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Introduction

“History is universal and basic,” a history professor said during a faculty meeting, “It’s
about every event that involves all people at all times and in all places.” “Yes,” observed his
colleague from linguistics, “but how would you record and interpret that history without
language?” Indeed, it is hard to imagine how there could even be history without language,
without a means to pass a record of what has happened from one generation to the next
through retold stories and sagas, even before written records. Much of the history (and
prehistory) of the human species consists of the development and adaptation of various
tools to meet a broad range of needs: think of the wheel, the domestication of animals, the
steam engine, computers, and the internet. The development and refinement of these and
all other tools could not have been accomplished without language.
The human capacity for self-awareness and abstract thought is facilitated by language, if
not dependent upon it. The ability to transfer complex information, to discuss the mean-
ing of events and possible outcomes of alternative actions, to share feelings and ideas – all
these are impossible without language. The origins of language are shrouded in obscurity,
but archaeological records suggest that communication with language emerged about
200,000 years ago. The ability of an individual to model the world for him/herself and to
communicate using language was probably the single most advantageous evolutionary
adaptation of the human species.

Defining language
As one can imagine, a precise definition of language is not easy to provide, because the
language phenomenon is complex and has many facets. Slightly modifying a definition
provided by Finegan and Besnier (1989), we might define language as a finite system of
elements and principles that make it possible for speakers to construct sentences to do particular
communicative jobs. The part of the system that allows speakers to produce and interpret
grammatical sentences is called grammatical competence. It includes the knowledge
of which speech sounds are part of a given language and how they may and may not be
strung together. Grammatical competence also includes knowing the meanings signified
by different sound sequences in a language and how to combine those units of meaning
into words, phrases, and sentences. Grammatical competence is what allows a speaker of
English to string together twenty-one sounds that sound something like “The dog chased
the cat up the tree” and allows another speaker of English to understand what dogs, cats,

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and trees are, what chasing is, and which way is up. Further, grammatical competence is
what allows these speakers of English to share the understanding that it was the dog doing
the chasing and that it was the cat that went up the tree. Of course this does not apply
only to English. Grammatical competence contributes similarly to comprehension in all
human languages.
But people use language to do far more than just communicate the literal meanings of
grammatical sentences. The sentence “The dog chased the cat up the tree” might be used to
accomplish a wide variety of jobs: to narrate part of a story, to complain to the dog’s owner,
to help the cat’s owner find his pet. The second part of the definition, “to do particular
communicative jobs,” refers to communicative competence. The most frequent “job”
that people do with language is communicate with other people.
Grammatical competence is almost useless for human interaction without communi-
cative competence. In fact, a lot of the actual use of language is not in sentences at all, but
in discourse units larger and smaller than sentences, some grammatical (in the technical
sense used in formal linguistics), some not. To be effective, speakers have to combine
grammatical competence with the knowledge of how to use grammatical sentences
(and other pieces of linguistic structure) appropriately for the purpose and context at hand.
The two taken together comprise communicative competence. Communicative competence –
the knowledge included in grammatical competence plus the ability to use that knowledge
to accomplish a wide range of communicative jobs – constitutes language.

Universal properties of language

Over thousands of years of evolution, the human species developed a vocal tract flexible
enough to produce a wide range of distinguishable sounds and the ability to perceive
differences among those sounds. But most important, the human species developed the
ability to use these sounds in systems which could communicate meaning. No one knows
just how this happened. Perhaps mental capacities that had evolved for a variety of other
adaptive purposes (like fine motor hand–eye coordination) were “re-purposed” to support a
complex symbolic and communicative system. Perhaps some mental capacities are exclu-
sively dedicated to language and evolved more gradually along with the increasing com-
plexity of human communication. Or perhaps once they reached a certain level of
neurological and cognitive complexity, the synapses of the brain “reorganized” them-
selves, making the development of language possible.
Although languages differ in many ways, they are all made possible by the same genetic
information, they are all processed by the brain in basically the same ways, and, not
surprisingly, they all share certain fundamental “design features” and structural character-
istics that enable them to work the way they do. For example, although different languages
use different sets of sounds, their sounds are organized and combined according to just a
few principles. If there were no shared, universal features of language, we would expect the
sounds of languages and their combinations to vary randomly. Instead, the sounds of
languages and their combinations are limited and systematic. Likewise, all languages
follow similar constraints on how they can combine words into phrases and sentences.

