Linguistics

- Is the scientific study of language (verifiable, supported by data)

The study of language dates back to the Greek tradition.

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

*no inherent logic why it is called that way

**sign language

Arbitrary

- Perceived differently, single stimulus

o Rooster crow (different for languages: English – cock a doodle doo V.S. Filipino –
tiktilaok) onomatopoeia

Grammar

- Refers to the structural rules that govern the language

Descriptive Grammar

- Looks at the way a language is actually used by its speakers and then attempts to analyse it and
formulate rules about the structure
- Does not deal with what is good or bad language use

Prescriptive Grammar

- Lays out rules about structure of a language

- Unlike a descriptive grammar it deals with what the grammarian believes to be right and wrong,
good or bad language use; not following the rules will generate incorrect language.
- Standard

Examples

1. I am older than her. (prescriptive – wrong)

2. I am older than she.

Linguistics is descriptive.

Examples (Prescriptive – wrong)

- NagSM ako. V.S. Pumunta ako sa SM.

- Paburger ka naman.
- Nagcoke na ako eh.
- If I ain’t got you.
- I dunno.
- The guacamole is hella good.
- Sequence of adjectives
Components of Grammar

Phonetics – articulation and perception of speech sounds

Phonology – patterning of speech sounds

Morphology – word formation

Syntax – sentence formation

Semantics – interpretation of words and sentences

Linguistic Competence

- What you know about a language

Linguistic Performance

- How you use this knowledge in actual speech production

Characteristics of Grammar

- Generality
- Parity
- Universality
- Mutability
- Inaccessibility

Generality

- All languages have a grammar

- If no grammar, no system and if no system, no communication and no language

Parity

- All grammars are equal (linguistically)

- Speakers put value
- No such thing as a primitive grammar or language
- No such thing as good grammar or bad grammar

Universality

- Grammars are alike in basic ways

- Universal grammar, universal tendencies
- Universal traits that exists in all varieties of language
- All languages can have subjects, objects and verbs, but what order they can occur in in a
sentence is language specific

Inaccessibility
 - Grammatical knowledge is subconscious (no instruction is needed for the acquiring of the
grammar)
- Something is grammatical in linguistics if a native speaker can say it in a natural way - this
grammatical knowledge is what you feel like you can and can’t say (possible/impossible not
should/shouldn’t)
- Something is ungrammatical in linguistics if a native speaker of a language would never say it in
that way
- A native speaker of a language is unaware of the rules of the language
o That is why it is troublesome to try and explain how something “works” to someone
who is learning your language.
o You know what’s right but you don’t know why it is right

Mutability

- Grammars change over time

- Language is changing all the time
- Language does not exist in a vacuum
- Language in contact with other languages (No language does not borrow)
- *language purity, language purism
- Language that doesn’t change – language death

Linguists reject the view that languages attain a state of perfection at some point in their history and
that subsequent changes lead to deterioration and corruption.

Filipino VS Tagalog

Filipino – opisyal na wikang pambansa

Tagalog – wikang panrehiyon, na malawakang ginagamit sa Bulacan at Timog Luzon

“One Country One Language”

Filipino to Tagalog?

United States – no national language (de jure)

Filipino = consisting of Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Kapampangan

- But what is the grammar of Filipino?

Bias and prejudice in English

- Bakit pag na-wrong grammar sa Ingles, pinagtatawanan?

Animal Communication and Language

Animal Communication

- Is the transmission of a signal from one animal to another such that the sender benefits on
average, from the response of the recipient (Pearce, 1987:252)

Communicative Signals

- Intentional and carry meaning

- A bird may make a loud squawk at the sight of a predator (communication: Hey everyone,
lookout! Something is going to eat us!!)
- I say to you that I am here to teach the class (intentional: I am the professor)

Informative Signals

- Not intentional but still carry meaning

- A bird may suddenly fly away at the approach of a predator (information: we deduce that the
bird must be frightened)
- I am sitting at the desk in front of the room (information: I must be the professor)

Animals can be informative and communicative.

