Linguistics

and its
Components
By: Prashant Sahay
BBM-I
 Phonology
Phonology is the study of sound .

How many letters does the English language

have?
How many sounds does the language have?
The answer is much more.
In modern English, we have 26 letters in our alphabet. We do
not have 26 sounds that corresponds with these letters.
We have in American English approximately 48 different
sounds that can be created by these 26 letters.

If we have more sounds than letters that means that at times

some of these letters can have more than one sound.

Lets explore this further. We have the letter t which gives

us the sound /t/ as in table. We also have the letter h
which gives us the sound /h/ as in hat. When we combine
them, we get a couple of different sounds.
Some people think that we only get one sound
when we combine t and h but we actually
get 2. Here are the examples:
Sound out the word THREE. Repeat it a few
times.
Now sound out the word THERE. Repeat it
and think about how the /th/ sound differs
from the first example.
Other examples: THIS and THIN.
This sound is not common in all languages.
 Morphology

What is morphology?

Morphology is the study of word formation.

This component of language focuses on the

internal structure of words.
Morphemes are the smallest unit of linguistic
meaning or function. For example: consider
the words sheep and dog.

Sheepdog = 2 morphemes

Sheepdogs = 3 morphemes
we can add {er} at the end of a verb to
change its meaning.

We, however, should be careful because a

morpheme such as er can serve two different
purposes in English.

When it is at the end of a verb, it creates a

noun but when we place it at the end of an
adjective it performs a different function.
 For Eg.
Play player
nice nicer
The morpheme in these examples is
the same in spelling but has a
different meaning and function
depending on the word to which it is
attached.
Similar to this will be the ly at the end of
many adverbs such as beautifully,
wonderfully, hardly, extremely, slowly, etc.
Conversely, an ly ending does not guarantee
that the word is an adverb. The adjectives
friendly, lonely, and lovely end in ly but are
not adverbs.
 Semantics
What is Semantics?

This particular branch of language refers to

meaning.
When we say something like All kings are
males. A person who knows English will agree
because he or she learned that the word king
refers to a male who rules a country.

For example - All bulls are females.

When one says: Nancy postponed her wedding. We
understand that Nancy put off her wedding. We
understand that to postpone means to put off.

Many words in English have more than one meaning.

This results in confusion . Ground is a good example. It
could mean a solid surface, it is also used in the
following examples: they covered a lot of ground in the
meeting (dealt with a variety of topics), Stand ones
ground (be firm), On what ground do you (cause or
reason), parents sometimes ground their children, and
finally it is the past tense of grind as in ground coffee.
Language can be ambiguous sometimes which
affects meaning and comprehension. When
someone says : I saw the French history
professor. One can wonder if the professor
teaches French history or if he is from France.

Meaning is a big part of language. Speakers of

any language and learners of any language need
to get the semantics of that language in order to
communicate with others successfully.
 Syntax
Syntax is most related to grammar. It has to
do with sentences and their structure.

The English language has a certain word order

we have to follow if we want to create useful
language. The basic sentence in English
consists of subject, verb, and object (SVO) as
is represented in this simple sentence: I eat
breakfast. This sentence is grammatically
correct because the words are presented in
the right order.
I could add to the previous sentence and make it
more complex Every morning, I eat breakfast at 7
oclock and then I go to school. Again, the sentence
follows an acceptable word order in the English
language. If I said: Breakfast I eat. The listener will
immediately realize that the sentence does not follow
the correct word order.
Compare these examples: The boy ate a sandwich vs.
A sandwich ate the boy. One sentence is correct
because it follows the right word order but although
the second one followed the right word order it did not
make sense because it was not semantically correct.
References:
www.englishphonetics.com

www.lingueng.com

www.col.com