1.

Speech sounds
Phonetics: is the study of speech sounds
> We are able to segment a continuous stream of speech into distinct parts and
recognize the parts in other words
> Everyone who knows a language knows how to segment sentences into words
and words into sounds.
Identity of Speech Sounds
> Our linguistic knowledge allows us to ignore nonlinguistic differences in speech
(such as individual pitch levels, rates of speed, coughs)
> We are capable of making sounds that are not speech sounds in English but are
in other languages
> The science of phonetics aims to describe all the sounds of all the world’s
languages
 Acoustic phonetics: focuses on the physical properties of the sounds of
language
 Auditory phonetics: focuses on how listeners perceive the sounds of
language
  Articulatory phonetics: focuses on how the vocal tract produces the
sounds of language.

The Phonetic Alphabet

In 1888 the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was invented in order to have a
system in which there was a one- to-one correspondence between each sound in
language and each phonetic symbol
Someone who knows the IPA knows how to pronounce any word in any language.
Dialectal and individual differences affect pronunciation, but the sounds of English

Phonemics, in linguistics, the study of the phonemes and phonemic system of a

language. For linguists who analyze phonological systems wholly in terms of the
phoneme, phonemics is coextensive with phonology.

What’s the interrelationship between the phonetic and the phonemic level of
sounds?
Phonetic transcriptions provide more details on how the actual sounds are
pronounced, while phonemic transcriptions represent how people interpret such
sounds. We use square brackets to enclose phones or sounds and slashes to enclose
phonemes
Features in actual speech
Nasal feature:
 “Nasal” comes from a Latin word meaning nose.
 Nasal in the IPA is a manner of articulation.
 nasal is a phonogical feature.
 nasal is used as a distinctive feature for distinguishing different
phones/phonemes/ segments.
 It is a distinctive feature for capturing a natural class of
segments.

Features in actual speech

 A phone/phoneme X is nasal if in the articulation of X, the velum is

lowered and air flows out throught the nasal cavity.
 By the definition given,
 m/n are nasal
 Whether or not fricatives, glides and vowels ar nasal depend on
whether air florws throught the nouse.

Examining a feature such as nasality allows us to track some of the ways in which
pronunciation changes occur.
The construction of Pronunciation
Complementary distribution
the situacion where two sounds neve occur in the same enviroment. In mathematical
terms, X never occurs in Y´s environment.
Example: light-full; high- strong
Free variation
The situation where two sounds can occur in the same environment without causing
any change of meaning. It may arise due to sociolinguistic or geographical factors.
Example: top, bad, excuse me.
The entonation
What is “intonation”?
Intonation can be described as the movements or variation in pitch to wich we attach
familiar labels describing levels (ex. High/low) and tones (falling/rising), etc.
(The way voice goes up and down in pitch.)
 Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say.
 Without intonation, it´s imposible to understand the expressions and
thoughts that go with word
Key componentes of intonation:
 Pitch: Is the degree of height of our voice in speech
 Rhythm: This pattern of Strong and weak stress and short and long
pronunciation
 Sentence stress: Makes the utterance understandable to the listener
Function of intonation
 Accentual.
 Grammatical.
 Discourse.
 Attitudinal.

2. Studying more syntax

Morphology in Linguistics
The study of structure of the words and word formation.

Word Structure:
 Morpheme.
 Free Morpheme (Lexical & Functional).
 Bound Morpheme (Inflectional & Derive).
 Contractible Morpheme.
Morphemes
The smallest Meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.

Free Morpheme
The type of morpheme that can stand alone as words by themselves.
 Examples:
Friend boy tree
*Free morphemes have two categories.

Lexical Morpheme
 Referred also as OPEN CLASS because we can add morphemes to these
words.
 These are nouns, verbs and adjectives.
Girl (n.) jump (v.) red (adj.)
Boy (n.) look (v.) pink (adj.)
Functional Morpheme
 Word that do not have clear meaning but has gramatical functions.
 These are conjunction, prepositions, articles, auxiliars and pronouns.
 Referred also as CLOSED CLASS because it cannot be added to other
morphemes.
He she We but nor

Bound Morpheme
These are AFFIXES that must be attached to the word.

AFIXXES
 Prefix - unclean
 Infix - nowadays
 Suffix - adjustment

*Bound morphemes have also two categories, Inflectional and Derivational

morphemes.

