My Notes for Pragmatics Huang Y. 2007

Chapter 2 Implicature

P. 23-36

The notion of implicature (both conversational and conventional) was originated by the Oxford philosopher H. P. Grice. Grice presented a panorama of his thinking on meaning and communication---what he called his "tottering steps"(Grice 1989:4) towards a systematic, philosophically inspired pragmatic theory of language use, which has since come to be known as Gricean pragmatic theory. The Gricean paradigm has revolutionized pragmatic theorizing and to date remains one of the cornerstones of contemporary thinking in linguistic pragmatics and the philosophy of language.

2.1 Classical Gricean theory of conversational implicature


On a general Gricean account of meaning and communication, there are two theories: a theory of meaningn(on)n(atural) and a theory of conversational implicature. In his theory of meaningnn, Grice (1957, 1969, 1989) emphasized the conceptual relation between natural meaning in the external world and non-natural, linguistic meaning of utterances.

Defined thus, the essence of meaningnn is that it is communication which is intended to be recognized as having been intended. In other words, meaningnn or speaker-meaning is a matter of expressing and recognizing intention.

2.1.1 The co-operative principle and the maxims of conversation

In his theory of conversational implicature, Grice (1961,1975, 1978,1989) suggested that there is an underlying principle that determines the way in which language is used with maximum efficiency and effectively to achieve rational interaction in communication. He called this overarching dictum the co-operative principle and subdivided it into nine maxims of conversation classified into four categories: Quality, Quantity, Relation and Manner.The names of the four categories are taken from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant(Grice 1989: 26).

2.1.2 Relationship between the speaker and the maxims

A speaker can straightforwardly observe the maxims.
A speaker can violate a maxim.
A speaker can opt out of a maxim.

2.1.3 Conversational implicature O versus conversational implicature F(the first Gricean dichotomy)

Assuming that the co-operative principle and its associated maxims are normally adhered to by both the speaker and the addressee in a conversational interaction, Grice suggested that a conversational implicature--- roughly, a set of non-logical inferences which contains conveyed messages--- which are meant without being part of what is said in the strict sense---can arise from either strictly observing or ostentatiously flouting the maxims. Let us call conversational implicatures that are engendered by way of directly observing the maxims conversational implicatures O.

Conversational implicatures can be generated by way of the speaker's deliberately flouting maxims. Let us call conversational implicatures thus induced conversational implicature F.

The distinction between those conversational implicatures that are generated from a simple assumption that the speaker is observing both the maxims and the co-operative principles, and those that are engendered in more complex ways on the basis of the speaker flouting a maxim but nevertheless following the co-operative principle.

2.1.4 Generalized versus particularized conversational implicature(the second Gricean dichotomy)

The second Gricean dichotomy, independent of the first, is between those conversational implicatures which arise without requiring any particular contextual conditions(generalized conversational implicature) and those which do require such conditions(particular conversational implicature).

2.1.5 Properties of conversational implicature

Conversational implicature are characterized by a number of distinctive properties.

Defeasibility or cancellability: conversational implicatures can simply disappear in certain linguistic or non-linguistic contexts. They are cancelled if they are inconsistent with semantic entailments; background assumptions; contexts, and/or priority conversational implicatures.

Non-detachability: any linguistic expression with the same semantic content tends to carry the same conversational implicature. This is because conversational implicatures are attached to the semantic content, rather that the linguistic form, of what is said. Therefore, they cannot be detached from an utterance simply by replacing the relevant linguistic expressions with their synonyms.

Calculability: conversational implicatures can transparently be derived via the co-operative principle and its component maxims.

Non-conventinality: conversational implicatures, though dependent on the saying of what is coded, are non-coded in nature(Grice 1989:39, Bach 1994a: 140). In other words, they rely on the saying of what is said but they are not part of what is said. They are associated with speaker or utterance but not proposition or sentence.

Reinforceability: conversational implicatures can be made explicit without producing too much of a sense of redundancy. This is because conversational implicatures are not part of the conventional import of an utterance.

Universality: conversational implicatures tend to be universal, being motivated rather than arbitrary.

My Notes for Pragmatics Huang Y. 2007

1 Introduction

1.1 What is pragmatics?

1.1.1 A definition

Pragmatics is the systematic study of meaning by virtue of, or dependent on, the use of language. The central topics of inquiry of pragmatics include implicature, presupposition, speech acts and deixis.

1.1.2 A brief history of pragmatics

Pragmatics as a modern branch of linguistic inquiry has its origin in the philosophy of language. Its philosophical roots can be traced back to the work of the philosophers Charles Morris, Rudolf Carnap, and Charles Pierce in the 1930s. Influenced by Pierce, Morris(1938:6-7), for example, presented  a threefold division into syntax, semantics, and pragmatics within semiotics---a general science of signs.

(Levinson 1983:1, Horn and Ward 2004a)
Syntax is the study of the formal relation of one sign with another. Semantics deals with the relation of signs to what they denotes, and Pragmatics addresses the relation of signs to their users and interpreters.

Carnap (1942) posited an order of degree of abstractness for the three branches of inquiry: Syntax is the most and pragmatics is the least abstract, with semantics lying somewhere in between. Consequently, syntax provides input into semantics, which provides input into pragmatics. (Recanati 2004b)

1950s: two opposing schools of thought emerged within the analytic philosophy of language: the school of ideal language philosophy
(originated by the philosophers Gottlob Ferge, Alfred Tarki, and Bertrand Russell; interested in the study of logic systems of artificial languages; successful application of its theory and methodology to natural language in the 1950s and 1960s ---today's formal semantics)

and the school of ordinary language philosophy
(By contrast, within the tradition of ordinary language philosophy, emphasis was placed on natural language rather than the formal languages studied by the logicians. Under the leadership of ordinary language philosophy flourished principally at Oxford in the 1950s and 1960s. Other leading thinks included the philosophers H. P. Grice, Peter Strawson, John Searle, and the later Ludwig Wittgenstein(Huang 2003, Recanati 2004a, 2004b). It was within the tradition of ordinary language philosophy that Austin developed his theory of speech acts, and Grice his theory of conversational implicature. Both theories have since become landmarks on the path towards the development of a systematic, philosophically inspired pragmatic theory of language use.

in the late 1960s and early 1970s: a campaign was launched by some of Noam Chomsky's disaffected pupils in generative semantics(as it was then called), notably Jerry Katz, J. R. Ross and George Lakoff, to challenge his teacher's treatment of language as an abstract, mental device divorced from the uses and functions of language. They helped to empty the "pragmatic wastebasket". A great deal of important research was done in the 1970s by linguistics such as Laurence Horn, Charles Fillmore, and Gerald Gazdar to "bring some order into the content of the pragmatic wastebasket". The publication of Stephen Levinson's celebrated textbook Pragmatics in 1983 systematized the field and marked the coming age of pragmatics as a linguistic discipline in its own right.

in the last two decades: new developments such as Laurence Horn's and Stephen Levinson's neo-Gricean pragmatic theories, Dan Sperber's and Deidre Wilson's relevance theory, and etc.

more recently: a newly published Handbook of Pragmatics declared--- work in pragmatic theory has extended from the attempt to rescue the syntax and semantics from their own unnecessary complexities to other domains of linguistic inquiry, ranging from historical linguistics to the lexicon, from language acquisition to computational linguistics, from intonational structure to cognitive science(Horn and Ward 2004a: xi).

1.1.3 Two main schools of thought in pragmatics: Anglo-American versus European Continental

As pointed out in Huang(2001 a), two main schools of thought can be identified in contemporary pragmatics: Anglo-American and European Continental.

see 1.1.1 above, it is known as the component view of pragmatics, namely, the view that pragmatics should be treated as a core component of a theory of language, on a par with phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. By contrast, other areas such as anthropological linguistics, applied linguistics, and psycholinguistics would lie outside this set of core components.

Within the Continental tradition, pragmatics is defined in a far broader way, encompassing much that goes under the rubric of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and discourse analysis. Under this approach, pragmatics is general conceived of a theory of linguistic communication, including how to influence people through verbal messages(Prucha 1983) .

The Continental tradition is closer to the original view of pragmatics expressed by Morris, that pragmatics should study "the relation of signs to interpreters" . Given the degree of overlap among the phenomena dealt with in other relatively well-established interdisciplinary fields of linguistics, it is rather difficult to see how a coherent research agenda of pragmatics can be made within the wider Continental tradition. To say that "everything is pragmatics" amounts to saying that "nothing is pragmatics".(Levinson 1987a)

By contrast, the narrower Anglo-American, component view of pragmatics, which focuses on topics emerging from the traditional concerns of analytical philosophy, delimits the scope of the discipline.

