Essential Introductory
Linguistics
Grover Hudson
By: Tayebeh Mosavi Miangah (Ph.D.)
Payame Noor University
Mosavit@pnu.ac.ir
Chapter 6: Sentences and Syntax
Unboundedness and Creativity
• The number and length of sentences of a
language is unbounded.
• Unboundedness of syntax is the result of
creativity.
Three Aspects of Syntax
• Grouping: grouping of words into meaningful
and functional phrases (NP, VP, …)
• Function: grammatical relations (subject,
predicate, object, ….), parts of speech (noun,
verb, adjective, ….), heads and modifiers
• Word order: temporal or linear sequence of
words
Recursion in Syntax
• Recursion: The reason for unboundedness of
sentence length
• Coordination: Expanding phrases by
coordinating conjunctions (and, or)
Abstractness of Syntax
• The constituents and functions of sentences are
not ordinarily concretely marked, not in
speaking nor in writing.
• The speakers’ knowledge of syntax concerns
constituents and functions
Knowledge of constituents
Three kinds of evidence for groups and their
constituents:
• Replacement
• Movement
• Grouping ambiguity
Replacement
Replacement: a group may be replaced by a
single word.
I said I liked it. I said so. (Sentence by Adv.)
Your cat hissed at me. It hissed at me. (NP by Pron.)
Put them by the door. Put them there. (PP by Adv.)
Movement
• Movement: a group may appear in different
places in different versions of a sentence
Local farmers sell vegetables at the city market on Saturday.
It is at the city market that local farmers sell vegetables on Saturday.
It is vegetables that local farmers sell at the city market on Saturday.
NP
NP
VP
PP
PP
Grouping ambiguity
• Grouping ambiguity: the same string may
have two meaning based on different possible
groupings
“The man met the girl with a bunch of flowers.”
Sense (A)
sense (B)
S  NP – VP
S  NP – VP
VP  V – NP
VP  V – NP – PP
NP  Det – N – PP
PP  P – NP
Knowledge of functions
It is revealed in various ways, knowing the
knowledge of:
• Subjects (subject-verb agreement)
• Head and modifiers: (the agreement of head, not
the complement, with the verb)
• Parts of speech (verb, noun, …)
Function Ambiguity
The ambiguity is based not on an ambiguous
word (lexical) or an ambiguous grouping of
words (grouping), but on an ambiguity of
function.
A Functionally ambiguous sentence:
I like ice cream more than you.
Sense (A): I like ice cream more than you like ice
cream.
Sense (B): I like ice cream more than I like you.
Chapter 11: Adult Language Learning
Distinction between foreign language learning
(LL) and second language learning (LL):
• A foreign language is learned outside of the
community in which it is spoken (English in Iran).
• A second language is learned in a community in
which it is a commonly used language (French in
Canada).
Advantages of learning a second language:
 Learning inside and outside the classroom
 Putting to use what is learned
 Learning to get along in the community
Therefore, in cases of second LL, there are more
possibility to be successful in LL as children.
Adults are less successful in LL than are
children. Three sorts of evidence:
• Rate of success: almost all children are successful
in LL
• Degree of success: children learn language
completely, fluently, and without accent
• Effect and spontaneity: children acquire
language almost effortlessly
Three explanations for the superiority of
children in LL:
• Cognitive differences
• Affective differences
• Biological differences
Cognitive Differences
Cognitive differences deal with processing the
earlier knowledge about language.
• Transfer: influencing the earlier knowledge
on the acquisition of later knowledge.
• Metalinguistic knowledge: conscious,
analytic knowledge of the use of language
Positive and Negative Transfer
Positive transfer: Categories of second or
foreign language are similar to those of the first
language. It contributes to success in adult
language learning.
Negative transfer (interference): Categories of
second or foreign language are different from
those of the first language. It results in errors.
The categories of the first and second
languages are different in three ways:
a) Absence of the category in second language
(not problematic)
b) Absence of the category in first language
(problematic)
c) Reinterpreting the category of the first
language in second language (negative
transfer)
Metalinguistic knowledge
Metalinguistic knowledge: Adults’ conscious,
analytic, knowledge of their use of language like
that of terminology or grammar. They can monitor
their speech.
