BBI3201
Introduction to General Linguistics

•
• Students are able to:
• 1. analyse the sounds of language, as well as the structure of words and sentences (C3)
• 2. evaluate the similarities and differences among
• languages and universal aspects of grammar (A3)
• 3. discuss developments in linguistics and related fields
• (P2, CS)
• 4. develop thinking skills such as explaining, analysing and evaluating discussions (CTPS)

• This course covers essential elements of linguistics, the nature of language, phonetics and phonology, morphology and word formation, syntax and grammatical elements, semantics, linguistic comparison, linguistic schools and branches of linguistics.

• Kerja Kursus 70%
• Peperiksaan Akhir 30%

Kerja Kursus:(70%)
• Quiz: (10%)
It is in a form of a short essay based on Chapter
1. You are required to hand in the assignment by
Week 5.
• ASSIGNMENT : (25%)
You will be given ONE written assignment to work on. You are required to hand in the assignment by Week 10.

• MID-SEMESTER TEST (35%)
• MCQs and short-structured questions will be asked.
• You will be tested on the following:
• Introduction to Linguistics
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
• FINAL EXAMINATION
MCQs and short-structured questions will be asked.
You will be tested on the following:
Semantics
Pragmatics
(30%)
Language history and change
Language, society and culture
Development of writing

• Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. and Hyams, N. (2011) An
Introduction to Language . 9th ed. Boston: Thomson
Wadsworth.
• RM43.00
Contact: Mr Tan Yun Chuan:- 012-
2808241/ tanyunchuan@ymail.com>

9
• Language is used for communication . Language allows people to say things to each other and express their communication needs.
• The communication of most interest to us is the communication of meaning.
• A language allows its speakers to talk about anything within their realm of knowledge.

• Human language is arguably the single most remarkable characteristic that sets our species apart
• Our development of everything from music to warfare could never have come about in the absence of language
• LANGUAGE IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN, AND
HUMAN LANGUAGE IS UNIQUE

• Part of knowing a language is knowing what sounds or signs are in that knowledge and what sounds are not
• Knowing a language also includes knowing that certain sound sequences signify certain meanings or concepts e.g. cat glitter (words beginning with gl related to sight)

DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE
(Fundamental properties of language )
• Duality of patterning
• Displacement
• Open-endedness
• Stimulus-freedom
• Arbitrariness

DUALITY OF PATTERNING
• For most people, most of the time, the ordinary medium of language is speech
• How do we speak ? We allow air from the lungs to pass out through our mouths, and at the same time, we move our mouths in various ways to produce speech sounds-consonants and vowels
• Every utterance we make consists of speech sounds, one after another

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• In fact, every human language operates with only a small set of speech sounds, e.g. English, consider the word
•
• How many speech sounds does it contain ? ( answer : 3 )

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
•
For convenience, let us introduce special symbols for each of the speech sounds
/ k / , / æ/, / t /
• We use the slashes / / to indicate we are talking about distinctive speech sounds
(phonemes) of a particular language --in this case, English

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• Now, if someone asks you what the English word / k æ t
/ means, you will have no trouble in answering
• But suppose , someone asks you what the English phoneme / k / means ?
* It is impossible for you to answer as the phoneme / k / has no meaning in English
( nor / æ / or / t /)

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• But now notice something else -- these same meaningless phonemes can be rearranged to produce different words with different meanings
• thus the order / t æ k / tack , while / æ k t / act , / æt / at , and / t æk t / gives tacked or tact

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• What is happening is that, by combining a very small set of meaningless speech sounds in various ways, we can produce a very large number of different meaningful items
-- words.
• All human languages are constructed in this way, and this is called
or

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• Duality is the use of a small number of meaningless elements in combination to produce a large number of meaningful elements

DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
DUALITY IS UNIQUE TO HUMAN LANGUAGE
• In fact, bird songs and whale songs arguably contain an element of duality, but these are not exactly signaling systems
• Other creatures have signaling systems which are based on the principle of ‘one sound, one meaning.’

• Displacement is the use of language to talk about things other than the here and now
• This means that we are able to talk about events which occurred previously, such as about our childhood, or what did two months ago, etc.

