Origin of language. Theories of the origin of language

Michelle French

Origin of the word- one of the greatest mysteries human existence. Why are people, unlike other species of living beings living on Earth, able to communicate through words? How did the language appear? Evolutionists have been trying to answer these questions for many years, but have not yet found acceptable answers, although they have put forward countless theories; We will look at some of these theories in this article.

Some evolutionists argue that language arose from the sounds and gestures of primates; others believe that humans “invented” words through their intelligence and ability to imitate. Others believe that people at a certain stage of evolution somehow “discovered” communication through speech. However, all these concepts are broken by their own shortcomings. Proponents of the theory of evolution have still not found an acceptable answer to the question about the emergence of verbal communication. The only one logical model the emergence of language - the creation model, according to which language was created by God.

Human words: did they evolve from simple sounds made by animals, or were they given to man by God? Origin of the word has been a stumbling block for scientists, linguists and philosophers ever since Darwin put forward his theory of evolution. But none of the many theories they propose about the appearance of words is able to satisfactorily explain such unique phenomenon, like human language.

In 1866, seven years after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the Paris Linguistic Society banned debate on the origin of speech. “Parisian linguists undoubtedly... realized that speculation, not supported by convincing evidence, would only create the ground for insoluble disputes and disagreements, which they for obvious reasons tried to avoid." Interest in the problem of the origin of the word aroused their obvious disapproval for a long time; research into the evolution of language was revived in France only in 1965.

Why was this topic considered so dangerous that thinking about it was illegal for 99 years? According to D. Premack, author of numerous books on evolution and the origin of words, “human language is an insurmountable obstacle to the theory of evolution.” Evolutionists cannot find an acceptable explanation for the extraordinary diversity of languages ​​and their complexity. Everyone agrees that language is main feature, distinguishing humans from other species. Our children master oral language skills as soon as they reach the age of four; If a child at four years old cannot speak, then this is a consequence of a congenital or acquired pathology. In general, the gift of speech is inherent in all people - and in none of the other living creatures inhabiting the Earth. Why is it that only humanity has the ability to communicate verbally, and how did we acquire this ability?

Origin of the word, obstacles to the evolutionary path

If the theory of evolution is correct, then people had to overcome many obstacles before they could communicate with words. The first of these obstacles is known as the stability of reference systems and lies in the fact that specific meanings are assigned to the sounds made by animals. For example, directly at an object in which it sees danger, but does not inform someone else by growling about the danger that has arisen. If a dog growled to alert another of danger, its growl would not be perceived as a warning. Thus, for the origin of the word, people were required to find a way to communicate about the object, rather than with the object.

In animals, communication is limited to the expression of emotions. People, in order to express their thoughts using words, needed syntax. Syntax is a specific way of combining words into sentences to convey the meaning of a message. In various languages, this purpose is served by word order, suffixation, metalanguage (parts of speech such as relative pronouns, pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, as well as endings, etc.). A person cannot convey his thoughts to another without resorting to syntactic constructions; speech without syntax is reduced to exclamations and orders.

In addition, evolutionists are unable to explain the patterns of changes that have occurred in languages ​​since the advent of writing, which has preserved these changes for modern linguists. The most ancient languages ​​- Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Phoenician, Ancient Syriac - are much more complex than any of the modern languages. Anyone who encounters these languages ​​these days has no hesitation in admitting that they are definitely more confusing and difficult to learn than the current ones. Languages ​​never became more complex than they were; on the contrary, over time they only became simpler. However, this is in no way consistent with the theory of biological evolution, according to which everything that exists has become more complex over time.

Scientists have put forward dozens of hypotheses about how people overcame obstacles to the origin of the word; These hypotheses are mostly very speculative and differ significantly from each other. Thus, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher of the late 18th century, considered human feelings and passions to be the root cause of language; therefore, according to Rousseau, our speech began with poetry. Despite Rousseau's fame, few people agreed with him, and many new versions of the origin of the word appeared. Evolutionists believe that language either evolved from the sounds with which animals communicate, or that sign language emerged first, and then sounds were gradually added to signs, and eventually spoken language emerged. Some evolutionists argue that human intelligence and the capacity for onomatopoeia allowed humans to “invent” language. Others are of the opinion that the origin of the word among people appeared “miraculously” or that people at a certain stage of evolution discovered the ability to communicate through speech.

According to the theory of evolution, humans began to separate from apes approximately 2-4 million years ago, when they began to use objects as tools. Evolutionists believe that the migration of people out of Africa began 100,000 years ago, and by 10,000 BC, people had spread throughout the world. Based on this, they argue that the language either had already formed 100,000 years ago (or, at least, was in one of the final stages of development) and then from this language, thousands of languages, many of which still exist today; or it arose simultaneously in different parts of the globe after people settled throughout the planet by 10,000 BC. Supporters of various theories of the origin of the word cannot agree on when people began to communicate using words ; and since it is impossible to either establish or recreate any of the proto-languages ​​that supposedly arose through evolutionary means, adherents of the theory of evolution are left with only guesses about how language could have appeared.

The origin of the word from the sounds made by animals, theory

Many biologists and linguists who support the idea of ​​evolution from protozoa to man believe that the origin of the word was from the sounds and noises made by animals. As human intelligence developed, people were able to pronounce everything more sounds; gradually these sounds turned into words, to which meanings were assigned.

At first glance, this theory seems logical. Indeed, why shouldn’t the screams and grunts of primates become words and acquire certain meanings? However, scientists are convinced that animal sounds have nothing to do with language and are not used to convey ideas or concepts; they serve solely to express emotions, just as in humans this purpose is served by crying, laughing, screaming, and so on. Almost all animals are capable of conveying emotions using a set of various sounds - barking, growling, hissing, chirping, cackling, etc. - but with these noises they express their feelings, not thoughts. Zoologists believe that animals do not control the vocal expression of their emotions. For example, when a dog is scared, it growls at the object that frightens it and cannot stop. Likewise, people may find it difficult to stop laughing or crying when they are overwhelmed with emotion, while communicating through words is within our control. One way or another, sounds designed to express emotions are very different from those used to convey concepts. Therefore, the likelihood of the word originating from sounds made by animals is extremely low.

The origin of the word by the power of the human mind, theory

Some scientists have suggested that humans somehow created language through their intelligence. According to their theory, as humans evolved, people's intellectual abilities continually increased and eventually allowed people to begin to communicate with each other. This assumption also seems very logical, but most scientists and linguists deny this possibility. In particular, Dwight Bolinger, a scientist and linguist who has studied the language abilities of chimpanzees, says: “It is worth wondering why all the life forms inhabiting the Earth had to wait millions of years before Homo did it [create language]. Is it because a certain level of intelligence had to appear first? But how could this happen if intelligence is entirely dependent on language? The word could in no way be a prerequisite for the “origin of the word.”

The level of intelligence cannot be measured without the help of language. So the hypothesis about the origin of the word due to the development of the human mind is unfounded and unprovable.

Among other things, scientists cannot prove that language requires developed intelligence. On the contrary, scientific data often suggests the opposite. Zoologists managed to teach chimpanzees to communicate in sign language, and they were able to understand and even use the simplest syntactic structures. Of course, they would never have invented language and could not communicate with other chimpanzees through syntax, but their level of intelligence was sufficient to understand language if they were trained to do so. Thus, we can conclude that we do not owe our ability to communicate linguistically to our highly developed intellect.

The origin of the word as a result of onomatopoeia, theory

Not long ago, Susan Blackmore, in her book The Meme Machine, hypothesized that humans were able to create language thanks to their ability to onomatopoeize. According to her, a person like no other living creature on Earth, endowed with the gift of imitating his own kind, and it was this gift that laid the foundation for the natural development of language. The number of supporters of this idea, which has become known as “meme theory,” is steadily growing.

The “meme theory” is based on the assertion that in the entire animal kingdom, only people are truly able to imitate others using facial expressions and onomatopoeia. According to this theory, other animals do not imitate their relatives and are not very capable of imitating other species of animals; people are good at both. However, scientists who have studied the behavior of primates have found that many monkeys imitate the actions of their own kind. “young chimpanzees carefully observe their older relatives and then sometimes reproduce their actions with great accuracy - contrary to popular belief that chimpanzees cannot imitate.”

Studies conducted independently by different groups of scientists have shown that monkeys are more likely to perform an action on an object if they have seen another monkey perform the same action. These studies showed that when a monkey or a human observes the actions of others, nerve impulse, which greatly contributes to their reproduction of these actions. “The value of this discovery is that for the first time, scientists have established and described the neural mechanism that ensures the precise correspondence between the visual perception of an action and its execution.” Thus, primates, like humans, are capable of imitating the actions of their own kind. And although monkeys can imitate others only by actions, but not by voice, this still goes against Blackmore's theory.

In addition, her theory is contradicted by the phenomenon of onomatopoeia in birds. Many bird species have the amazing ability to reproduce the sounds of the world around them. For example, cockatoos and macaws can imitate virtually all sounds they hear: the voices of other birds, animals, human speech, music and any other sounds. They even understand what certain sounds mean. Man is only one of many species of animals capable of imitating other people's sounds and actions, but only he was able to create language. In light of all this evidence, the “meme theory” also appears to be baseless.

The theory of the sudden origin of a word

Some scientists believe that language appeared among people suddenly, without visible prerequisites for its origin. They believe that language was originally inherent in humans, and at a certain stage of evolution people simply discovered this feature in themselves and began to use words and gestures to communicate and transmit information, gradually expanding their vocabulary. Proponents of the theory of the sudden origin of words argue that people acquired the gift of speech as a result of a random rearrangement of DNA sections in the process of evolution.

