Transcript Linguistic Theory Lecture 1 Introduction: Linguistic Theory and Theories Course Outline • Concentrating mainly on syntax – But some of the discussion will be of relevance.

Linguistic Theory
Lecture 1
Introduction:
Linguistic Theory and Theories
Course Outline
• Concentrating mainly on syntax
– But some of the discussion will be of
relevance to other areas of linguistics
• We will look at phenomena and theories
which were designed to them
Course Outline
• The order of presentation will be
historically oriented:
– To understand current ideas, we need to
know where they came from
• You will not end up an expert in any
particular theory – but you will know
something about all of them
Why do we need theory?
• Can’t we just observe language and
describe it without bothering with difficult
things like theories?
• No matter what you do, there will always
be a theory behind it
– The human mind always operates with some
notion of the way the universe works
• this may not always be correct and it can be
modified
– The human mind finds it easier to understand
things if we break it down into smaller pieces
• But before we know something, how do we know
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where to place the divisions?
We don’t – we just guess
Guess = theory
• We don’t have direct access to what we
are studying
– Most theories of linguistics take a cognitive
perspective:
• Language exists in people’s heads
• Language is ‘rules’ that we know: competence
– Linguistic knowledge is inaccessible to
introspection and unobservable directly in
others
– So how do we study stuff that we cannot
observe?
• Language is a ‘black box’ puzzle:
– You can observe what goes in and out of the
box, but you can’t observe what goes on
inside which changes the input to the output
– By studying the input and output we can
imagine what must be going on inside
– Imagined processes = theory
A selective History of Linguistic
Theory
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American structuralism (C1900 – 1960)
Transformational Grammar (1957 – 1964)
Standard Generative Theory (1964 – 1980)
Government and Binding Theory
Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar
Lexical Functional Grammar (1980 – present)
Minmalist Programme
Optimality Theory (1993 – present)
American Structuralism
• Two characteristics:
– Very impressed by Behaviourism/Empiricism
– Studied Native American Languages
Behaviourism
• Strong empiricist view:
– All knowledge comes from experience
• Therefore:
– Human behaviour is learned from the environment
– We can only study what we can observe
• We cannot observe the mind, so we must assume that it
does not exist
• We can observe the environment and behaviour, so let’s
assume this is all that exists
• Behaviourism was the only school of psychology
to define away its subject matter
Structuralists and Empiricism
• We can only study what we can observe
• We can observe sound
– So we can study phonetics
• If we assume that phonology is based on
phonetics, we can study phonology too
• If we assume that morphology is based on
phonology, we can study morphology
• If we assume that syntax is based on morphology,
we can study syntax
• We can’t study semantics – leave that to
philosophers
• Therefore:
– The unit of phonology (phoneme) is a
collection of phones (observable) and
distinguished in terms of the distribution of
phones
– The unit of morphology (morpheme) is a
combination of phonemes and distinguished
in terms of distribution
– The unit of syntax (word) is a combination of
morphemes, distinguished by distribution
Strucuralists and Native
Americans
• There were not many native Americans left
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by 1900 and their languages were
disappearing fast
There was therefore and urgent need to
record their grammars
American languages were very different from
Indo-European languages and it was thought
that classical linguistic concepts did not apply
• So what was needed was a set of ‘field
tools’ that could be applied to any
language which would accurately yield
grammars
• As all linguistic units were identified by
distribution patterns, distribution was the
most important ‘discovery procedures’ to
produce a grammar
Generative Linguistics
• 1952 Chomsky started to develop another
view of language
• 1957 published first book – very influential
– But didn’t openly criticise Structuralism
• 1959 published a critical paper of
Behaviourism
– Caused the collapse of Behaviourism
– Structuralism soon followed
Basic Ideas
• Rationalist approach
– The mind exists and can be studied
– Some knowledge comes from the mind itself
• Discovery procedures are foolish and
limiting
– You get your data from wherever you can find
it (not limited to observable data – i.e. Intuition
also acceptable)
• The notion of structure stays
– Words group into phrases
– Phrases group into sentences
• New type of rule for producing structure
– S  NP VP
• A set of such rules makes a Phrase
Structure Grammar
– Grammar is a set of rules that are part of the
mind
• But phrase structure rules are not enough
to describe human languages
– Discontinuous constituents
• [A man with blue eyes] walked into a shop
• [A man] walked into a shop [with blue eyes]
• To describe this phenomena we need
transformations
– Rules which alter structures to form other
structures (e.g. By moving things about)
Generative grammar and
language acquisition
• From a rationalist perspective, knowledge
of language could be innate
• But clearly this is not totally true as there is
more than one language
• Chomsky supposed that some aspects of
language are innate but some are learned
• Language learning must be easy
– Children do it in about 5 years with no formal
instruction
• But transformational grammars which are
capable of describing even basic linguistic
facts were very complicated
• How can we square these facts?
Developments of the 1970s
• The way to account for language
acquisition is to assume that grammars
are limited
– You can’t just suppose any kind of rule
• Therefore the focus was not on what we
can do with transformation, but what we
can’t
– Constraints
Developments of the 1980s
• Principles and Parameters
– Principle
• Universal
• Invariant
• Innate
– Parameter
• A limited number of choices
• Needs linguistic data to set
• Modularity
– Principles and parameters seemed to group
into a small number of components, each of
which addresses specific linguistic
phenomena
– Thus the grammatical system was seen as
constructed from a set of simple modules
which interact in complex ways
– Thus the grammar is simple, but capable of
providing complex analyses
Developments of the 1990s
• Competition
– non-absolute grammaticality
– Grammaticality based on the ‘best’ of several
options
– E.g.
• It is better to not move than to move
• It is better to move short distances than long ones
• What does the grammar manipulate?
– From structuralism we have always assumed
that words are the basis of syntax
– But transformational analyses started to
discover that units smaller than words
undergo syntactic processes:
• He is always sad
• He always phones his mother
– Some have suggested that this leads to a
theory where syntax always manipulates
items smaller than the word and that words
are constructed by syntax