INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SYSTEM — allows us to string together individual sounds (e.g.

sounds represented by
Instructor: Ma’am Rhodora A. Bande letters d, o, and g) so that we can produce a meaningful combination (i.e., the
four-legged animal represented by the word dog) out of these sounds and
September 20, 2022 this lets us combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences; hence,
MODULE 1: The Nature of Human Language we achieve another level of meaning from the sounds and sound patterns of
a particular language (VSU EE)
Language makes us human. The sounds of a language help us create various words once
“According to the philosophy expressed in the myths and religions of combined together and it branches out from stringing sounds in
many peoples, it is language that is the source of human life and order to create words to variations in speaking the language, the
power. To some people of Africa, a newborn child is a kuntu, a dialect, that is accented and meant di erently for a di erent
“thing,”not yet a muntu, a “person”. Only by the act of learning does sociocultural group.
a child become a human being. Thus, according to this tradition, we
all become “human” because we all know at least one The /ng/ sound is used as a nal or middle sound in English but not
language." as an initial sound. If a native English speaker were to speak in
— An Introduction to Language by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Bisaya, they would have trouble pronouncing the words ngilngig,
and Nina Hayms (2018) ngitngit, nga, ngari, and ngadto. A native Bisaya speaker would also
immediately realize they don’t speak Bisaya well just by knowing that
Our world is lled with words. We use language to communicate with one they are pronouncing the words wrong.
another, to express our wants and needs and to show empathy and solidarity
towards others. It’s integral to our lives and in civilization as a whole. This Knowing a language also means knowing its words, phrases,
ability, i.e., the possession of language makes us unique from the rest of the and possible sentences. In other words, it means knowing the
“animal kingdom.” system that connects its sounds and meanings. Imagine a
person, who speaks a foreign language, all of a sudden asks you for
Linguistic Knowledge directions. Most likely, the sounds spoken to you will be di cult to
— refers to the things that one knows about a language including the comprehend. Since both of you do not speak each other’s language,
sounds, the sound patterns, the words, the phrases, the structures and rules, you both end up exasperated. To someone who doesn’t speak the
and the possible sentences one may produce in that language (VSU EE) other language, everything is just unintelligible gibberish. You don't
—grammar is constructed with information about each aspect of even know where one word starts and another ends. (VSU EE)
language, including knowledge of what belongs in one’s phonetic
(sound) inventory and what does not, an intrinsic ability to Linguistic knowledge allows us to put together strings of words to
understand the grammar of the language(s) the person uses and produce sentences and express ourselves, illustrating what
know(s) about along with stress patterns and homonyms (https:// language performance is. Thus, linguistic knowledge (what we
www.linguisticsnetwork.com/tutorials/what-is-linguistics/) know of the language) leads to linguistic performance (what we do
— intrinsically known since childhood; one learned their rst language in with the language).
an e ortless manner and they grow up already knowing the underlying rules
and sounds of the language Linguistic Performance
— some linguists also refer to this as linguistic competence (VSU EE) — what we do with language (VSU EE)
— we know a language when we know its sounds as well as its sound — how well the person uses their language and linguistic knowledge and
patterns and this is the one component of this linguistic skill (VSU EE) de ned by whether they exhibit grammatical or ungrammatical structures
(https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/tutorials/what-is-linguistics/)
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 A person can learn a new language little by little through consuming — involves knowing what to say in what circumstances and how to say it
media of that language. Because, without the knowledge of a to whom (Hymes, 1992) (VSU EE)
language, they cannot use it let alone speak it. Hymes explained that as a child matures and gains more experience
from the interactions with adults, they acquire knowledge about
There is this controversial theory of language created by Noam sentences, i.e., their grammaticality and appropriateness.
Chomsky, the most in uential nativist theorist in linguistics.
