Linguistics Book

Classification of American English Vowels
Part of the Tongue Involved

Tongue
FRONT CENTRAL BACK
Height
HIGH i beet u boot

ɪ bit ROUNDED ʊ put
MID e bait o boat

ɛ bet ǝ about
ᴧ butt
LOW æ bat a balm ɔ bawd
A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation

Consonants Vowels
p pill t till k kill i beet ɪ bit

b bill d dill g gill e bait ɛ bet
m mill n nil ŋ ring u boot ʊ foot
f feel s seal h heal o boat ɔ bore
v veal z zeal l leaf æ bat a pot/bar
θ thigh ʧ chill r reef ʌ butt ə sofa
ð thy ʤ gin j you aɪ bite aʊ bout
ʃ shill ʍ which w witch ɔɪ boy
ʒ measure
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An Introduction
to Language 10e
VI C T O R IA F RO M KI N
Late, University of California, Los Angeles
RO B E R T RO D M A N
North Carolina State University, Raleigh
N I N A H YA M S
University of California, Los Angeles
Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States
Contents
Preface xi
About the Authors ix
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2
What Is Language? 1 Morphology: The
Words of Language 33
Linguistic Knowledge 1
nowledge of the ound stem Content Words and Function Words 35
nowledge of ords 3
Morphemes: The Minimal
Arbitrary Relation of Form and
Units of Meaning 36
Meaning 3
he is reteness of orphemes
he reativit of inguisti
ound and ree orphemes
nowledge
nowledge of enten es and
Prefixes and Suffixes
onsenten es
Infixes
inguisti nowledge and
Circumfixes
oots and tems 42
erforman e
Bound Roots 43
What Is Grammar? 9
Rules of Word Formation 43
es riptive rammars
erivational orpholog 44
res riptive rammars
nfle tional orpholog 46
ea hing rammars
he ierar hi al tru ture of ords 49
niversal rammar
ule rodu tivit 52
he evelopment of rammar
ign anguages viden e for
Exceptions and Suppletions 54
anguage niversals
Lexical Gaps 55
ther orphologi al ro esses 56
What Is Not (Human) Language 16 Back-Formations 56
he irds and the ees Compounds 57
an nimals earn uman “Pullet Surprises” 60
anguage
Sign Language Morphology 60
Language and Thought 21
Morphological Analysis: Identifying
Summary 25 Morphemes 61
References for Further Reading 27
Summary 65
Exercises 28
Exercises 66
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER 3 Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings) 152

Syntax: The Sentence heories of ord eaning 153
Patterns of Language 76 Reference 154
Sense 155
What the Syntax Rules Do 77 e i al elations 155
hat rammati alit s ot ased n 80 emanti eatures 158
Sentence Structure 81 Evidence for Semantic Features 159
onstituents and onstituen ests 82 Semantic Features and Grammar 159
Syntactic Categories 84 rgument tru ture 162
Phrase Structure Trees 87 Thematic Roles 163
Building Phrase Structure Trees 95 Pragmatics 165
The Infinity of Language: Recursive ronouns and ther ei ti ords 166
Rules 100 Pronouns and Situational
What Heads the Sentence 104 Context 167
Structural Ambiguities 105 Pronouns and Linguistic Context 168
More Structures 107 mpli ature 170
ransformational nal sis 109 Maxims of Conversation 171
The Structure Dependency of Rules 111 resupposition 174
UG Principles and Parameters 114 pee h ts 174
Sign Language Syntax 117 Summary 175
Appendix A 119 References for Further Reading 177
Exercises 178
Appendix B 121
Appendix C 127
CHAPTER 5
Summary 128 Phonetics: The Sounds
References for Further Reading 129 of Language 189
Exercises 129
Sound Segments 190
dentit of pee h ounds 191
CHAPTER 4
he honeti lphabet 192
The Meaning of Language 139
Articulatory Phonetics 194
What Speakers Know onsonants 195
about Sentence Meaning 140 Place of Articulation 195
ruth 140 Manner of Articulation 197
ntailment and elated otions 141 Phonetic Symbols for American
mbiguit 142 English Consonants 203
Compositional Semantics 143 owels 205
emanti ules 144 Tongue Position 205
Semantic Rule I 145 Lip Rounding 207
Semantic Rule II 146 Diphthongs 207
Nasalization of Vowels 208
When Compositionality Goes Awry 147
Tense and Lax Vowels 208
nomal 147
etaphor 149 Major Phonetic Classes 208
dioms 150 on ontinuants and ontinuants 209
CONTENTS vii
bstruents and onorants 209 lips of the ongue viden e for

onsonantal ounds 209 honologi al ules 251
llabi ounds 210
Prosodic Phonology 252
Prosodic Features 210 llable tru ture 252
one and ntonation 211 ord tress 253
enten e and hrase tress 254
Phonetic Symbols and Spelling
ntonation 255
Correspondences 213
Sequential Constraints of Phonemes 256
The “Phonetics” of Signed Languages 215
e i al aps 257
Summary 216
Why Do Phonological Rules Exist? 258
ptimalit heor 259
Exercises 218
Phonological Analysis 260
CHAPTER 6 Summary 264
Phonology: The Sound References for Further Reading 265
Patterns of Language 224 Exercises 266
The Pronunciation of Morphemes 225

CHAPTER 7
he ronun iation of lurals 225
dditional amples Language in Society 279
of llomorphs 228
Dialects 279
Phonemes: The Phonological Units egional iale ts 281
of Language 230 Phonological Differences 283
llustration of llophones 230 Lexical Differences 284
honemes and ow to ind hem 232 Syntactic Differences 284
omplementar istribution 233 Dialect Atlases 285
The Need for Similarity 235 o ial iale ts 287
The “Standard” 288
Distinctive Features of Phonemes 235
African American English 291
eature alues 236
Latino (Hispanic) English 295
ondistin tive eatures 237
Genderlects 297
honemi atterns a ar a ross
Sociolinguistic Analysis 300
anguages 238
atural lasses of pee h ounds 239 Languages in Contact 301
eature pe ifi ations for meri an ingua ran as 301
nglish onsonants and owels 241 onta t anguages idgins and
reoles 302
The Rules of Phonology 241
reoles and reolization 306
eature hanging ules 243
ilingualism 309
Assimilation Rules 243
Codeswitching 310
Dissimilation Rules 245
egment nsertion and eletion Language and Education 312
ules 247 e ond anguage ea hing ethods 312
rom ne to an and from an to ea hing eading 313
ne 249 Literacy in the Deaf Community 315
he un tion of honologi al ilingual du ation 316
ules 250 inorit iale ts 318
viii CONTENTS
Language in Use 318 omparative e onstru tion 365

t les 319 istori al viden e 369
lang 319
argon and rgot 320 Extinct and Endangered Languages 371
aboo or ot aboo 320 The Genetic Classification of Languages 374
Euphemisms 322 anguages of the orld 375
a ial and ational pithets 323
anguage and e ism 323 Types of Languages 378
Marked and Unmarked Forms 324 Why Do Languages Change? 381
e ret anguages and anguage
Summary 384
ames 325
Summary 326 Exercises 386
Exercises 329
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 8 Language Acquisition 394

Language Change: The Syllables The Linguistic Capacity of Children 394
of Time 337 hat s earned hat s ot 395
tages in anguage uisition 398
The Regularity of Sound Change 338
he er eption and rodu tion of pee h
ound orresponden es 339
ounds 398
n estral rotolanguages 339
Babbling 400
Phonological Change 340 First Words 401
honologi al ules 341 Segmenting the Speech Stream 402
he reat owel hift 342 he uisition of honolog 404
he uisition of ord eaning 406
Morphological Change 344
he uisition of orpholog 408
Syntactic Change 345 he uisition of nta 411
he uisition of ragmati s 415
Lexical Change 350
he evelopment of u iliaries
hange in ategor 350
ase tud 416
ddition of ew ords 351
etting arameters 419
Word Coinage 351
he uisition of igned anguages 420
Words from Names 353
Blends 354 The Role of the Linguistic Environment:
Reduced Words 355 Adult Input 422
orrowings or oan ords 356 he ole of mitation einfor ement
oss of ords 359 and nalog 422
emanti hange 360 he ole of tru tured nput 424
roadening 361
Knowing More Than One Language 425
Narrowing 361
hildhood ilingualism 426
Meaning Shifts 361
Theories of Bilingual Development 427
Reconstructing “Dead” Languages 361 Two Monolinguals in One Head 428
he ineteenth entur The Role of Input 429
omparativists 362 Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism 429
Cognates 363 e ond anguage uisition 430
CONTENTS ix
Is L2 Acquisition the Same as L1 Neurolinguistic Studies of Sentence

Acquisition? 430 Structure 473
Native Language Influence in L2
Acquisition 432 Language and Brain Development 474
The Creative Component of L2 eft emisphere ateralization for
Acquisition 433 anguage in oung hildren 475
Heritage Language Learners 434 rain lasti it 476
Is There a Critical Period for L2 he riti al eriod 476
Acquisition? 434 The Modular Mind: Dissociations
of Language and Cognition 479
Summary 436
inguisti avants 479
pe ifi anguage mpairment 481
Exercises 438
eneti asis of anguage 482
Summary 482
CHAPTER 10 Exercises 487
Language Processing
and the Human Brain 444
CHAPTER 11
The Human Mind at Work 444 Computer Processing
omprehension 445 of Human Language 495
The Speech Signal 446
Speech Perception 447 Computers That Talk and Listen 495
Bottom-up and Top-down omputational honeti s and honolog 496
Models 449 Speech Recognition 496
Lexical Access and Word Speech Synthesis 498
Recognition 451 omputational orpholog 502
Syntactic Processing 453 omputational nta 503
pee h rodu tion 456 omputational emanti s 505
Lexical Selection 456 omputational ragmati s 507
Application and Misapplication omputational ign anguage 508
of Rules 458 Applications of Computational Linguistics 509
Planning Units 458 omputer odels of rammar 509
re uen nal sis on ordan es
Brain and Language 461 and ollo ations 510
he uman rain 461 omputational e i ograph 511
he o alization of anguage he ulturomi evolution 512
in the rain 462 Twitterology 513
Aphasia 463 nformation etrieval and
Split Brains 470 ummarization 514
Dichotic Listening 471 pell he kers 515
Event-Related Potentials 471 a hine ranslation 516
eural viden e of rammati al omputational orensi inguisti s 518
henomena 472 Trademarks 518
Neurolinguistic Studies of Speech Interpreting Legal Terms 519
Sounds 472 Speaker Identification 519
x CONTENTS
Summary 521 onsonantal lphabet riting 536

References for Further Reading 523 lphabeti riting 537
Exercises 523
Writing and Speech 539
pelling 542
Texting 544
CHAPTER 12
The Current English Spelling
Writing: The ABCs of Language 527 System 544
Spelling Pronunciations 546
The History of Writing 528
i tograms and deograms 528 Pseudo-writing 547
uneiform riting 529
Summary 548
he ebus rin iple 531
rom ierogl phi s to the lphabet 532
Exercises 550
Modern Writing Systems 533
Glossary 555
ord riting 534
llabi riting 535 Index 587
1
What Is Language?
When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the “human
essence,” the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.
NOAM CHOMSKY, Language and Mind, 1968
hatever else people do when the ome together whether the pla fight
make love or make automobiles the talk e live in a world of language e
talk to our friends our asso iates our wives and husbands our lovers our tea h
ers our parents our rivals and even our enemies e talk fa e to fa e and over
all manner of ele troni media and ever one responds with more talk ardl a
moment of our waking lives is free from words and even in our dreams we talk
and are talked to e also talk when there is no one to answer ome of us
talk aloud in our sleep e talk to our pets and sometimes to ourselves
he possession of language perhaps more than an other attribute distin
guishes humans from other animals ording to the philosoph e pressed in
the m ths and religions of man peoples language is the sour e of human life
and power o some people of fri a a newborn hild is a kintu a thing not
et a muntu a person t is onl b the a t of learning language that the hild
be omes a human being o understand our humanit we must understand the
nature of language that makes us human hat is the goal of this book e be
gin with a simple uestion what does it mean to know a language
Linguistic Knowledge
Do we know only what we see, or do we see what we somehow already know?
CYNTHIA OZICK, “What Helen Keller Saw,” New Yorker, June 16 & 23, 2003
1
2 CHAPTER 1 What Is Language?
hen ou know a language ou an speak and be understood b others who

know that language his means ou are able to produ e strings of sounds
that signif ertain meanings and to understand or interpret the sounds pro
du ed b others ut language is mu h more than spee h eaf people produ e
and understand sign languages just as hearing persons produ e and under
stand spoken languages he languages of the deaf ommunities throughout
the world are e uivalent to spoken languages differing onl in their modalit
of e pression
ost ever one knows at least one language ive ear old hildren are
nearl as profi ient at speaking and understanding as their parents et the
abilit to arr out the simplest onversation re uires profound knowledge
that most speakers are unaware of his is true for speakers of all languages
from lbanian to ulu speaker of nglish an produ e a senten e having
two relative lauses without knowing what a relative lause is or e ample
goddaughter who was born in weden and who now lives in owa is
named isa after a iking ueen
n a parallel fashion a hild an walk without understanding or being able
to e plain the prin iples of balan e and support or the neuroph siologi al on
trol me hanisms that permit one to do so he fa t that we ma know some
thing un ons iousl is not uni ue to language
Knowledge of the Sound System

When I speak it is in order to be heard.
ROMAN JAKOBSON
art of knowing a language means knowing what sounds or signs are in

that language and what sounds are not ne wa this un ons ious knowledge
is revealed is b the wa speakers of one language pronoun e words from
another language f ou speak onl nglish for e ample ou ma substitute
an nglish sound for a non nglish sound when pronoun ing foreign words
like ren h m nage trois f ou pronoun e it as the ren h do ou are using
sounds outside the nglish sound s stem
ren h people speaking nglish often pronoun e words like this and that
as if the were spelled zis and zat he nglish sound represented b the
initial letters th in these words is not part of the ren h sound s stem and
the mispronun iation reveals the ren h speaker s un ons ious knowledge of
this fa t
nowing the sound s stem of a language in ludes more than knowing the
inventor of sounds t means also knowing whi h sounds ma start a word
he sign languages of the deaf will be dis ussed throughout the book referen e to
language then unless spee h sounds or spoken languages are spe ifi all mentioned
in ludes both spoken and signed languages
end a word and follow ea h other he name of a former president of hana

was Nkrumah pronoun ed with an initial sound like the sound ending the
nglish word sink hile this is an nglish sound no word in nglish be
gins with the nk sound peakers of nglish who have o asion to pronoun e
this name often mispronoun e it b hanaian standards b inserting a short
vowel sound like Nekrumah or Enkrumah making the word orrespond to the
nglish s stem hildren develop the sound patterns of their language ver
rapidl one ear old learning nglish knows that nk annot begin a word
just as a hanaian hild of the same age knows that it an in his language
e will learn more about sounds and sound s stems in hapters and
Knowledge of Words
ounds and sound patterns of our language onstitute onl one part of our lin
guisti knowledge e ond that we know that ertain se uen es of sounds sig
nif ertain on epts or meanings peakers of nglish understand what boy
means and that it means something different from toy or girl or pterodactyl e
also know that toy and boy are words but moy is not hen ou know a lan
guage ou know words in that language that is ou know whi h se uen es of
sounds relate to spe ifi meanings and whi h do not
Arbitrary Relation of Form and Meaning

The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don’t have to reflect a moment; the
right name comes out instantly. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and
the way it acts what animal it is. When the dodo came along he [Adam] thought it was a
wildcat. But I saved him. I just spoke up in a quite natural way and said, “Well, I do declare
if there isn’t the dodo!”
MARK TWAIN, Eve’s Diary, 1906
f ou do not know a language the words and senten es of that language will
be mainl in omprehensible be ause the relationship between spee h sounds
and the meanings the represent is for the most part an arbitrary one hen
ou are a uiring a language ou have to learn that the sounds represented
b the letters house signif the on ept if ou know ren h this same
meaning is represented b maison if ou know ussian b dom if ou know
panish b casa imilarl is represented b hand in nglish main in
ren h nsa in wi and ruka in ussian he same se uen e of sounds an
represent different meanings in different languages he word bolna means
speak in indu rdu and a hing in ussian bis means devil in krainian
and twi e in atin a pet is a domesti animal in nglish and a fart in atalan
and the se uen e of sounds taka means hawk in apanese fist in ue hua a
small bird in ulu and mone in engali
hese e amples show that the words of a parti ular language have the
meanings the do onl b onvention espite what ve would have us believe
in ark wain s satire Eve s Diary a pteroda t l ould have been alled ron
blick or kerplunkity
HERMAN®/LaughingStock Licensing Inc., Ottawa, Canada
s uliet sa s in hakespeare s Romeo and Juliet

hat s in a name hat whi h we all a rose
an other name would smell as sweet
his conventional and arbitrar relationship between the form sounds
and meaning on ept of a word is also true in sign languages f ou see
someone using a sign language ou do not know it is doubtful that ou will
understand the message from the signs alone person who knows hinese
ign anguage would find it diffi ult to understand meri an ign
anguage and vi e versa
an signs were originall like miming where the relationship between
form and meaning is not arbitrar ringing the hand to the mouth to mean
eating as in miming would be nonarbitrar as a sign ver time these signs
ma hange just as the pronun iation of words hanges and the miming effe t
is lost hese signs be ome onventional so that the shape or movement of the
hands alone does not reveal the meaning of the signs
here is some sound symbolism in language that is words whose pro
nun iation suggests their meanings ost languages ontain onomatopoeic
words like buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds asso iated with the obje ts
or a tions the refer to ut even here the sounds differ from language to
language and refle t the parti ular sound s stem of the language n nglish
cock-a-doodle-doo is an onomatopoei word whose meaning is the row of a
rooster whereas in innish the rooster s row is kukkokiekuu orget gobble
gobble when ou re in stanbul a turke in urke goes glu-glu
ometimes parti ular sound ombinations seem to relate to a parti ular

on ept an nglish words beginning with gl relate to sight su h as glare
glint gleam glitter glossy glaze glance glimmer glimpse and glisten owever
gl words and their like are a ver small part of an language and gl ma have
nothing to do with sight in another language or even in other words in
nglish su h as gladiator glucose glory glutton globe and so on
o know a language we must know words of that language ut no speaker
knows all the entries in an unabridged di tionar and even if someone did he
would still not know that language magine tr ing to learn a foreign language
b bu ing a di tionar and memorizing words o matter how man words ou
learned ou would not be able to form the simplest phrases or senten es in
the language or understand a native speaker o one speaks in isolated words
nd even if ou ould manage to get our message a ross using a few words
from a traveler s di tionar like ar gas where the best ou ould hope
for is to be pointed in the dire tion of a gas station f ou were answered with
a senten e it is doubtful that ou would understand what was said or be able
to look it up be ause ou would not know where one word ended and another
began hapter will dis uss how words are put together to form phrases and
senten es and hapter will e plore word and senten e meanings
The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge

All humans are artists, all of us . . . Our greatest masterpiece of art is the use of a language
to create an entire virtual reality within our mind.
DON MIGUEL RUIZ, 2012
Albert: So are you saying that you were the best friend of the woman who was married to
the man who represented your husband in divorce?
André: In the history of speech, that sentence has never been uttered before.
NEIL SIMON, The Dinner Party, 2000
nowledge of a language enables ou to ombine sounds to form words words

to form phrases and phrases to form senten es ou annot bu a di tionar
or phrase book of an language with all the senten es of the language o di
tionar an list all the possible senten es be ause the number of senten es in
a language is infinite nowing a language means being able to produ e and
understand new senten es never spoken before his is the creative aspect of
language ot ever speaker an reate great literature but ever bod who
knows a language an reate and understand new senten es
his reative aspe t of language is uite eas to illustrate f for ever sen
ten e in the language a longer senten e an be formed then there is no limit to
the number of senten es n nglish ou an sa
his is the house
or
his is the house that a k built
or
his is the malt that la in the house that a k built
or
his is the dog that worried the at that killed the rat that ate the malt
that la in the house that a k built
nd ou need not stop there ow long then is the longest senten e
speaker of nglish an sa
he old man ame
or
he old old old old old man ame
ow man olds are too man even went three
t is true that the longer these senten es be ome the less likel we would
be to hear or to sa them senten e with o urren es of old would be
highl unusual in either spee h or writing even to des ribe ethuselah ut
su h a senten e is theoreti all possible f ou know nglish ou have the
knowledge to add an number of adje tives as modifiers to a noun and to form
senten es with indefinite numbers of lauses as in the house that a k built
ll human languages permit their speakers to in rease the length and om
ple it of senten es in these wa s reativit is a universal propert of human
language
ur reative abilit is refle ted not onl in what we sa but also in our under
standing of new or novel senten es onsider the following senten e aniel oone
de ided to be ome a pioneer be ause he dreamed of pigeon toed giraffes and ross
e ed elephants dan ing in pink skirts and green berets on the wind swept plains of
the idwest ou ma not believe the senten e ou ma uestion its logi but
ou an understand it although ou probabl never heard or read it before now
n pointing out the reative aspe t of language oam homsk who man re
gard as the father of modern linguisti s argued persuasivel against the view that
language is a set of learned responses to stimuli rue if someone steps on our
toes ou ma automati all respond with a s ream or a grunt but these sounds
are not part of language he are involuntar rea tions to stimuli fter we re
fle ivel r out we an then go on to sa hank ou ver mu h for stepping on
m toe be ause was afraid had elephantiasis and now that an feel the pain
know don t or an one of an infinite number of senten es be ause the parti u
lar senten es we produ e are not ontrolled b an stimulus
ven some involuntar ries like ou h hange a ording to the language we
speak tep on an talian speaker s toes and he will r ahi ren h speakers of
ten fill their pauses with the vowel sound that starts their word for egg oeuf
a sound that does not o ur in nglish ven onversational fillers su h as er uh
and you know in nglish are onstrained b the language in whi h the o ur
he fa t of human linguisti reativit was well e pressed more than
ears ago b uarte de an uan ormal human minds are
su h that without the help of an bod the will produ e senten es
the never heard spoke of inventing and sa ing su h things as the never
heard from their masters nor an mouth
Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences

