Pragmatics Phonology Semantics: Morphology
Pragmatics Phonology Semantics: Morphology
Pragmatics Phonology Semantics: Morphology
Specialization : English
Subject : Linguistics
Lecturer : Prof. Alma Bella G. Cablinan
Subject Teacher : Prof. Jane D. Navalta
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists do work on specific languages, but their primary goal is to
understand the nature of language in general. Linguistics is primarily concerned with the nature of language and
communication. There are broadly three aspects to the study, including language form, language meaning, and
language use in discursive and communicative contexts.
Linguistics deals with the study of particular languages, and the search for general properties common to all
languages or large groups of languages.
Branches of Linguistics
Pragmatics
Semantics Phonology
LINGUISTICS
Syntax Phonetics
Morphology
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The Elements of Linguistics
Phonology refers to the study of sounds or studies how sounds are organized in particular languages.
Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same
language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes
Syntax derives from the Greek word syntaxis, which means arrangement or the formation of words in a sentence.
Semantics refers to the study of meanings or the study of relationships between words and how we construct
meaning
Competence is the ability of native speakers to create understanding grammatical sentences, to detect
deviant and ungrammatical sentences, and to make other linguistic judgments about utterance in their language.
Performance, on the other hand, is the actual utterances produced by speakers of a language (Lyon, 1977).
The distinction between competence and performance is closely related to that between form and
substance. The formal system we describe accounts for a native speaker’s knowledge of his/her language. This
knowledge allows him/her the potentials to understand and produce utterances, which he/she actually may never
find the opportunity either to understand or to produce. For example, the reader will have understood the previous
sentence, will understand this one, will understand this one, and will understand the next one. The ability the reader
has to understand novel-sentence in the language is competence.
Competence is the knowledge that persons have their grammar while performance involves knowledge
for using competence so that the process of sentence production and understanding can be realized.
Linguistic competence can be defined as the “mental grammar” instilled in the mind of the speaker. In
short, it the speaker’s linguistic knowledge (or competence) that permits them to form longer and longer sentences
by joining sentences and phrases together or adding modifiers to a noun. Whether one stops at three, five, or
eighteen adjectives, it is impossible to limit the number one could add if desired. Very long sentences are
theoretically possible, although they are highly improbable. Evidently there is a difference between having the
knowledge necessary to produce sentences of a language and applying this knowledge. It is a difference between
what you know, which is linguistic competence, and how you use this knowledge in actual speech production and
comprehension, which is you linguistic performance.
APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Applied Linguistics builds on the findings of Theoretical Linguistics and, combining its strengths with those
of other sciences such as Psychology, Sociology, etc., and seeks to examine the circumstances under which
language is acquired and used by a language community.
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Linguistics is subdivided into
Historical
Theoretical Comparative
Descriptive Geographical
Applied
Applied Linguistics entails using what we know about language, about how it is used, and about how it is learned
in order to solve some problem in the real world.
Applied Linguistics uses language-related research in a wide variety of fields (e.g. language acquisition, language
teaching, literacy, gender studies, language policy, speech therapy, discourse analysis, censorship, workplace
communication, media studies, translation, lexicography, forensic linguistics).
“Applied Linguistics is the utilization of the knowledge about the nature of language achieved by linguistic
research for the improvement of the efficiency of some practical task in which language is a central component.”
(Corder, 1974)
“Applied Linguistics is using what we know about (a) language, (b) how it is learned, and (c) how it is used, in
order to achieve some purpose or solve some problems in the real world” (Schmitt & Celce-Murcia, 2002).
“The focus of applied linguistics is on trying to resolve language-based problems that people encounter in the real
world, whether they be learners, teachers, supervisors, academics, lawyers, service providers, those who need
social services, test takers, policy developers, dictionary makers, translators, or a whole range of business clients.”
(Grabe, 2002).
Autonomous, multidisciplinary and problem solving: uses and draws on theory from other related fields
concerned with language and generates its own theory in order to find solutions to language related problems and
issues in the real world.