Examples of Animal Communication

- The Waggle Dance of Honeybees

- Banobos

Properties of Human Language

- Reflexivity
o Humans are able to reflect. They are able to talk about, or reflect on language itself.
Without this ability, we could not even talk about the other properties of language.
o Dogs are able to bark at each other, but they are probably not barking about barking
itself.
- Displacement
o Humans can talk about past, present, future.
o Humans can talk about things that don’t exist or we can’t see.
o Animal communication is about here and now.
o Animals can’t displace in either time or space.
- Arbitrariness
o There is no natural connection between a word’s form and its meaning (with exception
of onomatopoeia)
o Animal communicative sounds are closely correlated with their meanings
 Think of a cat: grr hisss meow screech! purr…. It doesn’t use a variety of sounds
to express their conditions. These sounds always mean the one thing they
mean.
 Veret monkeys have 36 cries of warning for different predators, but…
 An animals “vocabulary” is finite. Limited.
- Productivity
o Human vocabulary and sentences are infinite and open-ended.
 - Cultural Transmission
o We acquire our speech from the environment we are raised in, our culture, which
includes our language, our accent, our expressions.
- Duality
o Human language is organized at two levels:
 The sounds (PHONETICS) which carry no individual meaning and
 The combination of sounds (PHONOLOGY and MORPHOLOGY) which carry
meaning.
o Economical: with a limited number of discrete sounds, we can produce an infinite
number of meanings.
o Animal sounds can’t be broken down into levels
 woof = *w + oo + f
 *oofw
 *foow
o Human words can be broken down into levels:
 Beautifully = beauty + -ful + -ly

Language Structure: Sounds

Ways of Approaching Phonetics

- Acoustic Phonetics
o concerned with the properties of the sound waves and how they are received by the
inner ear
- Articulatory Phonetics (Basic)
o Concerned with the positions and movements of the lips, tongue, vocal tract and folds
and other speech organs in producing speech
- Auditory Phonetics
o Concerned with speech perception, principally how the brain forms perceptual
representations of the input it receives

International Phonetic Alphabet

- More consonants than vowels

- Pulmonic consonants – formed through the lungs, “p”
- Non-pulmonic consonants – none in the Philippine languages, “z”: disappointment, smuck
- Vowel Chart

Phonetic transcription is the representation of speech sounds (phonetic notation).

How many sounds are there in the tagalog word ‘mga’

- 4 non-distinct
- 3 distinct

[ ] – phonetic notation

// - phonemic notation
< > - orthographic notation

Glottal stop

Sound classes

- Consonants
- Vowels
- Semi vowels

Consonantal Features

- Articulate
- <PA> then <BA>
- <PA> then <TA> then <KA> (umuurong yung dila)

Nasal sounds

- [m] nasal Ex: ulam

- [p] plosive Ex: ulap
- [s] fricative Ex: ahas
- [ʧ] affricate (plosive + fricative) Ex: tsunami [ts]

Other examples (see notebook)

- Juice, dyaryo, tiya

Consonantal Features

- Place of Articulation
- Manner of Articulation
- Voicing

Vocalic Features

- Articulate:
o <HE> then <AH> (high vs low)
o <HE> then <WHO> (front vs back)
- Tongue height
- Roundness
- Frontness

Phones VS Phonemes

Phoneme

- Is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language

Minimal Pairs

- Pin v.s. Bin (p – aspirated)

 - Basa v.s. Pasa

Conditioning Environment

- Bruce Wayne and Batman

Minimal Pairs

- tu’bo (sugarcane) v.s. ‘tubo (pipe)

Vowel – nucleus

Language Structure: Words

What do we already know about morphology?

- We know a lot of words

- We know a word when we know its pronunciation and meaning
- We know that words are usually arbitrary
- We know a word’s grammatical category
- We know how to make new words

Morphology

- Identification, analysis, and description of the structure of morphemes

Words

- Word
o Smallest free form found in language
- Free form is simply an element that does not have to occur in a fixed position with respect to
neighboring elements
- Ex. The birds left.

Morphological types

- The way in which the main features of grammar are expressed morphologically

3 Main Types

- Isolating
o …tends to have one morpheme per word (i.e. there are many free morphemes and few
bound morphemes)
o Example
 Chinese wo ai ni
- Agglutinating
o In agglutinating languages, a word may contain several morphemes. However, the
boundaries between morphemes are easy to recognize. Typically, each morpheme
express a single meaning.
o Example
  Japanese
- Inflectional
o Morphemes in inflectional languages are not readily distinguishable from the root or
among themselves. Several grammatical bits of meaning may be fused into one affix.

Pragmatics

- Studies ways in which context contribute to meanings

- *extension of semantics, meanings in different contexts
- Language is used for different purposes
- Language can change according to the needs of a listener/situation

Writing System

- Symbolic representation of a language by graphic signs/symbols

- Not all languages have a writing system

Orthography (Greek - “orthos”: correct, “graphein”: to write)

- Describes/defines (prescriptive) the set of symbols used and the rules about how to write these
symbols

Graphemes (fundamental unit in a written language)

- In a fully phonemic language: a grapheme corresponds to 1 phoneme

Types of Writing System

- Logogram
o Written character which represents a complete word
o Chinese Characters
- Syllabary
o Written symbols that represent syllables
o Japanese which make up words
- Alpha Syllabary
o Combination of syllabary and alphabet
o Symbol that represents syllables with (default vowels)
o Abugida
o Ex: Baybayin
o Segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as a unit:
each unit is based on a consonant letter and vowel notation is secondary
- Abjad
o One symbol per consonant
o No vowels
- Alphabetic
o Both consonants/vowels
o Each letter has a symbol