Introduction to Linguistics Notes

The Nature of Language and Linguistics

Introduction
Language is Almighty Allah‘s special gift to mankind. Without language human civilization would have
remained impossibility. Language is ubiquitous (ever-present). It is present everywhere–in our thoughts and
dreams, prayers and meditations, relations and communication. Besides being a means of communication, and a
storehouse of knowledge, it is an instrument of thinking as well as a source of delight (e.g. singing).

It transfers knowledge from one person to another and from one generation to another. Language is also the
maker or unmaker of human relationships. It is the use of language that ‗Italics a life bitter or sweet. Without
language, man would have remained only a dumb animal. It is our ability to communicate through words that
makes us different from animals. Because of its omnipresence, language is often taken for granted.

Definition of Language
Since linguistics is the study of language, it is imperative for linguists to know what language is. Language is a
very complex human phenomenon; all attempts to define it have proved inadequate. In a nut-shell, language is an
‗organized noise‘ used in actual social situations. That is why it has also been defined as ‗contextualized
systematic sound‗.

In order to understand a term like life, one has to talk of the properties or characteristics of living beings (e.g.
motion, reproduction, respiration, growth, power of self-healing, excretion, nutrition, mortality, etc. etc.).
Similarly, the term language can be understood better in terms of its properties or characteristics. Some linguists,
however, have been trying to define language in their own ways even though all these definitions have beenfar
from satisfactory. Here are some of these definitions:

According to Robins: “Language is a symbol system based on pure or arbitrary

conventions... infinitely extendable and modifiable according to the changing needs and
conditions of the speakers.”

According to this definition, language is a symbol system. Every language selects some symbols for its selected
sounds. The English sound /k/ for example has the symbol k for it. These symbols form the alphabet of the
language and join in different combinations to form meaningful words.

The system talked of here is purely arbitrary (random) in the sense that there is no one to one correspondence
between the structure of a word and the thing it stands for. The combination p.e.n., for example stands, in
English, for an instrument used for writing. Why could it not be e.p.n. or n.e.p.? Well, it could also be e.p.n. or
n.e.p. and there is nothing sacrosanct (sacred) about the combination p.e.n. except that it has now become a
convention—a convention that cannot be easily changed.

As stated here, language conventions are not easily changed, yet it is not impossible to do so. Language is
infinitely modifiable and extendable. Words go on changing meanings and new words continue to be added to
language with the changing needs of the community using it.
According to Sapir: “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily
produced symbols.”

There are two terms in this definition that call for discussion: human and non-instinctive. Language, as Sapir rightly
said, is human. Only humans possess language and all normal humans uniformly possess it. Animals do have a
communication system but it is not a developed system. That is why language is said to be species-specific and species-
uniform.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
Also, language does not pass from a parent to a child. In this sense it is non-instinctive. A child has to learn language
and he/she learns the language of the society he/she is placed in.

According to Hall: “Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and

interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary
symbols.”

This definition rightly gives more prominence to the fact that language is primarilyspeech produced by oral-
auditory symbols. A speaker produces some string of oralsounds that get conveyed through the air to the speaker
who, through his hearing organs,receives the sound waves and conveys these to the brain that interprets these
symbols to arrive at a meaning.

According to Noam Chomsky: “A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences,

each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”

Chomsky meant to convey that each sentence has a structure. Human brain is competent enough to construct
different sentences from out of the limited set of sounds/symbols belonging to a particular language. Human
brain is so productive that a child can at any time produce a sentence that has never been said or heard earlier.

According to Wardaugh: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used

for human communication.”
According to Bloch and Trager: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols
by means of which a social group cooperates.”

Both these definitions prominently point out that language is a system. Sounds join to form words according to a
system. The letters k, n, i, t join to form a meaningful ‗word knit, whereas combinations like n-k-i-t, t.k.n.i. or
i.n.k.t. do not form any meaningful or sensible combinations. Although initially the formation of words, as said
earlier, is only arbitrary, convention makes them parts of a system. Words too join to form sentences according to
some system. A sentence like: Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties is acceptable but one cannot accept a
string of words like: a game is of cricket uncertainties glorious. It is in this sense that language is said to be a
system of systems.
According to Derbyshire: “Language is undoubtedly a kind of means of communication
among human beings. It consists primarily of vocal sounds. It is articulatory,
systematic, symbolic and arbitrary.”

Derbyshire, while accepting that language is the property of human beings and that it is primarily speech, brings out the
point that it is an important means of communication amongst humans. Before the start of civilization, man might have
used the language of signs but it must have had a very limited scope. Language is a fully developed means of
communication with the civilized man who can convey and receive millions of messages across the universe. An entire
civilization depends on language only. Think of a world without language—man would only continue to be a denizen
of the forest and the caves. Language has changed the entire gamut of human relations and made it possible for human
beings to grow into a human community on this planet.

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Characteristics of Language

Language is a very important means of communication between humans.

Language is a Means One can communicate his or her ideas, emotions, beliefs or feelings to the
of Communication other as they share a
common code that makes up the language. No doubt, there are many other means of communication used by
humans e.g. gestures, nods, winks, flags, smiles, horns, short- hand, Braille alphabet, mathematical symbols,
Morse code, sirens, sketches, maps, acting, miming, dancing etc. But all these systems of communication are
extremely limited or they too, in turn, depend upon language only. They are not as flexible, comprehensive,
perfect and extensive as language is. Language is so important a form of communication between humans that it
is difficult to think of a society without language. It gives shape to people‘s thoughts and guides and controls
their entire activity. It is a carrier of civilization and culture as human thoughts and philosophy are conveyed
from one generation to the other through the medium of language. Language is ubiquitous in the sense that it is
present everywhere in all activities. It is as important as the air we breathe and is the most valuable possession of
man.

Animals too have their system of communication but their communication is limited to a very small number of
messages, e.g. hunger, fear, and anger. In the case of humans,the situation is entirely different. Human beings
can send an infinite number of messages to their fellow beings. It is through language that they store knowledge,
transfer it to the next generation and yoke the present, past and the future together.

Language is Arbitrary Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no inherent relation
between the words of a language and their meanings or the ideas
conveyed by them (except in
the case of hieroglyphics where a picture of an object may represent the object). There isno reason why a female
adult human being be called a ―woman‖ in English, ―aurat‖ in Urdu, ―zen‖ in Persian and ―femine‖ in French.
Selection of these words in the languages mentioned here is purely arbitrary, an accident of history. It is just like
christening a new born baby who may be christened John or James. But once a child is given some name in a
purely arbitrary manner; this name gets associated with the child for his entire life and it becomes an important,
established convention. The situation in the case of the language is a similar one. The choice of a word selected
to mean a particular thing or idea is purely arbitrary but once a word is selected for a particular referent, it comes
to stay as such. It may be noted that had language not been arbitrary, there would have been only one language in
the world.

Language is a System of Systems Language is not an amorphous, a disorganized or a chaotic

combination of sounds. Any brick may be used anywhere
in a building, but it is
not so with sounds or graphic symbols standing for the sounds of a language. Sounds are
arraged in certain fixed or established, systematic order to form meaningful units or words. Similarly, words are
also arranged in a particular system to frame acceptable meaningful sentences. These systems operate at two
levels: phonological and syntactical.

At the phonological level, for example, sounds of a language appear only in some fixed combinations. There is
no word, for example, that starts with bz–, lr– or zl– combination. There is no word that begins with a /ŋ/ sound
or ends in a /h/ sound. Similarly words too combine to form sentences according to certain conventions (i.e.
grammatical or structural rules) of the language. The sentence ―The hunter shot the tiger with a gun‖ is
acceptable but the sentence ―the tiger shot a gun with hunter the‖ is not acceptable as the word order in the
latter sentence does not conform to the established language conventions.

Language is thus called a system of systems as it operates at the two levels discussed above. This property of
language is also termed duality by some linguists. This makes language a very complex phenomenon. Every
human child has to master the conventionsof the language he or she learns before being able to successfully
communicate withother members of the social group in which he or she is placed.

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Language is Primarily Vocal Language is primarily made up of vocal sounds only produced
by a physiological articulatory mechanism in the human body.
In the beginning,
it must have appeared as vocal sounds only. Writing must have come much later, as an intelligent attempt to
represent vocal sounds. Writing is only the graphic representation of the sounds of the language. There are a
number of languages which continue to exist, even today, in the spoken form only. They do not have a written
form. A child learns to speak first; writing comes much later. Also, during his life time, a man speaks much
more than he writes. The total quantum of speech is much larger than the total quantum of written materials.

It is because of these reasons that some linguists say that speech is primary, writing is secondary. Writing did
have one advantage over speech—it could be preserved in books or records. But, with the invention of
magnetic tapes or audio-cassettes, it has lost that advantage too. The age-old proverb ‗pen is mightier than the
sword‘ does not hold much ground when one finds that the spoken words, at the beck and call of a really good
orator,can do much more than a pen. Just think of Mark Antony‘s speech in ‗Julius Caesar‘ that inspired the
whole mob into action and spurred them on to a mood of frenzy to burn and kill the enemies of Julius Caesar.
A number of modern gadgets like the telephone, the tape recorder, the Dictaphone, etc. only go to prove the
primacy of speech over writing.

Language is a Social Phenomenon Language is a set of conventional communicative

signals used by humans for communication in a
community. Language
in this sense is a possession of a social group, comprising an indispensable set of rules which permits its members
to relate to each other, to interact with each other, to co- operate with each other; it is a social institution.
Language exists in society; it is a means of nourishing and developing culture and establishing human relations. It
is as a member of society that a human being acquires a language. We are not born with an instinct to learn a
particular language––English, Russian, Chinese or French. We learn a language as member of the society using
that language, or because we want to understand that society, or to be understood by that speech-community. If a
language is not used in any society, it dies out.
Language is thus a social event. It can fully be described only if we know all about the people who are involved
in it, their personalities, their beliefs, attitudes, knowledge ofthe world, relationship to each other, their social
status, what activity they are engaged in, what they are talking about, what has gone before linguistically and
non-linguistically, what happens after, what they are and a host of other facts about them and the situation they
are placed in.

Language is Non-instinctive and Conventional No language was created in a day

out of a mutually agreed upon
formula by a
group of humans. Language is the outcome of evolution and convention. Each generation transmits this
convention on to the next. Like all human institutions languages also change and die, grow and expand. Every
language then is a convention in a community.It is non-instinctive because it is acquired by human beings.
Nobody gets a language in heritage; he acquires it, and everybody has been provided with an innate ability to
acquire language. Animals inherit their system of communication by heredity, humans do not.

Although language is symbolic, yet its symbols are arranged in a

Language is Systematic particular system. All languages have their system of arrangements.
Though symbols in each
human language are finite, they can be arranged infinitely; that is to say, we can produce an infinite set of
sentence by a finite set of symbols.

Every language is a system of systems. All languages have phonological and grammatical systems, and within a
system there are several sub-systems. For example, within the grammatical system we have morphological and
syntactic systems, and within these two sub-systems we have several other systems such as those of plural, of
mood, of aspect,of tense, etc.

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Language is a unique
Language is Unique, Creative, Complex & Modifiable phenomenon of the earth.
Other planets do
not seem to have any language, although this fact may be invalidated if we happen to discover a talking
generation on any other planet. But so far there is no evidence of the presence of language on the moon. Each
language is unique in its own sense. By this we do not mean that languages do not have any similarities or
universals. Despite their common features and language, universals, each language has its peculiarities and
distinct features.

Language has creativity and productivity. The structural elements of human language can be combined to produce
new utterances, which neither the speaker nor his hearers may ever have made or heard before any, listener, yet
which both sides understand without difficulty. Language changes according to the needs of society. Old English
is different from modern English; so is old Urdu different form modern Urdu.

The language that human beings use consists of two sub-systems -

Language has a Duality sound and meaning. A finite set of sound units can be grouped and re-
grouped into units of
meaning. These can be grouped and re-grouped to generate further functional constituents of the higher
hierarchical order. We can produce sentences through this process of combining units of a different order.
Animal calls do not show such duality, they are unitary.
A speaker may say something that he has never said before
Language has a Productivity and be understood without difficulty.
Man uses the limited linguistic, resources in order to produce
completely novel ideas and utterances. Fairy tales, animal fables, narratives about alien unheard of happenings in
distant galaxies or nonexistent worlds are perfectly understood by the listeners.

One can talk about situations, places and objects far removed
Language has a Displacement from one‘s present surroundings and time. We often talk
about events that happened
long time ago and at a distant place; bombing incident in Ireland‘s Londonderry twelve years‘ back, for instance;
or the sinking of the Spanish Armada in the sixteenth century. Bees, of course, perform dances about the source
of nectar that is also removed from the place of dance (beehive). But they cannot convey what happened in the
previous season through their dance features. Human beings, however, can narrate events in which they were not
involved.

A language is an
Language is Both Linguistic & Communicative Competence abstract set of
psychological
principles and sociological consideration that constitute a person‘s competence as a speaker in a given situation.
―These psychological principles make available to him an unlimited number of sentences he can draw upon in
concrete; situations and provide him with the ability to understand and create entirely new sentences. Hence
language is not just a verbal behavior; it is a system of rules establishing correlations between meanings and
sound sequences. It is a set of principles that a speaker masters; it is not anything that he does. In brief, a
language is a code which is different from the act of encoding; it is a speaker‘s linguistic competence rather than
his linguistic performance. But mere linguistic or communicative competence is not enough for
communication; it has to be coupled with communicative competence. This is the view of the sociolinguists who
stress the use of language according to the occasion and context, the speaker and the listener, the profession and
the social status of the speaker and the listener. That language is the result of social interaction established truth.

No species other than humans has been

Language is Human & Structurally Complex endowed with language. Animals
cannot
acquire human language because of its complex structure and their physical inadequacies.Animals do not have the
type of brain which the human beings possess and theirarticulatory organs are also very much different from those
of the human beings. Furthermore any system of animals‘ communication does not make use of the quality of
features, that is, of concurrent systems of sound and meaning. Human language is open- ended, extendable and

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
modifiable whereas the animal language is not.

Definition, Nature and Scope of Linguistics

Introduction
Linguistics is a growing and interesting area of study, having a direct hearing on fields as diverse as education,
anthropology, sociology, language teaching, cognitive psychology and philosophy. What is linguistics? Fundamentally, it is
concerned with the nature of language and communication.
Definitions of Linguistics

According to G. Duffy: ―Linguistics observes language in action as a means for determining how language
has developed, how it functions today, and how it iscurrently evolving.‖

According to S. Pit Corder: ―Linguistics is concerned with the nature of human language, how it is learned
and what part it plays in the life of the individual and the community.‖

According to Jean Aitchison: ―Linguistics tries to answer two basic questions:What is language and
How does language work.‖
According to Victoria A. Fromkin: ―The scientific study of human language is calledlinguistics‖.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. By this we mean language in general, not a particular language. If
we were concerned with studying an individual language, we would say ‗I‘m studying French... or English,‘
or whichever language we happen to be studying. But linguistics does not study an individual language; it studies
‗language‘ in general.

According to Robins (1985): “Linguistics is concerned with human language as a

universal and recognizable part of the human behaviour and of the human
faculties, perhaps one of the most essential to human life as we know it, and
one of the most far-reaching of human capabilities in relation to the whole
span of mankind’s achievements.”

Does this not sound a little abstract? It is, because there is no way of studying ‗language‘ without referring to and
taking examples from particular languages. However, even while doing so, the emphasis of linguistics is
different. Linguistics does not emphasize practical knowledge or mastery of a particular language. Linguists may
know only one language,or may know several, or may even study a language they do not know at all. What they
are trying to study are the ways in which language is organized to fulfill human needs, as a system of
communication. There is a difference between a person who knows many languages (called a polyglot), and a
linguist, who studies general principles of language organization and language behavior, often with reference to
some actual language or languages. Any language can be taken up to illustrate the principles of language
organization, because all languages reveal something of the nature of language ingeneral.

We can say that linguistics is learning about language rather than learning a language. This distinction is often
explained as the difference between learning how a car worksand learning how to drive a car. When we learn
how to drive a car, we learn a set of habits and do some practice—this is similar to learning how to speak a
language. When we learn how the car works, we open up its mechanism, study it and investigate the relationship
of its parts to one another. This is similar to what we do in a scientific study of language, or linguistics: we
investigate the mechanism of language, its parts and how all these parts fit together to perform particular
functions, and why they are arranged or organized in a certain manner. Just as while driving a car, we are using
its various components, while speaking a language we are using the sounds, words, etc. of that language; behind
these uses is the mechanism which enables us to do so. We study language because it is important for us to
understand this mechanism.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Linguistics as a Science

Linguistics can he understood as a science in both general and specific terms. Generally, we use the term
‗science‘ for any knowledge that is based on clear, systematic and rational understanding. Thus we often
speak of the ‗science of politics‘ or statecraft, or ‗the science of cooking‘. However, we also use the term
‗science‘ for the systematic study of phenomena enabling us to state some principles or theories regarding the
phenomena; this study proceeds by examination of publicly verifiable data obtained through observation of
phenomena, and experimentation; in other words, it is empirical and objective. Science must also provide
explanation after adequate observation of data, which should be consistent, i.e. there should be no
contradictions between different parts of the explanation or statement; and economical, i.e. a precise and non-
redundant manner of statement is to be preferred.

Let us apply these criteria of science to linguistics. Linguistics studies language: language is a phenomenon
which is both objective and variable. Like natural phenomena in the physical world, it has a concrete shape and
occurrence. In the same way as a physicist or chemist takes materials and measures their weights, densities etc. to
determine their nature, the linguist studies the components of language, e.g.
„Science‟is defined as aknowledge that is based on clear, systematic and
rational understanding

Systematic study of phenomena enabling us to state some

principles or theories regarding the phenomena,

Each observable phenomenon is to be given a precise explanation. Its nature

has to be described completely.

Study proceeds by examination of publicly verifiable dataobtained

through observation of phenomena, and experimentation.

(Empirical and Objective)

observing the occurrence of speech-sounds, or the way in which words begin or end. Language, like other
phenomena, is objective because it is observable with the senses, i.e., it can be heard with the ear, it can be seen
when the vocal organs are in movement, or when reading words on a page.

Observation leads to processes of classification and definition. In science, each observable phenomenon is to be
given a precise explanation. Its nature has to be described completely. Thus, for example, the chemist classifies
elements into metals and non-metals; a biologist classifies living things into plants and animals. In the same way,
linguistics observes the features of language, classifies these features as being sound features of particular
types, or words belonging to particular classes on the basis of similarity or difference with other sounds and
words.

But while linguistics shares some of characteristics of empirical (experimental) science, it is also a social science
because it studies language which is a form of social behaviour and exists in interaction between human
beings in society. Languageis also linked to human mental processes. For these reasons, it cannot be treated
always as objective phenomena.
In empirical sciences, the methods of observation and experimentation are known as inductive procedures that
phenomena are observed and data is collected without any preconceived idea or theory, and after the data is
studied, some theory is formulated. This has been the main tradition in the history of western science. But there
is an opposing tradition the tradition of rationalism, which holds that the mind forms certain concepts or ideas
beforehand in terms of which it interprets the data of observation and experience. According to this tradition, the
deductive procedure is employed in which we have a preliminary hypothesis or theory in our minds which we

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then try to prove by applying it to the data. This procedure was considered to be unscientific according to the
empirical scientists because they felt that pre-existent ideas can influence the kind of data we obtain i.e. we
search only for those pieces of data that fit our theory and disregard others and therefore it is not an objective
method.

We can, however, reconcile these two procedures. There are aspects of language which we can observe
quite easily and which offer concrete instances of objective and verifiable data. At the same time, we need to
create hypothesis to explain this data, so we may create tentative or working hypothesis to explain this data,
which we may accept,reject or modify as we proceed further. With such an open attitude, we may collect more
data. This alternation of inductive and deductive procedures may help us to arrive at explanations which
meet all the requirements of science, i.e. they are exhaustive, consistent and concise.

Thus, linguistics is both an empirical science and a social science. In fact, it is a human discipline since it is
concerned with human language; so it is part of the study of humanities as well. This includes the study of
literature, and appreciation of the beauty and music of poetry. In understanding language, humankind can
understand itself. Moreover, since every branch of knowledge uses language, linguistics is central to all areas of
knowledge. In regard to linguistics, the traditional distinctions of science, art and humanities are not relevant.
As Lyons puts it, linguistics has natural links with a wide range of academic disciplines. To say that
linguistics is a science is not to deny that, by virtue of its subject matter, it is closely related to such eminently
human disciplines as philosophy and literary criticism.

Scope of Linguistics

Linguistics today is a subject of study, independent of other disciplines. Before the twentieth century, the study of
language was not regarded as a separate area of study in its own right. It was considered to be a part of studying
the history of language or the philosophy of language, and this was known not as linguistics but as philosophy.
So ‗Linguistics‘ is a modern name which defines a specific discipline, in which we study language not in relation
to some other area such as history or philosophy, but language as itself, as a self-enclosed and autonomous
system, worthy of study in its own right. It was necessary at the beginning of the growth of modern linguistics to
define thisautonomy of the subject; otherwise it would not have been possible to study thelanguage system with
the depth and exhaustiveness which it requires. However, now we acknowledge that while linguistics is a distinct
area of study, it is also linked to other disciplines and there are overlapping areas of concern.

The main concern of modern linguistics is to describe language, to study its nature and to establish a theory of
language. That is, it aims at studying the components of the language system and to ultimately arrive at an
explanatory statement on how the system works. In modern linguistics, the activity of describing the language
system is the most important and so modern linguistics is generally known as descriptive. But linguistics has
other concerns as well, which fall within its scope and these include historical and comparative study of
language. These differ from the descriptive approach in their emphasis; otherwise, these approaches also involve
description of language.

Levels of Linguistic Analysis

In studying language which is the subject-matter of linguistics, we mark or sub-divide the area in order to
study it in an analytical and systematic way. Language has a hierarchical structure. This means that it is made up
of units which are themselves made up of smaller units which are made of still smaller units till we have the
smallest indivisible unit, i.e. a single distinguishable sound, called a phoneme. Or we can put itthe other way
round, and say that single sounds or phonemes combine together to make larger units of sounds, these combine
into a larger meaningful unit called a morpheme; morphemes combine to form larger units of words, and words
combine to form a large unit or sentence and several sentences combine or interconnect to make a unified
piece of speech or writing, which we call a text or discourse. At each stage (or level), there are certain rules that
operate which permit the occurrence and combination of smaller units. So, we can say that rule of phonology
determine the occurrence and combination of particular phoneme, rules of word-formation cover the behavior of
particular morphemes; rules of sentence-formation determine the combination and positioning of words in a
sentence. Each level is a system in its own right. It is important to remember that, because of the existence of
rules at each level, we can analyze each level independently of the other. This means that if we study one level,
e.g. phonology or the sound-system, we need not necessarily study another level, say that of sentence- formation.
We can study phonology on its own, and syntax on its own. Although these levels are linked in that one is lower

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in the hierarchy and another is higher in the hierarchy, and the higher level includes the lower, still each level is
independent because it has its own rules of operation that can be described, analyzed and understood.

We can represent these levels in the following manner, with each level of analysis corresponding to each level of
the structure of the language:

Levels of Analysis Levels of Structure

Sound Letters
Phonetics and Phonology
(Graphology)
Morphology Word Formation
Syntax Sentence-Formation
Semantics Meanings
Discourse Connected Sentences
A careful look at the above diagram will show that the levels of language structure are not completely separate
from one another. In fact, there are important and vital linkages between the levels. In earlier studies, it was
supposed that phonology, the level of sound structure, had no link whatsoever with semantics or the level of
meaning structure. Now we know that links between these levels are far more complex than we had earlier
accepted. With regard to discourse, we can see that it is made up of all the levels of language working together,
while semantics incorporates analysis of meaning at the level of both words (word-meaning) and of sentence-
meaning.
However, we can study these links only after we describe and analyze structure at each level separately. Thus,
Phonetics studies language at the level of sounds:

How sounds are articulated by the human speech mechanism and received by the auditory mechanism, how
sounds can be distinguished and characterized by the mannerin which they are produced.

Phonology studies the combination of sounds into organized units of speech, the formation of syllables
and larger units.

It describes the sound system of a particular language and the combination and distribution of sounds which
occur in that language. Classification is made on the basis of the concept of the phoneme, i.e. a distinctive,
contrasted sound unit, e.g. /m/, //, /p/. These distinct sounds enter into combination with others. The rules of
combination are different for different languages.

Though phonology is considered to be the surface or superficial level of language (as it is concrete and not
abstract like meaning), there are some aspects of it such as tone which contribute to the meaning of an utterance.

Morphology studies the patterns of formation of words by the combination of sounds into minimal distinctive
units of meaning called morphemes.

A morpheme cannot be broken up because if it is, it will no longer make sense, e.g. a morpheme ‗bat‘ is made up
of three sounds: /b/ /æ/ and /t/. This combination makes up the single morpheme ‗bat‘ and if broken up, it will no
longer carry the meaning of ‗bat‘. Words can be made up of single morphemes such as ‗bat‘ or combinations of
morphemes,
e.g. ‗bats‘ is made up of two morphemes: ‗bat‘ + ‗s‘. Morphology deals with the rules of combination of
morphemes to form words, as suffixes or prefixes are attached to single morphemes to form words. It studies the
changes that take place in the structure of words, e.g. the morpheme ‗takes‘ changes to ‗took‘ and ‗taken‘––these
changes signify a change in tense.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
The level of morphology is linked to phonology on the one hand and to semantics on the other. It is clear in the
above example of „take‟ that the change to „took‟ involves a change in one of the sounds in this morpheme. It
also involves a change in meaning: „take‟ means the action „take‟ + time present and „took‟ means the action
„take‟ + time past. Thus, morphological changes often involve changes at the levels of both sound and meaning.

syntax is the level at which we study how words combine to form phrases, phrases combine to form clauses and clauses join
to make sentences. The studyof syntax also involves the description of the rules of positioning of elements inthe sentence
such as the nouns/noun syntax phrases, verbs/verb phrases,adverbial phrases, etc. A sentence must be composed of these
elements arranged in a particular order. Syntax also attempts to describe how these elements function in the sentence, i.e. what is
their role in the sentence. For example, the word ‗boy‘ is a noun. However, in each of the following sentences, it functions in
different roles:

(a) The boy likes cricket

(b) The old man loved the boy.

(c) In sentence (a), it functions as the subject of the sentence In sentence

(b), it functions as the object.

(d) A sentence should be both grammatical and meaningful. For example, a sentence like ‗Colourless green
ideas sleep furiously‘ is grammatically correct but it is not meaningful. Thus, rules of syntax should be
comprehensive enough to explain how sentences are constructed which are both grammatical and
meaningful.
(e)
(f) Semantics deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts to analyze the structure of meaning in
a language, e.g. how words similar or different are related; it attempts to show these inter-relationships
through forming ‗categories. Semantics tries to give an account of both word and sentence meaning, and
attempts to analyze and define that which is considered to be abstract. It may be easy to define the meanings
of words such as ‗tree‘ but not so easy to define the meanings of words such as ‗love‘ or similar abstract
things. This is why semantics is one of the less clearly definable areas of language study.
(g)
(h) An extension of the study of meaning or semantics is pragmatics. Pragmatics deals with the contextual
aspects of meaning in particular situations. As distinct from the study of sentences, pragmatics
considers utterances, i.e. those sentences which are actually uttered by speakers of a language.
(i)
(j) Discourse is the study of chunks of language which are bigger than a single sentence. At this level, we
analyze inter-sentential links that form a connected or cohesive text. Cohesion is the relation established
in a sentence between it and the sentences preceding and following it, by the use of connectives such as
‗and‘, ‗though‘, ‗also‘, ‗but‘ etc. and by the manner in which reference is made to other parts of the text by
devices such as repetition or by use of pronouns, definite articles, etc. By studying the elements of cohesion,
we can understand how a piece of connected language can have greater meaning that is more than the sum
of the individual sentences it contains.
(k)
(l) In addition to these levels of linguistic analysis, we also study Graphology which is the study of the writing
system of a language and the conventions used in representing speech in writing, e.g. the formation of
letters Lexicology studies the manner in which lexical items (words) are grouped together as in the
compilation of dictionaries.
(m)
(n) Linguists differ according to what they consider as included in the scope of linguistic studies. Some
consider the proper area of linguistics to be confined to the levels of phonology, morphology and syntax.
This can be called a Micro-linguistic perspective. However, some take a broader or macro-linguistic view
which includes the other levels of analysis mentioned above, as well as other aspects of language and
its relationship with many areas of human activity.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Branches of Linguistics

The core of linguistic studies is the study of language structure at different levels as discussed above. In the
growth of modern linguistics as an autonomous field of knowledge, it has been necessary to emphasize this
aspect of linguistics, since no other field of study describes language structure systematically and completely.
However, there are many areas of human activity and knowledge in which language plays a part and
linguistics is useful in these areas. The study of language in relation to the many areas of knowledge where it is
relevant, has led to the growth of many branches of linguistics. Thus the scope of linguistics has grown to
include these branches.Linguistics can be classified into two major branches according to language scholars:

Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is most concerned with

developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered the
core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology, and semantics.
Although phonetics often informs phonology, it is often excluded from the purview of
theoretical linguistics, along with psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Theoretical
linguistics also involves the search for an explanation of linguistic universals, that is,
properties all languages have in common.
Applied Linguistics the study of language-related issues applied in everyday life,
notably language policies, planning, and education. It is the application of linguistics
theories to evaluate the language problems arisen from other professions like sociology,
psychology, ethnology, geography, neurology, biology, and history etc.

Various branches of linguistics have grown because language is intimately related both to the inner, world of
man‘s mind and to the outer world of society and social relationships. Each of these aspects has led to the study
of psycho-linguistics and sociolinguistics respectively.

(a) Psycholinguistics

Since language is a mental phenomenon, it is mental processes which are articulated in language behaviour.
Psycholinguistics studies these mental processes, processes of thought and concept formation and their
articulation in language, which reveal a great deal about the structures of human psychology as well as of
language. ‗Cognitive‘ psychology is the area which explores how meanings are understood by the human brain,
how syntax and memory are linked, how messages are ‗decoded‘ and stored. Psycholinguistics also studies the
influence of psychological factors such as intelligence, motivation, anxiety etc. on the kind of language that is
understood and produced. For instance, in the case of errors made by a speaker, there may be psychological
reasons which influence comprehension or production that are responsible for the occurrence of an error. Our
perception of speech sounds or graphic symbols (in writing) is influenced by the state of our mind. One kind of
mental disability, for example, results in the mistakes made by children in reading when they mistake one letter
for another (Dyslexia). Psycholinguistics can offer some insights and corrective measures for this condition.

