Linguistic-Mokhtasara-Blida - PDF Version 1 PDF

University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) November 2009
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences- Department of English Mrs YERBOUB

First Year (L.M.D.)
Module: Introduction to Linguistics
Lecture 01: Properties of Language
In fact, there are many characteristics which enable language (the subject-matter of
linguistics) to stand as a highly distinguished and unique system of communication, and which
allow us to single it out from any other human or non-human language. Among the specific
properties that contribute to the flexibility and uniqueness of the language-system, we shall
mention nine major ones: sounds, systematicity, linearity, arbitrariness, productivity,
displacement, duality, discreteness and cultural transmission.
1. Sounds
Human natural language is primarily a system of vocal communication. Language is primarily

spoken; chronologically speaking, writing came after speech. In fact, 20th century linguists
emphasise the importance of speech and its priority over writing.
2. Systematicity
Languages are systems, so they are structured. The sounds of a language are combined
together in specific ways, following specific rules. They are not arranged randomly to form
words. The order of words in sentences is, in turn, not haphazard; words have a structure and
so do sentences. There is also a system relating sounds with meanings.
3. Linearity
Language is linear; it comes out either as a succession of sounds or written symbols. Elements
occur one after the other in a linear sequence.
4. Arbitrariness
Arbitrariness in language means that there is no logical link or connection between a

linguistic form and its meaning, between the linguistic signs and the objects or ideas they
refer to. This property of human language is often used to contrast with the properties of other
semiotic systems. The relationship between the words “water” (English) or “eau” (French) and
the chemical compound H2O is arbitrary, that is non-predictable. In other words, given the
form, it is impossible to predict the meaning, and vice versa. Arbitrariness also exists at the
level of the grammatical and the phonological structure of particular languages in so far as each
language has its own set of rules.
However, there are some infrequent words in all languages which have sounds that seem to
“echo” the sounds of the objects or actions they indicate. Words such as ‘cuckoo’, ‘murmur’,
‘crash’ and ‘splash’ are called onomatopoeic. The relationship between the form and the
meaning of such words is non-arbitrary because they do seem to reflect properties of the non-
linguistic world. Nonetheless, in most languages, the onomatopoeic words are relatively rare
and the vast majority of words are, in fact, non- onomatopoeic.
5. Productivity
Productivity refers to the creative capacity of language users to produce and understand an
infinite number of utterances and sentences. All language-systems enable their users to
construct and interpret indefinitely large numbers of utterances that they have never heard or
read before. For instance, children are able, at a quite early age, to produce utterances they
have never heard before. (This is proof that language is not learnt solely by means of imitation
and mechanical memorisation). Similarly, adults facing new situations can manipulate their
linguistic resources to produce new expressions which cope with these situations.
This property is seen as one of the design features of human language as it contrasts with the
unproductive systems of communication of animals. Thus, it would be misleading to say that
the communication-system used by the bees for indicating the source of nectar has the property
of productivity because they produce indefinitely many different signals (varying with respect
to the vibrations of their body and the angle they adopt in relation to the sun). Actually, there is
continuous variation in the signals, a non-arbitrary link between the signal and the message,
and the system cannot be used by the bees to convey other messages than the distance and the
direction of the source of nectar.
What should be stressed, though, is the fact that language creativity is not random or
unconstrained. It is rather rule-governed. That is, the native speakers of a language are free to
act creatively but within the limits set by the rules of the grammar.
6. Displacement
Displacement is another suggested defining property of human language, when this is
contrasted with the properties of other semiotic systems. It consists in the fact that language
can be used to refer to contexts different from the immediate situation of the speaker.
Unlike other systems of communication, human language can be used to refer to past or future
actions. Animal language is generally related to specific situations as danger or hunger. Thanks
to this property, speakers can use language to talk about imaginary things and places, create
fiction and describe possible future world.
7. Duality
By duality (also called double articulation after the French linguist André Martinet) is meant
the property of having two abstract levels of structure:
1) The primary level (higher level): At this level, language is organised as a sequence of
meaningful units (such as morphemes and words).
2) The secondary level (lower level): Language, here, is organised as a sequence of

elements (such as sounds in spoken language) which do not have any meaning in themselves,
but combine to form units of meaning.
It is because the smaller, lower-level elements are meaningless whereas the larger, higher-
level units are generally meaningful that the elements are considered as secondary and the units
as primary. All communication-systems have such primary units; but these units are not
necessarily made up of elements of the secondary level.
We can say that this duality of levels is one of the most economical features of human
language because with a limited number of elements, we can produce an extremely large
number of units.
8. Discreteness
Discreteness is opposed to continuity, or continuous variation. In the case of language,

discreteness is a property of the secondary level. The elements have definable boundaries, with
no gradation or continuity between them. Discreteness is especially used in phonetics and
phonology for sounds which have clear-cut boundaries within the stream of speech. So, any
sound is treated as discrete and distinct from the other.
There is a distinction in meaning between “fast” and “vast” because in English /f/ and /v/ are
different. The difference between the /f/ and /v/ sounds is not very important, but when the
sounds are used in the language, the occurrence of one rather than the other is meaningful.
9. Cultural transmission
This property refers to the fact that the ability to speak a particular language is transmitted from
generation to generation by a process of environmental learning, and not genetically. That is,
unlike physical characteristics, we do not inherit the language we speak from our parents.
Parental genes have nothing to do with the acquisition of the language.
This cultural transmission is crucial in the process of the human language acquisition.
Children growing up in isolation cannot produce language instinctively.
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 02: What is Language?

It is practically difficult to agree upon one single definition of language. Therefore, we shall
attempt to clarify the term ‘language’ in relation to ‘linguistics’.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. What exactly is meant by ‘language’? We
may notice here that the word ‘language’ is used in singular form without the indefinite article.
Thus, one should not confuse ‘language’ with ‘a language’ or ‘languages’. French, for instance,
makes a clear distinction between the two words: the word ‘langage’ is used to refer to
language in general whereas the word ‘langue’ is applied to particular languages like English,
Chinese and Spanish. The latter are human languages which are spoken by groups of people
and are also called ‘natural languages’. In fact, philosophers, psychologists and linguists
commonly make the point that it is the possession of language which most clearly distinguishes
man from other animals.
In his/her study of language, the linguist is primarily concerned with the general aspects
which are universally shared by all natural languages. John Lyons, a well-known linguist,
clarifies at this point that “What the linguist wants to know is whether all natural languages
have something in common not shared by other systems of communication, human or non-
human, such that it is right to apply to each of them the word ‘language’ and to deny the
application of the term to other systems of communication.”
Some Definitions of Language

There are so many definitions of language. However, it is not easy to find a complete
definition as each one stresses some aspect or another of language. That is why we shall quote
some statements about language made by well-known linguists in order to discuss the different
properties of language they try to demonstrate.
1) Sapir’s definition (1921): “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.”
2) Bloch and Trager’s definition (1942): “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols
by means of which a social group co-operates.”
3) Hall’s definition (1968): Language is “the institution whereby humans communicate and
interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.”
4) Chomsky’s definition (1957): “From now on I will consider a language to be a set (finite or
infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”
No matter how the above definitions differ in the perspective from which they conceive of
language, most of them seem to agree on the fact that languages are systems of symbols
designed for the purpose of communication.
To conclude, we shall quote the following more or less comprehensive definition suggested
by Richards and Schmidt in the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics (2002):
“The system of human communication which consists of the structured arrangement of sounds
(or their written representation) into larger units, e.g. morphemes, words, sentences, utterances.
In common usage it can also refer to non-human systems of communication such as the
“language” of bees, the “language” of dolphins.”
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 03: Language versus a Language

