Download words - Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Straniere

M. BOYD
Lingua e linguistica inglese (2016-17)
1 Ocotober 2015
 study of the structure of language: “how speakers create meaning
through combinations of sounds, words, and sentences that
ultimately result in texts – extended stretches of language (e.g. a
conversation between friends, a speech, an article in a newspaper).
Like other scientists, linguists examine their subject matter –
language – objectively. They are not interested in evaluating
‘good’ versus ‘bad’ uses of language...” (Meyer 2009: 2)
 rules: govern the pronunciation of sounds (phonetics, phonology),
the ways words are put together (morphology), the manner in which
phrases, clauses, and sentences are structured (syntax), and the
ways that meaning is created (semantics)
→ GRAMMAR
 principles: stipulate how the structures that rules create should be
used (e.g. which forms are used in polite contexts, how to address a
‘superior’, etc.)
→ PRAGMATICS
 “Standard languages often have prescriptive rules devised by
people who believe languages need regulating, tidying up or
protecting against change, and which are frequently codified in
‘usage guides’” (Swann, 2011, p. 563).
 Many English rules were written in 18th and 19th c. by “grammarians”, who often
thought that English grammar should imitate Latin, the prestige language.
 It’s me or John and me saw a good film (typical of informal standard English): a
nominative (subject) form is said to be ‘logically’ required in both cases, but
choice between I and me depends on syntactic environment and level of
formality.
 Descriptive linguistics attempts to describe languages without the
preconceived notions of what a language should contain and how it
should operate.
 SOUNDS: “Linguistic rules at this level describe how sounds are
pronounced in various contexts” (Meyer, 2009, p. 2)
 PHONETICS: concerned with the physical production and perception of speech
sounds (sound-making): articulation, acoustics, etc.
 PHONOLOGY: concerned with the sounds of a language that are distinctive in
creating meanings (phonemes; distinctive features; minimal pairs)
 pin ~ pen ~ pan ~ pawn [vowel phonemes /ɪ/ /ɛ/ /æ/ /ɔ:/ ~ /ɒ/]
 big ~ pig ~ wig [consonant phonemes]
How do you pronounce the following?
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biscuit / circuit / cruise / bruise / fruit / conduit
chemistry / church / cello
blood / food / good
What is the difference in pronunciation in the
following?
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sun / son
to / too / two
hour / our
write / right
aisle / isle / I’ll
brake / break
pin / pen / pan / pain / pawn / pine
How do you pronounce the following?
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
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biscuit / circuit / cruise / bruise / fruit / conduit /ɪ/
vs. /u:/
chemistry / church / cello /k/ vs. /tʃ/ vs /ʃ/
blood / food / good /ʌ/ vs. /u:/ vs. /ʊ/
What is the difference in pronunciation in the
following?
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
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sun / son /sʌn/
to / too / two /tu:/
hour / our /aʊʳ/ ~ /aʊə/
write / right /raɪt/
aisle / isle / I’ll /aɪl/
brake / break /breɪk/
pin / pen / pan / pain / pawn / pine /ɪ/ /e/ /æ/ /eɪ/
/ɔ/ ~ /ɔː/ /aɪ/
How do you pronounce the following?



biscuit / circuit / cruise / bruise / fruit / conduit /ɪ/
vs. /u:/
chemistry / church / cello /k/ vs. /tʃ/ vs /ʃ/
blood / food / good /ʌ/ vs. /u:/ vs. /ʊ/
What is the difference in pronunciation in the
following?







sun / son /sʌn/
to / too / two /tu:/
hour / our /aʊʳ/ ~ /aʊə/
write / right /raɪt/
HOMOPHONES
aisle / isle / I’ll /aɪl/
brake / break /breɪk/
pin / pen / pan / pain / pawn / pine /ɪ/ /e/ /æ/ /eɪ/
/ɔ/ ~ /ɔː/ /aɪ/
 ORTHOGRAPHY is both the set of symbols used in any particular writing
system as well as the rules for writing symbols (punctuation, spelling,
capitalisation, etc.)
