DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

BLA1109: INTRODUCTION TO THE

STUDY OF LANGUAGE

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………1

LESSON ONE………………………………………………………………………………………………1

1.0 Objectives……………………………………………………………………………………………1

1.1 What is Language?......................................................................................1

1.2 Linguistic Knowledge……………………………………………………………………………2

1.3 Knowledge of the Sound System…………………………………………………………..3

1.4 Knowledge of the meaning of Sounds…………………………………………………..3

1.5 The Creativity of Linguistic Knowledge………………………………………………….4

1.6 Knowledge of the Sentences and Non sentences…………………………………5

1.8 The Properties/Language Universals…………………………………………………….6

Activity……………………………………………………………………………………………………….7

LESSON TWO…………………………………………………………………………………………….8

2.0 Objectives…………………………………………………………………………………………..8

2.1 The Origin of Human Language…………………………………………………………….8

2.2 Theories of Origin of Language…………………………………………………………….8

2.3 The Divine Theory (The Genesis Theory)………………………………………………8

2.4 The Strength of the Divine Theory………………………………………………………9

2.5 The weaknesses of Divine Theory……………………………………………………....9

2.6 The Invention Theory………………………………………………………………………….9

2.7 Herder’s View…………………………………………………………………………………….10

2.8 Language and Evolution……………………………………………………………………..10

2.9 Strength of Evolution Theory……………………………………………………………..11

2.10 The Relationship Between Language and the Brain………………………….12

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2.11 Aphasia………………………………………………………………………………………..14

Activity………………………………………………………………………………………………..16

LESSON THREE

3.0 Objectives……………………………………………………………………………………..17

3.1 Animal Language…………………………………………………………………………….17

3.2 The Birds and Bees………………………………………………………………………….19

Summary………………………………………………………………………………………………19

Activity………………………………………………………………………………………………….20

LESSON FOUR

4.0 Objectives…………………………………………………………………………………….22

4.1 Linguistics………………………………………………………………………………………22

4.3 What is Linguistics?.............................................................................22

4.4Prescriptive versus Descriptive Linguistics………………………………………26

Activity…………………………………………………………………………..........................30

LESSON FIVE

5.0 Objectives………………………………………………………………………………….30

5.1 The Different Levels of Language Study………………………………………30

5.2 Phonetics……………………………………………………………………………………30

5.3 Air Stream Mechanism……………………………………………………………….31

5.4 Vowels and Consonants……………………………………………………………..31

5.6 The State of the Glottis……………………………………………………………….34

5.7 Phonology……………………………………………………………………………….35

5.8 Syntax……………………………………………………………………………………..37

5.9 Morphology…………………………………………………………………………… 38

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5.10 Semantics…………………………………………………………………………….40

5.11 Characterization of Language……………………………………………….44

5.2 Activity……………………………………………………………………………………47

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ENG III:AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION: This course introduces the learner to the study of language. It involves
studying the meaning of language, its origin, its properties and the various levels at which it
can be studied.

LESSON 1

1.0 Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson the learner should be able to:
1. Define the term language.
2. Describe what it entails in knowing a language
3. State the meaning of the terms; competence and performance.

1.2 What is Language?

The principal means used by human beings to communicate with one another is primarily
spoken, although it can be transferred to other media such as writing. If the spoken means
of communication is unavailable, as may the case among the deaf, visual means such as a
sign language can be used.

A prominent characteristic of language is that the relationship between a linguistic sign and
its meaning is arbitrary. There is no relationship between other connections among
speakers of English that a dog should be called a dog, and indeed other languages have
different names (for example Spanish perro, Japanese inu, Kiswahili mbwa, kikuyu ngui etc).

Language can be used to discuss a wide range of topics, a characteristic that distinguishes it
from animal communication. The dances of the honey bees, for example are used to
communicate the location of the food sources. While the language –learning abilities of
apes have surprised many-and there continues to be controversy on the precise limits of
these abilities-scientist and scholars generally agree that apes do not progress beyond the
linguistic ability of two-year old child.

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 There are several definitions given to what language is, for example,
“Language is a set finite or infinite sentence each in length and constructed
out of a finite set of elements.(chomsky,1957:13).

“Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social

group cooperates. (Block and Trager 1942:5)

“Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating

ideas, emotion and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir, 1921:8)

“Language is symbol system almost wholly based on pure or arbitrary connection”

(Robins, 1976:9-4)

From the above definition there it is clear that language is used for communication using
symbols that are voluntary and its through convention of a particularly speech community
because of its arbitrary nature.
That is there is no relationship between sequences sounds and the concepts.
However there is some “sound symbolism” in language –that is words whose pronunciations
suggest the meaning. These are few though in most languages, such words are
onomatopoeic. For example, galloping of horses, buzzing of bees, chattering of monkeys
banging of the door etc.
The arbitrary relationship between forms (sounds) and meaning (concept) of words spoken
are also true of the sign languages used by the deaf.

1.3 Linguistic Knowledge k

When does one claims that he/she knows a language? According to (fFromkim and Rodman:
4)” when you know a language you can speak and be understood by others who know that
language”.
This mean s you have the capacity to produce sounds that signify certain meaning and to
understand or interpret the sounds produced by others. This only applies to normal- hearing

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individuals. Deaf persons produce and understand sign language just as hearing persons
produce and understand spoken languages.
Everyone knows a language. Five years old are almost as proficient at speaking and
understanding as their parents. What most speakers of a language are not aware is that
even ability to carry out the simplest conversation requires profound knowledge that most
speakers are unaware of. This is true of all languages for instant; a speaker of English can
produce a sentence having two relative clauses without knowing what a relative clause.For
example,
The girl who was position one in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education and
who is studying medical is my cousin.
This can be compared to a child who learns to work without understanding the principals of
balance and support that permits him to do so. The fact that we may know something
unconsciously is not unique to language.

1.4 Knowledge of the Sound System

“Knowing a language means knowing what the sounds are in that language and what
sounds are not”. (Fromkin and Rodman:4).
As explained above language is learnt unconsciously and this unconscious knowledge is
revealed by the way the speakers of the one language pronounce words for instance an
English speaker may find difficult in pronouncing” Kenya” because of lack of the sound
(nya)”.This is true when we talk of mother tongue influence of a second language.
Knowing the sound system of a language includes more than knowing the inventory
of sounds; it includes knowing which sounds may start a word and these words follow each
other.

1.5 Knowledge of the Meaning of the Words

The most important aspect of knowing a language is knowing the sounds and sound
patterns in a language constitutes only one part our linguistic knowledge. In addition
knowing a language is knowing that sound sequence signify certain concepts or meanings.

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Speakers of English know what girl means and that it means something different from cup
or boy. Knowing a language is therefore how to relate sounds and meanings.
If you do not know a language, the sounds spoken to you will mainly be incomprehensible,
because the relationship between speech sounds and meanings they present is for the most
part an arbitrary one. You have to learn[when you are acquiring the language] that sounds
represented by the letters CUP[ in the written form of the language] signify concept as in
Kiswahili the same meaning would be represented by kikombe,French-maisonetc.These
examples show that the sounds are only given meaning by the language in which they
occur.

1.7 The Creativity of Linguist Knowledge

Creativity is another important aspect of language. The knowledge of a language one
has enables him/her to combine words into phrases, phrases into sentences. One cannot
buy a dictionary of any language with all its sentences, because no dictionary can list all the
possible sentences. Knowing a language means being able to produce new sentences never
spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before.
The linguist Noam Chomsky refers to this ability as part of the “creativity aspect” of
language use. Although not all persons know a language can create great literature b they
do create new sentences when they speak and understand new sentences “created” by
others.
The creativity ability is due to the fact that language is not limited to stimulus
response behavior. For example, if you burn a finger when cooking you will automatically
respond with cry or grunt but these sounds are really not part of language: they are
involuntary reactions to stimuli. After we automatically cry we can say “oh my God it is
painful or help”.
Knowing a sentence includes knowing what sentences are the appropriate in various
situations.
The knowledge of a language that one has enables him/her to understand and produce new
sentences. For example, if you know English you have the knowledge to add any number of
adjectives of human language.
For example:
The big dog jumped over the fence.