1.2 Why Pragmatics?

1.2.1 Linguistic underdeterminacy

It is widely accepted that there is a huge gap between the meaning of a sentence and the messages actually conveyed by the uttering of that sentence. In other words, the linguistically encoded meaning of a sentence radically underdetermines the proposition the speaker expresses when he or she utters that sentences. This is generally known in the literature as the linguistics underdeterminacy thesis. In order to fill the gap created by linguistic underdeterminacy, pragmatic has to be included as a component in an overall theory of linguistic study.

1.2.2 Simplification of semantics and syntax

The second reason why we need a pragmatic component is because its inclusion can effect a radical simplification of other core components, such as semantics and syntax.

1.3 Some basic notions in semantics and pragmatics

1.3.1 sentence, utterance, proposition

A sentence is a well-formed string of words put together according to the grammatical rules of a language. As a unit of the language system, it is an abstract entity or construct defined within a theory of grammar.

Sentence-meaning refers to those aspects of meaning that are ascribed to a sentence in the abstract, that is  a sentence independent of its realization in any concrete form.( semantics)

By contrast, an utterance is the use of a particular piece of language---a  phrase, a sentence, or a sequence of a sentence---by a particular speaker on a particular occasion.

Utterance meaning, or speaking-meaning is definable as what a speaker intends to convey by making an utterance.(pragmatics)

Proposition: is what is expressed by a sentence when that sentence is used to make a statement, that is, to say something, true or false, about some state of affairs in the external world. Put the other way round, a sentence, when uttered to make a statement, is said to convey a proposition.

Relationship between sentence and proposition: the same proposition can on the one hand be expressed by different sentences; the same sentence can be used to convey different propositions on different occasions.

The relationship between sentence, utterance, and proposition may be represented schematically in the tree diagram(adapted from Hurford and Heasley 1983: 23)

A proposition, being the most abstract of the three notion, can be expressed by different sentences. A given sentence, being the next most abstract of the three notions, can itself be instantiated by different utterances, which are the least abstract of the three notion.

1.3.2 Context

From a relatively theory-neutral point of view, context may in a broader sense be defined as referring to any relevant features of the dynamic setting or environment in which a linguistic unit is systematically used. Furthermore, context can be seen as composed of three different sources:
physical context---the physical setting of the utterance;
linguistic context---the surrounding utterances in the same discourse;
the general knowledge context

1.3.3 Truth value, truth condition, entailment

The notion of truth value is associated with that of proposition, and the notion of truth condition is linked to that of sentence.

As mentioned, a proposition may be true or false. But the truth or falsity of a proposition may vary from utterance occasion to utterance occasion. However, on a particular occasion, a proposition has a definite truth value, that is, it is either true or false. It is true if and only if it corresponds to some state of affairs that obtains on that occasion, and it is false if and only if it does not. This is known variously as the "corresponding", "realistic", or "simple" theory of truth.(Bradley & Swartz 1979)

Truth conditions are the conditions that the world must meet for the sentence to be true.(S is true if and only if p).

My notes about Understanding Semantics(ch. 2) second edition Sebastian Löbner

CH. 2 DIMENSIONS OF MEANING

This chapter will try to convey a more precise idea about expression meaning:
descriptive meaning---the relationship between meaning, reference and truth
non descriptive meaning--- dimensions of lexical meaning that are relevant on the level of social interaction or for the expression of subjective attitudes and evaluations.

2.1 Meanings are concepts

2.1.1 The meaning of a word
The meaning of the word must be knowledge directly linked to the sound pattern of the word. The meaning therefore is a mental description. For mental descriptions in general, the term concept will be used. A concept for a kind, or category, of entities is knowledge that allows us to discriminate entities of that kind from entities of other kinds.

More generally, a word can only be considered established if its form and meaning are linked in the minds of a great number of language users.

2.1.2 The meaning of a sentence
The meaning of a content word is a concept that provides a mental description of a certain kind of entity.
The meaning of a sentence is a concept that provides a mental description of a certain kind of situation.



2.2 Descriptive meaning

2.2.1 Descriptive meaning and reference

2.2.1.1 Reference and the descriptive meaning of words

Descriptive meaning of content words: a concept for its potential referents.

2.2.1.2 The descriptve meaning of sentences: propositions

Proposition: the descriptive meaning of a sentence, its proposition, is a concept that provides a mental description of the kind of situations it potentially refers to.

The descriptive meaning of a word or a grammatical form is its contribution to the descriptive meaning of the sentences in which the word or grammatical form may occur.

2.2.2 Denotation and truth conditions

2.2.2.1 Denotations

The denotation of a content word is the category, or set, of all its potential referents.

The relationship between a word, its meaning and its denotation is often depicted in the semiotic triangle.

The arrow that connects the word with its denotation is drawn with a broken line. This is to indicate that a word is not directly linked to its denotation, but only directly via its descriptive meaning.

When a word is actually used in a concrete CoU, we deal with a token of the word, i.e. a particular spoken or written realization. The semiotic triangle then yields a relationship between the word token, its meaning and its referent: the meaning describes the referent to which the word, in the given COU, refers.

2.2.2.2 Truth conditions

There is no established term for what would be the denotation of a sentence. In analogy to the denotation of a content word it would be the set, or category, of all situations to which the sentence can potentially refer. There is another notion that is quite common and directly related to the would-be denotation of a sentence: its so-called truth condition.

The truth condition of a sentence are the conditions under which it is true.

A proper definition of the truth condition of a sentence S always takes this form:
"S is true in a given CoU if and only if..."

The connection between a sentence, its proposition and its truth conditions can be put as follows: the descriptive meaning of the sentence is its proposition, and the proposition determines the truth conditions of the sentence.

2.2.3 Proposition and sentence type

The grammatical type of the sentence contributes to its meaning, and this contribution is non-descriptive. 

The meaning contribution of grammatical sentence type is a first example of non-descriptive meaning. Two more types: social meaning and expressive meaning.

2.3 Meaning and social interaction: social meaning

Any verbal utterance will receive an interpretation as a communicative act in the current social network, and in this sense it always has a social function.

2.3.1 Expression with social meaning

Social meaning is  on a par with descriptive meaning: it is part of the lexical meaning of certain words, phrases or grammatical forms. If an expression has social meaning, it has so independently of the particular CoU. Like descriptive meaning, social meaning is an invariable part of the expression meaning.

2.4 Meaning and subjectivity: expressive meaning

Anything we say will also be taken as the expression of a personal emotion, opinion or attitude.

2.4.1 Expressive meaning

On a par with descriptive and social meaning, expressive meaning is part of the lexical meaning of certain expressions,a semantic quality of words and phrases independent of the CoU and of the way they are being spoken.

Exclusively expressive meaning: words and phrases used for directly expressing an emotion, feeling or sensation.(ouch, wow, oh)

2.4.2 Social versus expressive meaning

The use of terms and forms with social meaning is governed by rules of social conduct. They define what kind of social circumstances make suitable occasions for using the expression and they define what its use is taken for: a greeting, an apology, a polite or intimate way of referring to other person...

The use of terms with expressive meaning is governed by different criteria which concern only the subjective adequacy of expressing one's personal feelings, attitudes...

2.5 Connotations

If an expression has descriptive meaning, any mention of it will activate not only the concept for its potential referents but together with it a host of further associations. Among the associations, some are conventional. They are called connotations and often considered to be something like a secondary meaning in addition to the primary lexical meaning.

It is more appropriate to consider connotations to be connected not to the word itself(like meaning) but rather to the actual denotation.

(to be continued after reading again...)

My Notes for Semantics a Coursebook Second Edition Hurford, Heasley & Smith

Unit 1 Basic ideas in Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in language.

Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (intends to convey) when he uses a piece of language.

Sentence meaning (or word meaning) is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e. what is counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned.

A theory is a precisely specified, coherent, and economical frame-work of interdependent statements and definitions, constructed so that as large a number as possible of particular basic facts can either be seen to follow from it or be describable in terms of it.

Unit 2 Sentence, Utterance and Proposition

An utterance is any stretch of talks, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that person.

An utterance is the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word.

Utterances are physical events. Events are ephemeral. Utterances die on the wind.

A sentence is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances and inscriptions.

In semantics we need to make a careful distinction between utterances and sentences. In particular we need some way of making it clear when we are discussing sentences and when utterances. We adopt the convention that anything written between single quotation marks represents an utterance, and anything italicized represents a sentence or (similarly abstract) part of a sentence, such as a phrase or a word.

We have defined a sentence as a string of words. A given sentence always consists of the same words, and in the same order. Any change in the words, or in their order, makes a different sentence, for our purposes.

