inform phonological theory. ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. Paper AAI1479512. • Croft, W. (2001). Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford UP.