Chea Sim University of Kamchay Mear

សាកលវិទ្យាល័យជាសម
៊ី កំចាយមារ

Assignment
Summary
Linguistic and language learning
1. Suo Long Hak
2. Pean Pum

Lecturer : Suon Tola

Semester : 2nd
Year : 4th
Academic year : 2018- 2019
Content
Chapter1: What is language?
Chapter2: Morphology: The words of language
Chapter3: Syntax: The sentence patterns of language
Chapter4: The meaning of language
Chapter5: Phonetics: The sounds of Language
Final comment
Chapter 1: What is language?
Language is a kind of system which using to connect to each other or is whatever else people do
when we talk to our parents, wife, husband, they come together—whether they play, talk, fight,
chat, make love, or make automobiles. We talk a lot, children, friends and even our enemies. So,
we live in the world of language.

I. Linguistic knowledge
when you know language, you can speak it to others and they can understand if they know the
meaning of it or they know the language. Anyone who knows the language can be able to speak
and understand in order to communicate with other. This means you are be able to make strings
of sounds which has a certain meaning that can be understood or interpreted by others.

1. Knowledge of a sound system

Knowledge of a sound system is a part of knowing a language, it means what sounds are in that
language and what sounds are not. One way that unconscious knowledge is revealed is by the
way other people pronounce words from another language.

2. Knowledge of words
Speakers of English know the word boy means and it means different from toy or girl. We know
that boy, toy and girl are words but moy is not. When we know the language, we know the word
in that language—it means that you know the sound relate to specific meanings and which do
not.

3. The creative of linguistic knowledge

Knowledge of a language enables you to combine sound to make words, words to make phrases,
and phrases to make sentences. You can’t buy a dictionary with all the list of words or phrase of
language. No dictionary can list all the possible sentences because the number of sentences in a
language is infinite. Knowing language means you can produce and understand new sentences
never spoken before. It’s the creative aspect of language is quite easy to illustrate.

4. The knowledge of Sentences and Nonsentience

Knowledge of language can be distinguished the formed or ill-formed sentences. Not every
string of words we use in our language forms the correct grammatical sentences. This sentences
also illustrate that not every string of words makes a good-formed sentence in the language.
Knowing a language means knowing the sound of words, meaning and the rule of its
combination.
5. Linguistic knowledge and performance
There is a difference between having knowledge then produce out and understand statement then
apply in your language.
• Linguistic competence is to know of words and grammatical rule.
• Linguistic performance is to have knowledge in production and comprehension.

II. What is grammar?

1. Descriptive grammar
Grammar is what speaker have about the units and rules of their language.
• The rules to combine the sounds into words are called phonology.
• The rules of words formation are called morphology.
• The rules for combining words into phrases and phrases into sentences are called syntax.
• The rules for assigning meaning are called semantic.
• The grammar, together with a mental dictionary is called lexicon.
• To understand the nature of language we must understand the nature of grammar.
Descriptive grammar describes how to identify the sentence that are well-formed and help us to
know the sounds, words, phrases, sentences of our language. Basically, it’s the rule you
internalize that it’s suitable for learning as a child from exposure.

2. Prescriptive grammar
Prescriptive grammar is a set of rules that tell us how people think the language should be used.

3. Teaching grammar
Teaching grammar can be helpful to students who do not speak the standard or prestige dialect
and learn in the foreign language class.

4. Universal grammar
Universal grammar is a set of general grammar using to form in the particular language.

5. The development of grammar

Not only describing the knowledge that speakers uses as his or her language but also acquiring
explaining the knowledge in the linguistic theory is concerned.
6. Sign language: evidence for language universals
The major languages of deaf community in the united states is American sign language. It is
outgrowth of the sign language using in France and brought to use in USA in 1817 by the great
educator Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

III. What is not (human) language?

1. The Birds and the Bees

Most of animal species possess some kind of communication system and human also do that—
they sometimes nod their head to communicate through system with other rather than using their
language. Many species have a non-vocal system of communication.

2. Can animal learn human language?

People can teach animal to speak the human language. talking bird such as parrots can be taught
to reproduce the words or phrases. Anyway, dog is easily taught to respond to commands such as
heel, sit, fetch, and so on and even seem to understand the object words like ball, toy, and so on.

IV. Language and thought

Many people are fascinated by the question of how people use their language related to their
thought so we can imagine that something as powerful and fundamental to human nature as
language would in fluence how we think about or perceive the world around us.
Chapter 2: Morphology: The words of language
People can learn new words throughout their lives, such as many words they read from book
that they learn for the first time.

