CHAPTER 3: SYNTAX – THE SENTENCE PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE

Syntax A part of grammar that represents the knowledge of sentences and their structure.
Rules of Syntax (1) Combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences. It also determines the correct
order of language.
(2) Another role of syntax is to describe the relationship between the meaning of particular
group of words and their arrangement.
(3) Specify the grammatical relations of a sentence, such as subject and direct object.
(4) Sentences are to just strings of words with no further organization. Our knowledge about
syntax can tell us about the rules, how the words can form, how phrases should be
arranged in connection to other phrases.
(5) Because of these rules, speakers of language are able to produce strings of sentences, thus
the creative aspect of linguistic knowledge.
Tree Diagrams Helps specify what words or phrases are affecting one another.
(1) Old (men and women) = old men and old women
(2) Old men + women = old men and women
Structural In connection to sentences that is not clear in terms of the connection of phrases to other phrases.
Ambiguity
What Judging the grammar is not based if we encountered that sentence or phrase before, or if the words
Grammaticality makes sense and is existing. As long as the sentence abides by the synthetic rules, it is
Is Not Based On grammatically correct.
Sentence The verb is usually closer to the object is closer to each other
Structure

(1) In the “the child found a puppy”, one can graph them as
where the graph indicates the subgroupings of a word in a sentence.
Constituents and Constituent is the natural groupings or parts of a sentence.
Constituency (1) Stand Alone, is a test where it identifies the constituents by checking if they stand alone
Tests or not.
(2) Replacement Pronoun, is another test where it sees if the possible constituents are
replaceable, for instance, the question “when did you start stanning BTS?”, where the
“BTS” can be replaced with “them” and the “start stanning BTS” can be replaced with
“did” when the question is who.
(3) Move as a Unit, is a test that identifies if a phrase or words can be moved and still make
sense.
Constituent Structure looks similar as the sentence structure, which can be presented in a reverse
tree diagram.
Syntactic It is a family of expressions that can substitute for each other without losing its grammaticality.
Categories (1) Noun Phrase (NP), contains a determiner and a noun. It may function as a subject or an
object in sentences.
(2) Verb Phrase (VP), contains a verb and other categories such as NP or prepositional
phrase.
(3) Prepositional phrase (PP)
(4) Adverbial phrase (AdvP)
(5) Adjective Verb (AP)
Lexical and It includes phrasal categories such as NP, VP, AP (adjective verb), PP, and AdvP (adverbial
Functional phrase) and lexical categories such as noun, verb, preposition, adverb and adjective.
 Categories (1) Determiner (Det) is a category in which includes the a and the.
(2) Demonstrative such as this, that, these and those.
(3) Quantifiers, such as each and every
(4) T(ense) which includes the modal auxiliaries might, can, could, must, shall, should
T and Det are functional categories because they are mostly grammatical functions than
descriptive meanings.
(1) Auxiliaries or helping verbs
Lexical (1) Noun (N) general entities
Categories (2) Verb (V) actions, events and states.
(3) Preposition (P)
(4) Adjective (A) qualities and properties
(5) Adverb (Adv)
Phrase Structure The core or head of every phrase is a lexical category, for example, the NP the cat of LilyPichu is
Trees headed by the noun the cat.
(1) Complement is a phrasal category that may occur beside the head and elaborates the
meaning of the head (like the cat to LilyPichu)
(2) Specifiers are elements before the head. (the the which is the determiner and the specifier
of the NP). Possessives can be also a specifier.
Node is the point in a tree diagram where the branches join. It immediately dominates the
categories below it.
(1) Sisters are categories under the same node.

(2) The graph above is called X-Bar schema, which is the template or blueprint that specifies
how phrases of a language are organized. It is hypothesized to be part of the Universal
Grammar.
Tree diagrams that have syntactic category information is called:
(1) Structure tree; or
(2) Constituent structure tree.

