语言学导论 语言学教程修订版 胡壮麟

An Introduction to Linguistics语言学导论

胡壮麟主编 《语言学教程》（修订版）北京：北京大学出版社 2001年

Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics

1.1 Why study language?



Languages are the best mirror of the human mind. --Leibniz(莱布尼兹1646-1716)

psychology mind/brain pedagogy cognitive science



The three basic questions that concern Chomsky are:

(i) What constitutes knowledge of language?

(ii) How is knowledge of language acquired?

(iii) How is knowledge of language put to use?

1.2 What is language?



Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,

emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. – Sapir（萨丕尔

1884-1939)



Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

-- Wardhaugh（沃道）



A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and

constructed out of a finite set of elements. – Chomsky（乔姆斯基1928 -）



A language is a system for meanings. – Halliday（韩礼德1925 -）

We shall define language as ―meaning potential‖: that is, as sets of options, or

alternatives, in meaning, that are available to the speaker-hearer. -- Halliday

1.3 Design features of language



Design features Concept introduced by C. F. Hockett in the 1960sof a set of key

properties of language not shared or not known to be shared, as a set, with systems of

communication in any other species. Their number and names vary from one account

to another; but all include, as among the most important, the properties of duality,

arbitrariness, and productivity.

1.3.1 Arbitrariness任意性: The property of language by which there is in general no

natural (i.e. logical) relation between the form of a single lexical unit and its

meaning. 书 book livre rose motivated 理据 sheep cow moo moo quack

oink bedroom

What‘s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet. – Shakespeare(莎士比亚

1564-1616)

名无固宜，约之以命，约定俗成谓之宜，异于约则谓之不宜。-- 《荀子·正

名》

1.3.2 Duality二重性Language consists of two levels of structures. The lower

(secondary) level is a definite set of meaningless sounds, such as [], [], [],

[], [], [] which combine to form meaningful units (morphemes, words,

such as he, left) which constitute a higher (primary) level. a: p k pa:k park ka:p

carp

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1.3.3 Creativity创造性 Language is creative in the sense that its users can

understand and produce sentences they have never heard before.

1.3.4 Displacement移位性 By displacement is meant that language can be used to

refer to things that are not present (in time and space) at the moment of

communication.



Dai (1989): vity, ariness, y, cement, al

transmission



Hu (1988): abiness y tivity cement al

transmission

hangability



Hu (2001): 1. arbitrariness y tivity cement

Wang (1988): 1.双层性 2.能产性 3.任意性 4.互易性 5.专用性 6.不受环境限制

7.传授性

1.4 Origin of language speculative and controversial

1.5 Functions of language

1.5.1 Informative信息功能 Language serves an informative function when it

is used to express the speaker‘s opinion, to state a fact, or to reason things out.

(alternatively termed ideational function in Hallidayan framework)

1.5.2 Interpersonal function人际功能 Language serves to establish and maintain

social relations between people.

1.5.3 Performative行事功能 Language can be used to do things, to perform action.

e.g. ―I surrender.‖ ―I‘ll do it tonight.‖ ―I declare the meeting open.‖ ― I

sentence you to three years in prison.‖

1.5.4 Emotive function感情功能 The use of language to reveal the feelings and

attitudes of the speaker. e.g. ―Ouch!‖, ―I‘m terribly sorry about… ‖

(alternatively called expressive function)

1.5.5 Phatic communion寒暄交谈 The use of language to establish or maintain a

comfortable social contact between people without involving any factual

content. E.g. greetings, farewells, and talking about the weather.

1.5.6 Recreational function娱乐功能 The use of language for the sheer joy of

using it. E.g. singing, poetry writing.

1.5.7 Metalingual function元语言功能 The use of language to make statements

about language itself. The language about which they are made is called the

object language. E.g. a Chinese grammar of English; to say that book is

pronounced // is to make a metalinguistic statement about that word.

Language A (obj): English park carp Language B (tool): Chinese, English

Quirk et al. 1985 pa:k ka:p

Metaphysics metaphysics metachemistry metascience 科学学science

1.5.8 Poetic (Function of language) defined by Jakobson in terms of orientation

towards, or focus on, ―the message for its own sake‖. Thus, in ordinary speech,

it is by virtue of the poetic function in coordination, one will tend to

put shorter phrase first: I remember especially the wine and the view from the

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terrace, rather than, although in terms of other functions they are

equivalent, …the view from the terrace and the wine.



Hu (1988): ive ative ogative sive

ive

mative (BTW, Dai 1989 makes no mention of language

functions.)



Hu (2001:10-16): ative ersonal mative e

tional ngual



Hu (2001:151-152): Karl Bühler‘s tripartite classification: entative

sive

tive (vocative) Roman Jakobson‘s six-function classification:

ntial

e ve nguistic Halliday: p.415

seven functions in children‘s language: mental tory

ctional al 5. heuristic 6. imaginative ative three

metafunctions in adult‘s language:onal

ersonal l



Wang (1988:11-13): 语言是1.交际的工具 2.认知世界的工具3.艺术创作的工

具



Chomsky (1979:88): Language serves essentially for the expression of thought.



Chomsky (1980:230): We must reject the view that the purpose of language is

communication. (C disagrees that the sole purpose of lang. is

communication.)

1.6 What is linguistics? The scientific study of language.

parameter what and why observatory adequacy, descriptive adequacy,

explanatory adequacy Mandarin

1.7 Microlinguistics

1.7.1 Phonetics语音学 The study of the nature, production, and perception of

sounds of speech, in abstraction from the phonology of any specific language.

Variously divided into acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics, and auditory

phonetics. (The branch of linguistics which studies the physical characteristics

of speech sounds and provides methods for their description, classification,

and transcription. Cf. transcript

1.7.2 Phonology音系学 The study of the sound systems of individual languages

and of the nature of such systems generally. (Phonology identifies the set of

speech sounds for each language, how they are arranged to form meaningful

units, and the function of each sound. Phonology reveals what the possible

combinations of sounds in a language are and explains why certain words take

the form they do.)

1.7.3 Morphology形态学 Morphology is concerned with the internal organization

of words. It studies the minimal units of meaning – morphemes and

word-formation processes.

1.7.4 Syntax句法学 The branch of linguistics which studies the rules governing the

combination of words into sentences.

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1.7.5 Semantics语义学 The study of meaning. Seen by Bréal, in the late 19

th

century, as an emerging science (French sémantique) opposed to phonetics

(phonétique) as a science of sounds. (Matthews,1997)

1.7.6 Pragmatics语用学 The study of the meanings that sentences have in

particular contexts.

1.8 Macrolinguistics

1.8.1 Psycholinguistics心理语言学 Any study of language in or from the

viewpoint of psychology. Applied since the1960s to two main fields: the

empirical study of the development of language in children (developmental

psycholinguistics); and the investigation through experiments of the

psychological mechanisms for the production and understanding of speech

(experimental psycholinguistics).

1.8.2 Sociolinguistics社会语言学 Any study of language in relation to society,

including the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its

users. For example, Labov studies the correlations between linguistic variables

(e.g. the precise phonetic quality of a vowel, or the absence of a certain

element in a construction) and non-linguistics variables such as the social class

of speakers, their age, sex, etc.

1.8.3 Anthropological linguistics人类语言学 It uses the theories and methods of

anthropology to study language variation and language use in relation to the

cultural patterns and beliefs of man. e.g. the study of lesser-known languages

through field work; emergence of language; ancestral language

1.8.4 Computational linguistics计算语言学 The use of computers to process or

produce human language (also known as ―natural language‖, to distinguish it

from computer languages). E.g. machine translation, speech synthesis

1.9 Important distinctions in linguistics

1.9.1 Descriptive vs. prescriptive描写vs.规定 A linguistic study is descriptive if it

describes and analyzes linguistic facts observed; it is prescriptive if it lays

down rules for grammatical correctness. It’s me. Who did you speak to? I

haven’t done nothing. 呆板

1.9.2 Synchronic vs. diachronic共时vs.历时 The study of language as its exists at

a particular point in time is synchronic. E.g. A Grammar of Ancient Chinese;

The study of language as it changes through time is diachronic. E.g. From Old

English to Standard English. Sars figure skating synchronized swimming

1.9.3 Langue vs. parole语言vs.言语 A distinction made by the Swiss linguist

Ferdinand de Saussure(索绪尔1857-1913). Langue refers to the abstract

linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and parole

refers to the actualized language, or realization of langue. As a social product,

langue is a set of convention that members of a speech community abide by. It

can be thought of as the generalized rules of the language. Parole is the

concrete use of the conventions or applications of the rules.

i. Langue is abstract; parole is specific to the situation in which it occurs;

ii. Langue is not actually spoken by anyone; parole is always a naturally

occurring event; parler Parlez vous francais/anglais?

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iii. Langue is relatively stable and systematic; parole is subject to personal and

situational constraints.

For de Saussure, parole is a mass of confused facts and not suitable for

systematic investigation. What the linguist has to do is to abstract langue from

instances of parole – that is, to discover the regularities governing all

instances of parole and make them the subject of linguistics. E.g. the

memorization of multiplication table (乘法表); BA-construction in Chinese

(―把‖字句) is the hardest for learners of Chinese as L2.

Langue is the system of a language, ―It is the social product whose existence

permits the individual to exercise his linguistic faculty.‖ Parole is actual

speech, ―executive side of language‖. It is the distinction between langue and

parole that leads to the distinction between phonetics and phonology.

Phonetics studies speech sounds from a physical point of view and phonology

studies the functional units within the linguistic system. e.g. book: took. The

same distinction between what belongs to particular acts and what belongs to

the system leads us also to the distinction between utterance and sentence.

An utterance is a unit of parole; a sentence is a unit of langue. Two utterances

can be the realization of the same sentence. E.g. I, he, they, Once they are used

in specific context, they refer to specific persons. This leads Saussure to

suggest the terms of signification and value.

utterance anything spoken on a specific occasion. Often opposed to

―sentence‖: e.g. the words ―Come here!‖, spoken by a specific speaker at a

specific time, form an utterance which is one instance of a sentence Come here!

Hence utterance meaning, as the meaning of something as spoken on a

specific occasion, vs. sentence meaning, as the meaning that a sentence is

said to have independently of any such occasion.

1.9.4 Competence vs. performance语言能力vs.语言运用 Competence is the

speaker-listener‘s knowledge of his language and performance is the actual

use of language in concrete situations. Competence enables a language user to

produce and understand sentences, including sentences that he has never heard

before, and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities (The shooting

of the hunter is terrible. Every teacher likes some student. Flying planes can be

dangerous. Visiting aunts is annoying. John paints nudes. John broke the

window. John loaded the apples onto the cart. John loaded the cart with apples.

John sprayed the wall with paint. John sprayed paint onto the wall.

Partitive/holistic effect ). A person‘s competence is stable but his performance

is often affected by psychological and social factors, such as pressure, distress,

anxiety, embarrassment, memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention

and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge

of the language in actual performance. Slips of the tongue, false starts,

unnecessary pauses, among other things, all belong to the imperfection of

performance. A speaker‘s performance does not always match his competence.

Chomsky maintains that the task of a linguist is to discover the underlying

knowledge of grammar from the data of performance.

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i. Saussure‘s langue is a social product, a set of conventions for a speech

community; Chomsky regards competence as a property of the mind of each

individual;

ii. Saussure looks at language more from a sociological point of view while

Chomsky looks at it from a psychological point of view.

iii. Saussure regards langue as a systemic inventory of items; Chomsky,

influenced by Humboldt, Wilhelm von (洪堡特1767-1835), refers to

competence as a system of generative process. (infinite use of finite means)

Communicative competence: The ability not only to form grammatically correct

sentences but also to use these sentences appropriately (e.g. knowing how to

begin and end a conversation; how to thank, apologize, request, invite, etc.;

what topics are tabooed; how to use different address forms称呼语with

different persons and in different situations. Communicative competence is

proposed by D.H. Hymes(海姆斯), who takes into account the socio-cultural

factors of language and emphasizes the various ways of speaking. He criticizes

the Chomskyan notion of linguistic competence as ―a Garden of Eden view‖,

arguing that there is differential competence within a heterogeneous speech

community, both undoubtedly shaped by acculturation. But Chomsky insists

that:

Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a

completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language

perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as

memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors

(random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual

performance.

The notion of ―acceptable‖ is not to be confused with ―grammatical.‖

Acceptable is a concept that belongs to the study of performance, whereas

grammaticalness belongs to the study of competence.

In fact, a theory of language use and a theory of grammatical

knowledge are complementary. Chomsky claims that establishing

knowledge itself logically precedes studying how people acquire and use

that knowledge, he (1980: 225) also introduced the term pragmatic

competence – knowledge of how language is related to the situation in

which it is used. e.g. It’s rather hot in here. (fan, air conditioner) Can you

swim?(Save the drowning person!) His attention and research on linguistic

competence is as valuable as theoretical physics. MP3=Motion picture

expert group 3

1.9.5 Etic vs. emic唯素vs.唯位 An –etic account of the sounds of language would

describe them impressionistically as sounds (i.e. as ―phon-etic‖ units) in

advance of an analysis assigning them to phonemic (i.e. ―-emic‖) units; Thus

an analysis of sounds which aims to establish phonemes is an emic, as

opposed to etic analysis. An –etic unit is any physical properties observable by

the eyes, whereas an –emic unit is a formal unit in a closed system. e.g. There

are some common phonetic properties about [] which is present in most

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languages, so [] is an –etic unit which could be observed and described by

means of impression; alternatively, it could also be described as a member of

the sound system in any language, in fact, [] has allophones in certain

situations, in this case, // is an –emic unit. Play lake apple girl top stop

Chapter 2 Speech Sounds

2.1 Speech production and perception



Speech as the primary medium of language, writing, secondary

i. Speech has a history of at least 100,000 years, writing only about 6,000 years;

ii. Children learn to speak before they learn to write;

iii. The blind can speak but the deaf cannot, sound channel important sight channel;

iv. Tens of millions of people in the present world speak languages w/o written forms

and have only oral literature.



The importance of writing

i. Oral messages are subject to distortion, written messages remain exactly the same

whether read a thousand years later or ten thousand miles away;

ii. Human memory is short-lived and the brain‘s storing capacity is finite, which can

be overcome with the help of writing;

iii. Writing can transcend time and space, the advent of films, radios, recorders and

TV cannot supersede this function of writing, e.g. recording technology is studied

and communicated through writing.



articulatory phonetics发音语音学 acoustic phonetics声学语音学 auditory

phonetics听觉语音学

2.2 Speech organs

articulators: nasal鼻的;鼻音 alveolar齿龈的;齿龈音 palate颚(the roof of the

mouth) velar软腭的;软腭音 uvula小舌vocal folds=vocal cords声带 vocal

tract 声道

2.3 Segments, divergences, and phonetic transcription

2.3.1 Segments and divergences

Segment音段 Segments are obtained by dividing a continuous speech into

successive discrete (离散) units, such as phonemes and morphemes. E.g. He

left. can be cut into he, left, or [], [], [], [], [], [].

