2.

The definition of a language as a structure of structures

2.1. Phonetics and phonology

Relevance for studying language in its natural or primary medium: oral sounds rather than written symbols.
Phonic medium: the range of sounds produced by the speech organs insofar as the play a role in language
Speech sounds: Individual sounds within that range

Phonetics is the study of the phonic medium:

The study of the production, transmission, and reception of human sound-making used in speech.
e.g. classification of sounds as voiced vs voiceless: /b/ vs /p/

Phonology is the study of the phonic medium not in itself but in relation with language.
e.g. application of voice to the explanation of differences within the system of language:
housen vs housev
usen vs usev

2.1.1. Phonetics

It is usually divided into three branches which study the phonic medium from three points of view:
Articulatory phonetics: speech sounds according to the way in which they are produced by the
speech organs.
Acoustic phonetics: speech sounds according to the physical properties of their sound-waves.
Auditory phonetics: speech sounds according to their perception and identification.

Articulatory phonetics has the longest tradition, and its progress in the 19th century contributed a standardize
and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription: the origins of the International Phonetic Alphabet
used today and relying on sound symbols and diacritics.

It studies production in relation with the vocal tract, i.e., organs such as:
lungs
trachea or windpipe, containing: larynx
vocal folds
glottis
pharyngeal cavity
nose
mouth, containing fixed organs: teeth and teeth ridge
hard palate
pharyngeal wall
mobile organs: lips
tongue
soft palate
jaw

According to their function and participation, sounds may take several features:
Voice: voiced vs voiceless sounds, according to the participation of the vocal folds
e.g. /b, d, g, z, v/ vs
/p, t, k, s, f/
Nasality: nasal vs oral sounds, according to the participation of the velum or soft palate
e.g. /n/ vs /s/

Acoustic phonetics examines the physical nature of sounds according to variables like:
sound quality
pitch
loudness
length

Auditory phonetics studies the perception of sounds by hearers based on two mechanisms:
physiological,
psychological

A complete description of a sound should include information concerning all three stages/fields: production
transmission
reception

Speech sounds are classified as:

Consonants or consonantal-type: their articulation requires a closure or narrowing

They can be classified internally according to:
Place of articulation: bilabial /p, b, m/
labio-dental /f, v/
dental /, /
alveolar /t, d, l, n, s, z/
retroflex /r/
palatal /j/
velar /k, g, /

Manner of articulation: complete closure plosive /p, b, t, d, k, g/
affricate /t/
nasal /m, n, /
intermitent closure roll /r/
partial closure lateral /l/
narrowing fricative /f, v, , , s, z, /

Vowels or vowel-type: their articulation is not accompanied by closure or narrowing

They can be classified internally according to:
Position of soft palate (raised vs lowered)
Opening formed by the lips (rounded vs unrounded)
Part of the tongue raised (front, centre or back) and degree of raising (close, close-mid, open-
mid, open):
Other vowel-type sounds are: diphthongs towards I: /a I/ e.g. why
/e I/ e.g. play
/o I/ e.g. point
towards u: /a u/ e.g. house
/o u/ e.g. low
/ u/ e.g. no
thriphthongs towards I: /a I / e.g. why
/e I / e.g. play
/o I / e.g. point
towards u: /a u / e.g. house
/o u / e.g. low
/ u / e.g. no
semi-vowels /w, j/

Suprasegmental (prosodic) features: they affect not just a segment, but long stretches of utterances:
stress position
rhythm
intonation

2.1.2. Phonology

Phoneme: the smallest linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning.
Allophone (or phonemic alternant): a variant form of a phoneme where the variation does not alter the units
basic identity.

Language may differ phonologically in respect of:

The number of phonological elements and their inventories,
The syntagmatic relations that determine the phonological well-formedness of possible combinations.

Phonemic analysis studies sequences longer than phonemes (syllables)

alterations and processes of phonemes in connected speech:
assimilation: progressive
regressive

within a word
at word boundaries
elision
juncture

2.2. Morphology

Traditional approach: the form of language based on the notion WORD

A revision: different types of words: lexical word
grammatical word
orthographical word
phonological word
a common term difficult to use in technical language
Two concepts arise from this revision:
word-forms: the various forms that a lexeme may take once inflected
e.g. sing, sings, sang, sung
 lexemes: the smallest distinctive units in the lexicon of a language
e.g. SING, as in a dictionary entry

On these grounds, morphology is then approached as

the study of inflection and derivation in a language
the study of the morphemes of a language
morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language
e.g. plural number
morph is the actual realization of a morpheme
e.g. -s for plural number
allomorph (or morphemic alternant) is a variant form of a morpheme where the
variation does not alter the morphemes basic identity
e.g. -s (/s/), -s (/z/), -ee-,

The realization of morphemes can be bound or free (according to whether they are dependent or independent,
respectively).

The combination of morphemes does not always take place linearly, that is, morphs do not always occur one
after the other, so formal alterations may occur in various degrees:

i) Attachment (with or without morphological change):

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
go > goes touch > touchy

Attachment may entail duplication of a final element in the base:

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
stop > stopped cut > cutter

iii) Phonological and/or orthograhical change as a result of attachment:

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
bite /bait/ > bit /bit/ happy /hpi/ > happily /hpili/

ii) Deletion (with or without phonological change):

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
bleed > bled tragedy > tragic

iii) Partial suppletion:

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
woman > women sing > song

iv) Complete suppletion (portmanteau morph):

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
go > went good > well

v) No morphological (sometimes phonological) change at all (zero morph):

Inflectional morphology Derivational morphology
set (non-remote)> set (remote) goV > goN

Morphology is a gradient or scale with the following two extreme fields:

