LING 1P92 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Phrase Structure Rules, Helicopter Parent, Lookism
5 Oct 2016
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Communicative: goal is to transfer information form one person to another. Directed at others, can influence others, and is intentional. This feature of language also allows us to talk about abstract and non existent contracts. There is no right or wrong way to bark if you are a dog, or to cry if you are a baby, but there is a right or wrong way to formulate sentences. There are conventions about what words can be included in a sentence, what order you can put words in in a sentence, and you cannot create a new english words that starts with the consonant sequence "dn". Hierarchical structure/multi-layer: all messages are divisible into smaller units of analysis. Paragraphs are divisible into sentences, sentences > phrases, phrases > words, words > sounds. Productive: limited set of sounds can create unlimited set of words. Small set of rules can be used to generate a limitless number of novel sentences.
