LINA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Diphthong, Free Variation, Complementary Distribution
Document Summary
We study language to understand the nature of human mind. Linguist analyze language to discover the underlying system. Linguist goal: to build a model of the system that allows speakers to speak and understand their native language. To do this, linguist study the language module (one system in the human mind) Language is systematic (follows a system of rules) Do not end a sentence with a preposition. Every language has systematic patterns and rules. Linguist study descriptive rules (describe patterns that exist in the data) Mental grammar is in our( individual) heads- shared by speakers of a language (with some variation) = linguistic competence. A model of this grammar is called descriptive grammar. What a native speaker judges to be a possible sentence. Native english speakers have an internal rule about how to pronounce the -s at the end of plural noun. The underlying patterns (rules) of language are not obvious.