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 The big black dog jumped over the fence.
The big fierce black dog jumped over the fence.
The big fierce German dog jumped over the fence.
All human language permits their speakers to form indefinitely long
sentences;”creativity” is a universal property of language.
To memorize and store a definite set of sentences would require an infinite storage
capacity.
However, the brain is finite and even if it were not we could not store long text such as the
novel.

1.8 Knowledge of Sentences and Non sentences.

To learn a language one must learn something finite-ones vocabulary is finite (however
large it may be)-and one can be stored. If sentence in a language were formed by putting
one word after another in any order, the language cold simply is a set of words.
For example:

a. I me porridge hate
b. Is raining it
c. The man came here yesterday
d. Yesterday came the here man.

If you read the above sentences you will agree that not all strings of words constitute
sentences in a language, and knowing a language determines which sentences are correct
and which are not. Therefore in addition to knowing the words of a language linguistic
knowledge must include” rules” for forming sentences and making judgments which
sentences are correct or not. These rules must be finite in length and finite in number so
that they can be stored in our finite brains: yet they must permit us to form and understand
an infinite set of new sentences.
A language therefore consists of all sounds, words and possible sentences. When you
know a language you know the sounds, the words and rules of their combination.

1.9 Linguistic Knowledge and Performance

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 According to (Fromkin and Rodman: II)”speakers” linguistic language permits
them to form long sentences by joining sentences and phrases together or adding modifiers
to a noun”.
It does not matter how many adjectives one would like to use but you realize that very long
sentences are theoretically possible, but they are highly improbable.
Evidently there is a difference between what you know, which is you linguistic competence
and how you use this knowledge in actual speech which is your linguistic performance.
Linguistic language is therefore, for most part not conscious knowledge but the linguistic
system which includes the sounds, structures, meanings, words and rules for putting them
all together-is learned unconsciously with no awareness that rules are being learnt.

1.10 The Properties/Universals Human Language.

Although there are many things which are unknown about the nature and origin of a
language a number of facts pertaining language can now be stated. There are common
properties which are called language universals.
They include:
1. Wherever human exists, language exists.
2. There are no “primitive” languages-all languages all equally complex and
equally capable of expressing any idea in the universe. The vocabulary of any
language can expand to include new words for new concepts.
3. All languages change through time.
4. Arbitriness.
The relationships between the sounds and meanings of spoken languages as
between the gestures (signs) of sign languages are for the most part
arbitrary.
5. Creativity: all human languages utilize a set of discrete sounds (or gesture)
that are combined to form meaningful elements of words which themselves form an
infinite set of possible sentences.
6. All grammar contains rules for the formation of words and sentences of a similar
kind.
7. Discreteness:

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 Every spoken language include discrete sound segment like p, n, or which can all be
defined by a finite set of sound properties or features. Every language has a class of
consonants and vowels.
8. Similar grammatical category (noun verbs e. t. c) is found in all languages.
9. There Are semantic universals, such as” male, female” animate or “human” found
in every language in the world.
10. Every language has a way of referring to past time, negating, forming questions,
issuing commands and so on.
11. Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical social
economic heritage is capable of learning any language to which she/he is exposed.
The differences we find in language cannot be due to biological reasons.

Activity:

1. What is language?
2. When can one claim that he or she knows a language?
3. What is the difference between competence and performance?
4.

LESSON TWO
2.0 Expected Learning Outcomes
By the end this lesson the learner should be able to:

1. Describe various theories used in explaining the origin of language.

2. Explain the relationship between the brain and language.
3. Describe the different types of aphasia.

2.1 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

What is the origin of language? How and when did language come about? The question of
the origin of language is a fascinating one. Man is so closely related to language that it is
believed that ¡f we knew how, where and when language came about we would know how,
where and when man came into being. There is still a controversy about the origin of man
between Christians and evolutionists.

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The question of the origin of language is difficult to answer for several reasons. One of the
reasons is that no one knows exactly how long language has been in existence.
Anthropologists believe that man has existed for at least one million years. Yet the earliest
written records are barely six thousand years old and they do not exist in all languages. They
are therefore not representative enough for us to draw conclusions on the basis of the few
languages within written records and say which is older.

How did human beings communicate before Language was as invented or has language
always been in existence? Because it was so difficult to reconcile the issue of the existence
of man and the existence of language, scholars in the 19 century who were only interested
in hard science ignored and even banned discussions of language origin. Despite the
difficulty of finding scientific evidence, speculations on the origin of language still continued
and these provide some valuable insights into the nature and developmentof language.

2.2 Theories on the Origin of Language

2.3 The Divine Origin Theory (The Genesis Theory)

According to religious beliefs speech was God’s gift to mankind. According to the Egyptians,
the creator of speech was the god Thoth. Babylonians believed the language giver was the
god Nabu and the Hindus attributed language ability to the goddess Sarasvati the wife of
Brahma who was the creator the universe.

According to the Christian belief, God gave the power to Adam, the first man to name all
things. (Gen. 2:19).
“And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field
andevery fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would
callthem: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the
name thereof.”

The belief of the divine origin of language has continued through the ages. In many
religions, only special languages may be used in prayers and rituals. Among the Muslims,the
Koran was not to be translated and could only he read in Arabic. Until recently, onlyLatin
could be used in the Catholic mass.

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2.4 Strengths of the Genesis Theory

1. Adam had power to name the animals. This shows he had come into unique powerto
possess language which the animals apparently did not have. (They could not give
themselves names). Even to date, animals have no power to name.

2. The Genesis account also observed that once a name was given to an animal, itstuck to
her. This gives it certain permanence. Most of the animals that existed during Adams time
have long since become extinct. The Genesis writer saw that the names existed long after
the named animals had become extinct.

3. The Genesis writer had also observed the diversity of languages ¡n the world and tried to
explain why languages were diverse when originally there was supposed to be only one
language. His explanation was the story of the Tower of Babel. (Gen.11: 1-9).

The divine origin theory is an interesting one as it shows the problem of language and man’s
earliest attempt to explain the origin of language. It is also significant from the fact that for a
long time it was the generally accepted-language-origin theory.

2.5 Weakness

1. The divine origin theory is not able to settle the issue of language origin scientifically.

2. We still do not know which language it is that Adam used.

3. Even if we knew, there is no sufficient date that we could use to reconstruct this language
since Adam only named the animals and the birds.

4. As it is, we have completely no way of proving or disproving the divine origin theory just
as one cannot argue scientifically for or against the existence of God. ( see Yule pg. 2 for
experiments).

2.6 The Invention Theory

There were scholars who argued that language was invented by man. However, they
separated invention of language from reason. The invention theory emanated from the
theory that the earliest manifestations of language were cries of pain, fear, surprise,
pleasure, anger etc.

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According to Rousseau (1712--1772) both emotive cries and gestures were used by man but
gestures proved to be too inefficient for communicating and so man invented language. It
was out of natural cries that man invented words.

Rousseau was of the opinion that man shared the cries of nature with animals in the
beginning but later, he sought to free himself. To him therefore, it was not man’s ability to
reason which distinguished him from animals but his will to be free.

It is difficult to understand Rousseau’s reasoning. You tend to ask yourself how man was
able to acquire the ability for abstract thought through his use of concrete words if he was
not from the beginning equipped with special mental abilities. Rousseau separated speech
from the capacity of the human mind to reason.

2.7 Herders View

In 1769, Johan Herder the German philosopher and poet refuted both the divine origin
theory and the invention theory. He is in fact the one who paved the way for free scientific
investigation. Herder’s view was that language was invented by man but not outside his
reasoning power. He pointed out that man in the very first step of his reasoning power
isolated one object from all other objects. This isolated object was retained in the mind and
it was thus a word in the soul. With this first difficult concept of an object isolated from
other objects, language was already in his soul hence ¡t was invented through his own
resources and not in a mechanical manner through divine instructions. It was not therefore
God who invented language for man himself had to invent language to exercisehis own
powers.