It would make sense to say that an utterance was in a particular accent. However, it would not make strict sense to say that a sentence was in a particular accent. Accent and voice quality belong strictly to the utterance, not to the sentence uttered.

Not all utterances are actually tokens of sentences, but sometimes only of parts of sentences, e.g. phrases or single words.

Utterance of non-sentences, e.g. short phrases, or single words, are used by people in communication all the time. Semantics is concerned with the meanings of non-sentences, such as phrases and incomplete sentences, just as much as with whole sentences. But it is more convenient to begin our analysis with the case of the whole sentences. The meaning of whole sentences involve propositions; the notion of a proposition is central to semantics.

A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs.

The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by expression in the sentence and the situation or action they are involved in. In uttering a declarative sentence a speaker typically asserts a proposition.

The notion of truth can be used to decide whether two sentences express different propositions. Thus if there is any conceivable set of circumstances in which one sentence is true, while the other is false, we can be sure that they express different propositions.

True propositions correspond to facts, in the ordinary sense of the word fact. False propositions do not correspond to facts.

Proposition, unlike sentences, cannot be said to belong to any particular language. Sentences in different languages can correspond to the same proposition, if the two sentences are perfect translations of each other.

A single proposition could be expressed by using several different sentences and each of these sentences could be uttered an infinite number of times.



Unit 3 Reference and sense

In talking of sense, we deal with relationship inside the language; in talking of reference we deal with the relationships between language and the world.

By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world(including persons) are being talked about.  Reference is a relationship between parts of a language and things outside the language(in the word). Some expressions in a language can have variable reference. The reference of an expression vary according to the circumstances(time, place, etc.) in which the expression is used, or the topic of the conversation in which the expression is used.

On the relationship between sense and reference: the referent of an expression is often a thing or a person in the world; whereas the sense of an expression is not a thing at all. In fact, it is difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an expression is. It is sometimes useful to think of sense as that part of the meaning of an expression that is left over when reference is factored out. The sense of an expression is an abstraction, but it is helpful to note that it is an abstraction that can be entertained in the mind of a language user. When a person understands fully what is said to him, it is reasonable to say that he grasps the sense of the expressions he hears.

Every expression that has meaning has sense, but not every expression has reference.

The relationship between reference and utterance is not so direct as that between sense and proposition, but there is a similarity --- both referring and uttering are acts performed by particular speakers on particular occasions.

My Notes for Pragmatics Huang Y. 2007 Ch. 3

Ch. 3 Presupposition

Presupposition is another pragmatic topic that originates within the tradition of the philosophy of language. 

Gottlob Frege: the first scholar in modern times who (re)introduced the philosophical study of presupposition(the notion of presupposition-- the medieval philosopher Pertus Hispanus)

In the philosophy of language, the study of presupposition has largely been confined to debates about the nature of reference a d referring expressions.

In linguistics, on the other hand, the investigation of presupposition is concerned with a much wider range of phenomena, centering around the general debates about the interaction and division of labour between semantics and pragmatics.

3.1 What is presupposition?

• Presupposition can be informally defined as an inference or proposition whose truth is taken for granted in the utterance of a sentence. Its main function is to act as a precondition of some sort of the appropriate use of that sentence.
• Presupposition is usually generated by the use of particular lexical items and/or linguistic constructions. Lexical items and linguistic constructions that engender presuppositions are called presupposition triggers.

3.2 Properties of presupposition

Presupposition exhibit a number of distinctive properties, notably: constancy under negation and defeasibility/cancellability.

• Constancy under negation
  By constancy under negation is meant that a presupposition generated by the use of a lexical item or a syntactic structure remains the same when the sentence containing that lexical item or syntactic structure is negated.
  
  An utterance of a sentence S presupposes a proposition p if and only if:
  a. if S is true, then p is true
  b. if S is false, then p is still true
  
  Problems:
  Constancy under negation may not necessary.(e.g. there is a class of sentences which are hard if not impossible to negate, yet they bear presuppositions)
  Constancy under negation may not be sufficient.
• Defeasibility
  Like conversational implicatures, but unlike semantic entailments, presuppositions are cancellable. They are nullified if they are inconsistent with background assumptions, conversational implicatures, and certain discourse contexts.
• The projection problem
  The projection problem manifest itself in two opposite directions. On the one side of the projection coin, the presuppositions of a component sentence may fail to be projected on to, and hence inherited by, the whole complex sentence. On the other side, the presuppositions of a component sentence may be preserved when that constituent sentence becomes part of a more complex sentence.

3.3 Analyses

• The filtering-satisfaction analysis
• The cancellation analysis
• The accommodation analysis

Summary

Presupposition may not be a single phenomenon with a unitary explanation, but rather a domain of related issues involving the interaction of several semantic and pragmatic principles.

Entailment: is a relationship that applies between two sentences, where the truth of one implies the truth of the other, because of the meaning of the words involved.(semantic field)

Presuppositions: are inferences about what is assumed to be true in the utterance rather than directly asserted to be true. They are closely linked to the words and grammatical structures in the utterance.(pragmatic field)

My Notes for Introduction to Neurolinguistics Elisabeth Ahlsén

Part 1 Introduction to neurolinguistics

Chapter 1 What is neurolinguistics?

• Neurolinguistics studies the relation of language and communication to different aspects of brain function, in other words it tries to explore how the brain understands and produces language and communication. Neurolinguistics has a very close relationship to psycholinguistics, but focuses more on studies of the brain. Studies of language and communication after brain damage are perhaps the most common type of neurolinguistic study. However, experiments, model construction, computer simulations, and neuroimaging studies are also very frequently used methods today.

• The main questions of interest for neurolinguistics were first addressed very far back in history. There was a period of intensified focus in the late 19th century; since then, they have become central to researches in many disciplines.  

• "Neurolinguistics" became the established term for the field in the 1960s, under the influence of the Chomsky.
• Different views on the relation between brain and language:
  
  Localism tries to find locations or centers in the brain for different language functions.
  
  Associationism situates language functions in the connections between different areas of the brain, making it possible to associate, for example, perceptions of different senses with words and/ or "concepts".
  
  Dynamic localization of function assumes that functional systems of localized subfunctions perform language functions.
  
  Holistic theories consider many language functions to be handled by widespread areas of the brain working together.
  
  Evolution-based theories stress the relationship between how the brain and language evolved over time in different species, how they develop in children, and how adults perform language functions.
• The central questions of neurolinguistics:
  
  What happens to language and communication after brain damage of different types?
  
  How did the ability to communicate and the ability to use language develop as the species evolved? How can we relate this development to the evolution of the brain?
  
  How do children learn to communicate and use language? How can we relate their acquisition of language to the development of their brains?
  
  How can we measure and visualize processes in the brain that are involved in language and communication?
  
  How can we make good models of language and communication processes that will help us to explain the linguistic phenomena that we study?
  
  How can we make computer simulations of language processing, language development, and language loss?
  
  How can we design experiments that will allow us to test our models and hypotheses about language processing?

Chapter 2 The development of theories about brain and language(P. 24 to be continued)

Different views of the language-brain relationship along the continuum from localism to holism:

Localism：different "higher functions" are localized in different centers of the brain, mainly the cortex. Either these centers can be seen as "sisters", being equally important, or one center, such as the prefrontal area( in front of the frontal lobes), may be seen as superordinate to the others. ( Aphasia is seen as the result of a lesion in a language center. Well-known localists included Gall and Broca.

Association( or connectionism): higher functions are dependent on the connections between different centers in the cortex. Linguistic ability is seen as the relationship between images and words.（Aphasia results from broken connections between the centers that are needed for linguistic function. Representatives of this view are Wernicke, Lichtheim, and Geschwind.

Dynamic localization of function: different subfunctions are seen as localized in different parts of the brain. These subfunctions must be combined in order to achieve more complex functions, which can be "put together" in a number of different ways.

Hierachical or evolution-based view: emphasize the layered structure of the brain from inner/lower and more primitive structures to the later developed and superimposed cortical layer and the role of all of these layers in language and communication.

Holism: the brain works as a whole, at least to accomplish higher functions. The cortex is said to handle "higher cognitive functions", "symbolic thinking", "intelligence", or "abstraction", and aphasia is a sign of a general cognitive loss, not a specific language loss.

Unitarism: the soul is one and cannot be divided.

Equipotentiality: all parts of the cortex have the same functional potential and that the size of a brain lesion determines the extent of the aphasia( the mass effect).

Ideas about brain and language before the 19th century

Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome:

The first reference to the brain as the center of language is found in the Edwin Smith papyrus from about 3500 Bc.

