2. The definition of a language as a structure of structures
Relevance for studying language in its natural or primary medium: oral sounds rather than written symbols. Phonic medium: the range of sounds produced by the speech organs insofar as the play a role in language Speech sounds: Individual sounds within that range
Phonetics is the study of the phonic medium: The study of the production, transmission, and reception of human sound-making used in speech. e.g. classification of sounds as voiced vs voiceless: /b/ vs /p/
Phonology is the study of the phonic medium not in itself but in relation with language. e.g. application of voice to the explanation of differences within the system of language: housen vs housev usen vs usev
2.1.1. Phonetics
It is usually divided into three branches which study the phonic medium from three points of view: Articulatory phonetics: speech sounds according to the way in which they are produced by the speech organs. Acoustic phonetics: speech sounds according to the physical properties of their sound-waves. Auditory phonetics: speech sounds according to their perception and identification.
Articulatory phonetics has the longest tradition, and its progress in the 19th century contributed a standardize and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription: the origins of the International Phonetic Alphabet used today and relying on sound symbols and diacritics.
It studies production in relation with the vocal tract, i.e., organs such as: lungs trachea or windpipe, containing: larynx vocal folds glottis pharyngeal cavity nose mouth, containing fixed organs: teeth and teeth ridge hard palate pharyngeal wall mobile organs: lips tongue soft palate jaw
According to their function and participation, sounds may take several features: Voice: voiced vs voiceless sounds, according to the participation of the vocal folds e.g. /b, d, g, z, v/ vs /p, t, k, s, f/ Nasality: nasal vs oral sounds, according to the participation of the velum or soft palate e.g. /n/ vs /s/ …
Acoustic phonetics examines the physical nature of sounds according to variables like: sound quality pitch loudness length
Auditory phonetics studies the perception of sounds by hearers based on two mechanisms: physiological, psychological
A complete description of a sound should include information concerning all three stages/fields: production transmission reception
Speech sounds are classified as:
Consonants or consonantal-type: their articulation requires a closure or narrowing They can be classified internally according to: Place of articulation: bilabial /p, b, m/ labio-dental /f, v/ dental /θ, δ/ alveolar /t, d, l, n, s, z/ retroflex /r/ palatal /j/ velar /k, g, ŋ/ … Manner of articulation: complete closure plosive /p, b, t, d, k, g/ affricate /t∫/ nasal /m, n, ŋ / intermitent closure roll /r/ partial closure lateral /l/ narrowing fricative /f, v, θ, δ, s, z, ∫/
Vowels or vowel-type: their articulation is not accompanied by closure or narrowing They can be classified internally according to: Position of soft palate (raised vs lowered) Opening formed by the lips (rounded vs unrounded) Part of the tongue raised (front, centre or back) and degree of raising (close, close-mid, open- mid, open):
Other vowel-type sounds are: diphthongs towards I: /a I/ e.g. why /e I/ e.g. play /o I/ e.g. point towards u: /a u/ e.g. house /o u/ e.g. low /∂ u/ e.g. no thriphthongs towards I: /a I ∂/ e.g. why /e I ∂/ e.g. play /o I ∂/ e.g. point towards u: /a u ∂/ e.g. house /o u ∂/ e.g. low /∂ u ∂/ e.g. no semi-vowels /w, j/
Suprasegmental (prosodic) features: they affect not just a segment, but long stretches of utterances: stress position rhythm intonation
2.1.2. Phonology
Phoneme: the smallest linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning. Allophone (or phonemic alternant): a variant form of a phoneme where the variation does not alter the unit’s basic identity.
Language may differ phonologically in respect of: The number of phonological elements and their inventories, The syntagmatic relations that determine the phonological well-formedness of possible combinations.
Phonemic analysis studies sequences longer than phonemes (syllables) alterations and processes of phonemes in connected speech: assimilation: progressive regressive
within a word at word boundaries elision juncture …
2.2. Morphology
Traditional approach: the form of language based on the notion WORD A revision: different types of words: lexical word grammatical word orthographical word phonological word a common term difficult to use in technical language Two concepts arise from this revision: word-forms: the various forms that a lexeme may take once inflected e.g. sing, sings, sang, sung lexemes: the smallest distinctive units in the lexicon of a language e.g. SING, as in a dictionary entry
On these grounds, morphology is then approached as the study of inflection and derivation in a language the study of the morphemes of a language morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language e.g. plural number morph is the actual realization of a morpheme e.g. -s for plural number allomorph (or morphemic alternant) is a variant form of a morpheme where the variation does not alter the morpheme’s basic identity e.g. -s (/s/), -s (/z/), -ee-, …
The realization of morphemes can be bound or free (according to whether they are dependent or independent, respectively).