A person who knows a language has mastered a system of rules that assigns sound and
meaning in a definite way for an infinite class of possible sentences.
NOAM CHOMSKY, Language and Mind, 1968
ur knowledge of language not onl allows us to produ e and understand an

infinite number of well formed even if sill and illogi al senten es t also
permits us to distinguish well formed grammati al from ill formed ungram
mati al senten es his is further eviden e of our linguisti reativit be ause
ungrammati al senten es are t pi all novel not senten es we have previousl
heard or produ ed pre isel be ause the are ungrammati al
onsider the following senten es
a. ohn kissed the little old lad who owned the shagg dog
b. ho owned the shagg dog ohn kissed the little old lad
c. ohn is diffi ult to love
d. t is diffi ult to love ohn
e. ohn is an ious to go
f. t is an ious to go ohn
g. ohn who was a student flunked his e ams
h. ams his flunked student a was who ohn
f ou were asked to put an asterisk or star before the e amples that seemed
ill formed or ungrammati al or no good to ou whi h ones would ou mark
ur intuitive knowledge about what is or is not an allowable senten e in
nglish onvin es us to star b f and h hi h ones did ou star
ould ou agree with the following judgments
a. hat he did was limb a tree
b. hat he thought was want a sports ar
c. rink our beer and go home
d. hat are drinking and go home
e. e pe t them to arrive a week from ne t hursda
f. e pe t a week from ne t hursda to arrive them
g. inus lost his se urit blanket
h. ost inus se urit blanket his
f ou find the starred senten es una eptable as we do ou see our lin
guisti reativit at work
hese senten es also illustrate that not ever string of words onstitutes a
well formed senten e in a language enten es are not formed simpl b pla ing
one word after another in an order but b organizing the words a ording to
the rules of senten e formation of the language hese rules are finite in length
and finite in number so that the an be stored in our finite brains et the
he asterisk is used before e amples that speakers find ungrammati al his notation will
be used throughout the book
permit us to form and understand an infinite set of new senten es he also en

able us to judge whether a se uen e of words is a well formed senten e of our
language or not hese rules are not determined b a judge or a legislature or
even taught in a grammar lass he are un ons ious rules that we a uire as
oung hildren as we develop language and the are responsible for our linguis
ti reativit inguists refer to this set of rules as the grammar of the language
eturning to the uestion we posed at the beginning of this hapter
what does it mean to know a language t means knowing the sounds and
meanings of man if not all of the words of the language and the rules for
their ombination the grammar whi h generates infinitel man possible
senten es e will have more to sa about these rules of grammar in later
hapters
Linguistic Knowledge and Performance

“What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and
one?” “I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.” “She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen
interrupted.
LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871
peakers of all languages have the knowledge to understand or produ e

senten es of an length ere is an e ample from the ruling of a federal
judge
e invalidate the hallenged lifetime ban be ause we hold as a matter of
federal onstitutional law that a state initiative measure annot impose
a severe limitation on the people s fundamental rights when the issue of
whether to impose su h a limitation on these rights is put to the voters
in a measure that is ambiguous on its fa e and that fails to mention in its
te t the proponent s ballot argument or the state s offi ial des ription the
severe limitation to be imposed
heoreti all there is no limit to the length of a senten e but in pra ti e
ver long senten es are highl improbable the verbose federal judge not
withstanding videntl there is a differen e between having the knowledge
re uired to produ e or understand senten es of a language and appl ing this
knowledge t is a differen e between our knowledge of words and gram
mar whi h is our linguistic competence and how we use this knowledge
in a tual spee h produ tion and omprehension whi h is our linguistic
performance
ur linguisti knowledge permits us to form longer and longer senten es b
joining senten es and phrases together or adding modifiers to a noun owever
there are ph siologi al and ps hologi al reasons that limit the number of ad
je tives adverbs lauses and so on that we a tuall produ e and understand
peakers ma run out of breath lose tra k of what the have said or die of old
age before the are finished isteners ma be ome tired bored disgusted or
onfused like poor li e when being interrogated b the ed ueen
What Is Grammar? 9
hen we speak we usuall wish to onve some message t some stage

in the a t of produ ing spee h we must organize our thoughts into strings of
words ometimes the message is garbled e ma stammer or pause or pro
du e slips of the tongue like sa ing preach seduction when speech production is
meant dis ussed in hapter
What Is Grammar?
We use the term “grammar” with a systematic ambiguity. On the one hand, the term refers
to the explicit theory constructed by the linguist and proposed as a description of the
speaker’s competence. On the other hand, it refers to this competence itself.
NOAM CHOMSKY AND MORRIS HALLE, The Sound Pattern of English, 1968
Descriptive Grammars
There are no primitive languages. The great and abstract ideas of Christianity can be
discussed even by the wretched Greenlanders.
JOHANN PETER SUESSMILCH, in a paper delivered before the Prussian Academy, 1756
he wa we are using the word grammar differs from most ommon usages
n our sense the grammar is the knowledge speakers have about the units
and rules of their language rules for ombining sounds into words alled
phonology rules of word formation alled morphology rules for ombining
words into phrases and phrases into senten es alled syntax as well as the
rules for assigning meaning alled semantics he grammar together with a
mental di tionar alled a lexicon that lists the words of the language rep
resents our linguisti ompeten e o understand the nature of language we
must understand the nature of grammar
ver human being who speaks a language knows its grammar hen lin
guists wish to des ribe a language the make e pli it the rules of the grammar
of the language that e ist in the minds of its speakers here will be some dif
feren es among speakers but there must be shared knowledge too he shared
knowledge the ommon parts of the grammar makes it possible to om
muni ate through language o the e tent that the linguist s des ription is a
true model of the speakers linguisti apa it it is a su essful des ription of
the grammar and of the language itself u h a model is alled a descriptive
grammar t does not tell ou how ou should speak it des ribes our basi
linguisti knowledge t e plains how it is possible for ou to speak and under
stand and make judgments about well formedness and it tells what ou know
about the sounds words phrases and senten es of our language
hen we sa that a senten e is grammatical we mean that it onforms to
the rules of the mental grammar as des ribed b the linguist when we sa
that it is ungrammatical we mean it deviates from the rules in some wa f
however we posit a rule for nglish that does not agree with our intuitions
as a speaker then the grammar we are des ribing differs in some wa from the
mental grammar that represents our linguisti ompeten e that is our lan
guage is not the one des ribed o language or variet of a language alled a
dialect is superior or inferior to an other in a linguisti sense ver grammar
is e uall omple logi al and apable of produ ing an infinite set of sen
ten es to e press an thought f something an be e pressed in one language
or one diale t it an be e pressed in an other language or diale t t might
involve different means and different words but it an be e pressed e will
have more to sa about diale ts in hapter
Prescriptive Grammars
It is certainly the business of a grammarian to find out, and not to make, the laws of a
language.
JOHN FELL, Essay towards an English Grammar, 1784
Just read the sentence aloud, Amanda, and listen to how it sounds. If the sentence sounds
OK, go with it. If not, rearrange the pieces. Then throw out the rule books and go to bed.
JAMES KILPATRICK, “Writer’s Art” (syndicated newspaper column), 1998
Any fool can make a rule

And every fool will mind it
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, journal entry, 1860
ot all grammarians past or present share the view that all grammars are
e ual anguage purists of all ages believe that some versions of a language
are better than others that there are ertain orre t forms that all edu
ated people should use in speaking and writing and that language hange is
orruption he reek le andrians in the first entur the rabi s holars
at asra in the eighth entur and numerous nglish grammarians of the
eighteenth and nineteenth enturies held this view he wished to prescribe
rather than describe the rules of grammar whi h gave rise to the writing of
prescriptive grammars
n the enaissan e a new middle lass emerged who wanted their hildren
to speak the diale t of the upper lasses his desire led to the publi ation
of man pres riptive grammars n ishop obert owth wrote A Short
Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes owth pres ribed a num
ber of new rules for nglish man of them influen ed b his personal taste
efore the publi ation of his grammar pra ti all ever one upper lass
middle lass and lower lass said I don t have none and You was wrong about
that owth however de ided that two negatives make a positive and there
fore one should sa I don t have any and that even when you is singular it
should be followed b the plural were an of these pres riptive rules were
based on atin grammar and made little sense for nglish e ause owth
What Is Grammar? 11
was influential and be ause the rising new lass wanted to speak properl
man of these new rules were legislated into nglish grammar at least for the
prestige dialect that variet of the language spoken b people in positions
of power
he view that diale ts that regularl use double negatives are inferior an
not be justified if one looks at the standard diale ts of other languages in the
world oman e languages for e ample use double negatives as the follow
ing e amples from ren h and talian show
French e ne veu parler ave personne
not want speak with no one
Italian on voglio parlare on nessuno
not want speak with no one
English translation don t want to speak with an one
res riptive grammars su h as owth s are different from the des riptive
grammars we have been dis ussing heir goal is not to des ribe the rules peo
ple know but to tell them what rules the should follow he great ritish
rime inister inston hur hill is redited with this response to the rule
against ending a senten e with a preposition his is the sort of nonsense up
with whi h will not put
oda our bookstores are populated with books b language purists
attempting to save the nglish language he riti ize those who use enor-
mity to mean enormous instead of monstrousl evil ut languages hange in
the ourse of time and words hange meaning anguage hange is a natural
pro ess as we dis uss in hapter ver time enormity was used in reasingl
used to mean enormous and now that resident ara k bama has used it
that wa in his vi tor spee h of ovember and that owling
uses it similarl in the immensel popular Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
that usage will gain a eptan e till the saviors of the nglish language will
never disappear he will ontinue to blame television the s hools and even
the ational oun il of ea hers of nglish for failing to preserve the standard
language and are likel to ontinue to dis oops we mean disparage an
one who suggests that fri an meri an nglish and other diale ts are
viable omplete languages
ll human languages and diale ts are full e pressive omplete and logi
al as mu h as the were two hundred or two thousand ears ago opefull
another frowned upon usage this book will onvin e ou that all languages
and diale ts are rule governed whether spoken b ri h or poor powerful or
weak learned or illiterate rammars and usages of parti ular groups in so
iet ma be dominant for so ial and politi al reasons but from a linguisti
s ientifi perspe tive the are neither superior nor inferior to the grammars
and usages of less prestigious members of so iet
aving said all this it is undeniable that the standard diale t defined in
hapter ma indeed be a better diale t for someone wishing to obtain a
is also alled fri an meri an erna ular nglish boni s and la k nglish
t is spoken b some but b no means all fri an meri ans t is dis ussed in hapter
parti ular job or a hieve a position of so ial prestige n a so iet where lin
guisti profiling is used to dis riminate against speakers of a minorit diale t
it ma behoove those speakers to learn the prestige diale t rather than wait
for so ial hange ut linguisti all prestige and standard diale ts do not have
superior grammars
inall all of the pre eding remarks appl to spoken language riting is
another stor see hapter riting follows ertain pres riptive rules of
grammar usage and st le that the spoken language does not and is subje t to
little if an diale tal variation nd writing is not a uired naturall through
simple e posure to others speaking the language as spoken languages are see
hapter but must be taught
Teaching Grammars
I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
G. B. SHAW, Pygmalion, 1912
he des riptive grammar of a language attempts to des ribe the rules internal
ized b a speaker of that language t is different from a teaching grammar
whi h is used to learn another language or diale t ea hing grammars an be
helpful to people who do not speak the standard or prestige diale t but find it
would be advantageous so iall and e onomi all to do so he are used in
s hools in foreign language lasses his kind of grammar gives the words and
their pronun iations and e pli itl states the rules of the language espe iall
where the differ from the language of instru tion
t is often diffi ult for adults to learn a se ond language without formal
instru tion even when the have lived for an e tended period in a ountr
where the language is spoken e ond language a uisition is dis ussed in
more detail in hapter ea hing grammars assume that the student alread
knows one language and ompares the grammar of the target language with
the grammar of the native language he meaning of a word is provided b
a gloss the parallel word in the student s native language su h as maison
house in ren h t is assumed that the student knows the meaning of the
gloss house and so also the meaning of the word maison
ounds of the target language that do not o ur in the native language are
often des ribed b referen e to known sounds hus the student might be
aided in produ ing the ren h sound u in the word tu b instru tions su h as
ound our lips while produ ing the vowel sound in tea
he rules about how to put words together to form grammati al senten es
also refer to the learners knowledge of their native language or e ample the
tea hing grammar Learn ulu b ibusiso embezi states that he differen e
between singular and plural is not at the end of the word but at the beginning
of it and warns that ulu does not have the indefinite and definite arti les
a and the u h statements assume students know the rules of their own
grammar in this ase nglish lthough su h grammars might be onsidered
What Is Grammar? 13
pres riptive in the sense that the attempt to tea h the student what is or is
not a grammati al onstru tion in the new language their aim is different
from grammars that attempt to hange the rules or usage of a language that is
alread known b the speaker
his book is not primaril on erned with either pres riptive or tea hing
grammars owever these kinds of grammars are onsidered in hapter in
the dis ussion of standard and nonstandard diale ts
Universal Grammar
In a grammar there are parts that pertain to all languages; these components form what is
called the general grammar. In addition to these general (universal) parts, there are those
that belong only to one particular language; and these constitute the particular grammars
of each language.
CÉSAR CHESNEAU DU MARSAIS, c. 1750
here are rules of parti ular languages su h as nglish or rabi or ulu that
form part of the individual grammars of these languages and then there are
rules that hold in all languages he universal rules are of parti ular interest
be ause the give us a window into the human fa ult of language whi h
enables us to learn and use an parti ular language
nterest in language universals has a long histor arl s holars en ouraged
resear h into the nature of language in general and promoted the idea of gen-
eral grammar as distin t from special grammar eneral grammar was to reveal
those features ommon to all languages
tudents tr ing to learn atin reek ren h or wahili as a se ond
language are generall so fo used on learning aspe ts of the new lan
guage that differ from their native language that the ma be skepti al
of the universal laws of language et there are man things that all lan
guage learners know un ons iousl even before the begin to learn a new
language he know that a language has its own set of sounds perhaps
thought of as its alphabet that ombine a ording to ertain patterns to
form words and that the words themselves re ombine to form phrases
and senten es he learner will e pe t to find verbs and nouns as these
are universal grammati al ategories she will know that the language
like all languages has a wa of negating forming uestions issuing om
mands referring to past or future time and more generall has a s stem
of rules that will allow her to produ e and understand an infinite number
of senten es
he more linguists e plore the intri a ies of human language the more evi
den e a umulates to support homsk s view that there is a niversal ram
mar that is part of the biologi all endowed human language fa ult e
an think of as the blueprint that all languages follow that forms part of
the hild s innate apa it for language learning t spe ifies the different om
ponents of the grammar and their relations how the different rules of these
omponents are onstru ted how the intera t and so on major aim of lin
guistic theory is to dis over the nature of
he linguist s goal is to reveal the laws of human language as the
ph si ist s goal is to reveal the laws of the ph si al universe he
omple it of language undoubtedl means this goal will never be full
a hieved ll s ientifi theories are in omplete and new h potheses must
be proposed to a ount for new data heories are ontinuall hanging
as new dis overies are made ust as ph si s was enlarged b instein s
theories of relativit so grows the linguisti theor of as new dis
overies shed new light on the nature of human language he ompara
tive stud of man different languages is of entral importan e to this
enterprise
The Development of Grammar

How comes it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief and personal
and limited, are nevertheless able to know as much as they do know?
BERTRAND RUSSELL, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, 1948
inguisti theor is on erned not onl with des ribing the knowledge that
an adult speaker has of his or her language but also with e plaining how
this knowledge is a uired
ll t pi all developing hildren a uire at least one language in a rela
tivel short period with apparent ease he do this despite the fa t that par
ents and other aregivers do not provide them with an spe ifi language
instru tion ndeed it is often remarked that hildren seem to pi k up
language just from hearing it spoken around them hildren are language
learning virtuosos whether a hild is male or female from a ri h famil
or a disadvantaged one grows up on a farm or in the it attends da are
or has home are none of these fa tors fundamentall affe ts the wa language
develops hildren an a uire an language the are e posed to with ompa
rable ease nglish ut h ren h wahili apanese and even though ea h
of these languages has its own pe uliar hara teristi s hildren learn them all
in ver mu h the same wa or e ample all hildren go through a babbling
stage their babbles graduall give wa to words whi h then ombine to form
simple senten es and then senten es of ever in reasing omple it he same
hild who ma be unable to tie her shoes or even ount to five has managed
to master the omple grammati al stru tures of her language and a uire a
substantial le i on
ow hildren a omplish this remarkable ognitive feat is a topi of
intense interest to linguists he hild s ine orable path to adult linguisti
knowledge and the uniformit of the a uisition pro ess point to a sub
stantial innate omponent to language development what we referred to
earlier as niversal rammar hildren a uire language as ui kl and
effortlessl as the do be ause the do not have to figure out all the gram
mati al rules onl those that are spe ifi to their parti ular language he
What Is Grammar? 15
universal properties the laws of language are part of their biologi al

endowment n hapter we will dis uss language a uisition in more
detail
Sign Languages: Evidence for Language Universals

It is not the want of organs that [prevents animals from making] . . . known their
thoughts . . . for it is evident that magpies and parrots are able to utter words just like
ourselves, and yet they cannot speak as we do, that is, so as to give evidence that they
think of what they say. On the other hand, men who, being born deaf and mute . . . are
destitute of the organs which serve the others for talking, are in the habit of themselves
inventing certain signs by which they make themselves understood.
RENÉ DESCARTES, Discourse on Method, 1637
he sign languages of deaf ommunities provide some of the best eviden e to

support the view that all languages are governed b the same universal prin
iples urrent resear h on sign languages has been ru ial to understanding
the biologi al underpinnings of human language a uisition and use
he major language of the deaf ommunit in the nited tates is American
Sign Language ASL is an outgrowth of the sign language used in ran e
and brought to the nited tates in b the great edu ator homas
opkins allaudet
and other sign languages do not use sounds to e press meanings
nstead the are visual gestural s stems that use hand bod and fa ial
gestures as the forms used to represent words and grammati al rules ign
languages are full developed languages and signers reate and omprehend
unlimited numbers of new senten es just as speakers of spoken languages
do igned languages have their own grammati al rules and a mental le i on
of signs all en oded through a s stem of gestures and are otherwise e uiva
lent to spoken languages igners are affe ted b performan e fa tors just as
speakers are slips of the hand o ur similar to slips of the tongue inger fum
blers amuse signers just as tongue twisters amuse speakers hese and other
language games pla on properties of the sound s stems of the spoken and
signed languages
eaf hildren who are e posed to signed languages a uire them just as
hearing hildren a uire spoken languages going through the same linguisti
stages in luding the babbling stage eaf hildren babble with their hands
just as hearing hildren babble with their vo al tra ts eurologi al studies
show that signed languages are organized in the brain in the same wa as
spoken languages despite their visual modalit e dis uss the brain basis of
language in hapter
n short signed languages resemble spoken languages in all major aspe ts
his universalit is e pe ted be ause regardless of the modalit in whi h it
is e pressed language is a biologi all based abilit ur knowledge use and
a uisition of language are not dependent on the abilit to produ e and hear
sounds but on a far more abstra t ognitive apa it
What Is Not (Human) Language

It is a very remarkable fact that there are none so depraved and stupid, without even
excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a
statement by which they make known their thoughts; while, on the other hand, there is
no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do
the same.
RENÉ DESCARTES, Discourse on Method and Meditation on First Philosophy
ll languages share ertain fundamental properties and hildren naturall a uire

these languages whether the are spoken or signed oth modalities are e uall
a essible to the hild be ause human beings are designed for human language
ut what of the languages of other spe ies re the like human languages an
other spe ies be taught a human language
The Birds and the Bees

