Black Death Essays (689 words) - Plague, Second Plague Pandemic

Black Death In the 1340's, approximately one third to one half the population of Europe was wiped out by what was called ?The Black Death?. The people of the time were armed with little to no understanding of why and how the plague happened and how to control it; and this allowed for the vast destruction that occurred in little more than three years time. The origin of the epidemic has, with little doubt, been identified as Lake Issyk-Koul in what is now a part of Russian Central Asia. A flood, or some other natural disaster, drove various rodents from their habitats around the lake; and with them they carried fleas infected with the plague. A species of wild rodents normally isolated from humanity spread the plague to the more common black rat, which has been riding on board ships since man first set sail. The plague then followed the trade routes all over Europe. ?Ships arrived from Caffa at the port of Messina, Sicily. A few dying men clung to the oars; the rest lay dead on the decks... Ships that carried the coveted goods of the fabled East now also carried death. The Pestilence had come to the shores of Europe? (Wark). The accounts of the plague tell of the symptoms being ?tumors in the groin or the armpits' and ?black livid spots on the arm or thigh', typical symptoms of Bubonic plague. However, Bubonic plague normally takes several days to kill, and many accounts tell of victims falling dead inside one day of contracting the disease. The variance in the cases of the Black Death are the workings of three strains of the plague: the plague proper; a pulmonary (air-borne) version, characterized by the vomiting of blood; and a septicaemic variant, capable of killing in several hours, before typical symptoms can even develop. The people the plague threatened knew neither the source of the disease, nor how to protect themselves from it. ?It was said that the cause of the Pestilence or The Great Mortality -- 14th-century names for the contagion -- was a particularly sinister alignment of the planets, or a foul wind created by recent earthquakes. Other theories existed. ?Looks,' according to one medieval physician, ?could kill' ? (Wark). They believed their best recourse for avoiding the plague, was to run from it. When flight was not an option, they attempted to purify the air by burning aromatic woods and powders. They remained inactive, almost vegetative, holed up in their homes; if one had to move, he ought to move slowly. Love, anger, and hot baths were to be avoided; and, based on the belief that bad drove out bad, potential victims would spend a half-hour daily crouched over a latrine to build up their resistance. Once one contracted the plague, death was only a question of time. Physicians stopped visiting the infirm out of fear and the obvious futility of their efforts. They claimed the plague must be punishment from God, and therefore beyond their control. Priest still came to deliver the last rights, and consequently, they died in droves. The effects of the plague went far beyond the obvious death toll, into the souls of men and women. ? ?Some people callously maintained that there was no better or more efficacious remedy against a plague than to run away from it. Swayed by this argument, and sparing no thought for anyone but themselves, large numbers of men and women abandoned their city, their homes, their relatives, their estates and their belongings, and headed for the countryside. They maintained that an infallible way of warding off this appalling evil was to drink heavily, enjoy life to the full, go around singing and merrymaking, gratify all of one's cravings whenever the opportunity offered, and shrug the whole thing off as one enormous joke.' -Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron? (Wark). Still, some people took a different view of the situation. Germany was the center for two phenomena spawned by the plague the Flagellant movement, and a wave of anti-Semitism. The Flagellants believed that by chastising themse lves they could avert the wrath of European History

Definition and Examples of Generative Grammar

Definition and Examples of Generative Grammar In linguistics, generative grammar is grammar (or set of rules) that indicates the structure and interpretation of sentences which native speakers of a language accept as belonging to the language. Adopting the term generative from mathematics, linguist Noam Chomsky introduced the concept of generative grammar in the 1950s. This theory is also known as transformational grammar, a term still used today. Key Takeaways: Generative Grammar Generative grammar is a theory of grammar, first developed by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s, that is based on the idea that all humans have an innate language capacity. Linguists who study generative grammar are not interested in prescriptive rules; rather, they are interested in uncovering the foundational principals that guide all language production. Generative grammar accepts as a basic premise that native speakers of a language will find certain sentences grammatical or ungrammatical, and that these judgments give insight into the rules governing the use of that language. Definition Grammar refers to the set of rules that structure a language, including syntax (the arrangement of words to form phrases and sentences) and morphology (the study of words and how they are formed). Generative grammar is a theory of grammar that holds that human language is shaped by a set of basic principles that are part of the human brain (and even present in the brains of small children). This universal grammar, according to linguists like Chomsky, comes from our innate language faculty. In Linguists for Non-Linguists, Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley argue that generative grammar is a kind of unconscious knowledge that allows a person, no matter what language they speak, to form correct sentences: Simply put, a generative grammar is a theory of competence: a model of the psychological system of unconscious knowledge that underlies a speakers ability to produce and interpret utterances in a language...A good way of trying to understand [Noam] Chomskys point is to think of a generative grammar as essentially a definition of competence: a set of criteria that linguistic structures must meet to be judged acceptable. Generative grammar is distinct from other grammars such as prescriptive grammar, which attempts to establish standardized language rules that certain usages right or wrong, and descriptive grammar, which attempts to describe language as it is actually used (including the study of pidgins and dialects). Instead, generative grammar attempts to get at something deeper- the foundational principles that make language possible across all of humanity. For example, a prescriptive grammarian may study how parts of speech are ordered in English sentences, with the goal of laying out rules (nouns precede verbs in simple sentences, for example). A linguist studying generative grammar, however, is more likely to be interested in issues such as how nouns are distinguished from verbs across multiple languages. Principles of Generative Grammar The main principle of generative grammar is that all humans are born with an innate capacity for language- and that this capacity shapes the rules for what is considered correct grammar in a language. The idea of an innate language capacity- or a universal grammar- is not accepted by all linguists. Some believe, to the contrary, that all languages are learned, and therefore based on certain constraints. Proponents of the universal grammar argument believe that children, when they are very young, are not exposed to enough linguistic information to learn the rules of grammar. That children do in fact learn the rules of grammar is proof, according to some linguists, that there is an innate language capacity that allows them to overcome the poverty of the stimulus. Examples of Generative Grammar As generative grammar is a theory of competence, one way to test it is with what is called a grammaticality judgment task. This involves presenting a native speaker with a series of sentences and having them decide whether the sentences are grammatical (acceptable) or ungrammatical (unacceptable). For example: The man is happy.Happy man is the. A native speaker would judge the first sentence to be acceptable and the second to be unacceptable. From this, we can make certain assumptions about the rules governing the order of parts of speech in English sentences (for instance, a to be verb linking a noun and an adjective must follow the noun and precede the adjective).