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Module 2: Linguistics

Linguistics is the study of language and its structure, and is an invaluable tool for individuals who are trying
to learn a new language. As we begin to think about how we are going to help our students read, write,
speak, and listen to a new language, we need to prepare to give them the basics in structure that will help
them understand the overall structure of the English language. In this module, we will discuss all of the
major aspects of linguistics, including phonology, lexicology, morphology, syntax, phonetics, and
semantics. By studying these concepts yourself, you will be better prepared to help your students learn
them in the future.

Module 2: Linguistics

2.1 Phonology

2.2 Morphology

2.3 Lexicology

2.4 Syntax

2.5 Semantics

2.1 Phonology

Phonology is the study of the sound and structure of a language. Essentially, phonology concerns itself with
the mental representation of a sound, so understanding phonology means that you understand how to
break down a word into its smaller sounds and pronounce it. This can help students tremendously in
learning English for the first time because it gives them a great tool for breaking down new words and
pronouncing words that they have not necessarily seen before. Let’s take a look at some of the basic
concepts within phonology.

2.1.1 Basics of phonology

You can’t study phonology without discussing phonetics, but for the purposes of this course, phonology is
more important. Phonology deals with how we mentally break down the pronunciation of words, while
phonetics deals with producing the sounds; therefore, phonology is more relevant for people who are
learning a new language, not learning spoken language for the first time.

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In phonology, words are broken
down into smaller units that
represent sounds to make it
easier for new learners to
understand how to pronounce
new words. If students
understand the common sound
units in the English language,
they will be able to sound out
most words, making language
acquisition much more
comfortable. Here is a
breakdown of some of those
units of sound:

Phonemes: A phoneme is a unit of sound that when replaced changes the sound of a word in a particular
language. English is a complicated language for people to learn because even though there are twenty-six
letters, there are forty-four phonemes. These phonemes represent all iterations of sounds that a letter can
make. For example, a “c” can sound like a “k” or an “s,” depending on its position in a word. If an individual
understands phonemes, he or she will understand all the different sounds in the English language.
Phonemes are broken down into two categories: vowels and consonants.

Vowels: A vowel is an open sound that is spoken without blockage from the lips or tongue. Vowels can be
difficult because they are very versatile and shift and change a lot depending on the word in which they
appear. Vowels are typically broken down into the following categories:

 Single vowels
 Short vowels
 Schwa
 Long vowels
 Diphthongs

Consonants: Consonants are sounds

that are spoken with obstruction from
the lips, teeth, or tongue. Just like
vowels, they can be complicated to
understand because there are so many
variations of similar sounds. Consonants
can be broken down into the following
categories:

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  Voiced consonants
 Unvoiced consonants

Minimal pair: Two words that differ in meaning because they contain one phoneme that is different are
called minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are often words that rhyme or at least form a near rhyme.

Phone: A phone is the smallest unit of sound and refers to the way in which an individual pronounces a
sound. It can therefore exist in more than one language. This is different from a phoneme, which refers
specifically to the sound that is assigned to a letter or group of letters in a given language. For this reason,
phones can be universal to all languages, while phonemes are specific to individual languages.

Accents: When a syllable or sound within a word is given more attention than the others. This changes the
way an individual pronounces a word.

 Stress accent, dynamic accent, or

stress: When an accented syllable is given a
change in pitch and volume, it is referred by
any of these three names.
 Pitch accent: When the accented syllable is
differentiated through a change in only the
pitch which it is pronounced.
 Quantitative accent: When the accented
syllable is differentiated through only a
lengthening of the syllable.

Intonations: A change in the pitch of a word or syllable that does not change the meaning of the word or
syllable but rather indicates any of a number of different situations, including:

 Revealing the feelings of the speaker.

 Identifying the phrase as a question or distinguishing between different types of questions.
 Giving importance to a word or phrase in the statement or question.

2.2 Morphology

Morphology is very closely related to phonology in that it is concerned with the structure of language.
Specifically, however, morphology deals with the structure of language morphemes, phonemes, and other
linguistic units. The English language relies heavily on morphology, especially regarding English language
acquisition. Understanding the morphological relationship between two words can help an individual
recognize a similar morphological relationship between two different words, which helps them better

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understand new words and phrases. For example, if an individual can recognize the morphological
relationship between the words “heart” and “monitor” in the phrase “heart monitor,” then he or she can use
that to understand other complex nouns. Using this knowledge, an English language learner can take an
educated guess to determine what the phrase “hall monitor” means.

