Case StudyPROFITS & FOOD SAFETY THE CASE OF BMI Jose works as a.docx

Case Study
PROFITS & FOOD SAFETY: THE CASE OF BMI Jose works
as a clerk at the headquarters of Best Meat International, LLC
(BMI), a US-based food processing company.
With a history of over 60 years, the company has established a
global foodprocessing network that supplies meat products to
some of the restaurant chains in the world. During the course of
his work, Jose comes across documents that suggest one
subsidiary company of BMI has actually been repackaging and
selling chicken and beef past their expiration dates in some
developing countries. Jose is shocked. He knows that the Food
and Drug Administration in the United States has banned such
practices. In the US, government regulations are very strict
about the food production dates and their sell-by dates, but in
some developing countries, whose quality assurance supervision
is lacking or outmoded, some businesses are likely to explore
such loopholes. Even though some expired meat products may
not cause serious health issues, such practice presents great
potential threat to public health in those countries.
Jose gathers together the appropriate documents and takes them
to his immediate superior, Nancy. Nancy says, "Look, I don't
think that sort of thing is your concern, or mine. We're in
charge of record-keeping, not making decisions about the
product quality. I suggest you drop it."
The next day, Jose decides to go one step further. He makes an
appointment and talks to Mike, the CEO of the subsidiary
company. Mike is clearly irritated. Mike says, "This isn't your
concern. Look, these are the sorts of cost-cutting moves that let
a company like ours compete with our global competitors.
Besides, everyone knows that the regulations in the US are
super cautious and these developing countries are not clearly
prohibitive. There's no real danger to anyone who consumes
such products. I consider this matter closed."
Jose considers his situation. The message from his superiors

was loud and clear. He strongly suspects that making further
noises about this issue could jeopardize his job. Further, he
generally has faith in the company's management. They've
always seemed like honest, trustworthy people. But he was
troubled by this apparent disregard for public health of people
in other countries. On the other
hand, he asks himself whether maybe Mike was right in arguing
that the danger was minimal. Jose emailed an expert who is
working for the food safety division of an international
organization that he found via the Internet. This expert told
him that there was mass public outrage in those countries
toward their quality assurance administrations and toward
foreign companies like BMI who are getting away with selling
defective products in their countries. Study Questions:
Write a roughly 500- 750-word (one to two pages typed) essay
analyzing this scenario. Quality of writing is a substantial
consideration in the amount of credit given.
Who are the stakeholders who are/will be affected in this
scenario? What are the ethical issues that are involved? Be sure
to distinguish between issues that are primarily right-and-wrong
(e.g., ethical or moral lapses) versus those that are right-and-
right issues in which there are simply tough trade-offs of
appropriate competing values. Does the global context make a
difference? Why and how? What are the opportunities, threats,
and alternatives involved in the situation? What
recommendations do you have in how the situation could
be/should have been resolved? OR, state if no resolution is
necessary and the reasons why the status quo is acceptable.
PHONETICS, PHONOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF
DISTINCTIVE
FEATURES

THE NOTION OF SEGMENT
•In what form do speakers of a language store words and
morphemes in
their memory? They are stored in memory as sequences of
speech sounds
EVIDENCE:
I. Phonological changes
• We saw that in almost every language the basic stock of words
is
enriched by forming additional words by means of affixation.
(4) a. learn-er work-er teach-er verbaliz-er
b. un-clean un-healthy un-imaginable un-original
c. em-power en-rich dark-en hard-en
(-er = a suffix, un- = a prefix, learn, clean, etc., = stems)
(suffixes, prefixes, stems = morphemes)
• Often processes of affixation result in changes in the stems or
in the affixes
or both.
The formation of fem. sing. past tense and 1 pers. sing present
tense in
Russian (from Halle 1988):
(5) a. crawl can bake row save
past fem sing.: polz-la mog-la pek-la greb-la spas-la
pres. 1 sing.: polz-u mog-u pek-u greb-u spas-u
b. stand teach sit hold bark
past fem sing.: stoya-la uc&i-la side-la derz&a-la laya-la

pres. 1 sing.: stoy-u uc&-u siz-u derz&-u lay-u
c. read blow live know sweat
past fem sing.: c&ita-la du-la z&i-la zna-la pote-la
pres. 1 sing.: c&itay-u duy-u z&iv-u znay-u potey-u
(6) Delete a final vowel before a vowel-initial suffix.
(7) Delete a stem final /y/ or /v/ before a consonant initial
suffix
II. Constraints on word structure (From Halle 1988)
(8) gresh nsup rtut ksig frep
snive vrag prid splad sbroy
III. Speech errors (from Fromkin 1971)
(9) cup of coffe --> cuf of coffe
week long race --> reek long race
keep a tape --> teep a cape
fish grotto --> frish gotto
brake fluid --> black fruid
CONTRASTIVE/NONCONTRASTIVE FEATURES
English and Thai voiceless stops.
From the phonetic point of view, English and Thai have two
kinds
of voiceless stops:
(1) aspirated [ph, th, kh] unaspirated [p, t, k]

English:
(2) phÈn spÈn
(3) *pÈn *sphÈn
Thai:
(4) pha!a to split pa!a forest
In English, ph and p are in complementary distribution:
(5) ## ___ È n --> ph ##s ___ È n --> p
In Thai, aspirated [ph, th, kh] and unaspirated [p, t, k] are
contrastive. They
can be used to distinguish two otherwise identical words (a
minimal pair).
(6) pha!a to split and pa!a forest are a minimal pair in Thai.
(7) Contrastive sound units, that is, those which are capable of
distinguishing words of different meaning, are called phonemes
(8) Non-contrastive sound units, that is those which are
predictable
from a given environment, are called contextual variants, or
allophones.
In English, [ph, th, kh] are allophones /contextual variants of
[p, t, k] in
word-initial position..
(9) The feature [spread glottis] is contrastive in Thai, but

noncontrastive/predictable (or redundant) in English.
[d] and [ð] are contrastive in English: [dɪs] (‘diss’), [ðɪs]
(‘this’).
But not in Spanish: [deðo] and [ðeðo] aren’t a minimal pair.
They
both mean ‘finger’ (el deðo ‘the finger’ vs. su ðeðo ‘his finger’
) .
Superman is in complementary distribution!
Human sounds
All possible human sounds
kissing
coughingsighing
sneezing farting
etc.
Possible phonemes=sounds used by humans for
linguistically meaningful purposes (=word contrasts)
p t k s ʃ ɬ ħ ʔ ʢ etc.
b d g z ʒ ɮ ʕ etc
ph th kh clicks etc.
etc.

Sound system of a given language=e.g.
English
Contrastive sounds (phonemes)=red
non-contrastive sounds (allophones=blue
etc.
Phonetics and Phonology: the division of labor
The study of speech sounds
Phonology
sound as an abstract object
the grammar of speech sounds
Phonetics
sound as a physical object
physical properties of sounds
perception of sounds
!!
Conceptual structure ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Conceptual structure!
HOW DID YOU FIND IT AND….! ! ! ! ! ! !HOW DID YOU
FIND IT AND….! ! !
! ! ! ! !
!
!
!Morpho-syntactic ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Morpho-syntactic !

!computation! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !computation!
! !&!
!Vocabulary Items ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!
!Insertion ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !/haU/+ /dId/ +/yu:/+/faInd/+/It/ /´nd/
....!
!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!
/haU/+ /dId/ +/yu:/+/faInd/+/It/ /´nd/ .... ! ! ! ! ! ! !Vocabulary
Items!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Identification!
!
!
!Phonological ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Phonological!
!Computation !: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Computation:!
1) Palatalization of final /d/ before /y/ 1) Palatalization
of final /d/ before /y/
2) Vowel lengthening before voiced stops 2) Vowel
lengthening before voiced stops
3) Flapping (t-->D/ V_V) 3) Flapping (t-->D/ V_V)
4) Vowel nasalisation before tautosyllabic nasal 4) Vowel
nasalisation before tautosyllabic nasal
5) Nasal deletion 5) Nasal deletion
6) Other processes 6) Other processes
!
!
![hawd j´fa$: $ᴅ ᴅ´$d....] ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! [hawd j´fa$: $ᴅ
ᴅ´$d....]! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!
!Phonetic ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ![Auditory!

!computation! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Representation] ! ! ! !
! ! ! !!
![Gestural representation] ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Auditory Computation!
!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!
!Muscolar implementation ! ! ! ! ! ! !Auditory Conversion ! ! !
!!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Speaker ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Listener !
/p/
Phonetics: [p]
its production involves lips and airflow from the lungs out the
lips are first sealed
trapping the air in the mouth and then open causing a sudden
release of air and
similar issues...
Phonology: /p/
in some contexts, it’s pronounced with aspiration (an extra puff
of air)
(5)‘pot’ [phɔt] → aspirated /p/ (=[ph]) in other contexts, it’s
not aspirated
(6)‘stop’ [stɔp] → unaspirated /p/ (=[p]) and similar issues...

Phonetics:
Subfields of phonetics
Acoustic phonetics: physical properties of sound waves.
Auditory phonetics: the physiology of how sounds are
perceived.
Articulatory phonetics: how sounds are produced
physiologically.
Our main focus here will be on articulatory phonetics.
PHONETICS
Foundations of phonetics
Speech is an acoustic signal produced by the anatomical
structures which traditionally are called the vocal tract, but
which, from a more narrowly anatomical point of view,
constitute the upper end of the digestive and respiratory tracts.
Basic mechanisms of sound production:
I. Lungs send air up through the vocal tract.
II. The air is then modulated by the vocal cords and
various constrictions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcNMCB-Gsn8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcNMCB-Gsn8

Midsagittal section of vocal tract
Some definitions:
Alveolar ridge A short distance behind the upper teeth is a
change in the angle of the roof of
the mouth. (In some people it's quite abrupt, in others very
slight.) This is the alveolar
ridge. Sounds which involve the area between the upper teeth
and this ridge are called
alveolars.
(Hard) Palate the hard portion of the roof of the mouth. The
term "palate" by itself usually
refers to the hard palate.
Soft palate/Velum the soft portion of the roof of the mouth,
lying behind the hard palate. The
tongue hits the velum in the sounds [k], [g], and []. The velum
can also move: if it lowers, it
creates an opening that allows air to flow out through the nose;
if it stays raised, the
opening is blocked, and no air can flow through the nose.
Uvula the small, dangly thing at the back of the soft palate. The
uvula vibrates during the r
sound in many French dialects.
Pharynx the cavity between the root of the tongue and the walls
of the upper throat.
Tongue blade the flat surface of the tongue just behind the tip.

