Foundations of English Linguistics: a summary
(week 1)
Phonetics = physical properties of speech
Phonetics = the sound of language. How does speech work?
Articulatory: how it’s made™
Auditory: how it’s perceived
Acoustic: the physics
Generative ‘grammar’ = the split between the physical aspects of language and the
underlying, mental aspects. Grammar here: full description of a language OR specifying as
allowable or not within a language.
Competence = the knowledge of a language, especially what natives know but don’t
know they know about language native speaker competence
Performance = the use of language
Acoustic phonetics = the measurable effects the production of sound has on the air
involved.
Obstruent = speech sound formed by obstructed air flow
Sonorants = speech sound formed by a less/non-obstructed air flow
Propagation medium = the substance through which sound travels
Amplitude(objective, measurable) = intensity of the vibration, the height of a soundwave
from peak to equilibrium(evenwichtsstand)
Loudness(subjective) the louder a sound, the bigger the amplitude.
Frequency(objective, measurable) = the closeness of the soundwaves. Expressed by Hertz.
Pitch(subjective) the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch.
Fundamental frequency(F0) = the lowest frequency where the vocal cords are
vibrating.
Male: 80-200 Hz
Female: 150-300 Hz
Child: 200-500 Hz
A wave is periodic when the waves are regular, and aperiodic when they aren’t.
Sound quality = describes those characteristics of sound which allow the ear to
distinguish sounds which have the same pitch and loudness. Differences in qualities depends
on the propagation medium and material enclosing the medium. Also: Timbre
,Harmonics(boventonen) = vibrations at a number of multiple frequencies of the basic
frequency
A spectrogram is a graph of recorded sounds by a spectrograph.
Formants(resonances above F0) = emphasised frequency patterns coming displayed
as black bands in a spectrogram. Correspond to the periodic vibrations of the vocal
cords.
Waveforms show the pulses corresponding to each vibration of the vocal cords.
Morphology = the study of how words are formed out of smaller units(morphemes)
Syntax = the study of the way in which phrases and sentences are structured out of words.
Traditional grammar is built in terms of the range of different types of syntactic structures of
a language. The general assumption is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of
units. Each unit belongs to a grammatical category and serves a grammatical function.
Taxonomy = classificatory list
Constituents = syntactic units
Chomsky: a cognitive approach to linguistics. What do natives know (unconsciously) in order
to speak their language fluently and to interpret sentences. (see grammatical competence)
Tacit = subconscious
Explicit = conscious
I-language = internalised cognitive system of knowledge about language in the brain/mind.
Universal Grammar(UG) = a theory about the possible grammar of human languages.
Identifies the I-languages that are humanly accessible under normal conditions. Has to fulfil a
number of criteria of adequacy.
Descriptively adequate = describes how to correctly form and interpret expressions
in the relevant language.
Explanatory adequate = explains why grammar have the properties that they do.
Learnability = grammars should be learnable by young children in a short period of
time.
Grammars should be as simple as possible.
, Semantic components map the syntactic structure in to a corresponding semantic
representation.
Phonetic Form components map the syntactic structures into a PF representation, giving
the phonetic spellout.
Language Faculty = a biological system innate in the brain for the course of acquisition.
Innateness hypothesis = the hypothesis that the course of language is determined by an
innate language faculty.
The obvious implication is that in much the same way as we are genetically predisposed to
analyse shapes (however irregular) as having specific geometrical properties, so too we are
genetically predisposed to analyse sentences (however ungrammatical) as having specific
grammatical properties.
An echo-question is a type of direct question that repeats part or all of something which
someone else has just said; and a non-echo question does not exactly repeat what’s just
been said.
Auxiliary inversion = the auxiliary verb is moved in front of the subject.
Lexical learning = learning the lexical items/words of a language and their forms.
Grammatical learning = learning of the grammatical rules/constructions. Not needed for
native speakers acquisition as a child.
To parse = grammatically analyse
Parameters = dimensions/aspects of grammar, subject to language-particular
variation.
o Parametric variation = variation of grammatical aspects in a language
Null-Subject Parameter= a silent/invisible counterpart to the he/she pronouns or
names. Designated by ‘pro’ “Pro speaks French.” Null-subject languages can have
overt(pronouns) and null-subjects(pro), like Spanish or Italian.
o Non-null subject (language) = no null-subjects allowed, would make a weird
sentence. E.g. “Speaks French.” English is a non-null subject language.
Who-movement/fronting = whether or not a wh-word is moved to the front of a
sentence. Mostly done with question words. Either a language has wh-movement or
not at all, there’s no mix.
o In situ = when a wh-structure remains in the same place as in a non-
interrogative(question) structure. E.g. Japanese
(week 1)
Phonetics = physical properties of speech
Phonetics = the sound of language. How does speech work?
