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.

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. Understanding phonology means you understand how to break down a
word into its smaller sounds and pronounce it. This can help a student learning English because it gives him or
her a great tool for breaking down new words and pronouncing words that he or she has 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.

In phonology, words are broken down into smaller units that represent sounds, to make it easier to pronounce
new words. If a student understands the common sound units in the English language, he or she 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:

 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 also 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 with
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 a language’s 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 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 three
classifications.

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.
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.

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, like “Bill ran to his truck”, making a paradigmatic change would require a
substitution. This would result in a different phrase, like “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.

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.
 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.

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

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
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 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.

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

2.5.3 More semantic terminology

Beyond what we already described, there 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.