According to his book Syntactic Structures (1957), Chomsky A three-year-old does not have communicative competence since
proposes a novel idea that all humans may be born with an innate the child still has no knowledge on the dos and don’ts or the social
understanding of how language works and can easily acquire it, norms and rules during a conversation or in interacting with other
because humans are genetically encoded with a universal people. They will blurt out what they think about with no regards to
grammar — a basic understanding of how communication is consequences or public decency or to whoever they are talking to.
structured. This completely rejected the behaviourist theory that
children learn language due to external stimuli, imitating the It is expected that adolescents to adults have the necessary
adults around them. All of this is due to a hypothetical “tool” in the communicative competence to converse with other people.
brain he calls the Language Acquisition Device or LAD. (However, there are developmental disorders that bar a person’s
communicative competence. Autism and ADHD are developmental
The adding of modi ers or the production of more complex disorders that a ect an individual’s ability to process body language,
sentences becomes possible because we know the language. Of vocal tones, and social cues. To psychologists, it’s considered as a
course, there are limitations on our linguistic performance. Baker disability since it a ects a major part of that person’s life.)
and Hengeveld (2012) stressed that human memory is not capable
of producing very long sentences. Along the way, we are also likely October 4, 2022
to commit errors and produce sentences that are ungrammatical. • Media has a big hand in standardizing language.
The truth is, no matter how well we know a language, we are • Language should be passed down and preserved.
unlikely to produce awless and grammatical sentences all the • The foundation of the rst language should be strong and should not be
time. Hesitation and repetition are more likely to occur especially in discouraged. The rst language should not be taken away from us.
spoken language. (VSU EE) • Let the learning process of language be natural.
• At eight years old, children already display linguistic knowledge, linguistic
Communicative Competence performance, and communicative competence.
— intrinsically knowing and understanding the social cues and norms of
a language October 6, 2022–October 13, 2022
— knowledge of appropriate communicative behaviour (McCroskey, MODULE 2: Language and Grammar
1982) (VSU EE)
— the person has all the knowledge necessary to discern what is Grammar of a Language
acceptable and unacceptable in their language, mostly at a
subconscious level (https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/tutorials/what-is- As we learn a language, we also learn its sounds, words, and rules to
linguistics/) connect them together in order to form phrases and sentences (linguistic
— if a person has this, they can express themself e ectively and knowledge). These elements and rules (for the words, phrases and
appropriately (VSU EE) sentences) compose the grammar of a language.
— coined by Dell Hymes in the mid-1960s (Canale, M. 1983) (VSU EE) — A sentence is grammatical if it follows the rules and conventions
of a particular language.
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 — It is ungrammatical if it deviates from the established rules. the adjective "descriptive" is a bit misleading as descriptive grammar
provides an analysis and explanation of a language's grammar,
Every language has a grammar (Hagen, n.d.). From a linguistic perspective, not simply a description of it.
all languages are equal, i.e., no language or variety of a language is superior (https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-descriptive-
to any other (Fromkin and Rodman, 1983). Linguists argue that every grammar-1690439)
grammar is equally complex and capable of creating an in nite set of
sentences. Fromkin, et. al. (2018) argued that if an idea or concept can be Descriptive grammar dissects the language (the sentence structure,
expressed in one language, it can also be expressed in any other language or trends, slang, context of the usage) and how it is used by the
variety. They further added that this is also applicable to societies which are language users, without any judgements or perceived
considered technologically underdeveloped. They may not be updated to “ungrammatical” use of the language. The linguist approaches the
recent trends or have access to anything modern, but the grammars of these language as though they are a scientist cataloging the observations
languages are just as rich and complex compared to the grammars of made during their experiment: how does this language user use this
languages spoken in technologically advanced societies. term in their dialect? Why would the sentence structure change in
this particular circumstance? In terms of chemistry, it is akin to a
Descriptive Grammar chemist observing the nature of chemical reactions and the variables
— it does not tell how a particular word and sentence should be used and that factor in it that a ect those reactions.