Human language is defined by linguists as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols designed for
the purpose of communication. They also assume that each of the several thousand
recognizably distinct natural languages spoken throughout the world is a specific instance of
something more general i.e. Language. That is, in spite of the differences observed in their
sound, vocabulary and grammar systems, the world languages have some shared properties (or
Universals) upon which linguists rely to construct a theory of language.
1. How do languages differ?
In fact, languages differ in many aspects. The sound repertoire, which rarely exceeds fifty
sounds in any language, may vary from one language into another. There are a number of
consonant and vowel sounds which exist in one language and not in the other. The consonant
sounds [v] and [p], for instance, exist in the French and English languages but not in the Arabic
language. Conversely, [ð] and [Ө] do exist in the Arabic and English languages and not in
French. The phonological rules also vary across languages. Aspiration is a key phonological
feature in Chinese (and to a less degree in English). Likewise, English is a stress-timed
language whereas French is syllable-timed. Languages differ in their syntactic structure, too.
In most European languages, for example, the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order is very
common. However, this pattern does not apply to Arabic and Hebrew where the order is
(VSO). Further differences concern the lexical system. This is due to the arbitrariness of the
linguistic sign. To illustrate this, let us consider the relationship between the given sequences
of sounds and their meaning across languages. Objects and things of the real world are referred
to differently in each language. That is why, we are obliged to learn the lexicon of a language,
alongside its grammar.
2. What do languages have in common?
There is a long list of linguistic universals, from which we opted to mention the following:
1. Languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing man’s thoughts and ideas.
2. Languages change through time and their vocabulary increases to include new terms of new
concepts.
3. Languages make use of sounds to express meaning. The sounds are combined to form
meaningful units which themselves, in turn, are combined to form whole thoughts.
4. All languages use the same grammatical categories i.e. verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.
5. Universal semantic concepts such as tense, negation, question and request are found in all
languages.
6. Any normal child can learn the language to which s/he is exposed.
Such properties constitute, according to some linguists known as the universalists, a Universal
Grammar of Human Language.
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) December 2009
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 04: What Linguistics IS NOT

The subject matter of linguistics is not yet clear for the laymen (non-specialists; non-
linguists). There are many misconceptions about what linguistics is. It is often confused with
other subjects. This is due to the fact that it is a fairly new discipline (it was not taught in the
European universities before the sixties). That is why, we shall try to draw attention to some of
the common mistaken beliefs about linguistics in this lecture.
I) - Linguistics versus the knowledge of many languages.
1. Linguistics should not be confused with the teaching and/or learning of many languages.
Linguistics provides the raw material that will be used by teachers and learners. This is done
through the accurate and exhaustive description of languages.
2. A linguist is not a person who speaks many languages. A polyglot is the appropriate term
for a person who can speak or write in several languages. Linguistics should not therefore be
confused with polyglotism because people who speak many languages may be linguists, but
they are not necessarily linguists. However, the study of language presupposes the knowledge
of two languages at least. (Remember that language is what languages have in common).
II) – Linguistics versus the historical study of language.
Linguistics is not the study of the history of language (i.e. the diachronic study). Philology,
which is the exact name for it, is only a small branch of linguistics. Nineteenth-century
linguistics was primarily concerned with the diachronic study of language i.e. the investigation
of the historical development of particular languages and the formulation of general hypotheses
about language-change. Twentieth-century linguistics, however, gives priority to the
synchronic description of language which, being non-diachronic, presents an account of the
language as it is at some particular point in time. (The terms ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’
were first used by Ferdinand De Saussure).
III) – Linguistics versus subjectivity.
Linguistics is not subjective; it is objective. It, thus, rejects all explanations of language
founded on personal opinions without any scientific evidence. There are all sorts of social,
cultural and nationalistic prejudices and attitudes associated with the layman’s view of
language and of particular languages. For example, one accent or dialect of a particular
language might be thought to be inherently purer, more complex or more logical than another;
or one language might be held to be more primitive than another. Similarly, some languages
are said to be ‘beautiful’ and others ‘ugly’. Such speculations are part of the popular
misunderstandings about language and linguistics.
Objectivity demands that all subjective beliefs should be confronted and terms like ‘pure’
and ‘primitive’ rejected because they only reflect the opinions of those who speak them. Value
judgements which are not supported by any evidence are excluded from language study.
IV) – Linguistics versus literature.
The fact that the linguist is a specialist of language does not imply that s/he is a ‘literary
critic’ or a ‘poet’. The critic’s job is to evaluate the language used in the literary texts in terms
of some aesthetic, moral and other critical standards. Yet, if a linguist studies a piece of
literature, his/her job will consist in studying the language used in the text (vocabulary –
grammar). His/her study is exclusively based on facts.
V) – Linguistics versus traditional grammar.
Linguistics should not be thought of as traditional grammar (TG). Linguistics is a modern

approach to language study. TG differs from linguistics in many basic aspects:
1. TG ignores speech altogether; traditional grammarians fail to see that speech is the
primary medium of expression in language. So they confine themselves to a specific kind of
language: literary, formal written language, the noblest according to them.
Linguistics, however, does not only account for literary written language, but it also
accounts for spoken, familiar and colloquial language as well.
2. TG is characterised by its normative or prescriptive approach to language. The job of
traditional grammarians consisted in telling people how to write by imposing upon them
norms or standards of correctness (prescriptive rules).
Unlike TG, linguistics is descriptive (non-normative). It describes how language is and
does not prescribe how it ought to be. Prescriptive rules are usually commands (Do / Don’t
say X!) whereas descriptive observations are statements (People do / don’t say X). That is,
linguistics describes the way people actually speak and write their language, but it does not
prescribe rules of how people should speak and write.
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 05: What is Linguistics?
1. Linguistics: The study of 'languages' or 'LANGUAGE'?

Linguistics is described as the science of language or the scientific study of language. As far
as the subject matter of linguistics (i.e. language) is concerned, there is a difference between
linguistics as the study of individual (natural) languages and the study of LANGUAGE as a
human phenomenon. However, both of them are possible in linguistic study. Even when
studying individual languages, linguists are interested in LANGUAGE as a universally
recognizable part of human behaviour.
The linguist is someone who wants to find how LANGUAGE works and s/he does so
through the study of individual languages. Therefore, linguistics, as David Crystal states,
performs at least two tasks. It is concerned with the study of particular languages in order to
come out with a complete description of their grammar, their social and psychological aspects,
their use and the relationship among languages. It also studies languages as a means to a
further end which is to be able to obtain information about the nature of LANGUAGE.
2. Criteria of Linguistic Study

