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Can I see a show of hands of those who have taken courses in linguistics please? surprised

•Anybody working in Optimality Theory or Generative Grammar?
•Where do you think the entire linguistic entreprise (as a scientific field) is headed?
•Does it bother anyone else that we may never be able to crack open somebody's brain to find out what they really know or don't know; hence, we may never be able to verify the validity of UG or LAD or...?

Ah, a fellow linguist! Pardon me for not having included structural linguistics in my OP. I didn't know much about this framework, so I looked it up briefly on wikipedia and I must say I'm surprised that students are still being taught that way. Mind telling me which part of the world are you studying in?

I think I kind of agree with you about how much the universals have been proven, or how little. I haven't read Greenberg's work, but I've seen some of his proposed universals. While I applaud his initiative, much of it seems to be based on terms and concepts that, I feel, might not apply in every language.

However, where I think universals find their strength is not so much in how well they've been proven, but how well they've been argued for. Unsurprisingly, I would recommend reading Chomsky for a better understanding of how some level of universality "must" exist in language acquisition, I guess.

Regardless, it is encouraging to know that people are working in different frameworks, so we can better criticize our own works for the sake of the enterprise. smile

*after a search on Wikipedia* ... wow... you're doing that? The closest thing that I've seen in my university thus far is the series of cognitive linguistics lessons I'm having this semester. Otherwise, we seem to tend towards the structural and towards applied linguistics - one of the main laboratories from which come most of the linguistics professors here is dedicated to cataloguing endangered languages, and the other works on other problems such as language acquisition and the like. I'm only in my first year, though, so I can't say much more.

It'll be good for what you call "the entire linguistic entreprise" to advance in both the macro-fields of theory and application; both must continue to feed themselves and each other in order to stay relevant. While constructing models, we need to bear in mind that they aren't everything, and they're not foolproof, because exceptions to the model are everywhere, and we need to be careful not to construct them on what turns out to be a deviation from the norm (for instance, languages with copulas, or equivalents of "to be", are in the minority).

... cracking open the brains of others is more likely to result in their deaths than it is to result in confirmation of the hypotheses we hold*. That aside, while it's comforting to be able to know something for certain, I think I prefer the debates that we have going on in the field. We have absolute truths that are interpreted differently, which is a good thing for a relatively youthful field of science.
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* I remember my upper secondary biology, and I also tend to be a little literal-minded. razz

Thank you ^^ Well... I call it a "Linguistics degree" or a "Bachelor's in Linguistics" but its name in French is "Licence Sciences du Langage". I'm not sure what would make a better translation (and this, in spite of my six years of French. To give you an idea, this semester, I have:
+ [application-based] classes on morphology and syntax, semiotics, and semantics;
+ a lecture called "Language and thought" [which is the cognitive linguistics lesson I spoke of]; as well as
+ an introduction to the Uralic and Bantu languages and cultures.
There will be classes on pragmatics and psycholinguistics in the second year - that much I know from the syllabus.)


I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking that the decoupling between theoretical and applied linguistics doesn't bode well. We may be able to specialise in one of the two domains, but an awareness of the other is necessary, so that the body of knowledge common to the two sides is updated in an accurate manner. It might be why my university's positioned itself on the side of application and description.
Having said that (and if I might ask this), now that you've graduated, what's next in your plans? (You needn't answer this if you're not comfortable with it.)


3nodding Well, it has its uses, and it has its role to play (provided we ensure that theory and application don't veer off on paths that make them incompatible with each other), so why not be optimistic about it? whee (I'd be an oddity in my home country for thinking this way, though; over there, such sciences as physics and chemistry and biology are held in much higher esteem than our humble words and tongues and wordplay. rolleyes )
The debate is necessary since nothing is set in stone (be it literally or figuratively). If I end up going into research, though, it will be to try to contribute a bit of knowledge to humankind; joining - or possibly starting - a debate (or many of them) will just be part of the process of doing so. I'm not an expert debater, but languages and their workings do fascinate me, so if I find something that I think is really interesting, you might see me taking part. We'll have to see how it goes (my current plan is to teach French after I get the degree, but research has never seemed more appealing).

Yep! To use the McDonald's slogan, I'm lovin' (almost all of) it -- it's only the Methodology class that tends to give me headaches.
Where "Uralic" and "Bantu" are concerned -- it seems I gave the wrong impression... and to think that English is my first language! >< "Uralic" and "Bantu" are actually the names of language families (see here and here respectively for more about them). You may have heard of Hungarian, Finnish or Estonian -- they're most famous and most widely-spoken Uralic languages. As for the Bantu family, it comprises such languages as Shona, Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa, and Lingala, among others.
What knowledge is passed on to us through that particular course, then? It discusses the origins of the respective ancestor languages and how they evolved -- and, in the process, gives us a little look at what historical / comparative linguistics is about -- along with some points about the cultures of either the people who spoke the ancestor languages, or the peoples who speak the descendant languages today. And you're right, it's fascinating -- then again, that's what I think of the majority of my classes. Which is why I find the allure of research pretty attractive nowadays...


My fault; I should have mentioned that I had taken classes in phonetics and phonology last semester (my school year began in September, and I'm now in my second semester). But I'd've reacted just like that if I'd heard of someone starting their first semester without these classes; that's akin to building on no foundation at all.


