Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

[1] It involves analysing language form, language meaning,

and language in context.[2]The earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have
been attributed to the 6th-century-BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini[3][4] who wrote a formal description of
the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.[5]
Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay
between sound and meaning.[6] Phonetics is the study of speech and non-speech sounds, and delves into
their acoustic and articulatory properties. The study of language meaning, on the other hand, deals with
how languages encode relations between entities, properties, and other aspects of the world to convey,
process, and assign meaning, as well as manage and resolve ambiguity.[7] While the study
of semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions, pragmatics deals with how situational context
influences the production of meaning.[8]
Grammar is a system of rules which governs the production and use of utterances in a given language.
These rules apply to sound[9] as well as meaning, and include componential subsets of rules, such as those
pertaining to phonology (the organisation of phonetic sound systems), morphology (the formation and
composition of words), and syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences).[10] Many
modern theories that deal with the principles of grammar are based on Noam Chomsky's framework
of generative linguistics.[11]
In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure distinguished between the notions of langue and parole in
his formulation of structural linguistics. According to him, parole is the specific utterance of speech,
whereas langue refers to an abstract phenomenon that theoretically defines the principles and system of
rules that govern a language.[12] This distinction resembles the one made by Noam
Chomsky between competence and performance in his theory of transformative or generative grammar.
According to Chomsky, competence is an individual's innate capacity and potential for language (like in
Saussure's langue), while performance is the specific way in which it is used by individuals, groups, and
communities (i.e., parole, in Saussurean terms).[13]
The study of parole (which manifests through cultural discourses and dialects) is the domain
of sociolinguistics, the sub-discipline that comprises the study of a complex system of linguistic facets
within a certain speech community (governed by its own set of grammatical rules and laws). Discourse
analysis further examines the structure of texts and conversations emerging out of a speech community's
usage of language.[14] This is done through the collection of linguistic data, or through the formal discipline
of corpus linguistics, which takes naturally occurring texts and studies the variation of grammatical and
other features based on such corpora (or corpus data).
Stylistics also involves the study of written, signed, or spoken discourse through varying speech
communities, genres, and editorial or narrative formats in the mass media.[15] In the 1960s, Jacques
Derrida, for instance, further distinguished between speech and writing, by proposing that written language
be studied as a linguistic medium of communication in itself. [16] Palaeography is therefore the discipline
that studies the evolution of written scripts (as signs and symbols) in language. [17] The formal study of
language also led to the growth of fields like psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and
function of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which studies language processing in the
brain; biolinguistics, which studies the biology and evolution of language; and language acquisition, which
investigates how children and adults acquire the knowledge of one or more languages.
Linguistics also deals with the social, cultural, historical and political factors that influence language,
through which linguistic and language-based context is often determined.[18]Research on language through
the sub-branches of historical and evolutionary linguistics also focus on how languages change and grow,
particularly over an extended period of time.
Language documentation combines anthropological inquiry (into the history and culture of language) with
linguistic inquiry, in order to describe languages and their grammars. Lexicography involves the
documentation of words that form a vocabulary. Such a documentation of a linguistic vocabulary from a
particular language is usually compiled in a dictionary. Computational linguistics is concerned with the
statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. Specific
knowledge of language is applied by speakers during the act of translation and interpretation, as well as
in language education – the teaching of a second or foreign language. Policy makers work with
governments to implement new plans in education and teaching which are based on linguistic research.
Related areas of study also includes the disciplines of semiotics (the study of direct and indirect language
through signs and symbols), literary criticism (the historical and ideological analysis of literature, cinema,
art, or published material), translation (the conversion and documentation of meaning in written/spoken
text from one language or dialect onto another), and speech-language pathology (a corrective method to
cure phonetic disabilities and dis-functions at the cognitive level).

Lecture 2

What is linguistics?
This chapter explains how linguistics differs from traditional grammar studies, and outlines the main
subdivisions of the subject.
Most people spend an immense amount of their life talking, listening and, in advanced societies, reading
and writing. Normal conversation uses 4,000 or 5,000 words an hour. A radio talk, where there are fewer
pauses, uses as many as 8,000 or 9,000 words per hour. A person reading at a normal speed covers 14,000
or 15,000 words per hour. So someone who chats for an hour, listens to a radio talk for an hour and reads
for an hour possibly comes into contact with 25,000 words in that time. Per day, the total could be as high
as 100,000.
The use of language is an integral part of being human. Children all over the world start putting words
together at approximately the same age, and follow remarkably similar paths in their speech development.
All languages are surprisingly similar in their basic structure, whether they are found in South America,
Australia or near the North Pole. Language and abstract thought are closely connected, and many people
think that these two characteristics above all distinguish human beings from animals.

Insight
Normal humans use language incessantly: speaking, hearing, reading and writing. They come into contact
with tens of thousands of words each day.

