linguistics1-1 Exercise 1: Scoring Three Systems ================================================= Features: arbitrariness, duality of patterning, displacement, productivity. System Arbitrariness Duality Displacement Productivity --------------- ------------- -------- ------------ ------------ Waggle dance No No Partly Partly Dog's growl Partly No No No Esperanto Yes Yes Yes Yes Reasons for the "Partly" and the contested cells: Waggle dance, displacement: Partly. The dance gives the location of a food source that is some distance away, so it does refer to something not present. But it does this for one kind of message only (where food is). Waggle dance, productivity: Partly. The bee can vary direction, distance and quality, so a few new messages are possible. It cannot build new kinds of message, so it is not productive in the human sense. Waggle dance, arbitrariness: No. The angle and length of the dance resemble the direction and distance of the food, so the form is not a matter of convention. Dog's growl, arbitrariness: Partly. Low, rough sounds tend to go with threat across many species, so the form is not purely conventional. Esperanto: it is a full human language, so all four features are present. Its vocabulary is borrowed from existing languages, but the link between each word's sound and meaning is still conventional for speakers. The point of the exercise is the pattern: human language has all four features, and the animal systems have at most one or two, in limited form.