英语语言学教程(胡壮麟版).pdf

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1、英语语言学教程（胡壮麟版）Chapter one.Invitation to Linguistic.1.What is language?“Language is system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.It is a system,since linguistic elements are arranged systematically,rather than randomly.Arbitrary,in the sense that there is usually no intrinsic connect

2、ion between a work(like“book”)and the object it refers to.This explains and is explained by the fact that different languages have different“books”:“book”in English,“livre”in French,“shu”in Chinese.It is symbolic,because words are associated with objects,actions,ideas etc.by nothing but convention.N

3、amely,people use the sounds or vocal forms to symbolize what they wish to refer to.It is vocal,because sound or speech is the primary medium for all human languages.Writing systems came much later than the spoken forms.The fact that small children learn and can only learn to speak(and listen)before

4、they write(and read)also indicates that language is primarily vocal,rather than written.The term“human”in the definition is meant to specify that language is human specific.2.Design Features of Language.“Design features”here refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference

5、 between human language and any system of animal communication.They are arbitrariness,duality,productivity,displacement,cultural transmission and interchangeability(1)Arbitrariness:By“arbitrariness”,we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds.(2)Duality:The property of having

6、two levels of structures(phonological and grammatical),units of the primary level being composed of elements of the secondary level and each level having its own principles of organization.(3)Productivity:Productivity refers to the ability to the ability to construct and understand an indefinitely l

7、arge number of sentences in ones native language,including those that has never heard before,but that are appropriate to the speaking situation.The property that enables native speakers to construct and understand an indefinitely large number of utterances,including utterances that they have never p

8、reviously encountered.(4)Displacement:“Displacement”,as one of the design features of the human language,refers to the fact that one can talk about things that are not present,as easily as he does things present.In other words,one can refer to real and unreal things,things of the past,of the present

9、,of the future.Language itself can be talked about too.(5)Cultural transmission:This means that language is not biologically transmitted from generation to generation,but that the details of the linguistic system must be learned anew by each speaker.(6)Interchangeability:Interchangeability means tha

10、t any human being can be both a producer and a receiver of messages.3.Functions of Language.Language has at least seven functions:phatic,directive,Informative,interrogative,expressive,evocative and performative.(1)Phatic function:The“phatic function”refers to language being used for setting up a cer

11、tain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts(rather than for exchanging information or ideas).Greetings,farewells,and comments on the weather in English and on clothing in Chinese all serve this function.(2)Directive function:The“directive function”means that language may be used to get the hearer

12、 to do something.Most imperative sentences perform this function,e.g.,“Tell me the result when you finish.”(3)Informative function:Language serves an“informational function”when used to tell something,characterized by the use of declarative sentences.Informative statements are often labeled as true(

13、truth)or false(falsehood).(4)Interrogative function:When language is used to obtain information,it serves an“interrogative function”.This includes all questions that expect replies,statements,imperatives etc.(5)Expressive function:The“expressive function”is the use of language to reveal something ab

14、out the feelings or attitudes of the speaker.(6)Evocative function:The“evocative function”is the use of language to create certain feelings in the hearer.Its aim is,for example,to amuse,startle,antagonize,soothe,worry or please.(7)Per formative function:This means people speak to“do things”or perfor

15、m actions.4.What is linguistic?“Linguistics”is the scientific study of language.It studies not just one language of any one society,but the language of all human beings.In short,linguistics studies the general principles whereupon all human languages are constructed and operate as systems of communi

16、cation in their societies or communities.5.Main branches of linguistics.The study of language as a whole is often called general linguistics.But a linguist sometimes is able to deal with only one aspect of language at a time,thus the arise of various branches:phonetics,phonology,morphology,syntax,se

17、mantics,pragmatics,sociolinguistics,applied linguistics,psycholinguistics etc.6.Important distinctions in linguistic.(1)synchronic study vs.diachronic study The description of a language at some point of time(as if it stopped developing)is a synchrony study(synchrony).The description of a language a

