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Fundamentals of General Linguistics

Prepared by: Dr. Moazzam Ali Malik

Department of EnglishUniversity of Gujrat

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

1.1 Language 41.1.1 Features of a Language 4

1.2 Lingusitics 51.2.1 Branches of Linguistics 6

1.3 Scope of Linguistics 9

CHAPTER 2: IMPORTANT CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTICS

2.1 Speech vs. Writing 102.2 Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Approach to Language 102.3 Language and Parole 11 2.4 Competence and Performance 12 2.5 Diachronic and Synchronic 12 2.6 Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic 13

CHAPTER 3: PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

3.1 Phonetics and Phonology 143.2 Branches of Phonemes 153.3 Phoneme, Phone, Allophone 153.4 Syllable, Consonant, Vowel 163.5 Manner of Articulation 173.6 Place of Articulation 173.7 The Force of Articulation 183.8 Vowel: Open, Mid and Close Vowels 183.9 Diphthongs 19

CHAPTER 4: MORPHOLOGY

4.1 Morpheme, Morphs and Allomorphs 204.2 Defining Terms 204.3 Inflectional and Derivational Morphology 21

CHAPTER 5: SYNTAX

5.1 Syntax

Fundamentals of General Linguistics Prepared by: M. Moazzam Ali

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5.2 Levels of Analysis 235.3 Phrases 235.4 Surface Structure and Deep Structure 245.5 Ambiguous Structure 245.6 Types of Phrases 255.7 Phrases within Phrases 26

CHAPTER 6: SEMANTICS

6.1 Semantics 276.2 Conventionality and Motivation 276.3 Semantic Feature 286.4 Componential Analysis 286.5 Types of Word Meaning 296.6 Lexical Relations

CHAPTER 7: PRAGMATICS

7.1 Pragmatics 337.1.1 What does Pragmatics include? 33

7.2 Speech Acts 347.3 Conventional Implicature 347.4 Conventional Maxims and Cooperative Principal 357.5 Politeness 36

7.5.1 Face and Politeness Strategies 367.5.2 T and V Pronouns 36

7.6 Deixis 36

CHAPTER 8: PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

8.1 Psycholinguistics 388.1.1 Linguistic Related Areas 388.1.2 Psychology Related Areas 39

8.2 Theories in Psycholinguistics 398.3 Universal Grammar 40


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CHAPTER # 1

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

1.1 Language

Language is a system that associates sounds (or gestures) with meanings in a way that uses words and sentences. Let us look at some of its definitions.“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” (Sapir, 1921)Language is “the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral auditory arbitrary symbols.” (Hall, 1968)“I will consider language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.” (Chomsky, 1957)

1.1.1 Features of a Language

Following features are common to all human languages

a) Openness

Human language is creative. Speakers can freely create new messages never before uttered, and can be understood by other speakers of the same language.

b) Productivity

We are able to come up with unlimited new phrases or sentences by combining the limited number of symbols/words in our vocabulary in new ways or in new orders.

We can use language to say things no one has ever said before, or state previous ideas in a new form.The fact that we can generate novel thoughts and ideas shows the great utility of language. Language evolves to fit the needs of the culture within a specific era (milieu, zeitgeist). New messages on any topic can be produced at any time. The potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite.

c) Displacement

Humans can talk about absent or nonexistent objects, and about past or future events, as easily as we can discuss our current situation. In other words, language allows us to live with a past,


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present, and future. We can discuss things that took place days, weeks, years, eons ago and can also discuss the future. Nonhuman primates, using closed call systems, cannot do this. Their calls concern only the here and now.

d) Arbitrariness

There is no necessary link between a particular sound in a language and a particular meaning. This means that any particular link between a particular sound and a particular meaning in a particular language is arbitrary. Because language is arbitrary, learning the connections between the symbols we use to convey meaning is essential for language comprehension and production.One small class of words which seems to somewhat transgress this idea of arbitrariness is words which sound like their meaning, i.e. onomatopoeia : hum, buzz, zoom. However, the written symbols which represent these words are still arbitrary.

e) Duality of patterning/multilevel patterning

Human symbolic language is patterned at more than one level whereas; animal communication system is patterned at only one level. The thousands of words that humans use are formed by recombining a limited number of basic speech sounds or phonemes (e.g., eat versus tea).

Duality of patterning is a linguistic principle used as a primary criterion for determining if a system is a language. It notes that the smallest meaning carrying units are made up of meaningless smaller units. Linguistic expressions are analysable on two levels: a meaningless level, in which mere arbitrary sounds (phones) are arranged into abstract units made up of bundles of distinctive features (phonemes); and a level in which phonemes are arranged into larger,meaningful units (morphemes).

f) Semanticity

Linguistic signals are associated with aspects of the physical, cultural, and social world of speakers. Linguistic utterences, whether simple phrases or complete sentences, convey meaning, convey meaning by means of the symbols we use to form the utterances. All languages convey some meaning.There are also nonspeech sounds, called paralinguistics, which can also convey meaning : Coughing, for example.

1.2 Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It tries to observe languages and to describe them accurately, find generalizations within what has been described and draw


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conclusions about the general nature of human language. Longman Dictionary of Language

Teaching & Applied Linguistics defines linguistics as the study of language as a system of human communication. Some other definitions of linguistics can be:

• Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language. (Dai & He, p. 1)• Linguistics, as the name suggests, is the science of language and thus is usually defined

as the systematic study of language or, a discipline that describes all aspects of language and formulate theories as to how language works. (Yang, 2005, p. 27)

Linguistics concerns itself with the fundamental questions of what language is and how it is related to the other human faculties. In answering these questions, linguists consider language as a cultural, social, and psychological phenomenon and seek to determine what is unique in languages, what is universal, how language is acquired, and how it changes. Linguistics is, therefore, one of the cognitive sciences; it provides a link between the humanities and the social sciences, as well as education and hearing and speech sciences.

1.2.1 Branches of linguistics

Linguistics overlaps and (ideally) cooperates with: psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, logic, mathematics, computer science, speech pathology, acoustics, music, cryptanalysis, etc.

There is an incomplete list of the branches of linguistics given below, new ones continue to arise.a) Phonetics

The study of speech sounds; how they are produced in the vocal tract (articulatory phonetics), how they are transmitted through the air (acoustic phonetics), and how they are perceived by the listener (auditory phonetics).

b) Phonology

The study of the sound system of language; how the particular sounds used in each language form an integrated system for encoding information and how such systems differ from one language to another.

c) Morphology


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The study of the way, in which words are constructed out of smaller units which have a meaning or grammatical function, for example the word friendly is constructed from friend and the adjective-forming –ly.

d) Lexicography

The compiling of dictionaries is called lexicography. Lexicography could be seen as a branch of applied linguistics.

e) Syntax

The study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences.

f) Semantics

The study of meaning; how words and sentences are related to the real or imaginary objects they refer to and the situations they describe.

g) Pragmatics

The study of the use of language in communication, particularly the relationships between sentences and the contexts and situations in which they are used such as time, place, social relationship between speaker and hearer, and speaker’s assumptions about the hearer’s belief.

h) Sociolinguistics

The study of language in relation to the social factors such as social class, educational level, age, sex and ethnic origin is called sociolinguistics. Such areas as the study of language choice in bilingual or multilingual communities, language planning or language attitudes can also be included.

i) Discourse Analysis

The study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews etc.

j) Stylistics


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It is the study of that variation in language which is dependent on the situation in which the language is used and also on the effect the writer/speaker wishes to create on the reader/hearer.

