contact details dr nicola mclelland nicola.mclelland@nottingham. ac.uk tel. 0115 951 5822...

Contact details

Dr Nicola McLelland

Nicola.mclelland@nottingham.ac.uk

Tel. 0115 951 5822

Consultation hours

Introduction to linguistics – The sounds of German

R21118

Dr Nicola McLelland

Sounds

Words

Sentence

Context

Levels of linguistic analysis

Sounds

Words

Sentence

Context

phonetics

phonology

the lexicon: lexis

word-shape: morphology

word-meaning: semantics

syntax

Pragmatics

Discourse analysis

Levels of linguistic analysis

First … what we won’t cover here …

The middle and bottom of the pyramid

semantics

morphology

syntax

pragmatics

discourse analysis

Sounds

Words

Sentence

Context

The bottom of the pyramid …

Language in context

1.Pragmatics – the study of meaning in context

- Können Sie das Fenster aufmachen?

- Ja. (no accompaning action!)

The bottom of the pyramid …

Language in context

1. Pragmatics – the study of meaning in context

- Können Sie das Fenster aufmachen?

- Ja. (no accompaning action!)

Or, recognizing the speech act, a request:

- Ja, gerne. (opens window)

Language in context

2. Discourse analysis

- Turn-taking and other “unwritten rules” in conversations

- The structure of written texts

(NB “discourse” has a different meaning in linguistics to that in cultural theory!)

The centre of the pyramid: words and sentences

the lexicon: lexis

word-shape: morphology

word-meaning: semantics

Words

Lexis is ….

the vocabulary of a language

-The aspect of the language where change is most noticeable to speakers themselves

Language contact

and new lexisBorrowing

•der Reseller

•Billing

•Das IT-Team

Language contact

and new lexisLoan translation

• Telekommunikationsbranche (cf. “telecomms. industry”)

Loan creation

• Führungsaufgabe

(cf. “management role”)

“Man sagt, dass die Deutschen viel arbeiten, aber der durchschnittliche Brite hat im Jahre 2004 drei Stunden länger gearbeitet als sein deutscher Kollege.”

What is a word?

How many words here?

“Man sagt, dass die Deutschen viel arbeiten, aber der durschnittliche Brite hat im Jahre 2004 drei Stunden länger gearbeitet als sein deutscher Kollege.”

23 words?

“Man sagt, dass die Deutschen viel arbeiten, aber der durschnittliche Brite hat im Jahre 2004 drei Stunden länger gearbeitet als sein deutscher Kollege.”

Two different words? Or one word in two different forms?

“Man sagt, dass die Deutschen viel arbeiten, aber der durschnittliche Brite hat im Jahre 2004 drei Stunden länger gearbeitet als sein deutscher Kollege.”

What about Deutschen and deutscher?

Adjective and noun ….

The problem ….

“word” is too vague to be a useful word in linguistics!

Wen hat die Studentin gestern gesehen?

The solution: lexemes

Lexis:

the vocabulary of a language

6 lexemes:

wer

haben

der/die/das

studentin

gestern

sehen

The solution:

1 lexeme ………

Wer

Haben

Sehen …?

Many word-forms

wer, wen, wem, wessen

haben, habe, hast, hat, habt, gehabt, hatte, etc.

Lexeme

sehen

Word-forms

sehe, siehst, sieht, seht, sehen, sah, sahst, sahen, […] gesehen

Looking at the word-forms …

How can we analyse these different word-

forms?

Word-forms

sehe, siehst, sieht, seht, sehen, sah, sahst, sahen, […] gesehen

We need a unit of analysis smaller than a word …..

We need a unit of analysis smaller than a word …..

Introducing ….

We need a unit of analysis smaller than a word …..

Introducing …. the morpheme!

A morpheme is ….The smallest unit of language that carries meaning

(“die kleinste bedeutungstragende Einheit”)

Studentin = Student+in 2 morphemes

Gestern = gestern 1 morpheme

Gesehen = ge+seh+en 3 morphemes (or 2?)

Morphology is ….

the study of word structure

It examines the internal structure of words.

Morphology of the job ad.

Führungsaufgabe bei Telekommunikationsunternehmen

How many morphemes here?

