While we use language every day, we rarely think about its miracles or how we simply absorb it. It stresses the relevance of brain activity in language processing, noting that language research covers many subsystems, such as phonetics, which deals with speech articulation and acoustics. It also goes over how to divide speech sounds into syllables and patterns.
Beyond phonetics, the first chapter delves deeper into language's structural levels, including phonology (the structuring of sounds into meaningful units) and morphology (the study of meaningful components within words). It then examines syntax, examining how words combine to form phrases and sentences, bridging the gap between sound and intended meaning. The intermediate level between speech sounds and communicated thoughts is the focus of syntax.
Language(l) vs language(l)
Language (capital L) refers to the cognitive ability that allows speaking, whereas language (lowercase l) refers to specific linguistic instantiations such as English or French. The issue is about using data from multiple languages to model language itself.
It also connects linguistics and cognitive science by stressing how language influences abstract thought processes. Understanding how humans interact and convey complex ideas requires a thorough understanding of syntax. The line relates to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which suggests that language can influence our ideas about abstract concepts, but this is outside the purview of syntax.
Overview of Syntax Theories:
Chomsky's generative grammar has been a dominant theory since the 1950s, evolving into Transformational Grammar, Government and Binding Theory, and Minimalism. In contrast to traditional grammar training, its purpose is to employ formal principles to describe the subconscious actions that construct sentences within our minds.
Core Concept of Generative Grammar:
The key assumption is that sentences follow subconscious norms that are embedded in our cognitive abilities. In order to build sentences in a language, these principles, which deviate from traditional grammar rules, require word arrangement.
Syntax from a Scientific Perspective:
As a scientific endeavor, syntax observes language facts, makes generalizations, develops hypotheses (rules), and tests them against new evidence. To explain how the mind uses language, this strategy relies on descriptive rules.
Application of Scientific Method to Syntax in the Real World:
The iterative process of hypothesis testing is represented by anaphors (nouns ending in "-self"). Beginning with a simple rule about gender anaphor agreement, the technique advances through observations and data analysis to add gender, number, and person considerations in developing more precise rules for these linguistic elements.
The Presence of Formal Rules:
While formal rules do not physically exist in the neurons of the brain, according to Generative Grammar, a cognitive psychology theory, they represent the mind's outward behavior. The theory is founded on linguistic psychology rather than brain physiology.
Data Sources for Syntax Studies:
Linguists primarily gather information from corpora (groups of spoken or written materials). Corpora, on the other hand, only provide well-formed sentences, excluding information about unwanted or ungrammatical sentences that is essential for understanding syntax.
Grammar Judgment and Subconscious Knowledge:
The grammaticality assessment activity allows you to tap into subconscious knowledge, such as sentence acceptability recognition. Based on subconscious knowledge and a lack of conscious awareness of the underlying standards, native speakers rank sentences as well-formed, relatively well-formed, or ill-formed.
Subconscious Knowledge Acquisition:
Language information, including syntactic concepts, is learned rather than taught. This distinction is significant because subconscious information, as opposed to consciously taught knowledge, is intuitive understanding that occurs without conscious effort. This knowledge acquisition is the foundation for our speaking abilities.
Science Intuitions:
The term "intuition" in linguistics refers to using subconscious knowledge rather than guesswork. Despite criticism, depending on intuitions is consistent with accessing subconscious information and forms the basis of the grammaticality evaluation exam, which can be duplicated under controlled conditions. Other scientific fields utilize similar intuitional approaches to obtain subconscious knowledge.
Understanding language development necessitates knowledge of where linguistic rules originate and how they are learned.
Acquisition vs. Learning:Conscious vs. Subconscious Knowledge
Cognitive scientists distinguish between conscious knowledge (such as algebraic rules) and subconscious information (such as language). Language acquisition is instinctive and subconscious, just like walking or identifying objects.
Language Learning Environment:
Immersion in an environment conducive to subconscious language acquisition is more effective than formal language training. The emphasis is on how people organically learn their language's laws.
Language as an Innate Ability:Natural Language Ability
Language, but not specific languages, is an innate human capacity, analogous to reflexes like walking, according to Noam Chomsky's controversial theory. According to Universal Grammar (UG), the brain possesses an inborn language faculty.
Language Acquisition's Logical Problem:Language's Infinite Productivity
Language is infinitely productive, capable of constructing and comprehending previously unheard sentences.
Difficulties in Learning Infinite Systems:
An infinite system like language is conceptually unlearnable and unacquirable within a human lifetime because to the immense volume of possible inputs.