Well! I see. Bit of a pity, but I doubt that what you've learnt will truly go to waste. All the best with Law!
(You do know that it's not just about the courtroom, right? There're other domains, such as contract law or even maritime law...)


None at the moment, heh *sheepish expression* but there are some things that get my goat sometimes.

Looking at the exercises that the teachers are currently dishing out, my main beef at the moment is with my teachers' perception of Mandarin Chinese (my second language, acquired in childhood). I've already had:
+ one phonology assignment in which the and [y] vowels (noted as u and ü in hanyu pinyin) were presented as allophones of the same phoneme (not true, for [ny] and [ly] couldn't possibly exist as pinyin combinations otherwise); and
+ one example shown to us in morphology class in which an entity that I recognise as a word made up of two characters (hence a two-morpheme word) was presented as two separate words (or two single-morpheme words).
It makes my blood boil at times.

I don't know any good literature relating to Chinese phonology or morphology -- AND shows that it's not quite what they think it is -- just yet, but once I do, I'm going to calm down and type out my arguments in a reasonable manner. I'm not at all comfortable with Chinese being put into the category of isolating languages when such two-character entities -- let alone four-character idioms or chengyü -- do exist, and mean more than the sum of their constituent characters/morphemes.
No doubt it's an issue of perception, but presenting a native speaker with that kind of vision of his or her language is... disconcerting to say the least, especially when he or she has learnt it otherwise.

VanillaMatcha

Considering how competitive research funding is, if teaching French or doing research is what you have in mind, then you might get to do both at the same time! xd

I'd love that! whee But we'll have to see how it goes. By the time I do my Master, I'll need to choose between either a professional Master's (Master Pro) in French as a Foreign Language, or a research(-optimised) Master's (Master Recherche) in Linguistics. Talk about not being able to have one's cake and eat it too.. sad but what if there was a way around it? Hmmm... wink I don't know yet but I'll look into it.

VanillaMatcha

By the way, it is an absolute pleasure to bump into you in here, because I haven't posted in WG for almost a year now. I apologize for not recognizing you right away, I don't have a good memory sweatdrop

The pleasure's mine ^^ and it's okay, these things happen. I don't remember every single WGer either, so were I in your position, my reaction would have been the same sweatdrop

"Hard science". rolleyes Your faculty sounds a little like my native land, except that I don't see people there trying to ensure that all sciences -- if not all domains of knowledge -- are seen as equal. (Perhaps they are but I just don't see them doing so.)


Indeed!


You're welcome. And yes, do that. I hear that first-years get at least one year (I forgot how many sweatdrop ) of training in common before needing to specialise, but I don't know if that'll be your case sweatdrop


(Don't worry, you got it down pat.)
Well... it was part of an exercise (in the French Linguistics class, of all places), and wasn't mentioned again, but I kept it at the back of my mind, and then when the teacher mentioned something about a neutralisation of phonemic distinctions in French, I wondered if such a thing had happened in Chinese. And I do still wonder. I brought up the idea to my teacher, but since she's a specialist in another domain, she merely said, "That's a possibility."
One thing to look up...


That it is. stressed More things to look up.
It's this point that strikes me, though: "It has been noted that different native speakers have provided widely varying grammatical responses to the same compounds (such as the case that you've astutely pointed out)."
eek This I never knew. Might it have something to do with the ways in which the language is taught? Or were the native speakers in the study from the same town/region/country?


No, actually, no-one's mentioned this to my cohort yet. Perhaps they will to the people doing their Masters. You are right, though -- I do tend to lose my neutrality (you can see that I just did) when thinking about these things in such a manner, which isn't a good position for any scientist to be in. Maybe I should describe a language that's not my own instead. Or learn to keep cool and be neutral.


Hmm. What're the titles of some of those papers?
Also, may I try?
It's a morpheme with many realisations.
Plural markers on verbs, adjectives and adverbs are realised as null morphemes.
For plural forms of nouns, we most frequently encounter the forms -s or -es (an allomorph of this form is -oes), -en, or vowel changes ('oo' to 'ee') in written form; the corresponding oral forms are /z/ or /ɨz/ or /s/ (or /ʊz/) depending on the context, /ʌn/, and vowel change from /u:/ to /i:/.
(Some words do not appear to change from the singular to the plural... not sure what to make of those. sweatdrop )
For loanwords or scientific words with roots whose plurals in the language of origin are known, the corresponding transformations apply (if one knows them; those who don't tend to tack on -s or -es where appropriate). I'm not sure if / how many of these are calques on one oversimplified system, though:
+ Greek: singular -is becomes plural -es, singular -on becomes plural -a
+ Latin: singular -us becomes plural -i, singular -a becomes plural -ae, singular -um becomes plural -a, singular -ix becomes plural -ixes.
+ French: words with -eau in the singular receive an -x at the end in the plural.
Loanwords that aren't of any of these origins tend to either be uncountable or pluralised with the -s (orally, /z/) form of the morpheme. Because of the relatively higher productivity of this morpheme, it tends to be cited by native speakers as the plural morpheme by default.
(I highly doubt my list is exhaustive.)


stressed Yes, time does fly! Before any more moments slip past my fingers, though, I need my Bachelor's. (Back to work for me...)

Heya, I just joined!
I majored in Linguistics in university, but I still have trouble with syntax a bit 'cause I had a terrible professor for it sophomore year. stare But I'm all up in that linguistic good stuff. One of my favorite classes was about the origin of language... but obv. our discussions were inconclusive.