George Bernard Shaw(萧伯纳，乔治·伯纳德1856-1950) fish -- ghoti: enough,

women, nation

Reasons for divergence between pronunciation and spelling in English:

i. More sounds than letters;

ii. Some sounds, esp. vowels, changed but English orthography remains highly

conservative;

Great Vowel Shift: A series of changes in late Middle English (Middle English

1066-1485), by which close long vowels became diphthongs and other long

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vowels shifted one stop loser. Thus, in the front series, [] > [], [] > [],

[] > [], [] > []; in the back series, [] > [], [] > [], [] >

[]. Often interpreted as a unitary phenomenon; hence as a classic example of

a chain shift.

It is in consequence of these and other changes that [] in name (formerly

[]) is spelled a, or [] in shine (formerly []) spelled i. They are also the

main factor in the development of vowel alternations between long [] and

short [] (in sane/sanity), long [] and short [] (divine/divinity), and so on.

In the 15th century, English vowels underwent a substantial shift known as

the Great Vowel Shift, e.g. the current diphthong [] in time, wide and dine

was almost certainly a long [], while the vowel now pronounced [] as in

green and meet was a long [], but short (or lax) vowels were not affected in

the same way.

iii. Many loanwords. stomach [OFr stomaque

monsieur[OFr: my lord

2.3.2 Phonetic transcription

IPA国际音标=International Phonetic Alphabet The system of phonetic

transcription developed and promoted by the International Phonetic

Association(国际语音学协会). Consonants are classified by place and

manner of articulation, the transcription of vowels is according to the cardinal

vowel system. Its main principles are that there should be a separate symbol

for each distinctive sound, and that the same symbol should be used for that

sound in any language.

Broad transcription宽式音标: The use of a simple set of symbols in phonetic

transcription.

Narrow transcription窄式音标: The use of more specific symbols to show more

phonetic detail. E.g. [] play, [] help; aspirated松气vs. unaspirated

不松气, diacritic:  [] top, [] stop; common symbol [] vs.

unusual symbol [].

2.4 Consonants

The sound segments (speech sounds) are classified into consonants辅音/子音

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and vowels元音/母音. Consonants are produced by obstructing the airstream at

some point of the vocal tract(声道). Vowels are produced with the airstream

passing through the vocal tract without obstruction. The distinction between

vowels and consonants lies in the obstruction of airstream.

2.4.1 Manners of articulation: The way in which a consonant is produced by the

speech organs.

(1) Stop (or plosive) 闭塞音(or破裂音;爆发音): [, , , , , ];

(2) Nasal鼻音[, , ];

(3) Fricative摩擦音: [, , , , , , , , ];

(4) Affricate塞擦音: [, ];

(5) Approximant无摩擦延续音: [, , ];

(6) Lateral边音；旁流音: [];

(7) Tap or Flap一次接触音or闪音: tap in American English, [], [;

city letter water

(8) Trill颤音(sometimes called Roll滚音): [] Esperanto, Russian, Italian, Spanish,

and typical Scottish English (e.g. red, rye, also Indian English? a film about

Gandhi) have alveolar trill [], French (e.g. Merci, grammaire française,

Parlez-vous français? parler le français comme une vache espagnole), Dutch,

and Portuguese have uvular trill [].



Sibilants咝擦音: fricatives and affricates often behave in the same way: /, ,

, , , ].





[, , , ] have been rejected from English.

Diacritic附加符号;变音符: e.g.   [, ], poison[],

poisson[], point[], français[]

2.4.2 Places of articulation: The classification of consonants according to the

different parts of the vocal organs involved in the course of production.

(1) Bilabial双唇音：[, , , ]；

(2) Labiodental唇齿音：[, ]；

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(3) Dental齿音：[, ]；

(4) Alveolar齿龈音：[, , , , , , ]；

(5) Postalveolar后齿龈音：[, , , ]；

(6) Retroflex卷舌音: A retroflex r-sound is typical of American English. e.g. car,

part,

(7) Palatal腭音: []；

(8) Velar软腭音: [, , ];

(9) Uvular小舌音: e.g. French [];

(10) Pharyngeal喉头音；喉音: Arabic；

(11) Glottal喉音: [] fat [], pack [], button [], beaten [],

fatten [].

2.4.3 The consonants of English

Received pronunciation (RP): An accent of English identified by Daniel Jones

（丹尼尔·琼斯1881-1967） as characteristic of educated speakers in the south

of Britain.

There are 24 consonants in English.

In case two sounds share the same place and manner of articulation, they are

distinguished by voiceless清音 and voiced浊音 in terms of vibration of

vocal folds. E.g.

[] voiceless bilabial stop

[] voiced bilabial stop

2.5 Vowels

2.5.1 Four criteria of vowel description

 the part of the tongue that is raised: front, central, back;

 the height the tongue raising: high, mid (often divided into mid-high and

mid-low, e.g. [] and [] in French), low; or the mouth openness: close,

close-mid, open-mid, open;

 the length or tenseness of the vowel: long vs. short, or tense vs. lax;

 lip-rounding: rounded vs. unrounded or spread.

English –lip-rounding: [] [] []

French +lip-rounding: [] [] []

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2.5.2 The theory of cardinal vowels

Cardinal vowels: A set of vowels established by Daniel Jones as fixed and

unchanging reference points for the description of vowels in any language.

By convention, the eight primary cardinal vowels are numbered from one to

eight:

CV1 [], CV2 [], CV3 [], CV4 [], CV5 [], CV6 [], CV7 [], CV8 [];

and

CV9[], CV10[],CV11[], CV12[],CV13[], CV14[], CV15[],

CV16[] are secondary cardinal vowels obtained by reversing the

lip-rounding for a corresponding position.

Schwa // (also shwa)非重读央元音: A short vowel produced with the

tongue in the mid-central position in the mouth and lips unrounded. The

phonetic symbol for a schwa is [], in English it frequently occurs in

unaccented syllables, e.g. a- in // about, -er in // worker and

in unstressed words in rapid speech, e.g. to in / / to make.

2.5.3 Vowel glides

Diphthong //: A speech sound which is usually considered as one

distinctive vowel of a particular language but really involves tow vowels,

with one vowel gliding to the other. E.g. in English // in // my is a

diphthong.

Triphthong //: (in phonetics) a term sometimes used for a

combination of three vowels. E.g. in English // in // fire is a

diphthong.

Tense vowel紧元音: Articulated with more effort in the muscles of the vocal

cords. E.g. [], [], [].

Lax vowel松元音: Articulated with less effort in the muscles of the vocal cords.

E.g. [], [], [].

2.6 Coarticulation协同发音: In continuous stream of speech, sounds show the

influence of their neighbors. The simultaneous or overlapping articulation of two

successive sounds is called coarticulation. If the sound becomes more like the

following sound, it is known as Anticipatory coarticulation逆化协同发音, e.g.

11

lamb, seat, soup, sweet; If the sound displays the influence of the preceding

sound, it is Perseverative coarticulation重复性协同发音, e.g. map.

2.7 Differences between phonetics and phonology

phonetics Phonology example

sound making, grouping sound systems of human langs C V minimal pairs

all possible sounds a selection of sounds in each lang

Chinese no [, ]

physical properties meaning change caused by sound

[] in tea too [, ]

2.8 Phonemes and allophones

Minimal pair最小对立体: Two words in a language which differ from each other

by only one distinctive sound (one phoneme) and which also differ in meaning.

E.g. the English words bit and bet are a minimal pair as they differ in meaning

and phonemes [] and [].

Phoneme音位: The smallest sound unit in a language which can distinguish two

words. E.g. the English words pan, ban, bin //, //, //, //. The number of

phonemes varies from one language to another. English is often considered to

have 44 phonemes: 24 consonants and 20 vowels.

Phone音素;音子: A speech sound which is identified as the realization of a single

phoneme. E.g. [], [], [] are phones which realize successive phonemes in

[] peak.

Allophones音位变体: Different phones by which the same phoneme can be

realized. E.g. [, 

=

] in peak and speak. The allophones of a phoneme are in

complementary distribution in the sense that they never occur in the same

context. Eg. + aspirate – aspirate

拼 b‘in pin 宾 bin Wades Peking Tsinghua

spot, sports, stop, student, sky, skill, school

(1) //  [

=

] / [] _________

[] elsewhere

(2) //  [] / ____________ V

[] / V ___________

Free variants自由变体: cup [] []; either, direct, tomato, potato.

2.9 Phonological process

2.9.1 Assimilation同化: a process by which one sound takes on some or all the

12

characteristics of neighboring sound. Assimilation is often used synonymous

with coarticulation. If a following sound influences a preceding sound, it is

regressive assimilation逆同化: e.g. can, tan, tenth, ninth, sink, mink,

gooseberry, raspberry, cupboard, five pence, have to, used to, pan cake, sun

glass. Progressive assimilation顺同化 is the converse process, in which a

preceding sound influences a following sound, e.g. works, words, pears, writes,

rides, eyes, laughed, loved, played.

2.9.2 Phonological processes and phonological rules

Epenthesis插音;增音: The insertion of a vowel or consonant between sounds.

sixths [], an apple, an hour:   [] / [] _______V; Aime-t-il Marie?

2.9.3 Rule ordering

e.g. the pronunciation of English nominal plural forms

   / [-voice, C] ________ (Devoicing)

   / sibilant _________ (Epenthesis)

Epenthesis will always apply before Devoicing.

2.10 Distinctive Features

Distinctive Feature区别性特征: A phonetic feature which distinguish one

phonological unit, especially one phoneme, from another. E.g. voice is a

distinctive feature in English, bit and pit, but voice is not in Australia.

The place features are divided into 4 values:

Labial唇音, Coronal舌面前音；舌尖音, Dorsal舌背音, Guttural颚音,

2.11 Syllables

Suprasegmental features超语段特征:

Suprasegmental: (in phonetics and phonology) units which extend over more than

one sound in an utterance, the principal suprasegmental features are syllables,

stress, tone, and intonation.

2.11.1 The syllable structure

Syllable音节: A phonological unit consisting of a vowel or other unit that can be

produced in isolation. A syllable must have a nucleus音节核 or peak(节)峰. We

can divide a syllable into two parts, the rhyme (or rime韵;韵脚) and the onset节

首辅音. As the vowel within the rhyme is the nucleus, the consonants(s) after it

is the coda节尾辅音;符尾. A syllable that has no coda is an open syllable, while

a syllable with coda is a closed syllable. The Greek letter σ (sigma) is used to

represent a syllable, e.g. clasp

σ

O R

N Co

13

    

2.11.2 Sonority scale响音阶

Why do we have clasp, help, lump, pray, quick, but not *lkaps, *hepl, *lupm,

*rpay, *wqick?

Sonority: The inherent loudness of a sound. The degree of sonority of different

classes of sound affects their possible positions in the syllable:

Sonority scale: Most sonorous 5 Vowels

4 Approximants: [, , , l]

3 Nasals: [, , ]

2 Fricatives: [, , , , , , , , ]

Least sonorous 1 stop: [, , , , , ]

The sonority of each sound gradually rises to a peak at the nucleus and then falls

at the coda. The phoneme // is exceptional, no explanation is found for [],

[], [], [].

cf. Dai et al. 1989: 25 Sequential rules: 1. If a word begins with a [, , , l], then

the next sound must be a vowel; 2. If three consonants cluster together at the

beginning of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules: 1)

the first phoneme must be // 2) the second phoneme must be // or // or // 3)

the third phoneme must be // or // or //. 3. The nasal // never begins a word

in English, but it does in some Chinese dialects, e.g. Xiang dialect // 伢

means ―boy‖, 呀呀叫 means ―cry‖, Cantonese?

2.11.3 Syllabification and the maximal onset principle

Maximal onset principle最大节前辅音原则: When there is a choice as to

where to place a consonant, it is put into the onset rather than the coda. e.g.

[. ] country.

2.12 Pitch and Tone

Pitch音调:音高: When we listen to people speaking, we can hear some sounds

or groups of sounds in their speech to be relatively higher or lower than

others. This relative height of speech sounds as perceived by a listen is called

―pitch‖. e.g. the English question Ready? meaning ―Are you ready?‖ The

second syllable –dy sounds higher than the first one. The faster the vocal

cords vibrate, the higher the pitch. The pitch of a sound depends on the rate of

14

vibration of the vocal cords, which in turn is determined by the length of the

vocal cords. In male adults the vocal cords are typically longer (about 23mm)

than in women (about 18 mm). Therefore the sounds produced by men have a

lower pitch than those by women. Pitch is a suprasegmental feature, whose

smallest domain of application is the syllable. Different vibration rate of

vocal cords produce what is known in acoustic terms as different frequencies,

and in auditory terms as different pitches.

Tone

1

声调: Def.1 Pitch variations may be distinctive like phonemes, that is, they

may contribute to distinguish between different words. In this function, pitch

variations are called Tones, and languages using tones to distinguish the

meanings of words are called Tone languages.

Def.2 Height of pitch and change of pitch which is associated with the

pronunciation of syllables or words and which affects the meaning of the

word. E.g. Mandarin Chinese, a tone language声调语言, makes a distinction

between four different tones:

 (high level tone阴平) ―mother‖ (Try mother mother)

 (high rising tone阳平) ―hemp‖

 (fall-rise上声) ―horse‖

 （high falling tone去声） ―scold‖

Tone languages used in Vietnam, Thailand, West African, and Central

American.

Tone

2

语调: also pitch movement. A change in pitch which affects the meaning and

function of utterances in discourse. In a tone unit the syllable on which pitch

movement begins is called the tonic or the tonic syllable. The tonic syllable is

often the last prominent syllable in the unit. e.g. He’s



DRUNK rising tone

surprised exclamation, He’s



DRUNK, a falling tone, express disgust.

Intonation: When pitch, stress, and length variations are tied to the sentence rather

than to the word, they are collectively known as intonation.

2.13 Stress

Stress refers to the degree of force used in producing a syllable.

Fixed stress: the first syllable in Hungarian;

the last syllable in Turkish, French;

the penultimate (next to the last) syllable in Polish;

Free stress: English, Russian. Primary stress, secondary stress;

The Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky and Halle, 1968) long/tense and

short/lax values of the five vowel letters: a, e, i, o, u

insane, prostate, explain divine, parasite, divide

obscene, esthete, convene verbose, telescope, compose

15

profound, pronounce, denounce. verbosity, telescopic, compositor

insanity, prostatic, explanatory profundity, pronunciation,

obscenity, esthetic, convention denunciation.

divinity, parasitic, division

Noting the patterns of such alternations, C&H propose various rules to account for

―tense‖ and ―lax‖ vowels in appropriate environments. This means that a word like

convene can be assigned an underlying form containing a vowel which is lax or tense

according to its environment – lax, e.g. before two consonants (as in convention) and

tense when no suffix is present (as in convene).