Selection (1) Complements and specifiers are not required in a sentence and it appears depending on the
head.
(2) Intransitive verb are verbs that cannot take a NP complement.
(3) Small Clause is an XP composed of an NP followed by a bar level category.
(4) C-selection or subcategorization is the information about the complement types selected
by particular verbs or other lexical items.
(5) S-selection is when a verb includes a specification that requires certain semantic
properties for its subjects and complements.
Building Phrase Phase Structure (PS) rules present the principles of the X-bar schema and can be used as a guide.
Structure Trees (1) S  NP VP
(2) NP  Det N̄
(3) N̄  N
(4) VP  V̄
(5) V̄ V NP
(6) V̄ V PP
(7) V̄  V AP
(8) N̄  N PP
(9) PP  P̄
 (10) P̄ P NP
(11) AP  Ā
(12) Ā A
(13) Ā A PP
The Infinity of It is the rule that repeats itself.
Language: (1) N̄  A N̄
Recursive Rules (2) Ā  Int Ā
(3) V̄  V̄ PP
(4) N̄  N̄ PP
Adjunct is the phrasal category that is sister to an X (with a bar on top) and daughter to a higher X
(with a bar on top).
Complement, is again, the sister to the head X.
What Heads the Sentences are also called tense phrases (TPs) where it describes the time (past tense, present
Sentence tense).
Structural These are sentences that have more than one phrase structure tree, with each corresponding
Ambiguities different meaning.
(1) V̄  AdvP V̄
(2) V̄  V̄ AdvP
Transformationa (1) Declarative sentences
l Analysis (2) Yes-no questions
(3) Move, a formal device, that relocates the material in T before the subject NP. It is also
called transformational rule.
(4) Deep structures or d-structure are basic structures of sentences and conform to the X-
Bar schema.
(5) Surface structures or s-structures are ones that follows the application of
transformational rules.
The Structure If the transformation Moves acts on phrase structures without regard to the particular words that
Dependency of the structures contain, it is structure dependent.
Rules
Further Sentences are organized in two basic principles:
Syntactic (1) X-Bar schema derived constituent structure
Dependencies (2) Syntactic dependencies derived from the lexical properties of individual words.
Wh Questions Some wh questions present dependency if we assume that in each case, the wh phrase originated in
the position of the gab in a sentence with the corresponding declarative structure.
(1) “Long distance” dependencies created by wh movement are a fundamental part of human
language and proves that sentences are not just strings of words and has a structure on
themselves.

CHAPTER 4: SEMANTICS - THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE

What Speakers Truth-conditional semantics is a linguistic knowledge that allows us to determine whether a
Know about sentence is true or false, if one sentence assumes the falseness or truthfulness of the other and if
Sentence one sentence has multiple meaning.
Compositional semantics, other term for truth-condition semantics, determines the truthfulness
of a sentence by dividing it into small units.
Truth value is the least part of the meaning of a sentence
Truth Knowing the meaning with help you determine the truth value.
Tautologies are sentences that is always true
Contradictions are sentences that is always false
Entailment and Entailment is when the truth of another sentence entails the meaning of another sentence.
Related Notions Synonymous sentences or paraphrased sentence are entailed. Either both is true and both is
false.
Contradictory is when two sentences contrasts each other.
Semantic Rules Proper name, like Namjoon
Referent is the meaning of a proper name or a predicate, for example Namjoon’s referent is a
man that is the leader of BTS
 The best way to refer or define a predicate is to situate it in real world.
Semantic Rule The meaning of
Number 1

is the following truth condition:

If the meaning of NP (an individual) is a member of the meaning of VP (a set of
individuals), then the sentence is True; otherwise, it is FALSE
Words Meaning
Jack refers to (or means) the individual Jack
Laura refers to (or means) the individual Laura
kissed refers to (or means) the set of pairs of individual X and Y such that X
kissed Y.
Semantic Rule The meaning of
Number 2

Is the set of inidividuals X such that X is the first member of any pair in the meaning of V is the
second member is the meaning of NP
When Anomaly is when two words cannot be combined together because of the syntantic rules.
Compositionality Metaphors require imagination to derive meaning
Goes Awry Idioms has fixed meaning, and that meaning is not compositional
There are also words that contain meaningless word that makes it uninterpretable
Theories of Word Reference is the meaning of the word or expression, in connection to referent which is the real-
Meaning world object
Sense additional elements of meaning that doesn’t have a real life referent
Lexical Relations Synonyms are words or expression that has the same meaning
Antonyms are words that are contrasting.
Complementary pairs are words that are contrasting
Gradable pairs are antonyms in a sense that they are in both the end side of the spectrum
(1) Unmarked are words that are often used in the words, such as the under in 6 ft under the
ground
(2) Marked
Relational Opposites are words thay display symetry in meaning, such as hunter and huntress
Homonyms, also called homophones are words that has the same pronunciation
Heteronyms are words that has the same spelling but different pronunciation
Polysemous are words that has multiple meanings
Hyponyms involve relationship between a general term and specific instance of the word.
Semantic Features It is a property that is part of word meanings and that reflect our knowledge about what the
words means
Decomposing can help people in knowing the relations of a word to another