Distinction between learning and acquisition:
Language learning: the conscious and analytic approach of
adults learning
Language acquisition: the unconscious and spontaneous
approach of children learning
Affective Differences
Affective differences deal with attitudes,
emotions and personality, notably motivation
and acculturation.
Two sorts of motivation for adults language
learning:
• Integrative motivation: the desire to integrate into
the community of the second language speakers
• Instrumental motivation: the desire to benefit from
the language learning (job, higher pay, status, etc.)
Acculturation: becoming a member of one’s
cultural group, of which his/her language is a
part.
Adult LL is an aspect of acculturation: adding a
culture or becoming identified with a new social
group.
Some adults learners suffer from culture shock,
who gradually may feel anomie, giving up their
own culture ( a type of culturelessness and
isolation)
Biological Differences
Biological Differences deal with a critical period
for language learning.
Critical Period: a time during which something
must be learned. Two evidence for such period:
a. Aphasias after the age of 11 result in permanent
loss of some language ability
b. Persons who do not acquire their first language
before the age of 11 are unable to do learn it
later.
The critical period hypotheses
a. Maturation version: after the critical period
we lose the biological basis to learn in the
spontaneous and effortless way of children.
b. Exercise version: the critical period is valid
only for the first language. The experience of
learning the first language stimulates and
establishes the biological basis for second
language learning.
Adults cannot learn like children
Five evidence:
1. Variable success
2. Significance of motivation
3. Fossilization
4. Feral children
5. Research on learning
1. Variable success
Comparison between:
Limited success  laborious adult LL
Perfect success  effortless child LL
2. Significance of motivation
Children don’t need any motivation for LL.
For adults motivation is very important.
3. Fossilization
Adults make persistent errors in the use of
language, but children don’t.
4. Feral children
Cases of abandoned and isolated children
growing up without language (Victor, Genie)
These children never was able to learn language
like other children.
They support the critical period hypothesis.
5. Research on learning
Results of research on testing LL ability of
adults arriving in the US in different ages:
• After the age of 7: sudden decline in scores
• Before the age of 8: high scores (as natives)
• After the age of 15: low scores
Conclusion: the earlier arrival age, the higher
scores
Adults can learn like children
Three evidence:
1. Creative construction
2. Natural orders
3. Successful adult learners
1. Creative construction
Like children, adult learners are observed to test
hypotheses about language resulting in novel and
creative utterances. They produce things which
could not possibly have been heard or learned by
imitation. (like generalization patterns of
language)
“We putted the cookie there.”
2. Natural orders
The similarity of the stages of the mastery in
patterns of grammar in children and adults
“I no like this one.”
3. Successful adult learners
The existence of rare successful persons who
achieve a command of a second language
equivalent to that of native speakers (Joseph
Conrad)
Chapter 15: Six ways to get new words
Openness: all languages continually get new morphemes
and words through various ways as follows:
A) new meanings in new forms
Loan words
Coinage
B) new meanings in old forms
Derivation/compounding/extension/narrowing/ba
ckformation /bifurcation
C) old meanings in new forms
1. new forms in syntax
(Mail which is sent and received electronically by computer)
2. New forms in morphology (4 ways)
(e-mail = electronic mail)
(Please email me. *Please electronically mail me)
Principle of limited novelty
New meanings are preferred in old forms, and new
forms are preferred in old meanings.
A) limits of new form: phonology
The grammar limits the possibilities of new phonological
forms.
New morphemes has to be adapted to the phonological
patterns and the established inventory of phonemes of
the language
/lu:str/---> /lu:ster/
B) limits of new meaning
There is not any evidence for such limits.
New words in new forms: six ways
A) New forms for old meanings:
1) clipping
2) acronyming
3) blending
4) wrong cutting
B) New words with new meanings and new forms:
5) invention
6) borrowing
Clipping
Clipping: Shortening the spoken form of a word.
pub, fan, pet
Abbreviation: Shortening the written form of a
word. Mr., etc., Dr. cm, kg
• Clippings have the spelling suitable for English
words, but abbreviations don't.
• Abbreviations usually end in period, but clippings
don't.
Acronyming
A phrase is replaced by a word based on the first letters
of its words.
