Sofrware

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What is language? All of us know what language is, just like we know the palm of our hands. We all acquired a language early in life. There is no human being, ordinarily speaking, who does not “have” a language of his or her own. There are societies which do not have a written language, but there is no society which does not have a spoken language. A general definition characterizes language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which members of a society interact with one another. WHAT SOME IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE ? Inter-translatability, Linearity , Discreteness , Patterning , Levels , Displacement , Prevarication, Creativity , Meaningfulness , Recursive ness , Reflexivity , Learn ability , Effability What are the major theories of language? There are three major theories of origin of language: divine origin, evolutionary development, and language as human invention. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT LANGUAGE IN GENERAL? 1. Wherever humans exist, language exists. 2. There are no “primitive” languages – all languages are equally capable of expressing any idea in the universe. The vocabulary of any language may be expanded to include new words for new concepts. 3. If something can be expressed in one language or one dialect, it can be expressed in any other language or dialect. 4. All languages change through time. 5. The relationship between the sounds and meanings of spoken languages and between the gestures (signs) and meanings of sign languages are, for the most part, arbitrary. 6. All human languages utilize a finite set of discrete sounds (or gestures) that are combined to form meaningful elements or words, which themselves form an infinite set of possible sentences. 7. All grammars contain rules for the formation of words and sentences of a similar kind. 8. Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments n or a, which can all be defined by a finite set of sound properties or features. 9. Every spoken language has a class of vowels and a class of consonants. 10. Similar grammatical categories (for example, noun, verb) are found in all languages. 11. There are semantic universals, such as “male” or “female,” or “human,” found in every language of the world. 12. Every language has a way of referring to past time, negating, forming questions, issuing commands, and so on. 13. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite set of sentences. 14. 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 differences we find among languages cannot be due