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LING 101 Study Notes UBC- 2022/2023
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Thorough, detailed notes of Professor Strang’s LING 101 lectures at UBC.
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LING 101 CAPLink to textbook:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=FuXuDwAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PT61&hl=en
9/01/23
Dialect
- Varieties of a language- special words, expressions, sound differences
- Varieties are associated with place or class
- Definition of dialect here: ANY variety of a language, so everyone speaks a dialect
- Dialects of one language: can understand each other (though different)
- Two different languages cannot understand each other (even if similar sounding)
- These fall under the “Mutual intelligibility” criterion- you can understand me and I can
understand you without having to learn a whole language
Where and how did first human language start:
- Around 60,000BC: In African Savannah, something happened to our ancestor’s minds-
around this time humans began to exploit food and art tools and resources in a far more
efficient way.
- So what happened? One theory: Klein says that the onset of the Upper Palaeolithic
marks the origin of modern lan
- guage, with its rich syntax and multitude of ways to express oneself, this happened bcos
of a change in the ways our brains are wired, set in motion by a genetic event.
- We became wired for language. After this leap forward, we could suddenly: describe
distant places and times (bees can also do this but with limits). Systematically combine
symbols into bigger symbols, at multiple levels, creating an ability to express an infinite
number of meanings. We could share info like no other species on earth
- An evolutionary advance as great as going from hopping to flying
- Langauge is to us what flight is to birds
- Result: our ancestors built first human language/s
- It gave us the communicative power to live in any environment and become the
dominant species on earth
- So what happened to first language? And why are there so many unique languages
today? Our ancestors made the first true human language, two groups were separated
(still speaking same language but not in touch much), the kids in each generation
changed a few words, and a few sounds, this resulted in slightly different systems. Over
generations, changes began to add up and this went on for many generations until they
could no longer understand each other… birthing two different languages from the
original. Every generation always changes a language a bit, and leads to whole different
languages, this still happens today.
- PIE is not first human language but is very old
- This is the main way new languages arose throughout human history.
- Why are languages always changing like this? Kids re-analyse what they hear.
- English borrowed from a lot of French: “a napron” → “an apron”
, - Reason 2 for change: group identity) including generational identity built around special
forms of language
- Another reason may be that kids are hearing impure dialect or different dialects at once,
like from their parents.
- How fast do these intergenerational changes take place?
- After around 2000 generations of slow divergence, there are roughly 6-7000 languages
in the world
- Most have multiple dialects
- Old words preserved in dictionaries → “archaic”
Textbook:
Part 1: Four fundamentals of consonants:
- Airflow
- Place- places in mouth and throat used when speaking a specific consonant
- Manner- how you constrict airflow
- Vocal fold vibration (voice)- voiced (with vibration), voiceless (vibrationless)
consonants/sounds
Consonants as system:
- See consonants as systems that arise from combination of the 4 fundamentals
- Languages differ in how or whether they use each fundamental to distinguish
consonants
11/01/23
Q&A’s:
- Accent- refers just to pronunciation
- Dialect- all features of a certain variety
- Dialect also usually used for native-speaker varieties
- For mutual intelligibility- linguists only consider the spoken form
- What if two systems are sort of mutually intelligible but sort of not? What about these
borderline cases? Usually the lines are clear, but there are definitely cases that fall into a
‘grey area’ of mutual intelligibility. Linguists have no perfect way of drawing a line
- What if I’m the only person who speaks a variety- technically no, it's now known as an
“idiolect”
Big picture story of human language
- For various reasons we’re losing languages, because a) people have come to speak a
small number of huge languages
- At the other end, most languages have very few speakers, bcos many switching to
speak huge (top) languages now
- We are losing a language every 2 weeks
- Does it matter that we’re losing them?
- 44% speak one of just 10 major languages
- 10,000 or less speaking all languages (less than ½)
- Language change, dialects, separate languages
- BUT politics can also interfere with what counts as “one language”
, - It can make what linguists would call separate languages as “one language”, e.g.
“chinese”: Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible in spoken form but often
referred to as one language as “Chinese”
- Governments might want to count mutually intelligible systems as “one language”? -
because a unique language creates a group identity (build a nation!)