An inability to use language adequately can affect someone‘s status in society, and may even alter their
personality. Because of its crucial importance in human life, every year an increasing number of
psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, teachers, speech therapists, computer scientists and
copywriters (to name but a few professional groups) realize that they need to study language more deeply.
So it is not surprising that in recent years one of the fastest-expanding branches of knowledge has been
linguistics – the systematic study of language.
Linguistics tries to answer the basic questions
‗What is language?‘ and ‗How does language work?‘. It probes into various aspects of these problems,
such as
‗What do all languages have in common?‘,
‗What range of variation is found among languages?‘,
‗How does human language differ from animal communication?‘,
‗How does a child learn to speak?‘,
‗How does one write down and analyse an unwritten language?‘,
‗Why do languages change?‘,
‗To what extent are social class differences reflected in language?‘ and so on.

What is a linguist?
A person who studies linguistics is usually referred to as a linguist. The more accurate term
‗linguistician‘ is too much of a tongue-twister to become generally accepted. The word ‗linguist‘ is
unsatisfactory: it causes confusion, since it also refers to someone who speaks a large number of languages.
Linguists in the sense of linguistics experts need not be fluent in languages, though they must have a wide
experience of different types of language. It is more important for them to analyse and explain linguistic
phenomena such as the Turkish vowel system, or German verbs, than to make themselves understood in
Istanbul or Berlin. They are skilled, objective observers rather than participants – consumers of languages
rather than producers, as one social scientist flippantly commented.

Insight
A linguist in the sense of someone who analyses languages need not actually speak the language(s) they are
studying.

Our type of linguist is perhaps best likened to a musicologist. A musicologist could analyse a piano
concerto by pointing out the theme and variations, harmony and counterpoint. But such a person need not
actually play the concerto, a task left to the concert pianist. Music theory bears the same relation to actual
music as linguistics does to language.

How does linguistics differ from traditional grammar?

One frequently meets people who think that linguistics is old school grammar jazzed up with a few new
names. But it differs in several basic ways.
First, and most important, linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Linguists are interested in
what is said, not what they think ought to be said. They describe language in all its aspects, but do not
prescribe rules of ‗correctness‘.

Insight
Those who work on linguistics describe languages; they do not dictate how to use them.

It is a common fallacy that there is some absolute standard of correctness which it is the duty of linguists,
schoolteachers, grammars and dictionaries to maintain. There was an uproar in the USA when in
1961 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language included words such
asain’t and phrases such as ants in one’s pants. The editors were deliberately corrupting the language – or
else they were incompetent, argued the critics. ‗Webster III has thrust upon us a dismaying assortment of
the questionable, the perverse, the unworthy and the downright outrageous,‘ raged one angry reviewer. But
if people say ain’t and ants in one’s pants, linguists consider it important to record the fact. They are
observers and recorders, not judges.
‗I am irritated by the frequent use of the words different to on radio and other programmes‘ ran a letter to a
daily paper.
‗In my schooldays of fifty years ago we were taught that things were alike to and different from. Were our
teachers so terribly ignorant?‘ This correspondent has not realized that languages are constantly changing.
And the fact that he comments on the frequent use of different to indicates that it has as much right to be
classified as ‗correct‘ as different from.
The notion of absolute and unchanging ‗correctness‘ is quite foreign to linguists. They might recognize that
one type of speech appears, through the whim of fashion, to be more socially acceptable than others. But
this does not make the socially acceptable variety any more interesting for them than the other varieties, or
the old words any better than new ones. To linguists the language of a pop singer is not intrinsically worse
(or better) than that of a duke. They would disagree strongly with the Daily Telegraph writer who
complained that ‗a disc jockey talking to the latest Neanderthal pop idol is a truly shocking experience of
verbal squalor‘. Nor do linguists condemn the coining of new words. This is a natural and continuous
process, not a sign of decadence and decay. A linguist would note with interest, rather than horror, the fact
that you can have your hair washed and set in a glamorama in North Carolina, or your car oiled at
a lubritorium in Sydney, or that you can buy apples at a fruitique in a trendy suburb of London.
A second important way in which linguistics differs from traditional school grammar is that linguists
regard the spoken language as primary, rather than the written. In the past, grammarians have over-stressed
the importance of the written word, partly because of its permanence. It was difficult to cope with fleeting
utterances before the invention of sound recording. The traditional classical education was also partly to
blame. People insisted on moulding language in accordance with the usage of the ‗best authors‘ of the
ancient world, and these authors existed only in written form. This attitude began as far back as the second
century bc, when scholars in Alexandria took the authors of fifth-century Greece as their models. This
belief in the superiority of the written word has continued for over two millennia.
But linguists look first at the spoken word, which preceded the written everywhere in the world, as far as
we know. Moreover, most writing systems are derived from the vocal sounds. Although spoken utterances
and written sentences share many common features, they also exhibit considerable differences. Linguists
therefore regard spoken and written forms as belonging to different, though overlapping systems, which
must be analysed separately: the spoken first, then the written.