2.2.1 Basics of morphology

To truly understand morphology, one must fully understand morphemes, which are the basis of the area of
study. While phonemes refer to the sounds that make up the structure of words, morphemes are the
physical structural units in a word.

Morphemes: Morphemes are sometimes

referred to as the smallest linguistic unit
that carries meaning. While phonemes
are smaller, they essentially build
towards pronunciation rather than
meaning. Breaking a word into its
morphemes allows an individual to
separate and (better understand) the root
words, prefixes, and suffixes. Here is an
example:

In the sentence, “Send these schematics down to the marketers.” the word, “marketers” has 3
morphemes.

Morpheme 1: Market. The root of the word that carries the major meaning of the word. This word could
stand alone and make sense if it needed to (though not in the sentence we plucked it from). This
morpheme is called the free lexical morpheme.

Morpheme 2: -er. This is the suffix that is added to the word, carrying with it the inherent meaning of “one
who does something.” Understanding the suffix allows a student to understand that a marketer is one who
markets. This morpheme is called the bound lexical morpheme.

Morpheme 3: -s. This letter is added so that the amount is clear and that the word fits in the sentence
grammatically with the intended meaning. The sentence would still make sense without this morpheme, but
it would change the meaning. This morpheme is called the bound grammatical morpheme.

In the above example, we discussed some classifications for morphemes. Let’s look closer at these.

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Free lexical morpheme: This term is
used to describe a morpheme that can
exist on its own and make sense. In
the previous example, the free lexical
morpheme was “market.” Alone,
“market” is a word. Conversely, “er” is
not a word that can exist on its own
and still make sense. While in this
case the free lexical morpheme was
the root word, it does not have to be.
The word “classroom” is composed of
two free lexical morphemes—“class”
and “room.”

Bound lexical morpheme: This term is used to describe a morpheme that is bound to another morpheme
lexically and cannot make sense without it. This term often refers to prefixes and suffixes that are added to
words to adjust their meaning. These morphemes cannot function alone and serve to simply modify the
meaning of the free lexical morpheme to which they are attached.

Bound grammatical morpheme: This term is

used to describe a morpheme that is bound to
another morpheme and serves the purpose of
helping its word fit into a sentence
grammatically. In the following example,
notice the importance of the bound
grammatical morpheme (we will use “s” in the
same way we used it in the previous
example). In the phrase, “John threw two balls
to Mike,” the “s” in the word “balls” is the
bound grammatical morpheme. The sentence
would not make grammatical sense without it,
as it would read “John threw two ball at Mike.”

Free grammatical morpheme: While we did not clearly identify this in the previous examples, free
grammatical morpheme is a term used to describe morphemes that are not bound to other morphemes but
are there to serve a grammatical purpose. Usually, these words are articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.
In the sentence above, “John threw the ball at Mike,” “at” is a free grammatical morpheme.

Understanding these basic concepts can help a new language learner get a sense of how a language is
structured and help them be able to make connections and learn new words and phrases more easily.

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2.3 Lexicology

Lexicology is the study of words and therefore

includes elements of many other aspects of
linguistics that we will discuss in this module.
When we study words in lexicology, we look
closely at how words are formed, what makes
them different from other words, uniform rules
that affect usage and/or conjugation, and the
different connotations and meanings of
synonyms. All of these ideas will help your
students move from understanding the
sounds that make up the English language to
understanding the words that make up the
English language. Here is an overview of
some of the basic principles of lexicology and
its associated vocabulary:

2.3.1 Basics of lexicology

To understand lexicology, it is important to break it down into its smaller parts to look at how each works to
create the overall study of lexicology. A clear understanding of lexicology and its basic principles and
terminology will help you and your students find more success by easing their understanding of words and
their function within a sentence.

Lexeme: A lexeme is a lexicological unit of linguistics, which, for the most part, refers to a root word. The
lexeme is the part of a word (even if that is the whole word) that imparts the most meaning, with
conjugation or prefixes and suffixes added to adjust the meaning. In other words, the word “snow” is a
lexeme, and all iterations of that word, such as “snows,” “snowed”, or “snowing,” all share this same
lexeme. By breaking down words to their roots, students can better break down new words, connect to a
word’s etymology, or even find a cognate they can relate to.