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792–1822, To a Skylark
ost animal spe ies possess some kind of ommuni ation s stem umans also
ommuni ate through s stems other than language su h as head nodding or
fa ial e pressions he uestion is whether the ommuni ation s stems used
b other spe ies are at all like human language with its ver spe ifi proper
ties most notabl its reative aspe t
an spe ies have a non vo al s stem of ommuni ation mong er
tain spe ies of spiders there is a omple s stem for ourtship efore ap
proa hing his lad love the male spider goes through an elaborate series of
gestures to tell her that he is indeed a spider and a suitable mate and not
a rumb or a fl to be eaten hese gestures are invariant ne never finds
a reative spider hanging or adding to the ourtship ritual of his spe ies
similar kind of gestural language is found among the fiddler rabs here
are fort spe ies and ea h uses its own law waving movement to signal to
another member of its lan he timing movement and posture of the bod
never hange from one time to another or from one rab to another within the
parti ular variet hatever the signal means it is fi ed nl one meaning
an be onve ed
n essential propert of human language not shared b the ommuni a
tion s stems of spiders rabs and other animals is its discreteness uman
languages are not simpl made up of a fi ed set of invariant signs he are
omposed of dis rete units sounds words phrases that are ombined
What Is Not (Human) Language 17
a ording to the rules of the grammar of the language he word top in

nglish has a parti ular meaning but it also has individual parts that an
be rearranged to produ e other meaningful se uen es pot or opt imi
larl the phrase the cat on the mat means something different from the mat
on the cat e an arrange and rearrange the units of our language to form
an infinite number of e pressions he reativit of human language de
pends on dis reteness
n ontrast to rabs and spiders birds ommuni ate vo all and bird
songs have alwa s aptured the human imagination usi ians and ompos
ers have been moved b these melodies sometimes imitating them in their
ompositions other times in orporating birdsongs dire tl into the musi
irdsongs have also inspired poets as in helle s To a Skylark, not to mention
artoonists
irds do not sing for our pleasure however heir songs and alls om
muni ate important information to other members of the spe ies and some
times to other animals Birdcalls onsisting of one or more short notes
onve danger feeding nesting flo king and so on Bird songs more om
ple patterns of notes are used to stake out territor and to attra t mates
ike the messages of rabs and spiders however there is no eviden e of
an internal stru ture to these songs the annot be segmented into dis
rete meaningful parts and rearranged to en ode different messages as an
the words phrases and senten es of human language n his territorial song
the uropean robin alternates between high pit hed and low pit hed notes
to indi ate how strongl he feels about defending his territor he different
alternations indi ate intensit and nothing more he robin is reative in his
abilit to sing the same song in different wa s but not reative in his abil
it to use the same units of the s stem to e press different messages with
different meanings e entl s ientists have observed that fin hes will rea t
when the units of a familiar song are rearranged t is un lear however
whether the birds re ognize a violation of the rules of the song or are just
responding to a pattern hange
hough ru ial to the birds survival the messages onve ed b these songs
and alls are limited relating onl to a bird s immediate environment and
needs ike the dog in ussell s uote above birds annot tell us their stor
Patrick McDonnell/King Features Syndicate
however beautifull the sing uman language is different of ourse ur

words and senten es are not simpl responses to internal and e ternal stimuli
f ou re tired ou ma awn but ou ma also sa m tired or m going
to bed or m going to tarbu ks for a double espresso otabl ou also
have the right to remain silent or talk about things ompletel unrelated to
our ph si al state the weather the movie ou saw last night our plans for
the weekend or most interesting of all our linguisti s lass
he linguists all this propert of human language displacement the a
pa it to talk or sign messages that are unrelated to here and now ispla e
ment and dis reteness are two fundamental properties that distinguish human
language from the ommuni ation s stems of birds and other animals
ne respe t in whi h birdsongs do resemble human languages is in their de
velopment n man bird spe ies the full adult version of the birdsong is a uired
in several stages as it is for hildren a uiring language he oung bird sings
a simplified version of the song shortl after hat hing and then learns the more
detailed omple version b hearing adults sing owever he must hear the
adult song during a spe ifi fi ed period after birth the period differs from spe
ies to spe ies otherwise song a uisition does not o ur or e ample the haf
fin h is unable to learn the more detailed song elements after ten months of age
bab nightingale in aptivit ma be trained to sing melodiousl b another
nightingale a tea hing bird but onl before its tail feathers are grown hese
birds show a critical period for a uiring their language similar to the riti al
period for human language a uisition whi h we will dis uss in hapters
and s with human language a uisition the development of the birdsongs
of these spe ies involves an intera tion of both learned and innate stru ture
n interesting onse uen e of the fa t that some birdsongs are partiall
learned means that variation an develop here an be regional diale ts
within the same spe ies and as with humans these diale ts are transmitted
from parents to offspring esear hers have noted in fa t that diale t differ
en es ma be better preserved in songbirds than in humans be ause there is no
homogenization of regional a ents due to radio or e will dis uss human
language diale ts in hapter
one bees have a parti ularl interesting signaling s stem hen a forager
bee returns to the hive she ommuni ates to other bees where a sour e of food
is lo ated b performing a dan e on a wall of the hive that reveals the lo ation
and ualit of the food sour e or one spe ies of talian hone bee the dan
ing ma assume one of three possible patterns round whi h indi ates lo a
tions near the hive within feet or so sickle whi h indi ates lo ations at
to feet from the hive and tail-wagging for distan es that e eed feet
he number of repetitions per minute of the basi pattern in the tail wagging
dan e indi ates the pre ise distan e the slower the repetition rate the longer
the distan e he number of repetitions and the intensit with whi h the bee
dan es the round dan e indi ates the ri hness of the food sour e the more rep
etitions and the livelier the bee dan e the more food to be gotten
ee dan es are dis rete in some sense onsisting of separate parts and in
prin iple the an ommuni ate infinitel man different messages like human
language but unlike human language the topi is alwa s the same namel
food he la k the displa ement propert s e periments have shown when
What Is Not (Human) Language 19
a bee is for ed to walk to a food sour e rather than fl she will ommuni ate a
distan e man times farther awa than the food sour e a tuall is he bee has
no wa of ommuni ating the spe ial ir umstan es of its trip his absen e of
reativit makes the bee s dan e ualitativel different from human language
s we will dis uss in hapter the human language abilit is rooted in the
human brain ust like human language the ommuni ation s stem of ea h
spe ies is determined b its biolog his raises the interesting uestion of
whether it is possible for one spe ies to a uire the language of another more
spe ifi all an animals learn human language
Can Animals Learn Human Language?

It is a great baboon, but so much like man in most things. . . . I do believe it already
understands much English; and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs.
ENTRY IN SAMUEL PEPYS’S DIARY, 1661
he idea of talking animals is as old and as widespread among human so iet

ies as language itself ll ultures have legends in whi h some animal speaks
ll over est fri a hildren listen to folktales in whi h a spider man is
the hero o ote is a favorite figure in man ative meri an tales and
man an animal takes the stage in esop s famous fables ugs unn i ke
ouse and onald u k are i ons of meri an ulture he fi tional o tor
oolittle ommuni ated with all manner of animals from giant snails to tin
sparrows as did aint ran is of ssisi
n realit various spe ies show abilities that seem to mimi aspe ts of hu
man language alking birds su h as parrots and m nahs an be taught to
faithfull reprodu e words and phrases but this does not mean the have a
uired a human language s the poet illiam owper put it ords learned
b rote a parrot ma rehearse but talking is not alwa s to onverse
alking birds do not de ompose their imitations into dis rete units Polly
and Molly do not rh me for a parrot he are as different as hello and good-
bye f oll learns oll wants a ra ker and oll wants a doughnut and
also learns to sa whiskey and bagel she will not then spontaneousl produ e
oll wants whiske or oll wants a bagel or oll wants whiske and
a bagel f she learns cat and cats and dog and dogs and then learns the word
parrot she will not be able to form the plural parrots as hildren do nlike
ever developing hild a parrot annot generalize from parti ular instan es
and annot therefore produ e senten es he has not been dire tl taught
parrot even a ver verbose one annot produ e an unlimited set of utter
an es from a finite set of units he imitative utteran es of talking birds mean
nothing to the birds these utteran es have no ommuni ative fun tion t is
lear that simpl knowing how to produ e a se uen e of spee h sounds is not
the same as knowing a language ut what about animals that appear to learn
the meanings of words o the have human language
ogs an easil be taught to respond to ommands su h as heel sit fetch
and so on and even seem to understand obje t words like ball toy and so
on ndeed in erman ps hologists reported on a order ollie named
i o who had a uired a word vo abular ontaining both erman and

nglish words hen asked to fet h a parti ular to from a pile of man to s
i o was orre t over of the time hen told to fet h a to whose name
he had not been previousl taught i o ould mat h the novel name to a new
to among a pile of familiar to s about of the time a rate omparable to
that of oung hildren performing a similar novel name task ore re entl a
border ollie named haser who lives in outh arolina is reported to under
stand the names of to s haser was taught these names over a ear
period nd like i o he is able to onne t a novel name to a new to pla ed in
a huge pile of to s whose names he alread knows
i o and haser are learl ver intelligent dogs and their name re ognition
skills are amazing t is unlikel however that i o or haser or pot or over
understand the meanings of words or have a uired a s mboli s stem in the
wa that hildren do ather the learn to asso iate a parti ular se uen e of
sounds with an obje t or a tion or haser and i o the name ponge ob
for e ample might mean something like fet h ponge ob what the dog has
been taught to do he oung hild who has learned the name ponge ob
knows that it refers to a parti ular to or hara ter independent of an a par
ti ular game or onte t he philosopher ertrand ussell summed up the dog
rather insightfull noting that however elo uentl he ma bark he annot
tell ou that his parents were honest though poor
n their natural habitat himpanzees gorillas and other nonhuman pri
mates ommuni ate with ea h other through visual auditor olfa tor and
ta tile signals an of these signals seem to have meanings asso iated with
the animals immediate environment or emotional state he an signal dan
ger and an ommuni ate aggressiveness and subordination owever the
natural sounds and gestures produ ed b all nonhuman primates are highl
stereot ped and limited in the t pe and number of messages the onve
heir signals annot be broken down into dis rete units and rearranged to
reate new meanings he also la k the propert of displa ement ntelligent
though the are these animals have no wa of e pressing the anger the felt
esterda or the anti ipation of tomorrow
ven though primate ommuni ation s stems are uite limited man
people have been interested in the uestion of whether the have the latent
apa it to a uire omple linguisti s stems similar to human language
hroughout the se ond half of the twentieth entur there were a number
of studies designed to test whether nonhuman primates ould learn human
language in luding both words or signs and the grammati al rules for their
ombination
n earl e periments resear hers raised himpanzees in their own homes
alongside their hildren in order to re reate the natural environment in whi h
human hildren a uire language he himps were unable to vo alize words
despite the efforts of their aretakers though the did a hieve the abilit to
understand a number of individual words rimate vo al tra ts do not permit
them to pronoun e man different sounds but be ause of their manual de terit
sign language was an attra tive alternative to test their ognitive linguisti abil
it tarting with a himpanzee named ashoe and ontinuing over the ears
with a gorilla named oko and another himp ironi all named im himpsk
after oam homsk and the subje t of a major motion pi ture Pro ect Nim
released ug intense efforts were made to tea h them meri an ign
anguage hough the primates a hieved small su esses su h as the abilit to
string two signs together and o asionall showed flashes of reativit none
remotel rea hed the ualitative linguisti abilit of a human hild
imilar results were obtained in attempting to tea h primates artifi ial lan
guages designed to resemble human languages in some respe ts ommon
himpanzees arah ana herman ustin and more re entl a male bonobo
or p gm himpanzee named anzi were taught languages whose words
were plasti hips or ke s on a ke board that ould be arranged into sen
ten es he resear hers were parti ularl interested in the abilit of primates
to ommuni ate using su h abstra t s mbols
hese e periments also ame under s rutin uestions arose over what
kind of knowledge arah and ana and anzi were showing with their s mbol
manipulations and to what e tent their responses were being inadvertentl
ued b e perimenters an s ientists in luding some who were dire tl in
volved with these proje ts have on luded that the reative abilit that is so
mu h a part of human language is not eviden ed b the himps use of the
artifi ial languages s often happens in s ien e the sear h for the answers
to one kind of uestion leads to answers to other uestions he linguisti e
periments with primates have led to man advan es in our understanding of
primate ognitive abilit esear hers have gone on to investigate other a
pa ities of the himp mind su h as ausalit hese studies also point out
how remarkable it is that within just a few short ears without the benefit of
e pli it guidan e and regardless of personal ir umstan es all human hildren
are able to reate new and omple senten es never spoken or heard before
Language and Thought

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak
forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc—
should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
GEORGE ORWELL, appendix to 1984, 1949
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922
an people are fas inated b the uestion of how language relates to thought
t is natural to imagine that something as powerful and fundamental to human
nature as language would influen e how we think about or per eive the world
around us his is learl refle ted in the appendi of eorge rwell s master
pie e 1 uoted above ver the ears there have been man laims made
regarding the relationship between language and thought he laim that the
stru ture of a language influen es how its speakers per eive the world around
them is most losel asso iated with the linguist dward apir and his student
enjamin horf and is therefore referred to as the Sapir Whorf hypothesis

n apir wrote
uman beings do not live in the obje tive world alone nor in the world of
so ial a tivit as ordinaril understood but are ver mu h at the mer of
the parti ular language whi h has be ome the medium of e pression for
their so iet we see and hear and otherwise e perien e ver largel as
we do be ause the language habits of our ommunit predispose ertain
hoi es of interpretation
horf made even stronger laims
he ba kground linguisti s stem in other words the grammar of
ea h language is not merel the reprodu ing instrument for voi ing
ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas the program and guide for
the individual s mental a tivit for his anal sis of impressions for his
s nthesis of his mental sto k in trade e disse t nature along lines laid
down b our native languages
he strongest form of the apir horf h pothesis is alled linguistic
determinism be ause it holds that the language we speak determines how
we per eive and think about the world ording to this view language a ts
like a filter on realit ne of horf s best known laims in support of linguis
ti determinism was that the opi ndians do not per eive time in the same
wa as speakers of uropean languages be ause the opi language does not
make the grammati al distin tions of tense that for e ample nglish does
with words and word endings su h as did will shall s ed and ing
weaker form of the h pothesis is linguistic relativism whi h sa s that
different languages en ode different ategories and that speakers of different
languages therefore think about the world in different wa s or e ample lan
guages break up the olor spe trum at different points n avaho blue and
green are one word ussian has different words for dark blue siniy and light
blue goluboy while in nglish we need to use the additional words dark and
light to e press the differen e he meri an ndian language uni does not
distinguish between the olors ellow and orange
anguages also differ in how the e press lo ations or e ample in talian
ou ride in a bi le and ou go in a ountr while in nglish ou ride
on a bi le and ou go to a ountr n nglish we sa that a ring is
pla ed on a finger and a finger is pla ed in the ring orean on the other
hand has one word for both situations kitta whi h e presses the idea of a
tight fitting relation between the two obje ts panish has two different words
for the inside of a orner rinc n and the outside of a orner esquina
hat languages show linguisti distin tions in their le i ons and grammar is
ertain and we will see man e amples of this in later hapters he uestion is
to what e tent if at all su h distin tions determine or influen e the thoughts
and per eptions of speakers he apir horf h pothesis is ontroversial but
apir Language ew ork ar ourt ra e orld p

horf and arroll Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings am
bridge ress
it is lear that the strong form of this h pothesis is false eoples thoughts and
per eptions are not determined b the words and stru tures of their language
e are not prisoners of our linguisti s stems f speakers were unable to think
about something for whi h their language had no spe ifi word translations
would be impossible as it would be to learn a se ond language nglish ma
not have separate words for the inside of a orner and the outside of a orner
but we are perfe tl able to e press these on epts using more than one word
n fa t we just did f we ould not think about something for whi h we do
not have words how would infants ever learn their first words mu h less
languages
an of the spe ifi laims of linguisti determinism have been shown to
be wrong or e ample the opi language ma not have words and word
endings for spe ifi tenses but the language has other e pressions for time
in luding words for the da s of the week parts of the da esterda and
tomorrow lunar phases seasons et he opi people use various kinds of
alendars and various devi es for time keeping based on the sundial learl
the have a sophisti ated on ept of time despite the la k of a tense s stem in
the language
he unduruku an indigenous people of the razilian mazon have no
words in their language for triangle s uare re tangle or other geometri on
epts e ept ir le he onl terms to indi ate dire tion are words for up
stream downstream sunrise and sunset et unduruku hildren understand
man prin iples of geometr as well as meri an hildren whose language is
ri h in geometri and spatial words
hough languages differ in their olor words speakers an readil per eive
olors that are not named in their language rand alle ani is a language
spoken in ew uinea with onl two olor words bla k and white dark and
light n e perimental studies however speakers of the language showed re
ognition of the olor red and the did better with fire engine red than off red
his would not be possible if their olor per eptions were fi ed b their lan
guage ur per eption of olor is determined b the stru ture of the human
e e not b the stru ture of language sour e of dazzling linguisti reativit
is to be found at the lo al paint store where literall thousands of olors are
given names like soft pumpkin Durango dust and lavender lipstick
SHERMAN’S LAGOON © 2011 JIM TOOMEY
he horfian laim that is perhaps most familiar is that the skimo language
nuit has man more words than nglish has for snow and that this affe ts the
worldview of the nuit people owever anthropologists have shown that nuit
has no more words for snow than nglish does around a dozen in luding sleet
blizzard slush and flurry ut even if it did this would not show that language
onditions the nuits e perien e of the world but rather that e perien e with
a parti ular world reates the need for ertain words n this respe t the nuit
speaker is no different from the omputer programmer who has a te hni al
vo abular for nternet proto ols or the linguist who has man spe ialized
words regarding language n this book we will introdu e ou to man new
words and linguisti on epts and surel ou will learn them his would be
impossible if our thoughts about language were determined b the linguisti
vo abular ou now have
n our understanding of the world we are ertainl not at the mer of
whatever language we speak as apir suggested owever we ma ask
whether the language we speak influences our ognition in some wa n the
domain of olor ategorization for e ample it has been shown that if a lan
guage la ks a word for red sa then it s harder for speakers to reidentif red
obje ts n other words having a label seems to make it easier to store or a ess
information in memor imilarl e periments show that ussian speakers are
better at dis riminating light blue goluboy and dark blue siniy obje ts than
nglish speakers whose language does not make a le i al distin tion between
these ategories hese results show that words an influen e simple per ep
tual tasks in the domain of olor dis rimination pon refle tion this ma not
be a surprising finding olors e ist on a ontinuum and the wa we segment
into different olors happens at arbitrar points along this spe trum e ause
there is no ph si al motivation for these divisions this ma be the kind of situ
ation where language ould show an effe t
he uestion has also been raised regarding the possible influen e of gram
mati al gender on how people think about obje ts an languages su h as
panish and erman lassif nouns as mas uline or feminine in panish ke
is la llave feminine and bridge is el puente mas uline ome ps hologists
have suggested that speakers of gender marking languages think about obje ts
as having gender mu h like people or animals have n one stud speakers of
erman and panish were asked to des ribe various obje ts using nglish ad
je tives the speakers were profi ient in nglish n general the used more
mas uline adje tives independentl rated as su h to des ribe obje ts that are
grammati all mas uline in their own language or e ample panish speakers
des ribed bridges el puente as big dangerous long strong and sturdy n erman
the word for bridge is feminine die Br cke and erman speakers used more
feminine adje tives su h as beautiful elegant fragile peaceful pretty and slender
nterestingl it has been noted that nglish speakers too make onsistent judg
ments about the gender of ertain obje ts ships are she even though nglish
has no grammati al gender on ommon nouns t ma be then that regardless
of the language spoken humans have a tenden to anthropomorphize obje ts
and this tenden is somehow enhan ed if the language itself has grammati al
gender hough it is too earl to ome to an firm on lusions the results of
these and similar studies seem to support a weak version of linguisti relativism
Summary 25
oliti ians and marketers ertainl believe that language an influen e our
thoughts and values ne politi al part ma refer to an inheritan e ta as
the estate ta while an opposing part refers to it as the death ta n the
abortion debate some refer to the right to hoose and others to the right
to life he terminolog refle ts different ideologies but the hoi e of e pres
sion is primaril intended to swa publi opinion oliti all orre t lan
guage also refle ts the idea that language an influen e thought an people
believe that b hanging the wa we talk we an hange the wa we think
that if we eliminate ra ist and se ist terms from our language we will be ome
a less ra ist and se ist so iet s we will dis uss in hapter language itself
is not se ist or ra ist but people an be and be ause of this parti ular words
take on negative meanings n his book The Language Instinct the ps hologist
teven inker uses the e pression euphemism treadmill to des ribe how the eu
phemisti terms that are reated to repla e negative words often take on the
negative asso iations of the words the were oined to repla e or e ample
handicapped was on e a euphemism for the offensive term crippled and when
handicapped be ame politi all in orre t it was repla ed b the euphemism
disabled nd as we write disabled is falling into disrepute and is often re
pla ed b et another euphemism challenged onetheless in all su h ases
hanging language has not resulted in a new worldview for the speakers
s pres ient as rwell was with respe t to how language ould be used for
so ial ontrol he was more ir umspe t with regard to the relation between
language and thought e was areful to ualif his notions with the phrase
at least so far as thought is dependent on words urrent resear h shows
that language does not determine how we think about and per eive the world
uture resear h should show the e tent to whi h language influen es other
aspe ts of ognition su h as memor and ategorization
Summary
e are all intimatel familiar with at least one language our own et few of
us ever stop to onsider what we know when we know a language o book
ontains or ould possibl ontain the nglish or ussian or ulu language
he words of a language an be listed in a di tionar but not all the senten es
an be peakers use a finite set of rules to produ e and understand an infinite
set of possible senten es
hese rules are part of the grammar of a language whi h develops when
ou a uire the language and in ludes the sound s stem the phonology the
stru ture and properties of words the morphology and lexicon how words
ma be ombined into phrases and senten es the syntax and the wa s in
whi h sounds and meanings are related the semantics he sounds and
meanings of individual words are related in an arbitrary fashion f ou had
never heard the word syntax ou would not know what it meant b its sounds
he gestures used b signers are also arbitraril related to their meanings
anguage then is a s stem that relates sounds or hand and bod gestures
with meanings hen ou know a language ou know this s stem
his knowledge linguistic competence is different from behavior linguistic
performance ou have the ompeten e to produ e a million word senten e
but performan e limitations su h as memor and enduran e keep this from o