According to this theory, language and everything necessary for communication existed before man discovered it. But this means that language as such arose completely by accident and was not conceived as an integral system. Meanwhile, language is a complex logical system, the highest level of organization of which simply does not allow one to believe in its accidental occurrence. In addition, the theory of the sudden origin of the word cannot ignore the question of why, out of all the diversity of the animal world, only humans received such an honor. Language is one of the main characteristics that distinguishes us from other animals; but why was it not “discovered” by representatives of other biological species? And even if this theory can be considered as a model of the origin of the word, it cannot in any way be considered an acceptable explanation of the origin of it, since such complex structure, like a language, could not arise on its own, without the Creator.

Sign language theory

This theory of the emergence of oral communication has the largest number of supporters in modern science. According to it, as humans evolved, they gradually developed a sign system because they discovered that the use of signs could be beneficial. At first they did not try to convey any ideas to others; a person simply performed some action, another saw it and then repeated this action. For example, one person tries to move an object, but is unable to do it himself; the other sees these efforts and comes to his aid. As a result, the person realized that in order for him to be helped to move something, a gesture depicting pushing was enough. According to adherents of this theory, when people began to use gestures associated with an action, not during the process of this action, but to convey information to other people, signs turned from a means of “random” communication into a form of real-meaningful communication.

Anyone who has observed the behavior of a group of chimpanzees will agree that these monkeys communicate with each other using facial expressions and gestures. Scientists' observations show that almost all chimpanzees use the same set of sounds; inter-clan differences are very insignificant. This entire set is understandable not only to chimpanzees (to whom communication is addressed) and humans, but also to gorillas and many other species of primates. The facial expressions and gestures of chimpanzees and other apes are essentially the main argument given by supporters of the theory of gestures in support of the idea of ​​​​the gradual origin of words in the process of adding sounds to gestures.

The most serious drawback of this theory is that, despite countless attempts, none of its adherents have been able to offer an acceptable scenario for adding sounds to gestures. According to one hypothesis, initially the words had a sound similarity to the concepts they expressed (onomatopoeia). This hypothesis, known as the “onomatopoeia theory,” was put forward in 1880 by Max Miiller, but even he himself considered it not very plausible. For example, the concept of “dog” was initially expressed by the interjection “woof-woof” or “yap-yap,” and sounds reminiscent of birds chirping or croaking were associated with the birds making them. Actions were indicated by the sounds people made while performing those actions; for example, eating food was conveyed through slurping, and lifting a heavy stone through strained hooting.

Miller's theory would seem quite logical, but in all languages ​​of our time, the sound of words has nothing to do with the “sound image” of the concepts they express; and in the ancient languages ​​studied by modern linguists, there was nothing like this. Neither the English word “dog”, nor the French “chien”, nor the German “hund” sound like a dog barking. And if words originated as onomatopoeia, wouldn’t they sound more or less the same in all languages? Meanwhile, the vocabulary of the world's languages ​​is amazingly diverse. This actually negates the possibility of the word originating from gestures and onomatopoeia.

Moreover, people tend to think about concepts and ideas that we can neither realize nor express through signs. There are a great many such abstract concepts: time, love, hatred, greed, happiness, faith, purpose, beauty, matter, fun, culture, etc. The presence in the language of words expressing abstract concepts, cast serious doubt on the validity of this and any other evolutionary theory of its origin.

Another insurmountable obstacle to the theory of sign language as the primary form of communication is the problem of the emergence of syntax. It seems reasonable to many that people could come up with signs and words to denote simple objects and actions, but how did people invent syntax? There is no way a person can say, “Give me food,” if all the words he has are “food” and “I.” The syntax is such a complex system that people would not be able to "discover" it by accident. For syntax to arise, an intelligent creator was required, but a person could not be this creator, since he would not be able to convey his discovery to others. We cannot imagine our speech without a metalanguage - a set of function words that do not have a lexical meaning, but determine the meanings of other words. There is no way that people could, by pure chance, begin to use and understand these words.

Origin of the word - creation theory

Of all the theories of the origin of yaslov put forward by science, only one has maintained its position from the moment it appeared to this day, despite the fact that all this time its opponents have been busy desperately searching for counterarguments against it. This is the theory of the Divine creation of language. The belief that it was created and given to people by an omnipotent and omniscient God allows one to bypass those insurmountable obstacles against which all theories of the origin of the word in an evolutionary way are broken.

It is clear from the biblical account of Creation that language existed before God began to create this world. Language was one of the ways of communication of the Most Holy Trinity - the hypostases of the Triune God.

The history of mankind allows Christians to claim that language exists as long as God exists, and according to the Bible, God exists forever.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. And God said: Let there be light. And there was light"(Genesis 1:1-3).

But why, of all the living creatures He created, did God endow only humans with language? We find the answer to this question in the very first chapter of Holy Scripture: “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them"(Genesis 1:27). God created people in his image, and since God has language and communication, people also received this gift. Thus, language is one of the facets of the Personality of Godhead that He has imparted to people. This is a reasonable conclusion, since language gives us a partial idea of ​​the nature of God. Like God, language is incredibly complex. It can take a lifetime to study; but at the same time, children, barely learning to walk, begin to understand and use language.

Conclusion

Evolutionists have put forward a great many theories about the origin of words, but none of these theories provides an acceptable explanation for the extraordinary diversity and complexity of languages. So there is nothing left but faith in God the Creator, Who not only created man, but also endowed him with the gift of speech. The Bible tells about the Creation of all things by God; its text is devoid of contradictions and contains answers to all questions. Unlike the theory of evolution, which lacks credibility in explaining the origin of the word, the creation theory set forth in the Bible is able to withstand any objections.

See in the notebook, not in the book, in the notebook)

2. Typology as a general scientific method. Linguistic typology is one of the types of systematization of languages ​​and a section of general linguistics

On a general scientific scale, typology is a method for studying diverse and internally complex objects by identifying their common or similar features and grouping, combining objects, taking into account the measure of this proximity, into certain classes (groups, types). Typological studies in various sciences may differ significantly in principles and logical forms. Thus, biological typology (systematics of the plant and animal worlds) is based on the evolutionary principle; in geography, geology, ethnography, typological studies are built taking into account hierarchical relationships between objects (the corresponding groups of objects of the same rank are called taxa, and their classifications are called taxonomic classifications, or taxonomies *). To understand some other areas of reality, it is important to identify both the hierarchy of objects (i.e., their “vertical” relationships) and horizontal connections caused by different strengths of manifestation of some common feature. As a result, the corresponding subject area appears as a continuum of objects or their classes.

In linguistics, three main types of systematization of languages ​​are used: 1) genealogical associations, which take into account the related relationships of languages; 2) typological classifications of languages, understood as associations (groupings), logically independent of the genealogical trees of languages; 3) territorial (areal) classifications of languages. In the systematization of languages, general scientific principles of typological research, methods of genetic and taxonomic classifications, continuum and areal studies are used. However, only in typological studies of languages ​​the idea of ​​type itself is used as a certain unification of objects, taking into account their common features. Therefore, in linguistics it is customary to terminologically distinguish typology itself from all other types of systematization of languages ​​(i.e. from their genetic and areal associations).

It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of “type (class) of language” as an empirical reality (this is a group of specific languages ​​that have a number of typologically significant common features) and “type of language” as an abstract mental construct (in a book or in the mind of a researcher): this is a logical construction, which displays a set of significant features corresponding to a given type of language.

3. From the history of typological research (predecessors and founders of the typology of languages: A. Arnaud, Claude Lanslau “Grammar universal and rational of Port-Royal (1660); F. von Schlegel; W. von Humboldt, etc.)

Although the first typological classifications and terms belong to the beginning of the 19th century, the prerequisites for typological linguistics and linguistics of universals were laid back in the Middle Ages - thanks to the centuries-old belief of people that internally all languages ​​are similar and that therefore, from the grammar of the Latin language one can understand the structure and categories of any from folk languages. The widespread cultural bilingualism in the Middle Ages encouraged constant comparison of languages, noticing their similarities and differences, with Greek, Latin or Church Slavonic being a kind of “reference point”, “reference” languages.

The spontaneous universalism of medieval grammatical thought, the belief in the fundamental “commensurability” of all languages, subsequently received theoretical development in the famous grammar of Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lanslot, “The Universal and Rational Grammar of Port-Royal” (1660). Under her influence back in early XIX V. in different countries of Europe, the grammars of different languages ​​continued to be called universal, rational or philosophical

Franciscan and Oxford professor Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1294), philosopher and natural scientist, wrote: Grammar is essentially the same in all languages, although it may vary by chance. This conviction of Bacon is all the more characteristic of the era because he was by no means a pure theorist: the grammars of the Hebrew and Greek languages ​​compiled by Bacon are known.

Among the predecessors of typological linguistics, an outstanding role belongs to the famous English sociologist and economist Adam Smith (1723-1790). Long before Schlegel, in his essay “On the Initial Formation of Languages ​​and the Difference in the Spiritual Disposition of Native and Mixed Languages” (London, 1781), Smith saw the movement of a number of Indo-European languages ​​from synthetism to the analytical system and discussed the reasons for such typological evolution. He expressed surprisingly prescient thoughts about the nature of the original language of man: it was by no means nomenclature, but signs for an energetic, often motivating message about an event that occurs or is felt as relevant at the moment of speech. Smith assumed the syncretic existence of words and sentences in the early stages of the development of human language. In the 19th century Researchers of incorporating languages ​​have come to similar thoughts. Smith was the first to suggest that the mixing of languages ​​leads to a simplification of morphology, in other words, contributes to the growth of analytical features of the languages ​​in contact (for details, see Katsnelson 1982). However, Smith's typological ideas were not noticed by his contemporaries. The beginning of typological research dates back to the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. and it is connected with German culture.