Stylistics tries to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language.

k) Literary stylistics

It is the analysis of literary texts applying linguistic methods and theories (phonetics, morphology, syntax, discourse analysis, pragmatics, etc.) with the aim of providing retrievable interpretations which allow comparisons of different texts, genres (fiction, drama and poetry) etc.

l) Psycholinguistics

The study of the mental processes underlying the planning, production, perception and comprehension of speech, for example how memory limitations affect speech production and comprehension. The best developed branch of psycholinguistics is the study of language acquisition.

m) Neurolinguistics

The study of the brain and how it functions in the production, perception, and acquisition of language as well as disorders like aphasia.

n) Historical Linguistics

It is a branch of linguistics which studies the development of language and languages over time; also known as diachronic linguistics. Historical linguistics uses the methods of the various branches of linguistics (including sociolinguistics, especially in considering the reasons for language change). One thus encounters such subfields as “historical phonology/ morphology/ syntax” etc.

o) Applied linguistics

It is the application of the methods and results of linguistics to such areas as language teaching; national language policies; translation; language in politics, advertising, classrooms and courts (forensic linguistics).

p) Computational linguistics


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Computational linguists study natural languages, such as English and Japanese, rather than computer languages, such as Fortran, Snobol, or Java. The field of computational linguistics has two aims: the technological aim to enable computers to be used as aids in analysing and processing natural language and the psychological aim to understand, by analogy with computers, more about how people process natural languages. It also includes research on automatic translation, electronic production of artificial speech and the automatic recognition of human speech.

(Given definitions adapted from Richards, Jack et al. 1992. Dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics, new edition. London: Longman & Crystal, David. 1997. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, fourth edition. Oxford: Blackwell.)

1.3 Scope of Linguistics

Scope of linguistics can be studied at two levels, i.e., micro and micro.

1. Micro linguistics 2. Macro linguistics

• Phonetics • Phonology • Morphology • Syntax • Semantics• Pragmatics

• Sociolinguistics • Psycholinguistics • Applied linguistics • Neurolinguistics


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CHAPTER # 2

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS IN LINGUISTICS

2.1 Speech vs. Writing

• Speech is prior to writing• The writing system is invented when needed• There are many societies which only speak their language and do not write it. And no

society uses only a written language (with no spoken form).• Speech plays a greater role than writing in daily communication• Each human being first acquires speech and then learns writing• Modern linguistics tends to pay more attention to authentic speech • Writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired automatically.• Psycholinguistic evidence suggest that the processing and production of written

languageis overlaid on the spoken language centers in the brain (plus certain other centers).

• Speech contains information that writing lacks – intonation, stress, voice quality . . .

2.2 Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Approach to Language

a) Descriptive Approach

Linguists attempt to describe the grammar of the language that exists in the minds of its speakers, i.e. to create a model of speakers’ mental grammar.The resulting descriptive grammar describes person’s basic linguistic knowledge. It explains how it is possible to speak and understand and it summarizes what speakers know about the sounds, words, phrases and sentences of their language.Creating a descriptive grammar involves observing the language and trying to discover the principles or rules that govern it.Descriptive rules accept as given the patterns speakers actually use and try to account for them. Descriptive rules allow for different dialects of a language and even variation within one dialect.

b) Prescriptive Approach


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Prescriptivists tell you someone’s idea of what is “good” or “bad”. Prescriptive rules make a value judgment about the correctness of certain utterances and generally try to enforce a single standard. For example:– Don’t split infinitives; don’t say: to easily understand– Don’t end a sentence with a preposition; don’t say Where are you from?– Don’t use me in a subject of a sentence; don’t say You and me went to the store.– Don’t use ain’t; don’t say Ain’t it the truth?The people who prescriptive grammar make up the rules of the grammar. They attempt to impose the rules for speaking and writing on people without much regard for what the majority of educated speakers of a language actually say and write.So-called prescriptive grammar usually focuses only on a few issues and leaves the rest of a language undescribed (unprescribed?). In fact, from the linguistic point of view, this is not grammar at all.

c) Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism

In summary: Linguists describe language, they do not prescribe it.As a science, linguistics:• is not in the business of making value judgments about language use.• studies how language really is used and then attempts to describe the facts, in order to analyze and, eventually, explain them.

An Analogy:• Physicists:– don’t complain that objects fall to earth– simply observe and describe the fact of falling, then try to discover the laws that are behind it.• Linguists:– don’t say that people shouldn’t use ain’t– simply observe that some people in certain situations do use ain’t (without judging, although they do note any systematic correlations of such use with particulargroups, regions, situations, styles, etc.)

2.3 Language and Parole

By defining Langue and Parole, Saussure differentiates between the language and how it is used, and therefore enabling these two very different things to be studied as separate entities.

a) Langue

Langue is the systematic knowledge of a language possessed by a speech community.

b) Parole


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Parole is the concrete use of the language, the actual utterances. It is an external manifestation of langue. It is the usage of the system, but not the system

2.4 Competence and Performance

Competence refers to a speaker's knowledge of his language as manifest in his ability to produce and to understand a theoretically infinite number of sentences most of which he may have never seen or heard before.

Performance refers to the specific utterances, including grammatical mistakes and non-linguistic features like hesitations, accompanying the use of language.

In linguistics, the distinction between a person's knowledge of language is called competence and use of it is called performance.

2.5 Diachronic and Synchronic

a) DiachronyDiachronic linguistics views the historical development of a language. Thus, on the diachronic axis we can go back and forth in time, watching the language with all its features change.

b) SynchronySynchronic linguistics views a particular state of a language at some given point in time. This could mean Modern English of the present day, or the systematic analysis of the system of Shakespeare's English. However, no comparisons are made to other states of language or other times.


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2.6 Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic

These are the contrasting terms in structural linguistics. Every item of language has a paradigmatic relationship with every other item which can be substituted for it (such as cat with dog), and a syntagmatic relationship with items which occur within the same construction (for example, in The cat sat on the mat, the relationship of ‘cat’ with ‘the’ and ‘sat on the mat’).

• Paradigmatic analysis is the analysis of paradigms embedded in the text rather than of the surface structure (syntax) of the text which is termed syntagmatic analysis .

• In semiotics syntagmatic analysis is analysis of syntax or surface structure (Syntagmatic structure), rather than paradigms as in paradigmatic analysis.

• Example

Syntagm

Paradigm People Clothing to be Color

Ali’s hat is green.

My coat isn’t yellow.

Theacher’s shirt were pink.

The value of each term is determined by its place in the syntagm--by the other terms in the sentence that precede and follow it. Also by the set of alternative terms that might replace it (paradigm).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigmatic_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntagmatic_structure



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntagmatic_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntagmatic_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm

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CHAPTER # 3

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

3.1 Phonetics and Phonology

a) Phonology is about patterns of sounds, especially different patterns of sounds in different languages, or within each language, different patterns of sounds in different positions in words etc. Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages

The phonological system of a language include

an inventory of sounds and their features, and rules which specify how sounds interact with each other.

b) Phonetics deals with the production of speech sounds by humans, often without prior knowledge of the language being spoken.

