Notes on Introduction to Linguistics I

These are the main materials for the mid-term test.

1. Chapter 1 What is Language?

Language is the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Linguistic Knowledge includes:

Knowledge of the Sound System: Knowing what sounds are in that language and what sounds are not.

Knowledge of Words: Knowing the sound units that are related to specific meanings.

  • Arbitrary relationship between form (sounds) and meaning (concept) of a word.
  • Onomatopoeic: Words whose pronunciations suggest their meanings.

Knowledge of Sentences: Knowing how to form sentences.

Linguistic Competence: What you know about a language.

Linguistic Performance: How you use this knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension.

Prescriptive Grammar:

1762; Bishop Robert Lowth; A Short Introduction to English Grammar with Critical Notes.

  • I don’t have none  I don’t have any
  • You was wrong  You were wrong
  • Mathilda is fatter than me  Mathilda is fatter than I

Many of those rules were based on Latin grammar. Latin was assumed as the respected scientific language in the 15th – 17th Centuries.

Descriptive Grammar:

1985; Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik; A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.

  • Based on a corpus of actual spoken and written English.

2. Chapter 3 Morphology: The Word of Language

The development of monolingual dictionaries:

1604; Robert Cawdrey; A Table Alphabetical; 2,500 entries.

1755; Dr. Samuel Johnson; Dictionary of the English Language; two volumes.

1828; Noah Webster; An American Dictionary of the English Language; two volumes; 70,000 entries.

Webster’s Third International Dictionary of English Language has over 450,000 entries.

Content words: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs.

Function words: Conjunctions, Prepositions, Articles, Pronouns,

Morpheme: The minimal unit of meaning.

Free morpheme: a single morpheme that constitutes a word and can stand alone.

Bound morpheme: a morpheme that must be attached to another morpheme.

Prefix: An affix that occurs before a morpheme.

Some examples of negative prefixes:

Prefix

/

Added to

/

Example

UN-

/

adjectives

/

unfair

NON-

/

various classes

/

non-smoker, nonsense, non-drip

DIS-

/

adjectives, verbs, nouns

/

disloyal, dislike, disfavour

A-

/

adjectives, nouns

/

amoral, asymmetry

Degree and size prefixes:

Prefix

/

Meaning

/

Added to

/

Example

Arch-

/

highest, worst

/

nouns

/

archduke, arch-enemy

Super-

/

above, better

/

nouns, adjectives

/

superman, supernatural

Over-

/

too much

/

verbs, adjectives

/

overeat, overconfident

Hyper-

/

extremely

/

adjectives

/

hyperactive

Sub-

/

lower than

/

adjectives

/

substandard

Mini-

/

little

/

nouns

/

minibus

Suffix: An affix that occurs after a morpheme.

Class preserving suffixation:

Suffix

/

Meaning

/

Example

-er

/

occupation

/

engineer

-ian

/

occupation

/

musician

-ist

/

occupation

/

violinist

-let

/

small

/

piglet

Class changing suffixation:

  • Verbs  Nouns
  • Verbs  Adjectives
  • Adjectives  Nouns
  • Adjectives  Verbs
  • Nouns  Verbs
  • Nouns  Adjectives

Derivational morpheme: deriving (creating) a new word with a new meaning.

Inflectional morpheme: changing the form of a word because of the rules of syntax.

English inflectional morphemes:

Nouns

–splural

–’spossessive

Verbs

–sthird person singular present

–edpast tense

–en past participle

–ingprogressive

Adjectives

–ercomparative

–estsuperlative

Word Coinage: Compounds, Acronyms, Back-formations, Abbreviations, Eponyms, and Blends.

Compounds: Two or more words joined together to a form a new word.

Home + work  homework

Pick + pocket  pickpocket

Note: The meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the meanings of its parts.

Coconut oil  oil made from coconuts.

Olive oil  oil made from olives.

Baby oil ......

cathouse  ......

blue-movies  ......

blue-chip ......

Acronyms: Words derived from the initials of several words.

National Aeronautics and Space Agency  ......

Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus  ......

......  FYI

......  TGIF

......  a.k.a

Back-formations: Creative reduction due to incorrect morphological analysis.

Editor (1649)  edit (1791)

Television (1907)  televise (1927)

Abbreviations (Clipping): A word which is clipped.

Facsimile  fax

Hamburger  burger

Gasoline ......

Advertisement  ......

Omnibus ......

 Words from Names (Eponyms): Words derived from proper names or things.

Sandwich

Celsius

Blends: Similar to compounds, but parts of the words are deleted.

Motor + hotel  Motel

Breakfast + lunch ......

modulator, demodulator  ......

Deny Arnos Kwary

Lecturer of Linguistics

AirlanggaUniversity