Key Concepts
LINGUISTICS
Neo grammarians
Bloomfield
Stabilising mechanisms and deteriorating mechanisms
the process of streamlining vs
the process of restructuring
Language Change
Martinet
Communication need
Economy of language
Bruce
Restructuring
Primitive Language
No language is primitive. Ex: Sanskrit far more complicated in their gramatical forms tan many contemporary languages
Creativity of language
Vocabulary is re-adapted, not new and it extends and borrows from other languages
STRUCTURALISM - SAUSSURE
Language (Static)
Significant (word)
Signified (concept)
Speech
multifaceted and heterogeneous, involving the individual use of a socially constructed system.
GENERATIVE GRAMMAR - CHOMSKY
Competence (Dynamic)
is the innate ability that the human being has to learn any language
Performance
"output" is the put in practice of that ability
LANGUAGES
ORIGINS
Conventionalists
Subarbitrary relation between the form of language (i.e., primarily the sounds and words) and the meanings it conveyed.btopic
Naturalist
Etymology:
the study of the origin of the words
the origin of all of language was ultimately connected to words whose form directly reflected the meanings of their referents.
have a natural connection with its referent in the real world
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES TREE