Types of acronyms:
• Word acronyms
• Spelling acronyms
• Two-level acronyms
Word acronyms: pronounced as ordinary words,
not single letters
RAM ( random access memory)
Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of
radiation)
Unicef (united nations International Children's
Emergency Fund)
(‫ناجا ) نيروي انتظامي جمهوري اسالمي‬
Spelling acronyms: pronounced as spellings, a
sequence of letters
TLC (tender loving care)
ID (Identification Card)
CD (Compact Disk)
Two-level acronyms: the acronym which
expresses meaning on two levels, as an acronym
and as a simple word
NOW (National Organization of Women) / the members
are getting impatient
SMOOSA (Save Maine's Only Official State Animal) / a
large deer of north America
Blending
Making new words by taking the first part of the
first word and the last part of the second word.
Motel (motor hotel)
Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge)
Edutainment (education and entertainment)
Smog (smoke and fog)
Wrong cutting
The process of language change in a novel way
(or sometimes wrong way) in which the word
boundary is mislocated.
Nickname (from ekename)
Lute (from Arabic 'al ud')
Lariat (from Spanish la reata)
Invention
Inventing a word more or less from scratch.
Proper names: kodak, ‫ريكا‬
Snob: (proud of social status)
Barf (vomit)
Logic of inventions
Inventions are not always arbitrary, or symbolic
relations of form and meaning. They may have an
indexical or ironic relations with earlier words.
Googol: indexical relation with a number having 100
zeros.
Kleenex: indexical relation with 'clean'
Zip: symbolic relation of form and meaning
Form constraints on inventions
The form of the invented words may not be new.
They must conform to the phonological rules of
the language.
zap, dork: possible inventions
tlak, sring: impossible inventions
Disco, tomato: impossible inventions, possible
borrowing
Borrowing (loanwords)
Taking a word from another language
Process of borrowing:
Adopting a loanword from a SL --> using it for the
occasion --> finding it useful --> repeating it -->
becoming familiar in TL
Loanwords show the nature of political or cultural
relations between SL and TL. They are evidence of
the history.
Nativization:
Changing the pronunciation of loanwords to be
conformed to the pronunciation of the TL.
Nativization of spelling: In French borrowed
word in English
naive (with two dots above 'n') --> naive
Loanwords in English
Over 60% of English words are borrowed ones.
From French: pork, beef, mutton, restaurant, rent,
market, pay
From Danish: sky, sister, thing, egg, odd, both
From Latin: school, martyr, purse, mass, monk, creed
From Greek and Latin: legal, necessary, history,
popular, solar
From Native American languages: Texas, tobacco,
tomato, moose
Etymology
Origin: From the Greek word etymos
Etymology is the study of the origin of words.
OK (okey): acronym of 'oll korrect' = all correct 
reinforced in 1836 to stand for 'Old Kinderhook (US
President 1836-40
New words recently entered in dictionaries:
o bugbot: small mobile robot
o cyber addiction: frequent use of the Internet
as a psychological problem
o hotel (v): use an office on a part time basis
o infonaut: user of the Internet
o v-mail: video-mail
Chapter 25
Language Families
How many languages in the world?
Four to six thousand
Three cases which make the exact count of world's
languages difficult:
1. Chinese-type cases:
2. Swedish/Norwegian-type cases:
3. Arabic-type cases: diglossia
1. Chinese-type cases: different languages
under one name
Mutually unintelligible languages such as
Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Shanghai, and
Taiwanese are commonly called Chinese.
2. Swedish/Norwegian-type cases: one
language under different names (Political
matters)
Swedish and Norwegian are dialects of one
language.
Hindi and Urdu are one language with two
names, with two writing systems.
3. Arabic-type cases: diglossia
Two varieties of one language are mutually
unintelligible.
It is extreme in the Arab world where the casual
version of the language is different from the
formal version.
Language Families
Language family: the set of co-descendant
languages of an earlier language
Causes for extending language families:
1. social separations between people
2. Language change over the years
Dialects (mutually intelligible varieties of a language)  

languages (mutually non-intelligible varieties
Language
Dialect
Dialect
Language
Language
Dialect
Dialect
Dialect
Dialect
Language
Language
Language
Language
The process of diversification of language families
Isolates: languages not yet shown to be part of
the larger groups.
Sibling languages (sister languages): the
member languages of a language family having
the same parent language
Parent language (protolanguage): the language
from which sibling languages descend
Origin of language
The approximate time of origin of language:
50,000 to million years ago
• The Hypothesis of monogenesis: language
was invented or developed only once in
human history, so all languages descend from
that one original language.
