The origins of language

#The Divine Source theory:

In most religions, it is believed that language is a god-given gift to human species.
For instance, in Christianity, God created Adam and he called every living creature.
In Hindu, Language came from the creature of the universe ( Sarasvati ). Over the
ages, people carried out experiments to rediscover this original, god-given
language; Psammetichus and King James of Scotland conducted an experiment
where they let two newborn babies grow up in isolation, this experiment came up
with different results, as for Psammetichus, the babies spoke Turkey, but for King
James, they spoke Hebrew.
CRITICISM: The Divine Source theory is impossible to prove/disprove and the 'first
language' is impossible to reconstruct.
#The Natural Sound Source:
1: Based on the imitation of the sound made by nature, the cow would be
referred/called MOO! which is an example of onomatopoeia and this is called the
"bow-wow" theory.
CRITICISM: While the "bow-wow" theory is based on the imitation of sounds, it is
hard to see how most of the soundless things and abstract concepts could have
been referred to in a language that simply echoed natural sounds. Moreover,
language is more than only a set of names.
2: Another theory is "pooh-pooh". This theory suggested that the original sound
of language may have started as natural cries of emotion, such as pain, anger and
joy ( Ouch! AHH! WOW!...)
CRITICISM: The natural cries are produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is
not the case of oridnary speech. Also, emotional reactions contain sounds not
otherwise used in speech production.
#The Social Interaction Source:
The source of our language started with the rhythmic chants and grunts people
used to coordinate their physical actions when they worked together.
CRITICISM: Though this notion may account for some of the rhythmic features of
language, it does not go further in explaining where words come from.
Furthermore, Apes and other primates also live in groups and use grunts without
having developed the capacity for speech.
#The Physical Adaptation Source:
Instead of looking at types of sounds as the source of human speech, we can look
at the types of physical features human possess differently than other creatures
which may have supported speech production. We can start with the observation
that, at some early stage, our ancestors made a very significant transition to an
upright posture, with bipedal locomotion, and a revised role for the front limbs.
CRITICISM: Certain birds and parrots are also able to produce a wide variety of
sounds. Therefore, these changes would not themselves lead to speech
production.
# The Tool Making Source:
Tool-using and language-using abilities are somehow connected because they are
evidence of a 'thinking' and 'lateralized' brain. In addition, the functions that
control motor movements involved in speaking and making/using tools are very
close to each other in the left hemisphere of the brain.
# The Genetic Source:
The human child is born with a special capacity for language. It is innate, no other
species have it.

Animals and human language

# Communication
Humans use language to communicate intentionally unlike animals.
# Reflexivity
Reflexivity is the property that enables humans to use language to think and talk
about language itself and does not appear to be present in any other creature’s
communication system. 'I went to the bank'
# Displacement
It allows language users to talk about things and events not present in the
immediate environment. It allows us to talk about things and places (e.g.
angels, fairies, Santa Claus, Superman, heaven, hell) whose existence we cannot
even be sure of. Is it true that bee communication may have the property of
displacement? Example: the tail-wagging dance.
# Arbitrariness
There is no ‘natural’ connection between a linguistic form and its meaning. For
example, there is no actual relation between the word ‘bread’ and its meaning. In
the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be a clear connection
between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it. This impression
we have of the non-arbitrariness of animal signaling may be closely connected
to the fact that, for any animal, the set of signals used in communication is
finite.
# Productivity
Humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by
manipulating their linguistic resources to describe new objects and situations. On
the other hand, the communication system of other creatures are not like that as
producing new signals to communicate is impossible.
# Cultural Transmission
The process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the
next is described as cultural transmission. We acquire language in a culture with
other speakers. Human is born with some kind of predisposition to acquire a
language but (a culture ) is needed to activate this ability. On the contrary, the
general pattern in animal communication is that creaturs are born with a set of
specific signals that are produced instinctively.
# Duality
Language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously.
Physical level: It is the ability to produce individual sounds. / b, d, a/.
Meaning level: It refers to the ability to combine the individual sounds into
meaningful unit. Bad-dad-ad-abd.-etc. Among other creatures, each
communication signal appears to be a single fixed form that cannot be broken
down into these levels or layers. For instance, a dog may be able to produce
"woof" but it cannot be broken into seperate elements ( w + oo + f )
# Talking to animals
Human Language has some properties that make it different from animal
communication system. Animals cannot understand human language, so it is
less likely they can produce human language. Gua, a chimp’s baby is raised with
a human baby. He could understand 100 words but did not say any of them. Viki is
another chimps raised by a scientist couple. He has been trained for 5 years by
trying to shape his mouth to produce sounds. Viki managed to produce some
poorly articulated words.

