Linguistics
To begin to answer question (1), Chomsky identifies knowing a language with having a mentally represented grammar. This grammar constitutes the native speaker’s competence in that language, and on this view, the key to
Introduction 3
understanding what it means to know a language is to understand the nature of such a grammar. Competence is contrasted with performance, the perception and production of speech, the study of which falls under psycholinguistics (see below). Since this is a fundamental distinction that underlies a great deal of what we shall be discussing, it is worth trying to get a clear grasp of it as early as possible. Consider the situation of a native speaker of English who suffers a blow to the head and, as a consequence, loses the ability to speak, write, read and understand English. In fortunate cases, such a loss of ability can be short-lived, and the ability to use English in the familiar ways reappears quite rapidly. What cognitive functions are impaired during the time when there is no use of language? Obviously, the ability to use language, i.e. to perform in various ways, is not available through this period, but what about knowledge of English, i.e. linguistic competence? If we suppose that this is lost, then we would expect to see a long period corresponding to the initial acquisition of language as it is regained, rather than the rapid re-emergence which sometimes occurs. It makes more sense to suppose that knowledge of language remains intact throughout such an episode; the problem is one of accessing this knowledge and putting it to use in speaking, etc. As soon as this problem is overcome, full knowledge of English is available, and the various abilities are rapidly reinstated.
What does a grammar consist of? The traditional view is that a grammar tells us
how to combine words to form phrases and sentences. For example, by combining a word like to with a word like Paris we form the phrase to Paris, which can be
used as a reply to the question asked by speaker A in the dialogue below:
(6) speaker a: Where have you been? speaker b: To Paris.
By combining the phrase to Paris with the word flown we form the larger phrase flown to Paris, which can serve as a reply to the question asked by speaker A in (7):
(7) speaker a: What’s he done? speaker b: Flown to Paris.
And by combining the phrase flown to Paris with words like has and he, we can form the sentence in (8):
(8) He has flown to Paris
On this view, a grammar of a language specifies how to combine words to form phrases and sentences, and it seems entirely appropriate to suggest that native
speakers of English and of other languages have access to cognitive systems which somehow specify these possibilities for combination (exercise 1). A very
important aspect of this way of looking at things is that it enables us to make sense
of how a cognitive system (necessarily finite, since it is represented in a brain) can somehow characterise an infinite set of objects (the phrases and sentences in a
natural language). That natural languages are infinite in this sense is easy to see by considering examples such as those in (9):
4 linguistics
(9) a. Smith believes that the earth is flat
b. Brown believes that Smith believes that the earth is flat
c. Smith believes that Brown believes that Smith believes that the earth is flat
d. Brown believes that Smith believes that Brown believes that Smith believes that the earth is flat
A native speaker of English will recognise that such a sequence of sentences
could be indefinitely extended, and the same point can be made in connection with a variety of other constructions in English and other languages (exercise 2).
But the infinite nature of the set of English sentences, exemplified by those in (9), does not entail that the principles of combination used in constructing these
sentences are also infinite; and it is these principles which form part of a grammar. The view we have introduced above implies that a grammar contains two components: (i) a lexicon (or dictionary), which lists all the words found in the language, and (ii) a syntactic component, which specifies how to combine words together to form phrases and sentences. Each lexical entry (i.e. each item listed in the lexicon) will tell us about the linguistic properties of a word. For example, the entry for the word man will specify its phonological (= sound) properties (namely that it is pronounced /man/ – for the significance of the slashes, see section 5), its grammatical properties (e.g. that it can function as a noun and that when it does, it has the irregular plural form men) and its semantic (i.e. meaning) proper-ties (namely that it denotes an adult male human being). The linguistic properties of words, including the nature of lexical entries, form the subject matter of part II of this book, while syntax (i.e. the study of how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences) provides the focus for part III. A grammar can be said to generate (i.e. specify how to form) a set of phrases and sentences, and using this terminology, we can view the task of the linguist as that of developing a theory of generative grammar (i.e. a theory about how phrases and sentences
are formed).
Careful reflection shows that a grammar must contain more than just a lexicon and a syntax. One reason for this is based on the observation that many words change their phonetic form (i.e. the way they are pronounced) in connected speech, such sound changes being determined by the nature of neighbouring sounds within a word, phrase or sentence. These changes are effected by native speakers in a perfectly natural and unreflective way, suggesting that whatever principles determine them must be part of the relevant system of mental repre-sentation (i.e. grammar). We can illustrate what we mean here by considering examples of changes which result from the operation of regular phonological processes. One such process is elision, whereby a sound in a particular position can be dropped and hence not pronounced. For instance, the ‘f’ in the word of (which is pronounced /v/) can be elided in colloquial speech before a word beginning with a consonant (but not before a word beginning with a vowel): hence we say ‘pint o’ milk’ (sometimes written pinta milk) eliding /v/ before the /m/ of the word milk, but ‘pint of ale’ (not ‘pint o’ ale’) where the /v/ can’t be elided because the word ale begins with a vowel. A second regular phonological
Introduction 5
process is assimilation, a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighbouring sound. For example, in colloquial speech styles, the final ‘d’ of a word like bad is assimilated to the initial sound of an immediately
following word beginning with a consonant: hence, bad boy is pronounced as if it were written bab boy and bad girl as if it were written bag girl (exercise 3).
