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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acceptability | Lyons | I 140f Def Acceptability/Grammar/Lyons: an utterance is acceptable if it was or could be used by a native speaker in a particular context and is or would be perceived by other native speakers as belonging to that language. Linguistics: one of its tasks is to explain which sentences are acceptable within the framework of a general theory of language structure. I 146 Acceptability/Level: at a lower level: here phonology is responsible for the acceptability of statements. >Phonemes. Grammar: replaces phonology at a higher level. >Grammar. I 151 Grammatical/meaningful/(sensible)/Lyons: we can now rewrite this distinction provisionally: Acceptable: e.g. 1. The dog bites the man. 2. The chimpanzee eats the banana. 3. The wind opens the door. 4. The Linguist recognizes the fact. 5. The meaning determines the structure. 6. The woman undresses the child. 7. The wind frightens the child. 8. The child drinks the milk. 9. The dog sees the meat. Tradition: would describe all as subject-predicate-structure and say that the subject is a syntagma (unit of several words consisting of articles and nouns). Def Syntagma/Linguistics: Unit of several words: Example predicate: = verb + object. I 152 Word classes: N = {dog, man, chimpanzee, fact...} V = {bites, eats, opens, recognizes… T: article Grammatical Rule: ∑1: T + N + V + T + N Notation: : stands for “sentence”. Subscript: shows that the rule only applies to one class of sentences. Grammatical rule: not only requires a lexicon that classifies all words of the language grammatically as N, V, or T, but also one or more rules for lexical substitution. First of all, we assume that such rules exist. I 153 Subclassification/Grammar/Lyons: now we can allow finer rules by dividing the classes finer ((s) to exclude "The banana bites the child"): Na = {dog, man, chimpanzee, linguist, child, wind... Nb = {banana, door, milk, meat…} Nc = [{ fact, meaning, structure… Vd = {eats, bites, frightens, undresses, sees,… Ve = { recognizes, determines, sees, eats… Vf = {determines…} 1. How we came to the decisions of the classification is irrelevant. I 154 Instead, it is about which classification allows the grammarian to set up a number of rules that cover the largest number of acceptable and the smallest number of unacceptable sentences. 2. The new subclasses can be considered as if there were no longer any relationship between them. 3. Some words are assigned to several classes. Example determines, sees. New: we then replace the original rule with several new rules (which define very different sentence types): a) ∑ 1: T + Na + Vd + T + Nas (e.g. The dog bites the man) b) ∑ 2: T + Na + Vd + T + Nb (e.g. The chimpanzee eats the banana) c) ∑ 3: T + Na + Ve + T + Nc (e.g. The linguist recognizes the fact) d) ∑ 4: T + Nc + Vf + T + Nc (e.g. The meaning determines the structure) I 155 N.B.: the new rules redefine the distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical English sentences. "The banana bites the meaning" is no longer possible, according to the simple rule T + N + V + T + N it would not have been excluded. However, there are still inadmissible statements that cannot be ruled out. Formal Grammar/Lyons: this is all about acceptability according to rules. Lexicon/Grammar/Lyons: the distinction between lexical and grammatical elements can still be neglected here. Grammaticality/Lyons: the linguist will draw the limit at an arbitrary place in his description. Two main factors: 1. law of "decreasing profitability": I 156 It should be avoided that one needs too many rules, which in the end only capture very few words. 2. Because of the unlimited number of sentences, it is not possible to decide for each sentence whether it is acceptable or not. This leads to an "indeterminacy of grammar". Problem: (see I 389 below): the design of sentences of a certain type within a certain theoretical framework can make the design of sentences of another type within the same theoretical framework very difficult. That is still unsolved today (1968). Acceptability/Grammar/Lyons: can only be determined in relation to one rule system. Different grammars assess the grammaticality of certain sentences differently. >Grammar, >Generative Grammar, >Universal Grammar, >Transformational grammar, >Categorial grammar, >N. Chomsky. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Analysis | Deacon | I 359 Analysis/Language/Evolution/Acoustic Analysis/Language Understanding/Liberman/Deacon: Al Liberman's investigations at the Haskins Lab have shown that, surprisingly, it was not the analysis of acoustic parameters of speech in the evolution of language that was decisive, but rather the prediction of movements of the vocal apparatus of participants in communication(1)(2). Cf. >Phonetics, >Phonology, >P.D. Eimas, >Comprehension, >Language, >Communication. 1. A. Liberman, F. Cooper, D. Shankweiler und M. Studdert-Kennedy (1967): Perception oft he speech code. Psychological Review 74, 431-461. 2. A. Liberman und I. Mattingly (1989): A specialization for speech perception. Science 243, 489-494. |
Dea I T. W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of language and the Brain New York 1998 Dea II Terrence W. Deacon Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter New York 2013 |
