Functionalism and cognitive

studies
Functionalism, claims that that
human subject has patterns for
purposeful behavior. Those in
the social dimension cannot be
described, so what people
exploit to satisfy their
psychological needs can be
found in communication.
communications with the
physical world and with the
human beings. For Functionalists
the main unit of languages is
the communication act. 1.
Furthermore language is
embeded in social community
not in isolation. Linguists need
the context of utterance so as to
say what language does. They
see language as systems of
interrelated networks of choices.
What they wanted to explain
was why people make the
particular choices are not
informative, they make social
distance. Functionalism spread
on all fields of humanity. 1.
Smaller elements are seen as
options of term realization. the
sentence is discarded as
unimportant and artificially
created part from the ontology
of language. Cognitivism, sees
language as a direct reflection of
the structure of our mental
system. That is why the only
way to approach his system is
through language. Cognitivists
claim that language has a very
central position as one of the
most powerful interpretative
systems. It interprets all tyoes of
information. For them meaning
of utterance is inactive
experience equally and there is
no abstract meaning born out of

oppositions. Meaning is an
interpretative mechanism;
human beings are biological
systems. They interpret the
incoming information from the
whole world through biological
genes, sense, social models . for
cognitivists the world is
constructed and here is no
objective reality.

The comparative method

Analysis of texts available in
writing and of modifications of
writing systems provides us with
a method of determining
language changes. Using written
records, however, creates some
problems connected with the
fact that spelling systems are
conservative and sometimes
reflect earlier stages in the
histories of forms. Another
problem that can arise, has to
do with the fact that written
records cant provide information
about the unwritten stages in

languages development. The

method through we define
change and prehistoric forms is
called the comparative method.
It involves comparing items of
two or more related languages
to determine their ancestor form
from which they derive. this
comparing is called comparative
reconstruction. For example if
we want to determine a certain
verb form in proto-indoeuropean, we take the verb
forms of the particular verb from
several languages to delonging
to one and the same period and
compare them. Thus, on the
basis of analogy we reconstruct
the verb form we need. However
the comparative method creates
some limitations because it
offers no ways of reconstructing
elements which are lost in the
subsequent stages of the
language. Moreover, to the
ability to reconstruct
grammatical and lexical forms,
linguists have also reconstructed
theproto- indo-european
phonemic system. Sound
changes have been analyzed in
greater detail. The most regular
changes are traditionally called
sound laws. And correspondent
which are the results the result
of sound laws and can be found
in all relevant words are called
systematic correspondences.
The main aim in determining
such correspondences is again
showing the roots of related
languages, i.e. their ancestor
language. And a language which
is known only in its
reconstructed form is called a
protolanguage.