Morphology of the job ad.

führ + ung + s + auf + gab + e + bei + tele + kommunik + ation + s

+ unter + nehm + en

How many morphemes here?

Wen hat die Studentin gestern gesehen?

Student+ingestern

ge+seh+en

You can probably tell that there are different kinds of morphemes!

Word meaning … semantics

Concept

+ man-made+ glass+ light source

Linguistic sign

light bulbGlühbirne

Referent

Words …

•Lexis

•Morphology

•Semantics

Now on to sentences …

Syntax is the study of sentence structure

Jutta trinkt einen Tee im Café mit ihrem Freund

Now on to sentences …

Syntax is the study of sentence structure

Jutta trinkt einen Tee im Café mit ihrem Freund

OR …

Einen Tee trinkt Jutta im Café mit ihrem Freund

3 approaches to sentence structure

1.We can note the order the words come in

e.g. Jutta trinkt einen Tee mit ihrem Freund

“Canonical word order”: SVO

1. Rules about word order …

We can contrast the word order in different types of clauses

e.g. Sie kommt nicht zum Seminar, weil sie immer noch im Café sitzt.

Main clause: V2 (verb second)

Dependent clause: V-last (verb comes last)

1. Rules about word order …

1.…. We can state rules about the position of nicht, about the order of objects, etc.

e.g. *Nicht sie kommt zum Seminar, weil sie immer noch im Café sitzt.

e.g. Sie schenkt ihrem Mann ein Buch.

Sie schenkte es ihm.

*Sie schenkte ihm es.

1. Rules about word order …

… the order of objects:

e.g. Sie schenkt ihrem Mann ein Buch.

Sie schenkte es ihm.

*Sie schenkte ihm es.

…. What’s the rule?

1. Rules about word order …

…. the order of objects:

e.g. Sie schenkt ihrem Mann ein Buch.

Sie schenkte es ihm / ihrem Mann.

*Sie schenkte ihm es.

…. Normally animate object precedes inanimate. But an accusative pronoun object must come first.

1. Rules about word order …

Problem: useful rules for learners, but they don’t tell us much about the structure of the sentence, or why some constructions are ungrammatical

…Other, more theoretical approaches:

Look at word groups and how they fit together:

2. Valency grammar (esp. in Germany)

3. grammar (esp. in Anglo-Saxon tradition)

2. Valency grammar

Cf. chemistry …!

(where the valency of an element tells you how many atoms of it are needed to form a compound)

2. Valency grammar

In grammar, the valency of a verb tells us what construction it requires to be grammatical.

e.g. Sie schenkte ihrem Mann ein Buch

*Sie schenkte

*Sie schenkte ihrem Mann

2. Valency grammar …

e.g. Sie schenkte ihrem Mann ein Buch

Schenken needs:

A subject sie

A direct object ein Buch

An indirect object ihrem Mann

2. Valency grammar …

Compare:

Sie traf ihren Freund.

Treffen needs two elements:

A subject sie

A direct object ihren Freund

2. Valency grammar …

Valency also allows us to make useful contrasts between German and English

e.g. He followed me.

One element, a direct object.

Er folgte mir.

One element, an indirect object.

A subject meine Schwester

e.g. Der Junge spielte mit dem Ball.

S

NP VP

D N V PP

P NP

D N

Der Junge spielte mit dem Ball

3. Generative grammar …

3. Generative grammar …

S = Sentence

NP = Noun phrase

VP = Verb phrase

PP = Prepositional phrase

D = Determiner

N = Noun, V = Verb, D = Determiner

P = Prepostion

3. Generative grammar …

Syntactic trees like this make the internal structure of the sentence clearer –

e.g. they reflect our sense that mit dem Ball is more closely tied to spielte than it is to der Junge

3. Generative grammar …

… tries to generate tree structures like this using rules that reflect what native speakers just “know” intuitively

… rules that produce all possible grammatical sentences, no ungrammatical ones

… easier said than done!

And finally … applying the theory

… Applied linguistics

Speech therapy

Speech synthesis and recognition

Lexicography

Translation

… and foreign language learning

Applied linguistics:

language acquisition… the process by which learners acquire

a second language

- Stages which all learners progress through

- Typical error patterns

a better understanding of your

own learning …. More later!