Linguistics is nowadays considered as a scientific study in that it meets the following
scientific criteria:
1°) Explicitness: A scientific study must be clear. This implies clarity in terminology i.e. the
words used to describe language have to be explicit.
2°) Systematicity: Linguistic study needs to be orderly. Due to the high complexity of
language, linguists have to set assumptions, to put limits to their studies beforehand and to
explain how their work is arranged. Thus, the study must be systematic, otherwise it will lack
coherence.
3°) Objectivity: Personal feelings and value judgements are not accepted in linguistics. An
objective linguistic study is one that relies only on manifest observations and on verifiable
conclusions. This objectivity is essential to any scientific research. Such subjective expressions
as liking or disliking must be discarded because they are not based on reason.
4°) Economy: Any scientific study requires being as simple and as direct as can be.
Therefore, linguistics has to be as economical and precise as possible. Exactitude in linguistic
theory is important. However, this economy principle must not go against clarity and
completeness.
5°) Exhaustiveness: When defending a scientific hypothesis, the linguist has to find out all
the possibilities. His theory must account for all the aspects of the analysed phenomenon.
Linguists have always striven to be exhaustive/ complete in their hypotheses and descriptions,
but the principle of exhaustiveness is sometimes beyond reach.
6°) Consistency: Any scientific research should be rationally conducted i.e. it should not
contain self-contradictions; it should obey the set of rules or norms at all levels; if it does not, it
would not be consistent/ logical.
7°) Pertinence: A linguistic study must have a purpose. It must be pertinent/ useful: trying
to prove the evident or the impossible is not a scientific attitude.
3. Procedures of Linguistic Study
Studies in linguistics are carried out according to established steps. Scientific study follows
two major ways: the inductive or the deductive method.
A) The Inductive Method: It proceeds as follows:
1°) Observation:
This is essentially an aural activity; an operation of listening because modern linguistics gives
priority to speech over writing. This consists mainly in listening to native speakers.
2°) Description:
Linguistic description is often limited to a given set of broadly representative data items.
Exhaustive description and analysis are not always possible at all levels of linguistics.
3°) Conclusion:
Conclusions about linguistic phenomena have to be frequently tentative and cautious. They
should be verified because they cannot be exhaustive and because languages are often
changing.
B) The Deductive Method: It proceeds as follows:
1°) Hypothesis:
In linguistics, research is always linked to a certain degree of expectancy, of intuitions about
language(s). So, linguists would often set hypotheses or make predictions, then they would
try to verify these hypotheses.
2°) Verification:
This is an essential operation for all scientific studies. In linguistic studies, verification often
amounts to re-observing or listening again to, and classifying the judgements and intuitions of
large numbers of native speakers. It is simply from these pieces of information that the linguist
would establish what is correct and accepted, and what is not, for the given language.
3°) Generalization:
When a linguistic phenomenon has been verified by a sufficient number of examples, it can be
generalized. Generalization in linguistics can be made either for a particular language or for all
languages.
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) January 2010
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 06: Phonetics
There are six levels of linguistic study: 1. Phonetics; 2. Phonology; 3. Morphology; 4. Syntax;
5. Semantics; 6. Pragmatics.
In this lecture, we shall deal with the first level of linguistics i.e. phonetics.
1. The Inconsistency of English Spelling with Pronunciation:
One of the most disturbing facts for learners of English as a second or foreign language is
that it is not always easy to know what sounds the letters stand for. In fact, the sounds of
spoken English do not match up, a lot of the time, with letters of written English. Here are
some examples:
• Same sound, different letters: [i:] in free, leave, receive, belief, machine.
• Same letters, different sounds: (s) e.g. see [s], raise [z], measure [ ], sure [∫].
(ch) e.g. cheap [t∫], machine [∫], mechanic [k].
(ea) e.g. dead [e], lead [i:], bear [eə], hear [Іə].
• One sound, multiple letters: e.g. back [k], this [ð], three [Ө], short [∫].
• One letter, multiple sounds: e.g. exam [gz], use [ju:].
• Silent letters: climb, high, island, knock, psychology, Wednesday, listen, who, why.
2. Definition of Phonetics:
It is the study of the characteristics of speech-sounds. It is also defined by David Crystal (1992)
as “the study of the production, transmission and reception of speech sounds.” It is thus
concerned with how the sounds of speech are actually produced, transmitted and eventually
received.
3. Branches / Areas of Phonetics:
Phonetics includes three areas / branches i.e. it can be studied from three points of view:
• Articulatory phonetics: It is the study of how phones (sounds) of human language are
produced by the mouth. It thus investigates and classifies speech-sounds in terms of the way
they are produced by the speech-organs.
• Acoustic phonetics: It is the study of the physical properties of the sound waves that are
created by the activity of the speech-organs and travel through the air from speaker to hearer.
• Auditory (or perceptual) phonetics: It is interested in the hearing process i.e. it studies how
speech sounds are perceived and identified by the hearer’s ear and brain but it is not as
developed as articulatory and acoustic phonetics.
Of these three branches of phonetics, the most highly developed is articulatory phonetics.
3.1. Articulatory phonetics:
In English, we have two types of sounds: vowels and consonants. Vowels are
characterised by an open articulation. Consonants, however, are characterised by an air
obstruction.
a) Vowels
Vowels are described and classified according to four variables:
1. The height of the tongue (the degree of opening of the mouth): The body of the tongue
can be moved up or down within the mouth. It can therefore take three different positions:
High (close): when the body of the tongue is moved up. Eg. [i:], [u:].
Mid: when the body of the tongue is in a position of rest. Eg. [ə], [e].
Low (open): when the body of the tongue is moved down. Eg. [æ], [a:], [D].
2. The place of the tongue: The body of the tongue can be moved towards the front or back of
the mouth. It can also be in three positions:
Front: when the body of the tongue is moved forward. Eg. [i:], [æ].
Central: when the body of the tongue is in a position of rest. Eg. [ə].
Back: when the body of the tongue is moved backward. Eg. [u:], [a:], [D].
3. The shape of the lips: The lips are the second articulator involved in the production of
vowels. They can be moved independently of the tongue. The lips can take two shapes:
Rounded (such as in [u:] and [D])
Unrounded (such as in [I] and [æ])
But, unlike French, in most English dialects, there are no sounds which are distinguished by lip
rounding only.
4. The tongue root: This is the most difficult vowel feature to feel, due to the lack of
appropriate nerves in the root of the tongue and throat. The tongue root can be:
Advanced: it makes the throat wider.
Plain: when it is retracted and this makes the throat narrower.
b) Consonants
Consonants are described and classified according to four variables:
1. The presence or absence of voice (voiced or voiceless):
The larynx is located in the throat. It is a complicated combination of muscles and cartilage. It
contains two small bands of elastic tissue lying opposite each other across the air passage.
These bands are known as the vocal cords (vocal folds). The latter can perform different
movements from which we shall be concerned with two:
1) They can be moved towards each other so that they meet. Here they vibrate and thus
produce a voiced consonant (e.g. [b], [d], [g], [v] and [z]).
2) They can be drawn apart so that there is a gap between them. In this case they do not
vibrate and thus produce a voiceless consonant (e.g. [p], [t], [k], [f] and [s]).
Note: We can feel whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating by putting our hand against our
throat while making a speech sound.
2. The position of the soft palate / Nasality (oral or nasal):
The soft palate (or velum) at the back of the throat can be moved like a valve to open or close
the opening of the nose. It is normally open when we breathe, but it is closed (raised) for most
speech sounds.
Oral: the velum is raised and the passage to the nasal cavity is closed (e.g. [d], [g], [s], [l]
[Ө], [r]).
Nasal: the velum is lowered and the passage to the nasal cavity is open (e.g. [m], [n], [n]).
3. The place of articulation (bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatal, palato-
alveolar, velar or glottal):
The mouth can be narrowed in many places by the lips and tongue. The place of a speech
sound describes where the mouth is narrowest.
• Bilabials (or labials): the lips are brought together (e.g. [p], [m], [b], [w]).
• Labiodentals: the lower lip is brought into contact with the upper teeth (e.g. [f] and [v]).
• Dentals (or interdentals): the tip of the tongue is brought into contact with the upper teeth
(e.g. [Ө] and [ð]).
• Alveolars: the tip of the tongue is brought into contact with the alveolar ridge (the upper
teeth-ridge) (e.g. [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [l], [r]).
• Palatals: the front of the tongue is brought in contact with the hard palate (e.g. [j]).
• Palato-alveolars (or alveopalatals): the tongue is midway between the places of articulation
for alveolars and palatals (e.g. [∫], [ ], [t∫], [d ]).
• Velars: the back of the tongue is brought into contact with the velum (soft palate) (e.g. [k],
[g] and [n]).
• Glottals: the vocal cords are brought momentarily together (e.g. [h] and [?]).
4. The manner of articulation (stops (plosives), fricatives, affricates, liquids or glides):
• Stops (plosives): stopping the air stream (very briefly) and then letting it go abruptly (e.g.
[p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g], [?]).
• Fricatives: the air stream is almost blocked, so that the air flows through a narrow opening
producing a type of friction (e.g. [f], [v] [Ө], [ð], [s], [z], [∫], [ ]).
• Affricates: a brief stopping of the air stream is followed by friction (e.g. [t∫], [d ]).
• Liquids: the air stream is let to flow around the sides of the tongue as it makes contact with
the alveolar ridge (e.g. [l] and [r]).
• Glides: they are also called ‘semi-vowels’. They are produced with the tongue moving, or
‘gliding’, to or from a position associated with a neighbouring vowel sound (e.g. [w] and [j]).
Task: What articulatory feature(s) do the following sets of speech-sounds have in common?
(1) [υ], [o] and [u:]
(2) [e] and [ə]
(3) [i:] and [I]
(4) [a:] and [D]
(5) [p], [t] and [k]
(6) [p], [b] and [m]
(7) [Ө], [f], [s] and [ð]
(8) [m], [n] and [n]
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 07: Phonology
In phonetics, the speech sounds (or phones) have so far been described in physiological
terms (articulatory phonetics) and in physical terms (acoustic phonetics). Yet, sounds can also
be described in linguistic terms through the study of their function in human language. This is
the main concern of phonology.
1. Definition of Phonology:
Phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. It is
concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the sounds in language rather than with the
actual physiological articulation of speech sounds or their physical transmission or perception.
Phonology’s major concern is thus the abstract set of sounds in a language which allows us to
distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say and hear.
When we say that the [t] sounds in the pronunciation of Satan and eighth are the same, we
are actually saying that in the phonology of English they would be represented in the same
way. But in actual speech, these [t] sounds may be very different. In Satan, the influence of a
following [n] sound could result in some form of nasal release. In eighth, however, the
influence of the following [Ө] sound would result in a dental articulation of the [t] sound.
In the phonology of English, the distinction between the above [t] sounds is not functionally
significant. In fact, this distinction is less important than the distinction between the [t] sounds
in general and the [d] sounds or the [b] sounds, because there are meaningful consequences
related to the use of one rather than the others. In fact, the [t], [d] and [b] sounds are distinct
meaningful sounds because they are what make the words tie, die and buy meaningfully
distinct.
While the business of phonetics is the study of how the sounds of speech are actually made
(concrete level), the business of phonology is the study of phonemes and their relations in the
sound systems of different languages (abstract level).
2. The Phoneme:
In phonology, the term “sound” is not appropriate; the term “phoneme” is used instead by
phonologists to refer to the meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language. It is defined as the
smallest segment of sound which can distinguish two words and thus bring about a change in
meaning (e.g. sheep-cheap / pin-bin / ill-in / tap-top / leave-live).
It should be noted that slashes are conventionally used to indicate a phoneme which is an
abstract segment (e.g. /p/ and /b/), as opposed to the square brackets which are used for each
phonetic or physically produced segment (e.g. [p] and [b]). In this case, we could say that the
1
phoneme /p/, for example, is described as a sound type (a class of sounds) in English, of
2
which all the different spoken versions of [p] are tokens .
In addition, the sounds [p] and [b], for instance, are not only phonetically different (i.e. they
differ as physical sounds). They also differ phonemically in English (i.e. their difference is
functionally significant) but not in Arabic since the latter does not have this contrast between
the two sounds.
1
Type: an abstract, general category of things.
2
Tokens: particular examples of a general type.
3. Main Tasks of Phonology:
To study the phonemes existing in a particular language, phonology has to perform several
tasks which can be summarised as follows:
1. The phonologist has to make the inventory of the different phonemes found in the
3
language. This listing is made through drawing out the minimal pairs of this language, thanks
4
to the method of commutation .
2. The phonologist has to find the different characteristics of the phonemes to describe them.
S/he has to find all the positions where phonemes may occur inside a word.
3. It must discover the phonological rules combining sounds together and the way they can be
related to the phonetic representation.
4. Phonology has to discover the phonetic features that we need in order to distinguish each
phoneme from the other (and consequently between two words in a minimal pair). These
phonetic features are called distinctive features. Thus, /p/ can be characterized as /-voiced,
+bilabial, +stop/ (the feature of nasality is not distinctive because the absence of voice in
English sounds implies an absence of nasality automatically).
Besides, voicing in the [p] sound is a distinctive feature which enables us to differentiate the
phoneme /p/ (voiceless) from the phoneme /b/ (voiced) in English, whereas the absence of
nasality is not functionally significant as both sounds are oral. This feature (nasality) is
distinctive when contrasting /b/ (oral) and /m/ (nasal).
5. Phonology must find all the sounds that are connected with one single phoneme i.e. the
different phonetic realizations of a phoneme which are known as allophones. In English, there
is a difference in pronunciation of the phoneme /i:/ in words like seed and seen. In the second
word, the influence of the nasal consonant [n] makes the [i:] sound nasalized. So, there are at
least two sounds (phones), [ ĩ:] and [i:], used in English to realize the phoneme /i:/.
In some Arabic dialects, [d ], [ ] (e.g. in Algeria), [g] (e.g. in Egypt and Sudan) and [j]
(e.g. in some parts in Kuwait and other Gulf countries) are all allophones of the phoneme /d /
as in the word (‫)جاي‬. Similarly, [s] and [Ө] stand for the same phoneme /s/ in some children’s
speech.
It should be reminded that the phoneme is an entirely abstract entity; it can only be made
5
actual through one of its allophonic manifestations . This implies that substituting one
phoneme for another will result in a word with a different meaning, but substituting allophones
only results in a different pronunciation of the same word.
6. Phonology has to study how prosodic (or suprasegmental) features (stress and
intonation), which are also distinctive features, can be used in the linguistic analysis.
In a stress-timed language like English, the difference between the noun-form record and the
verb-form record in spoken language (the noun-form is stressed on the first, and the verb-form
on the second syllable) is not a difference between phonemes, but between stress patterns.
Similarly, when producing utterances, our voice goes up and down. So we vary not only stress
but intonation, too. It is thus the task of phonology to take such features into consideration.
3
Minimal pairs: pairs of words which differ only in one sound occurring in the same position. If there
is a difference in meaning between the two (three/four) words, the sounds which are not the same
constitute different phonemes. E.g. hard - card - yard - guard / spot – spat – spit.
4
Commutation: a procedure of linguistic analysis which consists in substituting (replacing) different
elements by others in order to draw out the pertinent oppositions of a language such as minimal pairs.
5
The notion of ‘phoneme’ also applies to writing. The grapheme (which is the counterpart of the
phoneme in written language) never appears on the page, but only some graphetic realization of it (e.g.
{P, p, and } are all allographs of the same grapheme (p).
Task 01: Which of the following words would be treated as minimal pairs?
pat – pen – fax - more – heat – tape – bun – fat – hear - ban – chain
– tale – bell – far – meal – vote – nail - bet – pit – heel – box.
Task 02: Give pairs of English words which can be distinguished by the following sounds:
(1) [∫] and [t∫]
(2) [I] and [i:]
(3) [r] and [l]
(4) [n] and [n]
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) January 2010
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 08: Morphology