Herder’s argument was that even vocabulary and the way we name things is determined by
people in the society. This view still left the issue of language origin begging since for the
successful investigation of language one requires an adequate body of concrete language
data which was not available in Herder’s period. Herder had a grasp of evolution in relation
to language origin and development but could not follow it for luck ofsufficient data.

2.9 Language and Evolution

In trying to understand the development of language, scholars past and present have
debated on the role played by vocal tract and the ear. They suggested that non human

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primates luck the physical apparatus that is necessary to produce the human range of
speech. What are some of these human apparatus that human beings possess?

Teeth
Human teeth are upright not slanting outward like those of apes and they are roughly even
in height. This may be very helpful in making sounds like [f j [v ] [o] etc. We really do not
need this kind of arrangement for eating because other animals also eat despite the fact
that their teeth are not arranged like ours.
Lips
The human lips are much work flexible than the lips of other primates. The flexibility of the
lips makes it possible for us to produce sounds such as [p][b] [w] etc.
The Larynx

The human larynx or the voice box differs significantly in position from that of monkeys. It is
believed that in the course of human physical development especially when humans
acquired an upright posture the head moved forward and the larynx lower. This created a
longer cavity called the pharynx above the vocal cords which can act as a resonator for
sounds produced through the larynx.

Unfortunately the position of the larynx makes it much more possible for you to choke on
pieces of food. Monkeys, on the other hand, although they do not have the capacity to
produce sounds like us, they are unlikely to choke on food or to have the problem of food
getting stuck in the wind pipe.

The linguist Philip Lieberman links the development of language with the evolutionary
development of speech production and perception of apparatus.

This development would be accompanied by changes in the brain and nervous system
towards greater complexity. Lieberman’s notion is that languages spoken millions of years
ago may have been syntactically and phonologically simpler than any languages spoken
today.

The notion that evolution resulted in the development of a vocal tract capable of producing
a wide variety of sounds utilized by human language is insufficient to explain the origin of
language. This is evidenced by the existence of birds like parrots which have the ability to
produce speech sounds which are however merely patterned repetitions.

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2.9 Strengths of the Evolution Theory

It is generally agreed that evolution must have resulted into the development of a vocal
tract capable of producing a wide variety of speech sounds. This may have led to the latter
preoccupation with the vocal tract as a way of understanding human language.

Weakness

Humans do not have to speak to have a language — even the deaf and dumb communicate,
yet they cannot speak. We can conclude that the major evolutionary step in the
development of language relates to evolutionary changes in the brain.

2.10 The Relationship Between Language and the Brain

Where is the ability to use language situated? Most of us would be tempted to say that “the
brain”. But, exactly which part of the brain ¡s responsible for language?

The famous story of September 1 848 in Cavendish helps to shed light on this question. In
this story, we are told about a construction foreman in charge of a construction crew whose
name was Phineas Gage. This man had an accident at his place of work. There was an
accidental explosion the result of which a three and half foot long iron rod went up his left
upper cheek and out through the top of his head.

It was assumed he would never recover. However, exactly one month later, he was up and
about and there was no apparent damage to his sense of speech. It was therefore
concluded that, if language had anything to do with the brain, then was evidently not the
front of the brain

Since then, a number of discoveries have been made concerning the specific areas in the
brain which are related to language functions.

First, it was discovered that language abilities are basically located on the left side of the
brain i.e. the left hemisphere and that any damage to this side of the brain caused speech
problems in individuals whereas damage to the right hemisphere did not have the same
repercussions Language was specifically related to the left side of the brain in 1861
subsequently, three areas of the brain can be described.

a) Broca’s Area

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Paul Broca, a French surgeon at a scientific meeting in Paris stated that we speak with the
left hemisphere and that damage to this specific part of the brain resulted in extreme
difficulty in producing speech or a complete loss of speech. This part of the brain was then
named Broca’s area after the surgeon Paul Broca who first described it. Technically, this
area is described as the anterior speech cortex it has therefore been taken to mean that
Broca’s area is crucially involved in the production of speech

B)Wernicke’s Area

Wernicke’s area is also known as the Posterior Speech Cortex. It is named alter Carl
Wernicke who was a German Doctor in the 1870’s Wernicke reported that his patients had
lesions in the posterior or the back portion of the left temporal lobe or the back part of the
left hemisphere unlike Broca’s patients, Wernicke’s patients spoke fluently with good
intonation and pronunciation but with numerous instances of lexical errors (word
substitutions) and often with phonological mistakes. They also had difficulty in
comprehending speech, it was then concluded that Wernicke’s area is the part of the brain
crucially involved ¡n the understanding of speech.

2.11 Supplementary Motor Area Or Superior Speech Cortex

Penfield and Roberts, two neuro-surgeons found out that by applying minute areas of the
brain, they could identify those areas where the electrical stimulation would interfere with
normal speech production. This was taken as evidence that this area is involved in the actual
physical articulation of speech i.e. the movements involved in speech are controlled in this
area.

What happens in the brain is that the word is heard and understood via Wernicke’ s area.
The signal is then transferred to Broca’s area where preparations are made to produce it. A
signal is then sent to the motor area to physically articulate the word, but there are those
who say that damage to the left hemisphere which subsequently leads to language disorder
is not enough to say it is responsible for speech. They claim that there is a lot of evidence
that does not support this view — that any damage to one area of the brain appears to have
serious repercussions in other areas.

Tongue Tips and Slips.

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It has been noted that Speakers often experience difficulty in getting the brain and speech
production to work together smoothly. These differences are seen as clues to the way our
linguistic knowledge is organized within the brain, e.g. there is what ¡s referred to as the tip
of - the tongue phenomenon. This is the kind of thing that happens when you feel that there
is some word you are trying to produce but somehow it is not coming. You have an accurate
or near accurate phonological outline of the word you know the sounds. Sometimes you can
even name a word that is close to it in pronunciation e.g. missed for hissed.

This experience suggests that our word-storage may be partially organized on the basis of
some phonological information and that some words in the store are more easily recalled
than others.

These types of mistakes are sometimes referred to as Malapropisms, after a character called
Mrs.Malaprop in a play by Sheridan who kept producing words like these for comic effects.

A similar type of speech error is commonly described as a slip—the- tongue which often
results in mixed — up expressions such as ‘a long short story” instead of “make a long story
short.”

This type of error is also known as Spoonerism after the Rev. William A. Spooner, an oxford
dean who was renounced for his tongue slips. Most of the slips attributed to him involve an
interchange of two sounds e.g. he once complained to a student who had been absent from
his class thus:
‘Y ou have hissed my mystery lecture.’
Although the slips are mostly treated as errors of articulation, it has been suggested that
they may result from “slips of the brain” as it tries to organize linguistic messages.

Another type of slip is referred to as the slip-of -the ear as in for example when you hear
something differently from what the speaker said. Some of these examples some which may
be funny may give us a clue to the normal workings of the human brain as t tries todeal with
language. But some other problems with language production and understanding may be a
result of much more serious disorders in the functioning of thebrain. .

Aphasia

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The term that is used to describe the different types of language disorders is Aphasia. It is
defined as an impairment of language function due to localized cerebral damage which
leads to difficulty in understanding and /or producing linguistic forms.

People usually suffer from aphasia after a stroke, head injuries suffered in an accident or
through forms of violence which may also cause aphasia. Aphasia can he classified according
to what type of language disorder is involved, whether it involves understanding or the
patient has difficulty in producing certain sounds.

Broca’s Aphasia

Broca’s aphasia is a serious language disorder. Patients suffering from Broca’s aphasia
speak very little and can stay without speaking for hours or even days, When they do speak
their speech is often slow and effortful. They also omit words like articles,prepositions
inflections etc.
e.g. “I school and went and read write book.