The foundations of typology were laid almost simultaneously with the formation of comparative historical linguistics." The first comparatists were also the first typologists. Among them was the author of the book-manifesto of Indo-European studies “On the Language and Wisdom of the Hindus” (1808), Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829), who gave the first typological classification of languages; the founder of German philosophy of language, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1765-1835); the author of the first comparative historical grammar of Indo-European languages, Franz Bopp (1791-1867), the main categories of morphological typology of languages ​​were already proposed: inflection (inflectional languages), agglutination. and fusion, analytical and synthetic languages, isolating languages, incorporation.

The main typological oppositions in Humboldt are presented in the following diagram:

Morphological typology of languages ​​according to Humboldt

By creating a morphological typology, comparativist typologists of the “first call” sought to achieve its historical interpretation, i.e. to present the types of languages ​​as stages of a single historical process of formation of the world's languages. This process is sometimes called glottogony, or glottogonic process. They considered the most ancient to be the amorphous structure of languages, where the phrase consisted of monosyllabic root words, devoid of any service morphemes, as if unformed. Then agglutination and subsequent fusion processes led to the appearance of inflection and sound alternations. Inflectional (fusional) morphology, therefore, was considered here as the highest stage of grammatical development, and the loss of inflection as a decline in language.

Of course, this romantic pessimism of the first comparativist typologists belongs to the past. However, their research achievements remain the common categorical and terminological foundation of the typology. In the 20th century The development of typology largely consisted of empirical-linguistic (including quantitative) and logical clarification of those classifications and concepts that were put forward in the first third of the 19th century. At the same time, modern typology has almost abandoned the historical-cultural, and especially the evaluative, interpretation of language types. But a new direction in typological research has emerged - the linguistics of universals.

LANGUAGE – social processed, historically variable system of signs, serving as the main means of communication and representing different forms of existence, each of which has at least one form of implementation - oral or written.

SPEECH – this is one of the types of human communicative activity, i.e. using language to communicate with other people

Types of speech activity:

Speaking

Hearing

The main functions of the language are:

communicative (communication function);

thought-forming (function of embodiment and expression of thoughts);

expressive (function of expressing the internal state of the speaker);

aesthetic (the function of creating beauty through language).

Communicative function lies in the ability of language to serve as a means of communication between people. Language has the units necessary to construct messages, the rules for their organization, and ensures the emergence of similar images in the minds of participants in communication. Language also has special means of establishing and maintaining contact between participants in communication.

From the point of view of speech culture, the communicative function presupposes the orientation of participants in speech communication towards the fruitfulness and mutual usefulness of communication, as well as a general focus on the adequacy of understanding speech.

Thought-forming The function is that language serves as a means of designing and expressing thoughts. The structure of language is organically connected with the categories of thinking. “The word, which alone is capable of making a concept an independent unit in the world of thoughts, adds to it a lot of its own,” wrote the founder of linguistics Wilhelm von Humboldt (Humboldt V. Selected works in linguistics. - M., 1984. P. 318).

This means that the word highlights and formalizes the concept, and at the same time a relationship is established between units of thinking and symbolic units of language. That is why W. Humboldt believed that “language must accompany thought. Thought must, keeping up with language, follow from one of its elements to another and find in language a designation for everything that makes it coherent” (Ibid., p. 345) . According to Humboldt, “in order to correspond to thinking, language, as far as possible, in its structure must correspond to the internal organization of thinking” (Ibid.).

The speech of an educated person is distinguished by the clarity of the presentation of his own thoughts, the accuracy of the retelling of other people's thoughts, consistency and information content.

Expressive the function allows language to serve as a means of expressing the internal state of the speaker, not only to convey some information, but also to express the speaker’s attitude to the content of the message, to the interlocutor, to the communication situation. Language expresses not only thoughts, but also human emotions. The expressive function presupposes the emotional brightness of speech within the framework of socially accepted etiquette.

Artificial languages ​​do not have an expressive function.

Aesthetic the function is to ensure that the message, in its form in unity with the content, satisfies the aesthetic sense of the addressee. The aesthetic function is primarily characteristic of poetic speech(works of folklore, fiction), but not only for it - journalistic, scientific speech, and everyday colloquial speech can be aesthetically perfect.

The aesthetic function presupposes the richness and expressiveness of speech, its correspondence to the aesthetic tastes of the educated part of society.

Russian language among other languages ​​of the world.

Representatives of different nations of the world speak Russian, communicating not only with Russians, but also with each other.

Just like English and some other languages, Russian is widely used outside of Russia. It is used in various areas of international communication: at negotiations between CIS member countries, at forums international organizations, including the UN, in global communication systems (on television, on the Internet), in international aviation and space communications. Russian is the language of international scientific communication and is used in many international scientific conferences in humanitarian and natural sciences.

Russian language In terms of the absolute number of people who speak it, it ranks fifth in the world (after Chinese, Hindi and Urdu combined, English and Spanish), but this is not the main feature in determining the world language. What is important for a “world language” is not the sheer number of people who speak it, especially as a native speaker, but the global distribution of native speakers, its coverage of different, maximum number of countries, as well as the most influential social strata of the population in different countries. Of great importance is the universal significance of fiction, of all culture created on given language(Kostomarov V.G. Russian language in international communication// Russian language. Encyclopedia. - M., 1997. P. 445).

Russian is studied as a foreign language in many countries around the world. Russian language and literature are studied at leading universities in the USA, Germany, France, China and other countries.

The Russian language, like other “world languages,” is highly informative, i.e. wide possibilities of expression and transmission of thoughts. The information value of a language depends on the quality and quantity of information presented in a given language in original and translated publications.

Oral speech- this is sounding speech used for direct communication, and in a broader sense - this is any sounding speech. Historically, this is the very first form of speech; it arose much earlier than writing. The material form of oral speech is the pronounced sounds that arise as a result complex activities human pronunciation organs.

The most important distinctive feature oral speech is its unpreparedness: oral speech, as a rule, is created during a conversation. However, the degree of unpreparedness may vary. This can be a speech on a topic unknown in advance, carried out as improvisation. On the other hand, it could be a speech on a previously known topic, thought out in certain parts. Oral speech of this kind is typical for official public communication. From oral speech, i.e. speech generated in the process of speaking, one should distinguish between speech read and learned by heart; for this type of speech the term "sounding speech" is sometimes used.

Letter is a human-created auxiliary sign system, which is used to fix the sound language ( sound speech). At the same time, writing is an independent communication system, which, while performing the function of recording oral speech, acquires a number of independent functions. Written speech makes it possible to assimilate the knowledge accumulated by humanity, expands the scope human communication, breaks the boundaries of the immediate environment.

Usage written form allows you to think about your speech longer, build it gradually, correcting and supplementing, which ultimately contributes to the development and use of more complex syntactic structures than is typical for oral speech. Such features of oral speech as repetitions and unfinished constructions would be stylistic errors.

Communication concept

Communication is a specific form of human interaction. Joint activity in obtaining food, the need for self-defense, and the desire to win one’s place in the world led to the emergence of the phenomenon of communication. The need for it is inherent not only to humans - all living things communicate in one way or another.

Communication is not a human invention; it is needed biological nature. Among people, it began to play such an important role that it practically received the status of one of the most important, and psychologists tend to equate it with the need for self-preservation. Indeed, there are periods in a person’s life when lack of communication is tantamount to death, physical or spiritual. In young children, communication deficits lead to mental growth delays.

Basic functions and units of communication

Communication is multifaceted and can perform very diverse functions. The main ones are the following:

1) communicative, it consists in the exchange of necessary information;

2) interactive, function of organizing interaction, i.e. determination of the type of activity, distribution of responsibilities and control over their implementation, influence on the mood, behavior, beliefs of the communication partner;

3) perceptive, establishing mutual understanding in the process of activity.

Communication becomes possible if all its units (components, terms) are present and each clearly fulfills its assigned role. The components of communication are: 1) its participants - they are called “communicators”, 2) the subject of communication and 3) its means (verbal and non-verbal).

Types of communication

In linguistics, there are different classifications of types of communication; they do not contradict, but rather complement each other.

Linguists base their classification on:

1) type of human activity (business and everyday communication)

2) position of communicants in space (contact and distant)

3) the presence or absence of a mediating apparatus (direct and indirect)

4) the form of language used (oral and written)

5) constancy or variability of the positions “I am the speaker” - “you are the listener” (dialogical and monological)

6) the number of communicators (interpersonal and mass).

Nonverbal communication– this means “a system of non-verbal symbols, signs, codes used to convey a message with a high degree of accuracy, which has a fairly clear range of meanings and can be described as a linguistic sign system,” i.e. - these are basically arbitrary gestures, body movements, postures that are accepted in a particular society, and which may vary depending on the cultural environment or place of residence (an example is greeting gestures, etc.).

Communicative portrait of a specialist

For success in professional activity It is important for a modern specialist to have perfect command of speech culture skills, to have linguistic, communicative and behavioral competence in professional communication.

This requires the following qualities, abilities, and skills:

• 
  knowledge of the norms of the literary language and stable skills in their application in speech;
• 
  the ability to monitor the accuracy, logic and expressiveness of speech;
• 
  possession professional terminology, knowledge of correspondences between terms and concepts;
• 
  mastery of professional speech style;
• 
  the ability to determine the goal and understand the communication situation;
• 
  the ability to take into account the social and individual personality traits of the interlocutor;
• 
  skills in predicting the development of dialogue and the interlocutor’s reactions;
• 
  the ability to create and maintain a favorable communication atmosphere;
• 
  high degree of control over emotional state and expression of emotions;
• 
  the ability to direct dialogue in accordance with the goals of professional activity;
• 
  knowledge of etiquette and strict adherence to its rules.

