How many syllables in elementary

Speech is made up of words, and words are combinations of sounds, some of which occur more often than others. Interestingly, there are series of syllables that differ in occurrence in a wide variety of languages ​​in the same way (J. H. Greenberg, 1964. Some generalizations concerning initial and final consonant clusters, Russian translation of this article “Some generalizations concerning possible initial and final consonant sequences " was published in the journal "Problems of Linguistics" No. 4 for 1964 years).

An example of such a universal syllable hierarchy: blif ≻ bnif ≻ bdif ≻ lbif . The syllable bnif is more common than bdif in a variety of languages, but less common than blif . The syllables in this series differ not only in the frequency with which they occur, but also in the ease of recognition. For example, errors in recognition of the syllable lbif will occur more often in subjects than the syllable blif . This pattern is common for adults, children, and speakers of different languages, regardless of whether such a syllable occurs in their native language, and is true even for people with dyslexia (see articles by I. Berent et al. , 2008. Language universals in human brains, I. Berent et al., 2009. Listeners’ knowledge of phonological universals: Evidence from nasal clusters; I. Berent et al., 2013. Phonological generalizations in dyslexia: The phonological grammar may not be impaired).

Why are there such universal hierarchies of sound combinations according to their preference? A possible explanation is differences in the difficulty of pronouncing syllables. But syllables may be less common in a language, not only because they are harder to pronounce, but also because they are harder to recognize. Previously, it was shown that in the process of perceiving speech sounds in humans, the motor areas of the cortex responsible for the movements of the tongue and lips are activated. Such activation accurately reproduces what happens in the brain of a person who himself makes sounds. So, during the perception of labial consonants ( b , p , v , f ) the motor areas of the brain (see Motor cortex), which are responsible for the movements of the lip muscles, are more activated, and when the anterior lingual consonants are recognized ( z , s , t , l , n ) are areas responsible for tongue movements (F. Pulvermüller et al., 2006. Motor cortex maps articulatory features of speech sounds). Thus, people help themselves to recognize someone else's speech by playing in their head how they themselves would pronounce these sounds. nine0011

Scientists have suggested that the simplicity or complexity of "internal playback" of syllables affects their preference. Less convenient combinations of sounds should require more active work of the motor cortex (the brain has to play "absurd" movements), which should be less of them. Therefore, the scientists decided to help the subjects' motor areas using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS is a non-invasive technique that helps to activate or, conversely, turn off certain areas of the brain using electromagnetic impulses. Previously, it was shown that stimulation of the activity of certain motor areas improves the recognition of sounds of the corresponding group. Thus, stimulation of the motor areas responsible for the work of the labial muscles improved the recognition of labial consonants, and stimulation of the areas responsible for the functioning of the muscles of the tongue improved the recognition of the anterior lingual consonants (A. D'Ausilio et al., 2009. The motor somatotopy of speech perception).

During the experiment, the subjects perceived sound stimuli by ear. These were either syllables from the hierarchical series, or derivatives of them, consisting of two syllables (for example, lbif - lebif ). Participants in the experiment had to determine how many syllables they heard. At the same time, the work of the motor areas of their brain, responsible for the work of the muscles of the lips, was stimulated in some experiments with the help of TMS. The scientists then compared the results to see if the recognition quality syllable hierarchy persisted when the motor areas of the brain were "helped" to work. It turned out that the hierarchy has not changed, that is, for example, syllable blif was still better than bdif . At the same time, TMS did not help to recognize the least convenient combinations of sounds, and even interfered with recognizing more convenient ones (Fig. 2). The same was true for other series of syllables (not found in English) arranged so that a labial consonant was always followed by an anterior lingual. The hierarchy of syllables was preserved despite artificial changes in the activity of motor areas. It turns out that differences in pronunciation difficulty are not the only reason for the preference hierarchy of syllables. nine0011

The researchers also checked with MRI what happens to the metabolism in the brain during the processing of syllables occupying different levels of the hierarchy. Scientists assumed that the least convenient syllables required the most motor input, but it turned out that the opposite is true. When less convenient syllables are recognized, the motor areas of the cortex responsible for lip movements are less active, and TMS does not help them. Apparently, syllables from the lower levels of the hierarchy (such as lbif ) are less preferred not because they are associated with the greatest motor costs, but, on the contrary, their lower preference reduces the activity of motor areas, which leads to worse recognition. That is, the activity of motor areas is not the cause of linguistic preferences, but their consequence. nine0011

Interestingly, when recognizing sounds masked by noise, motor areas, on the contrary, work most actively, as if trying to help a person to make out them (Y. Du et al., 2014. Noise differentially impacts phoneme representations in the auditory and speech motor systems ). But when it is necessary to recognize “uncomfortable” syllables, for some reason the motor areas “wash their hands”.

It turns out that the existence of universal series of syllables with different preferences is explained not only by differences in the complexity of their pronunciation and in the activity of the corresponding areas of the brain. Apparently, the basic elements that make up speech are also selected according to other criteria, such as productivity - the ability to combine well with many other syllables. This is suggested by the mistakes of the subjects, which they made when recognizing less convenient syllables: the subjects more often took such a syllable for two, adding a vowel between two consonants (instead of lbif - lebif ). Such constructions would be easier to combine with each other than to make combinations of several syllables like lbif . Apparently, not only the convenience of pronunciation of sounds and the complexity of their representations in the brain, but also more abstract linguistic laws play a role in the selection of syllables at the level of human physiology.

Source: Iris Berent, Anna-Katharine Brem, Xu Zhao, Erica Seligson, Hong Pan, Jane Epstein, Emily Stern, Albert M. Galaburda, and Alvaro Pascual-Leone. Role of the motor system in language knowledge // PNAS . 2015. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1416851112.