Insight
Spoken and written language need to be analysed separately. Both are important, and neither is better than
the other.
A third way in which linguistics differs from traditional grammar studies is that it does not force
languages into a Latin-based framework. In the past, many traditional textbooks have assumed
unquestioningly that Latin provides a universal framework into which all languages fit, and countless
schoolchildren have been confused by meaningless attempts to force English into foreign patterns. It is
sometimes claimed, for example, that a phrase such as for John is in the ‗dative case‘. But this is blatantly
untrue, since English does not have a Latin-type case system. At other times, the influence of the Latin
framework is more subtle, and so more misleading. Many people have wrongly come to regard certain
Latin categories as being ‗natural‘ ones. For example, it is commonly assumed that the Latin tense
divisions of past, present and future are inevitable. Yet one frequently meets languages which do not make
this neat threefold distinction. In some languages, it is more important to express the duration of an action –
whether it is a single act or a continuing process – than to locate the action in time.
In addition, judgments on certain constructions often turn out to have a Latin origin. For example, people
frequently argue that ‗good English‘ avoids ‗split infinitives‘ as in the phrase "to humbly apologize", where
the infinitive "to apologizeis" ‗split‘ by "humbly". A letter to the London Evening Standardis typical of
many: ‗Do split infinitives madden your readers as much as they do me?‘ asks the correspondent. ‗Can I
perhaps ask that, at least, judges and editors make an effort to maintain the form of our language?‘ The idea
that a split infinitive is wrong is based on Latin. Purists insist that, because a Latin infinitive is only one
word, its English equivalent must be as near to one word as possible. To linguists, it is unthinkable to
judge one language by the standards of another. Since split infinitives occur frequently in English, they
are as ‗correct‘ as unsplit ones.

Insight
Each language must be described separately, and must never be forced into a framework devised for
another.

In brief, linguists are opposed to the notion that any one language can provide an adequate
framework for all the others. They are trying to set up a universal framework. And there is no
reason why this should resemble the grammar of Latin, or the grammar of any other language
arbitrarily selected from the thousands spoken by humans.

Descriptive and Prescriptive Approaches to Language

I can avoid it no longer. I can see I will have to say something about descriptive and prescriptive
approaches to language. For those who are not familiar with the terms, as indeed for those who are, I
recommend the account in Sections 2.1 and 2.2 on pages 5 to 11 of the freely available Chapter 1 of the
‗Cambridge Grammar of the English Language‘. The first chapter of ‗The Syntax of Natural Language‘ is
also useful, giving, as it does, examples of prescriptive and descriptive rules.
A descriptive approach to language takes the view that language is a phenomenon that can be studied
scientifically. Such an approach takes as its evidence all aspects of language use but, given the vast amount
of data, most linguists concentrate on particular varieties of a language. The major works of grammar, the
Cambridge Grammar for example, examine and report on the variety of English known as Standard
English, which is, very broadly, the language of the printed word. However, other research looks at all the
many different varieties of language as it appears in different regional and social dialects, in different
genres and in different registers.
It is to the work of professional linguists that we must turn if we want to find out about language, just as
we‘d consult a historian if we wanted to know about the causes of the French Revolution or a lawyer if we
were interested in the law of contract. It‘s no good saying we know about it because we use it. That‘s like
saying we know all about pulmonary physiology because we breathe. Crucially, professional linguists do
not normally give an opinion on whether any particular word or construction is ‗correct‘, any more than a
biologist would say that a particular cell was ‗correct‘, or a physicist that an atom was ‗correct‘.
The prescriptive approach to language, on the other hand, takes the view that there is an idealized form of a
language to the use of which we all should aspire. Such an approach is often taken by those with little
knowledge of how language works and little professional training in its study and it is often based on social
rather than linguistic considerations. Prescriptivists play on the insecurity people feel when confronted with
a variety of their language which is not their own and which might show them to be socially and
intellectually inferior. This has been the case since at least the eighteenth century when grammarians with a
knowledge of Latin and Greek and little else peddled to the English middle classes all sorts of notions
about English which had no basis in the way the language was actually used. Their heirs are the likes of
Strunk and White and most recently Simon Heffer.
None of this is to deny that there is a place for guidance on how to use language for specific purposes.
Publications usually want to ensure a uniform style and they produce manuals to promote it. Instruction in
public speaking, essay writing, plain English and so on are also valuable, provided those giving it are
qualified to do so. Nor is any of this to deny that schools have a duty to teach Standard English. This is not
because Standard English is linguistically superior to other varieties of the language, but because it is the
variety that allows us to understand and be understood by the widest possible number of other speakers of
the language, whatever our native dialect may be. Richard Hudson, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics,
University College, London in a paper in 2000 made a plea for a greater effort to teach Standard English.
‗Standard English,‘ he wrote, ‗is highly codified for foreign learners by commercial publishers. But at
present it is not at all codified for UK learners. At one time linguists might have argued that this doesn‘t
matter, because we don‘t need a description of our own language; such descriptions are of purely scientific
interest. But that argument was always a bad one because Standard English is not the native language of
about 90% of the population in the UK (and I imagine the situation is similar in other English-speaking
countries).‘
Let me repeat that. ‗Standard English is not the native language of about 90% of the population in the UK‘.
The value of Standard English as a medium of communication beyond our immediate language
communities is unchallenged, but there is no reason why it, more than any other variety, should be
anyone‘s native language and there can be no grounds for saying that words and constructions found in
non-standard dialects are not ‗proper English‘. In his essay ‗Standard English: what it isn‘t‘, Peter Trudgill
shows, for example, that, unlike Standard English, many non-standard dialects distinguish between
auxiliary ‗I do‘, ‗he do‘ and main verb ‗I does‘, ‗he does‘ or similar in the present tense, and between
auxiliary ‗did‘ and main verb ‗done‘ in the past tense, as in ‗You done it, did you?‘ Such use isn‘t wrong. It
isn‘t incorrect. It isn‘t bad English. It isn‘t inferior English. It‘s different English. As the subtitle to the
current exhibition at the British Library, ‗Evolving English‘, has it: ‗One Language, Many Voices‘. The
description of those many voices is a worthwhile task. Their reduction to one voice by prescription is not.

