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Early 20th century: Structuralism
• European schools (functionalism)– Prague school: Jakobson, Trubetzkoy,
Mathésius, Trnka
– French school: Martinet
• American schools– Anthropological linguistics (Boas, Sapir)
– Formal linguistics (Bloomfield, Army Program, Hockett, Harris)
European structuralism
Prague school:
phonology, theory of features + functions (Jakobson, Trubetzkoy)
general theory of linguistic functions (Jakobson)
syntax (Mathésius, Trnka)
stylistics, poetics (Jakobson)
historical linguistics (Jakobson)
Trubetzkoy’s system of features
binary (+/–) ↔ gradual (0,1,2...)
e.g. V openness
privative equipollent
presence symmetrical contrast
vs. absence of property e.g. voicing
e.g. nasality
Trubetzkoy’s system of features
The privative vs. equipollent distinction:
• implicational universals (e.g. more non-nasals than nasals in all languages)
• patterns of neutralisations (if a contrats typically neutralises one way, privative contrast, unmarked direction)
(Not always unequivocal, e.g. voicing can neutralise both ways but there are implicational universals.)
Jakobson’s theory of linguistic functions
Context REFERENTIAL
Speaker Message RecipientEMOTIVE POETIC CONATIVE
Channel PHATIC
Code METALINGUISTIC
Elements of functional syntax
Theme vs. Rheme (or Topic vs. Comment, Focus etc.)
John loves Mary ~ JÁNOS szereti Marit
John loves Mary ~ János SZERETI Marit
John loves Mary ~ János MARIT szereti
Structuralist historical phonology
Types of sound change: split, merger, shift
A A
A A A > B
B B
OE k > č /_i,e,æ ME y,i > i eMoE ī > ai
(k > k elsewhere)
Structuralist historical phonology
split merger shift
conditionedk > č /_i,e,æu > y /_(C)i
a > e /_(C)i
unconditioned y,i > i ī > ai
Splits can lead to phonologisation as well as morphologisation →
Structuralist historical phonology
PGmc Pre-OE OE ME MoE
*mus *mus mus mouse mouse
*musiz *mysiz mys mice mice
↑ ↑Allophony Phonologisation (/u/ ≠ /y/)
(/u/ = [u ~ y]) and morphologisation
Structuralist historical phonology
Functional load (A. Martinet: Economie des changement phonétiques, 1955):
extent to which a contrast is utilised, i.e. number of minimal pairs:
p≠b high (pin≠bin, lap≠lab...)
θ≠ð low (thigh≠thy?)
Contrast of a low functional load more likely to merge
Structuralist historical phonology
Syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic aspects of sound change (or of phonology in general)
Structuralist historical phonology
Example: Late Latin vowel length
V > VV in open syllables (pă.ter > pā.ter ‘father’)
VV > V in closed syllables (āc.tio > ăc.tio ‘action’)
mā.ter ‘mother’, ăt.que ‘and’ etc. unchanged
How does one analyse this in syntagmatic and paradigmatic terms?
Structuralist historical phonology
paradigmatically:
/ă/ [ă]
/ā/ [ā]
Conditioned merger: both [ă] and [ā] remain after the change but they are no longer contrastive (dephonologisation)
Structuralist historical phonology
syntagmatically: syllable types (rhymes)
Rh Rh Rh Rh
V VV VC VVC
pă.(ter) mā.(ter) ăt.(que) āc.(ti.o)
light heavy heavy superheavy
Structuralist historical phonology
syntagmatically: syllable types (rhymes)
Rh Rh Rh Rh
V > VV VC < VVC
mā.(ter) ăt.(que) pā.(ter) ăc.(ti.o)
light heavy heavy superheavy
Only heavy rhymes remain!
American linguistics in 20th century
Mid- and late 19th century: comparative and historical linguistics (W. D. Whitney)
Turn of the century, early 1900’s:
anthropological linguistics– comprehensive study of native American tribes
• oral traditions; literacy (if any)
• language
• clothes, decorative arts
• religion, beliefs, mythology
• material civilisation
• ...