The sounds of language

# Phonetics
There are three areas of phonetics:
Articulatory: Deals with the 'production' of the sounds of speech
Auditory: Deals with the 'reception' of speech
Acoustics: Deals with the sounds of speech in terms of their frequency, duration,
intensity, etc...
1: Consonants
# Voicing
Refers to what the vocal folds are doing. When air passes through vocal folds, we
call these ' voiceless sounds ' [ s ]. When air passes throush vibrating vocal folds,
we call these ' voiced sounds ' [ z ]
You can feel the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds by putting your
hand on your adam's apple, then, produce these two sounds [ s ] and [ z ]. You
should feel that [ z ] produces the vibration. So it's a voiced sounds. Whereas, [ s ]
does not produce the vibration. So it's a voiceless sound.
# Place of articulation

Refers to where in the vocal track the construction of airflow takes place.
Bilabials: These are sounds formed using both lips. [ p ], [b], [m]
Labiodentals: These are sounds formed using the upper teeth and the low lips. [f],
[v]
Dentals: These are sounds formed with the tongue tip behind the upper front
teeth. [ð], [θ]
Alveolars: These are sounds formed with the front part of the tongue right behind
the upper front teeth (alveolar ridge) [t],[d],[s],[n],[z]
Palatals: These sounds are produced at the hard palate of the roof of the mouth.
[ʃ],[tʃ],[ʒ],[dʒ],[ j]
Velars: These sounds are produced at the velum or soft palate. [k],[g],[ŋ]
Glottals: These sounds are produced at the glottis or the space between the vocal
folds. [h]
# Manner of articulation
Refers to how the airflow is constricted in the vocal tract.
Stop/plosive: Are sounds result from a complete constriction of airflow followed
by a release of that air. [p],[t],[k],[b],[d],[g].
Fricatives: Are sounds produced when the tongue approaches but does not make
contact with a place of articulation causin a bottleneck of the airflow. This gives
the sounds a friction-like quality. [ð],[θ],[f],[v],[s],[z],[ʃ],[ʒ].
Affricates: These results from the sequence of stop plus fricative in rapid
succession. So the affricate [tʃ] represents [t] plus [ʃ] and the affricate [dʒ] results
from [d] plus [ʒ].
Nasals: Are sounds produced when the velum is lowered allowing air to pass
through the nasal cavity. [m],[n],[ŋ]
Liquids: Are sounds produced by allowing air to pass by one or both sides at the
tongue and the tongue itself can move a lot to shape the sounds. [l],[r].
Glides: Are produced with very little constriction of airflow so little in fact that
they are often referred to as semi-vowels. [w],[j]
2: Vowels
There are two types of vowel sounds: Monophtongs and Diphthongs.
Monophtongs: They involve one vowel quality. e.g. sit [sɪt].
Diphtongs: They involve two vowel qualities. e.g. boy [bɔɪ].
When linguists are describing vowel sounds, we have to rely on a different set of
criteria from what we used in describing consonants, because, remember, vowels
do not involve the constriction of airflow in the vocal tract. So, our tongue does
not approach an anatomical landmark like they do with consonants. Thus, the
three criteria that linguists use when describing vowel sounds are:
height,backness and roundedness
# Height
Refers to how high or low the tongue is in the mouth when producing the vowel.
For instance, consider the vowel sounds, [ɪ] and [a]. If you say both of these vowel
in succession, you should feel your tongue going UP and DOWN. In terms of
height, vowels are either considered high,mid, or low.
[ɪ] - 'see' is an example of a high vowel.
[ɛ] - 'bed' is an example of mid vowel
[a] - 'hot' is an example of low vowel
# Backness
Refers to how far front or back the tongue is when producing the vowel. This can
be tricky as it takes some practice, but consider the vowels [ɪ] and [u]. If you say
this vowels in succession you may notice that your tongue is moving forward and
backward. In terms of backness, vowels are either considered front,central, or
back
# Roundedness
Roundedness means whether or not the lips are rounded when producing the
vowel. This is something easy as you can feel and see when you are producing a
rounded sound. So, again take the two sounds that we just used, [ɪ] and [u]. The
latter you can clearly see and feel is a rounded vowel whereas [ɪ] is not a rounded
vowel.

Diphthongs: Are vowel sounds in which the tongue changes position to produce
the sound of two vowels.[aɪ],[eɪ],[əʊ]-Slow,[aʊ]-House,[ɔɪ]

The sound patterns of language

# Phonology
Phonology is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language that allows
us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say and hear.
# Phonemes
Phoneme is the smallest unit of language which makes difference in meaning and
it is a set of allophones. For example, if we take these two words:
Sat /s/
Cat /k/
You noticed that /s/ and /k/ are the only difference in these two words in terms of
the sound. Did the meaning change? YES, therefore, these two sounds ( /s/ and /
k/ ) represent different phonemes. So, when we talk about phonemes we talk
about sounds that change the meaning in a word.
More examples:
Had /d/
Hat /t/
/d/ and /t/ are two different phonemes because the meaning changed.
Note: Phonemes are easy to differentiate if we use minimal pairs like we did with
Sat and Cat.
# Allophones
An allophone is one of two or more variants of the same phoneme in a language
and it does not change the meaning.

