1、Invitations to LinguisticsnDesign features:the distinctive features of human language that essentially make human language distinguishable from languages of animals.nFunction:the role language plays in communication or in particular social situations.Design FeaturesnArbitrariness:the absence of any
2、physical correspondence between linguistic signals and the entities to which they refer.nDuality:the structural organization of language into two abstract levels:meaningful units and meaningless segments.nDisplacement:the ability of language to refer to contexts removed from the speakers immediate s
3、ituation.Functions of LanguagenPhatic communion:said of talk used to establish atmosphere or maintain social contact.nMetalanguage:a language used for talking about language.Distinctions in LinguisticsnSynchronic linguistics:the study of a given language at a given time.nDiachronic linguistics:the s
4、tudy of language change through time.A diachronic study of language is a historical study,which studies the historical development of language over a period of time.Distinctions in LinguisticsnPrescriptive:to make authoritarian statement about the correctness of a particular use of language.nDescrip
5、tive:to make an objective and systematic account of the patterns and use of a language or variety.Distinctions in LinguisticsnLangue:the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community.nParole:the concrete utterances of a speaker.Distinctions in LinguisticsnLanguage competence
6、:the ideal users knowledge of rules of his language,that is,of its sound structure,its words and its grammatical rules.A transformational generative grammar is a model of language competence.nLanguage performance:the language actually used by people in speaking or writing.Speech SoundsPhoneticsPhono
7、logyDescription and classification of consonants and vowelsBasic concepts:phone,phoneme,allophonePhonological processes:assimilationSuprasegmentals:syllable,stress,intonation,tonePhonetics nPhonetics:the study of how speech sounds are produced,transmitted,and perceived.It can be divided into three m
8、ain areas of study articulatory phonetics,acoustic phonetics and perceptual/auditory phonetics.nArticulatory phonetics:the study of the production of speech sounds,or the study of how speech sounds are produced.PhoneticsnVowel:the sounds in the production of which no articulators come very close tog
9、ether and the air stream passes through the vocal tract without obstruction are called vowels.nConsonants:the sounds in the production of which there is an obstruction of the air stream at some point of the vocal tract are called consonants.PhoneticsnManner of articulation:ways in which articulation
10、 of consonants can be accomplished-(a)the articulartors may close off the oral tract for an instant or a relatively long period;(b)they may narrow the space considerably;or(c)they may simply modify the shape of the tract by approaching each other.nPlace of articulation:the point where an obstruction
11、 to the flow of air is made in producing a consonant.PhoneticsnVoicing:the vibration of the vocal folds.When the vocal folds are close together,the airstream causes them to vibrate against each other and the resultant sound is said to be“voiced”.When the vocal folds are apart and the air can pass th
12、rough easily,the sound produced is said to be“voiceless”.PhoneticsnCardinal vowels:a set of vowel qualities arbitrarily defined,fixed and unchanging,intended to provide a frame of reference for the description of the actual vowels of existing languages.PhoneticsnIPA:a standardized and internationall
13、y accepted system of phonic transcription,its basic principle is using a different letter for each distinguishable speech sound.nNarrow transcription:the transcription of speech sounds with letter symbols and the diacritics.PhoneticsnCoarticulation:simultaneous or overlapping articulations,as when t
14、he nasal quality of a nasal sound affects the preceding or following sound so that the latter becomes nasalized.If the affected sound becomes more like the following sound,it is known as anticipatory coarticulation,if the sound show the influence of the preceding sound,it is perseverative coarticuti
15、on.PhonologynPhonology:the study of sound system-the inventory of distinctive sounds that occur in a language and the patterns into which they fall.PhonologynPhoneme:It is a collection of distinctive phonetic features.It is a unit of explicit sound contrast.nAllophone:Different phones which can repr
16、esent a phoneme in different environments are called the allophones of that phoneme.nPhone:a phonetic unit or segment.It does not necessarily distinguish meaning.It is a speech sound we use when speaking a language.PhonologynMinimal pair:When two different forms are identical in every way except for
