CONTENTS Preface ... ⅴ 1 What Is Language? ... 1 LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE ... 2 WHAT YOU KNOW AND WHAT YOU DO : LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE ... 6 WHAT IS A GRAMMAR? ... 9 Summary ... 12 Exercises ... 13 References ... 14 2 In the Beginning : Language Origin ... 15 GOD'S GIFT TO MAN? ... 17 THE FIRST LANGUAGE ... 19 MAN'S INVENTION OR THE CRIES OF NATURE? ... 22 MAN'S ORIGIN IS LANGUAGE ORIGIN ... 25 Summary ... 27 Exercises ... 28 References ... 29 3 The Sounds of Language : Phonetics ... 30 THE PHONETIC ALPHABET ... 32 ARTICULATORY PHONETICS ... 40 PHONETIC FEATURES ... 43 Airstream Mechanisms ... 43 Voiced and Voiceless Sounds ... 43 Nasal vs. Oral Sounds ... 45 Articulatory Modification of Sounds ... 47 Manners of Articulation ... 48 Vowels ... 54 NATURAL CLASSES ... 58 PITCH ... 60 Tone ... 60 Intonation ... 61 STRESS ... 62 Summary ... 64 Exercises ... 65 References ... 68 4 The Sound Patterns of Language : Phonology ... 69 PHONEMES : THE PHONOLOGICAL UNITS OF LANGUAGE ... 70 SEQUENCES OF PHONEMES ... 78 THE RULES OF PHONOLOGY ... 79 THE FORMALIZATION OF PHONOLOGICAL RULES ... 90 Summary ... 93 Exercises ... 94 References ... 99 5 What Does It Mean? ... 100 MORPHEMES : THE MINIMAL UNITS OF MEANING ... 101 MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX ... 106 THE MEANING OF MORPHEMES AND WORDS ... 108 HOMONYMS (HOMOPHONES) : SAME SOUNDS, DIFFERENT MEANINGS ... 111 SYNONYMS : DIFFERENT SOUNDS, SIMILAR MEANINGS ... 115 ANTONYMS : DIFFERENT SOUNDS, OPPOSITE MEANINGS ... 117 COMPOUNDS AND IDIOMS ... 119 SENSE AND REFERENCE ... 121 THE 'TRUTH' OF SENTENCES ... 122 MEANING, SENSE, NO SENSE, NONSENSE ... 125 THE MEANING OF 'MEANING' ... 128 Summary ... 130 Exercises ... 131 References ... 135 6 The Sentence Patterns of Language : Syntax ... 136 THE RULES OF SYNTAX ... 136 PHRASE-STRUCTURE RULES ... 139 FITTING THE MORPHEMES IN ... 146 THE INFINITUDE OF LANGUAGE : RECURSIVE RULES ... 148 AMBIGUITY REVISITED ... 152 GENERATIVE GRAMMARS ... 154 TRANSFORMATIONAL RULES ... 156 MORE NONSENSE ... 163 WHAT A TRANSFORMATIONAL RULE LOOKS LIKE ... 164 A TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR ... 166 Summary ... 167 Exercises ... 168 References ... 172 7 Animal 'Languages' ... 173 THE BIRDS AND THE BEES ... 176 DOLPHINS ... 180 CLEVER HANS ... 182 GUA, VIKI, WASHOE, SARAH ... 183 Summary 188 Exercises 188 References ... 189 8 The Syllables of Time : Language Change ... 191 KINDS OF LANGUAGE CHANGE ... 194 Phonological Change ... 194 Syntactic Change ... 197 Lexical Change ... 202 Semantic Change ... 207 WHY DO LANGUAGES CHANGE? ... 210 THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE CHANGE ... 213 HISTORICAL EVIDENCE ... 216 LINGUISTIC PALEONTOLOGY ... 218 Summary ... 220 Exercises ... 220 References ... 222 9 The Tower of Babel : Languages of the World ... 224 LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS ... 225 HOW LANGUAGES DIFFER ... 227 TYPES OF LANGUAGES ... 230 WHY LANGUAGES DIFFER AND YET REMAIN THE SAME ... 234 THE GENETIC CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES ... 236 Summary ... 246 Exercises ... 247 References ... 251 10 The Diversity of Language ... 252 DIALECTS ... 252 REGIONAL DIALECTS AND ACCENTS ... 253 THE 'STANDARD' ... 257 BLACK ENGLISH ... 258 LINGUA FRANCAS ... 266 PIDGINS AND CREOLES ... 266 ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES ... 269 ARGOT, CANT, JARGON, SLANG ... 271 LANGUAGE GAMES ... 273 Summary ... 275 Exercises ... 276 References ... 279 11 The ABCs of Language : Writing ... 280 THE HISTORY OF WRITING ... 282 Pictograms and Ideograms ... 283 Cuneiform Writing ... 285 The Rebus Principle ... 286 Syllabic Writing Systems ... 286 From Hieroglyphs to the Alphabet ... 287 MODERN TYPES OF WRITING SYSTEMS ... 289 WRITING AND SPEECH ... 294 SPELLING ... 296 SPELLING PRONUNCIATIONS ... 300 GRAFFITI ... 302 Summary 303 Exercises 304 References ... 306 12 The Gray Matter of Language : Language and the Brain ... 307 LANGUAGE AND THE LEFT HEMISPHERE ... 308 THE ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE ... 316 Summary ... 323 Exercises ... 324 References ... 326 13 Language in the Computer Age ... 327 AUTOMATIC MACHINE TRANSLATION ... 328 DICTIONARY APPLICATIONS ... 332 TEXT PROCESSING ... 333 GRAMMAR TESTING ... 334 SENTENCE PARSING ... 335 TRANSFORMATIONAL PARSING ... 336 TALKING MACHINES ... 336 MATHEMATICAL LINGUISTICS ... 341 Summary ... 346 Exercises ... 347 References ... 349 Index ... 351