Why is the gh spelling inconsistent with etymology

Communication Studies Of Language Acquistion

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in its strongest form is not supported, but the fact remains that our first language or languages exert a powerful influence on how we think about the world and how we communicate with others about our thoughts. Considering what you have learned about language acquisition and about communication in at least one other area of communication studies (e.g., performance, communication and technology, interpersonal, group communication, organizational communication, rhetoric), write an essay in response to the following question:

How does the acquisition of a first language or languages facilitate or limit our perception of and communication with others?

9th edition

An Introduction to Language Victoria Fromkin Robert Rodman Nina Hyams

Classification of American English Vowels

A Phonetic Alphabet for English Pronunciation

Tongue Height

HIGH i u

o

beet boot

I Ábit put

e bait boat

OØ butt bore

aœ bat bomb

E” bet Rosa

MID

LOW

ROUNDED

Part of the Tongue Involved

FRONT CENTRAL BACK

Consonants Vowels

p pill t till k kill i beet ɪ bit b bill d dill g gill e bait ɛ bet m mill n nil ŋ ring u boot ʊ foot f feel s seal h heal o boat ɔ bore v veal z zeal l leaf æ bat a pot/bar θ thigh tʃ chill r reef ʌ butt ə sofa ð thy dʒ gin j you aɪ bite aʊ bout ʃ shill ʍ which w witch ɔɪ boy ʒ measure

An Introduction to Language 9e

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Late, University of California, Los Angeles

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North Carolina State University, Raleigh

N I N A H YA M S

University of California, Los Angeles

An Introduction to Language 9e

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An Introduction to Language, Ninth Edition Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams

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vii

INTRODUCTION

Brain and Language 3

The Human Brain 4 The Localization of Language

in the Brain 5 Aphasia 6 Brain Imaging Technology 12 Brain Plasticity and Lateralization

in Early Life 14 Split Brains 15 Other Experimental Evidence

of Brain Organization 16

PART 1

The Nature of Human Language

Preface xiii

About the Authors xix

Contents

The Autonomy of Language 18 Other Dissociations of Language

and Cognition 19 Laura 20 Christopher 20

Genetic Basis of Language 21

Language and Brain Development 22 The Critical Period 22 A Critical Period for Bird Song 25 The Development of Language

in the Species 26

Summary 28 References for Further Reading 29 Exercises 30

PART 2

Grammatical Aspects of Language

CHAPTER 1

Morphology: The Words of Language 36

Dictionaries 38

Content Words and Function Words 38

Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning 40 Bound and Free Morphemes 43

Prefixes and Suffixes 43 Infixes 45 Circumfixes 45

Roots and Stems 46 Bound Roots 47

Rules of Word Formation 47 Derivational Morphology 48 Inflectional Morphology 50 The Hierarchical Structure of Words 53 Rule Productivity 56

Exceptions and Suppletions 58 Lexical Gaps 59

Other Morphological Processes 60 Back-Formations 60 Compounds 60

“Pullet Surprises” 63

Sign Language Morphology 63

viii CONTENTS

Morphological Analysis: Identifying Morphemes 64

Summary 67 References for Further Reading 68 Exercises 68

CHAPTER 2

Syntax: The Sentence Patterns of Language 77

What the Syntax Rules Do 78 What Grammaticality Is Not Based On 82

Sentence Structure 83 Constituents and Constituency Tests 84

Syntactic Categories 86 Phrase Structure Trees and Rules 89

Heads and Complements 102 Selection 103 What Heads the Sentence 105

Structural Ambiguities 109 More Structures 111

Sentence Relatedness 115 Transformational Rules 115

The Structural Dependency of Rules 117

Further Syntactic Dependencies 120

UG Principles and Parameters 124

Sign Language Syntax 127

Summary 128 References for Further Reading 129 Exercises 130

CHAPTER 3

The Meaning of Language 139

What Speakers Know about Sentence Meaning 140

Truth 140 Entailment and Related Notions 141 Ambiguity 142

Compositional Semantics 144 Semantic Rules 144

Semantic Rule I 145

Semantic Rule II 145 When Compositionality Goes Awry 146

Anomaly 147 Metaphor 149 Idioms 150

Lexical Semantics (Word Meanings) 152 Theories of Word Meaning 153

Reference 154 Sense 155

Lexical Relations 156 Semantic Features 159

Evidence for Semantic Features 160 Semantic Features and Grammar 160

Argument Structure 163 Thematic Roles 164

Pragmatics 167 Pronouns 167

Pronouns and Syntax 168 Pronouns and Discourse 169 Pronouns and Situational Context 169