Wernicke’s Aphasia

This is the type of language disorder which has to do with difficulties in auditory
comprehension. Someone suffering from this aphasia can produce very fluent speech but
which cannot be made sense of.
E.g. Yule (1985)
“I can’t talk all of the things I do and part of the part I can go alright, but I can’t tell
from the other people.”

These patients also have difficulty in finding the correct word also known as anomia.
Nevertheless you will find word finding difficulties in many types of aphasia. Difficulties in
speaking will also often be accompanied by difficulties in writing. And those who have
auditory comprehension problems tend to have reading difficulties.

Activity:

1. How is the Genesis Theory different from the other three theories of origin of
language.

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 2. Describe the three parts of the brain involved in the production.What is aphasia?
Describe the two types of aphasia.

LESSON THREE

By the end of this lesson the learner should :

Describe the differences and similarities between human and animal language.

3.1 Animal Language

Fromkin and Rodman begin their discussion on ‘Animal languages’ with a quotation from
Bertrand Russel thus:
“No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents
were poor but honest.”

All of us probably remember a time when we actually believed that animals talk. In fact this
idea is deeply rooted in folk tales e.g. “The ear and the mosquito”. “The hare and the
tortoise.”

Do animals really talk or is language the exclusive properly of the human species? The
answer to this question depends on what properties of human language we look at. If we
view language only as a system of communication, then we can say, but many species
communicate. Humans also use systems other than their language to relate to each other
and to send messages. So what is so special about human language? Is it the ability of
human beings to use speech Sounds? No. Because like we noted earlier, we have evidence
of people who are born deaf and dumb but are able to learn language that is, sign language.

This is evidence enough that the use of speech sounds is not a key property of human
language. We cannot therefore use speech sounds as a distinguishing factor between animal
language and human language. We have seen that language is a system by which sounds
and meanings or (gestures and meanings) are related arbitrarily. Birds e.g. parrots, are able
to repeat words flawlessly but they do not relate them to anything meaningful. The birds’
utterances carry no meaning. A parrot will keep repeating the same words over and over

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again without once realizing that the same words could be used to form new sentences —
or that a word can be taken to pieces to form a new word e.g. SAW WAS, MAD —DAM etc.
This is something which even little children who are still in the initial stages of learning a
language can do.

This is the creative aspect of human language that is lacking in animal language. Being able
to produce sounds like human beings is not the same as being able to learn a human
language. Rene Descartes ¡n 17th century pointed out that the ability to use language is not
based on the physiological abilities to produce speech or speech like sounds. It is not
because animals lack certain organs that they cannot make known their thoughts. Parrots
utter words like us yet they cannot speak as we do.

Sometimes we can be tempted to think that animals do indeed understand human

language. For example, when we give them commands which they understand as in the
case of dogs and horses. As far as animal behaviour is concerned, the standard explanation
is that the animal produces a particular behaviour in response to a particular sound stimulus
but does actually understand the meaning of the uttered words.

If it is difficult to conceive of an animal understanding human language it is even more

difficult to conceive of an animal being capable of producing human language. Animals are
not even capable of learning each other’s signals. You could keep your horse in the same
field of cows for years but it will never mow like a cow.

In a household where there is a baby and a puppy that were born at the same time, you will
observe that although the baby and the puppy will grow up together hearing the same
things, about 3 years later the baby will not only be making human noises, it will also be
imitating the noise made by the puppy. What about the puppy? It will have learnt to bark —
period!

3.2 The Birds and the Bees

Most animals possess sonic kind of ‘signalling” communication system. The spiders have a
complex system for courtship. The male spider performs some gestures to inform the
female spider that it is indeed a spider not any other animal. This kind of communication is
rather fixed and cannot be broken down into smaller elements you can never find a creative
spider changing or adding to the particular courtship ritual only one meaning can be

22
communicated with one set of gestures. It is not like human communication from which we
can form an infinite set of sentences,

Birds on the other hand have a little in common with human language. The calls and songs
of many species of birds do have a communicative function and resemble human languages
in that they have “dialects’ within the same species. Bird calls consisting of one or more
short notes convey messages associated with the environment around them e.g. danger,
feeding, nesting flocking etc. The bird songs which consist of much more complex patterns
of notes are used to stake out territory and to attract mates.

We don’t know of any evidence that points at the songs having any internal structure. A
song cannot be broken into independently meaningful parts as words of human language
e.g. ¡f a song says:
“Come and be my love”
You cannot break it into separate parts like “come” and expect the bird to respond despite
certain superficial similarities human language, bird calls and songs are fundamentally
different kinds of communicative systems. The number of messages that can be conveyed is
finite, and the messages are stimulus controlled.

3.4 The Bees.

The language of the honey bees is more complex than that of the spiders. A forager bee on
returning to the hive if it has located a source of food it does a dance which communicates
certain information ait that source to other members of the colony.
There are 3 possible patterns that the dance can take:
(i) Round — Distance of 20 feet
(ii) Sickle — Distance of 20 — 60 feet
(iii) Tail wagging — Beyond 60 feet
Round - Circle O
Sickle — figure 8
Tail wagging - Repetition of the sickle dance.
The faster the rate of wagging the nearer the source of food. The slower the rate the longer
the distance.
Other Features

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Round — distance and quality
Sickle - distance, quality and direction
Tail wagging — precise distance.

The bees dance can impart many different messages and in this sense we can say it ismore
like human language. But unlike human language, the bee language ¡s confined to a single
subject — ¡t is fixed — all its messages have to do with food.

Experimenter

An experimenter forced a bee to walk lo the food source. When it came back it described a
distance 25 times further away than the food source. The bee could not say exactly what
happened; it could not describe the circumstances under which it went to the food source.
From this we can say that there is lack of creativity in bees’ language.

The bees dance like human language is arbitrary in the sense that bees have kind of decided
what each dance stands for which in a sense ¡s the same as human language where each
speech community decides what each linguistic sign will stand for.

Summary

A basic property of human language is its creative aspect — making use of finite units to
form an infinite set of well — formed novel sentences.

Children’s acquisition of language also shows a unique characteristic of humanlanguage.

Children only need linguistic input to form their own grammar.

Ability to hear or produce sounds is not a prerequisite to language learning. The deaf and
dumb can learn language.

The ability to imitate sounds of human language is not sufficient basis for the learning of
language since there are birds that can imitate sounds but cannot break them down into
smaller units nor understand what they are imitating.

Communication systems of certain animals may he numerous but are fixed and limited.
They can only convey so many messages i.e. a limited number of messages.
Activity: Make a distinction between animal and human language.

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LESSON FOUR

3.0:Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson the learner should be able to define the following terms:

4.1 LINGUISTICS

4.2 WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?

Linguistics is briefly defined as the scientific study of language. A linguistic therefore is one
who is able to talk about language. He is not as is often mistakenly assumed one who is able
to speak many languages. Being a linguist does not necessarily mean that one has to speak
many languages. A linguist has an analytic state of mind toward all kinds of things which
take place in language. It involves knowing about the principles on which language can be
said to work. It also involves knowing about the differences that may exist I between
languages. He has the tools of analysis and the ability to approach the study of-language
confidently and methodically.

Linguistics may help one in learning a new language but this is just a by product of the
training one receives and is quite incidental. One who speaks many languages is a polyglot
not a linguist. You may find people who are linguists as well as polyglots but it is important
to remember that one does not follow from the other. Linguistics is usually divided into two
parts:

(i) Diachronic or historical linguistics

(ii) Synchronic linguistics.

Diachronic Iinguistics examines the development of languages or families of

languagesthrough time.

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Synchronic linguistics investigates languages as systems of Communication used by groups
of people at some particular point in time.