Psycholinguistics is concerned with the learning of language at various stages: the early acquisition of a first
language by children and later stages in acquisition of first and other languages. Psycholinguists attempt to
answer questions such as whether the human brain has an inborn language ability structured in such a
way that certain grammatical and semantic patterns are embedded in it, which can explain how all human
beings are capable of learning a language. This exploration may lead us to determining whether all the
languages in the world have some ‗universal‘ grammar that lies in the mind of every human being and is
transformed in particular situations to produce different languages. Psycholinguistic studies in language
acquisition are very useful in the area of language teaching because they help Teachers to understand error
production and individual differences among learners and thus devise appropriate syllabi and materials for them.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

One specialized area within psycholinguistics is Neurolinguistics that studies the physiological basis of language
and language disorders such as aphasia, loss of memory, etc.

Another relation of language with mind is that of logic. It was held by some ancient philosophers that the human
mind is rational and capable of thinking logically and, therefore, language too is logically ordered and rational.
Others held that, just as irrationality is present in the mind, irregularity or anomaly is present in human language.
Since then there has been a debate about the nature of language and the relation between language and logic. One
of the problems discussed by philosophers of language is whether language can be an adequate medium for
philosophical inquiry. Since all our thoughts are known to us through language, we must examine the kind of
language we use when we approach philosophical issues and analysis.

(b) Sociolinguistics

The branch of linguistics that deals with the exploration of the relation between language and society is
known as sociolinguistics, and the sociology of language. Sociolinguistics is based on the fact that language is
not a single homogeneous entity, but has different forms in different situations. The changes in language occur
because of changes in social conditions, for example, social class, gender, regional and cultural groups. A
particular social group may speak a different variety of a language from the rest of the community. This group
becomes a speech community.

Variation in language may occur because the speakers belong to a different geographical region. Taking the
example of English, we find that it is not a single language but exists in the form of several varieties. One kind
of English is called R.P. (or Received Pronunciation). This kind of English is used in the south west of England
and particularly associated with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the BBC. It is an educated and
formal kind of English. But there are other varieties of English, such as the English that is spoken in the north of
England, in Yorkshire and Lancashire; in Scotland (Scottish English); Wales (Welsh English), etc. A less
educated variety of English is that spoken by working class people in London often called Cockney English.
Then there are the varieties of English spoken by people of different countries around the world, e.g.
AmericanEnglish, and Australian English.

Sociolinguistics is the study of language variation and change–how varieties of language are formed when the
speakers belong to a geographical region, social class, social situation and occupation, etc. Varieties of a
language that are formed in various geographical regions involve a change in the pronunciation as well as
vocabulary. Such changes result in the formation of a distinctly different variety of the language or a dialect.
Sometimes these changes may be present within the same geographical region due to the social differences
between different economic sections, e.g. working class and aristocracy. These changes result in class-dialects.

In sociolinguistic studies, we consider the linguistic features of these dialects, e.g. syntax variations such as ‗I‘ve
gotten it‘ or ‗I ain‘t seen nothing‘ and lexical variations such as ‗lift‘ (British English) to ‗elevator‘
(American English). The study of the demarcation of dialect boundaries across a region and of specific
features of each dialect is called dialectology. One dialect may be demarcated from another by listing a
bundle of features which occur in a particular region. The point at which a certain feature (of pronunciation or
vocabulary) ceases to be prevalent and gives way to another feature isa dialect boundary or ‗isogloss‘. Dialects
may acquire some importance and prestige and evolve into distinct languages. This usually happens when
they are codified, e.g. inwritten and literary forms, and their grammar and lexicon is standardized. Usually this
happens when the dialect is given political and social importance. That is why it is said ‗A language is a dialect
with an army, and navy‘. Sociolinguists chart the evolution of such changes.

Variation in language may also be due to the specific area of human activity in which language is used. Again
taking the example of English, this language is used in different fields—of law, religion, science, sports etc. In
each of these areas there is a specific vocabulary and manner of use of English, which defines the legal language,
the scientific language etc. This variety of language according to its use, is called register. Sociolinguists
examine the particular characteristics of different registers, i.e. legal register, scientific register, etc., to see how
these differ. This kind of study is useful because it enables us to understand how language-use is tied to a social
context. The notion of register is important in showing that language use in communication is not arbitrary or
uncontrolled, but is governed by rules of situational and contextual appropriateness.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

The sociology of language includes the study of attitudes to language held by social groups, for instance, they
may consider some languages or dialects as more (or less) important. It includes the planning of language
education, e.g. which languages shouldhe the medium of instruction, which language should be taught as second
language; and language policy, i.e. which languages are legally and constitutionally recognised and what status
they are given. The sociology of language is thus linked with other aspects of our social world, the political,
economic, educational, etc.

(c) Anthropological Linguistics

The evolution of language in human society and its role in the formation of culture; is another aspect of
language society and culture, this is studied in anthropological linguistics. The structure of language has a
social and cultural basis in the same way as other customs, conventions and codes such as those related to dress,
food, etc. Each culture organizes its world its own way, giving names to objects, identifying areas of significance
or value and suppressing other areas. Language becomes a way of embodying the world view and beliefs of a
culture, and the things that culture holds sacred; for example, a culture in which family relationships occupy the
most significant position will have many kinship terms in their language, with each relationship specified by a
particular term. If you compare the kinship terms in English such as grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, etc.
with kinship terms in Urdu, you will find that there are many more such terms in Urdu specifying particular
relationships such as a paternal / maternal grand-father.

Similarly, terms specifying colors, emotions, natural phenomena, and so on are differently organized in every
culture, and reveal a great deal about that culture. The study of these specific cultural elements is called the
ethnography of a culture. A specific way of communication in a culture is thus studied as the ethnography of
communication.

Anthropological studies have explored the relation between language and culture. Language is invented to
communicate and express a culture. It also happens that this language then begins to determine the way we
think and see the world. Since this language is the means by which we understand and think about the world,
we cannot go beyond it and understand the world in any other way. This is the view expressed by the linguist
Whorf whose hypothesis is that we dissect nature along the lines laid by our native language. There is still a
debate about this, but it is true that to some extent we are hound to see the world according to the terms specified
by our own language. These aspects of language and culture are still being discussed by anthropological
linguists, philosophers of language and ethnographers.

(d) Literary Stylistics

The study of variation in language and the use of language in communicationhas also led to new ways of
studying literary texts and the nature of literary communication. If you consider again the notion of register
discussed above, you may realize that register is in fact a kind of language that is considered appropriate for a
particular subject matter, e.g. the style of a religious sermon, the style of sports commentary. Similarly we may
use this notion to describe the style of a literary work. That is, we may describe its features at the levels of
phonology, syntax, lexis, etc. to distinguish it from other texts and to appreciate how it achieves some unique
effects through the use of language. This kind of study is called literary stylistics.

Literary writers use the system of language in their own way, i.e. they create a style. This is done by
deliberate choice (e.g. out of a whole range of words available, they choose one which would be particularly
effective), sometimes by deviation from or violation of the rules of grammar (e.g. ‗he danced his did‘ in
Cummings‘ poem). Poets and even prose writers may invert the normal order of items in a sentence (e.g. ‗Home
is the sailor…‘) or create a pattern by repetition of some items (e.g. the sound /f/ in ‗the furrow followed free‘).
By these and other devices, they are able to manipulate language so that it conveys some theme or meaning with
great force and effectiveness. In literary stylistics, we read the text closely with attention to the features of
language used in it, identifying and listing the particular features under the heading of ‗lexis‘, ‗grammar‘,
‗phonology‘ or ‗sound patterns‘. When we have obtained a detailed account of all these features, we co-relate
them or bring them together in an interpretation of the text. That is, we try to link „what is being said‘ with „how
it is being said,‘ since it is through the latter that writers can fully express the many complex ideas and feelings
that they want to convey. Stylistic analysis also helps in a better understanding of how metaphor, irony, paradox,

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
ambiguity etc. operate in a literary text as these are all effects achieved through language and through the building

up of a coherent linguistic structure.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Human-Animal Communication

Language is primarily human. It is humans alone that possess language and use it for communication. Language
is, in that sense, species-specific–it is specific only to one set of species. Also, all human beings uniformly
possess language. It is only a few deaf and dumb persons who cannot speak. Thus language is species-uniform to
that extent. Animals also have their own system of communication but communication between them is
extremely limited.

It is limited to a very small number of messages. The first principle is that language relates to communication
between human beings, not between animals. Language shows certain inherent features of design. These features
set it apart from other forms of communication; particularly animal communication. The famous American
linguist, Charles Hackett has found key properties of language or design features which as a whole don‘t
appear among animals: these are the design features of language. These are seven: duality, productivity,
arbitrariness, interchangeability, displacement, specialization and cultural transmission. Animal
communication can never encompass all the properties of human communication. In this regard, Bertrand
Russell‘s dictum is appropriate: “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents
were poor but honest”.

Human Language Animal Communication

Unlimited Limited and finite

Open system Closed system

Extendible Unextendible

Flexible and varied Non-inflexible

Non-intrinsic Instinctive

Acquired Inherent

Creativity Non-creativity

Recurrent Repetitive

Has grammaticality No grammaticality

Cognitively behavioral Only behavioral

Descriptive & narrative No-descriptive

Firstly, language has phonological and grammatical duality. We have small meaningless sounds and turn them
into a number of sequences to produce millions of meaningful utterances. This is the most economical feature of
language.

Secondly, productivity refers to the creative capacity of language users to produce an endless number of new
sentences, in contrast to the communication systems of individuals which are limited to set formulas and
are thus

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

‗unproductive‘. Chomsky calls it Creativity. It means that we can create sentences which we have never spoken
or heard of. Animals don‘t possess this quality.

Thirdly, in language, the role of the speaker and hearer can be exchanged without any problem. Any user of
the language is both a listener and a speaker. In the animal world, some are endowed with the ability while
others are not.

Fourthly, Human Speech is a specialized activity. We can talk about an exciting experience while at the same
time doing something else like peeling potatoes.

Fifthly, a human being, for example, can talk about the past, the present or the future, of an event that
happened nearby or thousands of miles away. An animal cannot do that. When a dog produces a certain sound,
it generally refers to the present.

Man is said to be intimately disposed to learn a language. His innate competence helps him master the unique
features of a specific language. Thus, language is transmitted from generation to generation. Animals don‘t learn
their call systems from elders. Their knowledge is inherent.

Language is both species-specific and species-uniform. We acquire our native tongue by cultural transmission. It
is by means of our native tongue that we receive cultural transmissions that we learn and adapt. This is the spiral
that has driven human development. Animal communication differs from human communication in many
waysas illustrated in the chart.

Furthermore, language makes use of discrete symbols while animal communication systems are often
continuous or non-discrete. One can clearly distinguish between /k/, /æ/ and /t/ in the word cat but one cannot
identify different discrete symbols in the long humming sound that a bee produces. A bee‘s dance or a cock‘s
crow is today the same that it was two hundred years ago. It is not so in the case of language. Language is
changing, growing every day and new words are coming up. Human language is far more structurally complex
than animal communication. Human language is complex while there is no complexity in Lamb‘s cry.

In short, there is a great difference between the two species yet in many ways, humans interpret the behavior of
domestic animals, or can command them. Humans have behaviors that resemble animal‘s interspecific
communication. Some of our bodily features - eyebrows, beards and moustaches - strongly resemble adaptations
to producing signals. Humans also often seek to mimic animals' communicative signals in order to interact with
the animals. For example, humans often close their eyes towards a pet cat to establish a tolerant relationship.
Stroking, petting and rubbing pet animals are all actions that probably work through their natural patterns of
interspecific communication.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Principles and Major Concepts of Linguistics

Saussure and His Main Contributions

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist who occupies an important place in the history of
linguistics and is generally considered the founder of modern linguistics. It was he who first of all emphasized the
importance of viewing language as a living phenomenon. He was the founder of a ―theoretic foundation to the
newer trend in linguistics study," and European scholars have seldom failed to consider his views when dealing
with any theoretical problem. Jonathan Culler (1976) says, "Ferdinand de Saussure is the father of modern
linguistics, the man who reorganized the systematic study of language and language in such a way as to make
possible the achievements of twentieth-century linguists. This alone would make him a Modern Master: master of
a discipline which he made modern."

De Saussure‘s contribution to modern linguistics was responsible for three key directions in the study of
language. He distinguished between Synchrony and Diachrony, between langue and parole, between signified
and signifier and between syntagmatic and paradigmatic. He also contributed by describing the distinction
bet6ween syntagmatic and paradigmatic, the theory of associative value. Saussure‘s contributions to linguistics
are given below:

Synchrony and Diachrony

Synchrony: - Saussure proposed that language as a system of signs be studied as a complete

system at any given point in time. Like chess, the important part of language is how pieces move and the
positions of all pieces relative to one another. The shape of each piece is only important in that its potential can
be recognized.

A synchronic relationship is one where two similar things exist at the same time.
Modern American English and British English have a synchronic relationship.

Diachrony: - Diachrony is the change in the meaning of words over time. For example, in the way that
'magic' meant 'good' in youth culture for a period during the 1980s (and, to a lesser extent, beyond). It is thus the
study of language in terms of howit visibly changes in usage. It is based in the dictionary meaning of words.

A diachronic relationship is where related things exist separated by time. 12th century
English and 21st century English have a diachronic relationship.

Synchrony and Diachrony in Linguistics

According to the method, range or scope of its study, or the focus of interest of the linguist, Linguistics can be
classified into different kinds, the chief of which are Diachronic Linguistics and Synchronic Linguistics.

Diachronic linguistics is the kind in which we study the historical development of language through different
periods of time. For example, we study how French and Italian have grown out of Latin. The changes that have
occurred in language with the passage of time, are also studied under this kind of linguistics; therefore, it is called
historical linguistics.
Synchronic linguistics is not concerned with the historical development of language. It confines itself to the study
of how a language is spoken by a specified speech community at a particular point of time. It is also called
‗descriptive‘ linguistics. Diachronic linguistics studies language change, and synchronic linguistics studies
language states without their history.

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According to C.F. Hockett: “The study of how a language works at a given time,
regardless of its past history or future destiny, is called descriptive or
synchronic linguistics. The study of how speech habits change as time goes by
is called historical or diachronic linguistics”

The distinction synchrony and diachrony refers to the difference in treating language from different points
of view. Though the historical character of a language cannot be ignored, its present form being the result of
definite historical processes, changes and transformations, it is necessary for a complete understanding of it to
concentrate on the units of its structure at the present moment. Some scholars do not see the two approaches
apart. They assert that it is a mistake to think of descriptive and historical linguistics as two separate
compartments. However, on the whole the two areas are kept apart and one is studied to the exclusion of the
other. Synchronic statements make no reference to the previous stages in the language. Linguistic studies in the
nineteenth century were historical in character; they originated as part of the general historical investigations into
the origins and development of cultures and communities, especially West Asia, Egypt, etc. Such
philological researches viewed language at different stages of its progress and attempted to understand relations
among different languages. Language families were discovered and genetic affinities identified. For Zhirmunsky,
Diachronic linguistics was a great discovery of the 19th century:

“Which developed so powerfully and fruitfully from the 1820s to the 1880s. This discovery enabled
linguists to explain modern languages as a result of law- governed historical development”.

On a closer look one realizes that without a good synchronic (descriptive) work, valid historical (diachronic)
postulations are not possible; in other words, a good historical linguist needs to be thorough descriptive scholar
too.

The figure above shows

the distinction.Diachronic
axis (x-y) has been
considered moving and the
synchronic axis static. It
was Swisslinguist
Ferdinand de Saussure
who first coined these
termsand established the
distinctions. As the
Russian linguist V.M. Zhirmunsky observes, ‗In de Saussure‘s conception, synchrony is language considered as a
system of static oppositions resting on a single temporal plane, a static two-dimensional cross-section‖. The
principles that introduce this dichotomy enable us to obtain, according to Wilkins, ‗particularly accurate
the investigation of particular temporal states of a language. But Saussure‘s analogy of chess breaks at the point
that players determine the course of any particular game that is being played in opposition to one another and
with reference to a recognized goal. As far as we know, there is no directionality in the diachronic development
of languages.

Signifier and Signified

Description: - Saussure's theory of the sign' defined a sign as being made up of the matched pair of signifier and
signified.
Signifier: The signifier is the pointing finger, the word, the sound-image. A word is simply a jumble of
letters. The pointing finger is not the star. It is in the interpretation of the signifier that meaning is created.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Signified: -The signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a 'real
object' but is some referent to which the signifier refers. The thing signified is created in the perceiver and is
internal to them. Whilst we share concepts, we do so via signifiers. Whilst the signifier is more stable, the
signified varies between people and contexts. The signified does stabilize with habit, as the signifier cues
thoughts and images. The signifier and signified, whilst superficially simple, form a core element of semiotics.

Saussure's ideas are contrary to Plato's notion of ideas being eternally stable. Plato saw ideas as the root concept
that was implemented in individual instances. A signifier without signified has no meaning, and the signified
changes with person and context. For Saussure, even the root concept is malleable.

The relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary (Saussure called this 'unmotivated'). A real
object need not actually exist 'out there'. Whilst the letters 'c-a-t' spell cat, they do not embody 'catness'. The
French 'chat' is not identical to the English 'cat' in the signified that it creates (to the French, 'chat' has differences
of meaning). In French, 'mouton' means both 'mutton' and a living 'sheep', whilst the English does not
differentiate.

Saussure inverts the usual reflectionist view that the signifier reflects the signified: the signifier creates the
signified in terms of the meaning it triggers for us. The meaning of a sign needs both the signifier and the
signified as created by an interpreter. A signifier without a signified is noise. A signified without a signifier is
impossible.

Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic

Introduction: - Ferdinand de Saussure saw the linguistic sign at once as static and dynamic or developing. The
pairing of terms, synchrony-diachrony; form-substance; langue-parole as sets of contrasting relations amply
demonstrates this concept. The idea is to highlight and demonstrate two dominant properties of a linguistic
sign, one linear and the other arbitrary. La langue is thus more stable and predictably organized than la parole
which displays freedom and dynamism which is not rule-governed, therefore unpredictable. Similarly, de
Saussure put forward the concepts of syntagmatic and what he at that time called ‗associative relations.

Syntagmatic: - In Syntagmatic relations the syntagma is seen as any ‗combination of discrete successive
units of which there are at least two, with no limit on

the possible number‘. These segments range from the smallest construction units, i.e. phonemes, to phrases, and
so on. Thus, the word read is a succession of phonemes /r/,
/i:/, /d/; re-read a succession of bound morpheme and a free morpheme.

For Saussure sentence is the most obvious example of a syntagme. It is a combination of other linguistic units.
They demonstrate chain relationship. The unit acquires its significance by its position of occurrence vis-a-vis
other elements preceding and following it. We shall take an example to e see elements occurring in a linear order
in the following sentence:

She will come tomorrow.

The pronoun+ auxiliary+ main verb +
adverb.

This ordering of the words cannot be changed. Syntagmatic relations function on the horizontal emphasizing the
relational criteria identifying or defining linguistic categories or units. The concept of syntagmatic relations
underlines the structural potential of any item, under examination.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Paradigmatic: - The paradigmatic relationships are contrastive or choice relationships. Words that have
something in common, are; associated in the memory, resulting in groups marked by diverse relations. For
example, the English word learning will unconsciously call to mind a host of other words–study, knowledge,
discipline, etc. All these words are related in some way. This kind of relationship is called associative or
paradigmatic relationship. Here the co-ordinations are outside discourse and are not supported by linearity. They
are relations in absentia, and are vertical type relations. Their seat is in the brain; they are a part of the inner
storehouse that makes up languageof each speaker.‖ (Saussure)

We can visualize a word as the center of

a constellation around which spring other
words. These relations are unpredictable.
Associations that are called up in one
person may not occur in the mind of
another. Since it is psychological, it is
also subject to individual vagaries and
governed by the specific factors
governing the individual‘s speech
behavior, Paradigmatic relations are
unpredictable, free,
dynamic and idiosyncratic, comparable to la parole. It was the Danish linguist Lois Hjelmslev who suggested the
term ‗paradigmatic‘ for de Saussure‘s‘ ‗associative relations.

Langue and Parole

Introduction: - The major contribution of Ferdinand de Saussure to linguistics can be summed up as

providing the basic groundwork of fundamental concepts; his definition of the ‗linguistic sign‘; his explanation of
the distinction between concrete and abstract linguistic units; distinction between descriptive (synchronic) and
historical (diachronic), study of language, and so on. He was under the influence of the new scientific
temperament and followed the principles of Durkheim who said that ‗we have social facts that can be studied
scientifically when we consider them from an aspect that is independent of their individual manifestations‘. This
attitude helped the shaping of the structuralist approach.

De Saussure put forward the concepts of La langue, La Parole and Le Language.

Le langage denotes a host of heterogeneous traits that a speaker possesses, such as his ability to produce speech
acquired through heredity, his inherent ability to speak and the external factors that trigger and stimulate speech.
It encompasses such factors as physical, physiological and psychological. Most significantly, it belongs to both
the individual and society. Speech occupies a less important place in Le Langage. The latter‘ is, therefore, of
greater interest to the anthropologist and the biologist.

La langue is more directly indicative of ability to produce speech, a kind of ‗institutionalized element‘ of the
community‘s collective consciousness. Every member of the community shares it, and because of this they are in
a position to understand each other. Through langue they share the common properties of speech. ‗If one took
away what was idiosyncratic or innovational, langue would remain. Langue, by definition, is stable and
systematic, society conveys the regularities of langue to the child so that he becomes able to function as a
member of the speech community (Wilkins).

La langue is a collective pattern which exists as ‗a sum of impressions deposited in the brain of each
individual., like a dictionary of which identical copies have been distributed to each individual... it exists in
each individual, yet it is common to all‘.

La langue is a repository of signs which each speaker has received from the other speakers of the community. It
is passive. It is a set of conventions received by us all, ready-made from the community.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

La Parole: By contrast la parole is active and denotes the actual speech act of the individual. We can
better understand it by considering each act of speaking as a unique event. It is unique because it reflects the
unstable, changeable relationship between the languages, the precise contextual elements triggering particular
utterances, and personal factors. Thus each particular speech act is characterized by the personality, nature and
several other external forces governing both the production and reception of a speech act.There is a great deal
that is particular, individual, personal and idiosyncratic about la parole as opposed to la langue which
emphasizes speech as the common act of behavior,‗given that there is a good deal that is idiosyncratic or not
fully institutionalized, parole cannot be stable and systematic‘ (Wilkins). Parole gives the data from which
statements about langue are made; parole is not collective but individual, momentary and heterogeneous.

As Francis P. Dinneen points out ―when we hear la parole of another community, we perceive the noises made,
but not the social fact of language. We cannot connect the sounds produced and the social facts with which the
other speech associates the sounds. When we hear la parole within our own community, we perceive the sounds
as associated with social facts, according to a set of rules. These rules, which can be called the convention, or
grammar, of the language are habits that education has imposed on us. They have the property of being general
throughout the community. That is why all the speakers can understand each other.
La Langue La Parole

It is stable and institutionalized It is mobile and personal.

It is passive It is active.
It is a social fact and general for the
It is individual and idiosyncratic.
community.
It contains the negative limits on what a
It does not put any such limits.
speaker must say.
It is sum of properties shared by all speakers of It contains infinite number of individual
a community. properties.
A scientific study can only be based on La
It is not amenable to scientific study.
langue
It is an abstraction. It is concrete manifestation.

It is a collective instrument. It is not a collective instrument.

It is a set of conventions and habits handeddown to

It is diverse and variegated.
next generation readymade.

It is language as a speaker is expected to use. It is language in actual use.

It is not subject to social and individual
It is susceptible to social and other pressure.
pressure.
It is fixed. It is free.

It is a potential form of language. It is an actualized form of language.

The main points of distinction between La Langue and La Parole can be summed up as follows.

The contribution Saussure had on language was revolutionary. His work had a profound influence on many
aspects of linguistics. Lastly the following statement from Benevensite will reflect his contribution: "a forerunner
in doctrines which in the post fifty years have transformed the theory of language, he has opened us
unforgettable vistas on the highest and mysterious faculty of man… he has contributed to the advent of formal
thought in the sciences of society and culture and to the founding of a general semiology". There is not a single
general theory which doesn't mention him name.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Chomsky‟s Concept of Competence & Performance

A distinction developed by Noam Chomsky beginning in his 1965 book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in
which he outlines what he believes the goals of Linguistics should be.

A quote from the book:

Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech
community, who know its (the speech community's) language perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and
errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of this language in actual performance.
(Chomsky, 1965, p. 3)
Chomsky argued that linguists should study only the underlying representations of language, and specifically of
their own language (he believed that until linguists understand their own language, they cannot understand
language in general; this is why he devoted so much of his career to the analysis of English syntax.) In order to
illustrate that this is not a flawed knowledge (in native speakers) the way that he believed naturally occurring
data to be, he created a distinction between what speakers know and what they might say.

Competence is the knowledge you (subconsciously) possess about how to speaka language.

Performance is your real-world linguistic output. Performance may accurately reflect competence, but it also may
include speech errors due to slips of the tongue or, as Chomsky points out in the quote above, external factors
such as memory problems, etc.

To understand this distinction, it is helpful to to think about a time when you've made some sort of error in your
speech. For example, let's say you are a native speaker of English and utter the following:

We swimmed in the ocean this weekend.

As a proficient speaker, it isn't that you don't know that the past tense of swim is swam, you've just mistakenly
applied the regular rule to an irregular verb. You're unlikely to make this kind of error more than a small portion
of the time, and may never say "swimmed" again. Your competence is fine - you know how to conjugate
irregular English verbs; it is your performance that has let you down.

Though linguists have since realized that competence is not the only thing worth studying in Linguistics (thanks
to contributions of linguists like William Labov, who popularized sociolinguistics), but the distinction remains
useful, primarily because it allows those studying language to differentiate between a speech error and not
knowing something about a language. Linguists use this distinction to illustrate the intuitive difference between
accidentally saying swimmed and the fact that a child or non-proficient speaker of English may not know that the
past tense of swim is swam and say swimmed consistently.

Descriptive and Prescriptive Linguistics

Descriptive Linguistics: - In the study of language, description, or descriptive linguistics, is the work of objectively
analyzing and describing how language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past) by a group of people in a speech
community. All scholarly research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other sciences, its aim is to observe the linguistic
world as it is, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be. Modern descriptive linguistics is based
on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Leonard Bloomfield and others. Linguistic
description is often contrasted with linguistic prescription, which is found especially in education and in publishing.
Prescription seeks to define standard language forms and give advice on effective language use, and can be thought of
as a presentation of the fruits of descriptive research in a learnable form, though it also draws on more subjective
aspects of language aesthetics. Prescription and description are complementary, but have different priorities and
sometimes are seen to be in conflict. Descriptivism is the belief that description is more significant or important to
teach, study, and practice than prescription.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
information about a language in its current Accurate description of real speech is a difficult problem, and
linguists have often been reduced to approximations. Almost all linguistic theory has its origin in practical
problems of descriptive linguistics. Phonology (and its theoretical developments, such as the phoneme) deals
with the function and interpretation of sound in language. Syntax has developed to describe the rules concerning
how words relate to each other in order to form sentences. Lexicology collects "words" and their derivations and
transformations: it has not given rise to much generalized theory.

An extreme "mentalist" viewpoint denies that the linguistic description of a language can be done by anyone but
a competent speaker. Such speakers have internalized something called "linguistic competence", which gives
them the ability to extrapolate correctly from their experience new but correct expressions, and to reject
unacceptable expressions.

A linguistic description is considered descriptively adequate if it achieves one or more of the following goals of
descriptive linguistics:

1. A description of the phonology of the language in question.

2. A description of the morphology of words belonging to that language.
3. A description of the syntax of well-formed sentences of that language.
4. A description of lexical derivations.
5. A documentation of the vocabulary, including at least one thousand entries.
6. A reproduction of a few genuine texts.

Prescriptive Linguistics: -Prescriptive linguistics denotes normative practices onsuch aspects of language use as
spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and
politically correct. Its aims may be to establish a standard language, to teach what is perceived within a particular
society to be correct forms of language, or to advise on effective communication. If usage preferences are
conservative, prescription might (appear to) be resistant to language change; if the usage preferences are radical,
prescription may produce neologisms.

Prescriptive approaches to language, concerned with how the prescriptivist recommends language should be
used, are often contrasted with the alternative approach of descriptive linguistics, which observes and records
how language actually is used. The basis of linguistic research is text (corpus) analysis and field studies, both of
which are descriptive activities; but description includes each researcher‘s observations of his or her own
language usage. Despite apparent opposition, prescription and description can inform each other, since
comprehensive descriptive accounts must take into account speaker attitudes, while some understanding of how
language is actually used is necessary for prescription to be effective.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Phonetics - The Study of Speech Sounds

Introduction

Phonetics has been defined as the science of speech sounds. It is scientific study of the production,
transmission, and reception of speech sound produced by human beings. In speaking trial listening a complex
of activities is involved: there is the production of speech which is the result of simultaneous activities of several
body organs.

These activities are aimed at creating disturbances in the air. The inhaled air acts as source of energy setting the
outside air vibrating so that the sound thus generated is carried along to the ears of the listener. The auditory
process is set in motion which is again a complicated process involving auditory organs; perception of speech
segments which involves discarding the non-significant features from the significant or distinctive features and
perceiving only those that are meaningful. It is like retrieving a small visual image from a crowd of intricate
details. But the brain can quickly decode the incoming signals that have been encoded by the speakers. ‗Physical
energy in the form of sensory nerve impulses reaches the brain‘, the brain circuitry is understood to organise
them into percepts which are the basis of recognition. Obviously, a complex of multiple factors in the form of the
listeners‘ interest, his social background, intellectual level, past experience and other parameters play an active
and significant role in the perception level, and the interpretation is made accordingly.

We thus observe that speech act encompasses intricate movements and activities that occur on different planes,
some of them simultaneously and at incredible speed. We are so used to speaking in a natural effortless manner,
that we hardly give attention to the complex natureof speech production and speech perception.

Major branches of Phonetics

Acoustic Phonetics

Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds such as frequency and amplitude in
their transmission. Acoustic phoneticians analyze the speech waves with the help of instruments, attempt to
describe the physical properties of the stream of sound issues forth from the mouth of a speaker.

It is in the field of acoustic phonetics that the most sulking developments have taken place since the Second
World War. Complex sound waves produced in speech can be analyzed into their component frequencies and
relative amplitudes. Considerable progress has also been made in speech-synthesis. Acoustic analysis has
confirmed (if confirmation was needed) that speech is not made up of a sequence of discrete sounds. The
articulatory features of rounding of voice, of nasality, of obstruction and of friction can also be identified
acoustically. Acoustic phonetics achieved a good deal of success in matters of the study of the n vowels, but
regarding consonants it has not reached final conclusions.

usage‘. For Saussure, Historical considerations are irrelevant to

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
Auditory Phonetics
Phonetics studies how speech sounds are heard and perceived. This requires a close study of the psychology of
perception on the one hand, and the mechanism of the neuro-muscular circuitry on the other.

Hearing is a very intricate process; it implies ‗interpreting the physical description of actual or proposed
signals in terms of the auditory sensations which the signals would create if impressed upon the ear‘. Acoustic
signals generate a ‗complex chain of physical disturbances within the auditory system‘. The brain receives
signal about these physical disturbances; inthe brain are caused other disturbances - physical counterparts of the
sensations. It is necessary to establish correlation between the auditory signals and their interpretation in terms of
the disturbances in the brain.

