Session 2

Linguistics Theory

Objective 1: Understands phonetic transcription and terminology, stress and intonation patterns, and the effects of phonetic environment on pronunciation

Phonology

• The way in which speech sound patterns are formed.

• Studies the organization and systems of sound within a particular language

Phonetic Transcription

• Uses the “International Phonetic Alphabet” to mark minute distinctions in sound and which places symbols in square brackets

• It is a universal set of symbols to depict sounds, not spelling.

IPA

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5lHwZmgnXzuV35GoDXAMXArtvkE4VrU

IPA

Let’s Practice

/kæt/

/ kʌp /

/ ʃʊk /

Voiced/Voiceless

• In the first two rows of the consonant half of the chart, notice that the sounds are paired. There are voiceless on the left (p) then the voiced (b)

• Unvoiced- your vocal cords do not move or buzz when speaking a sound

• Voiced- your vocal cords “buzz” when speaking a sound

Place of Articulation• Where the sound is formed in your mouth

Bilabial

/b, p, m/ Bilabial

Alveolar

/d, t, z, s, n/ Alveolar

Labiodental

/f, v/ (f as in fan or v as in van) Labiodental.

Velar

/k, g, ŋ / ( k as in cat, g as in great, ŋ as in bring: Velar

Manner of Articulation• How the sound is formed in your mouth

FricativesFricatives are consonants that are formed by impeding the flow of air somewhere in the vocal apparatus so that a friction-sound is produced.

1. /f/ (the phoneme spelled f in fine): voiceless labiodental fricative.

2. /ð/ (the phoneme spelled th in this): voiced interdental fricative

3. /z/ (the phoneme spelled z in zoo): voiced alveolar fricative.

PlosivesPlosives are speech sounds produced by complete closure of the oral passage and subsequent release accompanied by a burst of air, as in the sound (p) in pit or (d) in dog.

1. /t/ (the phoneme spelled t as in time): voiceless plosive.

2. /d/ (the phoneme spelled d in dog): voiced plosive.

Phonemes

The smallest unit of sound that affects meaning, i.e., to distinguish between two words

In English there are 44 speech sounds, but only 26 letters.

ten, ton, tan, tin

Stress and Intonation Patterns

• Pitch it determines the context or meaning of words or a series of words. The difference between “I can’t go,” and “I can’t go?”

• Stress can occur at sentence or word level. The stress of the syllables can affect meaning. CONflict ( a noun) versus conFLICT ( a verb)

PhonographemicDifferences between words of English that are a common source of confusion and thus need to be taught explicitly

Homonyms- Word forms that have two or more meanings, i.e., can (to be able) and can (a container)Homographs-Two or more words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings, i.e., stalk (part of a plant and stalk (to follow)Homophones- Two or more words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings and spelling, i.e., would/wood, cite/sightHeteronyms- Two or more words that have the same spelling but have a different pronunciation and meaning, i.e., Polish/polish

Sample questions

• Which word do you hear when I say ______?A. [kut]B. [kæt]C. [cət]D. [cæʄ]

• How would native English speakers more than likely pronounce the word “laughed”

A. [lətId]B. [left]C. [læft]D. [loft]

Objective 2: Knows the various types of morphemes and understands how words are morphologically related to each other

Morpheme• The smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.

Includes all root-words, prefix, suffix and s within the context of the word.

• Examples: – Unladylike: The word unladylike consists of three morphemes (un – lady

– like)• None of these morphemes can be broken up any more without losing all sense

of meaning. Lady cannot be broken up into "la" and "dy," even though "la" and "dy" are separate syllables. Note that each syllable has no meaning on its own.

– Dogs: The word dogs consists of two morphemes (dog – s) /s/ is a plural marker on nouns• Note that a morpheme like "-s" can just be a single phoneme and does not have

to be a whole syllable.– Technique: The word technique consists of only one morpheme

Morphemes

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5lHwZmgnXzuV35GoDXAMXArtvkE4VrU

Morphemes• Root or base word- the key to understanding a

word, because this is where the actual meaning is determined “happy”

• Prefix- the syllable that appears in front of the root or base word and can alter the meaning “un”

• Suffix- letter or letters that are added to the end of a word and can alter tense and/or meaning of the root or base word “ness”

Unhappiness

Bound Morpheme

• Must be attached to a root word to have full meaning (affixes – i.e., prefixes and suffixes)– Example: /un/ means not. /un/ has no meaning

unless it is attached to a root word. • Unthinkable

– /un/ (bound morpheme)– think (free morpheme)– /able/ (bound morpheme)

Free Morpheme

• Units of a word that can stand alone as words themselves.

Circus ParkJUDGE

Derivational Morphemes

• Affixes (prefixes and suffixes) that can be added to a word to change its meaning and may also change its part of speech– Examples:• amaze (verb) > amazement (noun)• speak (verb) > speaker (noun)• Perform (verb) > performance (noun)• soft (adjective) > softness (noun)• warm (adjective) > warmth (noun)

Inflectional Morphemes

• Affixes (prefixes or suffixes) that can be added to a word without changing its part of speech.

• They simply change the inflection of a word. For example…changing “teacher” to “teachers” adds the morpheme “s”, but it still remains a noun.

Inflection

• A grammatical form of the word. In English, all inflections are suffixes and occur at the very end of the word.

