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The lure of languageor: The glamour of

grammarDick Hudson

Westminster School, October 2015

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The least interesting person here

• Born 1939 into a very monolingual England.• First lured by language: a notice in Dutch, seen age 7

• Secondary school: Grammar school = school that taught grammar• I loved it!• Same teacher taught Latin and English, with grammar.• A-levels: French, German, Latin.

• BA: Modern and Mediaeval Languages, with some Linguistics• PhD: The grammar of an unwritten African language• Next 50 years: Researching language structure• and getting frustrated by UK language education

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How did language lure me?

1. Etymology2. Language change3. Grammar4. Language analysis5. Generative linguistics6. Psychological modelling7. Educational linguistics

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1. Etymology

• GLAMOUR – what’s its history? • or: “Where does it come from?”• or: Why do these sounds have this meaning?• or: How is this word related historically to other words?

• Answer: • It comes from GRAMMAR!• How on earth did that happen?• History: Grammar was central to education (think ‘grammar school’)• So Grammar education wizardry, magic• And gl....? Compare glint, gleam, glitter, glance, ...

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TREACLE

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TREACLE in the Online Etymological Dictionary

• mid-14c., "medicinal compound, antidote for poison," from Old French triacle "antidote, cure for snake-bite" (c. 1200), from Vulgar Latin *triacula, from Latin theriaca, from Greek theriake (antidotos) "antidote for poisonous wild animals," from fem. of theriakos "of a wild animal," from therion "wild animal," diminutive of ther (genitive theros) "wild animal," from PIE root *ghwer- "wild" (see fierce).

Sense of "molasses" is first recorded 1690s (the connection may be from the use of molasses as a laxative, or its use to disguise the bad taste of medicine); that of "anything too sweet or sentimental" is from 1771. Related: Treacly.

Proto-Indo-European

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So what?

• Words change meaning• Meanings aren’t ‘natural’!!

• They also change their forms, independent of meaning• e.g. triacula > triacle (cf singula > single)

• At each stage the form and meaning are both tightly related to:• other forms and meanings• culture

• We can ask ‘why?’• and if we’re lucky we’ll find an answer

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2. Language change

English German Latin French

father Vater [fɑtər] pater père

mother Mutter mater mère

brother Bruder frater frère

sister Schwester soror soeur

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English

From Proto-Indo-European to us*gwe:n

‘woman’

γυνή /gyne:/ ‘woman’

cwen‘woman’

queengynaecologist

misogyny

-3,500

-500

+600

+2,000

PIE

Greek

guessed

0

generations

120

160

200

borrowed

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The Great Vowel Shift 1350-1700

before afterbite /iː/ /aɪ/meet /eː/

/iː/meat /ɛː/mate /aː/ /eɪ/out /uː/ /aʊ/boot /oː/ /uː/boat /ɔː/ /əʊ/

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Vowels in the mouth

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So what?

• Long vowels changed, but short vowels didn’t.• That’s one of the reasons why English spelling isn’t ‘phonetic’• Sometimes the spelling shows the links between long and short pairs

• /i:/ ~ /ɛ/• deep ~ depth (weep ~ wept, clean ~ cleanse)• same vowel-letter because they used to have the same vowel-sound

• /ai/ ~ /i/• wide ~ width (five ~ fifth, fifty, hide ~ hidden)• Ibiza = /aibiθə/

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3. Grammar

• The French football team

me

luileur

te lese la y ennous lesvous

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Why I liked it

• Very exotic, but also very clear• Paul donne le frommage à Marie. ‘Paul gives the cheese to Mary’• Paul me le donne. ‘Paul gives me it.’• But not • *Paul donne le me.• *Paul le me donne.

• Paul le lui donne. ‘Paul gives her it.’• But not• *Paul lui le donne.

ungrammatical

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Other languages with special ‘clitic’ pronouns• Spanish, Italian• Modern Greek• Serbo-Croat• Arabic • ? the Mediterranean languages• i.e. large-scale borrowing of abstract grammatical patterns

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And English?