Articulatory Phonetics

This branch of phonetics recognises that there is speech producing mechanism in human beings. ‗The
‗apparatus‘ that produces speech sounds is situated within the human body. Man uses various organs for speaking
which already serve other biological needs. Lips, teeth, tongue, hard palate, soft palate, trachea, lungs - all these
organs used in speech production have different basic biological functions. In the process of cultural evolution,
man devised ways of utilizing these organs and parts thereof (such as the tip, blade, front, and centre, back of
the tongue along with the corresponding areas or points in the roof of mouth or hard palate) for verbal
communication.

Besides these the airstream that goes in and out of the lungs forms the basis of speech; that is, speech is based on
the outgoing air stream. Articulatory phonetics studies how the outgoing airstream is regulated along the vocal
tract to form various speech sounds.

Articulators

Articulator is a vocal organ that takes part in the production of a speech sound. Such organs are of two types:
those that can move, such as the tongue, lips, etc. (active articulators), and those that remain fixed, such as the
teeth, the hard palate, etc. (passive articulators)

(a) Active Articulators

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
The main role of the active articulators is to actively interfere with the outgoing airstream and modify it to
produce various types of speech sounds. This is done either by approximating (forming a constriction) or coming
into full contact with the passive articulators (forming complete stoppage). We have seen the functioning of the
larynx, glottis and vocal cords in earlier sections.

Tongue: - The most active of articulators is the tongue. It shows an amazing range of adjustments and
movements mainly because it is made of two groups of muscles, intrinsic
ones are fibers of the longitudinal,
transverse and vertical lingual
muscles. These muscles are within
the tongue and mainly responsible for
changes in its shape.

The tongue has been divided into the

parts on the surface along its length i-
e tip of the tongue, blade of the
tongue, front of the tongue, back of
thetongue and root of the tongue.

The sides of the tongue can also be

used in speech, these are known as
margin. For lateral sounds the sides
are raised enough for theairstream to
create turbulence
and escape continuously. The tip can be raised and curled backwards letting the passing airstream to vibrate it.
This produces retroflex sounds of various types.

Lower lip: - The lower lip is a mobile articulator which can be used for many oral configurations. With the upper
lip it can form various degrees of rounding that produce different vowels. It can bring about complete oral
occlusion with the upper lip which produces bilabial sounds, plosives and in many languages‘ fricatives also.
When the lower lip comes into contact with upper teeth, we hear fricative sounds (labio-dental).

(b) Passive Articulators

Passive articulators cannot be moved about, but perform a very crucial role in speech production. The active
organs approximate them, i.e. come close enough to affect the shape of the outgoing column of air, or form a
complete closure by coming into full contact with them.

These organs are mostly located in the upper part of the mouth, beginning in front with the upper lip, upper teeth,
the alveolar ridge, hard palate, the soft palate, just behind the hard palate and the back wall of the throat
(pharynx).

Upper lip: - Though upper lip is not a rigid organ and can be moved, in speech production it is not used as a
mobile articulator; rather the lower lip reaches up to create various constrictions with it. Therefore, it has been
classified as a passive articulator.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes
Upper teeth: - The row of upper teeth functions as the passive articulator. Tongue-tip and blade as well as the
lower lip form constriction with them. The active organs can do so either with the edges of the teeth or the back
of them. Dental class of sounds is produced in this manner. Upper teeth are also involved in the production of the
fricative sounds, called labio- dentals in which the lower lip approximates them to form a slit through which the
air escapes creating friction noise.

Alveolar ridge: - Just behind the upper teeth is located alveolar ridge. The mobile speech organs - various parts
of the tongue reach it to form either a narrow stricture or a complete closure. English /0/ in thin and /ð/ in this are
fricatives.

Hard Palate: - Behind the alveolar ridge begins the hard palate which forms the major part of the roof of the
mouth. It is made of the horizontal plates of bone which terminate in the soft palate. ‗Some part of both the hard
and the soft palates serves as a point of contact or near-contact for the tongue in the production of a number of
speech sounds‘. It can be divided into parts or areas where the tongue makes contact. Phonetic quality is
changed according to the point at which the hard palate is approximated by the tongue. These sounds are
recognised as palatal. These are further classified according to which part of the tongue comes into contact with
the precise palatal area. For example, we can produce palato-alveolar sounds by bringing the tip of the tongue to
touch the extreme front of the hard palate or the place lying between the gum-ridge and the palate. Alveo-palatal
area lies further back of the region just mentioned; palatal the slope of the hard palate and domal is the dome of it.

Soft Palate: - This is recognised as the fixed articulator though it can he moved, being a soft and flexible organ.
The principal action of soft place consists of opening the naso-pharyngeal cavity by lowering itself. When it is
lowered, the oral passage is closed off and the outgoing airstream passes through the nose, sounds produced in
this manner are identified as nasals.
/m/, /n/, /h/ and the nasalised vowels are of this type. For opening the oral passage and allowing the air a free
passage through it, the soft palate is raised. Soft palate thus acts as a valve. The back of the
tongue makes contact with the
velum to produce either frictional
sounds or stops. These stops are
known as velar stops /k/, /g/.
Retroflex sounds can also be
produced by bringing the
underside of the tongue tip to
touch the velum.

Uvula: - The soft palate

terminates into a piece of flesh
which dangles over the pharyngeal
passage. This is called uvula. It is
a ‗small flexible appendage
hanging down from the posterior
edge of the velum. It can be
vibrated by the outgoing breath-
stream, to produce uvular sound,
particularly uvular trills. Some
languages use these sounds as
phonemes.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Pharynx: - The posterior wall of the pharynx is used for producing speech. In the front are the base of the
tongue, the palate, and the two openings leading to the nasal and oral passages. The pharynx serves as a
resonator for the voice. Widening of the pharynx promotes resonance and makes the tones full, dark, strong and
resonant; narrowing tends to make them thin, sharp, dampened, and throaty‘ . Besides, the root of the tongue
can also be madeto come into contact with the pharyngeal wall and produce certain types of fricatives and stops.

Processes of Speech Production

Labialization: - This is a process in which the lips play an active part in various ways. They come together to
form various stages or degrees of rounding which is a crucial factor in producing back vowels /u/, /o/, as in shoe,
shore, and .a. The two lips are joined together for the pronunciation of the plosive sounds /p/, /b/; and the voiced
nasal continuant /m/. The lower lip is raised approximate the edge of the upper teeth for the fricatives /f/, /v/. For
the semi-vowel /w/ again there is a noticeable lip-rounding.

Palatalization: - In palatalization the tongue approximates the hard palate leaving only a narrow space through
which the airstream passes producing friction noise; or the tongue may form complete occlusion and then
gradually withdraw, creating a turbulence of air due to the breath-stream escaping through the space slowly being
allowed to form. This is how the sound in jar /dʒɑː:/ and chair /tʃeə/ is pronounced.

Velarization: - Velar sounds are produced by this process. The back of the tongue either approximates or forms
total occlusion for articulating certain types of stop and fricative sounds. The velar sounds are /k/ and /g/ in
English. /h/ is a velar nasal heard in such words as king, sing and conquer.

Glottalization: - The space between the vocal cords is called glottis. If the vocal cords are brought together and
released with a ‗popping‘ action, the resultant sound will be heard as a ‗glottal stop‘.

Nasalization: - This is a process whereby we produce nasal sounds or nasalised vowels. In articulating these
sounds, the soft palate is lowered to close off the oral passage and direct the airstream through nasal cavity. In
another case, the air is allowed to go into both the oral and the nasal cavities, but the active articulators check it in
the mouth. For /m/ two lips come together to form a closure, and channelise the air flow, through the nose.
Similarly, for /n/ the tip of the tongue comes into contact with the back of the upper teeth and forms a closure.
‗Although the vocal tract is blocked at one point, the breath-stream flows outward through what has been called a
secondary aperture consisting of the nasal airway Nasals are also classed as resonants or continuants.

Voicing: - It is an articulatory process in which the vocal flaps are set in vibration by the outgoing column of air.
During voicing, the vocal cords are brought close enough to hold them taut and the airstream vibrates them in
rapid succession. There is as a result, quick opening and closing of these vocal cords several times a second.
Sounds can be produced without the vibration of the vocal cords. Such sounds are called unvoiced or voiceless
sounds; sounds produced with the cords in vibration are called voiced sounds. See consonant chart for voiced
and voiceless consonants.
Manner of Articulation

The manner or way in which the outgoing air-stream is interfered with determines the manner of articulation.
The airstream may completely be stopped and released with force producing a plosive or stop sound. The
occlusion may occur anywhere between larynx and the two lips; or the passage of air may be constricted enough
for it to produce audible friction. The sound thus produced is called fricative. According to the manner of
articulation sounds are classified into smaller classes as stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, laterals, trills or flaps
and semivowels. These constitute the larger class of consonants. For the complete description both the point/place
and manner of articulation are taken into consideration.

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Introduction to Linguistics Notes

Description of Speech Sounds

Speech Sounds are divided into two main groups: (1) consonants, and (2) vowels.

Consonant:

A sound that results from the passage of air through restrictions of the oral cavity is called
consonant. The description of a consonant will include five kinds of
information.

Nature of the Most speech sounds and all normal English sounds are made with an
Air-stream aggressive pulmonic air-stream, e.g., the air pushed out of the lungs.

A consonant may be voiced or voice-less, depending upon whether the vocal

The State of Glottis
cords remain wide apart (voice-less) or in a state of vibration (voiced).

While describing consonants we have to mention whether they are oral sounds
The Position of the
(produced with soft palate raised, thus blocking the nasal passage of air) or
Soft Palate
nasal sounds (produced with the soft
palate lowered).

In the description of consonants, we have also to discuss the various articulators

The Articulators involved. In the production of a consonant the active articulator is moved towards
Involved the passive articulator. The chief points of articulation are bilabial, labio-dental,
dental,
alveolar, post-alveolar, palato-alveolar, retroflex, palatal, velar, uvular, and glottal. In the case of some
consonantal sounds, there can be a secondary place of articulation in addition to the primary. Thus, in the so-
called dark /l/, in addition to the partial alveolar contact, there is an essential raising of the back of the tongue
towards the velum (Velarization); or, again some post-alveolar articulator of ‗r‘ (r) as in red are accompanied by
slight lip-rounding (labialization). We can classify consonants according to the place of articulation.

By the nature of stricture we mean the manner of articulation. This stricture of

The Nature of obstruction made by the organs may be total, intermittent, partial, or may merely
Stricture constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction.
When the stricture is that of a complete closure, the active and passive articulators make a firm contact with
each other, and prevent the passage of air between them. For instance, in the production of /p/ as in pin and /b/
as in bin, the lips make a total closure.

The stricture may be such that air passes between the active and passive articulators intermittently. Such a
stricture is called intermittent closure, and involves the vibration of the active articulator against the passive.
The Scottish
/r/ as in rat is an example. The intermittent closure may be of such a short duration that the active articulator
strikes against the passive articulator once only. The English /r/ in the word very is an example; the tip of the
tongue (active articulator) makes one tap against the teeth- ridge (passive articulator).

In the partial stricture, the air passes between the active and passive articulators continuously, but with some
difficulty. The sounds thus produced are clear /1/ and dark /1/ in late, and hill, the clear and the dark ‗1‘
respectively.

And lastly, the stricture may be such that the air, while passing between the active and passive articulators,
produces audible friction. /f, v, q, ð, s, z, f, з, h/ in English are examples of this kind of stricture. Or the air may
pass without friction. Examples are /w/ in wet, /j/ in yes and flap /r/ as in butter. A stricture which involves
audible friction, can be called a stricture of close approximation, whereas one which involves no such friction
can be called a stricture of open approximation.

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 Labi Glotta
Alveolar Palatal
Place Bilabial o- Dental Palato- Vela
of Alveola r
Introduction to Linguistics Notes
Artic Upper lip
Dent
Teeth
alveolar
r
Hard palate and Glottis (vocal
al (teeth) ridge front of tongue
ulatio and lower and tip Soft
n and tip and Hard palat co
lip Lower of
blade of palate e and
lip and tongue
Manne tongue and tip back
r of upper
of of
Articul teet
h tongu tongu
ation
e e
Plosive
Voiceles p : Pen t : k : Cat
s Two
Complete
closure of
Voiced b : Best d : Do g : Go
the air
passage
and
released
afterwards
suddenly.
Nasal
Voiceles
Complet s
e oral
closure Voiced m : Man n : No ŋ : Singer
while
nasal
passage
is open.
Fricativ Voiceles f : Φ : Thing s : See ʃ : She h :
es s Fool Har
r :
Complet Voiced v : ð : This Run ʒ : Pleasure,
e closure Voice,
and slow z :
Zoo
release
Lateral
Voiceles
Complete s
closure in
the center Voiced l :
of the vocal Left
tract and
the air
passes
along the
side(s) of
the tongue.
Affricat
Voiceles tʃ : Chair
e
s
Complete
closure of Voiced dʒ : Jug
the air
passage
and
released
afterwards
slowly.
Semi-
Vowels Voiceles w : Wet
s
Airflow
doesn't Voiced j :

Prepared by: Osama Amin (English Lecturer in GDC Bakhshali, Mardan) (03068191492) Page 30
 Introduction to Linguistics Notes
stop, Yes
phoneticall
y similar to
a vowel.

Prepared by: Osama Amin (English Lecturer in GDC Bakhshali, Mardan) (03068191492) Page 31
 Classification of Consonants

Consonantal sounds are classified on the basis of (i) voicing, (ii) place of articulation, and (iii) manner of articulation.

Voicing: - At the articulatory level, a voiced sound is one in which the vocal cords vibrate, and a voiceless sound is one
in which they do not. The voiced sounds in English are /b, d, g, v. р, z, dʒ, m, n, ŋ, l, r, w, j/. All the vowels and semi-
vowels are voiced sounds, whereas among the consonants some are voiced and some voiceless. See consonant chart.

Place of Articulation

The place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in
the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator (typically some part of the tongue), and a passive
location (typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants are divided as given in the above table on the basis
of the articulatory points at which the articulators actually touch, or are at their closest.

The Manner of Articulation

According to the manner of articulation, which describes the type of obstruction caused by the narrowing or closure of
the articulators, the consonants can be divided into Plosives, Nasals,
Fricatives, Laterals, Affricates and semi-vowels or frictionless continuants.

Plosives In the production of a plosive, the oral and nasal passages arc closed simultaneously.
The active and passive articulators come in contact with each other forming a stricture of complete
closure and preventing the air from escaping through the mouth. The soft palate is raised and thus the nasal passage is
also blocked. The air behind the oral closure is compressed, and when the active articulator is removed from contact with
passive one, the air escapes with an explosion. Plosives are also known as Stops. See consonant chart for elaboration
and examples.

In a nasal consonant, the breath stream is interrupted at some point in the oral cavity or at the lips,
Nasals while being allowed to enter the nose and create resonance there.
Thus a nasal is produced by a stricture of complete oral closure. The soft palate is lowered and theair passes through the
nose. All nasal sounds are voiced. See consonant chart for elaboration and
examples.

In the production of a fricative consonant the stricture is one of close approximation. The active
Fricatives articulator and the passive articulator are so close to each other that passage between them is very
narrow and the air passes through it
with audible friction. See consonant chart for elaboration and examples.

Laterals are produced by a stricture of complete closure in the center of the vocaltract, but the air
Laterals
passes out every one or both side of the tongue. See consonant
chart for elaboration and examples.

If the stop is not held for any appreciable time and released slowly, we get anaffricate rather
Laterals
than a plosive. See consonant chart for elaboration and examples.

A semi-vowel is a vowel glide functioning as a consonant i.e., as the C

element in Semi-vowels syllable structure. In terms of articulation semi-vowels are
like vowels, but they don‘t behave like vowels. Semi-vowels are never stable; they can
never be pronounced by themselves. They are sounds in transition. These are also called semi-consonants too. See
consonant chart for elaboration and examples.

Vowels

Vowel is a sound in spoken language, pronounced with an open

vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point
above the glottis. .Vowels may be defined with an open
approximation without any obstruction, partial or complete, in the
air passage. They are referred to as voiced in phonetics. They can be
described in terms of three variables:

(1) Height of tongue

(2) Part of the tongue which is raised or lowered

(3) Lip-rounding.

In order to describe the vowels, we usually draw three points in the horizontal-axes: front, central and back, referring to
the part of the tongue which is the highest. So we have

(i) Front vowels: During the production of which the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate. For
example, /i, i:, e, æ/ in English as in sit, seat, set, and sat respectively.

(ii) Back vowels: During the production of which the back of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate. For
example /a: u: / in English as in cart, cot, caught, book and tool respectively.

(iii) Central vowels: During the production of which the central part of the tongue (the part between the front and
the back) is raised. For example, /ə, ə:, Λ/ in English as in about, earth and but respectively.

To describe the vowel sound we mention whether it is open or close, half-close or half-open, frontor back or central,
long or short, whether the tongue is tense or lax while the vowel is being
pronounced, and whether lips are spread, neutral, open rounded, or close rounded. All English vowels are voiced. So, for
every vowel, we must state that it is voiced.

Diphthongs

From the point of view of their quality,

vowel sounds are of two types:
monophthong and
diphthong. Monophthongs are
pure vowels and
diphthongs are gliding vowels. „A
vowel that does not change in quality‟
may be called a monophthong; and a
vowel sound with a continually
changing quality may be called a
diphthong.

A pure vowel is one for

which the organs of speech remain in a given position for an appreciable period of time.

A diphthong is a vowel sound consisting of a deliberate, i.e. intentional glide, the organs of speech starting in the
position of one vowel and immediately moving inthe direction of another vowel.

A diphthong, moreover, consists of a single syllabic––that is, the vowel-glide must be performed with a single impulse
of the breath; if there is more than one impulse of breath, the ear perceivestwo separate syllables.

A diphthong, thus, always occupies one syllabic. If two adjacent vowels form the nuclei of two successive syllables, they
are not a diphthong. For example the vowels in bay, boy, and buy are diphthongs, but the vowels in doing are two
different vowels since they belong to two different syllables.

One end of the diphthong is generally more prominent than the other. Diphthongs are termed ‗decrescendo‘ of
FALLING if the first element is louder or more prominent than the second, and ‗crescendo‘ or RISING if the second
element is louder or more prominent than the first. All the English diphthongs are falling diphthongs, because in them the
first clement is louder or more prominent than the second clement.

Diphthongs are represented in phonetic transcription by a sequence of two letters, the first showing the position of
the organs of speech at the beginning of the glide, the second their position at the end. In the case of the ‗closing‘
diphthongs the second letter indicates the point toward which glide (movement) is made.
M.A English Study Material Linguistics

Part of tongue which isthe Opening betweenthe

Vowel Length Height of Tongue Position of lips
highest jaws

/i/ Bid Short Vowel Nearly Half Close Hinder part of the front Spread Narrow to medium

/e/ Get Short Vowel Midway between Half Close & Half Open Front Spread Medium

/æ/ Bag Short Vowel Midway between Half Open & Open Front Spread Medium to wide

/ɔ/ Dog Short Vowel Fully open Back Open lip rounding Medium to wide
/ʌ/ Flood Short Vowel Half Open Fore part of the back Neutral Wide

/ʊ/ Book Short Vowel Just above half close Fore part of the back Fairly close lip rounding Medium

/ə/ Admit Very Short Vowel Midway between Half Close & Half Open Central Neutral Medium

/i:/ Tree Long Vowel Nearly Close Front Spread Narrow to Medium

/U:/ Move Long Vowel Nearly Close Back Close lip rounding Medium

/ɑ:/ Pass Long Vowel Fully Open Back Neutral Medium to wide

/ɔ:/ Form Between open & Close lip Medium to fairly

Long Vowel Between Half Open & Open Back
rounding wide
/ɜ:/ Learn Long Vowel Little below the half close position Central Neutral Narrow

English Vowels Chart

Prepared by: Osama Amin English Lecturer GDC Bakhshali Mardan 40 03068191492
Phonetic Transcription

Phonetic transcription is a device in which we use several symbols in such a way that one symbol always represents one
sound. It is also known as phonetic notation; it is an ‗attempt on paper, a record of the sounds that speakers make.‘ By
looking at an English word in its written form one cannot be sure of its pronunciation, whereas by looking at it in
phonetic transcription one can be. Most of our phonetic transcriptions are phonemic transcriptions, that is, each symbol
represents a phoneme, a distinct sound unit in language. A pair of square brackets [ ] indicates a phonetic transcription:
Phonemic transcriptions are enclosed within slant bars / /.

The Usefulness of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The IPA gives us a uniform international medium of studying and transcribing the sounds of all the languages of the
world. Many languages in the world have no orthographic (written) form at all. It has been made possible to study such
languages with this alphabet. In other words, the IPA is ‗a precise and universal‘ means (i.e. valid for all languages) of
writing down the spoken forms of utterances as they are spoken without reference to their orthographic representation,
grammatical status, or meaning.

As regards English, the IPA helps us in establishing and maintaining international intelligibility and uniformity in the
pronunciation of English. With the help of the IPA we can easily teach the pronunciation of English or of any other
language. The IPA has contributed a lot in the teaching and description of language. The teachers and learners of English
can improve, and standardize their pronunciation and can overcome the confusion created by the spellings with the help
of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Received Pronunciation (RP)

A pronunciation of British English, originally based on the speech of the upper class of southeastern England and
characteristic of the English spoken at the public schools and at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Until recently it
was the standard form of English used in British broadcasting.

RP as a Social Accent of English

Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the instantly recognisable accent often described as ‗typically British‘.
Popular terms for this accent, such as ‗The Queen‘s English‘, ‗Oxford English‘ or ‗BBC English‘ are all a little
misleading. The Queen, for instance, speaks an almost unique form of English, while the English we hear at Oxford
University or on the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent.

RP is an accent, not a dialect, since all RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard
grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-
specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker‘s
geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background.

Well-known but not widely used

RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of spoken English in the world, yet recent
estimates suggest only 2% of the UK population speak it. It has a negligible presence in Scotland and Northern Ireland
and is arguably losing its prestige status in Wales. It should properly, therefore, be described as an English, rather than a
British accent. As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is the accent on which
phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is widely used (in competition with General American) for
teaching English as a foreign language. RP is included here as a case study, not to imply it has greater merit than any
other English accent, but because it provides us with an extremely familiar model against which comparisons with other
accents may be made.

What‟s in the name?

RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the
English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement even
within educated society regarding ‗recommended‘ forms. The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in 1869 by the
linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite after the
phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924). The definition
of ‗received‘ conveys its original meaning of ‗accepted‘ or ‗approved‘ — as in ‗received wisdom‘. We can trace the
origins of RP back to the public schools and universities of nineteenth-century Britain — indeed Daniel Jones initially
used the term Public School Pronunciation to describe this emerging, socially exclusive accent. Over the course of that
century, members of the ruling and privileged classes increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton,
Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns - based loosely
on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) — soon came to be associated
with ‗The Establishment‘ and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London.

Broadcaster‟s choice

RP probably received its greatest impetus, however, when Lord Reith, the first General Manager of the BBC, adopted it
in 1922 as a broadcasting standard - hence the origins of the term BBCEnglish. Reith believed Standard English, spoken
with an RP accent, would be the most widely understood variety of English, both here in the UK and overseas. He was
also conscious that choosing a regional accent might run the risk of alienating some listeners. To a certain extent
Reith‘s decision was understandable, and his attitude only reflected the social climate at the time. But since RP was the
preserve of the aristocracy and expensive public schools, it represented only a very small social minority. This policy
prevailed at the BBC for a considerable time and probably contributed to the sometimes negative perception of regional
varieties of English.

There‟s more than one RP

A speaker who uses numerous very localized pronunciations is often described as having a ‗broad‘ or ‗strong‘ regional
accent, while terms such as ‗mild‘ or ‗soft‘ are applied to speakers whose speech patterns are only subtly different from
RP speakers. So, we might describe one speaker as having a broad Glaswegian accent and another as having a mild
Scottish accent. Such terms are inadequate when applied to Received Pronunciation, although as with any variety of
English, RP encompasses a wide variety of speakers and should not be confused with the notion of ‗posh‘ speech. The
various forms of RP can be roughly divided into three categories. Conservative RP refers to a very traditional variety
particularly associated with older speakers and the aristocracy. Mainstream RP describes an accent that we might
consider extremely neutral in terms of signals regarding age, occupation or lifestyle of the speaker. Contemporary RP
refers to speakers using features typical of younger RP speakers. All, however, are united by the fact they do not use any
pronunciation patterns that allow us to make assumptions about where they are from in the UK.

RP today

Like any other accent, RP has also changed over the course of time. The voices we associate with early BBC broadcasts,
for instance, now sound extremely old-fashioned to most. Just as RP is constantly evolving, so our attitudes towards the
accent are changing. For much of the twentieth century, RP represented the voice of education, authority, social status
and economic power. The period immediately after the Second World War was a time when educational and social
advancement suddenly became a possibility for many more people. Those who were able to take advantage of these
opportunities — be it in terms of education or career — often felt under considerable pressure to conform linguistically
and thus adopt the accent of the establishment or at least modify their speech towards RP norms. In recent years,
however, as a result of continuedsocial change, virtually every accent is represented in all walks of life to which people
aspire — sport, the arts, the media, business, even former strongholds of RP England, such as the City, Civil Service and
academia. As a result, fewer younger speakers with regional accents consider it necessary to adapt their speech to the
same extent. Indeed many commentators even suggest that younger RP speakers often go to great lengths to disguise their
middle-class accent by incorporating regional features into their speech.
 English Diphthongs

Position of Tongue i-e thetongue

Type of starts at position and moves
Diphthong Diphthong Position of lips Opening between the jaws
towards position (Vowel Glide)

/eɪ/ Age Glide from /e/ to /ɪ/ Spread and more open at the startthan at Medium at the start becomes narrowtowards
Closing Narrow
the end end

/əʊ/ Go Glide from /ə/ to /ʊ/ Un-rounded in the beginningslight Medium at the start becomes narrowtowards
Closing Narrow
rounded towards end end

/ aɪ/ Cry Closing Wide Glide from / a/ to / ɪ / Neutral to spread Wide at the start and then becomes less

/aʊ/ Now Glide from / a/ to / ʊ / Neutral at the beginning and

Closing Wide Wide at the start and then becomes less
weekly rounded at the end

/ɔɪ/ Boy Glide from / ɔ/ to / ɪ / Open rounded at the start and

Closing Wide Wide at the start and then becomes less
neutral at the end

/ɪə/ Dear Centering Glide from /ɪ/ to /ə/ Neutral Narrow at the start and then increases
Diphthong

Centering
/eə/ Fair Glide from / e / to /ə/ Neutral Fairly Wide
Diphthong

/ʊə/ Poor Centering Glide from / ʊ/ to /ə/ Weekly rounded at the beginning, neutral Medium in the beginning and then
Diphthong at the end increases

Prepared by: Osama Amin English Lecturer GDC Bakhshali Mardan 44 03068191492
Introduction to Linguistics

Phonology - The Pronunciation of English

―Phonology is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language‖. (George
Yule) Phonology is the subfield of linguistics that studies the structure and systematic patterning of sounds in
human language.

What is sound? How and where is it produced from? How is it received by the ears? How and why is one sound
different from the other? ––questions like these are the subject-matter of Phonology

Difference between Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics and phonology are the two fields dedicated to the study of human speech sounds and sound structures.
Both are concerned with the same subject matter or aspect of language, speech sounds, as the audible result of
articulation. We‘ll discuss each one individually and then compare them side by side, which should clear things
up.

Phonetics is about the physical aspect of sounds, it studies the production and the perception of sounds, called
phones. Phonetics has some subcategories, but if not specified, we usually mean the "articulatory phonetics" that
is "the study of the production of speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker". Phonetic
transcriptions are done using the square brackets, [ ].

(a) Phonetics is the basis for phonological analysis

(b) Phonology analyses the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of
language.

(c) Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds

(d) Phonetics studies which sounds are present in a language

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

Phonology is about the abstract aspect of sounds and it studies the phonemes (phonemic transcriptions adopt the
slash / /). Phonology is about establishing what are the phonemes in a given language, i.e. those sounds that can
bring a difference in meaning between two words. A phoneme is a phonic segment with a meaning value, for
example in minimal pairs: bat – pat, had – hat

Phonology is just one of several aspects of language. It is related to other aspects such as phonetics,
morphology, syntax.
Introduction to Linguistics

(a) Phonology is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, and discourse and
orthography design.

(b) Phonology analyses the sound patterns of a particular language by determining which
phonetic sounds are significant, and explaining how these sounds are interpreted by the
native speaker.

(c) Phonology is the study of how sounds are organised and used in natural languages.

(d) The phonological system of a language includes an inventory of sounds and their
features, and pragmatic rules which specify how sounds interact with each other.

(e) Phonology studies how these sounds combine and how they change in combination,
as well as which sounds can contrast to produce differences in meaning (phonology
describes the phones as allophones of phonemes).

Phoneme

A phoneme is a basic element of a spoken language or dialect, from which words in that language or dialect are
analyzed as being built up. The phoneme is defined by the International Phonetic Association as "the smallest
segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances".

Within linguistics there are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be
analyzed in phonemic terms. However a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set (or
equivalence class) of speech sounds (phones) which are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given
language. For example, in English, the "k" sounds in the words kit and skill are not identical but they are
perceived as the same sound by speakers of the language, and are therefore both considered to represent a
single phoneme, /k/. Different speech sounds representing the same phoneme are known as allophones. Thus
phonemes are often considered to provide an underlying representation for words, while speech sounds make up
the corresponding surface form.

Notation of Phoneme: - Phonemes are conventionally placed between slashes intranscription,

whereas speech sounds (phones) are placed between square brackets. Thus
/pʊʃ/ represents a sequence of three phonemes /p/, /ʊ/, /ʃ/ (the word push in StandardEnglish), while [pʰʊʃ]
represents the phonetic sequence of sounds [pʰ] (aspirated "p"), [ʊ], [ʃ](the usual pronunciation of push). The
symbols used for particular phonemes are often taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the same
set of symbols that are most commonly used for phones. A phoneme is a sound or a group of different sounds
perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example is the
English phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such as cat, kit, school, skill. Although most native speakers do not
notice this, in most English dialects the "c/k" sounds in these words are not identical: in cat and kit the sound
is aspirated, while in school and skill it is unaspirated. The words, therefore, contain different speech sounds,
or phones, transcribed [kʰ] for the aspirated form, [k] for the unaspirated one. These different sounds are
Introduction to Linguistics

nonetheless considered to belong to the same phoneme, because if a speaker used one instead of the other, the
meaning of the word would not change: using the aspirated form [kʰ]in skill might sound odd, but the word
would still be recognized. By contrast, some other sounds would cause a change in meaning if substituted: for
example, substitution of thesound [t] would produce the different word still, and that sound must therefore
be considered to represent a different phoneme (the phoneme /t/). This shows that in English,
[k] and [kʰ] are allophones of a single phoneme /k/.