Tongue body/dorsum the main part of the tongue, lying below
the hard and soft palate. The
body, specifically the back part of the body (hence "dorsum",
Latin for "back"), moves to
make vowels and many consonants.
Tongue root the lowest part of the tongue in the throat
Epiglottis the fold of tissue below the root of the tongue. The
epiglottis helps cover the larynx
during swallowing, making sure (usually!) that food goes into
the stomach and not the
lungs. A few languages use the epiglottis in making sounds.
Vocal folds/Vocal cords folds of tissue stretched across the
airway to the lungs. They can
vibrate against each other, providing much of the sound during
speech.
Glottis the opening between the vocal cords. During a glottal
stop, the vocal cords are held
together and there is no opening between them.
Larynx the structure that holds and manipulates the vocal cords.
The "Adam's apple" in males
is the bump formed by the front part of the larynx
How sound quality is determined
The path air takes as it travels through the vocal tract
determines the quality of the
sound.

Oral sounds are those which pass through the oral cavity
Nasal sounds are those which pass through the nasal cavitiy
Nasalized sounds are those which involve airflow through both
cavities
How sound quality is determined
There are two basic categories of manipulation:
Phonation: the action of the vocal folds as air passes through
the glottis.
Articulation: action by upper organs altering the path in the
vocal tract.
Phonation
The action of the vocal folds contributes greatly to the quality
of sound:
Voiceless sounds are produced with the vocal folds tense and
slightly apart as
air passes through the glottis.
Voiced sounds are produced when the vocal folds become lax
and close
together; air flow then pushes the glottis open; as air passes
through the glottis
the vocal folds vibrate, causing the air to vibrate, creating
perceptible sound.

Articulation
It involves an obstruction of the vocal tract.
It can also change the air flow path.
The articulation of a consonant can be broken down into two
properties:
manner and place.
THE ARTICULATORS
The anatomical structures involved in the production of speech
are the
larynx, the soft palate, the lips, the tongue blade, the tongue
body and
the tongue root. These structures are referred to as the
Articulators
Articulators
The articulators are the active components of the vocal tract.
They do all
or most of the moving during a speech gesture. The articulator
is usually
the lower lip or some part of the tongue. These active
articulators are
attached to the jaw which is relatively free to move when
compared to
parts of the vocal tract connected directly to the greater mass of
the skull.
In producing speech, each of the six articulators executes a
limited set of
behaviors. For example, rounding or spreading are possible

behaviors of
the Lip articulator insofar as the lips can be rounded or spread.
In the production of speech sounds each articulator is
independently
controlled so that the features executed by a given articulator
are freely
combinable with the features executed by any of the five other
articulators.
The Tongue:
Passive components of the vocal tract
A passive component of the vocal tract makes little or no
movement during a speech gesture. The active articulator moves
towards the relatively immobile passive component. Passive
components are often directly connected to the skull. Passive
components include the upper lip, the upper teeth, the various
parts of the upper surface of the oral cavity, and the back wall
of
the pharynx.
Constriction degree:
Constriction degree refers to how close the active articulator
gets
to a passive component of the vocal tract.
The main constriction degrees are:

stop: the active articulator touches the passive component and
completely
cuts off the airflow through the mouth. English stops include:
[p], [d], [k],
[m].
fricative: the active articulator doesn't touch the passive
component, but
gets close enough that the airflow through the opening becomes
turbulent.
English fricatives include [f], [s], [z].
affricate: affricates can be seen as a sequence of a stop and a
fricative which
have the same or similar places of articulation. English [c&] of
chair
sonorant: the active articulator approaches the passive
component, but
doesn't get close enough for the airflow to become turbulent.
English
sonorants include [j], [w], [r], and [l]. Nasals are also
sonorants.
Notes: A stop cuts off airflow through the mouth. Airflow
through the
nose does not matter -- you can have both oral and nasal stops.
Oral stops
are often called plosives, including in the IPA chart. Nasal stops
are usually
just called nasals.
Nasality The soft palate can be lowered, allowing air to flow
out
through the nose, or it can be raised to block nasal airflow. As
is the

case with the vocal cords, what the soft palate is doing is
independent the other articulators. For almost any place of
articulation, there are pairs of stops that differ only in whether
the
soft palate is raised, as in the oral stop [d], or lowered, as in the
nasal stop [n].
Laterality When you form an [l], your tongue tip touches your
alveolar
ridge (or maybe your upper teeth) but it doesn't create a stop
because one or both sides of the tongue are lowered so that air
can
flow out along the side. Sounds like this with airflow along the
sides
of the tongue are called lateral. The side of the tongue can
lower to
different degrees. It can lower so little that the air passing
through
becomes turbulent (giving a lateral fricative or it can lower
enough
for there to be no turbulence (a lateral sonorant). The [l] of
English
is a lateral sonorant.
Properties of articulation in more detail:
Consonants
Manner of articulation
The different degrees of obstruction.
Place of articulation
What articulator is used (where in the vocal tract).

Articulators
Articulation involves an active articulator and a passive vocal
tract
component coming together to form an obstruction.
Place of articulation
Active Articulator Passive Articulator e.g.,
Labial Lower lip
–Bilabial Lower lip Upper lip big
–Labiodental Lower lip` Upper teeth fat
Coronal Tongue blade
–Dental Tongue blade Upper teeth thick
–Alveolar Tongue blade(tip) Alveolar Ridge top
–Palato-alveolar Tongue blade Post-Alveolar area shy
—Retroflex Tongue blade (tip) post-Alveolar area (red)
Dorsal Tongue body
–Palatal Tongue blade+ body (front) Palate yes
–Velar Tongue body (back) Velum go
Radical Tongue root
–Uvular Tongue body+root Uvula (French "r")
–Pharyngeal Tongue Root Pharyngeal wall Arabic ħ, ʕ
Laryngeal Larynx
Glottal Larynx hot

There are three basic levels of closure:
Total closure of the vocal tract.
Frication, or nearly total closure of the vocal tract producing
turbulence.
Minor closure of the vocal tract without turbulence.
Total closure: Stops
What kind of sounds do we produce with total closure? Totally
stopping the vocal tract can have one of two effects:
It can cause a build-up of pressure with release (oral stops)
Or it can redirect airflow to the nasal cavity (nasal stops) if
elum is
raised
Total closure: Stops
Nasal stops include sum, sun, sung.
Nasal stops are usually voiced.
Oral stops include pet, bed, keg.
Oral stops can be voiced or voiceless

Oral stops (also called plosives)
(7) Plosives (oral stops) in English
Plosives
Voiceless
p,t,k
Voiced
b,d,g
Aspiration:
In English, voiceless stops can be aspirated (in some positions),
e.g. [ph] In Hindi,
both voiced and voiceless stops can be aspirated, e.g. [ph], [bh]
Total closure: stops
Near-closure: fricatives
Near-closure: fricatives
Frication is the near-closure of the vocal tract, which results in
turbulent airflow, which causes noise
Sounds produced via frication are called fricatives.

Depending on how exactly the frication is produced, the noise
can be
quiet and low frequency or loud and high frequency.
Fricatives include fat, vat, thigh, thy, sue, zoo, Asher, beige,
hot.
Voiced – voiceless distinction in fricatives? → YES:
Voiced fricatives: v, ð, z, ʒ
Voiceless fricatives: f, θ, s, ʃ , h
Total closure + frication: affricates
Some sounds involve a full stop which transitions to frication
these are called affricates.
Affricates include church, judge.
Affricates can also be voiced or voiceless. Which is which?
Voiced affricates: dʒ
Voiceless affricates: tʃ
Minimal closure: Sonorants
Sonorants are speech sounds which involve some closure of the
vocal
tract, but not enough to produce frication.
w j ɹ l
witch yellow red light

Sonorants which also include nasals, are almost always voiced.
Features (from Halle (1995))
MAJOR FEATURES
[Consonantal]
[Sonorant]
STRICTURE FEATURES
[suction]
[continuant]
[strident]
[lateral]
Obstruents Sonorants
Vowels
Stops Fricatives Nasal Liquids
Consonantal + + + + -
Sonorant - - + + +
Continuant - + - + +
Nasal - - + - -
Fricatives
s z θ ð
Consonantal + + + +
Sonorant - - - -
Continuant + + + +

[strident] + + - -
Liquids
l r
Consonantal + +
Sonorant +
+
Continuant -
+
Nasal -
-
Lateral +
The Larynx.
THE BEHAVIOR OF ARTICULATORS
Vocal folds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
XGds2GAvGQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3mjLCg0uI&feature=relat
ed
The vocal folds are held together along their full length with
enough tension to allow vibration:

1. The vocal folds momentarily block airflow from the lungs.
2. The air pressure underneath the vocal folds increases.
3. The increased pressure forces the vocal folds up and apart.
4. As the pressure falls again, the vocal folds snap back
together.
5. Go to 1.
Each repetition of this cycle causes a "glottal pulse". The
number of times this occurs in a second is
the fundamental frequency of voice. Varying the tension of the
vocal folds results in different rates
of vibration (and so different pitches).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpt0kigakWY&feature=relate
d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJedwz_r2Pc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
XGds2GAvGQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3mjLCg0uI&feature=relat
ed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpt0kigakWY&feature=relate
d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJedwz_r2Pc
Types of stops
Articulators
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/
ARTICULATORY FEATURES
[nasal ] Soft Palate

[retracted tongue root] Tongue Root
[advanced tongue root]
[stiff vocal folds] Larynx
[slack vocal folds]
[constricted glottis]
[spread glottis]
[anterior] Tongue Blade
[distributed]
[round] Lips
[back] Tongue body
[high]
[low]
The articulators:
The lips
Labial:
Labiodental
Tongue Blade positions
Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex
Tongue body position (consonants):
Fronted(palatal) Back (velar)

Tongue Root:
Uvular stops Pharyngeal fricatives
Vowels
Vowels are quite different from consonants
They are louder and they are typically the core (the nucleus) of
a syllable How
many syllables in "America"?
(4) a.me.ri.ca → 4 syllables, each contains a vowel
Vowel articulation
As with consonants, we classify vowels by where they are
articulated. Two
dimensions controlled by the tongue body:
height: How high is the tongue body? How close to the palate?
backness: Is the tongue body in the front or in the back of the
mouth?
Vowel height
Broken down into three basic categories:
high/close
mid
low/open

Vowel backness
Also broken down into three basic categories:
front central back
Vowel space
For vowels, the place of articulation is represented in a vowel
space
The vowel space (English monophthongs)
He vs who
the vowels /i/ (as in ‘he’) and /u/ (as in ‘who’) are both high
vowel they
differ in backness:
/i/ is a high front vowel
/u/ is a high back vowel
Rounding
Vowels can be rounded or unrounded (Labial articulator)