urring here are different kinds of grammars he descriptive grammar of
a language represents the un ons ious linguisti knowledge or apa it of its
speakers u h a grammar is a model of the mental grammar ever speaker of
the language possesses t does not tea h the rules of the language it des ribes
the rules that are alread known grammar that attempts to legislate what
our grammar should be is alled a prescriptive grammar t pres ribes
t does not des ribe e ept in identall Teaching grammars are written to
help people learn a foreign language or a diale t of their own language
he more linguists investigate the thousands of languages of the world and
des ribe the wa s in whi h the differ from ea h other the more the dis over
that these differen es are limited here are linguisti universals that pertain
to ea h of the parts of grammars the wa s in whi h these parts are related
and the forms of rules hese prin iples ompose niversal rammar whi h
provides a blueprint for the grammars of all possible human languages niver
sal rammar onstitutes the innate omponent of the human language fa ult
that makes language development in hildren possible
trong eviden e for niversal rammar is found in the wa hildren a uire
language hildren learn language b e posure he need not be deliberatel
taught though parents ma enjo tea hing their hildren to speak or sign
hildren will learn an human language to whi h the are e posed and the
learn it in definable stages beginning at a ver earl age
he fa t that deaf hildren learn sign language shows that the abil
it to hear or produ e sounds is not a prere uisite for language learning
ll the sign languages in the world whi h differ as spoken languages do
are visual gestural s stems that are as full developed and as stru turall
omple as spoken languages he major sign language used in the nited
tates is American Sign Language ASL he abilit of human beings to
a uire know and use l anguage is a biologi all based abilit rooted in
the stru ture of the human brain and e pressed in different modalities
spoken or signed
f language is defined merel as a s stem of ommuni ation or the abilit
to produ e spee h sounds then language is not uni ue to humans here are
however ertain hara teristi s of human language not found in the ommu
ni ation s stems of an other spe ies basi propert of human language is
its creativity a speaker s abilit to ombine the basi linguisti units to form
an infinite set of well formed grammati al senten es most of whi h are
novel never before produ ed or heard uman languages onsist of dis rete
units that ombine a ording to the rules of the grammar of the language u
man languages also allow us to talk about things that are removed in time and
spa e from our immediate environment or mental or ph si al state hese are
the properties of discreteness and displacement and the distinguish human
language from the languages of other spe ies
or man ears resear hers were interested in the uestion of whether lan
guage is a uni uel human abilit here have been man attempts to tea h
nonhuman primates to ommuni ate using sign language or s mboli s stems
that resemble human language in ertain respe ts verall results have been
disappointing ome himpanzees have been trained to use an impressive num

ber of s mbols or signs ut a areful e amination of their multi sign utteran es
reveals that unlike hildren the himps show little reativit or spontaneit
heir utteran es are highl imitative e hoi often unwittingl ued b train
ers and have little s nta ti stru ture ome highl intelligent dogs have also
learned a signifi ant number of words but their learning is restri ted to a spe
ifi onte t and it is likel that their meanings for these words are ver differ
ent from the s mboli or referential meanings that would be learned b a human
hild
he Sapir Whorf hypothesis holds that the parti ular language we speak
determines or influen es our thoughts and per eptions of the world u h of
the earl eviden e in support of this h pothesis has not stood the test of time
ore re ent e perimental studies suggest that the words and grammar of a
language ma affe t aspe ts of ognition su h as memor and ategorization
References for Further Reading

nderson he logi al stru ture of linguisti theor Language e em
ber
i kerton Language and species hi ago hi ago niversit ress
homsk nowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use ew ork and
ondon raeger
Reflections on language ew ork antheon ooks
Language and mind nlarged ed ew ork ar ourt ra e ovanovi h
r stal Cambridge encyclopedia of language ambridge ambridge
niversit ress
entner and oldin eadow Language in mind ambridge ress
all Leave your language alone tha a inguisti a
a kendoff The architecture of the language faculty ambridge
ress
Patterns in the mind: Language and human nature ew ork asi ooks
lima and ellugi The signs of language ambridge arvard
niversit ress
ane When the mind hears: A history of the deaf ew ork intage ooks
andom ouse
ilro and ilro Authority in language: Investigating standard English
rd ed ew ork outledge
apoli Language matters: A guide to everyday thinking about language
ew ork ford niversit ress
inker Words and rules: The ingredients of language ew ork
arper ollins
The language instinct ew ork illiam orrow
rema k and rema k ea hing language to an ape Scientific
American tober
erra e Nim: A chimpanzee who learned sign language ew ork nopf
tam Inquiries into the origin of language: The fate of a question ew ork
arper ow
tokoe Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication system
of the American deaf ilver pring instok ress
Exercises
n nglish speaker s knowledge in ludes the sound se uen es of the

l anguage hen new produ ts are put on the market the manufa turers
have to think up new names for them that onform to the allowable
sound patterns uppose ou were hired b a manufa turer of soap
produ ts to name five new produ ts hat names might ou ome up
with ist them
e are interested in how the names are pronoun ed herefore
des ribe in an wa ou an how to sa the words ou list uppose
for e ample ou named one detergent Blick ou ould des ribe the
sounds in an of the following wa s
bl as in blood i as in pit ck as in stick
bli as in bliss ck as in tick
b as in boy lick as in lick
2. onsider the following senten es ut a star after those that

do not seem to onform to the rules of our grammar that are
ungrammati al for ou tate if ou an wh ou think the senten e
is ungrammati al
a. obin for ed the sheriff go
b. apoleon for ed osephine to go
c. he devil made aust go
d. e passed b a large pile of mone
e. e drove b m house
f. e drove m house b
g. id in a orner little a k orner sit
h. lizabeth is resembled b harles
i. an is eager to please
. t is eas to frighten mil
k. t is eager to love a kitten
l. hat birds an fl flabbergasts
m. he fa t that ou are late to lass is surprising
n. as the nurse slept the bab et
o. was surprised for ou to get married
p. wonder who and ar went swimming
q. self bit ohn
r. hat did li e eat the toadstool with
s. hat did li e eat the toadstool and
3. t was pointed out in this hapter that a small set of words in languages
ma be onomatopoei that is their sounds imitate what the refer to
Ding-dong tick-tock bang zing swish and plop are su h words in nglish
onstru t a list of ten new onomatopoei words est them on at least
five friends to see whether the are trul nonarbitrar as to sound and
meaning
Exercises 29
4. lthough sounds and meanings of most words in all languages are ar

bitraril related there are some ommuni ation s stems in whi h the
signs unambiguousl reveal their meanings
a. es ribe or draw five different signs that dire tl show what the
mean Example a road sign indi ating an urve
b. es ribe an other ommuni ation s stem that like language on
sists of arbitrar s mbols Example traffi signals in whi h red
means stop and green means go
5. onsider these two statements learned a new word toda learned a
new senten e toda o ou think the two statements are e uall prob
able and if not wh not
6. n fri an gre parrot named le who was the subje t of a ear

e periment was reported to have learned the meanings of words
here are man reports on the nternet about le s impressive abili
ties n the light of eviden e presented in this hapter or based on our
own nternet resear h dis uss whether le s ommuni ations were the
results of lassi al operant onditioning as man s ientists believe or
whether he showed true linguisti reativit as his trainers maintain
7. wolf is able to e press subtle gradations of emotion b different positions

of the ears the lips and the tail here are eleven postures of the tail that
e press su h emotions as self onfiden e onfident threat la k of ten
sion un ertain threat depression defensiveness a tive submission and
omplete submission his s stem seems to be omple uppose that there
were a thousand different emotions that the wolf ould e press in this wa
ould ou then sa a wolf had a language similar to a human s f not
wh not
8. uppose ou taught a dog to heel sit up roll over play dead stay ump
and bark on ommand using the itali ized words as ues ould ou be
tea hing it language h or wh not
9. tate some rule of grammar that ou have learned is the orre t wa to

sa something but that ou do not generall use in speaking or e
ample ou ma have heard that It s me is in orre t and that the orre t
form is It s I evertheless ou alwa s use me in su h senten es our
friends do also and in fa t It s I sounds odd to ou
rite a short essa presenting arguments against someone who tells
ou that ou are wrong is uss how this disagreement demonstrates
the differen e between des riptive and pres riptive grammars
10. oam homsk has been uoted as sa ing

t s about as likel that an ape will prove to have a language abilit
as that there is an island somewhere with a spe ies of flightless birds
waiting for human beings to tea h them to fl
n the light of eviden e presented in this hapter or based on our

own nternet resear h omment on homsk s remark o ou agree or
disagree or do ou think the eviden e is in on lusive
11. hink of song titles that are bad grammar but that if orre ted would
la k effe t or e ample the title of the ats aller lassi in t
isbehavin is learl superior to the bland am not misbehaving r
to ome up with five or ten su h titles
12. inguists who attempt to write a des riptive grammar of linguisti om

peten e are fa ed with a diffi ult task he must understand a deep and
omple s stem based on a set of sparse and often ina urate data hil
dren learning language fa e the same diffi ult lbert instein and
eopold nfeld aptured the essen e of the diffi ult in their book The
Evolution of Physics written in
n our endeavor to understand realit we are somewhat like a
man tr ing to understand the me hanism of a losed wat h e
sees the fa e and the moving hands even hears its ti king but he
has no wa of opening the ase f he is ingenious he ma form
some pi ture of a me hanism whi h ould be responsible for all
the things he observes but he ma never be uite sure his pi
ture is the onl one whi h ould e plain his observations e will
never be able to ompare his pi ture with the real me hanism and
he annot even imagine the possibilit of the meaning of su h a
omparison
rite a short essa that spe ulates on how a linguist might go about
understanding the realit of a person s grammar the losed wat h b
observing what that person sa s and doesn t sa the fa e and moving
hands or e ample a person might never sa the sixth sheik s sixth sheep
is sick as a dog but the grammar should spe if that it is a well formed
senten e just as it should somehow indi ate that Came the messenger on
time is ill formed
13. iew the motion pi ture My Fair Lady drawn from the pla Pygmalion
b eorge ernard haw rite down ever attempt to tea h gram
mar pronun iation word hoi e and s nta to the hara ter of liza
oolittle his is an illustration of a tea hing grammar
14. an people are bilingual or multilingual speaking two or more lan

guages with ver different stru tures
a. hat impli ations does bilingualism have for the debate about lan
guage and thought
b. an readers of this te tbook have some knowledge of a se ond
language hink of a linguisti stru ture or word in one language
that does not e ist in the se ond language and dis uss how this does
or does not affe t our thinking when ou speak the two languages
Exercises 31
f ou know onl one language ask this uestion of a bilingual person

ou know
c. an ou find an e ample of an untranslatable word or stru ture in
one of the languages ou speak
15. he outh meri an indigenous language irah is said to la k numbers
be ond two and distin t words for olors esear h this language using
the nternet with regard to whether irah supports or fails to support
linguisti determinism and or linguisti relativism
16. nglish espe iall ritish nglish has man words for woods and
woodlands ere are some
woodlot arr fen firth grove heath holt lea moor shaw weald
wold oppi e s rub spinne opse brush bush bos uet bosk
stand forest timberland thi ket
a. ow man of these words do ou re ognize
b. ook up several of these words in the di tionar and dis uss the dif
feren es in meaning an of these words are obsolete so if our di
tionar doesn t have them tr the nternet
c. o ou think that nglish speakers have a ri her on ept of woodlands
than speakers whose language has fewer words h or wh not
17. nglish words ontaining dge in their spelling trudge edgy are said
mostl to have unfavorable or negative onnotations esear h this
notion b a umulating as man dge words as ou an and lassif
ing them as unfavorable sludge or neutral bridge hat do ou
do about budget nfavorable or not re there other uestionable
words
18. ith regard to the euphemism treadmill dentif three other situa
tions in whi h a euphemism evolved to be as offensive as the word it
repla ed re uiring et another euphemism Hint e ra e and bodil
fun tions are good pla es to start
19. esearch pro ect ead the rat lus ialogue it s online n it is a
dis ussion or dialogue of whether names are onventional i e
what we have alled arbitrary or natural o ou find o rates
point of view suffi ientl well argued to support the thesis in this
hapter that the relationship between form and meaning is indeed ar
bitrar rgue our ase in either dire tion in a short or long if ou
wish essa
20. esearch pro ect f e er ise t is laimed that irah an

indigenous language of razil violates some of the universal prin iples
h pothesized b linguists hi h prin iples are in uestion s the evi
den e persuasive on lusive pe ulative Hint se the journal Cur-
rent Anthropology olume umber ugust tober and the
journal Language olume umber une
21. here are ver roughl about half a million words in use in toda s
nglish language a ording to urrent unabridged di tionaries owever
if we rea h ba k to the beginnings of the printing press and e amine
large amounts of published nglish we find an additional half a million
words now no longer in use su h as slethem a musi al instrument his
matter is dis ussed in more detail in hapter under the rubri ul
turomi s rite a short essa arguing one wa or the other that the
le i on of the nglish language ought to be ounted as ontaining one
million or so words eel free as alwa s to poke around the nternet to
inform ourself further
4
The Meaning of Language
Surely all this is not without meaning.
HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby-Dick, 1851
or thousands of ears philosophers have pondered the meaning of meaning

et speakers of a language an easil understand what is said to them and
an produ e strings of words that are meaningful to other speakers e use
language to onve information to others My new bike is pink ask uestions
Who left the party early? give ommands Stop lying and e press wishes
May there be peace on Earth
hat do ou know about meaning when ou know a language o begin
with ou know when a word is meaningful flick or meaningless blick
and ou know when a senten e is meaningful Jack swims or meaningless
Swims metaphorical every ou know when a word has two meanings bear
and when a senten e has two meanings Jack saw a man with a telescope ou
know when two words have the same meaning sofa and couch and when
two senten es have the same meaning Jack put off the meeting Jack put the
meeting off nd ou know when words or senten es have opposite meanings
alive dead Jack swims Jack doesn t swim
ou generall know the real world obje ts that words refer to like the chair
in the corner and even if the words do not refer to a tual obje ts su h as the
unicorn behind the bush ou still have a sense of what the mean and if the
parti ular obje t happened to e ist ou would have the knowledge to identif it
ou know or have the apa it to dis over when senten es are true or false
hat is if ou know the meaning of a senten e ou know its truth conditions
n some ases it s obvious or redundant all kings are male true all bachelors are
married false in other ases ou need some further nonlinguisti knowledge
139
140 CHAPTER 4 The Meaning of Language
Molybdenum conducts electricity but b knowing the meaning ou know the

kind of world knowledge that is needed ften if ou know that a senten e is
true Nina bathed her dogs ou an infer that another senten e must also be
true Nina s dogs got wet that is the first senten e entails the se ond senten e
ll of this knowledge about meaning e tends to an unlimited set of sen
ten es just like our s nta ti knowledge and is part of the grammar of the
language ne goal of linguisti s is to reveal and make e pli it this knowledge
about meaning that ever speaker has
he stud of the linguisti meaning of morphemes words phrases and
senten es is alled semantics ubfields of semanti s are lexical semantics
whi h is on erned with the meanings of words and the meaning relationships
among words and phrasal or sentential semantics whi h is on erned with
the meaning of s nta ti units larger than the word he stud of how onte t
affe ts meaning for e ample how the senten e It s cold in here omes to be
interpreted as lose the windows in ertain situations is alled pragmatics
What Speakers Know

about Sentence Meaning
Language without meaning is meaningless.
ROMAN JAKOBSON
n this se tion we dis uss the linguisti knowledge ou have that permits ou
to determine whether a senten e is true or false when one senten e implies
the truth or falseness of another and whether a senten e has multiple mean
ings ne wa to a ount for this knowledge is b formulating semanti rules
that build the meaning of a senten e from the meanings of its words and the
wa the words ombine s nta ti all his is often alled truth conditional
semantics be ause it takes speakers knowledge of truth onditions as basi
t is also alled compositional semantics be ause it al ulates the truth value
of a senten e b omposing or putting together the meanings of smaller units
e will limit our dis ussion to de larative senten es like Jack swims and Jack
kissed Laura be ause we an judge these kinds of senten es as either true or
false t least part of their meaning then will be their truth value
Truth
. . . Having Occasion to talk of Lying and false Representation, it was with much Difficulty
that he comprehended what I meant. . . . For he argued thus: That the Use of Speech was
to make us understand one another and to receive Information of Facts; now if any one
said the Thing which was not, these Ends were defeated; because I cannot properly be said
to understand him. . . . And these were all the Notions he had concerning that Faculty of
Lying, so perfectly well understood, and so universally practiced among human Creatures.
JONATHAN SWIFT, Gulliver’s Travels, 1726
What Speakers Know about Sentence Meaning 141
uppose ou are poolside and a k is swimming in the pool f ou hear the

senten e Jack swims and ou know the meaning of that senten e then ou
will judge the senten e to be true n the other hand if ou are indoors and
ou happen to believe that a k never learned to swim then when ou hear
the ver same senten e Jack swims ou will judge the senten e to be false
and ou will think the speaker is misinformed or l ing ore generall if ou
know the meaning of a senten e then ou an determine under what ondi
tions it is true or false
ou do not need to a tuall know whether a senten e is true or false to
know its meaning nowing the meaning tells ou how to determine the truth
value he senten e copper conducts electricity has meaning and is understood
be ause we know how to determine whether it s true or false for e ample b
use of a volt meter e ould also omment sensibl on the senten e b not
ing the use of opper wire in lamps f the senten e was Crumple-horned snork-
acks incarnadine nargles ou would find it meaningless be ause ou would not
have the foggiest idea how to determine whether it is true or false edu ing
the uestion of meaning to the uestion of truth onditions has proved to be
ver fruitful in understanding the semanti properties of language
or most senten es it does not make sense to sa that the are alwa s true
or alwa s false ather the are true or false in a given situation as we previ
ousl saw with Jack swims ut a restri ted number of senten es are indeed
alwa s true regardless of the ir umstan es he are alled tautologies
he term analytic is also used for su h senten es amples of tautologies
are senten es like Circles are round and A person who is single is not married
heir truth is guaranteed solel b the meaning of their parts and the wa
the are put together imilarl some senten es are alwa s false hese are
alled contradictions amples of ontradi tions are senten es like Circles
are square or A bachelor is married
Entailment and Related Notions

You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that
you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever
about you.
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, “The Norwood Builder,” in The Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes, 1894
u h of what we know is dedu ed from what people sa alongside our obser

vations of the world s we an dedu e from the uotation herlo k olmes
took dedu tion to the ultimate degree ften dedu tions an be made based
on language alone
f ou know that the senten e Jack swims beautifully is true then ou also
know that the senten e Jack swims is true his meaning relation is alled
entailment e sa that Jack swims beautifully entails Jack swims ore gen
erall one senten e entails another if whenever the first senten e is true the
se ond one is also true in all on eivable ir umstan es
enerall entailment goes onl in one dire tion o while the senten e Jack
swims beautifully entails Jack swims the reverse is not true nowing merel
that Jack swims is true does not ne essitate the truth of Jack swims beautifully
a k ould be a poor swimmer n the other hand negating both senten es
reverses the entailment Jack doesn t swim entails Jack doesn t swim beautifully
he notion of entailment an be used to reveal knowledge that we have about
other meaning relations or e ample omitting tautologies and ontradi tions
two senten es are synonymous or paraphrases if the are both true or both
false with respe t to the same situations enten es like Jack put off the meeting
and Jack postponed the meeting are s non mous be ause when one is true the
other must be true and when one is false the other must also be false e an
des ribe this pattern in a more on ise wa b using the notion of entailment
wo senten es are s non mous if the entail ea h other
hus if senten e entails senten e and vi e versa then whenever is true
is true and vi e versa lthough entailment sa s nothing spe ifi all about
false senten es it s lear that if senten e entails senten e then whenever
is false must be false f were true would have to be true nd if
also entails then whenever is false would have to be false hus mutual
entailment guarantees identi al truth values in all situations the senten es are
s non mous wo senten es are contradictory if whenever one is true the
other is false or e uivalentl there is no situation in whi h the are both true
or both false or e ample the senten es Jack is alive and Jack is dead are on
tradi tor be ause if the senten e Jack is alive is true then the senten e Jack
is dead is false and vi e versa n other words Jack is alive and Jack is dead
have opposite truth values ike s non m ontradi tion an be redu ed to a
spe ial ase of entailment
wo senten es are contradictory if one entails the negation of the other
or instan e Jack is alive entails the negation of Jack is dead namel Jack
is not dead imilarl Jack is dead entails the negation of Jack is alive namel
Jack is not alive
he notions of contradiction alwa s false and contradictory opposite in
truth value are related in that if two senten es are ontradi tor their on
jun tion with and is a ontradi tion hus Jack is alive and Jack is dead is a
ontradi tion it annot be true under an ir umstan es
Ambiguity
Let’s pass gas.
SEEN ON A SIGN IN THE LUNCHROOM OF AN ELECTRIC UTILITY COMPANY
ur semanti knowledge tells us when words or phrases in luding senten es

have more than one meaning that is when the are ambiguous n hapter
we saw that the senten e The boy saw the man with a telescope was an instan e
of stru tural ambiguit t is ambiguous be ause it an mean that the bo saw
the man b using a teles ope or that the bo saw the man who was holding a
Compositional Semantics 143
teles ope he senten e is stru turall ambiguous be ause it is asso iated with
two different phrase stru tures ea h orresponding to a different meaning
ere are the two stru tures
(1) TP (2) TP
qp qp
_ _
NP T NP T
5 ei 5 ei
the boy T VP the boy T VP
+pst g +pst g
_ _
V V
ei ei
V NP _
V PP
g ei
_ ei 6
see Det N V NP with the telescope
g ei g 6
the _ see the man
N PP
g g
_
N P
g ei
man P NP
g 6
with the telescope
n the with the telescope modifies the man so the interpretation is