Speech etiquette - regulating rules of speech behavior, a system of nationally specific stereotypical, stable communication formulas accepted and prescribed by society to establish contacts between interlocutors, maintain and interrupt contact in the chosen tonality.

functions of speech etiquette:

• 
  assistance in establishing contact between interlocutors;
• 
  attracting the attention of the listener (reader), distinguishing him from other potential interlocutors;
• 
  providing an opportunity to show respect;
• 
  assistance in determining the status of ongoing communication (friendly, business, official, etc.);
• 
  creating a favorable emotional environment for communication and providing a positive impact on the listener (reader), etc.

Speech etiquette includes words and expressions used by people to say goodbye, requests, apologies accepted in different situations forms of address, intonation features that characterize polite speech, etc.

Speech etiquette formulas are divided into three main groups:

1. 
   Speech formulas, related to the beginning of communication .
2. 
   Speech formulas, characteristic of the main part of communication .
3. 
   Speech formulas, used at the end of communication . When the conversation ends, the interlocutors use formulas for parting and stopping communication.

• 
  appealing and attracting attention;
• 
  introduction, greeting;
• 
  parting;
• 
  apology, gratitude;
• 
  congratulations, wishes;
• 
  approval, compliment;
• 
  sympathy, condolences;
• 
  invitation, offer;
• 
  advice, request;
• 
  consent, refusal.

1. 
   Speech etiquette is built taking into account characteristics of partners , entering into communication: social status subject and addressee, their place in the social hierarchy, their profession, nationality, religion, age, gender, character.
2. 
   Speech etiquette is determined situation in which verbal communication occurs. Speech etiquette is one way or another tied to the situation of verbal communication and its parameters: the personalities of the interlocutors, the topic, place, time, motive and purpose of communication.
3. 
   Speech etiquette has national specifics . Each nation created its own system of rules speech behavior.

Functional style. Function - in other words, purpose, purpose. People use language in for different purposes. In some situations, language is used to simply exchange thoughts, impressions, and observations. Let us remember, for example, our conversations with friends, relatives, family members, our correspondence with them. In these and similar situations, the function of language is communication. In other situations, language performs other functions: communication and influence. Styles that are distinguished in accordance with the main functions of the language associated with a particular field of human activity. are called functional.

Functional styles are primarily colloquial and bookish, and bookish styles include scientific, official business, journalistic, and especially the style of fiction.

For everyone functional style certain are characteristic; means of language: words, their forms, phraseological units, phrases, types and types of sentences. Moreover, the belonging of these means to one or another style is realized when comparing them with neutral means (from the Latin neutralis - not belonging to either one or the other, average), i.e. commonly used. It is these means, which are inter-style, that create the unity of the literary language.

Functional language style - this is its variety, which serves any aspect of public life: everyday communication; official business relations; mass propaganda activities; science, verbal and artistic creativity. Each of these spheres of public life uses its own variety of literary language. Let us present in the form of a table the spheres of communication and the literary language styles that serve them.

Scientific style

Scientific style is one of the book styles literary language, which is characterized by a number of general conditions of functioning and linguistic features: preliminary consideration of the statement, its monological nature, strict selection linguistic means, attraction to normal speech. The scientific style serves the scientific and scientific-pedagogical sphere, technology.

Main function scientific style - transmission of logical information and evidence of its truth, and often also novelty and value. Secondary function of scientific style, arising from its main function, is considered to be the activation of the logical thinking of the reader (listener).

There are three types (substyles) of scientific speech:

1) Proper scientific substyle (monograph, dissertation, report, etc.) The substyle is generally distinguished by a strict, academic manner of presentation. It brings together scientific literature written by specialists and intended for specialists.

2) Scientific and educational substyle combines the features of the Proper scientific substyle and popular science presentation. What it has in common with the scientific substyle is its terminology and consistency in description. scientific information, logic, evidence; with popular science - accessibility, richness of illustrative material. The genres of the scientific and educational substyle include: textbook, lecture, seminar report, answer to the exam, etc.

3) Popular science substyle A feature of the popular science substyle is the combination of features in it: logic and emotionality, objectivity and subjectivity, abstractness and concreteness. Significantly fewer special terms and other strictly scientific means.

Peculiarities:

Great variety of speech genres: scientific article, scientific monograph, dissertation works, scientific and educational prose, annotations, abstracts, scientific reports, lectures, popular science literature. It is implemented mainly in written speech. Accuracy, abstractness, logic and objectivity of presentation. Specially scientific and terminological vocabulary.. Lexical composition – homogeneity, isolation – less use of synonyms. There is no vocabulary with a conversational tone. It is not emotionally expressive in nature. The use of Formulas, symbols, tables, and graphs is typical. Information richness of the proposal.

Written and oral forms of scientific style:

1) Oral: abstract message, lecture, report.

2) Written: article, monograph, textbook, abstract, abstract, documentation, reference book, etc.

Genres of scientific style:

Abstract - an adequate presentation of the content of the primary text. The abstract answers the question: “What information is contained in the original source, what is stated in it?” There are reproductive and productive abstracts. Reproductive abstracts reproduce the content of the primary text. Productive essays involve critical or creative reflection on literature. There are three main components in the structure of the abstract: bibliographic description, the abstract text itself, and reference apparatus. Summarizing is an intellectual creative process, including comprehension of the text, analytical-synthetic transformation of information and the creation of a new text.

Scientific article - a short essay in which the author presents the results of his own research. A monograph is a scientific work devoted to the study of one topic, one question. This group of genres - original essays of a research nature - can include term papers and dissertations. These scientific essays are characterized by a strict composition. In each text, structural and semantic components (parts) are distinguished: title, introduction, main part, conclusion. The title (title) of a scientific work is an information unit; it usually reflects the topic of a given text and should be consistent with the content of that text. The introduction (introductory part) should be short and precise. It justifies the choice of research topic, describes the methods used in the research process, and formulates the purpose of the work (for example, to reveal the specifics..., to explain a phenomenon, to summarize the facts). The main part of the text of the monograph (coursework, thesis) is divided into chapters in accordance with the objectives of the work. In a small article, parts are not highlighted, but each new thought is presented in a new paragraph. The conclusion takes the form of conclusions corresponding to the stages of the study, or the form of a short summary.

Abstract - a concise, brief description of the book (article, collection), its contents and purpose. The summary lists the main issues and problems of the primary text, and sometimes describes its structure. Answers the question: “What does the text say?”

Coursework - This is a message about the formulation of the problem, the progress of the research, and its results. This scientific communication contains objectively new information. In an educational report on humanitarian topics, in particular, this novelty is largely subjective. It is determined by the presence of new facts or their original interpretation, the presence of one’s own point of view, one’s position.

The journalistic style is inherent in periodicals, socio-political literature, political and judicial speeches, etc. It is used to highlight and discuss current problems and phenomena in the current life of society, to develop public opinion formed with the aim of solving them.

One of the central functions of the journalistic style of speech is the informational function. By implementing it, this style also performs another function - influencing the reader and listener.

The journalistic style, unlike the scientific one, for example, is associated with simplicity and accessibility of presentation. His verbal expressiveness is manifested in the desire for novelty of presentation, in attempts to use unusual, uncanny phrases, avoid repetition of the same words, constructions, address directly the reader or listener, etc.

Among the features of the journalistic style, its peculiar collectivity stands out. Collectivity manifests itself most clearly as a linguistic feature of the newspaper version of journalism. In particular, it is embodied in the increased frequency of use of the pronouns “we” and “our”.

Another important manifestation of the journalistic style is the use of so-called intellectual speech. It is characterized by strict documentaryism, focusing on the accuracy, verification, and objectivity of the facts presented.

The most important role in the journalistic style of speech is played by emotional means of expressiveness. Among them are the use of words with a strong emotional connotation, the use of figurative meanings of words, and the use of various figurative means. Epithets are widely used lexical repetitions, comparisons, metaphors, appeals, rhetorical issues. Proverbs, sayings, colloquial figures of speech, phraseological units, the use of literary images, the use of humor and satire are also means of emotional expressiveness.

Scope of application: press, political and judicial speeches, literature, information programs.

In the journalistic style, the function of transmitting information is closely related to the function of impact.

Peculiarities:

1. 
   Simplicity and accessibility in presentation
2. 
   Collectiveness (expressed in the frequent use of the pronouns we, our) claims to express an opinion that has received public support.
3. 
   The use of intellectual speech to create documents is a fact of logical accuracy
4. 
   Elements of appeal and declarativeness

The concept of norms and types of norms of the modern Russian literary language

Literary correct speech constructed in accordance with language norms. Norm is a uniform, exemplary, generally accepted use of elements of a literary language in a certain period of its development. It is historical and over time, one way or another, it can change. The establishment of a norm and its assimilation by native speakers helps preserve the integrity and general intelligibility of the literary language, protects it from the unjustified penetration of dialectal, colloquial and slang elements.

A norm can be imperative (not allowing choice) or dispositive (allowing choice).

There are orthoepic, stylistic, grammatical and lexical norms. Orthoepic norms– norms of pronunciation and stress. Lexical norms are responsible for the use of words. Stylistic norms are responsible for the correct choice of linguistic signs in accordance with the situation and the sphere of use. Grammar rules are responsible for the correct choice of word form and the correct construction of a syntactic structure.

