Unit 1 – Linguistics

Introduction to linguistics:

Language: A General Overview

 Language is the species-specific and species-uniform possession of man.

 Language is present everywhere- in our dreams, prayers and meditation, relations

and communications.

 Language is ubiquitous- present everywhere/several places at the same time.

 Besides being a means of communication and a storehouse of knowledge, it is an

instrument of thinking as well as a source of delight. (Eg. Singing)

 It is our ability to communicate through words that makes us different from animals.

Definition of Language:
 As language is a very complex human phenomenon, all attempts to define it have
proved inadequate. (define yourself)

 In a nutshell, language is an organised noise used in actual social situations. That is

why it has also been defined as contextualised systematic sounds.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol. 13 defines language as:

A system of conventional, spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings as

members of a social group and participants in its culture communicate.

Characteristics of Language
1. Language is a means of communication

It is through language that human beings express their thoughts, desires, emotions
and feelings.

2. Language is a social phenomenon

Language exists in a society (Speech community). If not used in any society, language
dies.

3. Language is conventional (traditionally accepted)

It is conventional because it is the outcome of evolution and convention

(conference).
No language was created in a day out of a mutually agreed upon formula by a group
of humans.

4. Language is arbitrary

By arbitrariness, we mean that there is no inherent or logical relation or similarity

between any given feature of language and its meaning.
 There is no direct necessary connection between the nature of things or ideas that
the language deals with and the linguistic unit.

5. Language has creativity and productivity

The structural elements of human language can be combined to produce new

utterances which neither the hearer or the listener have ever made or heard before
any listener, yet which both sides understand without any difficulty.

6. Language is both linguistic and communicative competent

This view stresses on the use of language according to the occasion and the context,
the speaker and the listener, the social status of the speaker and the listener.

It has the linguistic components viz. Phonetics, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
And with it, language is being used by a community to communicate among
themselves.

7. Language is humane and structurally complex

No species other than humans has been endowed with language.

Animals cannot acquire human language because of its complex structure and their
physical inadequacies:
-Type of brain (developed in humans)
-articulatory organs (developed in humans)

Designed features of language

Charles Hockett

1. Interchange ability

All members of the species can both send as well as receive messages.

2. Feedback

Users of the system can monitor what they are transmitting (and correct it).

3. Specialization

The communication system serves no other purpose other than to communicate.

Human language represents reality – both internal (states, beliefs) as well as external
(real world) - symbolically in the mind.

4. Semanticity

The system conveys meaning through a set of fixed relationships among tokens,
referents and meanings.

5. Arbitrariness

There is no natural or inherent connection between a token and its referent.

 6. Discreetness

The communication system consists of isolatable, repeatable units (small to large).

Human language shows distinctive features: phonemes, syllables, morphemes,
words and still larger combinations. Bee dancing may be thought as consisting of two
or three discrete types, but these dances are not recombinable. There is some
evidence for subunits in birdsong. They are also present in primate call systems.

7. Displacement

Users of the system are able to refer to events remote in time and space.

8. Productivity

New messages on any topic can be produces at any time.

9. Duality of patterning

Meaningless units (phonemes) are combined to form arbitrary signs. These signs in
turn can be recombined to form new, meaningful larger units. In human language,
phonemes can be combined in various ways to create different symbolic tokens:
spot, stop, opts, tops, pots. These tokens can in turn be combined in meaningful
ways: spot the tops of the pots.

10. Tradition

At least certain aspects of the system must be transmitted from an experienced user
to a learner.

11. Prevarication

The system enables users to talk nonsense or to lie!

12. Learnability

A user of the system can learn other variants.

13. Reflexiveness

The ability to use the communication system to discuss the system itself.

Differences between human and animal communication system:

Human language Animal communication
1. Unlimited and infinite 1. Limited and finite

2. Open system (for changes) 2. Closed system

3. Extendable, modifiable 3. Opposite

4. Flexible and full of variety 4. Opposite

5. Acquired 5. Inherited

6. Conditioned by geography 6. Not

7. Full of novelty and creativity 7. Bereft of these

8. Has grammaticality 8. Does not have grammaticality

9. Cognitive and behavioural 9. Behavioural only

10. Descriptive and narrative 10. Non descriptive and non

narrative.

Functions of language
1. Instrumental

In this function, language is used by children/adults to express material needs.

2. Regulatory

One controls the behaviour of others through language.

3. Interactional

This is ‘me and you’ function, used specifically to interact socially with some
other person.

4. Personal

One uses language to express feelings about, reactions to and interests in things
in the environment.