So we have this category of the phoneme /t/ and when it is pronounced as an

allophone it could maybe take on one of these allophones [t] and [t h].
Let's take these two words: [stɒp] and [thɒp]. You might think that these words
have the same /t/ but they do not. They are actually two different sounds. For
instance, if we take [t] which is unaspirated like in the word [stɒp]. Whereas, in
the word [thɒp] the [th] is aspirated.
Note: The difference between aspirated and unaspirated is that aspirated sounds
produce a little puff of air after the sound whereas unaspirated sounds do not. If
you put your hand in front of your mouth and pronounce the word [thɒp] you
should feel a little puff of air which is not the case for the word [stɒp]. Remember,
these are allophones because if you switch the [th] in [thɒp] with the [t] in [stɒp] it
does not change the meaning.
Note: Allophones may be considered as phonemes in a different language than
English. ( Thai as an example ).
# Minimal pairs and sets
-Minimal pairs are pairs of words which vary in a single speech sound at a single
location in the word ( e.g. [Had] and [Hat] )
Note: The two words must have different meanings.Only one sound is different.
The words have the same number of sounds. The sound that is different is in the
same exact place in both words.
EXAMPLE: rewind and resigned have different number of letter, but same sounds
except one sound [riːˈwaɪnd], -rɪˈzaɪnd].
-Minimal sets have groups of words that are all the same except for one sound.
This is basically like minimal pairs except minimal sets have more words. For
example, ( bad, sad, had , mad, dad ).
# Phonotactics
Phonotactics control on the permissible combination of sounds in a language. In
English, we have big/fig/dig, but we don't have lig,vig,hig ( they do not look or
sound as an actual English words ) Also, we do not have words like, fsig/rnig.
These combination of sounds are not permitted in English.
# Syllables
We usually divide words into syllables and a syllable must contain a vowel sound,
including diphtongs.
EXAMPLE:
stop=stop ( 1 syllable or monosyllabic word )
careful= care'ful ( 2 syllables or bisyllabic word)
expensive= ex'pen'sive ( 3 syllables or trisyllabic word )
photographic= pho'to'graph'ic ( many syllables or polysyllabic word )
The basic elements or parts of syllables are:
Onset= initial ( at the beginning of the syllable )
Coda= final ( at the end of the syllable )
Nucleus= ( there is a vowel=long/short/diphtong )
Note: Onset and Coda are consonants whereas Nucleus is a vowel/diphtong.
Example:
Cat= /kat/
Onset=k ( consonant )
Nucleus=a ( vowel )
Coda=t ( consonant )

Rhyme: is divided into two parts: Nucleus and Coda as in the following diagram:

More examples:
Free:
Onset /fr/
Rhyme /i:/
Nucleus /i:/
Coda zero
Each:
Onset Zero
Rhyme /iːtʃ/
Nucleus /iː/
Coda /tʃ/
Note: Nucleus is usually a single vowel sound or a diphthong whereas Onsets and
Coda can consist of zero,one,two or three consonants.
# Consonant clusters
A cluster is a group of consonants which come together in a word. For
example /str/ at the beginning of string.
Onset clusters:
Two: black, bread, trick, flat, throw (CC)
Three: stress, splash, scream, strong (CCC)
Coda clusters:
Two: link, sing, ring, post
Three: Length /leŋkθ/
Remember, the onset of the syllable that is always described, not the beginning of
the word . For example:
Take the word street:
The beginning of the word is s
The onset of the syllable is str
# Coarticulation effects
The process of making one sound at the same time as the next sound.
Examples of coarticulation are: Assimilation are Elision.
# Assimilation
Assimilation is the infleuence of a sound on a neighboring sound so that the two
sounds become similar or the same.
Example1: Consonants
ten men= temmen| this shop= thishop
Example2: Vowels
Vowel sounds [ɪ] and [pæn] in pin and pan will be pronounced nasalized
Note: Any vowel becomes nasalized, whenever it immediately precedes a nasal
Example3:
his son=hiz son| his daughter=his daughter.
his son is not as fully voiced as the s in his daughter, where it clearly is [z]
# Elision
Elision is the deletion of a sound.
Examples:
When we pronounce 'you and me' we say 'juː æn mi' We dropped the [d]
Friendship=[frenʃɪp]. The [d] sound is dropped.
He must be=[himʌsbi]. The [t] sound is dropped.
Aspects=[æs·peks]. The [t] sound is dropped.

