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Phonological Rules

Phonological Rules. Rules about how sounds may or may not go together in a language English: Words may not start with two stop consonants German: Devoicing rule—voiced consonants at the ends of words are devoiced, e.g. /g/--/k/

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Phonological Rules

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  1. Phonological Rules • Rules about how sounds may or may not go together in a language • English: Words may not start with two stop consonants • German: Devoicing rule—voiced consonants at the ends of words are devoiced, e.g. /g/--/k/ • Turkish: Vowel harmony—in two syllable words the 2nd vowel is dependent on the first (front vowels and back vowels go together)

  2. Morphology • Morphemes—smallest units of meaning in a language • Words (lexemes) are open class morphemes • Word endings: plural s, past –ed, prefixes and suffixes, infixes are closed class morphemes • Typically convey tense, verb agreement, grammatical gender, number, negation • English is morphologically impoverished

  3. Morphophonology • Morphology and phonology are not independent: • English plural: Cats /s/ , dogs /z/, finches /Iz/ • Tagalog future: reduplication rule • Bili (buy), bibili (will buy) • Kuha (get) kukuha (will get) • Sulat (write) susulate (will write)

  4. Semantics • Meanings of words and sentences and the relations between words and sentences • Some meaning relations: • Tautology: a necessarily true sentence • “A widower has no wife.” • Contradiction: a necessarily false sentence • “A widower has a wife.” • Anomaly: a sentence with no truth value • “The widower’s wife is a linguist.” • Synonymy: two sentences that have the same truth conditions • “I am a widower.” • “My wife passed away.”

  5. Syntax • Rules of the language specifying how sounds, morphemes, and words may be combined to form meaningful sentences. • Rules must generate all of the grammatical sentences in a language, and none of the ungrammatical ones • Related to, but separable from semantics. • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • *Green furiously sleep ideas colorless. • Charles ate a sandwich. • *Charles ate sandwich.

  6. Syntax: Noam Chomsky’s Legacy • Chomsky (1957, 1965) • Revolutionized the study of language • Language acquisition was the inspiration • Believed that the ability to learn syntax is innate in humans (the “LAD”) • Linguist’s task is to describe this innate knowledge

  7. Transformational Grammar • Phrase structure rules --Rules that specify the permissible sequences of constituents (words, phrases, etc.) in a sentence --Each rule “rewrites” a constituent into one or more other constituents • Transformational rules • Apply to entire strings of constituents by adding, deleting, or rearranging constituents into new sequences. • Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure: Distinction between the underlying representation of a sentence and it’s surface form, that is, what you say.

  8. Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure: Why? • Three basic kinds pieces of evidence: • Ambiguous sentences: “Visiting relatives can be boring.” “The zoo contained young llamas and gnus.” • Similar surface form but not meaning: “John is eager to please” vs. “John is easy to please.” • Similar meaning but not surface form: “Kim played the guitar.” and “The guitar was played by Kim.”

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