―strong‖ and ―weak‖ clusters (C&H, 1968:29): A weak cluster is a sequence

consisting of a short vowel followed by at most one consonant; a strong cluster

consists either of a short vowel followed by at least two consonants or of a long vowel

or diphthong followed by any number of consonants. Now this structural difference is

relevant in a stress rule which applied to words such as the following, which end in a

weak cluster and have stress on the penultimate（//倒数第二的）

syllable:

develop deliver inherit inhibit edit;

whereas those that end in a strong cluster have stress on the final syllable:

elope complete reveal allow exist.

But morphological factors are also relevant – in particular certain suffixes have their

own effect on the stress pattern. Thus the suffix –ance or –ence, although it ends in a

strong cluster, does not attract the stress when added to the above words, i.e.

deliver deliverance

inherit inheritance

allow allowance

exist existence.

On the other hand, the suffix –ion requires stress on the preceding syllable, which in

some cases causes a shift of stress:

inhibit inhibition

edit edition

dedicate dedication

Furthermore if word-stress are intended to cover the patterning of compounds and

phrases, they must account fort the English tendency to stress the first element of a

compound but the final elements of a phrase.

Compounds with special meaning Ordinary phrase

n. + n.

beauty-spot (picturesque place)  paper-boy (boy selling newspaper)

bookworm (person)

cross-word (type of puzzle)

iron master (manufacturer)

16

watermark (mark in paper)

waterspout (column of water)

beauty spot (patch on the face)

book worm (insect)

cross word (angry word)

iron master (very severe master)

paper boy (model made of paper)

water mark (level of water)

water spout (spout for water)

a. + n.

publication)

black berry

black bird

black board

black shirt

black smith

blue book

blue stocking

blackberry (berry not necessarily black

黑莓)

blackbird (birds not necessarily black

乌鸫)

blackboard (classroom writing

surface)

blackshirt (member of a fascist party黑

衫党)

blacksmith (worker in iron)

bluebook (official publication)

dark room (one that is dark)

blue stocking (pedantic woman)

green house

dark-room (for photography)

green stuff (anything green)

greenhouse (a hot house)

hot dog (an overheated animal)

greenstuff (green vegetable)

red coat

hot dog (sausage in a bread roll)

English teacher (who is English)

redcoat (British soldier)

English book (printed in English)

English teacher (who teaches English)

White house

English book (to teach English)

white paper

White House (president‘s mansion)

yellow book

white paper (British govt. publication)

yellow

book (French govt.

17

RP differs from GA (General American); part of speech (grammatical function);

It has been said that the English and the Americans are two great people separated by

one language. – Edward T. Hall

同英、美英语中少量的语法差异相比，发音差异就有规律多了。从这一点上说，

我们可以断言两者之间的最大差别在于发音。-- P. Strevens

I. 语音比较

1. 元音

1）

在GA中，凡有字母r，就有[]音：

fear hair poor fire flower far four work heard worker

murmur bitter

2）

字母a在-ff, -lf, -m, -n, -ss, -sk, -st,-th等前面，RP读[]，GA读[]:

staff half example dance advantage pass past task path

laugh clasp craft

3）

RP的[]在GA中读得较短、较开，接近于[]：

bought caught all law talk walk water saw paw

4）

RP的[]在GA中读得更开，且不圆唇，读作[]：

got doctor job stop lost not hot

5）

RP的双元音[]，在GA中不一定都是双元音，在清辅音前读作[]，在

音节末或浊辅音前要产生向[]滑动的过程，可注音为[]:

RP GA

gate [] []

make [] []

gay [] []

grade [] []

6）

RP的[]，舌位等于[]的起始音，GA的[]，舌位较低，口较开，等于

[]的起始音，故标作[]: get better well yes question

7）

R前后都有元音时，RP在前面的元音与r之间加[]，而GA不加:

hero (RP:[]; GA:[]) period experience Mary various

tourist plural curious during tiring flowery

18

8）

RP的[]，在[, , , , , , ]之后，GA多读作[]，但也有人读作[]:

new duty tube lure enthusiasm assume resume suit superior

9）

GA中元音的鼻音化，美国干燥多变的气候引起鼻腔变化？元音的鼻音化

往往出现 在鼻辅音[]之前或之后，发音时，缩短元音，增强鼻音，如answer,

me。

2. 辅音（差别更少）

1）

wh-在GA中除who，whom，whose, whole等与RP相同，都读[]，其他

都读[ ]， 亦有人读[]，但被认为不标准：

what which when where why white wheel whisper whale

whether

2）

RP中[]仅在音节末或辅音前读dark[]，GA中[]在元音之间和词首时也

多读成[]:

follow (RP: [], GA: []) village develop silly light

will belt

3）

[]在元音之间时，GA把它发得很弱，近似[]，有轻微声带振动，用[]

表示:

better (RP: [], GA: []) little water writing cf.

writer/rider latter/ladder whiter/wider

4）

RP中[]和[]的使用不统一，如version，但以]为主，GA中则以[]为主:

Version (RP: [], GA: []) coercion Asia Persia

II. 单词发音比较

1. 元音不同

advertisement /RP: ; GA: /

ate /RP: ; GA: /

anti- /RP: ; GA: / (e.g. antibiotic /RP:

; GA: /)

address /RP: ; GA: /

been /RP: ; GA: /

19

borough /RP: ; GA: /

cadre /RP: ; GA: /

clerk /RP: ; GA: /

current /RP: ; GA: / cf. cut, furrow, hurry

ego /RP: ; GA: /

either /RP: ; GA: /

epoch /RP: ; GA: /

idyll /RP: ; GA: /

leisure /RP: ; GA: /

lever /RP: ; GA: /

metaphor /RP: ; GA: /

missile /RP: ; GA: /

mobile /RP: ; GA: , /

patriot /RP: ; GA: /

progress(n) /RP: ; GA: /

record /RP: ; GA: /

shone /RP: ; GA: /

thorough /RP: ; GA: /

tomato /RP: ; GA: /

tournament /RP: ; GA: /

vacation /RP: ; GA: /

z /RP: ; GA: /

20

zenith /RP: ; GA: /

2. 辅音不同

erase (RP:[], GA:[])

herb (RP:[], GA:[])

grease (RP:[], GA:[])

lieutenant (RP:[], GA:[ ]

schedule (RP:[], GA:[])

suggest (RP:[], GA:[])

thither (RP:[], GA:[])

3. 省略弱化元音是RP一大特点，而GA中这些音较少省略，且常不弱化:

history /RP: ; GA: /

library /RP: ; GA: /

dictionary /RP: ; GA: /

ordinary /RP: ; GA: /

territory /RP: ; GA:  /

nationalize /RP: ; GA: /

natural /RP: ; GA: /

literature /RP: ; GA: /

4. 单词重音不同

1）

主重音的差别

许多以-ary和-ory结尾的词中，RP的主重音在第二音节，而GA在第一音节：

ancillary (GA) ancillary (RP) laboratory corollary capillary

centenary

以-ate结尾的双音节词也有同样的差异：

dictate (GA) dictate (RP) dilate donate migrate stagnate vibrate

truncate

21

以-arily结尾的词中，GA的主重音从词首移到了词缀-arily的第一个音节上:

extraordinarily, necessarily, arbitrarily, voluntarily, secondarily,

在RP中，这种移动偶有发生，但多属半开玩笑性质。

p.s. laboratory (RP), laboratory (GA) debris (RP), debris (GA) garage (RP)

garage (GA)

2）

次重音的差别

GA常把主重音放在词首，RP常把主重音放在后面，故GA的次重音往往在

主重音后面，而RP的次重音在主重音前面。Too hair splitting…

5. 复合词重音的差异

1）

主重音的不同

RP和GA复合词的主重音很难找出一条规律，一般GA的主重音落在复合

词的第一个成分，而RP的主重音落在复合词的第二个成分：

beefsteak (RP) beefsteak (GA) applesauce (RP) applesauce

(GA) campfire elsewhere farmhouse fruitcake icecream inland

tissuepaper meantime midday potluck slatepencil sweetpotato

threadneedle workingman

相反地，下列复合词中，RP的主重音在复合词的第一个成分，而GA的在

第二个成分：

backwoods (RP) backwoods (GA) baseball (RP) baseball (GA)

collarbone dustproof (adj.) fingernail fireproof (adj.) fourfold

grandaunt midsummer steamengine

2）

次重音的差别

次重音差异有一个很明显的趋势，即GA的次重音往往在主重音后面，而

RP的次重音在主重音前面。

6. 语调差异

RP为阶梯型，即句子的音高(pitch)逐渐下降；

GA为波浪型，句中的重读音节的音高总是一样的。

(RP升调) （RP

降调）

（GA升调）

(GA降调)

Are you a student? (RP) Are you a student?

(GA)

22

I want to see a friend of mine. (RP) I want to see a friend of mine.

(GA)

Would you mind mailing this letter for me? Would you mind mailing this

letter for me?

I hope I remember to ask the barber not to cut my hair

too short.

I was born in Spain, but I‘m a citizen of France. (GA)

sentence stress:

He bought a new car.

I didn‘t telephone || because I was angry (the speaker did not telephone)

I didn‘t telephone because I was V angry… (I telephoned, not because I was

angry, but…)

Chapter 3 Lexicon

ungraceful disgraceful; ((Chinese fur) coat) (Chinese (fur coat))

3.1 What is word?

3.1.1 Three definitions of word

Word as a physical unit: It is fine. It‘s fine. 铁路 公路 快速路 高速路 高速公路

鸭蛋 鸡蛋 鸟蛋 蛇蛋 鹌鹑蛋 鸵鸟蛋 大不列颠和北爱尔兰联合王国 黑山寨乡

黑山寨村 开开心《信息处理用现代汉语分词规范》 ―结合紧密、使用稳定‖（宋

柔,2000:834汉语词语的几何结构）

Word as a meaning unit: book, books; go, goes, going, went, gone; (token, type,

lemma or lexeme词位；词素)

Word as a grammatical unit: Word is a rank between morpheme and word

group/phrase . blackboard, bookworm (stress, compound/phrase )

3.1.2 Three characteristics of word

(1) Stability (2) Relative uninterruptibility (3) A minimal free form: Leonard

Bloomfield: sentence ―the maximum free form‖; word ―the minimum free form‖

3.1.3 Classification of words

(1) Variable and invariable words可变化词/不变词: apple, make; what, very, in,

(2) Grammatical words and lexical words语法词/词汇词 or Functional

words/Content words功能词/实义词: conjunctions, prepositions, articles,

pronouns; nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives

(3) Closed-class words and open-class words封闭类/开放类 But preposition:

regarding, with regard to, as regards, in regard to (of), as for, as to, concerning,

involving, throughout, out of, according to; auxiliary verbs are relatively closed in

number

(4) Word class: part of speech词类 noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb,

preposition/postposition/adposition, conjunction, interjection, article

Newly introduced categories:

23

i. Particles: 小品词；语助词the infinitive marker ―to‖, the negative marker

―not‖, make

up, hand in

ii. Auxiliaries: 助词Auxiliaries used to be regarded as verbs. Because of their

unique

properties, which one could hardly expect of a verb, linguists today tend

to define them as a separate word class.

iii. Pro-form代词形式；替代形式:

Pro-adjective Your apple is sweet, So is mine.

Pro-verb He speaks English better than she does.

Pro-adverb You hope you‘ll pass and I hope so too.

Pro-locative He‘s hiding there, behind the tree.

iv. Determiners限定词

Predeterminers: all, both, half, double, twice, three times, one-third,

one-fifth

Central determiners: the, a/an, this, that, these, those, every, each, some, any,

no, either, neither, my, our, your, his, her, its, their

Postdeterminers: cardinal numerals, ordinal numerals, general ordinals

like next, last, past, (an)other, additional; and other

quantifiers like many, (a) few, several, much, little, a

lot of, plenty of, a great deal of, a great number of

e.g. *their all trouble, *five the all boys, *all both girls, *the this boy, the

first two days, another three weeks

3.2 The formation of word

3.2.1 Morpheme and Morphology

Morpheme语素;词素;形素: The smallest unit of grammar. e.g. unthinkable is

composed of morphemes realized by un, think, able.

The term has three main senses. 1. A unit smaller than the word which has

grammatical as opposed to lexical meaning. (Joe: It equals inflectional affix which

has grammatical rather than lexical meaning) The original sense, still current in

French: opp., in French, ―lexeme‖; 2. Any configuration of phonological units

within a word which has either grammatical or lexical meaning: thus, in

unthinkable, any of the sequences [], [], and []. cf. morph; 3. An

invariant lexical or grammatical unit realized by one or more configurations of

phonological units. E.g. [] in unthinkable might be seen as one realization of a

more abstract ―negative‖ morpheme also realized, e.g. by [] in incredible, []

in distasteful. cf. allomorph.

Sense one is virtually obsolete in English-speaking countries, where usage has

tended to hover between sense 2 and sense 3.

Morph形素；语素形式 The smallest sequence of phonological units into which

words are divided in an analysis of morphemes. Thus the form []

24

(unthinkable) will be divided into the morphs [], realizing a negative morpheme,

[], realizing the root morpheme ―think‖, and [], realizing the ability

morpheme.

Allomorph词/语素变体One of a set of forms that realize a morpheme: cf.

morpheme (3). e.g. –[] in taken and –[] in moved are among the allomorphs of

the ―past participle‖ morpheme. The textbook says on p. 94: Some morphemes

have a single form in all contexts, such as dog, cat. In other instances, a morpheme

may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms. e.g. the various forms expressing

the morpheme plurality in English. (or negative morpheme: un-, in-, dis-, a-, but

allomorph is not only restricted within affix. P. 94 says: Morpheme, like phoneme,

as held by American structuralists, is an abstract unit, but on a higher level of

abstraction. It consists of a sequence of classes of phonemes and has either lexical

or grammatical meaning. In morphemic transcription, morphemes in the abstract

notion are put between brackets like {}. Take the plural morpheme for example, it

can be expressed in the form of {-~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~}. But the

morpheme dog has alternative form other than dog, e.g. 狂犬病canine madness;

hydrophobia狂犬病, 恐水症; lyssa狂犬病, 恐水病[Greek, rage, madness];

rabies狂犬病[Latin: madness](BTW the connection between 狂犬病and 恐水

症?)

Morphology形态学studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which

words are formed.