Word formation
# Etymology
the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have
changed throughout history.
# Coinage
Is the invention of totally new terms. For example, the term google ( without
capital letters ) from the company 'Google' has become a widely used expression
meaning ' to use the internet to find information ' So, a typical sentence would be
like ' you should google it ' which means search for it online.
# Borrowing
Is taking over of words from other languages. The English language has adopted
( borrowed ) a vast number of words from other languages, including croissant
( French ), dope ( Dutch ), piano ( Italian ), sofa ( Arabic ), and yogurt ( Turkish ).
# Compounding
The joining of two seperate words to produce a single form is technically known as
compounding. In English we have, wallpaper, textbook, fingerprint, doorknob,
sunburn, good-looking.
# Blending
The combination of two separate forms to produce a signle new term. Typically,
blending is accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it
to the end of the other word. For example:
Smoke+fog=Smog | Television+broadcast=Telecast | Motor+hotel=Motel
# Clipping
Clipping is when a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form.
For example:
Facsimile=fax | Influenza=flu| Examination=exam | advertisement=ad
# Backformation
Backformation is reducing one word of one type ( usually a noun ) to form a word
of another type ( usually a verb ) For example:
Donate from Donation | Babysit from Babysitter | Enthus from Enthusiasm |
Televise from Television | Edit from Editor
# Conversion
A change in the function of a word, as for example when a noun comes to be used
as a verb ( without any reduction ). For instance,
Bottle can be used as a verb-> My grandma bottled the juice
Butter->Have you buttered the toast?
Microwave->She microwaved her launch.
# Acronym
Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.
For example:
CD ( Compact Disk )| VCR ( Video Cascette Recorder ) |
Note: The difference between abbreviation and acronym is that abbreviation
shortens the form of the words. e.g. Oct for October, Etc for etcetera.

Morphology
# Morphology
Morphology is the study of forms in linguistics. More specifically, the study of
internal structure of words. e.g. take the word unhappiness, morphology
investigates this word and tells us that happy is the original word and un is a prefix
which gives an opposite meaning to the word, ness is a suffix which turns the
word into a noun. This whole investigation is known as morphology.
# Morphemes
Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. A morpheme cannot be
broken into smaller meaningful bits. For example, consider the word cats, cats is
clearly one word in English but it has two morphemes cat+-s. Now you might think
that the -s suffix is not a morpheme because it is not meaningful, but in fact, it
denotes plural. Therefore, cats has two morphemes. Take another example,
category, how many morphemes does this word have? category has only one
morpheme. Now you might think that category has the word cat in it, and it does.
However, the meaning of the word cat has nothing to do with the meaning of the
word category in English.
# Free and bound morphemes
1: Free morphemes
Free morphemes are individual words who can stand alone in a language. For
instance, cat, vital, laugh. These are all one morpheme and they are all individual
words that can stand alone.
2: Bound morphemes
Bound morphemes cannot stand alone as individual words. Therefore, bound
morphemes are affixes ( prefixes and suffixes ) for example,
-un, ness-, -tion, -able, dif-.
# Lexical and functional morphemes
There are two types of free morphemes:
1: Lexical morphemes
Lexical morphemes are words that carry content or meaning of the message.
Lexical morphemes include nouns ( chair, man, key... ), Adjectives ( happy, short,
sad... ), verbs ( take, drive, walk... ).
Lexical morphemes are open-class morphemes which means you can add new
words to these categories ( noun, adjectives, verbs).
For example,
Noun: cat->cats | table->tables
Adjectives: Happy->unhappy, happiest, happier
Verbs: Walk->walks, walked, walking
2: Functional morphemes
Free morphemes that serve a more grammatical role, connecting words together
within and across sentence. Functional morphemes include prepositions ( to, at,
near... ), conjunctions ( and, but, or... ), articles ( a, the ), pronouns ( he, him, that,
my... ).
Functional morphemes are closed-class morphemes which means we cannot add
new prepositions or conjunctions etc...
# Derivational and inflection morphemes
There are two types of bound morphemes:
1: Derivational morphemes

Derivational morphemes can be divided into two types:

1: Prefixes: Derivational morphemes ( prefixes ) do not change the word class. For
example:
Write is a verb, adding the prefix re- ( rewrite ) does not change its class, it says as
a verb. Another example: Happy is an adjective and if we add the prefix un-
( unhappy ) it stays an adjective.
2: Suffixes: Derivational morphemes ( suffixes ) on the other hand has two types
'( we are almost done do not give up just yet )'. Suffixes that change word class
and suffixes that do not change word class.
For example:
Adding the suffixes (-ment, -ion, -al... ) will change the class of words from verbs
to nouns. To elaborate, take the word develop ( verb ) now add the suffix -ment
which result in development ( noun ). Refuse ( verb ) + -al = refusal ( noun ).
Suffixes that do not change the class of words like ( -hood, -ess, -ism... )
For instance, Child ( noun ) adding the suffix -hood will result in childhood
( noun ). Another example, prince ( noun ) adding the suffix -ess will resuly in
princess ( noun ).
Note: More examples will be found at the end of this handout.
2: Inflection morphemes
Inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes ( suffixes ) that server a
grammatical role in English and do not change the class of words. In fact, there are
only eight inflectional morphemes in English.
Plural -s Boy ( N )=Boys ( N )
Possessive -'s Jackson ( N )=Jackson's ( N )