English rounded vowels: [u], [ʊ], [ɔ]
English unrounded vowels: [i], [ɪ], [ɛ],[æ], [ə], [ʌ], [ɑ]
VOWEL FEATURES:
Distinctive features for vowels:
i ɪ u‹ � e E œ a O o I ʊ u
high + + + - - - - - - - + + +
low - - - - - - + + - - - - -
back - - - - - - - + + + + + +
round - - + + - - - - + + - + +
ATR + - + - + - - - - + + - +
IPA Symbols
Vowels
Other symbols:
Other symbols:

LING 1030: The Diversity of Languages
The languages of the Americas
Introduction
Languages in the Americas:
the languages from the Old World, mostly Europe
the indigenous languages of the Americas
The original inhabitants of the Americas came over from Asia,
most likely
across Beringia, the land bridge that connected Asia and
America at
various times throughout the Pleistocene, most recently for a
long period
of time ending about 16,000 years ago.
We don’t know for sure when the first migration happened:
there is good
evidence for 20,000-15,000 years ago, but there is some
evidence that it
happened much earlier (about 40,000).
The migrations took place it many waves. Some scholars
believe, for
example, that an Eskimo-Aleut migration from Asia may have
taken
place as recently as 5,000 years ago.
1/26
Outline

1 NorthAmerica
2 Mesoamerica
3 SouthAmerica
2/26
NorthAmerica
Outline
1 NorthAmerica
2 Mesoamerica
3 SouthAmerica
3/26
North America
Some language families in North America
There is a large number of languages and language families in
North
America, e.g.
4/26

North America
North
America, e.g.
Eskimo-Aleut (e.g. Kalaallisut, Central Alaskan Yup’ik)
4/26
North America
North
America, e.g.
Na-Dene (e.g. Athabaskan, Navajo)
4/26
North America
North

America, e.g.
Algic (≈Algonquian) (e.g. Cree, Potawatomi, Blackfoot)
4/26
North America
North
America, e.g.
Siouan
4/26
North America
North
America, e.g.

Siouan (e.g. Lakota)
4/26
North America
North
America, e.g.
Siouan (e.g. Lakota)
Iroquoian (e.g. Cheerokee, Mohawk)
4/26
North America
Eskimo-Aleut
Two branches of the family: Eskimo and Aleut
5/26

North America
Eskimo-Aleut
The Aleut branch
It’s spoken by small groups of inhabitants of various islands in
the
Aleutian chain and on the Commander Islands.
There are now about 150 speakers of various Aleut dialects.
All of the Aleut dialects have been heavily in influenced by
Russian,
from which most of their technical and religious vocabulary was
borrowed.
There is even a language, Mednyj Aleut, that is such a thorough
mixture of
Aleut and Russian that many linguists classify it as a mixed
language, one
that is no longer clearly Eskimo-Aleut or clearly Indo-
European.
6/26
North America
Eskimo-Aleut
The Eskimo branch
The term Eskimo, which dates back to the 1500s, originates
from an
Algonquian language.
In the 1970s, many Canadians began to perceive the term as
offensive,
and the term has been controversial ever since.

In Canada, the endonym Inuit replaces the exonym Eskimo, but
in Alaska
and Siberia, many Eskimos are not Inuit, and so a more
inclusive term is
needed. As a result, most linguists continue to use the word
Eskimo for this
group of languages.
7/26
North America
Aside: exonyms vs endonyms
8/26
(1) An exonym is an external name for a geographical place, or
a group of
people, an individual person, or a language or dialect. It is a
common
name used only outside the place, group, or linguistic
community in
question, usually for historical reasons.
(2) An endonym is an internal name for a geographical place, or
a group of
people, or a language or dialect. It is a common name used only
inside
the place, group, or linguistic community in question; it is their
name for
themselves, their homeland, or their language.

North America
Central Alaskan Yup’ik
Yupik language belonging to the Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-
Aleut
family of languages
the largest of the Yupik languages, and the only one that we
know is still
being passed on naturally to children.
9/26
North America
Central Alaskan Yup’ik
a Yup’ik has borrowed a lot of words from Russian:
But also from English:
10/26
North America
Yup’ik morphology
the very rich morphology
Nouns and verbs begin with a root, which may o en be followed
by
several lexical suffixes before an inflectional ending

11/26
North America
Yup’ik morphology
by
Of what morphological type is Yup’ik?
11/26
North America
Yup’ik morphology
by
Of what morphological type is Yup’ik?⇒ it’s a polysynthetic
language
11/26
North America

Yup’ik noun morphology
Nouns in Yup’ik are inflected for case, number, and possession.
There are three numbers: singular, dual, and plural.
Sometimes the case, number, and possessor markers are fused
together,
12/26
North America
Ergative case system
What have we said about Rrgative case so far?
13/26
North America
⇒ It appears on subjects of transitive sentences.
What about Absolutive case? Why do we find Absolutive case
in
languages that also Ergative, but not in those that don’t (e.g.
English)?
13/26

North America
⇒ It appears on subjects of transitive sentences.
What about Absolutive case? Why do we find Absolutive case
in languages
that also Ergative, but not in those that don’t (e.g. English)?
We need to understand what these names really mean. Spoiler:
not a
lot.
13/26
North America
Case systems
Some cases correspond to specific meanings, e.g.
14/26
North America
Case systems
Some cases correspond to specific meanings, e.g. locative,

ablative,
vocative, instrumental
But others don’t:
Nominative:
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:
Nominative: is the case found on subjects
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:

Accusative:
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:
Accusative: is the case found on objects
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:

Ergative and Absolutive are like Nom and Acc – they are
defined by the
grammatical function of the noun. Roughly:
Ergative:
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:
defined by the
Ergative: is the case found on transitive subjects
14/26
North America
Case systems

ablative,
But others don’t:
defined by the
Absolutive:
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:

defined by the
Absolutive: is the case found on objects and intransitive
subjects
14/26
North America
Case systems
ablative,
But others don’t:
defined by the
Absolutive: is the case found on objects and intransitive
subjects
14/26

⇒ The two pairs of cases don’t appear within the same language
⇒ A language is either NOM/ACC or ERG/ABS
North America
Case systems
A subject or an object of a verb is called an argument of that
verb.
15/26
North America
Case systems
verb.
E.g. the verb kick, being a transitive verb, has two arguments:
15/26
(3) He
A(gent)
amused them.
Object
North America

Case systems
verb.
(3) He
A(gent)
amused them.
Object
E.g. the verb laugh, being a intransitive verb, has only one
argument:
15/26
(4) They
S(subject)
laughed.
North America
Case systems
verb.
(3) He
A(gent)
amused them.

Object
E.g. the verb laugh, being a intransitive verb, has only one
argument:
15/26
(4) They
S(subject)
laughed.
(5) We need to differentiate three types of arguments
a. A(gent) – subject of a transitive sentence
b. O(bject) – object
c. S(ubject) – subject of an intransitive sentence
North America
Case systems
A, O and S are the grammatical functions that some cases are
defined by.
That is, some cases are defined by appearing on A, O or S.
On what types of arguments does NOM appear?
16/26
North America
Case systems

defined by.
On what types of arguments does NOM appear? ⇒ A and S
16/26
North America
Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ACC appear?
16/26
North America
Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ACC appear? ⇒ O

16/26
North America
Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ERG appear?
16/26
North America
Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ERG appear? ⇒ A
16/26

North America
Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ABS appear?
16/26
North America
Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ABS appear? ⇒ S and O
16/26
North America

Case systems
defined by.
On what types of arguments does ABS appear? ⇒ S and O
The two case systems arise due to different groupings of
arguments:
16/26
North America
Case systems
NOM/ACC System ERG/ABS System
NOM/ACC is a system in which A and S are treated equally by
the grammar
(have the same case: NOM).
ERG/ABS is a system in which S and O are treated equally by
the grammar
(have the same case: ABS)
17/26

North America
Ergative system in Yup’ik
18/26
North America
Another example of a transitive sentence:
19/26
North America
Ergative case can also be used to mark possessors
How do we know this is a possessor and not an Agent?
19/26
North America

Ergative case can also be used to mark possessors
How do we know this is a possessor and not an Agent?
– word order
– the form of the verb: intransitive, no object agreement
19/26
Na-Dene Family
History of Native American Indians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YR2FgxalCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qubUz25Uxj0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BVO4qnQtj8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28IAI6F0DZc
Salish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYFVkrCDOeg
Nuxalt (Bella Coola):
http://vimeo.com/57664411
Cherokee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saSSlSQwlwg

Lakhota:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTc0o-S7tgQ - Dances with
the wolves
Navajo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1s9jd7OOcM - Amazing
grace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YR2FgxalCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qubUz25Uxj0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BVO4qnQtj8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28IAI6F0DZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYFVkrCDOeg
http://vimeo.com/57664411
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saSSlSQwlwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTc0o-S7tgQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1s9jd7OOcM
Inflection
Polysynthetic morphology
A subcase of languages with agglutinative morphology in which
not only
grammatical morphemes, but also root morphemes may
accumulate so that
a single word can represent a whole sentence. This process is
called root
incorporation.
Example from Cuckchi:
74/74
(20) Təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən.

t-ə-meyŋ-ə-levt-pəγt-ə-rkən
1.SG.SUBJ-great-head-hurt-PRES.1
'I have a fierce headache.’
⇒ The entire sentence is expressed in one word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(grammar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_tense
Many of the Native American languages are polysynthetic, that
is,
characterized by a large number of affixes and by incorporation.
Polysynthetic: Mohawk, Yupik, Nootka
Noun incorporation in Takelma, Oregon
a. (gwen) sgow-t' - hi waya wa
(neck) cut-off - 3Pl-3Sg knife with
"He cut their necks off with a knife”
b. gwen - waya - sgow-t' - hi
neck knife cut-off -3Pl-3Sg
"He-neck-off-knife-cut-them"
Noun incorporation in Mohawk (Iroquoian):
wa-hi-sereht-ohare-se
he- for me-car-washed
Another characteristic of many Native American languages is a
lack

of morphological distinction between nouns and verbs:
Nuuchahnulth:
?inkw ‘fire/burn’
?inkw-i¬ ‘fire in the house/burn in the house’
ts·ax ‘spear/to spear’
?ath ‘night/to become night’
?inma ‘to suck milk/breast’
Navajo
Major language of the Athabascan family
The most flourishing indigenous language in North America
Navajo 'nation': c. 200,000
Navajo speakers: c. 100,000
Navajo reservation land: 25,000 square miles in Southwestern
states
of USA: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah
The Navajo call themselves Diné—"The People." (hence the
term:
Na-Dené)
Navajo as SOV language (like Japanese): postposition after

noun
[[ 'éé' biih PP ] náásdzá VP]
clothing into I-got-back
'I got back into (my) clothes'
Mesoamerica
Outline
1 NorthAmerica
2 Mesoamerica
3 SouthAmerica
22/26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWipqUVVLvk - Nahuatl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLgonhEHllc - Musica
prehispanica
Mayan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AFSjli4idE - Mayan
speakers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn4ZtNdqY5M - The Mayan
Languagehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA8Bjzj-aLs -
Apocalipto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWipqUVVLvk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLgonhEHllc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AFSjli4idE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn4ZtNdqY5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA8Bjzj-aLs
North America
Uto-Aztecan
A language family spoken mostly in Mexico in Mesoamerica
20/26
North America
Uto-Aztecan
According to Ethnologue, the family has 61 languages.
The total number of speakers is almost 2 million.
Roughly 1.5 million of them speakers of Nahuatl languages.
Nahuatl is historically known as Aztec
Classical Nahuatl was the chief language of the Aztec empire at
the time of
Spanish conquest.
The last sound in the name Nahuatl is a lateral affricate: [tì]
21/26
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerican area

