DENG 504 Linguistics

PART A
Q1
a) What do you mean by the terms Synchrony and Diachrony?
ANS.
Synchrony and Diachrony are
in linguistic analysis:

two

different

and

complementary

viewpoints

a diachronic approach considers the development and evolution of a language through

history. This is the comparative study of a development based on its history. Historical
linguistics is typically a diachronic study.

a synchronic approach considers a language without taking its history into account.
Synchronic linguistics aims at describing language rules at a specific point of time, even
though they may have been different at an earlier stage of the language.
School grammar typically uses a synchronic (as well as prescriptive) approach.

b) Briefly explain the contribution of Ancient India to the study of linguistics.

ANS.
Sanskrit linguistics formally must have begun the day the Indian rishis and munis began to
understand and interpret clearly the Vedic speech. Pratisakhyas are the first treatises on
phonetics and formal grammar and provide a scientific classification of Sanskrit sounds and the
ganas. The oldest linguistic treatise preserved in India is the Nirukta (Explanation) of Yaska
(fifth century B.C.E.). Panini, Katyayana and Patanjali of Ancient India are the trinity of
Sanskrit grammar. Panini (around 500 B.C.E. or later) provided new shape and new brevity in
the description of linguistic phenomena, brought a revolution, and brought linguistics and
philosophy together. His Asthadhayi is the first formal grammar in the history of letters. It is not
speculative or philosophical like the grammars of the Greeks and the Romans. It is descriptive
and analytic, and treats phonology and morphology in great detail.
c) Name four words using schwa sound //.
ANS.
The upside down e was first used as a symbol for the schwa sound by Johann Schmeller in his
1821 grammar of Bavarian German. It's been called the murmur vowel, the indeterminate vowel,
the neutral vowel, the obscure vowel, and the natural vowel. English has tendency to delete a
syllable with a schwa (schwa syncope).
Following are the four words using schwa sound //:

1. 'a', as in About [bat], 2. Dozen (Dozn), 3. Amazing (-MA-zing), 4. Different

(difrent)
d) Name four words using rounded back vowel /u:/.
A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining
characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth
without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Example words:
1. Boot; 2. Who, 3. Ooze, 4. Prune, 5. Through
e) Write any two words which are tri-syllabic (three syllable).
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water
is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus
(most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants).
Tri-syllabic words:
1. Pho-ne-tics, 2. Na-tu-ral
f) Define allophones with examples.
Allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds (or phones) or signs used to
pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language.
For example, [p] (as in pin) and [p] (as in spin) are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in the
English language. Or, the different pronunciations of the t sound in tar and star.
g) What do you mean by Phonotactics?
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek phn "voice, sound" and taktiks "having to do with
arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible
combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant
clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints.
Phonotactic constraints are highly language specific. For example, in Japanese, consonant
clusters like /st/ do not occur. Similarly, the sounds /kn/ and /n/ are not permitted at the
beginning of a word in Modern English but are in German and Dutch, and were permitted in Old
and Middle English.
h) Name some of the concepts given by Noam Chomsky
Chomsky developed the idea that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation - a
deep structure and a surface structure. The deep structure represented the core semantic relations
of a sentence, and was mapped on to the surface structure via transformations.