18、s it changes through time is a diachronic study(diachronic).(2)Speech vs.writing Speech is primary,because it existed long before writing systems came into being.Genetically children learn to speak before learning to write.Secondly,written forms just represent in this way or that the speech sounds:i

19、ndividual sounds,as in English and French as in Japanese.In contrast to speech,spoken form of language,writing as written codes,gives language new scope and use that speech does not have.Most modern linguistic analysis is focused on speech,different from grammarians of the last century and theretofo

20、re.(3)Descriptive vs.prescriptive A linguistic study is“descriptive”if it only describes and analyses the facts of language,and“prescriptive”if it tries to lay down rules for“correct”language behavior.Linguistic studies before this century were largely prescriptive because many early grammars were l

21、argely prescriptive because many early grammars were based on“high”(literary or religious)written records.Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive.(4).langue vs.parole F.de Saussure refers“langue”to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and refers“parole”to t

22、he actual or actualized language,or the realization of langue.Langue is abstract,parole specific to the speaking situation;langue not actually spoken by an individual,parole always a naturally occurring event;langue relatively stable and systematic,parole is a mass of confused facts,thus not suitabl

23、e for systematic investigation.What a linguist ought to do,according to Saussure,is to abstract langue from instances of parole,i.e.to discover the regularities governing all instances of parole and make than the subject of linguistics.The langue-parole distinction is of great importance,which casts

24、 great influence on later linguists.(5).competence vs.performance According to N.Chomsky,“competence”is the ideal language users knowledge of the rules of his language,and“performance”is the actual realization of this knowledge in utterances.The former enables a speaker to produce and understand an

25、indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities.A speakers competence is stable while his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors.So a speakers performance does not always match or equal his supposed competence.Chomsky believes that li

26、nguists ought to study competence,rather than performance.(6).linguistic potential vs.linguistic behavior These two terms,or the potential-behavior distinction,were made by M.A.K.Halliday in the 1960s,from a functional point of view.There is a wide range of things a speaker can do in his culture,and

27、 similarly there are many things he can say,for example,to many people,on many topics.What he actually says(i.e.his“actual linguistic behavior”)on a certain occasion to a certain person is what he has chosen from many possible injustice items,each of which he could have said(linguistic potential).Ch

28、apter 2 Phonetics 1.What is phonetics?“Phonetics”is the science which studies the characteristics of human sound-making,especially those sounds used in speech,and provides methods for their description,classification and transcription,speech sounds may be studied in different ways,thus by three diff

29、erent branches of phonetics.(1)Articulatory phonetics;the branch of phonetics that examines the way in which a speech sound is produced to discover which vocal organs are involved and how they coordinate in the process.(2)Auditory phonetics,the branch of phonetic research from the hearers point of v

30、iew,looking into the impression which a speech sound makes on the hearer as mediated by the ear,the auditory nerve and the brain.(3)Acoustic phonetics:the study of the physical properties of speech sounds,as transmitted between mouth and ear.Most phoneticians,however,are interested in articulatory p

31、honetics.2.The IPA The IPA,abbreviation of“International Phonetic Alphabet”,is a compromise system making use of symbols of all sources,including diacritics indicating length,stress and intonation,indicating phonetic variation.Ever since it was developed in 1888,IPA has undergone a number of revisio

32、ns.3.Place of articulation It refers to the place in the mouth where,for example,the obstruction occurs,resulting in the utterance of a consonant.4.Manner of articulation The“manner of articulation”literally means the way a sound is articulated.5.Phonology“Phonology”is the study of sound systems-the

33、 invention of distinctive speech sounds that occur in a language and the patterns wherein they fall.Minimal pair,phonemes,allophones,free variation,complementary distribution,etc.,are all to be investigated by a phonologist.6.Narrow transcription and broad transcription.The former was meant to symbo

34、lize all the possible speech sounds,including even the most minute shades of pronunciation while Broad transcription was intended to indicate only those sounds capable of distinguishing one word from another in a given language.7.Phone Phoneme Allophone A“phone”is a phonetic unit or segment.The spee

