traditional linguistics

1. Syntax
 Syntax is the set of rules governing
how words combine into phrases and
clauses.
 It deals with the formation of
sentences including rules governing or
describing how sentences are formed
(Upsher Smith 2011).

2. Syntax
 In traditiona usage, syntax is
sometimes called grammar, but the
word grammar is also used more
broadly to refer to various aspects of
language and its usage (Butterfield
2008).
 In traditional grammar syntax, a
sentence is analyzed as having two
parts, a subject and a predicate.

3. Syntax
 The subject is the thing being talked
about.
 In English and similar languages, the
subject usually occurs at the
beginning of the sentence, but this is
not always the case (SVO-rule).

4. Syntax
 The predicate comprises the rest of
the sentence, all of the parts of the
sentence that are not the subject
(Millet 2011).
 The subject of a sentence is generally
a noun or pronoun or a phrase
containing a noun or pronoun.

5. Syntax
 If the sentence features active voice,
the ting named by the subject carries
the action of the sentence; in the case
of passive voice, the subject is
affected by the action.
 In sentences with imperative mood,
the subject may not be expressed
e.g.,

6. Syntax
 The predicate of a sentence may have
many parts, but the only required
element is a finite verb.
 In addition to the verb, the predicate
may contain one or more objects, a
subject complement, object
complements, adpositional phrases (in
English these are prepositional
phrases), or adverbial elements (Millet
2011).

7. Syntax
 Some verbs (transitive verbs) take
direct objects; some also take indirect
objects.
 A direct object names the person or
thing directly affected.

8. Syntax
 An indirect object names the entity
indirectly affected.
 In a sentence with both a direct and
indirect object, the indirect object
generally appears before the direct
object (Millet 2011).

9. Syntax
 In place of an indirect object, a
prepositional phrase beginning with to
or for may occur after the direct object.
 A subject complement (variously
called a predicative expression,
predicative, predicate noun, or
adjective or complement) appears in a
predicate with a linking verb (copula).

10. Syntax
 A subject complement is a noun
adjective, or phrase that refers to the
subject of the linking verb e.g.,
 While subject complements describe
or modify the subject of a linking verb,
object complements describe or
modify nouns in the predicates,
typically direct or indirect objects or
objects of adpositions.

11. Syntax
 A subject and predicate together make
up a clause.
 Although some traditional grammars
consider adpositional phrases and
adverbials part of the predicate, many
grammars call these elements
adjuncts.

12. Syntax
 Meaning they are not a required
element of the syntactic structure (see
obligatory X-bar theory, Chomsky).
 Adjuncts may occur anywhere in a
sentence.

13. Syntax
 Adpositional phrases can add to or
modify the meaning of nouns, verbs,
or adjectives.
 An adpositional phrase is a phrase
that features a preposition, a
postposition or a circumposition.

14. Syntax
 All three types of words have similar
function; the difference is where the
adposition appears relative to the
other words in the phrase.
 Prepositions occur before their
complements while postpositions
appear after.

15. Syntax
 Circumpositions consist of two parts;
one before the complement and one
after.
 An adverbial consists of a single
adverb, an adverbial phrase, or an
adverbial clause that modifies either
the verb or the sentence as a whole.

16. Syntax
 Some traditional grammars consider
adpositional phrases a type of adverb,
but many grammars treat these as
separate.
 Adverbials may modify time, place or
manner.
 Negation is also frequently indicated
with adverbials, including adverbs
such as English not.

17. Previous lesson
 Characteristics of Traditional
Linguistics
 Parts-of-speech
 Inflection/accidence

18. An outline of the history of
linguistics
 Why history of linguistics
◦ language and mythology
◦ folk-linguistics/ethno-linguistics
◦ language as a cultural phenomenon

19. An outline of the history of
linguistics
 Foundations in antiquity
◦ Babylonian tradition
◦ Hindu tradition
◦ Greek linguistics
◦ Roman tradition
◦ Arab & Hebrew traditions

20. An outline of the history of
linguistics
 Middle ages in Europe
 European colonialism
 Modern linguistics
◦ Beginnings; Ferdinand de Saussure
◦ Diversification; The prague school, British
structuralism & American structuralism.

21. An outline of the history of
linguistics
 Contemporary approaches to
linguistics
◦ Formal linguistics
◦ Functional linguistics
◦ Scope of modern linguistics

22. Why history of linguistics?
 People everywhere talk about
languageː
 They have ideas about its nature,
uses, origins, acquisition, structure
and so on.
 Some of these notions are enshrined
in Mythology (i.e., the Tower of Babel
story)
 In some sense the things people say
and believe about language could

23. Why history of linguistics?
 They represent a body of knowledge
and beliefs about language
 But linguistics refers to a body of
knowledge that is structured
 Structured in ways that characterize it
as a science
 It is not characterized as mythology
or everyday beliefs
 Linguistics is thus a cultural
phenomena

24. Why history of linguistics?
 It is an activity practiced in some
cultures
 Like all cultural phenomenon it has a
history
 A history which partly shapes it,
including the questions it addresses
and the methods it employs
 So, linguistics developed from ethno-
linguistics of certain cultural
traditions.

