简明新编英语语言学教程教案

《英语语言学》课程大纲

课程名称：英语语言学

课程编号：

总学时：36

适应对象：英语本科专科

一、教学目的与任务

《英语语言学》是英语专业高年级学生开设的学科方向课。旨在使学生了解人类语言研究的成果，提高对语言的本质、功能的认识，了解语言与人类之间的关系，培养学生的语言意识，发展理性思维。该课程要求学生掌握语言学学科的基本概念；了解语言与心理、社会、文化、文学等跨学科研究的关系及其发展现状和趋势。该课程的学习有助于拓宽学生的思维与视野，培养并激发学生对语言研究的兴趣，为其在相关领域的进一步学习及研究打好基础。

二、教学基本要求

语言学是以语言为研究对象的一门科学。教学中应处理好以下方面的关系。

1、在理解的基础上进行记忆，特别是一些重要术语的翻译与定义以及几大语法学派的理论主张，有影响力的语言学家的姓名、著作以及贡献等。注意阅读课文时要认真仔细。

2、通读和理解课文的基础上进行总结，对各部分所讲的主要内容做到心中有数，重点明确。

3、在学习过程中，注意联系、对比，将所学语言学理论与英语外语学习实际相结合。

4、注意提高运用理论解决实际问题的能力。

5、培养学生学术论文写作的能力，建构写作的理论基础及理论依据。

三、教学内容及要求：

第一章语言学导论

1.1 为什么学习语言？

1.2 什么是语言？

1.3 语言的本质特征

1.3.1 任意性arbitrariness

1.3.2 二重性duality

1.3.3 创造性productivity or creativity

1.3.4 移位性displacement

1.4 语言的起源

1.5 语言的功能

1.5.1 信息功能informative

1.5.2 人际功能

1.5.3 施为功能

1.5.4 感情功能emotive

1.5.5 交感性谈话

1.5.6 娱乐性功能

1.5.7 元语言功能

1.6 什么是语言学？

1.7 语言学的主要分支

1.7.1 语音学phonetics

1.7.2 音系学phonlogy

1.7.3 形态学mprphology

1.7.4 句法学syntax

1.7.5 语义学semantics

1.7.6 语用学pragmatics

1.8 宏观语言学

1.8.1 心理语言学

1.8.2 社会语言学

1.8.3 人类语言学

1.8.4 计算语言学

1.9 语言学中的一些重要区别

1.9.1 “描写式”和“规定式”descriptive and prescriptive

1.9.2 “共时”和“历时”synchronic and diachronic

1.9.3 “语言”和“言语”langue and parol

1.9.4 语言能力和语言应用competence and performance

1.9.5 “非位的”与“位学的”

第二章语音

2.1 言语产生和言语感知

2.2 言语器官

2.3 音段、分化和标音法

2.3.1 音段和分化

2.3.2 标音法

2.4 辅音

2.4.1 辅音和元音

2.4.2 辅音

2.4.3 发音方法

2.4.4 发音部位

2.4.5 英语中的辅音

2.5 元音

2.5.1 元音描写的原则

2.5.2 基本元音理论

2.5.3 元音音渡

2.5.4 标准发音中的元音

2.6 协同发音和语音描写

2.6.1 协同发音

2.6.2 宽式标音和严式标音

2.7 音位分析

2.8 音位和音位变体

2.8.1 最小对立体

2.8.2 音位理论

2.8.3 音位变体

2.9 音位过程

2.9.1 同化

2.9.2 音系过程和音系规则

2.9.3 规则顺序

2.10 区别性特征

2.11 音节

2.11.1 音节结构

2.11.2 响音阶

2.11.3 音节划分和最大节首原则

2.12 重音

第三章形态学

3.1 什么是词？

3.1.1 “词”的三种含义

3.1.2 词的识别

3.1.3 词的分类

3.2 词的形成

3.2.1 语素和形态学

3.2.2 语素的类型

3.2.3 曲折变化和词的形成

3.2.4 音系学和形态学的对立

3.3 词汇变化

3.3.1 特有的词汇变化

3.3.2 音位变化

3.3.3 形态-句法变化

3.3.4 语义变化

3.3.5 拼写的变化

第四章句法

4.1 传统学派

4.1.1 数、性、格

4.1.2 时和体

4.1.3 一致关系和支配关系

4.2 结构主义学派

4.2.1 组合关系与聚合关系

4.2.2 直接成分分析法

4.2.3 向心结构和离心结构

4.3 生成学派

4.3.1 深层结构和表层结构

4.3.2 标准理论及其后的发展

4.3.3 管辖、约束等

4.4 功能学派

4.4.1 功能句子观

4.4.2 系统功能语法

第五章语义学

5.1 “意义”的意义

5.2 指称论

5.3 涵义关系

5.3.1 同义关系

5.3.2 反义关系

5.3.3 上下义关系

5.4 成分分析

5.5 句子意义

5.5.1 一个整体理论

5.5.2 逻辑语义学

第六章语用学

6.1 言语行为理论(Speech act theory)