Phone: - It is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the
phonology of a language. It is a speech segment that possesses distinct physical or perceptual properties. It is
the basic unit revealed via phonetic speech analysis

Allophone: - It is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds (or phones) used to pronounce a single
phoneme. For example, [pʰ] (as in pin) and [p] (as in spin) are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in the English
language. Although a phoneme's allophones are all alternative pronunciations for a phoneme, the specific
allophone selected in a given situation is often predictable. Changing the allophone used by native speakers for a
given phoneme in a specific context usually will not change the meaning of a word but the result may sound non-
native or unintelligible. Native speakers of a given language usually perceive one phoneme in their language as a
single distinctive sound in that language and are "both unaware of and even shocked by" the allophone variations
used to pronounce single phonemes.

Assimilation: - It is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound.
This can occur either within a word or between words. In rapid speech, for example, "handbag" is often
pronounced [hæmbæɡ]. As in this example, sound segmentstypically assimilate to a following sound (this is
called regressive or anticipatory assimilation), but they may also assimilate to a preceding one (progressive
assimilation).
While assimilation most commonly occurs between immediately adjacent sounds, it may occur between
sounds separated by others ("assimilation at a distance").

Elision: - Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a
word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided
for euphonic effect.

In English, elision is often unintentional, giving a result that may in some cases be impressionistically described
as "slurred" or "muted." Often, however, the elision is deliberate, as in the use of contractions. Elided elements
are often weak syllables or voiceless consonants. The finest examples of what happens in elision are presented
by such expressions as Jack and Jill, black and white, high and low, wind and rain and bread and butter. These
sound like

[dʒ æk n dʒil] ; [blæk n wait] [hainlðu]; [windnrein] and [brednb^t∂].

Theories of Phonological Analysis

Introduction to Linguistics

The analysis of an utterance into segmental and suprasegmental features is known as phonemic or phonological
analysis. There are several different theories of phonological analysis. Some of these major theories are
discussed below,

(a) Structure and System:

One approach is in terms of what are called structure and system. The phonological units (Phonemes or sounds)
of a language are grouped together to form the various systems and the arrangements of these units in larger
units such as syllables, feet, tone-group, sentence that form the structure of that language. The units that form a
system can be replaced by other units to produce different utterances, while the relations between the different
units present in an utterance constitute a structure. For instance, the English word sack has one syllable, which is
made up of sequence of three phonemes /s/, /ae/ and /k/. The phoneme
/s/ can be replaced by other phonemes /b/,/p/, /t/dз/. /h/, /l/ to give us different words back, pack, tack, jack, hack,
lack. All these items that can be replaced by another at a particular place in a structure are in paradigmatic
relationship and form a system. Similarly,
/ae/ forms a system with other phonemes /i/, /i:/, /e/, /ei/ that can be used as substitutes to give us other words
sick, seek, seek, sake, /k/ also forms a system with the /t/, /d/, /p/, /m/
/ŋ/ that give us the words sat, sad, sap, sam, sang.

The units of phonological analysis have a hierarchy, so that a unit of higher ranks consists ofa sequence of one
or more occurrences of the next lower rank. For example, in English one or more phonemes make up a syllable;
one or more syllables make up a foot (which is the unit of rhythm); one or more feet make up a tone group
(which is the unit of intonation); one or more tone groups make up a sentence. Examples of these phonological
units are given here:

Phoneme /k/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /i/, /e/, etc

Syllable back/bæk/ ago /əigou/ button /b^-tn,/ etc

The cur/few tolls/the knell/of part/ing day/. Here we have five feet. (/A slanting
Foot
bar/ represents a foot boundary)

// If the ‗bride a, grees // the ‗marriage is in‘ January.//. (// represents tone group
Tone group boundary; ‗represents rising tone, and ‗falling
tone,‘ accent (strong or stressed syllable.)
Sentence For example, the sentence given above has two tone groups

(b) Prosodic Analysis:

Prosodic analysis is another aspect of phonology. It is concerned with phonological features like aspiration,
nasalization, labialization, retroflexion and palatalization. The study of supra-segmental features like stress,
rhythm, intonation, etc. also forms a part of prosodic analysis. Examples of a few prosodic features are given
below:

The English word clay /klei/ has an aspirated /k/ in the form of [kh], but the aspiration
Aspiration affects the following /l/ also and devoices it to [1o]. It can therefore be described as /h/
prosody.

The English word sing /siŋ/ has incidental nasalization of the vowel /i/
Nasalization
Introduction to Linguistics

under the influence of the nasal consonant after it. Nasalization can therefore be described asprosody in this kind of
syllable.

The English word quiet /kwait/ has lip-rounding for /k/ also under theinfluence of the
Lip-rounding following /w/. We have here an example of /w/––
prosody.

The English word key /ki:/ has a palatal instead of a velar /k/ underthe influence of
Palatalization
the following /i:/. This can be described as /i/–prosody.

Accent on a particular syllable in a word can be taken as prosody. For example,the English word
Accent
ago/ə ‗ gou/ has the accent on the second syllable.

Sentence stress, rhythm and intonation are also prosodic features.

(c) Phonemics

Another approach to phonology is based on phonemics, according to which the discovery of the phonemes (the
minimal distinctive sound-units) of a language is done by forming minimal pairs (by replacement of one
phoneme by another which can bring about a change of meaning). Each phoneme, however, may have slightly
different phonetic realizations, called allophones, in different environments. Most phonological theories are
based on phonemics.

Some linguists restrict the use of the term ‗phoneme‘ to segments of human sounds only, and analyse what are
called suprasegmental or prosodic features separately. The most important of the suprasegmental features are:
length (syllables and feet), stress, and pitch. Other linguists extend the use of the term ‗phoneme‘ to cover all
distinctive sound features including levels of stress, levels of pitch, and types of juncture.

(d) Distinctive Features Theory

In the phoneme theory, the phoneme (segment) is the smallest unit of phonology, but in the Distinct Features
Theory the phonetic feature is the smallest unit of phonology. Segment theory is linguistically inconvenient.
There are no rules in any language which apply to all the sounds. There are a fixed number of features or
components which form a basic stockpile from which every language selects phonetic features and combines
them in different ways. It is these features which keep a segment distinct or separate from others. That is why
they are called the distinctive features.

In distinctive features theory (as different from the notation transcription), the phonetic transcription is simplified
and systematized by regarding each sound a set of components, exactly parallel to semantic component. As
proposed by Chomsky acoustics and / or articulatory variables can be reduced to a small number of parameters
or phonetic features (twenty-seven with multi-values). A distinctive features component, for example for the
sounds /t/ and /k/ as in the English word take according to this theory.
Introduction to Linguistics

In English, for example, the following phonetic features are distinct:

State of Glottis Voiceless/voiced.

Position of Soft Palate: Oral/nasal.

(a) bilabial/alveolar/velar
Place of Articulation
(b) labiodental/ dental/ alveolar / palato-alveolar

(a) plosive / fricative/ nasal

Manner of Articulation (b) nasal/lateral

(c) affricate/fricative

Part of Tongue Raised front/back

Close/between half-close and half-open/between half-open andopen/open

Height of Tongue

lip-position unrounded/rounded

Stress stressed/unstressed

Reduction Reduced vowel/unreduced vowel.

Falling/rising; low fall/high fall/low rise/high rise/fall rise: or primary/

Tone
secondary/ tertiary/ fall-rise.
Introduction to Linguistics

Morphology and Linguistics

Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest significant units of grammar. It is a level of
structure between the phonological and the syntactic. It is complementary to syntax. Morphology is the
grammar of words; syntax is the grammar of sentences. One accounts for the internal structure or form of
words; the other describes how these words are put together in sentences.

The English word unkind is made up of two smaller units: ―un‖ and ―kind‖. These areminimal units that cannot
be further sub-divided into meaningful units. Such minimal, meaningful units of grammatical description are
generally referred to as morphemes. Amorpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:

1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning.

2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning
or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning.

The word unlikely has 3 morphemes while the word carpet is a single morpheme. The words car and pet are
independent morphemes in themselves. The word carpet has nothing to do with the meaning of car and pet.
Carpet is a minimal meaningful unit by itself. Again, the word garbage is a single morpheme while the words
garb and age are independent morphemes by themselves. A systematic study of morphemes or how morphemes
join to form words is known as morphology.

The definition of the morpheme may not be completely unassailable as will be evident from the discussion that
follows, but it is certainly a very satisfying definition applicable to a majority of words in any language. The
English word unassailable is made up of three morphemes, un, assail, able, each one of which has a particular
meaning distribution and a particular phonological form or shape.

Some Basic Concepts of MorphologyMorpheme

The word is the basic unit which relates the grammar of a language to its vocabulary. Words have internal
structure which indicates their grammatical identity (e.g. that the word is plural, or past tense) and their lexical
identity (e.g. that the word unhappiness is a noun with negative meaning referring to emotions). Words are
composed of morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. Some words consist of just one
morpheme; some consist of several.

We can easily recognise such constructions as mats, artists, artistic. national, childishness, unmoved,
denationalization, highway, footpath as words. Difficulty arises when we try to define these constructions -
but all the same they can be recognised.
Introduction to Linguistics

They have meaning which is independent of the meaning of other words. They convey the meaning in the same
way as the following words: Sky, water, hill, cousin, mango, walk, sew, autumn and tap.

But the crucial difference between the first set of examples and the next is that while we can break the items of
the first set and still obtain smaller meaningful units we cannot break the items occurring in the second set. If we
do so we would be destroying their meaning. Let us see how the items in the first group of examples can be split.

(a) mat + s (b) art + ist (c) art + ist + ic

(d) nation + al (e) child + ish + ness (f) un + move +d
(f) de + nation + al + ize + ation (g) high + way (h) foot + path

After having broken these words we are left with more particles with different meanings. Attempts to break these
nine words have not destroyed their meaning. We rather discover that the words are composed of smaller
particles. We also see that two types of meaning in such constructions can be identified:

(i) Some particles refer to the external reality. (sky, dog, table, nation, child)

(ii) Others do not do so, but are to be understood in terms of their function within thelanguage.

Words of the former type are known as content words and their meaning as lexical meaning; while words that
are meaningful in terms of their structural significance are called form words having structural, formal or
grammatical meaning. Thus we can see that the word child is content word whose meaning is referable to the
external world and is bound to be destroyed if we try to split it further: ch - ild, chi-Id, chil-d

But after breaking childishness into childish and ness we get two segments whose meanings are independently
contained in them. We cannot break -ness; but childish can be split into child and -ish. Again we obtain such
particles each one of which possesses meaning. Further attempts to break them will, however, destroy their
meaning. We will not get more particles that can either be referred to the external reality or can be construed as
having any grammatical function. They are the minimal meaningful units. Such a particle is called a
morpheme. In the above examples, the particles that we have been able to obtain after breaking the various
sequences, are all minimal meaningful parts of the English language. They are minimal since they cannot be
broken down further on the basis of meaning. They are meaningful because we can specify the kind of
connection they have with the nonlinguistic circumstances in which they are used.

Morpheme is, therefore, the minimal recurring unit of grammatical structure, possessing a distinctive
phonemic form, having a grammatical function and may differ in its phonological manifestations.

Morpheme and Syllable: - A single morpheme may be made up of one syllable, more than one
syllable, or no syllable at all. Monosyllabic morphemes (those consisting of one syllable) are tin, train, gold,
pen, man, cat, dog. But words like station and teacher are
Introduction to Linguistics

composed of two syllables - sta-tion, tea-cher, Hyperion and introduction contain four syllables; and
chloromycetin contain five syllables. These are all single morphemes, though their syllabic composition varies.
On the other hand, there are morphemes that can be marked to contain no syllable at all - the plural morpheme /-
s/, the past tense morpheme /- d/ are examples of this type. Though they are not syllabic, they are morphemes. In
this context, the case of zero allomorph is still more interesting.

Morph: - The concept of morph recognises that a morpheme has a phonetic shape. This phonetic representation
is called its morph. The word writer has two morphemes, write and - er. These are realizable in the phonetic
shapes as /rait/ and/-∂:/. These are two morphs ofthe morpheme (or word in this case).

Allomorph: - In our discussion of morpheme we have noted that it sometimes manifests itself in
various phonetic shapes or forms. The plural morpheme can be realized as
/-s/ or /-z/ or /-iz/ and so on. Similarly, the past tense morpheme can appear as /-d/, /-t/, /- id/, and /-q/. Each of
these morphs belongs to the same morpheme. These are called allomorphs.

The plural morpheme in English (which combines with a noun morpheme to form a plural) is represented by
three allomorphs /s/, /z/ and /iz/ in different environments (which are phonologically conditioned).

Plural Morpheme

Allomorphs

{e(s)}:

/iz/ in the case of words ending in /s/, /z/, /ò/, / ʒ /, / ʧ/, / ʤ /

e.g. buses / bʌs ɪz /,rouges / ru:ʒ ɪz /

/s/ in the case of words ending in a voiceless consonant (other than ò, s, ʧ)

e.g cats /kæts/, caps /kæps/

/z/ in the case of words ending in voiced sounds (other than /z, ʒ, ʤ /)

e.g boys/ bɔɪz /, bags /bægz/

Similarly, the present tense morpheme {-e(s)} has three allomorphs /s/, /z/ &. /iz/, e.g. packs /pæks/, digs
/digz/, washes / wɒʃ ɪz /. The past tense morpheme of English, {-e(d}has also three different (phonologically
conditioned) allomorphs /t/, /d/ and /id/. The rule that governs these allomorphs is as follows:

Past Morpheme
Introduction to Linguistics

{e(d)}

/t/ after morphs ending in voiceless sounds (except /t/)booked /

bʊkt /, pushed / pʊʃt /

/d/ after morphs ending in voiced sounds (except /d/). loved / lʌvd

/, bagged /bægd/

/id/ after morphs ending in /t/ and /d/ wanted /wantid/ wedded /wedid/

The relationship between the terms morph, allomorph and morpheme is similar to that between phone, allophone
and phoneme. The term ‗morph‘ means shape.

Any minimal phonetic form that has meaning is a morph. Thus /bʌs/, /ɪz/, /kæp/,
/s/, / bæg/, /z/ are all morphs.

Those morphs which belong to the same morpheme are called allomorphs of that morpheme. Thus /s/, /z/ and
/iz/ are allomorphs of the plural morpheme {e(s)}. Similarly, a phoneme is a minimal, distinctive unit in the
sound system of a language.

A phoneme may sometimes occur in more than one phonetic form called allophones. These phonetic forms
have considerable phonetic similarity between them and their phonological function is the same. They, however,
never occur in the same phonetic environment and are said to be in complimentary distribution.

Allomorphs, like allophones, are also in complimentary distribution. The phonemes /p/, /t/ and /k/ for example,
have two phonetic forms each i.e. [p] and [ph], [t] and [th], [k] and [kh]. Here [p] and [ph] are the allophones of
the phoneme /p/.

All the speech sounds (phonemes as well as allophones) are called phones.

It may be noted that in some languages words can generally he segmented into parts (morphs) while it is not so
in others. Similarly there are languages in which the morph tends to represent a single minimal grammatical unit
(a morpheme) while

Allomorphs of a morpheme may change their phonemic shapes due to two types of conditioning:

(a) Phonological or phonemic conditioning

(b) Morphological conditioning

Phonological Conditioning {Plural Morpheme}

We shall first examine the following sets of words:

Introduction to Linguistics

Set A Set B Set C

set /sets/ beds /bedz/ roses /rəuziz/

clips /klips/ lads /lædz/ poses /pəuziz/;

bits /bits/ cabs /kæbz/ horses / hɔːs ɪz/

bats /bæts/ clubs /kl^bz/ advises /ədvaɪsɪz/

caps /kæps/ beads /bi:dz/ judges / dʒʌdʒ ɪz/

The pluralizing suffix in set A appears as /s/; in set B, it appears as /z/. This can be explained as due to the
occurrence of final sound of the stem which is voiced, or voiceless. In set A words end in the voiceless
sounds /t/ and /p/ affecting the plural morpheme which also appears as a voiceless phoneme /-s/. But in set B the
stems end in voiced sound and affect the plural morpheme, which becomes /-z/. The phonetic quality of one
sound affects the phonetic quality of another occurring in close proximity. The affected sound is phonetically
conditioned. Both /-s/ and /-z/ are the allomorphs of the plural morpheme. Their positions cannot be
interchanged, i.e., we cannot have /z/ placed in set A and /s/ in set B. These sounds are thus in complementary
distribution. In the same way words in set C take theplural morpheme which is phonemically realized as /iz/.
These words also show phonological conditioning.

We thus obtain three phonologically conditioned allomorphs of the plural morpheme /s/ ~
/z/ ~ /iz/. Phonological conditioning is predictable.

{Past Tense Morpheme} Morphological Conditioning

The regularity of phonological conditioning is restricted. There are several irregular forms that do not show the
predictable direction of morphophonemic changes. We can always explain reasonably why such variant forms
as the /t/~/d/~/id/ occur for past tense and
/s/~/z/~/iz/ for plural morpheme.

But such explanation is not possible in the case of the plural form of child - children, and sheep - sheep. These
forms are not phonologically conditioned, i.e. the proximity of a sound does not affect these forms. ―en‖ is
peculiar to children, oxen and brethren. Such changes are said to be due to morphological conditioning.

We shall consider below some major types of morphological conditioning.

Zero Suffix: - Certain words in English do not show any change of form when inflected either for
pluralizing or making into past tense form. These singular - plural and present and past tense forms are alike.

Set B
Set A (Singular)
(Plural)
Sheep sheep

deer deer
Introduction to Linguistics

cattle cattle

Set A (Present Tense) Set B (Past Tense)

cut cut
cut put
hit hit
But we know beat beat that set A words
are in present tense and that
set B words are in the past tense. With this understanding we use the words.

There is a sheep There are sheep

He cuts He has cut

We can say that a zero suffix of plural and a zero suffix of the past tense has been added to these forms. The
change is not one of overt alteration in the phonemic shape of the morpheme (allomorph). They are said to
undergo a zero modification. This is shown by {q} symbol which is called zero allomorph.

Thus, sheep is written as / ʃi:p + q/ and cut is written as / kʌt + q/

Vowel Mutation: - Let us take another example; the plural form of man is men that of woman is women, and
louse is lice. In making them plural we see that nothing has been added, but a change in the vowel and diphthong
has been made.

/a/ > /e/ /au/ > /ai/

Similarly, for making past tense, we can change the vowels as shown below:

find - found /ai/ > /au/ swim - swam /i/ > /æ/
bring - brought /i/ > /]/ seek - sought /i:/ > / ɔ:/
catch - caught /æ/ > / ɔ:/ feed - fed /i:/ > /e/

These changes too cannot be explained by the process of phonetic change. These are irregular changes and are
known as vowel-mutation. Vowel mutation can also be seen in verb-making, adjectivising, noun-making, and so
on.

Consonant Change: - Apart from vowel changes, pluralizing is effected by changes in consonants also. Some
English words ending in /f/ - leaf life, wife, knife, shelf loaf make their plural by converting /f/ into /v/ and
adding /z/. Examples are given below:-

knife /naif/ > knives /naivz/ wolf /wulf/ > wolves /wulvz/

But here too we observe irregularity. Not all words ending in /f/ undergo such changes - proof, roof and reef, to
name only three, take /s/ for changing to plural form; while hoof is pluralized both by simply adding /s/ - hoofs
and through the process of consonant change - hooves.
Introduction to Linguistics

In the case of past tense formation also we observe consonant replacement –

send - sent bend - bent /d/ > /t/

lend - lent spend - spent

The list of different kinds of changes signalling pluralization and past tense formation is fairly long. What is
important here is to understand the mechanism of different types of vowel and consonant mutation that operates
in such processes.

Suppletion: - In suppletion instead of a partial change in the root (either vowel change or
consonant change or addition of s), we see the whole form of the root being replaced by a new -form. So, we see
the past tense of ―go‖ is ―went‖, and the comparative of ―bad‖ is ―worse‖, ―good‖ has ―better‖ as comparative,
the adjective of ―moon‖ is ―lunar‖, and ―sea‖ ,has ―marine‖ as its adjective; ―tooth‖ is adjectivised as ―dental‖
and ―mouth‖ as oral. What we see in these examples is the complete change in the phonemic shape of the stem,
forchanging their form classes.

Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

Two types of morphemes have been identified on the basis of their occurrence in larger constructions: free form
and bound form. A morpheme that occurs alone, or can stand alone is a free form. It does not require the
presence of another morpheme; in other words, such a morpheme does not need the support of any other
element. All content words are free forms: house, church, girl, cat, walk, see, red, short, book, water. Some form
words are also free forms, always, though, but, never, and, or, if. The meaning of such words is ‗contained in
their ability to refer to some point in the world outside‘.
Introduction to Linguistics

A second class of morphemes called bound form; contain elements that must always be attached to some
other elements. They cannot occur or stand alone. In words like watery, invisible, reader, possibility,
madness, cats, and manly we can identify such morphemic particles as –y, in- , -er, - -ty, -ness, -s, and -ly. Their
meaning is in their grammatical functions such as noun-making, verb-forming, pluralizing, adjectivising, and so
on. They can be attached to any other free forms of the same form class to construct similar segments. Isolated
they do not stand by themselves.

Two types of bound form that are widely used are prefix and suffix. As a class they are known as affixes.

A prefix precedes a free form, a stem or a root. We see these in the following words: uncommon, decentralise,
disappoint, and recycle. Un-, de-, dis-, re- are all prefixes. There are many other prefixes. All these are word-
formative elements.

A suffix is also a word-formative element - it follows a free form. Examples are sleeveless, temptation,
government, activate, darkness, reader. By adding a suffix we can either negativise a word, i.e. hat less,
merciless, or change its form class; dark is an adjective, by adding -ness we can change it into noun. -ate and -ide
are verb-making particles. They are, therefore, known as grammatical morphemes.

Inflectional and Derivation: - Suffixes are classified on the basis of their function into two categories -
derivation and inflection. An affix that cannot take another affix is
Introduction to Linguistics

generally identified as inflectional affix. If we add -s or -ed to present we will get derivative words presents
and presented. We cannot add another suffix to it. Inflectional suffixes of this type may create a set of forms of a
morpheme within the same form class, usually known as paradigm. Such words are said to be ‗inflected‘. We
can in this way pluralise a noun, speeches, judges and tops, etc.

These words are said to be inflected for pluralising. Similarly nouns can be inflected for making them genitive -
teacher‘s, doctor‘s, men‘s, etc. Verbs are inflected for third person singular. Generally, in English, inflectional
affixes are suffixes. They define a part of speech, but do not change it - ugly, uglier, ugliest - all the three forms
belong to the adjective form class.

Both prefixes and suffixes can be derivational. The form-class of the morphemes may be changed by adding a
derivational affix. Globe (N) may become global (Adj), globalize (vb), globalization (N); and so also child
(N), childish (Adj), childishly (Adv), childishness (N). Each time a derivational affix is added in the above
examples, we see the form-class changing.

A significant feature of the derivational affix is that other suffixes can be added to it.One of the functions of
derivational affixes has been recognised as that of ‗formation of new words‘ . This is one of its functions.
Another function is that they maintain the form-class, that is, the grammatical category is not changed, as is
seen as : If we add the prefix un-to certain (Adj.), we do not find the prefix changing the root to another form-
class. Uncertainremains as much an adjective as certain is. Similarly, possess (vb) can take a negativisingprefix
dis- to make an antonym dispossess while retaining its form-class association.

Bound Bases: - Bound bases are those morphemes which serve as roots for derivational forms but
which never appear as free forms. In words like conclude and perceive,
-clude and –ceive are bound bases.

Structure of Words: - Considered from the point of view of their morphemeconstituents, there are
mainly three types of words:

Simple Words They consist of a single free morpheme followed, or not, by an

inflectional suffix, e.g. play, plays, stronger.
Complex They consist of a base and a derivational affix, e.g. goodness, enable,
words: boyhood, determination.
Compound They consist of two (or more) free stems which are independent words
words by themselves, e.g. over-ripe, happy-go-lucky, elevator-operator

Categories of Derivational suffixes: - The Derivational suffixes may be broadlydivided

into two categories: class-maintaining and class -changing.

(a) Class-maintaining: - These suffixes produce a derived form of the same class as the
underlying form. They do not change the class of a part of speech. Here are a few examples:

Suffix Word Class New word Class

Main

Suffi
taini
ng
-

-ship friend noun friendship Noun

Introduction to Linguistics

ess- tiger noun tigress Noun

ite Hindu adjective Hinduite adjective

(b) Class-changing Suffixes: - These suffixes produce a derived form ofanother class.
Here are a few examples:

New
Class Change Suffix Word Class Class
word
Noun to adjective -ian India noun Indian Adjective
Class-Changing

Adjectives to Noun ) -ity able adjective ability Noun

Suffixes

Nouns to Verbs -ify fort noun fortify Verb

Verbs to Nouns -er drive verb driver Noun
Verbs to Adverb -fly sleep verb sleepily Adverb
Adjectives to
-ly nice adjective nicely adverb
Adverbs

Conversions: - Some words can be used as nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives without any change in the
form of the word, without the addition of an affix or prefix. This process of derivation is called conversion. Here
are some examples:

Switch on the light Noun

Light the lamp Verb
Light
The luggage is light Adjective
Travel light if you must Adverb
The earth is round like a ball Adjective
The principal went on a round Noun
Round
You must round all the sharp corners verb

Miscellaneous conversions

Sentence Conversion
An uncountable noun used as a
Please give me two coffees
countable noun
A closed system word being used as a
This instrument is a must for you
noun
I do not like this touch-me-not policy A phrase being used as an adjective.
I do not believe in any ism bothering the society today A suffix being used as a noun

In some words of two syllables, change of accent from the first to the second syllable changes a noun/adjective
to a verb:

Noun/Adjective Verb
Introduction to Linguistics

‗conduct con‘duct

‗subject sub‘ject

‗object ob‘ject

‗present pre‘sent

‗contrast con‘trast

There are some words, in which there is a change in the meanings of words if the final consonant is voiced
(either by a change in spellings or without it); for example:

Word Final sound Word Final sound

advice (n.) /s/ advise (v.) /z/
thief (n.) /f/ thieve (v.) /v/
house (n.) /s/ house (v.) /z/

Compound Formation: - Compounds are formed by joining two or more bases. These bases are, in some cases,
separated by a hyphen, while in other cases, the hyphen appears to have disappeared with the passage of time.
There is no rule governing the presence orabsence of the hyphen. Here are some examples of compound words:

Noun + Noun Motor cycle, hair breadth, goldfish

Noun + Adjective trustworthy, beauty conscious, duty free
Adjective + Noun paleface, yellow press, red light
Compounds with verbs/adverbials/verbalnouns sight-seeing, man-eating, heart-breaking

Blends: - Two words are sometimes clipped and the clippings joined to form a new word e.g. brunch from
breakfast and lunch, smog from smoke and fog, telecast from television and broadcast and motel from motorists
and hotel

Borrowings: -English (or any other language) generally borrows words from other languages with which it
comes into contact. English continues to enrich its store of words by such borrowings e.g. Guru (from Hindi),
bazaar (from Persian), Sheikh (from Arabic), tycoon (from Japanese) and Dame (from French)

Inventions: -New words have to be given to new inventions. Such words (as other words of the language) are
arbitrary but in course of time, they come to stay as a part of the language.
e.g. X-rays, laser, sputnik, astronaut

Echoism: - Some words are formed by the sounds that suggest their meaning. e.g. clang, whisper, thunder, click,
tick, lisp, murmur.

Language, as everybody knows, is dynamic. It continues to acquire new words with the passage of time. Some
words also go on disappearing, as the time passes, due to several reasons. Language is open-ended and
modifiable.
Introduction to Linguistics

Syntax and Modern Linguistics

The word syntax has been derived from Ancient Greek meaning ordering together. Syntax is "the study of the
principles and processes by which sentences are ordered together in particular language". Thus "Syntax is the
study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic
investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of
some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis." Grammar and grammatical analysis
include both morphology and syntax. ‗Grammar may be divided into two portions: morphology and syntax.

Syntactic Processes

Syntax is the core of the grammar. It is necessary to understand the patterns that underlie the sentences, and
the ways and means of linking the constituents and the rules of transforming one kind of structure into another.
We shall discuss here some of the major syntactic processes whereby we obtain various syntactic patterns.

Conjoining:- Conjoining is also identified by other terms like ‗co-ordination‘ and ‗conjunction‘. In this process
certain parts of two or more sentences are similar in structure. The coordinators join the sentences. ‗This process
is possible only when there is a similar relation of constituency‘ between the segments thus conjoined and the
sentences.

Syntactic Structures give us this example:

1. The scene – of the movie – was in Karachi.

2. The scene – of the play – was in Karachi.

Conjoining process seeks ‗to obtain the proper relation of constituency‘, to produce this new sentence.

The scene of the movie and the play was in Karachi

Embedding: - One sentence is included within the other sentence is called embedding. Embedding
transformation process embeds the constituent sentence into the matrix (or basic) sentence.

{S1 [S2] S1}

Instead of joining the two sequences of equal status, one sentence becomes part of the larger sentence.

(1) The news surprised his friends.

(2) (that) he had got married

Sentence (2) is embedded in sentence (1) and is, therefore, an embedded sentence. Let us consider

another example:

S1 The man was arrested.

The man murdered three
S2 persons.
Introduction to Linguistics

This diagram shows that S2 is subordinate to S1 and, therefore, embedded in it. There are two

major types of embedding:

(a) Nesting (b) self-embedding

In a nesting construction the nested segment is totally enclosed within a matrix. We take another example.

The girl who bought the cosmetics gave money which was borrowed.

In the above example who bought the cosmetics is nested. Which was borrowed is not nested as no part of the
matrix occurs to right of it. A self-embedded construction is totally enclosed within a construction of the same
type (Fowler).

Recursion:- Through this process the same rules may be re-applied ‗indefinitely many times within a single
derivation‘. As has been pointed out earlier, transformationalist believe that a language user has at his disposal
an infinite number of sentences. This is chiefly because he can use the ‗recursive‘ process, using the same
linguistic device over and over again. This enables us to add any constituent (adjective, for example) repeatedly,

The old man, the little old man, the little poor old man, the clever little poor old man, and so on. ‗To prove to
anyone who does not believe in the infinity of the number of sentences in a language, we have merely to ask him
to give us the largest sentence he can produce and then add another adjective or relative clause to it‘ (Palmer).

The example cited above is the realization of the NP NP + (S) rule.

The example cited earlier, ‗the old man‘... can be also be accounted for by a set of rewrite rules.

NP +De + Adj + N

Adj + Adj + N

Adj + Adj + Adj + N

Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + N

This type of sentence can be expanded without apparent limit, and thus rules can go on being multiplied. As
Roger Fowler says, ‗we do not need a new rule to extend the sentence each time, just one complex sentence
forming rule can be applied over and over again. Recursiveness is a property of complex sentences‘, and ‗a
transformational grammar with recursive rules represents a substantial gain in economy over other alternatives‘.