One of the properties of human language (that we have already seen in our first lecture) is
duality (or double articulation). At the level of sounds (the lower level), the smallest element is
the phoneme. At the level of words (the higher level), the smallest meaningful unit is called the
morpheme.
1. Definition of Morphology:
Phonology is defined as the study of phonemes (the smallest significant segments of speech).
Morphology’s central concern, however, is the study of morphemes (the smallest significant
units of grammar), or as Crystal defines them, the minimal distinctive units of grammar.
Morphology is therefore the branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words
(the form of words i.e. how words are formed); it then contrasts with syntax, which studies the
way words combine into sentences.
2. Morphemes:
As was mentioned formerly, the morpheme is defined as “a minimal unit of meaning or
grammatical function”. To clarify this definition, we shall examine the following example:
Example 01: - The police reopened an old and obscure investigation.
In this sentence, we would say that the word reopened, for instance, consists of three
morphemes: one minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal unit of meaning is re-
(meaning ‘again’) and a minimal unit of grammatical function is –ed (indicating past tense).
In morphemic analysis, this is represented using braces: {re} + {open} + {ed} = reopened
Example 02: - Motorists are issued tickets for speeding.
The word motorists also contains three morphemes: one minimal unit of meaning is motor,
another minimal unit of meaning is -ist (meaning ‘person who does something’) and a minimal
unit of grammatical function is –s (indicating plural).
{motor} + {ist} + {s} = motorists
3. Types of Morphemes:
From the two examples given above, we can distinguish two broad types of morphemes:
3.1. Free morphemes: These are independent and can stand on their own as single words.
These morphemes, in turn, fall into two categories:
3.1.1. Lexical morphemes: They include the set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs
which we think of as the words which carry the ‘content’ of messages we convey, e.g. police,
open, old, obscure, investigate, motor, issue, ticket and speed.
3.1.2. Functional morphemes: They consist of the functional words in the language such
as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns, e.g. the, an, and and for.
3.2. Bound morphemes: These cannot normally stand alone, and are typically dependent on
another form. These morphemes can also be divided into two categories:
3.2.1. Derivational morphemes: These are used to make new words in the language, and
are often used to form words of a different grammatical category from the stem. Derivational
morphemes involve affixes (prefixes, suffixes and infixes).
Prefixes are added to the beginning of words. They affect meaning but they do not change
the class of the word to which they are prefixed, e.g. re- in reopen. Other prefixes in English
include pre-, pro-, under-, dis-, un-, in-, im-, ir-, il-, micro-, sub- and anti-.
Suffixes are added to the end of words. They change the class of the word to which they are
added, e.g. -ation in investigation, -ist in motorist and –ing in speeding. Other suffixes in
English include -ful, -less, -ous, -able, -ical, -y (for adjectives), -er, -ship, -ssion, -ment (for
nouns), –ize and –en (for verbs) and -ly (for adverbs).
Infixes are affixes which are incorporated inside words. This type of affixes is not normally
found in English, but it is quite common in some other languages. In Arabic, for instance, to
form the agent of an action, (‫ )ألف‬is added after the first letter of three-letter verbs.
E.g. ‫كتب‬.(verb) ‫( كاتب‬noun/agent), ‫( لعب‬verb) ‫( العب‬noun/agent)
3.2.2. Inflectional morphemes: These are not used to produce new words in the language,
but rather to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. Unlike derivational affixes
which often involve a change of grammatical class, inflectional suffixes never involve a change
of class.
Inflectional morphemes are used to show if a word is plural (-s for regular nouns), if it is in
past (-ed for regular verbs) present (-s/es with the pronouns she/he/it) or progressive tense (-
ing), and if it is a comparative (-er), superlative (-est) or possessive form (-’s for nouns).
As the above sub-types of bound morphemes indicate, morphology is concerned with two
main branches:
• Derivational morphology: It is the study of lexical word-formation. It has to do with the
way morphemes get attached as affixes to existing lexical forms or stems in the process of
word formation.
E.g. know (verb) knowledge (noun) knowledgeable (adjective)
Derivational forms are distinct forms i.e. when we open the dictionary, each word is given
its own explanation for lexical reasons.
• Inflectional morphology: It is concerned with the study of the grammatical behaviour of
words. Inflectional forms are the different forms of the same base-form. Inflectional
morphology does not therefore create new words but adapts existing words so that they operate
effectively in sentences. It is not a process of lexical innovation but of grammatical adaptation.
E.g. In the verb ‘to write’, write is the base-form or the root. It has 5 inflected forms: (write /
writes / wrote / written / writing).
The following chart better summarises the different categories of morphemes:
lexical (ordinary nouns, adjectives, verbs)
free functional (articles, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns)
morphemes
bound derivational (prefixes, suffixes, infixes)
inflectional (tense / plurality marks, possessives, etc.)
4. Morphological Description:
We can make the morphological description of any language using the terms for the different
types of morphemes in order to list its elements. Let us apply this to the following English
sentence:
- The boy’s wildness shocked his teachers.
The boy -’s wild
(functional morpheme) (lexical morpheme) (inflectional possessive morpheme) (lexical morpheme)
-ness shock -ed his

