LING 2800 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: English Plurals, Zenon Pylyshyn, Historical Linguistics

• School: York University
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LING 2800
• Professor: Youri Zabbal

Document Summary

Can we treat language as an object of scientific study? if we answer yes. I is there any reason to think our conclusions will conform to our pre-theoretical. What do we mean by language: not uses of language, not effects of having language. The goal of this course: partly to give specific answers , but also to change the kinds of questions you ask . Warlpiri plurals: find the pattern singular kurdu kamina mardukuja plural kurdukurdu kaminakamina mardukujamardukuja gloss child/children girl/girls woman/women. It is a variable x, such that x has the same form as the noun it is added to. If x is a sg, then the pl is x_x (cid:894)(cid:449)he(cid:396)e _ (cid:373)ea(cid:374)s (cid:858)(cid:272)o(cid:374)(cid:272)ate(cid:374)ate(cid:859)(cid:895) Some lessons about language based on warlpiri plurals: o(cid:373)e aspe(cid:272)ts of la(cid:374)guage a(cid:396)e (cid:858)si(cid:373)pl(cid:455)(cid:859) (cid:373)e(cid:373)o(cid:396)ized ku(cid:396)du (cid:373)ea(cid:374)s (cid:858)(cid:272)hild(cid:859) i(cid:374) wa(cid:396)lpi(cid:396)i (cid:271)ut (cid:272)hild (cid:373)ea(cid:374)s (cid:858)(cid:272)hild(cid:859) i(cid:374) e(cid:374)glish, some aspects of language involve rules or patterns. What is language: the language faculty can copy and concatenate.