LIN102H5 Study Guide - Final Guide: Thematic Relation, Clitic, Suppletion
Document Summary
An authority on language tells you that you can"t talk a certain way; prescriptive. As native speakers of english, everyone agrees that it doesn"t make sense; descriptive. Linguists focus on spoken language because: everyone learns a spoken language, but there are illiterate people, it doesn"t require explicit teaching, as opposed to writing, there"s human languages with no writing system (ex: creole) Why do languages differ: natural historical change, product of shaping speech to meet social/intellectual needs, contact with people speaking other languages. Why are languages so similar? people are illiterate: linguists tend to work on spoken language because everyone learns a language, but some, the knowledge known as grammatical competence is largely subconscious, acquired without explicit teaching. You have to know its meaning, have knowledge about its syntax (where it shows/form it may take), and you know the sound. The knowledge of various words that you have is stored in the brain"s dictionary, aka the lexicon.
