Mother Tongue as Language

Objectives:
1. Define language and describe the components.
2. Compare the phonetic and syntactic structures of languages.
3. Differentiate language from dialect
4. Describe the features of an identified mother tongue.

What exactly is language? Language is a system of human communication which consists of the
structured arrangement of strings of sounds (or their written representation) that are put together to
form a code. This labels a concept or an object and which can be put into larger units such as words and
utterances. It can be any particular system of communication such as the English language, the Filipino
language, the Hiligaynon language, or the Kapampangan language.

In recent years, teachers like you, who may not be majors m linguistics, make an effort in understanding
the technical terms of lin^ists when studying language. It will be very helpfiil to adopt these terms to
describe the elements or components of a linguistic system. A language as a linguistic system has
components: Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax.

Whatever language one speaks, it is basically spoken first and precedes the written form anywhere in
the world. Any linguistic system is initially studied and learned according to how the sounds are
produced. Let us look at each term and its defínition.

Phonetics looks into how the actual sounds of a language are produced. It looks into the raw materials
out of which language is made.

Phonology, on the other hand, is sound patterning. It refers to how each sound is put together to form a
string of sounds in order to produce the word.

How these strings of sounds are put together, in a broad term, is called syntax. This is the arrangement
and form of the words. It is that part of language which links together the sound patterns and the
meaning.

Semantics refers to the meaning of words or how these words are used in a speech community.

Another growing discipline in language study is pragmatics. It deals with how members of a speech
community use language to communicate in ways that cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge
alone. This is the area that supports the fact that more is expressed than what words could carry.

Let us look into the specific components of a language.

The Phonological System

The phonological system of a language is composed of speech as phonemes. They are subdivided into
segmental phonemes and suprasegmental phonemes. The segmental phonemes are the vowel sounds,
the consonant sounds, diphthongs, and triphthongs. On the other hand, the suprasegmental phonemes
include the stress, the íntonation, pauses, and junctures. There are rules that combine phonemes to
form words and to express something based on the "tune" of the utterance, all of which can affect the
meaning intended by the speaker. A word of reminder: For the common understanding of the
phonemes in any language that will be analyzed and studied, this book will be using the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols as a common code. Brackets [ ] will be used for phonetic transcription
using the IPA.

The IPA is a universally established and standardized set of codes or system that can be used to
represent the sounds of human speech. It can be employed in transcribing the speech sounds of any
language.

There are varied phonemes in a language: vowels, consonants, diphthongs, triphthongs, pauses or
junctures, stress, and intonation.

1. Vowel Phonemes are the sounds produced by the articulation of the mouth without any oral
impediment.

Short vowels:

/ɪ/ as in ship
/ʊ/ as in book
/e/ as in egg
/æ/ as in cat
/ʌ/ as in cup
/ɒ/ as in hot

Long vowels in English:

/i:/ as in sheep
/u:/ as in boot
/ɜ:/ as in learn
/ɔ:/ as in door
/ɑ:/ as in car

2. Diphthongs and Triphthongs

Diphthongs are two vowel phonemes combined to produce the correct sound of a syllable while
a tnphthong is a monosyllable that contains three vowel phonemes. Diphthpngs are present in
some of the local languages; however, triphthongs are apparently not part of Philippine
languages.

Diphthongs of English:
/ɪə/ as in  beer
/eɪ/ as in  same
/ʊə/ as in  tour
/ɔɪ/ as in  coin
/əʊ/ as in  nose
/eə/ as in  hair
/aɪ/ as in  fly
/aʊ/ as in  house
Consonants
Consonants are sounds where there is obstruction or "blocking" of the airflow caused by your
lips (/m/), teeth (/θ/), tongue (/l/), palate (/ŋ/) or even deep down in your larynx (/h/). The two
major categories of consonants are voiced  and unvoiced  consonants.

Voiced Consonants
Voiced consonants make sound using the vibration of your vocal folds in your larynx - the "voice
box". You can tell if a consonant is voiced in a couple of ways:

1. Put your finger on your throat when you say it. If you feel vibration, it is voiced.
2. Put your fingers in your ears when you say it. If you can still "hear" the consonant through the
vibrations in your neck and head, it is voiced. 