Phonology is the study of how sounds are used in languages. In particular, phonology is used to show how
patterns of sounds are used to build a language. It is very closely related to phonetics, but the main
difference is that we use phonetics to analyze how all human sounds are made, while phonology only
analyzes patterns of sounds in individual languages. An example of a phoneme is the sound /d/ in dew vs.
the sound /r/ in rue. The difference in these two sounds tell us that dew and rue are different words.

While Phonology looks at individual sounds, syntax analyzes the way that words are strung together in a
language to form parts, like phrases and clauses, and then even sentences. A language's syntax is divided
into two parts. First, syntax looks at individual parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
Second, syntax looks at the functions of words within the sentence, such as the function of a noun as a
subject and object. For example, in the sentence, "The cat sat on the mat," both cat and mat are nouns.
However, the English language makes the first noun in a sentence the subject. So we know that cat is the
subject of the sentence; the subject that is doing the doing; while, mat is the object that is sat upon.

Finally, while syntax shows us how we string words together to make meaning, the study of semantics
analyzes how users derive meaning from language, especially with respect to language change, which is
the development of language over time. An example of semantics would be how one impacts a listener by
saying "Y'all gots me some chocolates?" vs. "Do you have any chocolate you can share with me?"

Phonology is the study of words, especially spoken words. It is the formal term denoting all examinations
of the communication media of speech and writing. Example: ―The development of regional accents is a
subject for phonology, not sociology.‖ Syntax is simply the Greek word for ―order,‖ and in fact can be
used to discuss the order of any process – for example, the order in which a mechanic tunes a motor, the
―syntax‖ of the steps – what steps come first, what next, etc. Example in language: ―In English, the rules
of syntax call for an adjective to precede the noun it modifies (big, black dog); in French, the syntactical
rules call for the adjective to follow the noun (Vin Rose, red wine). Another example: ―Questions have a
reverse syntax from statements – the predicate comes before the subject.‖ Semantics is the study of
subtexts, connotations rather than denotations, the subtle weight that word choice gives to discourse.
Example: ―The rebels destroyed law and order‖ vs. ―The Freedom Fighters ousted the corrupt
Establishment.‖ Semantics are apparent in advertisements: ―Treat your family to a greasy, fat-laden,
unhealthy dinner‖ would not be a good Macdonald‘s ad.
Synchrony and diachrony
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Synchrony and diachrony are two different and complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A
synchronic approach (from Greek σσν- "together" and τρόνος "time") considers a language at a moment in
time without taking its history into account. Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a
specific point of time, usually the present. By contrast, a diachronic approach (from δια- "through" and
τρόνος "time") considers the development and evolution of a language through history. Historical
linguistics is typically a diachronic study.[1]
The concepts were theorized by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, professor of general linguistics
in Geneva from 1896 to 1911, and appeared in writing in his posthumous Course in General
Linguistics published in 1916. In contrast with most of his predecessors, who focused on historical
evolution of languages, Saussure emphasized the primacy of synchronic analysis of languages to
understand their inner functioning, though never forgetting the importance of complementary diachrony.
This dualistic opposition has been carried over into philosophy and sociology, for instance by Roland
Barthes and Jean-Paul Sartre. Jacques Lacan also used it for psychoanalysis.[2] Prior to de Saussure, many
similar concepts were also developed independently by Polish linguists Jan Baudouin de
Courtenay and Mikołaj Kruszewski of the Kazan school, who used the terms statics and dynamics of
language.[3]

Suggest at least three properties of language which are rare or absent in animal communication?
1) Writing (and other symbolic representation).
2) Innovation: human language grows, evolves, and expands.
3) Lies and deception.

In this article the notion of linguistic creativity is re-examined. It is shown that the notion of linguistic
creativity as propounded by Chomsky (1966), here called generative creativity, reflects linguistic creativity
only as the ability of the ideal speaker in a homogenous speech community to combine a finite known stock
of elements on the basis of a finite known stock of computational patterns. It is argued that this view does
not account for creativity as the open-ended ability of all human beings to create and innovate in various
ways and for various motivations. By comparison, the view in diachronic semantics of lexical creativity
does account for the notion that human beings can create new meanings as the need arises. It is, however,
argued that these two opposing views of linguistic creativity need to be combined and extended to paint a
broader canvas of what it really means for all human beings to be linguistically creative. To this end, an
initial broad survey of what can be regarded as linguistic creativity is carried out, and a new definition of
linguistic creativity is proposed.

