The document discusses different levels of language analysis:
1) Phonetic - concerned with speech sounds and their production, transmission, and perception.
2) Phonemic - the smallest units of sound that distinguish words.
3) Morphological - the smallest units of meaning, including free morphemes that can stand alone as words and bound morphemes that cannot.
4) Syntactical - the study of sentence structure.
5) Prosodic - rhythm, stress, intonation of speech.
6) Lexical - the vocabulary of a language as represented by a dictionary.
7) Idiomatic - expressions with figurative meanings separate from the literal definition of the
The document discusses different levels of language analysis:
1) Phonetic - concerned with speech sounds and their production, transmission, and perception.
2) Phonemic - the smallest units of sound that distinguish words.
3) Morphological - the smallest units of meaning, including free morphemes that can stand alone as words and bound morphemes that cannot.
4) Syntactical - the study of sentence structure.
5) Prosodic - rhythm, stress, intonation of speech.
6) Lexical - the vocabulary of a language as represented by a dictionary.
7) Idiomatic - expressions with figurative meanings separate from the literal definition of the
The document discusses different levels of language analysis:
1) Phonetic - concerned with speech sounds and their production, transmission, and perception.
2) Phonemic - the smallest units of sound that distinguish words.
3) Morphological - the smallest units of meaning, including free morphemes that can stand alone as words and bound morphemes that cannot.
4) Syntactical - the study of sentence structure.
5) Prosodic - rhythm, stress, intonation of speech.
6) Lexical - the vocabulary of a language as represented by a dictionary.
7) Idiomatic - expressions with figurative meanings separate from the literal definition of the
The document discusses different levels of language analysis:
1) Phonetic - concerned with speech sounds and their production, transmission, and perception.
2) Phonemic - the smallest units of sound that distinguish words.
3) Morphological - the smallest units of meaning, including free morphemes that can stand alone as words and bound morphemes that cannot.
4) Syntactical - the study of sentence structure.
5) Prosodic - rhythm, stress, intonation of speech.
6) Lexical - the vocabulary of a language as represented by a dictionary.
7) Idiomatic - expressions with figurative meanings separate from the literal definition of the
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Levels of language
1) phonetic
Phonetics concerns itself with the production, transmission, and perception of the physical phenomena which are abstracted in the mind to constitute these speech sounds or signs
2) phonemic - phoneme: the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances - abstract cognitive units of speech sound or sign which distinguish the words of a language
3) morphological In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word, by definition, is a freestanding unit of meaning. Every word comprises one or more morphemes.
Free vs. bound
Every morpheme can be classified as either free or bound. These categories are mutually exclusive, and as such, a given morpheme will belong to exactly one of them. Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear with other lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse). Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes. Bound morphemes that are not affixes are called cranberry morphemes, their nomenclature derived from the bound, non-affix function of cran- in the word cranberry.
Derivational vs. inflectional
Bound morphemes can be further classified as derivational or inflectional.
Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the meaning of the word formed by the root kind. Inflectional morphemes modify a verb's tense or a noun's number without affecting the word's meaning or class. Examples of applying inflectional morphemes to words are adding -s to the root dog to form dogs and adding -ed to wait to form waited.
Allomorphs
Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation but are semantically identical. For example, in English, the plural marker -(e)s of regular nouns can be pronounced /-z/, /-s/, or /-ɨz/, depending on the final sound of the noun's singular form.
4) Syntactical
Syntax: the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages -
In linguistics, prosody (pronounced /ˈprɒsədi/ PROSS-ə-dee, from Greek προσῳδία, prosōidía, [prosɔːdía], “song sung to music; pronunciation of syllable”) is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or choice of vocabulary. In terms of acoustics, the prosodics of oral languages involve variation in syllable length, loudness and pitch. In sign languages, prosody involves the rhythm, length, and tension of gestures, along with mouthing and facial expressions. Prosody is typically absent in writing, which can occasionally result in reader misunderstanding. Orthographic conventions to mark or substitute for prosody include punctuation (commas, exclamation marks, question marks, scare quotes, and ellipses), and typographic styling for emphasis (italic, bold, and underlined text). 6) lexical In linguistics, the description of a language is split into two parts, the grammar consisting of rules describing correct sentence formation and the lexicon listing words and phrases that can be used in the sentences. The lexicon (or wordstock) of a language is its vocabulary. Statistically, most lexemes contain a single morpheme. Lexemes composed of multiple morphemes also known as compound words such as idiomatic expressions and collocations are also considered part of the lexicon. In practical applications, such as language learning, the lexicon is represented by a dictionary, which lists words alphabetically and provides definition. 7) idiomatic An idiom (Latin: idioma, "special property", f. Greek: ἰδίωμα – idiōma, "special feature, special phrasing", f. Greek: ἴδιος – idios, "one’s own") is an expression consisting of a combination of words that has a figurative meaning. The figurative meaning is comprehended in regard to a common use of the expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made. [1] Idioms are numerous and they occur frequently in all languages. There are estimated to be at least 25,000 idiomatic expressions in the English language.
The following sentences contain idioms. The fixed words constituting the idiom in each case are bolded:
a. She is pulling my leg. - to pull someone's leg means to tease them by telling them something fictitious. b. He took me to the cleaners again. - to take someone to the cleaners means to beat them badly (in a game). c. When will you drop them a line? - to drop someone a line means to write a note or letter to them. d. You should keep an eye out for that. - to keep an eye out for something means to watch for it. e. I can't keep my head above water. - to keep one's head above water means to manage a situation.
Each of the word combinations in bold has at least two meanings: a literal meaning and a figurative (=idiomatic) meaning. Pulling someone's leg means either that you literally grab their leg and yank it or, more likely, it means that you tease them by telling them a fictitious story. Idioms such as the ones here are very numerous in all languages and they occur in many different forms. They can appear as words, combinations of words, phrases, entire clauses, and entire sentences. For instance, idiomatic expressions that constitute entire sentences can be proverbs, e.g.
f. The devil is in the details.
g. The early bird gets the worm. h. Waste not, want not.
Proverbs such as these have figurative meaning. When one says "The devil is in the details", one is not expressing a belief in demons, but rather one means that things may look good on the surface, but upon scrutiny, problems are revealed.
On the Evolution of Language
First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80,
Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 1-16