• The Hypothesis of polygenesis: languages
derive from multiple origins.
Methods of Historical Linguistics
1. Mass comparison
2. Language reconstruction
- Comparative method
- Internal reconstruction
The limits of history
Language classification: the process of determining
the grouping of languages on the basis of their
shared descent from a parent language.
Writing dates back to 5,000 years ago
Classical Arabic and classical Latin were alike.
Gradual change of them over time leads to two
geographically separated modern varieties of Italic and
Arabic languages.
Mass comparison
A simple comparison of basic vocabulary of
several languages in order to find the phonetic
and semantic similarities between them.
Basic vocabulary: the words essential to human
societies including numerals, body parts, kinship
relations, and the like.
Four reasons for semantic and phonetic
similarities between language members of a
family are as follows:
1. Borrowing (not for basic vocabulary)
2. Onomatopoeia (not for basic vocabulary)
3. Chance
4. Common descent
1. Borrowing:
A recently borrowed word is very similar in
sound and meaning to the equivalent word of the
lending language. Television / ‫تلویزیون‬
Basic vocabularies are not usually borrowed.
2. Onomatopoeia (mimic words)
Such words like ‘crash’ and ‘zip’ naturally tend
to share meaning and sound from language to
language.
3. Chance
It is very unlikely for words of different
languages to be similar by chance, because the
relationship between sound and meaning in all
languages is arbitrary.
4. Common descend
Cognates in different languages have a common
origin as they are similar in form and meaning.
‘Common descend’ evidence shows that English,
Italian, and Hindi are sibling languages belonging to
the Indo-European family.
Many similarities of form would occur repeatedly,
as regular phonetic correspondences, as well as
the regularity of phonetic change.
Regularity of phonetic change: the strong tendency
for all phones of a type in a given environment to
change identically.
Language reconstruction
The forms of a protolanguage are hypothesized
by undoing the sound changes by which
cognates are related.
Two methods:
• Comparative method
• Internal reconstruction
Comparative reconstruction
Identifying regular phonetic similarities between
the phones of cognates and hypothesizing the
original phone (of the protolanguage) from
which these evolve.
In this method, protolanguage words are
guessed to have existed before language change
of the cognate words.
Internal reconstruction
Constructing only earlier forms of a single
language by making comparisons within that
language.
Shine  shone / shined
Shone is the earlier form of the past .
Shined has been created afterward as the result
of analogical change or rule extension.
Pidgin and Creole Languages
Pidgin: A new rudimentary language created as
the result of combining two languages – a
foreign language spoken by few speakers and a
local language spoken by many people with
whom they have business relationships.
Mi wokim haws.
Yu wokim bret?
‘I am bulding (working) a house.’
‘’Are you making bread?’
Lingua franca: one of the established pidgin languages
which becomes widely known among the pidginspeaking community.
It is a language of those who do not share a native
language.
Creole language: a pidgin language which becomes the
native language of many people enriching with
grammatical functions and vocabulary extension.
Creole languages are among mixed languages which
are exceptional cases.
Pidgin  lingua franca  creole
Chapter 26
Dialects and other Sociolects
Three dimensions of language variation:
Time - Society - Individual
2. Society
3. Individual
1. Time
Historical variation
Register
Regional, ethnic,
age, etc. variation
Variation in Time
Variation in time is one-directional.
The result of lexical and grammatical changes in
this dimension is linguistic variation.
Linguistic variation: different ways of saying
about the same thing.
Speech community
A group of people with almost the same language
(who learn from and influence one another in all sorts of
behavior including language.)
Language change starts and spreads in a speech
community.
Language communities are based on the following
factors:
•
•
•
•
Geography
Age
Religion
Gender
Centers of change
Factors which influence changes in speech
communities are as follows:
1. Population size
2. Tight social networks
3. Removal from linguistic standards
4. Subordinate bilingualism
1. Population size
• More populous speech communities, more
changes
• Language change is greater in cities than in
the countryside.
• Change is slower among the less numerous
wealthier elites.
2. Tight social networks
In tighter social networks, with more interaction
among the members, more language change can
be seen.
