Language Rules

In this weeks articles, I found the topics of language and rules to be an interesting read. 

The Atkins-Levin article was very specific by focusing on one problem: the new challenges brought up by the electronic corpus. The focus on different shake verbs was interesting to think about and how each verb is considerably different. Although we tend to group these verbs into the same context, they appear in different sentences depending on transitivity and types of nouns that occur as subjects. As I read about the differences between the shake verbs, the explanation of why one verb was used over the other began to make sense as the transitive constructions gave each verb a distinct meaning. The article effectively outlines the similarities and differences of each verb's behaviour.

The Haspelmath articles gave a deep insight on lexemes and morphology. The easiest explanation of morphologically complex words was the tree on compound lexemes and how each subdivision of morphology begins with a morphological relationship, then breaks off into different word formations. Continuing with compounding, Haspelmath explains the rules of combining base lexemes. The example he uses is how the word "lipstick" is not lipsstick even though it is used for both lips. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that "compounding is no different from derivational affixes, which attach to stems." In this example, I realized that these small rules apply to so many words that we don't think about in our every day lives.

In Slobin's article, I found the contrast between V-language and S-language very interesting. In the languages Slobin uses, the placement of the word "exit" differs in V and S languages. In V-languages, the word exit is explicitly used, whereas in S-languages, the word exit is changed into a more dynamic explanation of the owl's exit. Overall, I found these four articles to be very informative on morphology, syntax, and typology.