stated but rather, describes what language users know about the sounds,
words, phrases, and sentences of their language and lays out the Prescriptive Grammar
grammatical rules of a language — suggests how grammar should or ought to be used instead of
— Fromkin and Rodman (1983) explained that when language specialists or objectively analyzing the grammar or language (merely prescribing what’s the
linguists describe a language, they try to depict the grammar according to “right” use of the language) and assigning what is wrong or right in how one
how it exists within the minds of the speakers; they try to describe how should use language
language users use the language — refers to a set of norms or rules governing how a language should or
— this is the study of the “why and how” of language, essentially serving as should not be used rather than describing the ways in which a language is
scienti c theories that attempt to explain how language works (Donald G. actually used
Ellis) — can be called as normative grammar and prescriptivism
Ellis admits that human beings were using language in a variety of A person who dictates how people should write or speak is called a
forms long before there were linguists using descriptive grammar prescriptivist or a prescriptive grammarian. These grammarians—
around to formulate any rules about how or why they were speaking such as most editors of non ction and teachers—do their darndest
as they did. to enforce the rules of “correct” and “incorrect” usage, almost similar
(https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-descriptive-grammar-1690439) to doctors who “‘prescribe,’ like medicine for what ails you, how you
— is a set of rules about language based on how it is actually used, with ‘ought’ to speak.” (Donald G. Ellis)
the notion that there is no right or wrong language — the traditional approach of grammar that tells people how to use the
(https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/descriptive-grammar) English language, what forms they should utilize, and what functions they
The term descriptive grammar refers to an objective, should serve (https://osuwritingcenter.okstate.edu/blog/2020/10/30/
nonjudgmental description of the grammatical constructions in a prescriptive-and-descriptive-grammar)
language. It's an examination of how a language is actually being According to linguists Ilse Depraetere and Chad Langford, "A
used, in writing and in speech. Linguists who specialize in descriptive prescriptive grammar is one that gives hard and fast rules about what
grammar examine the principles and patterns that underlie the is right (or grammatical) and what is wrong (or ungrammatical), often
use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. In that respect, with advice about what not to say but with little
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 explanation" (Advanced English Grammar: A Linguistic Approach, communicate. Thus, they have created a language out of it due to
2012). the need for survival.
— came into existence to preserve and standardize a language; this was
considered the “purist’s” language The Beginnings of Prescriptive Grammar
There is a group of grammarians advocating the retention of certain
features of a particular language. For them, there are certain correct Dionysius Thrax (170–90 BC)
forms which “educated” people should use in speaking and in — de ned grammar as “that which permits one to either speak or speak
writing. Any deviation from grammar rules is considered corruption about a language”
of the language. It is from this tradition that prescriptive grammars — rst to ever de ne “grammar”
for English came into being (Fromkin, et. al., 2018) (VSU EE) — author of the earliest grammatical text on the Greek language

This is how the English language is taught from elementary to senior Grammar can be used in two ways:
high school by English teachers. 1. The grammar that we have in our brains or our mental grammar (our
linguistic knowledge)
Pidgin 2. The description of this internalized grammar or the linguist’s
— or an auxiliary language is a simpli ed form of speech formed out of grammar
one or more existing languages and used as a lingua franca by people A linguist’s descriptive grammar is an attempt at a formal
who have no other language in common statement of a language user’s grammar and language. It’s a
— historically rich testament to human ingenuity, a natural evolution of perspective of an outsider studying the language, the
languages, and the need for communication language users, and the history of their language and writes
— if it becomes the native language of a speech community, it is regarded as a book or research study about them.
a creole
— not inferior to any other non-pidgin languages The language of the people in Capul, Northern Samar, is not a language that
“Pidgin is a language with no native speakers. It is sometimes can be considered a Waray dialect or categorized as a Visayan language.
regarded as a ‘reduced’ variety of a ‘normal’ language.” Instead, their language is similar to one Austronesian ethnic group and is only
— An Introduction to Sociolinguistics by Ronald Wardhaugh (2010) native to the island of Capul. Called Inakbaknon (or Abaknon, Abaknon
Sama, Capuleño, Kapul, or Capul Sinama), this language, according to
“At rst a pidgin language has no native speakers and is used just for folklore, started when a group of people led by tribal leader Abak did not like
doing business with others with whom one shares the pidgin the religion of the Moros who ruled them and ed to the island of Capul.
language and no other. In time, most pidgin languages disappear, as There they settled and bore the name of its founder as its tribe name,
the pidgin-speaking community develops, and one of its established Abaknon. The language has no linguistic relations to any Visayan or Luzon
languages becomes widely known and takes over the role of the languages and its linguistic roots can be traced back to when the native
pidgin as the lingua franca, or language of choice of those who do Capuleños intermarried with the Muslim travelers from Southern Mindanao.
not share a native language.”