Why is Linguistics referred to as a science or scientific study of language? The English

description of the term science is narrow in scope defining it as “knowledge which can be
made into a system and which usually depends on seeing and testing facts and stating
general natural laws. In some other languages e.g. French, the word science covers
knowledge, art, skill etc. In order to see linguistics as a science, we have to appreciate the
difference between the scientific and non-scientific way of doing things. Linguistics is viewed
as a scientific study of language because it is empirical rather than speculative or intuitive
(empirical knowledge is based on observation, or experiment and not on theory) Linguistic
study operates with publicity verifiable data obtained by means of observation or
experiment To be empirical in this sense is foremost people the hallmark of science.

Linguistics relies on scientific procedures in its studies (i.e. it uses scientific methods.)

What are the scientific characteristics of a linguistic approach of language study? Any study
that claims to be using a scientific method must display at least 3 major characteristics:
David crystal has labelled these 3 characteristic as:

 Explicitness
 Systematicness
 Objectivity

Explicitness

Can be interpreted to mean being clear about the assumptions on which a study is based
and defining terms clearly and consistently, i.e. You should not assume that whoever is
going to read your work will for e.g. understand your definitions without clear explanations
There are several definitions of concepts e g what is an adverb? ( place? manner? time?)
What is a sentence? A group of words? You may need to explain exactly how they need to
be related e.g. they must be in NP +VP. NP may be further divided into an ‘article’ and a
noun etc.

Consistency helps in the sense that when we use a certain terminology, we do not keep on
changing. You make explicit your criteria for labelling a particular feature of language.Lets

26
look at the label ‘Noun’ for example. You set up various criteria for identifying a wordas
belonging to the class of noun. You may say:

- I shall call a noun any words which can act as the subject of a sentences in “farmers
plough”.

I shall call a noun any word that can he preceded by the definite article as in “the farmer”.

- I shall call a noun any word that can be preceded by a preposition as in between farmers”

- I shall call a noun any word that can be used in both plural and singular forms as in
‘farmer/farmers.”

- I shall call a noun any word that can have a case ending that shows possession e.g.
“farmer’s instrument” You ‘may think you have provided clear—culture basis for identifying
words as nouns. The five criteria cover most of the words which may qualify as nouns in the
language but what about words like Tom and Kikuyu? Are they nouns or aren’t they?

You have to be ready to defend whatever criteria you use to classify a word as belonging to
a certain group/class. You do not want to be asked questions like why is that word a noun
and the only answer you can give is because it is. Consistency saves us from finding
ourselves in situations where we have already defined our subject then we start having
doubts because our definition was not clear in the first place.

Systematicness

This can be interpreted to mean avoiding haphazard studies, partial coverage of a topic an
impressionistic commentary, a sporadic explicitness an inconsistent use of terms or
procedures, a failure to take account of previous work on a subject.

These are features that we do not expect to find in a scientific study. In principle, a linguist
would try to avoid these failings and adopt a systematic approach. In language complex the
structures being studied are so complex and involve so many variables that it would be
impossible to reach any general conclusions about them unless they are studied in a highly
organized manner. How do we achieve this organization?

One of the most, obvious ways is the manner in which linguists have tried to establish
standard procedures to be followed in analysing language. This was a dominant

27
characteristic of a much early work in linguistics. It was felt that when we are faced with so
much complexity it was essential to make it simpler by selecting certain aspects of the
language to be studied first. For instance, a linguist may want to begin studying the
pronunciation and system (phonetics and phonology) (first) of a language. Then she may
want to move to the study of the structure of words (morphology) and after this move onto
the way in which words are patterned to form sentences. (Syntax)

Later, she may want to study the various meanings which these words convey (semantics).
This would be one way of having some organization in your material and then working on it
that way. It is not a natural approach. You do not have to use this procedure and somebody
else might want to start from the reverse. The point is not which procedure is valid or which
one gets the best result but that any procedural factors must be made as explicit as possible
in doing research into language i.e. what are the factors that lead you to choose one
procedure and not any other. This must be made as clear as possible.

The second main aspect of systematicness is the need to study phenomena using a
procedure which is as methodical and standardized as possible. It helps a great deal when
you use your descriptive framework consistently within any stage of your investigation e.g.
To compare language A and B You must use — standard descriptions —just like comparing
distances. Systematicness also refers to strict testing of our hypotheses beliefs, guesses etc.

Objectivity

Objectivity implies open mindedness ¡n matters of analysis- a critical approach especially

where you are suspicious of any hypothesis until some experimental evidence is produced
to support the point. Objectivity means taking care to avoid our own preconceptions which
might selectively support a hypothesis e.g. Luos cannot pronounce the sound [s] because
they do not have the 6 lower teeth. * Try a sample of those with all the teeth.

The opposite of objectivity is subjectivity. Being subjective, means ,bringing in your own
feelings or beliefs in your data e.g. even when carrying on research on say your mother
tongue do not let your familiarity with the language stand in the way of its objective
examination. Avoid biased conclusions based on personal feelings or intuition. Subjective
investigation is even at its very best strictly unscientific.

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4.2 Prescriptive Vs Descriptive Linguistics

Prescriptive Linguistic prescribes how things ought to be. It was mainly associated with
traditional grammarians prescriptive linguists have dos and don’ts i.e. “don’t say this, say
this”. The traditional grammarian saw it as his task to formulate the standards of
correctness and impose, if necessary, upon the speakers of the language. They had such
rules as:

- Never use a double negative e.g. “I didn’t do nothing.”

- Don’t end a sentence with preposition e.g. “that is the man I was talking to.”

- Don’t split the infinitive e.g. “I want you to clearly understand.”

In actual fact, there ¡s nothing wrong with a double negative construction, it may be quite
correct in certain dialects of English.

The split infinitive derives from the application to English of principles and categories which
were established in the first place for the description of Greek and Latin. It so happens that
the linguistic forms to which the term infinitive is applied, are one word forms in Greek,
Latin, French, German, Russian. In traditional grammar the English infinitive equivalents
behave differently. They are two word forms.

E.g. English: to eat

French: Manger

In French, the infinitive marker is conjugated on the verb — we cannot split it. But why can
we not split the English infinitive when it is after all introduced by a separate word? In
principle, there should be no objection in splitting it if it still makes sense. What there is that
it is wrong to impose the rules of a different language on another language. It is wrong to
describe a language on the basis of another language. John Lyons says:
‘Neither logic nor the grammar of Latin can properly serve as the court of
appeal when it comes to deciding whether something is or is not correct in
English...”
Historically most classical texts were written in Greek or Latin. It was therefore, the duty of
the grammarian to make literature of an earlier age accessible to those who could not speak

29
Greek or Latin. ¡n fact, grammar was equated to literary works. There is no reason to believe
that the writer even though he may be a genius possesses a sure or a special knowledge of
the rules of correctness that the rest of us do not possess.

It‘s quite unjustifiable to use these older languages to describe the grammar of modern
spoken languages. There are no absolute standards in language. There should be room for
regional and social dialects as opposed to a standard variety. Whereas-prescription has its
administrative and educational advantages, it is important to realize that the literary
standard itself is subject to change. It may also be biased to favour a certain social class. This
does not make it superior to the speech of any other class or region.

4.3 Descriptive Linguistics

Descriptive linguists are concerned with all levels of usage and with dialectal peculiarities.
Descriptivists assume that standard forms are mythical inverted probably to suit certain
purposes. They are interested in all types of language in whatever style.
They believe in four principles:
(1). Language is primarily speech
(2). Language has system
(3). Language has variety
(4). Language changes

Descriptive linguists involve uncovering the system of a specific language. They approach
the language to be described without any preconceptions of any kind. They do not try to
make what they are studying to conform to any other known system.