American linguistics in 20th century
Anthropological linguistics: Franz Boas
• German émigré, PhD in physics (Kiel)
• Columbia University 1895
• takes over and monopolises fieldwork, projects
• by 1920’s all chairs in anthropology filled by his students
• American Anthropological Association (1902)
• Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911)
American linguistics in 20th century
Anthropological linguistics: Edward Sapir• German/Lithuanian/Jewish émigré
• Studies with Boas• PhD a chapter in HAIL
• Teaches at Chicago, then Yale• descriptions rather than fieldwork• prominent book: Language (1921)• many great linguists of mid-20th century his
students (Mary Haas, Morris Swadesh, George L. Trager...)
American linguistics in 20th century
Formal linguistics: Leonard Bloomfield
• born in Chicago, Harvard graduate (1906)
• PhD in Germanic linguistics, Chicago (1909)
• Leipzig, Göttingen, various universities in USA
• tries to turn linguistics into autonomous science– Linguistic Society of America (1924, Collitz, Sapir, Sturtevant...)
– Language (journal, editor: George M. Bolling)
– not literary languages, non-philological approach
– no preconceived categories
• Linguistic Institute (= a summer university)
• Army Program →
American linguistics in 20th century
Formal linguistics: Army Intensive Language Program
• During WW2, Federal government begins a large-scale programme for the teaching of languages relevant to war (European & Pacific; civilisation too)
• Many linguists recruited, work on 36 languages
• historical and theoretical aspects irrelevant
• methodical descriptions and teaching material
• coherent and isolated tradition, persist until 1960’s• R. Hall, B. Bloch, Z. Harris, A. A. Hill, Ch. F. Hockett, M. Joos, E.
O. Nida, G. Trager, Ch. F. Voegelin, R. Wells, Th. A. Sebeok... (Neobloomfieldians)
The three classical models of morphology:
• Item and Arrangement (IA)
• Item and Process (IP)
• Word and Paradigm (WP)
Structuralist morphology
The structuralist models: IA
In the IA model, words can decomposed into building blocks:
[[un][[friend][li]]][ness]
The structuralist models: IA
In the IA model, words can decomposed into building blocks, and these are the exponents of grammatical relations too.
There are three types of regularities:
• distribution of morphemes
• morphotactics (overlapping with distribution)
• allomorphy
+ the relation of exponence, i.e. what morphemes "mean"
The structuralist models: IA
In the IA model, it is easy to descibe agglutinating (concatenative) structures, but not other types of structure, e.g. fusion →
The structuralist models: IA
‘break’ PAST ‘break’ PAST
broke broke +
i.e. fusion i.e. stem allomorphy
conditioned by the
The structuralist models: IA
In the IA model, it is easy to descibe agglutinating (concatenative) structures, but not other types of structure, e.g. fusion, truncation, templatic structures.
The structuralist models: IP
In the IP model, there are stems (bases) that undergo processes; the exponents of grammatical relations are these processes
Past tense
+ed i→a
love loved sing sang
The structuralist models: IP
In the IP model, anything can be described that can be described in the IA model, plus lots of other things.
IP IA
truncation agglutination
fusion reduplication
templates
The structuralist models: WP
The Word-and-Paradigm model assumes that there is no structure at all within words
• there are word forms belonging to lexemes
• these forms have properties, but are not composed of parts
• the morphology of a language is an n-dimensional space of word forms, where n is the number of grammatical categories
The structuralist models: WP
pers/nu
látok láttam
látom látsz láttam láttál
látod lát láttad látott
látja látunk látta láttunk
látjuk láttok láttuk láttatok
látjátok látnak láttátok láttak
látják látták tense
def
The structuralist models: WP
But why would one not want to assume structure inside words when it is often really obvious (love-d, vár-t-am...)?
Because it is grammatically irrelevant: no part of syntax is ever sensitive to how a morphological category is expressed– agglutinating past (loved)
– fusional past (sang)
– zero past (cut)
Like etymology: true but irrelevant for grammar
American linguistics in 20th century
A parallel tradition: The European Emigrés
• From 1930’s on many Europeans emigrate to US– A. Martinet, R. Jakobson, Y. Malkiel, U. Weinreich...
• Clustering around Columbia University
• Differences in scholarly attitude (less formal, more holistic approach) – also existential conflict
• Journal: Word
American linguistics in 20th century
Noam Chomsky and Generative Grammar
• Zellig Harris’s student, + mathematics, logic
• 1957: Syntactic Structures – generally seen as the continuation of the structuralist tradition, not much syntax done by earlier generation
• 1965: Aspects of the Theory of Syntax – first real model of transformational generative grammar →