Voiced consonants in English:

/b/ as in ball
/d/ as in dog
/ʤ/ as in joke
/g/ as in good
/v/ as in van
/ð/ as in that
/z/ as in zoo
/ʒ/ as in vision
/m/ as in mouth
/n/ as in no
/ŋ/ as in thing
/l/ as in love
/r/ as in right
/w/ as in why
/j/ as in you

Unvoiced consonants
Unvoiced consonants do not use this vibration. Instead they make sound using the movement of
air through your teeth, tongue, lips and other articulators. 

Unvoiced consonants in English:

/p/ as in pea
/t/ as in tea
/ʧ/ as in cheap
/k/ as in coffee
/f/ as in fat
/θ/ as in thin
/s/ as in see
/ʃ/ as in she
/h/ as in he
The Morphological System

The second component of language is the morpheme. The morphological system studies the smallest
unit of meaning called morphemes. There is a free morpheme which functions independently and is
considered as the root word, e.g. pencil, rain, study. Another kind is the bound morpheme which must
be used with other morphemes such as affixes or inflections.

Examples are -s in pencils, -ing in mining, -ied in studied.

Accent

Another phonological feature of a language that affects meaning is accent.

Accent refers to the emphasis given to a syllable in a word by means of loudness, vowel length, pitch, or
a combination of these. Accent could affect intended meaning; hence, it should be used appropriately.

In Hiligaynon, the grammatical particles have one primary accented syllable. Accent or stress given to a
syllable can lead to a lexically significant effect as seen by the following examples.

íla (they/theirs) ámu (master) pánit (skin) lúku (fool)

ilá (wild) amú (that is it) panít (tuna) lukú (command the dog to sit)

Morphophonemics

Another featurp of language is morphophonemics. Morphophonemics or morphonology studies the

interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. It focuses on the sound
changes that take place in morphemes (minimal meaningftil units) when they combine to fonn words.
That is, the pronunciation changes when morphemes come together in word formation.

There are these are:

several types of morphophonemics changes. Some of these are:

 Stress shift
 Vowel loss
 Metathesis
 Assimilation of one sound to another
 Consonant change

1. Stress shift

The first kind of morphophonemic change is stress. A shift in the stress can affect meaning. There may
be words that may shift its stress from its original place when there is an affíxation.
2. Vowel loss
The next type of morphophonemic change is the loss of the vowel phoneme. This is when the stressed
vowel is lost when certain roots have a suffix and stress is shifted to the right.

3. Metathesis is the transposition of sounds or letters m a word. It is the re-an-angmg of sounds or

syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence.

In Hiligaynon, there is such a transposition. The loss of the vowel in the stem final syllable may bring two
consonants together.

4. Assimilation of the nasal sound to the consonant that follows:

When the velar nasal ng or enunciated as /T)/ is in the final position, it is somehow changed .to the
point of articulation as the following initial position of the stem. e.g.

-ng /r)/ + b- = -mb

$ -ng /g/ + 1- = -nl

>| -ng /r)/ + d" = -nd

This type of change occurs^n verbs or gerund like words involving the mang—- or pang-- affix.

5. Consonant Change
In some instances, some consonants are replaced by others.

 
The Syntactíc System

The third component of a language is the syntactic system. It is the grammatical structure or the word
order in a language. This expresses an idea or content as captured by what the words mean. It includes
the governing rules of word formations as well as the rules explaining the relationship of words within a
sentence or between and among sentence structures.

The Content

The content is the meaning intended by the speaker. The word rrieaning of an item or concept may vary
across cultures because members of a speech community capture their view of reality using the
morphemes or words as labels of their experiences. How they perceive things and their practices vary;
hence, language is a rich representation of their world and of reality.

To the Filipinos, rice is a staple food It is a significant commodity that is present in every meal or every
Filipino household. You may know several words or labels of the different-ways of naming, preparing or
eating rice. In other parts of the world, the concept of rice may be limited; hence, they may not have a
word in their language that has reference to the word rice.

