Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Theoretical Linguistics
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Learning of a language: According to Chomsky, language is not learned like other faculties because
* There is no stimulus for learning
* There is no explicit instruction (resp. instructing children to learn their mother tongue does not work)
Hence there must be an innate language faculty.
Innate language faculty, Universal Grammar, UG: Built-in, species- specific (i.e. human) faculty of
acquiring a language. It characterizes the concept of a possible human language. The UG combines
with external experience of linguistic data and forms a language-specific grammar.
Plausibility: (?)
Language in the brain: Information on the location of the language system in the brain can be acquired
from
* brain lesions
* imaging techniques (e.g. event-related potentials, ERP)
* specific language impairments (SLIs)
It has been found out that Broca's area is responsible for language production (Broca = Broduction :-)
while Wernicke's area is responsible for language comprehension.
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History of Linguistics
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Grimm's law (Jacob Grimm 1822): Words morph according to certain "sound shifts" from Proto-Indo-
European to Proto-Germanic.
Example: unaspirated (p,t,k) -> asprirated (f,th,h), "pied" -> "foot".
These laws succeed in the majority of cases but still have exceptions.
Structuralism (Ferdinand de Saussure, 1916): Studying language as a structure where everything fits
with everything else ("ou tout setient").
* Language is seen as a system of signs (i.e. a structure of relations). This means that every element
of language is understood by its relation to the other elements. The basic relations are paradigmatic
and syntagmatic relations.
* Distinction between "la parole" and "la langue".
* Priority of spoken language
* Descriptive, not prescriptive linguistics
* Priority of synchronic, not diachronic study of language
* The linguistic sign is arbitrary
Mentalism (1950):
Chomsky began concentrating on language competence rather than on performance and founded
"Mentalism":
* Focus on the speakers knowledge of language (competence)
* Notion of linguistic creativity
* Importance of grammar
* Empirical testing of deductively developed theories
* Idea of a universal grammar
Structuralist Phonology (Trubetzkoy): Linguistic sounds receive their identity not from their physical
quality, but from their distinctiveness. (s.b. -> "Phonology")
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The sounds of language
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Phonetics: The study of speech sounds independent of their role and function in language. Studies the
following properties of sounds:
* physical, physiological, acoustic properties
* articulatory properties
* auditory properties
The international phonetic alphabet, IPA (revised 1993): Mapping of combinations of phonetic
properties to signs.
Example: The fricative labiodental sound is described by "f".
Phonology: The study of the role and function of speech sounds in language. Phonology thus does not
care for
* color of voice
* stammering
* stuttering etc.
What matters are the phonemes.
Phoneme: A category of phones which differ in a way which is not linguistically relevant. Redundant
(i.e. predictable) sound differences do not count as linguistically relevant. Phonemes are particular to
a language. A phoneme is defined by a minimal pair.
Minimal pair: A pair of two different words which in their phonetical form just differ in one sound.
Example: "fill" and "feel" demonstrates that the difference between [i] and [i:] is linguistically relevant.
Thus, [i] and [i:] belong to two different phonemes.
Complementary distribution: A and B are complementary distributed, if they never occur together. If
A and B are phones and are complementary distributed, their occurance is predictable (if A, then not
B) and hence redundant.
Phonetic variant of a phoneme, allophone of a phoneme: One of those phones which belong to the
phoneme. The differences between the allophones/phonetic variants of one phoneme are not
linguistically relevant.
Examples:
* In German, [s] and [th] are phonetic variants, since mixing them up (as do lisperers) does not change
words
* In English, the difference between [ei] and [e:i] in "mate" vs. "made" is a phonetic variant since it is
determined by context: [ei] and voiced consonants appear in complementary distribution, either there
is a [ei] or there is a voiced consonant.
* In English, the difference between aspirated and unaspirated plosives (as in "pit" vs. "spit") is a
phonetic variant: At the beginning of a word, the plosive is aspirated while after an [s], it is not. The
pattern is hence predictable and thus redundant.
* In Chinese, [l] and [r] are phonetic variants, while in English, they are not (minimal pair: "low" vs.
"row").
* In Spanish, [v] and [b] are phonetic variants, while in English, they are not (minimal pair: "vat" vs.
"bat").
Relevance of Context: Two phonetically identical utterances may have different meanings depending
on the context.
Example:
It's hard to recognize speech.
It's hard to wreck a nice beach.
Universal Phonology (Jakobson 1951): The approach to describe phoneme differences for all human
languages in terms of a universal inventory of distinctive features.