Acquisition of language norms by native speakers national language occurs naturally if in early childhood a person hears correct, standardized speech. Mastery of norms continues at school and other educational institutions. But in speech practice, despite this, one or another violation of the norm occurs very often. This drawback can be overcome if you systematically work with various kinds of dictionaries and reference books.

8.1 Subject and tasks of linguistic typology. Interaction of typology with other branches of linguistic science

Linguistic typology - a section of general linguistics and one of the types of systematization of languages. Comparative study of the structural and functional properties of languages, regardless of the nature of the genetic relationships between them.

T. is based on research individual languages and is closely related to general linguistics, using the concepts of the structure and functions of language developed in it. L.T. strives not only to note and classify facts of similarities and differences between languages, but also to explain them, and this brings it closer to the tasks theoretical linguistics. Depending on the subject of research, there are FUNCTIONAL (=sociolinguistic, the subject is language as a communicative means, viewed through the prism of its social functions and spheres of use) and structural (the subject is the internal organization of language as a system). TASKS T. - 1) Theoretical. 1.-Defining the boundaries of the linguistic space, what place a language occupies in relation to other languages, 2.-Develop metalanguages ​​adequate to the tasks (description of languages ​​in one theoretical plane and symbolic system), 3.-Help to navigate the diversity of structures of the world's languages. 2) Applications began to take shape later - 1. Deciphering texts, 2. - Machine translation, 3. - Creating alphabets for the written languages ​​of peoples (for example, the simplest to write, the most functional phonemes, the alphabet should correspond as closely as possible to the sounds of the structure language).

Highlight descriptive(taxonomic) typology, the purpose of which is to create classifications of languages, and explanatory a typology that seeks not only to classify languages, but also to explain linguistic variation and the existing limitations on differences between languages. The main task of such typological studies is not only to compare languages ​​in order to find out what unites them and how they differ, but also to answer the question of what is the nature of human language in general.

Typology is related to a number of other sciences. T. is associated with descriptive linguistics, but the main difference is that a desk language goes from form to meaning, and a typol goes from meaning to form: the meaning is initially set for all languages, and we look in what forms this manifests itself (from content to form/vice versa). Typology until the 19th century was historical (it dealt with the reconstruction of the proto-language). SFL also considers many languages ​​and identifies their types, but the principles by which types are distinguished in typology are obvious, but in SFL they are not defined (on what basis do we distinguish the Indo-European family?).

Typol is connected with the most common of all linguistic disciplines - general linguistics. This is a linguistic discipline about the most general patterns of structure, functioning, and development of languages. Typology deals only with the structure of all languages, that is, it is already narrower. T. is based on the study of individual languages ​​and is closely related to general linguistics, using the concepts of the structure and functions of language developed in it.

2. Linguistic typology as a section of general linguistics and one of the types of systematization of languages. Subject and tasks of linguistic typology. The typology is taxonomic and explanatory.

Linguistic typology is a science that deals with the comparative study of the structural and functional properties of languages, regardless of the nature of the genetic relationships between them. Typology is one of the two main aspects of language study, along with the comparative historical aspect, from which it differs ontologically (i.e., in the essential characteristics of the subject of study) and epistemologically (i.e., in the set of principles and techniques of research). Linguistic typology deals with finding out the most general patterns of different languages ​​not related to each other by common origin or mutual influence, seeks to identify the most probable phenomena in different languages. If a certain phenomenon is identified in a representative group of languages, it can be considered a typological pattern applicable to the language as such. Linguistic typology arose as a way of classifying languages ​​according to their structure without taking into account their origin. If typology in linguistics was previously limited to the classification of languages, then modern typology forms a new section - knowledge of the structure of language in general. Typological analysis can be carried out at the level of sound (phonetic and phonological typology), at the level of words (morphological typology), sentences (syntactic typology) and supra-syntactic structures (text or discourse typology).

In linguistics, three main types of systematization of languages ​​are used: 1) genealogical associations, which take into account the related relationships of languages; 2) typological classifications of languages, understood as associations (groupings), logically independent of the genealogical trees of languages; 3) territorial (areal) classifications of languages. In the systematization of languages, general scientific principles of typological research, methods of genetic and taxonomic classifications of continuum and areal studies are used. However, only in typological studies of languages ​​the idea of ​​type itself is used as a certain unification of objects, taking into account their common features.

The task of typology is to study the signs of structural similarity of languages, regardless of their territorial distribution, structural similarity of unrelated and related languages, geographically distant and historically unrelated languages. One of the main tasks of typology is to build general theory language, identifying universal (valid for any language) relationships and features, or linguistic universals. At the same time, typology establishes features that are inherent only to some languages. On this basis, typological classifications are built. (The purpose of the typology is to create the most economical way to encode information about the structures of the world's languages. At the same time different languages are described in the same terms, and the isomorphism of different languages ​​is revealed.).

Linguistic typology is one of the branches of structural and comparative (comparative) linguistics; a science that studies heterogeneous and internally complex objects by identifying their common and different properties, comparing and grouping them into classes and subclasses (in philosophical terms). Answers the question: what properties of structure are possible/impossible in any human language. Typology is the science that determines the boundaries of an object. Allows you to navigate the variety of language structures. Objectives: identification of structural properties common to several languages, study, delineation of the space of typological possibilities. Objectives: 1. The main objective is to formalize linguistic information about different human languages ​​in the same unified symbolic system (system of parts of speech; system of sentence members). 2. create an adequate metalanguage. You cannot rely on only 1 language in your research. Requirements for a metalanguage: it is opposite to most of the requirements of other languages. This is the path from form to meaning. Typology is the path from meaning to form. Values ​​(objectivity, quality, quantity). 3. reconstruction problem. Space of typological possibilities. Substitution is carried out. We take each type and substitute it into our material.

Depending on the method of setting research objectives, taxonomic and explanatory typologies are distinguished. Depending on whether the properties are considered in statics or dynamics - static and dynamic. Currently, there is a thesis that the typology of the future is moving from a static model of language to a dynamic one, i.e. from taxonomic to explanatory tasks. Typology systematizes observations of the manifestations of properties and differences between languages. Since the composition and specificity of types depends on the degree of variation in language structures, typology can develop. Until recently, the main task of typology was to find an answer to the question: “How and in what ways do languages ​​differ from each other?” The main task of Kak-typology was taxonomy, that is, the classification of languages ​​according to various parameters. Lately it has become obvious. What happens in typology, as well as in the general theory of language? qualitative changes source data and, along with How-questions, Why-questions are increasingly beginning to be posed. For example: Why do languages ​​differ from each other in some way? Thus, the taxonomic How-typology is replaced by an explanatory typology, which is designed to answer not only the question of the existence, but also the reasons for the existence / non-existence of certain phenomena in language. The main approach to Why-typology is based on a fundamental hypothesis about the functioning of language motivation. Namely, that language (as a mechanism, device or means) should not have an arbitrary structure, but one that would be optimally consistent with the ways of its use, so that the language fulfills its purpose - the communicative function. If this hypothesis is correct, then knowledge of the conditions under which language functions can explain why the grammars of languages ​​differ in this particular way. This hypothesis also explains why the explanatory Why-typology, namely its goals, cannot be resolved within the framework of taxonomic methods, but require a functional method focused on the activity model of language. The typology should be based not on a traditional statistical model of language, but dynamic model, consistent with the model of language activity, i.e. describing language as a mechanism involved in the transformation of speech-cognitive tasks into text. The explanatory capabilities of the dynamic Why-typology allow not only to achieve previously inaccessible generalizations, but also to take a fresh look at the problem of simplicity and complexity of language.

3. Interaction of typology with other branches of linguistic science (general characteristics). Linguistic typology and theory of language.

In general, typology is closely related to comparative historical, general and structural linguistics. The typology is based on the study of individual languages ​​and is closely linked with general linguistics, using the concepts of the structure and functions of language developed in it. General linguistics establishes the common (or statistically predominant) features of all languages, both empirically - inductively, using typology, and deductively, exploring general (significant for all groups of people) patterns of language functioning, features of any speech act and text, etc.

Structural typology deals with the systematization and inventory of facts of individual languages ​​and the identification of common language universals. Considers systems without any restrictions and completes the study by identifying typical features. Structural typology can use data from genetic and other sections of linguistic typology. The purpose of structural typology is to identify the universal properties of languages.

Comparative-historical linguistics (linguistic comparative studies) is a field of linguistics devoted primarily to the relationship of languages, which is understood historically and genetically (as a fact of origin from a common proto-language). Comparative historical linguistics deals with establishing the degree of relationship between languages ​​(constructing a genealogical classification of languages), reconstructing proto-languages, studying diachronic processes in the history of languages, their groups and families, and the etymology of words.

Speaking about typology in general, it is necessary to distinguish between the typological method as a way of cognition and the typological theory (it limits the set of natural possible languages ​​(it predicts what properties no natural language can have) and defines the space of typological possibilities). Typology as a method of cognition used in different sciences, seeks to understand the internal organization of objects, to identify special properties, typologically relevant properties.

Theory of language = linguistics (linguistics, linguistics) - the science that studies languages. This is the science of natural human language in general and of all the languages ​​of the world as its individual representatives. In a broad sense, it is part of semiotics as the science of signs.

Linguistic typology covers a variety of natural languages ​​and strives to describe the diversity of these languages. Moreover, it is logically independent of genetic and areal linguistics. At the same time, typology is logically dependent on descriptive linguistics, or descriptors, since it is based on ready-made descriptive descriptions, and not directly on the facts of speech.

