 Good morning Lovely nice to hear your booming voice. I hope you had a great weekend and Let's hope you have a another long weekend coming right Okay Today we will have the last Session of The first unit of the course the first unit of the course said design features of language Design features of language in other words in other words What are those features? those characteristics of language that Make it such an efficient such a versatile medium of Communication you can talk in dark. You can talk while running in India. We talk even while eating Don't we? Most family quarrels happen at the dining table right other animals cannot it cannot dog cannot chew the bone and Can also be quarreling with other dogs? Okay, we have we have that kind of so what is You know so unique about language It is there in the design of language the way nature has designed it the way God has designed it Language has some uniqueness and we have been talking about these unique features. We said languages Can you name some features? Please everybody one by one? It is species specific only human beings have it then Species uniform all human beings have it then It is culturally transmitted that is we have to be part of a group a family an orphanage a hostel You know doesn't matter which hostel doesn't matter which family But you have to be a part of it the child may be born to a Chinese parents But maybe in America and can learn American English Okay, any other feature? It varies Come on, please Give me at least it is open-ended it gains words and it loses words on a daily basis Words sounds features anything else Creativity there are lots of other features, you know people count 15 16 Many of these features now I'm going to talk against myself I am going to contradict what I told you many of these features may Or may not be Unique to human beings we do not know We do not know that dog language Is not there in all dogs or dogs can't talk about You know meat or biryani or telangana or You know I JEE there are some features, please pay attention There are some features which are now pay attention. I'm going to say the keywords which are indisputably Human language specific please write indisputable features. What are those features? We have recorded dog language and we have found that it doesn't have as many variations Okay, you can do actually I'm going to give you some Assignments you have to do term paper for 30% of the course Okay, and you can take one of these things and you can examine how a dog talks to another dog After all they do Okay, how a parrot how a bird how a You know anything any any other creature? How does it communicate people have studied ants people have studied reptiles people have studied birds Okay, there are those studies or you can study children. How does a multilingual family? Teach its child one language or another language you can do a term paper on some of these things but there are some three or four features which are decidedly unique Peculiar to human language only human language has it and these are parts of its structure. It is these features It is these characteristics of natural languages human languages that make them Unique that make them versatile that make them do what they do we call them please write structural features So far we have talked about cultural features learning features use features Okay, now we are talking about structural features We talked about a whole lot of cultural features language is culturally transmitted language varies from village to village From university to university from hostel to hostel or college to college. We talked about all that today I'll take about half an hour telling you about structural features number one, please write Language has the feature of displacement Natural languages human languages can't talk about tomorrow can't talk about yesterday Can't talk about Another country can't talk about another age Last week. I gave you the example of Gulliver's travels Talks about another place one has never been to Time machine talks about another time How does that happen that happens because human languages have something called please write tense T e n s e it has the feature of displacement. What does it mean? It means that human languages can go beyond time time and Please They are not bound, you know children's language in the beginning. You will see children can only talk about here and now doggy pain Book similarly, you know many animals can also talk only about the present immediate context Dog can bark at a stranger But a dog cannot tell its master that the same stranger was here at the gate looking at your daughter Or your son, okay Right no dog can tell its master no matter how much it loves it because the dog does not have the capacity to talk about Yesterday the dog does not have the capacity to talk about the next street It visited and had a wonderful bone to chew there It cannot human languages have how do human languages have that they have the feature of tense because of Because of Tense look at this sentence, you know Look at this sentence the baby will need it tomorrow Does the baby need it today? Say yes or no, please No, did the baby need it yesterday? No, how do we know it