• Open-endedness is our ability to use language to say anything at all, including lots of things we’ve never said or heard before
• A large pink spider wearing sunglasses and a polka dot sarong danced across the floor
(It is most unlikely that you have ever seen the sentence above, but you have no difficulty in understanding it--even though you may not believe it)

•
Stimulus-freedom is the ability to say anything you like in any context
Suppose someone says to you, ‘What do you think of my kebaya ?’-you are free to make any response you like, including none at all. You might reply, ‘it’s pretty’ or ‘it is so ugly’ or ‘it doesn’t suit you’.
• This however does not mean that human language is totally random.
There are social pressures that make some responses more likely than others.
• The absence of stimulus-freedom would mean that your every remark is determined by the context, so that like a character in a play, you do not have the choice of what to say.

STIMULUS - FREEDOM (contd.)
• There are, of course, certain formal and especially ceremonial context in which you are bound by the context
-e.g. church services
• Non-human signals are NOT stimulus-free, but rather stimulus bound i.e. a non-human creature produces a particular signal always and only when the appropriate stimulus is present.

• Arbitrariness refers to the absence of any necessary connection between a linguistic form and its meaning.
• The overwhelming presence of arbitrariness in language is the chief reason it takes so long to learn the vocabulary of a foreign language-- it is generally impossible to guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

•
•
•

27
• Phonetics is the general study of speech sounds.
• Phonology is the study of the sound system of language – the rules which govern pronunciation

• To know a language is to know the sounds of that language and we know how to combine those sounds into words.
• For example: When we know English, we know the sounds represented by the letters b, e , and d and we can form the word bed .
• Articulatory phonetics is the study of how the vocal tract produces the sounds of language.

29

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• Orthography, or alphabetic spelling, does not represent the sounds of a language in a consistent way:
• Different Spelling, Same Sounds
• For example: Did he believe that Caesar could see the people seize the seas?
• The same sound /i:/ is represented variously by e, ie, ae, ee, eo, ei and ea.

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Same Spelling,
Different
Pronunciations
For example: cough - / k
Ɔ: f
/ tough /t Λ f / bough - /b aʊ/ through - / θr u:/ though - /
ð əʊ
/ thoroughfare - /
θʌr ə feə/
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32
• Some letters have no sound in certain words (so-called silent letters).
• mnemonic debt hole know write island
• English spelling is not consistent at all with its pronunciation.

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•
•
•
The International Phonetic Alphabet a different symbol for each distinctive sound the same symbol should be used for that sound in every language which uses it .
The sounds of all languages fall into two classes:
1.
Consonants
2. Vowels

g tʃ d k dʒ p b t
pen, copy, happen back, baby, job tea, tight, button day, ladder, odd key, clock, school get, giggle, ghost church, match, nature judge, age, soldier
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f v
θ
ð s z ʃ fat, coffee, rough, photo view, heavy, move thing, author, path this, other, smooth soon, cease, sister zero, music, roses, buzz ship, sure, national
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ʒ h m n l ŋ r pleasure, vision hot, whole, ahead more, hammer, sum nice, know, funny, sun ring, anger, thanks, sung light, valley, feel right, wrong, sorry, arrange
36

j w
ʔ
37

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• The place of articulation, and
• The manner of articulation
• The production of any sound involves the movement of air.
• Most speech sounds are produced by pushing lung air through the vocal chords.

39
• Consonants are classified according to where the airflow restriction occurs in the vocal tract.
• Movement of the tongue and lips creates the constriction, reshaping the oral cavity in various ways to produce the various sounds.

40
• Bilabials [p], [b], [m]: we articulate by bringing both lips together.
•
•
Labiodentals [f], [v]: We articulate by touching the upper teeth on the lower lip.
Interdentals [ θ ], [ ð] : The sound is pronounced by inserting the tip of the tongue between the teeth.

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• Alveolars [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [l], [/r]/. All these sounds are pronounced with the tongue raised in various ways to the alveolar ridge.
• [t], [d], [n] the tongue tip is raised and touches the ridge, or slightly in front of it.
• [s], [z] the sides of the front of the tongue are raised, but the tip is lowered so that air escapes over it.