Derivational Morpheme
Changes the parte of speech of the word when added to the free Morpheme but there
are some exceptions.

Example of Class Changing

 Pay (v.) payment (n.)
 Pay (v ) payer (n.)

Example of Class Maintaining

 Pink (adj.) pinkish (adj.)
 Do (v ) undo (v.)

List of Derivational Morphemes

  Prefixes: re, pre, un, ex, mis, co, etc.
 Suffixes: ish, less, ly, etc.

Inflectional Morpheme
Morphemes that are used to indicate aspects of the gramatical function of a word.

EXAMPLE:
 Boy´s boys
 Cleaned cleaning cleans
 Taken simplest
 Heavier

List of Inflectional Morphemes

In English we have 8 inflectional Morphemes
 Noun: Possesive noun (´s), Plural form (s).
 Verb: 3rd person singular (s), Progressive verb (ing), Past tense (ed), Past
Participle (en).
 Adjective: Comparative (er), Superlative (est)

Contractible Morphemes
These are auxiliary modals such as will, shall, have, had and would.
These can be contracted in informal style of language.

EXAMPLE
 I will – I´ll
 They had – They´d.

Root and Stem

Root words are the basic part of a word that carries meaning.
Stem is when a root Morpheme is combined with affix morpheme.

EXAMPLE
 Root : teach
 Affix : er
 Stem : teacher

Bound Root
These are root morphemes wich cannot appear on its own.

EXAMPLE
 Re-ceive dis-suade

Bound morphemes Bound root

Segmenting words into its constituent morphemes
EXAMPLE
 Repayment
Re pay ment

Prefix root Suffix

Morphological Description
The difference between Inflectional and Derivational Morpheme?

 Inflectional morpheme never change the gramatical category of the word.

Old (adj.) older (adj.)

 While Derivational Morpheme can change the gramatical category of a

word

Summingp Up
 Morphology is the study of word structure and word formation.
 The smallest Meaningful part of the word is called morpheme.
 Morphemes have two classification these are Free and Bound Morphemes.
 Free morphemes categories are Lexical and Functional Morphemes.
 Bound morphemes includes Inflectional and Derivational morphemes.

3. Studying more Meaning

Semantics: The interpretation of the meaning of a word or phrase.

EXAMPLE:
 I am running at the school.
 I am running for Village Council.

Syntax: The arrangement of words in a sentence.

EXAMPLE:
 The man walks the dog.
 The dog walks the man.

Pragmatics: Is Interpretation meaning According context. The meaning of the frase

according to what the speaker really means according to their context.
EXAMPLE:
 Where Chomsky is?
This is on the shelf. (Context: Library)
Semiotics: Is an investigation into how meaning is created and how meaning is
communicated. Its origins lie in the academic study of how signs and symbols (visual
and linguistic) create meaning.
We asume a traffic light:
 Syntax: Green (bottom); Yellow, red.
 Semantics: Green = go; red = stop.
 Pragmatics: If red and no traffic then allowed to go.

4. Meaning and Logic

Principle of compositionality: The interpretation of a sentence is determined by the

interpretations of the words occurring in the sentence and the syntactic structure of the
sentence.(Cited in Radford et al., 1999, p. 358)

 Fido barks: The semantic value of Fido barks is true if and only if the semantic
value of Fido is a member of the semantic value of barks. Or, in logical
formulae.
Sval (S) = true iff Sval (NP)  Sval (VP)
(S) = Fido barks
(NP) = Fido
(VP) = Barks
 = ís a member of’

5. Studying linguistic branches

Phonology : Sounds in a speech in cognitive terms
Psycholinguistics : Psychological aspects of Language & Linguistics
Sociolinguistics : Study of the impact of society on Language & Linguistics
Historical Linguistics : Study of evolutions and origins of Languages
Computational Linguistics: Study of spoken and written language in computations
& programming.
Applied Linguistics : Study of real - life applications of Linguistics.
Phonetics : Study of sounds in a speech in physical terms.
Syntax : Study of formation and structure of sentences.
Semantics : Study of meanings.
Morphology : Study of the formation of words.
Pragmatics : Study of the use of language (s)
Comparative Linguistics : Study of similar and dissimilar aspects of common origin
languages.
Stylistics : Study and interpretation of style and tones in
Languages.