3rd person singular -s Talk ( V )=Talks ( V )

-ed ( past tense ) Play ( V )=Played ( V )
-ing ( present participle ) Speak ( V )=Speaking ( V )
-en ( past participle ) Take ( V )=Taken ( V )
-er ( comparative ) Cold ( Adj )=Colder ( Adj )
-est ( superlative ) Tall ( Adj )=Tallest ( Adj )
# Morphs and allomorphs
Before we get started, we shall first define morphs and allomorphs.
Morphs: A morph is a phonetic realization of a morpheme. It is the actual forms
used to realized morphemes.
For example: The word writer has two morphemes, write and -er.These are
realizable in the phonetic shapes as /rait/ and/-∂:/. These are two morphs of the
morpheme (or word in this case).
Allomorphs: an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme, that is, when a unit
of meaning varies in sound without changing the meaning. The term allomorph
explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes.
This is illustrated in the following diagram for simplicity:
So the /s/, /iz/ and /z/ sounds are three allomorphs of a single plural morpheme.
Another example:
 So the
past tense morpheme can be pronouned in different ways. These different ways
( as we have seen ) are called allomorphs.
Allomorphs have different types:
1: Additive allomorphs: We add suffixes. For example:
The morpheme past tense '-ed' which can be pronounced as either /-t/, /-d/ or /-
id/ as in Walked, Lived, planted, -ed here is additive because we add from walk to
walked.
Another example:
The plural morpheme ' -s/es ' which can be pronounced as either /-s/, /-z/ or /-iz/
as in Books, Teachers, Boxes. Again, the -s/es plural are additive.
2: Replacive allomorphs: Replace letters ( sounds ) within the word to create
irregular past tense forms or irregular plural forms.
For example:
The /ɪ/ in drink is replaced by the /æ/ in drank to single the irregular simple past.
Another example:
The /æ/ in man is replaced by the /e/ in men to form the irregular plural.
3: Suppletive allomorphs: A complete change in the shape of a word.
For example:
Bad + suppletive allomorph of {-er comparative} = worse
Be + suppletive allomorph of {-S present simple} = is
Good + suppletive allomorph of {-er comparative} = better
Go + suppletive allomorph of {-ed simple past} = went
Tall + suppletive allomorph of {-est superlative} = tallest
4: Zero allomorph: No change in the shape of a word, but difference in meaning.
For example:
Cut + zero allomorph of {-ed/simple past} = cut
Hurt + zero allomorph of {-ed/simple past} = hurt
Deer + zero allomorph of {-s/plural} = deer
Sheep + zero allomorph of {-s/plural} = sheep

