INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

Father of modern linguistics: de Saussure

Modern linguistics: 20th century

First linguistics: 18th century

Branches of linguistics:

- General linguistics
- Comparative linguistics (typological + genetic)
- Descriptive linguistics

Properties of (human) language

Is human language unique?

Communication: intentional and unintentional

First of all, we have to distinguish between communication which is intentional (conscious) and communication that
is unintentionally informative. Both humans and animals can send both signals. Intentional communication means
the awareness of the purpose and effect of our communication. Unintentional communication implies lack of
purpose of communicated messages (most frequently non-verbal). Our health condition may be unintentionally
sending signals but communicating one’s health state using words and...

Properties of human language

In communicating intentionally we use language in the way that is different from other communication. Human
language is characterised by the following design features:
- Discreteness
- Reflexivity
- Displacement - Arbitrariness - Productivity - Cultural transmission
- Duality

Some of these properties are unique to the code of human language. They are however found in the animal
communication as well. The difference therefore lies not in the absence or presence of the feature but the degree to
which it is manifested in a code. Features may be treated as significant in the definition of human language. Others
are insignificant as they are manifested in animal codes.

Displacement
Animal communication seems to be designed exclusively for this moment, here and now. It can’t effectively be used
to relate events that are far removed in time and place (in the future or in the past). Humans can refer to past and
future time. This property is called displacement. It allows language users to talk about things and events not present
in the immediate environment (spatial and temporal). What is more, displacement allows us to talk about things and
places whose existence we can’t even be sure of (e.g. angels, fairies, Santa Claus, Superman, heaven, hell)
Animal communication systems lack this property. Some animals can only refer to the events experienced in the
immediate past.

Arbitrariness
There is no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning. The linguistic form has no natural or
“iconic” relationship with an object out in the world. This aspect of the relationship between linguistic signs and
objects in the world = arbitrariness. Onomatopoeic words are relatively rare in human language. Less arbitrary
connection increases the flexibility and versatility of communication system and thanks to it the extension of
vocabulary is not constrained by matching by form and meaning.
For the majority of animal signals there does appear to be a clear connection between the conveyed message and
the signal used to convey it.

Productivity
Humans are always creating new expressions and novel utterances by manipulating their linguistic resources to
describe new objects and situations. This property is described as productivity/creativity/open endedness and
essentially means that the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite. Communicating systems
of animals do not have the property of productivity. Animals have a limited repertoire of signals which moreover have
fixed reference. They can’t manipulate the signals they have, they can’t adapt their system to new circumstances and
situations.

Duality
Human language is organised into 2 levels at the same time. Duality/double organisation – this dual organisation.
First, we have the physical level of sounds, which are meaningless units. Second, we have the level of meaningful
units which are built out of meaningless sounds. Animals can’t segment their signals, which are treated as solid units.
Therefore, they can’t built other messages using the material available to them. Animals produce even a large
number of different sounds but are incapable of manipulating them in a creative way as they don’t divide their
sounds into smaller meaningless signals.

Discreteness
Although sounds and their combinations (syllables) aren’t treated as meaningful units, they are recognised as
important in the formation of meaningful units. We say that language uses discrete units that can change place
producing different meanings. Meaning in language doesn’t change continually but abruptly due to the property of
discreteness. Humans select only a small proportion of the sounds they can produce for communication in the sense
of language.

Reflexivity
Refers to the human ability to reflect on language and communication themselves. This feature is not found in animal
communication.

Cultural Transmission
Using language/ a language requires acquiring it first from another generation (typically parents). A language is not
inherited but learnt in social, cultural and of course linguistic environment. We are born with a predisposition to
acquire language in general but not with the ability to speak a particular language. Animals are biologically
predisposed to produce the sounds and communicate in the way the species does regardless of the environment.

Animal Communication vs. Human Language

Animal communication doesn’t on the whole share the design features of Human Language. Some features may be
present but to a lesser degree. We are not certain if animal communication systems have the features or not.

Other properties of human language

● Vocal-auditory channel
● Broadcast transmission and directional reception
● Rapid fading
● Interchangeability
● Total feedback – the sender perceives. You hear what you say.
● Specialisation

THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE

Spoken language probably developed 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. Writing, on the other hand, dates back to 5,000
years ago. No direct evidence of the origin of language/speech. There’s no evidence of development of speech. Little
or no evidence about the language our ancestors used. Where does the language come from?
Common theories about the origins of language:
1. The divine source
2. The natural-sound source
3. The oral-gesture source
 4. Social-interaction source
5. Tool-making source
6. Glossogenetics / genetic source
7. Physical adaptation

The divine source theory

In most religions people believe that a divine source gives language to humans. Language originates from a single
source – monogenetic theory of language origin. People have carried out experiments to prove the theory and
rediscover the language given to them by God. (Wieża Babel) “Adam gave names to all living creatures”. Humans
were created from the start with the innate ability to speak. Criticism/scepticism: No experiments have proved that
we can rediscover the “first language” (given by God). Nor can we prove that children develop language in isolation.

The natural-sound source

Bow-Wow
Primitive words started as imitations of the natural sounds early humans heard around them. The imitations of
sounds were then used to refer to the things associated with the relevant sound (so-called onomatopoeia).
Criticism/scepticism: Only a marginal number of words are onomatopoeic; abstract concepts, for example, have no
sound.
Pooh-pooh
Language may have started in the form of natural sounds that expressed anger, joy, pain etc. Criticism/scepticism:
Ordinary speech isn’t produced by means of the same types of sounds; such reactions use sudden intakes of breath
otherwise not used to produce language.

The social interaction

Ye-he-ho
Early humans developed a set of grunts, curses and groans to carry heavy objects (wood, animals, stories etc.) They
were involved in many activities together, living and working together (social integration). Language arose through
the sounds people used working together, involved in physical activity, effort that had to be coordinated (ye-he-ho).
Criticism/scepticism: apes and other animals live in communities but they have not developed speech.
La-la
Language developed from songs/singing as a form of expression rather than a communicative need.

Tool-making source / oral-gesture theory.

Hands and brain. Ta-ta.
Humans started using hands to make tools and manipulate objects. They may have developed a system of
oral-gesture signs. They may have produced words as if by bringing two objects together to make another object.
They may have been between the use of tools and the use of language amongst early humans. The functions of
language and object manipulation are related closely to...

Glossogenetics – physical adaptation

Homo-erectus (1,800,000 – 500,000 years ago)
1. Hunter, gatherer, tool-maker
2. Able to control fire
3. Brain increased in size
4. Not capable of producing complex sounds

Homo Neanderthalenis (200,000 and 250,000 years ago)

1. Brain size increased
2. Consonant-like sounds produced
3. Features resembling Homo Sapiens emerge (190,000 years ago)
Features that distinguish humans from other creatures may have supported speech production. Evolutionary
development resulted in partial adaptations making speech possible for early humans: teeth, lips, mouth/tongue,
larynx/pharynx – ours is vertical, theirs was horizontal. It was also shorter.
Genetic source
Applies to language as such, not to a particular language. Humans possess the language gene. Language didn’t occur
gradually but rather quickly. Not certain how this is related to physical adaptation or when it occurred.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING

Writing systems
Many different writing systems have been devised to render human language into a form that allows messages to be
preserved over time. These writing systems differ greatly from one another with respect to the appearance of the
graphic symbols (also called characters) they utilize, and also in the concept. The writing system used to render
English is called the alphabet, but not all languages are written in alphabet. Hence alphabet has come to be used
technically to refer to only one type of writing.

