Unit 1

Moisés A. Bittner

Phonetics and Phonology

Autumn Term

What is Linguistics?

It is the scientific study of human language.

Aims of linguistic theory: What is knowledge of language? (Competence)

How is knowledge of language acquired? (Acquisition)

How is knowledge of language put into use? (Performance/Language Processing)

1

Language ‘Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.’

Edward Sapir (1884-1939)

Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921)

2

‘From now on I will consider language to be a set ( finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.’

Noam Chomsky (1928-)

Syntactic Structures (1957)

3

Importance of Language

The most important tool ever invented. Distinguishes us from other creatures. Provides a medium to think effectively, communicate

interpersonally and collaborate with other people in work.

Impossible to imagine a world without language.

4

Languages of the World

5

Hierarchy of Language

Texts/discourses

Sentences/utterances

Clauses

Phrases

Words Morphemes

Syllables

Phonemes

6

Main Branches of Linguistics

Phonetics

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

Semantics

Pragmatics

7

Semiotics*

* the study of sign and symbol systems.

Phonetics

Phonetics is about the physical aspect of sounds. It studies the production, transmission, and perception of speech sounds called phones in all living languages, including:

Production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made: Articulatory Phonetics

Transmission of speech sounds (physical characteristics such as colour, loudness, amplitude, frequency): Acoustic Phonetics.

Perception of the sounds by human brain: Auditory Phonetics.

Phonetic transcriptions are done using the square brackets [ ].

φonos (phonos: sounds) and ikos (ikos: treatise, science, or study).

8

Phonology

Phonology studies the sound system of specific languages. It is about the abstract aspect of sounds and it studies

the phonemes.

Phonemic transcriptions adopt the slash / /.

Phonology is about establishing what are the phonemes in a given language, i.e. those sounds that can bring a difference in meaning between two words.

φonos (phonos: sounds), and logos (logos: study)

Phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, ‘a sound uttered’) is

the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances in spoken language. /tS/

9

Morphology Studies the formation of words from smaller units

called morphemes.

Morpheme: minimal meaningful language unit. (-ed, -ing)

Grapheme(s): written symbol to represent speech. <ch>

10

12

Syntax

The syntax of a language deals with the grammatical structure of a language.

Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves.

Descriptive grammar: structure actually used by speakers and writers.

Prescriptive grammar: structure that should be used.

11

Rules that govern the formation of sentences from words.

Syntactic phrases include: Noun Phrase : a tall man, the bus

Verb Phrase : travel around, hit the ball

Prepositional Phrase : in the class, at the club

Adjective Phrase : Very good, nice girl

The Grammatical Rules: SVO: eg. English

SOV: eg . Hindi

12

15

Semantics

Study of language meaning.

The study of conventional, ‘compositional meaning’.

Concerned with not only the meaning of words, but also that of morphemes and of sentences.

Lexical semantics study how and what the words of a language denote.

13

Semantic Relations

Exempli gratia:

Pretty and attractive are synonyms.

Good and bad are antonyms.

Animal is a hypernym of mammal which is a hypernym of dog.

Dog is a hyponym of mammal which is a hyponym of animal.

Bark is a meronym of tree which is a meronym of forest.

Forest is a holonym of tree which is a holonym of bark.

15

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.

Pragmatics pays heed to social conventions and cultural norms – such as those of politeness, formality, and familiarity – and also to prosody, intonation, facial expressions, and gestures, all of which can vary considerably from one context to the next.

Pragmatics, then, is a very broad and multifaceted field concerned with the communicative functions of language.

Essentially it is the study of language meaning and use in context: interpersonal, social, cultural. It takes into account what a speaker means, implies, and aims to communicate with an utterance. So it is a particularly important area for language learners.

18

19

20

21

References Adapted from: Verma, Apurv & Prasad, Ashish, 2012. Branches of Linguistics. Available at:

http://es.slideshare.net/dapurv5/branches-of-linguistics-11652624

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Linguistics

http://linguistics.wfu.edu/Some_basics.html

https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/what-is-linguistics

http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/a-pragmatic-note

22