1. Content words and Function words

Languages make an important distinction between two kind of words—content words and
function words. Noun, verb, adjective, and adverb are the content words and sometimes it is
called open class words. For Function words are kinds of words that specify the grammatical
relations and have little or no semantic. They are conjunction, determiner, preposition, and
pronouns.

2. Morphemes: The minimal units of meaning

One morpheme boy
desire
Two morphemes boy + ish Boyish
desire + able desirable
Three morphemes boy + ish + ness boyishness
desire + able + ity desirablity

3. The discreteness of morphemes

In all language, sound units combine to form morphemes, morphemes combine to form the
words, words combine to form larger units—phrases and sentences.
Discreteness is important in the linguistic creativity. We can combine the morphemes in a novel
way to make new words whose meaning apparent to other speaker of language.

4. Free morphemes
Some morphemes which can constitute the meaning by themselves are called free
morphemes. For examples: boy, girl, car, walk etc.

• Lexical morphemes: a free morpheme that is a content word such as a noun, adjective,
adverb, or verb. (Open class of word)
• Functional morphemes: a free morpheme that is used as a function word, such as a
conjunction(and) or a preposition (in), pronoun (who) and article (the, a, an). (close class
of word)
5. Bound morpheme
Anyway, other morphemes which are parts of words, can’t make meaningful words by
themselves are called Bound morphemes. They are -ish, -ness, -ly, pre-, trans-, and un- etc.
• Prefixes : un-, pre-, bi-, re-, im-, in-, anti-, com-, con-, ir-, over-, dis-, …
• Suffixes : -er, -ress, -ing, -ful, -ish, -ic, -ist, -ly, …
• Infixes : -in-, -um-, -a-, …
• Circumfixes : attached to abase morphemes both initially and finally.

A. Derivational morpheme: a bound morpheme used to make new words or words of a

different grammatical category (e.g. goodness)

B. Inflectional morphemes: a bound morpheme used to indicate the grammatical function

of a word, also called an “inflection” (e.g. dogs, walked)

1. Possessive : Jack’s house.

2. Plural : books
3. 3rd person singular : wants, goes
4. Past or past participle : worked
5. Past participle : spoken
6. Progressive form : going
7. Comparative : older
8. Superlative : oldest

Summary

6. Root and Stem

root : verb
e.g. believe
stem : verb + suffix
e.g. believe + able
word : prefix + verb + suffix
e.g. un + believe + able

7. Derivational Morphology

Noun to Adjective Verb to Noun

e.g. boy + -ish e.g. sing + -er
health + -ful conform + -ist
alcohol + -ic predict + -ion
Adjective to Adverb en + rich
e.g. exact + -ly
Noun to Verb Adjective to Noun
e.g. moral + -ize e.g. tall + -ness
be- + friend free + -dom
Adjective to Verb Verb to Adjective

e.g. en + large e.g. read + -able

creat + -ive

Some derivational affixes do not cause a change in grammatical class.

Noun to Noun
e.g. friend + -ship Verb to Verb
human + -ity e.g. un- + do
America + -n re- + cover
dis- + advantage Adjective to Adjective
ex- + wife e.g. pink + -ish red + -like
Chapter3
Syntax: The sentence pattern of language

Syntax concerns the ways in which words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the
formation of sentences, making some sentences possible and others not possible within a particular language.

Sentence structure
The template of sentence structure

Form: det—N—V—det—N.

e.g. The cat catches a mouse.

The child found a puppy.
The girl saw a dog.

Tree diagram

syntactic: categories
1. Phrasal categories
• Noun phrase (NP)
• Verb phrase (VP)
• Adjective phrase (AP)
• Prepositional phrase (PP)
• Adverbial phrase (AdvP)

2. lexical categories
• Noun (N)
• Verb (V)
• Preposition (P)
• Adjective (A)
 • Adverb (Adv)

3. Phrase structure rules

4. Movement rules
Chapter4: The meaning of language
In this section we discuss about the linguistic knowledge which is determined whether a sentence is true or
false, when one sentence implies the truth or the falseness of another, and it has a multiple meaning.
The meaning of sentence can be known by:

1. Truth
e.g. When you hear someone says Jack swims. If you see Jack is swimming in the pool, you can judge the
sentence to be true. However, if Jack never swims, it is false.

2. Entailment
The meaning relation is called entailment.
e.g. Jack swims.
Jack swims beautifully.
• Synonymous (Paraphrase)
Two sentences are both true or false with respect to the same situations.
e.g. Jack put off the meeting.
Jack postponed the meeting.