The development of writing

record events) ● Rebus writing (?)
● Cave drawings (about ● Pictograms ● Syllabic writing
20,000 years ago; to ● Ideograms ● Alphabetic writing
● Logograms

Cave drawings – it’s a part of the earliest examples of art. Cave drawings flourished in Upper Paleolithic period
especially in what is now contemporary France and Spain. The earliest examples of art date back to 36,000 years ago.
Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain (20,000-36,000 years ago)

Pictograms – a form of picture writing: using pictures to represent particular images to represent particular images in
a consistent way (symbol = picture of a thing); sense-based; a conventional relationship must exist between the
symbol and its meaning; not arbitrary – language independent. Not to represent words or sounds in a language. They
are earliest attempts at combining symbols (pictures, picture writing) and meanings. They were symbols that
developed into logographic writing via ideographic writing. Chinese, Sumerians, Egyptians all used the very concept
to develop their systems.

Ideograms – a system of “idea writing”: more abstract relationship (symbol = an idea; but not a concrete object,
certainly not words); sense-based; more arbitrary (in terms of form + meaning); more derived forms; not to represent
words or sounds in a language; e.g. egyptian ideogram for water: =

Logograms – a system of word writing (logo graphic): symbols represent words (or morphemes) in a particular
language (sound and meaning); meaning-based; they don’t represent sound; grapheme: a concept – the smallest unit
in a writing system. This type of writing developed independently in separate parts of the world; it is considered the
oldest type / system of writing. Examples of the earliest logographic systems (circa 5000 years ago):
● Cuneiform writing: used by the Sumerians (Mesopotamia 4th BC) referred to the earliest writing system,
cuineiform = wedge-shaped
● Egyptian hieroglyphs
● Chinese characters (but only represent meaning of words not of sounds of spoken language)

Rebus writing – a process (or a way) of using exisiting symbols to represent the sounds of a language: borrow the
symbol, take over the sound, but forget the meaning; sound-based; reduces the number of symbols needed in a
writing system; this principle is believed to have work in Ancient Chinese and Ancient Egyptian.

Syllabic writing – Every symbol represents one syllable: grapheme = syllable; the set of symbols is called syllabary;
syllabaries were used in Ancient Persian Sansrkit, Japanese and Cheroke; Japanese also uses logographic characters –
Kanji).

Alphabetic writing – Symbols represent single phonemes. Grapheme = phoneme (i.e. symbols represent single
phonemes). Definition of “letter” (each written symbol) vs. “alphabet” (a set of written symbols). Examples:
Alphabets representing mainly consonants: e.g. Arabic, Hebrew – consonantal alphabet; Alphabets representing both
consonants and vowels: e.g. Roman (ours), Greek = true alphabet.
Alphabet – the case of Hindi: There are alphabets in which consonantal symbols automatically indicate the following
vowels (Hindi, Sanskrit, Nepali, Marathi).
Conclusion
Mesopotamia/Egypt -> Phoenicia -> Greece -> Roman Empire (cuneiforms, hieroglyphics, letters). Writing systems
seem to have gone from syllabaries to alphabets representing mainly consonants, to alphabets representing both
consonants and vowels. This reflects the phonemic nature of a language, so it can be considered a natural
development – though not a necessary one or a “better” one.
Cave drawings -> Pictograms -> Ideograms -> Logograms -> (Phonological) Rebus writing -> Syllabic writing ->
Alphabetic writing

PHONETICS

Phonetics is a branch of language study describing how speech sounds are made and how they can be represented
by letters (written representation, symbols). Phonetics deals with speech sounds and their physical characteristics. It
does not study what role(s) sounds play in the system of a language. Phonetics may study all speech sounds in
general of the sounds of one (particular) language only.

A definition of phonetics: a branch of language study describing how speech sounds are made and how they can be
represented by lettera (written, representation, symbols)

Why do we study phonetics?

● We can describe in a more formal way the speech sounds of our language.
● We can describe the sounds produced in a foreign language in a formalized fashion.
● We can compare the ways different sounds are made.
● We can improve our pronunciation.

Fields of phonetics

1. Articulatory pronetics: the study of how sounds are produced using the articulators, that is, the parts of the
body used in producing speech sounds (articulating).
2. Acoustic phonetics: (part of physics) involves the study of speech signals, that is, the speech waves produced
when we speak. It deals with the transmission of speech sounds through the air.
3. Auditory phonetics: (part of physiology) the study of how speech signals are sensed in the auditory canal and
interpreted by the relevant parts of the brain. It deals with how speech sounds are perceived by the listener

How do we produce sounds?

To produce sounds we use half the human body, from the head to the abdomen /brzuch/. There are three systems of
body organs needed for the production of human sounds:

a) The respiratory system

b) The phonatory system
c) The articulatory system

Sounds cannot be produced without air which comes from the lungs mostly (egressive; English, Polish) or which is
sucked in (ingressive)

The respiratory system

It comprises the lungs, the muscles by means of which they are compressed of dilated, the diaphragm /przepona/ ,
the bronchial tubes /oskrzela/ , and the trachea (the windpipe) /tchawica/. The primary function of the system is
breathing, but it also provides the stream of air necessary to produce sounds.
The phonatory system

It consists of the larynx (the voice box) /krtań/. The primary function of the larynx is to close off the lungs for their
protection or to make the ribcage rigid. It also provides passage for air between trachea and pharynx /gardło/ and
helps the process of swallowing. It contains vocal cords.

The articulatory system

It consists of either movable (active) or immovable, motionless (passive) articulators that are situated above the
glottis in the vocal tract: lips, teeth, tongue. Active articulators do all or most movement when speech sounds are
produced. Passive articulators do little or no movement in the process.

The passive articulators include:

● the upper lip

● the upper teeth
● the roof of the mouth
● the pharynx (the back wall of the throat)

Active articulators:

1. The tongue consisting of:

o The lip/blade
o The front
o The back
o The root
2. The lips

Articulation: voiced vs. voiceless

Sounds can be either voiced or voiceless, depending on the position of the vocal cords.

Consonants

Consonants can be defined as sounds produced with (normally) an egressive flow of air coming out of the mouth or
the nose accompanied by obstruction or friction in the articulators. Consonants are usually further described in terms
of voicing, place and manner of articulation.

Place of articulation

1. Bilabials: both lips are involved (p,b,m,w)

2. Labiodentals: upper teeth and lower lip (f,v)
3. Dentals: tip of the tongue and upper teeth
4. Alveolars: front part of the tongue and the alveolar ridge (t,d,s,z,n,r,l)
5. Palatal-alveolar: the tongue and the front of the palate
6. Palatal: the tongue in the middle of the palate (j)
7. Velars: the back of the tongue and the velum (k,g)
8. Glottals: open glottis, no active participation of other articulators (h)

Manner of articulation

1. Stops (plosives) complete stopping of air stream (p,b,t,d,k,g)

2. Fricatives: fricative structure (f,s,z,h)
3. Affricatives: stopping and friction
4. Nasals: velum lowered, air escapes through the nasal cavity (m,w)
5. Approximants: approximant stricture (h)
6. Liquids (r)
7. Glottal stops: vocal cords are closed
8. Flaps: tip of the tongue against the upper part of the mouth

Vowels

Vowels are the most sonorant and the most audible sounds. They usually function as the nucleus of a syllable. The
consonants that surround vowels often depend on them for their audibility.
Vowel sounds are normally classified based on:

o The position of the tongue (high, mid, low)

o The position of the mandible /żuchwa/ (open, close)
o The part of the tongue (front, central, back)
o The shape of the lips (rounded, unrounded)

Vowels are normally oral sounds, but may be nasalized. Nasalization occurs when vowels are next to nasal
consonants. Nasal vowels occur in languages as phonemic, for instance, in French.

Monophthongs, diphthongs, triphthongs

A vowel sound whose quality does not change over the duration of the vowel is called monophthong. They are
sometimes called “pure” or “stable” vowels.

A vowel sound that glides from one quality to another is called a diphthong.

A vowel sound that glides successively through three qualities is a triphthong.

