2. What is
LINGUISTICS?
2
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 to use?
(Performance/language processing)
3. 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)
3
4. “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)
4
5. IMPORTANCE OF
LANGUAGE
5
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.
8. Types of Phonetics
• Articulatory phonetics: the study of the production of speech sounds by
the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker
• Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical transmission of speech
sounds from the speaker to the listener
• Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception and perception of speech
sounds by the listener
9. PHONOLOGY
9
Studies the sound system of languages.
Distinctive sounds within a language,
Nature of sound systems across the languages.
Phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, "a
sound uttered") is the smallest segmental unit of
sound employed to form meaningful contrasts
between utterances.
10. Branches of Phonology
1. Segmental phonology :- It analyses speech into
discrete segments, such as phonemes.
2. Supra- segmental phonology :- It analyses those features
which extend over more than one segment such as
intonation , stress.
3. Diachonic phonology :- It studies the patterns of sound
system through the history of language.
4. Synchronic phonology :- It studies the patterns of sound
regardless of the process of historical change.
11. MORPHOLOGY
11
Studies the formation of words from smaller units
called morphemes.
Morpheme: minimal meaningful language unit.
Phoneme(s): smallest linguistically distinctive units
of sound) in spoken language.
Grapheme(s): written symbol to represent speech.
12. SYNTAX
12
Rules that govern the formation of sentences from
words.
Syntactic phrases include:
Noun Phrase : a tall man, the bus
Verb Phrase : roam around, hit the ball
Prepositional Phrase : in the class, at the club
Adjective Phrase : Very good, nice girl
The Grammatical Rules:
SOV: eg. Hindi
SVO: eg . English
13. GRAMMAR
13
The syntax of a language deals
grammatical structure of a language.
with the
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.
15. SEMANTICS
15
Study of language 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.
16. PRAGMATICS
16
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
How language is used to communicate rather than
how it is internally structured.
Govern a number of conversational
interactions, such as sequential organization, repair
of errors, role and speech acts.
17. MENTION THE 26 ALPHABETS
MENTION VOWELS AND
CONSONANTS THAT YOU KNOW
DO YOU KNOW IPA SYMBOLS?
19. Assignment
Describe the difference between phonetics and phonology
Find and write the words from each of the IPA symbols (must be
different from the chart), as well as the pronunciation of the words.