| Analysis | Lyons | I 130 Def Prosodic Analysis/Linguistics/Lyons: this is a third phonological theory (Firth) particularly suitable for Turkish. Thesis: The phoneme plays no role at all, neither as the smallest unit of description, nor as a distinctive characteristic. Cf. >Phonemes. I 131 Vocal harmony/Turkish: the eight vowels of Turkish can be described by three articulatory oppositions: high/low - front/back - rounded/not rounded. The vocal harmony is effective in Turkish throughout the entire word. ((s) Example ev-ler/dat-lar). I 134 Prosodic Analysis/Lyons: is multidimensional: (not one-dimensional sequence of phonemes) but several layers of prosodia are superimposed and effective over areas of different lengths. (syllables, words, even phrases and sentences). Phonemics/Lyons: (classical orthodox American) thesis: phonological analysis should precede and be independent of grammatical analysis. VsPhonemics: Today: almost all Vs: that is unnecessarily rigid. I 135 The occurrence of words depends on their grammatical function (as nouns, verbs, etc.) and their meaning. Phonology/Function/Lyons: often very different phonological contrasts are important for different grammatical classes. I 135 Def Grammatical function/Lyons: a word functions as noun, verb, adjective, etc. >Grammar. I 161 Analysis/Grammar/Lyons: a body of utterances can only be described if it is considered a sample of the sentences generated by the grammar. Therefore, there is no contradiction between generative and descriptive grammar. >Generative Grammar. Synthesis/Grammar/Lyons: here a lexicon will be useful, in which you can easily find the corresponding units for a word class symbol, e.g. N {man, boy, chimpanzee....} >Lexicon, >Synthesis. Analysis/Lexicon: here the lexicon should be arranged completely differently; namely alphabetically! I 162 For example, there are many English words ending in -ness. Therefore, one could establish a formula for the derivation: Ax + ness = Ny. "Every word consisting of an element of the word class Ax and -ness is an element of the word class Ny". Then all words that can be derived in this way can be deleted from the lexicon. Synthesis: Problem: here we have to decide which adjectives belong to the Ax class: I 163 Example "trueness" and "strongness" in addition to "truth" and "strength"?. Grammar/Analysis/Synthesis/Lyons: that grammar is neutral between analysis and synthesis does not mean that analysis is simply the inversion of synthesis. There is not simply a computer program that proceeds in one case "from top to bottom" (from grammar to lexicon) and in the other case "from bottom to top". Both in production and in recognition (for listeners and speakers) I 164 feedback is important. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Explanation | Ricoeur | II 71 Understanding/explanation/Ricoeur: (...) it may be said, at least in an introductory fashion, that - understanding: is to reading what the event of discourse is to the utterance of discourse and that - explanation: is to reading what the verbal and textual autonomy is to the objective. meaning of discourse. >Discourse/Ricoeur. II 72 Explanation/tradition: finds its paradigmatic field of application in the natural sciences. When there are external facts to observe, hypotheses to be submitted to empirical verification, general laws for covering such facts, theories to encompass the scattered laws in a systematic whole, and subordination of empirical generalizations to hypothetic-deductive procedures, then we may say that we "explain." Understanding/tradition: Understanding, in contrast, finds its originary field of application in the human sciences (the German Geisteswissenschaften), where science has to do with the experience of other subjects or other minds similar to our own. It relies on the meaningfulness of such forms of expression as physiognomic, gestural, vocal, or written signs, and upon documents II 73 and monuments, which share with writing the general character of inscription. The immediate types of expression are meaningful because they refer directly to the experience of the other mind which they convey. Tradition/Ricoeur: The dichotomy between understanding and explanation in Romanticist hermeneutics is both epistemological and ontological. It opposes two methodologies and two spheres of reality, nature and mind. II 75 Understanding/Ricoeur: (...) we have to guess the meaning of the text because the author's intention is beyond our reach. II 79 Interpretation: (...) if it is true that there is always more than one way of construing a text, it is not true that all interpretations are equal. The text presents a limited field of possible constructions. The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and scepticism. It is always possible to argue for or against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and to seek agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our immediate reach. II 81 Structural Linguistics/interpretation/understanding/Ricoeur: [the approach of the structural schools of literary criticism] proceeds from the acknowledgement of what I have called the suspension or suppression of the ostensive reference. (>Reference/Ricoeur). The text intercepts the "worldly" dimension of the discourse - the relation to a world which could be shown - in the same way as it disrupts the connection of the discourse to the subjective intention of the author. According to this choice, the text no longer has an exterior, it only has an interior. To repeat, the very constitution of the text as a text and of the system of texts as literature justifies this conversion of the literary object into a closed system of signs, analogous to the kind of closed system that phonology discovered underlying all discourse, and which Saussure called langue. Literature, according to this working hypothesis, becomes an analogon of langue. >Langue/Ricoeur. II 86 Explanation/literature/texts/Ricoeur: [The] transposition of a linguistic model to the theory of narrative perfectly corroborates my initial remark regarding the contemporary understanding of explanation. Today ((s) 1976) the concept of explanation is no longer borrowed from the natural sciences and transferred into a different field, that of written documents. It proceeds from the common sphere of language thanks to the analogical transference from the small units of language (phonemes and lexemes) to the large units beyond the sentence, including narrative, folklore, and myth. |