6.1.1 施为句（performatives）和表述句(constatives) 6.1.2 行事行为(illocutionary act)理论

6.2 会话含义(conversational implicature)理论

6.2.1 合作原则

6.2.2 准则的违背

6.2.3 含义的特征

6.3 后格莱斯时期的发展

6.3.1 关联理论(relevance theory)

6.3.2 数量原则(Q-Principle)和关系原则(R-Principle)

6.3.3 数量原则(Q-principle)、信息原则(I-principle)和方式原则(M-principle)

四、学时分配与教学方式：

总学时：36学时

Chapter One: Introduction（6学时）

Chapter Two: Phonology （6学时）

Chapter Three: Morphology（6学时）

Chapter Four: Syntax （6学时）

Chapter Five: Semantics （6学时）

Chapter Six: Pragmatics（6学时）

五、考核方式

考查

六、本课程与其他课程的关系：

英语语言学是专业学生高年级的知识课。涉及语言的一般特征研究、语言的内部研究以及外部使用环境研究。该课程与英美文学、教学法、语音学、语法学、词汇学、测试学、语用学、论文写作等课程具有紧密的联系。语言学课程可以为其他相关课程提供理论依据，教学内容可以做到相互渗透、相互交流。

七、教材

戴炜栋，《新编简明英语语言学教程》，上海外语教育出版社，2002年。

主要参考书目

1、布龙菲尔德[美]，1985，语言论[M]. 北京: 商务印书馆

2、费尔迪南·德·索绪尔[瑞士]，1985，普通语言学教程[M]. 商务印书馆

3、胡壮麟，2001，语言学教程，北京大学出版社。

4. Widdowson, H.G, 2000. Linguistics [M].上海外语教育出版社

5. Lyones, John, 1981. Language and Linguistics: an Introduction [M], CUP.

6. Crystal, David, 1986. What is Linguistics [M]. London: Edward Arnold Ltd.

7．Atkinson, Martin, David Kilby &Iggy Roca 1982. Foundations of General Linguistics. London: George Allen & Unwin.

8．Ball, M. & J. Rahilly. 1999. Phonetics: The Science of Speech. London: Edward Arnold. 9．Roach, Peter. 1991. English Phonetics and Phonology. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press. 10．Adams, V. 1973. An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation. London: Longman. 11．Bauer. L. 1983. English Word-Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

12．Beard, R. 1995. Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology: A General Theory of Inflection and Word Formation. Albany: State University of New York.

13．Matthews. P. H. 1991. Morphology: An Introduction to the Theory of Word Structure 2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000.

14．Bloomfield, L. (1935 [1933]) Language. London: George Allen & Unwin.

15．Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Struct6ures. The Hague: Mouton.

16．Atkinson, M., Kilby, D. & Roca, I. (1988) Semantics. In Foundations of General Linguistics, 188—223. 2nd edn. London: Unwin Hyman.

17．Carroll, D.V. 1994/1999. Psychology of Language (2nd edition). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.

18．Fasold,. Ralph 1999 [1990]. The Sociolinguistics of Language. Oxford: Blackwell. 19．Fishman, Joshua 1968. Readings in the Sociology of Language. The Hague: Mouton. 20．Austin, J. L. (1975 [1962]) How to Do Things with words. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 21．Grice, H. P. (1975) Logic and Conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds.) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech acts, 41—58. New York: Academic Press.

22.刘润清，1995，西方语言学流派，外语教学与研究出版社。

23. Fromkin,V. & R. Rodman, (1998), An Introduction to Language the sixth edition, Orlando, Florida: Holt, Ranehart & Winston, Inc.

The Goals for this Course

To get a scientific view on language;

To understand some basic theories on linguistics;

To understand the applications of the linguistic theories, especially in the fields of language teaching & learning (SLA or TEFL), cross-cultural commu nication……;

To prepare for the future research work.