Phonetics Phonology• Phonetics is the study of the nature of

sound itself • Phonology is the study of the sound

systems of a language.

• Phonetics simply describes the articulatory and acoustic properties of phones (speech sounds).

• Phonology studies how sounds interact as a system in a particular language.

• Phonetics studies which sounds are present in a language and how these sounds can be represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet

• Phonology studies how these sounds combine and how they change in combination, as well as which sounds can contrast to produce differences in meaning

• Phonetics studies how the vocal tract modifies the vibratory sound generated by the glottis to produce recognizable speech sounds in English and other

• Phonology studies how we can describe all languages’ sounds in terms of smaller components called


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languages. “distinctive features”.

• Phonetics studies how articulation of individual sounds varies according to dialect and other factors.

• Phonology studies how syllabification affects the actual articulation of sounds and vice versa.

• Phonetics studies how sounds overlap with each other in co articulation. It studies how features such as voicing, vowel height and back ness, lip rounding, place and manner of articulation affect the acoustic pattern of a sound.

• Phonology studies how we can describe common linguistic changes in terms how humans might process them in the brain. The role of tone, intonation, and stress in some of the world's languages.

3.2 Branches of Phonetics

• Articulatory phonetics: the study of how speech sounds are made or articulated.

• Acoustic phonetics: deals with the physical properties of speech sounds such as sound waves in the air.

• Auditory phonetics: deals with the perception of speech sounds via the ear.

3.3 Phoneme, Phone and Allophone

Phoneme is the smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another (e.g., the sound p in tap, which differentiates that word from tab and tag). Phonemes may be recorded with special symbols, such as those of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In transcription, linguists conventionally place symbols for phonemes between slash marks: /p/.

A phoneme is a family of similar sounds which a language treats as being "the same". Members of the family are called its allophones.

In English, [p] and [ph] are allophones of the /p/ phoneme.

In phonetics the smallest perceptible segment is phone.


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A phone is an unanalyzed sound of a language. It is the smallest identifiable unit found in a stream of speech that is able to be transcribed with an IPA symbol.

A speech sound or gesture considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the phonology of a language.

For example, p as in pin and p as in spin are allophones in the English language. English speakers generally treat these as the same sound, but they are different. The latter is unaspirated: it sounds a little more like the b of English. The preceding s is the usual context for the unaspirated allophone. Chinese treats them differently and the latter is written as b in pinyin; thus, they are not allophones in Chinese.

3.4 Syllable, Vowel and Consonants

Syllable is a phonetic unit larger and more stable than phoneme. Syllable is a unit of spoken language consisting of a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant alone, or by any of these sounds preceded, followed, or surrounded by one or more consonants. Syllables are often considered the phonological "building blocks" of words.

A syllable consists of an onset and a rhyme, and a rhyme in turn consists of an vowel and final consonant(s).

Syllable

Rhyme

Onset

Nucleus Coda

A vowel is a type of sound for which there is no closure at any point of the vocal tract.

A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract.

There are three ways of describing the consonant sounds

1. The manner of articulation2. The place of articulation3. The force of articulation


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3.5 Manners of Articulation

There are six manners of articulation.

Manners How Produced Examples

Stops/Plosives By stopping the airflow in the vocal tract and then releasing it explosively.

[p],[b],[t],[d],[k],[g]

Affricates A sound that begins as a stop but releases as a fricative

[tʃ], [dʒ]

Fricatives By forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulator close together

[f],[x]

Nasals When velum is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through nose

[m],[n]

Lateral The airflow is around the sides of the tongue

[l]

Approximants Continuous flow of air through the vocal tract, less friction than a fricative but more than a vowel

[r],[w],[j]

3.6 Places of Articulation

Where Produced Where Produced Examples

Bilabial Lips together [p], [b], [m], [w]

Labio-dental Upper teeth on lower lip [f], [v]

Dental Upper teeth on tip of tongue [θ], [ð]

Alveolar Tip of tongue on hard ridge behind upper teeth [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [l], [r]


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Plato-Alveolar Tip of tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth, between the alveolar ridge and hard palate

[tʃ], [dʒ], [ʒ], [ʃ]

Palatal Front of tongue is raised to hard palate [j]

Velar Back of tongue is raised to soft palate [k], [g], [η]

Glottol The vocal cords [h]

3.7 The Force of Articulation

a) Voiced Sounds

Vocal sounds are called voiced if the vocal cords are vibrating.

b) Voiceless Sounds

Vocal sounds are called voiceless if the vocal cords are not vibrating.

c) Fortis/Lenis

The fortis/lenis distinction describes the voicing differences of consonants. The term, ‘fortis’ suggests a greater amount of force employed in the production of consonants. The term, ‘lenis’ suggests a smaller amount of force employed in the production of consonants. In English, all voiceless consonants are produced with greater force than the voiced consonants.

3.8 Vowels: Open, Mid and Close Vowels

A vowel is a type of sound for which there is no closure of the throat or mouth at any point where vocalization occurs.


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For close vowel the tongue is quite high in the mouth.

For mid vowels the tongue is neither high nor low in the mouth.

For open vowels, the tongue is low in the mouth.

3.9 Diphthongs

Diphthongs are types of vowels where two vowel sounds are connected in a continuous, gliding motion. They are often referred to as gliding vowels.


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1. /ai/ (kite, fight, night, fried)2. /ei/ (say, pay, rate, paper, plate)3. /iכ/ (boy, soil, coil, boil) 4. /au/ (shout, flower, couch)5. /әu/ (no, soul)6. /iә/ (fear, near, mere, career)7. /eә/ (fair, gear, flare, prayer)8. /uә/ (sure, poor, doer)

3.10 Assimilation In many languages, sounds belonging to one word can change depending on the environment of its occurrence. When a phoneme is realized / articulated differently due to its context or neighboring sounds, the process is known as assimilation. Assimilation is more likely to be found in rapid, casual speech. In English, assimilation usually affects consonants at word boundaries.

1. / t / changes to / p / before / m / / b / or / p / (circuit board, sit back)2. / d / changes to / b / before / m / / b / or / p / (mixed bag, used before)3. / n / changes to / m / before / m / / b / or / p / (van bumper, brown paper)4. / t / changes to / k / before / k / or /g/ (short cut, that cake)5. / d / changes to / g / before / k / or / g / (hard copy, red carpet)6. / n / changes to /ŋ/ before / k / or / g / (open court, town clerk)7. / s / changes to /ʃ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / (bus shelter, nice shoes)8. / z / changes to /ʒ/ before /ʃ/ or / j / (cheese shop, these sheep)9. /θ/ changes to / s / before / s / (fifth set, fourth season)

3.11 Elision


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Elision is the omission of sounds, syllables or words in speech. This is done to make the language easier to say, and faster.

Elision of sounds can be seen clearly in contracted forms like isn't (is not), I'll (I shall/will), who's (who is/has), they'd (they had, they should, or they would), haven't (have not) and so on. We see from these examples that vowels or/and consonants can be elided.

potato /p ̍teιtǝʊ/ tomato /t ̍mɑ:tǝʊ/ tonight /tͅnaιt/ police /pͅli:s/

3.12 Linking R Sound

In British English, when a word ends in an 'r', we do not pronounce this letter! There is only one exception to this, and that is when the following word begins with a vowel sound, and in this case, we do pronounce it, as it helps us link the two words together.