- Also works the other way: politics can cause people to count mutually intelligible dialects
as “two separate languages”- e.g. serbian vs. croatian (when they became different
nations)
- Why split on linguistic language into two? Group/social identity (in-group and out-group)
- Hindi vs. urdu- would say they are more dialects than one language
- Terminology background: two faces of linguistics: historical (diachronic) (across time) vs.
synchronic (in one time period)
- “Diachronic linguistics” (how languages changes across generations)- how did this form
evolve and change across generations?
- “Synchronic linguistics” (looking at modern languages as they exist now)- e.g. current
vowel system, current dialects- how does or did the system work at one moment in time?
- Technical background: seeing sounds as systems: every language contains a sound
system
- Sign language- has a parallel system not a sound system
- Sound systems based on a set of places where we will use to make sound
- A set of distinctive features that make sounds- e.eg lips, ridge, roof, “stops”
- Stopped vs. continuous distinction at each place (with or without friction)
- Each added distinctive feature makes a contrast between sounds
- Non-linguist sees a list, linguist sees a system
13/01/23
Systems:
- Every time you add one distinctive feature you make a new sound and double the
system
- Add to that a stopped vs. continuous distinction at each place
- You add one contrast and the system doubles
- t vs. s, k vs x (stopped vs. continuous)
- s (non-vibrating) vs. z (vibrating)
- Vocal folds- flaps of skin in larynx (voice box)
- Nasal vs. non-nasal
- Rounded vs. unrounded lips
- Tongue straight vs. curled back
- Long vs. short (vowel and consonants)
Intro to the IPA:
- IPA = alphabet of the international phonetic association (founded in Paris)
- Compare languages of the world
- But all languages spelling things differently (accents, different characters, etc.) so IPA
created their own special alphabet- system designed to simplify all the world’s languages
, - Goal: represent every sound in every human language without any ambiguity and
bypass all issues with different writing systems
- Conventions: brackets mark // when using IPA, e.g. “cat” = /kæt/, each sound has only
one IPA symbol whatever language it occurs in, IPA does not allow double letter for a
single sound, e.g. sh in sheep is represented as /
- Your first IPA consonant symbol: /, sheep = /
- Some linguists introduced another symbol for / = /š/ (same sound, but not official IPA)
(darn them!)
- Your first IPA vowel symbol: /u/: “oo” e.g. “rude”, “news” (some say “njuz” = “news”)
- IPA /s/ vs /z/: IPA “s” used only for the sound in sink and miss, IPA “z” used only for
sound in zoo, wiz
- But English spelling mixes them up- dog”z”, wa”z” (was)
- Second IPA vowel /i/ = “e”, eg. read = /rid/, knees = /niz/, he’s = /hiz/
Textbook:
Part 2: The places of articulation for human consonants:
- Furthest forward place in mouth you can use to make sound is at the outside of your
mouth, using both lips- “bilabial place of articulation”- bilabial sounds some of the earliest
sounds learned in life, “mama” “papa”
- Another labial consonant is made by touching lower lip to upper teeth- “v” or “f”-
“labiodental place of articulation”
- Labiodentals not very common in many languages, said to have only come around with
the advent of agriculture, changes in diet (food became softer) affected bite of human
jaw that allowed them to say them
Interdental place: tongue between teeth:
- Hard to make interdental consonants, so kids acquire interdentals fairly late in speech
development, is also why languages and dialects commonly lose interdental sounds as
they change over time
Alveolars and postalveolars: at the ridge:
- On roof of mouth, just behind upper teeth- alveolar ridge, important place for making
consonants.
- Almost all languages use this place for consonants, bcos the bump is very prominent
and makes it easy for us to feel it and orient ourselves
- Many languages, including english, have sound contrast based on a difference between
two very precise positions on the ridge: alveolars- making sounds right at main part of
the ridge vs. postalveolars- making sounds at back part of the ridge, towards the plate.
The two are very close to one another but the slight difference in place can make very
different sounds.
The hard and soft palate:
- Roof of your mouth is your palate
- languages generally distinguish two parts of palate: main part (roof of mouth) and soft
palate/velum (more towards the back)
- Sound is palatal if you make sound at or near the hard palate
- Sounds made at velum are called velars
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