 "The principle of structure-dependency compels all languages to move parts of the sentence
around in accordance with its structure rather than just the sheer order of words. . . .
"Structure-dependency could not be acquired by children from hearing sentences of the language;
rather, it imposes itself on whatever language they encounter, just as in a sense the pitch range of
the human ear restricts the sounds we can hear. Children do not have to learn these principles but
apply them to any language they hear." (Michael Byram, Routledge Encyclopedia of Language
Teaching and Learning. Routledge, 2000)
 "All speakers of English know structure-dependency without having given it a moment's thought;
they automatically reject *Is Sam is the the cat that black?even if they have never encountered its
like before. How do they have this instant response? They would accept many sentences that they
have never previously encountered, so it is not just that they have never heard it before. Nor is
structure-dependency transparent from the normal language they have encountered--only by
concocting sentences that deliberately breach it can linguists show its very existence. Structure-
dependency is, then, a principle of language knowledge built-in to the human mind. It becomes part
of any language that is learned, not just of English. Principles and parameters theory claims that an
important component of the speaker's knowledge of any language such as English is made up of a
handful of general language principles such as structure-dependency." (Vivian Cook, "Universal
Grammar and the Learning and Teaching of Second Languages." Perspectives On Pedagogical
Grammar, ed. by Terence Odlin. Cambridge University Press, 1994)
Interrogative Structures

 "One example of a universal principle is structure-dependency. When a child learns interrogative

sentences, it learns to place the finite verb in sentence initial position:
(9a.) The doll is pretty
(9b.) Is the doll pretty?
(10a.) The doll is gone
(10b.) Is the doll gone?

If children lacked insight into structure-dependency, it should follow that they make errors such as (11b),
since they would not know that the doll is pretty is the sentence to be put in the interrogative form:
(11a.) The doll that is gone, is pretty.
(11b.) *Is the doll that (0) gone, is pretty?
(11c.) Is the doll that is gone (0) pretty?

But children do not seem to produce incorrect sentences such as (11b), and nativist linguists therefore
conclude that insight into structure-dependency must be innate." (Josine A. Lalleman, "The State of the Art
in Second Language Acquisition Research." Investigating Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Peter
Jordens and Josine Lalleman. Mouton de Gruyter, 1996)
The Genitive Construction

 "The genitive construction in English can . . . help us illustrate the concept of structure-
dependency. In (8) we see how the genitive attaches to the noun student:
(8) The student's essay is very good.

If we construct a longer noun phrase, the genitive 's will come at the very end, or edge, of the NP,
independently of the category of the word:
(9) [That young student from Germany]'s essay is very good.
(10) [The student you were talking to]'s essay is very good.

The rule that determines the genitive's construction is based on the Noun Phrase: 's is attached to the edge
of the NP." (Mireia Llinàs et al., Basic Concepts for the Analysis of English Sentences. Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona, 2008)

Also Known As: syntactic structure-dependency

There's the conversation you're having with the other person and there's the conversation you're having
with yourself.
If you're really listening to the other person, the conversation you're having with yourself is all about
analyzing what's being said to you and why it's being said to you at this particular time.
If you understand that there are really only a limited number — six, to be exact — of reasons people say
anything, you'll be able to speed up that process and get to the core of any conversation immediately.
Ages ago, a very wise man taught me that there are only six reasons why anyone ever says anything. If you
think there's something that doesn't fit any of these six, think carefully... You'll find that it undoubtedly
falls under one of these reasons.
Here they are.

1. To give information.
This includes expressions of emotions and discussions of intent, as well as simple task-oriented requests —
"I'd like a large coffee" — that also pave the way for #3, as you will see.
Knowing when someone is giving you information is important because it leads to the question of what
they want or expect you to do with the information. In the case of your boyfriend telling you he's unhappy,
he may be signaling that he wants something to change...
Or he may just be venting and wanting to be heard.
2. To get information.
Someone who says something in order to get information won't necessarily pose it in the form of a
question. "Tell me about..." is one way that a request for information can arrive in the form of a statement.
The information being sought may be your opinion, your assessment, or your best guess. It's not always
going to be hard and fast facts that someone wants. They may be gauging your mood to ascertain your
willingness to act before they ask you to do something.

3. To get someone to do something.

Now we get into the guts of why people say things: to create actions on the part of other people. Many
times these actions are created by giving information, but in those cases, the desired actions may not be
readily apparent. The person asking may be counting on a certain response.

Other times, the speaker's motivations are obvious: "come here," as a parent might say to a child or "kiss
me, fool" as someone might say to a lover.

4. To stop someone from doing something.

This doesn't have to be a direct command. It can be something subtle, perhaps even in the form of a
question ("do you have to go right now?" or "why are you still dating him?")

5. To make someone feel good.

Compliments are the simplest manifestation of this. Trying to make someone feel better is another.