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Understanding and explaining the properties which are universal to all languages – as
well as those which vary across languages – is the fundamental job of the linguist.

Modularity
Most linguists believe that language is a modular system. That is, people produce and
interpret language using a set of component subsystems (or modules) in a coordinated
way. Each module is responsible for a part of the total job; it takes the output of other
modules as its input and distributes its own output to those other modules. Neurolinguistic
studies show that different regions of the brain are associated with different aspects of
language processing and, as the following chapters show, dividing language into modules
facilitates linguistic analyses greatly.
Some modules have been central to linguistics for a long time. Phonetics is about produc-
tion and interpretation of speech sounds. Phonology studies the organization of raw phon-
etics in language overall as well as in individual languages. Larger linguistic units are the
domain of morphology, the study of structure within words – and of syntax, the study of the
structure of sentences. Interacting with these modules is the lexicon, the repository of
linguistic elements with their meanings and structural properties. In recent decades, philoso-
phers have developed the formal study of semantics (the detailed analysis of literal meaning),
and linguistics has incorporated and added semantics as another module of language. Still
more recently, discourse – organization of language above and beyond the sentence – has
been recognized by most linguists as another important subsystem of language.

Discreteness
Each module of language deals with the characterization, distribution, and coordination of
some discrete linguistic unit (phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, utter-
ances). Discreteness, another property of languages, divides the continuous space of
sound or meaning into discrete units. The range of sounds that human beings can make
is continuous, like a slide whistle. For example, you can slide from a high “long e” sound
(as in feed) all the way down to a low “short a” sound (as in bat) in one continuous glide.
But all languages divide that continuous space of sound into discrete categories, just as
most western music divides the continuous range of pitch into discrete steps in a scale.
Sounds that are discrete in one language may not be discrete in another. In English, for
example, we distinguish [a], “short a,” from [ɛ], “short e,” so that pat and pet are different
words. The same is not true in German, so German speakers have trouble hearing any
difference between pet and pat. At the same time, German has a vowel that is like the
English “long a,” but with rounded lips, spelled ö and called “o-umlaut.” The distinction
between the vowel that is like English “long a” and this rounded vowel is responsible for
the meaning difference between Sehne (‘tendon’) and Söhne (‘sons’). This distinction is as
easy for German speakers as the pet and pat distinction is for English speakers, but it is hard
for English speakers. Precisely what is discrete varies from one language to another, but all
languages have the property of discreteness.

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Discreteness also shows itself in other modules of language, such as meaning. The color
spectrum is a clear example. Color variation is a continuum – red shades through red-
orange to orange to yellow-orange to yellow and so on through the spectrum. But all
languages divide the color spectrum into discrete categories, although languages differ in
how they divide that continuum into words. In some languages there are only two basic
color terms, roughly meaning ‘light’ and ‘dark’; others add red, yellow, and green, whereas
still others, including English, have developed words for many more colors. Likewise,
although the claim that Eskimos have hundreds of terms for snow may be overstated,
the languages of Native Americans living in the far north do distinguish more kinds of
snow than do languages which have developed to meet the needs of peoples living in
warmer climates. Similarly, American English has a range of words for different types of
automotive vehicles (sedan, sports utility vehicle, minivan, convertible, wagon, sports car,
for example) related to the importance of the automobile in that culture.
Language is composed of separate sounds, words, sentences, and other utterance units.
Acoustically sounds and words blend into each other. (If you have tried to learn a second
language as an adult, you know how hard it can be to separate words spoken at a normal
conversational pace.) Remarkably, babies only a few weeks old are able to distinguish even
closely related sounds in the language of their home from each other and to distinguish the
sounds that belong to the language they are learning from the sounds in other languages at
a very early age. Furthermore, children in the first year or two of life learn to pick out words
from the stream of speech with no instruction. The fact that we hear speech as a sequence
of individual sounds, words, and sentences is actually an incredible accomplishment (and
all the more incredible for how instantaneously and unconsciously we do it).