Mesoamerica: the region from central Mexico to northern Costa
Rica It
is traditionally separated from the rest of North America in part
because of its distinctive culture (e.g. it was one of the very few
places in the
world where writing was invented independently)
It is also a sprachbund, where hundreds of languages exerted
much
influence on each other.
Example families of Mesoamerica:
Totonacan (Mexico)
Mayan (Guatemala):
Chol
Kaqchikel
23/26
Mesoamerica
Aztec vs Mayan
24/26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oXwlvjld_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oXwlvjld_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg
Krh7r5lEQ - Guarani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrAF

T4NbG7k - Aymara
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHv3
-U9VPAs - Piraha
http://video.answers.com/daniel-
everett-on-the-amazonian-piraha-tribes-
language-culture-516907191 - Dan
Everett
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgKrh7r5lEQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrAFT4NbG7k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHv3-U9VPAs
http://video.answers.com/daniel-everett-on-the-amazonian-
piraha-tribes-language-culture-516907191
South America
South America
About 11.2 million people in South America speak an American
native
language.
Research and documentation only started in mid 20th century –
a lot of
inconclusive data; many remain unclassified genetically.
Greenberg’s (1987) Amerind hypothesis lumps all South
American
Indian languages into one family.
At the other extreme, we have Kaufman’s (1990) classification,
which
lists 118 families and language isolates.
25/26

South America
Typological diversity of native American languages
Some are tonal: e.g. Navajo
Basic word orders vary
VSO, VOS: Mayan languages
SOV: Athabaskan
Some are Ergative: e.g. Yup’ik, Mayan languages
Many are polysynthetic: e.g. Yupik, Mohawk
26/26
Long-range comparison (Greenberg, Ruhlen, Starostin)
Greenberg (Language in the Americas, 1997): 3 families
[1] Amerind: all native American languages except Na-Dené
and
Eskimo-Aleut
[2] Na-Dené
[3] Eskimo-Aleut
Three migrations posited by Greenberg (from Siberia to Alaska
via
Bering strait/land bridge):
(i) 12000 BC or earlier: Amerind
(ii) 6-7000 BC: Na-Dené
(iii) 4-5000 BC: Eskimo-Aleut

Supported by evidence from human genetics, teeth etc
The evidence for Amerind
Personal
pronouns: Sahaptin (Oregon) Wintu (California) Pipil (Mexico)
1 n- in ni nu- (noun prefix)
2 m- im ma: mu- (noun
prefix)
Kinship terms: Proto-Amerind *T’ANA ‘child, sibling’ (t’ =
glottalic stop)
Compare Nootka t’an’a “child”, Tsimshian luk-taen
“grandchild”, Cheyenne tatan- “older brother”, Coeur D'Alene
tune
“niece”, Miskito tuk-ytan “child, boy”, “older brother”, Atoroi
dan
“baby, son”
Na-Dené: relationships with language families of Europe?
Dené-Caucasian (hypothesis)
______________________|_____________________
| | | |
N.Caucasian Sino-Tibetan Yeniseian Na-Dené
(Ket)

(Navajo, etc)
Evidence linking Ket (Siberia) with Athabaskan and Tlingit
(Canada):
Roots: Ket Tlingit
‘I’ ad xad
‘he’ du du
‘it’ bi < wi bi < wi
‘go’ qut/ka gut/ka (suppletive forms -- strong evidence
for genetic
relationship)
‘people’ de’ng den (as in Dené)
(Hypothetical) Dene-Caucasian
Family
http://ehl.santafe.edu/maps5.htm
PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN
&
THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE FAMILY
Introduction
Introduction
Most languages spoken in Europe belong to the Indo-European

family
But not all:
Finish, Hungarian, Estonian – Uralic languages
Turkish – a Turkic language
Basque – an isolate
1/26
Indo-European
The origins of the Indo-Europeans
The Indo-Europeans lived on the steppes of present day Ukraine
about
6000 years ago.
They farmed and are believed to have domesticated horses.
There was a massive migration of the Indo-Europeans into both
Europe
and Asia.
2/26
Indo-European
Thehomeland
3/26

Indo-European
Migration
4/26
Indo-European
Migration
5/26
Indo-European
Migration
6/26
Indo-European
Migration
7/26
Indo-European
Migration

8/26
Indo-European
Migration
9/26
Indo-European
Today
10/26
Indo-European
The Centum and Satem branches
The major split in the Indo-European family is into two
branches:
The PIE word for 100: [k´mtom] ([k ]́ is a palatalized [k]) In
the Centum branch, [ḱ ] turned into regular velar [k] In the
Satem branch, it turned into [s ]or [ʃ]
11/26

Indo-European
What about the English word hundred?
(1) Grimm’s Law:
a. p > f
b. t > θ
c. k > h
English belongs to the Centum branch
But Proto-Germanic underwent a massive sound change, which,
among
other things, turned the IE [k] into the Germanic [h]
All Germanic languages have an [h] in the word for 100
12/26
Indo-European
PIE
Satem
Sanskrit: satam
Lithuanian: šimtas
Russian: sto Hindi:

sau
Centum
Italian: cento
Catalan: cent
German: hundert
Icelandic: hundraD
13/26
Indo-European
Indo-European: the Centum branch
14/26
Indo-European
Indo-European: the Satem branch
15/26
Indo-European
Indo-Europeancorrespondences
16/26

Indo-European
17/26
Indo-European
18/26
Indo-European
19/26
Indo-European
Morphology
IE languages are typically synthetical of the Fusional type.
They are characterized by rich and complex morphological
systems.
Basic structure of words:

[[[ROOT] + Suffix] + Inflectional Ending]
20/26
An important morphological process characterizing the IE
languages is the so-called
ablaut or apophony
The basic alternations of Proto-Indo-European ablaut were the
following:
Full grade o-grade zero-grade
ei oi i
eu ou u
er or r5
el ol l5
en on n5
Full grade o-grade zero-grade
Greek: peith-omai pe-poith-a pe-pith-men �believe�
Sanskrit bi-bhar-mi bhr5-ta �bring�
Latin [email protected] (<ei) foedus (<oi) fides
’trust/pact/faith�
Gothic: kius-an kaus kus-an �prove�
Gothic bind-an ban bund-um (<*n5) �bind�
English drive drove driven
ride rode ridden
sing sang sung (<*n5)
sink sank sung (<*n5)
Ablaut

Indo-European
Nominal morphology
21/26
[[[stem] + Theme Vowel]N + Number-Case ]N
Indo-European
Case
Case refers to a grammatical category which reflects the
syntactic or
semantic function of a noun or pronoun.
Some languages, such as English, are relatively impoverished in
terms of
case morphology.
Case is marked, however, on English pronouns:
(2) a. I saw him.
b. He saw me.
Languages such as Japanese make rich use of case marking.
(3) John ga Mary ni hon o yatta John NOM
Mary DAT book ACC gave ‘John gave
Mary a book.’
22/26

Indo-European
Case
23/26
Languages also vary in the extent that they utilize prepositions
vs. case
endings for expressing case-related meaning. One can view this
as a
continuum:
Mostly prepositions ← Some prepositions, some case → Mostly
case
(English) (German) (Basque)
Indo-European
Case
Nominative (NOM) case is typically used to mark subjects in
languages
like English, German, Polish, Russian and many others.
Accusative (ACC) is used to mark direct objects of transitive
verbs in
these languages.
(4) German
a. Ich mag ihn.
I.NOM like he.ACC
‘I like him’

b. Er mag mich.
he.NOM like I.ACC
‘He likes me’
24/26
Indo-European
Impoverished case morphology in English
In some languages, e.g. English, nouns are not case marked
(only
pronouns are)
Nonetheless, we have no trouble identifying which noun is the
subject
and which is the object
Why not?
(5) a. The cat chased the mouse.
b. The mouse chased the cat.
In English, word order is strict! Subjects precede the verbs,
objects
follow it.
25/26
Indo-European
Case and word order

In languages with free word order, case marking on nouns helps
identify
the subject and the object.
(6) Polish
a. Pies goni kota.
dog.NOM chases cat.ACC
‘A dog is chasing a cat’
b. Kota goni pies.
cat.ACC chases dog.NOM
26/26
Impoverished case morphology in English
In some languages, e.g. English, nouns are not case marked
(only
pronouns are)
Nonetheless, we have no trouble identifying which noun is the
subject
and which is the object
Why not?
(1) a. The cat chased the mouse.
b. The mouse chased the cat.
In English, word order is strict! Subjects precede the verbs,
objects
follow it.