— Essential Introductory Linguistics by Grover Hudson (2000) Prescriptivists from ancient times:
1. Greek Alexandrians in the third and second centuries BCE (The
People who are placed in a situation, with no means to speak Alexandrine grammarians in Hellenistic Alexandria)
properly and with no shared language to communicate with, will 2. Arabic Scholars in the eighth century (The grammarians of Baṣra in
adapt and make up words and phrases in order to express and Al-Baṣrah)
3. English grammarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
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 Semantically, you is both singular and plural, though syntactically, it
For purists or prescriptivists, language change is corruption and that there is always plural and “should” take a verb form.
are certain correct forms that all “educated” people should use in speaking 3. Subjective pronouns should follow “than” in comparative
and writing. These purists wished to prescribe the “proper” rules of constructions.
grammar which gave birth to prescriptive grammar. Subjective pronouns include: his, she, they, I, we.
These language puritans, mostly merchants and aristocrats, wanted Objective pronouns include: him, her, them, me, us.
their children to speak the Queen’s language. They considered the Suppose these two sentences need to combine:
Crown’s manner of speaking far superior than any manner of They are wealthy.
speaking of the English language (especially in regards to accented My parents are wealthier.
English, causing incidents of bigotry towards those language users).
In combining the two, the “are wealthy” of the rst sentence is
Before the publication of A Short Introduction to English Grammar with dropped given that it is implied they are wealthy, but not on the level
Critical Notes by Bishop Robert Lowth in 1762, everyone said and wrote like of wealthy of the speaker’s parents, and the subjective pronoun
this: “they” is retained. According to Bishop Lowth and standardized
I don’t have none. grammar, “they are wealthy” is more comprehensible than the
(A double negative) sentence “them are wealthy” (unless the speaker is of a di erent
You was wrong about that. dialect altogether, then it’s a di erent topic altogether). Thus, the
(Wrong linking verb used) sentence becomes:
Mathilda is fatter than me. My parents are wealthier than they.
(It should be “I”)
The “correct” way to construct this passage: Other examples can be seen here:
I don’t have it. James has the same accent as I.
You were wrong about that. (James has an accent. I have a similar accent.)
Mathilda is fatter than I.
They are younger than he.
Bishop Robert Lowth (He is young. They are younger.)
— an academic and Anglican bishop that created the rules of grammar in Everybody is happier than she.
English in his book A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical (Everybody is happy. She is not happy.)
Notes
— he based these rules from the Latin language but he readily modi ed The prescriptivists did not die out when Bishop Lowth was gone. In fact,
them to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of English Thomas R. Lounsbury, an American literary historian and critic born in the
1830s, wrote:
Some of the rules he devised: “There seems to have been in every period in the past, as there is
1. Two negatives do not make a positive. now, a distinct apprehension in the minds of very many worthy
Unlike math, they do not make a positive but only cause confusion in persons that the English tongue is always in the condition
the text. (However, di erent languages and the African American approaching collapse and that arduous e orts must be put forth to
Vernacular English or AAVE (and other dialects of English) use double save it from destruction.”
negatives as well.)
2. Even if you is singular, it should be followed by the plural are/were. Despite what prescriptivists say, language change can be bene cial.
Without language change, the kind of English preserved would be the same
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 as old English. (However, even with that, none of us would realize the — within a few weeks of being born the baby begins to recognize
language use is “wrong” given that it has become the standardized grammar their mother’s voice
used.) — there are two sub-stages within this period:
• The rst occurs between birth to eight months which involves the
October 25, 2022 baby relating to their surroundings on the rst ve or six months
and on the eighth month period does the baby begin using their
JARGONS/TERMS vocals.
L1 — First Language Acquisition • The second sub-stage happens when the baby associates their
— the process of acquiring a rst language; the rst language babbling and the sounds around them to words, emotions, and
learned by a person as a child people. From eight to twelve months the baby gains more and
— e ortlessly learned more over their vocal and physical communications, such as body
L2 — Second Language Acquisition language and tone.
