The laws of language

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The Laws of Human Language : 

The Laws of Human Language Free powerpoints at http://www.worldofteaching.com Fromkin and Rodman (1988)

NUMBER 1 : 

NUMBER 1 HUMAN BEINGS = LANGUAGE

NUMBER 2 : 

NUMBER 2 THERE ARE NO “PRIMITIVE” LANGUAGES

NUMBER 3 : 

NUMBER 3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOUND AND MEANING IS (mostly) ARBITRARY

NUMBER 4 : 

NUMBER 4 LANGUAGE IS AN INFINITE ARRAY OF SENTENCES FROM A FINITE SET OF SOUNDS AND SIGNS. IE. WORDS INTERACT (SEE Zipf’s law)

NUMBER 5 : 

NUMBER 5 ALL GRAMMARS CONTAIN RULES FOR FORMING WORDS / SENTENCES OF A SIMILAR KIND.

NUMBER 6 : 

NUMBER 6 ALL LANGUAGES ARE MADE UP OF DISCRETE SOUNDS (Phonemes) WHICH HAVE A LIMITED SET OF PROPERTIES

NUMBER 7 : 

NUMBER 7 SIMILAR GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES ARE FOUND IN ALL LANGUAGE ( Nouns, verbs etc….)

NUMBER 8 : 

NUMBER 8 THERE ARE SEMANTIC (that which gives meaning) UNIVERSALS IN ALL LANGUAGES. (male/female animate/human)

NUMBER 9 : 

NUMBER 9 EVERY LANGUAGE HAS ITS OWN LAWS (ways of negation, forming questions, commanding etc…)

NUMBER 10 : 

NUMBER 10 SPEAKERS ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING AND COMPREHENDING AN INFINITE ARRAY OF SENTENCES (see rule #4)

NUMBER 11 : 

NUMBER 11 ALL NEWBORNS ARE CAPABLE OF ACQUIRING ANY LANGUAGE

NUMBER 12 : 

NUMBER 12 LANGUAGE = CHANGE

Slide 24: 

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