Language Universals - United International

Language Universals
Eifring, H. & Theil, R. (2005) Language
Universals. In Linguistics for Students of
Asian and African Languages (Chapter 3).
Retrieved 01/02/09 from
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/EXFAC0
3-AAS/h05/larestoff/linguistics/
Chapter%203.(H05).pdf
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. (1981).
Mandarin Chinese - A Functional Reference
Grammar. Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
1. Kinds of Universals
• Absolute: properties found in (almost) all
languages.
– Subject, verb, object (SVO) but not necessarily in that
order
• Statistical: reflect important trends that are found
in a predominant part of the languages of the
world, but not necessarily in all.
– Subject usually precedes the object
• Implicational: generalizations about properties of
just a small selection of languages.
– If language has property A then it also has property B,
but not necessarily the other way around.
– If “A” voiced fricatives: v z
– Then “B” unvoiced fricatives: f s
– But not the opposite
• For an implicational universal to make
sense, there must also exist languages that
have neither property A or B
• If a language typically places the main verb
between the subject and object, the relative
modifying clauses usually follow the noun
they modify.
2. Theories/Explanations
•
•
•
•
Monogenesis
Language contact hypothesis
Innateness hypothesis
Functional explanations
2.1 Monogenesis hypothesis
• All languages stem from the same protolanguage and have inherited the same
universal traits from it.
– Subject tend to proceed objects
– Verb locations varies a lot
• Arabic at the beginning
• English in between subject and object
• Japanese at the end
– Languages that change
• Verb moves from the end to the middle, relative
clauses move too
2.2 Language contact hypothesis
• Languages have many things in common
because they are constantly influenced by
each other
– Exceptional features are found in peripheral
languages that have developed in relative
isolation.
• Languages in which the object usually precedes the
subject mostly found in the geographical periphery
with little outside contact.
2.3 Innateness hypothesis
• Our ability to use language is a part of our genetic
endowment.
• We may be genetically predisposed to distinguish
between vowels and consonants, and to let
subjects precede objects.
• Implicational universals my also be accounted for
this way.
– I.E. relative clauses are positioned based on the position
of the verb
2.3.1 Innate (Universal)
Grammar
• A genetic program specifically designed to
determine the development of our language
ability, i.e. Chomsky.
2.3.2 Anatomic and cognitive
• Speech organs are shaped in a unique way
that enable us to speak the way we do (apes
cannot make the sounds we do)
– Compare our diet and how we breath
– The way we think allows us to speak the way
we do
2.4 Functional explanations
• Some language features are universal
because they make linguistic utterances
easier both to produce and to interpret, for
cognitive, anatomic or other reasons.
– All languages have consonants and vowels
– Subject precedes object
3. Lexical Universals
• Learning a language requires learning new
(concepts) terms and making different
distinctions
– For example, English has one word for cousin,
which is unmarked (neutral) while Chinese
distinguishes eight different kinds of cousins and
has no general word for cousin.
– Chinese has *lexicalized the distinction between
eight different types of cousins
•
*See pg 5 of handout.
3.1 Approximate rather than precise
•
All languages have the concept of black
and white but only in approximate terms.
–
–
Languages with only two colours, black
covers dark and cool colours and white
covers light and warm colours.
Compare also Chinese: hei 黑
What colors are warm? cool?
The following chart displays the difference between
warm and cool colors.
White/Warm colors are based on yellows, oranges,
browns, yellowish greens, orangish reds, and the
like.
Dark/Cool colors are based on blues, greens, pinks,
purples, blue-greens, magentas, and blue-based
reds.
3.2 Statistical rather than absolute
•
•
•
The concept of water is found in most
languages but not all of them
Japanese has mizu which means cold water
and o-yu which means hot water.
Yimas language of New Guinea has no
word for water at all, only the word for
liquid. Compare Chinese shut水
3.3 Absolute and precise
•
•
“I” and “you” seem to be lexicalized in
all languages. However, the English “you”
covers both plural and singular which
means it is polysemous and corresponds to
two different concepts in the language
As far as it is known, all living languages
have the concept of singular “you.”
•
•
•
The concept (biological) mother seems to be
found in all living languages throughout the
world, but it doesn't necessarily cover the
same range of meanings in all languages. This
just means that all languages have a word
with (biological) mother as one of its
meanings.
The English word mother can stand for many
things like the master matrix for records and
CDs
In the Australian language Yankunyatatjara
means one's mother, but can also refer to one's
mother's sister or a female cousin
• Man and woman.
– English and most languages use one word: man,
hombre
– Chinese: nan 男nu 女 plus ren 人
4. Basic colour terms
•
•
It was believed that different languages
classified colours in more or less random
ways. However, now it is know that
focal colours are basically the same across
languages.
–
–
–
They are determined not by language, but
by the physiology of colour perception.
Example of hung 红hong 萝luo卜bo
Go to the chart on p. 7 of the handout.
• A language may have from one to eleven
basic colour terms.
• The table is based on focal colours and tells
us little about the actual range of each colour
term in a given language.
5. Universal word classes (parts of
speech)
•
•
•
When concepts are expressed in words they are
lexicalized (review how words are chosen).
Concepts may also be expressed in grammatical
construction called grammatical expression.
Different languages give different grammatical
expression to concepts, but there are also many
similarities.
5.1 The most universal word class
•
The word class which is the most universal
is that of the interjections.
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–
–
–
•
Expressive: ouch, oh, wow, aha
Directive: hush, psst, hey
*Phatic: mym, yes, no huh
Descriptive ideophones: wham, thud, bang
Compare Chinese
phatic
Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings
or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to
communicate information or ideas.