This pronunciation technique is known as the Linking R.

Father-in law The hare and the tortoise

Clear as water

3.13 Intrusive R Sounds

In a similar way, we sometimes add an imaginary 'r' sound, even when there isn't an 'r' at the end of the first word. This pronunciation technique is known as the Intrusive R. Again, we do this to speak more fluently and to make one word transition more easily into the next.

The United States of America [r] is a big country. Donna [r] and her mother.

A banana [r] is a yellow fruit.

Pamela [r] Anderson.

I want to visit China [r] and Vietnam.

CHAPTER # 4

MORPHOLOGY

4.1 Morpheme, Morphs and Allomorphs


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Morphology is one of the branches of linguistics in which we study the structure of the words. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language. Morphemes are words, word stems, and affixes, basically the unit of language one up from phonemes. Although they are often understood as units of meaning, they are usually considered a part of a language's syntax or grammar.

A morph is a physical form representing a certain morpheme in a language.

An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments. Sometimes different morphs may represent the same morpheme; i.e., a morpheme may take different forms. If so, they are called allomorphs of that morpheme.

Examples (English)

The plural morpheme in English, usually written as '-s', has at least three allomorphs:

[-s] as in 'hats'

[-z] as in 'dogs'

[-iz] as in 'boxes'

4.2 Defining Terms


http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAMorpheme.htm

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morpheme: a combination of sounds that have a meaning. A morpheme does not necessarily have to be a word. Example: the word cats has two morphemes. Cat is a morpheme, and s is a morpheme. Every morpheme is either a base or an affix. An affix can be either a prefix or a suffix. Cat is the base morpheme, and s is a suffix.

affix: a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme. Note: An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand alone. Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions are able, like, and less.

base: a morpheme that gives a word its meaning. The base morpheme cat gives the word cats its meaning: a particular type of animal.

prefix: an affix that comes before a base morpheme. The in in the word inspect is a prefix.

suffix: an affix that comes after a base morpheme. The s in cats is a suffix.

free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a word without another morpheme. It does not need anything attached to it to make a word. Cat is a free morpheme.

bound morpheme: a sound or a combination of sounds that cannot stand alone as a word. The s in cats is a bound morpheme, and it does not have any meaning without the free morpheme cat.

inflectional morpheme: this morpheme can only be a suffix. The s in cats is an inflectional morpheme. An inflectional morpheme creates a change in the function of the word. Example: the d in invited indicates past tense. English has only seven inflectional morphemes: -s (plural) and -s (possessive) are noun inflections; -s ( 3rd-person singular), -ed ( past tense), -en (past participle), and -ing ( present participle) are verb inflections; -er (comparative) and -est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections.

derivational morpheme: this type of morpheme changes the meaning of the word or the part of speech or both. Derivational morphemes often create new words. Example: the prefix and derivational morpheme un added to invited changes the meaning of the word.

allomorphs: different phonetic forms or variations of a morpheme. Example: The final morphemes in the following words are pronounced differently, but they all indicate plurality: dogs, cats, and horses.

homonyms: morphemes that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Examples: bear (an animal) and bear (to carry), plain (simple) and plain ( a level area of land).


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homophones: morphemes that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. Examples: bear, bare; plain, plane; cite, sight, site.

4.3 Inflectional and Derivational Morphology

Another important and perhaps universal distinction is the one between derivational and inflectional morphemes.

a) Derivational morphemes make new words from old ones (Crystal, p. 90.) Thus creation is formed from create, but they are two separate words.

Derivational morphemes generally: 1) Change the part of speech or the basic meaning of a word. Thus -ment added to a verb forms a noun (judg-ment). re-activate means "activate again." 2) Are not required by syntactic relations outside the word. Thus un-kind combines un- and kind into a single new word, but has no particular syntactic connections outside the word -- we can say he is unkind or he is kind or they are unkind or they are kind, depending on what we mean. 3) Are often not productive -- derivational morphemes can be selective about what they'll combine with, and may also have erratic effects on meaning. Thus the suffix -hood occurs with just a few nouns such as brother, neighbor, and knight, but not with most others. e.g., friendhood, daughterhood, or candlehood. Furthermore "brotherhood" can mean "the state or relationship of being brothers," but "neighborhood" cannot mean "the state or relationship of being neighbors." 4) Typically occur between the stem and any inflectional affixes. Thus in governments,-ment, a derivational suffix, precedes -s, an inflectional suffix. 5) In English, may appear either as prefixes or suffixes: pre-arrange, arrange-ment.

b) Inflectional morphemes: vary (or "inflect") the form of words in order to express grammatical features, such as singular/plural or past/present tense. Thus Boy and boys, for example, are two different forms of the "same" word; the choice between them, singular vs. plural, is a matter of grammar and thus the business of inflectional morphology. (Crystal, p. 90.)

Inflectional Morphemes generally: 1) Do not change basic meaning or part of speech, e.g., big, bigg-er, bigg-est are all adjectives. 2) Express grammatically-required features or indicate relations between different words in the sentence. Thus in Lee love-s Kim: -s marks the 3rd person singular present form of the verb, and also relates it to the 3rd singular subject Lee. 3) Are productive. Inflectional morphemes typically combine freely with all members of some large class of morphemes, with predictable effects on usage/meaning. Thus the plural morpheme


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can be combined with nearly any noun, usually in the same form, and usually with the same effect on meaning. 4) Occur outside any derivational morphemes. Thus in ration-al-iz-ation-s the final -s is inflectional, and appears at the very end of the word, outside the derivational morphemes -al, -iz, -ation. 5) In English, are suffixes only.

4.4 CompoundingIn ordinary English spelling, compounds are sometimes spelled as single words, as in sawmill, sawdust; sometimes the parts are connected by a hyphen, as in jig-saw; and sometimes they are spelled as two words, as in chain saw, oil well. In English, heads of compounds are typically the rightmost constituent. For example, in traffic-cop the head is cop, which is modified by traffic; in line-backer the head is backer, which is modified by line. Linguists distinguish at least three different semantic relations between the head and modifier(s) of compounds.

Endocentric Compounds Exocentric Compounds Coordinative Compounds

Endocentric compound denotes a subtype of whatever is denoted by the head. Armchair represents a type of chair; breathtest represents a kind of test. Exocentric compound denotes a subtype of a category that is not mentioned within the compound; e.g., pickpocket represents a kind of person, not a kind of pocket nor a kind of pick.Coordinative compound denotes an entity or property to which both constituents contribute equally; e.g., bittersweet refers to a quality which is both bitter and sweet

4.5 CoiningCoining is the creation of new words without reference to the existing morphological resources of the language, that is, solely out of the sounds of the language. Coining is rare, but “Gulluism” was coined by the media after Model Town incident.

4.6 BlendingBlending involves taking two or more words, removing parts of each, and joining the residues together to create a new word whose form and meaning are taken from the source words. Motel derives from motor and hotel and refers to hotels that are convenient in various ways to motorists.

