This document provides an overview of the key components of linguistics. It discusses the main branches of linguistics, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. For each branch, it provides a definition and examples to illustrate linguistic concepts like phonemes, morphemes, word and sentence structure, meaning, and context-dependent interpretation. The document aims to explain the scientific study of human language and how knowledge of language is acquired and used.

1. MODULE #3
LINGUISTICS AND ITS COMPONENTS

2. REVIEW
What is Linguistics?
• 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 used?
(Performance/language processing)
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3. Main branches of linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
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4. 4

5. 1. Phonetics
• Phonetics is the study of speech sounds,
it includes three main areas:
1. Articulatory - how humans produce
speech sounds.
2. Acoustic - study of sound waves made
by the human vocal organs for
communication.
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6. 3. Auditory – concerned with the hearing
of speech sounds and with speech
perception.
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Articulatory Acoustic Auditory

7. Example
usually /'juː.ʒu.ə.li/
idea /aɪˈdɪə/
Articulatory - How it’s said
Acoustic - How it sounds
Auditory - How it’s heard
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8. 2. Phonology
• Phonology studies the rules governing
the structure, distribution, and
sequencing of speech sounds and the
shape of syllables. It deals with the
sound system of a language by treating
phoneme as the point of departure.
– A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of
sound that can signal a difference in meaning.
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9. Example
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PHONEME EXAMPLES PHONEME EXAMPLES
a cat ae pain
e peg ee sweet
i pig ie tried
o log oe road
u plug ue moon

10. Phoneme VS. Morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest unit of
language that has meaning.
Example: Cats has two morphemes
1. cat (singular)
2. s (plural).
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11. Phoneme VS. Morpheme
A phoneme is the sound that can change
the meaning of a word.
Example: cat /kæt/ and cut /kʌt/
These are two different words because they
have two different phonemes, the sound
"a" and the sound "u".
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12. 3. Morphology
• Morphology is concerned with the
internal organization of words. It studies
the minimal units of meaning —
morphemes and word-formation
processes.
– Although many people think of words as the
basic meaningful elements of a language，many
words can be broken down into still smaller units,
called morphemes.
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13. Example
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Every word in every language is composed
of one or more morpheme
1. boy (one syllable)
2. desire, lady, water (two syllables)
3. crocodile (three syllables)
4. salamander (four syllables), or more
syllables

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Two morphemes
1. boy + ish
2. desire + able
Three morphemes
1. boy + ish + ness
2. desire + able + ity
Four morphemes
1. gentle + man + li + ness
2. un + desire + able + ity

15. 4. Syntax
• Syntax is about principles of forming
and understanding correct sentences.
– The form or structure of a sentence is governed
by the rules of syntax, which specify word order,
sentence organization, and the relationships
between words, word classes and other sentence
elements.
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16. Example
Subject/predicate:
All sentences are about something or
someone. The something or someone that
the sentence is about is called the subject
of the sentence. Others are the predicate.
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17. 1. John often comes late to class.
2. My friend and I both have a dog named
Spot.
3. Many parts of the Asian coastline were
destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.
4. The old hotel at the end of the street is
going to be knocked down to make way
for a new supermarket.
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18. 5. Semantics
• Semantics examines how meaning is
encoded in a language.
– It is not only concerned with meanings of words
as lexical items, but also with levels of language
below the word and above it,
e.g. meaning of morphemes and sentences.
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19. Example
Word / Language Meaning
half full glass half empty glass
incentive bribe
Hard Headed Not listening to advice
I’ll give you the moon
I’ll give you anything
you want
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20. 6. Pragmatics
• Pragmatics is the study of meaning in
context.
• It deals with particular utterances in
particular situations and is especially
concerned with the various ways in
which the many social contexts of
language performance can influence
interpretation.
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21. pragmatics is concerned
with the way language
is used to communicate
rather than with the way
language is internally
structured.
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22. Example
• Two people come into a library and they are
talking really loud. They sit at your table and
continue their babbling. So, you look up at
them and say:
"Excuse me, could you please speak up a bit
more? I missed what you said."
(i.e. please speak up) departs so much from
what its intended meaning is (i.e. shut up!)
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23. Summary
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