1/60
Case and word order
In languages with free word order, case marking on nouns helps
identify
the subject and the object.
(2) Polish
a. Pies goni kota.
dog.NOM chases cat.ACC
b. Kota goni pies.
cat.ACC chases dog.NOM
2/60
Case and word order
Case and word order are both ways to diagnose subjects and
objects
Therefore, languages with strict words order are more likely to
lose case
morphology,
while languages with free word order are more likely to
preserve (or

develop) case morphology
Crucially, these are statements about tendencies in language
change
Case morphology and strict word order are not in
complementary
distribution (e.g. the English pronominal system)
(3) a. I saw him.
b. He saw me.
3/60
Case syncretism and free word order
Conversely, even in languages with rich case morphology we
can sometimes
fail to differentiate subjects and objects (i.e. we observe
ambiguity).
This happens when nominative and accusative forms for the
relevant nouns
are syncretic, i.e. have the same form.
CASE SYNCRETISM IN POLISH:
4/60
wagon bicycle
NOM wóz rower
GEN woz-u rower-u
ACC wóz rower
(4) Wóz wyprzedzil rower.

wagon.NOM/ACC passed bicycle.NOM/ACC
‘A wagon passed a bicycle’ or ‘A bicycle passed a wagon’
Back to the list of cases
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
5/60
Dative case
Dative (DAT) case can be used in many languages to mark
indirect
objects or nouns having the role of recipient (of something
given),
beneficiary of an action, or possessor of an item.
6/60
(5) Er gab mir das Buch. (German)
he.NOM gave I.DAT the.ACC book
‘he gave me the book’
(6) Matka mi dala knihu. (Slovak)
mother.NOM I.DAT gave book.ACC
‘Mom gave me a book’

Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
7/60
Locative case
Locative Case (LOC): Used to indicate location. This case is
found in
many Slavic language, Turkic languages or Uralic languages.
8/60
(7) bok
side.NOM
‘side’
(8) na bok-u
on side-LOC
‘on the side’
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
Ablative

9/60
Ablative case
Ablative Case (ABL): Expresses motion away from something,
though
meaning may vary by language. Common in Indo-European,
Uralic, and
Turkic languages. An example from Armenian:
10/60
(9) doon
house.NOM
‘house’
(10) doon-en
house-ABL
‘from house’
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
Ablative
Vocative
11/60

Vocative case
Vocative Case (VOC): Identifies the noun (typically animate)
being
addressed. Example from Icelandic:
(11) Jesús elskar pig
Jesus.NOM loves you
‘Jesus loves you.’
(12) Ó Jesú!
Oh Jesus.VOC
‘Oh Jesus!’
Interestingly, Vocative case in Icelandic is not expressed by an
extra
suffix. Rather, something goes missing!
12/60
Interlude on English vocatives
English does not have Vocative case.
Which doesn’t mean English speakers don’t know how to
address
someone. There is just no morphological difference between
subjects,
objects or addresses.
(13) a. A boy came in.
b. I saw a boy.
c. Boy!

Is there anything special about nouns in a vocative context?
Something
that makes them different from all other occurrences of the
same noun?
13/60
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
Ablative
Vocative
Instrumental
14/60
Instrumental case
Instrumental Case (INS): Identifies a noun (either a physical
object or
abstract concept) which is the instrument or means by which the
subject
achieves or accomplishes an action. An example from Czech:
15/60
(14) per-o
pen-NOM
‘pen’

(15) pišu per-em
I.write pen-INS
‘I write with a pen.’
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
Ablative
Vocative
Instrumental
Inessive
16/60
Inessive case
Inessive Case (INE): A form of locative which specifically
indicates
location inside of something. The case is common in Basque,
Estonian,
and Finnish. An example from Finnish:
17/60
(16) talo
house.NOM
‘house’

(17) talo-ssa
house-INE
‘in the house’
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
Ablative
Vocative
Instrumental
Inessive
Benefactive
18/60
Benefactive case
Benefactive Case (BEN): Nouns in this case indicate they are
for the
benefit of someone or something else. Not very common in
Europe. An
example from Basque:
19/60
(18) gixona
the.man.NOM
‘the man’

(19) gixona-ntzako
the.man-BEN
‘for the benefit of the man’
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Locative
Ablative
Vocative
Instrumental
Inessive
Benefactive
Comitative
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Comitative case
Comitative Case (COM): Indicates that something or someone is
accompanying someone or something else. Commonly used in
Estonian
and Sami languages, and more rarely in Finnish. An example
from
Hungarian:
21/60
(20)

(21)
gyerek
child.NOM
‘child’
gyerek-estuül mentek nyaralni
child-COM went.3.PL vacation
‘They went on vacation with their children.’
Case
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Languages vary in the extent that they utilize prepositions vs.
case endings for
expressing case-related meaning. One can view this as a
continuum:
Mostly prepositions ← Some prepositions, some case → Mostly
case
(English) (German) (Basque)
Case systems
Some cases are more common than others, crosslinguistically
NOM
< ACC < GEN < DAT < LOC < ABL /INST < others
Two Cases: NOM - ACC (e.g. Old French)

Three Cases: NOM - ACC - GEN (e.g. Modern Greek)
Four Cases: NOM - ACC - GEN - DAT (e.g. Ancient Greek)
Five Cases:
NOM - ACC - GEN - DAT - ABL (e.g. Classical Latin)
NOM - ACC - GEN - DAT - INST (e.g. O. H. German)
Six Cases:
NOM - ACC - GEN - DAT - LOC - ABL (e.g. Latin)
NOM - ACC - GEN - DAT - LOC - INST (e.g. Slavic lgs)
Seven Cases: NOM - ACC - GEN - DAT - LOC - ABL - INST
(e.g.
Armenian)
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Nominal morphology
24/60
[[[stem] + Theme Vowel]N + Number-Case ]N
What’s a theme vowel?
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
25/60

puella -a
puellam -am
puellae -ae
puellae -ae
puell̄ a -̄a
In many languages, nouns can be grouped together according to
some
parameter
This parameter is often related to gender (feminine, masculine
etc).
The grouping is relevant for declension: e.g. feminine and
masculine
nouns in Latin have different case+number endings:
(22) puella ‘girl’ (f.) (23) dominus ‘master’ (m.)
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
dominus -us
dominum -um
domini -i
dominō -ō
dominō -ō
The groupings of nouns are reflected in the case+number
endings

(24)
26/60
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
puella -a
puellam -am
puellae -ae
puellae -ae
puell̄ a -̄a
E.g. all nouns ending in a- in the nominative have the same
endings as
puella ‘girl’
puella ‘girl’ (f.) (25) aqua ‘water’ (f.)
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
aqua -a
aquam -am
aquae -ae
aquae -ae
aqū a -̄a

We call such groupings declension classes
Crucially, declension classes are not defined by gender (even
though
there are tendencies for some genders to fall in certain
declension
classes)
Here a counterexample:
27/60
(26) puella ‘girl’ (f.)
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
puella -a
puellam -am
puellae -ae
puellae -ae
puell̄ a -̄a
(27) poeta ‘poet’ (m.)
Nominative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
poeta -a
poetam -am
poetae -ae
poetae -ae

poet̄ a -̄a
Sanskrit: the a-declension (singular)
Often, declension class is reflected in the theme vowel
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(28) devas [/ dev - a
theme V case+number
- s /] ‘god’
Nominative devas [/dev-a-s/]
Genitive devasya [/dev-a-sya/]
Dative dev̄ aya [/dev-a-ya/]
Accusative devam [/dev-a-m/]
Locative deve [/dev-a-i/]
Ablative dev̄ at [/dev-a-t/ ]
Instrumental devena [/dev-a-ina/]
a + i → e – Does it make sense? (Yes.)
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Sanskrit: the a-declension (dual)
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Dual

N. dev̄ au [/dev-a-u/]
G. devayos [/dev-a-i-aus/]
D. dev¯abhyam [/dev-a-bhyam/]
A. dev̄ au [/dev-a-u/ ]
L. devayos [/dev-a-i-aus/)
Abl. dev¯abhyam [/dev-a-bhyam/]
Ins. dev¯abhyam [/dev-a-bhyam/]]
Sanskrit: the a-declension (plural)
Plural
N. dev̄ as [/dev-a-s/]
G. dev̄ anā am [/dev-a-n¯am/]
D. devebhyas [/dev-a-i-bhyas/]
A. dev̄ an [/dev-a-n/ ]
L. devesu [/dev-a-i-su/
Abl. devebhyas [/dev-a-i-bhyas/
Ins. dev̄ ais
The theme vow
[/dev-̄ a-is/]
el is always a sepa rate morpheme (thought sometimes it
undergoes phonological coalescence with the following
morpheme)
Case and number are never expressed independently in Sanskrit
⇒ This is an instance of fusional morphology.
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Nominal morphology
[[[stem] + Theme Vowel]N + InflectionNum+Case ]N
Where
The theme vowel determines the declension class of a noun, and
the inflectional suffix is a fusion of case and number
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Verbal morphology
The Indo-European verb system is complex.
A dominant inflection found on verbs is tense (present, past,
future).
Another basic categorization for the Indo-European verb was
grammatical aspect.
In PIE, there were 3 aspectual distinctions: Verbs could be
stative (verbs that depict a state of being),
imperfective (verbs depicting ongoing, habitual or repeated
action)
perfective (verbs depicting a completed action or actions
viewed as an
entire process).
Verbs also had:
4 moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative),
2 voices (active and mediopassive),
3 persons (first, second and third)
3 numbers (singular, dual and plural).
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Tense
Tense expresses the temporal location of the event described by
the verb It
is very common in the IE family to express Present and Past
tenses
synthetically on the verb (as affixes), while the Future tense
analytically.
English is an example of that.
(29) a. He travel-s.
b. He travell-ed.
c. He will travel.
Present tense
Past tense
Future tense
But some languages do have synthetic future, e.g. Italian
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(30) a. ‘I speak’Parl-o.
speak-1sg.PRES
b. Parl-ai.
speak-1sg.PAST
‘I spoke’
c. Parl-erò.
speak-1sg.FUT

‘I will speak’
Aspect
Aspect is an inflectional category expressing properties of an
events
related to completion and continuation.
Stative aspect describes a state of being
(31) I love pizza.
→ there is no action here; "loving" is a state (of emotions)
Imperfective aspect refers to ongoing, non-completed events.
(32) He was eating dinner.
→ We don’t know if he finished.
Perfective aspect denotes completed events.
(33) He ate dinner.
→ The eating event was completed.
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Aspect morphology
English (and Germanic, in general) aspect morphology is
somewhat
impoverished

But Slavic languages are known for complex aspect systems.
Examples
from Polish:
36/60
(34)
(35)
Two types of imperfective aspect:
a. jedli ‘they were eating’
b. jadali ‘they ate habitually, from time to time’
Many types of perfective aspect
a. z-jedli ‘they ate (and finished)’
b. do-jedli ‘they ate up what was left’
c. prze-jedli ‘they overate’
Aspect: diagnostics
Perfective and imperfective verbs can be diagnosed by using
phrases like
"for an hour" and "in an hour".
Imperfective verbs can co-occur with phrases like "for an hour",
but not
with phrases like "in an hour".
(36)
ate.3sg.IMPF for hour
‘They were eating for an hour’

Jedli przez godzine. ✓ (37) Jedli w godzine. ✗
ate.3sg for hour
‘They were eating in an hour’
Perfective verbs show the opposite behavior: they can co-occur
with "in an
hour", but not with "for an hour".
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(38) Z-jedli przez godzine. ✗ (39) Z-jedli w godzine. ✓
PFV-ate.3sg for hour PFV-ate.3sg in hour
‘They finished eating for an ‘They finished eating in an hour’
hour’
Word order
The basic word order of the ancient IE languages is SOV
(40) (Latin)Antonius puellas formosas amat
Antonius girls beautiful loves
‘Antonius loves beautiful girls’
In most other languages, it changed into SVO
38/60
(41) Maria ama Carlo (Italian)
Maria love.3sg Carlo
‘Maria loves Carlo’
Word order