Yulia Kondratenko

Hieroglyphics. Elemental Traits. Basic Chinese calligraphy rules

General Information

One of the main difficulties facing every Chinese learner is mastering Chinese characters, which have been the standard Chinese writing system for at least three and a half millennia. nine0011

What are hieroglyphs? What is their specificity that distinguishes Chinese characters from other scripts of the world? To answer this question, you need to know that any writing system can be classified into one of two main types.

The first of them (phonetic) includes systems whose signs serve to record the sound of certain linguistic units. These include alphabets that include letters and record individual sounds (an example is the Chinese alphabet), and syllabic scripts , fixing whole syllables (this variety of phonetic scripts includes, in particular, Japanese katakana and hiragana ).

The second type of writing (ideographic, or hieroglyphic) is characterized by the fact that signs serve to record the lexical meaning of speech units - syllables or words. The Chinese writing system is of this type.

Hieroglyphic writing differs from alphabetic or syllabic in that it includes a much larger number of characters. The alphabet can have two or three dozen letters, syllabic systems have hundreds of characters, and hieroglyphic systems have several thousand or even tens of thousands. nine0011

In Chinese, each significant syllable (morpheme) is represented by a separate character; To write a word, you need as many characters as there are syllables in it. In total, the Chinese language has about 400 syllables that differ in sound composition; the presence of tones increases this number by three to four times. The number of different morphemes is many times greater, which is explained by the presence of homonyms. This is why there are so many characters in Chinese writing.

In the official list of only the most commonly used characters, there are 3000 of them. In order to read, for example, the People's Daily newspaper, you need to know at least 4 thousand hieroglyphs, and even more to understand special or literary texts. In The Big Chinese-Russian Dictionary, ed. prof. Oshanin more than 40 thousand hieroglyphs; in the Chinese explanatory dictionary "Kangxi Zidian" - there are about 48 thousand of them. nine0011

The need to memorize a large number of characters is one of the main difficulties associated with mastering the Chinese writing system.

At the same time, most Chinese characters are complex in structure, which makes them difficult to memorize.

If you don’t remember something from this lesson, don’t worry, just move on to the next one (you don’t need to do this with the next!)

Main features

In the first column - the trait, in the second - its name, in the third - examples.

Hooked Traits

Some traits have spelling variations. So, horizontal, vertical and folding to the right can end with a slight bend - "hook". There are a total of five such traits with a hook:

Broken lines

In addition to the main lines and their variants with a hook, in hieroglyphs there are continuous spellings of several lines, which we will call broken lines. There are six such traits:

The name of the broken line (horizontal, vertical, folding) is given by its initial part. nine0011

Broken lines with a hook

Broken lines can also be combined with a hook. There are only five such traits:

These 24 features make up all Chinese characters in their modern writing.

The number of strokes that form modern Chinese characters can vary greatly. If in the most simple hieroglyphs in their structure there are one or two lines, then in the most complex there can be two or three dozen or even more. For example, the sign "bright" consists of 28 lines, and "stuffy nose" of 36! However, such examples are by no means isolated. nine0011

It is very important to learn how to quickly and accurately distinguish its constituent features in a hieroglyph and correctly count their total number, because in many dictionaries, library catalogs, etc., hieroglyphs are arranged in ascending order of the number of features.

In addition, when writing hieroglyphs, it is necessary to strictly observe the sequence of strokes.

The sequence of writing strokes in a hieroglyph follows strict rules:

1. the hieroglyph is written from top to bottom; nine0011

2. the hieroglyph is written from left to right;

3. horizontal lines are written first, then vertical and fold-out ones; the lower horizontal line, if it does not intersect, is written after the vertical one;

4. first written folded to the left, then - folded to the right;

5. first, the lines that make up the outer contour of the sign are written, then the lines inside it; the line that closes the contour from below is written last; nine0011

6. First, a vertical line located in the center is written (if it does not intersect with horizontal lines), then - side lines;

7. the dot on the right is written last.

It should be borne in mind that a hieroglyph of any complexity, regardless of the number of its constituent features, must fit into a square of a given size. It is recommended to write hieroglyphs on squared paper, allocating four cells for each hieroglyph and making a gap between the hieroglyphs. Graphic elements in signs with a small number of strokes should be written enlarged, and in complex signs - compacted. nine0011

For example:

口器讓聲敬句

Tasks and exercises

1. Write one line each of the elementary features of Chinese characters.

2. Find familiar features in the following characters:

   上主正本三開在羊
   

3. Based on the rules of calligraphy given in the lesson, determine the order of strokes when writing the following characters:

   公里共六古天皂玉
   究宗固涼羊森草旬
   
   

4. Determine how the characters in each of the following pairs differ:

   木术手毛甲由午牛
   

The art of calligraphy

When we talked about calligraphy above in connection with the analysis of Chinese characters, we had in mind, first of all, the observance of the correct sequence of their elementary features. But the term "calligraphy", as you know, has another meaning - the ability to write not only correctly, but also beautifully. In China, calligraphy has long been one of the traditional types of high professional art, along with painting. nine0011

It is impossible to imagine a traditional Chinese painting without hieroglyphs masterfully written on it; and inscriptions in a variety of handwritings still adorn the study of a scientist in China or are hung on the doors of houses on major holidays.

And this is no coincidence. Hieroglyphs provide abundant food for the perception of them not just as signs of writing, but as certain artistic images containing no less diverse information than the text itself, and capable of delivering aesthetic pleasure. nine0011

The high standards that were traditionally set for everyone who sat down at the desk required the obligatory mastery of special skills, and they were given by years of hard training.

It is not surprising that in China the ability to write hieroglyphs correctly and beautifully has always been considered and is still considered an essential sign of intelligence.

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