What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics?
They differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified. Phonology, on the other hand, is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.
What are the main features of the English compounds?
Orthographically a compound can be written as one word, two separate words with or without a hyphen in between. Syntactically, the part of speech of a compound is determined by the last element. Semantically, the meaning of a compound is idiomatic, not calculable from the meanings of all its components. Phonetically, the word stress of a compound usually falls on the first element.
Discuss the types of morphemes with examples.
Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, for example, “book-” in the word “bookish”.
Bound morphemes: They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word such as “-ish” in “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning, such as “gene-” in the word “generate”. Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as “-s” in the word “books” to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word such as “mis-” in the word “misinform”. Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word such as “dis- ” in the word “dislike”, while suffixes occur at the end of a word such as “-less” in the word “friendless”.
What are the major types of sentences? Illustrate them with examples. Traditionally, there are three major types of sentences. They are simple sentence, coordinate( compound) sentence, and complex sentence. A simple sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence, for example: John reads extensively.
A coordinate sentence contains two clauses joined by a linking word that is called coordinating conjunction, such as \
John is reading a linguistic book, and Mary is preparing for her history exam.
A complex sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is
incorporated into the other. The two clauses in a complex sentence do not have equal status, one is subordinate to the other. For example: Before John gave her a lecture, Mary showed no interest in linguistics.
Are the elements in a sentence linearly structured? Why?
No. Language is both linearly and hierarchically structured. When a sentence is uttered or written down, the words of the sentence are produced one after another in a sequence. A closer examination of a sentence shows that a sentence is not composed of sequence of words arranged in a simple linear order with one adding onto another following a simple arithmetic logic. In fact, sentences are also hierarchically structured. They are organized by grouping together words of the same syntactic category, such as noun phrase (NP) or verb phrase (VP).
How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of
truth values? Entailment is a relation of inclusion. Suppose there are two sentences X and Y: X: He has been to France. Y: He has been to Europe.
In terms of truth values, if X is true, Y is necessarily true, e.g. If he has been to France, he must have been to Europe.
If X is false, Y may be true or false, e. g. If he has not been to France, he may still have been to Europe or he has not been to Europe. If Y is true, X may be true or false, e.g. If he has been to Europe, he may or may not have been to France. If Y is false, X is false, e.g. If he has not been to Europe, he cannot have been to France.
Therefore we conclude that X entails Y or Y is an entailment of X. The truth conditions that we use to judge presupposition is as follows:
Suppose there are two sentences X and Y X: John' s bike needs repairing. Y: John has a bike.
If X is true, Y must be true, e.g. If John' s bike needs repairing, John must have a bike.
If X is false, Y is still true, e. g. If John' s bike does not need repairing, John still has a bike. If Y is true, X is either true or false, e.g. If John has a bike, it may or may not need repairing. If Y is false, no truth value can be said about X, e.g. If John does not have a bike, nothing can be said about whether his bike needs repairing or not. Therefore, X presupposes Y, or Y is a presupposition of X.
How are semantics and pragmatics different from each other?
Traditional semantics studied meaning, but the meaning of language was considered as something intrinsic, and inherent, i.e. a property attached to language itself. Therefore, meanings of words, meanings of sentences were all studied in an isolated manner, detached from the context in which they were used. Pragmatics studies meaning not in isolation, but in context. The essential distinction between semantics and pragmatics is whether the context of use is considered in the study of meaning . If it is not considered, the study is restricted to the area of traditional semantics; if it is considered, the study is being carried out in the area of pragmatics.
How does a sentence differ from an utterance?
A sentence is a grammatical concept. It usually consists of a subject and predicate. An utterance is the unit of communication. It is the smallest linguistic unit that has a communicative value. If we regard a sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication, it becomes an utterance. Whether “Mary is beautiful.” is a sentence or an utterance depends on how we look at it. If we regard it as a grammatical unit or a self-contained unit in isolation, then it is a sentence. If we look at it as something uttered in a certain situation with a certain purpose, then it is an utterance. Most utterances take the form of complete sentences, but some utterances are not, and some cannot even be restored to complete sentences.
How does a sentence meaning differ from an utterance meaning?
A sentence meaning is often considered as the intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of a predication. It is abstract and independent of context. The meaning of an utterance is concrete, and context-dependent. The utterance meaning is based on sentence meaning; it is realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context. For example, “There is a dog at the door”. The speaker could utter it as a matter- of- fact statement, telling the hearer that the dog is at the door. The speaker could use it as a warning, asking the hearer not to approach the door. There are other possibilities, too. So, the understanding of the utterance meaning of “There is a dog at the door” depends on the context in which it is uttered and the purpose for which the speaker utters it.