3.2.2 Types of morphemes

(1) Free morpheme and bound morpheme自由语素/粘着语素(capacity of

occurring alone): cat, nature, cover--- -s, -al, dis- in cats, natural, discover. All

monomorphemic words are free morphemes. Polymorphemic words which consist

wholly of free morphemes are called Compounds复合词. e.g. untranslatableness

has four morphemes: un-, translate, able, and -ness. antidisestablishmentarianism

(反对教会与国家分开学说) has 6: anti-,dis-, establish, ment, -arian (…派的

(人),…主义的(人)), -ism.

1

(2) Root, affix, and stem

A Root is the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total loss

of identity. It is the part of the word left when all the affixes are removed. Naked

with cap and shoes taken off? e.g. international becomes nation. All words contain

a root morpheme.

An affix (词缀) is the collective term for the type of formative (构形成分;构词成

分) that is added to another morpheme (the root or stem). Affixes are classified into

prefix (dis-, re-), suffix (-ism, -ment,), and infix (foot/feet, goose/geese).

1

史上英文中最恐怖的单词 /testforum2/?boardID=21&ID=830

25

Free root morphemes can stand by themselves: black in black, blackbird,

blackboard, blacksmith; Bound root morphemes are fewer, -ceive in conceive,

deceive, perceive, receive; -mit in commit, permit, remit; -tain in contain, maintain,

retain; -cur in occur, recur. A few English roots have both free and bound variants.

Sleep and child are free root morphemes, slep- in slept and child- in children are

bound.

A stem is any morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional

affix can be added. A stem may equal a root, e.g. friend- in friends, and a term may

contain a root and a derivational affix ,e.g. friendship in friendships are both

stems.

(3) Inflectional affix and derivational affix

Affixes can be divided into inflectional affixes and derivational affixes. Inflectional

affixes and derivational affixes are distinguished in five aspects: productiveness;

meaning change; word class change; application condition; position.

3.2.3 Inflection and Word formation

Morphology is classified into Inflectional morphology（屈折形态学）and

Derivational morphology (派生形态学)

(1) Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition

of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness (finite有定的；有限的

/infinite), aspect and case, which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to

which they are attached.

Inflect: 1. [生]To cause to bend inward使（向内）弯曲；使内折；2. [语]To alter (a

word) by inflection.屈折变化，变化字尾，通过词尾变化改变（一词）；To alter (the

voice) in tone or pitch 变音，在音高和音调上变化；转调

Each set in example 3-14 (p.88) constitutes a single paradigm ([语]（名词、动词等

的）词形变化（表）；纵聚合关系语言项), that is, a set of grammatically conditioned

forms all derived from a single root or stem. e.g. French verb arriver, regarder (Je

regarde la télevision.)

j‘arrive tu arrives il arrive elle arrive nous arrivons vous arrivez ils arrivent

elles arrivent

(2) Word Formation

i. Compound: endocentric compound exocentric compound

endocentric内向的,向心的 Bloomfield‘s term for a construction in which at least

one element is of the same syntactic class as the whole. e.g. that of raw meat, whose

role in larger constructions is like that of its second element meat; also that of meat

and fish, whose role could be filled by either meat or fish. Also used of compounds:

e.g. blackbird is endocentric since, to put it in later terminology, it is a hyponym of

bird, while blackcap (another species of songbird) is not, since it is not a hyponym of

cap.

An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to

one of its constituents, which serves as the center, or head, of the whole. Endocentric

constructions may be further divided into Subordinate (there is only one head, with

the head being dominant and the other constituents dependent) and Coordinate (there

are more than one head, both are of equal syntactic status) constructions.

26

exocentric 外向的,离心的Bloomfield‘s term for a construction in which no element

is of the same syntactic class as the whole. e.g. those of in Guangzhou or wrote a book.

Also used of compounds: e.g. pickpocket and hardback are exocentric compounds

since, to put it in later terms, they are not hyponyms of either pick or pocket, or either

hard or back.

An exocentric construction is a construction whose distribution is not functionally

equivalent to any of its constituents. There is no noticeable center, or head, in it. E.g.

on the shelf, the whole construction has a different grammatical function from either

of its constituents on or the shelf. Other examples: if he is going, The girl smiled. But

Latin, Italian, and Spanish can leave out the subject when it is a pronoun and a single

verb can stand as a complete sentence, so the verb can be regarded as the center, or

head. visit Bill, lay in the corner, read books, He is in the room. He is in.(transitive vs.

intransitive), Reading books is a very good pastime. He enjoys reading books. But is

there an element which determines the character of the whole construction?

ii. Derivation: (a) Word class changed; (b)Word class unchanged

3.2.4 The counterpoint of phonology and morphology

morpheme and phoneme morphophonology形态音系学 or morphophonemics形态

音位学

(1) A single phoneme may represent a single morpheme, but they are not identical. e.g.

the phoneme // may represent the plural morpheme, the third person singular present

tense morpheme, the morpheme meaning possessive case, or nothing at all: boys, goes,

boy’s, is.

(2) Morphemic structure and phonological structure词素结构/音位结构

Morphemes may also be represented by phonological structures other than a single

phoneme. They may be monophonemic, monosyllabic, boys,

lovely, tobacco. Thus, the syllabic (phonological) structure of a word and its

morphemic (grammatical) structure do not necessarily correspond. e.g. teller

[], bigger []

(3) Allomorph (see above)

(4) Morphophonology (Morphonology) or Morphophonemics (Morphonemics) is a

branch of linguistics referring to the analysis and classification of the phonological

factors that affect the appearance of morphemes, and correspondingly, the

grammatical factors that affect the appearance of phonemes. It studies the

interrelationships between phonology and morphology.

Morphophonemics The changes in pronunciation undergone by allomorphs of

morphemes as they are modified by neighboring sounds, as the plural allomorphs in

cat-s, dog-s, box-es, or as they are modified for grammatical reasons in the course of

inflection or derivation, as house [] versus to house[] and

housing[]. 语态音位学 读音变化，由词素邻近的词音修饰带来的词素

27

变体而产生，比如 cat-s,dog-s,box-es中的复数变体，或者当它们由于语法原因中

的词尾变化或派生而受到限制，如house不同于to house和housing.

Morphophoneme Unit posited in the 1930s to account for alternations in morphology

which are recurrent but not automatic. e.g. knives or loaves has a [] ([], [])

where knife or loaf has an []. The alternation is recurrent, since it is found in more

than one word. But it is not automatic, since it is not in oaf and oafs, both

of which have [], or in hive and hives, both of which have []. To account for it,

forms such as knife and loaf are said to end in a morphophoneme ―F‖, identical to []

except that, when the plural ending follows, it is realized by []. Thus, in terms of

processes, [F] + plural  []-, but [] (oaf) + plural is unchanged.

Usually written, as here, with a capital letter. But, like phonemes,

morphophonemes can be analyzed into features. E.g. ―F‖ might have the same

phonetic features as [] plus a diacritic feature which may be said to ―trigger‖ the

alternation. The same diacritic feature might also distinguish a morphophoneme ―S‖

in house (plural) [] or ―Θ‖ in wreath (plural)[]).

Morphophonology Branch of linguistics concerned with rules or alternations

intermediate between morphology and phonology. Called ―morphophonemics‖ by

most linguists in the USA, and defined by C.F. Hockett in the 1950s in a sense that

covered the entire relation between representations of sentences in terms of

morphemes (3) and their representations in terms of phonemes. Usual definitions are

less wide: thus, in particular, a morphophonological rule or alternation is one which (a)

applies to phonological elements, but (b) applies only under certain morphological

conditions. E.g. in capacious vs. capacity, [] (in cap[]cious) alternates with []

(in cap[]city). The alternation is not restricted to this pair of forms: compare

ver[]cious and ver[]city, or loqu[]cious and loqu[]city. Thus (a) it concerns

the vowels [] and [], not the form capac- as a whole. But (b) it applies to words

with a certain morphological structure, basically derived form that of Latin. Therefore,

in many accounts, it is morphophonological, not simply phonological. Other cases:

audacious audacity (also audaciousness); capacious  capacity (also capaciousness),

efficacious  efficacy = efficacity; fallacious  fallacy (no fallacity but fallaciousness,

28

fallacy); gracious  graciousness (no gracity but graciousness); incapacious 

incapacity; sagacious  sagacity (also sagaciousness); spacious  spaciousness (no

spacity but spaciousness); tenacious  tenacity (also tenaciousness). Strangely, 金山

词霸does not list corresponding nouns ending in –acity, if any, only –ness.

i. Phonologically conditioned

injustice imperfect

inefficient important

infirm impossible (assimilation)

But inpatient住院病人, inpayment付入款项, input输入 affect pronunciation not yet

spelling.

Dissimilation refers to the influence exercised by one sound segment upon the

articulation of another, so that the sounds become less alike, or different. e.g.

grammar (O.E.) glamor (M..E.); peregrinus (Latin)  pilgrim; marbre (French) 

marble

ii. Morphologically conditioned: cat-s, dog-s, box-es; knife, loaf, oaf;

audacious/audacity, capacious/capacity, loquacious/loquacity, sagacious/sagacity,

tenacious/tenacity, veracious/veracity

3.3 Lexical change

AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory

Syndrome

Flasher, hacker, cracker, blog, taikonaut, BoBo,

2

siloviki

3

3.3.1 Lexical change proper

(1) Compound复合词 blackboard, bookworm, braindrain

(2) Derivation衍生；派生 teacher, clockwise, uninstall

(3) Invention新创词语 nylon, condom, boycott, Xerox

(4) Blending混成法 modem, BoBo, blog, e-book, e-zine, bit (binary + digit)

(5) Abbreviation缩写词；略语 fax, bus, flu

(6) Acronym首字母缩写词 CEO

，

ATM

，

POS

，

IT

，

YAHOO

4

，

GSM

5

，

CDMA

6

，

ADSL

7

.

(7) Back-formation逆构词法 edit, lase, enthuse

(8) Analogical creation类推造字 workwrought



worked,

beseech



besought



beseeched,

2

3

布波族:Bourgeois布尔乔亚+Bohemian波西米亚

西拉维克, 强力集团，强力部门, 政治强人(前面是力量, 维克表示一群人者或一个人)

4

Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle

5

global system for mobile communications全球通

6

code division multiple access码分多址

7

asymmetrical digital subscriber line非对称数字用户专线

29

slay



slew



slayed

(9) Borrowing借用；借词 typhoon, mahjong, mortgage,

i. Loanwords借词 coup d’ état

8

, sputnik

9

, tea

10

,

秀，脱口秀

ii. Loanblend混合借词 Chinatown 吉普车

iii. Loanshift 转移借词 bridge, artificial satellite,

iv. Loan translation翻译借词 also called Calque

11

仿造;仿造词语: black humor

(humour noir), found object (objet trouve)

3.3.2 Phonological change

(1) Loss语音脱落 temperature, laboratory, cabinet, postcript

(2) Addition添加 studium(学习Latin)



estudie(O.F.)



estudio (Spanish) estudo

(Portugese)



étude (M.F.) . In Japanese, strike



sutoraiki, In Eng. rascal



rapscallion

(rouge).

(3) Metathesis换位作用 brid (O.E.)



bird, ox, ax (O.E.)



ask, tax and task are

etymologically related

(4) Assimilation ―theory of least effort‖ immobile, irrevocable, impolite, illegal;

discussing shortly (// becomes //), and confound it {// becomes //}.

3.3.3 Morpho-syntactical change形态句法变化

(1) Morphological change形态变化 do(e)th, goeth, goeth , hath, thou, ye, yee, thy,

(2) Syntactical change more gladder, more lower, moost shameful,

3.3.4 Semantic change multisemous There are three kinds of semantic changes, i..e.

broadening, narrowing, and meaning shift. Class shift and folk etymology also

contribute to meaning change.

(1)Broadening词义扩大 holy day  holiday, bird, quarantine (forty days (isolation))

(2) Narrowing狭窄化 cattle, girl, liquid;

(3) Meaning shift转移 bead



prayer

(4) Class shift词性变换 zero-derivation or conversion detail, total, evidence

(5) Folk etymology 俗词源学；民间词源 asparagus芦笋



sparrowgrass

，

wiz



wizard

3.3.5 Orthographic change Iesus



Jesus, sate



sat, Sunne



sun, vp



up

8

coup: beat, état: state

9

[, ]artificial satellite人造地球卫星 [Russ: fellow traveler < s- with + put path +-NIK]

10

闽南语t’e

á

茶

11

French calquer [ to trace, copy追踪,摹仿]

30

Chapter 4 Syntax

syntax = syn ―together‖ + tax ―arrangement‖: the study of formation of sentences

Mary left.

John said that Mary left.

Bill said that John said that Mary left.

Paul said that Bill said that John said that Mary left.

John and Mary and a fat man and a tall animal and an innocent child and … left.

John woke up and got up and dressed himself and brushed his teeth and washed his

face and …

The man who paid the bill wearing a stripy scarf of medium build with a gold

tooth … was John. ―the maximum free form‖ recursive

4.1 Linguistic typology

4.1.1 Phonetic typology

shared phonetic features: the group of languages like French, German, Dutch,

Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish all have front vowels with lip-rounding, symbolized

//, //, and / / as those in the French words ―tu‖ (you) //. ―‘deux (two) //, and

―bœf‖ (ox) //, but not in other Romance languages, such as Italian, Spanish, and

Portuguese and in English. It has been noticed that languages that are geographically

close to each other often share common phonetic features whether they are genetically

related or not. E.g. many Indian languages use a series of retroflex consonants.

4.1.2 Phonological typology

One dimension is the typological classification of languages according to their

phonological systems in terms of the numbers of consonants and vowels and their

interrelations. E.g. Both English and Chinese plosives fall into three-place and

two-manner system:

English: bilabial, alveolar, velar and voiced, voiceless.

Chinese: bilabial, alveolar, velar and aspirated, unaspirated.

Another dimension is the typological classification of languages into Tone Languages

and Non-Tone Languages. In Chinese tones function to distinguish lexical meaning,

in French and English, they do not. Further distinction can be made about the number

of tones used.

4.1.3 Grammatical typology

Word order: There are 6 possible arrangements for 3 words, 24 for 4 words, 120 for 5

words: e.g.我爱你：SVO SOV VSO VOS OVS OSV Logically there are 6, but X-bar

only allows 4. (cf. also 曹聪孙,1996) 张三看见李四. John saw Mary Jean vit

Marie.

John-ga Mary-o mita ―John saw Mary‖ Can I say ―Mary-o John-ga mita‖?