that the man has the teles ope n the with a telescope modifies the
a tion of seeing the man so the interpretation is that the bo saw the man b
using the teles ope
e i al ambiguit arises when at least one word in a phrase has more than one
meaning or instan e the senten e This will make you smart is ambiguous be ause
of the two meanings of the word smart lever and feel a burning sensation
ur knowledge of le i al and stru tural ambiguities reveals that the meaning
of a linguisti e pression is built both on the words it ontains and on its s nta
ti stru ture he notion that the meaning of an e pression is omposed of the
meanings of its parts and how the are ombined stru turall is referred to as the
principle of compositionality n the ne t se tion we dis uss the rules b whi h
the meaning of a phrase or senten e is determined based on its omposition
Compositional Semantics
To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather
than their behavior taken separately.
RUSSELL L. ACKOFF
o a ount for speakers knowledge of grammati alit onstituent stru ture

and relations between senten es as well as for the limitless reativit of our
linguisti ompeten e we on luded hapter that the grammar must on
tain s nta ti rules
o a ount for the knowledge that we have of the truth referen e entailment
and ambiguit of senten es as well as for our abilit to determine the meaning
of a limitless number of e pressions we must suppose that the grammar ontains
semanti rules that ombine the meanings of words into meaningful phrases and
senten es
Semantic Rules
n the senten e Jack swims we know that the word Jack whi h is a proper
name refers to a pre ise obje t in the world whi h is its referent or instan e
in the s enario given earlier the referential meaning of Jack is the gu who is
our friend and who is swimming happil in the pool right now ased on this
we on lude that the meaning of the name Jack is the individual it refers to
hat about the meaning of the verb swim t first it seems as though verbs
like swim an t pi k out a parti ular thing in the world the wa proper names
do ut there is a wa to think about verbs and adje tives and ommon nouns
like cake in terms of what the refer to ust as the referent of Jack relies
on what s happening in the world whether a k e ists and whether he s
swimming in the pool right now the referent of swim depends on what s hap
pening in the world ased in part on earl philosophi al work ondu ted b
ottlob rege and ertrand ussell semanti ists think that the best wa to
define predicates verbs adje tives and ommon nouns is in terms of the
individuals that those predi ates su essfull des ribe n parti ular the best
wa to hara terize the meaning of swim and a wa in whi h that meaning
is refle ted in the world is b having it denote the set of individuals human
beings and animals that swim ou will see in a moment how this wa of
thinking about the meaning of swim helps us understand senten es in a wa
that a ords with our semanti knowledge
ur semanti rules must be sensitive not onl to the meaning of individual
words but also to the stru ture in whi h the o ur aking as an e ample
our simple senten e Jack swims let us see how the semanti rules ompute its
meaning he meanings of the individual words are summarized as follows
Word Meanings
Jack refers to or means the individual a k
swims refers to or means the set of individuals that swim
he phrase stru ture tree for our senten e is as follows
TP
wo
_
NP T
5 wo
Jack T VP
-pst 5
swim
he tree tells us that s nta ti all the Jack and the swims ombine to
form a senten e e want to mirror that ombination at the semanti
Compositional Semantics 145
level in other words we want to ombine the meaning of the Jack an in

dividual and the meaning of the swims a set of individuals to obtain the
meaning of the senten e Jack swims his is done b means of emanti ule
Semantic Rule I
he meaning of
TP
wo
_
NP T
wo
T VP
-pst
is the following truth ondition

f the meaning of an individual is a member of the meaning of
a set of individuals then the senten e is otherwise it is
ule states that a senten e omposed of a subje t and a predi ate is
true if the subje t refers to an individual who is among the members of the
set that onstitute the meaning of the his rule is entirel general it does
not refer to an parti ular senten e individual or verb t works e uall well
for senten es like Ellen sings or Max barks hus the meaning of Max barks is
the truth ondition i e the if senten e that states that the senten e is true
if the individual denoted b Max is among the set of barking individuals
et us now tr a slightl more omple ase the senten e Jack kissed Laura
he main s nta ti differen e between this e ample and the previous one is
that we now have a transitive verb that re uires an e tra in obje t position
otherwise our semanti rules derive the meaning using the same me hani al
pro edure as in the first e ample e again start with the word meaning and
s nta ti stru ture
Word Meanings
Jack refers to or means the individual a k
Laura refers to or means the individual aura
kissed refers to or means the set of pairs of individuals and su h
that kissed
ere is the phrase stru ture tree
TP
wo
_
NP T
5 wo
Jack T VP
+pst g
_
V
wo
V NP
g 5
kiss Laura
he meaning of the transitive verb kiss is still a set but this time a set of pairs
of individuals he meaning of the however is still a set of single individuals
namel those who kissed aura his ma be e pressed formall in emanti ule
Semantic Rule II
he meaning of
VP

V


V NP
is the set of individuals su h that is the first member of an pair in the

meaning of whose se ond member is the meaning of
he meaning of the senten e is derived b first appl ing emanti ule
whi h establishes the meaning of the as a ertain set of individuals namel
those who kissed aura ow emanti ule applies without further ado and
gives the meaning of the senten e to be true whenever the meaning of Jack is
a member of the set that is the meaning of the kissed Laura n other words
the senten e is true if a k kissed aura and false otherwise hese two seman
ti rules handle a limitless number of intransitive and transitive senten es
ne last e ample will illustrate how the semanti knowledge of entailment ma
be represented in the grammar onsider Jack swims beautifully and onsider further
the meaning of the adverb beautifully ts meaning is learl not an individual or a
set of individuals ather the meaning of beautifully is an operation that redu es the
size of the sets that are the meanings of verb phrases hen applied to the meaning
of swims it redu es the set of individuals who swim to the smaller set of those who
swim beautifull e won t e press this rule formall but it is now eas to see one
sour e of entailment he truth onditions that make Jack swims beautifully true are
narrower than the truth onditions that make Jack swims true b virtue of the fa t
that among the individuals who swim fewer of them swim beautifull herefore
an truth ondition that auses Jack swims beautifully to be true ne essaril auses
Jack swims to be true hen e Jack swims beautifully entails Jack swims
hese rules and man more like them a ount for our knowledge on ern
ing the truth value of senten es b taking the meanings of words and ombin
ing them a ording to the s nta ti stru ture of the senten e t is eas to see
from these e amples how ambiguous meanings arise e ause the meaning of
a senten e is omputed based on its hierar hi al organization different trees
will have different meanings stru tural ambiguit even when the words are
the same as in the e ample The boy saw the man with the telescope
imilarl the o urren e of an ambiguous word le i al ambiguit when
it ombines with the other elements of a senten e an make the entire sen
ten e ambiguous as in She can t bear children
he semanti theor of senten e meaning that we just sket hed is not the
onl possible one and it is also in omplete as shown b the parado i al
senten e This sentence is false he senten e annot be true else it s false it an
not be false else it s true herefore it has no truth value though it ertainl
has meaning his notwithstanding ompositional truth onditional semanti s
has proven to be an e tremel powerful and useful tool for investigating the
semanti properties of natural languages
When Compositionality Goes Awry

A loose sally of the mind; an irregular undigested piece; not a regular and orderly
composition.
SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709–1784)
he meaning of an e pression is not alwa s obvious even to a native speaker

of the language eanings ma be obs ured in man wa s or at least ma
re uire some imagination or spe ial knowledge to be apprehended oets pun
dits and es even professors an be diffi ult to understand
n the previous se tions we saw that semanti rules ompute senten e meaning
ompositionall based on the meanings of words and the s nta ti stru ture that
ontains them here are however interesting ases in whi h ompositionalit
breaks down either be ause there is a problem with words or with the semanti
rules f one or more words in a senten e do not have a meaning then obviousl
we will not be able to ompute a meaning for the entire senten e oreover even
when the individual words have meaning if the annot be ombined together
as re uired b the s nta ti stru ture and related semanti rules we will also not
get to a meaning e refer to situations of this sort as semanti anomaly lter
nativel it might re uire a lot of reativit and imagination to derive a meaning
his is what happens in metaphors inall some e pressions alled idioms
have a fi ed meaning that is a meaning that is not ompositional ppl ing
ompositional rules to idioms gives rise to funn or inappropriate meanings
Anomaly
Don’t tell me of a man’s being able to talk sense; everyone can talk sense. Can he talk
nonsense?
WILLIAM PITT
There is no greater mistake in the world than the looking upon every sort of nonsense as
want of sense.
LEIGH HUNT, “On the Talking of Nonsense,” 1820
he semanti properties of words determine what other words the an be

ombined with senten e widel used b linguists that we en ountered in
hapter illustrates this fa t
olorless green ideas sleep furiousl
he senten e obe s all the s nta ti rules of nglish he subje t is colorless
green ideas and the predi ate is sleep furiously t has the same s nta ti stru
ture as the senten e
ark green leaves rustle furiousl
but there is obviousl something semanti all wrong with the senten e he
meaning of colorless in ludes the semanti feature without olor but it is
ombined with the adje tive green whi h has the feature green in olor ow
an something be both without olor and green in olor ther semanti
violations o ur in the senten e u h senten es are semanti all anomalous
ther nglish senten es make no sense at all be ause the in lude words
that have no meaning the are uninterpretable he an be interpreted onl
if some meaning for ea h nonsense word an be dreamt up ewis arroll s
abberwo k is probabl the most famous poem in whi h most of the on
tent words have no meaning the do not e ist in the le i on of the language
till all the senten es sound as if the should be or ould be nglish senten es
was brillig and the slith toves
id g re and gimble in the wabe
ll mims were the borogoves
nd the mome raths outgrabe

e took his vorpal sword in hand

ong time the man ome foe he sought
o rested he b the umtum tree
nd stood awhile in thought
ithout knowing what vorpal means ou nevertheless know that
e took his vorpal sword in hand
means the same thing as
e took his sword whi h was vorpal in hand
and
t was in his hand that he took his vorpal sword
nowing the language and assuming that vorpal means the same thing in the
three senten es be ause the same sounds are used ou an de ide that the
sense the truth onditions of the three senten es are identi al n other
words ou are able to de ide that two things mean the same thing even
though ou do not know what either one means ou de ide b assuming that
the semanti properties of vorpal are the same whenever it is used
e now see wh li e ommented when she had read abberwo k
t seems ver prett but it s rather hard to understand ou see she didn t
like to onfess even to herself that she ouldn t make it out at all omehow
it seems to fill m head with ideas onl don t e a tl know what the are
owever somebody killed something that s lear at an rate
emanti violations in poetr ma form strange but interesting aestheti
images as in lan homas s phrase a grief ago Ago is ordinaril used with
words spe ified b some temporal semanti feature
a week ago a table ago
an hour ago but not a dream ago
a month ago a mother ago
a entur ago
hen homas used the word grief with ago he was adding a durational feature
to grief for poeti effe t so while the noun phrase is anomalous it evokes ertain
emotions
n the poetr of ummings there are phrases like
the si subjun tive rumbs twit h
a man wearing a round jeer for a hat
hildren building this rainman out of snow
hough all of these phrases violate some semanti rules we an understand
them breaking the rules reates the desired imager he fa t that we are able
to understand or at least interpret anomalous e pressions and at the same
time re ognize their anomalous nature demonstrates our knowledge of the
semanti s stem and semanti properties of the language
Metaphor
Our doubts are traitors.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure, c. 1603
Walls have ears.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, Don Quixote, 1605
The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one.
FRANCES WILLIAM BOURDILLON, “Light,” 1873
hen what appears to be an anomal is nevertheless understood in terms of a mean

ingful on ept the e pression be omes a metaphor here is no stri t line between
anomalous and metaphori al e pressions e hni all metaphors are anomalous
but the nature of the anomal reates the salient meanings that metaphors usuall
have he anomalous A grief ago might ome to be interpreted b speakers of ng
lish as the unhapp time following a sad event and therefore be ome a metaphor
etaphors ma have a literal meaning as well as their metaphori al meaning so
in some sense the are ambiguous owever when the semanti rules are applied
to Walls have ears for e ample the literal meaning is so unlikel that listeners use
their imagination for another interpretation he prin iple of ompositionalit is
ver elasti and when it fails to produ e an a eptable literal meaning listeners
he line from sonnet entitled how to run the world op right b the
rustees for the ummings rust op right b eorge ames irmage he line
from man who had fallen among thieves op right b the rustees
for the ummings rust op right b eorge ames irmage he line from
here is little ffie s head op right b the rustees for the
ummings rust op right b eorge ames irmage rom omplete oems
b ummings edited b eorge irmage sed b permission of iveright
ublishing orporation
tr to a ommodate and stret h the meaning his a ommodation is based on

semanti properties that are inferred or that provide some kind of resemblan e or
omparison that an end up as a meaningful on ept
his works onl up to a ertain point however t s not lear what the literal
meaning of Our doubts are traitors might be though the on eptual meaning that
the a t of doubting a pre ious belief is self betra al seems plausible o interpret
a metaphor we need to understand the individual words the literal meaning of
the whole e pression and fa ts about the world o understand the metaphor
ime is mone
it is ne essar to know that in our so iet we are often paid a ording to the
number of hours or da s worked n fa t time whi h is an abstra t on ept
is the subje t of multiple metaphors e save time waste time manage
time push things ba k in time live on borrowed time and suffer the
ravages of time as the sands of time drift awa n effe t the metaphors
take the abstra t on ept of time and treat it as a on rete obje t of value
etaphor has a strong ultural omponent hakespeare uses metaphors that
are lost on man of toda s pla goers am a man whom ortune hath ruell
s rat hed is most effe tive as a metaphor in a so iet like hakespeare s that
ommonl depi ts ortune as a woman n the other hand There s a bug in
my program would make little sense in a ulture without omputers even if the
idea of having bugs in something indi ates a problem
an e pressions now taken literall ma have originated as metaphors
su h as the fall of the dollar meaning its de line in value on the world mar
ket an people wouldn t bat an e elash another metaphor at the literal
interpretation of saving or wasting time etaphori al use of language is lan
guage reativit at its highest evertheless the basis of metaphori al use is
ver mu h the ordinar linguisti knowledge that all speakers possess about
words their semanti properties and their ombinatorial possibilities
Idioms
ARGYLE SWEATER © 2010 Scott Hilburn.

Dist. By UNIVERSAL UCLICK. Reprinted with
permission. All rights reserved.
e ause the words or morphemes of a language are arbitrar not pre

di table b rule the must be listed in a mental le i on he le i on is
a repositor of the words or morphemes of a language with their gram
mati al properties and their meanings n the other hand the meanings
of morphologi all omple words phrases and senten es are omposi
tional and are derived b rules e noted in hapter that the meaning
of some words for e ample ompounds is not predi table so these must
also be given in the le i on t turns out that languages also ontain man
phrases whose meanings are not predi table on the basis of the meanings
of the individual words hese phrases t pi all start out as metaphors that
at h on and are repeated so often that the be ome fi tures in the lan
guage u h e pressions are alled idioms or idiomatic phrases as in these
nglish e amples
sell down the river
rake over the oals
drop the ball
let their hair down
put his foot in his mouth
throw her weight around
snap out of it
give a pie e of our mind
ere is where the usual semanti rules for ombining meanings do not
ppl he prin iple of ompositionalit is superseded b e pressions that
a
a t ver mu h like individual morphemes in that the are not de ompos
able but have a fi ed meaning that must be learned dioms are similar
in stru ture to ordinar phrases e ept that the tend to be frozen in form
and do not readil undergo rules that hange word order or substitution of
their parts
hus the senten e in has the same stru ture as the senten e in
1. he put her foot in her mouth
2. he put her bra elet in her drawer
ut while the senten es in and are learl related to
3. he drawer in whi h she put her bra elet was her own
4. er bra elet was put in her drawer
the senten es in and do not have the idiomati sense of senten e
e ept perhaps humorousl
5. he mouth in whi h she put her foot was her own
6. er foot was put in her mouth
lso if we know the meaning of and the meaning of the word necklace we
will immediatel understand
7. he put her ne kla e in the drawer
ut if we tr substituting hand for foot in senten e we do not maintain the
idiomati meaning but rather have the literal ompositional meaning
here are however some idioms whose parts an be moved without affe ting
the idiomati sense
he kept tabs on radi als
abs were kept on radi als b the
adi als were kept tabs on b the
ike metaphors idioms an break the rules on ombining semanti proper
ties he obje t of eat must usuall be something with the semanti feature
edible but in
e ate his hat
and
at our heart out
this restri tion is violated
dioms often lead to humor
hat did the do tor tell the vegetarian about his surgi all implanted
heart valve from a pig
hat it was oka as long as he didn t eat his heart out
dioms ma even show disrespe t for s nta e g the e pression deep six
while ontaining parts that are never used as verbs is itself a verb meaning to
put the kibosh on et another idiom here will it ever end
ith some imagination idioms ma also be used to reate what appear
to be parado es n man pla es su h as imes uare in ew ork a ball
is dropped at midnight on ew ear s ve ow if the person in harge
doesn t drop the ball then he has dropped the ball nd if that person
does indeed drop the ball then he has not dropped the ball ight
dioms grammati all as well as semanti all have spe ial hara teristi s
he must be entered into the le i on or mental di tionar as single items
with their meanings spe ified and speakers must learn the spe ial restri tions
on their use in senten es
ll languages have idioms but idioms rarel if ever translate word for word
from one language to another ost speakers of meri an nglish understand
the idiom to kick the bucket as meaning to die he same ombination of words
in panish patear el cubo has onl the literal meaning of striking a spe ifi
bu ket with a foot n the other hand estirar la pata literall to stret h the
animal leg has the idiomati sense of to die in panish
Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings)

“There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.
“Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings) 153
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I
choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871
s just dis ussed the meaning of a phrase or senten e is partiall a fun

tion of the meanings of the words it ontains imilarl the meaning of a
morphologi all omple word is a fun tion of its omponent morphemes
as we saw in hapter owever there is a fundamental differen e between
word meaning or lexical semantics and senten e meaning he meaning of
entries in the mental le i on be the morphemes words or idioms is on
ventional that is speakers of a language impli itl agree on their meaning
and hildren a uiring the language must simpl learn those meanings out
right n the other hand the meaning of most senten es must be onstru ted
b the appli ation of semanti rules arlier we dis ussed the rules of semanti
omposition n this se tion we will talk about word meaning and the semanti
relationships that e ist between words and morphemes
lthough the agreed upon meaning of a word ma shift over time within a
language ommunit we are not free as individuals to hange the meanings
of words at will if we did we would be unable to ommuni ate with ea h
other umpt umpt seems unwilling to a ept this onvention though for
tunatel for us there are few su h bad eggs among speakers ll the speakers of
a language share a basi vo abular the sounds and meanings of morphemes
and words a h of us knows the meanings of thousands of words his knowl
edge permits us to use words to e press our thoughts and to understand the
thoughts of others he meaning of words is part of linguisti knowledge our
mental storehouse of information about words and morphemes is what we
have been alling the lexicon
Theories of Word Meaning

