Linguistics is a science which studies language or the systematic study of language

Linguistics is a science which studies language or the systematic study of language.

Linguistics differs from traditional grammar:

Linguistics is descriptive not prescriptive. They describe language in all its aspects but do not prescribe rules of correctness.

Linguists regard the spoken language as primary not the written.

Is that it does not force languages into a Latin-based framework.

The Scope of linguistics

Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds.

Phonology is the study of sounds patterning.

Syntax is the study of sentence structure. Semantics is the meaning of the word.

Pragmatics is the study of the use of language.

Sociolinguistics is the study of language and society.

Sociology is the study of socio structure.

Phonetics is surrounded by syntax. It is the part of language which links together the sounds patterns and the meaning.

Two important aspects of linguistics which have been omitted from the diagram:

Historical linguistics is the study of language change.

Linguistics typology is the study of different language type. Synchronic linguistics is the analysis of language at a single point in time. Diachronic linguistics is the analysis of language before historical.

(Jean Aitchison)Language is a pattern system of arbitrary sound signal, characterized by structure dependence, creativity, displacement, duality and cultural transmission.

Arbitrariness is there is no link whatsoever between the signal and the massage. There is no intrinsic connection.

Duality is it becomes meaningful only when it is combined whit others phonemes. Displacement: human language, by contrast can communicate about things that are absent as easily as about things that are present.

Patterning: humans do not juxtapose sounds and words in a random way. Instead, they ring the changes on a few well-defined patterns.

Structure dependence: the types of structure dependent operations found in language are often quite complicated, and involve considerably more than mere addition of items (as in the case of the past tense). Three properties of language which are rare in animal communication:

The symbols are mostly arbitrary

The system has to be painstakingly transmitted from one generation to another.

Duality and displacement, two organizations of language into to layers.

The ability to talk about absent objects and events.

19th century: historical linguistics.

Early-to mid-20th century: descriptive linguistics. Is a pattern system composed of interdependent elements, rather than a collection of unconnected individual items.

Discovery procedures are a set of principle which would enable a linguist to discover in a foolproof way the linguistic units of an unwritten language.

Mid-to late-20th century: generative linguistics and the search for universal.

Noam Chomsky, a teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published a book called Syntactic Structure. 21st century: future trends.

Explicit: in that nothing is left to the imagination.

Language as a game: assuming a game to be a specified type of activity governed by rules.

Universal and particular: universal, will be trying to lay down a grammatical framework which will be suitable for all language. Particular, will be trying to write a perfect grammar of that language, usually by making a detailed study of the patterns of that language alone. Phoneme is the smallest segment of sounds which can distinguish two words.

Minimal Pairs is pairs of word such as pit and bit which differ by only one phoneme.

Allophone is the amount of variation differs from phoneme to phoneme.

Shared properties of phonemes:

Consonants: /p/, /t/, /b/, /d/, /n/. Voiced: /b/, /d/, /m/, /n/. They are pronounced with vibration of the vocal cords.

Labials: /p/, /b/, /m/. Are pronounced with the lips.

Nasals: /m/, /n/. When /m/ and /n/ are spoken, air is expelled trough the nose.

Distinctive feature is any feature which distinguishes one phoneme from another.

Natural class is a group of sounds which share important features in common.

Metrical phonology is each word and group of words has its own rhythm, an interplay of stressed and unstressed syllables.

American linguist, Bloomfield: word is the smallest form that can occur by its self. Morpheme is the smallest syntactic units. The types:

Free morpheme: This can occur by themselves (lullaby, albatross).

Bound morpheme: This must be attached to another. The types: - Inflectional morpheme, the word still fits into the same slot in the sentence (-ed, -s,-s). Derivational morpheme, the endings create entirely new word (-ness, -ish, -ment). Allomorph: frequently it has number of variants.

The types:

Phonological conditioning, ending with /z/, /s/, /iz/. /-z/ occurs after most voiced phonemes. /-s/ occurs after most voiceless phonemes. /-iz/ occurs after sibilants (hissing and hushing sounds).

Lexical conditioning, word such as oxen, geese, sheep present a problem.

Word classes: conventionally given labels, such as noun, verb, and adjective.

Major word classes: noun (N), verb (V), preposition (P), and adjective (A). Configurational languages is the languages which rely heavily on word order.

Non-configuratuonal: word order is not critical, though some word order preferences are found.

Inflection: indicate the relationship between words.

Function words: there are word such as of, by, that, which indicate relationship between part of the sentences.

Tree diagram: the successive layers of constituents which make up a sentence can be shown most clearly. Rewrite rules: an alternative way of expressing the information found on a tree diagram.

SNP VP

VPV NP

NPD N

VPV PP PP (Preposition phrase) P NP (the mouse ran up the clock)

Extra node-label:

VPVB (phrasal verb) NP

VB V PRT (the mouse ate up the cheese). IP (inflectional phrase) I (to, will, -ed) V Complex sentences: many sentences have one or more sentences-like structures attached to them or inserted inside them. (and), (adjective clause).

Conjoining: two sub-sentences of equal importance attached together to form a single one. (.., and.)

Embedding: more often subsidiary sentences are inserted into one main sentence. (That, which, who, whom, where, when).

Recursion: is the possibility of repeatedly re-using the same construction, so that there is no fixed limit to the length of sentences.

Verbs: the syntax-meaning overlap: the structure surrounding them provides clues to their meaning.

Thematic relation: the nouns accompanying verbs display different semantic roles.

Lexical items: a large extent connected with the meaning of the individual words.

Synonyms: two lexical items to have exactly the same meanings in all contexts. Opposites: there are several different types of opposite. The types:

The most obvious type is a pair of words in which the negative of one implies the other (he is not married: he is single).

A second type is one which is not absolute, but relative to some standard. (What a small elephant! : what a small elephant in comparison to a normal-size elephant). Third type is when one word is the converse of the other. (I give you the book: you take the book).

Inclusion: a further way of examining lexical structure is to note the ways in which a language classifies items.

Hyponyms: lexical items subsumed under it.

Fuzziness: words often have fuzzy edges.

Family resemblances: it may be impossible to think up a set of characteristics which describe them all.

Prototype: typical example.

Sentences: are individual words linked together by means of the syntax.