In his actual uncovering process, the linguist assumes that the native speaker is capable of
making utterances which conform to the system of the language and which are amendable
to analysis. Once the linguist has collected enough data he does a step by step analyst which
covers the phonological and the syntax from this step by step procedure, the ultimate aim
of the linguist is to devise a consistent description complete enough to satisfy the basic
requirements for teaching the language. Descriptivists are expected to describe the facts
about the language. Modern linguists describe language in its own terms; they do not
gear/base the description to non-linguistic standards of correctness, A linguist knows that

30
the grammarian of a language does not make the rules of that language. Grammarians
cannot do this and they should not, they should restrict themselves to writing what is
already there. If they set up rules that speakers do not use, speakers will merely ignore
them. We must also remember that what is grammatical is what is in use at a particular
time, not what has been put down in grammar books maybe 20 years ago.

To linguists when there are two alternative usages, one is not correct and the other wrong.
The two are merely different. Sometimes you would rather use terms like which word is
more appropriate in a certain situation for example not which one is correct. Which type of
language do you use when you are being formal and which do you use when you are being
informal?

What the linguist is saying is that we should not see language change as a debase mentor
corruption of the language. When you correct people’s speech, you do so not because it is
inherently incorrect, but only incorrect relative to some standard. ,

4.4 Linguistics and Other Disciplines

Sociolinguistics (Sociology)

Sociolinguistics defines how language is used in society. Every language has a speech
community and within a given speech community, there are variations in language use.
There are several factors that determine the dialect or variety of language an individual will
use, e.g. to whom is s/he speaking, for what reason and so on. This is a phenomenon of
sociolinguistics known as code-switching.

A dialect can be defined as variation in the use of language by groups of speakers of that
language due to for example geographical reasons.

Sociolinguistics also deals with language choice both nationally and regionally, several
factors influence the language choices. These include education, occupation, age, gender,
and cultural as well as ethnic factors.

Linguistics and History.

Historical linguistics helps us understand issues of language development and change

Language family trees are established in order to understand the proto-forms i.e. those that

31
have a common ancestor. For example, English and most European languages are said to
belong to the lndo-European family.

Diachronic linguistics describes language change through time. For example, the English
language has changed from Old English to Middle English to Modern English.

Synchronic linguistics shows the comparative variation among different groups of languages
at the same time.

Linguistics and Geography

The understanding of the language used by a particular society or speech community is also
dependent on the knowledge the geographical boundaries of that community. There are
regional dialects that are largely determined by geographical factors. In Kenya for example,
the different languages and dialects used are spread geographically. The key language
groups are, Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic and Para-Nilotic. Among the Bantu for instance we find
the Central Bantu from Central Kenya, the Eastern Bantu from Eastern Kenya, the Coastal
Bantu from the Coastal region and the Western Bantu from Western Kenya.

Psycholinguistics

Studies of the workings of the brain ¡n relation to language fall under psycholinguistics.
These provide an understanding of the various parts of the brain and how they control
language. Various language disorders known as aphasia emanating from brain damage can
be explained from psycholinguistic studies.

Activity

1. What is linguistics?

2. What are the scientific characteristics of a linguistic approach of language study?

3. Make a distinction between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.

32
LESSON FIVE:DIFFERENT LEVELS OF LANGUAGE STUDY

5.1Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson the student should be able describe the various levels from which
language can be studied.

5.2 The different levels of language study

5.3 PHONETICS

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds utilized by human language to represent meaning.
Phonetics attempts to describe all the sounds used in human language i.e. all the sounds
that humans are capable of producing. There are three main branches of phonetics:

(1) Acoustic Phonetics - Studies the actual sound waves in the air and their
characteristics.
(2) Auditory Phonetics - Studies the way in which sounds are received and interpreted
in the hearer’s ear.
(3) Articulatory Phonetics - This deals with the actual production of speech sounds. It is
this last branch that linguists are interested in.
Articulatory Phonetics.

Articulatory phonetics deals with the identification and classification of individual sounds
investigates the behaviour of the speech organs responsible for the production of these
sounds. Speech organs include the vocal cords the tongue the lips the teeth the lungs etc.
Speech sounds are classified in terms of the speech organs that produce them and the
manner in which they are produced. Most sounds of all languages are made with the air
moving from the lungs, up the wind pipe through the glottis and along the vocal tract. The
vocal tract (speech passage) extends from the larynx to the lips and nostrils.

18

5.4 AIR STREAM MECHANISMS

1. Pulmonic Eggressive Air Stream Mechanism

33
The production of any speech sound involves the movement of an air stream. Most speech
sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out of the body through the nose.
Because lung air ¡s used, these sounds are called pulmonic sounds and because air ¡s pushed
out, they are called eggressive. (If air is pushed in they are called ingressive).

2. The Glottalic Air Stream Mechanism

It uses air above the glottis to generate sounds. If the air moving out we have an inggressive
glottallic air stream and the sounds produced are called ejectives. These are common in
African languages. If the air is moving inwards the air stream is ingressive and the resultant
sounds are said to be implosives. These are common in Indian languages.

3. The Velaric Airstream Mechanism

It uses air in the mouth to generate sounds. Clicks are produced by a velaric air stream
mechanism. They occur in southern Bantu languages such as Xhosa and Zulu and in the
languages spoken by the Bushmen and Khokhoi.

5.5 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.

If you open your mouth widely and allow the air to escape freely and emit a continuous
sound, you will provide a vowel. Different vowels or variants of the same vowel can be
produced by altering the shape of the lips e.g. bringing them close together or opening
them widely and/or changing the height of the tongue. The tongue could be either close to
the floor of the mouth or the roof. Vowels are therefore those sounds produced without
any obstruction or restriction of the air stream as it passes through the mouth.

Consonants are those sounds produced by temporarily obstructing or constricting the air
stream as it passes through the mouth. They can be described according to the place of
articulation and also the manner of articulation.

Place of Articulation

a. Labials

We articulate (p), (b) and (m) by bringing both lips together. These sounds are therefore
called bilabials. We also use our lips to form (f) and (V) as in ‘five’ and ‘vine’. To produce

34
these sounds we articulate by touching the bottom lip to the upper teeth hence they are
caIled labio dental. ‘Labio’ refers to lips and dental to teeth.

b. Inter dentals

Inter dental sounds (between the teeth) are produced by inserting the tip of the tongue
between the upper and lower teeth. These are such sounds as [o] and [o] as I think, either’

c. Alveolar

The tip of the tongue ¡s raised to the bony tooth ridge called the alveolar ridge to articulate
[(d],[n ],[t J,[s ],or [z]. These are called alveolar sounds.

d. VELARS

This class of sounds is produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate or
velum. They are called velar sounds. These are like [k], [g]

e. Palatals

The front part of the tongue is raised to a point on the hard palate just behind the alveolar
ridge. Examples of these are the voiced sounds as in ‘treasure” and sounds as in “measure”.

f. Glottal

A glottal sound is produced by the vocal cords being brought momentarily together. E.g. [h]

Manner of Articulation

Another criterion for classifying consonants is manner of articulation. These are some
features that reflect the movement of the tongue, teeth or lips which are the main
articulators.

1. Stops/Plosives

Once the air stream enters the oral cavity, it may be stopped, it may be partially obstructed,
or it may flow freely out of the mouth. Sounds that are stopped completely in the oral cavity
for a brief period are called stops. These can be distinguished from all other speech sounds

35
which are called continuants because the stream of air continues without complete
interruption in the mouth opening. [p j,[b ],[t ],[d 1(k), and [g ] are the oral stops of English.
They are also called plosives because the air that is blocked in the mouth “explodes” when
the closure is released.

[m], [n] and [j] are nasal stops

[p], [b] and [m] are bi Iabial stops with the air stream stopped at the mouth by the complete
closure of the lips.
[t],[d J and [n ] are alveolar stops The air stream is stopped by the tongue making a
complete closure at the alveolar ridge.
[k], [g], and[j] are velar stops, with the complete closure of the velum.

1. Fricatives
In the production of some sounds, the air stream ¡s not completely stopped hut is
obstructed from flowing freely. The passage in the mouth through which the air must pass ¡s
narrow, causing friction.

[f] [v] labio dental fricatives

[s] [z] alveolar fricatives] inter dental fricatives.