Verb-final IE languages?
German still preserves this word order in embedded clauses, i.e.
in
clauses introduced by conjunctions such as that, since, because,
etc.
(42) Ich glaube dass er krank ist.
I believe that he sick is
Hindi-Urdu is fully verb-final
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(43) Nur-ne enjUm-ko kitab di
Noor(SU) Anjum(IO) book(DO) gave
‘Noor have Anjum the book’ (Kidwai 2000)
Less common word orders: VSO
lost
40/60
Sion two pounds
In the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish, Breton, etc.) we have the
order
VSO:
(44) Collodd Sion ddwy bunt (Welsh)
‘Sion lost two pound’

(45) (Irish)Ta si ag cru na mbo. is she
at milking the cows ‘She is
milking the cows’
Word order in Germanic languages
Many Germanic languages exhibit some freedom in word order
But the word order is not completely free
Data from German:
I eat eggs in the morning
Ich esse Eier am Morgen. ✓
Eier esse ich am Morgen. ✓
Am Morgen esse ich Eier ✓
Eier ich esse am Morgen. ✗
esse Eier ich am Morgen. ✗
Eier ich am Morgen esse ✗
Any generalizations emerging?
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Verb Second (V2) in Germanic
In most Germanic languages, but not in English, the verb always
appears as
the second word in a main sentence:
We call this phenomenon Verb Second or V2
Examples of V2 languages:

German
Dutch
Swedish
Danish
Icelandic
Yiddish
Afrikaans
42/60
V2 in Dutch
43/60
I read.PAST thebook yesterday
Ik las dit boek gisteren. ✓
Dit boek las ik gisteren. ✓
Gisteren las ik dit boek ✓
Dit boek ik las gisteren. ✗
Las dit boek ik gisteren. ✗
Dit boek ik gisteren las ✗
English is an odd Germanic language in that it does not have the
V2
property.
V2 in Old English
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(46) Se maessepreost sceal manum bodian Þone soÞan geleafan
the masspriest must people preach the true faith
‘The mass priest must preach the true faith to the people.’
(47) Þa wæs Þæt folc Þæs micclan welan ungemetlice
then was the people of-the great prosperity excessively
brucende
partaking
‘Then the people were partaking excessively of the great
prosperity.’
(48) Ne sceal he naht unaliefedes don
not shall he nothing unlawful do
‘He shall not do anything unlawful.’
No V2 in Modern English
In modern English, the verb is in the second position in a
neutral sentence
order, which is SVO
But it’s not V2: the position immediately before the verb must
be occupied by
the subject, not anything else.
Fronting of an object is possible, but the basic SV order must be
maintained.
45/60
(49) basic SVO ./a. I liked the movie.
SUBJ VERB OBJECT
b. *The movie liked I.
OBJECT VERB SUBJ

V2✗
c. The movie, I liked.
OBJECT SUBJ VERB
object topicalization
Remnants of V2 in Modern English
(50)
46/60
However, there are number of constructions in which we
observe a V2
order in Modern English
Only certain phrases can replace the subject and immediately
precede the
verb. They include:
Question words, such as what
a. He has eaten what?
b. What has he eaten?
(51) Phrases modified by only
a. I will be able to discuss it only tomorrow.
b. Only tomorrow will I be able to discuss it.
(52) Negative phrases, such as never
a. I will never let you in my house.
b. Never will I let you in my house.

Back to the full fledged V2
In real V2 languages, there are no such constrains on V2 order.
Anything
can take up the 1sg position, forcing the subject to the third
position in the
sentence.
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I eat eggs in the morning
Ich esse Eier am Morgen. ✓
Eier esse ich am Morgen. ✓
Am Morgen esse ich Eier ✓
Eier ich esse am Morgen. ✗
esse Eier ich am Morgen. ✗
Eier ich am Morgen esse ✗
Other verb positions in Dutch and German
(53)
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(54)
Importantly, the V2 generalization in Dutch and German holds
only in
main declarative clauses!
In embedded clauses, the verb is in the final position in both

German
(53) and Dutch (54):
Ich sagte dass ich das Buch gestern lass.
I said that I the book yesterday read.
‘I said I read the book yesterday’
Ik zei dat ik dit boek gisteren las. I
said that I the book yesterday read.
‘I said I read the book yesterday’
English is not verb-final ever, not even in embedded clauses.
Other verb positions in Dutch and German
In questions, on the other hand, the verb appears at the
beginning of a
sentence, in both German (55) and Dutch (56):
(55) Hast du ein Hund?
have you a dog
‘Do you have a dog?’
(56) Heb je een hond?
have you a dog
‘Do you have a dog?’
What about English?
49/60
⇒ In this case, English is similar to the other Germanic
languages. It

seems to have some kind of verb at the beginning of a question.
Word order in English questions
English does exhibit verb fronting in questions
(57) a.
b.
You will leave.
Will you leave?
(58) a.
b.
He has left.
Has he left?
(59) a.
b.
He is leaving.
Is he leaving?
Verbs like will, have, is are called auxiliaries.
The verb fronting we see in English questions is called
Subject–Auxiliary Inversion
50/60
Word order in English questions

But not all verbs can be fronted – only auxiliaries.
Regular, lexical verbs can’t:
51/60
(60) a. You like pizza.
b. *Like you pizza?
(61) a. He eats cookies.
b. *Eats he cookies?
(62)
⇒
Do you like pizza? (63)
⇒
Does he eat cookies?
Do-support
do is a kind of verb!
Which means that, even though you can’t front the lexical verb
in English,
every Yes/No question in English begins with a verb. Just like
in the other
Germanic languages.
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a. He will eat the cookies. ⇒ Will he eat the cookies?
b He has eaten the cookies. ⇒ Has he eaten the cookies?

c. He eats cookies. ⇒ Does he eat cookies?
Do-support
a. He will eat the cookies. ⇒ Will he eat the cookies?
b. He eats cookies. ⇒ Does he eat cookies?
This tells us something interesting about the syntax of questions
in
Germanic languages: they need a verb at the beginning of a
sentence.
If all verb can move to the front, that’s what happens (German,
Dutch) If
only auxiliaries, but not lexical verbs, can move, then:
You move the auxiliary if the sentence has one (as in (a)).
If there is no auxiliary, insert a dummy verb – do (b).
The insertion of the dummy verb do is called Do-support
53/60
A survey of the IE language families
54/60
More IE language families
Celtic

Gaulish (Extinct)
Bretonic
Breton (France)
Cornish (England)
Welsh (Wales)
Goidelic
Irish (Ireland)
Scottish Gaelic (Scottland)
Manx (Isle of Man)
Brythons settled on the British island during the Iron Age, but
were push ed
away by Anglo-Saxons. Many of them moved to northern France
(Breton) but
some stayed (Welsh, Cornish).
The Goidelic Celts lived in Ireland for the last 3000 years.
Their language is
often call Gaelic (Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic).
55/60
Germanic
Examples:
West Germanic

German
English
Dutch
Afrikaans (closely related to Dutch, spoken in South Africa)
Yiddish
North Germanic
Norwegian
Islandic
Danish
Swedish
Characteristic features
(i) Many are verb second (not English)
(ii) Grim’s Law: e.g. the IE [p] corresponds to [f] in Germanic
56/60
Italic
Latin used to have sister languages in the Italic branch.
Around 500 BCE, a few Italic languages were spoken in central
Italy:
Oscan
Umbrian
Faliscan

Latin
A characteristic feature of Italic lgs: the PIE aspirated [bh]
changed into [f].
(Sanskrit "bhratar"; Latin "frater", English brother")
Latin spread from Rome to the rest of Italy, suppressing the
other languages.
They left no descendants.
All living Italic languages are descendants of Latin (Romance
languages).
57/60
Indo-Iranian
Examples
Iranian
Persian (Farsi)
Pashto
Kurdish
Tajik
Indic
Sanskrit
Hindi
Urdu
Nepali
Bengali
58/60

Balto-Slavic
Examples
Baltic
Lithuanian
Latvian
Slavic
Czech (West Slavic)
Polish (West Slavic)
Russian (East Slavic)
Ukrainian (East Slavic)
Serbo-Croatian (South Slavic)
Bulgarian (South Slavic)
59/60
Single language branches
Hellenic
The Hellenic branch consists of only one language: Greek.
Ancient Greek, the ancestor of Modern Greek, goes back to the
late

Bronze Age (2nd millennium BCE)
Albanian
Consists of only one language: Albanian (Albania, Kosovo,
Macedonia)
However, Albanian has two dialect which are said to be
mutually
unintelligible
Armenian
Consists of only one language: Armenian.
Spoken in Armenian Highlands; used to be considered an
Iranian
languages because it shared a lot of vocabulary with Iranian
languages
Nowadays, historical linguists agree the similarity is a result of
language
contact – they are borrowings.
60/60
Tocharian (extinct)
Anatolian (extinct) Messapian (extinct)
Extinct Branches
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan (Indic)
Assamese
Bengali

Bihari
Gujarati
Hindi-Urdu
Marathi
Punjabi
Romani
Sanskrit
Sindhi
Singhalese
Iranian
Avestan
Balochi
Farsi (Persian)
Kurdish
Pashtu (Afghan)
Sogdian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhvKp7QwSIo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8JAdDbNWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnns1bPyRZ
4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhvKp7QwSIo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8JAdDbNWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnns1bPyRZ4
LING 1030:
The Diversity of Languages
• LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES

What is a language?
Human Language vs. A language (French: Langage vs. Langue)
Human language (French �Langage�)= the communication
system characteristic of the human species as compared to the
communication system of other animal species.
A language (French �langue�) = the historically developed
system of signs that the members of a social group use to
communicate with each other.
The concrete reality of language: an idiolect
An idiolect is the individual variety of a language,
i.e. a language as spoken by an individual human
being.
This is the only reality of language we can actually
observe. In all other cases we are dealing with
abstractions.
Language Variation
Languages are continuously changing.
This leads to the formation of new linguistic varieties.
The arrows below represent the fact that varieties such as
Venetian and Toscan developed from a common variety that I
call Proto-Italian:

Proto-Italian
Venetian Toscan Neapolitan Sicilian …….
We can represent this also as a �tree�.
Italian (Proto-Italian)
Venetian Toscan Neapolitan Sicilian etc.….
Different languages may be related in the same way. This is the
case of
the Romance languages that derive from Latin:
Latin (tree incomplete)
Italian Spanish Portuguese French ….
Venet. Tosc. Neap. etc. Castillian Andalusian etc. …. ……
….. …..
How many languages are there?
Ethnologue: 7,099 known living languages
(https://www.ethnologue.com)
E.g. English, German, Zulu, Vietnamese ...
(1) a. English: cat
b. German: die Katze
c. Zulu: umangoye
What about British and American English?

