Atkins and Levin presented the different shake verbs and showed how they are each affected by internal and external causation. While quake, quiver, shake, shiver, shudder, tremble, and vibrate all mean essentially the same thing, their uses differ based on the subject and whether the verb is transitive or intransitive. Due to the advent of technology, lexicographers can use the electronic corpus to better understand word usage, once again exemplifying the cross-disciplinary nature of linguistics.
Haspelmath opened my eyes to the complicated structure of a single word. Lexemes are sets of word-forms (i.e. "LIVE" is a lexeme of "live, lives, lived, living"). According to our guest speaker Kate Lindsey, lexemes have more word-forms in Ende than in English. The verb "cut" in Ende had thirty conjugations in just the past tense based on the corresponding subject(s) and the object(s).
Haspelmath goes on to talk about word families, the difference between inflections (relationships between word forms) and derivations (relationships between lexemes), how words are segmented into morphemes, and affixes within words. I was especially intrigued by how base modification and compound words differ across languages. Shortening just one vowel or changing the tone pattern of the word can change the form or meaning of a word. And compounding can lead to endocentric or exocentric compounds depending on the language. I want to understand how these small differences arise across different languages and whether the culture of the region influences the language's word structure.
Slobin's piece confirmed my idea that language and word use/structure are directly affected by culture. Speakers of different languages interpreted the frog-story differently because of the various ways in which languages tend to characterize nouns, actions, and paths of motion. There are hundreds of ways to analyze and compare the semantics of different languages, and the amazing part is that there is enough commonality among all languages to compare numerous things. Slobin's comparisons among S-Languages and V-Languages shed light on many differences between Spanish and English that I have noticed but failed to understand. Moving forward, I am excited to look out for these differences and pay attention to them.
I think this is a good summary of the readings, and crossing over with the things we covered in class. I share the same interest with how changing a small part of the word can change the meaning. In my language, Thai, changing the length of the vowel or the tone can drastically change the meaning of a word.
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