42
• [l] the tongue tip is raised while the rest of the tongue remains down, permitting air to escape from both sides of the tongue. Thus, [l] is called a lateral.
• [r]: the sound is produced by curling the tip of the tongue back behind the alveolar ridge – a retroflex sound

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• Palatals [ ʃ ], [ ʒ ], [ tʃ], [dʒ], [j]: the constriction occurs by raising the front part of the tongue to the palate .
• Velars [k], [g], [ŋ]: these sounds are produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate or velum.

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• How do we distinguish the sounds of [p], [b] and
[m] (they are bilabials) or [t], [d] and [n] (they are all alveolar ridge sounds)?
• Speech sounds also vary in the way the air stream is affected as it flows from the lungs up and out of the mouth and nose. It may be blocked or partially blocked; the vocal cords may or may not vibrate. This is called the manner of articulation.

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• When the vocal cords are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded.
Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless.
• When the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through, creating a vibration effect.
Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced.

46
•
• The voiced/voiceless distinction is very important in
English. This phonetic property distinguishes the words in word pairs like the following: pin: [p ɪ n] bin: [b ɪ n] cat: [k æ t] get: [/get]

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• Voiceless sounds can be classified into two classes: aspirated and unaspirated
• Aspirated voiceless consonant means when the consonant is being pronounced, there is a puff of air.

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• Nasal sounds: When the velum is not in its raised position, air escapes through the nose and mouth.
Eg: [m], [n] and [ŋ]
• Stops are consonants in which the air stream is completely blocked in the oral cavity for a short period
(tens of milliseconds). eg: [b], [p], [m], [t], [d], [n], [k], [g],
[ŋ], [tʃ] and [dʒ]
• Fricatives are sounds produced with the air flow so severely obstructed that is caused friction. eg: [f], [v], [s],
[z], [θ] and [ð]

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• Affricates are produced by a stop closure followed immediately by a gradual release of the closure. eg:[tʃ] and [dʒ]
• Liquids: there is some obstruction of the airstream in the mouth but not enough to cause any constriction. eg: [l] and [r]
• Glides are produced with little obstruction of the airstream.eg: [j] and [w]
• Approximants are sounds that approximate a frictional closeness, but no actual friction occurs.eg: [w], [j], [r] and [l]

50
Some charts have a row for affricates (e.g., the chart below based on page 21 of the textbook). The IPA consonant chart doesn't -- you can always get the affricate symbol by putting together the stop and the fricative symbols in the relevant column
bilabial labio-dental dental alveolar alveopalatal retroflex palatal velar stop fricative nasal approximant affricate
( ) ( )

51
• Vowels are pronounced with no significant blockage of the air as it is pushed out of the lungs. The quality of a vowel depends on the shape of the vocal tract as the air passes through. Different parts of the tongue may be high or low in the mouth; the lips may be spread or pursed; the velum may be raised or lowered.

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• a) b) c)
Differences between vowels depend on very small movement of the tongue and mouth.
area of the mouth height of the tongue in the mouth shape of the lips
For example: say kn ee [i:] and b oo t [u:]
First vowel sound - coming from the front part of the mouth
Second vowel sound – coming from the back

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•
• Another example: Say h a t [æ] and ar m [ɑ:]
[æ] from the front of the mouth
[ɑ:] from the back of the mouth
Therefore, [i:] and [æ] are front vowels and [u:] and [ɑ:] are back vowels

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• Height of the tongue
If the tongue is near the roof of the mouth, the sound is described as close .
If the tongue is near the bottom, it is described as open .