4. Linguistic typology and comparative historical linguistics.

At the dawn of the development of linguistics in general, and comparative studies in particular, attempts were made to find out which languages ​​and on what basis could be classified as more primitive, and which as more developed. Comparisons can be made at the level of sound (phonetic typology), at the level of words (morphological typology), sentences (syntactic typology) and supra-syntactic structures (text typology). Quite soon it became clear that the initial premise was incorrect: it is impossible to judge its development or primitiveness by the typological characteristics of a language. Completely different languages ​​can belong to the same type (for example, English, Chinese - superbly developed and having a rich literature and the unwritten language of the Qing people in northern China are equally classified as isolating languages).

As a result of these discoveries, linguists became disillusioned with typology until around the mid-20th century, when typology experienced a rebirth. Today's typology deals not with individual elements of languages, but with systems of languages ​​- phonological (system of sounds) and grammatical. Phonological typology is of especially great practical importance for comparative studies. The fact is that with all the huge diversity of languages ​​in the world, all people have almost the same structure speech apparatus. There are a considerable number of patterns associated with this. Linguistic classification of the peoples of the world is based on the methods of comparative historical linguistics (comparative studies) and the establishment of genetic relationships between languages.

Typology is more specific, deals with unrelated languages, regardless of their relationship, and does not reveal genetic proximity. Compares languages ​​in terms of structures. (And comparative-historical linguistics (linguistic comparative studies) is a science that deals with the comparison of languages ​​in order to establish their kinship, their genetic classification and reconstruction of proto-linguistic states. The main tool of comparative-historical linguistics is the comparative-historical method, which allows one to effectively solve all the problems listed above) .

Particularly strong ties are in historical terms. Both approaches to comparing languages ​​were used at the same time, and the sciences developed in parallel. In the 19th century, no one thought it strange to try to compare these approaches. Ideas: all languages ​​included in 1 family (group) are typologically close. This convergence of typology and genealogy divides languages ​​into lower and higher. The Nazis liked these ideas; they believed that language type was an indicator of the development of the level of culture. In stage typology, it is believed that there are not types, but stages of language development. Young Humboldt distinguishes 4 types of languages ​​(stage classification): 1. languages, where grammatical meaning is expressed by speech; 2. grammatical meaning is expressed by word order; 3. grammatical meaning is expressed by analogues of forms (a word with weathered semantics); 4. grammatical meaning is expressed in full linguistic forms. 2,3 and 4 are isolating, agglutinative and inflectional languages ​​as understood by modern linguists. It turned out that the language does not develop gradually, but appears immediately, with all its grammatical forms and categories. Humboldt made this conclusion and abandoned his stage idea. Any human language is absolutely perfect, and it is possible to express any, even the most complex thought, from a grammatical point of view.

Genealogical classification developed more harmoniously, while typology developed dramatically, sometimes not developing at all. In the 19th century, typology developed in Germany, and only Indo-European languages. Typology verifies historical reconstruction (provides possible structural systems).

5. Linguistic typology and descriptive linguistics, typology and areal linguistics.

Descriptive linguistics (from Late Latin descriptivus - descriptive), one of the areas of linguistic structuralism that dominated American linguistics in the 30-50s. 20th century At the origins of D. l. American linguists L. Bloomfield and E. Sapir stand. Language was presented to descriptivists as a set of speech utterances, which were the main object of their research. The rules were their focus scientific description texts: study of organization, arrangement and classification of their elements. The formalization of analytical procedures in the field of phonology and morphology (the development of principles for studying language at different levels, distributional analysis, the method of direct components, etc.) led to the formulation of general questions of linguistic modeling. Inattention to the plan of the content of language, as well as the paradigmatic side of language, did not allow descriptivists to sufficiently fully and correctly interpret language as a system. There was also no consistent philosophical basis. Thus, descriptive linguistics is being created to describe a system of distant and completely unknown languages- this is in theory. But in practice - thousands American languages were described in detail from the structure side. There is a connection with typology: languages ​​were not compared, but several features were taken that formed the basis of classification - this is a purely typological approach. When describing a language, you need to know the method of description, and typology does this (decides what to choose for description). American linguists described Indian languages ​​according to structural features.

It was very bad time for typology, because systemic-structural linguistics had a bad attitude towards typology. Principle of linguistics: a complete system of language (one language). For them, the similarity of the principles of different systems did not matter, because this goes beyond the scope of one system.

The task of areal typology includes the study of general typological characteristics and patterns of languages ​​located in a particular territory or area. For example, the establishment of typological features of the languages ​​of the Balkan Peninsula or the languages ​​of the East Siberian area, such as the formation of the postpositive article in the Bulgarian, Albanian and Romanian languages, cf.: Bulgarian. rivernik - dictionary, slantsego - sun, etc. Linguists turn to areal typology when studying various issues related to identifying the genesis or causes of linguistic features of individual related languages, both synchronously and diachronically.

Areal linguistics (in the 19th century). The peculiarities of languages ​​are related to the problems of people's settlement. Many languages ​​evolved as a result of linguistic contacts. 20th century - development. Rethinking some ideas of comparative historical linguistics. Areal linguistics is a branch of linguistics that studies, using the methods of linguistic geography, the distribution of linguistic phenomena in spatial extent and interlingual (inter-dialect) interaction. The main task is to characterize the territorial distribution of linguistic features and interpret isoglosses. Areal linguistics, which deals with the study of territorially limited linguistic phenomena in a synchronous manner, is based on the methods of typological study of the structure of language. Areal linguistics is closely related to linguistic typology. At the junction of these disciplines, the concept of a linguistic union arose. This term was proposed by N.S. Trubetskoy (1923) and denotes the acquired structural similarity of languages ​​distributed in adjacent territories and not necessarily closely related. A linguistic union implies the presence of not single, but multiple and significant similarities between languages.

8.2 Basic concepts of linguistic typology: language type, language parameters, language universals, typological classification.

The main goal of typological research is to create classifications of languages ​​into certain types. The type of language is usually understood as either type as a classification characteristic of the language system as a whole,(LANGUAGE TYPE) or type as a way of expressing grammatical or other relations in a language, especially a feature of a language structure that is the same in many languages(TYPE IN LANGUAGE).

Universals(from lat. universalis - Universals– similarities observed in all languages, inherent in the human language as a whole.

Contrasted absolute universals(characteristic of all known languages, for example: every natural language has vowels and consonants) and statistical universals(trends). An example of a statistical universal: almost all languages ​​have nasal consonants (however, some languages West Africa nasal consonants are not separate phonemes, but allophones of oral stops in the context of nasal consonants). TO statistical universals adjacent to the so-called frequentalia- phenomena that occur quite often in the languages ​​of the world (with a probability exceeding chance).

Typological classification is the grouping of languages ​​into certain groups based on similarities and differences in their grammatical structure. Since the grammar of a language is complex and multifaceted, many different typological classifications can be constructed. The most well-known classifications are:

– based on the technique used to combine significant units in a word (inflectional, agglutinative, isolating and incorporating, or polysynthetic languages ​​are distinguished);

– based on the methods of encoding semantic roles in a sentence and combining them into various hyper-roles (languages ​​of the accusative-nominative, ergative and active structure differ);

nominative system– opposition of subject and object. Vasya has a book. (English)

ergative– opposite agent (producer of action) and patient (carrier of action). Vasya has a book (Russian)

active– focused on semantic opposition. active and inactive principles: in vocabulary - act. (soul) and inact. (inanimate) noun class, verbs act (chief actions) and stative (chief states). Northern languages and south America.

– based on whether this connection is marked in the main or dependent element of a syntactically coherent structure (languages ​​with vertex and dependent coding);

– based on patterns of word order, the relationship between syllable and morpheme, etc.

Nominative system- one of the main typological strategies for encoding actants. Nominative languages ​​use exclusively or predominantly nominative construction, as opposed to ergative languages, which use ergative sentence construction, as well as active languages ​​(where the agentive and non-agentive subjects, as well as the object, are encoded in three different ways). Ergativity- one of the main strategies for encoding verbal actants. Active language (lat. activus - active, effective) (fiative system, active typology, activity) - a language that has a typology focused on the semantic opposition not of subject and object, as in languages ​​of the nominative system, but of the so-called active and inactive principles.

Affixing languages ​​- in which the relationships between words are expressed in affixes. Among the affixing languages, inflectional and agglutinative languages ​​stand out.

Symbolic -

Fusia(lat. fusio - merger) - a method of connecting morphemes, in which phonetic changes (alternations) at the junction of morphemes make the place of the morpheme boundary unobvious. An example of a complete fusion is, for example, the Russian infinitive cut, where it is impossible to undeniably highlight the suffix; the usual morpheme -т due to the alternation of “merged” with the last consonant of the root -g and “dissolved” in the root: strig + t "= strich".

Agglutination(from Latin agglutinatio - gluing, gluing) - the formation in languages ​​of grammatical forms and derivative words by attaching affixes that have grammatical and derivational meanings to the root or base of the word. Affixes are unambiguous, that is, each of them expresses only one grammatical meaning, and the same affix always serves for a given meaning. Affixes follow each other, do not merge with roots or other affixes, and their boundaries are distinct. The vowels of affixes can undergo phonetic changes depending on the sound composition of the base (see synharmonism), consonants at the junctions of morphemes can also change, but all these changes are subject to purely phonetic patterns characteristic of a given language.

Inflectional – German, Polish.

Agglutinative – Turkish, Georgian.

Isolating - languages ​​that use roots as words without forming complex combinations with affixes: classical Chinese, Vietnamese.

Incorporating (polysynthetic) are languages ​​in which all members of a sentence (full incorporation) or some components of a phrase (partial incorporation) are combined into a single whole without formal indicators for each of them. Notable examples of poly synthetic languages- Chukchi-Kamchatka, Eskimo-Aleutian and many language families of North America.