will need it tomorrow? Because of will even if I remove me will even if I say the baby will need it does it mean present? Does it mean present or does it mean future future obviously future, you know The baby a smile yesterday, you know, there were a lot of celebration Mother sang a song made a phone call to father or actually father sang a song made a phone call to mother who was in the office Okay, et cetera, et cetera even if we don't have yesterday. We would know it is past. How shall we know that? Because there is Ed there and that is there in all our languages not just English even in Hindi Bacchato kaal hasatha Okay, in Telugu. How would you say that in Telugu? Okay, and the child cried mostly Okay, you don't need to say yesterday you don't need to say repu netiki, okay You don't need tomorrow yesterday the tense does it Okay, look at the sentence the director is likely to meet the minster has he met No, it is future. He may meet so there are elements in language like tense like adverbs like time markers Which help you go beyond? the present Which help you go beyond here beyond now look at another sentence the director has lunch with the actors Is it talking about tomorrow? Say yes or no make a mistake does the sentence talk about tomorrow when you say the director has lunch with the actors It's not about yesterday. You know, it is about every day the director has lunch not at home The director has lunch at Wherever he is but he has it with his actors okay But if we say the director had lunch with the actors then It is past it is yesterday if you say the director will have lunch With the actors then it will mean Tomorrow it will be so language has elements and all languages have it It is not that only English has it it is not that only Sanskrit has it It is not that only tell who has it what you call tribal languages what you call child language What you call any language any natural language? has this Ability to go beyond here and now similarly, you know you can talk about distant places The baby comes, you know people children often ask where does the baby come from a many parents? You know don't tell them the truth. They tell them baby comes from God a baby comes from God's home okay So this element from tells you of a place which is beyond Here which is not here when you say from that means you are talking about another place When you say to where do sinners go? Well sinners have fun, you know They don't suffer many people say but I don't know I have never been to hell You know some people say that sinners go to hell and hell is a lot of you know bad place small rooms No windows No breakfast almost like Ganga hostel Okay, right or any other hostel for newer hostels I hear are bad or worse perhaps anyway, you know so but We have never been to hell have we? But we can still talk about it How do we do that we use words like from to? Will may likely and all languages have this capacity Not it's not just English so they can go beyond here and now this is one strong feature of Language okay any doubts Any questions shall we go to the next? Right look at the next structural feature language is systematic There is a bit of arbitrariness in meaning, you know and we do not know therefore we call it arbitrary But at the moment, you know in the state of the art today. We believe that Meaning has no logical correlation with sounds Any word can mean anything and any meaning can have any word Okay, I gave you examples last week that in some language BV is wife in another language BV is Mother in Punjabi mother is addressed as BV but in Hindi or Urdu BV is wife Okay, a lot of things can happen There is no reason why bottle is called bottle. There is no reason why cake is called cake There is no reason why X is called X Okay, it's arbitrary the connection between meaning, you know as Shakespeare famously said call rose by any name Do you know this line? Okay, look up Google Shakespeare today, you know sometimes you see these are the great gifts of mankind Before you are 30 before you are 30. It's a choice, you know This will mean the difference between you and another student before you are 30 You should have read at least one play by Shakespeare at least one play by Khalid Asa and Valmiki at least one novel or a story by Tolstoy, you know It's like you know great gifts of mankind like Mount Everest like sunrise like sunset These are the gifts of nature. Okay, come back to it the second feature in languages languages systematic Meaning and word may be related arbitrarily. We do not know but everything else particularly the structure is structure is systematic languages systematic number two Now, what do you mean? What do you mean when you say something is systematic? You mean two things? When something is systematic it means you can write rules about it You can predict you can say this will happen. This will not happen You can say this is possible. This is not possible So you have units and you have rules look at one simple example in all languages of the world Only certain sounds can come together. Say for example in English words, you can have a word beginning with PR Okay, you can say prayer priest prove prize You can have a word going with KR, you