— the process of acquiring another language or other languages
besides the rst language Second Stage: One-Word Stage or Holophrastic
— happens in a formal setting — child utters mostly one-word sentences to communicate
LA or FLA — Language Acquisition or First Language Acquisition — nouns make up around fty percent of the infant’s vocabulary while verbs
SLA — Second Language Acquisition and modi ers make up around thirty percent, with questions and negatives
BLA — Bilingual Language Acquisition making up the rest
— an interesting phenomenon that includes the acquisition of two L1
during childhood Third Stage: Two-Word Stage
LL — Language Learning — the child utters mostly two-word sentences to communicate which may be
— more common in L2 composed of a verb and a subject
UG — Universal Grammar — the sentences these children utter contain one word for the predicate and
LAD — Language Acquisition Device one word for the subject
Acquisition
— associated with the L1 (LA or FLA) Fourth Stage: Multi-Word Stage or Telegraphic Stage
Learning — the child can utter more than two words and have the potential to string
— associated with the L2 complicated sentences; may contain three to four sentences
Motherese — happens at the stage of twenty months to thirty months
— a kind of language a mother uses to mimic the babbling of her — called the telegraphic stage because it is similar to a telegram, containing
child enough information to make the sentence make sense
— do not resort to this to teach children how to speak their rst — in this stage the child’s vocabulary expands from fty words up to
language properly thirteen-thousand words and they start to incorporate plurals, joining words,
and attempts to get a grip on tenses
FOUR STAGES OF LA OR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT — incorporates morphemes and words that convey essential semantic
First Stage: Babbling substance
— the stage wherein a baby babbles or utters meaningless words
— found in babies or toddlers
— “ma” or “pa” is easier for babies to say than “da”
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 TWO THEORIES OF LA the same sort into grouping of syllables and words in a similar
1. Behaviorist Theory situation. In this way, he goes on emitting sounds, groups of sounds,
— centers on behaviorism, led by John B. Watson and came about in the and as he grows up he combines the sentences via generalizations
1910s (Demirezen, 1988) and analogy (as in *goed for went, *doed, for did, so on), which in
Other leading behaviorist theorists include Leonard Bloom eld, O.N. some complicated cases, condition him to commit errors by
Mowrer, B.F. Skinner, and A.W. Staats (Demirezen, 1988). articulating in permissible structures in speech. By the age of ve
— it relates to the concept of stimulus and response in psychology, or six, babblings and mutterings grow into socialized speech but little
speci cally of Pavlov’s experiment with the dogs, bells, and food by little they are internalized as implicit speech, and thus many of
— in LL, it centers on rewarding or reinforcing a positive action or their utterances become indistinguishable from the adults. This, then,
behavior among infants or children obviously, means that behaviorist theory is a theory of stimulus-
LA can be based on trial and error, imitation, conditioning through response psychology.
a reward system, and practice with habit formation (which are (https://currikicdn.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/resourcedocs/
parts of the learning process). For example, when a child utters 55c33aaf3db04.pdf)
something – a word, a phrase, or a sentence – which the adults
around them consider to be correct, they are rewarded for this 2. Nativist Theory
utterance. Parents or caregivers might say, “Very good!”, or they — associated with Noam Chomsky who proposed the innateness of
might give the child a hug or a kiss or a pat on the back. language among humans (Chomsky, N. And Noam C., 2002)
— according to this theory, a child is likely to repeat a habit—in this case, According to his book Syntactic Structures (1957), Chomsky
uttering the same word, phrase, or sentence—whenever they are proposes a novel idea that all humans may be born with an innate
praised (or even admonished); it’s based upon the idea that all behaviors understanding of how language works and can easily acquire it,
are acquired through conditioning because humans are genetically encoded with a universal
The major principle of the behaviorist theory rests on the analyses grammar— a basic understanding of how communication is
of human behavior in observable stimulus-response interaction structured.
