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When did language arise?

about the same time humans arised: about 130 000 years ago in Africa

Is language an innate capacity?

Most linguist think this is a gradually developed capacity

BUT Noam Chomsky (1996): supports a “sudden” emergence based on genetics

Where is the source of all languages? and how do we know this?

Out of Africa theory also applies to language: earliest languages stem from Africa

Languages develop from more complex to less complex: to look at the sources of languages we look at where the most complex languages are situated

How do languages evolve/ develop?

From more complex to less complex.

To counter this you need standardization

What is an idiolect?

The unique language an individual speaks.

We are able to communicate with one another because we are able to interpret each others idiolects. + because of standard language

What is typology

classifying things through certain standards

What does language typology do and what is it?

explores cross-linguistic diversity and genetic relationships

it is a sub-field of linguistics

focusses on linguistic structures and patternsW

Why is language typology important?

• Important for the grouping of language families, as well as language acquisition and language learning

• studying how sociocultural phenomena impact language structures (e.g. honorific system)

How does language typology generally work?

compares several languages based on similarities and differences in the linguistic structure and genetic relationships

What is the search for language universals?

introduced by Greenberg in 1963: looks for universal features all languages encompass

relates to Noam Chomsky’s search for “Universal Grammar”

BUT since the 80s more focus on language diversity

What are some language universals found?

• all languages have verbs and nouns

• all spoken languages have consonants and vowels

• all languages have a second person pronouns

+ some tendencies discovered:

• if a language has an SOV order, they are likely to have postpositions

What are some other approaches than “Language Universals”?

• Systematic Functional Linguistics (Halliday)

• multilingual and multicultural diverse approaches (MAtthiessen)

What is SFL?

Systematic Functional Linguistics

• developed by Halliday

• takes communication as the primary function of language

• linguistic structures are formed by sociolinguistic norms

• looks beyond single sentences and examines the whole discourse including modality features

• typological features are based on real spoken and written language (not on generated sentences)

• maps lexicogrammatical sentences (merges vocabulary and grammar into one system)

What are some practical application of Matthiessen’s approach on “multilingual and multicultural diversity”

• language acquisition

• language learning

• intercultural communication

• multilingualism

• translation

How does previous typlogy differ from current typology?

in the past:

• used as an alternative method to determine the limits of possible human languages and contribute to a universal theory of grammar

current:

• explaining why linguistic diversity is the way it is

• a science of population typology

• what’s where and why?

history of Language typology

pre-19th century:

• European maritime expansion + documenting languages spoken in these areas (Tamil, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Hindi, Singhalese)

• Sir William Jones: comparative work on Indo-Iranian languages

• von Schlegel: compares grammatical features in order to establish relationships

19th century:

• term Indo-European

• von Klaproth grouped Tibetan, Chinese, and Burman

• John Logan uses the term “Tibeto-Burman”

• Georg von Gabelentz: uses the word typology regarding languages

• Linguistic survey of India

20th century:

• Greensberg: basic classification of constituents of clause

• until middle of 20th centurymorphological typology was the main concern

explain the “dark side of the history of typology”.

19th century: mixing notions of race and language

• Johann Rüdiger: difference in structure of language is the result of de differences in the stage of development of the ppl

• creation of models of “language evolution”: 12 levels of “refinement”

→ were rediscovered in Nazi Germany

→ these views excluded Chinese from forming a group with the morphologically more complex Tibeto-Burman languages

What are the counter reactions against the racial language theories?

especially apparent in Germany

Willhelm von Humboldt:

• observed that the absence of grammatical relationship in Chinese are often defined through their word order

• thought that all languages are fully apt to express refined ideas

types of linguistic typologies?

1. morphological typology

2. word order typology

3. complement structures

4. passive and cuasative structures

5. phonological typology (and tones)

What is morphological typology?

classifying languages according to its morphological structures (analytic vs synthetic)

What are analytic languages?

= isolating languages

one word has one morpheme

e.g. Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Lao

what is a morpheme?

the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word

e.g.: unbreakable: morphemes are un- and -able

What are synthetic languages?

when more than one morpheme per word

e.g. European languages

What are polysynthetic languages?

languages wich combine a multitude of morphemes into one word

e.g. Inuit, Native American languages, …

What are the two main types of synthetic languages?