Back to the top of the pyramid …

Phonetics and Phonology

Phonology is …

studying the sound system of languages, how sounds behave in languages

Das Rathaus ist rot und grün.

rot /ro:t/ (3 phonemes)

(transcription using the IPA, international phonetic alphabet)

Phonetics is …

the study of speech sounds

• how speech sounds are produced• their acoustics (sound waves)• how speech sounds are perceived

Acoustic phonetics

Das Rathaus ist rot …

= [Ro:t] or [ro:t] or ….!

[R] uvular trill 2 allophones of the[r] alveolar trill phoneme /r/

(Another example: Contrast German l and English velarized l in hell)

Phonology

The phoneme: the smallest unit of meaning that distinguishes meaning (die kleinste bedeutungunterscheidende Einheit)

(morpheme – die kleinste bedeutungstragende Einheit)!

Phonological rules

Regular processes that can be expressed as “rules” (often using formal notation, a bit like in mathematics)

Phonological rules …

What’s the regular process behind the fact that these words all sound as if they end in a /p, t, k/ (and not the sounds b, d, g as the spelling suggests?

Bund, fand, Hand, Mund, Grab, Schub, ab, trug, schlug, arg …

Auslautverhärtung

Lit. hardening of the final sound (der Auslaut)

“hardening” = devoicing

Applies to all voiced stops at the end of a syllable in German (not just end of a word – cf. abholen)

Minimal pairs

Which of these pairs are minimal pairs in German? (ie. They differ only by one crucial phoneme)

Hand / Land, Sank / Sang, rot / Boot

Kennen / können, Saal / soll, mehr / Mauer

Bad / bat, Friede / Friese, frische / mische

Ei / Eier, Fuß / Kuss, Schuh / Kuh

Which phonemes can we identify from the minimal pairs, then?

Minimal pairs

Hand / Land, Sank / Sang, rot / Boot

Kennen / können, Saal / soll, mehr / Mauer

Bad / bat, Friede / Friese, frische mische

Ei / Eier, Fuß / Kuss, Schuh / Kuh

Which phonemes can we identify from the minimal pairs, then?

Minimal pairs

Hand / Land, Sank / Sang, rot / Boot

Kennen / können, Saal / soll, mehr / Mauer

Bad / bat, Friede / Friese, frische mische

Ei / Eier, Fuß / Kuss, Schuh / Kuh

Which phonemes can we identify from the minimal pairs, then?

Minimal pairs

Hand / Land, Sank / Sang, rot / Boot

Kennen / können, Saal / soll, mehr / Mauer

Bad / bat, Friede / Friese, frische mische

Ei / Eier, Fuß / Kuss, Schuh / Kuh

Which phonemes can we identify from the minimal pairs, then?

/h l k η (=eng) r b d z ∫ / and vowels including /œ ε α/

Notation

We’ve seen that letters do not give a good guide to actual sounds:

More than one letter = one sound (<sch, ng, th>)

One letter can represent different sounds in different contexts: <Bad, ich bade>, <gierig>

the International Phonetic Association notation (IPA)

So we use different notation to make it clear that we are talking about actual sounds (which may be spelled differently within a language and also in different languages):

The IPA script – see your handout

Some symbols are similar to ordinary spelling, which makes them easier to remember – but unlike letters, they always have the same sound value

Making it clear what we are talking about …

< b,d g>: these < > brackets tell us we are talking about spelling – graphemes (written sybmols) only

Making it clear what we are talking about …

/ b d g/ : the / / tell us that we are talking about phonemes, sounds that distinguish meaning in a language

[ bh ] : [ ] indicates phonetic transcription: we transcribe what we hear, in more or less detail (narrow vs. broad transcription), which may or may not be phonemic

(we may not know yet, if we are transcribing a language for the first time, or we may not care for our purposes anyway ….)

In this module …

We will mainly be learning to transcribe phonemes

But we will be talking about greater phonetic detail some of the time – e.g. when we talk about regional variation or when we are contrasting German and English “accents”

Why does any of this matter?

• It helps with our accent and to understand why others' accents are like they are

• It's just interesting anyway

• It helps us understand one of the universal things that makes us human: our language ability

• It's useful for speech synthesis: http://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/~spr/SVOX/svoxdemo/svoxdemo.html

Und jetzt:

Arbeitsblatt Woche 2