Ricoeur I Paul Ricoeur De L’interprétation. Essai sur Sigmund Freud German Edition: Die Interpretation. Ein Versuch über Freud Frankfurt/M. 1999 Ricoeur II Paul Ricoeur Interpretation theory: discourse and the surplus of meaning Fort Worth 1976 |
| Grammar | Grammar: total domain of linguistic theory encompassing syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology. W.V.O. Quine distinguishes the grammar from the lexicon. L. Wittgenstein calls sentences about language grammatical sentences. See also meaning, lexicon, language. |
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| Phonemes | Lyons | I 27 Consonant Shift/Rasmus Rask/Lyons: between Indo-European languages: Example f where Latin or Greek had p, e.g. p instead of b, e.g. th instead of t. I 66 Loud/Language/Realization/Arbitrariness/Lyons: as long as the differences remain, nothing changes if a language would be realized phonetically or graphically differently. N.B.: any word that is differentiated under the normal conventions of English will also be differentiated under the new conventions. The language itself is not affected by the change of substantial realisation. >Distinctions, >Ordering, >Classification, >Word classes. I 67 Phoneme/Sound/Writing/Language/Lyons: the phonic substance has priority. There are limits to the pronunciation and audibility of certain sound groups. >Terminology/Lyons. I 102 Sound/Linguistics/Lyons: is ambiguous: a) As physically different, without knowing which language they belong to. (phonetic, phonetics) >Phonetics. b) functionally differentiating within a language. (functional meaning). This is about the purpose of communication. (phonology, phonological). >Phonology, >Function/Lyons. This also leads to the distinction between speech sound and phoneme. Def Phonology/Linguistics/Lyons: concerns the functional side of sound differentiations (purpose of communication, sound differences within a language, not physically understood). Def Phonetics/Linguistics/Lyons: here it concerns purely physically detectable or producible differences of sounds, independently of a language. Independent of possible communication. Def Speech sound/linguistics/Lyons: is any phonetically (physically) unique sound unit. There are practically infinitely many different speech sounds. I 103 There are "wide" and "narrow" transcriptions here and intermediate stages. E.g. English: brighter and darker L-sound: bright. in front of vowels: Example "leaf" Dark: at the end and in front of consonants: Example "field". Def Phoneme/Linguistics/Lyons: is the sound, if it is used functionally (not purely physically) to distinguish between different words. >Description levels. I 104 Def Allophone/Linguistics/Lyons: phonetically distinguishable sound pairs as position variants of the same phoneme. Sound: Unit of phonetic (physical) description. (phonetics). Phoneme: Unit of the phonological ((s) meaning-differentiating) description. (phonology). Phonetics: there are acoustic, auditory and articulatory phonetics. I 120 Syntagmatic/Phoneme/Lyons: "horizontal" dimension. I 121 Between phonemes it describes the combinability. This is the set of possible words that goes beyond the "real" words. I 124 Phonemes/Distinction/Feature/Linguistics/Lyons: a) articulatory features: (labial, velar, dental, voiced, nasal) here it is a question of presence or absence (0, 1). b) Distinctive features: this is about the difference they make by distinguishing different words from each other. Not all distinguishable features lead to a distinction between words. ((s) Some words can be pronounced differently). Correspondingly, there are "functional" and "non-functional" values. I 126 Advantage: in this way we can simplify restrictions in the distribution of certain phoneme classes. For example, there are many English words that start with /sp/, /sk/ or /St/, but none that begin with /sb/, /sg/ or /sd/. Certainly this is not a coincidental coincidence of the combinatorial properties of /p/, /k/ and /t/ on the one hand and /b/, /g/ and /d/ on the other. Here we do not have to describe six independent facts, but only one: "In the context of /s-/ the distinction voice/voiceless is not functional". >Function/Lyons. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Phonetics | Psychological Theories | Slater I 192 Phonetics/psychological theories: Liberman, Harris, Hoffman, and Griffith (1957)(1) summarized a decade of research at Haskins Laboratories that revealed a special property of the human adult auditory system. In contrast to every other type of auditory stimulus, whose perception conformed to invariant principles such as Weber’s Law. Def Weber’s Law: differences in intensity and frequency are discriminated in proportional steps, not absolute steps. LibermanVsWeber’s Law: Liberman et al. provided compelling evidence that certain classes of speech sounds (notably stop consonants) are not perceived in this monotonic manner. Rather, speech is perceived in a non-monotonic manner, with discontinuities in discrimination that fall approximately at the edges of perceptual categories. Subsequent work from Haskins (Liberman, Harris, Kinney, & Lane, 1961(2); Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, & Studdert Kennedy, 1967)(3) provided even more definitive evidence for what became known as categorical perception (CP). Categorical Perception (CP): This special mode of perception was characterized by two crucial properties: (a) tokens presented from a physical continuum were identified (labeled) as a member of one category or the other, with a sharp transition in identification (ID) at the category boundary, and (b) failure of within-category discrimination and a