The Requirements for this course

Class attendance

Classroom discussion

To look up and memorize academic terms

Fulfillment of the presentation

Chapter 1. Introduction

1. What is language?

Language can mean

1). what a person says (e.g. bad language, expressions)

2). the way of speaking or writing (e.g. Shakespeare’s language, Luxun’s language)

3). a particular variety or level of speech or writing (e.g. language for special purpose, colloquial language)

4). the abstract system underlying the totality of the speech/writing behavior of a community (e.g. Chinese language, first language)

5). the common features of all human languages (e.g. He studies language)

6). a tool for human communication. (social function)

7). a set of rules. (rule-governed)

Sapir’s definition (1921)

“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.”

Hall’s definition (1968)

Language is “t he institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.”

Chomsky’s definition (1957)

“From now on I will consider language to be a set of (finite or infinite) sentences, each finit e in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”

Language can be generally defined as

a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

1). Language is a system

Systematic---- rule-governed, elements in it are arranged accordin g to certain rules; can’t be combined at will. e.g. *bkli, *I apple eat.

2). Language is arbitrary

Arbitrary---- no intrinsic connection between the word and the thing it denotes, e.g. “pen”by any other name is the thing we use to write with.

3). Language is symbolic in nature

Symbolic---- words are associated with objects, actions ideas by convention. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”----Shakespeare

4). Language is primarily vocal

V ocal---- the primary medium is sound for all languages; writing system came much later than spoken form.

5). Language is human-specific

Human-specific---- different from the communication systems other forms of life possess, e.g. bird songs, bee dance, animal cries.

许国璋先生认为把语言定义成交际工具不够科学,至少不够严谨.他对语言的定义做了如下概括:语言是一种符号系统,当它作用于人与人之间的关系的时候,它是表达相互反应的中介;当它作用于人与客观世界的关系的时候,它是认知事物的工具;当它作用于文化的时候,它是文化的载体.

2. The design/defining features of human language (Charles Hockett)

Arbitrariness

Productivity/Creativity

Duality

Displacement

Cultural transmission

Arbitrariness

----No logical (motivated or intrinsic) connection between sounds and meanings. Onomatopoeic words (which imitate natural sounds) are somewhat motivated ( English: rumble, crackle, bang, …. Chinese: putong, shasha, dingdang… )

Some compound words are not entirely arbitrary, e.g. type-writer, shoe-maker, air-conditioner, photocopy…

Productivity/creativity

----Peculiar to human languages，users of language can understand and produce sentences they have never heard before, e.g. we can understand sentence like “ A red-eyed elephant is dancing on the hotel bed”, though it does not describe a common happening in the world.

A gibbon call system is not productive for gibbon draw all their calls from a fixed repertoire which is rapidly exhausted, making any novelty impossible.

The bee dance does have a limited productivity, as it is used to communicate about food sources in any direction. But food sources are the only kind of messages that can be sent through the bee dance; bees do not “talk” about themselves, th e hives, or wind, let alone about people, animals, hopes or desires.

Duality (double articulation) 双重陈述

Lower level----sounds (meaningless)

Higher level----meaning (larger units of meaning)

A communication system with duality is considered more flexible than one without it, for a far greater number of messages can be sent. A small number of sounds can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning (words), and the units of meaning can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences. (we make dictionary of a language, but we cannot make a dictionary of sentences of that language.

Displacement

----Language can be used to refer to things, which are not present: real or imagined matters in the past, present or future, or in far-away places.

A gibbon never utters a call about something he ate last year

There is something special about the bee dance though. Bees communicate with other bees about the food sources they have found when they are no longer in the presence of the food. In this sense, the bee dance has a component of displacement. But this component is very insignificant. For the bees must communicate about the food immediately on returning to the hive. They do not dance about the food they discovered last month nor do they speculate about future discoveries.

Cultural transmission

----Language is culturally transmitted (through teaching and learning; rather than by instinct).

Animal call systems are genetically transmitted. All cats, gibbons and bees have systems which are almost identical to those of all other cats, gibbons and bees.

A Chinese speaker and an English speaker are not mutually intelligible. This shows that language is culturally transmitted. That is, it is pass on from one generation to the next by teaching and learning, rather than by instinct.

The story of a wolf child, a pig child shows that a human being brought up in isolation simply does not acquire human language.

3. Functions of language

Phatic: establishing an atmosphere or maintaining social contact.

Directive: get the hearer to do something.

Informative: give information about facts.

Interrogative: get information from others.

Expressive: express feelings and attitudes of the speaker.

Evocative: create certain feelings in the hearer (amuse, startle, soothe, worry or please) Performative: language is used to do things, to perform actions.