(derivational morpheme) (lexical morpheme) (inflectional past tense morpheme) (functional morpheme)
teach -er -s
(lexical morpheme) (derivational morpheme) (inflectional plural morpheme)
5. Morphemes and Allomorphs:

In morphological terms, the different segments of a word are called morphs. While the
‘morpheme’ refers to the grammatical unit in the word (e.g. plural morpheme, verb morpheme,
past tense morpheme), the ‘morph’ refers to the substantial realization of the morpheme. Thus,
the form cats consists of two morphs, which realize a lexical morpheme and an inflectional
plural morpheme.
Like the phoneme, the inflectional morpheme is an abstraction which is realized in various
ways. It follows that, just as allophones are the different realizations of a single phoneme, then
allomorphs are the various realizations of a single morpheme.
There are, for instance, a number of allomorphs for the past tense morpheme (-ed). It can be
realized phonologically by /Id/ as in added, or by /d/ as in lived or by /t/ as in finished. In
irregular verb-forms, the (-ed) morpheme is realized by more radical changes to the sound and
the spelling of the stem form as in take took (inside letter and sound change), cut cut
(zero-morph Ø). .
Exercise 01: (a) List the bound morphemes to be found in these words: misleads, previewer,
shortened, unhappier, fearlessly.
(b) In which of the following examples should the ‘a’ be treated as a bound
morpheme: a boy, apple, atypical?
Exercise 02: What are the functional morphemes in the following sentence:
The old man sat on a chair and told them tales of woe.
Exercise 03: What are the inflectional morphemes in the following phrases:
(a) the teacher’s books (c) the newest model
(b) it’s snowing (d) the cow jumped over the moon
Exercise 04: What would we list as allomorphs of the morpheme ‘plural’ from this set of
English words: dogs, oxen, deer, judges, curricula, syllabi?
Exercise 05: Here are some data from Turkish, provided by a native speaker.
(a) Provide the missing forms in the blanks.
(‘man’) adam adamlar (‘men’)
(‘secret’) sIrlar (‘secrets’)
(‘place’) yer yerler (‘places’)
(‘road’) yollar (‘roads’)
(‘lock’) kilitler (‘locks’)
(‘hand’) el (‘hands’)
(‘arm’) kol (‘arms’)
(‘bell’) ziller (‘bells’)
(‘friend’) dostlar (‘friends’)
(b) In Turkish, consider a, o and I as representing back vowels, and e and i as
representing front vowels. Given this information, state the conditions under which
the two different plural morphs (-ler and -lar) are used.
Exercise 06: The following are data from Turkish, taken from Fromkin and Rodman (1974:
231) and Yule (1997: 83).
1. deniz an ocean 9. elim my hand

2. denize to an ocean 10. eller hands
3. denizen of an ocean 11. di ∫ ler teeth
4. eve to a house 12. di ∫ imizin of our tooth
5. eveden from a house 13. di ∫lerimizin of our teeth
6. evd ш kden from a little house 14. eld ш ke to a little hand
7. denizd ш kde in a little house 15. denizlerimizde in our oceans
8. elde in a hand 16. evd ш klerimizde in our little houses
(ш is a high back unrounded vowel, IPA chart)
1. Provide the Turkish morphemes which correspond to each of the following English
translations: (two morphemes are already done to help you).
……de ……. (in) ………………… (ocean) ………………… (my)

…………….. (to) ………ev……… (house) ………………… (little)
…………….. (of) ………..….…… (tooth) ………………… (our)
…………….. (from) ………...……… (hand) ………………… (plural marker)
2. In what order are the above Turkish morphemes arranged (in terms of noun, plural
marker, etc)?
3. How would you say ‘of our little hands’ in Turkish?
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) March 2010
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 09: Syntax

Grammar is traditionally subdivided into two different but inter-related areas of study-
morphology and syntax. Morphology, as said in the previous lecture, is the study of how words
are formed out of smaller units (the morphemes). Syntax, however, is concerned with the ways
in which words can be combined together to form phrases and sentences or the study of
the arrangement of words into sentences.
This arrangement is made according to syntactic rules which may differ from one language
into another. For instance, in English, the subject always comes before the verb, but in Arabic
the verb is mostly placed in the beginning of the sentence. So syntax addresses questions like
‘Why is it OK in English to say ‘Who did you see Mary with?’, but not OK to say *Who did
you see Mary and? (the asterisk (*) means that the expression is ungrammatical).
Having a simple linear structure, all sentences can be described grammatically as strings or
sequences of constituents.
In fact, the sentences of a language are well-formed grammatical strings which are governed
by rules. Phrases, clauses and sentences in a particular language are not just random
arrangements and combinations of morphemes. The role of a language’s syntax is to account
for these arrangements and thus to distinguish well-formed and ill-formed constructions.
Let us take the following example for illustration: ‘*Accident he an month last had’
This group of words is a non-sentence in English, but ‘He had an accident last month’ is a
well-formed sentence.
The permutation of words in the same sentence may or may not affect its meaning. Though,
linguists state that every different arrangement of the same words produces a different sentence
even if the two sentences have the same meaning. To illustrate, ‘He had an accident last
month’ and ‘Last month he had an accident’ are said to be two distinct sentences (even if there
is no great change of meaning), just as ‘Sam called Jim’ and ‘Jim called Sam’ are obviously
viewed as two different sentences (with great change of meaning).
• Constructions and Constituents:
To make a syntactic analysis of any sentence, two key words are used: construction and
constituent.
The construction: is a complete group of words or morphemes. For instance, it can be
used for phrases (e.g. ‘the old man’ (n. phr.), ‘by car’ (prep. phr.)), clauses (e.g. ‘if you keep
silent’ (adv. cls.), ‘when she came in’ (adv. cls.), ‘that he was tired’ (n. cls.)) or sentences (e.g.
‘the man left his office’, ‘the dog chased the cat’).
The constituent: is a linguistic unit which is a component of a larger construction. It can
be morpheme, a combination of morphemes or a construction that is a component of another
construction. For instance, ‘the’ is a constituent of the phrase ‘the old man’, ‘by car’ is a
constituent of the clause ‘because he travels by car’, ‘angrily’ is a constituent of the phrase
‘shouting angrily’, ‘you keep silent’ is a constituent of the clause ‘if you keep silent’ and ‘when
she came in’ is a constituent of the sentence ‘he left when she came in’.
Leonard Bloomfield, the famous American linguist, introduced the two concepts
construction and immediate constituents in 1933 to analyse the structure of language.
In syntactic analysis constructions are progressively analysed into smaller entities i.e. the
constituents. Therefore, the most important purpose of syntactic analysis is to determine the
constructions and constituents of the sentence.
To make the syntactic analysis of any construction, three major types of analysis are used by
linguists: 1. Immediate Constituent Analysis (ICA); 2. Phrase-Structure Grammar (PSG);
3. Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG).
1. Immediate Constituent Analysis (ICA):

This refers to ‘the analysis of a syntactic construction into its major parts (constituents), the
subsequent divisions being themselves analysed into their major parts until irreducible
constituents are reached.’ (D. Crystal 1992). An ICA analyses the construction into smaller and
smaller entities, where the smallest constituent that cannot be divided is called the ultimate
constituent.
This technique was introduced by Bloomfield (1933) and was a major feature of structuralist
linguistics. The ICA is based on the traditional method of grammatical description which is
parsing sentences into subject and predicate.
To illustrate, let’s analyse the construction given by Bloomfield: ‘Poor John ran away.’ This
sentence can be analysed graphically in three different ways:
• Brackets: [ [(Poor) (John)] [(ran) (away)] ]
• Slashes: Poor / John / ran / away
• Tree diagram: Poor John ran away
Poor John ran away
Poor John ran away