Constituency
All languages organize these basic discrete units into constituents, groups of linguistic units
which allow more complex units to enter structures where simpler ones are also possible. So we
can say in English, “She sat down,” “The smart woman sat down,” “The tall, dark-haired, smart
woman with the bright red sweater and pearl necklace sat down.” Each italicized phrase constitutes
a noun phrase (which is the subject of the sentence in these examples); a noun phrase can be as
simple as a pronoun as in the first sentence, or it can be made more complex by modifying the
noun with adjectives and prepositional phrases. Being composed of constituents gives lan-
guage a balance of structure and flexibility. Constituents can be replaced by other constituents,
but you can’t replace a constituent with a series of words that is not a constituent. So you can’t
replace she with smart with the bright red sweater (“Smart with the bright red sweater sat down”
doesn’t work). Constituents can be moved, but you can only move a complete constituent. She
is very smart is possible and so is Very smart, she is, but not Smart, she is very.

Recursion and productivity

Being composed of constituents allows languages to be recursive. Recursion is a property
of systems which allows a process to be applied repeatedly. In language we can combine

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5 Introduction

constituents to produce an infinite variety of sentences of indefinite length. For example,

coordination in English allows us to combine two or more constituents of the same type
together. We can expand a short sentence like He was tall into longer sentences like He was
tall and strong and handsome and thoughtful and a good listener and . . . or infinitely embed
clauses to modify noun phrases, as in This is the mouse that nibbled the cheese that lay in the
house that Jack built.
The recursiveness of language has profound implications. It means that no one can
learn a language by memorizing all the sentences of that language; instead, they must
learn the system for creating and combining constituents in that language. The human
brain is finite, but the recursive property of language means that by learning a language
we are capable of producing and understanding an infinite number of sentences. This
nonfinite quality of language is due to its productivity. Even if one were to attempt to
memorize all the sentences ever uttered, one could always add another modifier – (A great
big huge beautifully designed, skillfully constructed, well-located new building . . .) or embed
one sentence within another, over and over again (He said that she said that I said that they
believe that you told us that . . .) through the recursive rules of the language. Since languages
place no limits on the use of these recursive processes, all languages are potentially
infinitely productive.
Productivity in language is also demonstrated by neologisms, newly coined words,
which occur all throughout history and society. When people hear a word for the first
time, they often ask, “Is that a word?” If they ask a linguist, the answer is likely to be, “It is
now.” If the novel word is formed according to the morphological and phonological rules
of its language and it is understandable in context, it is a bona fide word, even if it’s not
found in a dictionary. Consider the word bling, recently coined to mean ‘flashy jewelry.’ It
is phonologically well-formed (in English bl is allowed at the beginning of syllables, and
the ng [ŋ] sound is allowed at the end). The word has caught on in the mainstream public
and is now a bona fide word. Most of these spontaneous coinings – inspired by a particular
context, and often labeled as slang – are not used frequently enough to ever make it into a
dictionary, but some coinings do become part of the lexicon (and are included in some
updated dictionaries) because they meet a new need. Coining new words is one productive
process by which languages change to meet the changing communicative needs of their
speakers.
The productivity of languages derives, in large part, from the fact that they are organized
around a finite set of principles which systematically constrain the ways in which sounds,
morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences may be combined. A native speaker of a
language unconsciously “knows” these principles and can use them to produce and
interpret an infinite variety of utterances. Defining and making these principles explicit
is one of the goals of linguists studying grammatical competence.