4. What is linguistics?

----Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

----A person who studies linguistics is known as a linguist.

5 The scope or major branches of linguistics

Theoretical linguistics

1). Phonetics----speech sound (description, classification, transcription): articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics.

2). Phonology----sound patterns of languages

3). Morphology----the form of words

4). Syntax----the rules governing the combination of words into sentence.

5). Semantics----the meaning of language.

6). Pragmatics----when the meaning of language is conducted in the context of language use.

Use of linguistics

1). Applied linguistics----linguistics and language teaching

2). Sociolinguistics---- social factors (e.g. class, education) affect language use

3). Psycholinguistics----linguistic behavior and psychological process

4). Stylistics----linguistic and literature

5) Some other applications like Anthropological linguistics, Neurolinguistics, Computational linguistics (e.g. machine translation)

6. Some important distinctions in linguistics

1) Descriptive vs prescriptive

Descriptive ---- describe/analyze linguistic facts observed or language people actually use (modern linguistic)

Prescriptive ----lay down rules for “correct” linguistic behavior in using language (traditional grammar)

2) Synchronic vs diachronic

Synchronic study---- description of a language at some point of time (modern linguistics) Diachronic study---- description of a language through time (historical development of language over

a period of time)

3) Speech vs writing

Speech ---- primary medium of language

Writing ---- later developed

4) Langue vs parole (F. de Saussure)

Langue ---- the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of the speech community.

Parole ---- the realization of langue in actual use.

Saussure takes a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.

5) Competence and performance (Chomsky)

Competence ---- the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language

Performance ---- the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.

6) Traditional grammar vs modern linguistics

Traditional grammar ---- prescriptive, written, Latin-based framework

Modern linguistics ----- descriptive, spoken, not necessarily Latin-based framework

Chapter 2 Phonology

1. Language is primarily vocal.

The primary medium of human language is sound. Linguists are not interested in all sounds, but in speech sounds----sounds that convey meaning in human communication.

2. Phonetics

----A branch of linguistics which studies the phonic medium of language; it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world’s languages.

2.1 Three branches of phonetics

2.1.1 Articulatory phonetics----fro m the speakers’ point of view, “how speakers produce speech sounds”

2.1.2Auditory phonetics----from the hearers’ point of view, “how sounds are perceived”

2.1.3Acoustic phonetics----from the physical way or means by which sounds are transmitted from

one to another.

Articulatory phonetics

Speech organs: three important areas: pharyngeal cavity—the throat(咽腔); oral cavity—the mouth(口腔); nasal cavity —the nose(鼻腔)

The speech organs:Lips,Teeth, Teeth ridge (alveolar), Hard palate, Soft palate (velum), Uvula, Tip of tongue, Blade of tongue, Back of tongue, V ocal cords, Pharyngeal cavity, Nasal cavity Orthographic representation of speech sounds

---- A standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The basic principle of the IPA is using one letter to represent one speech sound.

?Broad transcription ---- used in dictionary and textbook for general purpose, without diacritics, e.g. clear [ l ], [ pit ]

?Narrow transcription ---- used by phonetician for careful study, with diacritics, e.g. dark [ l ], aspirated [ p ]

Some major articulatory variables ---- dimensions on which speech sounds may vary:

?Voicing---- voiced & voiceless

?Nasality ---- nasal & non-nasal

?Aspiration ----- aspirated & unaspirated

Classification of English speech sounds

---- English speech sounds are generally classified into two large categories: V owels and Consonants (Note: The essential difference between these two classes is that in the production of the former the airstream meets with no obstruction of any kind in the throat, the nose or the mouth, while in that of the latter it is somehow obstructed.)

Classification of consonants

---- English consonants may be classified according to two dimensions:The manner of articulation and The place of articulation

Classification of vowels

---- English vowels can be divided into two large categories: Monophthongs or pure/single vowels 单元音and Diphthongs or gliding vowels双元音

Exercises: underline the words that begin with a sound as required.

1.A bilabial consonant: mad sad bad cad pad had lad

2.A velar consonant: nod god cod pod rod

biodental consonant: rat fat sat mat chat vat pat

4.An alveolar consonant: nick lick sick tick kick quick

5.A palato-alveolar consonant: sip ship tip chip lip zip

6.A dental consonant: lie buy thigh thy tie rye

7.A glide: one war yolk rush

Underline the words that end with a sound as required:

?A fricative

pay horse tough rice breath push sing wreathe hang cave message

?A nasal

train bang leaf limb

?A stop

drill pipe fit crab fog ride laugh rack through

tip

?An affricate: rack such ridge booze

Underline the words that contain the sound as required:

?A central vowel:

mad lot but boot word

?A front vowel:

reed pad load fate bit bed cook

?A rounded vowel:

who he bus her hit true boss bar walk

?A back vowel:

paid reap fool top good father

Phonology

?Phonology studies the patterning of speech sounds, that is, the ways in which speech sounds form systems and patterns in human languages.

