Language Universals

Eifring, H. & Theil, R. (2005) Language Universals. In Linguistics for Students of Asian and African Languages (Chapter 3). Retrieved 01/02/09 from http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/EXFAC03-AAS/h05/larestoff/linguistics/

Chapter%203.(H05).pdf

Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese - A Functional Reference Grammar. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

1. Kinds of Universals• Absolute: properties found in (almost) all

languages.– Subject, verb, object (SVO) but not necessarily in that

order

• Statistical: reflect important trends that are found in a predominant part of the languages of the world, but not necessarily in all.– Subject usually precedes the object

• Implicational: generalizations about properties of just a small selection of languages.– If language has property A then it also has property B,

but not necessarily the other way around.

– If “A” voiced fricatives: v z– Then “B” unvoiced fricatives: f s– But not the opposite

• For an implicational universal to make sense, there must also exist languages that have neither property A or B

• If a language typically places the main verb between the subject and object, the relative modifying clauses usually follow the noun they modify.

2. Theories/Explanations

• Monogenesis

• Language contact hypothesis

• Innateness hypothesis

• Functional explanations

2.1 Monogenesis hypothesis• All languages stem from the same proto-

language and have inherited the same universal traits from it.– Subject tend to proceed objects– Verb locations varies a lot

• Arabic at the beginning• English in between subject and object• Japanese at the end

– Languages that change• Verb moves from the end to the middle, relative

clauses move too

2.2 Language contact hypothesis

• Languages have many things in common because they are constantly influenced by each other– Exceptional features are found in peripheral

languages that have developed in relative isolation.

• Languages in which the object usually precedes the subject mostly found in the geographical periphery with little outside contact.

2.3 Innateness hypothesis

• Our ability to use language is a part of our genetic endowment.

• We may be genetically predisposed to distinguish between vowels and consonants, and to let subjects precede objects.

• Implicational universals my also be accounted for this way.– I.E. relative clauses are positioned based on the position

of the verb

2.3.1 Innate (Universal) Grammar

• A genetic program specifically designed to determine the development of our language ability, i.e. Chomsky.

2.3.2 Anatomic and cognitive

• Speech organs are shaped in a unique way that enable us to speak the way we do (apes cannot make the sounds we do)– Compare our diet and how we breath– The way we think allows us to speak the way

we do

2.4 Functional explanations

• Some language features are universal because they make linguistic utterances easier both to produce and to interpret, for cognitive, anatomic or other reasons.– All languages have consonants and vowels– Subject precedes object

3. Lexical Universals• Learning a language requires learning new

(concepts) terms and making different distinctions– For example, English has one word for cousin,

which is unmarked (neutral) while Chinese distinguishes eight different kinds of cousins and has no general word for cousin.

– Chinese has *lexicalized the distinction between eight different types of cousins

• *See pg 5 of handout.

3.1 Approximate rather than precise

• All languages have the concept of black and white but only in approximate terms.

– Languages with only two colours, black covers dark and cool colours and white covers light and warm colours.

– Compare also Chinese: hei 黑

What colors are warm? cool?

The following chart displays the difference between warm and cool colors.

White/Warm colors are based on yellows, oranges, browns, yellowish greens, orangish reds,

and the like.

Dark/Cool colors are based on blues, greens, pinks, purples, blue-greens, magentas, and blue-

based reds.

3.2 Statistical rather than absolute

• The concept of water is found in most languages but not all of them

• Japanese has mizu which means cold water and o-yu which means hot water.

• Yimas language of New Guinea has no word for water at all, only the word for liquid. Compare Chinese shut 水

3.3 Absolute and precise

• “I” and “you” seem to be lexicalized in all languages. However, the English “you” covers both plural and singular which means it is polysemous and corresponds to two different concepts in the language

• As far as it is known, all living languages have the concept of singular “you.”

• The concept (biological) mother seems to be found in all living languages throughout the world, but it doesn't necessarily cover the same range of meanings in all languages. This just means that all languages have a word with (biological) mother as one of its meanings.

• The English word mother can stand for many things like the master matrix for records and CDs

• In the Australian language Yankunyatatjara means one's mother, but can also refer to one's mother's sister or a female cousin

• Man and woman.– English and most languages use one word: man,

hombre– Chinese: nan 男 nu 女 plus ren 人

4. Basic colour terms

• It was believed that different languages classified colours in more or less random ways. However, now it is know that

• focal colours are basically the same across languages.

– They are determined not by language, but by the physiology of colour perception.

– Example of hung 红 hong 萝 luo 卜 bo – Go to the chart on p. 7 of the handout.

• A language may have from one to eleven basic colour terms.

• The table is based on focal colours and tells us little about the actual range of each colour term in a given language.

5. Universal word classes (parts of speech)

• When concepts are expressed in words they are lexicalized (review how words are chosen).

• Concepts may also be expressed in grammatical construction called grammatical expression.

• Different languages give different grammatical expression to concepts, but there are also many similarities.

5.1 The most universal word class• The word class which is the most universal

is that of the interjections.– Expressive: ouch, oh, wow, aha– Directive: hush, psst, hey– *Phatic: mym, yes, no huh– Descriptive ideophones: wham, thud, bang

• Compare Chinese

phatic

Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas.

Phatic (n.d.) In Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 18 March 2009, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com

5.2 Nouns and verbs• All (or at least nearly all) languages of the

world also make distinctions between nouns and verbs.