6. To make someone feel bad.

This isn't always as obvious as it seems. If you can't figure out why someone is saying what they're saying,
this is the question you should get to: "Are they trying to make me feel bad?" If they're trying to extract
guilt, invoke shame, or cast harsh judgement. If they seem to be giving you information that doesn't seem
relevant...why are they giving you information?
The 19th century
Development of the comparative method
It is generally agreed that the most outstanding achievement of linguistic scholarship in the 19th century
was the development of the comparative method, which comprised a set of principles whereby languages
could be systematically compared with respect to their sound systems, grammatical structure, and
vocabulary and shown to be ―genealogically‖ related. As French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish,
and the other Romance languages had evolved from Latin, so Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit as well as the
Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic languages and many other languages of Europe and Asia had evolved from
some earlier language, to which the name Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European is now customarily
applied. That all the Romance languages were descended from Latin and thus constituted one ―family‖ had
been known for centuries; but the existence of the Indo-European family of languages and the nature of
their genealogical relationship was first demonstrated by the 19th-century comparative philologists. (The
term philology in this context is not restricted to the study of literary languages.)
The main impetus for the development of comparative philology came toward the end of the 18th century,
when it was discovered that Sanskritbore a number of striking resemblances to Greek and Latin. An
English orientalist, Sir William Jones, though he was not the first to observe these resemblances, is
generally given the credit for bringing them to the attention of the scholarly world and putting forward
the hypothesis, in 1786, that all three languages must have ―sprung from some common source, which
perhaps no longer exists.‖ By this time, a number of texts and glossaries of the older Germanic
languages (Gothic, Old High German, and Old Norse) had been published, and Jones realized that
Germanic as well as Old Persian and perhaps Celtic had evolved from the same ―common source.‖ The
next important step came in 1822, when the German scholar Jacob Grimm, following the Danish
linguist Rasmus Rask (whose work, being written in Danish, was less accessible to most European
scholars), pointed out in the second edition of his comparative grammar of Germanic that there were a
number of systematic correspondences between the sounds of Germanic and the sounds of Greek, Latin,
and Sanskrit in related words. Grimm noted, for example, that where Gothic (the oldest surviving
Germanic language) had an f, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit frequently had a p (e.g., Gothic fotus, Latin pedis,
Greek podós, Sanskrit padás, all meaning ―foot‖); when Gothic had a p, the non-Germanic languages had
a b; when Gothic had a b, the non-Germanic languages had what Grimm called an ―aspirate‖ (Latin f,
Greek ph, Sanskrit bh). In order to account for these correspondences he postulated a cyclical ―soundshift‖
(Lautverschiebung) in the prehistory of Germanic, in which the original ―aspirates‖ became voiced
unaspirated stops (bh became b, etc.), the original voiced unaspirated stops became voiceless (b became p,
etc.), and the original voiceless (unaspirated) stops became ―aspirates‖ (pbecame f). Grimm‘s term,
―aspirate,‖ it will be noted, covered such phonetically distinct categories as aspirated stops (bh, ph),
produced with an accompanying audible puff of breath, and fricatives (f ), produced with audible friction as
a result of incomplete closure in the vocal tract.
In the work of the next 50 years the idea of sound change was made more precise, and, in the 1870s, a
group of scholars known collectively as the Junggrammatiker (―young grammarians,‖ or Neogrammarians)
put forward the thesis that all changes in the sound system of a language as it developed through time were
subject to the operation of regular sound laws. Though the thesis that sound laws were absolutely regular in
their operation (unless they were inhibited in particular instances by the influence of analogy) was at first
regarded as most controversial, by the end of the 19th century it was quite generally accepted and had
become the cornerstone of the comparative method. Using the principle of regular sound change, scholars
were able to reconstruct ―ancestral‖ common forms from which the later forms found in particular
languages could be derived. By convention, such reconstructed forms are marked in the literature with an
asterisk. Thus, from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word for ―ten,‖ *dekm, it was possible to
derive Sanskrit daśa, Greek déka, Latin decem, and Gothic taihun by postulating a number of different
sound laws that operated independently in the different branches of the Indo-European family. The
question of sound change is dealt with in greater detail in the section entitled Historical (diachronic)
linguistics.
The role of analogy
Analogy has been mentioned in connection with its inhibition of the regular operation of sound laws in
particular word forms. This was how the Neogrammarians thought of it. In the course of the 20th century,
however, it came to be recognized that analogy, taken in its most general sense, plays a far more important
role in the development of languages than simply that of sporadically preventing what would otherwise be
a completely regular transformation of the sound system of a language. When a child learns to speak he
tends to regularize the anomalous, or irregular, forms by analogy with the more regular and productive
patterns of formation in the language; e.g., he will tend to say ―comed‖ rather than ―came,‖ ―dived‖ rather
than ―dove,‖ and so on, just as he will say ―talked,‖ ―loved,‖ and so forth. The fact that the child does this
is evidence that he has learned or is learning the regularities or rules of his language. He will go on to
―unlearn‖ some of the analogical forms and substitute for them the anomalous forms current in
the speech of the previous generation. But in some cases, he will keep a ―new‖ analogical form (e.g.,
―dived‖ rather than ―dove‖), and this may then become the recognized and accepted form.
Other 19th-century theories and development
Inner and outer form
One of the most original, if not one of the most immediately influential, linguists of the 19th century was
the learned Prussian statesman Wilhelm von Humboldt (died 1835). His interests, unlike those of most of
his contemporaries, were not exclusively historical. Following the German philosopher Johann Gottfried
von Herder (1744–1803), he stressed the connection between national languages and national character:
this was but a commonplace of romanticism. More original was Humboldt‘s theory of ―inner‖ and ―outer‖
form in language. The outer form of language was the raw material (the sounds) from which different
languages were fashioned; the inner form was the pattern, or structure, of grammar and meaning that was
imposed upon this raw material and differentiated one language from another. This
―structural‖ conception of language was to become dominant, for a time at least, in many of the major
centres of linguistics by the middle of the 20th century. Another of Humboldt‘s ideas was that language
was something dynamic, rather than static, and was an activity itself rather than the product of activity. A
language was not a set of actual utterances produced by speakers but the underlying principles or rules that
made it possible for speakers to produce such utterances and, moreover, an unlimited number of them. This
idea was taken up by a German philologist, Heymann Steinthal, and, what is more important, by the
physiologist and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, and thus influenced late 19th- and early 20th-century
theories of the psychology of language. Its influence, like that of the distinction of inner and outer form,
can also be seen in the thought of Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist. But its full implications were
probably not perceived and made precise until the middle of the 20th century, when the U.S. linguist Noam
Chomsky re-emphasized it and made it one of the basic notions of generative grammar (see
below Transformational-generative grammar).
Wilhelm, baron von Humboldt, oil painting by F. Kruger.Bruckmann/Art Resource, New York
Phonetics and dialectology
Many other interesting and important developments occurred in 19th-century linguistic research, among
them work in the areas of phonetics and dialectology. Research in both these fields was promoted by the
Neogrammarians‘ concern with sound change and by their insistence that prehistoric developments in
languages were of the same kind as developments taking place in the languages and dialects currently
spoken. The development of phonetics in the West was also strongly influenced at this period, as were
many of the details of the more philological analysis of the Indo-European languages, by the discovery of
the works of the Indian grammarians who, from the time of the Sanskrit grammarian Panini, if not before,
had arrived at a much more comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology,
and morphology than anything achieved in the West until the modern period.