1. agglutinating

2. flective/ inflective

What is an agglutinating language?

a synsthetic language where:

• one morpheme has one meaning

• morpheme does not adapt to root, it is unchanging

• boundary between morphemes are obvious

• use of affixes and suffixes

What is a flective/ inflection language?

synthetic language with:

• accumulation of morphemes

• morphemes can have several meanings (e.g. -s can be plural or genitive)

• fusing of morphemes

• introflection: sound changes in morphemes

What is accumulation?

a characteristic of fusing synthetic languages

one suffix multiple meanings

e.g. Spanish: abl-o = 1st person present tense AND 3rd person past tense

What is fusion?

a characteristic of fusing synthetic languages

e.g.: English: your + possesive -es → fusion to yours

what is introflection/ inflection?

a characteristic of fusing synthetic languages

the vowel inside the word changes to show something, ROOT CHANGE

e.g.: German: gehen; ging; gegangen

how many morphemes in the word “singers”?

sing (ROOT) + er + s

→ 3 morphemes

5 character traits of analytic languages:

1. predominantly monosyllabic morphemes (and sometimes words)

2. extensive use of tonemes

3. extensive use of function words

4. relatively fixed word order

5. less rigid grammatical rules

What is the difference between Northern and Soutern sinitic languages (morphological typology)?

north is influenced by agglutinating languages

south is influenced by isolating/ analytic languages

What are the morphological characteristics of Chinese?

1. no inflection

2. S en O are often optional

3. function words are often optional

4. word boundaries and sentence boundaries are fuzzy

5. apart from the noun-verb distinction, word class distinctions are fuzzy (but often determined by word order!)

6. contextualized (pragmatically determined)

7. topic prominence

8. serial verb constructions

9. great number of discourse final perticles

10. classifier language

What is the word order typology for Chinese?

SVO (but not purely)

• has Rel-N and prepositional phrase - V structures!!

• and A-not-A question patterns

SOV order is possible with 把

use of prepositions (在，从，。。。) and postpositions (到，里，之前，。。。)

coverbal phrases precede the verb

What question does the typology of word order of Chinese raise?

wether there has been a change from SOV to SVO in the history

evidence: pronominal objects appear before verb in Ancient Chinese

but: 94% of oracle bones in SVO

Was the ancestral language of Chinse SOV?

What are the two main types of complement structures?

1. Verb-framing

2. Sattelite framing

What is verb-framing?

when certain features are encoded in the verb, such as motion, direction,…

e.g.: enter, exit, entrar,…

What is sattelite-framing?

The use of other mechanisms (instead of encoding in the verb) to express motion, direction,….

use of prepositions: e.g. uitgaan

What about the typology of complement structures in Chinese?

very special because of its complex complement structures

uses sattelite-framing to give extra meaning to the verb

probably a development from verb-framing to sattelite framing

2 examples of verbs evolving into passive markers

V [+ suffer] > instrumental > passive marker

V [+ give] > V [+ causative] > passive marker

how are causatives marked in Southern Min language?

1. tone alternation: e.g. break (tng7) - cause to break (tng2)

2. initial alternation: e.g. ascend (chiu7) - cause to ascend (chhiu7)

   1. non-aspirated - aspirated contrasts

   2. reflects Middle Chinese voiced - non-voiced contrasts

3. with ho 與

how are causatives marked in Chinese?

with 让:

• als transitief ww betekent het toestaan/ afstaan

  • 张三让李四哈哈大笑。

• als transitief ww met twee objecten in het semantische veld van geven: 把。。。让给。。。

what is 让 used for in Chinese?