Practical concerns have an important role in shaping the questions that AL will address.
Language related problems concern learners, teachers, academics, lawyers, translators, test takers, service
providers, etc.
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What is the relationship between AL and other language related disciplines?
Applied linguistics occupies an intermediary, mediating position between language related disciplines (linguistics,
psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics) and professional practice
It uses theories/principles from language related disciplines in order to understand language related issues and to
solve language related problems.
The choice of which disciplines are involved in applied linguistics matters depends on the circumstances.
Applied linguistics conducts research into professional practice and on the basis of the results develops theory.’
Sociology
(the scientific study of human behavior and the study of
society)
Anthropology
(the scientific study of the origin and behavior of man)
Widdowson (2000) presents the question in terms of linguistics applied and applied linguistics:
“The differences between these modes of intervention is that in the case of linguistics applied the assumption is that
the problem can be reformulated by the direct and unilateral application of concepts and terms deriving from
linguistic enquiry itself. That is to say, language problems are amenable to linguistics solutions. In the case of
applied linguistics, intervention is crucially a matter of mediation . . . applied linguistics . . . has to relate and
reconcile different representations of reality, including that of linguistics without excluding others.”
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Subfields of Applied Linguistics
Language and education Language, work and the law Language, information and effect
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language teaching and learning
translation
PHONOLOGY
1. Phonology
_ studies how sounds are organized in particular languages
_ tries to discover the psychological patterns and underlying organization of sounds shared by
native speakers of a certain language.
_ abstracts from the physical data provided by phonetics.
2. Phonotactics
Phonotactics studies what kind of sound patterns (sound combinations) are in a particular language and which are
not.
For example, certain languages do not only allow consonant clusters (CV syllables; this is a universal feature, but
some languages are more strict than others). Interesting thing happens with borrowings from other languages:
Japanese:
Besuboru- baseball sutoraiku- strike
Gorufurendu- girlfriend arubaito- job (German Arbeit)
Setswana (Botswana):
Kirisimasi- Christmas gelase- glass hafu- half
Shona (Southern Bantu language, Zimbabwe, replacing [l] with [r]): Strictly CV (C even
cannot be in the final of a word)
turoko- truck puruvhu- proof
furusitopi- full stop bhirifi- brief
sitirecha- strecher giramu- gram
hendibhegi- handbag kirimu- cream
kanduro- candle chitofu-stove
Other examples:
Word initial stress { Czech, Hungarian, Finish, English (for most words)
Word final obstruents (stops, fricatives, africates) are voiceless- Czech, Polish, Russian, German, Dutch
and many other languages.
3. Phonemes
It is sometimes difficult for native speakers of a language to tell the difference between sounds which may be
completely distinct for speakers of another language.
English speakers consider [p] and the [ph] to be the same sound, despite some irrelevant articulatory
details.
For Hindi speakers, the same details are enough to completely differentiate the two sounds, making them
as different as [p] and [b] for English speakers.
In English, [p] and [ph] are called variants (allophones) of the same phoneme /p/.
In Hindi, [p] and [ph] are two distinct phonemes { /p/ and /ph/
You can think about phonemes as the stuff in your head, and phones as the real stuff you say. You know there is a
/p/ in both pit and spit, but you pronounce [ph] in pit and [p] in spit.
So phonetics studies how sounds really sound, while phonology studies how they sound to speakers of some
language.
4. Phonological Rules
Languages have many rules like that. Some of them all the speakers share, some are used only by some speakers.
Some of them occur always, some only in fast speech, etc.
Dissimilation- the opposite of assimilation, two nearby sounds become less alike.
-In Latin, suffix -alis changes to -aris when it is added to a word containing [l].
These words came into Czech/English as adjectives ending in -al or -ar.
-al : annecdot-al, annu-al; natur-alni, manu-alni
-ar : angul-ar, annul-ar; mol-arni, plan-arni
Here the change is even reflected in spelling.