and the association between them. — based on this theory, just as babies learn how to walk, children are
“destined” to talk and use a language because it’s how their brains are
E.L.T. Thorndike was the rst behaviorist to explore the area that designed
learning is the establishment of associations on particular — means that LA is something that occurs naturally in human beings as
process of behavior and consequences of that behavior. the human brain is wired for LL, i.e., its biological make-up is di erent from
those of animals and other species because of its “language module”
Basically, "the behaviorist theory of stimulus-response learning, Language Acquisition Device or LAD
particularly as developed in the operant conditioning model of — according to Chomsky, the brain has a LAD, i.e., language
Skinner, considers all learning to be the establishment of habits as a learning tools, which allows children to learn language in an e ortless
result of reinforcement and reward" (Wilga Rivers, 1968, 73). manner
— explains how children are able to use the basic structures of
This is very reminiscent of Pavlov's experiment which indicates language, even though they rarely receive instruction on how to
that stimulus and response work together. According to this speak their native language, working like a biological decoding
category, the babies obtain native language habits via varied system for the brain
babblings which resemble the appropriate words repeated by a — a uniquely human trait and cannot be found in animals, hence
person or object near him. Since for his babblings and mutterings why, despite being great mimics, parrots cannot carry a conversation
he is rewarded, this very reward reinforces further articulations of and, despite being able to learn sign language, gorillas cannot grasp
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 the complexities of syntax and grammar because their brains are not for these parameters, while the overall system of rules,
wired for it principles, and parameters is UG . . . ' (Chomsky 1982).
— not language-speci c and not a trove of languages stored in
the brain, but instead works more like a mechanism to help us October 27, 2022
work out the rules of language
“Universal”
Universal Grammar — a term proposed by two linguists as they proposed the universals of
— included under Nativist Theory language at the same time (Kargon, 1976):
— “the language properties inherent in the human mind” which Noam Chomsky talked about the universals common to all human
consists of, not of particular rules or of a particular grammar, but a beings insofar as language acquisition is concerned, i.e., the
set of general principles that apply to all grammars and that innate ability of children or humans to learn any language without
leave certain parameters open formal instruction. His followers call themselves Chomskyan.
— suggests that we are born with a set of rules about language in
our minds and that as children we know that a particular word Joseph Greenberg, in the 1950s, used the term universal when he
behaves like a noun, a verb, or an adjective studied approximately 30 languages around the world and proposed
— this innate faculty allows the child to adapt to the language the language universals, i.e., principles governing all languages
that they are born into, letting the child “set the parameters” and around the world. His followers call themselves Greenbergians.
decide which utterances are correct or not according to the language
of their environment For Joseph Greenberg, language universal pertains to a pattern that is
— sets the limits which human languages can vary common to all human languages, that all languages have nouns, verbs,
A native speaker of English knows that the sentence 'The consonants, vowels, phrases, clauses, and so on. From his study of the 30
train is arriving' is grammatical but *'arrives the tram' and languages, he came up with 45 language universals (Greenberg, 1963):
*'arrives' are not. The native speaker of Spanish knows that Word Order/Typology
not only is 'el tren llega' (the train arrives) grammatical, but so 1. In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the
also are 'ha llegado un tren' (arrives a train) and 'han llegado' dominant order is almost always one in which the subject precedes
(arrives). the object.
— one of the parameters that is open in this concept is the pro-drop 2. In languages with prepositions, the genitive almost always follows the
parameter which is concerned, roughly speaking, with the governing noun, while in languages with postpositions it almost
relationship between Subjects and Verbs (Chomsky 1981a) always precedes.
English chooses not to have pro-drop; a Subject is required 3. Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional.
for every sentence and it cannot be inverted with the Verb in 4. With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with
declarative sentences. Spanish, however, is a pro-drop normal SOV order are postpositional.
language in which 'empty' Subjects can occur and inversion 5. If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitive follows the
can take place, and indeed is compulsory in certain governing noun, then the adjective likewise follows the noun.
circumstances (Green 1976). 6. All languages with dominant VSO order have SVO as an alternative or
Hence, a particular grammar amounts to a speci cation as the only alternative basic order.
of the ways in which it selects from the di erent Syntax
possibilities inherent in Universal Grammar. 'The grammar 7. If in a language with dominant SOV order there is no alternative basic
of a language can be regarded as a particular set of values order, or only OSV as the alternative, then all adverbial modi ers of
the verb likewise precede the verb.