PHONOLOGY

The term phonology is derived from the Greek words phone which means ‘sound’, ‘voice’ and logos which means
‘word’, ‘speech’. It refers to the study of speech sounds in languages or in a language with reference to their
distribution and patterning and to tacit rules governing pronunciation. It refers to the system of a language.
Phonology attempts to account for how speech sounds are combined, organized and convey meaning in particular
languages.

What is phonological knowledge?

We all have instinctive knowledge of the phonemes of our own language. It allows us to produce sounds that form
meaningful utterances (even if they are new). It presents the sound organization in languages. It describes
predictable and unpredictable contextualizations of sounds. It defines how sounds affect the identities of words. It
allows us to recognize and understand a foreign accent.

Phones & Phonemes & Allophones

Phone: a phonetic segment occurring in a language. An actual sound produced by the speaker. It can be classified as
representing some phoneme. They are non-abstract, concrete and physical. Phones represent one of the two levels:
physical reality of phonetic segments of speech.

Phoneme: a segment that differentiates meaning, a set of related sounds, a mental entity, not a physical sound,
represented by allophones , but itself not pronounceable. The psychological (abstract) representations or units of
actual physical realizations of phonetic segments. A set of speech sounds that are identified by a native speaker as
the same sound. Changing phonemes always changes a word’s meaning. They have a contrasting function.

The [t] sound in the following: tar, star, eight, writer. We know that these are the ‘same’, but actually they are
pronounced quite differently. In the phonology of English, they would be represented in the same way, as /t/. These
articulation differences are important, but the distinction between [t] and, for example, [c], [b] and [f] are more
important because they distinguish meanings of words such as tar, car, bar, far. Square brackets [] are conventionally
used to indicate a phonetic/physical segment in phonetics. In phonology we use slashes / / to indicate and abstract
segment. In English [ph] and [p] are the allophones of the same phoneme /p/. [ph] is used in paper and [p] is used in
spill. The ‘p’ in paper is normally pronounced with aspiration. That is, there is a release of a puff of air. The ‘p’ in spill
is normally not aspirated. Aspiration does not affect the meaning of the word. Either [p] or [ph] gives the same
meaning. In English they are considered to be the ‘same’ sound though they may be phonetically different. Thus, [p]
or [ph] are not contrastive in English. They do not affect the meaning of words. They are allophones of the same
phoneme /p/. In Hindi, [phal] ‘knife edge’ vs [pal] ‘take care of’; [kaphi] ‘ample’ vs. [kapi] ‘copy’. In Hindi, [ph] and [p]
are contrastive. They create a contrast in meaning. Therefore, they are different phonemes. In English and Polish
vowel length is not phonemic but it is in Czech.

Examples of phonemes

English /t/

Aspirated in tunafish

Unaspirated in starfish

Allophone: a member of a set of related phones, a member of a phoneme, versions of the same phoneme. Changing
allophones only changes the pronunciation of a word.

Examples

Phoneme: /l/

Allophone: [ł] after vowels

Minimal pairs

In english we can find pairs of words which differ in one sound only. This sound is positioned in the same
environment though. Such pairs are called minimal pairs. Their function is to establish the phonemes in a language.

Phonotactics

Phonotactics is part of the phonology of a language. Phonotactics restricts the possible sound sequences and syllable
structures in a language. Phonotactic constraints refer to any specific restriction

a) Syllable structure constraints

b) Sound sequence constraints
c) Resolving constraint violations
Phonotactics – rules

In codas, nasals may precede voiceless plosives, but only if they share the same place of articulation. For examples,
jump, sink, junk, stunt, but not: *jumk, *stunp

Syllable structure

Syllables consist of vowels and consonants. Syllables can be split into an onset, nucleus and coda. All syllables have a
nucleus.

Syllable

Onset Rhyme

Nucleus Coda
E.g. /k a t/ cat

/sk i n/ skin

Co-articulation

Co-articulation mushes together adjacent sounds so that you end up with a compromise between the two.
Co-articulation is greater when you speak faster that when you speak more slowly. It is also greater when you speak
less carefully than when you speak more carefully. Co-articulation includes, for example, assimilation and elision.

Assimilation

Assimilation occurs when sounds modify each other when they meet in speech.

o Ex. That /t/ and /b/ book

o Could you pass that book?
o Final /t/ from that becomes /p/ to approximate /b/ from book
o /t/ becomes /p/ before /b/
o /d/ becomes /b/ before /b/
o /n/ becomes /m/ before /m/

Elision

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase,
producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce.

Elision - Examples

One of the most common elisions in spoken English is /t/ and /d/.

Next please /nekspli:z/

I don’t know /ajdonoł/
Post the letter /połsdeleter/
Old man /aumen/
You and me /juenmi/
Stand there /stander/

MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is a scientific study of words , it is a study of word structure. The principal concept in this definition is
‘word’ – an ambiguous concept, may have different meanings. In linguistics, ‘word’ is understood as the smallest
meaningful unit in speech; however, words may consist of smaller elements, which are not used in speech as
independent meaningful units. Practically speaking, words are the basic units of communication (normally in
sentences), the smallest elements are not used in communication, they cannot be by definition combined into
phrases, clauses or sentences.

Pseudo-antidisestablishmentarianism

It is a word that can be used as a unit in speech, in everyday communication. It is a unit which can be combined with
other similar units to form sentences. It is also a unit which occurs between spaces in writing. It is one of the
ways of looking at and defining words. We feel, however, that this word is built out of smaller units. It can be
 identified as a unit between pauses in speech.

Pseudo

Anti

Dis

Establish

-ment

-arian

-ism

Each of these elements is meaningful somehow but only one (establish) can convey meaning on its own (root in the
word). So we can see the meanings are carried not only by what we think of as words but also by other smaller
units of language as a system.

Morpheme – free and bound

Morphemes - the smallest units of meaning in language. They cannot be further divided into meaningful elements.
Some can stand on their own (free morphemes), others gave to be attached to other forms (bound morphemes)
to express their meanings. Free morphemes are carriers of lexical meaning or grammatical function. They are
arbitrary signs. Morphemes can consist of one sound (one syllable): a- + moral. Morphemes can have two or
more sounds and syllables: catamaran, crocodile, elevator. There is no direct relationship between sounds,
syllables and letters and morphemes. If there is, it is coincidental.

Some morphemes can carry lexical meaning, they are used to form new words in a language. They carry the word’s
meaning. Such morphemes are called derivational morphemes/affixes. In English we have morphemes which are
attached to words either at the beginning or at the end. Those attached at the front are called prefixes, those
attached at the back are called suffixes. Derivational morphemes usually change the word class: drive (v.) – driver
(n.)
Morphemes can also have grammatical functions, they are used to form grammatical forms of words in a language:
works, worked, working. Such morphemes are called inflectional morphemes/affixes. They do not change the
word’s meaning. Inflectional morphemes do not change the word class: boy (n) – boys (n.) In English grammatical
morphemes are attached to the back of words, they are called suffixes or endings.

In word languages, inflection can be expressed prefixally, like in Mohawk (an Iroquoian language) a noun can be
inflected by a possessive prefix.

Morphemes – divisions

-free and bound (cats = cat + -s)

-derivational and inflectional (driver/drives)

-prefixes and suffixes (un- + kind; kind + -ly)

The newest song is prettier than the old songs)

The – free

New – free morpheme

-est – bound inflectional morpheme

Is – free morpheme

Pretty – free morpheme

-er – bound inflectional morpheme

Than – free morpheme

The – free morpheme

Old – free morpheme

Song – free morpheme

-s – bound inflectional morpheme

Problems with morphemes

The major problem with definitions of morpheme is that they claim that each form should have a meaning. There are
cases in which such an obvious relationship does not obtain, namely in the case of:

● Zero morphemes – function without form cf. a cook/ to cook, kobieta, kobiety/kobiet ● Empty morphemes –
structure/form with no meaning: cran-berry, par-o-wóz, dw-u-piętrowy, mal-ina ● Some morphemes are not
meaningful in isolation but acquire meaning only in combination with other
specific morphemes –ceive, -mit, -berry, etc. re|ceive, per|ceive, con|ceive, re|mit, per|mit, com|mit,
sub|mit, trans|mit, ad|mit, in|ept etc.