He developed the ideas that most of the knowledge is innate, with the result that a baby can have
a large body of prior knowledge about the structure of language in general, and need only
actually learn the idiosyncratic features of the language(s) it is exposed to. In grammar he cited
the distinction between competence and performance.
i) How many Consonants and Vowels sounds are present according to International
Phonetic Chart?
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based
primarily on the Latin alphabet. The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech
that are part of oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and
syllables.
Although the IPA offers over 160 symbols for transcribing speech, only a relatively small subset
of these will be used to transcribe any one language. It is possible to transcribe speech with
various levels of precision. A precise phonetic transcription, in which sounds are described in a
great deal of detail, is known as a narrow transcription. The International Phonetic Association
organizes the letters of the IPA into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic
consonants, and vowels. In English IPA there are 27 Consonant sounds and 12 vowel sounds, and
7 Dipthongs.
j) Identify the number of morphemes in each of the word: Unsolved; Boyish; Unhappy;
humanity.
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of a
given language's morphemes and other linguistic units, such as root words, affixes, parts of
speech, intonations and stresses, or implied context.
1. Unsolved- Un+solved (prefix),
2. Boyish- Boy + ish (suffix);
3. Unhappy- Un + happy; (prefix)
4. Humanity- Human + ity (suffix).
All the given four words are generally used as an adjective in sentences.
PART B
Q2. What is the scope of Linguistic, explain about them briefly.
ANS.
The word Linguistics has been derived from Latin lingua (tongue) and istics (knowledge or
science). Etymologically, therefore, linguistics is the scientific study of language. But it is the
study not of one particular language but of human language in general. It studies language as a
universal and recognizable part of human behaviour. It attempts to describe and analyze
language. The field of linguistics comprises understanding of the place of language in human
life, the ways in which it is organized to fulfil the needs it serves, and the functions it performs.
Diachronic (historical) linguistics studies the development of language through history, through
time, for example, the way in which French and Italian have evolved from Latin. Synchronic
linguistics investigates how the people speak and use language in a given speech community at a

given time. In Comparative linguistics one is concerned with comparing two or more different
languages.
In general language is the expression of human thought, and all thought is stated through
language, hence all knowledge of the universe may fall within the scope of linguistics, and the
scope may be a complex mess. A linguist has to study and describe language which is an
enormously complex phenomenon. He, therefore, concentrates at any one time on one of the
many different, though interrelated, aspects of his subject matter. His subject matter, broadly
speaking, is the data of language, or the facts of language as it is spoken and written.
A full understanding of the various components of language and their relations with the rest of
the world outside language, thus, would constitute the right scope of linguistics. Thus general
linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are difficult to define. In the centre
are phonetics, phonology, grammar and semantics: the study of human speech sounds,
sentence/phonetic expression syntax and meaning. A phonetician is concerned with the actual
physical sounds, the raw material out of which language is made. He studies the position of the
tongue, teeth and vocal cords during the production of sounds, and records and analyses sound
waves. Around the central core are various branches of linguistics which are being rapidly
developed at the present time: such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, mathematical
linguistics, philosophical linguistics, anthropological linguistics, stylistics and language teaching.
Q3. What do you mean by speech mechanism? Discuss various types of speech
mechanisms.
ANS.
Speech is an action which has certain processes or mechanisms involved in its making. The
transmission in sound of the simplest concept in the mind is the result of a complicated chain of
events. Any speech operation depends on a chain of speech acts. An effective act of speech is an
exceedingly complex operation involving a number of operations. The first stage is
psychological, the second is physiological and the third is physical.
First of all a concept is formulated in the speakers brain, and human nervous system transmits
this linguistic message to the so-called organs of speech, articulatory or physiological. The
organs of speech are thus activated and their movements create disturbances in the air; and these
sound waves are received by the listeners ears. And at the listeners end, first of all the ears
receive the linguistic codification; the nervous system passes this linguistic message to the brain,
where the linguistic interpretation of the message takes place.
The linguistic message conveyed to the organs of speech by the nervous system activates the
lungs, larynx and the cavities above in such a way that they perform a series of movements to
produce a particular pattern of sound. For the production of speech we need an air-stream
mechanism.
For the sounds of English we make use of an egressive pulmonic air-stream, that is, the air
pushed out of the lungs through the mouth or nose or both. Generally all speech-sounds are made
by an egressive pulmonic air stream of outgoing breath, although in a few languages (such as

