Contributions of Bloomfield

 Structuralism

In the 20th century the emphasis shifted from language change to language description. Instead of looking at how a selection of items changed in a number of different languages, linguists began to concentrate on describing single languages at one particular point in time. This is the synchronic study of language or synchronic linguistics.

In America, linguistics began as an offshoot of anthropology.

Franz Baaz (1852 - 1934)

Edward Saper (1884 - 1934)


Leonard Bloomfield (1884 - 1934) where some of the anthropologists turned linguists. In 1933 Leonard Bloomfield's monumental word language known as the bible of structuralism attempted to lay down rigorous procedures for the description of any language. Bloomfield considered that linguistics deal be objectively why systematically with observable data. He was more interested in the way items were arranged than in meaning. Bloomfieldian era existed for more than 20 years and it had an immense influence on language study. During this time a large number of linguists concentrated on writing description grammars of unwritten language. The ultimate goal of linguists was the perfection of discovery procedures - (IC Analysis). A set of principles which would enable a linguist to 'discover' or 'uncover' in a foolproof way (w/o any loopholes) the linguistic unite of an unwritten lang. The immediate Constituent Analysis (IC Analysis), essentially a structuralist tool for syntactic analysis was first introduced Leonard Bloomfield and systematical with theoretical formulation by Roulon Wells and Zellig Harris.

In 1957 linguistics took a new turning point Noam Chomsky than aged 29, a teacher at the MIT (Massachusetts Information Technology) and an American linguist published a book called Syntatic Structures, a statement of the principles of Transformational Generative Grammar - TGG although containing fever than 120 pages this book started a revolution in linguistics Chomsky is perhaps the most influential figure in 20th century linguistics. This contribution has been two-fold: he initiated the era of generative linguistics; he directed attention towards the rules which underlie a person's knowledge of his language. The set of rules of grammar underlie a language in Chomsky's views of greater interest than any language utterance a speaker happens to make.

Generative Grammar

A grammar which consists of a set of statement or rules which specify which sequences of a language are possible and which impossible is a generative grammar Chomsky initiated the era of generative linguistics. The constraints of in human language are inherited ones. Human beings may be preprogrammed with a basic knowledge of what languages are like and how they word. Chomsky has given the label Universal Grammar (UG) to this inherited code.

Chomsky renewed peoples interest. He argued that linguists should concentrate not so much on finding out components which are common to all languages but on discovering the bounds or constraints within which language operates. Chomsky did not simply make vague statements about the need for generative grammar and universal constraints. He has put forward a number of detailed proposals for a universal framework. Chomsky distinguished between competence which he defines as "the ideal speaker- hearer's knowledge of the language". And performance which is "the actual use of language in concrete situations". Competence is, as it were "the actual storehouse of linguistic knowledge". Performance draws on the knowledge but it can be faulty.

Humans, it appears built themselves "mental models" in order of the world around them. a number of utterances behave somewhat like actions.

The structuralists operated on language data they went about analysing the spoken language and broke up the flow of connected speech. They arrive at three levels of analysis: phonology, morphology and syntax. Structural grammar was also called descriptive grammar as the structuralist described language as it was spoken by a native speaker. For them form was all important and meaning was subordinate to form. Meaning could be explained deductively in relation to form. The structuralist had their own definition for the grammatical categories which were based on structure. Their theories were based on five slogans.

  1. Language is speech not writing.
  2. Language is a set of habits.
  3. Teach the language not about the language.
  4. Language is what its native speakers say, not what the grammarians think they ought to say.
  5. Languages are different.
  1. For the structuralist the spoken language was primary. They preferred informal colloquial language rather than a formal stilted style.
  2. The second slogan is derived from the Behaviorist School of Psychology. The Behaviorist considered that language could be learned like any other habits.
  3. The traditional grammarians taught a great deal about the language. The structuralist felt that the language was best learnt by learning to use it.
  4. Languages should not be prescriptive, it should be descriptive; what the native speaker says.
  5. Every language is unique in its internal and external structure. That is why they went against the idea of imposing Latin on English. This kind of language notion helped to develop theories of second language learning.
Structural Analysis of Syntax 

The concept of syntax in English is unique to the English language.

Each language has its own word order. The structuralist had an allergy noun verb etc. Syntax begins with a definition of word class. They can be defined not only by their lexical meaning but also on the basis of combinations they entered into. Syntactic patterns for the structuralist meant two things.

  1. The form that the English words have and are given to that sequences in which they are given to that sequences in which they are arranged in order to explain wilder meanings.
The structuralists had to tackle pre-questions

  1. How do the words fit into a pattern?
  2. What forms do they take?
  3. How do they behave in combination with other forms?
The structuralists answered these questions variously

  1. They tried to establish word classes by grouping words into sections called paradigms on the basis of inflectional and derivational affixes they take.
  2. By trying to identify the position of the words in a sentence.
  3. By analysing intonation patterns.
According to these methods the structuralist arrived at two major classes.

Function words and Form classes

Some words do not take any inflectional or derivative endings. They are simply tools to join other words. And they are called function words. They have very little lexical meaning. eg: yet, for, because etc.

They are also called closed classes because new forms are rarely added to this rule. Some of these function words have such close relation with some form classes. Some of the other function words are the determiners (articles) and they usually precede a noun. They are called noun determiners.

Some set of function words

  1. determiners
  2. auxiliary words or modals
  3. qualifiers
  4. prepositions
  5. subordinates - because, after, although, unless (as they subordinate a clause to the main.)

      6. interrogatives

The structuralists analyse the inflectional paradigms that are possible these are made up of certain sets or forms. Each set consist of a base form plus whatever morphemic changes are made which can be suffixes as well as sound changes.

eg: build-built. These addition do not change the meaning of the word or base form. For the noun we have four forms:-

  1. Base form (singular) boy
  2. Plural forms - boys
  3. Possessive singular form:- boy's
  4. Possessive plural form: - boys'


Prepared by: Dr. Susan Mathew

Dept. of English

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