Therefore, [i:] close front vowel kn ee
[æ] open front vowel h a t
[u:] close back vowel b oo t
[ɑ:] close back vowel ar m
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56 front centre back i u high
I
Ʊ e o mid ə
ε
Λ Ɔ low
a ɑ

• Shape of the lips
Vowels are described based on the shape of the lips
(spread - /i:/ or rounded - /u:/)
[i:] close front spread kn ee
[æ] open front spread h a t
[u:] close back rounded b oo t
[ ɒ ] open back rounded b o x
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58
Tenseness
Vowels produced with greater tension of the tongue muscles
Tense Lax
[ i: ]
[ u: ]
[ I ]
[ Ʊ
[ ε ]
[ æ]
[ Λ ]
]

Short Vowels
[ I ] pit, bit
[ e ] / [ ε ] bet, pet
[æ]
[ Ʊ ] man, pat put, foot
[ ɑ ] /[ Ɔ
[ ə
]
] pot, cot sofa
[ Λ ] but
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[i] / [ i:] beat, feel
[u] / [u: ] fool, boot
[ Ɔ ] / [ Ɔ:]
[a] / [ ɑ:]
[ З: ] port, bought park, card, pass, half bird, fern, purse
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• Diphthongs occur when one pure vowel glides to another.
3 vowels (/e/, /a/ and /ɔ/) that glide towards [ɪ]. They are:
[eɪ] face
[aɪ] bite
[ɔɪ] toy

• There are two which glide to /ʊ/. They are:
[əʊ] n o se
•
[aʊ] m ou th
The remaining three glide towards / ə /. They are:
[ɪə] d ea r
[eə] h ai r
[ʊə] c ur e
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[e
I]
[ə
Ʊ ]
[a
I
]
[au]
[ƆI]
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• Difference between phonetics and phonology
• Phonetics simply describes the articulatory and acoustic properties of phones (speech sounds).
• Phonology is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language.

• Phoneme (Longman Dictionary of Applied
Linguistics) is defined as the smallest unit of sound in a language. A phoneme is conventionally indicated with slash marks / /.
• For example: a) pan and ban are words that differ only in their initial sound, /p/ and /b/ respectively.
b) ban and bin differ only in their vowels: /æ/ and /ɪ/

Therefore /p/, /b/, /
and
are phonemes of English.
They are also known as minimal pairs as each pair of words is different from each other by only one distinctive sound (always in the same position in the word).

• In a single phoneme, we can have different forms such as aspirated and non-aspirated consonants.
• For example: the phoneme /p/ is used in words like span
/sp æn/ and spare /speə (r)/.
•
•
•
However, when /p/ occurs at the beginning of words like put /p ʊt/ and pair /peə (r)/, it is said with a puff of air [p h ].
This variation is called allophones of a phoneme. “Allo” = one of a closely related set.
Allophones – realizations of a single structural element in the sound system of a language.

• Both the unaspirated and the aspirated /p/ have the same phonemic function that is they are both heard and identified as /p/ and not as /b/.
• Therefore /p/ and /p h / are both allophones of the phoneme
/p/

• Look at the allophones /p/ and /p h / again.
• Notice that the /p h / occurs at the beginning of words and
/p/ occurs at after [s]
• If there are two sounds and one cannot occur where the other one occurs in a word, we say they are in complementary distribution.

• When /p/ a voiceless bilabial stop occur at the end of a word, the sound can be produced without being released
/p ] /
•
•
This is the third allophone of the phoneme /p/
If the /p/ in the word ‘mop’ is pronounced as /p/ or /p ] /, where the sounds are different but they do not contrast in meaning (like minimal pairs do), we say they occur in free variation .

•

morph ology science of
Greek word – morphe : ‘form’
Morphology: the science of (word) forms
Therefore, morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and of the rules by which words are formed.

• The most basic unit of grammatical form
• The minimal linguistic unit – an arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning
• For example: a (=without): amoral, asexual, asymmetrical

• A word can be composed of one or more morphemes:
• For examples:
One morpheme: child, wife, man,
Two morphemes: child+ish, paint+er, re+cycle
Three morphemes: un+kind+ly, re+use+able, dis+agree+ment
Four morphemes: gentle+man+li+ness, un+domestic+ate+ed
More than four morphemes: un+gentle+man+li+ness

Free
Morphemes
Bound

are words (lexemes) in their own right e.g.: house, car, etc.
• Can be classified as:
-Open class (Content/Lexical words): nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs
-Closed class (Function or Grammatical words): conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns, auxiliary verbs

are morphemes that cannot stand alone e.g.: -able, -ness, dis-, etc.
• Affixes are bound morphemes
• There are different types of affixes.