In writings from Greek antiquity, language disorders are discussed by Hippocrates(400 BC). Around the same time, Democritus compared the brain to a guard or sentinel with two functions: the internal function of guarding the intelligence and the external function of guarding the senses. Herophilus localized intelligence in the ventricles of the brain at about 300 BC.

Plato(4th century BC) wanted to localize the different abilities of the soul in different parts of the brain, which he saw as the center of all senses. It was with Plato that the idea arose that a function could have a one-to-one relationship with an area in the brain.

Aristotle claimed that the brain was just a refrigerating system, while the heart was the center of all nerves; this opinion did not have much influence in the long run. His "flow charts" for psychological processes, from the sense organs to cognition and from cognition to motor functions(sense organ---sensation---perception---cognition---memory) influence later models of language functions.

Galen(3r century BC) further developed the view that different abilities were localized in different ventricles.

From the Middle Ages to 1800:

Theoretically, the discussion of the ventricles of the brain continued. Memory was assumed to be localized in the fourth ventricle and the Italian physician Antonio Guainerio suggested in the 15th century that word sparsity and naming errors were symptoms of a disturbance of memory, caused by too much phlegm in the fourth ventricle.

In the 16th century, the theories about the ventricles were criticized by Costanzo Varolius and Andreas Vesalius, both of whom wanted to localize psychological functions in the soft substance of the brain and to stress the importance of brain volume.

In the 17th century, the school of unitarism. Descartes held the view that the soul indivisible and had its center in the pineal gland, an organ that is located in the middle of the brain. Physician Thomas Willis(1664,1672) placed the imagination in the corpus callosum(a bundle of fibers connecting the two brain hemisphere). François de la Peyronie(1741), a French surgeon, also saw the corpus callosum as the center of the soul. Unitarian theories were criticized by the anatomist Albrecht von Haller as "theories without knowledge". But they were supported by the church and the monarchy at the time, since the idea of the soul as one unit, possibly located in one central brain structure, was consistent with religious dogma.

In 1770, the German physician Johann Gesner wrote a monograph called "Speech amnesia". He saw speech disorders as a type of memory disorder, caused by inertia in the  connections between the different parts of the brain. These disorders were assumed to cause difficulties in associating images or abstract ideas with linguistic signs. (the first expression of an associationism which is clearly combined with neurophysiological speculation.

localist views were also being expressed at this time and descriptions of personal experiences of speech and language loss were published.

To sum up, at the turn of the 19th century, both theories and knowledge about aphasia existed.

The foundations of neurolinguistics theories in the late 19th century:

Gall: the first person to localize mental faculties in the brain cortex. (localist)

After Gall: (debate between unitarists and localist---partially political)

Bouillaud and Auburtin: Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud can be seen as a link between Gall and Broca. He was Gall's student and supported him. Bouillaud found two types of speech disorders connected to brain damage: disorders of "speech movements" and disorders of "word memory". Ernest Auburtin was Bouillaud's son-in-law and introduced his ideas to the anthropological society of Paris in 1861. 

Broca: Traditionally, neurolinguistics is said to have been born in 1861, when Paul Broca presented his theory, based on a patient's symptoms and the dissection of his brain. Broca's theory led to new conflicts between unitarists and localists.

Meynert: claimed that consciousness, intelligence, and memory were cortical but not localized.

Wernicke: imagined that there was a specific "language gyrus" ranging from Wernicke's area(responsible for the receptive function) to Broca's area(responsible for the expressive function). Lesions in either of these areas or in the connection between them would cause aphasia.

Lichtheim

The period after Broca, Wernicke, and Lichtheim: after Broca, Wernicke, and Lichtheim, localism and associationism became the dominant views. Until the 1920s, the holistic began to dominate.

Jackson: not interested in anatomical localization, he studied how stimuli evoke responses and how complex these responses are. He distinguished two levels of language: automatic and propositional and three levels of function: elementary reflexes, automatic actions, and intentional actions.

Freud: His theory became popular in later years, since it contained thoughts about the pragmatic influence on linguistic symptoms.

Further developments in the 20th century

The strengthening of holism: Marie, von Monakow, Head, Goldstein, Lashley, bay, and Brown 
Localism and associationism

Association is rediscovered by Geschwind
Dynamic Iocalization of function: Pavlov, Vygotsky, and Luria
The test psychological tradition
Linguists and linguistic influence on aphasiology 

My Notes for Ch.3 Psychology of Language 5th edition David W. Carroll

My Notes

3 Psychological Mechanisms

Main Points 

• The act of comprehending and producing language are performed within the constraints of our information-processing system. This system consists of working memory and long-term memory. Long-term memory comprises episodic and semantic memory.
• A number of issues regarding language processing have been raised. These include whether we primarily use serial or parallel process, whether we tend to use top-down or bottom-up process, whether language processes are primarily automatic or controlled, and the extent to which language processing displays modularity.
• Children appear to process information very differently than adults, but studies of the development of the processing system suggest that most of the system is developmentally invariant.

Language processing is a joint product of linguistic principles and psychological mechanism.

The information-processing system

• The study of memory has a long history in psychology. The first systematic studies of memory were performed in the late 19th century(Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913).
  
  William James anticipated the contemporary distinction between working and long-term memory, which he called primary and secondary memory, in his landmark book, Principles of Psychology(James,1890/1950).
  
  Contemporary study of memory and information processing began in the late 1950s(Miller, 1956), and the fields of memory study and language study have exerted a synergistic effect on one another ever since.
  
  ✨   Working memory: the temporary storage of information that is being processed in any range of cognitive tasks(Baddeley, 1986, P. 34).
  
           e.g. think of trying to remember a phone number that is spoken to you as you dial it. We need to hold the digits somewhere for a short period of time, and that somewhere has been termed working memory.
  
  Working memory is measured in several ways. The most simple is a memory span test(or simple span test) in which participants are given a series of items(words, letters, numbers and so forth) and asked to recall the items in the order presented. Sometimes they are asked to recall them in backward order. A person's  memory span is the number of items that can be reliably recalled in the correct order.
  
  The Baddeley-Hitch Model: Baddeley and Hitch(1974) proposed a model of working memory, which has subsequently been revised a number of times. The model has three components, which are now called the central executive, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the phonological loop. The latter two systems are sometimes referred to as "slave system" to the central executive.
  
  The phonological loop: consists of the phonological store and the articulatory rehearsal system.
  
  The visuospatial sketchpad: maintains and manipulates visuospatial information.
  
  The central executive was initially conceived as a limited capacity pool of general processing resources.( the assumption is that we are limited in terms of the number of things we can do at once) It is assumed that the central executive exerts executive control--- that is, determines what activities the slave systems should be doing at any given time.
  
  ✨   Long-term memory: a memory structure that holds permanent knowledge.
• Tulving(1972) suggests that we should distinguish between two aspects of long-term memory: episodic memory(deal with personally experienced facts) and semantic memory(general facts).
  
  e.g. Semantic memory holds the information that horses have four legs and a tail, but the last time we went horseback riding is held in episodic memory.
  
  Semantic memory: our organized knowledge of words, concepts, symbols, and objects. It includes such broad classes of information as motor skills(typing, swimming, bicycling), and general knowledge(grammar, arithmetic), spatial knowledge(the typical layout of a house), and social skills.
  
  Episodic memory: retrieve information from a person's own perspective; retrieve personal facts from long-term memory.
  
  ✨   Relevance for language processing
  The processing function of working memory is used to organize the words into the constituents.
  
  Long-term memory plays several roles. Semantic memory contains information on the speech sounds and words that we retrieve during pattern recognition. And while this process is going on, we are also building up and episodic memory representation of the ongoing discourse. That is, once we complete the processing of a given sentence, we might extract the gist of it and store that in episodic memory.
  
  Summary:
• The general strategies by which the human mind encodes, stores and retrieves information can be described independently of language. Working memory provides a temporary repository of information that is relevant for ongoing cognitive tasks. It is divided into three components: the central executive, the phonological loop, and the visuospatial sketchpad. Long-term memory is divided into semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory holds for general knowledge, whereas episodic memory stores our experience from our personal perspective.
  

Central issues in language processing 

✨    Serial and Parallel processing

• If a group of processes takes place one at a time(without overlapping), it is called serial processing. If two or more of the processes take place simultaneously, it is called parallel processing.