Deixis 170 More on Situational Context 172

Maxims of Conversation 172 Implicatures 174 Speech Acts 175

Summary 176 References for Further Reading 178 Exercises 178

CHAPTER 4

Phonetics: The Sounds of Language 189

Sound Segments 190 Identity of Speech Sounds 191 The Phonetic Alphabet 192

Articulatory Phonetics 195 Consonants 195

Place of Articulation 195 Manner of Articulation 197 Phonetic Symbols for American

English Consonants 204 Vowels 206

Tongue Position 206 Lip Rounding 208

Contents ix

Distinctive Features of Phonemes 238 Feature Values 238 Nondistinctive Features 239 Phonemic Patterns May Vary across

Languages 241 ASL Phonology 242 Natural Classes of Speech Sounds 242 Feature Specifications for American

English Consonants and Vowels 243

The Rules of Phonology 244 Assimilation Rules 244 Dissimilation Rules 248 Feature-Changing Rules 249 Segment Insertion and Deletion Rules 250 Movement (Metathesis) Rules 252 From One to Many and from Many

to One 253 The Function of Phonological Rules 255 Slips of the Tongue: Evidence for

Phonological Rules 255

Prosodic Phonology 256 Syllable Structure 256 Word Stress 257 Sentence and Phrase Stress 258 Intonation 259

Sequential Constraints of Phonemes 260 Lexical Gaps 262

Why Do Phonological Rules Exist? 262

Phonological Analysis 264

Summary 268 References for Further Reading 269 Exercises 270

Diphthongs 208 Nasalization of Vowels 209 Tense and Lax Vowels 209 Different (Tongue) Strokes

for Different Folks 210 Major Phonetic Classes 210

Noncontinuants and Continuants 210 Obstruents and Sonorants 210 Consonantal 211 Syllabic Sounds 211

Prosodic Features 212 Tone and Intonation 213

Phonetic Symbols and Spelling Correspondences 215

The “Phonetics” of Signed Languages 217

Summary 219 References for Further Reading 220 Exercises 221

CHAPTER 5

Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language 226

The Pronunciation of Morphemes 227 The Pronunciation of Plurals 227 Additional Examples of Allomorphs 230

Phonemes: The Phonological Units of Language 232

Vowel Nasalization in English as an Illustration of Allophones 232

Allophones of /t/ 234 Complementary Distribution 235

PART 3

The Biology and Psychology of Language

The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge 289

Knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentences 291

Linguistic Knowledge and Performance 292

What Is Grammar? 294 Descriptive Grammars 294

CHAPTER 6

What Is Language? 284

Linguistic Knowledge 284 Knowledge of the Sound System 285 Knowledge of Words 286

Arbitrary Relation of Form and Meaning 286

x CONTENTS

The Acquisition of Signed Languages 355

Knowing More Than One Language 357 Childhood Bilingualism 357

Theories of Bilingual Development 358

Two Monolinguals in One Head 360 The Role of Input 360 Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism 361

Second Language Acquisition 361 Is L2 Acquisition the Same as L1

Acquisition? 361 Native Language Influence in L2

Acquisition 363 The Creative Component of L2

Acquisition 364 Is There a Critical Period for L2

Acquisition? 365

Summary 366 References for Further Reading 368 Exercises 369

CHAPTER 8

Language Processing: Humans and Computers 375

The Human Mind at Work: Human Language Processing 375

Comprehension 377 The Speech Signal 378 Speech Perception and

Comprehension 379 Bottom-up and Top-down

Models 381 Lexical Access and Word

Recognition 383 Syntactic Processing 384 Speech Production 387

Planning Units 387 Lexical Selection 389 Application and Misapplication

of Rules 389 Nonlinguistic Influences 390

Computer Processing of Human Language 391 Computers That Talk and Listen 391

Prescriptive Grammars 295 Teaching Grammars 297

Language Universals 298 The Development of Grammar 299 Sign Languages: Evidence for the Innateness

of Language 300 American Sign Language 301

Animal “Languages” 302 “Talking” Parrots 303 The Birds and the Bees 304 Can Chimps Learn Human Language? 306