The term morpheme is used to refer to an abstract entity. The term morph is used to refer to the concrete entity,
while the term morpheme is reserved for abstract entity only. Allomorphs are morphs having the same function and
meaning, but different form. Like the synonyms they usually cannot be replaced one by the other. Allomorphs are
morpheme variants conditioned by conditions/environments in which the abstract senses of morphemes have to be
actualized.

ALLOMORPHS IN MORPHOLOGY

In Polish the morpheme pas may have different realizations:

Pas, pasem, pasowy [pas-]

But also

Pasiak [paś-ak], pasiasty [paś-asty]

Cf. ryba vs. rybie, kora vs. korze, but also: dość/dosyć, w/we, przez/przeze

Most such changes are predictable in a language; the phenomenon of alterations of morpheme forms are called
allomorphy.

A word-formation process is defined as a process of change of meaning/part of speech with or without changes in
the morphological structure of words. It is a process on existing words in a language. Word-formation processes allow
us to produce new words/ enrich the vocabulary. They give us information about word-structure. They show us the
meaning of new words. They teach us how to analyse words.

Other ways to enrich the vocabulary of a language

Borrowing – borrowing words from another language (boss robot, yogurt, tycoon)
Coinage – forming new words without reference to existing words (nylon, aspirin, quark, xerox) Loan-translation

(calque) – translating word by word words from another language: (skyscraper – drapacz chmur) English

word-formation processes

1. Affixation (derivation in Yule)

2. Compounding
3. Backformation
4. Conversion
5. Clipping
6. Blending
7. Acronymy

Affixation in ENGLISH – adding an affix to the word:

Prefixation: unkind, undo, afloat
Infixation: frigging, bloody, fucking
Suffixation: codify

Prefixes:
Class/category changing
a-blaze Adj < V
be-calm V < Adj
be-friend V < N
en-tomb V < N

Class maintaining N < N

Arch-monetarist
Mal-nutrition
Micro-dot
Mini-dress
Step-father

Suffixes – creating nouns from nouns N < N

Ess - lioness Let
Ette - kitchenette Ling
Dom - kingdom Er - bircher Iana Hood Ism Scape

Infix – morph inserted into the base in derivation or inflection. Occasionally, infixes are mentioned together with
suffixes and prefixes with reference to English morphology. However, English “infixes” are independently
meaningful elements, unlike typical affixes (blooming, flaming, blinking, flipping, fucking). They do not
change the sense but the word’s expressiveness. Hallebloodylujah, fanflamingtastic, kangabloodyroo.
Interfix: empty morph (i.e. does not carry morphemic meaning) which occurs only between two other forms.
Examples: German compounding
Auge+Arzt =Augenarzt (eye doctor)
Geburt + Jahr = Geburtsjahr (birth year)

In Polish, interfixes are purely instrumental, formative elements. More productive today is:
-o: smakołyk, bajkopisarz, żywopłot
Other interfixes include:
-u: stulecie
And –i/-y:

Transfixation
Transfix – an affix which occurs throughout the base. Roots are created by concatenation of consonants, they never
occur in isolation. Transfixes, which always consist of vowels, are then added to the root. Each transfix occurs
in a fixed position in the root. Only appears in Semitic languages.

Circumfixation
Circumfixes are affixes which are composed of two elements (prefixal and suffixal). In Polish this process is found in
the following examples:
- nasłonecznić
- ułatwić
- pagórek

Postfixation
In Polish we notice another affix which resembles a suffix, it is attached to the end of the word, however, it is always
attached after inflection. Compare the postfix –ś:
● Jakiś, jakimś, jakiegoś, jakiemuś
● Coś, czegoś, czemuś, czymś
Sometimes the Polish word się is analysed as a postfix.

Compounding
Compounding is a process in which we join together words (usually two, seldom three in English). It is common in
Germanic languages, less common though in English than, for example, in German: fingerprint, bookcase,
toothbrush, wallpaper, etc. In Polish: garkotłuk, pasibrzuch; in German: der Gummihandschuh.

Backformation

Backformation is a process in which a part of the word is removed from the back: obsess, televise, edit, beg, cobble,
moonlight, opt, etc. It changes the part of speech of the word, usually from a noun into a verb.

Conversion

Conversion is characterized by functional shift, a word changes the word class without a formal change or with a
slight formal change: battle, vacation, chair, see-through, empty, etc. Sometimes there is a formal change:
convict, present, perfect, export, import.
Clipping

In clipping we remove either the beginning, the end or both from the word. The word class does not change: fax
(facsimile), fan (fanatic), ad (advertisement), fridge (refrigerator), gas (gasoline), flu (influenza), etc. Fore clipping
– e.g. telephone

Blending

In blending we join together words which have been already shortened (clipped): carjacking, motel, boatel, smog,
brunch, etc. Blended words are called blends.

Acronymy

In acronymy, we join together into one structure first letters of words: JFK, VIP, asap, NASA, PIN, WASP, laser, radar,
etc. Acronyms may become concrete nouns, such as: laser (lightwave amplification by stimulated emission of
 radiation) and radar (radio detecting and ranging).

Productivity and blocking

Productivity is the degree to which a given process is applicable from the synchronic perspective. Some affixes, for
example, are productive as they can be used on different words without particular restrictions: -er, -y, -ish,
etc. On the other hand, such suffixes as –th, -ure are not productive in modern English.

Morphological blocking occurs when the existence of a lexically specified form “blocks” a rule derived form, e.g.:
curious -> curiosity; glorious -> *gloriosity, but glory

PHRASES AND SENTENCES: GRAMMAR

Levels of language description

❖ Sequences of sounds (phonetics, phonology)

❖ Sequences of morphemes (morphology)
❖ Sequences of words (syntax)
❖ Sequences of sentences (pragmatics, discourse analysis, textology, literature)

Sequences of words
Words can be arranged into larger constructions. In each language they are combined in specific ways. Cf. Mark
Peter loves vs. Marek Piotra kocha.

The grammar of a language describes the ways which produce well-formed clusters of words and rules out those
which are ill-formed (incorrect) sequences of words. What’s more, clusters of words may be smaller than sentences
(phrases, clauses) and they have to combined according to the grammatical rules of a language.

Grammar

Grammar in linguistics is understood as a set of rules which are defined in the description of a language. Mental
representation of linguistic competence. Speaker’s knowledge including phonological, morphological, syntactic,
semantic, pragmatic knowledge. Grammar may refer to the linguistic sets of rules which enable us to form sequences
of words. Grammar may also refer to those rules which yield only correct sequences.

TWO APPROACHES TO GRAMMAR

Prescriptive vs. descriptive

In the prescriptive approach some structure are treated as correct, well-formed and possible, others are rejected as
incorrect, ill-formed, non-grammatical or not recommended/socially accepted.

In the descriptive approach, sentences are described as they are produced by users of a language. It is more
objective and not prejudiced towards what people say in actual use.

Grammar

Within grammatical knowledge we can distinguish syntactic knowledge, knowledge of syntax. Syntax < Green syn
‘together’ and taxis ‘ordering, arrangement’. Syntax is understood as rules of sentence construction. It is also mental
representation of the ways phrases, clauses and sentences are built. Syntax studies the principles that govern the
formation of syntactic structures in languages or in a particular language.

Labels in grammatical description

Parts of speech are used to label the elements in a sentence. They are called word classes as well. Traditionally we
distinguish the following: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns. Cf. the parts
of speech we have distinguished already.