Mary-ga John-o mita ―Mary saw John‖

用―棋、下、有、一、完、没、的、盘‖这八个词组成句子，看能组合成多少句子？

这些词可以组合成下列句子：一盘没有下完的棋、没有下完的一盘棋、没有一盘

下完的棋、没下完的棋有一盘、下完的棋一盘没有、下完的棋没有一盘、有一盘

31

没下完的棋、有没下完的一盘棋、棋没下完的有一盘、棋有一盘没下完……

4.1.4 Structural typology

The best known division of languages based on word structures into the ―isolating‖ or

―analytic‖, ―agglutinative‖, and ―fusional‖ or ―inflectional‖ types was named the

Structural Typology.

Isolating languages refer to those which depend on invariable roots or stems and

word order to indicate their grammatical relation. Vietnamese, Chinese, 彝语, 壮语,

苗语etc. pertain to isolating languages. An alternative term of the isolating type is

Analytic, seen as opposed to synthetic types of language (agglutinative and inflecting)

where words contain more than one morpheme.

Agglutinative languages黏着语（niánzhuó） are those in which words are typically

composed of a sequence of affixes added to the root. In Japanese, 一个变词语素表

示一种语法意义，要表示几种语法意义，就把有关的变词语素黏附在词根上. e.g.

Japanese, Turkish, 维吾尔语,朝鲜语,芬兰语etc. In Japanese nai表示否定，da rō表

示估量，ame ga furanai的意思是“不会下雨”，ame ga furanaidarō的意思是“不

会下雨吧”. In Turkish, the verb root ―sev-― means ―love‖, morpheme ―-dir‖ means

the third person, ―-ler‖ means plural, ―-miš-‖ means past tense, ―-erek‖ means future

tense, then, ―sev-miš-dir-ler‖ means ―他们从前爱‖, ―sev-erek-dir-ler‖ means ―他们

将要爱‖. To take another example, in Turkish the noun ―ev‖ (房子), ―el‖（手）:

单数 复数 单数 复数

主格 ev evler el eller

离格 evden evlerden elden ellerden

处所格 evde evlerde elde ellerde

Fusional languages溶合语or Inflecting Language屈折语are those in which

morphemes in a word are fused together, making it difficult to segment the word into

its component morphemes. E.g. Arabic, Russian, German, French, and English.内部

屈折（Internal inflection？）是通过词根中元音和辅音的交替构成词的语法形式，

而外部屈折是通过改变通常位于词末尾的词缀的方式构成词的语法形式。In

Arabic, which is of internal inflection, consonants do not change, vowels alternate to

form different inflections, e.g.

Kataba写好了, kutiba被写好了, katibu写的(人), kitabu写好的(东西), uktub写(命

令式)

Russian is a typical external inflecting language, e.g. the noun книга (书):

单数 复数

主格 КНИГ-A КНИГ-И

生格 КНИГ-И КНИГ

与格 КНИГ-E КНИГ-AM

宾格 КНИГ-У КНИГ-И

用格 КНИГ-ОЙ КНИГ-AMИ

前置格(o) КНИГ-E(o) КНИГ-AX

屈折语的主要特点：词形变化丰富，词与词之间的关系靠词形变化表示，词序不

太重要e.g. The Russian sentence ―Я читаю книгу‖ (我读书): Я книгу читаю,

Читаю книгу, Книгу читаю. Of course the form ―Я читаю книгу‖ is usually adopted.

屈折语的一个语素可以同时表示好几种语法意义，e.g. книгa（书）中的-a就同

32

时表示阴性、单数、主格三种意义。армия（军队），семья（家庭）中的-я同样

兼表阴性、单数、主格。

An English verb has at most 5 forms: see, sees, seeing, saw, seen (Be is an exception:

8). A noun at most 4:child, child‘s, children, children‘s. A pronoun 4: I, me, my, mine.

An adjective 3: tall, taller, tallest. 俄语普通名词有单、复数，单、复数各有6个格，

一个名词就有12种变化，名词又分阴、阳、中性，不同性的名词有不同的变格

规则；形容词有长尾、短尾之别，它们又各有性、数、格的变化，共有48个形

式；一个动词的各种变化加在一起不下100种. Number, gender and case

declension【语】In certain languages, the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives

in categories such as case, number, and gender.词形变化 某些语言中，静词（名词，

代词和形容词）在格，数和性等方面的词形变化

Number: singular and plural. Classic Greek, Arabic, 我国景颇语、佤语的人称代词

have a third: dual and Fijian has a fourth: trial.

noun (E, F, R), adjective (F, R), pronoun (E, F), verb (E), article (F)

le cheval royal



les chevaux royaux

Cher Papa, chère Maman, mes parents chéris.

Gender: noun, pronoun, natural or grammatical, German, Russian: masculine,

feminine, neuter, The gender of Russian is predictable: карандаш (铅笔), книга (书),

перо (钢笔尖)的词尾辅音、元音-a和-o分别表示阳性、阴性、中性。Zou Yan can‘t

remember the gender of all French words.

German: ―das Weib‖ (woman妇女), ―das Mädchen‖（girl少女）are neuter. The sun is

masculine in French, feminine in German, and neuter in Russian. French: le poêle (the

stove), la poêle (the frying pan); le pendule (the pendulum), la pendule (the clock).

Case: 6 cases in Latin: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative.

The ablative case is shown by propositions like with as in I opened the door with a

key.

Vocative: Relating to or being a grammatical case used in Latin and certain other

languages to indicate the person or thing being addressed.呼格的 关于或作为一种

用于拉丁语和一些其它语言的语法情况，用于指示被称呼的人或物.

Vocative Form traditionally characterized by use in calling someone or in getting

their attention. Thus the archaic O of We beseech thee, O Lord is a vocative particle;

Bill has a vocative role in Bill, where are you?; Latin, nouns with a similar role

were in the vocative case.

conjugation【语】The inflection of a verb.动词的变化［变位］。

A fourth class is known as Polysynthetic多式综合语or Incorporating合成语. 复

综语is a special agglutinative language: 一个词往往由好几个语素编插粘合而成，

有的语素不到一个音节。Many American Indian languages like Eskimo belong to

this type. e.g. Menomini (=Menominee梅诺米尼语,梅诺米尼人原居于美国密执安,

现居威斯康星州的一支印第安人)的―akuapiinam‖是一个词，意思是“他从水里拿

出来”：词根“akua”（挪开），后缀“-epii-”（液体），后缀“-en-”（用手），

后缀“-am”（第三人称施事）。

4.1.5 Semantic typology: e.g. the kinship field, maternal side, paternal side, sibling

Tense and aspect

33

16 tenses in English. The difference between tense and aspect is that the former is

Deictic, i.e. indicating time relative to the time of utterance; while the latter is not

deictic, the time indicated is not relative to the time of utterance, but relative to the

time of another event described, or implied, in the narrative. As a result, there are only

two tenses: past and present.

Tense Inflectional category whose basic role is to indicate the time of an event, etc. in

relation to the moment of speaking. Divided notionally into present (at the moment of

speaking), past (earlier than the moment of speaking), and future (later than the

moment of speaking). The division between tense and aspect is partly fluid. E.g. in I

have done it. … The boundary between mood is also fluid. E.g. If I saw her vs. if I see

her….

Aspect Aspectual categories are very varied, and since both tense and aspect are

defined by reference to time, a clear distinction, where it exists, will usually be drawn

by formal criteria…. I am reading the book means that the reading is in progress

over a period that includes the moment of speaking: am reading is therefore present in

tense but progressive (or continuing) in aspect. I have read the book means that, at the

moment of speaking, the reading has been completed: it is therefore present in tense

but perfect in aspect.

Mood Grammatical category distinguishing modality. Originally of an inflectional

category of verbs in Greek and Latin, opposing in particularly indicative and

subjunctive.

A set of verb forms or inflections used to indicate the speaker's attitude toward the

factuality or likelihood of the action or condition expressed. In English the indicative

mood is used to make factual statements, the subjunctive mood to indicate doubt or

unlikelihood, and the imperative mood to express a command. 语气 用来强调说话

人对表达的行为或条件的真实性或可能性所持有态度的一系列动词形态或变化

形式。在英语中陈述语气用于描绘真实的陈述，虚拟语气则用于强调怀疑或不可

能，而祈使语气则用来表达一个命令。

Voice Used conventionally from the late Middle Ages for a grammatical category by

which forms of verbs are active or passive or as active, passive, or middle. cf.

antipassive.

Middle Originally of forms of verbs in Ancient Greek whose sense was broadly

reflexive: e.g. schematically, I bought-MIDDLE house ―I bought myself a house‖.

Called ―middle‖ because seen as intermediate between active and passive. Thence of

similar reflexive forms in other languages. Also of verbs in intransitive constructions

that are understood reflexively: e.g. shaved in I shaved, meaning ―I shaved myself‖.

Also of intransitives with a passive-like relation to their subject: e.g. cuts in This stone

cuts easily, meaning ―can be cut easily‖. In French, raser qn给某人剃掉胡子或头发,

se raser自己刮胡子; laver l’enfant给孩子洗, se laver（给自己）洗, laver la figure

d’enfant给孩子洗脸, se laver les mains洗手. The car drives fast. Bureaucrats bribes

easily.

Concord and government

Concord also known as agreement. 一个聪明的（男）大学生,一个聪明的女大学生;

一些聪明的（男）大学生,一些聪明的女大学生;这个聪明的（男）大学生,这个聪

34

明的女大学生;这些聪明的（男）大学生,这些聪明的女大学生.un étudiant

intelligent, une étudiante intelligente, des étudiants intelligents, des étudiantes

intelligentes, les étudiatnts intelligents, les étudiantes intelligentes. In English: some

books, He speaks Japanese.

Government is a relationship which a word of a certain class determines the form of

others in terms of certain category. In English, e.g. the pronoun after a verb or a

preposition should be in the object form as in She gave me a book. She gave a book to

me. In other words, the verb, or the preposition, determines, or governs, the form of

the pronoun after it. The former is the governor and the latter the governed.

(The coursebook has 4.1 The traditional approach: Traditionally, a sentence is seen as

a sequence of words. Parts of speech and functions are sometimes called categories.

The noun is usually said to have the categories of number, gender, case; and the verb

the categories of tense, aspect, voice. 4.1.1 Number, gender and case 4.1.2 Tense

and aspect 4.1.3 Concord and government)

4.2 The structural approach

The structural approach to the analysis of language was started by Ferdinand de

Saussure.

4.2.1 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

In Saussure‘s view, language is a system of signs, each of which consists of two parts:

Signified所指(concept) and Signifier能指(sound image). Saussure identify

syntagmatic relation (a relation between one item and others in a sequence.

Nowadays also Horizontal relation or Chain relation) and paradigmatic relation

(originally called Associative is a relation holding between elements replaceable with

each other at a particular place in a structure, or between one element present and the

others absent. Nowadays also Vertical relation or Choice relation). In Saussure‘s

original theory, these two relations are applicable at every level of linguistic analysis.

At the level of phonology, … The successive signs in a syntagmatic relation is

sometimes called a structure. The class of signs in a paradigmatic relation are

sometimes called a system.

Syntagmatic (relation) between units present in the same sequence. E.g. between s, p,

and r in a form such as spring, or between a subject and a verb in constructions such

as Bill hunts.

Paradigmatic (relation) between an individual unit and others that can replace it in a

given sequence: e.g. between cat and any other unit (dog, house, etc.) that can replace

it in the sequence I saw the cat, or between [] in spear [] and [] in steer [].

(It‘s also adj. of paradigm)

4.2.2 Immediate constituent analysis

Linear structure vs. Hierarchical structure the degree of closeness to each other

The relation between a sentence and its component elements is generally referred to

as the relation between a construction构建 and its constituents成分. Immediate

constituents are constituents immediately, directly, below the level of a construction,

which may be a sentence like Poor John ran away or a word group like poor John or

35

a word away, lovely, talked. The last level of constituents, i.e. morphemes, are known

as ultimate constituents. Immediate constituent analysis (IC analysis): The analysis

of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents – word groups (or phrases), which

are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes

on until the ultimate constituents are reached. The criterion to cut a construction is

substitutability: whether a sequence of words can be substituted for a single word

and the structure remains the same.

The advantages of IC analysis: reveal ambiguity and disambiguate. E.g.

(1) Leave the book on shelf. (leave the book) (on the shelf), (Leave) (the book on the

shelf)

(2) my small child’s cot

(3) The son of Pharaoh’s daughter is the daughter of Pharaoh’s son.

(4) more expensive clothes (add labels like NP, N, AP, adj, Det, Adv, Pron, Aux to

the nodes)

(5) (Is he really) that kind? (Is he really) that kind?

(6) They can fish here.

(7) We eat what we can. What we can’t, we can.

Three problems of IC analysis: 1. binary division can‘t account for old men and

women 2. discontinuous constituents pose technical problems for tree diagrams in IC

analysis: the auxiliary verb of yes/no questions, Is John coming?; phrasal verbs like

make it up, turn it on, give me up, John said Mary is a fool. John, said Mary, is a fool.

Hooks are employed to solve the problems. 3. Structural ambiguities not revealed by

IC analysis. the love of God, the shooting of he hunters

4.2.3 Endocentric and exocentric constructions cf. Word Formation of Chapter 3

4.3 The generative approach (Detailed in Ch.12)

4.4 The functional approach (To introduce Prague school and Systemic-functional

grammar)

Function 1. Used very widely of the part that a unit plays in a larger structure. E.g. in

I met my brother, the phrase my brother has the function or ―role‖ of direct object: i.e.

it plays the part of direct object in a larger construction of which that is one element.

Following the question ―Can you come?‖, the utterance ―yes‖ would function as an

answer: i.e. it plays that part in a larger question–answer interchange. The formula

―Let us pray‖ has a function, with other elements such as kneeling, in a larger

ceremony of worship, and so on. 2. Other uses reflect a mathematician‘s sense of

functions as dependencies between variables: hence especially, as in other disciplines,

(the value of) x many vary ―as a function of‖ (that of ) y.

Functional Grammar Model of functional syntax developed since the late 1970s by

S.C. Dik and his followers. Basically an account of clause structure in which

functions are distinguished separately on three levels: e.g., in Bill left yesterday, Bill

has the syntactic function of subject and the semantic function of agent; it might also

have the pragmatic function of theme. Semantic functions are associated with

predicates (2) in the lexicon (e.g. agent with leave), and the nucleus (1) of a clause

36

(e.g. that represented by Bill left) may also be extended by satellites (e.g. that

represented by yesterday in Bill left yesterday); syntactic functions are then assigned

to its elements; then pragmatic functions. A clear distinction is drawn between the

rules by which this functional structure is established, and the ―expression rules‖

which specify the ways in which it is realized, by order, intonation, cases or

prepositions, the voice of the verb, and so on. Of these, the order of elements in

particular is determined, as far as the structure of a given language allows, by a

universal principle. (Joe: To account for word order, formalism has recourse to

categorization and sub- categorization of the verb, syntactic rules such as X-bar,

government, binding, etc. whereas functionalism relies on the expression or

communicative purpose of the speaker, or to achieve rhetorical effect.)