(2) a. American English: apartment, pants, fries
b. British English: flat, trousers, chips
17 / 64
https://www.ethnologue.com/
Languages vs dialects
18/64
English and German are two different languages because
they are not mutually intelligible
British and American English are considered dialects of
the same language, because the differences between
them don’t affect mutual understanding
⇒ mutual intelligibility as a measure of diversity
(3) a. Hu haben šeli. (Hebrew)
b. Han är min son. (Swedish)
c. Hy is myn soan. (Frisian)
d. He is my son. (English)
Mutual intelligibility is a continuum
⇒ The difference between languages and dialects is a
continuum
Classifying two forms of speech as different languages
is to some extent an arbitrary choice, convention and
various sociological, political and cultural factors.

19 / 64
Dutch and West Flemish are mutually intelligible, but
they are spoken in different countries (the Netherlands
and Belgium, respectively) and therefore are often
thought of as different languages.
20/64
Basque is considered to have between 6 and 9
dialects, but not all of them are fully
intelligible among each other.
21/64
Ethnologue’s criteria for languagehood
22/64
1. “Two related varieties are normally considered
varieties of the same language [dialects] if speakers
of each variety have inherent understanding of the
other variety at a functional level (that is, can
understand based on knowledge of their own variety
without needing to learn the other variety).”
⇒ Ex: British/American/Australian etc. English

These linguistic varieties share certain given sets of
�peculiar� grammatical features.
In all of the Italian dialect the plural of the �masculine�
nouns is formed by adding the suffix [-i] (or one of its
developments)
Singular Plural
(1) amic-o amic-i �friend�
In a related language such as Spanish, the plural of the same
nouns is formed by adding the suffix [-s]:
Singular Plural
(2) amig-o amig-o-s �friend�
23/64
2. “Where spoken intelligibility between varieties is
marginal, the existence of a common literature or of
a common ethnolinguistic identity with a central
variety that both understand can be a strong
indicator that they should nevertheless be
considered varieties of the same language.”
⇒ Ex: Basque, varieties of Arabic

24/64
3. “Where there is enough intelligibility between
varieties to enable communication, the existence of
well-established distinct ethnolinguistic identities
can be a strong indicator that they should
nevertheless be considered to be different
languages.”
⇒ Ex: Dutch and West Flemish;
Norwegian, Swedish and Danish; Bosnian,
Croatian and Serbian ...
Languagehood and linguistics
The distinction between languages and dialects is not directly
related to
linguistic differences between speech forms. It is to some extent
arbitrary.
The lack of unambiguous classification criteria might seem like
a
weakness of the field of linguistics, but it’s not!
It’s the nature of language variation as being a continuum
How important is it to have a precise definition of language and
dialect
for the purposes of linguistic research?
⇒ not very.
Linguistics is the study of human language in all of its forms.
Languages and dialects constitute different forms of human
language.

25 / 64
The parameters of language diversity:
How do languages differ?
26/64
Linguists are concerned with how languages differ
and how they are similar!
This requires knowing what constitutes a language
The lexicon: lexical differences
One aspect of language is the vocabulary – knowing a
languages requires knowing what individual words means
This is something we can look up easier in a dictionary
(4) German and American English have a lot of lexical
differences
a. I like these pants.
b. Ich mag diese Hose.
(5) British and American English have some lexical
differences
a. I like these pants.
b. I like these trousers.
27 / 64

The grammar: structural differences
Differences between languages do not reduce to difference in
vocabularies.
Languages have structural properties, e.g. word order
English word order: Subject Verb Object (SVO)
(6) Dragons destroyed Westeros.
The structure is an important aspect of out linguistic knowledge
(7) The gurtil fleppered the cauricks.
Even though we don’t know the words, (7) is not
completely meaningless!
28 / 64
Our knowledge about language structure
We know how to form passive voice
(8) a. Dragons destroyed Westeros.
b. Westeros was destroyed by dragons.
Active Voice
Passive Voice
How do we know how to form passive voice? ⇒ not from the
meaning!
(9) a. The gurtil fleppered the cauricks.
b. The cauricks were fleppered by the gurtil.

Active Voice
Passive Voice
We have linguistic knowledge beyond the meaning of words.
We know how to form passive voice in (9) because we know the
structure of English.
29 / 64
The grammar: structural differences
Knowing the words does not guarantee understanding
(10) Boy in sitting the under friend her bad here a.
The string of words in (10) means nothing, even though
each word has a meaning independently.
The reason is that (10) is not structured properly ("a word
salad").
30 / 64
Word order across the languages of the word
31/64
How many ways might subject, object, and verb combine?
Dragons destroyed Westeros. (SVO)
Dragons Westeros destroyed. (SOV)
Destroyed Westeros dragons. (VOS)
Destroyed dragons Westeros. (VSO)

Westeros destroyed dragons. (OVS)
Westeros dragons destroyed. (OSV)
How often is each type attested?
⇒ SVO and SOV (1 & 2) are the most common word order
patterns across languages.
Word order across the languages of the word (from WALS)
32/64
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35/64
If languages evolved freely we should expect all type
of possible orders.

This is not what we find. In very few languages we
find orders such as the following:
(9) a. VOS
b. OSV
c. OVS
The generalization is that the Subject tends to
precede the Object.
This is an Universal of Language
Some languages have flexible word order
36/64
Kayardild*
Bangaa dangkaya kurrija.
Bangaa kurrija dangkaya.
Dangkaya bangaa kurrija.
Dangkaya kurrija bangaa.
Kurrija bangaa dangkaya.
Kurrija dangkaya bangaa.
‘The man sees the turtle.’
‘The turtle sees the man.’
*a Tangkic language spoken on Bentinck Island and surrounding
islands in
northwest Queensland, Australia, with fewer than ten fluent
speakers

Some languages have flexible word order
37/64
Kayardild
Bangaa dangkaya kurrija.
Bangaa kurrija dangkaya.
Dangkaya bangaa kurrija.
Dangkaya kurrija bangaa.
Kurrija bangaa dangkaya.
Kurrija dangkaya bangaa.
‘The man-SUBJ sees the turtle-OBJ.’
Parameters of linguistic diversity
Lexical differences
Structural differences
Phonological differences
...
38 / 64
Phonological differences: speech sounds
39/64
What we typically call "accents" is a variety of a

language with different phonology/pronunciation
(11) How do we pronounce the word ‘farmer’?
a. American English: [faɻməɻ]
b. British English: [fa:mə]
40/64
Languages differ in
what speech sounds they use
how speech sounds are organized
All languages have
vowels (e.g. a, o, u)
consonants (e.g. p, s, k)
But not all languages use the same speech sounds
English: the vowels in cat and cut are different:
a. cat [kæt]
b. cut [kʌt]
But many languages don’t have the sounds [æ] and [ʌ].
Instead, languages can have a single vowel, e.g. [a], similar to

both the English [æ] and [ʌ] sounds.
Spanish is a language like that (but also many Russian (Slavic)
or Zulu (Bantu), and many others).
41 / 64
42/64
Italian: the words Campania (Name of a region) and
campagna (countryside) sound different
(13) a. Campania [kampania]
b. campagna [kampaɲɲa]
Do you hear the difference?
43/64
Languages with clicks
tonal languages
We can classify languages according to some of
their properties:
For example, their word order. This is called a
typological property of a language.

§In this case we have a �typological� classification
of languages
§languages can also be classified genetically
TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES
Genetic differences
44/64
Languages change over time
The more we go back in time, the less we understandable
English
seems (ever tried to read Old English?)
Beowulf,Prologue
../../../Beowulf in Old English (Prologue)(240p_H.263-MP3).flv
../../../Beowulf%20in%20Old%20English%20(Prologue)(240p_H
.263-MP3).flv
Language genealogy
45/64
Old English is an ancestor of Middle English and Modern
English
Old English

Middle English
Modern English
Old English and Middle English are dead languages (not spoken
anymore)
Introduction
Language genealogy
Latin is the ancestor of several living languages
(14) The genealogy of Romance languages (tree incomplete)
Latin
Vulgar Latin
Portuguese French RomanianItalian Spanish
Classical Latin
46 / 64
As we will see, Latin is historically related to Germanic, Celtic,
Greek, Slavic, etc.:
(6) Proto-Indo-European (tree incomplete)
Latin Germanic Celtic Slavic Sanskrit

Italian Spanish English German Irish Welsh Russian Czech
Hindi Oriya
Tree like this offers a way to classify languages in families, i.e.
groups of languages that derive from the same �mother�
language. This is what is called a genetic classification of
languages
The Indo-European language family
Indo-European language groups
48/64
Indo-European: diffusion
49/64
Indo-Iranian
50/64
Languages of the Indian subcontinent
51/64

Uralic languages
52/64
The Altaic languages
Turkic languages
Mongolic languages
Languages of the Caucasus
53/64
Languages of Africa
54/64
Sino-Tibetan languages
55/64

Austronesian languages
Tai Kadai and Hmong-Khmer languages
Languages of Australia
56/64
Introduction
Papuan languages
57/64
That which is not Austronesian or Australian
The most linguistically diverse region in the world??
800+ languages in 20+ families
Papuan languages – East & West New Britian
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Pre-contact languages of North America

59/64
Pre-contact languages of North America
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Pre-contact languages of South America
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Languages of Amazonia
62/64
Top 20 most-spoken languages, in millions of native
speakers
63/64
1 Mandarin 845 German 90 11
2 Spanish 329 Javanese 85 12
3 English 328 Wu(Shanghaiese) 77 13
4 Hindi-Urdu 240 Telugu 70 14
5 Arabic 206 French 68 15
6 Bengali 181 Vietnamese 69 16
7 Portuguese 178 Korean 66 17
8 Russian 144 Tamil 66 18
9 Japanese 122 Italian 62 19

10 Punjabi 109 Yue(Cantonese) 56 20
Languages of the World, again
64/64
Linguistic Diversity
Introduction
What is a language?
Human Language vs. A language (French: Langage vs.
Langue)
Human language (French Langage )= the
communication system characteristic of the human
species as compared to the communication system of
other animal species.
A language (French langue ) = the historically
developed system of signs that the members of a
social group use to communicate with each other.
• ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE =ORIGIN OF HUMANS
• Language is one of the defining abilities of our
species: all humans have the same ability to acquire

and use a language.
• It is not an invention like wheel, not a discovery like
fire, but an evolutionary development
NATURAL SELECTION
• How does having language increase one s
chances of survival?
– Organization of thoughts - increased complexity of
actions.
– Making and using tools.
– Social interaction - planning strategies, forming
alliances. Division of labor. Complex hunting and
food gathering.
OTHER ANIMALS VS HUMANS
• OTHER ANIMALS
– COMMUNICATION
– NOT COMPLEX LANGUAGE
• HUMANS
– COMPLEX LANGUAGE
– THREE DESIGN FEATURES:
Displaced reference
Duality of patterning(=Language as a discrete combinatorial
system)
Recursivity

Displaced reference
Humans seem to be the only ones that are able to talk about
things that are not here and not now, but are somewhere else,
existed in the past or will exist in the future. This ability is
referred to as displaced reference.
Animal signals, in contrast, are always directly associated
with a specific function present in this contextual here and
now .
Animals may have object permanence, i.e., they may be
aware that objects continue to exist, also when no sensory
information about them is available, but are unable to refer to
them if not in the present.
DISPLACED REFERENCE AND THE HUMAN
SYMBOLIC/SEMIOTIC FUNCTION
Displaced reference—the ability to refer to information that is
spatially and temporally displaced from the location of the
speaker and the listener—is an essential feature of human
language.
It is associated with the symbolic/semiotic capacity
characterizing human thought.
Symbolic/semiotic capacity=the capacity to use a given signal
to stand-—in a conventional and arbitrary association—for
something that may be absent from the contextual here and
now of the signal production/recognition.