Suprasegmental phonology, prosody: The study of linguistically relevant properties of speech sound
that are not properties of phonetic speech elements (like word stress and sentence stress).
Word stress: Emphasis of a word, sometimes resulting in different meanings (e.g. "UMfahren" vs.
"umFAHRen"). Thus, word stress is linguistically relevant and belongs to the domain of phonology.
Sentence stress: Emphasis of a sentence, sometimes resulting in different meanings (e.g. questions vs.
claims). Thus, sentence stress is linguistically relevant and belongs to the domain of phonology.
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Morphology
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Homonym: A graphic form (word form) which realizes different, semantically unrelated lexemes.
Example: "bank"
Synonym: A word is a synonym of another word if both have the same meaning.
Example: "boat" is synonymous to "ship"
Hyperonym: Superconcept.
Example: "vehicle" is a hyperonym of "car"
Hyponym: Subconcept.
Example: "car" is a hyponym of "vehicle"
Syntactical ambiguity: The ambiguity resulting from an unclear grammatical structure of a sentence.
The ambiguity can be resolved by specifying a PS for the sentence.
Example: "They were visiting relatives"
Bound morpheme, affix: A morpheme which can not occur as a single word.
Examples: "-ly", "-ion", "-ness", "un-", ...
Phonological allomorph: An allomorph which is different from other allomorphs of the same
morpheme by a distinction in sound.
Example: "cats" [kats] and "dogs" [dogz]
Lexical allomorph: An allomorph which is different from other allomorphs of the same morpheme by
a distinction in writing.
Example: "knives" and "indices"
Allomorphic variation: The differences between two allomorphs of the same morpheme.
Suppletion: The fact that the stems of two word forms of the same lexeme differ.
Partial suppletion: The fact that the stems of two word forms of the same lexeme differ, although they
are still similar.
Ablaut suppletion: Special form of partial suppletion where the stem vowel in one word form is
another than in the other word form.
Example: "drink", "drank", "drunk"
Full suppletion: The fact that the stems of two word forms of the same lexeme are completely
different.
Example: "good", "better", "best"
Inflection: The fact that different word forms belong to one lexeme.
Examples: "amo", "ami", "ama", "amiamo", "amate", "amano"
Word formation, morphological process: The process of building new lexemes. Morphological
processes are highly constrained and only take place under certain conditions.
Concatenative word formation: The process of building a new word from combining morphemes with
other morphemes.
Derivation: A special concatenative word formation where a bound morpheme is combined with a
free morpheme.
Example: "verwert-bar"
Constraints on derivation:
* by parts of speech of base
Example: "-bar" can only be attached to verbs
* by syntactic properties of base
Example: "-bar" can only be attached to transitive verbs
* by sematic properties of base
Example: "Ge-e" can not be attached to stative verbs
* by (morpho)phonological properties of the base
Example: bases ending in "-lich" can take "-keit" but not "-heit"
* by morphological character of base
Example: "Ge-e" only with unprefixed verbs
* by origin of base
Example: "-abel" only with foreign nouns
* various semantic constraints
Compounding: A special concatenative word formation where two free morphemes are combined.
Example: "Haus-Boot"
Compound: A word resulting from compounding. The meaning of a compound is undetermined and
cannot be predicted without knowing the word.
lexicalized compound: A compound whose meaning cannot be derived well from the menaing of its
constituents.
Example: "kindergarten" is not a garden
Synthetic compound: A special endocentric compound where the modifier fills the argument slot of
the head.
Example: "cab driver"
Exocentric compound: A word whose extension is not a subset of the head's extension but rather
something new.
Possesive, bahuvrihi compound: A special exocentric compound which denotes a feature of its
referents.
Example: A "red hair" has red hair.
Copulative, dvandva compound: A special exocentric compound which denotes an entity made up of
the parts denoted by the compounded words.
Example: Austria-Hungary
Non-concatenative word formation: The process of building new words without appending
morphemes to other morphemes.
Conversion: A special non-concatenative word formation where the grammatical function of a word
is changed.
Example: "gruenen" from "gruen"
Clipping: A special non-concatenative word formation where parts of words are cut off.
Example: "Bus" from "Autobus"
Blending: A special non-concatenative word formation where parts of words which are not
morphemes are assembled to new words.
Example: "Smoke"+"Fog" becomes "Smog"
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Lexicon
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Lexicon: A list of free and bound morphemes which cannot be derived from the general rules. Even
phrasal morphemes (like "to take off") belong to the lexicon.