25. Foundations in antiquity
 The earliest known linguistic traditions
arose in antiquity
 Only in societies with established
traditions of writing
 These traditions arose in response to
language change
 And of course its resulting impact on
religious and legal domains

26. Babylonian tradition
 Produced the earliest linguistic texts
 Written in cuneiform on clay tablets
 Date almost four thousand years
before the present
 In the earliest centuries of the second
millennium BC,

27. Babylonian tradition
 In the southern Mesopotamia, there
arose a grammatical tradition
 It lasted for more than 2500 years
 The linguistic texts were lists of nouns
in Sumerian,
 Sumerian is a language isolate; a
language with no known genetic
relatives

28. Babylonian tradition
 Sumerian was being replaced in
everyday speech by Akkadian,
Afroasiatic (unrelated)
 Sumerian remained a prestigious
language in religious and legal
contexts
 It therefore had to be taught as a
foreign language
 Hence information about Sumerian
was recorded in writing

29. Babylonian tradition
 Over the centuries, the lists became
standardized
 The Sumerian words were provided
with Akkadian equivalents for not just
single words,
 But for entire paradigms of varying
forms of words
 One text, for instance, has 227
different forms of the verb gar ‘to
place’

30. Hindu tradition
 It had its origins in the first
millennium BC,
 It was stimulated by changes in
Sanskrit (Indo-European, India)
 Sanskrit was the sacred language of
religious texts
 Ritual required the exact verbal
performance of the religious texts

31. Hindu tradition
 And a grammatical tradition emerged
that set out for ancient language
 The best known grammarian from this
tradition is Panini (500BC)
 He is until now known as father of
Indian linguistics
 Panini’s grammar covered phonetics
;

32. Hindu tradition
 This included differences between
words pronounced in isolation and in
connected speech
 Panini’s grammar was expressed largely
in the form of rules of word formation
 Sometimes of a high degree of
abstraction
 The Hindu tradition of linguistics far
surpassed anything done in Europe for
a very long time

33. Greek linguistics
 It developed slightly later than the
Hindu tradition,
 It was also initially in response to
linguistic change
 The linguistic change necessitated
explanation of the language of
Homer’s epics
 Philosophical and theoretical
questions about language were also
investigated

34. Greek linguistics
 Greek traditional linguistics had
themes of importance e.g.,
 The origin of language
 Part-of-speech systems
 The relation between language and
thought

35. Greek linguistics
 And the relation between the two
aspects of word-signsː
 Whether form and meaning are
connected by nature (iconicity)
 Or purely by convention (arbitrary)
 Plato’s (427-347 BC) Cratylus
represents Socrates (469-399 BC)
arguing for original connections that
were subsequently obscured by
convention

36. Greek linguistics
 Aristotle (384-322 BC), by contrast,
favored convention over nature
 The first surviving grammar of a
European language is a short
description of Greek by Dionysius
Thrax (100 BC), Techne
grammatike, dating about 100 BC.

37. Greek linguistics
 This work treated phonetics and
morphology
 It also had considerable influence over
later descriptive grammars
 Greek syntax was first described a
couple of centuries later, by
Apollonius Dyscolus (c. 110-175 AD)

38. Roman tradition
 Roman linguistics continued studying
the themes of interest to Greek
linguistics
 Like other ancient traditions, it was
prompted by changes in the spoken
language
 The primary interest was in
morphology
 Particularly parts-of-speech and
other forms of nouns and verbs;
 Syntax was largely ignored

39. Roman tradition
 Notable among Roman linguists was
Marcus Terentius Varro (11-27 BC)
 He produced a multi-volume grammar
of Latin
 Unfortunately only about a quarter
has survived
 Later grammar of Donatus (fourth
century) and Priscan (sixth century)
were highly influential in the middle
ages.

40. Arabic and Hebrew traditions
 The Greek grammatical tradition had
strong influence on the Arabic
tradition
 The Arabic tradition also focused on
morphology;
 The tradition was also characterized
by accurate phonetic descriptions
 Its beginnings are generally
considered to be in seventh century
AD

41. Arabic and Hebrew traditions
 It was marked by the work of Abu al-
Aswad ad-Du’ali (c. 607-688)
 The Arabic tradition served in turn as a
major influence on the Hebrew
tradition
 Which began slightly later, in about the
ninth century
 Saadya ben Joseph al-Fayyumi
(882-942) produced the first
grammar and dictionary of Hebrew
(Afroasiatic, Israel)

42. Arabic and Hebrew traditions
 The Hebrew grammatical tradition
reached its peak in the thirteenth
century with David Qimhi’s (c. 1160-
1235) work
 His work had a strong impact on
European linguistics

43. Middle Ages in Europe
 During the middle ages (Ca. AD 500-
1400) in Europe, Latin was held in
high esteem as the language of the
public sphere
 It was the primary written language
 Gradually, interest in the vernacular
languages increased among scholars
 It led to emergence of traditions of
writing

44. Middle Ages in Europe
 Pedagogic grammars of Latin for native
speakers of other languages began
appearing
 In about 1000 an abbot in Britain wrote a
grammar of Latin for Anglo-saxon
speaking children
 Descriptive grammars of the
vernaculars were also written;
 They generally presented the languages
in the mold of Latin

45. Middle Ages in Europe
 The twelfth century saw the emergence of the
notion of universal nature of grammar
 It was later refined and developed by
scholars such as Roger Bacon (1214-1294)
among others
 Bacon held that grammar was fundamentally
the same in all languages, differences being
incidental and shallow
 A remarkable work dubbed The first
grammatical treatise was penned sometime
in the twelfth century by an unknown author
in Iceland

46. Middle Ages in Europe
 Its main concern was spelling reform,
 Aiming at correcting inadequacies of the
Latin-based writing system of Icelandic
 It presented a brief description of
Icelandic phonology, drawing for the
first time the distinction between sounds
(phones) and distinctive sounds
(phonemes).
 It also looked at sound variations
capable of distinguishing words

47. Middle Ages in Europe
 This text was not published until
1818, and even then it was little
known outside of Scandinavian
 But it anticipated by some eight
hundred years several important
developments in twentieth century
phonology.

48. Thank you
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Traditionalist Linguistics