• English verbs are inflected for mood, tense, person and number (run, running)

• Nouns and adjectives are inflected for plurality and possession (teacher, teachers)

• Adjectives are inflected for comparatives and superlatives (pretty, prettier, prettiest)

Morphemic Analysis

• Grammatical words- of, the, and, which, but, so, some. Rarely borrowed from other languages or invented.

• Lexical words- constantly borrowed or invented (google)

Objective 3: Knows the basic features of English syntax (e.g., how words are combined into phrases and sentences and transformations such as question formation)

Syntax - Grammar

• Governs the form or structure of a language; the way words are put together in a language to form phrases, clauses, or sentences.

• The syntax of a language can be divided into two parts:– Syntactic classes such as noun, verb, and adjective– Syntactic functions, such as subject and object

Examples of English Syntax

“show”• That TV show was boring. (Noun)• I will show you my new dress. (Verb)• The band plays show tunes at half time.

(Adjective)

The Eight parts of Speech

• Noun• Verb• Pronoun• Adjective• Adverb• Preposition• Interjection• Conjunction

Degrees of AdjectivesBase Comparative Superlative

High Higher Highest

Thick Thicker Thickest

Beautiful More Beautiful Most Beautiful

Bad Worse Worst

Verb tense

• Present• Past• Future

Active Verb Tense

Verb Tenses Simple Progressive Perfect Perfect Progressive

Present I write I am writing I have written I have been writing

Past I wrote I was writing I had written I had been writing

Future I will write I will be writing I will have written

I will have been writing

Types of Pronouns

Personal Relative Indefinite Demonstrative Interrogative reflexiveI, me, mineyou, your, yourshe, him, his she, her, hersIt, its, who, whom, whosewe, us, oursthey, them, theirs

It is mine.

Who, whom, whoever, that, which

The chef who won the prize studied in Paris.

all, another, any, anyone, anything, everyone, everything, each, both, neither, no one, none someone, something, few, some, many, most, several

Everyone came to dinner.

thisthatthesethose

That car is the one I want.

whowhomwhichwhatWhose

Who is the author of that book?

myselfyourselfhimselfherselfitselfourselvesYourselvesthemselves

I will cook dinner myself.

Takes the place of a person, place or thing

Introduces a relative clause and links to another part of the sentence.

Refers to an unknown person, place or thing

Represents a thing or things

Used to ask questions

Ends in -self or -selves and refers back to another noun or pronoun in the sentence

Sentences• Parts of a Sentence– Subject- The topic of a sentence consists of a noun

or pronoun and all the words that modify it. “The snow”

– Predicate- Makes a statement or a comment about the subject and consist of all the verbs and the words that modify it. “falls quietly.”

The snow falls quietly.

– Compound subject- Two or more subjects– Compound predicate- Two or more predicates

Sentence Types– Simple- A complete thought consisting of a subject

and a predicate.• The bus was late.

– Compound- Two independent clauses joined by a coordinator (and, or, nor, but, for, yet, so)• Tom walked to the bus station, and he took the bus.

– Complex- Consists of dependent clause (not a complete thought) and independent clause joined by using a subordinator (although, after, when, because, since, while)• After I write the report, I will submit it to my teacher.

Sentence Purpose

– Declarative: Makes a statement: “Anna will feed the dog.”

– Interrogative: Asks a question: “Anna, have you fed the dog?”

– Imperative: Gives a command: “Anna, please feed the dog.”

– Exclamatory: Expresses a sense of urgency: “Anna, go feed the dog right now!”

Sentence Transformations• Yes/No questions: Sentences may be transformed into

yes/no questions. (auxiliary verb + subject + main verb + rest of sentence:)– He lives in Chicago. Does he live in Chicago?

• Information questions: Sentences may be transformed into information questions. (question word + auxiliary verb + subject + main verb + rest of sentence.)– Susan lives near Orlando. Where does Susan live?

• Active Voice to Passive Voice or vice versa: Sentences may be changed from one voice to another voice. – I saw John. John was seen by me. John was being helped by me. I was helping John.

More Sentence Transformations• Indirect Objects: The word “to” (phrase marker) may be

deleted.– I gave a cookie to him. I gave him a cookie.

• Imperatives: The imperative or commands have no expressed subject.– You sit. You jump. Sit! Jump!

• Negatives: Linguists distinguish between two types of negation: – Affirmative sentences may be transformed into negative sentences

where the whole sentence is negative.• Marion is happy. Marion is not happy.

– Parts of sentences may be negative.• Juliana is happy. Juliana is unhappy.

Objective 4: Basic features of semantics and how combinations of words convey meaning

Semantics

• The branch of linguistics concerned with meaning.

• The meaning of a sentence (or phrase) is usually assumed to be derived from the words in a sentence, but meaning is often derived from the who sentence and its context.

Presupposition

• Speech that is not spoken, but nevertheless, understood by the speaker.– “The Headquarters of the American Orchid Society

of American is located in Delray Beach, Florida”– Presupposes that there is an American Orchid Society

Implication

• Concerns implications the listener can make from utterances without actually being told.

– I tried to send an email to the director.

– Implies that for some reason I was unsuccessful

Prosodic Features

• Use of stress and tone to convey meaning

– Jonathan visited Miriam• Visited Miriam and no one else.

Idioms

• Very difficult for English Language Learners because their meaning is figurative, not literal.

• Best studied in context, not isolation.• Compose a book of the literal and figurative

meanings.

• The ball is in his court.