35、ch sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones.When we hear the following words pronounced:pit,tip,spit,etc.,the similar phones we have heard are p for one thing,and three different ps,readily making possible the“narrow transcription or diacritics”.Phones may and may no

36、t distinguish meaning.A“phoneme”is a phonological unit;it is a unit that is of distinctive value.As an abstract unit,a phoneme is not any particular sound,but rather it is represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.For example,the phonemep is represented differently in

37、pit,tip and spit.The phones representing a phoneme are called its“allophones”,i.e.,the different(i.e.,phones)but do not make one word so phonetically different as to create a new word or a new meaning thereof.So the different p s in the above words is the allophones of the same phoneme p.How a phone

38、me is represented by a phone,or which allophone is to be used,is determined by the phonetic context in which it occurs.But the choice of an allophone is not random.In most cases it is rule-governed;these rules are to be found out by a phonologist.8.Minimal pairs?When two different phonetic forms are

39、 identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string,the two forms(i.e.,word)are supposed to form a“minimal pair”,e.g.,“pill”and“bill”,“pill”and“till”,“till”and“dill”,“till”and“kill”,etc.All these words together constitute a minimal set.They are identical

40、 in form except for the initial consonants.There are many minimal pairs in English,which makes it relatively easy to know what English phonemes are.It is of great importance to find the minimal pairs when a phonologist is dealing with the sound system of an unknown language.9.Free variation If two s

41、ounds occurring in the same environment do not contrast;namely,if the substitution of one for the other does not generate a new word form but merely a different pronunciation of the same word,the two sounds then are said to be in“free variation”.10.Complementary distribution When two sounds never oc

42、cur in the same environment,they are in“complementary distribution”.For example,the aspirated English plosives never occur after s,and the unsaturated ones never occur initially.Sounds in complementary distribution may be assigned to the same phoneme.11.Assimilation rule.The“assimilation rule”assimi

43、lates one segment to another by“copying”a feature of a sequential phoneme,thus making the two phones more similar.12.Deletion rule The“deletion rule”tell us when a sound is to be deleted although is orthographically represented.13.Suprasegmental phonology and suprasegmental features“Suprasegmental p

44、honology”refers to the study of phonological properties of linguistic units larger than the segment called phoneme,such as syllable,length and pitch,stress,intonation.Chapter 3.Morphology 1.Morpheme and Morphology The“morpheme”is the smallest unit in terms of relationship between expression and cont

45、ent,a unit which cannot be divided without destroying or drastically altering the meaning,whether it is lexical or grammatical.“Morphology”is the branch of grammar that studies the internal structure of words,and the rules by which words are formed.It is generally divided into two fields:inflectiona

46、l morphology and lexical/derivational morphology.2.Types of Morphemes.(1)free morpheme and bound morpheme A“free morpheme”is a morpheme that constitutes a word by itself,such as bed”,“tree”,etc.A“bound morpheme”is one that appears with at least another morpheme,such as“-s”in“beds”,“-al”in“national”a

47、nd so on.All monomorphemic words are free morphemes.Those polymorphemic words are either compounds(combination of two or more free morphemes)or derivatives(word derived from free morphemes).(2).root;affix;stem A“root”is the base form of a word that cannot be further analyzed without total loss of id

48、entity.It is the part of the word that is left when all the affixes are removed.“Affixes”is a collective term for the type of morpheme that can be used only when added to another morpheme(the root or stem),so affix is naturally bound.(prefix,suffix,infix)A“stem”is any morpheme or combination of morp

49、hemes to which an affix can be added.(3).Inflectional affix and derivational affix.Inflectional affixes:do not change the word class,but only added a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem.Derivational affixes:often change the lexical meaning and word class.Inflectional affixes are mostl

50、y suffixes,and derivational affixes can be prefixes(sub-,de-)or suffixes(-er,-able).3.Inflection “Inflection”is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes,such as number,person,finiteness,aspect,and case,which does not change the grammatical class of