Hottenetot), there are speech-sounds, often called clicks which are made on ingressive (in
going) air.
In this way the speech-sound is produced by the articulatory movements in the chest, throat,
mouth and nose. The articulatory apparatus has four areas: (1) the larynx containing the vocal
cords, (2) the oral cavity (mouth), (3) the pharyngeal cavity (throat): and, (4) the nasal cavity
(nose). The airstream coming from the lungs may be modified in any of these areas in a variety
of ways
There are two kinds of articulators, the active articulators (which are active and come in contact
with the passive articulators) and the passive articulators (they do not move to touch other
articulators). The active articulators are the lower lip and the tongue; these are articulators that
make contacts with the passive articulators. The passive articulators are the upper lip, the upper
teeth, the roof of the mouth, and the back wall of the throat or pharynx.
Q4. Briefly explain Consonants or Vowels with one example each.
ANS.
The words vowel and consonant are very familiar ones, but when we study the sounds of speech
scientifically we find that it is not easy to define exactly what they mean. The most common
view is that vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes from
the larynx to the lips. For example, vowel sounds as in a, e, i, o, u, consonant sound as in b, c,
d, f, gw etc. However, there are many cases where the decision is not so easy to make. For
example, the consonants in the words hay and way do not really obstruct the flow of air more
than some vowels do.
Consonants: The word consonant has been derived from the Greek word consonautem which
means the sound produced with the help of some other sound (vowel). Both the ancient Greeks
and Indians defined the consonant as a sound produced with the help of a vowel. But such a
definition is faulty and incomplete. First, there are sibilant consonants such as /s, ,z, dz / and
some laterals and nasals which can be pronounced without the help of any vowel. Secondly,
there are some languages which have words without any vowel. For example, an African
language Ibo has words as / / and /g /. Similarly, strc prst skrz krk (Dont put a finger in
your mouth) is a sentence in the Czech language which has no vowel at all. Hence a consonant
has been defined by most modern phoneticians and linguists as a sound which is produced by a
stoppage or partial stoppage of the breath, that is to say, in the production of a consonant the
movement of air from the lungs is partially or fully obstructed as a result of narrowing or a
complete closure of the air passage.
Vowels: Vowels may be defined with an open approximation without any obstruction, partial or
complete, in the air passage. They are referred to as vocoids in phonetics. Vocoids are normally
classified according to three criteria: tongue-height (high, mid, low, or close, half-open and
open); tongue advancement (front, central, back); and lip-rounding (rounded and
unrounded).

In order to describe the vowels, we usually draw three points in the horizontal axes: front,
central and back, referring to the part of the tongue which is the highest. So we have1. Front vowels (front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate.). For example, /i, i:, e, /
in English as in sit, seat, set, and sat respectively.
2. Back vowels (back of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate.) For example /a: , u, u:/ as
in cart, cot, caught, book and tool respectively.
3. Central vowels (central part, between the front and the back of the tongue, is raised.) For
example, / e, e : , / as in about, earth and but respectively.
Q6. What are the differences between Phonetics and Phonology?
ANS.
The difference between phonetics and phonology is that of generality and particularity. Whereas
phonetics is the science of speech sounds, their production, transmission and reception and the
signs to represent them in general with no particular reference to any one language, phonology is
the study of vocal sounds and sound changes, phonemes and their variants in a particular
language. If phonetics can be likened to a world, phonology is a country. Phonetics is one and the
same for all the languages of the world, but the phonology of one language will differ from the
phonology of another. According to John Lyons. Phonetics differs from phonology.... in that it
considers speech sounds independently of their paradigmatic opposition and syntagmatic
combinations in particular languages, and that phonology is the level at which the linguist
describes the sounds of a particular language.
The subject-matter of phonology is the selected phonetic material from the total resources
available to human beings from phonetics. The human vocal system can produce a very large
number of different speech sounds. Members of a particular speech community speaking that
particular language, however, use only a limited number of these sounds. Every language makes
its own selection of sounds and organizes them into characteristic patterns. This selection of
sounds and their arrangement into patterns constitute the phonology of the language.
Phonetics and phonology are both concerned with the same subject-matter or aspect of language,
speech sounds, as the audible result of articulation, but they are concerned with them from
different points of view. Phonetics is general (that is, concerned with speech sounds as such
without reference to their function in a particular language), descriptive and classificatory:
phonology is particular (having a particular language or languages in view) and functional
(concerned with working or functioning of speech in a language or languages). Phonology has in
fact been called functional phonetics.
Q10. What are the major misconceptions about grammar?
ANS.
Grammar is a word that confuses considerably. It has been approached and defined differently by
different scholars and schools of linguistics. Grammar has been studied from the early days of
literate civilization both from the point of view of individual languages and from that of general