The Use of the Language

Knowing that message is carried by the form and the content of' language, one can use the medium to
communicate. Language is therefore used to negotiate meaning and achieve the intention that primarily
drives the speaker to talk. The study of how speakers use language to accomplish tasks is called
pragmatics.

Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which studies those aspects of meaning which cannot be captured
and predicted from linguistic knowledge alone. It deals with how the listeners arrive at the intended
meaning of the speakers. It tries to explain how interlocutors (speaker-listener) observe the principles of
communicating by applying various language devices to reach a common understanding.

Every utterance or speech act has an intended function. Halliday identified the seven language functions
of young language learners. These ftinctions tend to show the personal, social, and academic aspects of
human development.

1. Instrumental
Children use language to express his needs or to get things done. e.g. I want my toy.

2. Regulatory
Children use language to influence the behavior of others such as persuading/
commanding/ordering/ requesting others to do things. e.g. Please give me the ball.

3. Interactional
Children use language to develop social relationships and facilitate the process of interaction.
e.g. Will you play with me?

4. Personal
Children use language to express personal preferences and individual identity. e.g. I am going to
be a marine biologist when I grow up.

5. Representational
Children use language to convey information. They are concerned with relaying or requesting
facts and information. e.g. I saw a green turtle in the pond.

6. Heuristic
Children use language to learn and explore the environment to be'able to understand it. This
may be questions and answers. e.g. What is the most dangerous shark?

7. Imaginative
Children use language to tell Stories, express fantasies, and to create an imaginary environment.
These may accompany imaginary worlds or storytelling. e.g. In a faraway place, there lived a
hermit.

When communicating using a language, much more is sometimes meant that what is actually uttered.
For example, an utterance spoken can be identified as a question answerable by a yes or a no. Yet, the
listener actually can understand the real intention of the speaker. which may not necessarily require a
positive or negative response but something else. Pragmatics is the discipline that tries to explain the
undertones and real intentions behind the linguistic structure.
Mother Tongue: The Language I Learned First

The Philippines is a multilingual country. All Philippine languages are Austronesian languages and
Hesperonesia (Western Austronesian) languages. Chavacano, however, is a creóle language having
Spanish vocabulary but conforming to the basic Philippine syntax. It is spoken in Zamboanga and was the
language in Cavite before.

Language grows and may become extinct. The dynamism of a language is made possible by the speech
community. If people continue to use the language it will establish its stability but if members of a
speech minority would stop using their own vernacular and slowly prefer to use another language, their
own language will slowly be overpowered by the other. Through time, the younger generations may no
longer be able to use it.

Almost everybody knows and understands the English word “bag”. What is it called in your mother
tongue? There must have been a term for that before. It would be fascinating if you can still use your
own mother tongue to name it. As more innovations are made or more ideas are conceptualized, the
demand to create a label for ideas and concepts is also rising. Development in society requires language
to cope with its growth.

Perhaps most Filipinos would be more interested to know the number of languages spoken in the
country. However, this query is not easy to answer for the exact number may vary depending on how
linguists would categorise them. What is clear is that there are several languages coming from the
various parts of the country and many of these have dialects which are morphophonemically
distinguishable from their mother language:

Languages are not usually spoken in the same manner from one part of the country to the another. The
differences in the way members of a speech community speak are described as regional or social
variations (dialects or sociolects). There are cases where there is a continuum of a language. Even
though Hiligaynon is the language in the province of Iloilo, the last town in the southern part of the
province has a dialect that is closely similar to Kiniray-a which is the language in Antique.

Take a look at the linguistic spread in the Philippines. McFarland (1997) tried to give the total number of
Philippine languages and categorized these.

The Philippines has a rich linguistic culture and if a Filipino in the north travels down south of the
country, he will surely feel like a foreigner in his own land due to the varied languages spoken. Counting
the number of Philippine languages is not as simple as it seems but what can be estimated is based on
the codes which are not mutually intelligible or understandable. McFarland counted 109. However,
Chavacano, a Spanish creóle with two known dialects, Temateño and Zamboangueno makes 110
languages.