While the two first representations above (i.e. brackets and slashes) concentrate on the
linear sequence of constituents, tree diagrams show the hierarchical organisation of
constructions in a more explicit way. They also indicate more clearly the fact that there are
different levels in the analysis (higher and lower). That is why they are the most widespread.
2. Phrase-Structure Grammar (PSG):

In fact, the ICA version of syntactic analysis proved to be weak since there is no reference to
the syntactic function of the immediate constituents of sentences; the different constituents are
not labelled (named) according to the syntactic role they play in the sentence. Besides, the ICA
is merely a description of the different segments that constitute the sentences of a language,
and thus does not formulate grammatical rules which would produce new sentences.
Since the previous model of analysis proved to be unable to account for the creative aspect
of language, attempts to bring about a suitable substitute were made during the 1950’s. The
American linguist Noam Chomsky suggested a type of grammar with a very explicit system of
rules, which would enable us to engender or produce well-formed sentences from the
structured combination of basic elements.
PSG, thus, is a type of grammar which can generate not only strings of linguistic elements
but also a constituent analysis of these strings. This type of grammar is supposed to generate all
the well-formed syntactic structures of the language and will fail to generate any ill-formed
structures.
With PSG, a set of phrase-structure rules (PS rules) are used. These rules specify the
hierarchical structure of a sentence, the linear sequence of its constituents, and, indirectly,
some types of syntactic relations. PS rules generate strings of symbols and assign to each
labelled bracketings known as phrase markers.
Here is an example of a phrase-structure tree for the English sentence: ‘The monkey ate a
banana.’
S
NP VP
Art N V NP
Art N
The monkey ate a banana
This tree diagram can be viewed in two different ways. It can be seen as a ‘static’
representation of the sentence ‘The monkey ate a banana.’ i.e. we can draw a PS tree for every
single sentence in English. However, it can be treated as a ‘dynamic’ representation i.e. it
represents a way of ‘generating’ not only this single sentence, but a very large number of
sentences with similar structures with only a small number of rules (PS rules), and this is what
PSG is concerned with.
Therefore, this Generative Grammar uses an alternative format, in which the information of
the tree diagram (on the left below) is presented in the PS rules (on the right):
S
1) S NP VP
NP VP
Rule1 is then read as- “a sentence in English consists of ( ) a noun phrase (NP) followed
by a verb phrase (VP).” This rule explains why the following strings are not sentences in
English:
‘*Ate the monkey’ and ‘*The banana.’
We can create other sets of PS rules which can be used to generate a large number of English
sentences:
Art (Adj) N
2) NP PN
Pro
• The round brackets ( ) mean that the constituent inside them is optional i.e. not obligatory.
• The braces { } mean that one and only one of these constituents must be selected.
3) VP V NP (PP) (Adv)
4) PP Prep NP
Other rules known as lexical rules (also called rewriting rules) can be added to indicate the
words to be used for constituents:
5) N {boy, girl, horse} 10) V {saw, followed, helped}
6) PN {George, Mary} 11) Prep {with, near}
7) Pro {he, she} 12) Adv {yesterday, recently}
8) Art {a, the}
9) Adj {small, crazy}
The PS rules and the rewriting rules mentioned above will generate grammatical sentences as
(a) to (d), but will not give the ungrammatical sentences as (e) to (h).
(a) A boy helped the horse. (e) *Boy the Mary saw.
(b) The horse saw a girl. (f) *Helped a girl he.
(c) A small horse followed Mary yesterday. (g) *Small horse with girl.
(d) He saw George with a crazy horse recently. (h) *The yesterday near helped.
Recursive rules:
Speakers of a particular language are able to produce huge numbers of sentences, but they
can also produce sentences of an extremely great length (though, not very often in everyday
communication). Chomsky drew attention to the property of recursiveness (i.e. the capacity to
be applied more than once in generating a structure) by introducing another type of rules called
recursive rules which are special PS rules that account for the indefinitely ever-long sentences
in the language.
Example 1: NP NP (and NP)
(or NP)
This rule could generate a limitless number of phrases of the following kind:
“John and Mary and Robert and Sue …” / “John or Mary or Robert or Sue…”
Example 2: S S (that VP)
This rule could generate many long sentences such as:
“This is the dog that chased the cat that killed the rat…”
3. Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG):

PS rules proved to be insufficient to account for all the syntactic combinations that speakers
have of their language. According to Chomsky, PSG treats dissimilar sentences like (1) “John
1
is easy to please” and (2) “John is eager to please” in the same way , while it considers some
sentences which are superficially distinct but deeply related as different. For example, although
2
(3) “Charlie broke the window” and (4) “The window was broken by Charlie” look different
from each other, they are easily recognized to be fundamentally very similar by native-
speakers.
Besides, PS rules will generate all sentences with a fixed word order to the constituents. For
example, adverbs will always come at the end of their sentences. PS rules can help us generate
the first sentence below, but how would we get the second sentence?
(1) George helped Mary yesterday.
(2) Yesterday George helped Mary.
Thus, in order to accomplish this ‘movement’ of constituents, Chomsky suggested a set of
transformational rules (T rules) which will enable us move the constituents by taking a
‘branch’ of the ‘tree’ away from one part of the tree diagram, and attach it to a different part.
Example:
S S
NP VP Adv NP VP
V NP Adv V NP
George helped Mary yesterday Yesterday George helped Mary
(1) Note here that John in (1) is the direct object of please (as in “Someone pleases John”), while in (2)
John is the logical subject of please (as in “John pleases someone”).
(2) Note that (3) is in the active voice whereas (4) is in the passive, but both of them are related because
(4) is derived from (3).
It should be noted that, whereas a phrase-structure grammar is one that consists entirely of
PS rules, a transformational grammar (as formalized by Chomsky) includes both PS and T
rules (as well as morphophonemic rules). The T rules depend upon the prior application of the
PS rules and have the effect of converting, or transforming, one phrase marker into another. In
short, as Lyons (1997) puts it, TGG can be described loosely as “a phrase-structure grammar
with a transformational extension.”
Every transformational rule has the effect of converting an underlying phrase marker into a
derived phrase marker. Corresponding active and passive sentences, affirmative and negative
sentences, declarative and interrogative sentences, and so on are formally related by deriving
them from the same underlying (deep) structure.
• Structural / syntactic ambiguity:

Some sentences and phrases in the language happen to be ambiguous because they can be
interpreted in two different ways. This ambiguity is sometimes due to the structural
combination of the constituents.
Example: Old men and women.
A syntactic analysis will enable us raise the grammatical ambiguity in this phrase as follows:
Old men and women Old men and women
Old men and women Old men and women
Exercise 01: Which of the following expressions would be generated by this PS rule:
NP Art (Adj) N?
a) a radio b) good Bertha c) the rusty car d) a new student e) Snow White
Exercise 02: Complete the following PS tree diagrams.
(a) S
NP VP
……. N V …….. Adv
…….
The …………. helped George ……………
(b) S
….… ……..
…… V NP …….
Art …… Prep NP
.……
George saw ……… dog ………. Myrna

Exercise 03: Give the syntactic analysis of the following sentences using PS tree diagrams and
PS rules:
1) The young man has arrived early.

2) Adam lives in London.
3) Lucky Bill will do it.
Exercise 04: Here are some simple PS rules for Scottish Gaelic:
S V NP NP NP Art N (Adj)
PN
Art an
N {cu, gille} Adj {beag, mor}
PN {Tearlach, Calum} V {chunnaic, bhuail}
Only two of the following sentences would be considered well-formed, according to the rules
above.
a) Identify the ill-formed sentences, using the symbol *.
b) Provide labelled tree diagrams for the two well-formed sentences.
(1) Calum chunnaic an gille. (3) Bhuail an beag cu.

(2) Bhuail an gille mor an cu. (4) Chunnaic Tearlach an gille.
Exercise 05: Here is a simple version of the passive transformation rule:
Structural description: NP1 V NP2
Structural change: NP2 be V-ed (by NP1)

(Let us add that the tense, past or present, of the verb (V) in the structural description will
determine the tense of the verb (be) in the structural change. The symbol is used for
transformations.)
This transformational rule will produce passive versions of a number of the following
sentences.
a) Identify the sentences for which the rule works.
b) Try to describe what prevents the rule from working on the other sentences.
(1) The cats chased the mouse. (5) Snow White kissed Grumpy.
(2) He loves them. (6) Betsy borrowed some money from Jim.
(3) The team played badly. (7) The tree fell with a crash.
(4) The bank manager laughed. (8) The duckling became a swan.
Exercise 06: In what ways are these expressions ‘syntactically ambiguous’?
(a) An American history teacher.