In the Beginning: The Origin of Language 308 Divine Gift 309 The First Language 309 Human Invention or the Cries

of Nature? 310

Language and Thought 310

What We Know about Human Language 315

Summary 317 References for Further Reading 318 Exercises 319

CHAPTER 7

Language Acquisition 324

Mechanisms of Language Acquisition 325 Do Children Learn through Imitation? 325 Do Children Learn through Correction

and Reinforcement? 326 Do Children Learn Language through

Analogy? 327 Do Children Learn through Structured

Input? 329 Children Construct Grammars 330 The Innateness Hypothesis 330 Stages in Language Acquisition 332

The Perception and Production of Speech Sounds 333

Babbling 334 First Words 335 Segmenting the Speech Stream 336 The Development of Grammar 339 Setting Parameters 354

Contents xi

Computational Lexicography 409 Information Retrieval and

Summarization 410 Spell Checkers 411 Machine Translation 412 Computational Forensic

Linguistics 414

Summary 418 References for Further Reading 420 Exercises 421

Computational Phonetics and Phonology 391

Computational Morphology 396 Computational Syntax 397 Computational Semantics 402 Computational Pragmatics 404 Computational Sign Language 405

Applications of Computational Linguistics 406 Computer Models of Grammar 406 Frequency Analysis, Concordances,

and Collocations 407

PART 4

Language and Society

CHAPTER 9

Language in Society 430

Dialects 430 Regional Dialects 432

Phonological Differences 434 Lexical Differences 435 Dialect Atlases 436 Syntactic Differences 436

Social Dialects 439 The “Standard” 439 African American English 442 Latino (Hispanic) English 446 Genderlects 448 Sociolinguistic Analysis 451

Languages in Contact 452 Lingua Francas 453 Contact Languages: Pidgins

and Creoles 454 Creoles and Creolization 457 Bilingualism 460

Codeswitching 461

Language and Education 463 Second-Language Teaching Methods 463 Teaching Reading 465 Bilingual Education 467 “Ebonics” 468

Language in Use 469 Styles 469 Slang 470

Jargon and Argot 470 Taboo or Not Taboo? 471

Euphemisms 473 Racial and National Epithets 474 Language and Sexism 474

Marked and Unmarked Forms 475 Secret Languages and Language

Games 476

Summary 477 References for Further Reading 479 Exercises 480

CHAPTER 10

Language Change: The Syllables of Time 488

The Regularity of Sound Change 489 Sound Correspondences 490 Ancestral Protolanguages 490

Phonological Change 491 Phonological Rules 492 The Great Vowel Shift 493

Morphological Change 494

Syntactic Change 496

Lexical Change 500 Change in Category 500 Addition of New Words 500

Word Coinage 501

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER 11

Writing: The ABCs of Language 540

The History of Writing 541 Pictograms and Ideograms 541 Cuneiform Writing 543 The Rebus Principle 545 From Hieroglyphics to the Alphabet 546

Modern Writing Systems 547 Word Writing 548 Syllabic Writing 549 Consonantal Alphabet Writing 551 Alphabetic Writing 551

Writing and Speech 553 Spelling 556 Spelling Pronunciations 560

Summary 561 References for Further Reading 562 Exercises 563

Glossary 569

Index 601

Words from Names 502 Blends 503 Reduced Words 504 Borrowings or Loan Words 504

Loss of Words 507 Semantic Change 508

Broadening 508 Narrowing 509 Meaning Shifts 509

Reconstructing “Dead” Languages 509 The Nineteenth-Century

Comparativists 510 Cognates 511

Comparative Reconstruction 514 Historical Evidence 516

Extinct and Endangered Languages 518

The Genetic Classification of Languages 520 Languages of the World 523

Types of Languages 525

Why Do Languages Change? 528

Summary 530 References for Further Reading 531 Exercises 532

xiii

The ninth edition of An Introduction to Language continues in the spirit of our friend, colleague, mentor, and coauthor, Victoria Fromkin. Vicki loved lan- guage, and she loved to tell people about it. She found linguistics fun and fasci- nating, and she wanted every student and every teacher to think so, too. Though this edition has been completely rewritten for improved clarity and currency, we have nevertheless preserved Vicki’s lighthearted, personal approach to a com- plex topic, including witty quotations from noted authors (A. A. Milne was one of Vicki’s favorites). We hope we have kept the spirit of Vicki’s love for teaching about language alive in the pages of this book.

