______________________________Summary____________________________________ In this first lecture, Professor Futrell presents these key questions: What are the basics properties of language? And what distinguishes human language from other communication systems? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Basic properties~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Communicativity | - means that language is used for communication, where there needs to be a production of and perception of utterances, also known as modality. There are 3 modalities: Auditory-Visual (spoken) Visual-gestural (sign language) Visual-written(written language) | Semanticity | - means all forms have a meaning or function. There are 3 semiotics: Icon (form resembles the meaning) Index (form resembles a result of the meaning) Symbol (form is associated with the meaning arbitrarily, by convention) Majority of form-meaning associations are symbolic ( Also known as the arbitrariness of the sign) | Cultural transmission | - You learn a language from other people. The language you learn is determined by the people you interact with | Displacement | - Language can be spoken even when the object/entity is not present | Productivity | - Linguistic units can be recombined to express novel meanings, implying that you can express an infinite number of new ideas by recombining parts. good + ness bad + ness pine-scented + ness ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More vocab: | Descriptive Grammar | - description of how a language as it is actually spoken, signed, and written. Vs. | Prescriptive Grammar | - Someone’s set of rules for how language should be spoken, signed, or written. | Mental Grammar | - You have an intuition of the rules of your language.
Is there a proof that productivity actually can recombine words into unlimited ways to express novel meaning? Is there unlimited novel concepts for instance?
(not a linguist/formally trained): This one caught me as well. Two thoughts: 1) Peano arithmetic: using [Zero, +1], we can define an infinite number of positive integers 2) The prefix "anti" could infinitely be prepended to a word to express a novel meaning (recombining parts -> words is infinite)
A less unaware communicative modality would be telepathy Example of a telepathic experience 1. Johnny was thinking about sally. The next day Sally calls Johnny
If writing is just a supplement of spoken languages why we call them written languages. They're not languages in and of themselves. Isn't it? Why not just call them writing systems of spoken languages. Is that case English is then a spoken language with a writing system, but it's not a written language in and of itself.
44:58 but i think thou and You distinction is better , because it removes ambiguity for first person singular or plural meaning. why not consider Prescriptive Grammer in linguistics to manage limitations of language
there is another way to communicate something to someone: physical violence (like the slap of Will Smith who wanted to communicate his disappointment).
could it perhaps be a part of sign/written language? I mean there is a sign (slap movement) and there is someone to perceive it (through skin contact, much like brailles). I would call it gestural-written language, whether it hurts the perceiver or not is irrelevant as written language too could hurt the perceiver
About descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar. Once I saw a sentence which went roughly like this: Less young people have a child. And I thought 'less young, so are they in their 30s?'. Then I realized they meant FEWER young people have a child. And I was like 'dude, you had ONE rule to follow'. This less vs. fewer rule is not there to preserve older forms of English. It's there for a good reason. _Less_ ambiguity leads to _fewer_ misunderstandings which increases comprehensibility. So please don't lump this rule together with the other ones you mentioned. I don't care if the preposition is at the end. I don't care if you don't use _whom_ correctly. But the less vs. fewer rule *makes sense.*
Everything you say can be understood from the context. It's still prescriptive grammar when you're looking to establish a "good" or "bad" form rather than a more recommended one. Simply no one can tell you how to speak. What if the speaker, due to any context, tries to be vague. What I mean is improve or not compressibility for others is up to the speaker not a rule.