Lexical items: Whereas a lexeme is the root of a word, a lexical item is the entirety of a word or phrase
that imparts meaning. In our previous example, we mentioned that “snows,” “snowed,” and “snowing” all
have the same lexeme, which is “snow.” In that example, all of those words are different lexical items. A
lexical item can also be a combination of words, such as “class work,” or a phrase, such as “in the way.”
Essentially, lexical items are the units in a sentence that have separate meaning.

Word forms: The term “word forms” encompasses all the iterations of a similar lexeme. In other words,
some word forms of the lexeme “go” are “goes,” “went,” and “will go.” This term is used to describe the
different conjugations of a verb, the different tenses of a word, or the different forms of a word based on
amount.

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Another important idea that would be helpful to know is that lexicology also encompasses lexical structure,
which deals with the structure of words and their parts. Let’s take a closer look at lexical structure:

Lexical structure: Lexical structure refers to the internal structure of lexemes as well as the structure of
the lexicon of a language. The “lexicon” is just a fancy term for all of the words in a group.

 Paradigms: Differences in meaning that rely on the substitution of words. In other words, if you
look closely at a phrase, such as “Bill ran to his truck,” making a paradigmatic change would
require a substitution. This would result in a different phrase, for example, “Bill ran to his wife” or
“Frank ran to his truck.” These changes completely change the meaning of the sentence because
different subjects and objects can be
substituted.

 Syntagms: These are differences that result

from the positioning of words in a phrase. In
other words, to make a syntagmatic change
in a sentence, you would change the order of
the words to adjust the meaning of the
sentence. For example, if the sentence
“Johnny threw the ball to Mary” is changed to
“Mary threw the ball to Johnny,” then the
difference is syntagmatic.

Co-text: We will discuss semantic ideas in detail later in the module, but this term is relevant to both
aspects of linguistics. The co-text of a word is the linguistic context, which means that it is the linguistic
meaning of a word or the meaning that a word inherently carries with it.

Context: Context is another semantic term but also a concept that even laymen know. The context of a
word is the words and sentences around it that give it meaning. Whereas co-text covers the various
meanings that can be attributed to a word, the context refers to the specific meaning of the word that is
intended based on the surrounding words and sentences.

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2.4 Syntax

Now that we have learned about how sounds and words are created, it is time to discuss how sentences
are formed. Syntax is the set of rules that govern the grammatical construction of sentences in a language.
For English, these rules are fairly complicated, but let’s take a close look at some of the basic ideas behind
English grammar and syntax.

2.4.1 Basics of syntax

To understand syntax, we
have to look more closely at
all of the parts that make up a
sentence. The first step is to
understand how sentences
are classified:

Clausal sentence (simple

sentence): A clausal
sentence is a simple
sentence that contains only
one clause or one complete
proposition (subject and
predicate). For example, the
sentence “Gloria is going to
the store” contains only one
clause, which includes a
subject (“Gloria), a verb (“is
going”), and an object (“the
store”).

Compound sentence: A compound sentence is a sentence that consists of more than one clause (known
in this case as coordinating clauses because they work together to complete an idea). For example, the
sentence “Maryann went to the mall and got a new shirt” is a compound sentence containing the clauses
“Maryann went to the mall” and “got a new shirt.” In the second clause, the subject (Maryann) is implicit.

What about the words that make up these clauses? The English language has innumerable rules for how
words should be structured and organized within a sentence. The first categories you need to know to
understand these rules, though, are the parts of speech.

 Noun: A noun is a word that describes a person, place, thing, or idea.

 Verb: A verb describes an action or a state of being.
 Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun.
 Adverb: An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
 Preposition: A preposition is a word that describes the relationship between a verb and its object.

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  Pronoun: A pronoun is a more general word that takes the place of a specific noun.
 Conjunction: A conjunction is a word that links two coordinating clauses together.

Now that we know the parts of speech, we can begin diagramming sentences. Here is an example of a
sentence with all of the parts of speech labeled:

Lei quickly ran down the dark street to find and catch his dog.

Lei Noun
quickly Adverb
ran Verb
down Preposition
the Adjective (article)
dark Adjective
street Noun
to Preposition
find Verb
and Conjunction
catch Verb
his Pronoun
dog Noun

While it would be impossible for us to cover every single syntactical rule in the English language, here are a
few more that are directly relevant to your students who are learning English for the first time:

 Every sentence needs at least a subject and a predicate. The subject of the sentence is the noun
that is acting or being. The predicate is the phrase that consists of the verb and the object (not
every sentence needs an explicit object).
 The verb and the subject of the sentence
need to agree, meaning that if you are
using a plural noun, you need to use the
plural form of a verb.
 For the most part, the best way to frame a
sentence is in active rather than passive
voice. This means that the sentence
“Sammy threw the ball to Jane” is more
grammatically sound than if it were
passive and written “The ball was thrown
to Jane by Sammy.”
 Verb tense needs to agree throughout a

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 piece of writing or spoken language. If the first verb you use is in past tense, then all subsequent
verbs with the same intention should be past tense.