The first eight editions of An Introduction to Language succeeded, with the help of dedicated teachers, in introducing the nature of human language to tens of thousands of students. This is a book that students enjoy and understand and that professors find effective and thorough. Not only have majors in lin- guistics benefited from the book’s easy-to-read yet comprehensive presentation, majors in fields as diverse as teaching English as a second language, foreign lan- guage studies, general education, psychology, sociology, and anthropology have enjoyed learning about language from this book.

Highlights of This Edition This edition includes new developments in linguistics and related fields that will strengthen its appeal to a wider audience. Much of this information will enable students to gain insight and understanding about linguistic issues and debates appearing in the national media and will help professors and students stay cur- rent with important linguistic research. We hope that it may also dispel certain common misconceptions that people have about language and language use.

Many more exercises (240) are available in this edition than ever before, allowing students to test their comprehension of the material in the text. Many of the exercises are multipart, amounting to more than 300 opportunities for “homework” so that instructors can gauge their student’s progress. Some exer- cises are marked as “challenge” questions if they go beyond the scope of what is

Preface Well, this bit which I am writing, called Introduction, is really the er-h’r’m of the book, and I have put it in, partly so as not to take you by surprise, and partly because I can’t do without it now. There are some very clever writers who say that it is quite easy not to have an er-h’r’m, but I don’t agree with them. I think it is much easier not to have all the rest of the book.

A. A. MILNE, Now We Are Six, 1927

The last thing we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.

BLAISE PASCAL (1623–1662)

xiv PREFACE

ordinarily expected in a first course in language study. An answer key is avail- able to instructors to assist them in areas outside of their expertise.

The Introduction, “Brain and Language,” retains its forward placement in the book because we believe that one can learn about the brain through lan- guage, and about the nature of the human being through the brain. This chapter may be read and appreciated without technical knowledge of linguistics. When the centrality of language to human nature is appreciated, students will be motivated to learn more about human language, and about linguistics, because they will be learning more about themselves. As in the previous edition, highly detailed illustrations of MRI and PET scans of the brain are included, and this chapter highlights some of the new results and tremendous progress in the study of neurolinguistics over the past few years. The arguments for the autonomy of language in the human brain are carefully crafted so that the student sees how experimental evidence is applied to support scientific theories.

Chapters 1 and 2, on morphology and syntax, have been heavily rewritten for increased clarity, while weaving in new results that reflect current thinking on how words and sentences are structured and understood. In particular, the chapter on syntax continues to reflect the current views on binary branching, heads and complements, selection, and X-bar phrase structure. Non-English examples abound in these two chapters and throughout the entire book. The intention is to enhance the student’s understanding of the differences among languages as well as the universal aspects of grammar. Nevertheless, the intro- ductory spirit of these chapters is not sacrificed, and students gain a deep under- standing of word and phrase structure with a minimum of formalisms and a maximum of insightful examples and explanations, supplemented as always by quotes, poetry, and humor.

Chapter 3, on semantics or meaning, has been more highly structuralized so that the challenging topics of this complex subject can be digested in smaller pieces. Still based on the theme of “What do you know about meaning when you know a language?”, the chapter first introduces students to truth-conditional semantics and the principle of compositionality. Following that are discussions of what happens when compositionality fails, as with idioms, metaphors, and anomalous sentences. Lexical semantics takes up various approaches to word meaning, including the concepts of reference and sense, semantic features, argu- ment structure, and thematic roles. Finally, the chapter concludes with prag- matic considerations, including the distinction between linguistic and situational context in discourse, deixis, maxims of conversation, implicatures, and speech acts, all newly rewritten for currency and clarity.

Chapter 4, on phonetics, retains its former organization with one significant change: We have totally embraced IPA (International Phonetics Association) notation for English in keeping with current tendencies, with the sole exception of using /r/ in place of the technically correct /ɹ/. We continue to mention alterna- tive notations that students may encounter in other publications.

Chapter 5, on phonology, has been streamlined by relegating several complex examples (e.g., metathesis in Hebrew) to the exercises, where instructors can opt to include them if it is thought that students can handle such advanced mate- rial. The chapter continues to be presented with a greater emphasis on insights through linguistic data accompanied by small amounts of well-explicated for-

Preface xv

malisms, so that the student can appreciate the need for formal theories without experiencing the burdensome details.

Chapter 6 is a concise introduction to the general study of language. It now contains many topics of special interest to students, including “Language and Thought,” which takes up the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; discussions of signed languages; a consideration of animal “languages”; and a treatment of language origins.

