Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of English

Introduction to Linguistics

Fall 2004

Week 4: Singleton, Chapter 1 -Answers

1. According to Singleton, what is the main building block of language and how does he support this idea?

The point that Singleton seeks to make in this chapter is that words seem to be the building blocks of language. He supports his claim by citing evidence both from linguistics and that is going to be what really makes up the rest of the book and basically from what people on the street think. Singleton cites a wide range of various evidence both from past and present information from a wide range of different languages all of which seem to equate words with language. This is not an idea that is to be quickly dismissed because this view is not held by trained experts. The fact that words are perceived intuitively as the building blocks of language is extremely important. This means that there is some psychological reality to the word as a linguistic unit. If we take this further we can see that without any problem the average person seems to be able to identify words into utterances both written and spoken. This means that we don't really need any special training to be able to perceive of these words. A simple example would be a case in which is somebody utters an utterance and asked the person to count or tally the words in the utterance this really wouldn't be a problem for most people. In the case of written language it would provide even easier. The main point is that words still intact seem to be building blocks of language and there is intuitive proof that this is true.

2. What is the biggest problem in trying to define the notion of word?

Upon first thought we probably actually think we know what words are, but when asked to define what words really are a think that we all run into trouble. Even linguists have not been able to come up with a clear definition of the word. Words are to tricky entities at best. The biggest problem and try to define a word is trying to find the boundaries and either side of the word which separate one word for another word. This is difficult for many reasons from the most important of which might be grammatical. In languages that have complex morphology as Korean English do it is often hard to tell where word begins and where word and because of morphological attachments. If we try to find a phonetic way of solving this by looking at elements of pronunciation, more specifically boundaries, we find again tremendous difficulty. Speakers do not pause at word boundaries. Speakers pause at thought grouping or phrase boundaries. This means that words often blend together and some words are hardly ever pronounced at all, yet we somehow find a way of perceiving them. Another problem and we talked about this in class is about languages like Spanish which have stems in their verbal systems but the stems are never actually produced.

Infinitive hablar

1st Sing. Pres. hablo

2nd Sing. Pres. hablas

3rd Sing. Pres. habla

1st Plur. Pres. hablamos

2nd Plur. Pres. hablais

3rd Plur. Pres. hablan

In such cases is not at all clear if these make up one word or several words.

In addition there also languages called polysynthetic languages many of which occur in South America. In these languages morphemes are hooked together to form complex utterances and not necessarily what we would call words.

Following this it should be clear that it is not at all clear what words really are. Was really interesting is that despite the fact we can't define words people still seem to have concepts in their heads about words.

3. What are some of the ways in which words may be defined? Which of these do you think is the best way?

If we look at what Singleton claims in this chapter is quite straightforward. Words can really only be defined by looking at all different aspects of linguistic structure in addition to meaning and that includes pragmatic meaning. So we can look at and try to define words by looking specifically at phonetic features or phonological systems, grammatical systems, which would include morphology and syntax, and semantic systems, which are basically systems of word meaning, but none of these alone works. In addition to those mentioned just there we would also need to include contextual features which are often included as part of pragmatics. So words it seems are quite complex little units which really do form the collection point for all these different types of information both linguistic and extralinguistic.

4. What is the domain (or extent) of the lexicon?

If the mental lexicon is a list of words as Chomsky and his followers often claim it to be and words necessarily involve all these different types of information which Singleton has just pointed out then the domain of the lexicon is going to be very large. In fact the mental lexicon is going to be the central point of all language because it is going to have to contain information about all different elements of language, with the possible exception of UG. This is the basic viewpoint of Singleton. It is not the view of Chomsky and many of his followers who believe that lexicon is simply a storehouse of idiosyncratic information. This view is based on the belief that the systems of language in our brain need to be as streamlined and efficient and simple as possible. Simplicity and efficiency is one of the elements of Chomsky lists in the design of a proper linguistic model. It is not clear exactly why this would be so important especially when we know that the brain is neither simple nor efficient in the way it functions. For Chomsky UG is the center or the core of language is going to see very soon and everything else is the periphery and for him the periphery is not important. For Singleton the model is quite the opposite. Singleton sees the mental lexicon is the central core or the grand organizer and the other things, all the other things extend out from the central core with strong connections to it and through it.