Articulatory: how it’s made™
Auditory: how it’s perceived
Acoustic: the physics
Generative ‘grammar’ = the split between the physical aspects of language and the
underlying, mental aspects. Grammar here: full description of a language OR specifying as
allowable or not within a language.
Competence = the knowledge of a language, especially what natives know but don’t
know they know about language native speaker competence
Performance = the use of language
Acoustic phonetics = the measurable effects the production of sound has on the air
involved.
Obstruent = speech sound formed by obstructed air flow
Sonorants = speech sound formed by a less/non-obstructed air flow
Propagation medium = the substance through which sound travels
Amplitude(objective, measurable) = intensity of the vibration, the height of a soundwave
from peak to equilibrium(evenwichtsstand)
Loudness(subjective) the louder a sound, the bigger the amplitude.
Frequency(objective, measurable) = the closeness of the soundwaves. Expressed by Hertz.
Pitch(subjective) the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch.
Fundamental frequency(F0) = the lowest frequency where the vocal cords are
vibrating.
Male: 80-200 Hz
Female: 150-300 Hz
Child: 200-500 Hz
A wave is periodic when the waves are regular, and aperiodic when they aren’t.
Sound quality = describes those characteristics of sound which allow the ear to
distinguish sounds which have the same pitch and loudness. Differences in qualities depends
on the propagation medium and material enclosing the medium. Also: Timbre
,Harmonics(boventonen) = vibrations at a number of multiple frequencies of the basic
frequency
A spectrogram is a graph of recorded sounds by a spectrograph.
Formants(resonances above F0) = emphasised frequency patterns coming displayed
as black bands in a spectrogram. Correspond to the periodic vibrations of the vocal
cords.
Waveforms show the pulses corresponding to each vibration of the vocal cords.
Morphology = the study of how words are formed out of smaller units(morphemes)
Syntax = the study of the way in which phrases and sentences are structured out of words.
Traditional grammar is built in terms of the range of different types of syntactic structures of
a language. The general assumption is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of
units. Each unit belongs to a grammatical category and serves a grammatical function.
Taxonomy = classificatory list
Constituents = syntactic units
Chomsky: a cognitive approach to linguistics. What do natives know (unconsciously) in order
to speak their language fluently and to interpret sentences. (see grammatical competence)
Tacit = subconscious
Explicit = conscious
I-language = internalised cognitive system of knowledge about language in the brain/mind.
Universal Grammar(UG) = a theory about the possible grammar of human languages.
Identifies the I-languages that are humanly accessible under normal conditions. Has to fulfil a
number of criteria of adequacy.
Descriptively adequate = describes how to correctly form and interpret expressions
in the relevant language.
Explanatory adequate = explains why grammar have the properties that they do.
Learnability = grammars should be learnable by young children in a short period of
time.
Grammars should be as simple as possible.
, Semantic components map the syntactic structure in to a corresponding semantic
representation.
Phonetic Form components map the syntactic structures into a PF representation, giving
the phonetic spellout.
Language Faculty = a biological system innate in the brain for the course of acquisition.
Innateness hypothesis = the hypothesis that the course of language is determined by an
innate language faculty.
The obvious implication is that in much the same way as we are genetically predisposed to
analyse shapes (however irregular) as having specific geometrical properties, so too we are
genetically predisposed to analyse sentences (however ungrammatical) as having specific
grammatical properties.
An echo-question is a type of direct question that repeats part or all of something which
someone else has just said; and a non-echo question does not exactly repeat what’s just
been said.
Auxiliary inversion = the auxiliary verb is moved in front of the subject.
Lexical learning = learning the lexical items/words of a language and their forms.
Grammatical learning = learning of the grammatical rules/constructions. Not needed for
native speakers acquisition as a child.
To parse = grammatically analyse
Parameters = dimensions/aspects of grammar, subject to language-particular
variation.
o Parametric variation = variation of grammatical aspects in a language
Null-Subject Parameter= a silent/invisible counterpart to the he/she pronouns or
names. Designated by ‘pro’ “Pro speaks French.” Null-subject languages can have
overt(pronouns) and null-subjects(pro), like Spanish or Italian.
o Non-null subject (language) = no null-subjects allowed, would make a weird
sentence. E.g. “Speaks French.” English is a non-null subject language.
Who-movement/fronting = whether or not a wh-word is moved to the front of a
sentence. Mostly done with question words. Either a language has wh-movement or
not at all, there’s no mix.
o In situ = when a wh-structure remains in the same place as in a non-
interrogative(question) structure. E.g. Japanese