✨    Top-down (information at the higher levels may influence processing at the lower levels)and Bottom-up process(which proceeds from the lowest level to the highest level, all of the lower levels of processing operate without influence from the higher levels)

• The distinction between top-down and bottom-up processing is similar in some respects to the distinction between serial and parallel processes. In fact, a top-down process is often a parallel process, and a bottom-up process is usually serial.(not always)

✨   Automatic and controlled process

When discussing working memory, there is the notion that we may have a fixed processing capacity for handling information. This has been a central assumption of a variety of accounts of human cognitive functioning. It is an important concept when considering human performance on complex tasks, such as language processing. When the task is complex, one part of the task may draw substantial resources from this limited pool of resources,thereby leaving insufficient resources for other parts and resulting in overall impaired performance.

Tasks that draw substantially from this limited pool of resources are called controlled tasks, and the processes involved in these tasks are referred to as controlled process.(e.g. develop a phrase structure for a sentence)

Tasks that do not require substantial resources are called automatic tasks; process that do not require extensive capacity are referred to as automatic process.(e.g. recognize common words)

Bresnan(1978) reasons that the process of working our way through a syntactic structure places heavy burdens on working memory, which has a fixed capacity. By comparison, the process of lexical retrieval is far easier. Thus, if grammatical information was stored in the lexicon, it would simplify overall language processing.

✨   Modularity

Within cognitive psychology, the issue of modularity has two meanings.

First, it pertains to the degree of independence of the language-processing system;

Second, linguistic subsystems, such as semantics and syntax, operate independently rather than interactively.

The Development of The Processing System

All in all, children of 18 months or perhaps younger can recall information about specific events in their lives. Children acquire a great deal of language within the first few years of life, a time when each of these aspects of memory is developing.

Working memory appears to be closely related to the acquisition of new words.

Semantic memory develops within the first 2 years of life. Moreover, some rudimentary forms of object permanence develop much earlier, as young as 3 or 4 months.

Episodic memory is related to children's ability to understand language in a personal way. It is likely that the emergence of episodic memory is related to the child's acquisition of personal pronouns such as I, me, and mine. A strong episodic memory must be in place for children to develop the ability to tell personal stories.

Summary

It appears children make significant advances in working memory, semantic memory, and episodic memory during the preschool period. Semantic memory appears within the first 2 years. Episodic memory appears to take form between ages two to four. Working memory appears to be functional by age four.

All of these developments assist the acquisition of language, but these relationships are most clearly articulated for working memory. Children with better scores on working memory tasks have larger vocabularies.

My Notes for Ch. 2 Psychology of Language 5th edition David W. Carroll

My Notes

2 Linguistic Principles

Main Points

• Linguists have attempted to identify those grammatical features that appear in all languages. Four pervasive properties are duality of patterning, morphology, phrase structure, and linguistic productivity.
• American Sign Language shares these linguistic properties with spoken languages.  Sign language differs from spoken language in its iconicity and simultaneous structure.
• A language consists of an infinite set of sentences. A person who knows a language knows its grammar, which consists of a finite set of rules.
• Transformational grammar distinguishes between two levels of sentence structure: deep structures and surface structures.
• Several controversies exist within grammatical theory, including whether grammatical rules are psychologically real, the role of syntax in grammar, and whether knowledge of language is innate.

Basic Grammatical Concepts

Although languages differ in a number of ways, the differences are not random, and there are impressive underlying similarities.

✨  Duality of patterning: At one level, there is  a large number of meaningless elements that are combined to form the words. And another level at which there is a larger number of meaningful elements. All languages have a systematic set of rules for combining the former into the latter.

       some concepts to remember:

        phones---speech sounds, two sounds are different phones if they differ in a physically specifiable way.  e.g. aspirated and unaspirated [p]

        phonemes---differences in sound that make a contribution to meaning.

        distinctive features---a characteristic of a speech sound whose presence or absence distinguishes the sound from other sounds.

✨  Morphology: the way in which we use words is to use different forms of the same word to convey different shades of meaning.

        morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit in a language( free morphemes, bound morphemes)

✨   Phrase Structure: syntactic rules that specify the permissible sequences of constituents in a language. Each phrase- structure rule "rewrites" a constituent into one or more other constituents. By using a series of rules, we can derive a sentence from top to bottom(that is, from the largest to the smallest constituent).

Phrase- structure rules provide a good account of one type of sentence ambiguity called phrase- structure ambiguity.

✨   Linguistic Productivity: our ability to create and comprehend novel utterances (Linguistic Creativity).

          Recursion is closely related to language production for there is no limit to the number of times we can embed one sentence into another.

          Linguistic productivity distinguishes human language from animal communication systems, which consist of a small number of discrete signals.

Summary

Words are composed of phonemes, which, in turn, have distinctive features. In each instance, the smaller units are combined in a rule- governed manner to produce the larger units. Words consist of one or more units of meaning, or morphemes. The system of grammatical morphemes in a language provides speakers with a way of signaling subtle differences in meaning. Phrase- structure rules codify our intuitions about the groupings of words in a sentence. Some sentences are ambiguous and  may be grouped in more than one way. Linguistic productivity refers to the fact that there is no limit to the number of sentences in a language.(recursion)

Insights From Sign Language (has its own set of grammatical rules and is a language that is independent of English)

✨    Differences between signed and spoken language
       
           Arbitrariness-- no intrinsic relationship exist between the set of sounds and the object to which the sounds refer(spoken language)

          High degree of Iconicity--many of the signs resemble the objects or activities to which they refer(sign language)-----part iconic  part arbitrary

✨     Similarities between signed and spoken language

     

           Duality of Patterning/ Morphology/ Reciprocity/ Linguistic Productivity/ Phrase Structure

✨     Significance of Sign Language

          Researches that has benefited from the study of sign language:  Language production/ Language acquisition/ the link between language and the brain

Transformational Grammar( an influential theory of grammar formulated by Chomsky in the late 1950s--- inspired a considerable amount of psycholinguistic work in the 1960s and early 1970s)

✨      Language and Grammar

               From a linguistic perspective, a grammar is a description of a person's linguistic knowledge.

               Within linguistic theory, a language can be defined as an infinite set of 

well-formed sentences. A grammar is a formal device with a finite set of rules that generates the sentences in the languages.

               Evaluation of Grammars: Chomsky suggested three criteria( observational adequacy--- the grammar must specify what is and what is not an acceptable sequence in the language; descriptive adequacy--- the grammar must specify the relationships between various sequences in the language; explanatory adequacy---the ability to explain the role of linguistic universals in language acquisition.)

               Chomsky(1957) initially developed transformational grammar because of the descriptive inadequacy of a grammar based on phrase structure rules.

✨       Deep and Surface Structure(Transformational Grammar)    

         

                Deep structure is the underlying structure of a sentence that conveys the meaning of a sentence.

                Surface structure refers to the superficial arrangement of constituents and reflects the order in which the words are pronounced.

To fully capture these grammatical relationships, we need to posit a second level of structure, which in turn brings into play a new set of rules called transformational rules.

✨         Transformational Rules

                 Within transformational grammar, the entire derivation of a sentence is a two-part process. First, phrase- structure rules are used to generate the underlying tree structure we have referred to as the deep structure. Second, a sequence of transformational rules is applied to the deep structure and the intermediate structures( those between the deep and surface structure), ultimately generating the surface structure of sentence.


Summary

Transformational grammar assumes that sentences have a deep structure and a surface structure. The deep structure is derived by a series of phrase-structure rules, and the surface structure is derived from the deep structure by a series of transformational rules. Transformational grammar can explain certain aspects of language, such as deep-structure ambiguity, that cannot be accounted for entirely by phrase- structure rules.

Issues in Grammatical Theory

✨           Psychological Reality of Grammar(whether linguistic principles have psychological reality)

✨           The Centrality of Syntax(whether our grammatical knowledge is better described in structural or lexical terms)
✨           Is Language Innate?(whether our linguistic knowledge may be innate)

My Notes for Ch.1 Psychology of Language 5th edition David W. Carroll

My Notes

Part 1(General Issues) contains three chapters. 

Chapter 1 describes the scope of psycholinguistics along with a short history of the field.

Chapter 2 discusses basic grammatical concepts such as phonemes,distinctive features, and morphology. The chapter also includes the grammatical features of American Sign Language.

Chapter 3 focuses on basic concepts of information processing and how they may apply to language.

1 Introduction: Themes of Psycholinguistics

Becoming self-consciously aware of what is known unself-consciously carries a special brand of excitement.        -------- George A. Miller (1991, p. 2)

Main Points

• Psycholinguistics is the study of how individuals comprehend, produce, and acquire language.
• The study of psycholinguistics is part of the field of cognitive science. Cognitive science reflects the insights of psychology, linguistics, and, to a lesser extent, fields such as artificial intelligence, neurolinguistics, and philosophy.
• Psycholinguistics stresses the knowledge of language and the cognitive processes involved in ordinary language use.
• Psycholinguistics are also interested in the social rules involved in language use and the brain mechanism associated with language.
• Contemporary interest in psycholinguistics began in the 1950s, although important precursors existed in the 20th century.