Traditional grammar

In the description of the ways in which words combine to form larger sequences we use traditional concepts:
number, gender, person, agreement, tense, voice. They may be used to describe separate elements or parts of
speech, but in grammar they are used to account for the relations within elements in sentences.

Number

It is a distinction between the quantity of persons or objects that nouns can express/refer to, in English we have two
numbers: singular and plural (table vs. tables). Each language grammaticalizes its conceptualization of number
differently. In Sursurunga (a Malayo-Polynesian language) we have the following distinctions:

Gender

Gender is related to the sex of the objects to which nouns refer. We distinguish grammatical gender, whereby nouns
are classified into classes on the basis of their form. We normally distinguish three major classes of grammatical
gender: masculine, feminine and neuter. Ideally, mascilune nouns would refer to male referents, feminine to female
objects, and neuter to sexless referents. Polish has grammatical gender, as well as German, for example: dywan
(masc.), tablica (fem.), okno (neut.), der Garten (masc.) die Tur (fem.) das Jahr (neut.). We distinguish also biological
or natural gender when nouns get their gender from the natural sex of referents. English normally has
biological/natural gender. In English nouns are not classified to gender classes on the basis of their form (exceptions:
lioness, etc.) There are languages which do not distinguish gender at all: Hungarian, Estonian, Yakut. There are
languages which distinguish masculine and feminine only: Italian and French. There are languages which have
common gender and neuter (Scandinavian languages). There are languages which distinguish between animate and
inanimate: native American languages and Basque. There are languages with three genders (masculine, feminine and
neuter): Polish, Russian, German.

PERSON

This concept refers to the distinctions between the speaker (I, we), the addressee/hearer (you) and the third party. It
is usually expressed by pronouns. The person may show inclusive or exclusive properties in the plural pronouns. The
3rd person (plural) usually do not distinguish between gender. Languages with the dual number will have separate
pronouns, like in Upper Sorbian: mój, wój, wonaj or in Slovene: midva, vidva, onadva.

AGREEMENT

It refers to the grammatical concord between elements in a sentence. The words which are combined should have
the same grammatical features. In English concord refers to the agreement between the subject and the verb in
number and in person. But also between subjects and objects and their nominal predicative complements.
poszli do sklepu *My
wziął lekarstwo
*She like icecream *I *Ona zostawił męża
likes icecream *They
likes icecream *One

Agreement does not refer only to the subject and verb agreement but to other relations as well.

o Je suis petit vs. je suis petite.

 o Mój smój bratraj vs. My smy bratra.
o One są nieśmiałe vs. Oni są nieśmiali.

TENSE

It refers to the form of the verb which informs about time location.

She lives in Paris.

She lived in Paris.
There are only two tenses in English – past simple and present simple.

Everything else (past continuous, present continuous, past perfect simple, past perfect continuous, present perfect
simple, present perfect continuous, all future tenses) – periphrastic (tense-like) constructions.

VOICE

(It is the term used to describe whether a verb is active or passive). It is a distinction between the two roles the
subject serves in a sentence, either as an active doer or passive recipient:

● He kicked the ball.

● The ball was kicked.

But in Swedish we have verb declension for the passive voice: Jane serveras av John.
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES

This kind of analysis aims to show how words are combined in a sequence (sentence). It should show how the
smallest constituents (words) are combined into phrases (NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, PrepP) and how the phrases form
sentences. We may show sentence structure in different ways. The most frequent are Chinese box, brackets or trees.

The Chinese box

Alice nibbled a mushroom and grew to an enormous size.

Alice – noun
Nibbled – verb
A – article
Mushroom – noun
And – coordinator
Grew – verb
To – preposition
An – article
Enormous – adjective
Size – noun

A mushroom – noun phrase

Nibbled a mushroom – verb phrase
Grew to an enormous size – verb phrase
To an enormous size – Prepositional phrase
An enormous size – Noun phrase

Labelled brackets

The snake killed the rat

S[NP[The snake ]VP[killed NP[the rat ]]]

Tree diagrams

The cat sat on the mat.

 Basic constituent structure analysis of a sentence:

SYNTAX
Syntax – the branch of grammar dealing with the organization of words into larger structures , such as phrases,
clauses and sentences; in other words, it is the study of sentence structure. Syntax (originally Greek) = ‘putting
together /arrangement’. In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of
syntax.

Linguistics is a science!

Generative grammar

Linguists have been trying to create a model of grammar which would allow us to describe the ways in which a
language generates well-formed sentences, one of such models is called generative grammar. Generative grammar
(Noam Chomsky) – a grammar in which a set of formal rules which are used to generate an infinite set of grammatical
sentences in the language is defined. Instead of analysing particular sentences on their own, it provides a set of
construction rules producing all grammatical and only grammatical sentences of the language.

“Grammar consists of a finite set of rules that generates an infinite set of well-formed sentences” Noam Chomsky,
1957

Generative grammar – properties

The generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations
of words will form grammatical sentences. It stipulates that our brain has a mechanism which can create langusge by
following the language principles and grammar.

Two levels of structure

Surface structure – final result of the grammar.
Deep structure – underlying structure, based upon grammatical categories and constructed by syntactic rules.

In short, deep structure determines meaning, surface structure determines sound. In generative grammar different
surface structures may have one underlying (deep) structure, for example:

He broke the window vs. The window was broken by him vs. It was him who broke the window.

This model has three essential characteristics:

1. First, the meaning, or semantic interpretation, of a sentence is determined from its deep structure. 2. Second,
the pronunciation, or phonetic interpretation, of a sentence is determined from its surface structure.
3. And third, the role of transformations is seen as converting the semantically relevant level of linguistic
description into the phonetically relevant level.

According to Chomsky, it is only sentence a) below that can be considered a kernel sentence as it is the only that
follows the criteria of what a basic sentence is.

a) Jane won the competition.

b) The competition was won by Jane.
c) Did Jane win the competition?
d) Jane did not win the competition.
e) Wasn;t the competition won by Jane?
Other sentences ( b) - e) ) do not meet the criteria of being a basic sentence.

Structural ambiguity

Structural ambiguity depends on deep reading of a sentence’s surface structure, which means that one surface form
may represent different deep structures:
Flying kites may be dangerous.
I didn’t know he had a smartphone for three months.
Small boys and girls are playing hide and seek. – only boys are small OR both boys and girls are small
Sherlock saw the man using binoculars.

Therefore, we say that a surface structure is (may be) ambiguous regarding its semantics.

The dog saw a man in the park.

Visiting relatives can be boring.

 Generative grammar – terminology and symbols

❖ S (= sentence)
❖ NP (= noun phrase)
❖ N (= noun)
❖ Art (= article)
❖ -> (= consists of)
❖ ( ) = an optional constituent
❖ Curly brackets {} = only one of the elements enclosed within the curly brackets must be selected.

S -> NP + VP
NP -> N
NP -> Det + N
VP -> V
VP -> V + NP

Labelled tree diagrams

Tree diagrams are ways of representing the hierarchical nature of a syntactic structure in a graphic form. When we
diagram a sentence we organize the underlying structure of phrases and sentences.

The dog ate the bone.