In contrast to word formation by the rules of morphology, the lexicon provides a faster access for
known and frequent words.
Affix shift: A speech error where an affix which belongs to one word swapped to another.
Example: "I have forgot abouten that"
Function word shifts: A speech error where words of different grammatical function swapped. This
speech error does not occur.
Example: "I left the in my cigar briefcase"
Blocking: A process in which a listed item in the lexicon prevents the word formation of a new word.
Example: "went" blocks the creation of "goed"
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Grammar
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Observation concerning speech pauses: Speech pauses tend to occur at phrase junctures.
Observation concerning repetitions and corrections: Repetitions and corrections tend to concern
whole phrases.
Grammar: Generative device which defines a language. It is a finite mechanism which generates an
infinite set of sentences. It is often described by a phrase marker.
Example: S -> NP + VP
means "A sentence consists of a noun phrase an a verb phrase"
The rules thus define a linear order, a constituent structure (s.b.) and syntactic categories (s.b.).
Phrase Marker: Graphical representation of a Phrase structure in form of a tree. The root of the tree
represents the most complex structure (in most cases "sentence") and its children are its constituents
(in most cases "NP" and "VP"). Every constituent is again a sub-tree of the same form down to basic
language
constituents. If a constituent consists of known sub-constituents, it can be "abbreviated" by a triangle.
Syntactic category, type, lexical category, part of speech, grammatical function of a word: The PS-
constituent the word belongs to.
Head of phrase: The X of a general phrase structure. In English, this is the leftmost sub-constituent of
a XP. Lexical properties of the head are projected to the XP.
X' theory: The theory of general phrase structures. The X' theory is regarded to be part of the universal
grammar.
///// Something might be missing here (?)
head parameter: An additional information needed to build a general phrase structure, namely
whether X precedes the complement (parameter value is "left") or the complement precedes X
(parameter
value is "right"). In English, "left" is required, while in Japanese, "right" is required.
Test for constituent structure: A method of finding out which words of a sentence belong to the same
PS-constituent.
Substitution: A test for constituent structure involving the replacement of a word by another, near-
synonymous word. A terminal element of a PS-constituent can be replaced by another similar word.
Example: "John" and "Bob" belong to the same PS-constituent since they can be replaced for each
other in "John hit Franzerl".
Question formation: A test for constituent structure involving the trial to ask for a specific part of a
sentence. A constituent can be the answer to a question.
Example: John hit Franzerl. Who hit Franzerl? John.
Conjunction of constituents: A test for constituent structure involving the insertion of an "and" plus
another word. Identical constituents can be conjoined.
Example: "John (and Bob) hit Franzerl."
Pseudo-clifting: A test for constituent structure involving the construction of a sentence beginning
with "It is...". A constituent can be pseudo-clefted.
Example: "It is John who hit Franzerl."
Particle movement: A special transformation which moves the particle of a discontinuos constituent
to the correct place. Particle movements are mostly optional, but obligatory for object pronouns.
Example: "Mary called up him" -> "Mary called him up"
PF-LF-Pair: A sentence produced by the base component has a phonological interpretation (performed
by a phonological component and leading to a phonological form PF) and a semantic
interpretation (performed by a semantic component, leading to a logical form LF).
Yes-No-Question formation: The creation of a binary question by applying inversion. Works only if
there is an auxiliary verb which functions as the main verb.
Example: "It is cold" -> "Is it cold?"
Wh-questions: Questions containing one of the words "Who? Where? Why? What? How?" and
requiring a non-binary answer.
Wh-question formation:
* Generate the question-pronoun in the corresponding argument position
Example: "John's brother is who"
* Move the question pronoun to the beginning of the enclosing sentence ("Wh-movement"). This
results in a "gap" which still remains in a special relation to the question pronoun.
Example: "Who John's brother is ___"
* Apply inversion
Example: "Who is John's brother"
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Semantics
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Types of meaning:
* linguistic meaning
* idiolect meaning
* language meaning
* dialect meaning
* regional meaning
* social meaning
* speaker meaning
* literal meaning
* non-literal meaning
* irony
* sarcasm
* metaphor
Meaning: A function from words or word constellations to entities or real world facts. Meaning cannot
be defined in terms of words because it is something outside the realm of language. The function
"Meaning_of(X)" is also written as "|| X ||".
Understanding a sentence: Knowing what is the case when the sentence is true (Wittgenstein).
Understanding a sentence is prior to knowing whether it is true.
