LINGUIST 1A03 Lecture 1: Linguistics-WeekOne-LinguisticsisScience
17 Sep 2016
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Mental grammar-shared system between speakers of the same language. Semantics - meaning and interpretation of words and sentences. Linguistics takes a descriptive,not perscriptive approach to language. this means that linguistic analysis is never a value judgement about how you should use language but rather a scientific observation about how one does use their language. Despite being very diverse,all languages have some very important things in common: Any language can express any possible concept or idea by way of either one word or as much as a whole paragraph,but regardless it can express any concept. Every language has a specific set of rules on making words and sentences but no finite number of words or sentences . thus a laguage is called creative and generative. Every language has grammar,and is therefore said to have generality. Every grammar is equally valid (called parity) Every language has some properties (like having consonants and vowels) in common with another language. we call this universality.