4.7 Clipping/truncation.


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When a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form, the process is called clipping/truncation.

advertisement → ad telephone → phone influenza → flu

4.8 BackformationBackformation is the process of shortening a long word by cutting off an affix to form a new word. The new word has a different part of speech from the original word.

televise ← television donate ← donation babysit ← babysitter backform ← backformation

Backformation is quite opposite to derivation.

4.9 ConversionConversion refers to the process of changing or converting the class of a word without changing its form. The word email, for instance, can be used as a verb in Modern English though it was only a noun in the past.

Bottle Butter

4.10 AcronymsAcronyms is a type of abbreviation, which are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of words. They are pronounced as new single words.Examples:

NATO(The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) UNICEF(The United Nations Children’s Fund)

4.11 ReduplicationReduplication is the formation of a new word by doubling a word, either with change of initial consonants (teenie-weenie, walkie-talkie), with change of vowel (chit-chat, zig-zag) or without change (night-night, so-so and win-win).

CHAPTER # 5

SYNTAX

5.1 Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the


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rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Urdu."

5.2 Levels of Analysis

Syntax has traditionally taken the sentence as the starting point. Smaller units are regarded as building blocks of sentence structure.

The parts into which a sentence can be segmented are called the constituents of the sentence. The term immediate constituents (ICs) refers to those constituents which together form a higher-order constituent, for example in 'John took a walk' "a" and "walk" are the ICs of "a walk" and "took" and "a walk" are the ICs of "took a walk"...

The whole sentence is not considered a constituent of anything, since the sentence is largest unit of syntactic description.

5.3 Phrases

Constituents can also be considered not as building blocks of sentence structure but as independent linguistic objects with their own characteristics and internal structure. From this point of view, they are called phrases. Just like constituents, phrases may consist of single words ('John') or several ('a walk'). Phrases can be lengthened by adding more words: in doing so, the phrase's internal structure is modified, but not the overall sentence structure: "a long walk". We can distinguish several types of phrases according to the class to which the head (the most dominant constituent) of the phrase belongs. We distinguish at least the following:

noun phrase: 'a walk', 'a walk in the sun' verb phrase: 'took a walk', 'could have been fun'

adjective phrase: 'fairly interesting', 'too good to marry'

adverb phrase: 'admittedly', 'very well'

prepositional phrase: 'in the morning sun', 'in Spain'

Phrases are made up of words, and a minimal phrase consists of one single word. In the same way as before, we can look upon words as constituents of a phrase, but also as independent linguistic objects.

5.4 Surface Structure and Deep Structure


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Any grammatical analysis can be divided into two parts, one of which is about the superficial or apparent structure of sentences, the other about the sentences' underlying structure. For example, we can take the following pair of sentences:

John is easy to please.

John is eager to please.

Syntactically both these sentences seem to be alike but they are not so. Considering the meaning implied in these sentences, we find that the function of John is that of subject in one case and that of object in the other. Both these sentences have identical surface structures but different deep structures. The surface structure is actually produced structure. It refers to the sentence as it is pronounced or written. The deep structure is the abstract structure that allows the native speaker of a language to know what the sentence means. It may then be said that the deep structure expresses the semantic contents of a sentence, whereas the surface structure of a sentence determines its phonetic form. Transformation functions as a link between deep structure of sentences and their surface structures.

5.5 Ambiguous Structures

Visiting doctors can be nuisance.

1. We visit doctors. It can be nuisance.

2. Doctors visit us. They can be nuisance.

Noam Chomsky adopts an I.C. analysis to provide information about the constituent structure of sentences. This he refers to as `Phrase Structure Grammar'. For example, instead of analyzing the sentence

The boy killed the dog, as

The boy killed the dog

in which the order of decision, which produced the analysis, is not explicit ( where was second cut made) and the relationship between various cutting points is unclear, Chomsky develops a notation which both orders the analytic decisions and formally relates them to each other by deriving each decision from some previous one. The way used by Chomsky in syntactic structures, is as follows: Sentence (S)--------NP (noun phrase) + VP (verb phrase)

VP----------NP + V NP----------Det + N D-----------The N----------boy V----------killed


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5.6 Types of Phrases

The Noun Phrase (NP)

A noun phrase has a noun as its Head. Determiners and adjective phrases usually constitute the pre-Head string: [NP the children][NP happy children][NP the happy children]

The Adjective Phrase (AP)

In an adjective phrase (AP), the Head word is an adjective. Here are some examples: Susan is [AP clever]The doctor is [AP very late]My sister is [AP fond of animals]

Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

In an adverbial phrase, the Head word is an adverb. Most commonly, the pre-Head string is another adverb phrase: 'He graduated [AdvP very recently]''She left [AdvP quite suddenly]

The Verb Phrase (VP)

The verb phrase consists of verbal forms only, except in the case of multi-word verbs.

The maximum number of verbal form is five. The principal part of the VP is the lexical (or main) verb. The lexical verb can occur on its own, but it may co-occur with auxiliary verbs in several patterns. writes,may writemay have writtenmay have been writingmay have been being written

The Prepositional Phrase (PP)


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Prepositional Phrases usually consist of a preposition and a prepositional complement (the post-head string). Here are some examples: [PP through the window] [PP over the bar][PP across the line][PP after midnight]

This makes PPs easy to recognise: they nearly always begin with a preposition. A pre-Head string is rarely present, but here are some examples: [PP straight through the window][PP right over the bar][PP just after midnight]

5.7 Phrases within Phrases

We will conclude this introduction to phrases by looking briefly at phrases within phrases. Consider the NP: [NP s mall children] It consists of a Head 'children' and a pre-Head string 'small'. Now 'small' is an adjective, so it is the Head of its own adjective phrase. We know this because it could be expanded to form a longer string: 'very small children'Here, the adjective Head 'small' has its own pre-Head string 'very': [AP very small] So in 'small children', we have an AP 'small' embedded with the NP 'small children'. We represent this as follows: [NP [AP small] children] Aing is 'the road'. Now we know that 'the road' is itself an NP -- its Head is 'road', and it has a pre-Head string 'the'. So we have an NP within the PP: [PP across [NP the road]] NB: When you examine phrases, remember to look out for other phrases within them.

CHAPTER # 6

SEMANTICS


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6.1 Semantics

The study or science of meaning in language. The study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent. Also

called semasiology.

The word is derived from the Greek word (semantikos), "significant", from (semaino), "to signify, to indicate" and that from (sema), "sign, mark, token". In linguistics, it is the study of interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. Within this view, sounds, facial expressions, body language, proxemics have semantic (meaningful) content, and each has several branches of study. In written language, such things as paragraph structure and punctuation have semantic content; in other forms of language, there is other semantic content.

Semantics in general, is the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of linguistics; the abstract study of meaning in relation to language or symbolic logic systems is a branch of philosophy. Both are called semantics. The field of semantics has three basic concerns: the relations of words to the objects denoted by them, the relations of words to the interpreters of them, and, in symbolic logic, the formal relations of signs to one another (syntax).

The basic area of study is the meaning of signs, and the study of relations between different Linguistic units: homonymy, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, paronyms, hypernymy,

hyponymy, meronymy, metonymy, holonymy,exocentricity / endocentricity, linguistic compounds. A key concern is how meaning attaches to larger chunks of text, possibly as a result of the composition from smaller units of meaning. Traditionally, semantics has included the study of sense and denotative reference, truth conditions, argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of all of these to syntax.