Syntax
# Syntax
Syntax is the study of ordering components, phrases, and sentences. So it is, in a
sense, acting as a kind of ‘police officer’ for the way in which sentences are
constructed. Take this sentence, The cat (subject) washes (verb) its paw (object).
This is the correct word order and also there is agreement between the words. If
there were no agreement within the sentence, it could read, “The cat washes
their paw”. This does not make sense. The cat may have four paws, but it is only
washing one paw. For there to be agreement, the possessive ‘it’ has to be correct.
Thus “The cats (plural) wash their (plural) paws (plural)”. This is the correct use of
the plural possessive (their).
Note: Agreement in grammar means that the words a writer uses need to align in
number and in gender (when applicable) etc... For further details, please refer to
chapter 7 ( Grammar ) about agreement.
# Deep and surface structure
syntactic structure of every sentence consists of two levels, the "surface
structure", which is the obvious structure, and the "deep structure", a typically far
more abstract level of representation which is posited for analytical convenience .
Take these two sentences:
Charlie broke the window and The windows was broken by Charlie
The order of both sentences are reversed which means that these two sentences
are different in their surface strucure. But the meaning still the same or very
closely related, this is what we call the " deep structure ".
# Structural ambiguity
Structual ambiguity arises when you have one sentence that could yield two
possible meanings. For example:
I killed a mouse in my pajamas ( Surface structure ). This sentence can be
interpreted in two ways:
I was wearing my pajams when I killed the mouse. ( Deep structure ).
The mouse happened to be in my pajamas and I killed it. ( Deep structure ).
These two interpretations are called " the deep structure "
# Symbols and abbreviations used in syntactic analysis
S=Sentence | NP=Noun Phrase | Art=Article | N=Noun | P=Pronoun |
Pro=Pronoun | VP=Verb phrase | V=verb | PP=Prepositional Phrase |
-An arrow → = consists of / rewrites as
e.g. NP → (consists of) Art+N / The chair
-A pair of round brackets ( ) = optional constituent
e.g. NP → Art (Adj) N / the (blue) chair
-Curly brackets { } = Only one of the elements enclosed within the curly brackets
must be selected
e.g. NP → {Art+N, Pro, PN}
-Asterisk * = ungrammatical sentence
e.g. *The chair blue
# Constituent and constituency tests
A constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a
hierarchical structure. These are some examples of consituents:
AdjP: He bought a [beautiful car].
PP: The ball is [on the table].
VP: James and Jill's grandfather [left the meeting].
NP: [This young lady] is a friend.
Now the question is, how do we identify constituents in a sentence? This is simply
answered by using what is called "Constuency Tests".
A string of words need pass only test as evidence of a constituent. Furthermore,
not every test will work in every situation.
1: The Substitution Test: Can you replace a group of words with a single one and
still have a grammatical meaning? The ability to replace a string of words with an
NP or VP pro-form is evidence of a constituent.
e.g. The man from NewYork flew only ultra-light plans. If we can replace the man
from NewYork with a pronoun like he and still have a grammatical meaning then
these string of words form a constituent.
Another example:
-The man in the store is my friend. We want to know if the man in is a constituent
so we should substitute it ( replace it ) with a word while maintaining a
grammatical sentence which gives us this one:
 *The person the store is my friend. This is an ungrammatical and bad sentence,
therefore, we know that man and in do not form a constituent.
2: The Coordination Test: If a phrase can be paired with another of the same
syntactic category using a coordinating conjunction, then it forms a constituent.
e.g. Reggie ate a tuna-fish sandwich for lunch. We can test the VP [ate a tuna-fish
sandwich for lunch] by adding another VP. Reggie [ate a tuna-fish sandwich for
lunch] and [played with a soccer ball in the park]. We conclude that [ate a tuna-
fish sandwich for lunch] is a constituent.
Note: Only constituent of the same syntactic category can be conjoined.
3: The Movement Test: If you can move a group of words around in the sentence
while maintaining it grammatically, then they form a constituent.
There are three types of The movement Test:
-Clefting: Putting a string of words between " it was/is " and a "that" at the
beginning of the sentence.
e.g. He bought a brand new car to It was [ a brand new car ] that he bought.
Another example:
The man bought a new phone at the store. Let's say we want to know if ' at the
store ' is a constituent, just as we did with the first example,
It was/is at the store that the man bought a new phone. That's a perfect and
grammatical sentence therefore we know that at the store form a constituent.
Let's say we want to find out if ' new phone at ' is a constituent. Again, it was/is
new phone at that the bought at the store. This is a horrible sentence and
therefore we know that ' new phone at ' is not a constituent.
-Proposing: Putting a string of words before a "is/are what" or "is/are who" at the
front of the sentence.
e.g. I like big bowls of beans to [big bowls of beans] are what I like.
-Passive: Putting the object in the subject position.
e.g. The slobbering dog kissed the big boy to [the big boy] was kissed by [the
slobbering dog].
# Tree Diagrams
Tree diagrams are visual representations that capture the underlying structure of
phrases and sentences in a hierarchical way as shown bellow:
Using the symbols we introduced earlier, we can prsent a tree diagram. As you can
see, if we start at the top of the tree diagram, we begin with an S ( sentence ) and
divide it into two constituents (NP and VP ). In turn, The NP constituent is divided
into two other constituents ( Art and N ). You can go through the same procedure
with the VP branches.

Semantics
# Meaning
When we talk about semantics, we talk about meaning within a language. We
have conceptual meaning and associative meaning.
Conceptual meaning covers those basic, essential components of meaning that
are conveyed by the literal use of a word. it is usually derived from definitions we
find in dictionaries like the word needle for instance. Needle in English might
include thin, sharp etc... However, different people might have different
associations attached to a word like needle. They might associate it with pain,
illness, or blood. These types of associations are not treated as part of the word's
conceptual meaning.
# Semantic features
Let's take this sentence:
The hamburger ate the boy. That does not sound right, does it? This sentence is
syntactically good since we have NP+V+VP but semantically odd. Since the
sentence The boy ate the hamburger is perfectaly acceptable we may be able to
identify what is wrong with the first sentence. The kind of noun that can be the
subject of the verb ate must denote an entity that is capable of eating and the
noun hamburger does not have this property ( have you seen a hamburger eating
before? Me neither ) and the noun boy does. Such an element may be as general
as " animate being ". We can then use this idea to describe part of the meaning of
words as either having (+) or not having (-) that particular feature. Thus, the
feature that the noun boy has is +animate ( denotes an animate being ) and the
feature that the noun hamburger has is -animate ( does not denote an animate
being ). Let's take another sentence:
The table listens to the radio. Can you give it a try and see if you can identify what
is wrong with this sentence? That's right, a table cannot listen to the radio,
therefore, table lack the crucial features or attributes that are required to listen so
it cannot be the subject of the verb listen. The attribute that the noun should have
to perform the action of listening is +animate or if we want to be more specific
+human ( it is unsual for any living creature besides humans to listen to the
radio ).