 Orthography vs. Phonology in English: 44 phonemes / 26 letters
 1 sound can be represented by a variety of letters: meat meet city key ceiling evil quay
 1 letter can represent a variety of sounds: damage educate picked
 letter(s) can represent no sound at all: honour psychologist knee receipt
 2 or more letters can represent 1 sound: throne chain edge nation
 A letter can sometimes be used to indicate the quality of a neighboring sound: diner
/ dinner ~ dine / din
 A single letter can indicate more than one sound: <x> /ks/
 Some sounds have no graphic representation: universe one
 MORPHOLOGY: Rules of morphology focus on how words and parts
of words are structured;
 MORPHEME is smallest unit of meaning in language.
 Morphology is interested in
 INFLECTION: syntactically motivated word formation, e.g. go ~ goes ~ went
 DERIVATION: creates new lexical items, e.g. boy ~ boyhood ; mature ~ immature ;
un-deserv-ed-ly [constituent morphemes]
 GRAMMATICAL VS. LEXICAL WORDS: function words viewed as syntactic
units(carry very little meaning on their own) vs. content words (nouns, adjective
and most adverbs)
Word classes
Examples
Word classes
Examples
Determiner
the, a, this, some, all
Auxiliary (verb)
can, will, may, be, do
Pronoun
I, she, all, him,
anyone
Number
one, two, fifth
Conjunction
and, or, but, if, when,
as
Discourse
marker
oh, well, yes, okay,
gee, right, heck wow
Preposition
of, in on, at, from, to,
as
 SYNTAX: the way linguistic forms combine according to grammatical
rules to form utterances (or phrases and clauses), which is the largest
level of structure in the morphosyntax or grammar
 Some key processes in (English) syntax
 Clause functions: main, subordinate, etc.
 Negation
 Question formation
 Coordination and subordination
 Passivization
 SEMANTICS: The study of semantics cuts across all the other levels
of linguistic analysis. This is because meaning is at the core of human
communication.
 Despite this semantics usually focuses on
 meaning of individual words (lexical semantics),
 or semantic meanings which are encoded into the lexis and grammar,
and the ability of words to refer to points in time or individuals in the
external world (deixis). This is also part of pragmatic meanings which
provide the meaning according to certain situations and contexts.
 PRAGMATICS: concerned more with why grammatical
constructions have structure rather than how they are
structured.
 “The study of language from the point of view of the users,
especially of the choices they make, the constraints they
encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects
their use of language has on the other participants in an act of
communication” (Crystal, 2011, p. 379).
 How language is structured also depends on context (= aspects of a
situation which are relevant to communicate the inferences we make
from the situation we are in):
 situational context:“the total non-linguistic background to a text or utterance,
including the immediate situation in which it is used, and the awareness by
speaker and hearer of what has been said earlier and of any relevant external
beliefs or presuppositions”;
 contextual meaning: “information signalled about the kind of use a linguistic
unit has in its social context, e.g. whether it has a ‘restricted’ use (as in social
pleasantries, or religious settings), or how it relates to such factors as age, sex or
class of the speakers” (Crystal, 2011, p. 109);
 TEXTUAL LINGUISTICS: it is important to study the linguistic context and its
effect on how language is structured, which involves studying language at the level
of text (=anything beyond the sentence that involves language use, and that is a
produce of a broader range of social practice).
 For example: “a newspaper article is not just a collection of sentences structured
and used in a way consistent with the standards of journalistic English, but the
result of social practices inherent with the media in general” (Meyer 80).
 cohesion, coherence, reference, etc. are all important when considering the text or
discourse level of analysis
 VERBS: express actions or states
 action (dynamic) – physical (jump), mental (think), perceptual (see), social (buy)
 stative – states of being or processes in which there is no obvious action (like, love,
understand, realise, depend, etc.)
 Some verbs can have both a dynamic and a stative meaning, e.g. I’m seeing the doctor at ten
o’clock. // I see what you mean. I have a lot of free time at the moment. // I’m having a party next
week.
 lexical (verbs) – express meaning in the verb phrase and can function only as the
main verb
 auxiliary (verbs) – used to construct different timescales, questions and negatives, as
well as to add emphasis or give information about the mood or attitude of a
speaker/writer
 MODALS – convey a range of attitudes and moods about the likelihood and/or
necessity of an even taking place.