6.2 Conventionality and Motivation

a) Conventionality

It refers that words are conventional, arbitrary symbols; that is,there is no intrinsic relation between the sound symbol and its sense. There is no way to explain why this or that sound-symbol has this or that meaning beyond the fact that the people of a given community have agreed to use one to designate the other. For instance, the English call what Chinese call “fangzi” in “house”, the French call it “Maison” and the Russian “dom”. All these symbols are totally different from one another, yet they all signify the same thing.

b) Motivation


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_role

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_condition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_sense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocentric

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocentric

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonymy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meronymy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponym

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernym

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paronyms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonym

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_(semiotics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxemics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_(grammar)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language

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It refers to the connection between word-symbol and its sense. Though the great majority of English words are conventional and arbitrary symbols, there is a group of words that can be described as motivated, that is there is a +direct connection between the symbol and its sense. For example, onomatopoeic words such as “roar”, “bang” and “clash”,derived words and compound words such as “readable”, “kilgram” and “daydream”, etc.

a. phonetic motivation: Words motivated phonetically are called echoic words or onomatopoeic words, whose pronunciation suggests the meaning.

b. Morphological motivation: Most of the derivational affixes have a specific meaning,when added to a base, they derive a new word. We say the word is morphologically motivated, for a direct connection can be observed between the morphemic structure of the word and its meaning.

c. Semantic motivation: It refers to motivation base on semantic factors. It is a kind of mental association.

6.3 Semantic feature

The analysis of word meaning is often seen as a process of breaking down the sense of word into its minimal components, which are known as semantic feature or sense components

6.4 Componential Analysis

It refers to the analysis of breaking down the conceptual meaning into its minimal distinctive components which are known as semantic features.

6.5 Types of Word Meaning

Lexical meaning and grammatical meaning both make up the word-meaning.

a) Grammatical meaning

Grammatical meaning is indispensable in determining the position a word occupies in a sentence.when a dictionary lists the function of a word, the definition does at least two things: it describes the word’s lexical meaning and also gives what is traditionally known as the part of speech of the word, which modern linguists call the word-class.the word-class is essential, because when we use a word in a sentence, we have to take into consideration two factors: its specific lexical meaning and the position it normally occupies in a sentence, which is determined by the word-class to which the word belongs.

b) Lexical meaning


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Which is different from grammatical meaning is two respects: first the lexical meaning of a word is the same in all the forms of one and the same word while the grammatical meaning varies from one word-form to another, second, every word has a different lexical meaning, whereas the grammatical meaning is the same in identical sets of individual forms of different meaning.

Lexical meaning is constant in all the words within or without context related to the notion that the word conveys.

It has two components conceptual meaning

1) Denotative meaning (Conceptual meaning)2) Associative meaning (Connotative meaning)

Conceptual meaning (denotative meaning) in the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word-meaning. It is constant and relatively stable. Conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication e.g., The sun rises in the East. the “sun” Associative meaning (Connotative meaning) the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It refers to the emotional association which a word or phrase sugests in one's mind; it is the supplementary value which is added to the purely denotative meaning of a word.

6.6. Lexical Relations

a) Synonyms

Synonyms are different words which have the same meaning, or almost the same meaning. The words stones and rocks are synonyms. Synonyms can be nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives, as long as both are the same part of speech.

For example:

- chair and seat (nouns) - go and leave (verbs) - quickly and rapidly (adverbs)- long and extended (adjectives)

Synonyms need not be single words, as in war and armed conflict. Here are more synonyms:

- tremendous and remarkable - cat and feline- baby and infant- sick and ill


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- quickly and speedily

A word can have more than one synonym depending on which meaning you use for the word.For example:- expired could have the synonym no longer fresh, if you mean milk that's past its sale date.- expired could have the synonym dead, if you mean no longer alive

b) Antonyms

Antonyms are words which have opposite meanings. The words hot and cold are antonyms. So are up and down, and short and tall. A word can have more than one antonym, depending on which meaning you use for the word. For example:

- short could have the antonym tall if you are referring to a person's height.- short could have the antonym long if you are referring to to the length of something.

In many languages, including English, you can sometimes make antonyms by adding a prefix:

- real and unreal are antonyms

- flexible and inflexible are antonyms

However, English is well known for its exceptions to the rules, so you have to watch out for words like flammable and inflammable, where this doesn't work ... they're synonyms!

There are actually four types of antonyms:

Gradable antonyms are opposites at either end of the spectrum, as in slow and fast. Complementary antonyms are absolute opposites, like mortal and immortal.

Relational antonyms are opposites where one word describes a relationship between two objects, and the other word describes the same relationship when the two objects are reversed.For example, parent and child, teacher and student, or buy and sell.

Auto-antonyms are the same two words that mean the opposite.For example, fast (moving quickly) and fast (stuck in place).

c) Homonyms

A homonym ('same name') is a word that has the same pronunciation and spelling as another word, but a different meaning. For example, mean (an average) and mean (nasty) are homonyms. They are identical in spelling and pronunciation, but different in meaning. Here are some more homonyms:


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- punch (a drink) and punch (a hit)- dog (an animal) and dog (to follow closely)- bat (an animal) and bat (baseball equipment)Homonyms are by definition also homographs and homophones (see below). d) Homographs

A homograph ('same writing') is a word that has the same spelling as another word, but a different meaning.

For example, punch and punch are homographs, but so are bow (Robin Hood's weapon) and bow (the front of the ship). Homographs don't have to be pronounced the same way.e) Homophone

A homophone ('same sound') is a word that has the same pronunciation as another word, but a different meaning.

For example, punch and punch are homophones, but so are creak (the sound) and creek (a tiny river). Homophones don't have to be spelled the same way.

Here are some more homophones:

- there, their and they're- to, too, and two- led and lead (the metal)- weak and weekMany puns rely on homophones for their humour. To summarize:

Homonyms sound the same and are spelled the same, and have different meanings. Homographs are spelled the same (but need not sound the same), and have different

meanings.

Homophones sound the same (but need not be spelled the same), and have different meanings.

[Note: there is no universal agreement on these definitions. Some dictionaries or reference works may have alternate definitions.]

f) Hetronyms:

Heteronyms, or heterophones ('different name') are spelled the same, but have different pronunciations and meanings.


http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/puns/pun.html

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For example, desert (to abandon) and desert (a dry region) have the same spelling, but are pronounced differently, and have different meanings.

(Heteronyms are homographs that are pronounced differently ... or homographs that aren't homophones).

g) Contronyms:

Contronyms, or antagonyms have opposite meanings in different contexts.

For example, cleave can mean to stick together, or to split apart.

h) Capitonyms:

Capitonyms are spelled the same but have different meanings when capitalised.

For example:

- polish (to shine something) and Polish (from Poland). These are pronounced differently.- caterpillar (the insect) and Caterpillar (the machinery company). These are pronounced the same. Capitonyms may or may not be pronounced the same.

CHAPTER # 7

PRAGMATICS


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7.1. Pragmatics

David Crystal in his book Study of Language says, “Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others.”