know the sound KR letter may be see so you have crush Creed cruel you can have GR great greed Okay, but you cannot have a word Ending in PR. Do you have a word ending in PR? In English, can you think of a word that ends in PR? That ends in KR that ends in GR It doesn't in all languages, you know you can do actually please write you can do a term paper on possible sound combinations in Telugu and I'll give you 30 on 30. Actually, I'll give you 31 on 30 If you brought good examples and just made a list these sounds are possible at the beginning These at the end nothing else finish. I am not asking you to go for complicated you know a swim in Vijay Vada is going to be part of Telangana or Andhra? Thank God. Okay Yeah a great place, you know Except, you know that they ruined the river there. It was the mightiest best river in India The Krishna, but anyway, you know We'll talk about that later. Okay, so you know there are constraints You cannot have anything anywhere You can have only certain combinations at the beginning only certain combinations at the end in English You have words that end in RK. Give me a word Hark park dark Park bark Come on. Give me some more. Please this side Okay, right But you have no word that begins with RK. Do you have a word in English which begins with RK? I Don't know if you know it. Please. Tell me You have you can have words in English ending in LK. Give me Milk we won't sit chalk because we are talking about speech not writing in chalk L is silent Okay, so bulk milk hulk sulk Hulk Our walk again L is silent. Yeah Silk lovely The best that China gave to India, right? Similarly, we can have words ending in NK Give me words Drank sink tank Crank bank are a the most important place Monk, okay, blink But can you have a word beginning with NK? In English these things differ from language to language if you have you heard of a language called Swahili Where is it is spoken? Africa which part of Africa is a huge thing is like Andhra Okay You can say East and Central Africa Nigeria Uganda Kenya Tanzania you see you should also sometimes look at these things. These are the markets You see these are the people these are the countries communities. You have to be friends with Okay, look at many other countries, you know, they have a huge presence there India during the British time had a presence in Africa, but not now now China is the dominant player in Africa all roads construction building construction power plants Chinese are building and they are doing a fantastic job That is where the next generation of challenges for a structural mechanical aerospace and chemical engineers in this country lie Okay, so learn about them learn about the culture and answer those challenges. These are challenges not just of Africa These are the challenges of mankind. How can you create high efficiency low-cost? engineering devices Okay, so there is language called Swahili where a word can begin with NK Okay, but not in ending NK. See there is some kind of symmetry. There is some kind of mirror image All languages have constraints on what is possible in One place, but not in another what is possible in another place, but not in one That is what we mean when you say language is systematic. There are constraints Okay, let's go further. Let's see Meaning also depends on combination when you say when you talk about structural feature When you talk about a structural features you have prepositions you have tenses Okay, how do you pronounce this word? Preposition how do you pronounce this word? Preposition you know you have prepositions you have tenses which help you When you say something is systematic that means it has constraints It has rules It has units Okay similarly Because of these constraints we can say it in meaning is not just the property of words Meaning is the property of combination of words look at this thing or combination of units you have k i l sound and L i k the same sounds in in the first pair Does it mean the same thing? Yes or no, please K i l and l i k look at the screen K i l and l i k you know I'm talking of pronunciation not a spelling kill has the same sounds Lick has the same sounds, but do they have the same meaning? Yes, or no, no, no because in human languages Unlike other languages that we know of meaning is the property not just of units, but of the Please write combination of units The way they combine the same words Same sounds same syllables Combined differently, they will mean different thing. Okay, so tell and let have the same sounds But do they mean the same thing? They don't they have different meanings Or words look at the this phrase hope in the soul. It comes from church Okay We go pray week, you know, it's a temple No, we need Newton said even if there is no God. Let us invent one because it keeps us from suicide It keeps us from depression It brings us hope that God will rescue us tomorrow. So hope in the soul They have the same words as soap in the hole, but do they mean the same thing? Do they mean they don't worry about spelling, you know, worry about pronunciation Hope in the soul and soap in the hole. Okay similar sounds matching words matching sounds. Do they mean the same thing? They don't one