The loss of motivation for words.pptVIP

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By the other name Would smell as sweet ------ Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet “words have no meaning; people have meaning for them.” ---Eric Partridge Saussure (1857-1913） Signal（能指）：声音的心理印迹，或音响形象Sound pattern Signification（所指）:概念concept在大脑中的印迹 arbitrary II. Arbitrariness II. Arbitrariness Words ------- meanings No inherent or intrinsic connections Not rule-governed Unpredictable Hard to explain and argue for it II. Arbitrariness /Conventionality Different languages can use different symbols (words) to signify the same thing. house maison fang zi (房子) Another convincing evidence of the conventional or arbitrary nature of the connection between symbol and meaning is a set of homophones: write, right and rite They are pronounced the same but convey different meanings. In Chinese: wu Why convention? arbitrary? idiosyncratic (individually different) difficult/impossible Language is spoken for communication. Convention: regulate the relation between sound meaning in daily use Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Definition of language Re-examine the data 1. phonetic motivation 2. semantic motivation 3. morphological motivation All words coined by rules of word formation. What about mono-morphemic words, e.g., root, affixes? 4. etymological motivation: diachronic synchronic 相对可论证性 原初的核心元素：无可解释，任意性 由构词法创造的词汇：可解释，可预测 语音—语义： 两个独立系统，即使都是大脑中的表征，或是建立在关系中的价值系统，都是相互独立的。 前者受音系规则制约（ language-specific language- universal) 后者？（范围很广泛） Internalized language Externalized language There is always the gap or asymmetry between the two. To sum up, most English words are conventional, arbitrary symbols; consequently, there is no intrinsic relation between the sound-symbol and its sense. ?汉语