 Generally divided into two groups: one to do with degrees of certainty or necessity
(epistemic) and others to do with obligation or freedom to act (deontic).
 He must be there by now. // He must be there by tomorrow at noon.
 Possible meanings
 ability (He can speak English almost fluently.)
 intention (I think I will go to the movies tonight.)
 necessity/obligation (You have to be here by 9AM.)
 permission (May I go to the toilet?)
 prediction (That could be Tom. He was supposed to call at this time.)
 possibility (He may arrive on time.)
 PRESENT vs. PAST TENSES
 present – used to describe states of affairs and events that occur on a regular basis; also
used in sports commentaries, proverbs and sayings
 past – actions that took place in the past; sometimes used to record indirect/reported
speech, or something that is supposed to be happening
 FUTURE TIME
 simple present
 modal
 be going to
 to be + present participle (present continuous)
 future perfect
 ASPECT – establishes whether the action or stat of a verb is complete or in
progress
 perfect - dscribes events occurring in the past but linked to a later time, usually the
present
 progressive - describes an event that takes place during a limited time period
 VOICE
 active
 passive
 subject delayed (for suspense)
 when actor is too long
 to exclude person/thing from responsibility
 NOUNS: traditionally known as naming words in that they name people, places and
things, by far the most numerous word class
 Common
 Proper
 Abstract
 Concrete
 Count vs. Non-count (uncountable)
 Plurals
 regular
 irregular [hoof, ox, sheep, mouse, criterion, life]
 Possessives
 ADJECTIVES: provide extra information about nouns by giving details of physical
quantities like colour and shape and of psychological qualities like emotions, and
by providing evaluative judgements
 Attributive (The pure white stallion.)
 Predicative (The stallion is white.)
 Grading
 superlative
 comparative
 ADVERBS: are difficult to define but they give information about time, place and
manner. They can modify:
 (a) Verbs
 (b) Adjectives and other adverbs
 (c) Sentences (as linking words)
 disjuncts (attitude or stance adverbs) – express speakers’ attitudes (Perhaps I could do
the work myself, but surely you could get someone else.)
 conjuncts (connecting adverbs) – link sentences (Firstly, I intend to talk to the professor;
however, I would like to do it before class.)
 So the whole thing was frankly too awful for words.
 Example of all three types with same adverb:
 They listened to the complaints seriously. (=in a serious manner)
 This cake is seriously scrumptious. (=to a serious degree)
 Seriously, do you really mean that? (=I’m asking you seriously)
 Some types of adverb (from Leech, 2008, p. 123)
Adverb type
Eliciting question
Examples
Manner
How?
well, nicely, cleverly
Place
Where?
here, there, anywhere, home
Direction
Where to? Where from?
up, down, away, ahead
Time-when
When?
then, once, tonight, soon
Frequency
How often?
always, often, usually
Degree
To what degree? How much?
rather, quite, much, pretty
 PRONOUNS
 Personal
 Object
 Possessive
 Reflexive
 Demonstrative
 Interrogative
 Relative
 Indefinite
 DETERMINERS: function words which are used to specify the
reference of a noun; Articles
 Possessive
 Demonstrative
 Indefinite
 Numbers
 cardinal
 ordinal
 We cannot only rely on meaning in order to recognize word classes. It is best to see
the definition of a word class as a combination of form, function and meaning.
 FORM: we can determine a word class partly by looking at its stem and affixes:
derivation suffixes are characteristic of certain word classes, e.g. electric-ity (noun); electr-ify
(verb); electric-al (adjective)
ii. inflectional suffixes can be added to change the word form (according to grammatical
function): box → box-es (noun PL); work → work-ed (verb PAST); tall → tall-er (adjective COMP)
iii. rarely there are inflections that change some part of the word: man ~ men; sing ~ sang; go ~
went
i.
 FUNCTION: we can tell the class of the word by the way it occurs in certain positions or
structural contexts, e.g. The cook does not actually cook the mean.
 MEANING: If you learn to recognize certain semantic types of word (i.e. word types
classified according to meaning), such as action verbs, stative verbs, abstract nouns, this
will help you to check the purely structural criteria, those of form and function.
(Leech, 2008, p. 114)