17、 one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings,the two words are said to form a minimal pair.PhonologynAssimilation:a process by which one sound takes on some or all the characteristics of a neighboring sound,a term often used synonymously with“coarticulation”.If a following sound
18、is influencing a preceding sound,it is called regressive“assimilation”;the converse process,in which a preceding sound is influencing a following sound,is known progressive“assimilation.”PhonologynSuprasegmental features:The phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments are called sup
19、rasegmental features.The main suprasegmental feature include stress,intonation and tone.PhonologynSyllable:an important unit in the study of suprasegmentals.A syllable must have a nucleus or peak,which is often the task of a vowel or possibly that of a syllabic consonant,and often involves an option
20、al set of consonants before and/or after the nucleus.PhonologynMaximal onset principle:a principle for dividing the syllables when there is a cluster of consonants between two vowels,which states that when there is a choice as to where to place a consonant,it is put into the onset rather than the co
21、da.PhonologynStress:the degree of force used in producing a syllable.When a syllable is produced with more force and is there fore more“prominent”,it is a“stressed”syllable in contrast to a less prominent,“unstressed”syllable.PhonologynIntonation:the occurrence of recurring fall-rise patterns,each o
22、f which is used with a set of relatively consistent meanings,either on single words or on groups of words of varying length.nTone:a set of fall-rise patterns affecting he meanings of individual words.MorphologyTypes of MorphemesInflection and Word FormationFree morphemes vs.Bound morphemesAffixes,In
23、flectional Affixes and Derivational AffixesRoot,StemMorphologynMorphology:a branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.nMorpheme:the basic unit in the study of morphology and the smallest meaningful components of words.MorphologynFree morp
24、heme:Free morphemes are independent units of meaning and can be used freely by themselves.nBound morpheme:are those morphemes that cannot be used by themselves,but must be combined with other morphemes to form words that can be used independently.MorphologynRoot:A root is the base form of a word whi
25、ch cannot be further analysed without total loss of identity.Stem:A stem is the existing form to which an inflectional affix can be added.A stem can be a bound root,a free morpheme,or a derived form itself.nAffix:The morphemes that can be used only when added to another morpheme.Naturally,affixes be
26、long to the type of“bound”morphemes.MorphologynInflection:The manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes,such as number,tense,person,finiteness,aspect and cases to which they are attached.nDerivation:the manifestation of relation between stems and affixes
27、 through the addition of derivational affixes.SyntaxnSyntactic relationsnGrammatical construction and its constituentsnSyntactic functionnCategorynSyntactic unitsnExtension of sentencesSyntaxnSyntax:the study of the rules governing the ways different constituents are combined to form sentences in a
28、language,or the study of the interrelationships between elements in sentence structures.nSentence:a structurally independent unit that usually comprises a number of words to form a complete statement,question or command.SyntaxnConstruction:It refers to any syntactic construct which is assigned one o
29、r more conventional functions in a language,together with whatever is linguistically conventionalized about its contribution to the meaning or use construct contains.It can further divided into the external and internal properties.nE.g.The boy kicked the ball.nThe external syntax is an independent c
30、lause,while NP(“the boy”),VP(“”kicked)and NP(“the ball”)will be assigned respectively to the different elements in the clause.SyntaxnConstituent:It is a term used in structural sentence analysis for every linguistic unit,which is a part of a larger linguistic unit.nE.g.The boy ate the apple,S(A),the
31、 boy(B),ate the apple(C),each part is a constituent.Constituents can be joined together with other constituents to form larger units.If two constituents,in the case of the example above,B(the boy)and C(ate the apple,)are joined to form a hierarchically higher constituent A,then B and C are said to b
32、e immediate constituents of A.SyntaxnEndocentric:Endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its constituents,i.e.,a word or a group of words,which serves as a definable Centre or Head.In the phrase two pretty girls,girls is the centre or H
33、ead of this phrase or word group.SyntaxnExocentric:Exocentric construction refers to a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole,that is,there is no definable“Center”or“Head”inside the group.Exocentric construction usually include