An important consideration is that although language is intrinsically a social phenomenon, psychology is principally the study of individuals. 

The psychology of language deals with the mental processes that are involved in language use. Three sets of processes are of primary interest: language comprehension, language production, and language acquisition.

1⃣️   The Scope of Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics is part of the emerging field of study called cognitive science. Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary venture that draws upon the insights of psychologists, linguists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers to study the mind and mental process( Stillings et al. , 1995).

• Language processes and linguistic knowledge
  
  Psycholinguistic work consists of two questions:
  
  What knowledge of language is needed for us to use language? Tacit knowledge: the knowledge of how to perform various acts.
  Explicit knowledge: the knowledge of the processes or mechanisms used in these acts.
  
  What cognitive processes are involved in the ordinary use of language?

• Four Language Examples
  
  Garden Path Sentences: What happens when we comprehend a sentence? We get a hint of what is involved when the process breaks down. ( In the course of comprehending language we are making decisions---we are doing mental work.)
  
  Indirect Requests( It is necessary to recognize the social dimension of language.)
  
  Language in Aphasia( Although our primary focus is on language processes in normal individuals, we can learn a great deal about language by studying individuals with impaired language functioning.)
  
  Language in Children( language acquisition)
  

Summary
Psycholinguistics is part of an interdisciplinary field known as cognitive science. Two primary psycholinguistic questions are, What mental processes are involved in language use? and What linguistic knowledge is involved in language use? These questions reemerge in different forms in studied of adult language comprehension and production, the social use of language, language use in aphasia, and language in children.

2⃣️   The Historical Context

Blumenthal( 1987) has observed that the interdisciplinary field of psycholinguistics flourished twice: once around the turn of the last century, principally in Europe, and once in the middle of the 20th century, principally in the United States.  

In the early decades of the 20th century, linguists turned to psychologists for insights into how human beings use language. In the later period, psychologists turned to linguistics for insights into the nature of language. In between these two periods, behaviorism dominated both fields.

• Early Psycholinguistics
  
  From the development of the first psychological laboratory(1897)---the early 1900s
  
  major figure: Wilhelm Wundt (He believed that it was possible to investigate mental events such as sensations, feelings, and images by using procedures as rigorous as those used in the natural sciences. He also believed that the study of language provide important insights into the nature of the mind.
  
  One of Wundt's contributions to the psychology of language was developing a theory of language production. He regarded the sentence, not the word, as the primary unit of language and saw the production of speech as the transformation of a complete thought process into sequentially organized speech segments.
  
  Blumenthal(1970) refers to Wundt as the master psycholinguist.
  
  Some significant developments were also being made in measuring various language process.
  Huey----examined reading from the perspective of human perceptual abilities.(the eye-voice span; the tachistoscope)
• Behaviorism and Verbal Behavior
  
  In the first decades of the 20th century in the United States, there was mounting opposition to the focus on mental life as a goal for psychology.
  
  By the 1920s, behaviorism took over the mainstream of experimental psychology. Behaviorists favored the study of objective behavior, often in laboratory animals, as opposed to the study of mental processes.( the role of experience in shaping behavior, emphasis on the role of environmental contingencies)
  
  From the 1920s to the 1950s, psychologists expressed relatively little interest in language.( B. F. Skinner )
  
  Similar developments were occurring within linguistics. Linguistics of this period tended to emphasize behavioristic treatments of language, in which reference to mental states or processes was meticulously avoided.( Despite the inherent interconnections between the fields, psychology and linguistics "divorced" for a period of several decades.
  

3⃣️     Later Psycholinguistics
By the early 1950s, psychologists and linguists became interested in talking to one another.

The second period of interdisciplinary psycholinguistics really took hold in the late 1950s, beginning with the emergence of the linguistic Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is generally regarded as the most influential figure in 20th-century linguistics, and he also played a powerful role in how psychologists perceived language because he argued that the behaviorists' accounts of language were inadequate.( Chomsky, 1957, 1959).

The revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s emphasized the role of linguistic theory in psycholinguistic research and the role of innate mechanisms in language acquisition. These themes continue to be influential, but there are indications that psychological interest in linguistic theory has waned.

Reber(1987) points out the growing realization that the two fields were quite distinct in their methodologies.

• Rationalism: emphasize the role of innate factors in human behavior(emphasize the use of argument)----linguists
• Empiricism: stress the role of experience in behavior(favor the collection of data as a mean for evaluating hypotheses. -----psycholinguist

4⃣️      Current Directions

• early psycholinguistics primarily focused on syntax
  more recently   on phonology semantics pragmatics
• early            on language comprehension
  recently      on language production
  
• considerable interest in the brain mechanisms associated with language
• application of psycholinguistic principles that are useful to society
  

Summary

The history of psycholinguistics can be divided into two periods of interdisciplinary activity separated by several decades of behaviorism.

The first period was dominated by Wundt, who presented a cognitive view of language. The behaviorist position later held that verbal behavior can be explained in terms of environmental contingencies of reinforcement and punishment. This view was criticized by Chomsky, leading to a second wave of psycholinguistic activity. This period was characterized by an effort to incorporate linguistic theory in psychological research as well as by the view that innate linguistic mechanism are necessary to explain child language acquisition.

笔记 新编心理语言学 第二章 桂诗春

随笔记 第二章 语言的生物和生理基础

1 语言进化论

• 达尔文的《物种起源》（1859）发表不久，比较语言学家Schleicher就写了《达尔文学说与语言学》（1863），企图将进化论的学说应用到研究语言的起源和发展。但更有指导意义的是恩格斯的《劳动在猿到人转变过程中的作用》（1876）。在这篇文献中，恩格斯运用辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义的基本原理来考察人类起源问题，而且提出一个超出达尔文进化论的命题：“劳动创造人本身。”（语言是从劳动中并和劳动一起产生出来的）
• 神经生理学家Smith（1985）认为语言和意识在人类进化史上一起产生，意识可以理解为一个按规则操纵以符合码为形式的信息的心理能力的发展。根据其推断，语言是在Mousterian文化的后期（约10万年前）开始产生。
  
  1.1 人类发音器官的专门化
  
• 人类的发音器官和其它动物的发音器官有不少相同之处，功能也大体一样。但人类的发音器官的主要特点是恩格斯所说的：“发出一个个清晰的音节。”这些有限的音节可以搭配成无数的声音组合，使语言成为人类独有的符号系统。（人类的发音器官是长期进化的结果，和劳动与直立分不开）
  
  1.2 人类语言能力的发展
  
• 成为人类的物种属性而被遗传下来的不单是发音器官，而且还有语言能力。关于语言能力是否为人类独有需从以下两个方面考虑：第一，看看儿童在没有任何语言输入的情况下，是否能够依靠本身天生的能力创造某种语言系统？第二，能否教一些大脑缺乏语言专门化功能的物种（如猿类）学会人类的语言？
  

2 语言能力的遗传性

• 环境决定论：语言能力完全是后天的，是环境作用的结果。（解释不了为什么和人类生活在同一世界的其它动物不能习得语言）
• 天生论：语言能力完全是天生的（解释不了为什么离开人群的儿童学不到语言）
• 相互作用论：小孩子生下来不一定具有某种语法／语音／语义的范畴和规则，但是他却具有某种组织经验的潜在能力，以发现、了解和产生符号，并用于交际。这种潜在能力是天生的，但只有在和环境的相互作用中才能得到发挥。
  

3 大脑和语言

• 美国人Edwin Smith在1862年曾经获得了一份古埃及人的文稿，上面提到大脑损伤的后果，这份纸卷的有些部分是关于公元前3000年的。它提到48个个案，其中一个个案说言语能力的丧失可能和头部外伤有关。这很可能是历史上第一次提到失语症。
• 古希腊Hippocratic学派的学者注意到脑部损伤会引起对侧瘫痪。
• 18c 差不多所有语言紊乱的现象都被人注意到了。
• 真正从临床解剖学的角度观察的是19c的法国人Broca。1863年的巴黎人类学会的第一次会议上宣布他的发现：一个大脑第3左额回受到损害的病人丧生了说话能力，因此大脑的这个区域（后成为布罗卡区，而这种病呗称为布罗卡失语症）应该就是“言语中枢”。（神经生理学和解剖学的发展证实了Broca的说法，而且揭示了更多的事实）
• 1874年，德国人Wernicke又发现了大脑后第3颞上回如果受到损害，得病的人不容易理解口语和一些书面语。这个区域也就叫做韦尼克区。
  
