WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

One of the answers would be the following: a language is a

phonological, lexical and grammatical system. Consequently,
linguistic description falls into three main branches of inquiry:
a) Phonology (the study of the organization of speech sounds)
b) Lexis (vocabulary)
c) Grammar
The latter, that is grammar, is subdivided into:
1.
Morphology (grammar inside the word) which deals with the
study of words, their structure and classification.
2.
Syntax (grammar outside the word) which deals with the
structure and classification of phrases and sentences).
Within grammar, morphology and syntax are so closely interrelated
that it is often impossible to deal with morphology without
taking into account syntactical aspects as well.
Any language consists of larger and smaller linguistic units
which can be arranged in a hierarchical order. The sentence, the
clause, the phrase, the word and the morpheme are regarded as the
basic units of which the sentence is the unit of the highest rank
and the morpheme the unit of the lowest rank.
the sentence

the clause

the phrase

the word

the morpheme

the phoneme
A linguistic unit of a higher rank usually contains one or more
units of the next lower rank. Thus a sentence contains one or

more words and a word one or more morphemes. If we divide a

morpheme into one or more phonemes we are no longer in the sphere
of morphology, because we enter the sphere of phonology.
The SENTENCE is the largest grammatical and the smallest
communication unit. It expresses a more or less complete thought
and has a definite grammatical form and intonation. The structure
of a sentence can be described in terms of sentence elements
which are realized by phrases.
A sentence contains TWO primary sentence elements:
a) the SUBJECT and
b) the PREDICATE
e.g. John bought a car last week.

In the example JOHN is the subject (S) and BOUGHT A CAR LAST WEEK
is the predicate. The predicate consists of the predicate verb or
predicator (P) and the secondary elements, in our case the direct
object (DO) (A CAR) and the adjunct (A) (LAST WEEK).
Other secondary sentence elements are:
indirect object (IO)
subject complement (SC) and
object complement (OC).
e.g. He gave her a diamond ring.

IO

DO

Ben is a student.

SC

We call him Brian.

DO

OC

According to their structure, sentences may be divided into

simple and complex sentences. Simple sentences contain only one
predicator, eventually one clause.
e.g.

The sun shines.

The door opens.
The mirror broke.

Complex sentences contain more than one predicator, therefore

more than one clause.
e.g.

When we called at his house, they told us that he had

left before our telegram arrived.

they told us (main clause)