8. Basic concepts of linguistic typology: language type, language parameters, language universals and frequentals, space of typological possibilities, typological classification.

A language type is distinguished on a structural basis, on the basis of general, abstract, structural features. But real language will always go beyond classification somewhere. It is impossible to unambiguously divide into types. Consequently, any human language contains structural features of different types. It is impossible to isolate agglutinative language in its pure form without s.l. other signs. Experts believe that there are 2 different phenomena: language type - the most general and not intended to be complete characteristic of the grammatical structure of a language, or grammatical structure language (covers a range of languages, but never covers all languages); type in a language - a quality of grammatical structure (presence of prefixes) usually noted in several languages. V.N. Yartseva wrote that “a language type is a certain form of organization of the conceptual content of a language. Based on this concept, types of languages ​​are distinguished.

Linguistic parameters are signs of a structure that acquire typological significance. Possible foundations of the structure, and these signs turn into parameters.

Linguistic universals by their nature are generalized statements about those properties and tendencies that are inherent in any language and shared by all speakers of that language. The universal properties of language have interested linguists for a long time. However, for the first time the question of the possibility of their empirical identification was raised by J. Greenberg in the early 1960s. It was in the late 1950s and early 1960s that the linguistic theories, seeking to determine the basic properties of human language deductively, to derive them from a certain formalism. (Greenberg contrasted this approach, represented primarily by generative grammar, with his inductive, empirical method of studying the universal properties of language. The essence of the method was to survey the languages ​​of different families and regions according to the same parameters and identify points of agreement between the languages ​​being examined, which were called universals). Statistical universals - refer to statements like: for any language, property A is more probable than some other (often the property “not-A”). Statistical universals include so-called frequentals - phenomena that occur quite often in the languages ​​of the world (with a probability exceeding random). Covers most languages.

Linguistic universal - 50s of the 20th century - a structural property inherent in all human languages. A linguistic universal is a statement about such properties formulated in linguistic typology. The difference between definitions: where they exist - in language or in science.

The space of typological possibilities is properties that exist in several languages.

Typological classification of languages ​​is a direction of linguistic research that arose at the beginning and developed in the 2nd quarter of the 19th century. (initially in the form of a morphological classification of languages), which aims to establish the similarities and differences of languages ​​that do not depend on their genetic relationship. Typological classification operates with classes of languages, united according to those characteristics that are selected as reflecting the most significant features language structure(for example, the way morphemes are connected). The system of criteria for typological classification, helping to identify relationships between classes of languages, indicates ways of orientation in their real diversity. Determining the place of a particular language in a typological classification reveals a number of its properties that are hidden from the researcher in other linguistic approaches.

8.3 Typological classification of E. Sapir, quantitative typology of J. Greenberg, intensive typology of A. Klimov

E. Sapir made an attempt to give a “conceptual” classification of languages: he was based on the structure of the word, but considered morphemes and the way they are connected to each other from the content side: the main thing is what meanings the morphemes have. Identified meanings: (1) REAL (from which vocabulary is made up) - 1) - root, 2) - derivational (clarifies the meaning of the root - “rain”) (2) RELATIONAL (grammatical) 1) - concrete-relational (determined by itself language system, depend on which class of words, category the given meaning is assigned to) 2) - purely relational (determined by relations in the world). Variations of values: 1-4, 1-2-4, 1-3-4, 1-2-3-4. It is also necessary to take into account how the meaning is expressed: isolation (morphemes are maximally separated from each other), agglutination (morphemes are semantically and formally separable from each other, but are combined into words), fusion (both semantic and formal boundaries between morphemes are poorly distinguishable), symbolization , where internal inflection, repetition and method of stress are combined. Subsequently, we also described incorporating languages ​​- their difference from inflectional languages ​​is that the merging of morphemes occurs not at the word level, but at the sentence level.

The third aspect highlighted by Sapir is the degree of “synthesis” in grammar. At analyticism grammatical meanings are expressed by separate function words, which can act as independent word forms (cf. will do), and clitics (cf. would do);

At synthetism grammatical meanings are expressed by affixes as part of the word form, that is, to form one phonetic word with a supporting lexical root; As a result, when expressing grammatical meanings analytically, words typically consist of a small number of morphemes (in the limit - one), while synthetically - from several.

Fusia(fusion) is a method of connecting morphemes in which phonetic changes (alternations) at the junction of morphemes make the location of the morpheme boundary unobvious. An example of a complete fusion is, for example, the Russian infinitive cut, where the suffix cannot be undeniably distinguished; regular morpheme -th thanks to the alternation of “slit” with the last consonant of the root -G and “dissolved” at the root: strig+t"=strich". The opposite of fusion is agglutination. Fusion is characteristic of synthetic languages ​​(often also called fusional). Agglutination(gluing) - the formation in languages ​​of grammatical forms and derivative words by attaching affixes (a morpheme that is attached to the root and serves to form words) that have grammatical and derivational meanings to the root or stem of a word. Affixes are unambiguous, each of them expresses only one grammatical meaning and the same affix always serves for a given meaning. Affixes follow each other, do not merge with roots or other affixes, and their boundaries are distinct. The vowels of affixes can undergo phonetic changes depending on the sound composition of the base, and consonants at the junctions of morphemes can also change, but all these changes are subject to purely phonetic patterns characteristic of a given language.

J. Greenberg: shared Sapir’s ideas, but considered his criteria imprecise and not calculable. Greenberg - quantitative method. He compared languages ​​so that language units could be extracted from a language and counted. A text of 100 words in different languages ​​is taken. The classification is based on five features instead of Sapir’s three: 1. degree of synthesis or overall complexity of the word M/W - synthesis index (M-morphemes, W-words); 2. communication method. A/J - agglutination index (A-count of all occurring agglut structures, J-intermorphemic seam),3. the presence or absence of derivational concepts D/W-derivative index (D - morpheme with derivational meaning), 4. Inflectional index I/W is the ratio of the number of inflectional morphemes to the number of words. S/W-index of suffixes, P/W-index of prefixes, 5. methods used in various languages ​​to establish connections between words (N/O N/Pi N/Co).

N-nexus, any case of dependence of adjacent words found in the text, O-word order (adjacent), Pi-pure inflection (control,) Co-concordance. THE VALUE of these indices is that we can define the values ​​used consistently and in such a way that they will be applicable to all languages. Criticism is the controversial nature of his chosen criteria, the limitations of the analyzed texts (100 words), as well as the insufficiency of the characteristics in relation to an arbitrarily given list of criteria.

Intensive (content-based) classification by G.A. Klimov(follower of Sapir). It became the first classification that was fully intensive, that is, focused primarily on the content aspects of the structure of the language. It came partly from the structure of words, but mainly from the structure of sentences, which means the class is syntactic. In Klimov’s intensive typological classification there are 5 language types: neutral, classy, ​​active, ergative and nominative. All of them are identified according to the semantic principle, namely, according to the peculiarities of the internal organization of nominal and verbal vocabulary, which finds external expression at other levels.

G.A. Klimov proposed a completely holistic and fundamentally new system of classification of languages ​​compared to morphological typology. A major drawback should be considered the fact that when declaring intensive typology as oriented towards combining semantic and formal approaches Still, the semantic approach noticeably predominates - to such an extent that the formal aspect is simply forgotten in some cases. A number of languages ​​characterized by Klimov as ergative and nominative (in particular, some Sino-Tibetan languages) are not only close to neutral (in terms of morphological similarity and some other typical features), but they also lack many features of the ergative and nominative types, respectively, which are largely decisive, for example, declension and conjugation. Among other things, the requirement of an integral system is not fully met precisely because the formal side is ignored.

Nevertheless, the significance of Klimov’s development is very great. 1) a new, whole-system approach to the typological study of languages ​​is shown, while the main criterion is chosen semantic aspect. 2) intensive typological research turns out to be useful for the comparative historical study of languages. 3) a radical change in the essence of the approach to the typological study of languages ​​has opened up new prospects in the development of typology as a whole.

17. Typological classification of E. Sapir. Quantitative typology of J. Greenberg.

The new typological classification belongs to the American linguist E. Sapir (1921). E. Sapir made an attempt to give a “conceptual” classification of languages, based on the idea that “every language is a formalized language,” but that “the classification of languages, built on the distinction of relations, is purely technical” and that languages ​​cannot be characterized with only one particular point of view. Therefore, E. Sapir bases his classification on the expression of different types of concepts in language: 1) root, 2) derivational, 3) mixed-relational and 4) purely relational; the last two points must be understood in such a way that the meanings of relations can be expressed in the words themselves (by changing them) together with lexical meanings - these are mixed relational meanings; or separately from words, for example, word order, function words and intonation - these are purely relational concepts.

The second aspect of E. Sapir is the very “technical” side of expressing relations, where all grammatical methods are grouped into four possibilities: a) isolation (i.e. methods of function words, word order and intonation), b) agglutination, c) fusion (the author deliberately separates the two types of affixation, since their grammatical tendencies are very different)1 and d) symbolization, where internal inflection, repetition and mode of stress are combined. The third aspect is the degree of “synthesis” in grammar in three stages: analytical, synthetic and polysynthetic, i.e. from the absence of synthesis through normal synthesis to polysynthesis as “oversynthesis”. From his entire classification it is not clear what a “type of language” is. Moreover, Sapir's classification remains completely ahistorical and ahistorical.