  从此失语症的研究吸引了许多医生、心理学家和生理学家的注意。但大家的出发点往往不一样，研究方面也不一样。靠观察失语症来研究言语的神经学很容易忽略心理功能和生理功能的关系，因此有科学家主张建立独立的言语神经心理学，简称神经心理学。
  
  神经语言学是脑科学、行为科学、临床科学的综合。现代的科学技术使得更准确的了解大脑的语言区: EEG, CAT, PET, MRI。CAT和MRI扫描可以提供大脑解剖的精细图像，PET扫描没那么细致，但可以显示人们在做各种作业时大脑的那些最活跃的部分。
  
  e.g.  1997年纽约的一家癌症研究中心的神经科学教授Joy Hirsch博士使用功能磁共振成相术fMRI来观察12个流利的双语使用者，6个是从小就学双语，而另六个是青少年时才学第二语言。每个受试都在fMRI扫描仪前使用第二语言无声地独白前一天发生的事情。实验者不让受试发出声音，因为一发音头部就会轻微活动，使图像模糊。图像显示两类受试不会因为习得年龄不同而在韦尼克区里呈现差异；但对布罗卡区的扫描却呈现另一种图景，青少年才学第二语言的受试的母语和第二语言在布罗卡内处于不同的位置。（即当他么用母语和用第二语言思维时牵动的是不同的区域。）
  
  Hirsch认为，这说明幼儿学话时使用了各种能力（包括听、视、接触和运动），而且这些能力都输入到像布罗卡区那样的硬件线路里。当布罗卡区里的细胞调节到适合一种或两种语言后，便稳定下来。所以幼儿同时学习两种语言时，这两种语言都交错地受制于同一区域。但到中学才开始学习另一种语言的青少年却必须在布罗卡区已经调节到适应母语的情况下去习得另一种语言的复杂的语音系统，所以就困难多了。但是管辖简单语义关系的韦尼克区却可以重叠。
  
  3.1 运动皮质
  
• 覆盖在大脑表面的是一层灰质，它是以数以百万计的、可接受和传送电脉冲的神经细胞组成。在这些大脑皮质中，有的皮质是人生下来以后就专司某种功能的，像运动皮质。运动皮质通过肌肉控制人体各部分的运动。器官越大就意味着控制该器官的运动皮质的比例越大。
  
  3.2 大脑的结构：左半球
  
• 动物的神经系统一般是两半相对称，但是人类的神经系统（包括其结构和功能）却出现两半不对称的现象。
• 大脑的左半球后部的布罗卡区和邻近的45区通常被人称为言语中枢。（因为对于使用右手和大部分使用左手的人来说，左半球都是专司语言功能的）。
  传统看法：布罗卡失语症导致言语产生的缺陷，而韦尼克失语症导致言语理解的缺陷。
  
  3.3 大脑的结构：右半球
  
• 大脑两半球是由一种叫做胼胝体的神经纤维束连结起来的。 
• 正常情况下，人们在了解和产生语言时是大脑左右两个半球互相协调。虽然左半球专管语言，但右半球也不是全无作用，只是程度上有所不同。
  
  3.4 两个半球间的功能定位
  略
  
  3.5 语言习得的临界期
  
• 根据Penfield和Milner等人的调查，青春期以前的儿童似乎有一种“转换机制”，如果他们左半球言语中枢受到损害，言语中枢就会转换到右半球，不过要从头再学话。（临界期）
• 对临界期的假设提出异议：Dennis和Whitaker（1978）回顾1968年至1977年有关早期头颅损伤导致失语症的临床报告，得出这样的结论：左半球是专司语言功能的，失语症患者的年龄越大，恢复语言能力就越感困难，这确实是事实。但是这不足以证明青春期就是语言习得的临界期，或是有什么“转换机制”。（4.5岁的儿童，如果他们的左半球受到损害，也会出现语言障碍。）
• Seliger提出一种所谓多种临界期的假说：各种语言能力各自有本身的临界期，它可以连接或重叠。
  
  关于大脑和语言的关系研究还在深入。用Slobin的话来归纳：人类的语言能力具有专门的神经基础；人类的语言能力在某种程度上说是一种遗传的潜能；人类的语言能力是按照某种生物发展的时间表趋向成熟的。

4 语言和智力

• 对待语言和智力的关系上，有几种相反观点：
  
  语言能力无非是智力的反映。智力的不断提高为语言发展铺平道路；
  
  人类智力是语言发展的结果。语言能力比近代人类的智力发展过程还要古老；
  
  以Lenneberg为代表的神经语言学家则提出另外观点：语言能力是相对独立于智力以外的一种生物发展。（理据：儿童习得语言时其智力尚不发达，而且习得语言的能力和智力商数之间没有明显的相互关系；缺乏语言能力不一定意味着智力低下；身体和大脑的重量比率问题）

5 大脑和认知

          5.1 认知的发展

• 人类                    符号性（不对称、新皮质）－－－－ 个体发育
  
  新哺乳动物         代表性（新皮质）－－－－－－－－
  旧哺乳动物         表征性（边缘系统）－－－－－－－ 系统发育
  爬虫                     感觉－肌动（次皮质）－－－－－－
  
  5.2 神经系统
  
  根据Sejnowski和Churchland(1989)的描述，从结构上看，人类大脑的神经系统由几个部分组成－－－分子、突触、神经元、网络、层面、拓扑图、系统。
  
  5.3 信息的神经表征
  
  神经元之间的联系是通过提高别的神经元的激活水平（兴奋）或降低其激活水平（抑制）进行的。神经元之间的交往可以同时进行，这种平行主义的概念导致了连接主义模型的诞生。
  
  5.4 连接主义模型
  
  心理语言学研究中的连接主义模型正是根据信息的神经表征特点而提出的。在分布式的连接主义模型里，基本处理单元和一个抽象的神经元相似。Rumelhart（1989）认为一个连接主义模型应包括7个部分：
• 一套处理单元；
• 激活状态；
  单元的输出；
• 连接的形式；
• 激活规则；
• 把连接形式作为经验函数而修改；
• 环境的表征。

My notes for Semantics second edition John I. Saeed

Notes taken From page 1-30 and 53-63

Ch. 1 Semantics in Linguistics

Semantics and Semiotics:

Semiotics:

• The process of creating and interpreting symbols, sometimes called signification, is far wider than language. Scholars like Ferdinand de Saussure(1974) have stressed that the study of linguistic meaning is a part of this general study of the use of sign systems, and this general study is called Semiotics.
• Semioticians investigate the types of relationship that may hold between a sign and the object it represents, or, in de Saussure's terminology, between a signifier and its signified.
• One basic distinction, due to C. S. Pierce, is between icon, index and symbols.
  
  Icon: similarity between a sign and the object it represents, as for example between a portrait and its real-life subject & a diagram of an engine and the real engine.
  Index: the sign is closely associated with its signified, often in a causal relationship; smoke is an index of fire.
  Symbol: a conventional link between the sign and its signified.(black clothes mourning)

Semantics: concentrate on linguistic meaning(language represents man's most sophisticated use of signs).

Three challenges in doing Semantics:

• circularity; 
• how to make sure that our definitions of a word's meaning are exact(the question of whether linguistic knowledge is different from general knowledge) ;
  linguistic knowledge: about the meaning of words
  general knowledge: about the way the world is
• what particular utterances mean in context.
  
  cope with the problem of circularity, one solution is to design a semantic metalanguage with which to describe the semantic units and rules of all languages. We use metalanguage here with its usual meaning in linguistics: the tool of description. An ideal metalanguage would be neutral with respect to any natural languages, i.e. would not  be unconsciously biased towards English, French, etc. Moreover it should satisfy scientific criteria of clarity, economy, consistency, etc.
  
  To set up a metalanguage might help too with the problem of relating semantic and encyclopaedic knowledge.
  
  In tackling the third problem, one traditional solution has been to assume a split in an expression's meaning between the local contextual effects and a context-free element of meaning, which we call conventional or literal meaning.
• Each of these strategies will be investigated in later chapters of this book: the creation of semantic metalanguage, the modelling of conceptual knowledge, the theory of literal language, and factoring out context into pragmatics.

Semantics in a Model of Grammar:

For many linguistics the aim of doing semantics is to set up a component of the grammar which will parallel other components like syntax or phonology.

What kind of module is semantics?