(b) The parents of the bride and the groom were waiting.
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) April 2010
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 10: Semantics

1. Semantics: Definition.
Semantics is defined as the study of meaning. It is the study of how meaning is encoded in a
language. It deals with the description of word-meaning and sentence-meaning. Semantics,
therefore, seeks to account for the relationship between words and sentences and what they
refer to in the outside world. However, just as the terms ‘life’ and ‘beauty’, ‘meaning’ is so
abstract that no one has yet produced a satisfactory definition to it. That’s why, we shall be
referring to some kinds and aspects of meaning without defining the term ‘meaning’.
2. Classifications of Meaning:
There are various classifications of meaning. We shall present the most relevant ones:
• Conceptual (denotative) meaning and associative (connotative) meaning:

Conceptual meaning determines the essential components of a word which are conveyed by
the literal use of a word. For instance, the word ‘needle’ in English might include the
components ‘thin, sharp, steel, instrument’. However, we may sometimes ‘associate’ or
‘connote’ ideas and qualities to the word ‘needle’ more than its basic meaning like ‘painful’.
When investigating the meaning of words, linguists are normally interested in characterizing
their conceptual meaning more than associative or stylistic one.
• Word-meaning and sentence-meaning:

These two types of meaning are interrelated. The meaning of a sentence depends upon the
meaning of its constituent words (lexical meaning); and the meaning of some, if not all, words
depends upon the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. In addition, the order in which
the words appear in the sentence and the grammatical role they play also affect meaning. This
is known as grammatical meaning.
Thus the meaning of the sentences (1) ‘Sam likes John’ and (2) ‘John likes Sam’ depends on
the prior knowledge of the individual words in them (lexical meaning-which is the same in
both sentences) as well as the arrangement of the words in each of these sentences
(grammatical meaning).
3. Semantic Features:
Semantics can help us to understand something about the nature of language. For instance, it
may explain why the following English sentence is ‘odd’: (1) ‘The cat studied linguistics.’
This sentence is syntactically good, but semantically odd. In fact, sentence (2) ‘The man
studied linguistics’ is perfectly acceptable. If we consider the sentences (1) and (2), we will
find out that the source of oddness in sentence (1) are the components of the conceptual
meaning of cat which differ greatly from those of man, especially when these nouns are used
as subjects for the verb studied. The kind of nouns which can be subjects of the verb studied
must denote entities which are capable of ‘studying’ which is not the case with the noun cat.
Determining the crucial components of meaning serves to analyse meaning in terms of
semantic features. Thus features such as + animate, _ animate; + human, _ human; + male,
_ male, for example, can be used as the basic features which differentiate the meanings of each
word in the language from the other.
4. Sense relations / Lexical relations:
Determining the semantic features of words is not the only way in which we think of their
meaning. For instance, if you were asked to give the meaning of the word purchase, you may
say “it’s the same as buy”, or you may give the meaning of sell as “the opposite of buy”.
Therefore, you are characterizing the meaning of these words in terms of their relationship to
other words. Explaining and characterizing the systematic relations between words and
between sentences is one of the major tasks of semantics.
4.1. Synonymy: It is the relationship in which two or more words are in free variation in all or
most contexts. Two or more forms are said to be synonyms when they have closely related
meanings, which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences. Most people think of
synonymy as ‘identity or sameness of meaning’, but complete or total synonymy is rare in any
language. In many occasions, one word is appropriate in a sentence, but its synonym is odd.
For instance, the two words ‘high’ and ‘tall’ are usually given as synonyms. However, while
the phrase ‘high building’ is acceptable in English, the phrase ‘*high man’ sounds odd.
The variety in synonymous forms is due to a number of reasons:
• Differences in dialect: E.g. British and American dialects: autumn / fall; lift / elevator; flat /
apartment; pavement / sidewalk.
• Register and style (informal vs. formal): E.g. die / pass away / decease; smell / odour /
effluvium; guy / man / gentleman; leave / depart; buy / purchase.
• Emotional response (positive or negative): E.g. stubborn / resolute; politician / statesman.
• Euphemism (social taboos): E.g. lavatory / toilet / loo.
4.2. Antonymy: It refers to ‘oppositeness of meaning’ and can be divided into three types:
4.2.1. Gradable antonyms: E.g. big / small; good / bad; old / young. These adjectives can be
used in comparative forms and the negative of one member of the pair does not necessarily
imply the other (i.e. not either A or B but degrees of difference in respect to some norm). So, if
a dog is not old, it does not mean that it is young.
4.2.2. Non-gradable antonyms (complementary pairs): E.g. dead / alive; male / female;
married / unmarried. In these pairs, comparative constructions are not usually used (the
expressions deader or more dead seem odd) and the negative of one does imply the other (if a
person is not dead implies that s/he is alive).
4.2.3. Converse antonyms: E.g. buy / sell; give / take. Here there is a relation of reciprocal
implication, known as converseness (if X sells a car to Y, Y necessarily buys the car from X).
4.3. Hyponymy: This occurs when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of
another. E.g. rose, tulip – flower; dog, cat – animal; carrot, potato, -vegetable; poodle, bulldog
- dog. There is a relation of inclusion and hierarchy here. The including term (e.g. animal) is
called the ‘superordinate term’, while the included items (dog, cat, cow) are known as ‘co-
hyponyms’. Thus, we can say that ‘dog’ is a hyponym of the superordinate ‘animal’.
4.4. Homonymy: This term is used when one form (written and spoken) has two or more
unrelated meanings. Homonyms are words which have quite separate meanings, but which
have accidentally come to have exactly the same form. E.g. bank (side of a river) / bank
(financial institution); pupil (at school) / pupil (in the eye).
4.5. Polysemy: This refers to the relatedness of meaning accompanying identical form i.e. one
form having multiple meanings which are all related by extension. E.g. the word ‘head’ can be
used to refer to the object on top (of the body, of a company or department); ‘foot’ (of person,
of bed, of mountain).
Exercise 01: What is the lexical relation between the following pairs of words?
(a) shallow deep (c) suite sweet (e) lend borrow

(b) mature ripe (d) table furniture (f) single married
Exercise 02: Put the following list into a taxonomic hierarchy:
tea, coffee, beverage, milk, black coffee, sugared coffee.
Exercise 03: How would you explain the oddness of the following sentences
using semantic features?
(a) The television drank my water.

(b) Your dog writes poetry.
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) April 2010
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 11: Pragmatics

1. Pragmatics: Definition.
In the previous lecture, we emphasised in semantics on meaning in language as a product of

the meaning of words. But actually, there are other aspects of meaning beyond the meanings of
words used in phrases and sentences. When we hear or read pieces of language, we try to
understand not only what the words mean, but also what the speaker or writer of those words
intended to convey. Thus, pragmatics is the study of what people mean by language when they
use it in the normal context of social life. In other words, it studies the intended speaker
meaning.
For instance, the sentence ‘Can you tell me the time?’ is more likely to be uttered as a
request than a question. The same applies to the sentence ‘It’s cold in here’ which has the
grammatical form of a declarative sentence (statement) but might sometimes be used in some
circumstances indirectly as a directive ‘Close the window (please)!’ in order to get the
addressee to do something.
Pragmatics is also concerned with what is referred to as ‘invisible meaning’. i.e. the
meaning that is recognized even when it is not actually said or written.
Let us take the following example, taken from a newspaper advertisement:
FALL BABY SALE

In the normal context of life, we understand that this store is not selling babies, but it is rather
advertising clothes for babies. Although the word clothes does not appear in the advert, we are
able to interpret the message as relating to the sale of baby clothes and not of babies.
2. Context:
As seen in the previous section, context plays an important part in the interpretation of
utterances in the language. We shall consider two major types of context: linguistic context
and physical context.
2.1. Linguistic context: (known as ‘co-text’)
The linguistic context of a word is the set of other words used in the same phrase or
sentence. The surrounding co-text can help us identify what is meant by the word. This is the
case with homonyms (see previous lecture). It is very difficult to predict what meaning is
intended if the word is uttered in isolation. If the word ‘pupil’ is used in a sentence like ‘The
hard-working pupil went to school’, we will know which type of ‘pupil’ is meant.
2.2. Physical context:
This type of context occurs when the physical location or setting (place and time) influences
the interpretation of the word. If you see the word BANK on the wall of a building in a city,
you will directly understand that it refers to the financial institution.
3. Speech Acts:
Speech acts refer to acts of communication performed by the use of language, either in
speech or writing. They include ‘actions’ such as statements, questions and commands, to
mention but a few.
With speech acts we are therefore concerned with relationships, not those internal to the
language itself, but those between aspects of the language and aspects of the external
circumstances in which it is used on a particular occasion i.e. its context of occurrence.
Some linguistic ‘forms’ are usually used with some ‘functions’. (The forms would be
described in the syntactic analysis of a language while the functions as what people use
language for).
Example: Forms Functions
Did you eat the food? Question
Eat the food (please). Command (request)
You ate the food. Statement
3.1. Direct speech acts:
When a form like Did you…..?, Are they …..? , Can you ……? is used to ask a question, it is
described as a direct speech act. For instance, when a speaker doesn’t know something and
asks the hearer to inform him, he will normally produce a direct speech act such as ‘Can you
swim?’
3.2. Indirect speech acts:
When a speaker uses the following utterance ‘Can you pass the sugar?’ the hearer does not
usually understand it as a question about his ability to do something. In fact, he would treat it
as a request and, thus, performs the action requested. Yet, this request has been presented in the
syntactic form usually associated with a question. That is why such an example is described as
an indirect speech act. Whenever one of the forms in the set above is used to perform a
function other than the one listed beside it, the result is an indirect speech act.
Sometimes, it is possible to have humorous effects as a result of one person failing to