34、s basic sentence,prepositional phrase,predicate(verb+object)construction,and connective(be+complement)construction.In the sentence The boy smiled,neither constituent can substitute for the sentence as a whole.SyntaxnCoordination:A common syntactic pattern in English and other languages is formed by
35、grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and,but or or.This phenomenon is known as coordination.In the construction the lady or the tiger,both NPs the lady and the tiger have equivalent syntactic status,each of the separate constituents can sta
36、nd for the original construction functionally.SyntaxnSubordination:It refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status,one being dependent upon the other,and usually a constituent of the other.Thus the subordinate constituents are words which m
37、odify the Head.Consequently,they can be called modifiers.In the phrase swimming in the lake,swimming is the head and in the lake are the words modifying the head.SyntaxnEmbedding:Embedding refers to the means by which one clause is included in another clause in syntactic subordination.E.g.I saw the
38、man who had visited you last year.SyntaxnRecursiveness:It mainly means that a constituent can be embedded within another constituent having the same category,but it can be used to any means to extend any constituent.Together with openness,recursiveness is the core of creativity of language.E.g.“I me
39、t a man who had a son whose wife sold cookies that she had baked in her kitchen that was fully equipped with electrical appliances that were new”.SyntaxnCategory:The term category in some approaches refers to classes and functions in its narrow sense,e.g.,noun,verb,subject,predicate,noun phrase,verb
40、 phrase,etc.More specifically,it refers to the defining properties of these general units:the categories of the noun,for example,include number,gender,case and countability;and of the verb,for example,tense,aspect,voice,and so on.SemanticsSense relationsSynonymyAntonymyHyponymyPolysemyHomonymySemant
41、icsnSemantics:Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning.nConceptual meaning:This is the first type of meaning recognized by Leech,which he defined as the logical,cognitive,or denotative content.In other words,it overlaps to a large extent with the notion of reference.But Leech also use
42、s“sense”as a briefer term for this conceptual meaning.As a result,Leechs conceptual meaning has two sides:sense and reference.SemanticsnDenotation:In the philosophers usage,denotation involves the relationship between a linguistic unit and the non-linguistic entities to which it refers.Thus it is eq
43、uivalent to referential meaning.For example,the denotation of human is any person such as John and Mary.nConnotation:In the philosophers usage,connotation,opposite to denotation,means the properties of the entity a word denotes.For example,the connotation of human is“biped”,“featherless”,“rational”,
44、etc.SemanticsnSense:It is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form;it is abstract and de-contextualized.nReference:It means what a linguistic form refers to in the real,physical world;it deals with the relationship bet
45、ween the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.SemanticsnSynonymy:It refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning or we can say that words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.nPolysemy:It refers to different words may have the same or similar meaning;the sa
46、me one word may have more than one meaning.SemanticsnHomonymy:It refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form,I.e,different words are identical in sound or spelling,or in both.nHomophones:refer to two words are identical in sound.e.g.rain/reign.nHomographs:refer t
47、o two words are identical in spelling.E.g.tear v./tear n.SemanticsnHyponymy:It refers to the sense relation between a more general,more inclusive word and a more specific word.The word which is more general in meaning is called superordinate,and the more specific words are called its hyponyms.Semant
48、icsnAntonymy:It is the term used for oppositeness of meaning on different dimensions.nGradable antonymy:It is the sense relation between two antonyms which differ in terms of degree.There is an intermediate ground between the two.The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion of the other.Someth
49、ing which is not“good”is not necessarily“bad”.It may simply be“so-so”or“average”.SemanticsnComplementary antonomy:It is the sense relation between two antonyms which are complementary to each other.Not only the assertion of one means the denial of the other,the denial of one also means the assertion
50、 of the other.Not only He is alive means“He is not dead”,He is not alive also means“He is dead”.SemanticsnConverse antonymy:It is a special type of antonymy in that the members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition.They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities.X