3. Affricates

Some sounds are produced by a stop closure followed immediately by a slow release of the
closure characteristic of a fricative. These sounds are called affricates. Thus an affricate is a
sequence of a stop plus affricative.
e.g. [t] [ʤ]

4. Lateral

A lateral is a consonant in which the passage of air through the mouth does not go in the
usual way along the centre of the tongue; instead there is a complete closure between the
centre of the tongue and the part of the roof of the mouth where contact is to be made.
Thus the sound [l} is articulated with the centre of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge.

5. Nasals

36
Nasals involve the complete closure of the mouth. The soft palate [velum] is lowered
diverting the air through the nose. E.g. [m] [n],

6. Approximant

We can describe an approximant as an articulation in which the articulators approach each

other but do not get sufficiently close to each other to produce a complete consonant such
as a plosive, nasal or fricative. Examples of these are [r] [j]and [w] in the production of [r]
the tip of the tongue approaches the alveolar area 6urñever actually makes any contact with
any part of the roof of the mouth. [j] and [w] are consonants found at the beginning of
words such as yet / and ‘wet’. Many writers refer to them as semi-vowels. It is good to think
of them as being phonetically like vowels but phonologically like consonants.

5.6 THE STATE OF THE GLOTTIS: VOICE VS. VOICELESS SOUNDS

This is the space between the two vocal cords. It also serves as a basis for the classification
of consonants. When the cords are spread apart the air from the lungs passes through them
without obstruction. Sounds produced in this way are called voiceless sounds cg. [p], [s], [t],
[f ].When the vocal cords are drawn close together, the air from the lungs pushes them
apart as it passes through creating a vibration. Sounds produced in this way are called
voiced sounds e.g. [z j [v].

The Position of the Velum.

This is another basis of classification. If the velum is lowered (open) at the back of the
throat, it blocks the air from passing through the oral (mouth) cavity. This air is instead
diverted through the nasal cavity and the sounds thus produced are called nasals e.g. [m][n]
[j] (the only ones). If the velum ¡s raised (closed) it prevents the air from going to the nasal
cavity and instead it goes to the oral cavity. Most sounds are produced this way, and are
called oral sounds .e.g. [t], [k], [g].

5.7 PHONOLOGY

Phonology is the study of patterns of speech sounds. Phonological knowledge permits a

speaker to produce sounds that form meaningful utterances, to recognize a foreign accent,
to make up new words, to add the appropriate segments to form plurals and past tenses, to
produce aspirated and un aspirated voiceless stops in the appropriate context, to recognize

37
what is and is not a sound in the language and to know that different phonetic strings may
represent the same meaningful unit ( Fromkin and Rodman, 1988)Phonological knowledge
permits a speaker to know the sounds of his language. e.g. English speakers know the
sounds [Ɵ] as in ’thin” and [Ə] as in ‘father’ etc. Speakers who do not have these sounds in
their language find it difficult to articulate them, For example, non- Luhya speakers will have
problems with the sound kh’ in “Makokha, We are able to recognize sounds which are not
permissible in our language. Words such as“vlig”, “khamt”, would not be possible in English.

Phonemes

Examples:

Zip vs slip; fine vs vine; fat vs vat

The forms or sounds of these words are identical except for the initial consonants, /z/ and/s
/f/ /v/ and Iv! can therefore be used to distinguish or contrast words. Such meaning
distinguishing sounds are called PHONEMES. Phonemes function contrastively. For instance,
/f/ and /v/ are the only basis of the contrast in meaning between ‘fat’ and ‘vat’ and this
contrast is what shows that they are phonemes. Phonemes are the minimal contrastive
units of the phonology of a language.

Minimal Pairs.

When two words such as ‘pat’ and ‘bat’ are identical in form except for a contrast in one
phoneme occurring in the same position, the two words are described as a minimal pair.
‘Sip’/ ‘zip’, ‘bean/ dean’, ‘site’! ‘side’ are minimal pairs in English. Phonemes can occur in the
initial, middle or final position.

21

38
5.7 SYNTAX

Syntax generally refers to the study of sentence structure i.e. how components are ordered
or arranged in a sentence. Generative grammar popularized in the 1950’s by Noam Chomsky
falls under syntax which attempts to describe which can be used repeatedly used to yield
correct sentences. Under generative grammar, we are able to study the surface structure of
sentences and also the underlying deep structure.

Rules of grammar determine how morphemes and words can combine to express a specific
meaning. We can distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences e.g. ‘the
teacher came” versus “the teacher come”.

Sentences are not merely random strings of words and morphemes but conform to specific
patterns determined by the syntactic rules of the language.

Deep Structure

Deep structure shows how an underlying abstract representation of sentence can be

expressed by different surface structures. The following example from Yule (1985) is
structurally ambiguous. “Annie whacked a man with an umbrella”. It has two different
interpretations which would be represented differently in the deep structure:

1. Annie had an umbrella and she whacked a man with it.

2. Annie whacked a man and the man had an umbrella.
The grammar should be able to show the structural distinction between such underlying
representation.
There are symbols which are commonly used in syntactic description as abbreviation for the
various grammatical categories involved. The main ones are:

S = sentence
N = noun
Art = article
NP = noun phrase
V = verb
VP = verb phrase
Adv = adverb

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Adj = adjective
Pro = pronoun
Prep = preposition
PP = prepositional phrase
= consists of
Thus, S — NP+VP means: sentence consists of noun phrase + verb phrase.e.g.
The baby ate the banana. A deep structure (tree diagram) representation of this would be:
NP VP
S

NP VP

ART N V NP

ART N

The baby ate the banana

Syntactic rules in a grammar must at least account for:

1. The grammaticality of sentences.

2. The ordering of words and morphemes
3. Structural ambiguity
-4. The fact that sentences with different structures can have the same meaning
5. The grammatical and logical relations within a sentence
6. Speaker’s creative ability to produce and understand an infinite set of any possible
sentences.
MORPHOLOGY

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Morphology is concerned with word forms in a language. It is study of the internal structure
of words and of the rules by which words are formed.

MORPHEMES

Word forms consist of number of elements. The smallest meaningful unit of grammatical
function is called a morpheme. A single word may be composed of one or more
morphemes. e.g.

I morpheme 2 morphemes 3 morphemes 4 morphemes

boy boy-ish . boy-ish-ness boy-ish-ness-ly

gentle gentle-man gentle-man-ly gentle-man-li-ness

More than four morphemes:

Un-gentle-man-li-ness; anti-dis-establish-ment-ari-anism (Fromkin and Rodman1988: 127).

FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

Free morphemes are those which can stand on their own as single words e. g. take, boy
desire etc.Bound morphemes are those which cannot stand by themselves. They have to be
attached to other forms e.g. ‘re’, ‘un’, ‘ed’, ‘s’ etc. These are described as affixes. Affixes can
be used initially (prefixes) e.g. ‘un’ in undesirable. Others occur in final position e.g. ‘en’ and
‘s’ in bigger and boys respectively.

When you have a word formed from a free morpheme and a bound morpheme the basic
word form involved i.e. the free morpheme is technically known as the stem. Free
morphemes can be divided into lexical morphemes and functional morphemes. Lexical
morphemes consist of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs. These are the content words
which carry messages. Examples are boy teacher leopard white, honesty etc. Functional
morphemes consist largely of functional words in a language such as conjunctions,
prepositions, articles and pronouns e.g. and, but, when, because etc.

Bound morphemes can also be divided into two: derivational morphemes and inflectional
morphemes. Derivational morphemes are used to make (derive) new words in the language

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and are often used to make new words of a different grammatical category from the stem.
For example, they can change a word from a noun to an adjective and so on. e.g. boy -
boyish. Derivational morphemes will include affixes such as, -ish, -ly, re-, pre-, un- etc.

Inflectional morphemes on the other hand are not used to produce new words in the
language but rather to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. They are
used to show if a word is pIural or singular, past tense or not and if it is a comparative or
possessive form. Examples: jump —jumped; sing — singing, small — smaller etc.