5. Heuristic

The heuristic or learning function is used by a person to explore and find out new
things. It includes demands for names and things: ‘what is that?’ and later
develops into a wide variety of questioning, such as When, Why, Where etc.

6. Imaginative

Pretend play, story, make believe and moving into a world of fantasy are the
imaginative functions of language.

7. Informative

Language is used to pass on information from one place to another, one person
to another.

 On the basis of its chief characteristics and functions, language may be

defined as
“A patterned system of arbitrary sound symbols, whose characteristic
features of displacement, cultural transmission, productivity and quality are
rare or absent in animal communication.”
 Linguistics
Word linguistics is derived from Latin lingua (tongue) and istics (knowledge or science).

Etymologically, therefore, linguistics is the scientific study of language.

It studies language as a universal and recognisable part of human behaviour.

It attempts to describe and analyze language.

 Linguistics is that science which studies the origin, organisation, nature and
development of language descriptively, historically, comparatively and explicitly
(clearly and fully expressed) and formulates the general rules related to language.

Some branches of linguistics

Clinical linguistics (deals with pathology):
The application of linguistic theories and methods for the analysis of disorders of spoken,
written or signed language.

Neurolinguistics:
The study of neurological basis of language development and use in human beings,
especially of the brain’s control over the process of speech and understanding.

Philosophical linguistics (semiotics):

The study of the role of language in the elucidation of philosophical concepts (sense,
reference, symbols, signs etc.) and of the philosophical status of linguistic theories, methods
and observations.

Psycholinguistics
The study of the relationship between linguistic behaviour and psychological processes.
Eg. Memory, attention, thought, language learning, acquisition etc.

Sociolinguistics
The study of interaction between language and functioning of society.

Applied linguistics
The application of linguistic theories, methods and findings to the education of language
problems that have arisen in other domains. The term is especially used with reference to
the field of foreign language learning and teaching, but it applies to several other fields:
 Stylistics
 Lexicography
 Translation
 Language planning as well as clinical fields.

Morphology
The study of the form of words.

Morph: - forms ology: - the study of

Morph
The smallest meaningful segment of an utterance.

In many cases, an utterance can be divided into grammatically significant elements smaller
than words. Eg. ‘He hated such films’, can be divided into
He + hate + ed + such + film + s.

Similarly, “the teachers condemned that announcement” can be segmented as follows:

The + teacher + s + condemn + ed + that + announce + ment.

It is important to note here that no further division of these utterances into grammatical
significant units possible. If we divide these segments further, we will only have vowels and
consonants, which have no grammatical significance.

A morph can be a full word, a prefix, a suffix or an infix.

Morpheme
A morpheme is the minimal grammatical unit of a language. In English, the word ‘stopped’
for example is composed of two morphemes: stop + Ed.

The word ‘men’ consists of two morphemes: men + plural.

‘Worse’ consists of: bad + comparative

Conventionally, stopped is written as stop and –ed.

Men consists of man and s.

Worse consists of bad and er.

Difference between a morph and a morpheme:-

A morpheme is the minimal grammatical unit of language whereas a morph is its
orthographical or phonological shape.

For example:
Moved = move + Ed
Walked = walk + Ed

Although the final morphs of these two words are not the same yet they represent the same
morpheme i.e. past tense morpheme.

Thus we can say that a morpheme is an abstract element of grammatical analysis whereas a
morph is the phonological or the orthographical realization of the grammatical concept.

Allomorphs
Allomorphs are the alternative realizations of a morph.

A morpheme is not always represented by the same morph; it may be represented by

different morphs in different environments.

Example:
Boys- the plural morpheme is realised as /z/
Cats- the plural morpheme is realized as /s/
Buses- the plural morpheme is realized as /iz/
/z/, /s/, /iz/ are the alternative realizations of the plural morphemes in English.
Free and bound morphemes
A free morpheme is one which can be used as a word by itself.

A bound morpheme is one which can only appear in the structure of a word in conjunction
with at least one other morpheme; it cannot be used as a word by itself.

Eg. In boys, boy is a free morpheme whereas s is s bound morpheme.

In went, go is the free morpheme whereas –Ed is a bound morpheme.

Exception: in Chinese and Vietnamese, all the morphemes are free.

Roots and affixes:

A root is that part of a word which remains after all the affixes have been removed.
Affixes are formative morphemes added to roots.

For example:
In international-
Nation – root inter and al – affixes
Affix is necessarily a bound morpheme; a root can be either bound or free.

