The Study Of Language

As Clark adn Clark’s (1977:4) stated that “philoshophers, orators, and linguists have argued that a language has its
structure because humans are subjects to certain general laws of thought

1. Language Structure
The elements and rules have been traditionally called the grammar of a language As Clark and Clark’s (1977:5). “ a
Native speaker’s unconsious, implicit, knowledge of rules that underline his judgements of grammatically and
meaning (Goodluck, 1999:1)
In General there are grammatical rules to deal with three major aspects of language:
a. Phonology
b. Morphology
c. Semantics

A. Phonology
Phonology is the study of the sound patters found in human language
B. Morphology
Morphology deals with words, their internal structure, and how they are formed or worf formation, the ways in wich
new words are made on the basis of other words morphemes
C. Syntax
The part of our lingustic knowledge which concerns the structure of sentence called syntax

2. Language Function
We cannot accomplish all the things we might do without language, such as buying an item in a shop, providing or
requesting information, etc.
There are three aspects of language function have been studied under the labels of Speech acts, proportional
content, and thematic structure(Clark and Clark, 1977:25).
A. Speech acts
Sentence convey their function. We can make request, ask question , offer and so on. These are speech acts,
“actions performed via utterence”
B. Proportional content
These somethings must have content to convey the ideas. These ideas are conveyed by the proportional content of a
sentence. The message must be represented semantically in terms of a set of elemental propositions which contain
predicates with arguments attached.
C. Thematic Structure
Thematic structure is a term in linguistics which refers to “those aspects of the sentence structure that relate a
sentence to the contect in which it is uttered
3. Competence and Performance
Question And Answer

Question

1. In general, there are grammatical rules to deal with three major of aspects of language : phonology, syntact
and semantics. Can you give examples the rules in English phonology, syntax, and semantics?
2. There are at least two key functions of langauge, namely, symbolic and interactive function. Can you explain
each of the function and clarify your explanation with some examples!
3. Speech acts have senses that tos ay something may be to do something. Thus in ‘issuing an utterance’, a
speaker can perform simultaneous three acts: locutionary act, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary act.
Describe the three acts of the utterance “the door is open”,”I left my pen at home”.
4. Chomsky’s conception distinguishes between competence and performance and between surface structure
and deep structure. Explain the differences by providing examples!

Answer

1. Phonology
American English may be said to have at least 13 vowel phonemes, which contrast in the underlying forms of
words such as bate, bat, beat, bet, bite, bit, bout, but, boat, dot, bought, balm, and boy. Some authorities
consider that there are additional vowel phonemes exemplified in the words bush and beaut(y), but others
believe that these can be derived from the same underlying vowel as that in the word bud. Phonemes are
traditionally written between slanting lines, as /P/, /M/, or /L/.

Syntax
Fundamentally, syntax is about structure. The rules of syntax exist to make sentences clear and consistent.
There are a variety of common syntactical mistakes, and all are easy to fix once a writer knows what they're
doing wrong. For instance:
Incorrect: While watching a movie, people who text on their phone are very annoying.
Correct: People who text on their phone while watching a movie are very annoying.
Or…
Incorrect: Happy about her upcoming promotion, the trip home was full of singing.
Correct: Happy about her upcoming promotion, Sammie sang all the way home.

Semantics
Here are some examples of everyday words that can have more than one meaning:
 A water pill could be a pill with water in it but it is understood to be a diuretic that causes a person to
lose water from his body.
 "Crash" can mean an auto accident, a drop in the Stock Market, to attend a party without being invited,
ocean waves hitting the shore, or the sound of cymbals being struck together.
 Depending on context, a flowering plant could be referred to as a weed or a flower.
 A human can be referred to as a male, female, child, adult, baby, bachelor, father or mother.

2. Symbolic function
Language is used to express thought s and ideas. It encodes and externalizes our thoughts.
Interactive function
In our everyday social interactions. Language serves an interactive function
3. the door is open
locutionary act
the speaker inform hearer that the door is open
illocutionary acts
The Speaker intends to ask hearer to close the door because the door open
perlocutionary act
the hearer close the door

I left my pen at home

locutionary act
the speaker inform hearer that he/she left his/her pen at home
illocutionary acts
The Speaker intends to borrow the hearer pen
perlocutionary act
the hearer lend his/her pen