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 8. When a yes-no question is di erentiated from the corresponding 20. When any or all of the items (demonstrative, numeral, and descriptive
assertion by an intonational pattern, the distinctive intonational adjective) precede the noun, they are always found in that order. If
features of each of these patterns are reckoned from the end of the they follow, the order is either the same or its exact opposite.
sentence rather than from the beginning. 21. If some or all adverbs follow the adjective they modify, then the
9. With well more than chance frequency, when question particles or language is one in which the qualifying adjective follows the noun and
a xes are speci ed in position by reference to the sentence as a the verb precedes its nominal object as the dominant order.
whole, if initial, such elements are found in prepositional languages, 22. If in comparisons of superiority the only order, or one of the
and, if nal, in postpositional. alternative orders, is standard-marker-adjective, then the language is
10. Question particles or a xes, when speci ed in position by reference postpositional. With overwhelmingly more than chance frequency if
to a particular word in the sentence, almost always follow that word. the only order is adjective-marker-standard, the language is
Such particles do not occur in languages with dominant order VSO. prepositional.
11. Inversion of statement order so that verb precedes subject occurs 23. If in apposition the proper noun usually precedes the common noun,
only in languages where the question word or phrase is normally then the language is one in which the governing noun precedes its
initial. This same inversion occurs in yes-no questions only if it also dependent genitive. With much better than chance frequency, if the
occurs in interrogative word questions. common noun usually precedes the proper noun, the dependent
12. If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it genitive precedes its governing noun.
always puts interrogative words or phrases rst in interrogative word 24. If the relative expression precedes the noun either as the only
questions; if it has dominant order SOV in declarative sentences, construction or as an alternate construction, either the language is
there is never such an invariant rule. postpositional, or the adjective precedes the noun or both.
13. If the nominal object always precedes the verb, then verb forms 25. If the pronominal object follows the verb, so does the nominal object.
subordinate to the main verb also precede it. Morphology
14. In conditional statements, the conditional clause precedes the 26. If a language has discontinuous a xes, it always has either pre xing
conclusion as the normal order in all languages. or su xing or both.
15. In expressions of volition and purpose, a subordinate verbal form 27. If a language is exclusively su xing, it is postpositional; if it is
always follows the main verb as the normal order except in those exclusively pre xing, it is prepositional.
languages in which the nominal object always precedes the verb. 28. If both the derivation and in ection follow the root, or they both
16. In languages with dominant order VSO, an in ected auxiliary always precede the root, the derivation is always between the root and the
precedes the main verb. In languages with dominant order SOV, an in ection.
in ected auxiliary always follows the main verb. 29. If a language has in ection, it always has derivation.
17. With overwhelmingly more than chance frequency, languages with 30. If the verb has categories of person-number or if it has categories of
dominant order VSO have the adjective after the noun. gender, it always has tense-mode categories.
18. When the descriptive adjective precedes the noun, the demonstrative 31. If either the subject or object noun agrees with the verb in gender,
and the numeral, with overwhelmingly more than chance frequency, then the adjective always agrees with the noun in gender.
do likewise. 32. Whenever the verb agrees with a nominal subject or nominal object
19. When the general rule is that the descriptive adjective follows, there in gender, it also agrees in number.
may be a minority of adjectives which usually precede, but when the 33. When number agreement between the noun and verb is suspended
general rule is that descriptive adjectives precede, there are no and the rule is based on order, the case is always one in which the
exceptions. verb precedes and the verb is in the singular.
34. No language has a trial number unless it has a dual. No language
has a dual unless it has a plural.
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 35. There is no language in which the plural does not have some In German, the words author, father, Wednesday, rain are
nonzero allomorphs, whereas there are languages in which the masculine while ower, family, and team are feminine. (Lifted
singular is expressed only by zero. The dual and the trial are almost from: https://www. uentin3months.com/german-noun-genders/)
never expressed only by zero. · der Autor (author)
36. If a language has the category of gender, it always has the category · der Vater (father)
of number. · der Mittwoch (Wednesday)
37. A language never has more gender categories in nonsingular · der Regen (rain)
numbers than in the singular. · die Blume ( ower)
38. Where there is a case system, the only case that has only zero · die Familie (family)
allomorphs is the one that includes among its meanings that of the · die Mannschaft (team)
subject of the intransitive verb. For Universal #3: Languages with dominant VSO order are always
39. Where morphemes of both number and case are present and both prepositional. In other words, these languages are not postpositional.
follow or both precede the noun base, the expression of number What are postpositions? A postposition is like a preposition; however, unlike
almost always comes between the noun base and the expression of a preposition which appears before the object (for him; under the tree, above
case. the table), a postposition is found after the object (Nordquist, 2018).