Arbitrariness
While productivity in language derives from a finite set of principles which systematically
constrain the ways in which sounds, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences may be

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combined, language is arbitrary in its sound–meaning correspondence. With few excep-

tions, words have no principled or systematic connection with what they mean. In
English, the first three numbers are one, two, three – but in Chinese they are yi, er, san.
Neither language has the “right” word for the numerals or for anything else, because there
is no such thing (Bolton, 1982: 5). Even onomatopoetic words that are supposed to sound
like the noise they name – for example, words for sounds, like ding-dong and click and the
sounds various animals make – are arbitrary and vary from language to language. In
English, for example, a dog says bow wow or perhaps woof woof, but in Hindi it says bho:
bho:. Greek dogs say gav and Korean dogs say mung mung. People perceive these sounds
through the arbitrary “sound filters” of their respective languages, so even something as
seemingly objective as a dog’s bark is in fact represented arbitrarily in language.
The inventory of speech sounds used by a particular language is also arbitrary. English is
spoken using only 36 different sounds (a few more or less, depending on how the English
sound system is analyzed). But, as you will learn in detail in Chapter 1, the sounds used in
English are not all the same as the sounds needed to speak other languages, nor are they
put together in the same way. The 36 sounds of English are in turn arbitrarily represented
by 26 letters, some of which stand for two or more sounds (like g in gin and in gimp) while
other sounds are spelled in two or more different ways (consider c in center and s in sender or
c in cup, k in kelp, and qu in quiche). The patterns into which words and sounds are arranged
are also arbitrary. We know perfectly well what tax means but any English speaker knows
without a doubt that there is no such word as xat. Adjectives go before nouns in English –
so it’s fat man; in French nouns go before adjectives, making it homme gros. Arbitrariness
is a property of sign languages as well as spoken languages. Some manual signs in sign
languages are iconic – they look like what they mean – but most signs give not the slightest
clue to their meaning.
It’s important to remember that arbitrariness doesn’t mean randomness. It means
that, for example, the sounds that one language uses and the principles by which they
are combined are inherently no better or worse than those of any another language.
Likewise, it means that the principles of one language variety (or dialect) for arranging
words are inherently no better or worse than those of another. For example, many non-
linguists who speak the standard variety of English believe that it is “incorrect” to use
two words that express negation (referred to as negative concord), as in I didn’t see nobody.
However, negative concord is used in the standard variety in other languages such as
Italian:
Giulia non ha visto nessuno.
Giulia not has seen no one
‘Giulia didn’t see anyone.’

And some nonstandard varieties of Italian use the singular negative just like standard
English. This property of abritrariness in language is, perhaps, one of the most needed
linguistics lessons for the general public. It means that no one language – and no one
language variety in a particular society – is the “correct” way of speaking, and no group
speaks ungrammatically.

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Reliance on context
A corollary of arbitrariness – of association between sound sequences and meanings or in
the order of words in phrases – is duality. Because there is nothing about the pronunci-
ation of the word one (transcribed phonetically – as it sounds – it would be [wʌn]) that
necessarily associates it with the numeral 1, that same sequence of sounds (but spelled won)
can also be used to mean something entirely different – the past tense of the verb to win
(Bolton, 1982: 5). But if the same sequence of sounds can represent different concepts in
the same language, how are you able to figure out which meaning I intend when I say
[wʌn]? The answer – which is as complex as it is obvious – is that you rely on its context. If
I say [wʌn] before a noun, as in “[wʌn] dog,” your knowledge of English grammar will lead
you to guess that I mean one. On the other hand, if I say [wʌn] after a noun (or pronoun), as
in “Mary [wʌn],” that same knowledge will lead you to guess that I mean the past tense
of win.
Reliance on context is a crucial property of languages, not just in figuring out the
meaning of words like one and won, but in interpreting the meaning of entire utterances.
The meaning of a sentence depends crucially on the context in which it is uttered. That
context could be the sentence or sentences that immediately precede it, or it could be the
broader physical or social circumstances in which the sentence it uttered. If someone says
“One,” the meaning of that utterance is only clear in the context of a preceding utterance –
for example, “Do you want one lump of sugar or two?” Similarly, “It’s cold in here” could
be a complaint, a request to close a window, or even a compliment (about a freezer,
perhaps). Who or what a given pronoun (like she, it, us, or them) refers to may rely on
prior sentences or the immediate physical environment. Languages rely on the connection
between form (what is said) and context (when, where, by whom, and to whom it is said)
to communicate much more than is contained in a sequence of words.