This is an analysis of table, hose, boy, man, girl, and woman. From a feature
analysis like this, we can say that at least part of the meaning of the word man in
English involves the elements [+human, +adult, +man].
# Semantic roles
Semantic roles describe the way in which words are used in sentences and the
functions they fulfil such as:
-Agent: The animate entity that performs the action ( in syntax, this is called the
"subject" ).
e.g. John kicked the ball | The dog chased the thief
-Theme (patient): The entity that undergoes ( or receive ) the action ( "Object" )
e.g. My father sells cars | Ahmed plays soccer
Note: Theme can also be an entity that is simply being described.
e.g. The ball is red
-Instrument: An inanimate entity used by an agent to perform an action.
e.g. She hit the bug with the magazine | He opened the door with the key.
Note: The key opened the door. In this sentence " The key " is an instrument not
an agent.
-Experiencer: Is when the person does not perfom an action, but has a perception,
state of feeling. ( Knows, sees, feels, hear etc... )
e.g. Did you hear that noise?. "You" in this sentence is the experiencer and "that
noise" is the theme. | The man felt sad about his fathers' death.
-Location: The place where the action happens or where the entity is located.
e.g. Marry saw a mosquito on the wall | The pen is on the table.
-Source: The place from which an action originates.
-Goal: The place where the action is directed or the place to which something
moves.
e.g. I will take my money from my saving account in BBK and deposit it in NB.
"Saving account in BBK" is the source and " NB" is the goal. Another example: She
has moved the students from Class A to Class B. "Class A" is the source and "Class
B" is the goal.
# Lexical relations
A lexical relation is a culture recognized pattern of association that exists between
lexical units in a language. And lexical relation is devided into eight topics:
-Synonym: Two words or more with very closely related meaning. For example:
Cab/Taxi | Big/Large | Answer/reply | Almost/nearly.
Note: They can often, though not always , be substituted for each other in
sentences. In the appropriate circumstances, we can say, what was his answer? or
What was his reply? In other circumstances, the sentence " Sara had only one
answer correct on the test", the word reply would sound odd.
-Antonymy: Two forms with opposite meaning. For example:
Alive/dead | Big/small | Fast/slow | Happy/sad | Rich/poor.
Antonyms are usually divided into two main types:
-Gradable (can be compared) (Opposites along the scales)
e.g. Old----New | Fast----Slow. In the sentence "my car isn't old" does not
necissarly mean my car is new.
-Non-gradable (Complementary) (Direct opposites)
e.g. Married/single | Alive/dead |
-Hyponymy: When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of
another.
e.g. Red, yellow, green, blue, is [+color]. Thus, we can say that "red" is a hyponym
of "color" and "color" is a hypernym of "red". Moreover, "red" and "yellow" are
called co-hyponyms. This is shown in the following diagram for simplicity:

-Prototype: Prototypes represent a kind of exemplars or standard image of a

category, which is immediately conjured up in a person's mind when they hear a
certain word. For instance, When you hear clothing you immediately think of
shirts before trainers or furniture you think of tables before bench.
-Homophones: When two or more different (written) forms have the same
pronunciation, they are described as homophones. For example:
Right/write | Flour/flower | Bare/bear | Sea/see
-Homonyms: Is a word ( written or spoken ) which has two or more unrelated
meanings For example:
Bat (flying creature) - Bat ( used in sport "baseball bat" )
Race (contest of speed) - Race (ethnic group)
Bank (the side of a river) - Bank ( financial institution)
-Polysemy: When we encouter two or more words with the same form and related
meanings, we have what is technically known as polysemy. For example: The word
head used to refer to the object on top of your body, froth on top of a glass of
beer, person at the top of a company or department, and many other things.
-Metonymy: A figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for
something closely associated with it. For instance:
He drank the whole bottle. "bottle" stand for the liquid inside of it/
The White House declared that we are at war. The "White House " is a metonymy
for the President of the United States.
-Collocations: which refers to words that occur frequently together. For example:
Fast food | dogs bark | Salt pepper | Have lunch
 Pragmatics
# Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of "invisible meaning", that is how to recognize, the
underlined meaning which are not apparently said or written. Going out for a
walk, you might see an ad saying: Baby & Toddler SALE, we know without asking
that there are no babies for sale and what is for sale are items used for babies
such as clothes, although the word clothes was not mentioned in the Ad, we can
bring that idea to our interpretation of the message as we work out what the
advertiser intended us to understand.
# Context
Linguistic context, sometimes called co-text, is the set of words that surround the
lexical item and usually affect its meaning. There are two types of context:
Linguistic context: She has to get to the bank to cash a check. How do we know
that the word bank here is meant as a financial institution not a river bank? Simply
by the linguistic context ( to cash a check ).
Physical Context: If we see the word bank on the wall of a building in a city.