• causative

• long passive: zelfde functie als 被

  • 那本书让张三借走了

  • 那本书让张三给借走了

  • NOOIT ZONDER AGENS: 那本书让借走了 IS FOUT

What is phonological typology?

involves comparing languages according to the number or type of sounds they contain

tries to establish phonological patterns and contrasts them in different languages/ dialects

e.g.: multilateral systems ( /p/ , /ph/, /b/, and /bh/) vs bilateral systems ( /p/ and /b/)

What is a language family?

a group of languages with a common origin

currently: 7000 spoken languages, from 90 language families

def: proto-language

ancestor language (which is not spoken anymore and is purely based on data)

e.g. Classical Chinese

def: genetic relationship

relationship between languages, which is not biologically transmitted but defined by cultural transmition from generation to generation

def: cognates

word (pairs) with a common etymological origin

def: false cognates/ false friends

words which appear to have a common origin but DO NOT

e.g.: much (eng) and mucho (Spanish)

e.g.: pao (Portuguese) and bao (Chinese)

def: comparative method

feature-by-feature comparing of two (or more) languages to reconstruct the proto-language

Language families of the world

.

.

What is this called?

a language isolate

What are the most common hypotheses on family relations between languages?

…

What is this

a tree diagram of the Indo-European language family

What is this? And what does it tell us?

a dated phylogenic tree

tree diagram of the Indo-European language family

incorporating the temporal dimension

methodology adopted from biology

tells us that:

• initial movement out of Anatolia 8700 years ago

• major radiation 6000-7000 years ago from Russia and Ukraine

• —> the majority of the Indo-European languages are about 6000 years old BUT the deeper sub-groups are older!

What are the main hypothesis on the origin of Indo-European?

1. Anatolian hypothesis

2. Kurgan hypothesis

What is the Anatolian hypothesis?

Anatolia (Turkey) as the center of expansion

What is the Kurgan hypothesis?

Ukraine as the center of expansion

What is the Wave model?

an alternative of modern research to the tree model

esp in dialectology

What are the main hypothesis on the origin of languages?

1. monogenesis

2. polygenesis

What is monogenesis?

The idea that all languages come from a common proto-language (less probable)

What is polygenesis?

The idea that all languages come from multiple proto-languages (most likely)

What does the comparative method do?

1. comparison of cognates

2. finding shared retentions (features that are kept between desc and parent)

3. shared linguisic innovations

How does the comparative method actually work?

1. collecting cognates (phonetic structure/ sematics, important to use basic vocabulary)

2. establishing sound correspondences (e.g. english /f/ always correspondents with the Latin /p/)

3. determine complementary distribution (why sounds differ)

   1. e.g. Language A had -t- between vowels and language B has -d- between vowels —> which language changed? and which preserved the original?

4. reconstruction of proto-phonemes: assertation of *-t- as the original

5. systematization in terms of typology: check if this hypothesis works in the general universal patterns

What are the basic research problems of ‘sound change’?

1. what changes are possible

2. how is the change embedded in the linguistic system?

3. why does one language change, and another one not?

==> the cause is not a problem because it cannot be known!

What are some patterns of sound change?

1. assimilation

2. dissimilation

3. metathesis

4. tonogenesis

5. sandhi

6. haplology

7. loss of sounds

8. prothesis

9. nasalization

10. vowel fronting

What is assimilation (sound change)?

e.g.: cupboard → cuboard

e.g.: octo → otto

What is dissimilation (sound change)?

e.g.: peregrinus → pelegrin → pellegrino → peligrino

What is metathesis (sound change)?

when two sounds change place

e.g.: periculum → peligro

What is tonogenesis (sound change)?

When a language gains tones

What is sandhi (sound change)?

e.g.: n + p feels awkward → m + p

e.g.: tone sandhi: tone 3 + 3 is awkward → tone 2 + 3

What is haplology (sound change)?

e.g.: Englaland → England

What is loss of sounds (sound change)?

e.g.: castle loss of the /t/ sound

What is prothesis (sound change)?

Addition of a sound in the beginning

e.g.: status → estado

What is nasalization (sound change)?

vowels followed by consonants are nasalized

What is vowel fronting (sound change)?

When a vowel is pronounced more to the front of the mouth

e.g. backvowel fronted to the umlaut under the influence of the /i/ or /j/ in German

How many language families in China?

1. Sino-Tibetan

2. Austro-Thai (Thai-KAdai and Austronisian)

3. Miao-Yao

4. Mon-Khmer

5. Turkic (Altaic)

6. Mongolic (Altaic)

7. Manchu-Tungus (Altaic)

8. Korean

9. Indo-European

Speakers of the Sino-Tibetan language family

• ca. 400 members

• largest groups: Chinese and Tibeto-Burman

• many small language communities

• exact relationships difficult to establish

What are the main branches of Sino-Tibetan?