Phonetics & phonology

?Both are concerned with the same aspect of language----the speech sounds. But they differ in their approach and focus.

?Phonetics is of general nature; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages; it aims to answer questions like: how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they have, how they can be classified, etc.

?Phonology aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.

Complementary distribution：allophones of the same phoneme are in complementary distribution. They do not distinguish meaning. They occur in different phonetic contexts, e.g. dark [l] & clear [l], aspirated [p] & unaspirated [p].

Minimal pair：when two different forms are identical (the same) in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair, e.g. beat, bit, bet, bat, boot, but, bait, bite, boat.

Some rules of phonology

1）Sequential rules：the rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language, e.g.

in E nglish, “k b i l” might possibly form blik, klib, bilk, kilb.

If a word begins with a [l] or a [r], then the next sound must be a vowel.

If three consonants should cluster together at the beginning of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules, e.g. spring, strict, square, splendid, scream.

a) the first phoneme must be /s/,

b) the second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/,

c) the third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/.

some dialects, e.g. in Cantonese: “牛肉，我，俄语……”

2）Assimilation rule同化：assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar, e.g. the prefix in is pronounced differently when in different phonetic contexts:

Indiscreet：alveolar [in]

Inconceivable：velar [i

Input：bilabial [im

（Assimilation in Mandari：好啊hao wa；海啊hai ya；看啊kan na；唱啊a；跳啊tiao wa……）

3）Deletion rule：it tells us when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented, e.g. design, paradigm, there is no [g] sound; but the [g] sound is pronounced in their corresponding forms signature, designation, paradigmatic.

4）Suprasegmental features----the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments ( larger than phoneme): stress，tone，intonation.

a. Syllable (what is syllable?)

Ancient Greek: a unit of speech sound consisting of a vowel or a vowel with one or more than one consonant.

Dictionary: word or part of a word which contains a vowel sound or consonant acting as a vowel.

The peak is the essential part. It is usually formed by a vowel. But [l], [n] and [m] might also function as peaks as in “ apple, hidden, communism”.

b. Stress: (Word stress & Sentence stress)

Word stress: The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, e.g. a shift in stress in English may change the part of speech of a word:

Similar alteration of stress also occurs between a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same

elements:

compound

noun phrase

The meaning-distinctive role played by word stress is also manifested in the combinations of -ing forms and nouns:

modifier-

doer: sleeping baby; swimming fish; flying plane…

Sentence stress: the relative force given to the components of a sentence. Generally, nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals and demonstrative pronouns指示代词are stressed. Other categories like articles, person pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions are usually not stressed.

Note: for pragmatic reason, this rule is not always right, e.g. we may stress any part in the following sentences.

He is driving my car.

My mother bought me a new skirt yesterday.

c. Tone

Tones are pitch variations,which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. English is not a tone language, but Chinese is.

ma 妈(level)

ma 麻(the second rise)

ma 马(the third rise)

ma 骂(the fourth fall)

d. Intonation

When pitch, stress and length variations are tied to the sentence rather than to the word, they are collectively known as intonation.

English has three types of intonation that are most frequently used:

falling tone (matter of fact statement)

rising tone (doubts or question)

the fall-rise tone (implied message)

For instance,“That’s not the book he wants.”

Grammatical functions of intonations

----Intonation plays an important role in the conveyance of meaning in almost every language, esp. in English.

a) It may indicate different sentence types by pitch direction.

b) It may impose different structures on the sentence by dividing it into different intonation units, e.g. “John didn’t come because of Marry”

Within one intonation unit, it means: John came, but it had nothing to do with Marry.

With two intonation units, it means: Marry was the reason why John didn’t come.

Exercises: Think of the utterance in different intonations:

“Those who bought quickly made a profit.”

c) It can make a certain part of a sentence especially prominent by placing nucleus on it, e.g.

Jack came yesterday by train.

d) Its attitudinal functions.

Falling tone ---- matter-of-fact statement, downright assertion, commands.

Rising tone ----politeness, encouragement, pleading.