Phrase structure rules

Phrase structure rules state that the structure of a phrase of a specific type will consist of one or more constituents in
a particular obrder,
S -> NP VP
NP {Art} (Adj) N, Pro, PN
VP -> V NP (PP) (Adv)
PP -> Prep NP

All these symbols can be rewriten by using words, that is meanings are given sound representation:
N -> {Mary, George, mother boy}
V -> {followed, helped, saw}
N -> {girl, dog, boy}
Adj -> {small, crazy}
Art -> {a, the}
Prep -> {near, with}

PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES

Phrase structure rules are rules of the sort

X -> Y Z

This rule says ‘take the node X and expand it into the nodes Y and Z’

Some phrase structure rules for English

I Categorial Rules
a) S-> NP Modal VP
b) VP -> VP AP PP
c) AP -> ADVP A
d) ADVP -> ADV
e) PP -> P NP
f) NP -> D N
II Lexical Rules
a) N -> girl
b) N -> boy
c) Adv -> incredibly
d) A -> conceited
e) V -> seem
f) Modal -> must
g) P -> to
h) D -> that
i) D -> this

Recursion in syntax

Rules can be applied more than once in generating sentences, for example:
We can repeat a prepositional phrase more than once:
The gun was on the table.
The gun was on the table near the window.
The gun was on the table near the window in the bedroom.

We can put sentences inside other sentences:

Mary helped George.
Cathy knew that Mary helped George.
John believed that Cathy knew that Mary helped George.
This is the cat that ate the rat that ate the cheese that was sold by the man that lived in the city that was on the
river...

No end to recursion that would produce longer complex sentences.

Transformation rules
Transformation rules take a specific part of the structure, like a branch of the tree, away from one part of the tree
diagram and attach it to a different part, thus producing a different sense and form.
For transformation rules, we need to specify:
Which type of constituent can be moved, and
from where to where.
We can for instance use a transformation rule to derive questions in English.
A lot of changes occur through specific rules, which are call transformational rules, such as: adding, deleting, moving
and substituting of words.

SEMANTICS

Definition of semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning in language, the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. From Greek sema
‘sign’ / semainen ‘signify’
Yule claims that semantics seals with conventional meanings of such constructions, rather than with individual
understanding of them (114).
Semantics then studies objective meanings in language.
Some linguists claim that semantics is primarily interested in lexical meaning, meaning of words (lexical words vs.
function words)

Types of meaning
Yule (Chapter 11) distinguishes two mayor types of meaning:
a) Conceptual meaning, that is the basic, essential component of the overall meaning serving to communicate
information in everyday interaction
b) Associative meaning (connotative) is the meaning that is evoked in each user as a set of associations and
connotations which do not necessarily participate in the transfer of information. These associations may
differ from one person to another, and are not treated as part of the word’s conceptual meaning.

Two meanings of meaning

The word tree can be analysed as a meaningful item from two perspectives:
A. As a word related to the other words in the language: bush – tree – wood – forest, etc.
B. As a word related to a class of objects in the external world.

The two examples represent to approaches to meaning (word semantics).

I. Referential semantics
II. Lexical semantics
They are different in that the former links words with real world objects, and the latter describes sense relations
between words intralinguistically.

The reference approach is based on the semiotic triangle proposed by Ogden and Richards in 1923:
The concept is understood as a mental image that we all have of certain referents.
The referent is what a concept refers us to in the real world (real world objects)
The representation is a sign (word, lexeme) that is linked to the concept and to the referent because it stands for it
at the linguistic level.
The line between the referent and the sign is dashed as this relationship is not direct. It may be iconic, onomatopoeic
or completely arbitrary (in most cases), for example.

The lexical approach ignores real world objects and focuses on how words (lexemes) relate to one another in the
lexical system. It is believed that words do not have isolated meanings but that their senses are intertwined, which
can be shown by various sense relations. This approach also attempts to describe the internal lexical content of
lexemes by means of various methods. For example: componential analysis, meaning postulates, prototype theories,
semantic fields and others.
Semantic features
If we look at the sentence
*My brother is a spinster
we decide that there is something wrong with it. This is due to the fact that, although the sentence is syntactically
correct, the words are not semantically compatible. Their contents do not agree with each other, so to speak.

We can say that their semantic features do not agree. Words can be described in terms of semantic features, that is
very small components of meaning. Features such as ‘+ animate - animate’, ‘+ human - human’, ‘+ female - female’ ,
for example, can be treated as the basic elements involved in the differentiating the meaning of each word in a
language from every other word. For example:

table Horse boy man girl Woman

Animate - + + + + + Human - - + + + + Female - - - - + + Adult - - - + - +

On a feature analysis like this, we can say that at least part of the meaning of the word spinster in English involves
the elements [+ human, + female, + adult] but he has the feature [- female/+male], therefore the words are not
compatible

We can also characterize the feature that is crucially required in a noun in order for it to appear as the subject of a
particular verb, supplementing a syntactic analysis along with semantic features, hence the sentence The hamburger
ate the man is incorrect.

Semantic roles
We can identify a small number of semantic roles (also called ‘thematic roles’) for these noun phrases functioning in
sentences.

Agent and theme -> instrument and experiencer -> location, source and goal
Examples:
The boy kicked the ball

Agent: the entity that performs the action, e.g. The boy.
Theme (or the ‘patient’): the entity that is involved in or affected by the action, e.g. the ball.
If an agent uses another entity in order to perform an action, that other entity fills the role of instrument.
The boy cut the rope with an old razor

When a noun phrase is used to designate an entity as the person who has a feeling, perception or state, it fills the
semantic role of experiencer:
The boy feels sad.

Location: shows where the entity is (on the table, in the room)
Source: indicates where the entity moves from (from Chicago)
Goal: specifies where the entity moves to (to New York)

We drove from Chicago to New Orleans.

Lexical relations:
● synonymy
● antonymy
● hyponymy
● polysemy
● homophony
● homonymy
● homophraphy

Synonyms – different words that share (nearly) the same meaning

!! True synonyms may not exist, there is pretty much always a difference in register, attitude, dialect, collocation, or
lexical relations.
● lawyer, attorney, counsel..
● couch, sofa, futon...
● little sister, small sister...
● police, cop, pig, fuzz...

Antonyms – words in opposition, and come in a number of different forms:

Gradable antonyms can be used in comparison: small or big. They show gradable and comparable features, qualities.
An animal might be alive or dead, but not both. You may pass or fail a test, but not both. They are complementary,
non-gradable.
Reversing the perspective (reversives) in pairs of words: come/go, ascend/descend, up/down, in/out (reverses for
motion, converses for more static relations) above/below, before/after/behind.

Hyponymy – the relation of inclusion. A hyponym includes the meaning of a more general word and we might know
it as its hyperonym (superordinate). The denotation of hyponym is included in its hypernym, also the meaning of the
hypernym is included in the meaning of hyponym.

Polysemy – where different senses are judged to be related, we have polysemy rather than homonymy. Usually the
origin distinguishes the two types. On a daily basis polysemous and homonymous words are hardly (ever)
distinguished by speakers.
bat^1 – implement for striking in certain games
bat^2 – furry mammal with membranous wings
sole^1 – a sort of flat fish
sole^2 – bottom of a foot or shoe
Homonyms – words that have the same orthographic and phonological form and unrelated meanings: bank/bank,
bal/bal, zamek/zamek

Homophones – distinct lexemes with a shared pronunciation – meat/meet, masarz/masaż, chart/hart

Homographs – identical orthographic forms, different pronunciations, and unrelated meanings: buffet/buffet,
sow/sow, row/row

Prototypes: a set that has typical, central features in a category. Others are peripheral features, which are not typical
but related.

A prototype is also the best example of a given category.

The concept of prototype helps us to explain certain concepts not in terms of semantic features but in terms of their
resemblances to the best example of a given category.

Prototype theory, developed and elaborated within cognitive linguistics, goes back to Wittgenstein’s theory of
games, which is based on what we call family resemblance. All games, according to Wittgenstein, are similar in the
essential way, although they may be dissimilar in details.

Birds such as canary, dove, duck, pigeon, robin, owl, pelicans, parrot are all co-hyponyms of the category ‘’bird”.
Some, however, are more prototypical, that is some are considered as more bird-like than others, for example,
robin.