Functional syntax 1. A treatment of syntax in which syntactic functions, such as

subject and object, are primitive or at least central. 2. A treatment of syntax in which

aspects of the construction of sentences are explained by, or related to, the functions

that they play in communication.

4.4.1 Functional sentence perspective

Prague School Functional sentence perspective communicative dynamism (CD)

information structure theme rheme (Detailed in Ch.12)

4.4.2 Systemic-functional grammar

Halliday, M.A.K. Systemic Grammar choices ranks delicacy Scale and Category

Grammar ideational interpersonal textual Actor clause process (Detailed in

Ch.12)

Chapter 12 Schools of Linguistics

12.1 Saussure – Father of modern linguistics

Ferdinand de Saussure (索绪尔1857-1913), a Swiss linguist, ―Father of modern

linguistics‖, ―a master of a discipline which he made modern‖ Course in General

Linguistics 1916 Saussure‘s ideas were developed along three lines: linguistics

(American linguist W.D. Whitney, arbitrariness, language is an institution), sociology

(French sociologist E. Durkheim, lang. is one of the social facts, not individual

psychological facts ), and psychology (Austrian psychiatrist S. Freud, the continuity

of the unconscious, id, ego, superego).



Saussure saw language as a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon.



Nature of linguistics sign: The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a

concept ( which he calls signified, signifié所指) and a sound image.(which he calls

signifier, signifiant能指). E.g. The word ―book‖ is a linguistic sign, its sound-image

is the signifier and the object it refers to is the signified. A linguistic sign has two

characteristics: bond between the signifier and signified is arbitrary.

signifier is linear in nature.



The relational nature of language units The signifiers are members of a system

and they are defined by their relations to the other members of that system. e.g. old:

young; old: middle age: young; red: brown: blue: green; the 10:00 Guangzhou to

Beijing train, words: chess pieces A game of chess is like the system of language.

They are both system of values. A state of the set of chessmen is like a state of

37

language. ―The respective value of the pieces depends on their position on the

chessboard just as each linguistic term derives its value from its opposition to all the

other terms. ‖ On the other hand, the value of each piece also depends on the

convention – the set of rules that exists before the game begins.



Langue and parole



Diachronic and synchronic studies



Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

12.2 The Prague School

Prague School United among structural linguists by an emphasis on the function of

units: e.g. in phonology, on the role of phonemes in distinguishing and demarcating

words in syntax, on the role of sentence structure in context. Important in the 1930s

above all for phonology where ideas originating in this period are the source for later

work especially by Jakobson and Martinet. A functional view of the sentence, fostered

by Mathesius, was to lead in the 1950s to the theory of Functional Sentence

Perspective.

Its most important contribution to linguistics is that it sees language in terms of

function. Language is considered as a tool performing a number of essential functions

or tasks for the community using it. The Prague School is best known for its

contribution to phonology and the distinction between phonetics and phonology.

Trubetskoy argued that phonetics belonged to parole whereas phonology langue. On

this basis the notion ―phoneme‖ is developed as an abstract unit of the sound system

as distinct form the sounds actually produced. A phoneme is the sum of the

differential functions. Sounds become phonemes when they serve to distinguish

meaning. A phoneme has three characteristics: 1. it has discriminative power; 2. it

cannot be analyzed into smaller distinctive segments; 3. it can only be determined by

distinctive features.

Functional sentence perspective (FSP)

One of the main ideas of the Prague Linguistic Circle is that a sentence may be

analyzed from the grammatical side (in terms of subject and predicate, but subject

and predicate are syntactic functions?) as well as from the functional side (in terms of

Theme and Rheme). FSP describes how information is distributed in sentences. FSP

deals especially with the effect of the distribution of known (or given) information

and new information in discourse. The principle is that the role of each utterance part

is evaluated for its semantic contribution to the whole. E.g.

(a) Sally stands on the table (b) On the table stands Sally

Subject Predicate Predicate Subject

Theme Rheme Theme Rheme

In research into the relation between structure and function, J. Firbas developed

the notion of CD based on the fact that linguistics communication is not a static

phenomenon, but a dynamic one. CD is meant to measure the amount of information

an element carries in a sentence. E.g. He was cross. He carries the lowest degree of

CD, cross the highest. Normally the subject carries a lower degree of CD than the

verb and/or the object and/or adverbial provided the verb or the object and/or the

adverbial are contextually independent. (Joe: unpredictable? John left.) Firbas

38

defined FSP as ―the distribution of various degrees of CD‖. This can be explained as:

the initial elements of a sequence carry the lowest degree of CD, and with each step

forward, the degree of CD becomes incremental till the element that carries the

highest. However, there are often exceptions to this rule: the Theme at the beginning,

the Transition in the middle, and the Rheme at the end of the sentence. A girl broke a

vase. The girl broke a vase. An old man appeared in the waiting room at five o’clock.

The old man was sitting in the waiting room. In order to see his friend, he went to

Prague. He went to Prague to see his friend. He gave a boy an apple. He gave an

apple to the boy.

Functional sentence perspective A model of the information structure of sentences,

proposed in the early 1960s by J. Firbas et al. in the tradition of the pre-war Prague

School. Parts of a sentence representing given information are said to have the lowest

degree of communicative dynamism (or CD): i.e. the amount that, in context, they

communicate to addressees is the least. These form the theme. Parts representing new

information have the highest degree: these form the rheme. Parts which have an

intermediate degree are sometimes said to form a transition between theme and

rheme. ―Who bought it?‖ ―John bought it.‖ bought it is theme, and John rheme. In

Czech, parts with the lowest degree of communicative dynamism tend to come first in

the sentence and parts with the highest to come last: bought-3SG it, which is

considered the natural order.

information structure The structure of a sentence or larger unit viewed as a means of

communicating information to an addressee. Described in terms of given vs. new,

theme vs. rheme, topic vs. comment, focus, etc.

given Known or recoverable by the addressee, etc. ―Where are the children?‖ ―Jane’s

gone to the hairdresser.‖ The information structure is: ―given Jane + new (ha)s gone

to the hairdresser ‖.

theme A part of a sentence seen as corresponding to what the sentence as a whole,

when uttered in a particular context, is about. rheme A part of a sentence

communicating information relative to whatever is indicated by the theme. On Sunday

I have to visit my uncle. The problem is that it is so cold. “on Sunday” and ―the

problem” might be the theme, ―I have to visit my uncle” and ―is that it is so cold”

would be the rheme.(c.f. also the example on Hu et al.,2001:398)

12.3 The London School

B. Malinowski, J.R. Firth, M.A.K. Halliday all stress the importance of context of

situation and the system aspects of language. Thus, London School is also known as

systemic linguistics and functional linguistics.



Malinowski‘s theories: Meaning is not something that exists in sounds, but

something that

exists in the relations of sounds and their environment.



Firth‘s theories: Language is a social process. Meaning is use, the meaning of any

sentence

consists of five parts… By a typical context of situation, he meant

that …Collocation: ―You know a word by the company it keeps.‖ Referential

39

meaning, collocative meaning, the syntagmatic relationship of grammatical

categories, or Colligation, Prosodic analysis

colligation Firth‘s term for the general relation between elements in a construction,

as opposed to a collocation or a relation between individual words. Thus the

of heavy and smoker in She’s a heavy smoker instances the

colligation of an adjective with an agent noun, or with a noun generally. Also cf.:

blond hair, as drunk as a lord, run riot, She blew her top.



Halliday and Systemic-Functional Grammar

Halliday‘s SF is a sociological oriented functional linguistic approach which can be

applied to language teaching, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, stylistics, and

machine translation.

(1) Systemic grammar aims to explain the internal relations in language as a system

network, or meaning potential. And this network consists of subsystems form which

language users make choices. Functional grammar aims to reveal that language is a

means of social interaction. SF is based on two facts: 1. language users are actually

making choices in a system of systems and trying to realize different semantic

functions in social interaction; 2. language is inseparable from social activities of man.

Thus, it takes actual uses of language as the object of study, whereas Chomsky‘s TG

Grammar takes the ideal speaker‘s linguistic competence as the subject of study.

The central component of a systemic grammar is a chart of the full set of choices

available in constructing a sentence. The system is list of choices that are available

in the grammar of a language. (But can you exhaust the choices? infinitely numerous

choices? Now let‘s examine its methodology:) The notion of a systemic grammar is

that we take a general area of meaning and gradually break it into smaller and smaller

sub-areas. Delicacy refers to the dimension which recognizes increasing depth of

detail….This scale is called Scale of Delicacy. systems of person (1, 2, 3 person),

number (single, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), tense (past, present,

future), mood (declarative, interrogative, imperative), time expressing method

(2) Functional Grammar Halliday concentrates exclusively on the functional part of

grammar. He believes that language is what it is because it has to serve certain

functions. In other words, social demand on language has helped to shape its structure.

The function of language is to encode our experience in the form of an ideational

content. SF aims to provide a taxonomy for sentences, a means of descriptively

classifying particular sentences.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1925 - ) British linguist. Originally a specialist in Chinese, whose

earliest general theory was the model of grammar eventually called Systemic

Grammar. In the late 1960s he applied this in an analysis of English intonation and

in a general account of the dimensions on which sentences are organized. The

dimension of ―transitivity‖ concerns the relation actor to action or action to

goal; that of ―mood‖ their broadly interpersonal function (e.g. as interrogative or

declarative); that of ―theme‖ the relations of theme to rheme or given to new.

Halliday‘s general theory… is centered on…the thesis that the nature of language as a

semiotic system, and its development in each individual, must be studied in the

context of the social roles that individuals play, and the ways in which these develop.

40

Systemic Grammar Model of functional syntax developed by Halliday from the late

1950s. The basic idea is that any act of communication realizes a set of choices: e.g.

the utterance of She went out realizes, among others, the choice of a declarative

structure. Each choice is at a certain level in a hierarchy of ranks: e.g. the choice of

declarative is at clause level. It is also related to other choices on a scale of delicacy

or detail: e.g. the choice of interrogative instead of declarative would entail a further

choice between polar interrogative (i.e. yes-no Did she go?) and

wh-interrogative. Each individual set of choices forms a system: thus polar

interrogative and wh-interrogative form one system, declarative and interrogative

form or are part of another. A grammar will accordingly describe the systems of a

language, the level of detail at which all remaining choices are between open sets of

lexical units. Originally called Scale and Category Grammar. The ―scale‖ was that

of the successive ranks at which systems operate: e.g. morpheme, word, phrase, and

upwards.

Back to the course book, p. 152: Halliday relates the function of language to its

structures. He identifies three functions of language: ideational (which is subdivided

into experiential and logical), interpersonal and textual. And they are related to three

grammatical systems: transitivity, mood, and theme. He argues, ―Language serves for

the expression of ‗content‘: that is, of the speaker‘s experience of the real world,

including the inner world of his own consciousness. We may call this the ideational

function.‖ ―Language serves to establish and maintain social relations: for the

expression of social roles, which include the communication roles created by

language itself -- …interpersonal…‖ ―Finally, language has to provide for making

links with itself and with features of the situation in which it is used. We may call this

the textual function, since this is what enables the speaker or writer to construct

‗texts‘, …‖

Actor动作者 is a function in the clause小句 as a representation of outer experience

or inner experience. Our most powerful impression of experience is process. 6

processes, also cf. p. 412

Subject is a function of the mood system. subject+finite verbal

operator+predicator=mood+residue

Theme is a function in the clause as a message together with rheme.

12.4 American Structuralism



Early period: Boas and Sapir anthropologist. describe dying indigenous

languages of the

American Indians, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Sapir defines language as ―a

purely human and non-instinctive method of voluntarily produced symbols‖. Without

language, thought is impossible. Language is the oldest human legacy, without

language, there is no culture.



Bloomfield’s theory (cf. also 石安石,1996)

For Bloomfield, linguistics is a branch of psychology, and specifically of the

positivistic brand of psychology known as Behaviorism, based on the belief that

human beings cannot know anything they have not experienced. Behaviorism in

linguistics holds that children learn language through a chain of ―stimulus-response

41

reinforcement‖, and the adult‘s use of language is also a process of

Stimulus-Response. In language teaching, advocate practice and repetition in real

situations



Post-Bloomfieldian linguistics

Z. Harris, C. Hockett, G. Trager, use the computer to carry out discovery procedures,

Harris‘s theory is circular, depending heavily on meaning, K. Pike, Tagmemics,

everything in the world is hierarchical, … these basic units are called grammatical

units, or Tagmemes. General comments on structuralism: be not prescribe, but

do not explain why; cal, but no complete grammars comparable to

comprehensive traditional grammars; 3. examine all languages, but do not treat

meaning; 4. describe even the smallest contrasts that underlie any construction or use

of language, not only those discoverable in some particular use.

12.5 Transformational-Generative Grammar

John Lyons (莱昂斯1932 - ) remarks that, ―Right or wrong, Chomsky‘s theory of

grammar is undoubtedly the most dynamic and influential; and no linguist who wishes

to keep abreast of current developments in his subject can afford to ignore Chomsky‘s

theoretical pronouncements. Every other ‗school‘ of linguistics at the present time

tends to define its position in relation to Chomsky‘s views on particular issues.‖

Chomsky is more concerned with syntagmatic than paradigmatic relation, and he aims

more at language homogeneity than heterogeneity. While Halliday holds the idea that

language is a social phenomenon, Chomsky emphasized the biological aspects of

language, making linguistics a branch of psychology. Chomsky‘s theory is predictable,

vigorous, and fascinating, though, still imperfect and vulnerable to anti-examples,

whereas Halliday‘s systemic grammar is taxonomic whose predictability, if any, is

limited to the sentences already available, in the functional part his attempt to exhaust

the full list of ways, which seems infinite, to express the same idea is futile in the

sense that such a list is finite. Chomsky found the classification of structural elements

of language through distribution and substitution had its limitations. TG Grammar

differs from the structural grammar in 8 ways: alism ness ive

methodology is of interpretation ization is on linguistic

competence generative powers is on linguistic universals.(cf. also

Newmeyer,1998a)



The philosophical aspect of Chomskyan Theory

Chomsky defines language as a set of rules or principles. His approach to language is

a reaction against behaviorism in psychology and empiricism in philosophy, making

linguistics a branch of psychology. He follows rationalism in philosophy and

mentalism in psychology. Children become fluent speakers of their native language

by the age of five. It is not more necessary to teach babies to talk than it is to teach

them to walk. Plato‘s problem, the logical problem of language acquisition, the

poverty-of-the-stimulus argument, the innateness hypothesis, modular, module, LAD,

UG, parameter, A generative (formal, explicit, productive) grammar examines all

languages. Observational adequacy, descriptive adequacy, explanatory adequacy,

There is a component of the human mind/brain dedicated to language—the language

faculty —interacting with other systems. The language faculty has at least two

42

components: a cognitive system that stores information, and performance systems that

access that information and use it in various ways. For each particular language, the

cognitive system consists of a computational system (CS) and a lexicon. CS selects

elements from the lexicon and organize them into linguistic expressions. Lexicon

should provide just the information that is required for CS, without redundancy and in

some optimal form, excluding whatever is predictable by principles of UG or

properties of the language in question. The performance systems fall into two general

types: articulatory-perceptual and conceptual-intentional. The language faculty has an

initial state, it passes through a series of states in early childhood, reaching a relatively

stable steady state that undergoes little subsequent change, apart form the lexicon. (cf.

also Chomsky,1968; Hauser & Chomsky; Newmeyer,1998b;程工,2001;于江生) The

application fields: computer science (cf.刘俐李,2002), Lang acquisition (cf. 张学

斌,2002), disambiguation…



The technical aspect of Chomskyan Theory

5 TG stages: The Classical Theory; The Standard Theory, The Extended Standard

Theory; The Revised Extended Standard Theory (or GB); The Minimalist Program;

Minimalist Inquiries

The Classical Theory: Chomsky puts forward 3 kinds of grammar: finite state

grammar, phrase structure grammar, and transformational grammar. Grammar should

be a system of finite rules generating an infinite of sentences. Rewriting rules: S 

NP + VP Kernel sentences 16 Transformational Rules for English, 3 problems: 1. R

rules are too powerful, well-formed and ill-formed sentences: John bought a book. A

book bought John.2. T rules are too powerful, e.g. passive voice, John married Mary.