recognize another person’s indirect speech act. Consider the following situation:
A visitor to a city, carrying his luggage, looking lost, stops a passer-by:
Visitor: Excuse me, do you know where the Ambassador Hotel is?
Passer-by: Oh sure, I know where it is. (and walks away)
So, instead of responding to the request, the passer-by replies to the question, treating an
indirect speech act as if it were direct.
University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) May 2010
First Year (L.M.D.)
Lecture 12: Branches of Linguistics

So far, there is no generally accepted theoretical framework within which language can be
studied. Because language is related to many other disciplines, linguistics can be studied from
different points of view: social, cultural, psychological, biological, etc. Thus there are many
branches of linguistic study, from which we shall examine broadly: sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics and applied linguistics.
1. Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is referred to broadly as “the study of language in relation to society”
(Hudson 1980: 1, quoted in Lyons 1997: 267). It is also defined by H.G. Widdowson (2000:
131) as “the study of language and society: how social factors influence the structure and use
of language.” In other words, it tries to examine how and why people use language as they
interact with other members of their language community.
In fact, the way we talk is deeply influenced by our class, gender and ethnic background. It
can also have a profound effect on how we are perceived by others. That's why,
sociolinguistics attempts to answer objectively such questions as: Why do men swear more
than women? How do speech styles of most Black Americans, and whites growing up in ‘Black
areas’ differ from those of other whites? Does it make sense to defend a language against
‘contamination’ from foreign words and phrases? Why are languages dying out at a
catastrophic rate and what can we do about it?
Sociolinguistics is, thus, highly concerned with language variety. In considering any spoken
communication, we can notice that the speaker’s language reveals a lot of information on his
sex, approximate age, regional or ethnic origin, education and attitude to his listeners and even
the subject matter under discussion.
When different speech communities come into contact, this can give birth to the coexistence
of two non-related languages or bilingualism (e.g. Arabic and French) or more than two
languages i.e. multilingualism (e.g. French, English and German).
Not all communities are monolingual and so linguists have examined language use in
bilingual and multilingual communities, too. In such communities, one language may signal a
degree of education, another may indicate friendliness and another may simply show rejection
and avoidance. Language users sometimes use code-switching (i.e. alternating between two or
more languages to perform different social functions) to establish bonds with people or to
exclude others.
2. Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is that branch of linguistics which deals with the relationship between
language and the mind. It thus studies “the correlation between linguistic behaviour and the
mental processes and skills thought to underlie that behaviour.” (Crystal 1992: 59)
Psycholinguistics' main concern is not only on how language is acquired, but also how it is
stored and occasionally lost. A child acquires first the language(s) of his environment. He is
able to understand utterances s/he has never heard before; produce sentences that are totally
new; use his knowledge of speech to acquire the new skills of writing and reading. Later on,
the child may learn other languages. This individual linguistic ability may be subject to
disorders, too, and may cause him to lose language.
Psycholinguistics also attempts to study such language disorders as dysphasia (literally 'bad
speech'), dyslexia (word blindness) and aphasia (the sudden or gradual loss of language due to
age, an accident or a stroke).
• Theories of language acquisition / learning
There are two main theories to account for language acquisition / learning:
1) The behaviourist theory: This considers language learning as a mechanical process of

habit formation through stimulus-response-reward and reinforcement, just as 'Pavlov's dog'.
2) The mentalist theory: This claims that language is an inborn human gift. Mentalists
(headed by Chomsky) argue that just as humans are genetically programmed to walk when they
reach a certain stage of development, so they are programmed (endowed) to talk. For the
mentalists, humans have an innate capacity to develop linguistic competence through acts of
performance. So, we are predisposed to talk.
It should be noted that the mentalists distinguish between a child's spontaneous and natural
acquisition of his mother tongue (the language of his first environment) and his purposeful
learning of other languages as an adult.
3. Applied Linguistics
Applied linguistics is an area of research which seeks to establish the relevance of theoretical
studies of language to everyday problems in which language is implicated.
There is a variety of applications that are related to language such as speech, therapy,
communication and advertising. However, language teaching seems to be the most studied
because this field draws too much from the concepts and findings of linguistics.
One of the major tasks of applied linguistics is syllabus design and the elaboration of
programmes for the purpose of a better language teaching.
Modal Auxiliaries: Their Use
• Can and could
1. Can and could are used to express ability, whether learned or natural:
Barry can cook.
At one time I could run 100 metres in 11 seconds.
2. Can and could are used to express and ask for permission, given for example by custom or
law (compare may 1.):
The doctor says I can go back to work on Monday.
Can you smoke in cinemas in Britain?
3. In questions, can is used to inquire about willingness or to ask a favour. Could is used
when you want to be especially polite:
Can you tell me the way to the station?
Could your daughter help me decorate the house?
4. Can is used to express a possibility that is imaginable rather than actual (compare may 2.).
Could shows greater doubt than can:
People can be very cruel sometimes.
You cannot be serious!
Perhaps Anne could take you in her car.
If I had enough money, I could give up work.

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University of Saad Dahleb (Blida) November 2009

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences- Department of English Mrs YERBOUB

Lecture 01: Properties of Language

Human natural language is primarily a system of vocal communication. Language is primarily

Arbitrariness in language means that there is no logical link or connection between a

2) The secondary level (lower level): Language, here, is organised as a sequence of

Discreteness is opposed to continuity, or continuous variation. In the case of language,

Lecture 02: What is Language?

Some Definitions of Language

Lecture 03: Language versus a Language

1. How do languages differ?

2. What do languages have in common?

Lecture 04: What Linguistics IS NOT

I) - Linguistics versus the knowledge of many languages.

II) – Linguistics versus the historical study of language.

III) – Linguistics versus subjectivity.

V) – Linguistics versus traditional grammar.

Linguistics should not be thought of as traditional grammar (TG). Linguistics is a modern

Lecture 05: What is Linguistics?

1. Linguistics: The study of 'languages' or 'LANGUAGE'?

2. Criteria of Linguistic Study

A) The Inductive Method: It proceeds as follows:

B) The Deductive Method: It proceeds as follows:

Lecture 06: Phonetics

Lecture 07: Phonology

Lecture 08: Morphology

-ness shock -ed his

5. Morphemes and Allomorphs:

1. deniz an ocean 9. elim my hand

(ш is a high back unrounded vowel, IPA chart)

……de ……. (in) ………………… (ocean) ………………… (my)

Lecture 09: Syntax

1. Immediate Constituent Analysis (ICA):

Poor John ran away

Poor John ran away

2. Phrase-Structure Grammar (PSG):

The monkey ate a banana

3. Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG):

George helped Mary yesterday Yesterday George helped Mary

• Structural / syntactic ambiguity:

Old men and women Old men and women

Old men and women Old men and women

Exercise 02: Complete the following PS tree diagrams.

……. N V …….. Adv

The …………. helped George ……………

George saw ……… dog ………. Myrna

1) The young man has arrived early.

(1) Calum chunnaic an gille. (3) Bhuail an beag cu.

Exercise 05: Here is a simple version of the passive transformation rule:

Structural description: NP1 V NP2

Structural change: NP2 be V-ed (by NP1)

Exercise 06: In what ways are these expressions ‘syntactically ambiguous’?

(a) An American history teacher.

Lecture 10: Semantics

• Conceptual (denotative) meaning and associative (connotative) meaning:

• Word-meaning and sentence-meaning:

(a) shallow deep (c) suite sweet (e) lend borrow

Exercise 02: Put the following list into a taxonomic hierarchy:

tea, coffee, beverage, milk, black coffee, sugared coffee.

(a) The television drank my water.

Lecture 11: Pragmatics

In the previous lecture, we emphasised in semantics on meaning in language as a product of