2.5 Semantics

We have successfully worked our way up to understanding how sentences are structured, and now it is
time to discuss words again, but this time we will look at the connotative and complex meanings that they
carry. Semantics is a branch of linguistics that involves the study of words and their meanings.

2.5.1 Theories of semantics

Typically, the concept of semantics is divided into three theories of semantics: formal semantics, lexical
semantics, and conceptual semantics. Each of these types of semantics delves into the true meanings of
words and will help your students understand the intricacies of the English language.

Formal semantics: Formal semantics is a very mathematical theory that strives to understand the
meaning of words by forming exact mathematical principles and ideals that speakers and writers can use.
People who subscribe to the formal semantics theory look for the relationship between how language forms
and the world in which it forms to try to understand how people create meaningful discourse.

Lexical semantics: Lexical semantics

is a theory that the meaning of a word
is understood by looking at its context.
In this way, sentences can be broken
down into semantic constituents or
words and phrases that carry meaning
and context. This theory promotes the
analysis of how words and phrases
play off each other to build meaning.

Conceptual
semantics: Conceptual semantics is a
theory that highlights the importance
of the internal structure of words.
Theorists believe that the best way to
understand the meaning of a word in a
sentence is to look at the word itself,
its internal structure, and how it
combines different, smaller elements.

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2.5.1 Extending word meaning

Truly understanding the English language means understanding the complexities of the language that allow
speakers of the language to build different layers of meaning in their speech. Understanding these
complexities takes a strong grasp of semantics and the ability to analyze context. When we talk about word
meaning, we can generally break it down into two categories:

Denotation: Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word. You can easily find the denotation for a
word in the dictionary. With synonyms, the denotation is similar or the same.

Connotation: Connotation refers to the implied meaning that the word often has because the word is used
to describe something beyond what the denotation states. Take a look at two synonyms, such as “skinny”
and “thin.” If you use these two words to describe a person, their denotations are pretty much the same, but
the connotation behind “skinny” is more negative than the connotation behind “thin.” Thin implies someone
who is at a healthy weight, while skinny implies that the person is frail or weak. It takes true understanding
of a language to get such small, but important complexities of meaning.

Because of the complexity of language,

speakers and writers can build meaning
that is implicit rather than explicit and
sometimes difficult to decipher even for
the most fluent English speaker.

Literal language: Literal language is

when a speaker or writer directly
describes what they mean.

Figurative language: When the writer

builds meaning that goes beyond the
literal meaning. Here are some examples
of figurative language:

 Metaphors
 Similes
 Personification
 Irony
 Symbolism

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2.5.3 More semantic terminology

Beyond what we already described are important terms within the study of semantics you should be aware
of.

Synonymy: This word literally translates to “sameness of meaning” and is the root of the word “synonym.”
As we displayed in our discussion of connotation, however, while two words can be synonyms, they do not
necessarily mean the same thing. If two words meant exactly the same thing, then one would be
extraneous. Synonyms are necessary because they represent the detail and specificity of the English
language.

Hyponymy: This term literally

translates to “inclusion of meaning”
and essentially refers to words that
belong in groups. A fork is a
hyponym of silverware because it is
a member of the silverware group.

Antonymy: This term literally

translates to “oppositeness of
meaning,” which means that
antonyms are meant to be
opposites. It is very difficult to find
an exact antonym for most words,
however, so words are often paired
up because they’re close to being
antonyms, much like how synonyms
have similar but not exact meanings.

Incompatibility: This term literally translates to “mutual exclusiveness within the same subordinate
category,” which means that it refers to two members of a group that are different entities. For example,
cats and dogs are both animals, so they would fit under the purview of this term.

Homonymy: This is a term that refers to when two words sound the same even though they have different
meanings. These can be especially confusing to new language learners because they require a strong idea
of context to identify. A good example of a group of homonyms is “there,” “their,” and “they’re.”

Polysemy: This term refers to when a word has more than one meaning. This is different from a homonym
because the spelling of the word does not change depending on the meaning. For example, the word
“close” can refer to two items that are in near proximity to each other, or it can refer to something being
shut.

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