The physical location will influence our interpretation. Would you guess that the
word bank here means a river bank? Certainly not.
# Deixis
Deixis is a word or phrase (such as this, that, these, those, now, then, here) that
points to the time, place or situation in which a speaker is speaking. For example:
Speaker A: Have you brought the book?
Speaker B: Yes.
The word "the" is obviously a deictic expression whose exact meaning can only be
understood in terms of speaker A's intended meaning. It sounds more
complicated than it really is, for sure. For instance, if you would ask a visiting
exchange student, "Have you been in this country long?" the words this country
and you are the deictic expressions, as they refer to the country where the
conversation happens and the person being addressed in the conversation,
respectively.
There are three types of deictic expressions:
Person Deixis: Him, they, he, I, me, those idiots, you...
Spatial Deixis (location): Here, there, near that, this...
Temporal Deixis (time): now, then, last week...
All these deictic expressions have to be interpreted in terms of which person,
place or time the speaker has in mind.
# Reference and Inference
-Reference is an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic forms to enable a
listener, or order, to identify something.For instance, "Mr.Kawasaki" used to refer
to a man who always rode loud and fast in his motorcycle. A brand name is used
to refer to a person here.
Note: "Words themselves do not refer to anything, people refer"
-Inference is additional information used by the listener to create a connection
between what is said and what must be meant. For instance, in a restaurant, one
waiter can ask another:
'Where is the green salad sitting'? and receive the reply, 'He is sitting by the door'.
Or if you are studying linguistics, you might ask someone, can I look at your
Chomsky? and get the response, Sure, it's on the shelf over there. Here the word
"Chomsky" usually refer to a person, but the speaker refers to "Chomsky" as a
"book". You might ask yourself why? because the context determines that (both
speakers are studying in a library).
Note: The speaker is the one who makes a reference to convey his intention about
something or somebody, while the listener is the one who makes inference to
recognize the intention of the speaker.
# Anaphora
It is a subsequent reference to an already introduced referent.
e.g. If you see Alice, give her my book. Here the anaphor is 'her' and the
antecedent is 'Alice'. More examples:
John is my close friend. He is a dentist. the antecedent is 'John' (PN) and the
anaphor is 'He' (Pro)
Yesterday I met a student. The student was Japanese. The antecedent is 'a
student' and the anaphor is 'the student'.
So the antecedent can be a proper noun (Ahmed, Alice...) or an Indefinite noun
phrase (a man, a cat, a student...) while the anaphora can be a definite noun
phrase( the man, the student...) or pronouns (it, he,they, her...)
Note: An antecedent usually comes before its anaphor.
The connection between antecedents and anaphoric expressions is often based
on inference, as in this example:
We found a house to rent, but the kitchen was very small.
We must make an inference like "if X is a house, then X has a kitchen" in order to
interpret the connection between antecedent a house and anaphoric expression
the kitchen.
# Presupposition
Presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case when making an
utterance. For instance:
"Mary's daughter is beautiful". Here the speaker assumed that "Mary has a
daughter" before he uttered the sentence "Mary's daughter is beautiful". If
someone tells you "Your brother is waiting outside", there is an obvious
presupposition that you have a brother.
We use what is called "Constancy under negation" test for identifying a
presuppositing and checking if it remains true. For instance:
Whether you say "My car is broken" or the negative version "My car is not
broken", the underlying presupposition (I have a car) remains true despite the fact
that the two sentences have opposite meanings.
# Speech act
Speech act is an utterance that a speaker makes to achieve an intended effect.
Some of the functions are carried out using speech acts are: offering an apology,
greeting, requesting, commanding or informing. For example:
If you say "I'll be there at six" you are not just speaking, you seem to be
performing the speech act of promising
# Direct and Indirect speech acts
In most language use in the world, there are three main types of sentences. They
are declarative, interrogative, and imperative.

Direct speech
act occurs when a particular sentence type is being used to serve its typical
function. For example,
"Are you married?" This is an interrogative structure used with the function of a
question.
Indirect speech act may be made whenever a particular type is used to serve an
atypical function. For example,
"Can you pass the salt?" This is an interrogative structure used with the function
of a request. Here what the speaker said was a question, but he meant it to be a
request.
# Politeness
Poiliteness can be defined as showing awareness and consideration of another
person's face (someone's public self-image). If a speaker says something that
represents a threat to another person's self-image, that is called a face-
threatening act. For example, "Open the door!". This sentence implies that the
other person has more social power! Alternatively, using an indirect speech act, in
the form associated with a question (Could you open the door?) removes the
assumption of social power. This can be described as face-saving act.
# Negative and positive face
A person's negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of
action, and not to be imposed on by others. On the other hand, a person's
positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked by others, to be treated as
member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by
others.
Example to threat the negative face,
Wash the dishes!
Example of saving the negative face,
Do you mind washing the dishes?.
Example to threat the positive face,
A: "How are you?".
B: Actually, I am not that well...
Example to save the positive face,
A: "How are you?".
B: "Good, how are you?".