talks about prayer church temple. The other talks about bathroom cleaning Etc. Etc. Okay, or look at this John kicked Mary Bad shouldn't happen and Mary kicked bad Sorry, Mary kicked John again bad should not happen. But do they mean the same thing? In one case John will be arrested In the other case Mary will be said wow well done So you but you know they you know let alone arrest or let alone law Do they mean the same thing? Say yes or no, please Only to John kicked Mary and Mary kicked John have the same words But they are drastically different meanings. Why do they have different meanings? Please tell me because they are combined differently Earlier it is ABC now it is CBA Okay, it can be lots of you know permutations lots of combinations are possible I gave you last week the example of this famous sentence How punctuation how pause can change the meaning when you say a woman? Without her Man is nothing. How many men believe that? Well, you will Okay, a woman without her man is nothing. How many men believe that? Okay, I see lots of hands going up, you know in other seminars here Maybe you are frightened of camera, but I asked this question at the research scholar seminar recently There were 400 people at least 300 hands went up That a woman without her man is not you see the meaning the same words differently combined can give you different meanings it is not the property of Other like animal languages it is not the property of you know a lot of other kinds of modes of communication it is in human languages that Units alone do not have meaning units have part of the meaning of course, but a lot depends upon how these units are Combined how these units are put together It is the because of this structural property that language can also be ambiguous, please write These are all structural property. It can be ambiguous. What what do you mean by ambiguous? What is the meaning of the word? ambiguous It can have more than one meaning not sure. Do you mean X or do you mean why? Okay It can have you know look at this sentence baby swallows fly What does it mean? Right, so if if you take baby as the noun Are you are we together now? I'm talking complex things you will have to be mentally awake not only physically awake Okay, if you if you if you if you mean baby as a noun Then it has one meaning who swallows the fly Baby swallow baby eats the fly by mistake of course or baby doesn't mind Okay, babies are emancipated creatures do they do a lot of things Okay, but if baby is an adjective then it has another meaning That is the swallow is a bird and it is not the big swallow, but The baby swallow the little swallow the small swallow Flies then fly is not a noun now. What does it become now? It's a verb baby swallows fly. So, you know language can be ambiguous It can give you different kinds of meanings depending upon what you intend that is how poetry is written That is how jokes and puzzles and a whole lot of interesting thing which are not there on the menu of a restaurant, you know Which are slightly unpredictable which give you poetry which give you music Happens, you know, but for these things don't happen. Look at the next phrase When you say son of Pharaoh's daughter Look at this phrase, please son of Pharaoh's daughter Who is the grandchild? The he or the she Who is the grandchild is it the son or the daughter it is he if you mean it this way Sorry, pardon me if you mean it This way then this is the grandchild Pharaoh's daughter has a son. So, Pharaoh is the Grandparent daughter is the parent and son is the grandchild But if you mean it this way then who is the grandchild Then daughter she is the grandchild because this is the grandparent this is the parent and this is the Grandchild Depend upon what you intend how you mean how you bracket or take a sentence like flying planes Can be dangerous Visiting relatives can be nuisance Okay Borrowing friends Can be a nuisance, you know friends who borrow your mobile phone Friends who borrow your money, but never return Friends who borrow your cigarette don't buy their own Okay, they can be a nuisance or borrowing friends taking somebody else's friend So, you know flying planes. What do you mean the act of flying the planes or the planes that are already in the sky So, you know the ambiguity can come into the sentence because of these things and depends upon how you mean it Look at the next sentence Policemen were stopped were asked Were ordered to a stop drinking at midnight Who was drinking? Policemen Two or three interpretations where are possible policemen were drinking and they were told don't drink Somebody else was drinking and policemen were told boot them and take their drinks away. Okay, or When we're with the dead drinking midnight or the order came at midnight What is possible policemen were ordered to a stop drinking at midnight where they ordered at midnight or Where they expected to a stop at midnight allow at other hours Whole lot of ambiguity is possible even in ordinary sentences and why is this possible? It is possible because Please the most You know singular feature the most distinctive unique feature of language Even if language didn't have anything else if it had this feature