Language and Dialect

Richards (1992) gives succinct, yet encompassing definitions of the terms, language and dialect. In
general, language is defined as any particular system of human communication. the system consists of
structured arrangement of sounds and their written representations that can lead to larger units i.e.
morphemes, words, sentences, utterances. Sometimes, it is understood as what is spoken by a group of
people in a particular country or the language that is spoken by only a part of the total population of a
country, such as Hindi in India, Mandarin in China, or Catalán in Spain.

The Philippines is a multilingual country and out of the big number of languages, the Department of
Education selected at least eight mother tongues that can be used in school. Initial focus on materials
development, training of teachers, and assessment of learning were in the language ofificially selected
for instruction in the MTB MLE Program. It is projected that more mother tongues will soon be
considered for academic instruction with the many initiatives being conducted in the country.

Languages are usually not spoken in exactly the same way from one area to another area in the country.
Differences in the way a language is spoken by different people are described in terms of regional and
social variation. Dialect is a variety of a language spoken in one pan of a country such as in a regional
dialect, or by people belonging to a particular social class (sociolect). It usually differs from the identified
main language with respect to some words, grammar, forms, and pronunciation. A dialect is said to be
often associated with a particular accent.

The definition of language or dialect is a bit problematic. There seems to be no non-arbitrary point
where, for example Hiligaynon gives way to Kinaray-a. The best way to distinguish one from the other is
to temporarily consider two reasons:

1. to label geographically the distinct varieties; and

2. as a result of standardization.

In some cases, there is a continuum from one language to another language. Dialect A of Language 1 on
one side of the area may be very similar to Dialect B of Language 2 on the other side. This phenomenon
may be due to the members of the community coming from two different provinces who have frequent
communicative encounters, hence having a ftision of the features' of two different languages used by
the members.

A specific example is the Hiligaynon spoken in the southern part of Iloilo province which is nearer in
variety to the Kiniray-a spoken in the province of Antique rather than to Hiligaynon. To a member of the
speech community in Iloilo Province, that Kiniray-a may be considered a dialect or a variety but the
Kiniray-a in Antique province is considered as a language.

The socio-political situation somehow affects the identification of a particular language associated to the
speech community; hence a dialect is assigned to label such variety.

The Filipino learner of a language has been used to look at other languages from the point of one who is
learning English. Just remember that a language is a linguistic system and has its own peculiar set of
sounds, word stmcture, sentence structure and semantics that are similar or far different from other
languages. The diversity in situations where one is most engaged in enriches his experience. It is likewise
present in the classroom.

Inculcate Concepts

Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences. When
we speak or intend to communicate something, we focus on what our words would exactly mean. For
example, women are characteristically specifíc with colors When they describe, say the color of their
dress, the answer is not simply "blue" but "baby blue" or "pale blue". On the other hand, if we cannot
produce the correct or appropriate word or are mn-about in explaining something, misunderstanding or
communication breakdown may happen. Imagine how a passenger in a public transport would feel upon
reading the sign "Fear increase"(Fare Increase)!

What then enables us, users of a language, to express our intended meanings or to understand
information given to us? It is not enough that we have the meanings in our minds. Meaning must be
represented in the features of the language itself.

Semantic Features

How is meaning fundamentally perceived and expressed? Generally, we begin with our knowledge of
the categories of words. For example, we treat words according to their part of speech. For example,
house, dog, tree, boy, and flag are nouns, eat, walk, write, sing, and jump are verbs, good, healthy, wide,
tail, and fierce are adjectives, and so on. Further, words have features such as human, male, female,
animate, inanimate, edible or non-edible.

Semantic Roles
Words do not only contain meanings. Specifically, nouns and noun phrases also perform or fulfill roles
within a given situation or context of use (Yule, 1996). These role types are:

Agent person who does the action

Theme the entity that is involved in or affected by the action
Instrument thing involved in action (but not agent)
Experiencer an animate being that is inwardly affected by an event or state
Force a doer that has no volition
Source the place or direction from which something comes
Goal the place or direction to which something goes
Path the route by which something moves
Location the place where the action or event takes place
Possessor if someone owns or has something, that object is in some sense located with that
person, whether physically or mentally.

Examples. The chef prepared a sumptuous meal.

Agent Patient

The meal was prepared by the French chef.

Experiencer Agent

The child scooped the ice cream with a spoon.