Variability
Although all languages share some universal characteristics, languages also differ in
many ways. The language that people use varies depending on who’s speaking and the
situation in which they’re speaking. In fact, variability is one of the most important – and
admirable – properties of language. Variation (also known as difference and diversity) is the
essence of information. Without variation in light frequencies, there would be no sight;
without variation in sound frequencies, there would be no speech and no music. (And as
we are beginning to realize, without a certain minimum level of genetic diversity, our
ecosystem is threatened.) Variability in language allows people to communicate far more
than the semantic content of the words and sentences they utter. The variability of
language is indexical. Speakers vary the language they use to signal their social identities
(geographical, social status, ethnicity, and even gender), and also to define the immediate
speech situation.
People let the world know who they are by the variety of their language that they use.
They reveal their geographical and social status origins after saying just a few words. People

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also use their variety of language to signal membership in a range of overlapping social
groups – as male or female, as a teenager or an adult, as a member of a particular ethnic
group. They keep their speech, often despite the best efforts of teachers to change it,
because at an unconscious level, maintaining their ties to their origin is more important
than any reason to change.
People also use language variation to communicate the situation and purpose in which
they are talking, as well as the roles they are playing in those situations. A priest uses
different forms of language during a sermon than during the social hour after a church
service, playing different roles (and projecting different roles on the churchgoers he
addresses). At work, people speak differently to subordinates than to superiors, and differ-
ently during coffee breaks than in meetings. Parents speak differently to their children
than to other adults (or even to other people’s children). The language used in writing
typically differs from the language used in speaking, reflecting and communicating the
different conditions under which language is produced and its various purposes.
A large part of a speech community’s culture is transacted through the medium of
language variation. Norms of appropriate language use help speakers to construct and
negotiate their relations to each other. The unwritten and unconsciously applied rules
for the various forms and uses of language can vary from one cultural milieu to another,
within and between societies, and even between genders. This raises the risk of misunder-
standing when speakers unknowingly are behaving according to different cultural norms,
but enriches our ways of seeing the world when those differences are understood.
Language variation is also the mechanism by which languages change. The lexicon of a
language changes just a bit every time a new word is coined. Its inventory of sounds, and
their relations to each other, changes over time, sometimes due to migration or contact
with another language, sometimes due to innovations from within its speech community
(see Chapter 9). The order of words allowed in sentences can change as well (see Chapter 8).
Even the prescriptive rules can change with developments in fashion or policy (see
Chapter 11).
One of the consequences of language variation is that no variety or dialect of a language
can be better than any other; each is simply a snapshot in the process of language change.
Linguists find it analytically useful sometimes to look at language synchronically (as a fixed
system), but it is a system always developing into a new system. John McWhorter (1998),
arguing against the myth of a “pure” standard English, wrote:

Any language is always and forever on its way to changing into a new one, with many of the
sounds, word meanings, and sentence patterns we process as “sloppy” and incorrect being
the very things that will constitute the “proper” language of the future . . . What we perceive
as “departures from the norm” are nothing more or less than what language change looks
like from the point of view of a single lifetime.

Consider that French, Italian, and Spanish each developed from Latin and were once
considered “corrupt” versions of Latin. The variety of English we now call standard is the
result of a sociopolitical accident, developing from the dialect of the center of British power
in the 1300s. We might be able to eliminate a lot of discrimination against speakers of

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“nonstandard” varieties if more people understood that each language and dialect of a
language is a coherent, and equally valid, system.