The answer varies from theory to theory. The real problem is that units at all linguistic levels serve as part of the general enterprise: to communicate meaning. This means that in at least one sense, meaning is a product of all linguistic levels. Changing one phoneme for another, one verb ending for another, or one word order for another will produce differences of meaning. This view leads some writers to believe that meaning cannot be identified as a separate level, autonomous from the study of other levels of grammar. A strong version of this view is associated with the theory known as cognitive grammar, advocated by linguistics such as Ronald Langacker.

Word meaning and sentence meaning:

We call the mental store of these words a lexicon, making an overt parallel with the list of words and meanings published as dictionaries. (lexicon: not static, continually learning and forgetting words)

Phrases and sentences also have meaning, but an important difference between word meaning and phrase and sentence meaning-----productivity.

CHOMSKY generative grammar  --- recursive in syntax

This insight has implications for semantic description. If a speaker can make up novel sentences and these sentences are understood, then they obey the semantic rules of the language. So the meanings of sentences cannot be listed in a lexicon like the meaning of words: they must be created by rules of combination too. Semanticists often describe this by saying that sentence meaning is compostitional. This term means that the meaning of an expression is determined by the meaning of its component parts and the way in which they are combined.

We see that meaning is in two places, so to speak, in a model of grammar: a more stable body of word meanings in the lexicon, and the limitless composed meanings of sentences.

Some important assumptions

Reference and sense:  One important point made by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure(1974), whose ideas have been so influential in the development of modern linguistics, is that the meaning of linguistic expressions derives from two sources: the language they are part of and the world they describe.

• The relationship by which language hooks onto the world is usually called reference.
• The semantic links between elements within the vocabulary system are an aspect of their sense, or meaning.

Each oval is a word, having its own capacity for reference, but each is also linked to other words in the same language, like a cell in a network. The meaning of a word derives both from what it can be used to refer to and from the way its semantic scope is defined by related words.

(to be continued...)

Utterance, sentences and propositions

The most concrete is utterance; an utterance is created by speaking(or writing) a piece of language.

Sentences are abstract grammatical elements obtained from utterances.

Proposition: a description of an event or situation which might be shared element in different sentences.

To sum up, utterances are real pieces of speech. By filtering out certain types of(especially phonetic) information we can get to abstract grammatical elements, sentences. By going on to filter out certain types of grammatical information, we get to propositions, which are descriptions of states of affairs and which some writers see as a basic element of sentence meaning.

Literal and non-literal meaning 

The basic distinction: distinguishing between instances where the speaker speaks in a neutral, factually accurate way, and instances where the speaker deliberately describes something in untrue or impossible terms in order to achieve special effects.

Non-literal uses of language are called figurative and are described by a host of rhetorical terms including metaphor, irony, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole and litotes.

Semantics and pragmatics

Morris:

syntax: the formal relation of signs to each other;
semantics: the relations of signs to which they denotes;
pragmatics: the relations of signs to their users and interpreters.

Carnap:

meaning described in relation to speakers and hearers  =  pragmatics
meaning abstracted away from users                                 =  semantics


Some semanticists would claim that there is some element of meaning common to all of these uses and that this common, non-situation-specific meaning is what semantics is concerned with. On the other hand, the range of uses a sentence can be put to, depending on context, would be the object of study for pragmatics.

One way of talking about this is to distinguish between sentence meaning(semantics) and speaker meaning(pragmatics).




Ch. 2 Meaning, Thought and Reality

In semantics the action of picking out or identifying with words is often called referring or denoting. The entity referred to is usually called the referent. For some writers, denote is used for the relationship between a linguistic expression and the world, while refer is used for the action of a speaker in picking out entities in the world.

e.g. If a say A sparrow flew into the  room, I am using the two noun phrases a sparrow and the room to refer to things in the world, while the nouns sparrow and room denote certain classes of items.

 In other words, referring is what speakers do,while denoting is a property of words.
Another difference which follows from these definitions is that denotation is a stable relationship in a language which is not dependent on any use of a word. Reference, on the other hand, is a moment-by-moment relationship: what entity somebody refers to by using the word sparrow depends on the context.

Two approaches in semantics:

Referential approach: when their basic premise is that we can give the meaning of words and sentences by showing how they relate to situations.

Representational approach: when their emphasis is on the way that our reports about reality are influenced by the conceptual structures conventionalized in our language.

Two approaches are focusing on different aspects of the same process: talking about the world. In referential theories, meaning derives from language being attached to, or grounded in, reality. In representational approaches meaning derives from language being a reflection of our conceptual structures.

Types of Reference

Referring and non-referring expressions: There are linguistic expressions which can never be used to refer, e.g. if, not. These words do of course contribute meaning to the sentences they occur in and thus help sentences denote, but they do not themselves identify entities in the world. We will say these are intrinsically non-referring items. By contrast, nouns is a referring expression since it is being used to identify an entity. So nouns are potentially referring expressions. The second use of the distinction referring/non-referring concerns potentially referring elements like nouns: it distinguishes between instances when speakers use them to refer and instances when they do not.

Constant versus variable reference: One difference among referring expressions becomes clear when we look at how they are used across a range of different utterances. Some expressions will have the same referent across a range of utterances(constant ~), others have their reference totally dependent on context(variable ~).

Referents and extensions: We use the term referent of an expression for the thing picked out by uttering the expression in a particular context. The term extension of an expression is the set of things which could possibly the referent of that expression. So the extension of the word toad is the set of all toads.

Names

Names are definite in that they carry the speaker's assumption that her audience can identify the referent.

Description theory: a name is taken as a label or shorthand for knowledge about the referent, or in the terminology of philosophers, for one or more definite descriptions. In this theory understanding a name and identifying the referent are both dependent on associating the name with the right description.

Causal theory: names are socially inherited, or borrowed. At some original point, or points, a name is given, let us say to a person, perhaps in a formal ceremony. The great advantage of this causal theory is that it recognizes that speakers may use names with very little knowledge of the referent.

The causal theory stresses the role of social knowledge in the use of names, the description theory emphasizes the role of identifying knowledge.

Nouns and noun phrases

Nouns and noun phrases can be used to refer: indefinite and definite NPs can operate like names to pick out an individual.

Reference as a theory of meaning

...to be continued....


Ch. 3 Word meaning

P. 53-71

In this chapter we turn to the study of word meaning, or lexical semantics.

The traditional descriptive aims of the study of word meaning, or lexical semantics:

to represent the meaning of each word in the language;

to show how the meanings of words in a language are interrelated.

Words and Grammatical Categories

It is clear that grammatical categories like noun, preposition etc., though defined in modern linguistics at the level of syntax and morphology, do reflect semantic differences: different categories of words must be given different semantic description. It seems that semantic links will tend to hold between members of the same group rather than across groups.

Words and lexical items

Words can be identified at the level of writing, where we are familiar with them being separated by white space, where we can call them orthographic words.

They can also be defined at the levels of phonology, where they are strings of sounds which may show internal structuring, which does not occur outside the word, and syntax, where the same semantic word can be represented by several grammatically distinct variants.

Bloomfield's definition about "word" : A word, then, is a free form which does not consist entirely of (two or more) lesser free forms; in brief, a word is a minimum free form.

Lyons(1968) 's idea for how to define words grammatically: the attachments between elements within a word will be firmer than the attachments between words themselves.

more details: https://prezi.com/u5xcbizr9x6i/definition-of-the-word-and-lexeme-and-its-relation-lexical/


Lexical Relations:

Homonymy: Homonoyms are unrelated senses of the same phonological word. Some authors distinguish between homographs, senses of the same written word, and homophones, senses of the same spoken word.

Polysemy: There is a traditional distinction made in lexicology between homonymy and polysemy. Both deal with multiple senses of the same phonological word, but polysemy is invoked if the senses are judged to be related.

• Polysemous senses are listed under the same lexical entry, while homonymous senses are given separate entries.

Synonymy: are different phonological words which have the same or very similar meanings.

Opposites(antonymy): are words which are opposite in meaning.

• complementary pairs(binary pairs): the negative of one implies the positive of the other.(dead, alive)
• gradable antonyms: where the positive of one term does not necessarily imply the negative of the other.(hot, cold)
• Reverses: where one term describes movement in one direction, and the other the same movement in the opposite direction(push/pull)
• Converses: a relation between two entities from alternative viewpoints, as in the pairs(employer/ employee)
• Taxonomic sisters: words which are at the same level in a taxonomy.(red, orange, yellow, green, blue)

Hyponymy: a relation of inclusion. A hyponym includes the meaning of a more general word. The more general term is called the superordinate or hypernym.

Meronymy: a part- whole relationship between lexical items.

Member-collection: the word for a unit and the usual word for a collection of the units.(tree/forest; book/library)

Portion-mass: the relation between a mass noun and the usual unit of measurement or division.(drop of liquid/ grain of sand)