Ling110

1. Ling110 • Paul McFetridge • 778-782-4957 • mcfet@sfu.ca • Office Hours: M 3:30-4:20 • WF 1:30-2:20 or by appointment • Office: RCB 8213 (AQ 6164)

2. Courseware • Textbook: A Linguistic Introduction to the History and Structure of the English Lexicon • Web Site: http://web.mac.com/mpaul30/iWeb/Ling110/Home.html

3. Requirements • 4 assignments (30%) • 1 midterm (30%) on November 4 • Chapters 1-9 • 1 final (40%) scheduled by the registrar • Cumulative

4. Email policy • I cannot teach by email • Please ask questions in class • Others will have the same question and will appreciate hearing the answer • If you are shy, write the questions down and give them to me at the beginning of the class • Or email them to me with the understanding that I will answer in class

5. Email policy • Email should really be to communicate illness or other distress that prevents you from writing an exam • All email must have Ling110 in the subject header • I have strict spam filters that will delete email that, for example, has just ‘hi!!!’ in the subject header

6. Student Responsibilities • For the sake of your fellow students (and me) don’t talk or otherwise disrupt the class • The purpose of the class is to listen to the lecture, perhaps think about it and ask questions

7. Student Responsibilities • Laptops in class • As long as you are not disrupting class • Code of Conduct • http://www.sfu.ca/policies/teaching/t10-01.htm

8. Academic Integrity • Please refer to the following policies • http://www.sfu.ca/policies/Students/index.html • These policies define academic integrity and student conduct

9. Keys to Success • Sit close to the front • Helps with focus • Less likely to treat class as a social event • Helps with class participation • I might get to know your name • Usually good for a boost in grade

10. Keys to Success • Read the text before the lecture • Everyone has their own style and time may not always allow, but … • Lectures may clarify something that wasn’t clear in the text

11. Keys to Success • Do not rely on memorizing old exams • 2 types of complaints • Students with old exams have an unfair advantage • This semester’s exams aren’t the same as the old exams

12. Keys to Success • Use your knowledge • You can study for this course at any time • Be imaginative • Try to generate new knowledge • True understanding generates new questions which lead to new knowledge

13. Topics • Language of origin • English is a pastiche of many different languages • So a natural question is: what is the provenance of any particular word?

14. Topics • Word creation • What are the processes? • How is this best described? • What problems surround word creation? • Linguistic history • How/why do languages change? • What is the effect for English?

15. Topics • Once those questions are answered then there can be a deep exploration of the English lexicon

16. Why Study Language? • Language is what makes us human • No other creature has such a fully developed representation system • It plays a crucial role in our cognition • Understanding language pathologies

17. Why Study Language? • Religious discourse often centres on the meanings of words • The choice of words can have semiotic value • Which is classier? • Lingerie • Underwear

18. Why Study Language? • New products, inventions, ideas, algorithms, etc. need new names • Product naming is a lucrative business • Names must travel • Finnish lock de-icer • Super Piss • Names must age well

19. Why Study Language • Potentially Bad Product Names • Ralph Rotten’s Nut Pound • Candy shop • X-Ray Sweaters • Google “Naming a business” for many pages devoted to resources for business naming

20. Themes • A course can be organized around themes • A theme is a general idea that recurs in the details throughout the course • This course has 3 main themes

21. Theme: Change • Languages change over time • If you have studied Shakespeare, you cannot help but notice that his English is different from yours. • fish is related to the Latin word pisces • The act of word formation often changes the shape of the components of a word • do + not → don’t

22. “down” “sit” Theme: Structure • Words have structure • antidisestablishmentarianism • understand • nest anti dis establish ment arian ism under stand ni st

23. Combining Power of Structure • Long words in English

24. Theme: Structure • The English lexicon has structure • Language of origin • synedoche, hat, irrevocably, détente • Age of word • church vs. motorcycle

25. Representation • All sciences require a representation of the objects and processes that they study • physics uses mathematics • Similarly, linguistics requires a representation system to talk about change and structure

26. Representation • All literate cultures have had to address the problem of representation • European languages, Thai and Korean (among others) use alphabets • There are other possibilities • Each culture has had to make a decision about what to represent and has had to do some significant linguistic analysis

27. Goals • Investigate the mechanisms by which words are introduced into English • Investigate the processes that create and change words • Develop basic analytical skills • Consider basic argumentation

28. Course Outline • Chapters 1 - 7 introduce basic concepts and provide background and context • The later chapters use these concepts to analyze aspects of English vocabulary

29. Etymology • For much of the course, we will be doing etymology • from Greek etymon “true form” + logy “study” • There are sometimes surprising results • From an entertainment point of view, it helps to keep your eyes open

30. Etymology • one: [ME < OE an, akin to Ger ein, Goth ains < IE *oinos] • “<“ = “descended from” • two: [ME two, tu < OE twa, tu, akin to Ger zwei, Goth zwai < IE *dwou] • three: [ME three < OE Þrie, akin to Ger drei, Goth. Þreja < IE. *treja • zero: [It zero < Arab cifr]

31. Etymology • The question why? produces interesting results • Europeans believed that because the divine is omnipresent, there can’t be nothing • They could/would not conceive of zero • The concept was borrowed from Arabic, originally developed by Hindu mathematicians