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WHAT IS
LANGUAGE?
INTRODUCTION
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In order to interact,human beings have developed
a language which distinguishes them from the
rest of the animal world.
On the one hand, language is an innate ability
that humanity posess and on the other hand, it is
a complex process that requires the
understanding of it as a system, including its
functions, structure and purpose.
Due to the universal necessity of communication,
several differents types of languages have been
developed under the influence of other languages
and relevant key factors in history
WHAT IS
LANGUAGE?
SYSTEM IN
LANGUAGE
FUNCTIONS OF
LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE
TYPES
DEFINITION
GEOGRAPHICAL
CLASSIFICATION
PHONOLOGY
MORPHOLOGY
GENETIC
CLASSIFICATION
SYNTAX
CONSTRUCTED
LANGUAGE
SEMANTICS
TYPOLOGICAL
CLASSIFICATION
GRAMMAR
ANALYTIC
LANGUAGE
POLYSYNTHETIC
LANGUAGE
AGGLUTINATIVE
LANGUAGE
INFLECTING
LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE
UNIVERSALS
DEFINITION
LANGUAGE IS A SYSTEM OF
ARBITRARY VOCAL SYMBOLS BY
MEANS OF WHICH THOUGHT IS
CONVEY FROM ONE HUMAN BEING TO
ANOTHER.
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SYSTEM IN LANGUAGE
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AT THE LEVEL OF PHONOLOGY (sound)
System can be seen in the ways in which
the phonemes can be combined into words.
Example: there are restrictions on the
combination in which English phonemes
can occur. We can have “spl” but never “sgl”
at the begining.
SYSTEM IN LANGUAGE
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AT THE LEVEL OF MORPHOLOGY (form)
It is found in the way in which words are
constructed from smaller parts.
The smallest element in a language is called a
morpheme. A word may consist of one
morpheme or of many. For example: the word
“unthoughtful” consists of three morphemes.
Bound morphemes, like prefixes and suffixes,
are used for the formation of new words. For
example: fun (n)+Y=funny (adj)
SYSTEM IN LANGUAGE
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AT THE LEVEL OF SYNTAX (order)
System is also found in the rules for
combining words into utterances.
For example: The dog bit John ( we know
it was the dog and not John the one that
performed the action)
SYSTEM IN LANGUAGE
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AT THE LEVEL OF SEMANTICS (meaning)
Meaning depends on the language and its
needs. It depends on the context it is used
and the spectrum it should cover.
For example: Latin has only one word for
dark blue and dark green but no word
exactly corresponding to English grey
SYSTEM IN LANGUAGE
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AT THE LEVEL OF GRAMMAR
At this level the change of word-order may
change the meaning of the sentence.
For example: The dog bits John. This word
order, S-V-O, tell us which is the biter and
which the bitten
LANGUAGES are said to be ARBITRARY
because there is no necessary or natural
relationship between the words of a given
language and the concepts that they
represent
 A HUMAN LANGUAGE is a signalling
system. As its material, it uses vocal
sounds. A language is something which is
spoken, the written language is
secondary and derivative
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A LANGUAGE is a system of vocal
sounds. These sounds are SYMBOLIC. A
symbol is a kind of sign. A sign is
something that stands for something else.
LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS
FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
Language is used for more than one purpose
 It enables us to influence one another’s
behaviour:
 For an expressive purpose. For example:
relieving feelings
 As an instrument of thought. For example: to
clarify ideas or a subject
 To strengthen the bonds of cohesion between
the members of a society. For example: when
two neighbors gossip.
LANGUAGE TYPES
GEOGRAPHICAL
CLASSIFICATION
CONSTRUCTED
LANGUAGES
LANGUAGE
TYPES
TYPOLOGICAL
CLASSIFICATION
GENETIC
CLASSIFICATION
LANGUAGE TYPES
Geographical classification: Languages
share similar features: their speakers have
been in contact for a long time within a
common community and the language
converged in the course of the history.
 Genetic classification: Languages are
grouped into families with a common
ansestor.
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LANGUAGE TYPES
Typological classification: Languages
are grouped as the result of the internal
structure of the language (grammar) on
the bases of basic order of verb, subject
and object
 Constructed Languages: Artificial
languages for practical, experimental,
personal or ideological reasons.
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TYPOLOGICAL
CLASSIFICATION
TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
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ANALYTIC LANGUAGE:
It uses very few bound
morphemes such as
English prefixes and
suffixes (Refill;slowLY)
and in the inflexions of
English nouns and verbs
(boxES; talkING; talkED)
For ex: Chinese has few
bound forms,its words
being mostly one-syllable
morphemes or
compounds of three
morphemes
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Have free morphemes
considered to be
independent words
have stricter and more
elaborate syntactic rules
rely heavily on context
and pragmatic
considerations for the
interpretation of
sentences
TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
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AGGLUTINATIVE
LANGUAGE
In linguistics, agglutination is
the morphological process
of adding affixes to the base
of a word. Languages that
use agglutination widely are
called agglutinative
languages. Some
languages may use
agglutination in the mostoften-used constructs, and
use agglutination heavily in
certain contexts, such as
word derivation.
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Japanese is an
agglutinating language,
adding information such as
negation, passive voice,
past tense, honorific degree
and causality in the verb
form.
 Word is built up out of a
long linear sequence.
 Often a single
morpheme constitutes a
sentence.
 E.g. in Swahili: mimi ni–
na –ku penda wewe
TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
INFLECTING
LANGUAGES:
 Grammatical
relationships are
expressed by changing
the internal structure of
the words through
inflections
 Suffixes typically express
several grammatical
meanings.
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E.g. in Polish: szloch-am
(-am = 1sg, pres. or cont.
tense, active, indicative)
'I am sobbing'
Many Indo-European and
Semitic languages belong
to this group
TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
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POLYSYNTHETIC
LANGUAGE
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A Polysynthetic language
is that in which the
greatest number of ideas
are comprised in the least
number of words
These highly synthetic
languages often have
very long words that
correspond to complete
sentences in less
synthetic languages.
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Forms of synthesis: There
are several ways in which a
language can exhibit
synthetic characteristics:In
derivational synthesis,
morphemes of different
types (nouns, verbs, affixes,
etc.) are joined to create
new words.
For example:English:
antidisestablishmentarianis
m => "against-endinginstitutionalize-conditionadvocate-ideology"
LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS
LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS
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Language universals refers to features
which all languages posses, and must
posses. Typology examines language
variation, while the study of universals
tries to establish the limits of this variation.
The search for linguistics universals was
influenced by the work of Noam Chomsky
who maintains that human language is
innate; that is to say, all languages have
the same underlying structure
LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS
Some universals are absolute. For
example, that all languages have vowels.
 Some are not quite universals. For
example, nearly all languages have nasal
consonants but there are just a few that
lack them.
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