An enhanced working memory capacity and
symbolic capacity
The essence of symbolic representation is the ability to 'hold in
mind' some
representation that is not what is currently 'held in view'—the
semiotic
capacity by which something can stand for something else that
is
contextually absent.
It is hypothesized that modern humans' larger working-memory
capacity
was a necessary precondition for symbolic thought.
Working-memory capacity as the active maintenance of
information (to hold
in view') consonant with a representation or goal (to hold in
mind') and the
ability to block them both from distractors or interference.
Kane & Engle's 2002, Russell 1996, Coolidge and Wynn 2005.
INTELLIGENCE, WORKING MEMORY AND TOOL-
MAKING: THE EMERGENCE OF HUMAN SYMBOLIC
CAPACITY.
One of the fundamental differences between animals, and
specifically primates
and humans, in addition to language, is a vastly enhanced
ability in problem
solving, i.e. intelligence.

Intelligence, as Newell and Simon (1972) observe, is the ability
to attain goals in
face of obstacles by assessing the current situation to see how
it differs from
the goal, and applying a set of operations that reduce the
difference. Human
beings, by definition, are intelligent.
• This enhanced ability in problem solving has been associated
with an
enhanced working memory (see Baddeley (1993, 2000, 2001)),
which in
humans appears to be located in the premotor cortex and in
particular in
Broca s area (Awh et al., 1996).
An enhanced working memory capacity and symbolic
capacity
The beginnings of human composite tool-making, about
300,000 years ago, reflected an increase in cognitive capacity:
composite tool-making requires the planning and
coordination of multiple segregated tasks, i.e. problem
solving.
These coordinated planning behaviors coevolved with a
frontal lobe processing center that mediates the human
ability to keep primary goals in mind while evaluating
secondary goals, which are essential aspects of planning and
reasoning. This processing center may be associated with an
enhanced working memory capability.
Ambrose (2001)

Language as a discrete combinatorial system
All languages are "discrete combinatorial systems" : a finite
number of discrete elements are sampled, combined, and
permuted to create larger structures with properties that are
quite
distinct from those of their elements.
For example, basic elements such as words can be combined
recursively (see next slide) into an infinite number of different
larger structures such as sentences.
Other such systems are rare, but they do exist: the genetic code
of
DNA.
Other complex systems are blending systems: paint mixing,
cooking, sound, light, weather etc. In blending systems the
properties of the combination lie between the properties of its
elements, and the properties are lost in the average or mixture.
Language as a recursive system
3 Lisa insists that Bart claims that Mr. Burns bribed Mayor
Quimby.
4 Homer’s been saying that Lisa insists that Bart claims that
Mr. Burns
bribed Mayor Quimby.

Language as a recursive system:
Mr. Burns bribed Mayor Quimby.
Bart claims that Mr. Burns bribed Mayor Quimby.
Recursion is the repeated use of a rule to create new expressions
Language is creative
Language use demonstrates the mind’s creative capacity
We can understand utterances we have never heard
The combinatorial and recursive capacities of language allow
the generation of an infinite number of sentences
This generative capacity is found only in human languages
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
Outline
1 Genetic relations between languages

2 Historical linguistics
3
1/36
Phonological change in the history of ‘English’
Genetic relations between languages
Language classification
Typological classification
How living languages differ from each other
Comparing grammatical properties of languages
and grouping them according to the properties they share
e.g. word order (SVO, SOV etc.) or morphological type
(analytic, synthetic, agglutinative, etc.)
Genetic classification
How languages change over time
Tracing lineages of language families
Comparing languages related genetically to each other
Drawing conclusions about what specific changes took place
Reconstructing dead languages that we don’t have records of
2/36

Genetic classification
Organizing language into language families
A language, or a group of languages, evolve from another
language
(1) The family tree of Romance languages (simplified)
Latin
Italian Spanish Portuguese French Romanian
3/36
What causes language birth?
How does this happen?
The driving force of language evolution is innovation
A population speaking a language develops a linguistic
innovation (a
small change in their language)
"All languages have evolved from earlier forms of the same
language as
innovations have arisen, and persisted as new generations of
children
learned the somewhat changed language".
(Lyovin et. al. 1997)
We group descendant languages with their ancestors

4/36
Anagenesis
Middle English
Some lineages involve relations between a single ancestor and a
single
descendant
Old English Old Japanese
Middle Japanese
Modern English Modern Japanese
Anagenesis – evolution of one language from another in a
straight,
non-branching line
5/36
Innovations and retentions
An example of innovation SOUND CHANGE
E.g. at the end of Middle English, the sound [u:] changed into

[aU].
6/36
Middle English Modern English present-day spelling
[hu:s] [haUs]
[nu:] [naU]
[u:t] [aUt]
house
now
out
Some northern English dialect did not participate in the [u:] >
[aU] change.
They retained the original [u:].
(2) a. Innovation is a product of change
b. Retention is the ancestral state without any change
The arbitrary divisions into Old, Middle and Modern stages
of a language
Even though Old, Middle and Modern English are related by a
straight,
non-branching line, they are considered different languages.
Just like
Latin is considered a different language from Italian or French.
How do we know exactly when Old English became Middle
English?
(3) Approximate dates:

a. Old English: c.600–1100
b. Middle English: c.1100–1540
These days are largely arbitrary and correlate with historical
events,
rather than reflect the actual time of change
The actual changes were gradual
7/36
Cladogenesis
Part of the population speaking a language develops a linguistic
innovation (a small change in their language)
If that part of the population is (or becomes) isolated from the
rest, that
innovation will not spread to the rest of the population
Cladogenesis – the result of incomplete spread of innovations
The ancestral languages thus splits into two (or more)
daughters, at least
one of which is characterized by innovations.
Examples of cladogenesis:
Latin splitting into a number of dialects that gave rise to
modern Romance
languages
The Germanic family tree
8/36

Italian (and the other Romance languages) developed from
Latin:
Latin (tree incomplete)
Spanish Portuguese Catalan French Sardinian Italian
Romanian
The Romance clade
The Roman empire The Romance languages
The (Proto-)Germanic clade
9/36
Reconstructed languages
We don’t have records of the ancestor of all Germanic
languages, i.e. the
Proto-Germanic language
We indicate that by calling it a proto-language
For the same reason, its three daughters are also proto-
languages: Proto-
Western Germanic, Proto-Northern Germanic and Proto-Eastern
Germanic

Proto-languages are reconstructed, that is inferred from what we
know
about language change
We need to know how language change works ⇒ historical
linguistics
10/36
Historical linguistics
11/36
Historical Linguistics studies how languages change.
This includes how languages are changing right now, and also
how they
changed in the past, which allows us to reconstruct earlier
languages.
Synchronic vs. diachronic studies
12/36
Synchronic: single “slice” in time.
Diachronic: comparing multiple slices across time.

Historical linguistics studies diachrony.
From English to PIE
13/36
We saw that English, German, and other languages are
Germanic, i.e.
descedants of Proto-Germanic.
In turn, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Slavic, and others are Indo-
European, i.e.
descendants of Proto-Indo-European.
Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
PIE cladogenesis (simplified)
14/36
From English to PIE
Questions that historical linguists ask:

How did this happen?
More importantly, how do we know this happened?
15/36
These changes weren’t documented as they happened. We don’t
even
have records of the earlier languages.
Language change
16/36
This is all the result of language change, which is constant and
inevitable.
It affects all levels of structure, although we’ll mostly talk
about sound
change.
Sound change
17/36
Sound change usually goes unnoticed by speakers.
An individual’s speech patterns can (and often do) change over

their lifetime.
Does the Queen speak the Queen’s English?
Harrington et al. 2000. Journal of the
International Phonetic Association
20:63-78.
Compared Christmas broadcasts from
1950s with those from the 1980s.
Vowel production had shifted towards that
of standard southern British accent.
18/36
British English vowels
19/36
The changes
20/36

The uniformitarian principle
21/36
Although these changes are small, they can accumulate and
result in more
significant changes over time.
The same mechanisms which operated to produce the large-scale
changes of the
past may be observed in current changes.
That is, findings about present-day changes inform our
understanding of
historical changes.
The uniformitarian principle
22/36
The earlier stages of languages accessible to historical
linguistics were just
languages, i.e. not fundamentally different from the kinds of
languages that
exist now.
Earlier languages were subject to the same kinds of changes as
modern

languages, because they were just languages.
A corollary
23/36
Change is not decay, degeneration, or corruption.
Nor is it progress!
Next: Sound changes in the history of English
24/36
Both recent and directly observable,
as well as very old ones that ultimately allow us to relate
English to other
languages.
Phonological change
The Great Vowel Shift
25/36

English used to sound more similar to the other Germanic
languages.
In the 1400s, the pronunciation of vowels began to change. The
GVS was
more or less complete by 1800.
It’s one of the reasons English spelling is so bad, and why e.g.
the vowels
spelled as a in sane (mid) and sanity (low) are so different.
Phonological change
From Middle English to Modern English
ME (1400s) Early ModE ModE
1400s 1500s Present
[tid] [təjd] [tajd] ‘tide’
[hus] [həws] [haws] ‘house’
[fet] [fit] [fit] ‘feet’
[fol] [ful] [ful] ‘fool’
[tak] [tæk] [tejk] ‘take’
[bɛt] [bet] [bit] ‘beat’
26/36
Phonological change
Never ending change
27/36

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