The prefix, the suffix and the infix:

Prefix: a word element that is added at the beginning of a word to form another word.

Suffix: a suffix is a word element that is added at the end of a word or to obtain another
form of the same word.

Infix: a word element that is inserted into the middle of a word to form another word.

Pi:lit = effort pumi:lit = one who made an effort or compelled

Su:lat = writing sumu: lat = one who wrote

Suffixes in English, as in many other languages, are of two types; inflectional and
derivational.

By adding inflectional suffixes to a root, we create different grammatical forms of the same
word and we create a new word by adding a derivational suffix to the root.

Example: write - writes, wrote, written etc. (inflectional)

Write – writer (derivational)

Inflectional suffixes in English include the following seven types

1. The plural suffix: books, pens, tomatoes, duties etc.
2. The genitive suffix in case of nouns: John’s etc.
3. The third person singular number, present tense suffix: runs, goes etc.
4. The past tense suffix: played, moved etc.
5. The present participle suffix: playing, running etc.
6. The past participle suffix: misused, discarded etc.
7. The comparative and superlative suffixes: nice, nicer, nicest, small, smaller, and
smallest.

All other types of suffixes in English are derivational.

Difference
The difference between inflection and derivation can be described in terms of the following
points:

1. Inflection produces different forms of the same lexeme whereas derivation results in
the formation of new lexemes. In other words, inflection has grammatical function
whereas derivation has lexical function.

2. Derivational affixes may be class changing or class maintaining but in English, as in

many other languages, inflection affixes are always class maintaining.
Write – writes, written, wrote etc. (inflectional)
Write – writer (derivational)

3. In words, in which both inflectional and derivational are present, derivational affixes
occur closer to the root than the inflectional affixes.

Word
One of the most fundamental units of linguistic structure. The most famous definition of
word, which I valid for the spoken language, is Bloomfield’s “minimum free form”, which
means that word is the smallest unit which can be used alone to constitute a sentence or
utterance, and it must consist of at least one free morpheme.

Word – Formation Processes:

Coinage:

Invention of totally new terms.

The most typical sources are invented trade named for one company’s product, which
becomes general terms (without initial capital letters)

Example: Xerox, Kleenex

Borrowing:

Taking over of words from other languages.

English borrowings:
Alcohol (Arabic), Boss (Dutch), Piano (Italian)

Compounding:

Joining of two separate words to produce a single form.

Example: bookcase, fingerprint, sunburn, wallpaper, doorknob, textbook, wastebasket,
waterbed.

Blending:

Taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word in order to
form or create a new word.
Example:
Smoke + fog = smog
Information + entertainment = infotainment
Telex = teleprinter + exchange
Brunch = breakfast + lunch
Hinglish = Hindi + English
Clipping:

This occurs when a word of more than one syllable.

Example: facsimile is reduced to a shorter form (fax), often in casual speech.
Gasoline – gas
Advertisement – ad
Fanatic – fan

Backformation:

When a new word is formed by deleting the suffix or what erroneously looks like a suffix at
the end of a word, the process is known as backformation.
Example: editor > edit
Burglar> burgle
Enthusiasm > enthuse
Television > televise
A word of one type (usually a noun) is reduces to form another word of different types
(usually a verb).
Noun to verb= television to televise
Option to opt
Donation to donate

Hypocorisms: a type of backformation:

A longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then –ie is added at the end.
Example: Movie (moving pictures)
Hankie (handkerchief)

Conversion:

Category change or functional shift. A change in the function of a word, as, (for example
when a noun comes to be used as a word without any reduction) is generally known as
conversion.
Butter: buttered
Bottle: bottled
Paper: papering
Vacation: vacationing

Acronyms:

Words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words. This can remain essentially
“alphabetisms” such as CD (compact disc), VCR (video cassette recorder) where the
pronunciation consists of the set of letters.

ATM = Autometed/ic Teller Machine

PIN = Personal Identification Number
Sometimes, acronyms lose their capitals to become everyday terms such as laser (light
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation)

Derivation: it is accomplished by means of large number of small ‘bits’ of the language,

which are not usually given separate listings in dictionaries. These small ‘bits’ are called
affixes.
Example: un, mis, pre, ful, less, ish, ism, ness.

Words: unhappy, misinterpret, prejudge, joyful, careless, boyish, terrorism and sadness.
Form Classes:

Closed class words

A closed word class word, in linguistics, is a word class to which no new items can normally
be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items.
Typical closed classes found in many languages are ad positions (prepositions and
postpositions), determiners and conjunctions.