Agent Theme Instrument

Rafael found the baby in a basket.

Experiencer Theme Location
Lexical Relations

Words do not only contain meaning or fulfill roles. They can also, have 'relationships'. These lexical
relations are the following:

Synonymy

Synonyms are two or more words whose meanings are closely related. "Sameness" may not be "total
sameness"; hence, some synonyms cannot be interchangeably used.

Examples: big - huge, tiny - small, cold -freezing, presently – currently

Antonymy

Antonyms are two forms that have opposite meanings. There are two kinds of antonyms: 'gradable', or
comparative constructions (e.g., good - bad, long - short, hot - cold); and 'non-gradable', or
complementary pairs (e.g., male -female, dead - alive, true- false).

Some antonyms do not mean the negative of the other. Called 'reversibles', these pairs may mean
"doing the reverse of the other", such as enter - exit, tie - untie, lengthen - shorten.

Hyponymy

When the meaning of one form includes the meaning of] another, one word is the hyponym o{'U{e
other, for example: bougainvilla—flower, mango -fruit, molave - tree. Hyponyms generally have a
hierarchical relationship. An example is the 'superordinate' word living thing which is a hyponym for
plants and animals.

Propotypes
The word bird is a hyponym for chicken, duck, parrot, eagle, ostrich, or penguin. But these are not the
best example of prototypes for bird. In the Philippines, it is the maya bird. Cultural variations influence
the interpretation or use of prototypes of words. Given the word clothing, a Japanese will mention the
kimono, the Chinese will say cheongsam, and a Filipino will identify barong Tagalog. In the Philippines,
the tomato, which is a fmit is classified as a vegetable because it does not have the usual sweet taste of
a fmii and it is mostly used for staple main courses made from fish, chicken, or pork. Hence, speakers
will vary in their use of prototypes.

There are other relationships that exist among words.

Homophony describes two or more words with different spellings but with similar pronunciations and
meanings; Bare - bear, meat meet, and mane - main are homophones.

Homonymy refers to a word of one form having various meanings. Examples of homonyms are the uses
of the word tie: as a noun referring to a man's clothing accessory or equal scores in a game or
competition. It is also used as a verb (to tie). Another pahis race (mnning competition) and race (an
ethnic group).
Polysemy, on the other hand, refers to one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings related
by extension. For example the word head refers to the part of the body above the shoulders, or the
person on top of a company or department.

Collocations

The words in language tend to occur with other words. These are called collocqtions. For example: table
- chair hammer - nail bread - butter salt - pepper husband - wife spoon -fork

Some collocations are specific to a people who use a language.

In the U.S., red collocates with white and blue, the colors of the flag. Other examples are fresh air, knife
and fork, enough already, biting cold, and many more.

Syntactic Features of a Language

Syntax studies the organization of words into phrases, and phrases into sentences. The word.'syntax'
came originaÍly from "Greek and literally meant 'a setting out together' or 'arrangement'. In a languge,
what determines whether a string of words is related or noff This ordering is possible because of the
structures and grammar of a language. Structure consists of the way in which words are organized into
phrases and into larger phrases. The study of phrase and sentence structure and the application of rules
is called grammar.

Basic Ideas of Syntax

Word Order and Meaning

What determines the meaning of a'sentence?

1. The selection of words plays a role in determining the literal meaning of the sentence.
2. The order of words plays a role in determining the literal meaning of the sentence.

Take these examples:

a. The fox jumped over the lazy dog.
b. The fox ran over the lazy dog.*
c. The cat sat on the mat.
d. The mat sat on the cat.*
e. It is a moonlit night.
f. Night it is moonlit.*

The symbol (*) is used to mark the ungrammatical sentence.

Sentences a, c, and e are grammatical. The words are in correct order and the sentences have sense and
meaning. Sentences b, d, and f are ungrammatical.The words in sentence b are ordered but the phrasal
verb ran over is an incorrect choice. In sentence d, mat is a noun but it cannot take the role of agent as
required by sentence meaning. Sentence f is odd because of incorrect word order.
Ambiguity

Another factor to consider in determining sentence meaning word order is ambiguity.