It is natural . . . to think of there being connected with a sign . . . besides . . . the reference
of the sign, also what I should like to call the sense of the sign. . . .
GOTTLOB FREGE, “On Sense and Reference,” 1892
i tionaries are filled with words and give their meanings using other words
rather than in terms of some more basi units of meaning whatever the might
be n this sense a di tionar reall provides paraphrases rather than mean
ings t relies on our knowledge of the language to understand the definitions
he meanings asso iated with words in our mental le i on are not like what
we find in a onventional di tionar although it is a hallenge to linguists to
spe if pre isel how word meanings are represented in the mind
f the meaning of a word is not like a di tionar entr what is it his
uestion has been debated b philosophers and linguists for enturies ne
proposal is that the meaning of a word or e pression is its reference its asso
iation with the obje t it refers to his real world obje t is alled the referent
Reference
Michael Maslin / The New Yorker Collection/Cartoonbank.com
e have alread determined that the meaning of a proper name like Jack is
its referen e the link between the word Jack and the person named a k
whi h is its referent roper names are noun phrases s ou an substitute
a proper name in an position in a senten e and preserve grammati alit
here are other s that refer to individuals as well or instan e s like the
happy swimmer my friend and that guy an all be used to refer to a k in the
situation in whi h ou ve observed a k swimming he same is true for pro
nouns su h as I you and him whi h also fun tion as s n all these ases
the referen e of the whi h singles out the individual referred to under the
ir umstan es is part of the meaning of the
n the other hand not ever refers to an individual or instan e the
senten e No baby swims ontains the no baby but our linguisti knowledge
tells ou that this does not refer to an spe ifi individual f no baby has
no referen e but is not meaningless then something about meaning be ond
referen e must be present
n the fi tional world Superman and Clark ent have the same referen e
the are one and the same person ut there is more meaning to their names
than that f we substitute Clark ent for Superman in the senten e Lois Lane is
in love with Superman we alter its truth value from true to false gain we see
that there must be a dimension of meaning be ond mere referen e
imilarl Barack Obama and the President have at this writing the same
referen e but the meaning of the the President is additionall the head of
state of the nited tates of meri a whi h is an element of meaning separate

from referen e and more enduring
Sense
here must be something more to meaning than referen e alone his is
also suggested b the fa t that speakers know the meanings of man words
that have no real world referents e g hobbits unicorns and Harry Potter
imilarl what real world entities would fun tion words like of and by or
modal verbs su h as will or may refer to
hese additional elements of meaning are often termed sense t is the e
tra something referred to earlier Unicorns hobbits and Harry Potter have sense
but no referen e with regard to obje ts in the real world onversel proper
names t pi all have onl referen e name like Clem adiddlehopper ma point
out a ertain person its referent but has little linguisti meaning be ond that
hilosophers of language dating ba k to an ient ree e have suggested that
part of the meaning of a word is the mental image it onjures up his helps
with the problem of uni orns hobbits and arr otter we ma have a lear
image of these entities from books movies and so on and that onne tion
might serve as referen e for those e pressions owever man meaningful e
pressions are not asso iated with an lear uni ue image agreed on b most
speakers of the language or e ample what image is evoked b the words
very if and every t s diffi ult to sa et these e pressions are ertainl mean
ingful hat is the image of o gen as distin t from nitrogen both are olor
less odorless gases et the differ in meaning hat mental image would we
have of dog that is general enough to in lude orkshire erriers and reat
anes and et e ludes fo es and wolves nd the image of no man in no man
is an island presents a riddle worth of a en koan
lthough the idea that the meaning of a word orresponds to a mental image
is intuitive be ause man words do provoke imager it is learl inade uate
as a general e planation of what people know about word meanings
erhaps the best we an do is to note that the referen e part of a word s
meaning if it has referen e at all is the asso iation with its referent and the
sense part of a word s meaning ontains the information needed to omplete
the asso iation and to suggest properties that the referent ma have whether
it e ists in the real world or in the world of imagination
Lexical Relations
Does he wear a turban, a fez or a hat?
Does he sleep on a mattress, a bed or a mat, or a Cot,
The Akond of Swat?
Can he write a letter concisely clear,
Without a speck or a smudge or smear or Blot,
The Akond of Swat?
EDWARD LEAR, “The Akond of Swat,” in Laughable Lyrics, 1877
lthough no theor of word meaning is omplete we know that speakers have

onsiderable knowledge about the meaning relationships among different
words in their mental le i ons and an theor must take that knowledge into
a ount
ords are semanti all related to one another in a variet of wa s he
words that des ribe these relations often end in the bound morpheme -nym
he best known le i al relations are s non ms illustrated in the poem b
dward ear and anton ms or opposites Synonyms are words or e pressions
that have the same meaning in some or all onte ts here are di tionaries of
s non ms that ontain man hundreds of entries su h as
apatheti phlegmati passive sluggish indifferent
pedigree an estr genealog des ent lineage
sign in the an iego oo ild nimal ark states
lease do not anno torment pester plague molest worr badger harr
harass he kle perse ute irk bull rag ve dis uiet grate beset bother
tease nettle tantalize or ruffle the animals
t has been said that there are no perfe t s non ms that is no two words
ever have exactly the same meaning till the following two senten es have
ver similar meanings
e s sitting on the sofa e s sitting on the ou h
uring the ren h orman o upation of ngland that began in
man ren h words of atin origin were imported into nglish s a result
nglish ontains man s non mous pairs onsisting of a word with an nglish
or ermani root and another with a atin root su h as
English Latin
manl virile
heal re uperate
send transmit
go down des end
ords that are opposite in meaning are antonyms here are several kinds
of anton m here are complementary pairs
alive dead present absent awake asleep

he are omplementar in that alive not dead and dead not alive and so on
here are gradable pairs of anton ms
big small hot old fast slow happ sad

he meaning of adje tives in gradable pairs is related to the obje ts the mod
if he words do not provide an absolute s ale or e ample we know that a
small elephant is mu h bigger than a large mouse Fast is faster when ap
plied to an airplane than to a ar
radable pairs give rise to impli ations so that An elephant is bigger than a
mouse implies A mouse is smaller than an elephant ut beware of idioms Blood
is thicker than water as an idiom about famil ties does not impl the nonsensi
al as an idiom water is thinner than blood
nother hara teristi of ertain pairs of gradable anton ms is that one is

marked and the other unmarked he unmarked member is the one used
in uestions of degree e ask ordinaril ow high is the mountain not
ow low is it e answer en thousand feet high but never en thou
sand feet low e ept humorousl or ironi all hus high is the unmarked
member of high low imilarl tall is the unmarked member of tall short fast
the unmarked member of fast slow and so on
nother kind of opposition involves pairs like
give re eive bu sell tea her pupil

he are alled relational opposites and the displa s mmetr in their
meanings f gives to then receives from f is s teacher then is
s pupil airs of words ending in -er and -ee are usuall relational opposites f
ar is ill s employer then ill is ar s employee
n nglish there are several wa s to form anton ms ou an add the pre
fi un-
likel unlikel able unable fortunate unfortunate

or ou an add non-
entit nonentit onformist non onformist

or ou an add in-
tolerant intolerant dis reet indis reet de ent inde ent

hese strategies o asionall ba kfire however airs su h as loosen and
unloosen flammable and inflammable valuable and invaluable and a few oth
ers a tuall have the same or nearl the same meaning despite looking like
anton ms
ther le i al relations in lude homon ms pol sem and h pon ms
Hilary B. Price/King Features Syndicate
ords like bear and bare are homonyms also alled homophones om
on ms are words that have different meanings but are pronoun ed the same
and ma or ma not be spelled the same he re homographs when spelled
the same but when homographs are pronoun ed differentl like pussy mean
ing infe ted or pussy meaning kitten the are alled heteronyms rather
than homon ms ear nonsense senten es like Entre nous, the new gnu knew nu
is a Greek letter tease us with homon ms omon ms easil lead to ambiguit
as the onfused anine in the artoon onfirms
hen a word has multiple meanings that are related on eptuall or histor
i all it is said to be polysemous or e ample the word diamond referring to
a jewel and also to a baseball field is pol semous an words in nglish are
pol semous and have several separated entries in di tionaries owing to their
diverse meanings
peakers of nglish know that the words red white and blue are olor
words imilarl lion tiger leopard and lynx are all felines Hyponymy is the
relationship between the more general term su h as color and the more spe
ifi instan es of it su h as red hus red is a h pon m of color and lion is a
h pon m of feline or e uivalentl color has the h pon m red and feline has
the h pon m lion
Semantic Features
If it is true that words have meanings, why don’t we throw away words and keep just the
meanings?
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
n the previous se tions we dis ussed word meaning in relation to obje ts

in the world and this permitted us to develop a truth based semanti s e
also e plored the meaning of words in relation to other words ut it is also
possible to look for a more basi set of semantic features or properties
that are part of word meanings and that refle t our knowledge about what
words mean
e omposing the meanings of words into semanti features an larif how
ertain words relate to other words or e ample the basi propert of ant
on ms is that the share all but one semanti feature e know that big and
red are not anton ms be ause the have too few semanti features in ommon
he are both adje tives but big has a semanti feature about size whereas
red has a semanti feature about olor n the other hand buy sell are rela
tional opposites be ause both ontain a semanti feature like hange in pos
session and differ onl in the dire tion of the hange
emanti features are among the on eptual elements that are part of the
meanings of words and senten es onsider for e ample the senten e
he assassin killed hwa klehurst
f the word assassin is in our mental di tionar ou know that it was some
person who murdered some important person named hwa klehurst our
knowledge of the meaning of assassin tells ou that an animal did not do the
killing and that hwa klehurst was not an average itizen nowledge of
assassin in ludes knowing that the individual to whom that word refers is hu
man is a murderer and is a killer of important people hese bits of informa
tion are some of the semanti features of the word on whi h speakers of the
language agree he meaning of all nouns verbs adje tives and adverbs the
ontent words and even of some of the fun tion words su h as with and over
an at least partiall be spe ified b su h properties
Evidence for Semantic Features

emanti properties are not dire tl observable heir e isten e must be in
ferred from linguisti eviden e ne sour e of su h eviden e is the spee h
errors or slips of the tongue that we all produ e onsider the following
unintentional word substitutions that some speakers have a tuall spoken
Intended tterance Actual tterance Error

bridge of the nose bridge of the ne k
when m gums bled when m tongues bled
he ame too late he ame too earl
ar was oung ar was earl
the lad with the a hshund the lad with the olkswagen
that s a horse of another olor that s a horse of another ra e
his an estors were farmers his des endants were farmers
he has to pa her alimon he has to pa her rent
hese errors and thousands of others that have been olle ted and atalogued
reveal that the in orre tl substituted words are not random but share some
semanti features with the intended words Nose neck gums and tongues are
all bod parts or parts of the head Young early and late are related to
time Dachshund and Volkswagen are both erman and small he shared
semanti features of color and race ancestor and descendant and alimony and
rent are apparent
he semanti properties that des ribe the linguisti meaning of a word
should not be onfused with other nonlinguisti properties su h as ph si al
properties ientists know that water is omposed of h drogen and o gen
but su h knowledge is not part of a word s meaning e know that water is an
essential ingredient of lemonade and baths owever we don t need to know
an of these things to know what the word water means and to be able to use
and understand it in a senten e
Semantic Features and Grammar
King Features Syndicate
urther eviden e that words are omposed of smaller bits of meaning is that
semanti features intera t with different aspe ts of the grammar su h as mor
pholog or s nta hese effe ts show up in both nouns and verbs
Semantic Features of Nouns
he same semanti feature ma be shared b man words emale is a semanti
feature sometimes indi ated b the suffi -ess that makes up part of the meaning
of nouns su h as
tigress hen aunt maiden
doe mare debutante widow
ewe vi en girl woman
he words in the last two olumns are also distinguished b the semanti
feature human whi h is also found in
do tor dean professor teenager
ba helor parent bab hild
nother part of the meaning of the words baby and child is that the are
oung e will ontinue to indi ate words b using italics and semanti
features b double uotes he word father has the properties male and
adult as do uncle and bachelor
n some languages though not nglish nouns o ur with classifiers gram
mati al morphemes that indi ate the semanti lass of the noun n wahili
a noun that has the semanti feature human is prefi ed with m if singular
and wa if plural as in mtoto hild and watoto hildren noun that has the
feature human artifa t su h as bed chair or knife is prefi ed with the las
sifiers ki if singular and vi if plural for e ample kiti hair and viti hairs
emanti properties ma have s nta ti and semanti effe ts too or e
ample the kinds of determiners that a noun ma o ur with are ontrolled b
whether it is a ount noun or a mass noun
onsider these data
have two dogs have two ri e s
have a dog have a ri e
have dog have ri e
e has man dogs e has man ri e s
e has mu h dogs e has mu h ri e
Count nouns an be enumerated and pluralized one potato two potatoes
he ma be pre eded b the indefinite determiner a and b the uantifier
many as in many potatoes but not b much much potato he must also o
ur with a determiner of some kind ouns su h as rice water and milk whi h
annot be enumerated or pluralized are mass nouns he annot be pre
eded b a or many and the an o ur with the uantifier much or without
an determiner at all he humor of the artoon is based both on the ambigu
it of toast and the fa t that as a food French toast is a mass noun but as an
oration it is a ount noun he ount mass distin tion aptures the fa t that
speakers know the properties that govern whi h determiner t pes go with dif
ferent nouns ithout it we ould not des ribe these differen es
enerall the ount mass distin tion orresponds to the differen e be

tween dis rete obje ts and homogeneous substan es ut it would be in or
re t to sa that this distin tion is grounded in human per eption be ause
different languages ma treat the same obje t differentl or e ample in
nglish the words hair furniture and spaghetti are mass nouns e sa Some
hair is curly Much furniture is poorly made John loves spaghetti n talian
however these words are ount nouns as illustrated in the following
senten es
vano ha mangiato molti spaghetti ieri sera
Ivano ate many spaghettis last evening
iero ha omprato un mobile nuovo
Piero bought a new (piece of) furniture
uisella ha pettinato i suoi apelli
Luisella combed her hairs
e would have to assume a radi al form of linguisti determinism remem
ber the apir horf h pothesis from hapter to sa that talian and ng
lish speakers have different per eptions of hair furniture and spaghetti t
is more reasonable to assume that languages an differ to some e tent in the
semanti or s nta ti features the assign to words with the same referent
somewhat independentl of the wa their speakers on eptualize that referent
ven within a parti ular language we an have different words ount and
mass to des ribe the same obje t or substan e or e ample in nglish we
have shoes ount and footwear mass coins ount and change mass
Semantic Features of Verbs

erbs also have semanti features as part of their meaning or e ample
ause is a feature of verbs su h as darken kill uglify and so on
darken ause to be ome dark
kill ause to die
uglify ause to be ome ugl
o is a feature of verbs that mean a hange in lo ation or possession su h as
swim crawl throw fly give or buy
a k swims
he bab rawled under the table
he bo threw the ball over the fen e
ohn gave ar a beautiful engagement ring
ords like swim have an additional feature like in li uid while crawl has
lose to a surfa e
e ome is a feature e pressing the end state of the a tion of ertain verbs
or e ample the verb break an be broken down into the following ompo
nents of meaning ause to be ome broken
erbal features like features on nouns ma have s nta ti onse uen es
or e ample verbs an either des ribe events su h as John kissed Mary John
ate oysters or states su h as John knows Mary John likes oysters he eventive
stative differen e is mirrored in the s nta ventive senten es still sound natural
when passivized when e pressed progressivel when used as imperatives and

with ertain adverbs
Eventives
ar was kissed b ohn sters were eaten b ohn
ohn is kissing ar ohn is eating o sters
iss ar at o sters
ohn deliberatel kissed ar ohn deliberatel ate o sters
he stative senten es seem pe uliar if not ungrammati al or anomalous when
ast in the same form he pre eding indi ates the strangeness
Statives
ar is known b ohn sters are liked b ohn
ohn is knowing ar ohn is liking o sters
now ar ike o sters
ohn deliberatel knows ar ohn deliberatel likes o sters
egation is a parti ularl interesting omponent of the meaning of some
verbs pressions su h as ever anymore have a red cent and man more are
ungrammati al in ertain simple affirmative senten es but grammati al in
orresponding negative ones
ar will ever smile f ar will not ever smile
an visit ou an more f annot visit ou an more
t s worth a red ent f t s not worth a red ent
u h e pressions are alled negative polarity items be ause the re uire a
negative element su h as not elsewhere in the senten e onsider these data
ohn thinks that he ll ever fl a plane again
ohn hopes to ever fl a plane again
ohn doubts that he ll ever fl a plane again
ohn refuses to ever fl a plane again
his suggests that verbs su h as doubt and refuse but not think and hope have
negative as a omponent of their meaning Doubt ma be anal zed as think
that not and refuse as intend not to he negative feature in the verb allows
the negative polarit item ever to o ur grammati all without the overt pres
en e of not
Argument Structure
erbs also differ in terms of the number and t pe of phrases the an take as om
plements and or adjun ts s we noted in hapter transitive verbs su h as find
hit chase and so on take or sele t a dire t obje t omplement whereas intran
sitive verbs like arrive or sleep do not itransitive verbs su h as give or throw take
two obje ts as in John threw Mary a ball n addition most verbs take a subje t
he various s that o ur with a verb are its arguments hus intransitive
verbs have one argument the subje t transitive verbs have two arguments the
subje t and dire t obje t ditransitive verbs have three arguments the subje t
dire t obje t and indire t obje t he argument structure of a verb is part of

its meaning and is in luded in its le i al entr
he verb not onl determines the number of arguments in a senten e but it
also limits the semanti properties of both its subje t and its obje ts or e am
ple find and sleep re uire s sele t animate subje ts he well known colorless
green ideas sleep furiously is semanti all anomalous be ause ideas olorless or
not are not animate omponents of a verb s meaning an also be relevant to
the hoi e of arguments it an take or e ample the verbs in and an
take two obje ts the re ditransitive while those in and annot
1. ohn threw tossed ki ked flung the bo the ball
2. ohn pushed pulled lifted hauled the bo the ball
3. ar fa ed radioed e mailed phoned elen the news
4. ar murmured mumbled muttered shrieked elen the news
lthough all the verbs in and are verbs of motion the differ in how the
for e of the motion is applied the verbs in involve a single ui k motion
whereas those in involve a prolonged use of for e imilarl the verbs in
and are all verbs of ommuni ation but their meanings differ in the wa the
message is ommuni ated those in involve an e ternal apparatus whereas
those in involve the t pe of voi e used inall the ditransitive verbs have
transfer dire t obje t to indire t obje t in their meaning n the ball is
transferred to the bo n the news is transferred or leastwise transmitted
to elen he ditransitive verbs give write send and throw all have this prop
ert ven when the transferen e is not overt it ma be inferred n John baked
Mary a cake there is an implied transfer of the ake from ohn to ar ubtle
aspe ts of meaning are mirrored in the argument stru ture of the verbs and in
deed this onne tion between form and meaning ma help hildren a uire the
s nta ti and semanti rules of their language as will be dis ussed in hapter
Thematic Roles
A feminine boy from Khartoum
Took a masculine girl to his room
They spent the whole night
In one hell of a fight
About who should do what—and to whom?
ANONYMOUS LIMERICK, quoted in More Limericks, G. Legman (ed.), 1977
he arguments in the whi h in lude the subje t and an obje ts are

semanti all related in various wa s to the verb he relations depend on the
meaning of the parti ular verb or e ample the the boy in the senten e
1. he bo rolled a red ball
agent theme
is the doer of the rolling a tion also alled the agent he a red ball is the
theme or the undergoer of the rolling a tion elations su h as agent and theme
are alled thematic roles hemati roles e press the kind of relation that holds
between the arguments of the verb and the t pe of situation that the verb des ribes
further e ample is the senten e

2. he bo threw the red ball to the girl
agent theme goal
ere the girl bears the themati role of goal that is the endpoint of a hange
in lo ation or possession he verb phrase is interpreted to mean that the
theme of throw ends up in the position of the goal
ther themati roles are source where the a tion originates instrument
the means used to a omplish the a tion and experiencer one re eiving sen
sor input
rofessor nape awakened arr otter with his wand
sour e e perien er instrument
he parti ular themati roles assigned b a verb an be tra ed ba k to om
ponents of the verb s meaning erbs su h as throw buy and fly ontain a
feature go e pressing a hange in lo ation or possession he feature go is
thus linked to the presen e of the themati roles of theme sour e and goal
erbs like awaken or frighten have a feature affe ts mental state so that one
of its arguments takes on the themati role of e perien er
hemati role assignment or theta assignment is also onne ted to s nta ti
stru ture n the senten e in the role of theme is assigned to the dire t obje t
the ball and the role of goal to the indire t obje t the girl erb pairs su h as sell
and buy both involve the feature go he are therefore linked to a themati
role of theme whi h is assigned to the dire t obje t as in the following senten es
a. ohn sold the book to ar
agent theme goal
b. ar bought the book from ohn
agent theme sour e
n addition sell is linked to the presen e of a goal the re ipient or endpoint of
the transfer and buy to the presen e of a sour e the initiator of the transfer
hus buy sell are relational opposites be ause both ontain the semanti feature
go the transfer of goods or servi es and the differ onl in the dire tion of
transfer that is whether the indire t obje t is a sour e or goal hemati roles
are not assigned to arguments randoml here is a onne tion between the
meaning of a verb and the s nta ti stru ture of senten es ontaining the verb
ur knowledge of verbs in ludes their s nta ti ategor whi h arguments
the sele t and the themati roles the assign to their arguments
hemati roles are the same in senten es that are paraphrases
1. he dog bit the sti k he sti k was bitten b the dog
2. he trainer gave the dog a treat he trainer gave a treat to the dog
n both senten es in the dog is the agent and the stick is the theme imilarl
in the treat is the theme and the dog is the goal his is be ause ertain
themati roles must be assigned to the same d stru ture position for e ample
theme is assigned to the obje t of bit bitten
n general then an re eives its themati role from its position in
d stru ture not s stru ture hen the s stru ture deviates from the d stru ture
Pragmatics 165
owing to s nta ti rules it is the d stru ture that determines the semanti re
lationships hus the stick in the passive senten e the stick was bitten by the dog
must have originated in obje t position in d stru ture and moved to subje t
position in s stru ture b a s nta ti rule
was bitten the sti k b the dog the sti k was bitten b the dog
d stru ture s stru ture
hemati roles ma remain the same in senten es that are not paraphrases
as in the following instan es
3. he bo opened the door with the ke
4. he ke opened the door
5. he door opened
n all three of these senten es the door is the theme the obje t that is
opened hus the door in originates as the obje t of open in d stru ture and
undergoes a movement rule mu h like in the passive e ample above
opened the door he door opened
lthough the senten es in are not stri t paraphrases of one another
the are stru turall and semanti all related in that the have similar d stru ture
onfigurations ndeed senten e entails and and alone entails
n the senten es in and the key despite its different positions has
the themati role of instrument suggesting greater stru tural fle ibilit for
some themati roles he semanti s of the three senten es is determined b the
meaning of the verb open and the rules that determine how themati roles are
assigned to the verb s arguments
Pragmatics
We interpret this sketch instantly and effortlessly as a gathering of people before a

structure, probably a gateway; the people are listening to a single declaiming figure in
the center. . . . But all this is a miracle, for there is little detailed information in the lines or
shading (such as there is). Every line is a mere suggestion. . . . So here is the miracle: from a
merest, sketchiest squiggle of lines, you and I converge to find adumbration of a coherent
scene. . . . The problem of utterance interpretation is not dissimilar to this visual miracle.
An utterance is not, as it were, a veridical model or “snapshot” of the scene it describes. . . .
Rather, an utterance is just as sketchy as the Rembrandt drawing.
STEPHEN C. LEVINSON, Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational
Implicature, 2000
e ve just dis ussed le i al semanti s the literal meanings of words and