3. Removal from linguistic standards
In more isolated groups, more language change
can be seen.
4. Subordinate bilingualism
Inequality in language use in different contexts
as home, school, church, neighborhood, region,
and nation, in which the language of school and
nation often render the other languages
subordinates.
Result: lots of borrowing from dominant language to
the subordinate one
In coordinate bilingualism, both languages of
nation and region are generally used for all
purposes.
Factors of language change in bilingual
communities are as follows:
1. Subordinate bilingualism
2. Population insufficiency (to provide a rich social
network for one of the languages)
3. Removal of one language from the linguistic
standards of its traditional community.
Sociolect
Register: different linguistic levels of formality or styles
Sociolect: the characteristic forms of the language of
social groups
Seven factors for arising sociolects within social groups:
1. Geography
2. Socioeconomic status
3. Ethnicity/race
4. Age
5. Occupation
6. Religion
7. Gender
1. Geography factor
Dialects: the regional varieties of a language
Every language of any geographic extent has regional
varieties known as dialects. Every dialect is a variety of
language
Geographical features which severely limit travel (sea,
mountain) can result in distinct dialects.
How distinct languages are formed: with the passage of
time, people speaking a single language when isolated
from each other begin to lose mutual intelligibility. So
their dialects become separate languages.
• Mutual intelligibility is a continuum. Speakers of
different dialects of a single language often make
themselves mutually intelligible.
• One of the dialects of a language (often the most
prestigious one) is known as the Standard
dialect.
• Such a prestige derives from the greater cultural
/ economic influence of the region of the
standard.
2. Socioeconomic status factor
• The population of most large societies are
classified according to socioeconomic status
(SES).
• The speech of most people may go up and down
in SES continuum in different linguistic
interactions and occasions.
• Post-vocalic r is prestigious in New York. So the
more prestigious the people, the more occasions
of the prestigious pronunciation with r.
3. Ethnicity/race factor
Three populous and separate racial groups in the US
are:
1. African Americans
2. Hispanic Americans
3. European Americans
Ebonics or Black English Vernacular (BEV) is the
speech of African Americans spoken in
discontinuous African American communities.
It is not a regional but a ethnic variety of English.
Characteristics of BEV:
Be-deletion: be is absent except in two contexts
(stressed be-verb, and habitual be)
Habitual be: ‘he be late.’ means ‘he is late all the
time.’
Consonant deletion: word-final consonant
deletion
‘I foun’ something’ means ‘I found something.’
Origins of BEV. Three explanations:
1. May be an extension of features of regional
American Southern dialect.
2. May be arose in the Pidgin English , a shared
language between African people came from different
regions of Africa to America.
3. May include characteristics of African languages
Chicano English is characterized by:
1. The influence of Spanish
2. Code-switching between English sand
Spanish
Well boys, vamanos (let’s go)
4. Age factor
The speech of teenagers is often noted by elder
people as different, because they excessively
make use of slang in their speech.
‘I got shotgun’ means ‘ I’ll sit in front next to the driver.’
5. Occupation factor
Occupational groups have their characteristic
jargon.
Legalese discourse: is characterized by avoidance of
pronouns
Medical discourse: has so many passive verbs
6. Religion factor
Religious differences cannot alone lead to language
differences except when accompanied by political
separation which, in turn, results in social
separation.
Three cases:
1. Urdu and Hindi dialects leading to separate
languages
2. Serbian and Croatian dialects leading to separate
languages
3. Amharic and Argobba dialects leading to separate
languages
7. Gender factor
There are some gender preferential features of
languages which may be used by both genders
but are preferred by one of the genders.
There are also some gender exclusive features
which are only used by one of the genders.
Examples of gender preferential differences in English:
a. Lexical differences. Men: diesel , Bronco, women:
rose, paisley
b. Pitch. Higher in women and lower in men
c. Non-standard usage. Women are more adherent to
standard language (linguistic norms).
d. Conversation. Women ask more questions, use more
back-channeling, and interrupt men less than men
interrupt them.
Gender exclusive features can be seen in two
languages of Sidamo and Japanese.
Sidamo: gender exclusive lexical differences:
gurda (women) / ado (men) for ‘milk’
Japanese: gender exclusive grammatical and
lexical morphology
chotto kite (women) / chotto koi (men) for ‘come here
for a minute.’