CHAPTER 4: THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE - PRAGMATICS

 Pragmatics It is the study of extra-truth conditional meaning
Extra-truth-conditional is the result of how speakers use literal meaning in conversation, or
discourse
Lexical Semantics talks about the literal meaning of the words
Compositional Semantics talks about the literal meaning of the sentences
Pronouns and Context-independent meaning is the same referent regardless of the context
Other Deictic Context-dependent meaning need the context to determine the referent
Words Deictic are words that needed context to receive the part of their meaning. It includes pronouns,
demonstratives, adverbs, prepositions and complex expressions
Reference resolution is the process of determining the referent based on the context.
(1) Linguistic, anything that is uttered in the discourse prior to or along with the pronoun
a) Sentence internal, is the linguistic context a reflective pronoun needs to receive its
reference
b) Sentence external
(2) Situational, takes the form of a gesture
Implicature It is a situation where the speaker suggests another meaning that is not literally spoken. It arises
when a maxim is flouted
Maxims of Maxims of Conversation (Grice’s Cooperative Principle)
Conversation (1) Maxim of Quality: Truth
a) Do not say what you believe to be false.
b) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
(2) Maxim of Quantity: Information
a) Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of
the exchange.
b) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
(3) Maxim of relation: Relevance
a) Be relevant.
(4) Maxim of Manner: Clarity
a) Avoid obscurity of expression.
b) Avoid ambiguity.
c) Avoid unnecessary wordiness.
d) Be orderly.
Presupposition They are situations that must exist for utterance to be appropriate, such as the sentence Namjoon
is biking in a park presuppose that there is an existing park where Namjoon bikes.
Speech Acts It is words or language that allows us to do something, such as issue warning, make a promise,
and others.
Performative verbs are words that imply the action of something, such as warn implies the
action that you warned someone.
Performative sentences are sentences that allows the speaker to accomplish an action by
uttering it
Categories of Statements
(1) Locutionary force is saying something with certain reference or meaning (speaking)
(2) Illocutionary force is where a particular utterance can imply another thing when said to
another person, and is the underlying purpose of an utterance (actions you do while
saying it)
(3) Perlocutionary by consequential actions, effects the statements has the audience (effect
to the audience)
How to do things Constative is a statement that describes something that can be true or false
with Words Performative is a statement that produces or states an action
By JL Austin Conditions that are needed to be met to be felicitous
(1) Context and circumstances (Alpha), the statement must fit the context
(2) Actual execution of the procedure (Beta)
(3) Intention behind the performance (Gamma, Sincerity)
Wrongs in the conditions
(1) Alpha 1 to Beta 1 – Misfires
(2) Alpha 1 to Alpha 2 – Misinvocation
 (3) Beta 1 to Beta 2 – Misexecution
(4) Gramma 1 to Gamma 2 – Abuses
Excluded from consideration
(1) under duress, or forced
(2) by accident
(3) unintentional
(4) misunderstanding
(5) drama: copy of the real thing, not normative
Conditions of a performative
A.1. There must be an accepted conventional procedure.
A.2. The persons and circumstances must be appropriate for the
procedure
The statement must fit the context.
Actual execution of the procedure
B.1. The procedure must be executed by all participants both correctly
B.2. completely.
Intention behind the performance (Sincerity)
Gamma 1. The participants must intend to conduct themselves
properly
Gamma 2. They must actually so conduct themselves subsequently.
Problems encountered
(1) There has to be a procedure or convention, and accept that procedure
(2) The cooperation of the person is insincere
(3) Start from somewhere
(4) Implicit and explicit statements
(5) Cooperation is not given

CHAPTER 7: SOCIOLINGUISTICS – LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY

Dialects Idiolect is a person’s own dialect that consists of their own word choices, pronunciation and
grammatical rules.
Dialect is the variation of a language, for example the way a group of people speak English.
When two dialects become mutually unintelligible or cannot understand each other, they evolve
to being a language. But geography and other factors are also considered in language being a
language, even though they can understand each other.
Dialects merge to each other, forming a dialect continuum
Dialect leveling is a movement toward greater uniformity and less variation among dialects.
Regional Dialects is the different version of a language based on geographic region.
Accents are regional phonological or phonetic distinctions, and can also be referred to the speech
non-native speakers, who have learned a language as a second language.
Diglossia is where two distinct varieties of language is spoken within the same speech
community
Bilingual diglossia is a type of diglossia which one language variety is used for writing and
another for speech
Dialect Atlases Dialect maps and dialect atlases plot dialect geographically
Isoglosses are lines drawn to separate the areas in the maps
Dialect areas are seen by concentrations of linguistic differences

Social Dialects Dialects can also form or identify social divisions, which are called social dialects

Language Purists Standard American English (SAE) is a dominant or prestige dialect that is only ideally spoken
by many, which is also not defined precisely
Standard Dialect or prestige dialect aims to bind people together that uses different languages
Non-U speech habits often include hypercorrections
African American English (AAE) is a social dialect spoken by a language portion of Americans
of African descent
Syntactic (1) Multiple Negatives, AAE allows double negatives such as in Italian and French
 Differences (2) Deletion of be
between AAE and (3) Habitual Be
SAE
Chicano English It is a dialect of English spoken by many Mexican Americans
Sociolinguistics variables are linguistic differences that vary with the social situation of the
speaker
Bidialectal is the ability to use two different dialects at a given situation
Genderlects Lakoff (1973) identified several linguistic features that were used by women more than men:
(1) Hedges (might, maybe)
(2) Tag questions (don’t you think?)
(3) Politeness (please, thank you)
(4) Use of intensifiers (so, extremely, very)
Women use conservative speech styles and mixed gender conversations are dominated by men
Banned Occur because of the political and false notion of language that assumes some language are
Languages better than others.
Languages in Lingua Franca is the one language that is used by a group of people to social and commercial
Contact communication, whereas English is called as the lingua franca of the world
Pidgins and Pidgins is a communication system that are rule-governed but have a simplified grammatical
Creoles system and lexicon. It is often used for business and trade of information and products.
Most of the language that are in pidgin are from the dominant language.
(1) First, pidgin has no native speakers, is strictly a contact language reserved for special
function
(2) Later, if need tor the pidgin to continue, the pidgin becomes stabilized
(3) If children begin to learn this stabilized pidgin as a native language, then it becomes a
creole
Pidginization is involved a simplification of some language and a reduction of the number of
domains of use
Creole is a language that has evolved in a contact situation to become the native language of a
generation of speakers
Creolization involves the expansion of a lexicon and grammar and an increase of the number of
contexts of use
Bilingualism It refers to the ability to speak two or more language
Individual bilingualism is within one person
Societal bilingualism is within a society, like Philippines who consider two official language
Codeswitching It is a speech style in which fluent speakers switch language between or within sentences
Transition Bilingual Education (TBE) students receive instruction in both their native
language and English
Bilingual Maintenance (BM) is when students remain bilingual classes for their entire
education
Dual Language Immersion is when native and nonnative speakers are enrolled in bilingual
education, the goal being to have all students become bilingual
Ebonics are Black American language
Styles or Registers It is the different ways of speaking based on the context, for example people talk differently
when with friends and in another social context
Slang It is something that nearly everybody uses and can recognize but no one can precisely define.
Some slang words may gain widespread acceptability and thus cease to be a slang
Jargon and Argot It is specialized terms used in various occupations, whereas jargons are used for clarity and
communication, and partly for people to identify themselves with people with shared interests
Taboo Societies have taboo words relating to sex, sex organs and bodily functions. There are also terms
that have double meaning, one being accepted and the other is not
Euphemism It is a word of phrase that replaces the taboo word to avoid unpleasant subjects
Denotative meaning
Connotative meaning
Language and There are many slur words about women and men that have negative and/ sexual undertones
Sexism
Marked and In most language, the male form is unmarked and the female by adding a suffix
Unmarked Forms
Secret Languages Nushu was a secret written language used by women in sexually repressive imperial China
and Language Walbari in Australia play a language game in which nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives are
Games replaced by semantically contrastive words