E. Sapir attached to his fourth classification of languages highest value. E. Sapir first divided all languages ​​into two classes: pure relational and mixed relational, and then he divided each of these classes into two groups - simple and complex. As a result, his fourth classification of languages ​​is as follows: a) simple purely relational; b) with false purely relational; c) simple mixed-relational; d) with false mixed-relational ones. According to E. Sapir, 1) simple purely relational languages ​​express relations in their pure form, that is, without affixal morphemes (for example, Chinese). 2) Complex purely relational languages, in which, in addition to the ability to express syntactic relations in their pure form, it is possible to change the meaning of root morphemes using affixes or internal changes(eg Turkish, Polynesian languages). 3) Simple mixed-relational languages ​​express syntactic relations not only in their pure form, but also through agglutination or fusion (e.g. French). 4) Complex mixed-relational languages ​​have the ability to change the meaning of root changes (for example, Latin, English) Theoretically, the main classification of languages ​​by E. Sapir is very simple, but as soon as it comes to the author’s interpretation of the criteria underlying it, and Moreover, before it is filled with specific examples, it becomes extremely confusing. According to V.P. Danilenko, and E. Sapir’s fourth classification of languages ​​is not particularly flawless. However, despite its obvious shortcomings, it has broken a new page in this area. The merit of E. Sapir in general typology The essence of languages ​​is that in his main work he presented a new methodology for the general typological analysis of languages. In other words, he developed a new type of this analysis.

Joseph Greenberg, relying on the gradual typology of E. Sapir, in the article “A Quantitative Approach to the Morphological Typology of Language,” published in 1960, developed a technique that makes it possible to quantitatively measure the belonging of a particular language to a certain type. It can be called a quantitative method of typological and characterological indexation. The essence of J. Greenberg's method is to use the material of a text, for example, one hundred words written in a particular language, to determine the index of a certain typological characteristic of this language. The American typologist proposed five main criteria for such a characteristic: the degree of synthesis, the method of connection, the degree of derivation, the place of the affix in relation to the root, the type of connection (without agreement, significant word order, agreement). Each of these parameters is superimposed on the text, which makes it possible to determine the index of its syntheticity / analyticity, agglutinativity / fusionality, derivation, etc. Thus, the synthesis index is determined by the ratio of morphemes and words in the text. If it has one hundred words and one hundred morphemes, then the synthesis index is equal to one, since we determine it by dividing the number of morphemes by the number of words.

18. Intensive typology G.A. Klimov (general characteristics).

Intensive (content) typology. 2nd half of the 20th century. The basis of classification is a substantive feature; a substantive category is determined. The basis of the intensive typology of languages ​​in its classification aspect was the division of languages ​​into types according to the syntactic principle, which was carried out back in mid-19th century, when the features of languages ​​such as ergative Basque were noticed. However, in the interpretation of G.A. Klimov’s structural dominant of such a classification was not at the syntactic level, but in the field of semantics, which was the reason for some of the features of Klimov’s typology. Before this, languages ​​were compared through the structure of the word, without going beyond the word. In Klimov’s classification, the structure of the word was taken into account, but was not the main thing. The main thing was the structure of the proposal. The main unit is the proposal. The classification was meaningful.

Klimov postulates as one of the features of his concept a direct connection between the content and formal aspects of the study of the structure of language. As a dominant characteristic, Klimov chose a rather unexpected parameter, namely, the principle of vocabulary organization. Vocabulary from language levels is perhaps the most disordered phenomenon, primarily due to the number of units. Nevertheless, it turned out that it is quite possible to find principles that are characteristic of a certain class of languages, and first of all, these principles relate to the semantic systematization of vocabulary. Dependent characteristics, according to Klimov, are properties at the syntactic, morphological and partly phonological (more precisely, morphonological) levels.

In Klimov’s intensive typological classification there are 5 language types: neutral, classy, ​​active, ergative and nominative. All of them are identified according to the semantic principle, namely, according to the peculiarities of the internal organization of nominal and verbal vocabulary, which finds external expression at other levels.

Ergative languages ​​(most Caucasian, Basque) in the traditional understanding have a specific sentence structure, where the main member is either the subject or the object in the understanding of the native speaker of the nominative language. In fact, the main member of an ergative sentence is an actant, which designates a certain participant in the event to whom the main action is directed. If the situation also involves a referent, who, in fact, performs this action, it is formalized as a secondary member, with a special ergative case (in the presence of a declension system). Nominative languages ​​(most Indo-European, Semitic) distribute the roles of actants in sentences differently. In sentences with different structures, the subject of the action and the bearer of the state are expressed absolutely identically: nominative case, while the object of the action is expressed in a different way - the accusative case. In active languages, noun classification is implicit, but still exerts its influence on the entire language system. The name contrasts the classes animate (or active) and inanimate (inactive). The dominance of the active principle is characteristic of this type of language, which in some of its features is close to ergative. IN cool type the system of meaningful nominal classes is not only the most developed, but also more specific: names are divided not just into classes of animate and inanimate, but also into more fractional ones taxonomic units, taking into account specific external signs or typical characteristics, for example, classes of paired objects, small animals, etc. With regard to neutral languages, Klimov wrote that their structural characteristics do not fit into the framework of any other language types. The only one typical sign, and even then of a formal rather than substantive nature, one can consider the lack of morphology and proximity to isolating languages. Klimov does not offer typical characteristics of a neutral type, position, but since absent morphological system in neutral languages, vocabulary should have a high degree of specificity (which, by the way, does not correspond to reality. Naturally, a semantic dominant for a type identified according to the “residual” principle cannot be postulated. There is no morphology as such and no classes of words (names and verbs), no the predicative basis of a sentence, words are not contrasted for the subject and the predicate. A word can be a subject in one sentence, and a predicate in another. Something similar in English (a book-to book) is built according to the same scheme.

8.4 Language universals. Problems of linguistics of universals. types of universals

Universals(from lat. universalis - general, universal) is linguistic phenomena(properties, characteristics, relationships, processes) that occur in all (or almost all, with very few exceptions) languages ​​of the world. The systematization is based on two differentiating features: 1) degree of prevalence this phenomenon in the languages ​​of the world and 2) the atomic or systemic, isolated nature of the observed similarities.

By prevalence:

1) Absolute universals– similarities observed in all languages, inherent in the human language as a whole. eg vowels and consonants

2) Statistical universals = probabilistic = almost-universals- these are universals for which one or two exception languages ​​are known, they are very informative because they show the line where languages ​​balance between mandatory and typical. (most languages ​​have a nasal vowel, except the three Salish languages)

3) Frequentalia - typological phenomena, widespread in the languages ​​of the world, are found in fewer languages ​​than is typical for universals, but still more often than just typological patterns. Thus, the differences between the four classes of typological similarities are gradual.

4) Typological pattern- this is a similarity (of non-genealogical and non-areal origin) that is observed in at least two languages. But usually typological patterns include similarities of a wider distribution. (some languages ​​have diphthongs, definite and indefinite articles)

Objectives of the linguistics of universals:

1) see what is absolutely necessary in a language;

2) without which language is “almost” impossible (but, therefore, still possible!);

3) which is quite typical, but still not necessary, “you can get by”;

4) which is extremely rare in languages (e.g. vocalism in which there is one vowel phoneme);

5) determine what is informative and interesting in the language itself.

It is customary to distinguish the following types of universals:

1. According to the method of formulating statements about universals - deductive universals (mandatory in all languages, including those unknown to the researcher) and inductive (fixed in known languages).

2. According to the coverage of the languages ​​of the world - absolute (complete) and statistical (incomplete) universals. Some researchers believe that universology should deal only with absolute universals.

3. In their structure, universals are simple (the presence or absence of any phenomenon in the languages ​​of the world) and complex (the presence of dependence between different phenomena, the presence between them of relations such as the implication “if A, then B”).

4. In relation to the synchrony/diachrony axis - synchronic and diachronic universals.

5. In relation to the language itself - phonological, grammatical, semantic, etc. universals. Thus, the phonological universals include the following: languages ​​can have no less than ten and no more than eighty phonemes; if there is a contrast between consonants in terms of hardness and softness, then there is no contrast in tones. Semantic universals include patterns of development of word meanings from concrete to abstract: “heavy (in weight)” > “difficult”; “bitter (to taste)” > “sorrowful, mournful”; "sweet (to taste)" > "pleasant"; "empty" > "meaningless, frivolous"; "big" > "important". The interdependence between different structural levels is evidenced by the following universal: if in a language a word is always monosyllabic, then it is monomorphemic and there is a contrast of tones in the language; If the subject in a language comes before the verb and the object comes before the verb, then the language has case.

6. Actually linguistic and semiotic (communication) universals. In this case, research is aimed at establishing the boundaries between natural human language and all other communication systems (e.g. artificial languages, kinetic speech, communication systems in the animal world, etc.). Thus, Charles F. Hockett points out 16 essential features according to which natural human sound language differs from the communication systems of animals and the absence of which in biocommunication systems means that animals do not have language as such. These signs include:

use of the vocal-auditory channel;

broadcast transmission of language signals and directional reception;

rapid attenuation of language signals;

the functioning of adults either as transmitters or as receivers;

full feedback;

semantics (the presence of signs of their own denotations);

discreteness (a continuous sound stream manifests a sequence of discrete units);

the ability to relate linguistic messages to things remote in time and space;

the ability to freely and easily create new messages;

the presence of a grammatical structure that allows certain rules build new messages;

the possibility of a new semantic load on linguistic elements;

transmission of language through teaching and learning, and not by inheritance;

the presence of not only a system of sign units, but also a system of non-sign phonological units;

the possibility of constructing false or meaningless language messages;

the ability to build messages about the message itself;

a person's ability to easily master another language.