Discontinuous Constituent:- Scholars of structural linguistics usually worked with cutting, classifying and
labeling elements of language which is the process of IC analysis. Among the difficulties they encountered in
following this method was that it was simply not possible to cut into neat segments certain sequences, as the
elements that belong together are separated by some other element/s. There is thus a discontinuity in the
sequence. Such constituents are known as ‗discontinuous constituents‘
Introduction to Linguistics

A very simple example is the sequence, the finest orator in the world. He sequence the finest naturally goes with in
the world. Orator forms the other IC, but it interferes with the formerto create ‗discontinuity‘.

Phrasal verbs produce the most familiar types of discontinuous constructions. We can use in sentences such
phrasal verbs as put down, push away, brush off, make up, look up, etc to see how discontinuous constructions
are created by them.

He brushed her explanation off He

brushed the dust off his coat.The mob
pushed him away.
The general soon put the uprising down. She
made the whole story up.

In such constructions the adverbs often follow the object, though they belong with the verb.In interrogative
sentences the ‗discontinuity‘ process is quite obvious:

Is she coming?
This can be shown by using ‗boxes‘.

Form-classes

The constituents of a sentence have the inherent lexical meaning as well as the class meaning.An important type
of class meaning assigns a particular component occurring in the sentence structure a function meaning.
These places or spots are structurally meaningful places in the sentence. What kinds of form can be filled
in these places depends on their position.

Ducks swim
Noun Phrase Verb Phrase

The most basic dichotomy is between a Noun Phrase and a Verb Phrase. An utterance or a sentence must have
these two components. These are also known at another place as the topic and the comment. These are the most
common form classes. Any other sequence or sequences that can replace Ducks will play the same structural role
as that single word. For example, we can use Two ducks. The two ducks; The two old ducks; or birds; the
migratory bird; boys, the boys; the young boys, etc. Similarly, sequences that can replace swim, keeping the
same structural relationship to the Noun phrase, are called Verb phrase. Thus we can replace swim with such
possible sequences as eat, eat slowly, walk fast, speak, speak loudly, and so on.

Such structural positions are called form classes, and are also referred to as primary grammatical categories.
In traditional grammar ‗the major parts of speech were associated with certain typical syntactic function. The
basic primary grammatical categories we have just identified in the sentence Ducks Swim can be shown
diagrammatically as follows.

Ducks Swim
NP VP

A constituent in English has two types of meaning - a lexical meaning; that can be known by its ability to refer to
things outside the language. A dictionary gives us the lexical meaning of words; and a structural or form class-
meaning, whose meaning derives from their membership of a form class. Certain words clearly show lexical
meaning, chair, table, man,
Introduction to Linguistics

girl, hair, eyes, so on. In certain words form-class meanings are more dominant, the, of, from, by, since, etc. But
there is no word which does not possess form class meaning.

We have already noted that an utterance or sentence can be divided into a Noun Phrase (NP) and a Verb Phrase
(VP) by virtue of their having different basic syntactic functions.

Noun Phrase: - What we see in a Noun Phrase is that sequences occurring in this slot are all centered on
the same category of word noun. However complex a sequence may bethat occurs in this position, if it can be
replaced by a single noun, or pronoun, it is called an NP. ‗Any Phrase that can function as subject is a noun
phrase‘ (Noel Burton-Roberts). These identifiable actual words that can be isolated by gradually peeling off
other words without damaging the sentence structure is a noun in NP. Such words are called Head words. They
may be a noun of any type or a pronoun.

S.No A (Noun Phrase- B (Verb Phrase-

Subject) Predicate)
1 She resumed her seat
2 My friend wasted his time
3 The new car runs smoothly
4 The car that created problems
5 You bought yesterday

The sequences occurring in section A are all NP. In the first sentence ‗‘She‘‘ is a pronoun, Head of NP which is
a single word constituent (NP). In the second sentence ‗‘my friend‘‘, friend can be identified as noun, ‗‘my‘‘ a
possessive pronoun modifies it. Similarly, the ‗‘new car‘‘ shows ‗‘car‘‘ a noun, which is the head. So also in the
last sentence. In sentences 2, 3 and 4 if we remove the determiners and modifiers, we will be finally left with a
noun that will still be functioning as syntactically relevant function word.

But if we remove the noun ‗‘car‘‘, or ‗‘friend‘‘, the structure of the sentence will suffer and we shall be creating
impossible sentences like, my wasted his time, the new runs smoothly. As Noel Burton-Roberts defines it, ‗In a
phrase containing a modified form the essential centreof the phrase is said to be the Head of the phrase‘.

Head words are recognized as constituting an open class. This is a place, or spot, or slot where any word that
can function as noun can become the Head word. We may have a sentence like ―There are too many ifs and buts
in your argument‖. Ifs and buts function here as nouns, therefore as head words. Head words can function as
subject and can occur as complement.

They follow determiners which are closed class words. They show morphological changes for form and class. A
single noun can be the Head as well as the NP in a sentence. In Ali reserved his seat, Ali is a noun, a headword
and an NP.

The agent reserved his seat.

Subject Predicate
Noun Phrase (NP) Verb Phrase (VP)
Modifier
Modifier Head Head
Noun Phrase (NP)
Modifier Head
Determiner Noun V (ed)
Pronoun Noun
The Agent reserved his seat
Introduction to Linguistics

Determiners

Noun head words pattern with a wide range of adjuncts. These adjuncts are labelled determiners and modifiers.
The class of determiners is fairly large with many sub-classes. However, we shall here take into account three
major sub-classes.

(i) Regular determiners:- Within this class we can identify articles, demonstratives and possessives
(also called genitives). The basic determiner is the, the definite article. It precedes a noun or NP1 and
demonstrates the nounness of it. It has a particularising role, I know the man; the tree has grown tall; The boys
are rowdy, where its meaning is ‗before mentioned‘ and ‗already known‘. Articles and demonstratives are
divided according to the number of the nominal.

Article Demonstrative Possessive

a, an this my
q that our
the these Your
any those Her
every Its
each Their
some nom + z3

(Z3 is the symbol for the genitive form N + ‗s)

Two regular determiners do not occur before a noun. Only one determiner precedes it, showing a relation of
mutual exclusiveness. This principle distinguishes determiner from an adjective.

(ii) Pre-determiners:- Pre-determiners co-occur with determiners, normally preceding them:

All the boys

Both these umbrellasHalf
Rita‘s time

If we say all boys the position is occupied by the zero article. Many of the determiners and pre-determiners
function like pronouns. In the above example, both predetermines the determiner these which in turn determines
umbrellas

(iii) Post-determiners:-Post-determiners follow the determiners and precede the adjectives. While
adjectives can ‗occur in any order, post-determiners have fixed positions. The following three classes of post-
determiners can be recognized.

Ordinals Cardinals Superlative/comparative

first one more
second two most
third three fewer
next many fewest
lost few less
final several least

In the examples, the last few days; the first four girls we find that first and last which are pre- determiners occur
with few and far. But their order cannot be changed.
Introduction to Linguistics
Finer distinctions are made and sub-classes recognized within the large group. Absence of an article is marked by q
symbol. Such an absence cannot totally be ignored. Its absence gives information of the kind that can be compared to
the information given by the determiners.
The information could be about indefiniteness. We can thus haveq + tables, the table

q + chair, the chair

Determiners, then, give information about definiteness and indefiniteness, quantity andproportion. Their function is not
to modify but to determine a nominal.

(iv) Modification

The term modification suggests the syntactic relation between a headword and the element that is dependent on it. This
dependent element may occur either before or after it. When it precedes the H (head) it pre-modifies; when it follows
the H, it is said to post-modify. It is a one-way dependency/function.

Let us look at the following construction, his rather

curious look , phrase a

The Head word is preceded by curious, rather and his. We see here the followingrelationships.

his + phrase b phrase c +

looksrather + curious

Such structure is called the structure of modification. ‗It has the same distributional characteristics as the head
constituent (H)‘. The boy ran, the young boy ran, He stood tall and straight.

In (A) example the headword (N) is modified by young (Adj.). In (B) the VP has a VS -ran which is the head word of
the VP modified by slowly.

In the earlier example curious is modified by rather, a word which shows the extent of curiousness; rather is dependent
on curious - it cannot occur all by itself. At the next higher level rather curious specifies look and are, therefore,
dependent upon the latter. We can omit the whole phrase rather curious and still have a meaningful sequence his looks
as it is the headword and the whole sequence preceding it is dependent upon it.

Most adjectives act as pre-modifiers of nouns.

1. A pretty girl met me.

2. Good people are honest.
3. A tall chimney came down.

Adjectives can be modified by other adjective - a good tall chimney, a small pretty girl.They can also be

modified by degree adverbs like very, rather, quite, too, much.

Introduction to Linguistics

Nouns as Modifiers: - In a sequence in which two nouns occur, one of them can act as attributive or pre-
modifier:

Football match; Cricket commentary; film industry; munitions factory.

(Mod) (N) (Mod) (N) (Mod) (N) (Mod) (N)

The modifier noun can also be proper noun -Delhi conference, Geneva convention, cardinal numerals (one, two,
three), the ordinal numerals, (first, second, third...) and general ordinals (next, last, other) can also function as
pre-modifiers.

Let us now look at the following examples.

A B
the faded scene the crumbling
cake
a forgotten valley the flying bird
remembered the moving
moments train

The phrases in set A have perfect participle forms faded, forgotten, remembered, they appeal to meaning by
referring to valley that has been forgotten, the scene that faded and the moments that are remembered. They
modify the noun-head. Similarly, the examples in set B show progressive participle as modifying element for
cake, bird, and train. Obviously these inturn can be pre-modified in different ways.

Post-modification:- In this type of modification the modifiers follow the item they modify.

The men injured were flown to Karachi.

The houses built recently have shown cracks.

The words injured and built are post-modifiers following the noun heads men and houses. In fact, we can see that
these modifiers can be regarded as ‗reduced relative clauses‟ so we can expand them in the manner shown
below.

The men (Who were) injured were flown to Karachi.

The houses (that were) built recently have shown cracks.

There are some phrases that show adjectives with special meaning - Secretary General, president elect, court
martial, attorney general, heir apparent, etc.

Verb Phrase

In the example cited earlier, Ducks swim, we have labelled swim as verb phrase. It is the second of the two
immediate constituents. These are called predicates and embody ‗comment‘ on the ‗topic‘. Predicates contain a
verb which optionally may be modified or complemented. These verbs are the Headword of the VP. Look at the
following sentence:

The boys are moving away.

In the above example ‗the boys‘ is a noun phrase with a noun as its centre (Head) and ‗are moving away‘ is a
verb phrase with moving as its centre.
Introduction to Linguistics

A verb phrase contains a verb group (Vgp) which consists of a main verb that may be optionally modified by
other verbs known as auxiliary verbs. The simplest kind of VP is one- word construction with only a Head which
is also a verb group (Vgp).

In the sentenceHe

is walking.

‗He‘ is NP and ‗is waking is VP‘ which consists of Vgp made up of an auxiliary verb and the main verb walking.

Main verbs show morphological possibilities - they can be inflected in the following manner.

Walks Walking Walked

Swims Swimming Swam

Complementation: - A verb phrase may or may not contain a noun phrase. The occurrence of an
NP is one of complementation. A relation of mutual dependency exists between a Vgp and an NP in which Vgp
acts as governor. Thus we can see in this example,

We cannot omit the NP from the VP. Similarly, we cannot do without caught. Both

* He caught and

and * He those flies are unacceptable

Such verbs are called monotransitive or simply transitive. We shall discuss this process later on. It is not
necessary that all verb groups should be followed by an NP. In our example above, if we replace caught with
slept, we must drop the NP to have such a grammatically acceptable construction as

He slept

We cannot construct a sentence in this case which has a Vgp followed by an NP. We shallhave an incorrect
sentence if we do so such as

* He slept those flies oror

* He looked those flies

Verbs that are followed by an NP are called transitive verbs; without such an NP they are known as intransitive
verbs. Appear, disappear, look, feel, go, come, etc. are some examples of intransitive verbs. However, these
verbs can be followed by adverbs of various types. He appeared suddenly, He appeared on the scene; or they
may occur without them.

But this is not part of the complementation as the sense of the sentence is complete without it. Rather, it is a
modifier in VP. VPs can include PP (on the scene, for instance) as optional modification.

Verb Group Classified

Introduction to Linguistics

Verb group can be sub-classified into six types according to what occurs after it.

(i) Monotransitive verb group (or Vgp):- As we have already seen, a monotransitive Vgp needs one NP
as its complement. This NP functions as its direct object, for example : deer is the NP in the VP which
complements the transitive verb saw. Pronouns functioning in this place assume specific forms which are called
objective case (accusative). The NP complementing a Vgp is called the, direct object.

(ii) Ditransitive:- This type of Vgp takes two NP complementations. Example,1

2
a. She sent me a message1
2
b. John gave Jill a car1
2
c. Jill bought John a candy

Words marked I are indirect object and those marked 2 are direct object. Both the NPs are governed by the Vgp
sent, gave and bought in. We can also write these sentences in the following manner.

a. She sent a message to me.

b. John gave a car to Jill.
c. Jill bought a candy for John.

The indirect object, in these examples appears as prepositional phrase following a direct object. Such PPs are
introduced by to or for. PPs of this type are part of the complementation of the intransitive verb.

(iii) Intensive:- Either a single Adj. Phrase or an NP or a PP can complement anintensive verb
group.

She became a doctor (NP)

John is being rather generous (AP)Jill
must be in the class room (AP)

We must note here that in the above examples no second person is mentioned. It is different from monotransitive
Vgp. complementation where something apart from the subject is mentioned (i.e. she saw me). The NP, AP and
the PP can be said to be ‗predicative‘, and also ‗complement‘ which‘ distinguish it from ‗object‘. The following
examples make it clear.

(a) Ramzan turned pale.

(b) Ramzan turned the doorknobs.
(c) She felt sad.
(d) She felt spider on her hand.

Examples (a) and (b) show intensifying Vgp taking a subject predication, an AP, since they characterize the
subject. In (b) and (d) VP has a complementation which gives information about something other than subject.

Complex Transitive

Here we see a combination of the monotransitive with intensive complementation: complex transitives are
followed by an NP (Dir. obj.) and an NP, an AP, or a PP (predicative).
Introduction to Linguistics

(a) They will make me their representative (NP)

(b) I found his joke extremely unpleasant (AP)
(c) Jill is putting the basket under the table (PP)

While in an intensive Vgp construction; the predicative characterize the subject (i.e. he became a doctor), in the
complex transitive constructions the predicative refers to the direct object: She will be his wife. Such
complementation is called object predicate.

Prepositional

He glanced at the elephant Jack

referred to the old book.

In the above sentences a VP contains a PP which complements the Vgp. Such complementsare known as
prepositional complements.

Adverbials

Also known as adjunct adverbials, this is a large class expressing a wide range of ideas likemanner, means, purpose,
reason, place, time.

Adverb, or Adverb Phrase denotes a category; Adverbial denotes function.

a. So apart from functioning as adverbial, adverb has other functions too like modifying anadjective as in this
example.

She is extremely beautiful

b. It is not just adverbs that function as adverbials, other categories can also function asadverbials, i.e.,
PPs and NPs. Adverbial Adverbs

Function Prepositional Phrases Noun Phrases

Adjuncts appearing in the VP modify the segment Vgp + NP, not just the Vgp alone. Let uslook at the
following examples :

The PP adjunct in the garage characterizes the verb group (Vgp) put hi car as a whole not justthe NP (his car).

Pre-verbs

It is a sub-class of adverbs, which occurs after ‗the first auxiliary Vb almost, ever, always,seldom, hardly,
rarely, etc.

Ramzan is always in a hurry Rina

has never read a novel I can
hardly understand it

Time adverbs: We can note various notions of time expressed by these adverbials, inthe following
examples:

i. He came to see me again

ii. We saw him in Karachi last year
Introduction to Linguistics

iii. Ramzan will leave at 8 o‘clock

The adverbials in these examples indicate a point or period of time. So also now, then, etc.Other adverbials
indicate the point of time from which the period can be measured.

Recently I saw an old film.

Once I saw an old film

Time duration is indicated in the following manner :

He studied all night long

We had been moving since last Sunday

Frequency is suggested by adverbials like regularly, everyday, often, seldom, usually, twice,never, soon.

He regularly visits the libraryTake

the tablet twice a day
I sometimes feel giddy

The following examples show PP functioning as adverbials. She has

spoken about it on several occasions

He has not seen me in recent times

Degree Adverbs: Effect can be underscored by putting a degree adverbial in the VP of asentence. The
result is lowering or hightening of effect.

He will certainly agree

We nearly fell off the ladderI
much prefer to stay alone

Among others we can note definitely, thoroughly, all but, rather, really, entirely, scarcely,hardly, simply as
degree adverbs.

Place adverbs: As is obvious, these adverbs indicate the place.He stood

on the hill
Roberts fell in the bathroom
He studies in the college

Mobility of the Adverbials

A high level of mobility is observed in the adverbials. They can be moved around somewhat freely, and do not
necessarily occur only in a position after the Vgp and its complement. In fact we can shift a PP around in a
sentence to see if it functions as an adverbial or as a complement.

He arranged everything cleverly He

cleverly arranged everything Cleverly
he arranged everything He arranged
cleverly everything
Introduction to Linguistics

We can experiment with other adverbs in this manner.

Phrasal verbs :

Phrasal verbs consist of the elements that also comprise some PPs. Apparently they lookalike.

1. a. He took down the dictation.

b. He took me down the stairs.
2. a. I called up the man.
b. I called up the balcony.

In the set 1, and 2, a. shows a phrasal verb, while b. shows a verb plus an adverb.

In a. down the dictation does not make sense; took down form a unit, a phrasal verb. In b. down the stairs makes
sense. Similarly, in set 2 up the man fails to carry sense, but up the balcony does. Though these segments, call up
and take down look alike, they belong to different categories and have different functions. We can distinguish
them from call off put down, hand over, give up, give in and a whole multitude of other phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs may consist of more than one element, but all the units function together asone-word verb
group. It consists of Vb + particle.

An important feature of it is that it can appear as discontinous form -

NP as adverbial

Certain noun phrases function as adverbials.He

arrived last week

She left day before yesterday We
had seen it three years ago

Non-finite clause as adverbial

All the three types of non-finite clauses.

1. an infinitive
2. a progressive participle (-ing type)
3. a perfect participle (-ed type)can

function as adverbials

1. An infinitive functioning as adverbial is shown below :

He works to earn his bread Ramzan

came to meet his friend

We went there to spend the vacation

2. A progressive participle functioning as adverbial is shown below :He felt

satisfied, having talked to us

Introduction to Linguistics

Entering the room, he collapsed

3. We can see the perfect participle functioning as adverbials in the following examples.

The work done, he left the place.Not

satisfied, we quit the office.
Forgotten, the book lay there for years.

Sentence Adverbials:- This is a class of adverbial formation that is not strictly integrated in the structure of
the sentence. Also known as Disjuncts, these constituentsrepresent some sort of comment from the speaker and
so are peripheral to the structure ofthe sentence. Let us look at these examples:

a. (i) She upsets everything between you and me

(ii) She upsets everything, between you and me
b. (i) He admitted everything frankly
(ii) He admitted everything, frankly

In the (i) sentence of both the sets the sequence between you and me and frankly are adjuncts. In (ii) sentences,
on the other hand, these same sequences function as disjuncts, denoting what the speaker has to say, and not how
she upsets or he admitted, or the manner of these actions. These are expressed in sentence i. of both the sets.

Disjuncts are loosely attached to the sentence structure and can also be placed in the initial, middle or final
positions. In writing disjuncts are shown by a comma, while in speaking a distinct intonation movement marks
them. Structurally, like other adjuncts, disjuncts or sentence adverbials can appear as

(i) A prepositional phrase in all honesty

(ii) An infinite clause to be honest

(iii) A progressive participle honestly speaking

(iv) A perfect participle put honestly

(v) A finite verb clause if I can speak honestly

Auxiliary Verb Group:- We must keep in mind that the verb group (Vgp) which is a constituent of the VP has
main verb (lexical verb) as its head. This optionally takes the verb modifier auxiliary verb. The function of the
auxiliary verb is to modify the lexical (maim) verb, while the number of the lexical verbs is very large,
infinitely large; the auxiliary verbs are a restricted set of morphemes forming a closed system. These are placed
before the main verb, when an auxiliary verb combines with the main verb to form a verb group, we get a
complex verb group. But when a single verb forms the verb group, we have simple verb group. Such simple
Vgps consist of main verbs only.

He talks rapidly
I met some guestsShe
went there
They cracked soon enough

Finite Verbs are those that are tensed. A sentence must contain a finite Vgp.
Introduction to Linguistics

Work Worked Working

leave left leaving
eat ate eating

Non-finite verbs are not tensed; participles, gerunds,-infinitives are types of non-finite Vgps.Finite verb also changes

its forms according to the number and person of the subject NP.

She goes
They go
It cracks
These crack

This kind of relationship is known as subject-verb agreement or concord. Auxiliary verbs are classified into Primary
auxiliary and the modal auxiliary. In the former we find the verbs do, have, be, with their variant forms - have, has,
had, having, do, doing, done, be, been, being, is, are, was, were, etc.

In modal auxiliaries we find can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, need, dare, used to, ought to.
Auxiliary verbs also function as main verbs, i.e. they constitute the single-verb Vgp. Modals are not tensed, nor
do they show subject-verb agreement; their form is always that of the present tense.

I can go; She must read; They will win, and so on.
Even the verb that follows the modal shows the basic stem form.

An auxiliary verb having the perfect aspect modifies the main verb following it. has
have
had MV + perfect

The changed form of the MVb is called perfect participle. For progressive aspect we require auxiliary verb be,
followed by a main verb that takes -ing.

He is running; They were eating; He was writing.

Passivisation:- Auxiliary verbs play a very important role in a kind of transformation process known as passivisation.
This affects the whole sentence. For this we must switch the positions of subject and object. Subject becomes a PP and
passive Vgp is introduced.

The Vgp that creates passive voice sentences must contain be verb or their different forms.

Active Passive
build/built is/was built is/was building
is/was being builthas built
has been built
will build will be built

The forms taken by the main verb after the passive auxiliary verb is the passive participle form. Its form and that of the
perfect participle is the same (built).
Introduction to Linguistics

The Difference between Syntax and Morphology

The difference between syntax and morphology is that syntax deals with the structure of sentences and
morphology deals with the structure of words. In any language, rules exist that guide the way that words are put
together. These are the rules of syntax. Morphology is the study of how words are formed and understood within
a language. Both syntax and morphology are related to how meaning is produced with language.

Syntax is a concept that governs the structure of sentences. The order in which words are put together has a
bearing on the meaning of a sentence as a whole. Syntax rules must be followed in order for a sentence to be
grammatically correct and to make sense to speakers of a language. It is what dictates things such as the order of
the subject and verb, and how adjectives and adverbs are used.

Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest unit of meaning in a language. A morpheme
can be one whole word or a prefix or suffix that is understood to change the meaning of the word and therefore
takes on meaning itself. Morphology includes the concepts of inflection and derivation, which allow words to
be made plural or for the tense of a word to be changed. The study of morphology attempts to understand how
people use and understand the way that words work, in an attempt to understand the difference that one
morpheme makes to many words and how words relate to each other.

Syntax and morphology are both important to the way that people derivemeaning from language, but they are
different in that syntax refers to the order and use of words, and morphology refers to the parts of words that
create meaning. For example, it is possible to create a sentence that is grammatically correct, but that makes no
sense to a speaker of the language. This is possible because syntax only governs the order of a sentence and not
what the words in it mean. On the other hand, a combination of words may make sense when used together, but
lose their meaning when rearranged in a way that violates the rules of syntax. Syntax and morphology are
different but are dependent on each other.
Introduction to Linguistics

Systems of Syntactic Analysis

Immediate Constituent Analysis

Immediate constituent analysis or IC analysis is a method of sentence analysis that was first mentioned by
Leonard Bloomfield and developed further by Rulon Wells. The process reached a full blown strategy for
analyzing sentence structure in the early works of Noam Chomsky. The practice is now widespread. Most tree
structures employed to represent the syntactic structure of sentences are products of some form of IC-analysis.
The process and result of IC-analysis can, however, vary greatly based upon whether one chooses the
constituency relation of phrase structure grammars (= constituency grammars) or the dependency relation of
dependency grammars as the underlying principle that organizes constituents into hierarchical structures.

IC-analysis in phrase structure grammars

Given a phrase structure grammar (= constituency grammar), IC-analysis divides up a sentence into major parts
or immediate constituents, and these constituents are in turn divided into further immediate constituents. The
process continues until irreducible constituents are reached, i.e., until each constituent consists of only a word or
a meaningful part of a word. The end result of IC-analysis is often presented in a visual diagrammatic form that
reveals the hierarchical immediate constituent structure of the sentence at hand. These diagrams are usually trees.
For example:

This tree illustrates the manner in which the entire sentence is divided first into the two immediate constituents
this tree and illustrates IC-analysis according to the constituency relation; these two constituents are further
divided into the immediate constituents this and tree, and illustrates IC-analysis and according to the
constituency relation; and so on.

An important aspect of IC-analysis in phrase structure grammars is that each individual word is a
constituent by definition. The process of IC-analysis always ends when the smallest constituents are reached,
which are often words (although the analysis can also be extended into the words to acknowledge the manner
in which words are structured). The process is,
Introduction to Linguistics

however, much different in dependency grammars, since many individual words do not end up as constituents in
dependency grammars.

IC-Analysis in Dependency Grammars

IC-analysis is much different in dependency grammars. Since dependency grammars view the finite verb as the
root of all sentence structure, they cannot and do not acknowledge the initial binary subject-predicate division of
the clause associated with phrase structure grammars. What this means for the general understanding of
constituent structure is that dependency grammars do not acknowledge a finite verb phrase (VP) constituent and
many individual words also do not qualify as constituents, which means in turn that they will not show up as
constituents in the IC-analysis. Thus in the example sentence “This tree illustrates IC-analysis according to the
dependency relation‖, many of the phrase structure grammar constituents do not qualify as dependency grammar
constituents:

This IC-analysis does not view the finite verb phrase illustrates IC-analysis according to the dependency
relation nor the individual words tree, illustrates, according, to, and relation as constituents.

While the structures that IC-analysis identifies for dependency and constituency grammars differ in significant
ways, as the two trees just produced illustrate, both views of sentence structure are acknowledging constituents.
The constituent is defined in a theory-neutral manner: A given word/node plus all the words/nodes that that
word/node dominates. This definition is neutral with respect to the dependency vs. constituency distinction. It
allows one to compare the IC-analyses across the two types of structure. A constituent is always a complete tree
or a complete sub-tree of a tree, regardless of whether the tree at hand is a constituency or a dependency tree.

Phrase Structure Grammar

There are three distinctive periods of development in the theory of constituent structure. Bloomfield only
introduced notion and explained it by means of example. His followers notably Eugene, Nida, Rulon Wells,
Zells Harris, formulated the principles of constituent analysis in greater detail and replaced Bloomfield's
somewhat vague reference to `taking account of the meanings, with explicitly distributional criteria'. Finally, in
the last few years,
Introduction to Linguistics

the theory of constituent structure has been formalized and subjected to rigor by Chomsky and other linguists
and has been called `Phrase Structure Grammar'.

Once we start to use labels, we have clearly departed from simple analysis and are undertaking analysis
somewhat similar to traditional phrasing, the division of sentences into already established grammatical
elements. This kind of analysis is today usually called
`phrase structure grammar'. It shows some of the weaknesses of the simple IC analysis. There are sophisticated
versions of phrase structure grammars. The three best known are
`Scale and Category grammar' associated with the name of Michael Halliday in London University,
`Tagmemics' associated with the name of Kenneth Pike of Michigan, and
`Stratificational grammar' associated with Sidney Lamb of Yale.

Thus, phrase structure grammar is an alternative way of expressing the information found in a tree diagram by
means of `re-write' rules. In this model the linguist formalizes the grammar by means of generative rules which
explicitly assign the correct constituent structure to sentences. Such systems are called simple `phrase structure
grammars'. This model of grammar shows not only the terminal elements or constituents of a linear structure but
also specifies the subunits and the level at which these units form natural groups. So the linguist is her interested
in

1. The pattern underlying the sentence and the constituents; and in

2. The syntactic devices used to link the constituents together, and the ways in whichvarious parts
relate to one another.

Without the axiom, there are bound to be an unlimited number of rules. This implies that we can neither
formulate nor write down such rules in one lift time which rules out the possibility of someone using this
grammar to master a language. The fact that we learn a language by the time we are three or four years old
refutes such an implication and compels us to believe that the rules of a grammar have got to be finite and not
infinite.

Phrase structure rules of the generative grammar are an amalgamation of the subject- predicate and parsing
systems of the traditional grammars and the IC analysis of the structural grammar. They are framed to derive a
`kernel' sentence (in the Syntactic Structures, Chomsky 1957), or `underlying (deep) strings (in the Aspects,
Chomsky 1965). These rules define basic grammatical relations that function in the deep structure.

They also make explicit the domination of constituent over the other. In short, they make explicit the universal
conditions that define `human language'.

The phrase structure of a sentence is generally represented by a tree diagram. This representation of the phrase
structure of a sentence is known as its `phrase marker‘ or `P marker' for short. The points that are joined by the
lines or branches are called `Nodes'. Each of the nodes, except those on the bottom line (which are the terminal
nodes) is given a label that represents a grammatically definable constituent - N, V, NP, VP, etc. where one
mode is higher than another and joined to it by branches, it is said to `Dominate' it, if it is placed immediately
above it and joined by a single line, it `Immediately' dominates it.
Introduction to Linguistics

`Dominance' then shows how a larger constituent may consist of one or more constituents of a smaller kind. It
is also important to note that the tree structure preserves the linear order of the constituents, just as plain IC
analysis does. The first noun phrase precedes the verb phrase, the verb precedes the second noun phrase.
The determiner precedes the noun.
`Precedence' thus like `Dominance' is clearly shown in the tree diagram.

The sentence "the man followed a girl" will be represented by a tree diagram as

NP VP

Det N V NP

Det N

The man followed a girl

Labeled bracketing and phrase structure trees provide much more information than IC analysis, but they still do
not state, except by implication, how new sentences can be generated. This can be done with the use of `phrase
structure rules' (PS rules). The tree structure of the sentence given in the example can be generated by six rules.

1. S-----NP -------- VP

2. VP----V ----------- NP

3. NP----DET -------- N

4. V -----------Followed

5. DET ---------the, a

6. N ------------ man, girl

These rules will not generate only the one sentence handled in the tree diagram - `The man followed a girl'.
Since both `the' and `a' are shown as determiners and both `man' and `girl' as nouns, the rules permit us to
permute the determiners in each determiner position and the two nouns in each noun position and in fact, to
generate no less than sixteen different sentences including, for instance:

A girl followed the man. The

girl followed a man. A girl
followed a man.
Introduction to Linguistics

The phrase structure rule can generate longer sentences also.