Open class words

Contrastingly, an open offers possibilities for expansion. Typical open classes such as nouns
and verbs can and do get new words often, through the usual means such as compounding,
derivation, coining, borrowing etc.

Grammatical Categories:

A ‘class’ or ‘set’ to refer to any group of elements recognised in the description of a

particular language.

Kinds/types of grammatical categories:

1. Primary category
2. Secondary category

Primary categories:

These categories come under the heading “parts of speech”.

They are: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.

They may not be universal (for example, Hindi doesn’t have prepositions but postpositions).

Secondary categories:

Deixis, person, number, gender, case, tense, mood, aspect etc are secondary categories.
These are universal as they are common to all languages.

Deixis:

A term used in grammatical theory to subsume those features of language which refer
directly to the temporal or locational characteristics of the situation within which an
utterance takes place, whose meaning is thus relative to that situation. Example: Now/Then,
Here/There, This/That etc.

Person:

The category of a person can be clearly defined with reference to the participant – roles.
The ‘first person’ is used by the speaker to refer to himself as a subject of discourse; the
‘second person’ to the hearer and the third person for persons and things other than the
hearer and the speaker.

Number:

It is a category of the noun. Its most common manifestation is the distinction between
‘plural’ and ‘singular’ which rests upon recognition of persons, animals and objects which
can be counted and referred to by means of nouns.
Gender:

Gender and sex are often associated together. This view is based on the fact that there were
three genders in the classical Indo-European languages: Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.

The nouns of Hindi, French, Italian and Spanish are classified into two genders, the nouns of
Russian and German into three genders and the nouns of Swahili into six genders and so on.

Case:

Cases are inflected forms of nouns which fit them for participation in key-constructions
related to verbs.
The commonest cases are:

1. Nominative: which marks the subject of the sentence. Ex. We went to the store.

2. Vocative: the case of the address. Ex. John, are you ok?

3. Accusative: it is used to mark the object of the transitive verb. Ex. The clerk
remembered us.

4. Genitive: it is the case marking possession. Ex. John’s book was on the table.

5. Dative: it indicates the direct object of the verb. Ex. The clerk gave a discount to us.

6. Agentive: marks the doer. Ex. Lion was killed by Sita.

7. Commutative: marks the sense of ‘in company with’. Ex. Ram went to home with
Mohan.

8. Ablative: the ablative function indicates movement from something and/or cause.
Ex. He was unhappy because of depression.

9. Locative: marks the location with both spatial and temporal reference. Ex. In the
school, on the bed, at home etc.

Voice:

The forms of a verb indicating the relations of the subject with the action etc (denoted by
the verb) are called voices.
Latin/English verbs have two voices: Active and passive.

Greek and Sanskrit have three: active, passive and middle or mediopassive which has a
reflexive meaning. Ex. I wash myself.

Mood:

Mood is related to illocutionary force i.e. what is the intention of the speaker. There are
forms of a verb indicating the manner of the action. The following table will reveal the
meaning:
Mood Illocutionary function

Declarative Assertion
Interrogative Question
Exclamatory Astonishment
Imperative Wish
Subjunctive Warning/Possibility/Permission

Tense:

According to Hockett, ‘tenses typically show different locations of an event in time’.

A three way contrast is common in almost all languages: past, present and future.
But it is not universal as many languages do not have tenses.
Ex. Hopi by Eskimos.

Aspect:

It is concerned with the temporal distribution or contour of an event. It refers to the

distinction like that of perfective or imperfective.
Ex. He has done the job: (perfective aspect- completion of job).
She is moving here and there: (imperfective aspect- no completion).

Derivation
In linguistics, derivation is the process of creation of new lexemes, for example: by adding a
derivational affix. It is a kind of word formation.

Derivational affixes usually apply to words of one syntactic category and change them into
words of another syntactic category. For example: the English derivational suffix –ly changes
adjectives into adverbs. Slow – slowly.

Some examples of English derivational suffixes:

Adjective-to-noun = -ness (slow – slowness)

Adjective-to-verb = -ize (modern – modernize)
Noun-to-adjective = -al (recreation – recreational)
Noun-to-verb = -fy (glory – glorify)
Verb-to-adjective = -able (drink – drinkable)
Verb-to-noun = -ance (deliver – deliverance)

Inflection
Inflection or inflexion refers to modification or marking of a word (or more precisely lexeme)
so that it reflects grammatical (i.e. relational) information, such as grammatical gender,
tense or person. The concept of a word independent of the different inflections is called a
lexeme and the form of a word that is considered to not have any inflections is called a
lemma.
 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationship:
Ferdinand de Saussure’s concept:

Related to structure of a language.