Note: these can only be very general indications. The specific attitudinal meaning of an intonation pattern must be interpreted within a context.

Chapter 3 Morphology

Morphology refers to the study of the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.

1. Open class word and closed class word

5）Open class words----content words of a language to which we can regularly add new words, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, e.g. beatnik(a member of the Beat Generat ion), hacker, email, internet, “做秀，时装秀…” in Chinese.

6）Closed class words----grammatical or functional words, such as conjunction, articles, preposition and pronouns.

2. Morpheme--the minimal unit of meaning

---Words are composed of morphemes. Words may consist of one morpheme or more morphemes, e.g.

1-morpheme boy, desire

2-morpheme boy+ish, desir(e)+ble

3-morpheme boy+ish+ness, desir(e)+bl(e)+ity

4-morpheme gentle+man+li+ness, un+desir(e)+abl(e)+ity

5-morpheme un+gentle+man+li+ness

6-morpheme anti+dis+establish+ment+ari+an+ism

3. Affix

1) Prefix ---- morphemes that occur only before others, e.g.

un-, dis, anti-, ir-, etc.

2) Suffix ---- morphemes that occur only after others, e.g.

-ful, -er, -ish, -ness, -able, -tive, tion, etc.

4. Free morpheme & bound morpheme

1)Free morpheme----is one that may constitute a word (free form) by itself, such as

bed, tree, sing, dance, etc.

2)Bound morpheme----is one that may appear with at least one other morpheme.

They can not stand by t hemselves, such as “-s” in “dogs”, “al” in “national”, “dis-” in “disclose”, “ed” in “recorded”, etc.

5. Allomorph

Some morphemes have a single form in all contexts, such as “dog, bark, cat”,etc. In other instances, there may be some variation, that is, a morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms. They are said to be the allomorphs of the morpheme, the plural morpheme may be represented by:

map----maps [s] dog----dogs [z] watch----watches [iz] mouse----mice [ai] ox----oxen [n] tooth----teeth

sheep----sheep

Each of the underlined part is called an allomorph of plural morpheme.

6. Derivational morpheme & inflectional morpheme

1)Derivational morphemes---- the morphemes which change the category, or grammatical class of words, e.g. modern---modernize, length---lengthen, fool---foolish, etc.

2)Inflectional morphemes---- the morphemes which are for the most part purely grammatical markers, signifying such concepts as tense, number, case and so on; they never change their syntactic category, never add any lexical meaning, e.g.

a) number: tables apples cars

b) person, finiteness and aspect: talk/talks/talking/talked

c) case: John/John’s

7. Some other terms

1) Root

A root is that part of the word left when all the affixes (inflectional & derivational) are removed, e.g. “desire”in “desirable”, “care” in“carefully”, “nation” in “internationalism”, “believe” in “unbeliev(e)able”…

2)Stem

A stem is part of a word-form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed, e.g. “undesiralbe” in undesirables

3)Base

A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. This means any stem and root can be termed as a base.

The difference between root, stem & base

1) A base can be added by both inflectional & derivational affixes while a stem can

be added only by inflectional affixes;

2) A base is derivationally analyzable (e.g. undesire in undesirable) while a root

cannot be further analyzed, e.g. desire in undesirable;

3)Root, stem and base can be the same form, e.g. desire in desired;

4)Undesirable in undesirables is either a stem or a base;

5)Desirable in undesirable is only a base.

8. Morphological rules

1)The rules that govern the formation of word s, e.g. the “un- + ----” rule.

unfair unthinkable unacceptable…

2)Compounding is another way to form new words, e.g.

landlady rainbow undertake…

9. Compounds

1)Noun compounds

daybreak (N+V) playboy (V+N) haircut (N+V) callgirl (V+N) windmill (N+N)

2)Verb compounds

brainwash (N+V) lipread (N+V) babysit(N+V)

3)Adjective compounds

maneating (N+Ving) heartfelt (N+Ved) dutyfree (N+adj.)

4)Preposition compounds

into (P+P) throughout (P+P)

Some points about compounds

1)When the two words are in the same grammatical category, the compound will be in

this category, e.g. postbox, landlady, icy-cold, blue-black…

2)When the two words fall into different categories, the class of the second or final

word will be the grammatical category of the compound, e.g. head-strong, pic kpocket…

3)Compounds have different stress patterns from the non-compounded word sequence,

e.g. red coat, green house…

4)The meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the meanings of its parts.

Chapter 4 Syntax

1. What is syntax?

----a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences.