The chapters comprising Part 3, “The Psychology of Language,” have been both rewritten and restructured for clarity. Chapter 7, “Language Acquisition,” is still rich in data from both English and other languages, and has been updated with newer examples from the ever expanding research in this vital topic. The arguments for innateness and Universal Grammar that language acquisition pro- vides are exploited to show the student how scientific theories of great import are discovered and supported through observation, experiment, and reason. As in most chapters, American Sign Language (ASL) is discussed, and its important role in understanding the biological foundations of language is emphasized.

In chapter 8, the section on psycholinguistics has been updated to conform to recent discoveries. The section on computational linguistics has been substan- tially reorganized into two subsections: technicalities and applications. In the applications section is an entirely new presentation of forensic computational linguistics—the use of computers in solving crimes that involve language, and, similarly, resolving judicial matters such as trademark disputes.

Part 4 is concerned with language in society, including sociolinguistics (chap- ter 9) and historical linguistics (chapter 10). Readers of previous editions will scarcely recognize the much revised and rewritten chapter 9. The section “Lan- guages in Contact” has been thoroughly researched and brought up to date, including insightful material on pidgins and creoles, their origins, interrelation- ship, and subtypes. An entirely new section, “Language and Education,” dis- cusses some of the sociolinguistic issues facing the classroom teacher in our mul- ticultural school systems. No sections have been omitted, but many have been streamlined and rewritten for clarity, such as the section on “Language in Use.”

Chapter 10, on language change, has undergone a few changes. The section “Extinct and Endangered Languages” has been completely rewritten and brought up to date to reflect the intense interest in this critical subject. The same is true of the section “Types of Languages,” which now reflects the latest research.

Chapter 11, on writing systems, is unchanged from the previous edition with the exception of a mild rewriting to further improve clarity, and the movement of the section on reading to chapter 9.

Terms that appear bold in the text are defined in the revised glossary at the end of the book. The glossary has been expanded and improved so that the ninth edition provides students with a linguistic lexicon of nearly 700 terms, making the book a worthy reference volume.

The order of presentation of chapters 1 through 5 was once thought to be nontraditional. Our experience, backed by previous editions of the book and the recommendations of colleagues throughout the world, has convinced us that it is easier for the novice to approach the structural aspects of language by first look- ing at morphology (the structure of the most familiar linguistic unit, the word). This is followed by syntax (the structure of sentences), which is also familiar

xvi PREFACE

to many students, as are numerous semantic concepts. We then proceed to the more novel (to students) phonetics and phonology, which students often find daunting. However, the book is written so that individual instructors can pres- ent material in the traditional order of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syn- tax, and semantics (chapters 4, 5, 1, 2, and 3) without confusion, if they wish.

As in previous editions, the primary concern has been with basic ideas rather than detailed expositions. This book assumes no previous knowledge on the part of the reader. An updated list of references at the end of each chapter is included to accommodate any reader who wishes to pursue a subject in more depth. Each chapter concludes with a summary and exercises to enhance the student’s interest in and comprehension of the textual material.

Acknowledgments Our endeavor to maintain the currency of linguistic concepts in times of rapid progress has been invaluably enhanced by the following colleagues, to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude:

Susan Curtiss University of California, brain and language Los Angeles Jeff MacSwan Arizona State University bilingual education,

bilingual communities

John Olsson Forensic Linguistic forensic linguistics Institute, Wales, U.K. Fernanda Pratas Universidade Nova pidgin/creoles de Lisboa Otto Santa Ana University of California, Chicano English Los Angeles Andrew Simpson University of Southern language and society California

We would also like to extend our appreciation to the following individuals for their help and guidance:

Deborah Grant Independent consultant general feedback Edward Keenan University of California, historical linguistics Los Angeles Giuseppe Longobardi Università di Venezia historical linguistics Pamela Munro University of California, endangered Los Angeles languages Reiko Okabe Nihon University, Tokyo Japanese and gender Megha Sundara University of California, early speech Los Angeles perception Maria Luisa Zubizarreta University of Southern language contact California

Preface xvii

Brook Danielle Lillehaugen undertook the daunting task of writing the Answer Key to the ninth edition. Her thoroughness, accuracy, and insightful- ness in construing solutions to problems and discussions of issues will be deeply appreciated by all who avail themselves of this useful document.

