Jag har inte känt så värst mycket för syntax förut. Det har varit ganska lätt och helt okej men inte så mycket mer. Jag längtade inte efter en fortsättningskurs. Men nu när jag läst introduktionen i den nya boken (bara 120 sidor kvar nu, tills imorrn) så känns det lite bättre. Lite nytt och fräscht och en påminnelse om att det jag sysslar med är ganska intressant. Så jag tänkte citera texten här, så att ni andra också får läsa och påminnas om att det jag sysslar med faktiskt är ganska intressant.
“Allthough we use it every day, and allthough we all have strong opinions about its proper form and appropriate use, we rarely stop to think about the wonder a language. So-called language “experts” like William Safire tell us about the misuse of “hopefully” or lecture us about the origins of the word boondoggle, but surprisingly, they never get at the true wonder of language: how it actually works. Think about it for a minute; you are reading this and understanding it but you have no conscious knowledge of how you are doing it. The study of this mystery is the science of linguistics. This book is about one aspect of hos language works - how sentences are structured: syntax
Language is a psychological, or cognitive, property of humans. That is, there is some set of neuron in my head firing madly away that allows me to sit here and produce this set of letters, and there is some set of neurons in your head firing away that allows you to translate these squiggles into coherent ideas and thoughts. There are several subsystems at work here. If you were listening to me speak, I would be producing sound waves with my vocal cords and articulating pertcular speech sounds with my tongue, lips and vocal cords. On the other end of things you’d be hearing those sound waves and translating them into speech sounds using your auditory apparatus. The study of the acoustics and articulation of speech is called phonetics. Once you’ve translated the waves of sounds into mental representations of speech sounds you analyze them into syllables and pattern them appropriately. For example, speakers of English know that the made-up word bluve is a possible word of English, but the word bnuck is not. This is part the science called phonology. Then you take these groups of sounds and organize them into meaningful units (called morphemes) and words. For example, the word dancer is made of two meaningful bits: dance and the suffix -er. The study of this level of Language is called morphology. Next you organize the words into phrases and sentences. Syntax is the cover term for studies of this level of Language. Finally, you take the sentences an phrases you hear ans translate them into thoughts and ideas. This last step is what we refer to as the semantic level of Language.
Syntax, then, studies the level of Language that lies between words and the meaning of utterances: sentences. It is the level that mediates between sounds that someone produces (organized into words) and what they intended to say.
Perhaps one of the truly amazing aspect of Language is not the origins of the word demerit, or how to properly punctuate a quote inside parentheses, or how kids have, like, destroyed the English language, eh? Instead it’s the question of how we subconsciously get from sound to meaning. This is the study of syntax.”
Såja. Nu ska jag sätta igång med resten.
p.s.
language vs. Language:
med Language (med stor L) menas förmågan som människor har att tala något språk (language).