The fact that there are regular phonological processes such as those briefly described above suggests that in addition to a lexicon and a syntactic component, a grammar must also contain a phonological component: since this determines the phonetic form (= PF) of words in connected speech, it is also referred to as the PF component. Phonology, the study of sound systems and processes affecting the way words are pronounced, forms the subject matter of part I of this book.
So far, then, we have proposed that a grammar of a language contains three components, but it is easy to see that a fourth component must be added, as native speakers not only have the ability to form sentences, but also the ability to interpret (i.e. assign meaning to) them. Accordingly, a grammar of a language should also answer the question ‘How are the meanings of sentences determined?’ A commonsense answer would be that the meaning of a sentence is derived by combining the meanings of the words which it contains. However, there’s clearly more involved than this, as we see from the fact that sentence (10) below is ambiguous (i.e. has more than one interpretation):
(10) She loves me more than you
Specifically, (10) has the two interpretations paraphrased in (11a, b):
(11) a. She loves me more than you love me b. She loves me more than she loves you
The ambiguity in (10) is not due to the meanings of the individual words in the sentence. In this respect, it contrasts with (12):
(12) He has lost the match
In (12), the word match is itself ambiguous, referring either to a sporting encounter or a small piece of wood tipped with easily ignitable material, and this observation is sufficient to account for the fact that (12) also has two interpretations. But (10) contains no such ambiguous word, and to understand the ambiguity here, we need to have some way of representing the logical (i.e. meaning) relations between the words in the sentence. The ambiguity of (10) resides in the relationship between the words you and loves; to get the interpretation in (11a), you must be seen as the logical subject of loves (representing the person giving love), whereas for (11b), it must function as the logical object of loves (representing the person receiving love). On the basis of such observations, we can say that a grammar must also contain a component which determines the logical form (= LF) of sentences in the
language. For obvious reasons, this component is referred to as the LF compo-nent, and this is a topic which is discussed in section 23 of this book (exercise 4).
6 linguistics
Our discussion has led us to the conclusion that a grammar of a language comprises (at least) four components: a lexicon, a syntactic component, a PF component and an LF component. A major task for the linguist is to discover the nature of such grammars.
However, there is an additional concern for the linguist. Suppose grammars are produced for a variety of languages by specifying the components
Linguistics
To begin to answer question (1), Chomsky identifies knowing a language with having a mentally represented grammar. This grammar constitutes the native speaker’s competence in that language, and on this view, the key to
Introduction 3
understanding what it means to know a language is to understand the nature of such a grammar. Competence is contrasted with performance, the perception and production of speech, the study of which falls under psycholinguistics (see below). Since this is a fundamental distinction that underlies a great deal of what we shall be discussing, it is worth trying to get a clear grasp of it as early as possible. Consider the situation of a native speaker of English who suffers a blow to the head and, as a consequence, loses the ability to speak, write, read and understand English. In fortunate cases, such a loss of ability can be short-lived, and the ability to use English in the familiar ways reappears quite rapidly. What cognitive functions are impaired during the time when there is no use of language? Obviously, the ability to use language, i.e. to perform in various ways, is not available through this period, but what about knowledge of English, i.e. linguistic competence? If we suppose that this is lost, then we would expect to see a long period corresponding to the initial acquisition of language as it is regained, rather than the rapid re-emergence which sometimes occurs. It makes more sense to suppose that knowledge of language remains intact throughout such an episode; the problem is one of accessing this knowledge and putting it to use in speaking, etc. As soon as this problem is overcome, full knowledge of English is available, and the various abilities are rapidly reinstated.
What does a grammar consist of? The traditional view is that a grammar tells us
how to combine words to form phrases and sentences. For example, by combining a word like to with a word like Paris we form the phrase to Paris, which can be
used as a reply to the question asked by speaker A in the dialogue below:
(6) speaker a: Where have you been? speaker b: To Paris.
By combining the phrase to Paris with the word flown we form the larger phrase flown to Paris, which can serve as a reply to the question asked by speaker A in (7):
(7) speaker a: What’s he done? speaker b: Flown to Paris.
And by combining the phrase flown to Paris with words like has and he, we can form the sentence in (8):
(8) He has flown to Paris
On this view, a grammar of a language specifies how to combine words to form phrases and sentences, and it seems entirely appropriate to suggest that native
speakers of English and of other languages have access to cognitive systems which somehow specify these possibilities for combination (exercise 1). A very
important aspect of this way of looking at things is that it enables us to make sense
of how a cognitive system (necessarily finite, since it is represented in a brain) can somehow characterise an infinite set of objects (the phrases and sentences in a
natural language). That natural languages are infinite in this sense is easy to see by considering examples such as those in (9):
4 linguistics
(9) a. Smith believes that the earth is flat
b. Brown believes that Smith believes that the earth is flat
c. Smith believes that Brown believes that Smith believes that the earth is flat
d. Brown believes that Smith believes that Brown believes that Smith believes that the earth is flat
A native speaker of English will recognise that such a sequence of sentences
could be indefinitely extended, and the same point can be made in connection with a variety of other constructions in English and other languages (exercise 2).