We also express deep appreciation for the incisive comments of eight review- ers of the eighth edition, known to us as R1–R8, whose frank assessment of the work, both critical and laudatory, heavily influenced this new edition:

Lynn A. Burley University of Central Arkansas Fred Field California State University, Northridge Jackson Gandour Purdue University, West Lafayette Virginia Lewis Northern State University Tom Nash Southern Oregon University Nancy Stenson University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Mel Storm Emporia State University Robert Trammell Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton

We continue to be deeply grateful to the individuals who have sent us sug- gestions, corrections, criticisms, cartoons, language data, and exercises over the course of many editions. Their influence is still strongly felt in this ninth edition. The list is long and reflects the global, communal collaboration that a book about language—the most global of topics—merits. To each of you, our heartfelt thanks and appreciation. Know that in this ninth edition lives your contribution:1

Adam Albright, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Rebecca Barghorn, University of Oldenburg; Seyed Reza Basiroo, Islamic Azad University; Karol Boguszewski, Poland; Melanie Borchers, Universität Duisburg-Essen; Donna Brinton, Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles; Daniel Bruhn, Uni- versity of California, Berkeley; Ivano Caponigro, University of California, San Diego; Ralph S. Carlson, Azusa Pacific University; Robert Channon, Purdue University; Judy Cheatham, Greensboro College; Leonie Cornips, Meertens Institute; Antonio Damásio, University of Southern California; Hanna Damá- sio, University of Southern California; Julie Damron, Brigham Young Univer- sity; Rosalia Dutra, University of North Texas; Christina Esposito, Macalester College; Susan Fiksdal, Evergreen State College; Beverly Olson Flanigan and her teaching assistants, Ohio University; Jule Gomez de Garcia, California State Uni- versity, San Marcos; Loretta Gray, Central Washington University; Xiangdong Gu, Chong qing University; Helena Halmari, Sam Houston State University; Sharon Hargus, University of Washington; Benjamin H. Hary, Emory Univer- sity; Tometro Hopkins, Florida International University; Eric Hyman, Univer- sity of North Carolina, Fayetteville; Dawn Ellen Jacobs, California Baptist Uni- versity; Seyed Yasser Jebraily, University of Tehran; Kyle Johnson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Paul Justice, San Diego State University; Simin Karimi, University of Arizona; Robert D. King, University of Texas; Sharon M. Klein, California State University, Northridge; Nathan Klinedinst, Institut

1Some affiliations may have changed or are unknown to us at this time.

xviii PREFACE

Jean Nicod/CNRS, Paris; Otto Krauss, Jr., late, unaffiliated; Elisabeth Kuhn, Virginia Commonwealth University; Peter Ladefoged, Late, University of Cali- fornia, Los Angeles; Mary Ann Larsen-Pusey, Fresno Pacific University; Rabbi Robert Layman, Philadelphia; Byungmin Lee, Korea; Virginia “Ginny” Lewis, Northern State University; David Lightfoot, Georgetown University; Ingvar Lofstedt, University of California, Los Angeles; Harriet Luria, Hunter College, City University of New York; Tracey McHenry, Eastern Washington University; Carol Neidle, Boston University; Don Nilsen, Arizona State University; Anjali Pandey, Salisbury University; Barbara Hall Partee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Vincent D. Puma, Flagler College; Ian Roberts, Cambridge University; Tugba Rona, Istanbul International Community School; Natalie Schilling-Estes, Georgetown University; Philippe Schlenker, Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris and New York University; Carson Schütze, University of California, Los Angeles; Bruce Sherwood, North Carolina State University; Koh Shimizu, Beijing; Dwan L. Shipley, Washington University; Muffy Siegel, Temple University; Neil Smith, University College London; Donca Steriade, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology; Nawaf Sulami, University of Northern Iowa; Dalys Vargas, College of Notre Dame; Willis Warren, Saint Edwards University; Donald K. Watkins, University of Kansas; Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University.

Please forgive us if we have inadvertently omitted any names, and if we have spelled every name correctly, then we shall believe in miracles.

Finally, we wish to thank the editorial and production team at Cengage Learning. They have been superb and supportive in every way: Michael Rosen- berg, publisher; Joan M. Flaherty, development editor; Michael Lepera, content project manager; Jennifer Bonnar, project manager, Lachina Publishing Services; Christy Goldfinch, copy editor; Diane Miller, proofreader; Bob Kauser, permis- sions editor; Joan Shapiro, indexer; and Brian Salisbury, text designer.

