Introduction To Linguistic (material)

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.^[1][2][3][4] Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context.

The first is the study of language structure, or grammar. This focuses on the system of rules followed by the speakers (or hearers) of a language. It encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words), and phonology (sound systems). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived.

The study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logical structures and real-world references to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. This subfield encompasses semantics (how meaning is inferred from words and concepts) andpragmatics (how meaning is inferred from context).

Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding language use that native speakers know (not always consciously). All linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are combined according to (sub)conscious rules, over multiple

levels of analysis. For instance, consider the structure of the word "tenth" on two different levels of analysis. On the level of internal word structure (known as morphology), the word "tenth" is made up of one linguistic form indicating a number and another form indicating ordinality. The rule governing the combination of these forms ensures that the ordinality marker "th" follows the number "ten." On the level of sound structure (known as phonology), structural analysis shows that the "n" sound in "tenth" is made differently from the "n" sound in "ten" spoken alone. Although most speakers of English are consciously aware of the rules governing internal structure of the word pieces of "tenth", they are less often aware of the rule governing its sound structure. Linguists focused on structure find and analyze rules such as these, which govern how native speakers use language.

Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure. These sub-fields range from those focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning. They also run the gamut of level of analysis of language, from individual sounds, to words, to phrases, up to discourse.

Sub-fields of structure-focused linguistics include:

§  Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of speech (or signed) production and perception

§  Phonology, the study of sounds (or signs) as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning

§  Morphology, the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified

§  Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

§  Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

§  Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and nonlinguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning

§  Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)

Applied linguistics

Linguists are concerned largely with finding and describing the generalities and varieties both within particular languages and among all languages. Applied linguistics takes the results of those findings and "applies" them to other areas. Linguistic research is commonly applied to areas such as language education, lexicography, and translation. "Applied linguistics" has been argued to be something of a misnomer^[who?], since applied linguists focus on making sense of and engineering solutions for real-world linguistic problems, not simply "applying" existing technical knowledge from linguistics; moreover, they commonly apply technical knowledge from multiple sources, such as sociology (e.g., conversation analysis) and anthropology.

Description and prescription

Linguistics is descriptive; linguists describe and explain features of language without making subjective judgments on whether a particular feature is "right" or "wrong". This is analogous to practice in other sciences: A zoologist studies the animal kingdom without making subjective judgments on whether a particular animal is better or worse than another.

Prescription, on the other hand, is an attempt to promote particular linguistic usages over others, often favouring a particular dialect or "acrolect". This may have the aim of establishing a linguistic standard, which can aid communication over large geographical areas. It may also, however, be an attempt by speakers of one language or dialect to exert influence over speakers of other languages or dialects (see Linguistic imperialism). An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among censors, who attempt to eradicate words and structures that they consider to be destructive to society.

Generative grammar

During the last half of the 20th century, following the work of Noam Chomsky, linguistics was dominated by the generativist school. While formulated by Chomsky in part as a way to explain how human beings acquire language and the biological constraints on this acquisition, in practice it has largely been concerned with giving formal accounts of specific phenomena in natural languages. Generative theory is modularist and formalist in character. Formal linguistics remains the dominant paradigm for studying linguistics,^[25] though Chomsky's writings have also gathered criticism.

Cognitive linguistics

In the 1970s and 1980s, a new school of thought known as cognitive linguistics emerged as a reaction to generativist theory. Led by theorists such as Ronald Langacker and George Lakoff, linguists working within the realm of cognitive linguistics propose that language is an emergent property of basic, general-purpose cognitive processes, though cognitive linguistics has also been the subject of much criticism.^[26] In contrast to the generativist school of linguistics, cognitive linguistics is non-modularist and functionalist in character. Important developments in cognitive linguistics includecognitive grammar, frame semantics, and conceptual metaphor, all of which are based on the idea that form-function correspondences based on representations derived from embodied experienceconstitute the basic units of language

The Definition of Linguistics.

Linguistics is study of language.

Linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of human behavior and of the human abilities. Raja T. Nasr (1984).

Linguistics is competence as being a persons potential to speak a language, and his or her linguistics performance as the realization of that potential. Monica Crabtree & Joyce Powers (1994).

The Branches of linguistics

1. General linguistic generally describes the concepts and categories of a particular language or among all language. It also provides analyzed theory of the language.

Descriptive linguistic describes or gives the data to confirm or refute the theory of particular language explained generally.

2. Micro linguistic is narrower view. It is concerned internal view of language itself (structure of language systems) without related to other sciences and without related how to apply it in daily life. Some fields of micro linguistic:

a. Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of sounds of human language

b. Phonology, the study of sounds as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning

c. Morphology, the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified

d. Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

e. Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

f. Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in communicative acts

g. Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)

h. Applied linguistic is the branch of linguistic that is most concerned with application of the concepts in everyday life, including language-teaching.

3. Macro linguistic is broadest view of language. It is concerned external view of language itself with related to other sciences and how to apply it in daily life. Some fields of micro linguistic:

a. Stylistics, the study of linguistic factors that place a discourse in context.

b. Developmental linguistics, the study of the development of linguistic ability in an individual, particularly the acquisition of language in childhood.

c. Historical linguistics or Diachronic linguistics, the study of language change.

d. Language geography, the study of the spatial patterns of languages.

e. Evolutionary linguistics, the study of the origin and subsequent development of language.

f. Psycholinguistics, the study of the cognitive processes and representations underlying language use.

g. Sociolinguistics, the study of social patterns and norms of linguistic variability.

h. Clinical linguistics, the application of linguistic theory to the area of Speech-Language Pathology.

i. Neurolinguistics, the study of the brain networks that underlie grammar and communication.

j. Biolinguistics, the study of natural as well as human-taught communication systems in animals compared to human language.