• Non-pronouns:• I lent a student that book.

• indirect object + direct object• *I lent that book a student.

• NOT: * direct + indirect

• Pronouns:• I lent him it.

• indirect + direct• I lent it him.

• direct + indirect - NB This is ok with pronouns!

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4. Language analysis

In 1952 (age 12) our English teacher taught us how to analyse a sentence

I. Subject 2. PredicateNominat-

ive or equivalent

Enlarge-ment of

nominative

Finite verb Completion of finite verb

Extension of finite

verbobject comple-

mentmaster (1) the

(2) newput the class into good

ordersoon.

he asked (1) me (2) a rude

question

without any necessity.

From Nesfield, Manual of English Grammar and Composition, 1898!!!

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But then I got to analyse a whole language: Beja (Sudan)

First I found some speakers

They don’t write their language.

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Then I asked how to say ...The sister eats.The man eats.The sister sees the man.The man sees the sister.

‘The’ u:+t- feminineu: > o: accusative.

The verb present = i:nii: > it if subject is feminine.

Word order: subject + object + verb

tu:kwa tamtiniu:tak tami:ni

tu:kwa o:tak rhi:niu:tak to:kwa rhitni

the sister sister

the man maneats eatsees see

tu:kwa/to:kwa

u:tak/o:taktami:ni/tamtinirhi:ni/rhitni

kwatak

tamrh

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You could do it too!

• Try the UK Linguistics Olympiad! a. ilaga diwi:ni The male calf is sleeping.

b. do:ba:b rhitni She sees a bridegroom.

c. gwibu It is a mouse.

d. o:me:k ki:ke He is not the donkey.

e. tu:ka:m b’ata The female camel lay down.

f. iragad winu The leg is big.

uklo.org

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5. Generative linguistics

• A generative grammar is one that • is totally explicit, leaving nothing to be filled in by the user• ‘generates’ all (and only) the sentences of the language.

• The idea was first popularised by Noam Chomsky (1957)• Most linguists accept the aim• but many reject Chomsky’s methods.

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A Mickey-Mouse generative grammar of English

noun adjective verb

big small girls boys

girls

hate

adjective ? verb ? ?

modified subject object

big boys like

like

modified subject object E.G.

noun

‘isa’

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6. Psychological modelling

• How do we represent language in our minds, as knowledge?• The rest of knowledge is a network• with lots of indiscriminate associations that can be tested experimentally• and errors

• So maybe language is a network too• that would explain why we make mistakes.

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Speech errors

Speech errors happen because network neighbours influence one another through spreading activation:• Radio 4: She’s an operano • merging two adjacent planned words: opera soprano

• Spoonerisms: You’ve tasted a whole worm • confusing two non-adjacent planned words: wasted a whole term

• Malapropisms: ... weapons of mass production (Bush Senior)• confusing two phonologically related words: production for destruction

• Meaning confusion: tennis bat• confusing two semantically related words: bat for racquet.

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7. Educational linguistics

• What about education?• Education is all about language• learning new academic words and constructions• learning what they mean• learning how the words and concepts interrelate• learning the conventions for using them• learning the mental skills needed for

• complex language • complex ideas• fast real-time communication• problem-solving

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In an ideal world ...

• Pre-school children start learning their own home language• 5000 words, lots of grammar

• Primary children learn how this language works• vocabulary as well as grammar• and how to write it - even the non-standard bits

• Then they learn Standard English• and understand how it’s different from their home language.

• Then they learn Foreign• and understand how it’s different from English• and enjoy learning languages in later life.

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What I didn’t talk about

• How your language influences your thinking• e.g. spirit, nature

• How language shows social relations• e.g. Dad is a name, but daughter isn’t.

• How learning a second language improves your mind.• How linguistics can have an Olympiad without being taught• And much, much more besides!

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In short,

• Language is really interesting.• Linguistics is the Maths of the humanities and social sciences.

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Thanks

If you want to watch this show again, you can download it:dickhudson.com/talks