Meaning of a sentence: The set of all situations where this sentence would be true.
Example: || "Peter sleeps" || = {s | Peter sleeps in s}
The meaning of a sentence is the meaning of its verb phrase applied to its Noun Phrase: || S || = ||
VP || ( || NP || )
Annotation: Transitive verbs are thus functions returning functions. This is only possible in very few
programming languages. Java is not one of them, but the same phenomenon can be obtained by an
array
containing arrays: kicks[FRANZERL][PETER]
Meaning of a proper name: The entity this proper name refers to.
Meaning of a quantifier subject: The meaning of a quantifier subject is a function which maps a verb
(i.e. a function) to a set of situations where entities do the action expressed by the verb.
Example: In "Nobody sleeps", "nobody" is a function which needs another function as its argument.
We use "sleep" as an argument for "nobody" and "nobody" returns a set of situations where nobody
sleeps.
A transitive verb (a function from e to <e,p>) applied to an entity yields an intransitive verb (a function
from e to p), which, when applied to another entity, returns a proposition.
Example: DP<<e,p>,p>(VP<e,p>) = S<p>
A quantifier subject (a function from a verb to a proposition) maps a verb phrase (a function from an
entity to a proposition) to a proposition.
Generalized quantifier subject: A quantifier subject or a proper name. Proper names can also be
regarded as functions from <e,p> to <p>, because they could map an activity/property to a set of
situations where this individual has this property. An individual is then regarded semantically as the
sets of all those
properties the individual has.
Sentence connective: A word connecting sentences and thus assembling a new sentence.
Examples: "and", "or", "although", ...
Meaning of a sentence connective: The meaning of a sentence connective cannot be given directly.
Rather, one specifies the meaning of the combination <sentence> + <connective> +
<sentence>. The meaning of a sentence connective cannot be given in form of a truth-table, because
this would ignore their discourse function. Only if one interprets semantics in a narrower sense
(ignoring the discourse function), truth-tables can describe connectives.
Discourse function of sentence connectives: Meaning of a sentence connective which can not be
expressed by a truth-table:
Sentence connectives
* express intentions not capured by a truth table
Example: "although" means not just "and", but implies a contradiction
* express a temporal order
Example: "He went home and he got to bed"
* express importance by order
Example: "She's nice and she's beautiful"
* often mean the exclusive "or" rather than the inclusive one
Example: "I'll go by bike or I'll go by car"
* "either... or" often implies "if not... then"
Example: "Either we'll call a doctor or he will die"
* "if... then" is not always equivalent with implication
Example: "Ex falso quod libet" problem
* "and" and "or" can also link constituents (unlike & and |)
Example: "Peter and Mary laugh"
* conjunctions may be distributive
* conjunctions may be collective
Assumption of semantic atoms: The assumption that there exist some basic concepts by which all
other concepts are defined.
Meaning postulate for a noun: A logical statement of the form Necessarily All x: W(x) <=> P(x) & Q(x)
& ...
where W is a noun and P, Q, ... are properties. Several variables may occur.
Example:
Necessarily All x, y: mother(x,y) <=> parent(x,y) & female(y).
Intersective adjective: An adjective for which the meaning of <Adjective>+<Noun> combines the
constraints of the adjective and the noun. The extension of <Adjective>+<Noun> is the intersection of
both extensions.
Example: "Friendly doctors": Those people which are both friendly and doctors.
Subsective adjectives: An adjective for which the meaning of <Adjective>+<Noun> is a hyponym of the
<Noun>. The extension of <Adjective>+<Noun> is a subset of the extension of the <Noun>.
Example: "Good doctors" are those doctors, which are good as doctors.
Non-intersective and non-subsective adjectives: Those adjectives which are neither intersective nor
subsective.
Example: "Former doctors" are no doctors and no "formers", but those persons who were doctors
some time ago.
Meaning of an adjective: The meaning of an adjective depends on its inherent semantics (i.e. its
potential for distinctions) and its set-theoretical mode of modification (i.e. whether it is intersective
or subsective).
Interpretation of an adjective: The concept an adjective refers to on a particular occasion of use. The
interpretation also depends on the context.
Eventuality, type of event: The category of an event, namely "state", "activity" or "telic eventuality".
Although events are expressed by verbs, the same verb may be used to express events of
different categories. This means that eventualities do not strictly classify the meanings of particilar
lexical verbs.
State: An eventuality of those events which ignore any reference to duration, start and end points of
the event.