Phatic (n.d.) In Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 18
March 2009, from
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
5.2 Nouns and verbs
•
All (or at least nearly all) languages of the
world also make distinctions between
nouns and verbs.
–
–
–
The prototypical noun refers to an entity
(substance or object) (person, place or thing)
The prototypical verb refers to a (dynamic
or stative) process also state of being.
Word classes are flexible
•
•
Love is not a concrete substance (it is a
thing)
The verb “to be” is not a process (it is a state
of being)
5.3 Assigning words
• Different languages assign different words to
different classes
– English: Cut with (preposition) a knife
– Chinese: yong (verb) yi ba dao qie... 用一把刀
切...
• We expect to have many examples of these in
our presentations
5.4 Syntax and morphology
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•
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Syntactically, an event is typically
expressed by a verb
Participants of the event (subject, and
objects) are nouns
Morphologically, nouns and verbs are
often inflected for different categories.
–
English nouns are inflected (declined) for
number
– Verbs are inflected (conjugated) in a
complex system using auxiliary forms to
express a number of categories such as
tense, aspect, mood, person and number.
• In Japanese, nouns are uninflected but the
verb system is as least as complicated as
English, except for person and number.
• Compare Chinese
5.5 Distinctions between nouns &
verbs
•
Languages with much inflection tend to
make a more clear-cut distinction between
nouns and verbs. English has a few
exceptions:
–
Participles can have noun-like features:
giving
•
–
They make a practice of giving every week.
Derived nominals can have verb-like
features: belief
•
His belief is strong.
5.6 Adjectives are far from universal
•
Most Indo-European languages classify
adjectives in a separate word class that has
more in common with nouns than with
verbs
• Chinese and most SE Asian languages
sometimes make no formal distinction
between adjectives and verbs (see NP ppt).
– Na ge ren gao
• Japanese has two types of adjectives, one
with noun-like features and one with verblike features.
5.6.1 Adjectives: properties and states
•
Endo-European languages emphasize
properties which brings adjectives close to
the noun they modify
–
–
•
The big house is over there.
Da fang zi zai na bian
Chinese and SE Asian languages
emphasize state, and since states are a type
of event (stative events, stative verbs).
Therefore they are classified as verbs.
• Indo-European languages require a form of
“to be” between a subject and a descriptive
adjective. Chinese and SE Asian languages
do not.
– The man is very tall.
– Na ge ren hen gao
6. Speech sounds (handout p.11)
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•
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Most languages have 20 to 35 (segmental)
phonemes. Some phonemes are universal while
others and found in just some languages. English:
42. Chinese??
Consonant: 21, vowels: 35 why?
Diphthongs ao and triphthongs iao
Absolute: All languages distinguish between
vowels and consonants
Statistical: The vast majority of languages has
fewer vowel phonemes than consonant
–
Exception: Brazilian, Xavante. 13 each and of
course Chinese.
6.1 Vowels
•
No language is known to have less than 3
vowel phonemes.
–
•
•
These languages have one closed front
vowel, one closed back vowel and one open
vowel (see handout) p. 11.
No language is know to have more than 46
vowel phonemes.
All languages make distinctions between
closed and open vowels
• All languages make distinctions between
front and back vowels.
• The number of distinctions tend to be higher
in the more close vowels than in the more
open vowels (see p. 12 for more details).
6.2 Consonants
•
•
The number varies from 6 to 95 with the
average being 32
See two universals on the handout, p. 13.
6.3 Phonotactic universals
• All languages have syllables ending in a vowel
(open syllables) but not necessarily syllables
ending in a consonant (closed syllables).
• All languages have syllables with an initial
consonant but not necessarily syllables without an
initial consonant.
• Based on this, here is an implicational universal:
– All languages that allow VC, also allow CVC and V, as
well as CV.
• Even languages that do allow closed
syllables sometimes place severe
restrictions on the type of consonant that
may occur in the syllable-final position.
• Chinese has three: n, ng (e)r
6.3.1 Consonant clusters
• The juxtaposition of two or more
consonants within the same syllable are
quite uncommon: plumbing, debt, bomber.
• Japanese, Korean and Chinese do not allow
it. Three consonants together like the
English sprint is quite exceptional.
6.3.2 Diphthongs and triphthongs
• There seems to be no connection between
the restrictions against consonant clusters
and the restrictions against diphthongs and
triphthongs.
• Chinese allows no consonant clusters but
has diphthongs: ai, ao, ou and triphthongs:
iao, iou
6.4 Phonological form
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•
Meaning and form of a lexical item is
arbitrary. Tree for example.
However, there are 4 exceptions that have
universal features
–
Interjections which are at least partly
biologically motivated.
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•
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Tut: disapproval or wonder or amazement
Hm: afterthought, a question, or a sense of
disapproval
Hey, Chinese: ei, wei
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Onomatopoeia
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•
•
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Actual sounds: bang, swish
Refer to the things making the sound like
cuckoo, ping pong, murmur
These usually adhere to the sound pattern of
the language in which they are used with
some exceptions: buzzing of a bee
Sounds a pig makes or dogs or cats
–
Parental terms are surprisingly similar
•
•
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See page 16 for a list of universals
Nasals occur in well over half of the terms
for mother while only in 15% of the terms
for father. Why?
Sound symbolism is the habitual
association between certain sounds and
certain elements of meaning.
•
•
English: gl is associated with with light and
vision.
More universal is the sound [i] is associated
with small and [a] and [ɔ] are the opposite
Compare Chinese and English
–
Psychological reasons (handout p. 16,
bottom)
– Example of Japanese words for friend and enemy, mitaka
and teki
•
In summary, relations between meaning
and the form seem arbitrary, but there
clearly exists tendencies for certain sounds
and sound combinations to be associated
with certain elements of meaning.

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