Limitations of Phrase Structure Grammar

A phrase structure grammar is essentially a grammar of segmentation and categorization; it is a taxonomic

model - a grammar of lists, an inventory of elements, and of class of sequences of elements. Although it is very
strong in giving structural description of the language, yet it is deficient in generative capacity. It is incapable of
accounting for all the intentions of native speakers. It fails to disambiguate all the ambiguities and understand all
the synonymies.

The processes that pose problems to PS grammar are:

1. Ambiguities
2. Synonymies
3. Permutations
4. Discontinuous constituents (e.g. particles)
5. Remote relationship (e.g. those of cases)
6. Concord phenomena
7. Co-ordination.

Despite its rules of inference, binarity and irreflexibility, etc. a PS grammar runs into difficulties in describing
syntactic structures of questions, negatives, passives, relatives, etc. easily. It fails to capture the deep meaning. It
cannot discover the crucial notions, nor can it prevent the assignment of false, ungrammatical structure.

PS rules are incapable of - except by having recourse to very arbitrary solutions - of accounting for the
multiplicity of relations existing either between elements in the same sentence, or between different sentences.
For example:

1. The police diverted the traffic.

2. The traffic was diverted by the police.
3. The traffic was diverted by a country road.

PS rules fail to show the relationship that connects 1 to 2. In sentence 2 `by the police' will be shown as a
prepositional phrase consisting of a preposition, a determiner and a noun, and in sentence 3 `by a country road'
too will be shown as a prepositional phrase (prep + NP). Thus, it would ignore semantic considerations and case
relations.

PS grammar does not have the precision, simplicity, elegance, power, insight, and competence of the TG
grammar. It would be very complex and cumbersome and clumsy with so many constraints.
Introduction to Linguistics

Transformational Grammar
Transformational grammar is a form of language analysis that establishes a relationship with the different
elements in the sentence of a language and makes use of rules or transformations to recognize these
relationships.

Basic concepts of Transformational Grammar

Transformational grammar which is usually generative grammar describes a language with the help of
transformational rules. It involves logical reasoning to understand fully the meaning of the selected words. As
such transformational grammar goes a step ahead of structural grammar which focuses more on the sentence
structures used for communication. Apart from the use of correct sentence structure, transformational
grammar analyses the words with reference to its underlying thoughts. Transformational grammar employs
most of the linguistic tools such as syntax and context to explore the possible meanings of words.

Architect of Transformational Grammar

Transformational Grammar also known as Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG) refers to the theory
of generative grammar of a natural language, developed by Chomsky. Transformational grammar is basically
a theory to understand the processing of grammatical knowledge in the human brain. Noam Chomsky, the U.S.
linguist, was the main propagator of transformational grammar in the 1960‘s.His theory opposed the earlier
theories of structuralism by rejecting the idea that each language is different fro the other. In fact
transformational grammar analyses language on the basis of certain universal tenets in languages.

Deep Structure and Surface Structure of Transformational Grammar

According to Chomskyan theory, transformational grammar involves two levels to represent the structure of
sentences known as the “deep structure” and the “surface structure”. The “deep structure” implies a more
abstract form underlying the structure of a sentence. It is represented by a “phrase structure tree” in which the
abstract relations between words and phrases of a sentence are depicted in a “hierarchical tree diagram”. The
“surface structure” refers to the actual form of the structure of a sentence used. Besides the two levels of
sentence structure, transformational grammar consists of a body of formal rules to enable transforming deep
structures to surface structures.

Phrase Structure Tree in Transformational Grammar

A phrase structure tree in transformational grammar is a diagrammatic representation of sentences

distinguished by their syntactic characteristics. Thus we have verb phrases (VP), noun phrases (NP),
prepositional phrases (PP) and so on. Most of the sentence structures in a language are governed by phrase
structure rules. For example, sentences in English are governed by the rule that they should contain a Noun
Phrase (NP) and a Verb Phrase (VP)

Transformational Grammar

Transformational grammar is used routinely to understand the grouping of words in a particular context. For
example look at the sentences, ―John wrote a poem on the spring season” and “A poem on the spring season
was written by John”. According to Chomsky these sentences originate from a deeper and more abstract
grammatical structure. Transformational grammar explains how actual sentences evolve by manipulating the
common form of sentence structures. A number of different theories have since evolved but they are all based on
the Chomsky‘s original theory of transformational grammar.
Introduction to Linguistics

Generative Grammar
Generative Grammar is a linguistic theory which describes a set of rules to use sequence of words properly to form
grammatical sentences. The Generative grammar thus includes the studying particular rules in relation to the syntax and
morphology of sentences in a language. Generative grammar is the basis of the study of different grammars such as
transformational grammar, tree-adjoining grammar, relational grammar, categorical grammar among others.

Chomsky's ideas on Generative Grammar

Generative grammar exists in different forms and includes transformational grammar basically developed by Noam
Chomsky, the U.S. linguist in the mid-1950s. His theory opposed the earlier theories of structuralism by rejecting the
idea that each language is different from the other. In fact transformational grammar analyses language on the basis of
certain universal tenets in languages. Further the Chomskyan tradition has resulted in specific transformational
grammar, influenced greatly by his Minimalist Program. There is no agreement by Linguists on the kind of generative
grammar that could be used as the best model to describe natural languages.

Basic concepts of Generative Grammar

Generative grammar sets forth the rules to recognize grammatical sentences in a language and differentiate them
from improper sequence of words or ungrammatical sentences in the same language. Besides, Generative grammar
outlines the syntactic analysis or structural description for the grammatical sentences of the language which are more
precise than the analysis of traditional grammar in terms of parts of speech.

The rules of generative grammar focus on the different components of the language such as syntax, semantics,
phonology and morphology. The sentence is represented as a tree having branches denoting the subordinate and
superordinate elements rather than just a sequence of words. For example, the sentence, “The cat ate the mouse” would
have the branches of a noun phrase (The cat) and verb phrase( ate the mouse) with the branch of noun phrase further
being divided into the branches of a determiner(the) and noun(cat) and the verb phrase consisting of the verb(ate) and
the noun phrase[ determiner(the) and noun (mouse)].
Relation between Transformational and Generative Grammar

Transformational Grammar is looked upon as one of the approach to generative grammar which describes a
language with the help of transformational rules. It involves logical reasoning to understand fully the meaning of the
selected words. As such transformational grammar goes a step ahead of structural grammar which focuses more on the
sentence structures used for communication. Apart from the use of correct sentence structure, transformational
grammar analyses the words with reference to its underlying thoughts. Transformational grammar employs most of the
linguistic tools such as syntax and context to explore the possible meanings of words.

Use of Generative Grammar

Generative grammar is more of an attempt to formalize the implicit rules that a person uses while speaking his native
language. It is due to this inate language rules present I human beings that enables them to learn their native language
with minimum effort and time. The rules of generative grammar may appear to be useful only in language studies but
the truth is that they have been successfully applied even in the studies on music. Notable musicians such
Schenkerian, Fred Lerdahl and Mark Steedman have used the ideas of generative grammar to analyze studies in music
theory.
Introduction to Linguistics

Semantics and Theories of Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in language. We know that language is used to express meanings which can
be understood by others. But meanings exist in our minds and we can express what is in our minds through the
spoken and written forms of language (as well as through gestures, action etc.).

The sound patterns of language are studied at the level of phonology and the organisation of words and sentences
is studied at the level of morphology and syntax. These are in turn organised in such a way that we can convey
meaningful messages or receive and understand messages. ‗How is language organised in order to be
meaningful?‘ This is the question we ask and attempt to answer at the level of semantics. Semantics is that level
of linguistic analysis where meaning is analysed. It is the most abstract level of linguistic analysis, since we
cannot see or observe meaning as we can observe and record sounds. Meaning is related very closely to the
human capacity to think logically and to understand. So when we try to analysemeaning, we are trying to analyse
our own capacity to think and understand, our own ability to create meaning. Semantics concerns itself with
‗giving a systematic account of the natureof meaning‘ (Leech).

What is Meaning?

Philosophers have puzzled over this question for over 2000 years. Their thinking begins from the question of
the relationship between words and the objects which words represent. For example, we may ask: What is the
meaning of the word ‗cow‘? One answer would be that it refers to an animal who has certain properties that
distinguish it from other animals, who are called by other names. Where do these names come from and why
does the word ‗cow‘ mean only that particular animal and none other? Some thinkers say that there is no
essential connection between the word ‗cow‘ and the animal indicated by the word, but we have established this
connection by convention and thus it continues to be so. Others would say that there are some essential attributes
of that animal which we perceive in our minds and our concept of that animal is created for which we create a
corresponding word. According to this idea, there is an essential correspondence between the sounds of words
and their meanings, e.g., the word ‗buzz‘ reproduces ‗the sound made by a bee‘. It is easy to understand this, but
not so easy to understand how ‗cow‘ can mean‘ a four-legged bovine‘— there is nothing in the sound of the
word ‗cow‘ to indicate that, (Children often invent words that illustrate the correspondence between sound and
meaning: they may call a cow ‗moo- moo‘ because they hear it making that kind of sound.)

Different aspects of meaning of a word

This is the literal meaning of a word indicating

The Logical or Denotative Meaning the idea or concept to which it refers. Concept
is a minimal unit of
meaning which could be called a ‗sememe‘ in the same way as the unit of sound is called a ‗phoneme‘. Just as
the phoneme /b/ may be defined as a bilabial + voiced + plosive, the word ‗man‘ may be defined as a concept
consisting of a structure of meaning ‗human + male + adult‘ expressed through the basic morphological unit ‗m
+ æ + n‘. All the three qualities are logical attributes of which the concept ‗man‘ is made. They are the minimal
qualities that the concept must possess in order to be a distinguishable concept, e.g. if any of these changes, the
concept too changes. So ‗human + female + adult‘ would not be the concept referred to by the word ‗man‘, since
it is a different concept.

This is the additional meaning that a concept carries. It

The Connotative Meaning is defined as ‗the communicative value an expression
has by virtue of what it
refers to over and above its purely conceptual content‘ (Leech, 1981). That is, apart from its logical or essential
attributes, there is a further meaning attached to a word, which comes from its reference to other things in the
real world. In the real world, such a word may be associated with some other features or attributes. For example,
the logical or denotative meaning of the word ‗woman‘ is the concept, ‗human + female + adult‘. To it may
be added the concept of ‗weaker sex‘ or ‗frailty‘. These were the connotations or values associated with the
concept of ‗woman‘. Thus connotative meaning consists of the attributes associated with a concept. As we
know, these associations come into use over a period of time in a particular culture and can change with change
Introduction to Linguistics

in time. While denotative meaning remains stable since it defines the essential attributes of a concept,
connotative meaning changes as it is based on associations made to the concept; these associations may change.

This is the meaning that a word or a phrase conveys about the

The Social Meaning circumstances of its use. That is, the meaning of a word is
understood according to the different style and
situation in which the word is used, e.g. though the words ‗domicile‘, ‗residence‘, ‗abode‘, ‗home‘ all refer to the
same thing (i.e. their denotative meaning is the same), each word belongs to a particular situation of use—
‘domicile‘ is used in an official context, ‗residence‘ ina formal context, ‗abode‘ is a poetic use and ‗home‘ is an
ordinary use. Where one is used, the other is not seen as appropriate. Social meaning derives from the awareness
of the style in which something is written and spoken and of the relationship between speaker and hearer—
whether that relationship is formal, official, casual, polite, or friendly.

This is the meaning which is communicated by the way in which

The Thematic Meaning a speaker or writer organises the message in terms of ordering,
focus and emphasis. It
is often felt, for example, that an active sentence has a different meaning from its passive equivalent although its
conceptual meaning seems to be the same. In the sentences:

Mrs. Smith donated the first prize

The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith

The thematic meaning of both the sentences is different. In the first sentence it appears that we know who Mrs.
Smith is, so the new information on which the emphasis is laid is ‗the first prize‘. In the second sentence,
however, the emphasis is laid on ‗Mrs. Smith‘.
It is sometimes difficult to demarcate all these categories of meaning. For example, it may be difficult to
distinguish between conceptual meaning and social meaning in the following sentences:

He stuck the key in his pocket.He put the

key in his pocket.

We could argue that these two sentences are conceptually alike, but different in social meaning––the first one
adopts a casual or informal style, the second adopts a neutral style. However, we could also say that the two
verbs are conceptually different: ‗stuck‘ meaning ‗put carelessly and quickly‘, which is a more precise
meaning than simply ‗put‘. Of course, it is a matter of choice which word the speaker wishes to use, a more
precise one or a neutral one.
Some Terms and Distinctions in Semantics
Words grouped together randomly have little meaning
Lexical and Grammatical Meaning on their own, unless it occurs accidentally. For example,
each of the
following words has lexical meaning at the word level, as is shown in a dictionary, but they convey no
grammatical meaning as a group:

Lights the leap him before the downhill purple. [Without grammatical meaning]

However when a special order is given to these words, grammatical meaning is createdbecause of the
relationships they have to one another.

"The purple lights leap down the hill before him." [With grammatical meaning]

"Different forms of the same lexeme will generally, though not necessarily, differ in meaning: they will share the
same lexical meaning (or meanings) but differ in respect of their grammatical meaning, in that one is the singular
form (of a noun of a particular subclass) and the other is the plural form (of a noun of a particular subclass); and
the difference between singular and plural forms, or--to take another example--the difference between the past,
present and future forms of verbs, is semantically relevant: it affects sentence-meaning. The meaning of a
sentence . . . is determined partly by the meaning of the words (i.e., lexemes) of which it is composed and partly
by its grammatical meaning." (John Lyons, Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press,
1996)

The relationship between

Sense and Reference linguistic items (e.g.
words,
sentences) and the non-linguistic world of experience is a
relationship of reference. It can be understood by the following
diagram given byOgden and Richards:

―The objects in the real world are referents

03068191492

Prepared by: Osama Amin English Lecturer GDC Bakhshali Mardan

the concept which we have of them in our minds is the reference and the symbol we use to refer to them is the
word, or linguistic item.‖

Reference is what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the
linguistic elements and the non-linguistic world of experience.

88
 Sense is the inherent meaning of the
linguistic form independent of
situational context. It‘s the aspect of
meaning dictionary compilers are
interested in. It is concerned with the
intra- linguistic relations. It‘s abstract
and de-contextualized. As we have
seen, we can explain the meaning of a
linguistic item by using other words.
The relation of a word with another
word is a sense-
relation. Therefore, sense is the complex system of relationships that holds between the linguistic items
themselves. Sense is concerned with the intra-linguistic relations, i.e. relations within the system of the language
itself, such as similarity between words, opposition, inclusion, and pre-supposition. Sense relations include
homonymy, polysemy, synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy.

A distinction may be drawn between, sentence-meaning and utterance-meaning. This is

because a speaker may use a sentence to
Sentence-meaning and Utterance-Meaning mean something other than what is
normally stated in the
sentence itself. Sentence meaning is a combination of lexical and grammatical meaning. In addition to this,
intonation may also affect sentence meaning. For example, ‗I don‘t like COFFEE‘ means that the speaker does
not like coffee, but may like some other drink; ‗I don‘t like coffee‘ means that the speaker doesn‘t like coffee
but someone else does. Speakers /*-
*can use intonation to change the emphasis and thus the meaning of the sentence.

Further, a sentence may be used by a speaker to perform some act, such as the act of questioning, warning,
promising, threatening, etc. Thus, a sentence such as ‗Its cold in here‘ could be used as an order or request to
someone to shut the window, even though it is a declarative sentence. Similarly, an interrogative sentence such
as ‗Could you shut the door?‘ can be used to perform the act of requesting or commanding rather than that of
questioning (The speaker is not asking whether the hearer is able to shut the door, but is requesting the hearer to
actually do the action). Usually such use of sentences is so conventional that we do not stop to think of the literal
sentence meaning, we respond to the speaker‘s act of requesting, etc., which is the utterance meaning. This is
the meaning that a sentence has when a speaker utters it to perform some act, in particular appropriate
circumstances.
One sentence may entail other sentence—that is,include the
Entailment and Presupposition meaning of other sentence in its
meaning, just as hyponymy includes the meaning of other word. For example, the sentence ‗The earth goes
round the sun‘ entails (includes) the meaning ‗The earth moves‘.

A sentence may presuppose other sentences, e.g. the sentence ‗Shamim‘s son is named Rahat‘ presupposes the
sentence ‗Shamim has a son‘. Presupposition is the previously known meaning which is implied in the sentence.
While entailment is a logical meaning inherent in the sentence, presupposition may depend on the knowledge of
the facts, shared by the speaker and the hearer.

Semantic Structure

Words form certain kinds of relations. These are called sense relations that are paradigmatic and syntagmatic.
Below we discuss five such major sense-relationships.
 This refers to similarity or ‗sameness of meaning‘. This is a handy concept for the
Synonym dictionary makers, who need words for one word which have greater degree of similarity.
To an extent this is acceptable, it is a working
concept. However, one cannot disagree with Dr. Johnson‘s statement that ‗words are seldom exactly
synonymous‘. In actual use where contextual nuances and situational subtleties influence meanings the degree of
similarity among words reduces considerably to signify much, each word acts as a potential token of sense.
Form the great literary scholars to the
semanticists all agree that it is almost a truism that total synonymy is an extremely tale occurrence‘.

It is clear that in considering synonymy ‗emotive or cognitive import‘ has critical role. In the words of Ullmann,
to qualify as synonyms they must be capable of replacing‘ ‗catch other in any given context without the slightest
change either in cognitive or emotive import‘. John Lyon also stresses equivalence of cognitive and emotive
sense.

Except for highly technical and scientific items, words used in everyday language have strongly emotional or
associative significance. Liberty-freedom; Jude-conceal; attempt-effort,cut-slash; round-circular; have different
evocative or emotive values; in a particular context where freedom is used liberty definitely cannot be used: it is
always freedom struggle and not liberty struggle; or freedom movement not liberty movement. Clear in this
instance freedom acts as modifier while liberty does not.
 This refers to the way language classifies its words on the principle of inclusiveness,
Hyponymy forming a class members of which are then called co- hyponyms. For example, the
classical Greek has a ‗super ordinate‘ term to
cover professions of various kinds, shoemaker, helmsman, flute player, carpenter, etc. but such a term doesn‘t
exist in English. In English the word ‗animal‘ is used to include all living in contrast to the vegetable world.

Synonymous sets can also be seen in such combinations denoting male-female-baby in dog- bitch-puppy; ram-
ewe-lamb; when such terms do not exist, they are formed: female giraffe, male giraffe, baby giraffe. Thus the
meaning of male giraffe is included in the meaning of giraffe as is the meaning of baby giraffe and female
giraffe. The relationship of inclusiveness rests on the concept of reference. This gives us the idea of how a
language classifies words. Words that are members of a class are called hyponyms.

When a word is identified as possessing two or more meanings, it is; said to be

Polysemy polysemous or polysemic. These different meanings are derived from one basic idea or
concept. Dictionaries enter different meanings of a
word. Head, for example, has the following different meanings : the upper or anterior division of the body, scat
of intellect, mind, poise, the obverse of a coin, person, individual, the source of a stream, leader, director, crisis,
culminating point of action, etc (Webster‘s Dictionary). All these meanings derive from the same word. From
this have been coined as many as seventy, compound structures, each in the right of a different word such as
headsman, headstand, headshop, headpiece, headgear, headlamp, headline, headlong, head- dress, etc. In the
latter examples, one can see that the noun acts as adjectives which show contextual shifts of application.

Problems arise when it becomes difficult to determine whether a word with several meaningsmust he called
polysemic or homonomous.

An important concept in semantics is that of collocation, whichrecognises ‗the

Collocation association of a lexical item with other lexical items‘. J.R.
Firth says, ‗you shall know a word by the company it keeps‘. What he callskeeping
company is what we know by collocation. It is part of the meaning of a word. Thus
the word red is related to blood, rose, tomato, ink, cherry, etc. or to put it differently, red collocates with these
words. Different linguistic contexts enable us to identity different meanings. Thus, for the word table we can
identify these meanings front the contexts presented below.

(i) Writing table

(ii) Reading table

(iii) Have tabled the motion

(iv) Talk across the table

Most associations are loose with a freedom of movement that is not predictable. We can say white milk, but we
can also say ‗while clouds and ‗white paint‘. We can contrast this withsuch predictable collocations as blond
hair, buxom woman and pretty girl or child. Blond cannot be collocated with door or dress. Buxom always goes
with female individual - a buxom friend would mean a buxom woman friend and cannot mean a man.
Similarly, a pretty boy is not heard. A more permanent collocation is seen in ‗bark‘ always being associated
with ‗dog‘, ‗roar‘ with ‗lion‘ ‗chirp‘ with ‗birds‘, ‗school‘ with ‗fishes‘, ‗flock‘ with birds etc.

In collocation words get special meaning. Exceptional conditions and exceptional boy do not really mean the
same thing. So, the meaning of the collocated terms depends on the collocation.
―A word will often collocate with a number of other words that havesomething in common semantically.
More strikingly we find that individual words or sequences of words will NOT collocate with certain groups
of words‖.(Palmer).

To ‗die‘ and to ‗pass away‘ refer to the same happening, but to say that daffodil passes away,is absurd, more
acceptable is to say ‗daffodil dies‘.

F.R. Palmer has identified three types of collocational restrictions.

1. Meaning in this type is completely based on die word. Green horse is an unlikely
collocational combination.

2. Here meaning is based on the range, which makes, a pretty boy unacceptable.

3. This kind of restriction involves neither range nor meaning: rancid butter, addled
brains are a couple of examples.

The concept of antonymy implies ‗oppositeness of meaning‘ where the ‗recognition and
Antonymy assertion of one implies the denial of the other‘. This is illustrated in pairs of words
such as, big-small; old-young; wide-narrow,
etc. These words can be handled in terms of the degree of quality involved. The comparative
forms of the adjectives are graded: wide-wider; happy-happier; old-older. They are also made by adding more.
To use Sapir‘s term, these are explicitly graded.

Homonomous words are defined as sounding alike hut possessing different meanings. For
Homonymy example, the words lie-lie, by-bye, I-eye. They are spoken and sometimes, written alike,
but mean totally different things, as
can be seen in their uses in these sentences - Don‘t lie, tell the truth. I have to lie down now. Normally, in
dictionaries, separate entries are made for homonymous words recognizing them as separate Words rather than
different meanings of the same words.

Homophonous words may be spelled and written identically or in different ways. The example cited above
elucidates the point. For the words that are spelled alike the name homography is used. For the words that sound
alike but may be spelled differently, the term homophony is used. Examples of the former are grave-grave;
pupil-pupil; light-light; examples of the latter are cite-site; write-right-rite-might. Some homophones are also,
interestingly, antonyms - raise-raze; cleave in the sense of severing asunder and cleave in the sense of ‗uniting‘.
The problem of identifying which is a homonym and which a polyseme is a practical one and often it is difficult
to determine exactly what is what. However, it is useful to know that homonymous words have generally
different origins, while polysemic words, even when their meanings arc markedly divergent, have one source.
We may use such metaphorical expressions as the foot of a bed, or the mountain; the hands and face of a clock,
but we know that these are the meanings that ultimately trace to the original meanings of these words. They are,
therefore, polysemes. Tracing the lexical etymologies is fraught with difficulties. One must have a vast
knowledge of the histories of the words. Confusion between polysemy and homonymy is natural.
 Semantic Theories

We have noted earlier that meaning was always a central concern with
Traditional Approach
thinkers. This has been the root of much
divergent opinion and definition of meaning. However, there was little doubt that there are two sides of the issue:
symbolic realization, whether in utterance or in writing, and the thing symbolised.

Plato‘s Cratylus clearly lays down that word

is the signifier (in the language) and the
signified is the object (in the world). Words
are, therefore, names, labels that denote or
stand for. Initially, a child learns to know his
world, and his language in this manner. He is
pointed out the objects and people; names are
given to them, and in his mind link or
association between the names and the
external world is established.
Children have always been taught
their language in this manner. This is also perhaps the way the earliest thinkers tried to
erstand the world through linguistic medium. That could be the reason why William Labov was prompted to say,
‗In many ways, the child is a perfect historian of the language‘.

However, this is an extremely simplistic theory and it would be wrong to say the child simply learns the names
of things. Gradually, and simultaneously, he learns to ‗handle the
complexities of experience along withthe
complexities of language‘.

Analytical/Referential Approach Between the symbol and the

object/thing there is an intervening
phenomenon which is recognized as ‗the mediation of concepts of the mind‘. De Saussure

and I.A. Richards and C.K. Ogden are the best-known scholars to hold this view. The Swiss linguist de Saussure postulated
the link
a psychological associative bond,between the sound
image and the concept. Ogden and Richards viewed
this in the shape of a triangle. The linguistic symbol
or images, realized as a word or sentence and the
referent,the external entities are mediated by thought
or reference. There is no direct relation between the
sign and the object but ‗our interpretation of
any
sign is our psychological reaction to it‘ (Ogden).
The meaning of a word in the most important sense of the word is that part of a total reaction to the word which constitutes the
thought about what the word is intended for and what it symbolizes. Thus thought (the reference) constitutes the symbolic or
referential meaning of a word. Linguistics, in the opinion of de Saussure, operates on the borderland where the elements of
sound and thought combine: their combination produces a form, not a substance.

When we see an object, a bird, for example, we call it referent; its recollection is its image. It is through this
image that the sign is linked to the referent.

The symbol is manifested in the phonetic form and the reference is the information the
hearer is conveyed. This process thus
established, makes meaning a ‗reciprocal‘ and
reversible relation between name and sense.
One can start with the name and arrive at the
meaning or one can start with the meaning and
arrive at the name/s. The referential or
‗analytical‘ approach, as it is also known, tries
to avoid the functional domain of language,
and seeks rather to understand meaning by
identifying its primary components.

This approach is the descendant of the ancient

philosophical world-view, and
carries its limitations. It ignores the relatively different positions at which the speaker and the hearer are
situated. Their positions make a reciprocal and reversible relationship between name and sense (Ullmann). This
approach also overlooks other psychological, non- physical processes which do not depend upon the linguistic
symbol, the reception of the sound waves for recognising the meaning of the object/thing. A word usually has
multiple meaning and is also associated with other words. Which of the meanings will be received depends upon
the situations.
Operational (Contextual
In the year 1953 L. Wittgenstein‘s work Philosophical
or Functional) Approach
Investigation was published. Around this time Malinowski and
J.R. Firth were working to
formulate the ‗operational character of scientific concepts like ‗length‘, ‗time‘ or ‗energy‘; they tried to grasp the
meaning of a word by observing the uses to which it is put instead of what is said about it. They
approached the problem
by including all that is relevant in establishing the
meaning – the hearers, their commonly shared
knowledge and information, external objects, and
events, the contexts of earlier exchange and so on, and
not by excluding them. This approach can directly be
linked to
the concept of the Context of situation being developed
by the London group which viewed social processes
as significant factor in
explaining a speech event.

While the referential approach took an idealist position, dealing, as someone said, with ‗meaning in language‘,
the functional theory or the operational theory took a realistic stand, taking ‗speech‘ as it actually occurred.
Words are considered tools and whole utterances are considered. Meaning is thus seen to involve a ‗set of
multiple and various relations between the utterances‘ and its segments and the relevant components of
environment‘ (Robins). In placing special emphasis on language as a form of behaviour – as something that we
perform, the functional approach shares a lot with systemic linguistics. Language is a form a behaviour which
is functional, ‗something that we do with a purpose, or more often, in fact, with more than one purpose. It is
viewed as a form of functional behaviour which is related to the social situation in which it occurs as something
that we do purposefully in a particular social setting‘ (Margaret Berry). The systemic organization of a language
is sought to be understood through its relations with the social situations of language.

According to this theory, meaning is classified into two broad categories: Contextual Meaning and Formal
Meaning.

Contextual meaning relates a formal item or pattern to an element of situation. There is a regular association
between a linguistic item and something which is extra-linguistic, ‗something which is part of the situation of
language rather than part of the language itself‘ (Berry). Contextual meaning is further divided into thesis,
immediate situation and wider situation.

In Formal meaning the relationship between a linguistic item, pattern or term form a system and other linguistic
items, patterns or terms from system belonging to the same level of language‘. Formal meaning can be
understood by collocating and contrasting a lexical item with other lexical items. The lexical item cat, for
instance, has the potentiality for collocating with mew, purr, lap, milk, fur, tail, etc. It also contrasts with dog,
mouse, kitten, etc. Thus, the complete description of the formal meaning of a lexical item would involve the
statement of all the items with which it collocates and contrasts. Such items which fall into a
context or set of contexts are referred to as an association
field.
Field Theory of Meaning Basic to this theory is the concept that each word in a
language is surrounded by a network of
associations that connect it with other terms. See the diagram below.

The field theory

visualizes the
vocabulary as a mosaic
on a gigantic scale,
which is built up of
fields and higher units in
the same way as fields
are built up by words.
The
associative field of a
word is formed by
an intricate network of associations, some based on similarity, others on continuity, some arising between senses,
others between names, others again between both. The field is by definition open, and some of the associations
are bound to be subjective though the more central ones will be largely the same for most speakers. Attempts
have been made to identify
some of these central associations by psychological experiments, but they can also be established by purely
linguistic methods. The identification of these associations by linguistic methods is done by collecting the most
obvious synonyms and antonyms of a word, as well as terms similar in sound or in sense, and those which enter
into the same habitual associations. Many of these associations are embodied in figurative language: metaphors,
similes, proverbs, idioms, and the link. The number of associations centred in one word will of course be
extremely variable and for some very common terms it may be very high.

As one of Saussure‘s pupils expressed it, ‗the associative field is a halo which surrounds the sign and whose
exterior fringes become merged‘. This field is formed by an intricate network of associations: similarity,
contiguity, sensation, and name. The associative field is by any definition open, that is, no finite limits can be
assigned to any given field. Hence the aptness of the concept ‗field‘, which serves an analogous purpose in
physics.
 The structural treatment of linguistic meaning has
The Distributional Approach been dealt in the Distributional Approach. Some
linguists recommend
studying meaning as a phenomenon isolated from outside world of human experience. The meaning of a
word is to be understood as the range of its occurrences in sentences consisting of other words. Just as there are
probably no words exactly like in meaning in all contexts, so there will be no two words in any language sharing
exactly the same lexical distribution. This approach studies meaning as syntagmatic relations (collocation) and
paradigmatic relations (sets).

It uses statistical methods and computer techniques for the study of semantics. But this approach to meaning fails
to save the phenomena as meaning is understood everywhere by involving the relation of language to the rest of
the world, and such meaningfulness is an essential part of any definition of language. Thus this approach
incompletely treats the meaning.

Meaning of words in dictionary entries is derived on the basis of their relation to the whole human experience,
on the basis of extra linguistic criterion and unsystemized commonsense. For this reason some linguists have
tried to redefine or reconsider meaning in so far as in concerns the linguist within the range of its occurrence in
sentences consisting of other words. Just as there are probably no words exactly alike in meaning in all contexts,
so there will probably no words exactly alike in meaning in all contexts, so there will probably no two words in
any language sharing exactly the same lexical environment.