40. When the adjective follows the noun, the adjective expresses all the While the English language follows the SVO order (She ate the cake
in ectional categories of the noun. In such cases the noun may lack => Subject-Verb-Object), the Filipino languages follow the VSO
overt expression of one or all of these categories. order (Gikaon niya ang cake. Isinubo niya ang cake. => Verb-
41. If in a language the verb follows both the nominal subject and Subject-Object). According to Greenberg, languages “with
nominal object as the dominant order, the language almost always dominant VSO order are always prepositional.” The Tagalog pang-
has a case system. ukol is the equivalent of the English preposition (Panganiban, 2013).
42. All languages have pronominal categories involving at least three
persons and two numbers. There is also a list regarding some universal facts about language (Fromkin,
43. If a language has gender categories in the noun, it has gender et al., 2011) (which may be updated over time as the language specialists
categories in the pronoun. continue to study the eld):
44. If a language has gender distinctions in the rst person, it always 1. Wherever humans exist, language exists.
has gender distinctions in the second or third person, or in both. 2. There are no “primitive” languages—all languages are equally
45. If there are any gender distinctions in the plural of the pronoun, there complex and equally capable of expressing any idea. The vocabulary
are some gender distinctions in the singular also. of any language can be expanded to include new words for new
concepts.
Some of these language universals do not apply to the Philippine 3. All languages change through time.
languages, though, there are occasions when some of them apply. 4. The relationships between the sounds and meanings of spoken
For example, gender categories do not exist. He, she, they, etc. are languages and between the gestures and meanings of sign
all siya in Filipino, Cebuano, or Waray. Hence, Universal #43 does languages are for the most part arbitrary.
not apply to any of the Philippine languages (at least to those 5. All human languages use a nite set of discrete sounds or gestures
familiar to the author). that are combined to form meaningful elements or words, which
Meanwhile, languages outside the Philippines have gender categories even themselves may be combined to form an in nite set of possible
among inanimate objects. sentences.
6. All grammars contain rules of a similar kind for the formation of words
and sentences.
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 7. Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments, like p, n,
or a, that can all be de ned by a nite set of sound properties or
features. Every spoken language has both vowel sounds and
consonant sounds.
8. Similar grammatical categories (for example, noun, verb) are found in
all languages.
9. There are universal semantic properties like entailment (one sentence
inferring the truth of another) found in every language in the world.
10. Every language has a way of negating, forming questions, issuing
commands, referring to past or future time, and so on.
11. All languages permit abstractions like goodness, spherical, and
skillful.
12. All languages have slang, epithets, taboo words, and euphemisms for
them, such as john for “toilet.”
13. All languages have hypothetical, counterfactual, conditional, unreal,
and ctional utterances; e.g., “If I won the lottery, I would buy a
Ferrari,” or "Harry Potter battled Voldemort with his wand by
Hogwarts castle.”
14. All languages exhibit freedom from stimulus; a person can choose to
say anything at any time under any circumstances, or can choose to
say nothing at all.
15. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and
comprehending an in nite set of sentences. Syntactic universals
reveal that every language has a way of forming sentences such as:
a. Linguistics is an interesting subject. I know that linguistics is
an interesting subject. You know that I know that linguistics is
an interesting subject. Cecelia knows that you know that I
know that linguistics is an interesting subject. Is it a fact that
Cecelia knows that you know that I know that linguistics is an
interesting subject?
16. The ability of human beings to acquire, know, and use language is a
biologically based ability rooted in the structure of the human brain,
and expressed in di erent modalities (spoken or signed).
17. Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial,
geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable of learning any
language to which he or she is exposed. The di erences among
languages are not due to biological reasons.
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