ompositional semanti s the literal meaning of senten es e des ribed the
latter in terms of truth onditions he idea is that ou know what a senten e
means if ou know what the world would have to look like in order for that
senten e to be true
iteral meaning isn t the onl sort of meaning we use when we use language
to ommuni ate with others ome meaning is extra truth conditional it
omes about as a result of how a speaker uses the literal meaning in onversa
tion or as a part of a discourse he stud of e tra truth onditional meaning
is pragmatics
ust as artists depi t s enes with representations that aren t e pli it
like the sket h on page language users des ribe states of affairs with
senten es that aren t e pli it nd just as there are a number of rea
sons an artist might hoose a sket h or an abstra t painting to depi t a s ene
instead of a photograph there are a number of reasons a speaker might
hoose a parti ular senten e or dis ourse to des ribe a state of affairs n what
follows we ll dis uss different wa s in whi h speakers an invoke meaning
without e pressing it literall
Pronouns and Other Deictic Words

chicken (shouting to friend across the road): Hey, how do I get to the other side?
friend: You’re on the other side!
SOURCE OBSCURE
ne wa in whi h onte t an supplement a less than e pli it senten e mean

ing is through words that re eive part of their meaning via onte t and the
orientation of the speaker u h words are alled deictic and in lude pronouns
she it I demonstratives this that adverbs here there now today prepo
sitions behind before and omple e pressions involving su h words those
towers over there
magine both sets of senten es in being spoken b rnold hwarzeneg
ger in eni e on e ember
Pragmatics 167
1. a. rnold hwarzenegger reall likes it in eni e n e ember

there was a boat parade in the anals in eni e n e ember
an art festival will be held he art festival on e ember will
be e tremel fun
b. reall like it in eni e oda there was a boat parade in the anals
here omorrow an art festival will be held t will be e tremel fun
he differen e between a and b is that a is e tremel e pli it while
b relies on dei ti terms to determine part of the meaning of the senten es
e ause our use of language is relativel ine pli it we re used to interpreting
su h terms so that b sounds perfe tl natural n fa t it probabl will sound
more natural to ou than a as we are entirel a ustomed to using these
short uts
nd this is despite the fa t that we often have to look to onte t to deter
mine the referen e of pronoun hile proper nouns like December 12, 2 12
and Arnold Schwarzenegger have onte t independent meanings whi h means
that the ll alwa s pi k out the same referents regardless of the onte t other
words like here and tomorrow have onte t dependent meanings their refer
en e is determined in part b the onte t in whi h the re uttered
e sa in part be ause the parti ular dei ti word itself helps provide
restri tions on its own referent Here and there have lo ations as referents then
and now are temporal referents he and she have human referents and I is e
tremel restri tive it an onl refer to the speaker
ven though the referent of a pronoun is le i all restri ted we need to
look to the onte t in whi h the pronoun is uttered to determine the referent
his pro ess is alled reference resolution here are two t pes of onte t
relevant for the resolution of a pronoun linguistic and situational inguisti
onte t is an thing that has been uttered in the dis ourse prior to or along
with the pronoun ituational onte t is an thing non linguisti
Pronouns and Situational Context
Hank Ketcham/North America Syndicate/King Features Syndicate
ituational onte t often takes the form of a gesture like pointing or nod
ding as in He went that way or Who IS that masked man? imilarl next week
has a different referen e when uttered toda than a month from toda f ou
found an undated noti e announ ing a ou would
not know whether the sale had alread taken pla e
he ennis the ena e artoon illustrates the hilarit that ma ensue if
dei ti words are misinterpreted
ire tional terms su h as
before behind left right front ba k

are dei ti insofar as ou need to know the orientation in spa e of the on
versational parti ipants to know their referen e n apanese the verb kuru
ome an onl be used for motion toward the speaker apanese speaker
annot all up a friend and ask
a kuru to our house
as ou might in nglish ask a ome to our house he orre t verb is
iku go whi h indi ates motion awa from the pla e of utteran e n apanese
these verbs have a dei ti aspe t to their meaning he verbs come and go have
somewhat of the same effe t in nglish f someone sa s A thief came into the
house versus A thief went into the house ou would assume the speaker to have
been in the house in the first ase and not in the house in the se ond
Pronouns and Linguistic Context
King Features Syndicate
here are two different wa s in whi h the referen e of a pronoun an be re

solved b the linguisti onte t he first is senten e internal the se ond is sen
ten e e ternal e ll illustrate the first wa b dis ussing refle ive pronouns
A reflexive pronoun is a sort of pronoun that needs to re eive its referen e
via linguisti onte t and more spe ifi all b senten e internal linguisti
onte t n other words it re uires that the senten e ontain another an
antecedent that it an co refer with n nglish refle ive pronouns end
with -self or -selves like himself or themselves a shows that a refle ive
pronoun re uires an ante edent in the senten e b shows that a refle ive
pronoun must mat h the person gender and number of its ante edent
Pragmatics 169
2. a. erself left
b. ohn wrote herself a letter
nterestingl the restri tion on refle ive pronouns is even stronger than
suggests t s not enough that the have a mat hing ante edent in the sen
ten e but that ante edent must be in the right position with respe t to the
o referring refle ive pronoun a shows that the ante edent must pre ede
the refle ive pronoun b shows that there an t be another in between a
refle ive pronoun and its ante edent
3. a. imself washed ohn
b. ane said the bo bit herself
hus one of the things that ou know when ou know nglish is that pro
nouns an re eive their referen e from their linguisti onte t ou also know
that some pronouns refle ive pronouns are parti ularl pi k heir refer
en e an onl be resolved if the have an ante edent whi h is nearb in the
right sort of wa
on refle ive pronouns whi h we ll refer to simpl as pronouns su h as he
she him her it et also have their referen e resolved via linguisti onte t
hese pronouns an have their ante edent in another pre eding senten e his
is demonstrated in
4. ue likes pizza he thinks it is the perfe t food
oreover the ante edent doesn t even have to be in a senten e spoken b the
same speaker n the dis ourse in ar uses a pronoun there whose ante
edent is in ue s utteran e
5. just got ba k from ome
ve alwa s wanted to go there
epending on the onte t and the dis ourse an ante edent an even be sev
eral senten es awa from its o referring pronoun ndeed language users are
adroit at pro essing senten es with several different pronouns and their differ
ent ante edents onsider the dis ourse in
6. t seems that the man loves the woman
an people think he loves her
natural interpretation of ill s utteran e is one in whi h he o refers with the
man in ohn s utteran e and she o refers with the woman in ohn s utteran e
his is a lassi ase of referen e resolution via linguisti onte t
ut now read ill s utteran e out loud and put emphasis on her hen
her is emphasized it seems more natural to fi its referent from the situational
onte t n other words if ill were to emphasize her it seems as though her
would o refer with some woman in the non linguisti onte t different from
the woman ohn had in mind his utteran e with her emphasized seems
natural for a situation in whi h ill is pointing at some other woman a ross
the room
anguage users tend to use pronouns to refer to individuals in onte ts
linguisti or situational in whi h the referent of the pronoun is lear a tl
whi h referent the pronoun re eives is onstrained b a number of different

fa tors in luding the gender and number marking on the pronoun whether
or not the pronoun is refle ive and what linguisti and situational onte ts the
pronoun is uttered in
Implicature
What does “yet” mean, after all? “I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs yet.” What does that mean?
It means you’re going to go, doesn’t it?
NICK HORNBY, High Fidelity, 1995
ronouns are an e ample of how the onte t in whi h a senten e is uttered

an help fi the meaning of that senten e here is another wa in whi h on
te t an pla a role in meaning it an supplement the meaning of a senten e
ust as ou were able to fill in the gaps in the sket h at the beginning of this
hapter with e tra details ou as a language user are able to fill in gaps in
meaning nd just as there is a right and a wrong wa to fill in the gaps in the
sket h embrandt probabl didn t intend it to depi t a sandwi h there is a
right and a wrong wa to fill in gaps in meaning
e ll start with an e ample
LUANN © (2009) GEC Inc. Reprinted by permission of Universal Uclick for UFS. All rights reserved.
7. er ni e girl hat do ou think on

he turke sure was moist
rom a semanti standpoint is ver straightforward ith the right seman
ti theor we an arti ulate the literal meanings of the parents utteran es
his semanti theor would summarize literall ad asked om whether
she thinks the girl is ni e and om asserts that the turke was moist
f ourse this summar alread in ludes some e tra truth onditional
meaning t assumes that girl gets its referen e from the previous remark about
oni and that the use of the definite arti le in the turkey assures that a turke
is known to the onversational parti ipants ut there is still more meaning to
attribute to n man onte ts ad and the bo will infer from om s
statement that she doesn t parti ularl like oni
Pragmatics 171
f this is right om s answer is more of a sket h than a photograph he

most literal wa om ould have answered the rhetori al uestion is do
not like oni ut instead of asserting this om hooses to impli ate it n
impli ature is a great e ample of e tra truth onditional meaning n impli a
ture is to an assertion what a sket h is to a photograph
ust as there are a number of reasons to sket h something instead of photo
graphing it there are a number of reasons to impli ate something as opposed
to asserting it erhaps om is an adherent of iss anners and being a
good hostess knows she mustn t disparage a guest f ad knows this about
om then he might infer from the utteran e The turkey sure was moist whi h
doesn t seem relevant that om doesn t like oni but is too polite to sa so
ere are a few other e amples of onversational impli atures
8. oes ar have a bo friend
he s been driving to anta arbara ever weekend
9. o ou know how to hange a tire
know how to all a tow tru k
10. o these sla ks make m butt look big
ou look great in hartreuse
n ill asserts that ar has been driving to anta arbara ever weekend
ut he implicates that ar has a bo friend and that the bo friend lives in
anta arbara n ane asserts that she knows how to all a tow tru k ut
she implicates that she doesn t know how to hange a tire n well ou
figure it out
hese dis ourses should seem fairl natural to ou nd it s likel that ou
al ulated the same impli atures we did hat s what s interesting to linguists
ust as morpholog s nta and semanti s is rule governed as we have empha
sized throughout this book so is pragmati s and b e tension impli ation
Maxims of Conversation
Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, c. 1600
he most notable effort made to formulate pragmati rules is found in the

work of the ritish philosopher aul ri e e attempted to formalize what
we know when we know how to per eive impli ature in a onversation e
on luded that language users an al ulate impli atures be ause the are all
following some impli it prin iples and ea h language user an therefore as
sume that others are following those prin iples ri e alled these prin iples
ma ims of dis ourse and used them to serve as the foundation of pragmat
i s the stud of e tra truth onditional meaning e ll list them and then pro
vide e amples of ea h
a im of ualit ruth
o not sa what ou believe to be false
o not sa that for whi h ou la k ade uate eviden e
a im of uantit nformation
ake our ontribution as informative as is re uired for the urrent pur
poses of the e hange
o not make our ontribution more informative than is re uired
a im of elation elevan e
e relevant
a im of anner larit
void obs urit of e pression
void ambiguit
void unne essar wordiness
e orderl
hese are not pres riptive rules but rather part of a strateg used b the om
munit of language users to enable the use of onversational impli ature he
tend to be violated onl b un ooperative people he a ims are sometimes
referred to en masse as ri e s cooperative principle o if ohn stops ar
on the street and asks her for dire tions to the librar and she responds alk
up three streets and take a left it s a su essful dis ourse onl be ause ar
is being ooperative and ohn assumes ar is being ooperative n parti u
lar ohn assumes that ar is following the a im of ualit
n the other hand the following dis ourse Hamlet t ene whi h
gave rise to olonius s famous remark does not seem uite right it is not o
herent for reasons that ri e s a ims an e plain
hat do ou read m lord
ords words words
hat is the matter m lord
etween who
mean the matter that ou read m lord
landers sir for the satiri al rogue sa s here that old men
have gra beards that their fa es are wrinkled their e es
purging thi k amber and plum tree gum and that the have
a plentiful la k of wit together with most weak hams all
whi h sir though most powerfull and potentl believe et
hold it not honest to have it thus set down for ourself sir
should grow old as am if like a rab ou ould go ba kward
amlet who is feigning insanit refuses to answer olonius s uestions in
good faith e has violated the a im of uantit whi h states that a speak
er s ontribution to the dis ourse should be as informative as is re uired
neither more nor less amlet has violated this ma im in both dire tions n
answering ords words words to the uestion of what he is reading he is
providing too little information is final remark goes to the other e treme in
providing too mu h information this ould also be seen as a violation of the
a im of anner amlet also violates the maxim of relevance when he
misinterprets the uestion about the reading matter as a matter between two
individuals
Pragmatics 173
ma im is violated when a speaker hooses to be un ooperative for what

ever reason ma im is obe ed in a literal dis ourse devoid of impli ature as
in
er ni e girl hat do ou think on
ot reall
mpli atures an arise when a ma im is flouted o flout a ma im is to hoose
not to follow that ma im in order to impli ate something n the amlet dis
ourse above amlet is violating the ma im in order to sound insane ut
we an easil imagine a slightl different onte t one in whi h olonius and
amlet have more or less the same e hange but one in whi h amlet is not
tr ing to be insane
hat do ou read m lord
ords words words
n this onte t amlet is still not obe ing the a im of uantit he s not
sa ing enough to reall answer olonius uestion but he is instead flout
ing the ma im to impli ate that he doesn t want olonius to know what he s
reading
he dis ourse in repeated below is an e ample of the a im of el
evan e being flouted
he turke sure was moist
e ause om knows that the ualit of the turke isn t relevant to being a
ver ni e girl and be ause ad is assuming that om knows it too ad
an pi k up on the fa t that om is impli ating that she doesn t like the girl
ereft of onte t if one man sa s truthfull to another have never slept
with our wife that would be provo ative be ause the ver topi of onversa
tion should be unne essar a violation of the ma ims of uantit and relevan e
sking an able bodied person at the dinner table an ou pass the salt if
answered literall would for e the responder into stating the obvious also a vi
olation of the ma im of uantit o avoid this the person asked seeks a reason
for the uestion and impli ates that the asker would like to have the salt shaker
he ma im of relevan e e plains how sa ing t s old in here to a person
standing b an open window might be interpreted as a re uest to lose it or
else wh make the remark to that parti ular person in the first pla e
e ause impli atures result from violations of one or more ma ims the an
be easil an elled b providing further larif ing information or e ample
he turke sure was moist Toni basted it every ten minutes
he additional remark an els or at least weakens the impli ature that om
dislikes oni
mpli atures are different than entailments n entailment annot be an
elled it is logi all ne essar he truth of Jon killed Jim entails that im is
dead and nothing an one an sa will resurre t him ut further world knowl
edge or verbal larifi ation ma an el an impli ature
Presupposition
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “It’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
LEWIS CARROLL, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
somewhat different onse uen e of the ma im of relevan e arises for sen

ten es like I am sorry that the team lost o be relevant to obe the ma im
of relevan e it must be true that the team lost lse wh sa it ituations
that must e ist for utteran es to be appropriate are alled presuppositions
uestions like Have you stopped hugging your border collie? presuppose that
ou hugged our border ollie and statements like The river Avon runs through
Stratford presuppose the e isten e of the river and the town he presupposi
tions prevent violations of the ma im of relevan e hen presuppositions are
ignored we get the onfusion that li e felt at the tea part tteran es like
Take some more tea or Have another beer arr the presupposition that one has
alread had some he ar h are is oblivious to this aspe t of language of
whi h the e asperated li e is keenl aware
resuppositions hold up under negation I am NOT sorry that the team lost
still needs the team to have lost to adhere to the ma im of relevan e f a mad
ad atter said Do not take some more tea the presupposition of previous tea
onsumption would still be needed
resuppositions are different from impli atures o an el a presupposition
oh the team didn t lose after all renders the entire utteran e I m sorry that the
team lost inappropriate and in violation of ri e s a ims o su h in ongruit
arises when impli atures are an elled
resuppositions also differ from entailments in that the are taken for
granted b speakers adhering to the ooperative prin iple nlike entailments
the remain when the senten e is negated n the other hand while Jon killed
Jim entails Jim died no su h entailment follows from Jon did not kill Jim
Speech Acts
ZITS © 1998 ZITS PARTNERSHIP, KING FEATURES SYNDICATE
Summary 175
ou an use language to do things ou an use language to make promises

la bets issue warnings hristen boats pla e names in nomination offer on
gratulations or swear testimon he theor of speech acts des ribes how this
is done
sa ing I warn you that there is a sheepdog in the closet ou not onl sa
something ou warn someone erbs like bet promise warn and so on are per
formative verbs sing them in a senten e in the first person present tense
adds something e tra over and above the statement
here are hundreds of performative verbs in ever language he following
senten es illustrate their usage
bet ou five dollars the ankees win
challenge ou to a mat h
dare ou to step over this line
fine ou for possession of oregano
move that we adjourn
nominate atman for ma or of otham it
promise to improve
resign
pronounce ou husband and wife
n all of these senten es the speaker is the subje t i e the senten es are in
first person who b uttering the senten e is a omplishing some additional
a tion su h as daring nominating or resigning n addition all of these sen
ten es are affirmative de larative and in the present tense he are t pi al
performative sentences
n informal test to see whether a senten e ontains a performative verb
is to begin it with the words I hereby nl performative senten es
sound right when begun this wa ompare I hereby apologize to you with
the somewhat strange I hereby know you he first is generall taken as an
a t of apologizing n all of the e amples given insertion of hereby would be
a eptable
n stud ing spee h a ts the importan e of onte t is evident n some situa
tions Band practice, my house, to is a reminder but the same senten e ma
be a warning in a different onte t e all this underl ing purpose of the
utteran e be it a reminder a warning a promise a threat or whatever
the illocutionary force of a spee h a t llo utionar for e ma a ompan
utteran es without overt performative verbs for e ample I ve got five bucks
that says you re wrong has the illo utionar for e of a bet under appropriate
ir umstan es e ause the illo utionar for e of a spee h a t depends on the
onte t of the utteran e spee h a t theor is a part of pragmati s
Summary
nowing a language means knowing how to produ e and understand the
meaning of infinitel man senten es he stud of linguisti meaning is
alled semantics Lexical semantics is on erned with the meanings of mor
phemes and words compositional semantics with phrases and senten es
he stud of how onte t affe ts meaning is alled pragmatics
peakers knowledge of senten e meaning in ludes knowing the truth

conditions of de larative senten es knowing when one senten e entails an
other senten e knowing when two senten es are paraphrases or contradic
tory knowing when a senten e is a tautology contradiction or paradox
and knowing when senten es are ambiguous among other things Composi
tional semantics is the building up of phrasal or senten e meaning from the
meaning of smaller units b means of semantic rules
here are ases when the meaning of larger units does not follow from the
meaning of its parts Anomaly is when the pie es do not fit sensibl together
as in colorless green ideas sleep furiously metaphors are senten es that appear
to be anomalous but to whi h a meaningful on ept an be atta hed su h
as time is money idioms are fi ed e pressions whose meaning is not om
positional but rather must be learned as a whole unit su h as kick the bucket
meaning to die
art of the meaning of words ma be the asso iation with the obje ts the
words refer to if an alled reference but often there is additional mean
ing be ond referen e whi h is alled sense he referen e of the President is
ara k bama and the sense of the e pression is highest e e utive offi e
ome e pressions have referen e but little sense su h as proper names and
some have sense but no referen e su h as the present king of France
ords are related in various wa s he ma be synonyms various kinds
of antonyms su h as gradable pairs and relational opposites or hom
onyms words pronoun ed the same but with different meanings su h as bare
and bear
art of the meaning of words ma be des ribed b semantic features su h
as female oung ause or go ouns ma have the feature ount
wherein the ma be enumerated one potato two potatoes or mass in
whi h enumeration ma re uire onte tual interpretation one milk two
milks perhaps meaning one glass or uart or portion of milk ome verbs
have the feature of being eventive while others are stative he semanti
feature of negation is found in man words and is eviden ed b the o ur
ren e of negative polarity items e g John doubts that Mary gives a hoot but
John thinks that Mary gives a hoot
erbs have various argument structures whi h des ribe the s that ma
o ur with parti ular verbs or e ample intransitive verbs take onl an
subje t whereas ditransitive verbs take an subje t an dire t obje t
and an indire t obje t Thematic roles des ribe the semanti relations be
tween a verb and its arguments ome themati roles are agent the doer
of an a tion theme the re ipient of an a tion goal source instrument and
experiencer he assignment of themati roles to the arguments of verbs
o urs in d stru ture owever the positions of the arguments ma differ
in s stru ture owing to the appli ation of s nta ti rules that move elements
ome meaning is extra truth conditional it omes about as a result of
how a speaker uses the literal meaning in onversation or as a part of a dis
course he stud of e tra truth onditional meaning is pragmatics
anguage users generall des ribe states of affairs with senten es that
aren t e pli it onte t an be used to supplement linguisti meaning
in various wa s onte t ma be linguistic what was previousl spoken or
written or knowledge of the world in luding the spee h situation what we ve

alled situational context
an pronouns rel on onte t for their referen e to be resolved efle ive
pronouns su h as himself and themselves re uire a senten e internal antecedent
on refle ive pronouns su h as he she him and her an have an ante edent
in another senten e or earlier in the dis ourse or even determined b onte t
eictic terms su h as you there now and the other side re uire knowledge of the
situation person spoken to pla e time spatial orientation of the utteran e to
be interpreted referentiall
peakers of all languages adhere to various cooperative principles for
ommuni ating sin erel alled maxims of conversation u h ma ims as
be relevant or sa neither more nor less than the dis ourse re uires per
mit a person to interpret It s cold in here as hut the windows or urn up
the thermostat Implicatures are the inferen es that ma be drawn from an
utteran e in onte t when one or another of the ma ims is violated either
purposefull or naivel hen ar sa s It s cold in here one of man pos
sible impli atures ma be ar wants the heat turned up mpli atures are
like entailments in that their truth follows from senten es of the dis ourse
but unlike entailments whi h are ne essaril true impli atures ma be an
elled b information added later ar might wave ou awa from the ther
mostat and ask ou to hand her a sweater Presuppositions are situations that
must be true for utteran es to be appropriate so that Take some more tea has
the presupposition alread had some tea
he theor of speech acts tells us that people use language to do things
su h as la bets issue warnings or nominate andidates using the words
nominate ill mith ou ma a omplish an a t of nomination that allows
ill mith to run for offi e erbs that do things are alled performative
verbs he speaker s intent in making an utteran e is known as illocutionary
force n the ase of performative verbs the illo utionar for e is mentioned
overtl n other ases it must be determined from onte t
References for Further Reading

ustin How to do things with words ambridge arvard niversit
ress
hier hia and onnell inet Meaning and grammar, 2nd ed ambridge
ress
avidson and arman eds Semantics of natural languages ordre ht
he etherlands eidel
ri e ogi and onversation eprinted in Studies in the way of words
ambridge arvard niversit ress
a kendoff Patterns in the mind ew ork arper ollins
Semantics and cognition ambridge ress
akoff Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the
mind hi ago niversit of hi ago ress
akoff and ohnson Metaphors we live by, 2nd ed hi ago niversit of
hi ago ress
evinson Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational
implicature ambridge he ress
ons Linguistic semantics: An introduction ambridge ambridge ni

versit ress
aeed Semantics, rd ed ford ile la kwell
earle Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language ambridge
ambridge niversit ress
Exercises
his e er ise re uires knowledge of elementar set theor

A. uppose that the referen e meaning of swims points out the set of
individuals onsisting of nna u aul and enjamin or whi h of
the following senten es are the truth onditions produ ed b eman
ti ule met
i. nna swims
ii. a k swims
iii. enjamin swims
B. uppose the referen e meaning of loves points out the set onsisting
of the following pairs of individuals nna aul aul enja
min enjamin enjamin aul nna ording to eman
ti ule what is the meaning of the verb phrase
i. loves aul
ii. loves enjamin
iii. loves a k
C. iven the information in for whi h of the following senten es are
the truth onditions produ ed b emanti ule met
i. aul loves nna
ii. enjamin loves aul
iii. enjamin loves himself
iv. nna loves a k
. Challenge exercise onsider the senten e Jack kissed Laura ow
would the a tions of emanti ules and determine that the
senten e is false if it were true that
i. obod kissed aura
ow about if it were true that
ii. a k did not kiss aura although other men did
2. he following senten es are either tautologies anal ti ontradi tions
or situationall true or false rite b the tautologies b the ontra
di tions and b the other senten es
a. ueens are monar hs
b. ings are female
c. ings are poor
d. ueens are ugl
Exercises 179
e. ueens are mothers

f. ings are mothers
g. ogs are four legged
h. ats are felines
i. ats are stupid
. ogs are arnivores
k. eorge ashington is eorge ashington
l. eorge ashington is the first president
m. eorge ashington is male
n. n les are male
o. aunt is a man
p. it hes are wi ked
q. brother is a wit h
r. sister is an onl hild
s. he evening star isn t the evening star
t. he evening star isn t enus
u. abies are adults
v. abies an lift one ton
w. uppies are human
x. ba helor friends are all married
y. ba helor friends are all lonel
. olorless ideas are green
3. ere is a passage from Alice s Adventures in Wonderland
ow is bread made
know that li e ried eagerl
ou take some flour
here do ou pi k the flower the hite ueen asked n a garden
or in the hedges
ell it isn t picked at all li e e plained it s ground
ow man a res of ground said the hite ueen
n what kinds of pairs of words is the humor of this passage based
dentif ea h pair
4. hould the semanti omponent of the grammar a ount for whatever a

speaker means when uttering an meaningful e pression efend our
viewpoint
5. Part ne
he following senten es ma be le i all or stru turall ambiguous or
both rovide paraphrases showing that ou omprehend all the meanings
Example: saw him walking b the bank

eaning saw him and he was walking b the bank of the river
eaning saw him and he was walking b the finan ial institution
eaning was walking b the bank of the river when saw him
eaning was walking b the finan ial institution when saw him
a. e laughed at the olorful ball
b. e was kno ked over b the pun h
c. he poli e were urged to stop drinking b the fifth
d. said would file it on hursda
e. annot re ommend visiting professors too highl
f. he li ense fee for pets owned b senior itizens who have not been
altered is tual noti e
g. hat looks better on a handsome man than a tu othing ttrib
uted to ae est
h. anted an to take are of ow that does not smoke or drink
tual noti e
i. or ale everal old dresses from grandmother in beautiful ondi
tion tual noti e
. ime flies like an arrow Hint here are at least four paraphrases
but some of them re uire imagination
Part Two
o the same thing for the following newspaper headlines
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
.
6. plain the semanti ambiguit of the following senten es b providing
two or more senten es for ea h that paraphrase the multiple meanings
Example he an t bear hildren an mean either he an t give birth
to hildren or he an t tolerate hildren
a. e waited b the bank
b. s he reall that kind
c. he proprietor of the fish store was the sole owner
d. he long drill was boring
e. hen he got the lear title to the land it was a good deed
f. t takes a good ruler to make a straight line
g. e saw that gasoline an e plode
h. ou should see her shop
i. ver man loves a woman
. ou get half off the ost of our hotel room if ou make our own bed
k. t s his job to lose said the oa h about his new pla er
l. e will hange our oil in minutes sign in front of a garage
m. Challenge exercise ill wants to marr a orwegian woman
Exercises 181
7. o on an idiom hunt n the ourse of some hours in whi h ou onverse or

overhear onversations write down all the idioms that are used f ou pre
fer wat h soap operas or something similar for an hour or two and write
down the idioms how our parents or whomever this book when the
find ou wat hing and ou an laim ou re doing our homework
8. ake a half dozen or so idioms from e er ise or elsewhere and tr to
find their sour es if ou annot spe ulate imaginativel on the sour e
or e ample sell down the river meaning betra arose from meri an
slave traders selling slaves from more northern states along the issis
sippi iver to the harsher southern states or snap out of it meaning
pa attention or get in a better mood we trul spe ulate that ill
behaving persons were on e onfined in straitja kets se ured b snaps
and to snap out of it meant the person was behaving better
9. or ea h group of words given as follows state what semanti propert
or properties distinguish between the lasses of a words and b words
f asked also indi ate a semanti propert that the a words and the b
words share
Example a widow mother sister aunt maid
b widower father brother un le valet
he a and b words are human
he a words are female and the b words are male
a. a ba helor man son paperbo pope hief
b bull rooster drake ram
he a and b words are
he a words are
he b words are
b. a table stone pen il up house ship ar
b milk al ohol ri e soup mud
he a words are
he b words are
c. a book temple mountain road tra tor
b idea love harit sin erit braver fear
he a words are
he b words are
d. a pine elm ash weeping willow s amore
b rose dandelion aster tulip dais
he a words are
he b words are
e. a book letter en lopedia novel notebook di tionar
b t pewriter pen il pen ra on uill har oal halk
he a words are
he b words are
f.
a walk run skip jump hop swim
b fl skate ski ride le anoe hang glide
he a words are
he b words are
g. a ask tell sa talk onverse
b shout whisper mutter drawl holler
he a words are
he b words are
h. a absent present alive dead asleep awake married single
b big small old hot sad happ slow fast
he a and b word pairs are
he a words are
he b words are
i. a alleged ounterfeit false putative a used
b red large heerful prett stupid
Hint s an alleged murderer alwa s a murderer s a prett girl al
wa s a girl
he a words are
he b words are
10. esearch pro ect: here are man -nym -onym words that des ribe
lasses of words with parti ular semanti properties e mentioned a
few in this hapter su h as s non ms anton ms homon ms and h po
n ms hat is the et molog of -onym hat ommon nglish word is
it related to ow man more -nym words and their meanings an ou
ome up with r for five or ten on our own ith help from the n
ternet dozens are possible Hint ne su h nym word was the winning
word in the ripps ational pelling ee
11. here are several kinds of anton m writing a c g or r in olumn
indi ate whether the pairs in olumns and are omplementar grad
able or relational opposites
A B C
good bad
e pensive heap
parent offspring
beautiful ugl
false true
lessor lessee
pass fail
hot old
legal illegal
larger smaller
poor ri h
fast slow
asleep awake
husband wife
rude polite
Exercises 183
12. or ea h definition write in the first blank the word that has that mean
ing and in the se ond and third if present a differentl spelled hom
on m that has a different meaning he first letter of ea h of the words
is provided
Example a pair t wo t oo t o
a. naked b b
b. base metal l l
c. worships p p p
d. eight bits b b b
e. one of five senses s s c
f. several ouples p p p
g. not prett p p
h. purit of gold unit k c
i. a horse s oiffure m m m
. sets loose f f f
13. ere are some proper names of restaurants an ou figure out the
basis for ea h name his is for fun don t let ourself be graded
a. ustard s ast tand
b. unt hilada s
c. on s oe ain af int silent p
d. ion on the ea h
e. iener ake ll
f. izza aul and ar
g. ranks for the emories
h. ressed to rill
i. eli eloved
. one with the ings
k. unt hov s izza
l. oll sther s
m. repevine
n. hai e p trul it s in dinburgh
o. oman ing the one
p. rew a a
q. atte
r. ish othe ue
s. ranks a lot
t. in omsoup
u. ia gra ndian take awa restaurant in ondon
14. he following senten es onsist of a verb its noun phrase subje t and
various noun phrases and prepositional phrases dentif the themati
role of ea h b writing the letter a t i s g or e above the noun
standing for agent theme instrument source goal and experiencer
a t s i
Example he bo took the books from the upboard with a hand art
a. ar found a ball
b. he hildren ran from the pla ground to the wading pool
c. ne of the men unlo ked all the doors with a paper lip
d. ohn melted the i e with a blowtor h
e. elen looked for a o kroa h
f. elen saw a o kroa h
g. elen s reamed
h. he i e melted
i. ith a teles ope the bo saw the man
. he farmer loaded ha onto the tru k
k. he farmer loaded the ha with a pit hfork
l. he ha was loaded on the tru k b the farmer
m. elen heard musi oming out of the speaker
15. ind a omplete version of he abberwo k from Through the Look-
ing-Glass b ewis arroll here are some on the nternet ook up all
the nonsense words in a good di tionar also to be found online and
see how man of them are le i al items in nglish ote their meanings
16. n sports and games man e pressions are performative shouting
You re out the first base umpire performs an a t hink up half a dozen
or so similar e amples and e plain their use
17. riterion of a performative utteran e is whether ou an begin it with
hereb oti e that if ou sa senten e i aloud it sounds like a gen
uine apolog but to sa senten e ii aloud sounds funn be ause ou
annot willfull perform an a t of noti ing
i. hereb apologize to ou
ii. hereb noti e ou
etermine whi h of the following are performative senten es b insert
ing hereb and seeing whether the sound right
a. testif that she met the agent
b. know that she met the agent
c. suppose the ankees will win
d. e bet her that omne would win
e. dismiss the lass
f. tea h the lass
g. e promise to leave earl
h. owe the million
i. be ueath million to the
. swore didn t do it
k. swear didn t do it
18. A. plain in terms of ri e s a ims the humor or strangeness of the
following e hange between mother and hild he hild has just fin
ished eating a ookie when the mother omes into the room
Exercises 185
hat are these ookie rumbs doing in our bed

othing the re just l ing there
B. o the same for this e hange between an owner and her at
f ats ruled the world ever one would sleep on a pile of
fresh laundr
ats don t rule the world
19. A. pend an hour or two observing onversations between people in lud
ing ourself if ou wish e ord five or more if ou re having fun
utteran es where the intended meaning is mediated b ri e s a ims
and ite the ma im or ma ims involved or e ample someone sa s
didn t uite at h that with the possible meaning of lease sa
it again or lease speak a little louder n the above e ample we
would ite the ma ims of relevan e and uantit
B. ere is a dialog e erpt from the motion pi ture The Thin
Man Goes Home he s ene is in a shop that sells paintings and i k
harles is leaving the shop
ell thank ou ver mu h oodb e now
beg our pardon
said goodb e now
oodb e now here s no sense to that bvi
ousl it s now mean ou wouldn t sa goodb e
tomorrow or goodb e two hours ago
ou got hold of somethin there brother
ve got hold of some haven t got hold of
an thing nd m not our brother
nal ze this dialogue intended to be humorous one assumes
in light of ri e s ma ims
20. onsider the following fa ts and then answer the uestions
art illustrates our abilit to interpret meanings when s nta ti rules
have deleted parts of the senten e art illustrates our knowledge of
semanti features and entailment
A. oses are red and bralkions are too
ooth shot in oln and zolgosz inle
as a stabbed aesar and so did inna
rodo was e hausted as was am
a. hat olor are bralkions
b. hat did zolgosz do to inle
c. hat did inna do to aesar
d. hat did am feel
B. ow onsider these fa ts and answer the uestions
la k eaut was a stallion
ar is a widow
ohn pretended to send artha a birthda ard

ane didn t remember to send om a birthda ard
ina taught her daughter to swim
boss managed to give me a raise last ear
lipper is walking
true false
a. la k eaut was male T
b. ar was never married T
c. ohn sent artha a ard T
d. ane sent om a ard T
e. ina s daughter an swim T
f. didn t get a raise last ear T
g. lipper has legs T
21. he following senten es have ertain presuppositions that ensure their

appropriateness hat are the
Example: he minors promised the poli e to stop drinking

resupposition he minors were drinking
a. e went to the ballpark again
b. alerie regretted not re eiving a new bird for abor a
c. hat her pet turtle ran awa made mil ver sad
d. he administration forgot that the professors support the students
e. t is an atro it that the orld rade enter was atta ked on
eptember
f. t isn t tolerable that the orld rade enter was atta ked on
eptember
g. isa wants more pop orn
h. ar drank one more beer before leaving
i. a k knows who dis overed luto in
. ar was horrified to find a o kroa h in her bed
22. ronouns are so alled be ause the are nouns the refer to individu
als just as nouns do he word proform des ribes words like she in a
wa that isn t ategor spe ifi here are words that fun tion as pro
verbs pro adje tives and pro adverbs too an ou ome up with an
e ample of ea h in nglish or another language
23. magine that le and ru e have a plan to throw olleen a surprise
part at work t is le s job meet her for lun h at a lo al restaurant
to get her out of the offi e and ru e s job to de orate as soon as she
leaves le phones ru e and sa s he eagle has landed hat
a im is le flouting hat does his utteran e impli ate
24. a h of the following single statements has at least one impli ature in
the situation des ribed hat is it
a. tatement ou make a better door than a window
ituation omeone is blo king our view
Exercises 187
b. tatement t s getting late

ituation ou re at a part and it s
c. tatement he restaurants are open until midnight
ituation t s o lo k and ou haven t eaten dinner
d. tatement f ou d diet this wouldn t hurt so badl
ituation omeone is standing on our toe
e. tatement thought saw a fan in the loset
ituation t s sweltering in the room
f. tatement r mith dresses neatl is well groomed and is alwa s
on time to lass
ituation he summar statement in a letter of re ommendation to
graduate s hool
g. tatement ost of the food is gone
ituation ou arrived late at a o ktail part
h. tatement ohn or ar made a mistake
ituation ou re looking over some work done b ohn and ar
25. n ea h of the following dialogues between a k and aura there is a
onversational impli ature hat is it
a. a k id ou make a do tor s appointment
aura heir line was bus
b. a k o ou have the pla ti kets
aura idn t give them to ou
c. a k oes our grandmother have a live in bo friend
aura he s ver traditional
d. a k ow did ou like the string uartet
aura thought the violist was swell
e. aura hat are oston s han es of winning the orld eries
a k o bowling balls float
f. aura o ou own a at
a k m allergi to ever thing
g. aura id ou mow the grass and wash the ar like told ou to
a k mowed the grass
h. aura o ou want dessert
a k s the ope atholi
26. A. hink of ten negative polarit items su h as give a hoot or have a red cent
B. Challenge exercise an ou think of other onte ts without overt
negation that li ense their use Hint ne answer is dis ussed in
the te t but there are others
27. Challenge exercise uppose that ontrar to what was argued in the
te t the noun phrase no baby does refer to some individual just like
the baby does t needn t be an a tual bab but some abstra t empt
obje t that we ll all how that this approa h to the semanti s of no
baby when appl ing emanti ule and taking the restri ting nature of
adverbs into a ount ever one who swims beautifull also swims pre
di ts that No baby sleeps soundly entails No baby sleeps and e plain wh
this is wrong
28. onsider he meaning of words lies not in the words themselves but
in our attitude toward them b ntoine de aint up r the author
of The Little Prince o ou think this is true partiall true or false
efend our point of view providing e amples if needed
29. he e ond mendment of the onstitution of the nited tates states
A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
t has long been argued that the itizens of the nited tates have an
absolute right to own guns based on this amendment ppl ri e s
a ims to the e ond mendment and agree or disagree
Challenge exercise esearch Pro ect e observed that ordinaril the

ante edent of a refle ive pronoun ma not have an intervening ur
e ample was the ungrammati al Jane said the boy bit herself ut there
appear to be funn e eptions and man speakers of nglish find the
following senten es a eptable ?Yvette said Marcel really loved that sketch
of herself that Renoir drew, or ?Clyde realized that Bonnie had seen a photo
of himself on the wall in the post office nvestigate what s going on here
The Vocal Tract. Places of articulation: 1. bilabial; 2. labiodental; 3. interdental; 4. alveolar;
5. (alveo)palatal; 6. velar; 7. uvular; 8. glottal.
NASAL CAVITY
alveolar ridge palate

teeth 5 velum
lip ORAL 6
(soft palate)
4
1 2 3 7 uvula
lip
TONGUE
PHARYNX
8 glottis
Some Phonetic Symbols for American English Consonants
Bilabial Labiodental Interdental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop (oral)
voiceless p t k
voiced b d g
Nasal (voiced) m n ŋ
Fricative
voiceless f θ s ʃ h
voiced v ð z ʒ
Affricate
voiceless ʧ
voiced ʤ
Glide
voiceless ʍ ʍ
voiced w j w
Liquid (voiced)
(central) r
(lateral) l

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Classification of American English Vowels

Part of the Tongue Involved

HIGH i beet u boot

MID e bait o boat

A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation

p pill t till k kill i beet ɪ bit

CHAPTER 3 Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings) 152

bstruents and onorants 209 lips of the ongue viden e for

The Pronunciation of Morphemes 225

Language in Use 318 omparative e onstru tion 365

CHAPTER 8 Language Acquisition 394

Is L2 Acquisition the Same as L1 Neurolinguistic Studies of Sentence

Summary 521 onsonantal lphabet riting 536

NOAM CHOMSKY, Language and Mind, 1968

hen ou know a language ou an speak and be understood b others who

Knowledge of the Sound System

art of knowing a language means knowing what sounds or signs are in

end a word and follow ea h other he name of a former president of hana

Arbitrary Relation of Form and Meaning

HERMAN®/LaughingStock Licensing Inc., Ottawa, Canada

s uliet sa s in hakespeare s Romeo and Juliet

ometimes parti ular sound ombinations seem to relate to a parti ular

The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge

nowledge of a language enables ou to ombine sounds to form words words

Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences

ur knowledge of language not onl allows us to produ e and understand an

permit us to form and understand an infinite set of new senten es he also en

Linguistic Knowledge and Performance

peakers of all languages have the knowledge to understand or produ e

hen we speak we usuall wish to onve some message t some stage

Any fool can make a rule

The Development of Grammar

universal properties the laws of language are part of their biologi al

Sign Languages: Evidence for Language Universals

he sign languages of deaf ommunities provide some of the best eviden e to

What Is Not (Human) Language

ll languages share ertain fundamental properties and hildren naturall a uire

The Birds and the Bees

a ording to the rules of the grammar of the language he word top in

Patrick McDonnell/King Features Syndicate

however beautifull the sing uman language is different of ourse ur

Can Animals Learn Human Language?

he idea of talking animals is as old and as widespread among human so iet

i o who had a uired a word vo abular ontaining both erman and

Language and Thought

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

enjamin horf and is therefore referred to as the Sapir Whorf hypothesis

apir Language ew ork ar ourt ra e orld p

SHERMAN’S LAGOON © 2011 JIM TOOMEY

but performan e limitations su h as memor and enduran e keep this from o

disappointing ome himpanzees have been trained to use an impressive num

References for Further Reading

n nglish speaker s knowledge in ludes the sound se uen es of the

2. onsider the following senten es ut a star after those that

4. lthough sounds and meanings of most words in all languages are ar

6. n fri an gre parrot named le who was the subje t of a ear

7. wolf is able to e press subtle gradations of emotion b different positions

9. tate some rule of grammar that ou have learned is the orre t wa to

10. oam homsk has been uoted as sa ing

n the light of eviden e presented in this hapter or based on our

12. inguists who attempt to write a des riptive grammar of linguisti om

14. an people are bilingual or multilingual speaking two or more lan

f ou know onl one language ask this uestion of a bilingual person

20. esearch pro ect f e er ise t is laimed that irah an