Componential Analysis Approach underlies

Componential Analysis Approach the linguistic theories developed by
developed by Katz and
Foder (1963), Weinreich (1966), Beirwisch (1969) and others. It is a technique for the economical statement of
certain semantic relations between lexical items and between sentences containing them. It is attempt to describe
the structure of vocabulary in terms of relatively small set of very general elements of meaning called
―component markers‖ or ―sememes‖, and their various possible combinations in different languages. It tries to
discover the ultimate meaning units out of which a particular set of words appears to be composed in composed
in some systematic way. Some segments of vocabulary can be better
analysed by this method. Through componential analysis, we can seek to find out how speakers use the
vocabulary of a language in order to classify reality by referring to certain parameters of meaning.

The term componential analysis in semantics is best explained by means of simple exampleby linguists:

(1) Man Woman Child

(2) Bull Cow Calf
(3) Ram Ewe Lamb
(4) Drake Duck Duckling

When we consider these set of English words we can, on the basis of our intuitive appreciation of the sense of
these words, set up such proportional equations as the following:

―Man : Woman : Child : : Bull : Cow : Calf‖

This equation bears proof to the fact that, from the semantic point of view, the word ―Man, Woman and Child‖
on the one hand, and ―Bull, Cow and Calf on the other hand, all have something in common. What ―man and
bull‖ have in common is not shared by ―woman and cow‖, and what ―calf and child‖ have in common is not
shared either ―man and bull‖ or ―woman and cow‖. What these groups of words have in common is called
―semantic component‖ (other terms used for that are plereme/ sememe/ semantic marker/ semantic category).
Thus the sense of man, according to componential analysis is the product of the component (male), (adult) and
(human); that the sense of cow is the product of (female,) (adult) and (equine); and so on.
In order to understand the meaning of a sentence and its semantic relations to other expressions, one
must know the meaning of its lexical items as well as how they are interrelated.

Basic Assumptions of theory: - Componential theories of semantics are based uponfollowing assumptions:-

(a) Semantic components are language independent, or universal. The semantic components may be
combined in various in different languages, yet they would be identifiable as the same components in the
analysis of the vocabularies of all languages.

Hence, in the matter of kinship, colour, artifices, needs and functions of physical qualities semantic components
may be universal, but they are not universal in many other areas.

(b) Propositional equations should be established with respect to the sense of lexical items. These
propositions are cognitively valid, and can be set up on the basis of introspection.

―All the semantic structure might finally be reduced to components representing the basic dispositions of the
cognitive and perceptual structureof human organism.‖

Componential Analysis Approach defines the meaning of a lexical element explicitly in terms of semantic
components. These components or categories are not part of the vocabulary of the language itself, but rather
theoretical elements postulated in order to describe he semantic relation between the lexical elements of a given
language. These components are then connected by logical constants. For example Bierwisch‘s analysis:-

These implicational rules automatically complete a redundancy free entry like (1) to its fully specified (2) in the
following:-

(1) Boy: HUMAN and MALE and NOT ADULT.

(2) Boy: ANIMATE and HUMAN and MALE and NOT FEMALE and NOT ADULT.

Rules of this type not only simplify the necessary dictionary specifications; they also express relevant
generalization about the semantic structure of the vocabulary described.
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Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire,
use, comprehend and produce language. It deals with planning, production, perception and comprehension of
speech. The aim of modern linguistics has been to arrive at understanding of the way in which our minds work,
and in this respect it could be argued that psycholinguistics, with its unique of blend of psychology and
linguistics, is most significant of all the linguistic branches.

Psycholinguistics is a recent branch of linguistics developed in the sixties. It studies interrelationship of

psychological and linguistic behaviour. It uses linguistic concepts to describe psychological processes
connected with the acquisition and use of language. Thus language acquisition has become the most important
area of investigation. It has raised and has partly answered questions such as how do children acquire their
mother tongue? How do they grow up linguistically and learn to handle the registral and stylistic varieties of
their mother tongue effectively? How much of the linguistic system that they ultimately command, are they born
with and how much do they discover on the basis of their exposure to that system?

Now-a-days, certain areas of language and linguistic theory tend to be concentrated on bythe psycholinguist.
Much of psycholinguistics has been influenced by generative theory and the so-called mentalists. The most
important area is the investigation of the acquisition of language by children. In this respect there have been
many studies of both a theoretical and a descriptive kind. The need for descriptive study arises due to the fact
that until recently hardly anything was known about the actual facts of language acquisition in children, in
particular about the order in which grammatical structures were acquired. Even elementary questions as to when
and how the child develops its ability to ask question syntactically, or when it learn the inflectional system of its
language, remained unanswered. However, a great deal of work has been done recently on the methodological
and descriptive problems related to the obtaining and analyzing information of this kind.

The theoretical questions have focused on the issue of how we can account for the phenomenon of language
development in children at all. Normal children have mastered most of the structures of their language by the
age of five or six. The generative approach argued against the earlier behaviorist assumptions that it was
possible to explain language development largely in terms of imitation and selective reinforcement. It asserted
that it was impossible to explain the rapidity or the complexity of language used by the people around them.

Psycholinguistics, therefore, argue that imitation is not enough; it is not merely by mechanical repetition that
children acquire language. They also acquire it by natural exposure. Both nature and nurture influence the
acquisition of language in children. Children learn first not items but systems. Every normal child comes to
develop this abstract knowledge of his mother tongue, even of a foreign language, to some extent for himself;
and the generative approach argues that such a process is only explicable if one postulates that certain
features of this competence are present in the brain of the child right from the beginning. ‗In other words, what is
being claimed is that the child‘s brain contains certain innate characteristics which ‗pre-structure‘ it in the
direction of language learning. To enable these innate features to develop into adult competence, the child must
be exposed to human language, i.e. it must be stimulated in proper to respond. But the basis on which it develops
its linguistic abilities is not describable in behaviourist terms‘. (David Crystal, Linguistics, p. 256)

The boundary between psycholinguistics and linguistics is becoming increasingly blurred as the result of recent
developments in linguistics which aim at giving psychological reality to the description of language. Chomsky
regards linguistics as a subfield of psychology more specially the cognitive psychology. His view of linguistics,
as outlined for instance, in his book Language and Mind, is that the most important contribution linguistics can
make, is to the study of the human mind. The bonds between psychology and linguistics become stronger by the
extent to which language is influenced by and itself influences such things as memory, motivation, attention,
recall and perception.

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Similarly psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics are coming closer because of the realization that merely
grammatical competence is not enough; we have to aim at communicative competence too. Whereas
psycholinguistics is language and the mind, sociolinguistics is language and community. In other words,
psycholinguistics can be said to deal with language and the individual, and sociolinguistics with language and
society.

Language Acquisition

By the study of language acquisition is meant the process whereby children achieve a fluent control of their
native language. Few people in the 1950s asked about the processes by which language was acquired. It was
assumed that children imitated the adults around them and their speech gradually became more accurate as they
grow up. There seemed to be some mystery attached to this apparently straight-forward process.
Psycholinguistics has therefore attempted general theories of language acquisition and language use. Some have
argued that learning is entirely the product of experience and that our environment affects all of us in the
same way. Others have suggested that everybody has an innate language learning mechanism which
determines learning or acquisition of language identically for each of us. These two schools are known as
‗empiricists‘(Behaviorists) and ‗rationalists‘ (mentalists).

The empiricists say that all knowledge is derived from experience. They are of the opinion that children start out
as clean slates. Learning a language is a process of getting linguistic habits printed on these slates. Language
acquisition is the result of stimulus-response activities. Imitation, repetition, memorization, reward, and
reinforcement facilitate this process of language acquisition. The behaviorists argue that learning is controlled
by the conditions under which it takes place and that, as long as individuals are subjected on the same
condition, they will learn in the same way. Variations in learning are caused because of the difference in
learning experience, difference in the past experience of learning, difference in aptitudes, motivation, memory
and age. So, for them
there is not a theory of language learning as such but merely the application to language of general principles of
learning.

From this follows that in general there is no difference between the way one learns a language and the way one
learns to do anything else. So, according to the empiricists, language is a result of stimulus and response. A child
should, therefore, learn to make a response in the first place, and then the response should be reinforced in a
variety of ways. Indeed strength of learning is measured in terms of the number of times that a response has been
made and reinforced. A word that has been uttered thirty times is better learned than one which has been said
twenty times. So language learning process is basically a mechanical process of a habit formation. Habits are
strengthened by reinforcement. Language is behaviour, a conditioned behaviour which can be learned only by
inducing the child to behave. Repetition plays a vital role in learning a language. Hence there is necessity of
mechanical drills and exercises, imitation and repetition

The rationalists contradict the empiricists at almost every point. Children learn a language, not because they
are subjected to a similar conditioning process, but because they possess an inborn capacity which permits
them to acquire a language as a normal maturational process. This capacity is universal. The child has an
innate language acquiring device. He learns a language by exposure to it in society and by unconsciously
forming certain hypotheses about language, which he goes on modifying till he comes to the adult model to
which he is for the most part exposed. So the child goes on constructing an innate grammar, operating over
generalized rules.

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Language acquisition is species-specific and species-uniform. The ability to take up an understand language is
inherited genetically but the particular language that children speak, is culturally and environmentally
transmitted to them. Children all over the world acquire their native tongue without tutoring. Whereas a child
exposed to an English speaking community begins to speak English fluently, the other one exposed to a
community of Urdu speakers, begins to use Urdu fluently. Only human beings can acquire language. Language
acquisition thus appears to be different in kind from acquisition of other skills such as swimming, dancing, or
gymnastics.

Native language acquisition is much less likely to be affected by mental retardation than the acquisition of other
intellectual activities. Every normal human child learns one or more language unless he is brought up in
linguistic isolation, and learns the essentials of hislanguage by a fairly little age, say by six. To acquire fluency in
a language a child has to be exposed to people who speak that language. A language is not something we know
by instinct or inherit from our parents. It is the result of our exposure to a certain linguistic community. It is part
of that whole complex of learned and shared behavior that anthropologists call ‗culture‘. By this we do not mean
that language is acquired ready-made. It is created anew by each child by putting together bits and pieces of
environmental raw material. The human child does play an active role in this process, he actively strains, filters,
recognizes what he is exposed to. His imitations are not photographic reproductions but artistic recreations. A
child is a linguist in cradle. He acquires a language more easily than adults. He discovers the structure of
his native language to use that language; no one hands it to him in a ready-to-use form.

Both schools have said significant things, yet neither is perfect. The mentalists‘ emphasis on the rule-learning is
over-enthusiastic, and the behaviourists‘ rejection of meaning entirely is unjust. We can easily understand the
point of view of both schools of thoughts by studying language learning theories.

Language Acquisition Theories

Introduction

Language is Almighty Allah‘s special and unique gift to mankind without which human civilization would have
remained an impossibility. As a distinct area of interest psycholinguistics developed in the early sixties, and in
its early form covered acoustic phonology and language pathology. But now-a-days it has been influenced
deeply by the development of generative theory, and its most important area of investigation has been language
acquisition. It has raised and has partly answered questions such as how do children acquire their mother
tongue? How do they grow up linguistically and learn to handle the registral and stylistic varieties of their
mother tongue effectively? How much of the linguistic system that they ultimately command are they born
with and how much do they discover on the basis of their exposure to language? In order to account for the
phenomenon of language learning by children, during the past forty years, there have been two main theories
known as "Behaviorism" and "Mentalism". The Behaviorists School of thought has argued that learning is
entirely the product of experience and that our environment affects all of us in the same way. On the other
hand the Mentalists school of thought has suggested that everybody has an innate language learning
mechanism. Let us discover with the help of these two schools of thought that how do children acquire their
mother tongue.

(1) The Behaviorist School

According to B.F Skinner and his colleagues, the behaviorists, learning, or a change of behavior on the part of
the learner, is brought about by a process known as operant conditioning which is the result of repeated training.
Operant means 'voluntary behavior' which is the result of learner's own free-will and is not forced by any outside
person or thing. The learner demonstrates the new behavior first as a response to a system of reward or
punishment, and finally as an automatic response. In order to prove their theory they conducted an experiment.

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In a typical experiment, a rat is put in a box containing a bar. If it presses the bar, it is rewarded with a pellet of
food. Nothing forces it to press the bar. The first time it probably does so accidentally. When the rat finds that
the food arrives, it presses the bar again. Eventually it finds that if it is hungry it can obtain food by pressing the
bar. Then task is made more difficult. The rat only gets rewarded if it presses the bar while a light is flashing.
At first rat is puzzled. Eventually it learns the trick. Then the task is made more difficult again. This time the rat
only receives food if it presses the bar a certain number of times. After initial confusion it learns to do this also.
And so on, and so on.

Operant condition can be summarized thus

In operant

conditioned, reinforcement plays a vital role. There are two kinds of reinforcement:

(a) Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement comprises of praises and rewards. It has been shown by the experiments that positive
reinforcement works much better in bringing about good learning.

(b) Negative Reinforcement

Rebukes and punishments fall into the negative reinforcement category. Skinner eventually applies his theory of
learning through operant conditioning to the study of how humans learn language.

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Behaviorists believe that learning a language is no different from learning anything else; it becomes a habit by
the stimulus-response-reinforcement-repetition process. The behaviorists also claim that we learn by imitation
and by association. For instance, a young child hears a word 'apple' every time he is given one. He soon
associates the word 'apple' with the actual thing. He then makes this sound himself, imitating what he has heard.
His parents are pleased that he has learnt another word and so his response is reinforced. The thoughts of
behaviorist school can well be understood according to following tree diagram:

Psycholinguists argue that imitation is not enough; it is not merely by mechanical repetition that children acquire
language. They also acquire it by natural exposure.

(2) The Mentalist School

Another school of thought arguing on the crucial matter of first language acquisition in children is the mentalist
school of thought which is led by Noam Chomsky. He and his mentalist followers claim that a child learns his
first language through cognitive learning. He also acquires it by natural exposure. Both 'nature' and 'nurture'
influence the acquisition of language in children. Chomsky regards linguistics as a subfield of psychology,
more especially the cognitive psychology.

The Language Acquisition Device:

Chomsky argues that language is so complex that it is almost incredible that it can be acquired by a child in so
short a time. He further says that a child is born with some innate mental capacity which helps the child to
process all the language which he hears. This is called the "Language Acquisition Device" (LAD).

Chomsky and his followers claim that language is governed by rules, and is not a haphazard thing, as Skinner
and his followers would claim. We must remember that when Chomsky talks about rules, he means the
unconscious rules in a child's mind. A child constructs his own mental grammar which is a part of his cognitive
framework. These rules enable him to produce grammatical sentences in his own language. Chomsky does not
mean that child can describe these rules explicitly. For instance, a four or five year old child can
produce asentence like, I have taken meal, he can do that because he has a 'mental grammar' which enables him
to form correct present perfect structures and also to use such structures in the right or appropriate situation.

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The thoughts of Mentalists can well be understood with the help of the following tree diagram.

Chomsky suggests that the learner of any language has an inbuilt learning capacity for language that enables
each learner to construct a kind of personal theory or set of rules about the language based on very limited
exposure to language.

Difference between Mentalist Approach and Behaviorist Approach:

Language acquisition seems to be a process both of analogy and application, both nature and nurture. The
differences between the empiricists approach and that of the rationalist can be summarized in the following
manner:

Mentalist Approach Behaviorist Approach

(1) Language is an innate, in-born (1) Language acquisition is a stimulus-

process. response process.
(2) Children learn language by (2) Children learn language by imitation
application. and analogy.
(3) Language is not a behavior like other (3) Language is a conditioned behavior.
behaviors, but a specific mental process. (4) The role of imitation, repetition,
(4) The role of exposure to language is reinforcement and motivation is very
quite vital. significant in language learning.
(5) Language learning is analytical, (5) Language learning is based on
generative and creation practice.
(6) Language acquisition is the result of (6) Language acquisition is the result of
nurture. nature.

Conclusion:

Finally, after analyzing both the theories about first language acquisition by the child, such as Behaviorism and
Mentalism, it can be concluded that Chomsky subscribes to an entirely different view of learning from that of
behaviorists. He follows a mentalist approach which means something which involves the mind and the thought
processes. Most psychologists of language agree with this theory. Behaviorism may not tell us much about the
way in which we learn our mother tongue, but it can point to successful strategies in the learning of a
foreign language when we are older. This comparative study makes one thing clear: nature and nurture, analogy
and application, practice and exposure are important. Innate potentialities lay down the framework. Having been
exposed to a small number of utterances, the child begins to extract the principles underlying the utterances and
compose new utterances of his own. In a period of about four years, he is able to master and internalize all the

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essential rules language.

first Language Acquisition

The acquisition of first language "is doubtless the greatest intellectual feat any one of us is ever required to
perform." Leonard Bloomfield

In nearly all cases, children's language development follows a predictable sequence. However,there is a great deal
of variation in the age at which children reach a given milestone. Furthermore, each child's development is
usually characterized by gradual acquisition ofparticular abilities.

Children acquire their first language when they are exposed to a real environment. Acquiring the first language is
like completing a puzzle. Some parts of the puzzle are set up, they are ready to be used-those set of pieces are
born with everybody, we inherit them from our parents and forefathers. They are called innate learning
mechanisms or as Noam Chomsky described as universal grammar. They are active until a specific age then it
seems to be impossible to acquire the language again ‗There is strong evidence that children may never acquire a
language if they have not been exposed to before they reach the age of 6 or 7.

Children between the ages of 2 and 6 learn language so rapidly that by 6 they are competent language users. By
the time children are of school-age, they have amazing language ability; it is a seemingly effortless acquisition
(Cole & Cole, 1993; Curtiss, 1977; Goldin-Meadow, 1982; Lindfors, 1991; McLaughlin, 1984; Newport, 1991).‘
The other part of the puzzle is acquired from the interaction between the child and the surroundings, the
environment, parents, caretakers, etc. The puzzle is not finished until we interact with the surroundings. As a
result of this kind of interaction we acquire the language or we complete the puzzle. The sort of interaction
determines the language we speak. I go with those who proposed that children are born with some syntactic
categories like ‗noun‘ and ‗verb‘ wired in along with certain structural arrays for combining them. Through this
interaction, children acquire the language. But what are the basic requirements for this process? Who are
caretakers and how do they affect language acquisition process? and what stages do children go through for the
sake of language acquisition?

Basic requirements for first language acquisition

A child growing up in the first two or three years requires interaction with other language- users in order to bring
the 'language-faculty' or 'universal grammar' into operation with a particular language, such as English. The child
who doesn't hear, or not allowed to use, language will learn no language. The case of Genie, the thirteen-year-old
girl from Los Angles who spent her whole life in a state of physical, sensory, social and emotional deprivation
that resulted in language disability, is an example. The language is acquired in a particular language-using
environment.
The child must also be physically capable of sending and receiving sound signals in a language. All infants
make 'cooing' and 'babbling' noises during the first few months, but congenitally deaf infants stop after six
months. Therefore, in order to speak a language, a child must be able to hear that language being used. Hearing
language sounds by itself, however, is not enough. One reported case has demonstrated that, with deaf parents
who gave their mal-hearing son ample exposure to TV and radio programs, the child did not acquire an ability to
speak or understand English. What he did learn very effectively, by the age of three, was the use of American
Sign Language- the language he used to interact with parents. The crucial requirement appears to be the
opportunity to interact with others via language.

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Caretaker speech

Under normal circumstances, in Western cultures, the human infant is certainly helped in his or her language
acquisition by typical behavior of the adults in home environment. Adults such as mom, dad, granny and grandpa
tend not to address the little creature before them as if they are involved in normal adult-to-adult conversation.
Thecharacteristically simplified speech style adopted by someone who spends a lot of time interacting with
young child is called caretaker speech ormotherese. This type of speech often uses exaggerating intonation and
incorporates a lot of forms associated with 'baby-talk'. These are simplified words or alternative forms, with
repeated simple sounds, for objects in the child's environment. Built into a lot of caretakers speech is a type of
conversational structure which seems to assign an interactive role to the young child even before he or she
becomes a speaking participant. Caretaker speech is also characterized by simple sentence structures and a lot of
repetition. If the child indeed in the process of working out a system of putting sounds and words together, then
these simplified models produced by the interacting adult may serve as good clues to the basic structural
organization involved. Moreover, it has generally been observed that the speech of those regularly interacting
with children changes and becomes more elaborate as the child begins using more and more language.

Language Acquisition Stages

Here are the stages of child language development. As we look at the stages we have to
remember that children develop at different rates.

Pre-Language Stages The pre-linguistic sounds of the very early stages of child
language acquisition are simply
called 'cooing' and babbling'. The period from about three months to ten months is usually characterized by
three stages of sound production in the infant's developing repertoire. The first recognizable sounds are
described as cooing with velar consonants like /k/ and /g/, as well as high vowels like /i/ and /u/. By six months,
the child is usually able to sit up and can produce a number of different vowels and consonants such as
fricatives and nasals. The sound production at this stage is described as babbling and may contain syllable type
sounds such as mu and da. In the later babbling stage, around nine months, there are recognizable intonation
patterns to the consonant and vowel combinations being produced. It is worthy saying that some psychologists
have suggested that this 'pre-language' vocalization gives children some experience of the social role of speech
because parents tend to react to the babbling, however incoherent, as if it is, in fact, their child‘s contribution to
social interaction.

Prepared by: Osama Amin English

Lecturer GDC Bakhshali Mardan

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Between twelve and eighteen months,

The one-word or Holophrastic Stage children begin to produce a variety of
recognizable
single unit utterances. This period, traditionally called the 'one-word stage', is characterized by speech in which
single terms are uttered for everyday objects such as ‗cat and cup' other forms such as /Ʌ / may occur in
circumstances which suggest that the child is producing a version of what is that, so the label 'one-word' may be
misleading. Some terms like holophrastic or 'single-unit' or 'single-form' may be more accurate.

The two-word Stage This stage begins around eighteen to twenty months,
as the child's vocabulary moves beyond fifty distinct words. By the time the child is two years old, a variety of
combinations will have appeared. The adult interpretations is, of course, very much tied to the context of their
utterance. Whatever it is that the child actually intends to communicate via such expressions, the significant
functional consequences are that the adult
behaves as if communication is taking place.
Telegraphic Speech Between two and three years old, the child will begin producing a
large number of utterances which could be classified as multiple-word utterances. The salient feature of these
utterances ceases to be the number of words, but that variation in word-forms which begins to appear. The
telegraphic speech is a stage which is characterized by strings of lexical morphemes in phrases such as cat
drink milk . The child has clearly developed some sentence-building capacity by this stage and can order the
forms correctly. By the age of two and a half, the child's vocabulary is expanding rapidly and the child is actually
initiating more talks. By the age of three, the vocabulary has grown to hundreds of words and pronunciation has
become closer to the form of the adult language, so that even visitors have to admit that the little creature can
talk.

In conclusion, babies are not born talking however, they acquire the language. Language acquisition is a part
of the overall development of children physically, socially,and cognitively. They start to acquire the language
even before they are born ‗silent stage‘ and they develop their abilities and skills immediately after birth.In
addition, they go through different stages to develop an ability for uttering sounds, making words, recognizing
the meaning and forming constructions.

The Universal Language Timeline of Speech-Perception and Speech-Production Development

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Sociolinguistics
Language is a social-cultural-geographical phenomenon. There is a deep relationship between language and
society. It is in society that man acquires and uses language. When we study a language which is an abstraction
of abstractions, a system of systems, we have to study its further abstractions such as dialects, sociolects,
idiolects, etc. That is why we have to keep in mind the geographical area in which this language is spoken, the
culture and the society in which it is used, the speakers who use it, the listeners for whom it is used, and the
purpose for which it is used, besides the linguistic components that compose it. Only then can our study of a
language be complete and comprehensive.

So we must look at language not only from within but also from without; we should study language from the
points of view of both form and functions. Sociolinguistics is the study of speech functions according to the
speaker, the hearer, their relationship and contact, the context and the situation, the topic of discourse,
the purpose of discourse, and the form of discourse. An informal definition of sociolinguistics suggested by a
linguist is that it is the study of: ―Who can say what how, using what means, to whom and why.‖ It studies the
causes and consequences of linguistic behaviour in human societies; it is concerned with the function of
language, and studies language from without.

Sociolinguistics is a fascinating and challenging field of linguistics. It studies the ways in which language
interacts with society. It is the study of the way in which the structure of a language changes in response to its
different social functions, and the definition of what these functions are. ‗Society, here is to cover a spectrum of
phenomena to do with race, nationality, more restricted regional, social and political groups, and the interactions
of individuals within groups. Different labels have sometimes been suggested to cover various parts of this
spectrum. Ethnolinguistics is sometimes distinguished from the rest, referring to the linguistic correlates and
problems of ethnic groups—illustrated at a practical level by the linguistic consequences of immigration; there is
a language side to race relations. The term Anthropological Linguistics is sometimes distinguished from
‗sociological linguistics‘, depending on one‘s particular views as to the validity or otherwise of a distinction
between anthropology and sociology in the first place (for example, the former studying primitive cultures, the
latter studying more ‗advanced‘ political units; but this distinction is not maintained by many others). ‗Stylistics‘
is another label which is sometimes distinguished, referring to the study of the distinctive linguistic
characteristics of smaller social groupings. But more usually, stylistics refers to the study of the literary
expression of a community using language. Sociolinguistics gradually merges into ethno- linguistics,
anthropological linguistics, stylistics and the subject-matter of psychology.

Broadly speaking, however, the study of language as part of culture and society has now commonly been
accepted as Sociolinguistics. But there are also some other expressions which have been used at one time or
another, including ‗the sociology of language‘, ‗social linguistics‘, ‗institutional linguistics‘, ‗anthropological
linguistics‘, ‗linguistic anthropology‘, ‗Ethnolinguistics‘, the ‗ethnography of communication‘, etc.

The kinds of problems which are faced by the sociolinguist are:

(a) The problems of communities which develop a standard language, and the reactions of minority
groups to this (as in Belgium, India, Pakistan or Wales).

(b) The problems of people who have to be educated to linguistic level where they can cope with the
demands of a variety of social situations.

(c) The problems of communication which exist between nations or groups using a different language,
which affects their ‗world-view‘ (for example the problem of popularizing Russian among the nations which are
friendly to Russia).

(d) The problems caused by linguistic change in response to social factors; the problems caused or solved
by bilingualism or multilingualism.

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By this however, we do not mean that socio-linguistics can or does solve all such problems as stated above. Yet
it can identify precisely what the problems are and provide information about the particular manifestation of a
problem in a given area, so that possible solutions can thereby be found out or expedited. Furthermore, problems
related to interference, code-switching or dialect-switching can be successfully handled by socio- linguistics.
But the success of socio-linguistics ultimately depends upon ‗pure linguistics‘.

The scope of sociolinguistics, therefore, is the interaction of language and various sociologically definable
variables such as social class, specific social situation, status and roles of speakers/hearers, etc. As J.B. Pride
says, sociolinguistics is not simply ‗amalgam of linguistics and sociology (or indeed of linguistics and any other
of the social sciences)‘. It incorporates, in principle at least, every aspect of the structure and use of language that
relates to its social and cultural functions. Hence there seems no real conflict between the sociolinguistic and the
psycholinguistic approach to language. Both these views should be reconciled ultimately. Linguists like John
Lyons and cognitive psychologists like Campbell and Wales advocate the necessity of widening the notion of
competence to take account of a great deal of what might be called the ‗social context‘ of speech.

Language Variation

Language with its different varieties is the subject matter of sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics studies the varied
linguistic realizations of socio-cultural meanings which in a sense are both familiar and unfamiliar and the
occurrence of everyday social interactions which are nevertheless relative to particular cultures, societies, social
groups, speech communities,languages, dialects, varieties, styles. That is why language variation generally forms
a part of socio-linguistic study.

Language can vary, not only from one individual to the next, but also from one sub-section of speech-community
(family, village, town, and region) to another. People of different age, sex, social classes, occupations, or cultural
groups in the same community will show variations in their speech. Thus language varies in geographical and
social space. Variability in a social dimension is called sociolectical. According to sociolinguists, a language is
code. There exist

varieties within the code and the factors that cause language variation can be summarized in the following
manner:

Nature of participants and Socio-economic, Sexual, Occupational

their relationship
Number of participants Two Face-to-Face, One addressing a large audience, etc
Role of participants Teacher/Student/Priest/Parishioner
/Father/Son/Husband/Wife, etc
Function of speech event Persuasion, Request for information, Ritual, Verbal, etc.
Nature of medium Speech, Writing, Scripted Speech, Speech reinforced by
gesture, etc.
Genre of discourse Scientific, Experiment, Sport, Art, Religion, etc.
Physical setting Noisy/Quiet/Public/Private/Family/Formal/Familiar/
Unfamiliar, etc.

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Language Varieties: - Language varies from region to region, class to class, profession to profession,
person to person, and even situation to situation. Sociolinguistics tends to describe these variations in language
with reference to their relationship with society. It shows that the relationship between language variation and
society is rather a systematic relationship. It manifests that there are four major social factors involve in this
variation: socio-economic status, age, gender, and ethnic background of the user or users of language. Due
to all these four factors language differs on four levels chiefly:

(1) Phonological Level

(2) Lexical Level

(3) Syntax Level

(4) Discourse Level

In other words, variation within a language with reference to its use or user can be defined in terms of ‗difference
of linguistic items‘.

R. A. Hudson in his Sociolinguistics manifests: “What makes a language variety

different from another is linguistic items that it includes, so we may define a
variety of language as a set of linguistic items with similar social
distribution”.

So, to describe language varieties, on one side there are linguistic items and on the other there is ‗social
distribution‘. Let‘s take two different social classes for example: Middle Class and Working Class. Language of
Working Class is different from that of Middle Class. The choice of vocabulary of one class is quite different
from the other. Middle class uses more adjective, adverbs and impersonal pronouns. Whereas Working class uses
active and simple words and here is lesser use of adjective, adverbs and impersonal pronouns. Lower class
speech (restricted code) is more direct with simple grammatical construction in contrast with middle class
speech (elaborated code).
In the following, five major language verities will be discussed, namely: Idiolect, Register, Diglossia, Pidgin and
Lingua Franca. Besides this, it will also be observed that how a language variety differs from another closely
related variety. For instance, what is difference between Idiolect and sociolect? How register differs from
dialect? What makes distinguish pidgin from other varieties?

Idiolect: - Every person has some differences with people around him. From eating habits to dressing,
everyone has some quite unique feature. The same is the case with individual language use. Every individual
have some idiosyncratic linguistic features in his or her use of language. These personal linguistic features are
known as Idiolect. David crystal in his Dictionary of Linguistics and phonetics defines Idiolect as: ―Linguistic
system of an individual—one‘s personal dialect‖.
This ‗linguistic system‘ can be described in terms of personal choice of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and
individual style of pronunciation. In other words idiolect refers to a person‘s individual phonology, syntax and
lexicon.
For instance some individuals use lower pitch and some other speak with higher pitch. Some are in habit of
speaking with harder tone and it feels as if they are speaking with anger, even though they are speaking ‗sweetly‘
on their side. Similarly, some individual‘s use their nasal cavity, more than their vocal cord, in their production
of sound and listener feels as some sharp whistle is blowing.