PREFIXES
INFIXES
SUFFIXES
AFFIXES
CIRCUMFIXES

• Bound morphemes - attached before the root
• For example: un+kind =unkind
•
• pre+test=pretest im+possible= possible
• Do not change the word class, provide opposite meaning

• Bound morphemes - attached after the root
•
• For example: kind +ness = kindness verb noun
•
•
• sing + er = singer verb noun beautiful + ly = beautifully
• adjective adverb
• The use of suffixes changes the word class.

Word Formation Rule: Inflectional Morphology
• Inflectional suffixes do not involve a change of word class e.g. swim (verb) – swim + s (verb)
•
• Examples:
I watch the beautiful sunset.
•
• He watches the beautiful sunset.
Nancy watched the beautiful sunset.
•
• Nancy has watched the beautiful sunset.
Nancy is watching the beautiful sunset.
• Inflectional morphemes represent relationships between different parts of a sentence.

• For example: (2) the –es at the end of the verb is an agreement marker.
• The suffix –ed indicates past tense, syntactic rules requires –ed form to be used with have,
• and –ing is required when verbs are used with forms of be .

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Summary
Open class
Closed class
do not usually involve a change of word class
involve a change of word class
do not involve a change of word class

• derivation
• functional shift
• semantic shift
• compounding
• clipping
• acronyms
• initialisms
• blends
• backformation
• onomatopoeic words

• Derivation is the process by which a new word is built from a base, usually through the addition of an affix
• Derivation creates new words by changing the category and/or the meaning of the base to which it applies
• e.g. the derivational affix -er , combines with a verb to create a noun with the meaning ‘ one who does ’ work (v.) + -er = worker (n.)

• No derivation occurs but there is a change in the syntactic category.
E.g.: paper – noun (I need some more papers.) paper – verb (I need to paper the wall so that the room will look brighter.)

• Existing words can take on new meanings by shrinking or extending the scope of their reference.
For example: computer language: mouse and bookmark internet addresses.
• New meanings of words do not replace earlier ones but extend their range of application

• Another way to form a new word is by combining two already existing words e.g. blackboard, greenhouse

• Clipping is a process whereby a new word is created by shortening a poly-syllabic word
• e.g. prof for professor ad for advertisement

• Acronyms are formed from the initial sounds or letters of a string of words
• e.g. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome)
IOC (International Olympic
Council)

•
•
•
• Shortenings that resemble acronyms but are pronounced as a sequence of letters and not a word.
• For example: Universiti Putra Malaysia:
UPM
Compact Disk: CD
Chief executive officer: CEO
Attention deficit disorder: ADD

• Blends are words that are created from parts of two already existing lexical items
• e.g. motel ( motor - hotel ) telethon ( telephone - marathon )
• Usually, the first part of one word and the last part of a second one are combined to form blends

• Backformation is a process whereby a word whose form is similar to that of a derived form undergoes a process of deaffixation
• e.g. baby sit from baby-sitter edit from editor typewrite from typewriter

• Words formed by mimicking the sounds that we hear around us.
• Eg. swish, moo, quacks, etc

• Any speaker of any human language can produce and understand an infinite number of possible sentences
• Thus, we can’t possibly have a mental dictionary of all the possible sentences
• Rather, we have the rules for forming sentences stored in our brains
• Syntax is the part of grammar that pertains to a speaker’s knowledge of sentences and their structures

• The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences
• They also specify the correct word order for a language
• For example, English is a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language
• The President nominated a new Supreme Court justice
• *President the new Supreme justice Court a nominated
• They also describe the relationship between the meaning of a group of words and the arrangement of the words
• I mean what I say vs. I say what I mean

