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• In a hierarchy:
- Elements at one level are combined to construct
The hierarchical structure elements at the next level up --> a causal or
constructive relationship
of human language - Elements at one level ‘choose’ or constrain elements at
the lower level --> a regulatory (or ‘grammatical’, in
the philosophical sense) relationship
- We cay say ‘low levels allow upper levels, but upper levels
rule lower levels’
- Low level elements are necessarily smaller (and/or
faster) than higher level units
- Language is roughly, but not perfectly, hierarchical in
its structure
The language hierarchy The language hierarchy
1
Physiological constraints Statistical constraints
• In other cases we might prefer to think of • In yet other cases, constraints might be most
constraints as specified by physiological or usefully thought of as 'statistical regularities'
neurological limitations • For example, we will see that very frequent words
• For example, the structure of the human mouth are easier to access than less frequent words
cavity and tongue makes certain phonological • Word frequency is just a statistical fact about the
combinations impossible for us to produce world, not a rule-governed process.
2
Phonology What makes ‘p’ into ‘b’?
• Spoken Language is made up of many distinguishable • For example, try saying a ‘b’ and ‘p’ sound, paying
sounds, called phonemes attention to the placing of your tongue and lips
• How are phonemes within a language defined? – You'll see they are almost identical
– By contrast: any two phonemes are experienced as • The only difference is in a single feature, which was
different sounds by native speakers of that language shown in the 1950 to be voice onset time
• For example, 'bat' and 'pat' differ by just one – Anything with a voice-onset time < 20 ms. is a 'b';
phoneme anything with a voice onset time > 40 ms. is a 'p'
• Phonemes, in turn, are composed of lower-level distinctive • People can't distinguish between differences within the
features range
– Different combinations of discernibly-different features • This is categorical perception- we perceive different
make different phonemes sounds as identical
Phonology Phonology
• It seems obvious and trivial to say that a phoneme
is anything that can be distinguished, but it is also • As well as having constraints on what range
not strictly true. There are two catches of sounds we can hear and produce, there
• i.)Many sounds distinguished in other languages that are not
distinguished in English, and vice versa
are constraints on what sounds can go
• ii.) Many sounds that are actually different in English are together (phontactics)
treated as if they identical (allophones: variations of the same – Some are physiological and some are
phoneme: i.e the aspirated 'p' in 'pot' versus the unaspirated 'p'
in 'spot'.) cultural/linguistic
• The difference between 'r' and 'l’ does not exist in – Example: 'kt' never occurs without a vowel in
Chinese: so native Chinese speakers hear the front (‘act’) in English.
words 'lake' and 'rake' as the same word.
• There are many phonemes that are invisible to us
English-speakers too
The language hierarchy The language hierarchy
3
6 levels in the language hierarchy Morphology
• A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a
i.) Phonology: Elementary sounds language (the smallest unit that carries
ii.) Morphology: Elementary letter/sound information)
combinations
- many words are made up of more than one
iii.) Lexical: Individual words
morpheme, because they can take other
iv.) Syntax: Word combinations morphemes as suffixes
v.) Semantics: Meaning
- for example, the pluralizing 's' in English is
vi.) Pragmatics: Behavioural constraints on language a morpheme, and so are verb endings such as 'ed'
use
and 'ing'.
Morphology Morphology
• In some languages all words are made up of • Most English morphemes are suffixes, attached to the end
multiple morphemes, because they can be of another morpheme (the stem), but not all
combined in richer ways than they can in English,
• A few languages allow infix attachment, in which the
often playing the role that is played by word order
morpheme is attached inside another morpheme.
(at the syntactical level) in English.
– There is a well-known and much discussed case of this
– so in English we say 'the boy pushed the girl' and the in English- Anyone know what it is?
word order tells us who pushed and who received the
– Linguists (Mark Aranoff) have studied it and found it is
push, but in other languages (e.g. Latin) those roles
quite rule-bound: the infixed element can only be
might be parked by a morphemes
inserted before the stressed syllable in a word
4
What is morphology for? 6 levels in the language hierarchy
-able/-ible)- capable of being
i.) Phonology: Elementary sounds
-ance/-ence)- the act of
-ate- making or applying ii.) Morphology: Elementary letter/sound
-ful- full of
combinations
-ity- the state of being iii.) Lexical: Individual words
-less- without iv.) Syntax: Word combinations
-ly- in a certain way v.) Semantics: Meaning
-ment- the result of being vi.) Pragmatics: Behavioural constraints on language
-ness- the state of being use
-tion/-ion/-sion: the act of or the state of being
Words Words
• Word- whether single or multi-morphemic- are organized • Much of what we think of as word meaning is contained in
in particular ways in our heads. the relation between words
– For example, if I ask you to read a word aloud, you will – Although your knowledge of, say, dogs is not entirely linguistic-
be faster if the word you are to read is related to one because you have encountered real dogs- it is likely that your
you have just read: this is called priming knowledge of justice or Plato or East Timor probably is, because
• Relations between words can be of various kinds: words you probably know about all these things only from words.
which resembles each other prime, and so do words which • The lexicon is structured in various ways in your head;
are semantically-related to each other certain ways of moving between words are easier for us
• If I ask you to produce rhymes or words that start with a than others.
particular letter, you can do that much easier than you can • What makes a word a word is not always obvious
produce words that contain an internal element
– That is, you are better at producing words that start with 'th' than
words that contain a 'th' inside them.
The language hierarchy The language hierarchy
5
Syntax Syntax
• There are many constraints about how words can go
together, but the constraints are not at the single word level • It was Noam Chomsky's recognition that language
but at the role level required some kind of internal representation that helped to
– a role may be played by a multiword string or a single word launch cognitive science.
– each element that can fill a role is called a 'constituent' – Chomsky's insistence on this was based on three main forces:
Example: NP 'The man bit the dog' i.) Poverty of the stimulus
• 'The angry man who was delivering the mail ii.) Competence versus performance distinction
to my mother bit the dog.' iii.) A desire (need?) for language universals
• We will see evidence that constituents are not just
• The hope had always been for a set of universal rules (UG)
descriptions imposed on language after the fact but play a
role in the way language is actually used which could apply to all languages
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Example: Role of relevance Example: Politeness
• If I say "Do you want to have a beer?" the • Consider the word 'please'
next thing you say is considered, under the – It adds nothing to the new meaning of a phrase,
rules of pragmatics, to relate to that but nuances its interpretation.
question – 'Pass the salt' and 'Pass the salt please' convey
– If you reply "I'm getting too fat”, this is the same information- you want salt- but they
understood not as a new topic, but as a negative differ in their pragmatic weight.
answer