Pragmatics is a systematic way of explaining language use in context. It seeks to explain aspects of meaning which cannot be found in the plain sense of words or structures, as explained by semantics. Steve Campsall explains that Pragmatics is a way of investigating how sense can be made of certain texts even when, from a semantic viewpoint, the text seems to be either incomplete or to have a different meaning to what is really intended. Consider a sign seen in a children's wear shop window: “Baby Sale - lots of bargains”. We know without asking that there are no babies are for sale - that what is for sale are items used for babies. Pragmatics allows us to investigate how this “meaning beyond the words” can be understood without ambiguity. The extra meaning is there, not because of the semantic aspects of the words themselves, but because we share certain contextual knowledge with the writer or speaker of the text.

7.1.1. What does Pragmatics include?

The lack of a clear consensus appears in the way that no two published accounts list the same categories of pragmatics in quite the same order. But among the things you should know about are:

Speech act theory Felicity conditions

Conversational implicature

The cooperative principle

Conversational maxims

Relevance

Politeness

Phatic tokens

Deixis

This handbook contains some explanation of all of these, as well as related or peripheral subjects. Many of them break down further into their own sub-categories, as with the different kinds of speech acts that linguists have usefully distinguished.


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7.2. Speech acts

The philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-1960) claims that many utterances (things people say) are equivalent to actions. When someone says: “I name this ship” or “I now pronounce you man and wife”, the utterance creates a new social or psychological reality. We can add many more examples:

Sergeant Major: Squad, by the left… left turn! Referee: (Pointing to the centre circle) Goal!

Groom: With this ring, I thee wed.

Speech act theory broadly explains these utterances as having three parts or aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place.

Il locutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one's troth, welcoming and warning.

Per locutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the bet or pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned.

Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number of categories or types. David Crystal, quoting J.R. Searle, gives five such categories: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations. (Perhaps he would have preferred declaratives, but this term was already taken as a description of a kind of sentence that expresses a statement.)

7.3. Conversational Implicature

In a series of lectures at Harvard University in 1967, the English language philosopher H.P. (Paul) Grice outlined an approach to what he termed conversational implicature - how hearers manage to work out the complete message when speakers mean more than they say. An example of what Grice meant by conversational implicature is the utterance: “Have you got any cash on you?”

where the speaker really wants the hearer to understand the meaning: “Can you lend me some money? I don't have much on me.”

The conversational implicature is a message that is not found in the plain sense of the sentence. The speaker implies it. The hearer is able to infer (work out, read between the lines) this message in the utterance, by appealing to the rules governing successful conversational


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interaction. Grice proposed that implicatures like the second sentence can be calculated from the first, by understanding three things:

The usual linguistic meaning of what is said. Contextual information (shared or general knowledge).

The assumption that the speaker is obeying what Grice calls the cooperative principle.

7.4. Conversational Maxims and the Cooperative PrincipleThe success of a conversation depends upon the various speakers' approach to the interaction. The way in which people try to make conversations work is sometimes called the cooperative principle. We can understand it partly by noting those people who are exceptions to the rule, and are not capable of making the conversation work. We may also, sometimes, find it useful deliberately to infringe or disregard it - as when we receive an unwelcome call from a telephone salesperson, or where we are being interviewed by a police officer on suspicion of some terrible crime. Paul Grice proposes that in ordinary conversation, speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle. Speakers shape their utterances to be understood by hearers. The principle can be explained by four underlying rules or maxims. (David Crystal calls them conversational maxims. They are also sometimes named Grice's or Gricean maxims.)

They are the maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner. Quality: speakers should be truthful. They should not say what they think is false, or

make statements for which they have no evidence. Quantity: a contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation to

proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much. (It is not clear how one can decide what quantity of information satisfies the maxim in a given case.)

Relevance: speakers' contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.

Manner: speakers' contributions should be perspicuous: clear, orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.

Grice does not of course prescribe the use of such maxims. Nor does he (I hope) suggest that we use them artificially to construct conversations. But they are useful for analysing and interpreting conversation, and may reveal purposes of which (either as speaker or listener) we were not previously aware. Very often, we communicate particular non-literal meanings by appearing to “violate” or “flout” these maxims. If you were to hear someone described as having “one good eye”, you might well assume the person's other eye was defective, even though nothing had been said about it at all.


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7.5. Politeness

The politeness principle is a series of maxims, which Geoff Leech has proposed as a way of explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchanges. Leech defines politeness as forms of behaviour that establish and maintain comity. That is the ability of participants in a social interaction to engage in interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony. In stating his maxims Leech uses his own terms for two kinds of illocutionary acts. He calls representatives “assertives”, and calls directives “impositives”.

7.5.1. Face and Politeness Strategies“Face” (as in “lose face”) refers to a speaker's sense of linguistic and social identity. It is the realization of the ‘self image’ of a person. Any speech act may impose on this sense, and is therefore face threatening. And speakers have strategies for lessening the threat. Positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the addressee (but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party). Negative politeness is found in ways of mitigating the imposition. Face consists of two related aspects.

7.5.2. T and V pronounsSome languages have different forms for “you” (French “tu/vous”, German “du/Sie”, Urdu tum/aap, for example). In this case the V form is a marker of politeness or deference. It may also be a marker of status, with the V form used to superiors, the T form to equals or inferiors. T forms are also used to express solidarity or intimacy. The T form is found in Shakespeare's plays, where it almost always shows the speaker's attitude to status and situation. A king is “your majesty” or “you” but a peasant is “thou”. It may be an insult, as when Tybalt addresses Romeo as “thou” (“Romeo, thou art a villain”; Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 3). It is also found in petrified or “frozen” language forms, such as the stylized speech of the Society of Friends (“Quakers”) or other non-conformist groups, like Mennonites or the Pennsylvania Amish, in orders of service and prayers. Oddly, many modern speakers think that “thou” (being “old”) is more formal or courteous than “you” - when the reverse is the case!

7.6. Deixis

This section is seriously hard. You have been warned. But first, how do you pronounce it? The term comes from the Greek deiktikos (=“able to show”). This is related to Greek dèiknymi (dyke-nimmy) meaning “explain” or “prove”. The standard pronunciation has two syllables (dyke-sis) while the adjective form is deictic (dyke-tik). According to Stephen Levinson: “Deixis concerns the ways in which languages encode...features of the context of utterance ... and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.”


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Deixis is an important field of language study in its own right - and very important for learners of second languages. But it has some relevance to analysis of conversation and pragmatics. It is often and best described as “verbal pointing”, that is to say pointing by means of language. The linguistic forms of this pointing are called deictic expressions, deictic markers or deictic words; they are also sometimes called indexicals.

Deictic expressions include such lexemes as:

Personal or possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours), Demonstrative pronouns (this/that),

(Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now),

Other pro-forms (so/do),

Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your),

Demonstrative adjectives (this/that),

Articles (the).

Deixis refers to the world outside a text. Reference to the context surrounding an utterance is often referred to as primary deixis, exophoric deixis or simply deixis alone. Primary deixis is used to point to a situation outside a text (situational deixis) or to the speaker's and hearer's (shared) knowledge of the world (knowledge deixis).