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MORPHOLOGY
Morphology
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the
same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and
suffixes
Types of Morphemes
A bound morpheme is a word element that cannot stand alone as a word, including both prefixes and suffixes. A
free morpheme, on the other hand, can stand alone as a word and cannot be broken down further into other word
elements.
Attaching a bound morpheme to a free morpheme, like adding the prefix "re-" to the verb "start," creates a new
word or at least a new form of a word, like "restart." Represented in sound and writing by word segments called
morphs, bound morphemes can further be broken down into two categories; derivational
and inflectional morphemes.
Hundreds of bound morphemes exist in the English language, creating near-infinite possibilities for expanding
unbound morphemes — commonly referred to as words — by merely attaching these elements to pre-existing
words.
Free morphemes:
o constitute words by themselves – boy, car, desire, gentle, man
o can stand alone
Bound morphemes:
o can’t stand alone – always parts of words - occur attached to free morphemes
cats: cat free morpheme
-s bound morpheme
undesirable: desire free morpheme
-un, -able bound morphemes
o affixes
o prefixes – occur before other morphemes
unhappy, discontinue, rewrite, bicycle, bipolar
o suffixes – following other morphemes
sleeping, excited, desirable
o infixes – inserted into other morphemes
Bontoc, a language in the Philipines –
fikas ‘strong’ fumicas ‘to be strong’
kilad ‘red’ kumilad ‘to be red’
English
full word obscenities into another word –
in+fuggin+credible
also+bloomin+lately
o circumfixes – attached to another morpheme both initially and finally
German
Past participle of irregular verbs – ge+lieb+t
Roots and Stems
o morphologically complex words consist of
a root + one or more morpheme(s)
o root
a lexical content morpheme that
cannot be analyzed into smaller
painter , reread, conceive
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may or may not stand alone as a word
read, -ceive
o stem
a root morpheme + affix
may or may not be a word
painter both a words and a stem
-ceive+er only a stem
as we add an affix to a stem, a new stem and a new word are formed
The two classes of bound morphemes that linguists recognize to modify the grammatical class of words are
inflectional and derivational morphemes. Inflectional morphemes predictably influence the base words to signal a
change in quantity, person, gender, tense, or the like while leaving the base word's class unchanged.
Inflectional morphemes are considered more predictable because there are only eight in the closed set of accepted
inflectional morphemes, which include the pluralizing "-s," the possessive "-'s," the third-person singular "-s," the
regular past tense "-ed," the regular past participle "-ed," the present participle "-ing," the comparative "-er," and
the superlative "-est."
On the other hand, derivational morphemes are considered lexical because they influence the base word according
to its grammatical and lexical class, resulting in a larger change to the base. Derivational morphemes include
suffixes like "-ish," "-ous," and "-y" and prefixes like "un-," "im-" and "re-."
Andrea DeCapua describes this class of morphemes in her book "Grammar for Teachers" as having "to do with the
vocabulary of language" wherein derivational morphemes "form an open set to which new words or word forms are
frequently added." Oftentimes, these additions change the part of speech of the base word they're modifying,
though that is not necessarily always the case, leading to derivational morphemes to be considered less predictable
than their inflectional counterparts.
Bound morphemes attach to free morphemes to form new words, oftentimes with new meanings. Essentially,
there's no limit to the number of bound morphemes one can attach to a base word to make it a complex word. For
instance, a misunderstanding is already a complex word formed from the base "understand" wherein "mis-" and "-
ing" bound morphemes are added to change both the meaning of understanding ("mis-" means "not") and the verb
tense ("-ing" makes the verb into a noun).
In the same way, you could continue to add more bound morphemes to the beginning of the word to make it even
more complex and once again alter its meaning — though this has the potential to result in a convoluted word that's
hard to understand.
Such is the case with words like "antiestablishmentism," whose four bound morphemes change the original word
"establish," which means "to form," into a word that now means "the belief that systemic structures of power are
implicitly wrong."