Last but certainly not least, we acknowledge our debt to those we love and who love us and who inspire our work when nothing else will: Nina’s son, Michael; Robert’s wife, Helen; our parents; and our dearly beloved and still deeply missed colleagues, Vicki Fromkin and Peter Ladefoged.

The responsibility for errors in fact or judgment is, of course, ours alone. We continue to be indebted to the instructors who have used the earlier editions and to their students, without whom there would be no ninth edition.

Robert Rodman Nina Hyams

xix

VICTORIA FROMKIN received her bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944 and her M.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1963 and 1965, respectively. She was a member of the faculty of the UCLA Department of Linguistics from 1966 until her death in 2000, and served as its chair from 1972 to 1976. From 1979 to 1989 she served as the UCLA Graduate Dean and Vice Chancellor of Graduate Programs. She was a visiting professor at the Universities of Stock- holm, Cambridge, and Oxford. Professor Fromkin served as president of the Linguistics Society of America in 1985, president of the Association of Graduate Schools in 1988, and chair of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Apha- sia. She received the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and the Professional Achievement Award, and served as the U.S. Delegate and a member of the Execu- tive Committee of the International Permanent Committee of Linguistics (CIPL). She was an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York Academy of Science, the American Psychological Society, and the Acoustical Society of America, and in 1996 was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. She published more than one hundred books, monographs, and papers on topics concerned with phonetics, phonology, tone languages, African lan- guages, speech errors, processing models, aphasia, and the brain/mind/language interface—all research areas in which she worked. Professor Fromkin passed away on January 19, 2000, at the age of 76.

ROBERT RODMAN received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1961, a master’s degree in mathemat- ics in 1965, a master’s degree in linguistics in 1971, and his Ph.D. in linguistics in 1973. He has been on the faculties of the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kyoto Industrial College in Japan, and North Carolina State University, where he is currently a professor of computer science. His research areas are forensic linguistics and computer speech processing. Robert resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, Helen, Blue the Labrador, and Gracie, a rescued greyhound.

NINA HYAMS received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston Uni- versity in 1973 and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in linguistics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 1981 and 1983, respectively. She joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1983, where she is currently a professor of linguistics. Her main areas of research are childhood language development and syntax. She is author of the book Language Acquisi- tion and the Theory of Parameters (D. Reidel Publishers, 1986), a milestone in language acquisition research. She has also published numerous articles on the

About the Authors

xx ABOUT THE AUTHORS

development of syntax, morphology, and semantics in children. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Utrecht and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and has given numerous lectures throughout Europe and Japan. Nina lives in Los Angeles with her pal Spot, a rescued border collie mutt.

1

Reflecting on Noam Chomsky’s ideas on the innateness of the fundamentals

of grammar in the human mind, I saw that any innate features of the language

capacity must be a set of biological structures, selected in the course of the

evolution of the human brain.

S . E . L U R I A , A Slot Machine, a Broken Test Tube, an Autobiography, 1984

The Nature of Human Language

2 PART 1 The Nature of Human Language

The nervous systems of all animals have a number of basic functions in common,

most notably the control of movement and the analysis of sensation. What

distinguishes the human brain is the variety of more specialized activities it is

capable of learning. The preeminent example is language.

N O R M A N G E S C H W I N D , 1979

Linguistics shares with other sciences a concern to be objective, systematic,

consistent, and explicit in its account of language. Like other sciences, it aims to

collect data, test hypotheses, devise models, and construct theories. Its subject

matter, however, is unique: at one extreme it overlaps with such “hard” sciences

as physics and anatomy; at the other, it involves such traditional “arts” subjects as

philosophy and literary criticism. The field of linguistics includes both science and

the humanities, and offers a breadth of coverage that, for many aspiring students

of the subject, is the primary source of its appeal.

D A V I D C R Y S TA L , The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 1987

3

Attempts to understand the complexities of human cognitive abilities and espe- cially the acquisition and use of language are as old and as continuous as history itself. What is the nature of the brain? What is the nature of human language? And what is the relationship between the two? Philosophers and scientists have grappled with these questions and others over the centuries. The idea that the brain is the source of human language and cognition goes back more than two thousand years. The philosophers of ancient Greece speculated about the brain/ mind relationship, but neither Plato nor Aristotle recognized the brain’s crucial function in cognition or language. However, others of the same period showed great insight, as illustrated in the following quote from the Hippocratic Treatises on the Sacred Disease, written c. 377 b.c.e.: