Topic 2.

Language as a
subject of study
 Language Levels
Usually depending on what aspect of the
language is studied, it is possible to single
out:
1) Phonological level which studies
segmental (sounds) and supersegmental
(stress and intonation) units. Here the
smallest element is phoneme.
 The phoneme has 2 functions
Distinctive Building
it means that phonemes It means that
help us distinct phonemes are used
different words as building material
e.g. bad bed, for the elements of
the next level,
morphological.
e.g. n+e+s+s = suffix -
ness (happiness)
 Character of phoneme
Phoneme is one-sided (monolateral) unit. It
means that it has only form and doesnt have
any meaning.

Sounds are divided into vowels and consonants.

Sound Symbolism (Morris Swadesh) tendency to

use sounds to reflects some aspects of reality.
(i: - smth. near; a, u smth. distant)
 2) Morphological Level
The minimal element of this level is
morpheme. What makes it different from
phoneme is that morpheme has a
meaning, so its a bilateral (two-sided)
unit:
e.g. suffix ness denotes the quality or the
state when attached to an adjective and
makes it a noun.
 2) Morphological Level
Usually the grammar of the language is studied
at this level, for example, typical characteristics
and categories of the verb, noun, etc.
The term grammatical meaning is opposed to
lexical meaning. Grammatical meaning can be
applied to many different words: e.g.
grammatical meaning of plural all words in
plural will have this meaning. While the lexical
meaning is typical for one word only: e.g. lexical
meaning of the word table belongs only to it.
 3) Lexical Level
The main unit of this level is a word.
The word has a form and meaning.
There is a lot of interesting things about
the connection of words, their meanings
and real objects in our world. Usually the
semiotic triangle is remembered here, also
known as Ogden & Richard's Triangle.
 3) Lexical Level
Semiotic Triangle=Ogden & Richard's
Triangle
Ogden & Richard's (=two American
researchers who in 1923 introduced this
triangle to the public in their book) famous
triangle of meaning implies that the
referent of an expression (a word or
another sign or symbol) is relative to
different language users.
Semiotic triangle
Relations of a word, a real object and
a concept of this word in our mind
 4) Syntactical Level
The main elements of this level are a word-combination
and a sentence.
A word-combination has a nominative function. It means
that it, as a word, just names the objects.
A sentence has a communicative function.
This level studies:
the types of connection of words in the word-
combinations and sentences;
the word-order in the sentence;
different structural and communicative types of
sentences.