Metonymy and metaphor

Metaphor is principally a way of conceiving of one thing in terms of another, and its primary function is
understanding. Metonymy, on the other hand, has primarily a referential function; that is, it allows us to use one
entity to stand for another.
Example of a metaphor: to drown in tears

Metonymy – using one of these words to refer to the other is an example of metonymy. A type of relationship based
on a close connection in everyday experience, which can be based on:
● container – contents relation (bottle/water, can/juice)
● whole-part relation (car-wheels, house-roof)
● representative-symbol relationship (king-crown/ the President/White House)

Metaphor has traditionally been based on the notions of some similarity or comparison between the literal and the
figurative meaning of an expression (similarities between conceptual domains). Metaphor is originally a figure of
speech based on resemblance, whereby one thing is used to refer to another thing in order to show or suggest that
they are somehow similar. Metaphor is often discussed together with simile.

Metaphors involve a mental transition from one domain to another that is based primarily on context. However, we
have a lot of dead metaphors with established senses (cf. head of cabbage/bed, shoulder of a road, arm of the
government, foot of the hill, mouth of a river). Metaphors give people a way to talk about the unknown through
references to the known.

Visual metaphor – Olay ad, “skin as smooth as a peach”

Viral visual metaphor – Miley Cyrus in the “Wrecking ball” music video
Philosophers and cognitive linguists have shown that metaphors and metonymies are powerful cognitive tools for
our conceptualization of abstract categories. Metaphor and metonymy form part of the literary field, among the
studies of style and rhetoric techniques (in terms of figures of speech) and of course in linguistics.

Collocation
We know that some words tend to occur with other words/together. If you ask a thousand people what they think of
when you say hammer, more than half will say nail. If you say table, they will mostly say chair, and butter elicits
bread, needle elicits thread and salt elicits pepper. One way we seem to organize our knowledge of words is simply
on the basis of collocation, or frequently occurring together. This is a rather peculiar treatment of collocations, that is
in terms of associative fields in lexical semantics of in terms of coherence and cohesion. Normally, collocation is,
however, understood nowadays in terms of formulaic language and fixedness in language.

Collocation is understood as a habitual co-occurrence of words. That is seen in a variety of structures, such as idioms,
for instance, where the collocation between elements is very tight. In other cases, though, collocation refers to words
which are usually encountered together, as in white coffee, white wine, różowe wino, kary koń, dojrzałe wino, etc.

Discourse Analysis

While pragmatics studies how listeners try to interpret what is said, what they hear, discourse analysis examines how
we make sense of discourse and how we make discourse happen.

Discourse is understood as:

● language above the sentence or above the clause,
● a continuous stretch of spoken language larger than a sentence, constituting a coherent unit, ●
a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive; language in use.

Text and discourse

Text is a unit of the highest level and is defined as a stretch of language. Actual texts in use may be defined as
discourse. Discourses are formed by sequences of utterances. It is obvious that many utterances taken by
themselves are ambiguous, vague, difficult to comprehend. They can and they do become clear only within a
discourse.

What is discourse analysis?

Discourse analysis or interpretation of utterances involves a variety of processes, grammatical and pragmatic. By
pragmatic processes we mean the processes used to bridge up the gap between the semantic representations of
sentences and the interpretation of utterances in a given context.

In discourse interpretation we use a number of strategies:

● Cohesion
● Coherence
● Conversation principles
● Background knowledge

Cohesion - grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence (or between sentences) essential for its
interpretation.
Together with coherence, cohesion is used to describe the properties of texts in discourse analysis. Texts may,
however, be coherent without being overtly cohesive and the other way round.

Cohesion is recognized and judged upon:

● the use of lexical and grammatical devices,
● formal linguistic features,
● semantic relationships between sentences ad within sentences.

Each instance of the use of cohesive devices is called a tie.

Cohesion – example (Yule)

“My father once bought a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every penny he could. That car would be worth a
fortune nowadays. However, he sold it to help pay for my college education. Sometimes I think I’d rather have the
convertible.”

Cohesive ties (in reference):

- father (he – he – he)
- A Lincoln convertible – that car – it – the convertible

Cohesive ties (in semantics):

- [money]: bought – saving – penny – worth – fortune – sold – pay;
- [time]: once – nowadays – sometimes

Cohesive ties (in grammar): tense: bought – did – could – would – sold ~ think

Cohesive devices for textual relation: however

Types of cohesion
We can distinguish several types of cohesion, that is types of links which establish cohesive ties between elements in
discourse:
1. Lexical
2. Referential
3. Substitutive
4. Elliptical
5. Conjunctive

Lexical cohesion
Lexical cohesion is established by parallelism, recurrence, paraphrase and collocation.
Parallism – use of parallel structures: Miley Cyrus is talented, graceful and eats bananas. Recurrence (reiteration) –
repeating the content by means of synonyms, hiperonyms, related words. Paraphrase – expressing the content by
descriptive means. Miley Cyrus – the most popular singer Collocation – expectation of certain words in certain
established contexts by other lexical units: kitchen – food – eat.

Referential cohesion
Referential cohesion is achieved by referential means, such as personal and demonstrative units.
That smartphone is excellent. It must have cost a lot.
His remark hurt me. The same would hurt anyone.

Substitutive cohesion
Substitution in cohesion means substituting elements by nominal, verbal or clausal units.
I have seen many dirty dogs in my life, but this one takes the biscuit.
Is it likely to rain? I think so.

Elliptical cohesion
Ellipsis means that certain elements are omitted, such as nominal, verbal and clausal elements.
What are you doing? Admiring Miley Cyrus?
Do you love Miley Cyrus? Yes, I do!
There came first two lions, and then three more.

Conjunctive cohesion
Conjunctive cohesion is quaranteed by combining elements by means of appropriate conjunctions: additive,
adversative, temporal and causal, for example:
I can see very well. And under water too.
I thought I had bought everything. Yet I forgot lemons.
I need you to stay here. Until you have finished eating.
I want you to stay here. Because I need to tell you something.
Coherence – the order of statements related to one another by sense. The quality of being meaningful and unified is
known as coherence (everything fitting together well).
It is a necessary quality for communication. The textual world (what the text is about) is made up of concepts and
relations. Coherence concerns the way in which concepts and relations are mutually accessible and relevant. In other
words, a coherent text is one which is easy for us to understand because it is easy for us to make a mental
representation of it. Remember that it is possible for a text to be cohesive but not coherent.

A: That’s the telephone

B: I’m in the bath
A: O.K.

How do both the speakers manage to make sense of what the other says?
- The 1stspeaker makes a request for the 2ndspeaker to perform some action
- The 2ndspeaker states a reason why he cannot comply with the request
- The 1stspeaker undertakes to perform the action
- Thus language users must have a lot of knowledge of how conversation works that is not simply ‘linguistic’
knowledge.
 - Coherent texts are sequences or utterance which seems to ‘hang together’.

Incoherent text – example

(ATTEMPT) Large monopolized trading companies were established in the country
(OUTCOME) Companies proved somewhat unsuccessful because of their heavy bureaucracy.
(GOAL) Colbert tried to create an efficient organization for stimulating foreign trade.

Conversation analysis
Conversation has been considered as the most fundamental means of conducting human affairs since this is the
prototypical kind of language usage.

Purposes of conversation:
- exchange of information
- creating and maintaining social relationships (e.g. friendships)
- negotiation of status and social roles
- deciding on and carrying out joint actions (co-operation).
The primary and overriding function of conversation is clearly the social function, i.e. the maintenance of social
relationships.

Conversation analysis: structure

Openings: There are conventional routines for openings, e.g.: greetings, introduction, opening questions. Closings:
Intentions to close a conversation are usually expressed with closing signals such as well so okay used with falling
intonation
Turn-taking mechanisms: intention to let the conversational partner speak is signaled with low voice, slowing down,
putting a question, body movement. In smooth communication less than 5% is delivered in overlap. Adjacency
pairs: utterances which require an immediate response or reaction from the partner (greeting-greeting,
offer-accept, compliment-thank, question-answer); there are always preferred and non-preferred answers, and it is
difficult for learners to distinguish between them
Back-channeling: signals that show the speaker that his/her message is understood and listened to. Examples:
uhhuh, yeah, right.