The combination of morphemes does not always take place linearly, that is, morphs do not always occur one after the other, so formal alterations may occur in various degrees: i) Attachment (with or without morphological change): Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology go > goes touch > touchy
Attachment may entail duplication of a final element in the base: Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology stop > stopped cut > cutter iii) Phonological and/or orthograhical change as a result of attachment: Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology bite /bait/ > bit /bit/ happy /’hæpi/ > happily /’hæpili/ ii) Deletion (with or without phonological change): Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology bleed > bled tragedy > tragic iii) Partial suppletion: Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology woman > women sing > song iv) Complete suppletion (portmanteau morph): Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology go > went good > well v) No morphological (sometimes phonological) change at all (zero morph): Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology set (non-remote)> set (remote) goV > goN
Morphology is a gradient or scale with the following two extreme fields:
Inflectional morphology It studies inflections, i.e., affixes whose function is to signal various grammatical relationships of the same lexeme. Inflections are usually specific for each word-class, actually word-classes are often defined in languages using inflectional morphemes as their distinctive criterion: Nouns inflect for number and case Verbs inflect for tense, aspect, … Adjectives and adverbs inflect for degree Pronouns inflect for case, number, person…
Derivational morphology It studies derivation, that is, the formation of new lexemes. Two basic types of lexemes can be considered: Simple: units with only one constituent and not formed by any word-formation process Complex: units with more than one constituent and affected by a word-formation process
The major word-formation processes are:
Affixation: prefixation: an affix precedes the base e.g. replace suffixation: an affix follows the base e.g. placement infixation: an infix sets inside the base (usually in compounds) e.g. syntactico-semantic Conversion: the base is reclassified as a new word-class without formal alteration e.g. busv catchn Voicing and stress shift may accompany conversion: e.g. believe contrastv Compounding: one base is added to another to form a new one e.g. sunrise (from sun + rise) Exocentric (bahuvrihi): internal-centred e.g. gasworks Endocentric (dvandva): external-centred e.g. gasbag Blending: parts of two bases form a new lexeme e.g. electrocute (from electricity and execute) Back-formation: a suffix-like ending is deleted from the base e.g. edit (from editor) Shortening: clipping: a part of the base is deleted e.g. exam (from examination) acronymization: a lexeme is formed with initials: e.g. UK (from United Kingdom) Acronyms can be pronounced as words (NATO) or as initials (UFO). …
2.3. Syntax
Syntax is globally concerned with the grammaticality of word-strings: it establishes whether sequences of words (phrases, clauses, sentences) are built in accordance with the grammar of a language system: e.g. *morning this vs this morning
Syntax studies word-strings, which can be classified as:
Phrase: a sequence of words typically containing more than one unit lacking a subject+predicator structure built around ahead or centre. There are noun phrases (NPs) verb phrases (VPs) adjective phrases (AdjPs) adverb phrases (AdvPs) prepositional phrases (PrepPs)
Clause: a sequence of words intermediate between a phrase and a sentence containing a subject+predicator structure which may be subordinate or not There are main clauses (MCls.) coordinate clauses (CoordCls.) subordinate clauses (SubCls.)
Sentence: a sequence of words which is the largest structural unit at this level Which cannot be subordinate Sentences are thus not linear sequences, but multi-layered sequences. This structure is brought out by techniques like the Immediate Constituents (ICs) analysis, and its bracketing- labelling.
2.4. Semantics
Semantics as the study of meaning and difficulties in the definition of meaning: prevailing wrong concepts previous non-linguistic approaches hardly any agreement..
A starting point can be that meanings are ideas or concepts which can be transferred from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the hearer by embodying them, as it were, in the forms of one language or another.
Lexical vs sentence meaning
Lexical meaning Lexicology (the study of lexicon) and lexicography (the application of the former study to dictionary-making) for the study of meaning.
The structure of meaning based on the notion of lexical field sememe seme resulting in a network of meaning features and related concepts.
Syntagmatic relations between lexemes: Collocations (collocability): recurring, lexically-determined co-occurrence of lexemes e.g. make a mistake do a favour Idioms: sequences of lexemes whose sum mean differently from the sum of its members e.g. to kick the bucket to spill the beans Paradigmatic relations between lexemes: Synonymy Two lexemes with two different forms and one meaning e.g. different – dissimilar Antonymy Two lexemes with two different forms and opposite meanings e.g. different – equal Polysemy One lexeme with several senses of one meaning e.g. old – not new – not young Homonymy Two lexemes with one form and two unrelated meanings e.g. bank – bank Total homonymy involves orthographical and phonological form as above. Partial homonymy can be homography (same orthographical form) e.g. lead - lead homophony (same phonological form) e.g. air – heir Hyponymy Two lexemes with two forms and related meanings such that one (hyponym) is general e.g. animal the other (hypernym) is specific e.g. dog Meronymy Two lexemes with two forms such that one (holonym) denotes a whole element e.g. computer the other (meronym) denotes a part of it e.g. screen
Sentence meaning It takes the study of meaning beyond the traditional sphere of just lexemes: the meaning of a sentence depends on the meaning of the lexemes and of the grammatical elements which operate on those lexemes: e.g. The dog bit the post man vs The postman bit the dog
Sentence meaning = Lexical meaning + Grammatical meaning
2.5. Pragmatics
Pragmatics studies the function or action that language performs in the domains of social interaction Speech acts: communicative activities defined with reference to the intentions of a speaker the effects achieved on the listener
As we study speech acts and their contexts, we move away from the meaning or grammar of sentences and approach the meaning of text and discourse, namely the domains of pragmatics.
Grammar Pragmatics Declarative sentence Statement Interrogative sentence Question Imperative sentence Directive Exclamative sentence Exclamation
So pragmatics is the study of the principles governing the communicative use of language from the point of the users (their choices and constraints) from the point of view of the effects achieved
Speech acts can be divided into: Locutionary act: The act of saying something e.g. I’ll kill you! Illocutionary act: The act performed in saying something e.g. It is a threat Perlocutionary act: The act performed by or as a result of saying something e.g. It obtains apologies from the threatened person
The basic unit of study is the utterance, defined as the stretch of speech typically followed and preceded by a silence, or any stretch of speech about which no assumptions have been made in terms of linguistic theory.