– The prototypical noun refers to an entity (substance or object) (person, place or thing)

– The prototypical verb refers to a (dynamic or stative) process also state of being.

– Word classes are flexible• Love is not a concrete substance (it is a

thing)

• The verb “to be” is not a process (it is a state of being)

5.3 Assigning words

• Different languages assign different words to different classes– English: Cut with (preposition) a knife– Chinese: yong (verb) yi ba dao qie... 用一把刀

切 ...

• We expect to have many examples of these in our presentations

5.4 Syntax and morphology

• Syntactically, an event is typically expressed by a verb

• Participants of the event (subject, and objects) are nouns

• Morphologically, nouns and verbs are often inflected for different categories.

– English nouns are inflected (declined) for number

– Verbs are inflected (conjugated) in a complex system using auxiliary forms to express a number of categories such as tense, aspect, mood, person and number.

• In Japanese, nouns are uninflected but the verb system is as least as complicated as English, except for person and number.

• Compare Chinese

5.5 Distinctions between nouns & verbs

• Languages with much inflection tend to make a more clear-cut distinction between nouns and verbs. English has a few exceptions:

– Participles can have noun-like features: giving

• They make a practice of giving every week.

– Derived nominals can have verb-like features: belief

• His belief is strong.

5.6 Adjectives are far from universal

• Most Indo-European languages classify adjectives in a separate word class that has more in common with nouns than with verbs

• Chinese and most SE Asian languages sometimes make no formal distinction between adjectives and verbs (see NP ppt).– Na ge ren gao

• Japanese has two types of adjectives, one with noun-like features and one with verb-like features.

5.6.1 Adjectives: properties and states

• Endo-European languages emphasize properties which brings adjectives close to the noun they modify

– The big house is over there.– Da fang zi zai na bian

• Chinese and SE Asian languages emphasize state, and since states are a type of event (stative events, stative verbs). Therefore they are classified as verbs.

• Indo-European languages require a form of “to be” between a subject and a descriptive adjective. Chinese and SE Asian languages do not.– The man is very tall.– Na ge ren hen gao

6. Speech sounds (handout p.11) • Most languages have 20 to 35 (segmental)

phonemes. Some phonemes are universal while others and found in just some languages. English: 42. Chinese??

• Consonant: 21, vowels: 35 why?• Diphthongs ao and triphthongs iao• Absolute: All languages distinguish between

vowels and consonants• Statistical: The vast majority of languages has

fewer vowel phonemes than consonant– Exception: Brazilian, Xavante. 13 each and of

course Chinese.

6.1 Vowels

• No language is known to have less than 3 vowel phonemes.

– These languages have one closed front vowel, one closed back vowel and one open vowel (see handout) p. 11.

• No language is know to have more than 46 vowel phonemes.

• All languages make distinctions between closed and open vowels

• All languages make distinctions between front and back vowels.

• The number of distinctions tend to be higher in the more close vowels than in the more open vowels (see p. 12 for more details).

6.2 Consonants

• The number varies from 6 to 95 with the average being 32

• See two universals on the handout, p. 13.

6.3 Phonotactic universals

• All languages have syllables ending in a vowel (open syllables) but not necessarily syllables ending in a consonant (closed syllables).

• All languages have syllables with an initial consonant but not necessarily syllables without an initial consonant.

• Based on this, here is an implicational universal:– All languages that allow VC, also allow CVC and V, as

well as CV.

• Even languages that do allow closed syllables sometimes place severe restrictions on the type of consonant that may occur in the syllable-final position.

• Chinese has three: n, ng (e)r

6.3.1 Consonant clusters

• The juxtaposition of two or more consonants within the same syllable are quite uncommon: plumbing, debt, bomber.

• Japanese, Korean and Chinese do not allow it. Three consonants together like the English sprint is quite exceptional.

6.3.2 Diphthongs and triphthongs

• There seems to be no connection between the restrictions against consonant clusters and the restrictions against diphthongs and triphthongs.

• Chinese allows no consonant clusters but has diphthongs: ai, ao, ou and triphthongs: iao, iou

6.4 Phonological form• Meaning and form of a lexical item is

arbitrary. Tree for example.

• However, there are 4 exceptions that have universal features

– Interjections which are at least partly biologically motivated.

• Tut: disapproval or wonder or amazement

• Hm: afterthought, a question, or a sense of disapproval

• Hey, Chinese: ei, wei

– Onomatopoeia• Actual sounds: bang, swish

• Refer to the things making the sound like cuckoo, ping pong, murmur

• These usually adhere to the sound pattern of the language in which they are used with some exceptions: buzzing of a bee

• Sounds a pig makes or dogs or cats

– Parental terms are surprisingly similar• See page 16 for a list of universals

• Nasals occur in well over half of the terms for mother while only in 15% of the terms for father. Why?

– Sound symbolism is the habitual association between certain sounds and certain elements of meaning.

• English: gl is associated with with light and vision.

• More universal is the sound [i] is associated with small and [a] and [ɔ] are the opposite Compare Chinese and English

– Psychological reasons (handout p. 16, bottom)

– Example of Japanese words for friend and enemy, mitaka and teki

• In summary, relations between meaning and the form seem arbitrary, but there clearly exists tendencies for certain sounds and sound combinations to be associated with certain elements of meaning.