the language would be a unique system of unique medium of communication the ambiguity comes to language because of The duality of a structure, please write We know these when we talk about structural features We say it has the capacity for displacement. It is systematic. It can be ambiguous all this because all this because Language has dual structure not just one not just linear You know by look dual structure. We mean it can be this way Okay, it can also be this way It has not only linear a structure. It also has vertical structure Okay Every time you select a sound say for example when you say you take P Now S is not possible. What is possible after P in English? a any vowel some consonants but not K Not possible here, but K it we take it from a class We take it from a class. You either have P Per or you have K or you have T or you have X or you have Y But not everything so you have one vertical structure Okay, and you have the other Linear structure when you say P you can either take a Consonant you can either have a r or you have a l or you have a hovel Okay, take a word Take a word. Okay, when you say a Then after a you can only have something which is countable You cannot say a water. Can you? Please Yes, or no No, we cannot after a we can say book after we can say boy After a we can say building, but if it is and Then we can say apple egg elephant Okay Each choice, you know, we have this kind of a structure if This then that and the we have this kind of a structure Either this or that Okay, if X Then why here if X then not why You make a choice. This is called. Please write. This is called a paradigm Can you catch it? Can can the camera catch it please? Yeah, okay This is called a paradigm a latin word. It's class. This is the class from each class You take one. So for example, look at the earlier sentence, baby swallows fly Baby is either a noun or an adjective. It cannot be both. What do you mean it? Tell me, please. Do you mean it as a noun or do you mean it as an adjective? If you mean it as a noun, then the next word is a verb But if you mean it as an adjective, then the next word is a noun. So, you know, these constraints These are exceptionalist constraints constraints on choices and You constantly make every time you speak you make a multi-level choice At the level of sounds at the level of words at the level of sentences at the level of below sounds You have linear structure if you choose X then why then Z then this but if you choose X then not why not yet You know you make choice from the class and you make choice from the Combination, okay class related many people call it. Please write This is called paradigmatic choice I'll write it Can I write here? linear choices sorry vertical choices paradigmatic choice You take from a paradigm you take from a class okay paradigmatic choice or vertical choice Vertical choices from each class take only one and then what you choose will determine What comes? Next, but the other choice is called. Please write Syntagmatic choice you know syntax linear Syntagmatic choice or Horizontal okay Many people call it choice of a class and many people call it choice of combination Constantly all along no matter what you speak even if you speak only one word Somebody says asks you are you are you free this evening and you say yes? It's a whole lot of paradigmatic and you know and Syntagmatic choice when you say yes, it means yes. I am free Okay, when you say no you mean no I am not free What is the syntagmatic paradigmatic choice here? It is either yes, or please complete it No, what is the syntagmatic choice? Yes, I am free. No, I am not free Okay, the smallest possible sentences are the longest possible sentences no matter how Big or small how long or short your utterance The choices are there all across and that is what gives ambiguity if you if you mean Son of Pharaoh's daughter is ambiguous. This is because what is the relationship of son? Is this the head of the phrase if this is the head of the phrase then this is the parent if this is not the head Of the phrase then this is not the parent you know So you have to decide constantly when you speak and because your mind your brain is so versatile It does not know parent has sat down and has told you today's son You know like you got coaching for JEE like you got coaching for a lot of other things Nobody sat down and told you today. I am going to tell you about paradigmatic choices Tomorrow I will tell you about syntagmatic choices. No a Child and his brain as a child is born or even before the child is born the child observes and Finds that all along take any sentence you like Okay, when you say language can be ambiguous Then you decide language is a noun after that you require an auxiliary verb Auxiliary verb can be either can or may you decide to take can but when you say take can Then you require another verb you can say can go can be can happen You simply cannot say language can ambiguous Can you say that? You can't because a word like can a word like can demands a word like can Demands Another verb here you can say can go can happen can live can die can fail can pass But you cannot simply say X can IIT You can say X can enter IIT X can exit IIT