Ferdinand de Saussure: Course in General Linguistics

Saussure is one of the establishing figures in modern linguistics and semiotics. Saussure‘s work is
important because it establishes the origin of structuralism in linguistics. The theory of language is
important in any investigation of media studies, and the ideas of communication and signification are
especially relevant in the perspective of networked discourse and visual culture. However, my approach is
going to be to look at Saussure from the perspective of meaning and symbolic systems. Structuralism
seems a certain starting point for the logic of traditional AI, but Saussure‘s conception encourages thinking
much more broadly: he discusses the perception of language both as a fixed system (synchronic
linguistics), as well as a system that evolves in time (diachronic linguistics). Both of these depend on a
community of speakers to share the meaning of signs. I will focus on the sections of general principles and
synchronic linguistics.

Part I: General Principles

Saussure opens by contextualizing his goal in opposition to the existing view of language, which is that
words correspond directly to meanings. Instead, he claims that concepts are tied to ―sound-images.‖ This
connection is psychological and not associative. The pair of the concept and sound-image is a sign. The
sound-image is the signifier, and the concept is the signified. Signs operate according to two principles:
Arbitrariness and linearity. Signs are arbitrary because, in terms of words, there is nothing in the signifier
alone that naturally implies the signified, and it could easily be any other signifier that could be bound to
the signified. The claim of arbitrariness is slightly contestable given recent studies in cognitive science, but
for the most part, it is logically sound. Saussure does discuss later how elements of words (prefixes and
postfixes that can be tied to other word bases) are signifiers in of themselves. Linearity applies to the fact
that we perceive signs, read and hear, linearly. This has to do with our inherent means of perception and
ability to read and interpret language.

Language has qualities of both immutability and mutability. Language is immutable in the sense that it is
intangible and connot be consciously changed by a single speaker. A speaker who wished to change
language would not be able communicate the changes with others by simpy using the changes. Language
instead depends on a community of speakers, who use the language through time. The key dimension in
this is time. Without movement in time, a language has the potential for life, but it does not live. Through
time, the language will suffer inevitable changes. It is productive to think of this at a meta level, in terms of
Barthes‘ mythologies, and look at texts and readers. Texts too have a life in time, and are interpreted
differently over the course of it.

Part II: Synchronic Linguistics

This section is on synchronic linguistics, which is linguistics that have a fixed state and does not change
over time. This can also be read as a general interpretation of language meaning and use. Saussure
argues that linguistic entities are concrete, if and only if it has both an expression and meaning. The
meaning of an entity may also be considered an intention or representation). Entities must be delimited via
difference from, and as separated from other units. The idea is that a linguistic expression (like a word or a
phrase or a sentence) is composed of units, such as words or syllables, and these syllables must be
delimited from each other, and distinguished by their difference to other units.

Thought and sound are coupled in the understanding of language. This is at outset a troubling argument, as
the deaf can use language, but Saussure might refer to images or muscle patterns to account for this case.
The argument seems to go in the direction that a union of perception and expression comprises thought.
―Linguistics then works in the borderland where the elements of sound and thought combine; their
combination produces a form, not a substance.‖ (p. 113; emphasis in original) Saussure‘s goal is to
understand the idea of linguistic value, but value differs from signification. This is because signification
involves a certain multiplicity, whereas value does not.

There is a paradox in seeing the sign or word-meaning as a linguistic unit, as it is interdependent. Language
as used contains interdependent terms, and the spoken word does not stand on its own, but depends on the
words around it. Note that GOFAI symbols are independent/universal/objective. There are two elements to
linguistic values: (1) Dissimilar things can be exchanged for the thing of which the value is to be
determined. (2) Similar things may be compared with the thing of which the value is to be determined. The
essence of these are similarity and exchange. These are the core of the process of transformation.
Transformation occurs between signs and reality, as well as between sign systems. Values may be
exchanged, but signified may not exactly be exchanged. Saussure gives the example of the English word
―sheep‖ and the French word ―mouton,‖ both of which signify a sheep, but they do not have the same
value. The French word ―mouton‖ also signifies the food for which the English word is ―mutton.‖

Language ultimately comes down to differences. The key element is distinction between elements such as
letters and phonemes. Differences are within the system, not before it. Both the signified and signifier exist
differentially, in that they are different from other signifieds and signifiers, but the sign as a whole is a
positive unit.