2. Transformational Generative Grammar (TG)

Norm. Chomsky, the most influential linguist in 20th century, some important works: (1957) Syntactic Structure;

(1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax;

(1981) Lectures on Government and Binding;

(1986) Barriers

(1993) A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory;

(1995) The Minimalist Program;

(1998) The Minimalist Inquiry……

3. Criteria on good grammar

Observational adequacy

Descriptive adequacy

Explanatory adequacy

The ultimate goal for any theory is to explain.

TG differs from traditional grammar in that it not only aims at language description, but also its explanation.

Chomsky is much more interested in the similarities (language universals) between languages rather than their differences.

Linguists should attempt to find a grammatical framework which will be suitable for all languages;

Linguists should concentrate on the elements and constructions that are available to all languages rather than on elements that actually occur in all languages.

There are likely to be universal constraints on the ways linguistic elements are combined

Chomsky proposed that the grammars of all human languages share a common framework (Universal Grammar).

4. Categories

Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb. The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, parts of speech)

4.1 Word-level categories

Major lexical categories: N, V, Adj, Prep.

Minor Lexical categories: Det, Deg, Qual, Auxi, Conj.

4.2The criteria on which categories are determined

Meaning

Inflection

Distribution

Note: The most reliable criterion of determining a word’s category is its distribution.

4.3 Phrase categories and their structures

a. Phrase categories----the syntactic units that are built around a certain word category

are called phrase categories, such as NP(N), VP(V), AP(A), PP(P).

b. The structure: specifier + head + complement

Head---- the word around which a phrase is formed

Specifier---- the words on the left side of the heads

Complement---- the words on the right side of the heads

4.4 Phrase structure rules

The grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule, such as:

NP →(Det) + N +(PP)……e.g. those people, the fish on the plate, pretty girls.

VP →(Qual) + V + (NP)……e.g. always play games, finish assignments.

AP →(Deg) + A + (PP)……very handsome, very pessimistic, familiar with, very close to PP →(Deg) + P + (NP)……on the shelf, in the boat, quite near the station.

5. The XP rule

X’ T heory

XP →(Specifier)X’

X’ → X(complement)

6. Coordination rule

Coordination structures-----the structures that are formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, or, etc.

Coordination has four important properties: a. no limit on the number of coordinated categories before the conjunction; b. a category at any level can be coordinated; c. the categories must be of the same type; d. the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined.

7. Phrase elements ---specifier; head; complement

7.1 Specifiers---- Semantically, specifiers make more precise the meaning of the head; syntactically, they typically mark a phrase boundary. Specifiers can be determiners as in NP, qulifiers as in VP and degree words as in AP.

7.2 Complements---- Complements themselves can be a phrase, they provide information abut entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head, e.g. a story about a sentimental girl; There can be no complement, one complement, or more than one complement in a phrase, e.g. appear, break, put…; a sentence-like construction may also function as a complement such as in “I believed that she was innocent.I doubt if she will come. They are keen for you to show up.” That/if /for are complementizers, the clauses introduced by complementizers are complement clause.

7.3 Modifiers

---- Modifiers specify optionally expressible properties of heads.

8. Sentences (the S rule)

1) S → NP VP

2) S → NP infl VP

Many linguists believe that sentences, like other phrases, also have their own heads. Infl is an abstract category inflection (dubbed ‘Infl’) as their heads, which indicates the sentence’s tense and agreement.

3) Infl realized by a tense label

4) Infl realized by an auxiliary

9. Transformations

1) Auxiliary movement (inversion)

Inversion→ Move Infl to the left of the subject NP.

Inversion (revised)→ Move Infl to C.

2) Do insertion

3) Deep structure & surface structure

a.Consider the following pair of sentences:

John is easy to please.

John is eager to please.

Structurally similar sentences might be very different in their meanings, for they have quite different deep structures.

b. Consider one more sentence:Flying planes can be dangerous.

It can mean either that if you fly planes you are engaged in a dangerous activity or Planes that are flying are dangerous.

c. Deep structure----formed by the XP rule in accordance with the head’s sub-categorization properties; it contains all the units and relationships that are necessary for interpreting the meaning of the sentence.

d. Surface structure----corresponding to the final syntactic form of the sentence which results from appropriate transformations; it is that of the sentence as it is pronounced or written.

10. The organization of the syntactic component

Wh-movement

Consider the derivation of the following sentences:

What languages can you speak?

What can you talk about?

These sentences may originate as:

You can speak what languages.

You can talk about what.

Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence.

What language can you speak ?

What can you talk about ?

Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the specifier position under CP. (Revised)

Move αand constraints on transformations

Inversion can move an auxiliary from the Infl to the nearest C position, but not to a more distant C position.

No element may be removed from a coordinate structure.

Chapter 5 Semantics

Semantics----the study of language meaning.

Meaning is central to the study of communication.

What is meaning?---- Scholars under different scientific backgrounds have different understandings of language meaning.

1. Some views concerning the study of meaning

1.1 Naming theory (Plato)

Words are names or labels for things.

Limitations:

1) Applicable to nouns only.

2) There are nouns which denote things that do not exist in the real world, e.g. ghost, dragon, unicorn, phenix…

3) There are nouns that do not refer to physical objects but abstract notions, e.g. joy, impulse, hatred…

1.2 The conceptualist view

The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to (i.e. between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.

Ogden and Richards: semantic triangle

The symbol or form refers to the linguistic elements (words and phrases);

The referent refers to the object in the world of experience;

Thought or reference refers to concept.

The symbol or a word signifies things by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speaker; and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.

1.3 The contextualism

Meaning should be studied in terms of situation, use, context—elements closely linked with language behavior. Two types of contexts are recognized:

a. Situational context: spatiotemporal situation

b. Linguistic context: the probability of a word’s co-occurrence or collocation.

For example, “black” in black hair & black coffee, or black sheep differs in meaning; “The president of the United States”can mean either the president or presidency in different situation.

1.4 Behaviorism

Behaviorists attempted to define meaning as “the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer”.

The story of Jack and Jill:

Jill Jack

S_________r--------s_________R

2. Lexical meaning

Sense and reference are both concerned with the study of word meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning.

Sense---- is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested in.

Reference----what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.

Note: Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations; on the other hand, there are also occasions, when linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense, e.g. the morning star and the evening star, rising sun in the morning and the sunset at dusk.

3. Major sense relations

3.1 Synonymy同义词

Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.

1) Dialectal synonyms---- synonyms used in different regional dialects, e.g. autumn - fall, biscuit - cracker, petrol –gasoline…

2) Stylistic synonyms----synonyms differing in style, e.g. kid, child, offspring; start, begin, commence;…

3) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning, e.g.collaborator- accomplice,…

4) Collocational synonyms, e.g. accuse…of, charge…with, rebuke…for; …

5) Semantically different synonyms, e.g. amaze, astou nd,…

3.2 Antonymy反义词

a. Gradable antonyms----there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair, e.g. old-young, hot-cold, tall-short, …

b. Complementary antonyms----the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other, e.g. alive-dead, male-female, …

c. Relational opposites----exhibits the reversal of the relationship between the two items, e.g. husband-wife, father-son, doctor-patient, buy-sell, let-rent, employer-employee, give-receive, above-below, …

Complementary antonyms

3.3 Polysemy多义词

Polysemy----the same one word may have more than one meaning, e.g. “table” may mean:

A piece of furniture

All the people seated at a table

The food that is put on a table

A thin flat piece of stone, metal wood, etc.

Orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.

……

3.4 Homonymy

Homonymy---- the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, e.g. different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both.

Homophone同音字---- when two words are identical in sound, e.g. rain-reign, night/knight, …

Homogragh ---- when two words are identical in spelling, e.g. tear(n.)-tear(v.), lead(n.)-lead(v.), …

Complete homonym---- when two words are identical in both sound and spelling, e.g. ball, bank, watch, scale, fast, …

Note: A polysemic word is the result of the evolution of the primary meaning of the word (the etymology of the word); while complete homonyms are often brought into being by coincidence.

3.5 Hyponymy上下义

Hyponymy ----the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word.

a. Superordinate: the word which is more general in meaning.

b. Hyponyms: the word which is more specific in meaning.

c. Co-hyponyms: hyponyms of the same superordinate.

e.g. Superordinate: flower

Hyponym s: rose, tulip, lily, chrysanthemum, peony, narcissus, …

Superordinate: furniture

Hyponyms: bed, table, desk, dresser, wardrobe, sofa, …

4. Sense relations between sentences

(1) X is synonymous with Y

X is synonymous with Y

X: He was a bachelor all his life.

Y: He never got married all his life.

X: The boy killed the cat.

Y: The cat was killed by the boy.

If X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false.

(2) X is inconsistent with Y

X: He is single.

Y: He has a wife.

X: This is my first visit to Beijing.

Y: I have been to Beijing twice.

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