linguistic theory. There is, however, a great deal of confusion about it because of the very many
different ways in which the term is used. Following are some major misconceptions about
grammar:
1. A grammar of a language is a book written about it.
2. The grammar of the language is found only in the written language-spoken languages have no
grammar or at least fluctuate so much that they are only partially grammatical.
3. Some languages have grammar, others do not.
4. Grammar is about rigid/static rules and principles.
5. Grammar is something that can be good or bad, correct or incorrect. It is bad (incorrect)
grammar to say. It is me, for instance.
6. Some people know the grammar of their language, others do not.
7. All languages have the same grammar.
8. One language has less grammar than the others.
9. Grammar is only a utilitarian thing, i.e. a means of learning to use a language correctly.
We should free ourselves from misconceptions like these to understand the correct meaning of
grammar in terms of linguistics. The grammar of a language is not a list of rules imposed upon
its speakers by scholastic authorities, but is a scientific record of the actual phenomena of that
language, written and spoken. If any community habitually uses certain form of speech, these
forms are part of grammar of the speech of that community. This is the study of organization of
words into various combinations often representing many layers of structure such as phrases,
sentences and complete utterances.
Q11. Define Semantics and briefly mention any two of its concepts.
ANS.
The study of meaning and its manifestation in language is normally referred to as semantics from
the Greek noun sema sign, signal; and the verb semains signal, mean, signify. The Shorter
Oxford Dictionary glosses the term semantics as relating to signification or meaning. Broadly
speaking, semantics is that aspect of linguistics which deals with the relations between referents
(names) and referends (things)that is, linguistic levels (words, expressions, phrases) and the
objects or concepts or ideas to which they referand with the history and changes in the
meaning of words.
Diachronic (historical) semantics studies semantic change, whereas synchronic semantics
accounts for semantic relationship, simple or multiple. A semanticist would like to find how a
man is able to paraphrase, transform, and detect ambiguities and why the surrounding words
sometimes force him to choose one interpretation rather than another. A semantic analysis, for
example of English, must also explain antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, polysemy, anomalies,
contradictions, paraphrase, relations, ambiguities, implications and transformations of the
language.
There are a good number of semantic theories. Each of them defines meaning in its own manner.
Ogden and I.A. Richards in their book Meaning of Meaning cite no less than sixteen definitions
of meaning.

Traditional Approach: Linguists and earlier scholars of language often had very clear ideas
about the importance of meaning and the need for its study. There were numerous preconceptions
and false ideas about the nature of meaning which hindered clear thinking, but which it was
difficult to get rid of because of their separable ancestry. One was the tendency to identify words
and things or to think that meaning were somehow concrete entities words would be called
dirty, dangerous, beautiful, and so on, instead of the objects or events being referred to. This
conception goes back to Plato. To the old philosophers such as Plato and Socrates, the semantic
relationship was that of naming of significant. This traditional view of the relationship between
name and things is customarily represented by the triangle of signification, sometimes referred
to as the semiotic triangle: MEANING, FORM and REFEREND being the trio.
Field Theory of Meaning: Saussure demonstrated that each word in a language is surrounded
by a network of associations which connect with still other terms. Some of these connections
arise between the five senses (synaesthetic); others between the form and shape of words; while
others involve formal and semantic connections. A given term is like the centre of a
constellation, the point where other coordinated terms converge, and their sum is indefinite.
The field theory visualizes the vocabulary as a mosaic on a gigantic scale, which is built up of
fields and higher units in the same way as fields are built up by words. The associative field of a
word is formed by an intricate network of associations, some based on similarity, others on
continuity, some arising between senses, others between names, others again between both. The
field is by definition open, and some of the associations are bound to be subjective though the
more central ones will be largely the same for most speakers.