The descriptive approach

The fact that language is a universal characteristic of human beings means that all lan-
guages (and language varieties) are equal. That is, they all come from the same genetic
blueprint, and they all are equally “human.” Language varieties differ because over time
they have adapted to the differing needs of their speech communities. Each language does
things differently: some languages explicitly distinguish between several verb tenses
(English marks only two); some languages organize nouns into many “gender” categories
(English does not). Each language is equally “functional” at meeting the communicative
needs of its own speech community. But sometimes when two or more speech commu-
nities come into contact, one group will have more power, status, or economic resources
than the others. Not surprisingly, the language variety of that dominant group is often
perceived as having higher status as well, especially if speaking it affords increased access to
power or wealth. By comparison, the language varieties spoken by the less powerful groups
often are stigmatized as “incorrect” or “bad” language.
Linguists approach language in the same way that astronomers approach the study of
the universe or that anthropologists approach the study of human cultural systems. It
would be ridiculous for astronomers to speak about planets orbiting stars “incorrectly” and
inappropriate for anthropologists to declare a culture “degenerate” simply because it differs
from their own. Similarly, linguists take language as they find it, rather than attempting to
regulate it in the direction of preconceived criteria. Linguists are equally curious about all
the forms of language that they encounter, no matter what the education or social
standing of their speakers might be.
The fact that, in most societies, some varieties of language are perceived as “correct”
while others are considered “incorrect” is, for linguists, a social phenomenon – an aspect of
language use to be explored scientifically. Since “correct” language is inherently no better or
worse than the varieties that are considered “incorrect,” linguists eagerly seek to discover
the reasons for the conviction that some part of language variability is superior to the rest,
and to examine the consequences of those beliefs.
One consequence of these kinds of language attitudes – in which one language variety is
considered better than others – is the corollary belief that speakers of “incorrect” varieties
are somehow inferior, because they will not or cannot speak “correctly.” Their “incorrect”
language is then used to justify further discrimination – in education and in employment,
for example. Discrimination on the basis of language use is based on two false propos-
itions: that one variety of language is inherently better than others, and that people can be
taught to speak the “correct” variety. However, so powerful are the natural forces that
guide how a person learns and uses spoken language that explicit teaching on how to speak
is virtually irrelevant. If a person is not very good at mathematics, we are probably justified
in assuming that he or she did not learn mathematics in school. The same may well be true
of reading and writing; if someone cannot read or write, it is likely that something went

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wrong with that person’s schooling. But the same is not true with spoken language.
A person who uses negative concord, as in She can’t find nothing, or says knowed for knew
may have received the best instruction in the rules of traditional grammar from the most
skilled teachers available. However, just knowing what the rules are, or even practicing
them for a few minutes a day in school, will be as effective in influencing how someone
speaks as a meter-high pine tree would be in stopping an avalanche. The most powerful
feature influencing spoken language is its ability to mark a person’s identity as a member of
the group closest to him/her in everyday life. This power trumps grammar instruction in
classrooms every time.
Even the best-educated speakers of American English will not say “For what did you do
that?” (which is formally correct); they’ll say “What did you do that for?” Nor will they say
“Whom did you see today?”; instead it will be “Who did you see today?” For exactly the
same reason, a speaker of nonstandard English will say “I ain’t got none,” knowing that
“I don’t have any” is considered correct – in either case, to use “correct grammar” would
make the speaker sound posh or snobbish and cost him/her the approval of his/her peers.
There is an enormous disincentive to use language in a way that makes it seem that you are
separating yourself from the people who are most important to you.
In fact, people who speak in close to the approved way probably did not learn to do so in
school. They are just fortunate to come from the segment of society that sets the standards
for correct speech. This segment of society also controls its schools – and the language
variety used and taught in its schools. Ironically, when children learn to use the socially
approved variety of spoken language in school, it is not from what their teachers explicitly
teach in class, but rather from adjusting their speech to match the speech of the other
children in the halls, on the playground, and outside of school, and thus gain their
approval.

The diversity of linguistics

Unlike other linguistics textbooks, each chapter in this book has been written by a
linguist who teaches and does research in that area. The field of linguistics, like the
phenomenon of language which it studies, is broad and diverse, and although linguists
share some beliefs – in a descriptive approach, and in the functional equality of all
language varieties, for example – they differ in some of the assumptions they bring to
their analyses. Some linguists – particularly those in the areas of phonetics and phon-
ology, morphology, syntax, semantics/pragmatics, and historical linguistics – assume, to
varying degrees, that the forms of language can be understood separately from their use.
The chapters on these topics are primarily about language form and constitute what was
considered the essential core of linguistics in the mid twentieth century. Since then,
the field has expanded considerably, and this book is designed to represent that
broader scope.
Today the field of linguistics studies not just the nuts-and-bolts of forms and their
meanings, but also how language is learned (both as a first and second language), how it
plays a central role in reflecting and creating the interactive and cultural settings of talk,

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