Combinations supported by linearity are syntagms.

Example: We can come tomorrow.

Pronoun + Aux verb + main verb + temporal verb.

It is a chain relationship.
Words become sentences because they are chained together.
This type of chain relationship is restricted to a certain order.

Combinations supported by verticality are Paradigmatic.

It is associative relationship.
These are relations is absentia.

Ex. He may go next.

She will ask soon.
You could ... .....
I ....... .... .....

Paradigmatic relations are contrastive or choice relationships. Words that have something in
common are associated in the memory.

Principles and practices of morphemic analysis:

By Nida:

Principle 1:

Forms which have common semantic distinctiveness and an identical phonemic form in all
their occurrences constitute a single morpheme.

The meaning of principle 1:

Principle 1 means that such a form as –er added to verbs in such constructions as worker,
dancer, runner, walker, flyer is a morpheme.
It always has the same phonetic form, and always has essentially the same meaning namely:
that of ‘the doer of the action’ (also called ‘agentive’).

Principle 2:

Forms which have a common semantic distinctiveness but which differ in their phonemic
forms (i.e. the phonemes or order of the phonemes) may constitute a morpheme provided
the distribution of formal differences is phonologically definable.

The meaning of principle 2:

It means that when we discover forms with some common semantic distinctiveness but with
different phones or arrangements of phonemes, we can still put these various forms
together as a single morpheme provided we can discover phonological conditions which
govern the occurrence of such phonologically different forms. In English, for example: one
negative prefix has more than one single form.
Compare intolerable and impossible. The forms –in and -im bear partial phonetic-semantic
resemblance and the positions in which they occur are determined by the type of consonant
following. Before alveolar sounds such as t and d, the alveolar nasal sound n occurs,
example: intolerable, indecent. Before a bilabial sound such as p, the bilabial nasal m occurs,
example: impracticable, impersonal.

Principle 3:

Forms which have common semantic distinctiveness but which differ in phonemic form in
such a way that their distribution cannot be phonologically defined constitute a morpheme
if the forms are in complementary distribution.

The meaning of principle 3:

Complementary distribution:
Term used to describe a situation where two variants are mutually exclusive in a particular
environment. Thus in English, the two allophones of the phonemes /p/, /ph/ aspirates as in
a word pin and /p/ non-aspirates as in the word spin are said to be in complementary
distribution because here, the non-aspirate form /p/ occurs after –s and the aspirate
form /ph/ occurs in the beginning of the word.

Principle 4:

An overt formal difference in a structural series constitutes a morpheme if in any member of

such a series; the overt formal difference and a zero structural difference are the only
significant features for distinguishing a minimal unit of phonetic-semantic distinctiveness.

The meaning of principle 4:

An overt formal difference means a contrast which is indicated by differences. Example: the
distinction between foot /fut/ and feet /fiyt/ is an overt difference, since it consists of
different phonemes. The contrast between the single sheep /shiyp/ and the plural sheep
/shiyp/ consists of a zero and is covert.

A member of the structural series may occur with a zero structural difference and an overt
formal difference.

Principle 5:

Homophonous forms are identifiable as the same or different morphemes on the basis of
the following conditions:

1. Homophonous forms with distinctively different meanings constitute different

morphemes.

2. Homophonous forms with related meanings constitute a single morpheme if the

meaning classes are paralleled by distributional differences, but they constitute
multiple morphemes if the meaning classes are not paralleled by distributional
differences.

Meaning of principle 5:

Homophonous forms are phonemically identical.

For example: /pear/ and /pair/ are homophonous. (Pear is not characteristically associated
with pair).

/to fish/ and /the fish/ identifies a characteristically associated aspect of a single process.
Principle 6:

A morpheme is isolatable if it occurs under the following conditions:

1. In isolation

2. In multiple combinations in at least one of which the unit with which it is combined
is in isolation or in other combinations.

3. In a single combination provided the element with which it is combines occurs in

isolation or in other combinations with non-unique constituents.

Meaning of principle 6:

1. Morpheme such as boy, cow, jump etc, since it is possible to utter all these forms in
isolation.

2. Morphemes such as –er for dancer, worker, player etc.

3. The prefix con- in consume, conceive, contain occurs only in combinations; but the
form dense occurs in isolation. This provides justification for considering con- as a
morpheme. Added evidence is available in the fact that the stem forms occur in
other combinations. Example: perceive, resume, detain.