week2：Language Family and Typology 社会语言学.ppt

Isolating Languages In an isolating language, most of the morphemes are free morphemes. e.g. 我去餐廳吃飯 Each morpheme in the example is the smallest meaningful unit and cannot be separated into anything smaller. Some linguists argue that not all the morphemes in Chinese are free morphemes (e.g. 得; 了). Inflecting (synthetic) languages “In inflecting languages, words usually consist of several morphemes. There is seldom a one-to-one matching of morphemes with morphs. Instead, a single morph may represent several morphemes” (Katamba 1993, p. 58). Latin is an inflecting language. e.g. In Latin amo ‘I love’, the form represents tense, active voice, first person singular, and indicative (Cyrstal 2007). Agglutinating Languages Agglutinating languages “Words are built up out of a long sequence of units, with each unit expressing a particular grammatical meaning, in a one-to-one way” (Crystal 2000, p.295). e.g. the Swahili expression “anaenipatia maji” = “he who gets water for me” a－na－ye－ni－pat－i－a maji he-present-who-me-gets-for water e.g. Welsh example “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch” (58 letters) ”Saint Marys Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave.” Typological Classification - Problems Problems: Influenced by Darwin, and evaluating languages from an evolutionary scale, namely viewing the isolating languages as “not as well developed”. This classification only relies on morphology, but ignore the importance of syntax, phonology or others. Again, the typological classification ignores the influence of language contact, namely the process of convergence or divergence. Summary The Family Tree Theory Two general ways of categorising world languages: Genetic classification Typological classification Important Terms Explanation of Terms: Mutual intelligibility. Convergence/divergence Isolating language Inflecting language Agglutinating language Reference Cry