Computational linguistics, the study of computational implementations of linguistic structures.

Source : the essencial of linguistics scince raja t nasr. (1984)

language files, monica crabtree & joyce powers (1994)

phoneme, in linguistics, smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another, as the element p in “tap,” which separates that word from “tab,” “tag,” and “tan.” A phoneme may have more than one variant, called an allophone, which functions as a single sound; for example, the p’s of “pat,” “spat,” and “tap” differ slightly phonetically, but that difference, determined by context, has no significance in English. In some languages, where the variant sounds of p can change meaning, they are classified as separate phonemes—e.g., in Thai the aspirated p (pronounced with an accompanying puff of air) and unaspirated p are distinguished one from the other.

Phonemes are based on spoken language and may be recorded with special symbols, such as those of the International Phonetic Alphabet. In transcription, linguists conventionally place symbols for phonemes between slash marks: /p/. The term phoneme is usually restricted to vowels and consonants, but some linguists extend its application to cover phonologically relevant differences of pitch, stress, and rhythm. Nowadays the phoneme often has a less central place in phonological theory than it used to have, especially in American linguistics. Many linguists regard the phoneme as a set of simultaneous distinctive features rather than as an unanalyzable unit.

phoneme  A phoneme is a minimally distinctive set of sounds in a language; sound sequences which differ in a single phoneme can constitute different words. Thus the pairs tip-dip and trip-drip show that English has two distinct phonemes, which we can write as /t/ and /d/, since substituting one for the other produces a different word. However, the pronunciation of /t/ (and /d/) is not the same in each pair: the tongue is further back in the mouth when /t/ is followed by /r/. Hence there are at least two phones corresponding to the /t/ phoneme. However there are no two English words in which the ONLY difference is that the 't sound in trip' is replaced by the 't sound in tip' -- these two sounds areallophones of the same phoneme. English speakers do not need to recognize the difference between them.

phonetics  Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech (i.e. the study of phones). It can be distinguished from phonology which is more concerned with the underlying theory (i.e. the phonemeswhich underlie phones and the rules which govern the conversion of phonemes to phones and vice versa).

phonological rule  At some theoretical level, words can be considered to be composed ofphonemes. The actual sound of a word then depends on which allophone is chosen for each phoneme. The context-sensitive rules which determine this are called phonological rules. Thus the word input can be considered to contain the phoneme /n/. However in fast speech in many dialects of English, the phone used will be [m]. The relevant phonological rule for English is that a nasal becomes articulated at the same position as a following stop.

Listen and Learn: The Different Intonation of the Noun and the Verb 

Intonation: Noun or Verb 

to conflict, a conflict
to contest, a contest
to contract, a contract
to convert, a convert
to convict, a convict
to incline, an incline
to insult, an insult
to object, an object
to permit, a permit
to present, a present
to produce, a produce
to project, a project
to protest, a protest
to rebel, a rebel
to recall, a recall
to reject, a reject
to research, a research

absent - abstract - accent - addict - address - affect - affix - alloy - ally - annex - assay - attribute - augment - belay - bombard - combat - combine - commune - compact - complex - compost - compound - compress - concert - conduct - confect - confine(s) - conflict - conscript - conserve - consist - console - consort - construct - consult - content - contest - contract - contrast - converse - convert - convict - costume - decrease - default - defect - desert - detail - dictate - digest - discard - discharge - discount - discourse - dismount - document - escort - essay - excise - exploit - export - extract - finance - foretaste - foretoken - forward - frequent - gallant - impact - implant - implement - impound - import - impress - imprint - incense - incline - increase - indent - inlay - insert - insult - intercept - interchange - intercross - interdict - interlink - interlock - intern - interplay - interspace - interweave - intrigue - invert - invite - involute - mandate - misprint - object - offset - ornament - overcount - overlap - overlay - overlook - override - overrun - overturn - perfect - perfume - permit - pervert - prefix - present - proceed(s) - produce - progress - project - protest - purport - rebel - recall - recap - recess - recoil - record - re-count - redirect - redo - redress - refill - refund - refuse - regress - rehash - reject - relapse - relay - remake - repeat - reprint - research - reserve - reset - retake - retard - retract - retread - rewrite - segment - subject - survey - suspect - torment - transfer - transform - transplant - transect - transport - transpose - traverse - undercount - underlay - underline - underscore - update - upgrade - uplift - upset

MORPHEMES

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word, by definition, is a freestanding unit of meaning. Every word comprises one or more morphemes. 

Classification of morphemes

Free vs. bound

Every morpheme can be classified as either free or bound. These categories are mutually exclusive, and as such, a given morpheme will belong to exactly one of them.

Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear with other lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse).

Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes. Bound morphemes that are not affixes are called cranberry morphemes, their nomenclature derived from the bound, non-affix function of cran- in the word cranberry.

Derivational vs. inflectional

Bound morphemes can be further classified as derivational or inflectional.

Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the meaning of the word formed by the root kind.

Inflectional morphemes modify a verb's tense or a noun's number without affecting the word's meaning or class. Examples of applying inflectional morphemes to words are adding -s to the root dog to form dogs and adding -ed to wait to form waited.

Allomorphs

Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation but are semantically identical. For example, in English, the plural marker -(e)s of regular nouns can be pronounced /-z/, /-s/, or /-ɨz/, depending on the final sound of the noun's singular form.