Examine the following sentences:

g. We had Uncle for dinner.

h. Can you drive me to work?
i. The school needs more qualified teachers.

The sentences are grammatically correct, but each has more than one meaning. This is called ambiguity.
Ambiguous sentences can cause communication breakdown.

Sentence g may mean We ate Uncle for dinner or Uncle joined us for dinner. The latter is the more
plausible idea. This is qalled lexical ambiguity because the verb “had” is idiomatically used to mean 'to
eat’ or literally 'to have'.

Sentence h is a question that can be understood in two ways: Are you able to drive me to work? or Do
you know how to drive? It must be clear to the bearer what the speaker intends to say. This is an
exampíe of pragmatic ambiguity because the context implies that speaker and bearer have shared
knowledge of information.

The type of ambiguity found in sentence i is called structural ambiguity. It means that the arrangement
of words or sentence structure affects how the sentence is interpreted. Bracketing the phrases will
clarify the meaning. Two ways can be done:

The school needs [more qualified] teachers. (The present ones are not qualified.)

The school needs more [qualified teachers]. (The present ones are not qualified but more are needed.)

Examine the difference in the following phrases:

[an old woman's] shawl (the shawl of an old woman)

an old [woman's shawl] (an old shawl of a woman)

Phrase Structure
There are four basic ideas on phrase structure:
1. Every word is a member of a category (e.g., Noun, Verb, etc.) that determines what kind of phrases it
can form.
2. A phrase is a string of words (one or more) that functions as a unit in a sentence. A phrase is built up
around a single word called its head.
3. In a language, there is a set of specific ways in which phrase can be combined with one another to
construct bigger phrase and sentences.These are called the phrase structure rules of the language.

Lexical Categories

In English, the main categories are the following:

Nouns (N) - e.g., book the comic book the house, the haunted house, poverty

Verbs (V) - e.g., write, wrote, is eating, ate, were, have been, was born

Adjectives (A) – e.g., hungry, wet, talented, busy, crowded, many, much, least, older

Prepositions (P) - e.g., with, of, on, under, because of, inspite of, beyond

Ádverbs (Adv) - e.g., often. never, unfortunately, quickly, hungrily, soon

Determiners (Det) - e.g., a, an, the, very, all, every, each

Phrasal Categories

The phrasal categories are build up from the lexical categories (their heads). In general, a phrase of a
certain types has the head of the same type. Hence:

Noun phrase (NP)

Haley ,
Haley, my sister
The bag of Haley
Haley's lunch
Haley's favorite lunch

Verb phrase (VP)

ate
slowly ate her lunch
was eating
forgot to eat her lunch
was left in the cafeteria

When you have an appropriate combination of an NP and a VP, you form a sentence.

Haley forgot to eat her lunch.

Haley, my sister, slowly ate her lunch.
Haley's lunch was left in the cafeteria.

Prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, and adverb phrases combine with NPs or VPs to form longer
sentences.

For example:

The old man near the gate, is looking for his grandson. (prepositional phrase)
My little brother woke up after a bad dream, (adverb phrase)

The unique and colorful clown costume was adjudged the best in the party, (adjective phrase;
prepositional phrase)

Phrase Structure Rules

Have you seen a recipe? Have you followed one in the preparation of a dish or meal? How you put the
ingredients together, what comes first and next, is similar to putting together the phrases in a language
order to form a complete sentence.

In the English language, sentences are generated with the following phrase structure:

S NP VP

S stands for sentence; NP for noun phrase; and VP for verb phrase. The rules will generate sentences
such as:

Sally likes cooking

NP VP

The dogs were barking last night.

NP VP

Tomorrow, the packages will arrive.

NP VP

However, other languages may have their own rules. For example, in the Hiligaynon language, the VP
comes before the NP

Conjunction

Words and phrases of the same category can be combined using conjunctions such as and and or to
form larger phrases. These are called 'conjoined’ phrases.

Examples:

Mary and Martha are sisters. (conjoined NPs)

I like to jog and swim. (conjoined VPs)

Mother cooked lunch and we cleaned the house. (conjoined Ss)

The use of a language is limitless. The phrase structure does not limit the structures but rather make
possible all the grammatical combinations that can be done with phrases.