X can destroy IIT X can give great gifts to IIT But when you say can when you choose an auxiliary verb then except in one or two situations You have to have a main verb, but the choice is constantly there can is not the Can is not the only auxiliary verb in this class. What are the other class other verbs? may might give me May my could should Shall will would ought must need many in telugu. What are the choices? Come on may take a minute. Please write a list of auxiliary verbs in telugu Do you know Telugu those who know okay in your mother tongue? I mean those who know Hindi Please write it in Hindi. Is it that only English has auxiliary verbs? Of this kind do you have something like can in Hindi? Hey, I mean it of course different but something like I don't say exactly You know, but but the you know unit performing the same function Was some kept a wholesome time. Oh, no. Chai. Hey, who's on a chai? Who's a cut ha okay? Yeah, so do we have similar elements in your mother tongue? Please take a minute and write Please take a minute and write You can do a term paper on these things. Please write You can do a term paper on auxiliary or modal auxiliary verbs can code shall should in your mother tongue Okay in all our languages in all natural languages. We have these things Okay, and we constantly make choices When you came to IET you had a feeling oh, I thought medical college we just like that I had a which could the film Institute Jana Chai Yeah, boring Jagger Okay, but anyway because your you know parents are happy and we need jobs So, you know you come take anything if flying planes can be done dangerous if flying is a noun If flying is a gerund then planes is object, but if flying is the adjective Not grounded planes, but flying planes grounded planes are not dangerous flying planes can be dangerous. They can fall upon you Okay, we have we constantly make choices from the class and once we make these choices here One we see we say can or may then we are also Under obligation to take a particular word here after can we talk you cannot take a noun Can you take a noun here can you say I can teacher Can you say I can? film You cannot say I can film you can say I can see a film I Can watch a film I can make a film Okay, I can hate a film You know you have to have things like that so language Constantly has a dual structure. Please read the book. I have given you some of these concepts can be difficult for us to understand The first time but not difficult if you give sufficient time or talk to me at length if let us summarize I Will stop this unit here the first unit design features of language. We talked about lots of features We said language is a species is specific. What does it mean? Please? Only human beings have it only human it's a biological gift to human beings like flying is to birds swimming is to fish crawling is to reptiles Okay next Language is a species uniform. What does it mean? Only human beings, sorry all human beings rich or poor You know JEE or otherwise IIT Madras or IIT Bombay Doesn't matter. Okay They all have language Language is culturally transmitted. What do we mean? We learn it only after we Hear it only after we see it used Language has variations. What does it mean? Come on. Please make a mistake doesn't matter. There is no punishment changes from place to place Yeah, it's not the same. You know it differs from village to village Class to class in India cast to cast the same village to cast is taking two kinds of language. Is it true of Telugu? It is true of Tamil. It is true of Hindi. It is true of Maitrely. It is true Many languages in India. We have more caste than class a specific language reason to reason job to job Okay, then Language is vocal. It's primarily vocal writing is a representation of language Language is open-ended. What do we mean? Yeah, you can add you can lose again and lose words Okay Language is arbitrary. What do we mean? No logical connection between meaning and Word and the object correct language is creative. You can always say new things in new ways You can make old words mean new things Language is systematic. That means it has units and rules combinations and permutations and Meaning depends upon these structures these combinations and permutations Language has the feature of displacement. What does it mean? It can go beyond Time in place beyond here and now language has dual structure. What do we mean? It has a class structure and it has a Combination structure paradigmatic and syntagmatic structure. Wow, you are engines Lovely, this is the test Okay, name the design feature Applied below even the best of parrots cannot utter a complex sentence or a new word Species specific many great poets have come even from backward castes and poor classes Species uniform lovely done and not have the same sounds, but not the same meaning Our combinations lovely really mother is called differently in different languages Where is our arbitrary, you know meaning has no similarly work out some examples for up each of these features I'm going to mail this these PPT slides to you work out these features. You will have this as part of your quiz Next month Okay any questions Thanks. Have a good day, please