SEMANTICS.

Semantics deals with the description of word and sentence meaning. In semantics, we
describe those aspects of conventional meaning which we assume are conveyed by the
words and sentences of a language. There are two aspects of meaning: the conceptual
meaning and the associative or stylistic meaning of words. Conceptual meaning covers all
those basic essential components of meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of a
word e.g. “needle” (see Yule p.92).

Associative or stylistic meaning. These are associations or connotations attached to a

word like needle which lead you to think of ‘painful’ whenever you encounter the word.

Give other examples. Poets advertisers, for instance like to make use of terms in such away
that their associative meanings are evoked.

Semantic Features

Semantic features are those which account for natural or unnatural use of components in
sentences. For example:
* The car bought some meat
* The dog cooked the dinner
These are odd or unnatural sentences. But the following are natural;
The housewife bought some meat
The dog caught a rabbit.
Why are they odd? Consider the conceptual meaning of the verb ‘bought’ and which nouns
can accompany ¡t. They can only be animate and human and so can be represented as,
+ human +animate.

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Similarly, ‘cooked’ can only be achieved by + human + animate nouns.

This procedure is a means of analysing meanings in terms of semantic features. Other

semantic features are for example +male, -male, +adult, -adult, + young etc.
For example, to describe boy in English we would use the following features: +human
+male -adult. Cow +animate -human -male +female+adult
These features can also be referred to as semantic properties.

Lexical Relations

Meanings of words can be understood ¡n terms of their relations to other words we can
describe words in terms of opposites. This is referred to as the analysis of lexical relations.

1. Synonymy.

When two or more forms have very closely related meanings they are known as synonyms.
They are often used interchangeably in sentences
e.g. big ……large
Fat…………… plump

2. Antonym
Two forms with different meanings are called antonyms
e.g. good... . bad
beautiful .... ugly
come ...... go

3. Hyponymy
This is when the meaning of one form is included in another. A rose is also a flower so the
meaning of rose is included in meaning of flower. Others e.g. dog... animal
table…… furniture etc.

4. Homophony

When two or more different (written) forms have the same pronunciation they are
described as homophones
e.g. bear… bare

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where …...wear
No…….know

5.Homonymy

This term is used when one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings
e.g. bank (river)
bank (financial institution)

6. Polysemy

This refers to terms which are identical in form and are related in meaning. A form can have
multiple meaning but which are related by extension.
head……human organ
head.... department
head.... sentence .
head.... tree .

Pragmatics

When we use a language we often communicate more than just what the words mean i.e.
what is called intended speaker‘s meaning. The understanding of context is very important
in pragmatics. It is the context which influences the way messages are conveyed. Thus,
pragmatics is to do with people’s use of language in context. Some words in a language
cannot be interpreted at all unless physical context — especially the speaker’s is known.
These are known as deictic expressions and they include words such as ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘this’,
‘that’, your, ‘now’ ‘Yesterday’ etc. /

Presupposition

Speakers generally design their linguistic messages on the basis of assumptions about what
their hearers already know. What the speaker assumes is true or is known by a hearer can
be described as a presupposition E.g. “Your mother is here “presupposes that you have a
mother; or “my house was broken into” that you have a house. Thus, presupposition can
also be described as implied meaning.

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Discourse Analysis

Knowing a language well involves the ability to combine sentences together to express
complex thoughts and ideas. Discourse analysis involves questions of style, appropriateness,
cohesiveness, coherence, differences between written and spoken discourse etc. Through
discourse analysis, we are able to make sense of what we read in texts, understand what
speakers mean despite what they say, recognize connected as opposed to jumbled or
incoherent discourse and successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation.

In discourse analysis, a text must have both cohesion and coherence. Cohesion refers to
those factors which provide links within a sentence. E. g. Mary likes school. She normally
wakes up very early and gets her books ready. She goes by the school bus. It is a
comfortable bus. The underlined forms are the cohesive links within this discourse.
Coherence refers to the unity of a sentence.

CHARACTERIZATION OF LANGUAGE

Language Systems

A language as it is used by a speech community i.e. the abstract part of language can be
characterized as a language system. When speakers engage in a language behaviour, they
are ascribing to or using a language system. This means they are using their knowledge of a
particular language. This is what Chomsky called language competence. We can therefore
contrast between competence versus performance. When speaker is competent in a
language it means he knows the language or the language system. Performance refers to his
ability to use the language to communicate which can he described as language behaviour.

Semiotics in Language

Semiotics can be described as the science of signs or of communication systems.

Considering all forms of communication (human and non-human; natural and artificial), a
signal is transmitted from a sender to a receiver a long a channel of communication. The
connection between the form of the signal is established by what is commonly referred in
semiotics as the code. The message is encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver.

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Looked at from this point of view, natural languages are codes and they may be compared
with other codes in all sorts of ways e.g. In terms of the channel along which the signals are
transmitted in terms of the form or structure of the signals in terms of the kind or range of
the messages that may be encoded etc.

Universals Language

Whereas languages are subjected to much variation, there is an extent to which all
languages have in some common properties. These common properties are called language
Universals. The following can be identified as language universals. Every human language
can be learned by children.

2. Every language employs an arbitrary symbol system.

3. Every language can be used to send or receive messages by its users.
4. Displacement duality. This is a quality of language that allows its users to talk about things
and events not present in the immediate environment
5. Productivity. The potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite.
Language users are able to produce linguistic knowledge to form new expressions and new
sentences
6. Discreteness. The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct e g. /p/is distinct
from b. The fact that the pronunciation of forms such as pet and bet leads to a distinction in
meaning can only be due to a difference between the p and b sound.
Each sound in the language is treated as discreet.
7. Duality. This means double articulation. At one level we have distinct sounds such as
p b t d and at another level we have distinct meanings such as pat, bat, dot tot. Yule says
that, “this duality of levels is in fact one of the most economical features of human language
since, with a limited set of distinct sounds we are capable of producing a very large number
of sound combinations,” This is how we formulate words with distinct meanings.
Artificial Languages

Since the tragedy of Babel, when people scattered each speaking his own tongue/language,
there has been hope for a return to the kind of situation that there was when people spoke

46
one language. People have been preoccupied with the attempt of trying to connect
language 1(L1) with artificial languages.

Most of the artificial languages have been invented in the hope that they will be used as a
universal language that will bring about universal peace and unity. However, it is needless to
say that there have been wars even where people speak the same language.

Most of the artificial languages have not’ succeeded because people were either not
interested in them or in the reasons being given for their introduction. One artificial
language that has had some success is Esperanto. Esperanto was invented by a Polish
scholar known as Zarnenhot. Esperanto means hope. .

In this language there is grammatical regularity, ease of pronunciation and vocabulary based
mainly on European languages such as Latin, Romance, Germanic and Greek. It is claimed
that Esperanto is spoken by several million speakers throughout the world including some
people who learn ¡t as a first language. There is a literature written in It, a number of
Institutions teach it and it is officially recognized by some international organizations.

Experts claim that their language can be easily learned by any intelligent person. However,
we can question whether or not this claim is realistic considering speakers whose languages
not related to the European languages which Esperanto was derived. All the same, it is said
to be easier to learn than the languages from which it is derived. It therefore has the
potential of playing an important part as a second language in unifying people who are
linguistically diverse.

Activity:

1. Using examples describe the different at which language can be studied.

2. Describe how language can be characterised.

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 REFERENCES:

Crystal D. (1985a) Linguistics

Crystal D. (2002 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language

Fromkin V. & Rodman (1988, 2003) An introduction to Language and Linguistics

Lyons J. (1968) Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics

Loreto Todd (1987) An Introduction to Linguistics

Yule G. (1985, 2006) The Study of Language

O’Grady et al (2003, 05) Introduction to Language and Linguistics

Fasold et al (2006) Introduction to Linguistics

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