But the infinite nature of the set of English sentences, exemplified by those in (9), does not entail that the principles of combination used in constructing these
sentences are also infinite; and it is these principles which form part of a grammar. The view we have introduced above implies that a grammar contains two components: (i) a lexicon (or dictionary), which lists all the words found in the language, and (ii) a syntactic component, which specifies how to combine words together to form phrases and sentences. Each lexical entry (i.e. each item listed in the lexicon) will tell us about the linguistic properties of a word. For example, the entry for the word man will specify its phonological (= sound) properties (namely that it is pronounced /man/ – for the significance of the slashes, see section 5), its grammatical properties (e.g. that it can function as a noun and that when it does, it has the irregular plural form men) and its semantic (i.e. meaning) proper-ties (namely that it denotes an adult male human being). The linguistic properties of words, including the nature of lexical entries, form the subject matter of part II of this book, while syntax (i.e. the study of how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences) provides the focus for part III. A grammar can be said to generate (i.e. specify how to form) a set of phrases and sentences, and using this terminology, we can view the task of the linguist as that of developing a theory of generative grammar (i.e. a theory about how phrases and sentences
are formed).
Careful reflection shows that a grammar must contain more than just a lexicon and a syntax. One reason for this is based on the observation that many words change their phonetic form (i.e. the way they are pronounced) in connected speech, such sound changes being determined by the nature of neighbouring sounds within a word, phrase or sentence. These changes are effected by native speakers in a perfectly natural and unreflective way, suggesting that whatever principles determine them must be part of the relevant system of mental repre-sentation (i.e. grammar). We can illustrate what we mean here by considering examples of changes which result from the operation of regular phonological processes. One such process is elision, whereby a sound in a particular position can be dropped and hence not pronounced. For instance, the ‘f’ in the word of (which is pronounced /v/) can be elided in colloquial speech before a word beginning with a consonant (but not before a word beginning with a vowel): hence we say ‘pint o’ milk’ (sometimes written pinta milk) eliding /v/ before the /m/ of the word milk, but ‘pint of ale’ (not ‘pint o’ ale’) where the /v/ can’t be elided because the word ale begins with a vowel. A second regular phonological
Introduction 5
process is assimilation, a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighbouring sound. For example, in colloquial speech styles, the final ‘d’ of a word like bad is assimilated to the initial sound of an immediately
following word beginning with a consonant: hence, bad boy is pronounced as if it were written bab boy and bad girl as if it were written bag girl (exercise 3).
The fact that there are regular phonological processes such as those briefly described above suggests that in addition to a lexicon and a syntactic component, a grammar must also contain a phonological component: since this determines the phonetic form (= PF) of words in connected speech, it is also referred to as the PF component. Phonology, the study of sound systems and processes affecting the way words are pronounced, forms the subject matter of part I of this book.
So far, then, we have proposed that a grammar of a language contains three components, but it is easy to see that a fourth component must be added, as native speakers not only have the ability to form sentences, but also the ability to interpret (i.e. assign meaning to) them. Accordingly, a grammar of a language should also answer the question ‘How are the meanings of sentences determined?’ A commonsense answer would be that the meaning of a sentence is derived by combining the meanings of the words which it contains. However, there’s clearly more involved than this, as we see from the fact that sentence (10) below is ambiguous (i.e. has more than one interpretation):
(10) She loves me more than you
Specifically, (10) has the two interpretations paraphrased in (11a, b):
(11) a. She loves me more than you love me b. She loves me more than she loves you
The ambiguity in (10) is not due to the meanings of the individual words in the sentence. In this respect, it contrasts with (12):
(12) He has lost the match
In (12), the word match is itself ambiguous, referring either to a sporting encounter or a small piece of wood tipped with easily ignitable material, and this observation is sufficient to account for the fact that (12) also has two interpretations. But (10) contains no such ambiguous word, and to understand the ambiguity here, we need to have some way of representing the logical (i.e. meaning) relations between the words in the sentence. The ambiguity of (10) resides in the relationship between the words you and loves; to get the interpretation in (11a), you must be seen as the logical subject of loves (representing the person giving love), whereas for (11b), it must function as the logical object of loves (representing the person receiving love). On the basis of such observations, we can say that a grammar must also contain a component which determines the logical form (= LF) of sentences in the
language. For obvious reasons, this component is referred to as the LF compo-nent, and this is a topic which is discussed in section 23 of this book (exercise 4).
6 linguistics
Our discussion has led us to the conclusion that a grammar of a language comprises (at least) four components: a lexicon, a syntactic component, a PF component and an LF component. A major task for the linguist is to discover the nature of such grammars.
However, there is an additional concern for the linguist. Suppose grammars are produced for a variety of languages by specifying the components
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