The Function of Universal Grammar (UG):
This logical challenge is solved by generative grammar, which argues that Universal Grammar assist children acquiring languages. UG functions as a flexible blueprint, limiting the number of alternative mappings between events and utterances and so facilitating language learning.
This point of view sheds light on the challenges raised by the infinite nature of language, as well as how Universal Grammar theory addresses the logical difficulty of language acquisition by providing a framework for language expansion.
The case for Universal Grammar (UG) includes several features that go beyond the conceptual difficulty of language acquisition:
Argument for Data Underdetermination:
Unlearnable Grammar Rules:
Some grammar rules, such as the lack of 'that' in specific English sentence forms ('Who do you feel that will...'), are intuitively known but cannot be taught from data. Children are aware of these characteristics even without formal schooling.
Parental Correction Has a Limited Impact:
Language Development and Parental Instruction:
Despite efforts by parents to correct grammatical errors in their children's speech, evidence suggests that this correction has minimal influence on language learning. Most children learn language without formal training.
Language Universals and Typological Arguments:
Universals of Language:
Languages from all across the world have structural elements (such as subjects and predicates). These universal features imply that all individuals are born with the ability to build grammar, which implies the existence of UG.
Neurolinguistics and Biological Evidence:
Language's Biological Basis:
Language appears to be a distinctively human and pervasive property. According to neurolinguistic studies, specific brain regions are involved with linguistic activity, providing support to the idea that language is genetically endowed.
Explanation of Language Variation:
UG and Language Variations:
While languages differ in vocabulary and grammatical structures (for example, word order), these differences can be traced back to the fundamental parameters set within UG. The version consists of learning words and selecting from a set of grammatical options or parameters.
UG parameters:
Different word ordering (SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS) among languages, for example, could be due to inherent differences. Children learning a language choose intrinsic word order possibilities in UG that correlate to their native language's word order.
This entire chain of reasoning demonstrates that UG gives a viable explanation for language acquisition, universal linguistic patterns, and observable variation between languages.
The chapter provides a comprehensive discussion of the degrees of adequacy in evaluating syntax theories, introduces a number of important syntax and linguistic ideas and definitions, and includes problem sets to engage readers in critical thinking about language and grammar.
Adequacy Levels:
Observationally Adequate Grammar:
Only accounts for observed corpus data and provides no insight into language cognition.
Grammar that is Descriptively Appropriate:
It falls short of explaining language learning despite using corpus data and native speaker intuitions about well-formedness.
Grammar that is Explanatorily Adequate:
The highest level of adequacy accounts for corpus data, native speaker intuitions, and explains how children learn to talk.
Introduced Key Concepts:
At the end of the chapter, a variety of linguistic terms and concepts, including Generative Grammar, the Scientific Method in language analysis, and grammatical elements such as anaphora, gender, number, person, case, and others are enlisted with their concie definitions.
Additional Reading and Problem Sets:
The suggested reading list includes additional resources for learning more about linguistics and syntax. The problem sets require readers to apply their knowledge of linguistic concepts, such as judging sentence acceptability, researching arguments against innateness, and evaluating the work of other linguists.
Exercises:
The problem sets encourage critical thinking about prescriptive versus descriptive principles, the presence of linguistic universals, the distinction between learning and acquisition, and assessing the level of appropriateness of linguists' work based on their research methodology and data analysis.
Overall, the first chapter is a thorough and well-structured introduction to the principles of syntax, providing readers with a solid foundation for future linguistic inquiry and comprehension.
Recap:
The Chapter on Generative Grammar by Andrew Carnie digs thoroughly into language structure, covering phonetics, morphology, and, most significantly, syntax. It looks into how words come together to form sentences in order to bridge the gap between sound and meaning. Carnie effectively integrates linguistics and cognitive science, demonstrating how language affects abstract thought processes. The application of the scientific method to syntax studies, particularly with anaphora, shows its empirical approach. Carnie's research establishes a solid foundation for comprehending language learning as an innate, subconscious process.
Critique:
While Carnie's chapter delves into a wide range of syntax and linguistic concepts, its dense content may be overwhelming to anyone inexperienced with the subject. The emphasis on Chomskyan theories, particularly Generative Grammar and Universal Grammar, may limit exposure to different points of view in linguistics. Furthermore, eliminating extensive explanations of these theories' flaws or criticisms may result in an oversimplified image of syntax. The emphasis on subconscious language acquisition should have been enhanced with more practical examples or illustrations to assist comprehension.
Sources:
Textbook:
Chapter 1:
Syntax
A Generative Introduction
Andrew Carnie
