2. SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Language use is sensitive to social
variables such as ethnicity and
class.
Various nonstandard English
dialects have their unique features.
3. Phenomena:
A. Omission of final-s on verbs
Nonstandard: He walk home every
day.
Standard: He walks home every
day.
4. Inflections in the standard English
system for the present tense verb
that affected the phenomenon.
Singular Plural
1st person I walk We walk
2nd person You walk You walk
3rd person He/she walks They walk
5. Most present tense verbs in standard
English have no overt inflection.
Ifwe substitute the nonstandard forms
(He/she walk) for the corresponding
standard form, we can come out with a
perfectly regular system (i.e. all present
tense verbs have an overt inflection).
6. This regularization was also applied
to all main verbs and auxiliaries in
some dialects of English, resulting to
forms like
He do for He does
He don’t for He doesn’t
He have for He has
7. B. Invariant Forms of Be
Unlike other present tense verbs with
predominant form of not having –s
and exceptional form with –s, be has
three forms; is, are and am.
8. Many nonstandard speakers regularize all
the present tense forms of be to one
single form
I is You is We is They is
When this happens, be is no longer an
“irregular” verb or in an exceptional form.
For
nonstandard form users, this reflects a
highly systematic treatment of English.
9. C. Inversions in Questions
In
some nonstandard dialects of
English, an interrogative such as
“What is it?” may be phrased as
“What it is?”.
Thedifference between them can be
explained by assuming that question
transformation applies in standard
derivational form but not in the
nonstandard derivation.
10. Here is a summary:
Standard English Nonstandard
Underlying structure: it-is-what it- is- what
Question: is-it-what (does not apply)
Wh-Movement: what-is-it what-it-is
Surface Structure What is it? What it is?
11. The nonstandard derivation omits a step-
the question transformation, which appears
in the standard derivation.
This does not mean, however, that it is
deficient or incomplete in some way.
Rather, this is a rule-governed feature that
differs from standard English in a systematic
and predictable way.
“What it is” is perfectly acceptable as an
indirect question in standard English as in “I
wonder what it is”.
12. What is Structural hypercorrection?
a phenomenon by which a speaker
attempts to emulate a style that
he/she is not completely familiar
with.
-describe the use of a structure
associated with a more formal style
in a linguistic environment where it is
not used.
13. D. Invariant “be” in Questions
Standard: Are they sick?
Nonstandard: Do they be sick?
Instandard English, the question
transformation applies to auxiliaries to
form an interrogative:
Johnhas seen Mary becomes Has
John seen Mary?
14. This,
however, does not apply to
main verbs like:
John saw Mary does not become Saw John
Mary?
When the declarative does not
contain an auxiliary, a form of do
takes its place in the question.
John saw Mary becomes Did John see Mary?
15. Standard English has the general rule for
forming questions: question transformation
applies to auxiliaries not to main verbs. Do
appears when there is no main verb.
There is, however, a major exception to this
rule in standard English: main verbs be
behaves like an auxiliary rather than a main
verb and that it undergoes question
transformation.
They are sick becomes Are they sick?
16. Another nonstandard syntactic feature
involves the usage of main verb be in
questions like “Do they be sick?” as a
counterpart of the standard’s “Are they
sick?”
The nonstandard English dialects did not
apply the question transformation rule of its
counterpart.
Instead, it triggered the appearance of do.
It has regularized an exception in standard
English by treating be exactly like the other
main verbs.
17. E. Negative Fronting
Nonstandard English follows the pattern of
transferring negative auxiliary as the initial
of a sentence with an indefinite NP as a
subject. (e.g everybody, nobody)
Standard: Everybody can’t win.
Nonstandard: Can’t everybody win.
18. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Humans are sensitive to syntactic
structure when they decode
sentences
Types of structures affect language
comprehension
19. A. Relative Clauses
The boy that the woman saw got sick.
The boy the woman saw got sick.
20. The absence/presence of the relative
pronoun “that” is the only difference
between the sentences.
Speakers might take some time to process
meaning for sentence number 2.
If comprehension is only based on
processing words, then the shorter the
sentences are quicker understand.
“That” provides an important cue about
the syntactic structure, signaling the
movement from the main clause to the
subordinate clause.
21. B. Negative Sentences
Negative sentences (those
containing not or its contractions)
take longer to decode than their
affirmative version.
Example: Answer true or false
The star is not above the circle.
The star is below the circle.
22. Similar
difficulties are presented by
inherent negatives.
Examples:
Three students are absent.
(instead of)
Three students are not present.
23. C. Passive Sentences
Passive sentences are more difficult to
process than their active counterparts.
The tiger chased the lion.
The lion was chased by the tiger.
Difficulties arise as we tend to interpret
a noun-verb-noun sequence as agent-
action-patient which exists in active
sentences.
24. When we encounter structural cues for
passive sentences (be followed by past
participle main verb) we revised our
processing and it slows down
comprehension.
Interestingly,
the following are equivalent in
their processing difficulty.
Thetiger ate the meat.
Meat was eaten by the tiger.
Since only the tiger can eat the meat and
not the other way around, it is easier to
identify the agent (doer).
25. D. Clause Order
It is easier to process meaning if the events
are mentioned in the order in which they
occurred. Subordinate clause that follow
main clauses are easily understood.
Examples:
Go to Window 3 before you fill out your
application form.
Before you fill out your application form,
go to Window 3.
26. These students graduated in four years
because they took 15 credits each
semester.
Because these students took 15 credit
units, they graduated in four years.
This is in conflict with the writing
principles of varying sentence
openings through the use of
subordinate clauses in the beginning.
27. E. Heavy NPs
A heavy NP is either an entire nominal clause
(e.g.. a that-clause) or an NP containing
extensive modifiers.
Heavy
NPs are easier to understand when they
appear in sentence-final position than if they
appear in the beginning.
28. Examples:
That she won the election surprised me.
It surprised me that she won the election.
We will mail all viewers in the Duluth area who
send us a self-addressed envelope by December
1st a program guide.
We will mail a program guide to all viewers in the
Duluth area who send us a self-addressed
envelope by December 1st.
29. SUMMING UP
We process language and its meaning as
affected by sociological and psychological
factors.
What might be acceptable or advisable in one
area might be treated otherwise by another.
There are utterances that might sound odd but
when we look at them closely, they are actually
logical enough to be worth the consideration.