Mary was married by John.

The Standard Theory: 3 components: syntactic (i.e. the base component consisting

of re-writing rules and the lexicon), phonological, and semantic (newly added),

The Extended Standard Theory: criticize, criticism, any kind of transformation

changes the sentence meaning, Everyone loves someone. Beavers build dams. Gapped

structure: John ate some rice, and Mary some bread. give, donate, Many arrows hit

the target. The most remarkable change is that Chomsky puts semantic interpretation

completely in the surface structure.

GB Theory: X-bar Theory, θ-Theory, Bounding Theory, Government Theory, Case

Theory, Control Theory, and Binding Theory among which θ-Theory is new, empty

category (EC), trace, c-command, anaphor, merger, move, checking theory,

In GB, phrase structure rules are eliminated through recourse to properties of the

lexicon and certain general principles, and the transformational rules are reduced to

one rule Move-α. The lexicon contains, for each lexical item, its abstract phonological

form and semantic properties. The lexicon properties include the ―selectional

properties‖ of heads of constructions: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and particles

(prepositions or postpositions, depending on how the head-complement parameters

are set in the language). The entry for the word hit, e.g. specifies that it takes a

complement with the semantic role of recipient of action (patient), and that its subject

has the semantic role of agent (perhaps determined compositionally). For the word

43

persuade, the lexical entry will specify that it takes two complements, the target of the

action and a proposition, and that the phrase of which persuade is head assigns the

role agent to the subject. Let us call these properties ―semantic selection‖ (s-selection),

putting aside their further properties.

The lexicon property of categorical selection (c-selection) specifies, e.g. that hit

takes an NP complement. The latter specification seems redundant; if hit s-selects a

patient, then, this element will be an NP. If c-selection is redundant, in general, then

the lexicon can be restricted to s-selection. Let us assume that if a verb s-select a

semantic category C, then it c-selects a syntactic category that is the ―canonical

structural realization of C‖ (CSR(C)). Take CSR (patient) and CSR (goal) to be NP;

then hit c-selects NP. Consider now the more complex case of the verb persuade,

which appears in the following syntactic frames:

(i) – [John] [that he should go to college] (1)

(ii) – [John] [to go to college]

(iii) – [John] [of the importance of going to college]

The lexical entry of persuade indicates that it s-selects a goal and a proposition. A

child learning English must learn the meaning of the word persuade including its

properties of s-selection and must also learn the value of the head-complement

parameter for English (head-first) and the specific properties of Case assignment in

English (the fact that the Case adjacency principle is invoked, presumably a reflex of

the poverty of the morphological Case system). Nothing more must be learned to

determine the forms of (1). In particular, no properties of c-selection and no rules of

phrase structure are required in this case.

The principles of UG include Head Parameter, X-bar Theory, Projection

Principle (The properties of lexical entries project onto the syntax of the sentence. If

claim takes a clausal complement as a lexical property, it must have a clausal

complement in syntactic representations.), Case Theory (Every phonetically realized

NP must be assigned (abstract) Case. e.g. like the boy, *fond the boy, *destruction the

city, destruction of the city, the city‘s destruction, criticize).

A major assumption in linguistics since the 1930s has been that sentences

consists of phrases – structural groupings of words: sentences have phrase structure.

E.g. The boy wrote a book. The sentence (S) breaks up into a Noun Phrase (NP) the

boy and a Verb Phrase (VP) wrote a book; the VP in turn breaks up into a Verb (V)

wrote and a further Noun Phrase a book. That the earth revolves is obvious. (宋国

明,1997:144) Who will John marry? (C&N,1996:177)

Sentence

Noun Phrase Verb Phrase

Determiner Noun Verb Noun Phrase

The boy wrote Determiner Noun

a book

44

我是中国人 I am Chinese Je suis Chinois

私は中国人ごす (head first vs. head final parameter)

X‘  X+ complement or X‘  complement + X XP(X‘‘)

[Hon-o] Katta buy [a book ]

complement V V complement

(book bought) Spec(ifier) X‘

He bought a book. 标志语

[Fune] ni on [the boat]

complement P P complement X

Comp(lement)

(boat on) Head 补语

On the boat. (lexical category)

[inu o] kowagatte afraid [of dogs] 中心语

complement A A complement

(dog afraid) NP

afraid of the dog

[Zibun ga tadashi-to-iu] shichoo claim [that he‘s right] Det(erminer) N‘

complement N N complement

self right claim a N

(the claim that he was right)

A double-bar phrase may consist of a head and possible specifiers book

X‘‘  X‘+ specifier or X‘‘  specifier + X‘

X-bar theory claims that all phrases in all language share this cell-like structure with

two levels to each phrase: one (X‖) consists of the head and possible specifiers; the

other (X‘) consists of the head and possible complements. Note that specifier and

complement are not themselves syntactic categories but functional labels for positions

in the structure that may be filled by actual syntactic categories such as NPs and VPs.

To illustrate how such a system works, consider the sentence:

who was John persuaded to visit (2)

To understand/generate (2), we must first know the lexical properties of the words:

visit is a transitive verb that s-selects a category canonically realized as an NP object.

By X-bar theory, visit must head a VP and, by the projection principle, its NP object

must appear in the syntactic representation. The object must be an empty category

(EC), because no overt NP is present. One of the values of the X-bar theory

parameters for English is that English is a ―head-first‖ language, so that the object is

to the right of visit. Furthermore, to be licensed, the predicate [visit e] must have a

subject, the two forming a clause (S); since the subject is not overt, it must be another

EC.

Turning to persuade, we know that it is a verb that takes an object and a clausal

complement, their order determined by the Case adjacency principles as we have

seen.

The systems called ―languages‖ in common sense usage tolerate exceptions:

irregular morphology, idioms, and so forth. These exceptions do not fall naturally

45

under the principles-and–parameters conception of UG. Suppose we distinguish core

language from peripheral, where a core language is a system determined by fixing

values for the parameters of UG, and the peripheral is whatever is added on in the

system actually represented in the mind/brain of a speaker-hearer.

Move-α: NP-Movement and Wh-Movement. Case assigning takes place in the phase

of transformation in order to A book was written by the boy. The

traditional way to obtain a passive is to move the object of the active sentence to be

subject of the passive sentence, and add was, and by. In GB, the passive is seen as

having a D-structure in which the NP a book occurs after the Verb and the moves into

subject position. Another ex. What did he do?(The tree diagram adapted from Cook

and Newson,1996:177)

CP

NP C‘

What C IP

I‘

I VP

did NP V‘

he V NP

do t

That the boy wrote a book at nine is true.

(1

st

tree adapted from 宋国明,1997:144; 2

nd

tree Cook and Newson, 1996:175)

IP

CP I‘

C‘

I VP

C IP (Tense, AGR)

[Present][singular]

That NP I‘ V‘

the boy I VP V AP

(Tense, AGR)

[Past] [singular] V‘ is A‘

-ed

V‘ PP A

46

V NP P‘ true

write a book P NP

at nine

IP

CP I‘

C‘

I VP

C IP (Tense, AGR)

[Present][singular]

That I‘ V‘

I VP V AP

(Tense, AGR)

[Past] [singular] NP V ‗ is A‘

-ed

the boy V‘ PP A

V NP P‘ true

write a book P NP

at nine

References

Chomsky, Noam.1968, Language and Mind (parts)

/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/

Hauser, Marc D. and Noam Chomsky, The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has

It, and How Did It Evolve?

/club5/?topic_id=12644&forum_id=125&cat_id=

8

Newmeyer, F. J.1998a.杨春雷译 形式和功能的对立

/researcherpages/articles/

Newmeyer, F. J.1998b柯飞译. 乔姆斯基语言哲学述略 外语与翻译1998年第4

期/

曹聪孙,1996,语言类型学与汉语的SVO和SOV之争 天津师大学报:社科版 No.2

PP.75-80

(北大中文系语言学论文选)

程工,2001, 读乔姆斯基《语言与思维研究中的进展》外语教学与研究2001年第

3期 /cbb/qwjs/lib/

47

刘俐李,2002,计算机与乔姆斯基语言学 语言与翻译2002年第四期

/han/lunwen/

于江生, Chomsky的语言哲学观

/yujs/papers/html/

张学斌,2002,遥望两位学术大师的对话《中华读书报》2002年5月22日

cf. also

20世纪语言学史上一次伟大的辩论

/club5/?forum_id=125&cat_id=8

石安石,1996,布龙菲尔德语法理论的贡献 外语教学与研究 No.3 pp.1-7

Further Reading

金立鑫《语言学概论》/

丘启良、甘甲才《语言学概论》210.38.42.1/zhongwen/

徐通锵 《语言学概论网络课件》

202.205.160.49:8080/media_file/2001_11_16/newy/ or

/file_post/display/?FileID=5823

《语言学概论》语法学习与同步练习

202.205.160.49:8080/media_file/2002_11_22/yyxweb/ or

/file_post/display/?FileID=12445

张祖春《英语语言学概论》重难点提示

/jiaoxue/2001-02/fuxizl/

Silzer, Peter J. g with Language: An interactive guide to understanding

language and linguistics

/faculty/petes/linguistics/ (290 pp.)

Roach, Peter A Little Encyclopedia of Phonetics

/~llsroach/

Mark Israel's AUE FAQ,1997-9-29 /

The sci_lang FAQ 9 – 14 /#

The Linguistic Society of America / (About Linguistics)

The Summer Institute of Linguistics /linguistics/

Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, UCL /

USC Chinese Linguistics: /dept/LAS/ealc/chinling/ (University of

Southern California)

Ohio State Univ. /files/

Oxford Univ. Linguistics /

Introduction to linguistics (MIT Ling Course)

/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-900Introduction-to-Lingu

isticsSpring2002/CourseHome/

"MIT Linguistics Papers" provides "Other linguistics paper archives":

Kai von Fintel's list of Online Papers in Syntax & Semantics:

/linguistics/www/

Rutgers Optimality Archive: /

Blackwell's list of University/department home pages, some of which have papers

48

available:

/linguist/

Rochester's list of Linguistics-Related Archives:

/

Penn Linguistics (Univ. of Pennsylvania)

Downloadable papers by faculty and students:

/papers/

Penn Working Papers in Linguistics: /papers/

Penn Linguistics course: /courses/ling001 (Some lecture

notes accessible)

/ The CogPrints project (Free On-line Ling Papers)

The LINGUIST List / (It‘s a Listserv, Mailing List)

清华大学语言文学网络资源166.111.107.91/content/wlxt/net_

北京大学汉语语言学研究中心语言学资料库

/?item=1

北京大学计算语言学研究所首页＞科研信息>学术成果>论文荟萃

/research/achievements/

北京大学中文论坛 /bbs/ (北大中文系学术论坛:文学、语

言)

广东外语外贸大学外国语言学及应用语言学研究中心 /

湖南大学语言学系 /

中山大学语言理论与实践 /

新浪论坛 /?arts:xugou

英语语言学论坛

Noam Chomsky研究专辑

/club5/?forum_id=125&cat_id=8

湘里妹子学术论坛/forum/

语言学网站导航 /link/?sortid=2754

应用语言学 /

语言学资源/

中国语用学在线 /

华语桥 / 香港中国语文学会主办 《语文建设通讯》选

辑

An Online Glossary of Some Linguistic Terms available at:

also linked by /

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Resources/汉英语言

学术语对照表.zip

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Resources/国际音标

字体.zip

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Resources/语言学书

目.zip

/ 现代汉语书刊简介

/oldversion/ 语言学理论导读书目 (南京大

学中文系)

49

/~linguist/ Linguistics from English Department at Florida

International Univ.

/~linguist/ WWW Linguistics (from Linguistics Resources of

FIU Eng Dept)

/VL/AppLingBBK/ WWW Applied Linguistics (ibid: FIU Eng

Dept)

Links to other information resources /

Linguistic Links /

The British Association for Applied Linguistics /

Web Journal of Formal, Computational & Cognitive Linguistics

Linguistics Bibliographies

/Linguistics%20Linguistics/linguistics_

Linguistics departments throughout the world

/

Useful links for

/useful_links_for_linguistics_

Linguistics Homepages /linguistics_

Other Linguistics Journals /other_linguistics_

Baghinipour, Majid What is Linguistics /

Shahheidari, Gholam Abbass Modern Linguistics

/

Chomsky‘s Books /html/4/41/

Quotations from Chomsky‘s books /html/4/41/

Chomsky for Philosophers

/%7Epbohanbr/Webpage/New/

Chomsky A Life of Dissent

/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/

Ferdinand de Saussure

/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/

语言学的魅力(周家發's Website) /kfzhouy/

学点语言学 /sbpage/ 赵宝斌 编辑整理 (Joe: Not

so professional)

世界上的语言

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Miscellaneous/la

nguages_in_the_

世界语言的多样性

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Miscellaneous/divers

ity_of_

人類語言發展史

:2003/eddie/

王彬彬 隔在中西之间的日本——现代汉语中的日语“外来语”问题

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Miscellaneous/来自

日语的外来语.TXT

50

史有為 论当代语言接触与外来词

/articles/shiyouwei/

孟伟根 从词典的释义看大陆的性知识

/articles/yuwenjianshetongxun/

警察妓女不能讲

/doubtfire/?FileLink=/doubtfire/Joke/dialect_

m

英语绕口令 /

鲍林杰, 德怀特, 1993, 《语言要略》, 方立等译。北京: 外语教学与研究出版社。

(¥19.80)

Bolinger, Dwight. 1968/1975. Aspects of Language. New York: Harcourt Brace

Javanovich.