A syntagm is framed as a meaningful connection between two linguistic terms. These are structures within
the system. Extra-system comparisons form associations, which are formed in absentia, whereas
syntagmatic relations are formed in praesentia. A syntagm is two terms effective in a series. Saususre gives
an example of a building supported by columns. The relation between the base, column, and roof are
syntagmatic relations, whereas the type of column that may be present (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, etc) are
associate relations. The syntagm is a role and position within space or time, and an associative relation is
the capacity for variance and multiple values. (I think the term for this has been co-opted as a paradigmatic
relation.) Terms and meanings are built from syntagmatic and associative relations. Associative relations
work via difference, but syntagmatic relations are constructive.
These two terms describe different fundamental beliefs about how grammar works.
Generative Grammar: grammar is a fixed set of rules, and as long as you are following the rules, you get
grammatically correct sentences. If you break the rules, you no longer have grammatically correct
sentences.
— the main downside to this approach is it fails to account for the natural change of languages, as well as
begs the questions of who determines the rules.
Descriptive Grammar: grammar is a framework that humans use to convey meaning, and if your audience
understands what you mean, the grammar is correct. If they cannot, you need to find a different way to say
something.
— this has the downside of being very imprecise. If everyone has a slightly different idea of how the
language works based on how their social circle communicates, are they even speaking the same language
as another group who doesn‘t understand what they are saying?

Phoneme, Allophone, Morpheme, Allomorph

Posted by Retya Elsivia at 10:29 PM

PHONEME
Phoneme is one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular
language and it make a difference to meaning.. The term is usually restricted to vowels and consonants.
For example in English : /m/ of mat and the /b/ of bat.

ALLOPHONE
An Allophone is one of several similar speech sounds (phones) that belong to the same phoneme.
For example in English :
[ph] as in pin and [p] as in spin are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in theEnglish language because they
cannot distinguish words. They are different,the first is aspirated and the second is unaspirated (plain).

The relationship between a phoneme and allophones :

1. A phoneme is manifested as one or more phones (phonetic sounds) in different environments. These
phones are called allophones.
2. A phoneme is a set of allophones or individual non-contrastive speech segments. Allophones are sounds,
whilst a phoneme is a set of such sounds.

The differentiate between a phoneme and allophones :

The phoneme placed in slant brackets (/ /) and the allophones placed insquare brackets ([ ]).

MORPHEME
Morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word (such as dog) or a word element (such as
the -s at the end of dogs) that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts.
A morpheme cannot be split into smaller meaningful units, but a word can.
A word can be analyzed as consisting of one morpheme or two or more morphemes.
For example in English :
1. The word sad as consisting of one morphemes.
2. The word uninterested as consisting of three morphemes: un-, interest, and-ed.

ALLOMORPH
An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest amorpheme in its different
phonological or morphological environments.
For example in English :
The prefixes in- (insane), il- (illegible), im- (impossible), ir- (irregular) are allomorphs of the same
negative morpheme.

The relationship between a morpheme and allomorphs :

When a morpheme is represented by a segment, that segment is a morph. If a morpheme can be represented
by more than one morph, the morphs areallomorphs. A morpheme is manifested as one or
more morphs (surface forms) in different environments. These morphs are called allomorphs.

"They call it a relation "ship" because it so often sinks."

Morphemes -- the minimal building blocks of meaning -- are not to be perceived as a homogeneous group;
quite differently, the rather vast group of morphemes differs from each other in a number of characteristics
crucial to delineate briefly in this context. In the chapters to follow, you will be introduced to a variety of
word-building elements. The knowledge you will gain by working through these sections then allows you
to do a morphological analysis on your own.
Linguists most generally distinguish between two major types of morphemes: free morphemes on the one
hand and bound morphemes on the other.
Let us clarify this more finely grained distinction with some examples.
"To successfully manage a huge law firm requires both determination and authority.‖
"The well-paid management of the company failed fatally."
"Preparing the text on syntax for next week is easily manageable. Isn't it?"
Based on these three examples above, we can come up with a first broad distinction between these two
types of morphemes.
 There are free morphemes that can occur on their own without any morphemes necessarily attached to
them. As such, free morphemes can stand by themselves as single, thoroughly independent words,
e.g. manage as in management, mother as in motherhood or words such as pen, tea, and man. Free
morphemes can further be subcategorized into content words and function words.
 Bound morphemes, in obvious contrast, only appear in combination with other in most cases free
morphemes, that is, these morphemes are bound in the very sense that they cannot stand alone and are
thus necessarily attached to another form. For instance, ―-ment‖ as in management or "un" as in
unhappy―'' are bound morphemes.
Additionally, free morphemes, including manage as in management or friend as in friendship are further
technically termed because they serve as the basis for attaching other, usually bound, morphemes.