State verbs cannot occur in the English progressive tense and cannot occur as imparatives, since their
subjects are not viewed as agents.
Example: "Peter knows Latin" (OK)
"Peter is knowing Latin" (progressive, not OK)
"Know Latin!" (imparative, not OK)
"It took Peter 2 years to know Latin" (duration, not OK)
Activity: An eventuality of those events which include at least somechange during the time span
viewed. Since any information about how the state came about is ignored, no duration expressions
may be used.
Example: "Peter shoves Franzerl" (OK)
"Peter is shoving Franzerl" (progressive, OK)
"Shove Franzerl!" (imparative, OK)
"It took Peter 2 hours to shove" (duration, not OK)
Meaning postulate for a verb: A logic formula of the form Necessarily All x1,x2,...: V(x1,x2,...) <=>
<expression> where V is a verb and the <expression> may contain the usual logical
operators and also the special predicates CAUSE(cause,effect) and BECOME(state)
Example:
Necessarily All x,y: kill(x,y) <=> CAUSE(x,BECOME(dead(y))
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Pragmatics
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Underdetermination by meaning: The fact that a particular utterance is not fully specifying the
speaker's intention. There are several underdeterminations:
* Underdetermination of communicative intent
Example: "I'll be there tonight"
- A promise, a threat or a prediction?
* Underdetermination of reference
Example "Our lecturer"
- Which lecturer?
* Underdetermination of intended meaning
Example: "I saw the boy with the binoculars"
- which of the two readings is intended?
* Underdetermination of speaker's intention
Example: "I have not yet done my linguistics assignment"
- Does the speaker aim to inform me about his progress or
does this mean he wants to copy _my_ linguistics assignment?
* Underdetermination of effect by meaning
Example: "I will" - uttered under the appropriate circumstances, this may
cause you to be married to the woman standing beside you
in the white dress.
Speech act: An act performed with the help of uttering a linguistic expression.
Examples: Warning, commanding, requesting, apologizing,...
Illocutionary act: A speech act which consists of uttering a linguistic expression with a certain
intention. The speaker thereby performes a communicative act.
Illo-Check: Test whether the verb of the speech act can be used in a sentence like "I hereby XXX..."
Examples: Promising, reporting, asking, threatening, proposing,...
Felicity conditions for illocutionary acts: Conditions which must be fulfilled to successfully perform a
illocutionary act.
* The act must be a conventional procedure with conventional effects
* The circumstances and persons must be appropriate
* The procedure must be executed correctly and completely
* The participants must have the appropriate feelings and intentions
Perlocutionary act: A speech act which provokes certain effects in the audiance.
Examples: Intimidating, persuading, ...
Cooperative principle (Grice 1975): "Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which
it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engendered".
This is the common-sense principle of good-naturedness in talking. It may be split up to the
conversational maxims.
Maxim of quantity: "Be informative", i.e. tell as much information as is required, but not more.
Maxim of quality: "Only say true things", i.e. do not say anything which you know is false or for which
you lack evidence.
Maxim of Relevance: "Be relevant", i.e. talk in context to the current situation.
Maxim of Manner: "Be perspicious", i.e. avoid obscurity and ambiguity, be brief and be orderly.
Pragmatic anomaly: The fact that a sentence expresses something which contradicts the cooperative
principle.
Example: "John has two PhDs, but I don't believe he has"
Implicature: A conclusion from a linguistic utterance which is not alone based on this utterance.
Conversational implicature: A conclusion from the things our partner said, the conversational maxims
and background knowledge.
Defeasibility of conversational implicature: The fact that conclusions drawn with the help of the
cooperative principle may be cancelled.
Example: "The Fachschafts-Site contains 12 of my summaries. Even 13 if you count this one" :-)
Non-detachability of conversational implicature: The fact that conversational implicatures may not be
viewed outside the context.
Calculability of conversational implicature: The fact that conversational implicatures may be formally
deduced from the literal meaning of the utterance plus the conversational maxims plus situational
background knowledge.
Presupposition: The assumption that something is true although it is not explicitely said. Typically, a
sentence and its negation share the same presuppositions!
Example: "I stopped smoking grass" presupposes that I smoked grass before, as well does "I did not
stop smoking grass".
Presupposition failure: If a presupposition of a sentence fails under certain circumstances, then under
those circumstances this sentence does not express a proposition, i.e. it cannot be true or false.
Example: "Have you stopped skipping the linguistics lectures?" cannot be answered because we never
skipped a linguistics lecture :-)