• The rules of syntax also specify the grammatical relations of a sentence, such as the subject and the direct object
• Your dog chased my cat vs. My cat chased your dog
• Syntax rules specify constraints on sentences based on the verb of the sentence
*The boy found
*The boy found in the house
The boy found the ball
Zack believes Robert to be a gentleman
*Zack believes to be a gentleman
Zack tries to be a gentleman
*Zack tries Robert to be a gentleman
*Disa slept the baby
Disa slept
Disa slept soundly

• Syntax rules also tell us how words form groups and are hierarchically ordered in a sentence
“ The captain ordered the old men and women off the ship”
• This sentence has two possible meanings:
•
• 1. The captain ordered the old men and the old women off the ship
2. The captain ordered the old men and the women of any age off the ship
• The meanings depend on how the words in the sentence are grouped
(specifically, to which words is the adjective ‘old’ applied?)
•
• 1. The captain ordered the [old [men and women]] off the ship
2. The captain ordered the [old men] and [women] off the ship

• These groupings can be shown hierarchically in a tree
• These trees reveal the structural ambiguity in the phrase “old men and women”
• Each structure corresponds to a different meaning

• We could say that the sentence “The child found the puppy” is based on the template Det—N—
V —Det—N
• But this would imply that sentences are just strings of words without internal structure
• This sentence can actually be separated into several groups:
•
•
• [the child] [found a puppy]
[the child] [found [a puppy]]
[[the] [child]] [[found] [[a] [puppy]]

• A tree diagram can be used to show the hierarchy of the sentence:
The child found a puppy

Constituents and
Constituency Tests
• Constituents are the natural groupings in a sentence
• Tests for constituency include:
• 1. “stand alone test”: if a group of words can stand alone, they form a constituent
•
•
A: “What did you find?”
B: “A puppy.”
• 2. “replacement by a pronoun”: pronouns can replace constituents
•
•
A: “Where did you find a puppy?”
B: “I found him in the park.”
• 3. “move as a unit” test: If a group of words can be moved together, they are a constituent
• A: “The child found a puppy.”  “A puppy was found by the child.”

• A syntactic category is a family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality
The child found a puppy.
A police officer found a puppy.
Your neighbor found a puppy.
The child found a puppy .
The child ate the cake .
The child slept.
• All the underlined groups constitute a syntactic category known as a noun phrase (NP)
• NPs may be a subject or an object of a sentence, may contain a determiner, proper name, pronoun, or may be a noun alone
• All the bolded groups constitute a syntactic category known as a verb phrase
(VP)
• VPs must always contain a verb but may also contain other constituents such as a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase (PP)

• Phrasal categories: NP, VP, PP, AdjP, AdvP
• Lexical categories:
•
•
•
•
• Noun: puppy, girl, soup, happiness, pillow
Verb: find, run, sleep, realize, see, want
Preposition: up, down, across, into, from, with
Adjective: red, big, candid, lucky, large
Adverb: again, carefully, luckily, very, fairly
• Functional categories:
•
•
Auxiliary: verbs such as have, and be, and modals such as may, can, will, shall, must
Determiners: the, a, this, that, those, each, every

Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
•

Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• In a PS tree, every higher node dominates all the categories beneath it
• S dominates everything
• A node immediately dominates the categories directly below it
• The VP immediately dominates the
V and the NP
• Sisters are categories that are immediately dominated by the same node
• The V and the NP are sisters

Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• Phrase structure rules specify the well-formed structures of a sentence
• A tree must match the phrase structure rules to be grammatical
• This tree is formed using the following rules:
S  NP VP
NP  Det N
VP  V NP

Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• But, a VP could also contain:
• A verb only: The woman laughed .
• A PP: The woman laughed in the garden .
• A CP: The man said that the woman laughed .
• We therefore have to account for these possible sentences in our phrase structure rules and need the following rules so far:

Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• Phrase structure rules are used as a guide for building trees
• To build a tree you expand every phrasal category until only the lexical categories remain
• By following the guidelines in the phrase structure rules, we can generate all the possible grammatical sentences in a language
• Any tree that violates the phrase structure rules will represent an ungrammatical sentence

We have covered the following topics:
• What is language?
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• To know a language, we need to know the characteristics of language, the sounds of the language, the word formation and the grammatical rules that govern the language.