peak in between-category discrimination for tokens that straddled the category boundary. >Language development/psychological theories. Language development: Because no speech production was required to document the presence of CP, one could avoid the circular logic of claiming that competence was limited by production deficiencies. Thus, if one could develop a method to test infants on a speech perception task, and if their performance conformed to the CP pattern of discrimination and identification observed in adults, then the presence of a functioning speech mode (i.e., an innate and linguistically relevant perceptual system) would be demonstrated. Slater I 197 Development: There is no question that infants are better at some phonetic discrimination than adults. For example, infants from a Japanese speaking environment can discriminate the /ri-/li contrast (Tsushima et al., 1994)(4), even though it is not used phonemically by adult speakers of Japanese, and these adult speakers have great difficulty improving their /r/-/l/ discrimination even after extensive training (Lively, Pisoni, Yamada, Tohkura & Yamada, 1994)(5). This suggests that listening experience must play a substantial role in at least some phonetic category discrimination. Werker and Tees (1984) were the first to show the time-course of such a tuning by the listening environment. Infants from an English speaking environment were able at six months of age to discriminate two non-native phonetic contrasts (from Hindi and from Salish, a Native American language), thereby surpassing their adult English speaking parents. But by 12 months of age the discriminative abilities of infants from an English speaking environment for these two non-native contrasts had fallen to near chance. Slater I 198 Consonant discrimination: (…) experience with the native language can exert a substantial role in consonant discrimination over the second six months of postnatal life. (…) Kuhl, Williams, Lacerda, Stevens, and Lindblom (1992)(6) showed that the effect of native language experience operates even earlier over vowel contrasts, with language-specific tuning by six months of age. Recent evidence from Kuhl, Tsao, and Liu (2003)(7) suggests that social interaction, rather than mere passive listening, plays a key role in this process of attuning the phonetic categories, and further work from Tsao, Liu, and Kuhl(2004)(8) suggests that early attunement is predictive of later levels of vocabulary size. >Phonemes, >Phonology, >Categorical perception, >P.D. Eimas. 1. Liberman, A. M., Harris, K. S., Hoffman, H. S., & Griffith, B.C. (1957). The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 358—368. 2. Liberman, A. M., Harris, K. S., Kinney, J., & Lane, H. (1961). The discrimination of relative onset-time of the components of certain speech and non-speech patterns. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61,379—388. 3. Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Shankweiler, D. P., & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1967). Perception of the speech code. Psychological Review, 74, 431—461. 4. Tsushima, T. Takizawa, O., Sasaki, M., Siraki, S., Nishi, K., Kohno, M., Menyuk, P., & Best, C. (1994, October). Discrimination of English/r-l/ and/w-y/ by Japanese infants at 6—12 months: Language specific developmental changes in speech perception abilities. Paper presented at the International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, Yokohama, Japan. 5. Lively, S. E., Pisoni, D. B., Yamada, R. A., Tohkura, Y., & Yamada, T. (1994). Training Japanese listeners to identify English/r/ and /1/. III. Long-term retention of new phonetic categones. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 96, 2076—2087. 6. Kuhl, P. K., Williams, K. A., Lacerda, F., Stevens, K. N., & Lindbiom, B. (1992). Linguistic experience alters phonetic perception in infants by 6 months of age. Science, 255, 606—608. 7. Kuhi, P. K., Tsao. F.-M., & Liu, H.-M. (2003). Foreign-language experience in infancy Effects of short-term exposure and social interaction on phonetic learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 9096—9101. 8. Tsao, F.-M., Liu, H.-M., & Kuhl, P. K. (2004). Speech perception in infancy predicts language development in the second year of life: A longitudinal study. Child Development, 75, 1067—1084. Richard N. Aslin, “Language Development. Revisiting Eimas et al.‘s /ba/ and /pa/ Study”, in: Alan M. Slater and Paul C. Quinn (eds.) 2012. Developmental Psychology. Revisiting the Classic Studies. London: Sage Publications |
Slater I Alan M. Slater Paul C. Quinn Developmental Psychology. Revisiting the Classic Studies London 2012 |
| Prague Linguistic Circle | Lyons | I 119 Prague Linguistic Circle/Phonology/Linguistics/Lyons: also distinguishes next to phonemes Def Archiphonems: are limited to the positions in which neutralization takes place. >Phonemes/Lyons, >Terminology/Lyons. Notation: Capital letters. Example /T/ is an archiphoneme, /d/ and /t/ are not. For example, death (=German: Tod) would be transcribed to /toD/. Question: Are the two sounds at the beginning and end, which are phonetically (physically) identical, also phonologically identical? >Phonology, >Phonetics. a) The linguist who defends the principle "once phoneme always phoneme" will say yes. b) Prague Linguistic CircleVs: if you make a distinction between phoneme and archiphoneme, you will say that it is not phonologically (related to meaning) the same. Cf. >Meanings. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Prenatal Learning | Developmental Psychology | Prenatal Learning/Developmental Psychology/Upton: there is some suggestion that cognitive development (…) begins before birth. The evidence to support such early cognitive ability comes from evidence of prenatal learning, which is linked to infant auditory perception. Hearing develops at around the sixth month prenatally and it has been well established that the foetus can perceive and respond to sounds, such as speech and music. The recognition of, and preference for, their mothers’ voices shown by neonates is thought to be a learned response based on prenatal experience. (DeCasper, A. and Spence, M (1986)(1). Research studies have also shown that neonates can recognise either music or prose they have been exposed to prenatally, suggesting the development of cognitive skills such as memory before birth. Hormonal levels have been found to influence later cognitive skills, including sex differences. Increased levels of testosterone are thought to result in more rapid growth of neurons in the foetal brain and have been linked to enhanced spatial skills. Upton I 37 DeCasper/Spence/Upton: Because the researchers(1) used both mothers and unfamiliar adults to read out the test story, they concluded that the infants were responding to the story itself, not simply the sound of their own mother’s voice reading the story. The study therefore provides good evidence for prenatal learning. Upton: Problems: However, it is important not to over-interpret when evaluating the results from such experiments. Remember that, just because infants show a response to something, or demonstrate that they can discriminate between two things, this does not mean that they perceive them in the same way that adults or older children do. Infants may be able to differentiate between two words, but this does not mean that they know anything about what each word means. The recognition of the prenatal story demonstrated here does not suggest that the infants have learned the meanings of words, but that they have learned about patterns of speech and language – what linguists call ‘acoustic cues’. This skill is the precursor to developing an understanding of what words mean, and the ability to recognise and remember speech sounds, and to segment words from the speech stream – in other words, to identify where words begin and end from the flow of sounds people make when they speak. Cf. Moon and Fifer, 2000(2). Upton I 38 Language: There is evidence, for example, that newborn infants have already learned to identify their native language. They can also recognise different speech patterns within that language; for example, they can differentiate ‘happy talk’ from other patterns of speech (Mastropieri and Turkewitz, 1999)(3). Cf. >Language acquisition, >Language development, >Motherese, >Phonology, >Phonetics, >Phonemes, >P.D. Eimas. 1. DeCasper, A.J. and Spence, M.J. (1986) Prenatal maternal speech influences newborns’ perception of speech sounds. Infant Behavior and Development, 9: 133–50. 2 .Moon, C. and Fifer, W.P. (2000) Evidence of transnatal auditory learning. Journal of Perinatology, 20: S37—S44. 3. Mastropieri, D. and Turkewitz, G. (1999) Prenatal experience and neonatal responsiveness to vocal expressions of emotion. Developmental Psychobiology, 35(3): 204—14. |
Upton I Penney Upton Developmental Psychology 2011 |
| Sentences | Lyons | I 53 Utterance/Linguistics/Lyons: unequal sentence: the actual utterances cannot be completely described by a previous description of the possible sentences of a language. >Utterances/Lyons, >Utterances, cf. >Speaking, >Language use. Sentence/expression: the distinction between sentence and utterance is fundamental to modern linguistics. But we can first develop some basic concepts without them. I 54 In the next three chapters, "sentence" and "utterance" will still be used synonymously. Later: Sentence: Unit of langue Utterance: Manifestation of the parole. >Langue, >Parole/Saussure. I 176 Def derived sentence/Lyons: e.g. sentences with index words: Example "He will be here soon". There are distributional restrictions here ((s) because there must be an anaphoric chain). >Distribution, >Pronouns, >Indexicality, >Index Words. I 177 Incomplete sentence/Lyons: today: it is pointed out that incomplete statements are usually completely understandable and should therefore not be called "incomplete". Cf. >Propositional functions, >Subsententials. I 178 Completeness/Linguistics/Lyons: one must distinguish between contextual and grammatical completeness. Incomplete in context: Example "With Peters, if he arrives on time": before: "Which car do we use?". Grammatically incomplete: Example "Got the tickets?": Here it doesn't matter what tickets these are. I 179 Sentence/Lyons: distributional relationships often overlap the boundaries of utterance segments, which are normally regarded as separate sentences. But this is not a contradiction if we assume two meanings of "sentence": a) Sentence as a grammatical unit: is an abstract whole. In this sense, statements never consist of sentences. b) utterance segments as a sentence: e.g. "How are you? It's a fine day. Are you going to play tennis this afternoon?" >sentences/Bloomfield. Sentence/Lyons: Thesis: We should limit the term sentence to the more abstract sense, then sentences are units of langue, and utterances are units of parole. >parole/Saussure. I 183 Sentence/Phonology/Lyons: a sentence can be explained phonologically by speech melody (intonation) and pause in speech, respectively these are its phonological criteria. >Speaking. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Structural Linguistics | Ricoeur | II 4 Discourse/structural model/structural lingustics/Ricoeur: The eclipse of discourse was further encouraged by the tentative extension of the structural model beyond its birth place in linguistics properly speaking, and by the systematic awareness of the theoretical requirements implied by the linguistic model as a structural model. Extension of the structural model concerns us directly insofar as the structural model was applied to the same categories of texts that are the object of our interpretation theory. Originally the model concerned units smaller than the sentence, the signs of the lexical systems and the discrete units of the phonological systems from which the significant units of lexical systems are compounded. A decisive extension occurred, however, with the application of the structural model to linguistic entities larger than the sentence and also to non-linguistic entities similar to the texts of linguistic communication. As concerns the first type of application, the treatment of folktales by the Russian formalists such as V. Propp(1) marks a decisive turn in the theory of literature, especially as regards the narrative structure of literary works. The application of the structural model to myths by Claude Lévi-Strauss constitutes a second example of a structural approach to long strings of discourse; an approach similar to, yet independent of the formal treatment of folklore proposed by the Russian formalists. II 5 Postulates: First, a synchronic approach must precede any diachronic approach because systems are more intelligible than changes. Second, the paradigmatic case for a structural approach is that of a finite set of discrete entities. The paradigmatic position of systems constituted of finite sets of discrete entities lies in the combinatory capacity and the quasi-algebraic possibilities pertaining to such sets. These capacities and possibilities add to the type of intelligibility instituted by the first postulate, that of synchronicity. Third, in such a system no entity belonging to the structure of the system has a meaning of its own; the meaning of a word, for example, results from its opposition to the other lexical units of the same system. Fourth, in such finite systems, all the relations are immanent to the system. In this sense semiotic systems are "closed," i.e ., without relations to external, non-semiotic reality. II 6 The last postulate alone suffices to charactenze structuralism as a global mode of thought, beyond all the technicalities Of its methodology. Language no longer appears as a mediation between minds and things. It constitutes a world of its own, within which each item only refers to other items of the same system, thanks to the interplay of oppositions and differences constitutive of the system. Discourse/Ricoeur: At this extreme point language as discourse has disappeared. II 81 Structural Linguistics/interpretation/understanding/Ricoeur: [the approach of the structural schools of literary criticism] proceeds from the acknowledgement of what I have called the suspension or suppression of the ostensive reference. (>Reference/Ricoeur). The text intercepts the "worldly" dimension of the discourse - the relation to a world which could be shown - in the same way as it disrupts the connection of the discourse to the subjective intention of the author. place. According to this choice, the text no longer has an exterior, it only has an interior. To repeat, the very constitution of the text as a text and of the system of texts as literature justifies this conversion of the literary object into a closed system of signs, analogous to the kind of closed system that phonology discovered underlying all discourse, and which Saussure called langue. Literature, according to this working hypothesis, becomes an analogon of langue. >Langue/Ricoeur. 1. V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1958). |
Ricoeur I Paul Ricoeur De L’interprétation. Essai sur Sigmund Freud German Edition: Die Interpretation. Ein Versuch über Freud Frankfurt/M. 1999 Ricoeur II Paul Ricoeur Interpretation theory: discourse and the surplus of meaning Fort Worth 1976 |
| Structures | Lyons | I 56 Structure/"double structure"/Language/Linguistics/Lyons: "double structure":, "double articulation": Wrong: expression/content. Instead: a) Low level: phonology: sounds that have no other function than to combine to form higher units of grammar (words) b) Words. >Substance/Lyons, >Terminology/Lyons. I 61 Semantic structure/Linguistics/Lyons: this term is independent of the assumption of the substance. I 61 It is the network of semantic relations between words in the system concerned. ((s) contrast, etc.) >Opposition, >Words, >Phonemes. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Variation | Lyons | I 74 Def Free Variation/Linguistics/Lyons: Units that can occur in a certain context without contrasting with each other are in free variation. Example contrast: the vowels in leap and get (e.g. bet and beat) I 75 Example Free Variation: the vowels in the possible pronunciations of economics: ((s) namely [e] and [i]. Free variation: is functional equivalence in context. N.B.: it should not be confused with distribution equivalence. >Function/Lyons, >Distribution/Lyons. What is to be understood by free variation and contrast depends on the type of unit. I 75 Def Contrast/Linguistics/Lyons: two elements of expression are in contrast when the substitution of one by the other creates another word or sentence in the same context. >Terminology/Lyons. Def Free Variation/Linguistics/Lyons: there are two expression elements in free variation, if the substitution of one by the other does not produce another word or sentence in the same context. Contrast/free variations/Lyons: are only interpreted distributionally if words are considered with regard to their grammatical function (noun, verb, adjective, etc.). Free variation/semantics/Lyons: here free variation is usually referred to as "synonymy". >Synonymy/Lyons. I 117 Free variation/Phonology/Lyons: it is possible that two phonetic units occur in the same environment without contrasting, i.e. not another word results, but a different pronunciation of the same word. (see free variation above: instead of contrast). >Phonemes. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Words | Bloomfield | Lyons I 200 Lexeme/Linguistics/Lyons: in this (abstract) use we determined above that e. g."singing" is only a form of another word, while "singer" is a word of its own. >Lexemes. Modern LinguisticsVs: neglects this abstract form. e.g.: BloomfieldVsTradition: the school grammar is inaccurate because it describes units such as e.g. book, books, or e.g. do, does, did, as different forms of the same word. I 201 LyonsVsBloomfield: however, is inaccurate in that it is still up to us how we define "word". Lexeme/Lyons: let's introduce the lexeme here as the more abstract form of the word (neither phonological, nor grammatical). These abstract units, according to the syntactic rules, are present in different forms of flexion. Cf. >Morphemes, >Phonemes, >Phonology, cf. >Signs, Lexeme/Spelling/Lyons: with capital letters e.g. CUT. Lyons I 204 Def Word/Bloomfield/Lyons: (most famous modern definition): the word is the "smallest free form". Def Bound Form/Bloomfield/Lyons: Shapes that never appear alone as whole utterances. Def Free Form: a form that can occur alone as an expression. Def Smallest Free Form/Bloomfield: any free form that does not contain any part of its own. (= word). ((s)Vs: Problem: then unacceptable is not a word, because acceptable is a word). LyonsVsBloomfield: this applies to phonological rather than grammatical words. I 205 Bloomfield: did not distinguish clearly between grammatical and phonological words. BloomfieldVsBloomfield/Lyons: he himself recognised that some words are not covered by his definition, such as "the" and "a" (indefinite article). This is because they hardly ever appear as independent utterances. Solution/Bloomfield: additional criterion: treat "the" and "a" as "this" and "that". These occur sometimes freely ((s) in answers) and are in the same environment within the sentence. LyonsVsBloomfield: the definition has been accepted by many, but it does not serve the main purpose of the grammatical description to create sentences ((s) rules?) from which actual and possible expressions can be derived. All questions of classification must be subordinated to this objective. |
LingBloom I Leonard Bloomfield Language New York 1945 Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
| Words | Lyons | I 71 Word/Linguistics/Lyons: is ambiguous (which we can now make clear as a) a composition of expressive elements (sounds) (realisation). b) completely abstract as a grammatical function. (formal). c) a graphic substance (irrelevant here). >Ambiguity, >Phonemes, >Morphemes, >Sentences, >Syntax, >Grammar. I 197 Word/Linguistics/Grammar/Tradition/Lyons: in traditional grammar the word is the unity par excellence. It is the basis for distinguishing between morphology and syntax and at the same time the most important unit of lexicography. (encyclopedia). I 198 Def Morphology/Tradition/Lyons: deals with the structure of words. Def Syntax: deals with the rules for joining words into sentences. Contrary to the syntax: Flexion. Flexion/Linguistics/Tradition/Lyons: = Theory of Form. I 200 Word/Linguistics/Lyons: the term "word" is ambiguous: a) phonological word that represents b) grammatical word that is represented phonologically (or orthographically). >Representation. For example, the phonological word [säng] represents the grammatical preterite of singular There are now cases where 1. one phonological word represents several grammatical [postmen]: postman and post men 2. several phonological words represent a grammatical word: Example[räd]: Preterite of read or adjective red. c) Third, abstract form of "word": lexeme. I 203 Def Word/Lyons: it was proposed to define "word" as "any section of a sentence", "at the ends of which a pause is possible". Lyons: this is of course not a definition, but a description of the material with which linguistics works. It is a help for its work. Def Word/Linguistics/Semantic Definition/Lyons: (well known definition): "a word can be defined as the connection of a certain meaning with a certain sound complex which has a certain grammatical use". Lyons: this implies that the word is simultaneously a semantic, phonological and grammatical unit. Problem: it may be that all units meet these three conditions, I 204 but they're not the only units they need. For example, whole syntagmas such as "the new book" have a fixed meaning, form and use. The same applies to distributionally limited segments, even of higher rankings. Wrong solution: to consider words as the smallest segments of expressions that meet the three conditions. Vs: that is still not enough: e.g. the "un" and "acceptable" of "unacceptable" satisfy all three conditions. Moreover, the word "unacceptable" is more or less synonymous with the syntagma "not acceptable". >Synonymy. Word/sound/criterion/phonology/Lyons: the phonological characteristic for the delimitation of the word is never more than a side effect. We define the word exclusively grammatically. Word/Definition/Lyons: Problem: how to define a unit that occupies a middle rank between morpheme and sentence, so that it somewhat corresponds to our intuitions, whereby this intuition is rather guided by the non-essential orthographic convention? I 207 Word/phonological/Lyons: in many languages words are phonologically marked, usually with an accent. Word accent/Lyons: there are fixed and rigid word accents and also "restricted free". E.g. Latin: Accent position is generally determined by the length of the penultimate syllable. Polish: always on the second to last Turkish: generally on the last Czech: on the initial syllable Vocal harmony: exists in Turkish and Hungarian within the word boundaries. I 208 Word accents/Lyons: for all languages with word accents applies that a sentence has as many accents as words. Different: e.g. Russian: here the word "ne" ("not") never has an accent. Accents/Lyons: cannot be the primary characteristic for the delimitation of words. E.g. French: here a congruence between phonological and grammatical structure can be found, if at all, for units of higher rank than the word. Word/Criteria/Lyons: the two criteria above are not only independent of each other, but also independent of the criteria for defining morphemes as smallest grammatical units. The result is that the same units in certain languages I 210 can be words and morphemes at the same time. For example the morphs /nais/, ,/boi/, /wont/ (nice, boy, want) simultaneously the morphemes "nice", "boy" and "want" and grammatical words, each consisting of a morpheme. >Morphemes. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cavell, St. | Fodor Vs Cavell, St. | III 222 Voluntary/CavellVsRyle: thesis: such contradictions are not empirical in any reasonable sense. III 224 FodorVsCavell: fallacy: Cavell overlooks the difference between what a native speaker says (when speaking) and what a native speaker says about what he/she and others say (metalinguistic comments). However, the latter need not be true for the linguist to begin his/her investigation. Cavell has not shown that an empirical description is possible only if the metalinguistic assertions are true. If the linguist wanted to separate true findings from false ones before starting with the description of the language, he/she would have to know a whole lot about the language before he/she begins with his/her work. If you cordon off empirical linguistics from grammar and semantics as domains where empiricism is not relevant, you make a distinction without a difference. Distinction without difference/Fodor: e.g. differentiating empirical linguistics from grammar and semantics as domains where empiricism is not relevant ist distinction without reference. III 225 Cavell: empirical are e.g. statements of native speakers about the phonology of the language, but not statements about syntax and semantics. FodorVsCavell: 1) this is inconsistent: conversely, every argument that shows that the native speaker is privileged to findings about syntax and semantics would equally show that he/she is privileged to such about the phonology. That would be a reductio ad absurdum of the argument, because then the native speaker could never err about pronunciation. 2) Even if CavellVsRyle was right, that would not show that Ryle’s error is not empirical. Language/empiricism/Cavell: his position is very extreme. Since he refers to the findings of native speakers as the truths of transcendental logic, he actually excludes the relevance of empirical confirmation! FodorVsCavell: he overlooks the fact that there are infinitely many findings that require empirical confirmation: e.g. "My name is not Stanley Cavell"... etc. FodorVsCavell: 1) error: the assumption that we could only question the findings in a sensible way if there is a specific reason to believe they might be wrong. This makes credulity a virtue and philosophy a vice. III 230 FodorVsCavell: 2) admittedly: it would be extraordinary to request reasons if we were often mistaken about what we say. Fodor: but if we are only sometimes mistaken, then it is always appropriate to demand reasons! From Cavell’s view it follows, however, that even if our lives depended on it, it would not be appropriate to question the findings! FodorVsCavell: 3) It is a wrong assumption that what we say about our language is rarely wrong. He overlooks his own distinction between type I and type II findings. He is certainly right that we do not often err about type I. Fodor: but we can often be mistaken with respect to type II findings: they are a kind of theory, an abstract representation of context properties (see above III 220 Type I Findings: "We say...... but we do not say...." ((s) use findings) Type II Findings: The addition of type I findings by explanations. Type III Findings: Generalizations). III 232 FodorVsCavell: e.g. baker/professor: can be understood in two ways: a) what type of information does the professor require? (Fodor: that would be non-empirical information. But Cavell is not asking for them. b) Cavell asks: if we already know that the language use of the baker is idiosyncratic, does then follow that the professor has no right to his "we" findings?. Cavell: No, that does not follow. Fodor: but you should bear in mind that this is irrelevant to the resolution of conflict between native speakers! FodorVsCavell: Cavell is right: the existence of different language use does not exclude the "we" findings. But he says the right thing for the wrong reasons: the finding of the professor is one about the standard use. There could be no generalizations at all if deviating use could not be tolerated in certain dimensions. III 233 FodorVsCavell: it looks philosophically more impressive if you say: "your deviating language use shields your view at reality," as if it merely restricted the possibilities of expression. But even that is not necessarily the case if someone uses two non-interchangeable words synonymously. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rules | Chomsky, N. | I 272 Chomsky thesis: then one could suggest that a language contains rules that relate depth structures to representations from universal semantics. (Analogous to phonology). Lyons I 157 Rules/Grammar/Transformational Grammar/Chomsky/Lyons: Chomsky seems to reject this. In his opinion: ChomskyVsGrammatical Rules: thesis: the grammatical structure of the language is determined ((s) not according to the above rules) and is dominated "intuitively" (unconsciously) by the native speaker. (ChomskyVsRules due to the consequence of "Indetermination of Grammar"/ChomskyVsIndetermination of Grammar). Lyons: the differences of opinion are exaggerated here. Not all grammar is indefinite. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
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