The co-operative principle

Grice (1975) proposed four criteria for co-operative communication. The assumption is that all speakers try to
co-operate with one another to communicate effectively.
a) Maxim of relevance/relation: In communication, each person’s contribution has to be relevant to the topic.
For example, in the following exchange this maxim is not observed:
A: Would you like some coffee?
B: I disagree with this solution.
b) Maxim of truthfulness/quality: contributions in conversations should be truthful (exceptions are jokes,
deliberate lies)
c) Maxim of quantity: In conversations, talking time should be fairly divided between interlocutors and one
should strive for brevity (this maxim is often not observed)
d) Maxim of clarity/manner: Messages conveyed should not be obscure or ambiguous.

Background knowledge
Frames are data structures that represent stereotypical situations.
Scripts contain information on event sequences. Scripts may include scenes, roles and props. It is a type of dynamic
schemata. Scripts help explain that expectations play an important role in understanding discourse. When we hear a
situation being described, we expect that certain events take place.
Schema is a term used for a conventional knowledge structure that exists in memory. A number of such structures
are called schemata. These are mental representations of typical situations. These are used in the interpretations of
what we experience. This can be said to be the background knowledge that we already have. E.g. a description of a
visit to a super market will not include details as many of us will already have a schema for supermarkets.

Pragmatics – the study of the relation of linguistic units to people who communicate. Pragmatics studies the ability
of language users to pair sentences with the context in which they would be appropriate. It studies “invisible
meaning”, meaning that is hidden behind the meanings of words and the meanings of sentences out of context. It is
the branch of linguistic which studies those aspects of meaning which cannot be captured by semantic theory. It is a
systematic way of explaining language use in context. Pragmatics studies how people communicate beyond what the
words or phrases of their utterances might mean by themselves, and how people make these interpretations.

The study of speaker meaning: what people mean by their utterances rather than what the words or phrases might
mean by themselves. The study of contextual meaning: importance of the context: the circumstances and the
audience or public. The study of how more gets communicated than said. Pragmatics is linked with discourse
analysis, which studies how speakers and writers use various devices to put sentences together into a cohesive and
coherent whole and how such pairings (texts) can be understood in a larger discourse.

Pragmatic competence.jpg

Invisible meaning
This is a self-clearing cafeteria.

Context
The discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to determine its interpretation.

The role of contexts

Linguistics emphasize the importance of context in the interpretation of what we say and hear. They distinguish two
types of context:
a) linguistic (co-text)
b) Physical context.
Both types help us to interpret correctly the intended...

Linguistic context: a set of other words used in the same phrase or context.
Physical context: interpretation based on the physical environment in which the meaning is interpreted.

Deixis and meaning

The word deixis is a term for one of the most basic things we do with utterances, which means ‘pointing via
language’.
Deictic expressions are those which cannot be interpreted without reference to physical context. They include: a)
person deixis: I: the speaker; you: the addressee; he, she, it: neither the speaker, nor the addressee. Social deixis
refers to the social status of participants (honorific forms). The use of tu and vous, du and Sie in German, tu and
usted in Spanish.
b) place/spatial deixis: here, there, this, that indicate distance or proximity from the speaker, physical distance
or proximity.
c) time deixis/temporal: now, then are used to describe a location in time.
Reference
Reference is an act in which a speaker or writer uses linguistic forms to enable a listener or reader to identify
something. Words in themselves do not refer to anything, people refer.
Referring expre3ssions: linguistic forms like proper nouns, definite or indefinite noun phrases and pronouns. The
choice of one type of these expressions rather than another is based on what the speaker assumes the listener
already knows.

Inference
For successful reference to occur, we must recognize the role of inference and collaboration between the speaker
and the listener in thinking what the other has in mind. Sometimes we use seemingly vague expressions relying on
the listener’s ability to infer what referent we have in mind. The blue thing, Mr Brutal is late again. The role of
inference in communication is to allow the listener to identify correctly which particular entity the speaker is
referring to.

Anaphora and cataphora

Anaphora – ‘referring back’
It is realized by expressions used to maintain reference to something or someone already mentioned: The boy stole
the apple. He ate it the following day. The reference between the boy and he is called anaphora. The boy is called
antecedent in this relationship.

Cataphora – ‘referring forward’

If you need one, there’s a towel in the top drawer.

Presupposition
It is understood as the knowledge the speaker assumes the listener has. We construe our utterances based on what
we believe the listener knows. So a simple statement She is an excellent dancer presupposes that we know that she
is a dancer. We take certain things for granted, so to speak, to communicate new things.

The utterance John regrets that he stopped doing Linguistics before he left Cambridge has the following
presuppositions:
- There is someone uniquely identifiable to speaker and addressee as John.
- John stopped doing linguistics before he left Cambridge.
- John was doing linguistics before he left Cambridge.
- John left Cambridge.
- John had been at Cambridge.

Examples of presupposition:
Pepe has stopped drinking wine for breakfast.
It was Bob that kissed Kate.
Mary bought a white rabbit again.
??? The pope has got divorced again.
Speech acts
A concept proposed by John L. Austin in 1962, one of the founders of pragmatics, and later developed by John R.
Searle in 1969. Both were philosophers of language. Speech acts refer to the moments in which statements occur in
the communicative act within a given context and are interpreted as actions. Speech acts are are groups of
utterances with single interactional function.

Linguistic forms and functions

Imperative mood – commands
a) Don’t sit here!
b) Please come by nine.
c) Let’s not eat here.

Indicative mood – statements

a) We bought that yesterday.
b) She doesn’t know the answer.
Interrogative mood – questions
a) Want to go now or tomorrow?
b) Don’t you have any money?

Direct speech acts

A question is a question:
a) What time is it?
b) Where did I put that notebook?
c) Didn’t he write that paper yet?

A statement is a statement:
a) It’s 12 noon.
b) Alice has not found the lost car keys.

A command is a command:
a) Tell her what time it is!
b) Tuck in your shirt and stop slouching.

Indirect speech acts

A statement in form is heard/understood as a command:
a) Your bedroom needs to be cleaned before Mom arrives.

A statement in form is heard/understood as a question:

a) I believe the trash was last taken out by your sister?
A question in form is heard/understood as a statement:
a) John knows where the airport is, doesn’t he?

A question in form is heard/understood as a command:

a) Is it your turn to do the dishes?

A command in form is heard/understood as a statement:

a) You should make yourselves at home.

A command in form is heard/understood ...

Direct and indirect speech acts

We may wonder how speakers know which meaning is intended (which function) considering that different functions
are associated with different form. They do the interpreting in very specific conditions which are conducive to
appropriate interpretations of speech acts. Such conditions are called felicity (happiness) conditions.

A command cannot be issued by a particular person of lower status or power to another particular person of higher
status or power. Sentencing is felicitous when sentences such as I sentence you two months in prison are used by a
judge in a courtroom. If we want the speech act of promising (A promises B to do C) to be successful we have to
meet the following felicity conditions:
- A believes B wants C done
- S can do C
- S is willing to do C
- C has not yet been done.

Politeness
Politeness, an intention to be polite and not hurt someone’s face, is an important factor impacting how we speak and
interpret speech. Face is understood as one’s self-image which may be threatened or saved (spared) in language
interaction by face threatening or face-saving acts. Language allows us to operate so that we can affect people’s face
differently. Also to keep our negative face or positive face.
- Shut the door!
- I wonder if you’d mind shutting the door? -
There is quite a draught in here.
- I was wondering if you could possibly shut the door? -
Darling, I love windows open in winter.