Crystal, David. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. 2

nd

ed. Cambridge:

Cambridge

University Press. (《剑桥语言百科词典》外语教学与研究出版社已引进，约

¥70)

Fromkin, Victoria and Robert Rodman. 1998. An Introduction to Language. 6

th

ed.

Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Matthews, Peter Hugoe. 1997. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford:

Oxford University Press. Reprinted Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language

Education Press 2000. (《牛津语言学词典》，¥17.50)

O‘Grady, William. Michael Dobrovolsky and Mark Aronoff. 1989. Contemporary

Linguistics: An Introduction. 1

st

ed. New York: St. Martin‘s Press.

王刚,1988,普通语言学基础. 长沙:湖南教育出版社。

许国璋, 1991, 语言的定义、功能、起源, 载许国璋(著), 《许国璋论语言》, 北

京：外语教学与研究出版社, pp. 1-19。

许国璋, 1991, 语言符号的任意性问题, 载许国璋(著), 《许国璋论语言》, 北京：

外语教学与研究出版社, pp.20-40。

Exercises: (Leaflet top right corner: Chinese Name, Student Number, Class, Grade,

Department)

1.

Judge whether the following statements are true or false:

1) Language is merely a system of communication. ( )

2) Language has a form-meaning correspondence. ( )

3) English is more difficult to learn than Chinese. ( )

4) Hymes advanced the idea of communicative competence. ( )

2.

Choose the best answer to complete each of the following sentences:

1). Father of modern linguistics is ________

A. Bloomfield B. Chomsky C. Halliday D. Saussure

2). Which of the following is not a branch of linguistics?

A. Syntax B. Phonology C. Psychology D. Phonetics E. Semantics

3). What does ―GB‖ stand for in Chomskyan linguistics?

A. Great Britain B. Golf Bag C. Government and Binding D. Principles and

51

Parameters

4). What does ―IPA‖ stand for?

A. International Phonetic Alphabet B. International Phonemic Association

C. Inflectional Phrasal Argument D. India Pale Ale

5). ________ studies the structure of words.

A. Syntax B. Semantics C. Morphology D. Phonology

6)."The study of the way listeners perceive the sounds " refers to ________ .

A. articulatory phonetics B. acoustic phonetics

C. auditory phonetics D. None

3.

Give the phonetic symbol for each of the following sounds:

(1) voiceless bilabial stop

(2) voiced palatal affricate

(3) voiceless labiodental fricative

(4) voiced alveolar stop

(5) voiced velar stop

(6) voiced bilabial nasal

(7) voiced dental fricative

(8) voiced velar nasal

(9) palatal glide

(10) voiced alveolar fricative

4.

According to the description of the sound segments, fill the provided speech

sounds of English in the blanks.

1) voiced dental fricative: ____

2) voiceless postalveolar fricative:____

3) velar nasal:_____

4) voiced alveolar stop:_____

5) voiceless bilabial stop:_____

6) voiceless velar stop:_____

7) (alveolar) lateral:_____

8) high front lax unrounded vowel:_____

9) high back tense rounded vowel:_____

10) low back lax rounded vowel:_____

5.

Substitute the Arabic numerals with appropriate English consonants

Manner of

Labio-

Articulation

Bilabial

dental

Stop 1 2

Nasal 7

Fricative 10

11

Place of Articulation

Post-

Dental Alveolar

Alveolar

3 4

8

12 14 15 16 17

13

52

Palatal Velar Glottal

5 6 25

9

18

Approximate 19 20 21

Lateral 22

Affricate 23 24

6.

Judge whether the following are possible English words, and why?

(1) [] (2) [] (3) [] (4) [] (5) []

(6) [] (7) [] (8) [] (9) [] (10) []

(11) [] (12) [] (13) [] (14) [] (15) []

(16) [] (17) [] (18) [] (19) [] (20) []

(21) [] (22) [] (23) []

If a word begins with a [, , , l], then must the next sound be a vowel?

7.

Is the italicized part in each of the following sentences an inflectional morpheme

or a derivational morpheme? Point out the grammatical meaning of each italicized

morpheme.

(1) Jane dances to fast music.

(2) Jane danced a polka yesterday.

(3) Jane has not yet danced her way into the hearts of her colleagues.

(4) Jane is dancing her little daughter round the room.

8.

Give the sub-categorization feature for each of the following:

1.建议 2.困扰 3.看 4.摆 5.碎 6.相信

9.

Define the following terms, give examples where possible:

1) arbitrariness

2) duality

3) metalingual function

4) phonetics

5) phonology

6) langue vs. parole

7) competence vs. performance

8) communicative competence

10.

Draw a tree diagram for each of the following:

from China, tea from China, drink tea, fond of tea, finish my paper on Tuesday, play

the piano, proof of his guilt, with a pen, full of himself, his fear of the dark,

(boldfaces indicate heads)

an old grey man, a high red brick wall, her small round pink face, a beautiful

53

big/old/long red French plastic toy car, old men and women

The girl eats a red apple in her room every day.

John said that Mary left. He said that they got him.

The American officer announced with exciting tears in his eyes that the brave rapid

soldiers finally captured the former Iraqi president Saddam alive in his hometown on

December 14.

The man who opened the door was John.

The man who opened the door wearing thick glasses of medium build with short hair

was John.

On Sunday I will put the book on the shelf at your request.

Mary is quite fond of her job.

The announcement of the news on the local radio surprised all the students of

linguistics from England.

She has decided that owners of big cars without children should pay tax.

11.

Develop each of the following topics into an essay:

1) The definition of language (human lang. biological, social, mathematical, sign

lang.)

2) The arbitrariness of language

3) Duality as an important feature of human language (animal lang., traffic lights,

semaphore)

4) The designing features of language

5) The functions of language

6) The origin of language

7) The animal language

8) Langue, parole, competence, and performance

9) Competence, performance, and communicative performance

10) Pronunciation discrepancies between American English and British English

11) Some stress patterns in English

12) The relationships between phonetics and phonology

13) The relationships between phone, allophone, and phoneme.

14) The relationships between morph, allomorph, and morpheme.

15) Assimilation rules in English or Chinese.

16) The influence of English upon Cantonese vocabulary (store, tie, case)

17) The influence of ancient Chinese upon Cantonese vocabulary (食、饮、入来)

18) The application of phonetics/phonology/morphology/syntax to English learning.

19) Give some instances of neology/neologism (Chinese, English, French, Japanese,

or Russian) that you think are frequently used and analyze their internal structures.

(e.g. GG, MM, JJ, B4, U2, r, BoBo, 668, , )

20) Syntagmatic relation and paradigmatic relation in language (At the level of

phonology, morphology, and syntax, cf. p. 121)

21) Endocentric construction and exocentric construction

22) Functionalism and Formalism – Reading notes on Linguistics

23) An initial introduction to French/Japanese/Russian (in terms of linguistic

54

typology. graphemics字位学: grapheme书写单位;字素; phonetics: pronunciation;

phonology: phonemes, stress, intonation; morphology: inflection, word formation;

syntax: number, gender, case, tense, aspect, concord, government)

24) An initial comparison between French and English or Japanese and Chinese

25) The characteristics of Internet language

26) Internet Resources and English Learning

27) To what extent is Chomskyan linguistics psychologically oriented?

28) To what extent is Hallidayan linguistics sociologically oriented?

29) On whose shoulders does Chomsky stand?

30) On whose shoulders does Halliday stand?

31) Reflections on Chomskyan theory

32) Remarks on Hallidayan theory (p.152 Language serves for the expression of

content…)

33) My impressions on linguistics as a discipline. (e.g. Is linguistics a social science?

natural science? Sociology? Psychology? …cf. 鲍林杰, 1993:vi:“没有哪一个学科

领域象语言学那样存在着如此多的谬误，不仅存在着，而且还继续被当作真理

传授着。”)

12 Account for the grammaticality of the following sentences:

For there to be a man in the room is unlikely. Is it really necessary for there to be

an exam?

For John to go would be a mistake. I would like for John to go.

I will vote for Senator Smith in the election. Which senator will you vote for in

the election?

For which senator will you vote in the election? I am anxious for Senator Smith to

win.

*Which senator are you anxious for to win? *For which senator are you anxious

to win?

He ran up the hill and up the mountain. *He ran up his mother and up his

sister.

She might have been watching television or (

4

might (

3

have (

2

been (

1

reading a book.)

What d‘you think she might have been doing?

3

Having

2

been

1

watching television. (*Might have been watching television.)

He suggested that she might have been watching television, and …

So she might have been./So she might have./So she might./*So she.

She might have been watching television more often than

1

he/

2

might/

3

have been.

Who did you see Mary with? (subjacency principle, cannot cross two bounding

nodes)

*Who did you see Mary and ? (NP Island, Ross found 4 islands)

John likes the book that Mary wrote. (cannot ask a wh-question about Mary)

John wonders what Mary likes. *Who does John wonder what likes?

(Wh-Island)

John will come if/when Mary comes. *Who will John come if /when comes?

(Adjunct Island)

55

John regrets that Mary likes Tom. *Who does John regret that Mary likes?

(Factual Island)

*How many books did he buy about IT? How many books did he write about IT?

He wondered where John put what *what did he wonder where John put

Who do you wanna see? Who do you want to see Tom? *Who do you wanna see

Tom?

He

i

wants himself

i

to win. He

i

wants e

i

to win. He wanna win. (an EC within

wanna?)

John‘s being certain to pass TEM8 *John‘s certainty to pass TEM8

John‘s amusing the children with his stories *John‘s amusement of the children with

his stories

the proof of the theorem John‘s three proofs of the theorem *the proving of the

theorem

*How many books did John buy about IT? How many books did John write about

IT?

He wondered where John put what. *What did he wonder where john put?

*What did he stammer that he had seen? What did he say that he had seen?

We decided to leave. *We decided John to leave. We decided that John should

leave.

We believed John to have left. It is possible to win. *It is likely to win. (try, decide are

unmarked, believe, consider are marked thus special, and some adjectives also show

this phenomenon.)

He wanted/tried to win. *He said to win. He wants very much for John to win.

(Xu,1988:327 says Chomsky attributes the difference between try and say to the

Lexicon, not syntax.)

I believe him to be wise. *I believe for him to be able to win. I‘m anxious for him to

win.(C&N, 1996:137 say not all English infinitival clauses allow overt subjects, here

believe and for assign Accusative Case, which is Exceptional Case Marking. But on

p.334 MP assumes that ECM involves the subject of the lower clause raising to the

specifier of the AGR

0

of the higher clause )

John

i

likes him

j

John

i

likes himself

i

*John

i

thinks she likes

himself

i

John‘s

j

brother

i

likes him

j

*John‘s

i

brother

j

likes him

j

John‘s

i

brother

j

likes

himself

j

*John‘s

i

brother

j

likes himself

i

*John

i

thinks himself

i

is intelligent John

i

thinks he

i

is intelligent

Mary

j

was upset by John‘s

i

criticism of himself

i

Mary

i

was upset by John‘s

j

criticism of her

i

Colorless green ideas sleeps furiously. Visiting aunts can be boring.

Flying planes can be dangerous. John is easy to please. John is eager to please.

Sincerity may frighten the boy. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. *The boy may

frighten sincerity. A week elapsed. *The boy elapsed. (One cannot elapse a book. is

acceptable)

I have been taught physics by Einstein. *Einstein has taught me physics.

56

I persuaded John to leave. I expected John to leave.

John is too stubborn to talk to Bill John is too stubborn to talk to

John is too clever to expect us to catch Bill John is too clever to expect us to

catch

13 Gloss the following sentences:

Li Kui ba yiba fuzi gei-le Lin Chong. John-ga Mary-ni hon-o atae-ta

Li Kui BA a-CL ax give-Asp Lin Chong John-Nom Mary-Dat book-Acc give-Pst

Li Kui gave Lin Chong an ax. (Chinese) John gave a book to May. (Japanese)

Jean embrasse souvent Marie. John-nun Mary-lul salangha-n-ta.

John kisses often Mary John-top Mary-acc love-pres-decl

John often kisses Mary. (French) John loves Mary. (Korean)

14 Read the following and consider how language serves the function of

communication:

A boy brings home an object which he has found on a building site. His mother

wishes to express her disapproval. non-linguistic smacking him,

linguistic options such as:

1) that‘s very naughty of you

2) I‘ll smack you if you do that again

3) I don‘t like you to do that

4) that thing doesn‘t belong to you

5) Daddy would be very cross

6) playing in that sort of place ruins your clothes

7) grown-ups like to be tidy

8) it‘s not good for you to get too excited

9) boys who are well brought up play nice games in the park

10) all that glass might get broken

11) Daddy doesn‘t like you to play rough games

12) you might hurt yourself

13) you ought to show Johnny how to be a good boy

14) other people‘s things aren‘t for playing with

15) Mummy knows best

16) you mustn‘t play with those kind of boys

17) little boys should do as they‘re told

18) that tin belongs to somebody else

19) I told you I didn‘t want you to do that

20) you‘ll get smacked next time

21) you can go there when you‘re bigger

22) I‘ll smack you

23) Daddy‘ll smack you

24) you‘ll get smacked

25) I‘ll smack you if you do that again

26) Daddy‘ll smack you if you go on doing that

57

27) you‘ll get smacked

28) you do that again and I‘ll smack you

29) you go on doing that again Daddy‘ll smack you

30) don‘t you do that again or you‘ll get smacked

31) you stop doing that

32) I shall be cross with you

33) Daddy‘ll be cross with you

34) you‘ll fall down

35) you‘ll get hurt; you‘ll hurt yourself

36) you‘ll get dirty

37) you‘ll cut your hands; your hands‘ll get cut

38) you‘ll tear your clothes; your clothes‘ll get torn

39) your feet‘ll get wet

40) you‘ll get yourself hurt

41) you‘ll get your hands cut

42) you‘ll get your feet wet

(Halliday, 1973. Towards a sociological semantics. in Brumfit and Johnson eds.

1979, pp. 28-39 reprinted by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press 2000.)

(Key to Q3: [, , , , , , , , , ]) (戴炜栋等, 1989: 28)

(Key to Q4: 1.[], 2.[], 3.[], 4.[], 5.[], 6.[], 7.[], 8.[], 9.[], 10.[]) (Hu et

al., 2001: 74,479)

I hope you enjoy linguistics as much as I do.

58