Inflectional morphology
It studies inflections, i.e., affixes whose function is to signal various grammatical relationships of the
same lexeme.
Inflections are usually specific for each word-class, actually word-classes are often defined in
languages using inflectional morphemes as their distinctive criterion:
Nouns inflect for number and case
Verbs inflect for tense, aspect,
Adjectives and adverbs inflect for degree
Pronouns inflect for case, number, person

Derivational morphology
It studies derivation, that is, the formation of new lexemes.
Two basic types of lexemes can be considered:
Simple: units with only one constituent and not formed by any word-formation process
Complex: units with more than one constituent and affected by a word-formation process

The major word-formation processes are:

Affixation: prefixation: an affix precedes the base e.g. replace

suffixation: an affix follows the base e.g. placement
infixation: an infix sets inside the base (usually in compounds)
e.g. syntactico-semantic
Conversion: the base is reclassified as a new word-class without formal alteration
e.g. busv
catchn
Voicing and stress shift may accompany conversion: e.g. believe
contrastv
Compounding: one base is added to another to form a new one e.g. sunrise
(from sun + rise)
Exocentric (bahuvrihi): internal-centred e.g. gasworks
Endocentric (dvandva): external-centred e.g. gasbag
Blending: parts of two bases form a new lexeme e.g. electrocute
(from electricity and execute)
Back-formation: a suffix-like ending is deleted from the base e.g. edit (from editor)
Shortening: clipping: a part of the base is deleted e.g. exam
(from examination)
acronymization: a lexeme is formed with initials: e.g. UK
(from United Kingdom)
Acronyms can be pronounced as words (NATO) or as initials (UFO).

2.3. Syntax

Syntax is globally concerned with the grammaticality of word-strings: it establishes whether sequences of
words (phrases, clauses, sentences) are built in accordance with the grammar of a language system:
e.g. *morning this vs this morning

Syntax studies word-strings, which can be classified as:

Phrase: a sequence of words typically containing more than one unit

lacking a subject+predicator structure
 built around ahead or centre.
There are noun phrases (NPs)
verb phrases (VPs)
adjective phrases (AdjPs)
adverb phrases (AdvPs)
prepositional phrases (PrepPs)

Clause: a sequence of words intermediate between a phrase and a sentence

containing a subject+predicator structure
which may be subordinate or not
There are main clauses (MCls.)
coordinate clauses (CoordCls.)
subordinate clauses (SubCls.)

Sentence: a sequence of words which is the largest structural unit at this level
Which cannot be subordinate
Sentences are thus not linear sequences, but multi-layered sequences. This structure is
brought out by techniques like the Immediate Constituents (ICs) analysis, and its bracketing-
labelling.

2.4. Semantics

Semantics as the study of meaning and difficulties in the definition of meaning:

prevailing wrong concepts
previous non-linguistic approaches
hardly any agreement..

A starting point can be that meanings are ideas or concepts which can be transferred from the mind of the
speaker to the mind of the hearer by embodying them, as it were, in the forms of one language or another.

Lexical vs sentence meaning

Lexical meaning
Lexicology (the study of lexicon) and lexicography (the application of the former study to dictionary-making) for
the study of meaning.

The structure of meaning based on the notion of lexical field

sememe
seme

resulting in a network of meaning features and related concepts.

Syntagmatic relations between lexemes:

Collocations (collocability): recurring, lexically-determined co-occurrence of lexemes
e.g. make a mistake
do a favour
Idioms: sequences of lexemes whose sum mean differently from the sum of its members
e.g. to kick the bucket
to spill the beans
Paradigmatic relations between lexemes:
Synonymy Two lexemes with two different forms and one meaning
 e.g. different dissimilar
Antonymy Two lexemes with two different forms and opposite meanings
e.g. different equal
Polysemy One lexeme with several senses of one meaning
e.g. old not new
not young
Homonymy Two lexemes with one form and two unrelated meanings
e.g. bank bank
Total homonymy involves orthographical and phonological form as above.
Partial homonymy can be
homography (same orthographical form) e.g. lead - lead
homophony (same phonological form) e.g. air heir
Hyponymy Two lexemes with two forms and related meanings such that
one (hyponym) is general e.g. animal
the other (hypernym) is specific e.g. dog
Meronymy Two lexemes with two forms such that
one (holonym) denotes a whole element e.g. computer
the other (meronym) denotes a part of it e.g. screen

Sentence meaning
It takes the study of meaning beyond the traditional sphere of just lexemes: the meaning of a sentence
depends on the meaning of the lexemes and of the grammatical elements which operate on those lexemes:
e.g. The dog bit the post man vs The postman bit the dog

Sentence meaning = Lexical meaning + Grammatical meaning

2.5. Pragmatics

Pragmatics studies the function or action that language performs in the domains of social interaction
Speech acts: communicative activities defined with reference to the intentions of a speaker
the effects achieved on the listener

As we study speech acts and their contexts, we move away from the meaning or grammar of sentences and
approach the meaning of text and discourse, namely the domains of pragmatics.

Grammar Pragmatics
Declarative sentence Statement
Interrogative sentence Question
Imperative sentence Directive
Exclamative sentence Exclamation

So pragmatics is the study of the principles governing the communicative use of language
from the point of the users (their choices and constraints)
from the point of view of the effects achieved

Speech acts can be divided into:

Locutionary act: The act of saying something
e.g. Ill kill you!
 Illocutionary act: The act performed in saying something
e.g. It is a threat
Perlocutionary act: The act performed by or as a result of saying something
e.g. It obtains apologies from the threatened person

The basic unit of study is the utterance, defined as the stretch of speech typically followed and preceded by a
silence, or any stretch of speech about which no assumptions have been made in terms of linguistic theory.