Contextual use of deictic expressions is known as secondary deixis, textual deixis or endophoric deixis. Such expressions can refer either backwards or forwards to other elements in a text:

Anaphoric deixis is backward pointing, and is the norm in English texts. Examples include demonstrative pronouns: such, said, similar, (the) same.

Cataphoric deixis is forward pointing. Examples include: the following, certain, some (“the speaker raised some objections...”), this (“Let me say this...”), these, several.

Deictic expressions fall into three categories: Personal deixis (you, us), Spatial deixis (here, there) and

Temporal deixis (now, then).

Deixis is clearly tied to the speaker's context, the most basic distinction being between near the speaker (proximal) and away from the speaker (distal).

Proximal deictic expressions include this, here and now. Distal deictic expressions include that, there and then.


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CHAPTER # 8

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

8.1. Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the human brain functioned. Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and information theory to study how the brain processes language. There are a number of subdisciplines; for example, as non-invasive techniques for studying the neurological workings of the brain become more and more widespread, neurolinguistics has become a field in its own right.Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a grammatical and meaningful sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as the processes that make it possible to understand utterances, words, text, etc. Developmental psycholinguistics studies children's ability to learn language.Psycholinguistics is interdisciplinary in nature and is studied by people in a variety of fields, such as psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics. There are several subdivisions within psycholinguistics that are based on the components that make up human language.

8.1.1. Linguistic-related areas: Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the study of speech sounds. Within

psycholinguistics, research focuses on how the brain processes and understands these sounds.

Morphology is the study of word structures, especially the relationships between related words (such as dog and dogs) and the formation of words based on rules (such as plural formation).

Syntax is the study of the patterns which dictate how words are combined together to form sentences.

Semantics deals with the meaning of words and sentences. Where syntax is concerned with the formal structure of sentences, semantics deals with the actual meaning of sentences.

Pragmatics is concerned with the role of context in the interpretation of meaning


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8.1.2. Psychology-related areas: The study of word recognition and reading examines the processes involved in the

extraction of orthographic, morphological, phonological, and semantic information from patterns in printed text.

Developmental psycholinguistics studies infants' and children's ability to learn language, usually with experimental or at least quantitative methods (as opposed to naturalistic observations such as those made by Jean Piaget in his research on the development of children).

8.2. Theories in Psycholinguistics Theories about how language works in the human mind attempt to account for, among other things, how we associate meaning with the sounds (or signs) of language and how we use syntax—that is, how we manage to put words in the proper order to produce and understand the strings of words we call "sentences." The first of these items—associating sound with meaning—is the least controversial and is generally held to be an area in which animal and human communication have at least some things in common (See animal communication). Syntax, on the other hand, is controversial, and is the focus of the discussion that follows.

There are essentially two schools of thought as to how we manage to create syntactic sentences: (1) syntax is an evolutionary product of increased human intelligence over time and social factors that encouraged the development of spoken language; (2) language exists because humans possess an innate ability, an access to what has been called a "universal grammar." This view holds that the human ability for syntax is "hard-wired" in the brain. This view claims, for example, that complex syntactic features such as recursion are beyond even the potential abilities of the most intelligent and social non-humans. (Recursion, for example, includes the use of relative pronouns to refer back to earlier parts of a sentence—"The girl whose car is blocking my view of the tree that I planted last year is my friend.") The innate view claims that the ability to use syntax like that would not exist without an innate concept that contains the underpinnings for the grammatical rules that produce recursion. Children acquiring a language, thus, have a vast search space to explore among possible human grammars, settling, logically, on the language(s) spoken or signed in their own community of speakers. Such syntax is, according to the second point of view, what defines human language and makes it different from even the most sophisticated forms of animal communication.

The first view was prevalent until about 1960 and is well represented by the mentalistic theories of Jean Piaget and the empiricist, Rudolf Carnap. As well, the school of psychology known as behaviorism (see Verbal Behavior (1957) by B.F. Skinner) puts forth the point of view that language—syntax included—is behavior shaped by conditioned response. The second point of


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view—the "innate" one—can fairly be said to have begun with Noam Chomsky's highly critical review of Skinner's book in 1959 in the pages of the journal Language. That review started what has been termed "the cognitive revolution" in psychology. The field of psycholinguistics since then has been defined by reactions to Chomsky, pro and con. The pro view still holds that the human ability to use syntax is qualitatively different from any sort of animal communication. That ability might have resulted from a favorable mutation (extremely unlikely) or (more likely) from an adaptation of skills evolved for other purposes. That is, precise syntax might, indeed, serve group needs; better linguistic expression might produce more cohesion, cooperation, and potential for survival, BUT precise syntax can only have developed from rudimentary—or no—syntax, which would have had no survival value and, thus, would not have evolved at all. Thus, one looks for other skills, the characteristics of which might have later been useful for syntax. In the terminology of modern evolutionary biology, these skills would be said to be "pre-adapted" for syntax (see also exaptation). Just what those skills might have been is the focus of recent research—or, at least, speculation.

The con view still holds that language—including syntax—is an outgrowth of hundreds of thousands of years of increasing intelligence and tens of thousands of years of human interaction. From that view, syntax in language gradually increased group cohesion and potential for survival. Language—syntax and all—is a cultural artifact. This view challenges the "innate" view as scientifically unfalsifiable; that is to say, it can't be tested; the fact that a particular, conceivable syntactic structure does not exist in any of the world's finite repertoire of languages is an interesting observation, but it is not proof of a genetic constraint on possible forms, nor does it prove that such forms couldn't exist or couldn't be learned.

Contemporary theorists, besides Chomsky, working in the field of theories of psycholinguistics include George Lakoff, Steven Pinker, and Michael Tomasello.

8.3. Universal Grammar

The issue is concerned with characterizing and explaining the linguistic systems that second language (L2) learners develop, considering in particular the extent to which the underlying linguistic competence of L2 speakers is constrained by the same universal principles that govern natural language in general. Following Chomsky (1959, 1965, 1975, 1980, 1981, 1986, 1999), a particular perspective on linguistic universals is adopted and certain assumptions about the nature of linguistic competence are taken for granted. In particular, it is presupposed that the linguistic competence of native speakers of a language can be accounted for in terms of an abstract and unconscious linguistic system, in other words, a grammar, which underlies use of language, including comprehension and production. Native-speaker grammars are constrained by built-in universal linguistic principles, known as Universal Grammar (UG).


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References

Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.

Chomsky, N. (1959). "A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior". Language 35 (1): 26-58. ISSN 0097-8507.?

Coltheart, M., Rastle, K., Perry, C., Langdon, R., & Ziegler, J. (2001). DRC: "A dual route cascaded of visual word recognition and reading aloud." Psychological Review, 108, 204-256.

Dai, W. D & He, Z. X. (2002). A new concise course on linguistics for students of English. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

McClelland, J.L., & Elman, J.L. (1986). The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1-86.

Rayner, K. Eye movements in reading and information processing. Psychological Bulletin, 1978, 85, 618-660

Sapir, E. (1921). Language. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M. & Sedivy, J. E. (l995). "Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension." Science, 268, 1632-1634.

Wen, Q. F. (?). An introduction to English linguistics. Nanjing: ?

Yang, X. Z. (2005). An introduction to linguistics. Beijing: Higher Education Press.

http://al.brody.com.ua/


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