As language changes over time, the meaning of a word may deviate from its original denotation. Discuss the major types of semantic changes. Major types of semantic changes are semantic broadening, semantic narrowing and semantic shift.
Semantic broadening refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation. Take the word \ The older meaning was a \enjoys a holiday, whether he or she is religious or not.
Semantic narrowing is a process in which the meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. For example, %used to mean \
Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related, meaning. For example, the word silly meant “happy” in Old English, and naive in Middle English, but \in Modern English.
What are the causes of language change? Discuss them in detail. Language changes are due to the following causes:
1) Sound assimilation: Sound assimilation refers to the physiological effect of one sound on another. In an assimilative process, successive sounds are made identical, or more similar, to one another in terms of place or manner of articulation, or of haplology, the loss of one of two phonetically similar syllables in sequence. For example, the Old English word \came to be pronounced “England” through the assimilation of \-la sounds.
2) Rule simplification and regularization: Some changes are the result of simplification and regularization. The plural forms of borrowed words are usually irregular, thus complex. For example, the plural forms of \\\and \are \, \, \and \oranda\\\among many speakers, thus making them simplified and regularized.
3) Internal borrowing: In order to reduce the number of exceptional or irregular morphemes, speakers of a particular language may borrow a rule from one part of the grammar and apply it generally. For example, by analogy to the plural formation of \and \speakers started saying \as the plural of \
4) Elaboration: Rule elaboration occurs when there is a need to reduce ambiguity and increase communicative clarity or expressiveness. If a particular grammatical feature is lost as a result of a change in the phonological system, some other feature may be added in another component of the grammar.
5) Social triggers: Socio-political changes such as wars, invasions, occupation, colonization, and language planning and standardization policies lead to language changes. For example, in the history of English, the Norman Conquest marked the beginning of the Middle English period. And British colonial settlement, and the country' s political, cultural and economic advances in distant lands such as North America, Oceania, South Africa, and India lead to the change of English into British, American, Australian, South African and Indian varieties.
6) Cultural transmission: Although a new generation has to find a way of using the language of the previous generation, it has to find expressions that can best communicate the views and concepts of the time and the changed and ever-changing social life, and re-create the language of the community. For example, while old people tend to call a refrigerator \speaking of a \This tenuous transmission process adds up to the inevitable and ongoing language change and variation.
7) Children's approximation toward the adult grammar:The way children acquire the language is another basic cause for language change. Children usually construct their personal grammars by themselves and generalize rules from the linguistic information they hear. Children' s grammar never models exactly after that of the adult speech community, because children are exposed to diverse linguistic information.
All the above factors contribute to language changes.
What are the biological foundations of language?
Of all organisms, human beings are the only spontaneous creators and users of highly sophisticated languages that permit the communication of a wide range of knowledge and ideas. Evidently, our linguistic ability does not depend primarily on the structure of our vocal cords, for other mammals also have vocal cords. Human linguistic ability largely depends, instead, on the structure and dynamics of the human brain. As far as is currently known, human beings are the only organisms in which one particular part of the left half of the brain is larger than the corresponding part of the right half. This has led to the belief that human language is biologically, or more exactly, neurologically, based.
How are language and thought related to each other?
Language and thought may be viewed as two independent circles overlapping in some parts, where language and thought are consistent with each other and one never occurs without the other. When language and thought are identical or closely parallel to each other, we may regard thought as \, and speech as \take place simultaneously.
What's the difference between acquisition and learning, according to
Krashen?
According to Krashen, acquisition refers to the gradual and subconscious development of ability in the first language by using it naturally in daily communicative situations. Learning, however, is defined as a conscious process of accumulating knowledge of a second language usu-ally obtained in school settings. A second language, Krashen argues, is more commonly learned but to some degree may also be acquired, depending on the environmental setting and the input received by the L2 learner. A rule can be learned before it is internalized (i.e., acquired), but having learned a rule does not necessarily prevent having to acquire it later. For example, an English language learner may have learned a rule like the third person singular \to articulate the correct form in casual and spontaneous conversation because the rule has not yet been acquired. This shows that conscious knowledge of rules does not ensure an immediate guidance for actual performance.
How do the learner factors potentially influence the way in which a second
language is acquired? 1) The optimum age for second language acquisition: First language acquisition is most successful when it occurs during the early years of one' s life before puberty, but the optimum age for SLA does not always accord with the maxim of \the better\The optimum age for SLA is early teenage. This claim is justifiable because this is the age when the learner' s flexibility of the language acquisition