• Contradiction
Two sentences are contradictory if one entails the negative of the other.
e.g. Jack is alive, entails the negative of Jack is dead, namely Jack is not dead.
Jack is dead, entails the negative of Jack is alive, namely Jack is not alive.
3. Ambiguity
Ambiguity tells you when words or phrases including sentences have more than one meaning.
e.g. The boy saw the man with a telescope.

This sentence is ambiguous because it can mean that the boy saw the man by using a telescope or
the boy saw the man who has a telescope.

4. Semantics rules
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.
• Conceptual meaning covers those basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed
by the literal use of a word. It is the type of meaning that dictionaries are designed to describe.
Some of the basic components of a word like needle in English might include “thin, sharp,
steel instrument”.

• Connotative/associative meaning is the additional meanings that a word or phrase has

beyond its central meaning. People might associate needle with “pain,” or “illness,” or
“blood,” or “thread,” or “knitting,” or “hard to find”.

5. Semantic features/ semantic component/ semantic properties are the basic unit of
meaning in a word.
e.g. The hamburger ate the boy.
 NP V NP
The hamburger ate the boy

This sentence is syntactically good, but semantically odd.

6. Semantic roles
a) Agent refers to the noun or noun phrase which refers to the person or animal which performs the
action of the verb.
b) Theme refers to action receiver. It can also be an entity that is simply being described (not
performing an action).

e.g.
1. The boy kicked the ball.
2. The wind blew the ball away.
3. The ball was red.

experiencer, agent, instrument, location, source and goal

Mary saw a fly on the wall.
experiencer theme location
she borrowed a magazine from George.
Agent theme source
I cut my apple with a knife.
Agent theme instrument
She handed a magazine back to George.
Agent theme goal
 Chapter5: The sounds of language
I. Phonetics
Phonetics is the study of the characteristic of the speech sound.

• Articulatory phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, or articulated.
• Acoustic phonetics is the study of physical properties of speech as sound waves in the air.
• Auditory phonetics (or perceptual phonetics) deals with the perception, via the ear, of speech
sounds.

II. Voice and voiceless

• Speech sounds which are produced with the Vocal Cords vibrating are called “voiced”.
• Speech sounds which are produced with the Vocal Cords without vibrating are called “voiceless”.

III. Place of articulation

• Bilabials: upper and lower lips.
e.g. [p], [b] [m] and [w]: pat, bat, mat and walk.

• Labiodentals: upper teeth and the lower lip.

e.g. [f] and [v]: five, view

• Dentals/ interdental: tongue tip behind the upper front teeth or tongue between the teeth.
[θ]: thank; [ð]: the

• Alveolar: the front part of the tongue on the alveolar ridge.

 • Palatal/ alveopalatal: tongue and the palate
e.g. [ʃ] [ʒ], [ʧ], [ʤ], [j]

• Velars: the back of the tongue against the velum

[k], [g], [ŋ]

• Glottal: is produced without the active use of the tongue and other parts of the mouth (e.g. [h])

• Stop: the set [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [ɡ] are all produced by some form of “stopping” of the air stream then
letting it go abruptly
• Fricatives: the set of sounds [f], [v], [θ], [ð], [s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ] involves almost blocking the air stream and
having the air push through the very narrow opening.
• Affricates: combine a brief stopping of the air stream with an obstructed release which causes some
friction, you will be able to produce the sounds [ʧ] and[ʤ].
• Nasals: when the velum is lowered and the air stream is allowed to flow out through the nose to produce
[m], [n] and[ŋ]
• The[l] sound is called a lateral liquid and is formed by letting the air stream flow around the sides of the
tongue as the tip of the tongue makes contact with the middle of the alveolar ridge.
• The [r] sound at the beginning of red is formed with the tongue tip raised and curled back near the
alveolar ridge.

• Glides: The sounds [w] and [j] are both voiced and occur at the beginning of we, wet, you and yes. These
sounds are typically produced with the tongue in motion (or “gliding”) to or from the position of a vowel
and are sometimes called semi-vowels.
Final comment
Linguistic subject is the hard one among the subjects in year 4 but it’s very important for all students who
have been studying to become a teacher. This subject guides all teachers to know how to use the right
language. It helps us to analyze the correct grammar, use the right words, and make the sentences clear when
we talk to someone so they can’t miss understanding. After I have studied this subject, I learned something
new more about how to use language correctly in educational field. During I have been studying this subject
with my teacher, I have tried hard in this subject since the starter because I think it’s so hard but important.
The negative point is when students make a presentation because some students aren’t clear with their
presentation so I sometimes feel bored and not focus in their presentation and other students, too.
Finally, Linguistic and language learning is the most important to become an advance teacher. I really love
this subject; even though, it’s a bit harder.