The best example of particular choice of vocabulary is individual use of ‗catch phrases‘. Most frequent among
these are ―I say‖, ―I mean‖, ―do you understand?‖ and ―what do you think?‖ Some catch phrases are rather
interesting and their use becomes cause of amusement. For example one of my classmate in M.A Linguistics was
in habit of using:

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“Bhai” with every third or fourth sentence. Once his audience was a girl
instead of boy. When he said “Bhai, main explain kar raha thaa...” The girl
corrected him and said “bhai nahi bhan!” and he promptly replied, “Oh
bhai, I mean...”

In this way a person‘s speech is distinguished from other individuals and form any speech community. Idiolect is
a minor speech variety than sociolect, which is used by any social class. Idiolect varies with individual whereas
sociolect varies with class defined on socio-economic bases. Idiolect, sociolect and dialect are the varieties
which depend on their user. However, there is another scheme of language varieties distinguishing from one
and another in term of their use rather than user. Registeris one of them.

Register: - Human beings are not static. Their thinking, choice, and behavior vary according to need and
situation. As they adapt their behavior according to the situation, they adapt their language. This adaptation of
language according to situation, context and purpose forms a language variety that is called ‗Register‘. David
Crystal defines Register as: ―A variety of language defined according to its use in a social situation‖.
Language of individual varies from situation to situation. At some occasions people talk very formally, on some
other occasions they talk technically as well as formally. At some other occasion they become informal yet
technical and sometimes informal and non-technical. Following is the example of all these ‗levels of formalities‘:

Formal technical: ―We obtained some sodium chloride.‖Formal

non-technical: ―We obtained some salt.‖

Informal technical: ―We got some sodium chloride.‖

Informal non-technical: ―We got some salt.‖

There are two other levels: Slang, and vulgar. Question is that why a person adopts these different levels of
formalities? Michael Halliday in his ―Language as Social Semiotic‖ defines register as ―A complex scheme of
communicative behavior‖. He observes that this scheme of behavior has three dimensions: Field, Tenor, and
Mode. These three dimensions determine speaker‘s choice of ‗linguistic items‘.

Field implies why and about what the communication is? In simple, what is the purpose and subject matter of
communication? For example, a doctor‘s communication with other doctors will be containing more medical
terminology i.e., he will be using medical register.

The same doctor will communicate with his patient in as simple language as possible. So the patient is ‗Tenor‘
that means to whom the communication is being done. Other example of determination of speech by ‗Tenor‘ is
the difference of a person‘s communication with a teacher than with a friend.

Mode is the means of communication. If the mode of communication is letter, its language will be different from
direct conversation. If it is an essay, its language will be differing from that of letter even though written about
the same topic.

‗Register‘ as a language variety differs from dialect, sociolect and idiolect. These differences are:

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Register Dialect

Register is a language variety according touse. Dialect is language variety according to user.

It may be related to any particular It may be related to any region or social class
profession or situation.

It shows what the user of language is doing It shows who the user is.

Register is a set of particular linguisticitems to be Dialect is a set of linguistic items to be usedby

used in a particular situation. people of particular area or class.

Up till now the different variations within a language were being dealt but there are certain situations where two
or more languages are used which causes such variations that are beyond the range of one language. One of these
variations is known as pidgin. There is a situation in which two or more languages are used with in a society.
That is known as ‗Diglossia‘. Let‘s discuss the situation.

Diglossia: - Diglossia is not a language variety but a ‗linguistic situation‘ where more than one languages
are used. In English language, term Diglossia was introduced by Charles Ferguson. He used this term to refer
to those societies where two very different varieties of the same language were being used. He said: ―Diglossia
is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialect of the language (which
may include standard or regional standards), there is very highly codified (often grammatically complex)
superposed variety.‖

In Ferguson‘s theory that society is ‗diglossic‘ where two ‗divergent‘ varieties of the same language are used,
out of which one is ‗highly codified‘.Arabic speaking countries are the best examples of ‗Diglossia‘.
Throughout the Arabic peninsula there are two varieties of Arabic language in use: Classical Arabic, and
Vernaculars. Classical Arabic, which is based on the Qur‘anic language, is highly codified and complex and has
stable grammatical structure since The Holy Qur‘an is revealed. This language is ‗Lingua Franca‘ of Arabic
Peninsula and is being taught in schools and also the language of media. Everyone has to learn this variety
especially and not acquired ―by being born in right kind of family‖. Everywhere in diglossic society, vernaculars
are used for daily routine conversation.

It is obvious from Ferguson‘s definition that only that society was considered diglossic where two varieties, one
high and another low, of the same language were used. However, later on, Joshua Fishman, extend the term to
that society where two different languages are used. According to this extension almost all societies become
diglossic society.

Ferguson also purposed that there is a strong tendency to give one language higher status or prestige and reserve
it for specific occasion and purposes. According to this notion, Pakistani society is strongly a diglossic society
where there are not two but three languages exist with different status. In Punjab for example, Punjabi is used at
personal level, Urdu is used on social level and English is ‗reserved‘ for high formal occasions. The existence of
different languages in a society provides them to emerge into each other and sometimes results into a new
mixture of languages that is called Pidgin.

Pidgin: - Pidgin is an ‗odd mixture‘ of two languages which cannot be said a divergent variety of ‗a
language‘ but of two or more languages. Here languages mixed up oddly that from morphemes to sentence
structure everything reduces and mingles strangely. David crystal defines pidgin as a language with a markedly
reduced grammatical structure, lexicon, and stylistic range, compared with other languages, and which is
native language of none and are formed by two mutually unintelligible speech communities attempting to

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communicate.

The vocabulary of a pidgin comes mainly from one particular language called the ―lexifier‖. An early ―pre-
pidgin‖ is quite restricted in use and variable in structure. But the later ―stable
pidgin‖ develops its own grammatical rules which are quite different from those of the lexifier. These names of
pidgins themselves reflect how the vocabulary emerges: chinglish ―Chinese English‖ or engrish ―English
Chinese‖. However it becomes more complex with the passage of time.

Since pidgin emerges out of practical need of communication between two different language communities
having no greater language to interact, it is also called ‗contact language‘. R. A. Hudson in his Sociolinguistics
states: ―Pidgin is a variety especially created for the purpose of communication with some other group, and
not used by any community for communication among themselves.‖ So pidgin is outcome of interaction
between two entirely different ‗speech communities‘. It develops because neither of the communities ‗learns‘ the
language of others due to different reasons.

Sometimes practically it is impossible to learn either of the languages so quickly and there is strong need of
interaction, as for business purposes or immediate political needs. Most of the present pidgins have developed in
European colonies. A few examples are: Hawaii Creole English, AAVE, Papiamentu ―Geordie Cameroon Pidgin
Krio ―Singlish‖ Tok Pisin, Bislama. Out of these, many have developed as Creoles.

Major difference between pidgin and Creole is that former has no native speakers but later has. In fact, when any
pidgin is acquired by children of any community it becomes Creole. At that time it develops its new structures
and vocabulary. In other words when a pidgin becomes ‗lingua franca‘ it is called Creole.

An old example of pidgin, that later developed into creole, was ―lingua franca‖. It referred to a mix of mostly
Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic. This mixed language
was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East as a diplomatic language.
Term ―lingua franca‖ has since become common for any language used by speakers of different languages to
communicate with one another.

Lingua Franca: - Lingua franca is any inter-language used beyond its native speakers for the sake of
communication between the speech communities having different languages. David Crystal defines it as: ―An
auxiliary language used to enable routine communication to take place between groups of people who speak
different native languages‖.

Term ‗lingua franca‘ is an old one and its origin is Italian means ―Frankish language‖. It was derived from the
medieval Arab Muslim use of ―Franks‖ mean ancient Germanic people. The Muslims used it as a generic term for
Europeans during the period of the Crusades. Formerly, the term referred to an old pidgin, mixture of Italian,
Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Greek and French. This pidgin was widely used in the Mediterranean area from the 14th
century or earlier and still in use in the 20th century. This language served as diplomatic and trade language.
However, now this term refers to any language that serves to communicate between different larger speech
communities.

There are many languages which have served as ‗Lingua Franca‘ during the course of history. For instance,
during the domination of Roman Empire, lingua franca was Latin in the East

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and Greek in the west. With the rise of the Arab Muslims, Arabic became lingua franca in the East from South
Asia to North Africa and even western part of southern Europe. Persian also have enjoyed this status around 15th
century till 19th century in Indian-subcontinent and Central Asia. Until the late-19th and early-20th centuries,
Classical Chinese served as both a lingua franca and diplomatic language for Far East Asia, used by China,
Korea, Japan and Vietnam in interstate communications. In Europe, from 18th century till World War II, French
worked as Interlingua among European nations and now English has occupied this place and is serving as
diplomatic and commerce language around the globe.

Conclusion

We have studied different varieties of language and have compared their different aspect. We have observed that
language varies from larger communities, down to an individual. Even language of an individual varies from
occasion to occasion. We find that there are different levels of formalities with in a language and their use
depends of speaker‘s purpose, mode and audience. Moreover it also varies due to socio-economic position of
individual or group. This variation of language with social difference, makes this notion more clear that language
is a social phenomenon and inextricably tied with social and cultural traditions.

Bilingualism

Bilingualism has been derived from Latin word bi means "two‖ and lingualism means "tongue".
Monolingualism refers to the ability to use a single language. Bilingualism is the ability to use two languages
effectively. The ability to use multiple languages is known as multilingualism.

Bilingualism exists as a possession of an

Individual & Societal Bilingualism individual. It is also possible to talk about
bilingualism as a
characteristic of a group or community of people [societal bilingualism]. Bilinguals and multilinguals are most
often located in groups, communities or in a particular region (e.g. Catalans in Spain). Co-existing languages
may be in a process of rapid change, living in harmony or one rapidly advancing at the cost of the other, or
sometimes in conflict. Where many language minorities exist, there is often language shift.

Bilingualism-more generally, multilingualism-is a major fact

Bilingualism as a Norm of life in the world today. To begin with, the world's
estimated 5,000 languages are spoken
in the world's 200 sovereign states (or 25 languages per state), so that communication among the citizens of
many of the world's countries clearly requires extensive bi- (if not multi-)lingualism. In fact, David Crystal
(1997) estimates that two-thirds of the world's children grow up in a bilingual environment. Considering only
bilingualism involving English, the statistics that Crystal has gathered indicate that, of the approximately 570
million people world-wide who speak English, over 41 percent or 235 million are bilingual in English and some
other language. One must conclude that, far from being exceptional, as many lay people believe,
bilingualism/multilingualism--which, of course, goes hand in hand with multiculturalism in many cases--is
currently the rule throughout the world and will become increasingly so in the future.

The political history of the 19th and 20th centuries and the
Global Multilingualism ideology of 'one state--one nation--one
language' have given rise to the idea that monolingualism has always been the default or normal case in Europe
and more or less a precondition for political loyalty. Facing this situation, it has been overlooked that the vast
majority of the world's population--in whatever form or conditions--is multilingual. This is quite obvious when
we look at the linguistic maps of Africa, Asia or Southern America at any given time.

When we talk of the knowledge of languages, we come across terms like Monolingualism, Bilingualism and
Multilingualism. Simply speaking, they mean one, two or more languages. It is evident that the distinction is of
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degree only. Different people use term ―Bilingualism‖ in different ways. For some Bilingualism means an
equal ability to communicate in two languages. For others, it means the ability to communicate in two
languages but with the possibility of greater skill in one language.

The traditional definition of Bilingualism is something like ―the ability to use two languages freely and fluently
with native speaker like proficiency‖. This approach to bilingualism appears to rule out a great many people,
especially learners, who have a good working knowledge of a second language and a fair ability to express
themselves, but who cannot claim to have the accuracy and fluency of a native speaker. This type of perfect
bilingualism is extremely rare. However, it is not uncommon for people to approximate to perfect bilingualism
by being equally competent in both languages over a fairly wide range of situations. So we should prefer to
view Bilingualism as―language ability which can be placed on a line from monolingualism to ambilingualism‖.
It meansthis ability can occur anywhere on a scale from speaking only one‘s native language to speaking two or
more languages with equal skill.

Bilingualism in its broad definition is very common indeed all over the world. Monolingualism speech
communities are extremely rare. People are required to attempt to learn at least one other language. Over 70%
of the earth;s population are thought to be bilingual or multilingual, and there is good reason to believe that
bilingualism or multilingualism has been the norm for most human beings at least for the last few millennia. In
countries like Switzerland, Canada andthe United States, people speak more than one language. Two
wellknown examples of officiallybilingual countries are Canada and Belgium. An equally well-known
example of an officially multilingual country, which has not experienced any comparable language-problems,
is Switzerland. Other countries, though not officially bilingual or multilingual, have two or more different
languages spoken within their borders. Most countries of the world fall into this latter category. Furthermore,
although it does not follow from what has been said so far, in most countries whether they are officially
bilingual or multilingual or not, there are whole communitiesthat are bilingual or multilingual in the sense that
their members commonly use two or more languages in their daily lives. It is not the case, of course, that all
the citizens of an officially bilingual or multilingual country use, or even know, more than one language.

In New Guinea, in southeast Asia, in India, in the Caucasus, in the Amazon rain forest, people routinely learn
two or three neighbouring languages as well as their own, and the same was true of Australia before the
European settlement. Even today, many millions of European are at least bilingual, speaking both their own
mother tongue and the national lenguage of the country they
live in, and many of them can additionally speak a global language or world language like English or French.

People of a country may feel obliged to study a foreign language under political pressure, or adopt it of their
own free will to join the main stream of human relationship.Individual bilingualism,
however, doesn‘t have to be the result of political dominance by a group using different language.It can simply
be the result of having two parents who speak different languages. If a child simultaneously acquires the French
spoken by her mother and the English spoken by her father, then the distinction between the two languages may
not even be noticed. There will simply be
two ways of talking according to the person being talked to. However, even in this type of bilingualism,
one language tends eventually to become the dominent one, with the others in subordinate role.
Sociolinguists have identified two main types of bilingualism: Co-ordinate and Compound.

Co-ordinate bilinguals tend to keep the two languages separate, and have language choice governed by
language domains(area of language activity). They may think in their dominant language but have the
ability to switch from one language to another when the need arises.

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Compound bilinguals have their two languages as a merged system. They have a single semantic base or
competence and can use it to produce other language. They move from one language to another with much less
hesitation. The compound bilinguals use both language at the same time interchangeably. Compound
bilingualism results in code-switching which means change from one language to another. This change of
switch may take place from one languageto another in the same situation, or from one sentence to another
sentence in the discourse, or with in the same sentence.

The classification of bilinguals just given may or may not be well founded from a psychological, and
neurophysiological, point of view. But it is one that has guided a good deal of recent research. At the very
least, it serves to emphasize the fact that there are many different kinds ofbilingual individuals.

Similarly, there are many different kinds of bilingual communities: different in respect of whether one language
is clearly dominant or not for most members; whether one language is dominent for some, but not for others;
whether some members approximate to perfect bilingualism or not; whether both languages are acquired
simultaneously or not; and so on. However regardless of ofall these differences, there is one thing that most, if
not all, bilingual communities have in common: a fairly clear functional differentiation of the two languages in
respect of what many sociolinguiats refer to as domains. For example, one such domain might the home, this
being defined in terms, not simply of the actual place where the conversation occurs, but also of the
participants, the topic of conversation, and other relevant variables.

Thus one language might be the language of the home, in the sense that it would always be used in talking
informally with other members of the family at home about domestic matters. However, another language
might be used outside the home, or inside the home when strangers
are present (even though they might well be bilingual too) or when the topic of conversation isother than
domestic. This notion of domain is intuitively attractive.

Bilingualism or multilingualism can be the property of an individual, but equally it can be the property of an
entire speech community in which two or more languages are routinely used. The existence of bilingual and
multilingual societies raises a number of important social, political and educational issues. In what languages
should education be delivered, and at what levels? What languages should be accepted for publication and
broadcasting? In what languages should lawsbe written, and what languages should be accepted in court
proceedings?

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Code Switching

The practice of moving back and forth between two languages or between two dialects or registers of the same
language is called code switching. It occurs far more often in conversation than in writing.

Examples and Observations:

"Code-switching performs several functions:

First, people may use code-switching to hide fluency or memory problems in the second
language (but this accounts for about only 10 percent of code switches).

Second, code-switching is used to mark switching from informal situations (using native
languages) to formal situations (using second language).

Third, code-switching is used to exert control, especially between parents and children.

Fourth, code-switching is used to align speakers with others in specific situations (e.g.,
defining oneself as a member of an ethnic group).

Code-switching also 'functions to announce specific identities, create certain meanings,

and facilitate particular interpersonal relationships'

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In a relatively small Puerto Rican neighborhood in New Jersey, some members freely used code-switching styles
and extreme forms of borrowing both in everyday casual talk and in more formal gatherings. Other local
residents were careful to speak only Spanish with a minimum of loans on formal occasions, reserving code-
switching styles for informal talk. Others again spoke mainly English, using Spanish or code-switching styles
only with small children or with neighbors.

African American Vernacular English and Standard American English

"It is common to find references to black speakers who code switch between AAVE [African American
Vernacular English] and SAE [Standard American English] in the presence of whites or others speaking SAE. In
employment interviews (Hopper & WIlliams, 1973; Akinnaso & Ajirotutu, 1982), formal education in a range of
settings (Smitherman, 2000), legal discourse (Garner & Rubin, 1986), and various other contexts, it is
advantageous for blacks to have code-switching competence. For a black person who can switch from AAVE to
SAE in the presence of others who are speaking SAE, code switching is a skill that holds benefits in relation to
the way success is often measured in institutional and professional settings. However, there are more dimensions
to code switching than the black/white patterns in institutional settings."

"A Fuzzy-Edged Concept"

"The tendency to reify code switching as a unitary and clearly identifiable phenomenon has been questioned by
Gardner-Chloros (1995: 70), who prefers to view code switching as a 'fuzzy-edged concept.' For her, the
conventional view of code switching implies that speakers make binary choices, operating in one code or the
other at any given time, when in fact code switching overlaps with other kinds of bilingual mixture, and the
boundaries between them are difficult to establish. Moreover, it is often impossible to categorize the two codes
involved in code switching as discrete and isolatable."

Code Switching and Language Change

"The role of CS, along with other symptoms of contact, in language change is still a matter of discussion. On the
one hand, the relationship between contact and language change is now generally acknowledged: few espouse
the traditional view that change follows universal, language-internal principles such as simplification, and takes
place in the absence of contact with other varieties (James Milroy 1998). On the other hand, some researchers
still downplay the role of CS in change, and contrast it with borrowing, which is seen as a form of convergence.

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Language Change
Language change is variation over time in a language's phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other
features.

Causes of language change

Economy Speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient andeffective as

possible to reach communicative goals. Purposeful
speaking therefore involves a trade-off of costs and benefits.
The principle of leasteffort Speakers especially use economy in their articulation, which tends to result
in phonetic reduction of speech forms. See vowel reduction, cluster
reduction, lenition, and elision. After some time a change may become
widely accepted (it becomes a regular sound change) and may end up treated
as a standard. For instance: going to [ˈɡoʊ.ɪŋ.tʊ] → gonna [ˈɡɔnə] or
[ˈɡʌnə], with examples of both vowel reduction [ʊ] → [ə] and
elision [nt] → [n], [oʊ.ɪ] → [ʌ].

Analogy Reducing word forms by likening different forms of the word

to the root.
Language Contact Borrowing of words and constructions from foreign languages.
The medium of is also one of the causes of language change.
communication
Cultural Groups of speakers will reflect new places, situations, andobjects in their
Environment language, whether they encounter different
people there or not
Migration/Movement Speakers will change and create languages, such as pidgins
and creoles.

Types of language change

All languages change continuously, and do so in many and varied ways. Marcel Cohen details various types of
language change under the overall headings of the external evolution and internal evolution of languages.

Lexical changes

The study of lexical changes forms the diachronic portion of the science of onomasiology. The ongoing
influx of new words in the English language (for example) helps make it a rich field for investigation into
language change, despite the difficulty of defining precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to
speakers of English. Throughout its history English has not only borrowed words from other languages but
has re-combined and recycled themto create new meanings, whilst losing some old words.

Dictionary-writers try to keep track of the changes in languages by recording (and, ideally, dating) the
appearance in a language of new words, or of new usages for existing words. By the same token, they may tag
some words as "archaic" or "obsolete".

Phonetic and phonological changes

The concept of sound change covers both phonetic and phonological developments. The sociolinguist William

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Labov recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively short period in the American resort of Martha's
Vineyard and showed how this resulted from socialtensions and processes.[ Even in the relatively short time that
broadcast media have recorded their work, one can observe the difference between the pronunciation of the
newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the pronunciation of today. The greater acceptance and fashion
ability of regional accents in media may also reflect a more democratic, less formal society — compare the
widespread adoption of language policies.

The mapping and recording of small-scale phonological changes poses difficulties, especially as the practical
technology of sound recording dates only from the 19th century. Written texts provide the main (indirect)
evidence of how language sounds have changed over the centuries . But note Ferdinand de Saussure's work on
postulating the existence and disappearance of laryngeals in Proto-Indo-European as an example of other
methods of detecting/reconstructing sound-changes within historical linguistics.

Spelling changes

Standardization of spelling originated relatively recently. Differences in spelling often catch the eye of a reader
of a text from a previous century. The pre-print era had fewer literate people: languages lacked fixed systems of
orthography, and the handwritten manuscripts that survive often show words spelled according to regional
pronunciation and to personal preference.

Semantic changes

Semantic changes are shifts in meaning of the existing words. They include:

Pejoration in which a term acquires a negative association

Amelioration in which a term acquires a positive association
Widening in which a term acquires a broader meaning
Narrowing in which a term acquires a narrower meaning

The appearance of a new word marks only the beginning of its existence. Once generally adopted as part of the
language, the meanings and applications it has for speakers can shift dramatically, to the point of causing
misunderstandings. For example, "villain" once meant a peasant or farmhand, but has come to imply a criminal
individual in modern English. This exemplifies a word that has undergone pejoration, which means that a
negative association has become attached to it. Conversely, other words have undergone amelioration where a
more positive meaning prevails. Thus, the word 'wicked' (generally meaning 'evil'), as of 2009 means 'brilliant'
in slang or in a colloquial context.

Other ways of semantic change include narrowing and broadening. Narrowing a word semantically limits its
alternative meanings. For example the word "girl" once meant 'a young child' and "hound" (Old English hund)
referred to any dog, whereas in modern English it demotes a particular type of canid. Examples of words that
have been broadened semantically include "dog" (which once referred to a particular breed).

Syntactic change
Syntactic change is the evolution of the syntactic structure of a natural language. Over time, syntactic change is
the greatest modifier of a particular language. Massive changes may occur both in syntax and vocabulary and are
attributable to either creolization or relexification.

Sociolinguistics and Language Change

The sociolinguist Jennifer Coates, following William Labov, describes linguistic change as occurring in the
context of linguistic heterogeneity. She explains that ―linguistic change can be said to have taken place when a
new linguistic form, used by some sub-group within a speech community, is adopted by other members of that
community and accepted as the norm.‖
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Can and Patton (2010) provide a quantitative analysis of twentieth century Turkish literature using forty novels
of forty authors. Using weighted least squares regression and a sliding window approach, they show that, as
time passes, words, in terms of both tokens (in text) and types (in vocabulary), have become longer. They
indicate that the increase in word lengths with time can be attributed to the government-initiated language
―reform‖ of the 20th century. This reform aimed at replacing foreign words used in Turkish, especially Arabic-
and Persian-based words (since they were in majority when the reform was initiated in early 1930s), with newly
coined pure Turkish neologisms created by adding suffixes to Turkish word stems (Lewis, 1999).

Can and Patton (2010), based on their observations of the change of a specific word use (more specifically in
newer works the preference of ama over fakat, both borrowed from Arabic and meaning 'but', and their inverse
usage correlation is statistically significant), also speculate that the word length increase can influence the
common word choice preferences of authors.

Quantifying Language Change

Altintas, Can, and Patton (2007) introduce a systematic approach to language change quantification by studying
unconsciously-used language features in time-separated parallel translations. For this purpose, they use objective
style markers such as vocabulary richness and lengths of words, word stems and suffixes, and employ statistical
methods to measure their changes over time.

Language Shift and Social Status

Languages perceived to be "higher status" stabilize or spread at the expense of other languages perceived by
their own speakers to be "lower-status".

Historical examples are the early Welsh and Lutheran bible translations, leading to theliturgical languages Welsh
and High German thriving today, unlike other Celtic or German variants.

For prehistory, Forster and Renfrew (2011) argue that in some cases there is a correlation of language change
with intrusive male Y chromosomes but not with female DNA. They then speculate that technological
innovation (transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture or from stone to metal tools) or military prowess (as
in the abduction of British women by Vikings to Iceland) causes immigration of at least some males, and
perceived status change. Then, in mixed-language marriages with these males, prehistoric women would often
have chosen to transmit the "higher-status" spouse's language to their children, yielding the language/Y-
chromosome correlation seen today.

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Relationship between Language and Culture

Introduction

In any culture or region, language is much more than semantics, much more than what the written page or the
spoken word can contain. Language does not end at the meaning or the use of words associated to a culture"
words represent beliefs, history, and the culture of their origin and they must be used accordingly.

Language

Language as one element of culture has a very important role in human life. Language allows a person
communicating with others in meeting their needs. Thus, it can be said is the main function of language as a
communication tool. This does not mean that the language has only one function. Another function is as a tool
to express self-expression, a tool to make integration and social adaptation, as well as a tool to hold social
control.

Based on these functions we can say that language is a means of communication between members of the public
symbol of the sound produced by means of said human. Language is a symbol of the sound produced by means of
said human, and the system has means that are arbitrary; used by men in their life as a means of communication
between each other to form, express, and communicate thoughts and feelings.

Based on the notions described above, it is clear that the language is a communication tool produced by the tool
man has said symbol, system, meaning, and social are arbitrary and culturally. Every language has a symbol.
With the symbol he will facilitate communication, although not directly dealing with the object. This is because
each symbol already contains a concept or understanding. In order for the meaning of the symbols are
understood, every language user must understand and follow the system language is used. Language system
contains rules or rules that must be obeyed by the user's language. If the rules are not obeyed, the delivery
information may be chaotic or communication cannot happen.

Languages are arbitrary means no direct relationship between the symbol with the symbolized. Symbolic
emergence of an object is based on the convention. However, even so to be able to understand a language must
be studied and used as a communication tool.

Culture
Culture is the whole communication system that binds and allows operation of a set of people called the public.
Thus culture can be defined as a "system of rules of communication and interaction that allows a society
occurs, preserved, and preserved".

The relation between human and culture is inseparable. Similarly, between the Pakistani and Pakistani culture.
This is because human beings live alongside Pakistan in a unit area of ethnic communities, also live in a unity of
the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In this regard, they hold one culture, Pakistan is the national culture.

Culture is a result of creative initiative and the work of humans in an effort to improve the standard of living and
adapt to their environment. These limits are more emphasized on the fact that humans are capable of producing
culture, because humans are living beings who have mind and reason.

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Relationship between Language and Culture

According to Sapir (1921), ―language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,
emotions and desire by means of voluntarily produced symbols.‖ Language is a part of culture and a part of
human behavior.

It is often held that the function of language is to express thought and to communicate information. Language
also fulfills many other tasks such as greeting people, conducting religious service, etc.

Krech（1962）explained the major functions of language from the following three aspects:

1. Language is the primary vehicle of communication;

2. Language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture of his history.In turn, it helps
shape both personality and culture;

3. Language makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the continuity ofsocieties, and the
effective functioning and control of social group.

It is obvious that language plays a paramount role in developing, elaborating and transmitting culture and
language, enabling us to store meanings and experience to facilitate communication. The function of language is
so important in communication that it is even exaggerated by some scholars.

The problem of the relationship between language, culture and thought bothered many linguists and philosophers
since ancient time. To think about this problem, we need to begin with the definition of language and culture.
Language is generally accepted as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. And
there is a most widely accepted definition of culture: culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs,
values, behaviors,
institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generation in an
identifiable group of people.

The definitions of language and culture imply that the two are closely connected to each other. On one hand,
culture seems so inclusive, it permeates almost every aspect of human life including languages people use. On
the other hand, when people need to share a culture, they communicate through language.

However, the definition alone cannot provide us with a clear understanding on the relationship between language
and culture. Problems remain unsolved as: how does culture influence people‘s linguistic behavior? And does
language influence the culture in return. Various studies have been carried out, among them, a well-known
hypothesis is the Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis made by two American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis describes the relationship between language, culture and thought. The core idea is
that man‘s language moulds his perception of reality. We see the world in the way that our language describes it,
so that the world we live in is a linguistic construct.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has two major components: linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. The
former holds the idea that the way one thinks is determined by the language one speaks, because one can only
perceive the world in terms of the categories and distinctions encoded in the language. The latter means that the
categories and distinctions encoded in one language system are unique to that system and incommensurable with
those of others, therefore, the difference among languages must be reflected in the differences in the
worldviews of their speakers.

Since the formulation of the hypothesis, discussions have never been ended. Many linguists and philosophers are
against the linguistic determinism. They argue if language determines thought totally, and if there is no thought
without language, speakers of different languages will never understand each other. Nevertheless, the weak
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interpretation of the hypothesis is now widely accepted that language does have influence on thought and
culture. Evidence is easy to be found. A well-known example is that Eskimos have countless words for snow
while there is only one word ‗snow‘ in English. Therefore, a ‗snow world‘ in Eskimo‘s eye and an English
speaker‘s eye would be so different. This example shows that people‘s perceptions of their surroundings are
modified by the conceptual categories their languages happen toprovide.

The problem get more and more philosophical, as Winston Churchill once said, ‗we shaped our buildings and
afterwards our buildings shaped us.‘ We describe our experience and culture by using language, and the
categories built into language, its structures influence our perceptions--language in turn shapes our thought and
culture. Therefore, we should take a dialectical point of view on the relationship between language and culture.
As is mentionedat the beginning, language and culture are inextricably intertwined. On one hand, language is a
part of human being. It reflects people‘s attitudes, beliefs, and worldviews. Language both expressed and
embodies cultural reality. On the other hand, language is a part of culture. It helps perpetuate the culture and it
can influence the culture to a certain extent.
Conclusion

Language is a major component and supporter of culture as well as a primary tool for transferring message,
which is inextricably bound with culture. Learning a second language also involves learning a second culture to
varying degrees. On the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture. It reflects culture. Cultural
differences are the most serious areas causing misunderstanding, unpleasantness and even conflict in cross-
cultural communication. So both foreign language learners and teachers should pay more attention to cultural
communication information.

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