1. Tibetan

2. Sinitic

3. Lolo-Burmese

4. Karen

5. Other

What is the Bai 白 language?

• Sino-Tibetan language spoken in various parts of Yunnan

• several dialects

• 8 tones

• all open syllables

• difficult to establish exact family relations: many layers of loan words from Chinese

• own script adopted from Chinese

What is the Karen language?

• spoken mostly in Myanmar

• tonal language

• SVO word order

• script adapted from Burmese

Short history of research on Sino-Tibetan language family

18th century: 1st theories of similarities between Tibetan and Burmese

19th century: establishment of more relations

• “Tibeto-Burman” by James Richard Logan (also added Karen)

mid 20th century:

• Matisoff: “Sino-Tibetan Philology Project”

• Paul Benedict: established the Sino-Tibetan Linguistics as a research field + Proto-Tibeto-Burman language reconstruction

• Karlgren: reconstruction of Old and Middle Chinese and field studies

Tibeto-Burman proto-initials reconstructed by Paul Benedict

history of the main theories about the lower branches of Sino-Tibetan:

1937: Li Fang-Kuei: greater Sino-Tibetan (Chinese, Tai, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman)

1942: Benedict: Sino-Tibetan without Vietnamese and Tai-Kadai

1955: Shafer: Sino-Tibetan

1978: Matisoff: Sino-Tibetan consisting of Chinese + Tibeto-Burman

1997: Van Driem: Tibeto-Burman (including Chinese)

‘Greater Sino-Tibetan’?

theory by Li Fang-Kuei not supported by the majority of linguists

→ exclusion of Kra-Dai and Hmong-Mien by Benedict

model by Matisoff

most important and most recent standard model

Why was Tai part of the earlier models of the Sino-Tibetan language families?

they found cognates BUT these were FALSE FRIENDS

these similarities were the result of contact, and not bcs of a shared ancestor

model by Van Driem

projecting an ancestor called Proto-East Asian (Starostin)

he integrated the Tibeto-Burman and the Austronesian family in this system

What did Starostin do?

reconstructed proto-languages

projects black ancestors in several language families (rather speculative)

why is a family relationship between Sinitic and Tibetic accepted by nearly all linguists
in the field?

because of a sufficient number of cognates

historical texts with reconstructed pronounciations we can compare to find these cognates

methodology recent research project

• combination of historical linguistics with computational methods

• 50 lang, 180 basic voc items

• determining a list of cognates

• Bayesian phylogenic method

  • determine tree

  • outgroup

  • timing

• comparison wit archaeological data

findings recent research project

Sino-Tibetan originating with north Chinese millet farmers around 7200 BCE (late Cishan and early Yangshao cultures)

high diversity in isolated regions of the Himalaya

Succes of dominating languages (like Sinitic, Tibetan, and Lolo-Burmese) has eroded linguistic diversity in China

What theory is derived from the recent research projects?

Language families arise through demographic processes driven by favorable changes in food procurement → when looking for the origins of a language one should look at its domesticates

.

red are dead languages that have been reconstructed

Seven traditional dialect groups in China:

1. Guanhua (Mandarin)

2. Wu

3. Gan

4. Xiang

5. Kejia

6. Yue

7. Min

history of the Sinitic languages

2nd millenium BCE:

• Chinese ancestral language in North China Plain

• spread not clear

8th - 5th cent BCE:

• indications for dialects/ languages: e.g. people of Chu spoke Chu but the junzi spoke Yawen (cultured language like putonghua)

• importance of wenyanwen as it was a standardized writtig languages that overcame dialects

pre-modern dialects

• ancient chu language preserved in some Southern variants of Chinese

  • Chu had own version of character forms

• some scholars think that all old dialects either come from Northern varieties or the Chu variety

• Yue language (state of Yue and Wu)

  • Chu and Yue could not communicate

  • differentiation between common language (Tai-Kadai probably) and Yawen (cultured language)