Chomsky’s definition (1957)
“From now on I will consider language to be a
set of (finite or infinite) sentenБайду номын сангаасes, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”
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Arbitrariness Productivity/Creativity Duality Displacement Cultural transmission
Arbitrariness
----No logical (motivated or intrinsic) connection between sounds and meanings. Onomatopoeic words (which imitate natural sounds) are somewhat motivated ( English: rumble, crackle, bang, …. Chinese: putong, shasha, dingdang… ) Some compound words are not entirely arbitrary, e.g. type-writer, shoe-maker, air-conditioner, photocopy…
Language is arbitrary
Arbitrary---- no intrinsic connection between the word and the thing it denotes, e.g. “pen” by any other name is the thing we use to write with.