Session 2
Linguistics Theory
Objective 1: Understands phonetic transcription and
terminology, stress and intonation patterns, and the
effects of phonetic environment on pronunciation
Phonology
• The way in which speech sound patterns are
formed.
• Studies the organization and systems of sound
within a particular language
Phonetic Transcription
• Uses the “International Phonetic Alphabet” to
mark minute distinctions in sound and which
places symbols in square brackets
• It is a universal set of symbols to depict
sounds, not spelling.
IPA
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5lHwZ
mgnXzuV35GoDXAMXArtvkE4VrU
IPA
Let’s Practice
/kæt/
/ kʌp /
/ ʃʊk /
Voiced/Voiceless
• In the first two rows of the consonant half of
the chart, notice that the sounds are paired.
There are voiceless on the left (p) then the
voiced (b)
• Unvoiced- your vocal cords do not move or
buzz when speaking a sound
• Voiced- your vocal cords “buzz” when
speaking a sound
Place of Articulation
• Where the sound is formed in your mouth
Bilabial
/b, p, m/
Bilabial
Alveolar
/d, t, z, s, n/
Alveolar
Labiodental
/f, v/ (f as in fan or v as in van)
Labiodental.
Velar
/k, g, ŋ / ( k as in cat, g as in great, ŋ as in bring:
Velar
Manner of Articulation
• How the sound is formed in your mouth
Fricatives
Fricatives are consonants that are formed by impeding the flow of air
somewhere in the vocal apparatus so that a friction-sound is
produced.
1. /f/ (the phoneme spelled f in fine): voiceless labiodental fricative.
2. /ð/ (the phoneme spelled th in this): voiced interdental fricative
3. /z/ (the phoneme spelled z in zoo): voiced alveolar fricative.
Plosives
Plosives are speech sounds produced by complete closure of the oral
passage and subsequent release accompanied by a burst of air, as in
the sound (p) in pit or (d) in dog.
1. /t/ (the phoneme spelled t as in time): voiceless plosive.
2. /d/ (the phoneme spelled d in dog): voiced plosive.
Phonemes
The smallest unit of sound that affects meaning,
i.e., to distinguish between two words
In English there are 44 speech sounds, but only
26 letters.
ten, ton, tan, tin
Stress and Intonation Patterns
• Pitch it determines the context or meaning of
words or a series of words. The difference
between “I can’t go,” and “I can’t go?”
• Stress can occur at sentence or word level.
The stress of the syllables can affect meaning.
CONflict ( a noun) versus conFLICT ( a verb)
Phonographemic
Differences between words of English that are a common source
of confusion and thus need to be taught explicitly
Homonyms- Word forms that have two or more meanings, i.e.,
can (to be able) and can (a container)
Homographs-Two or more words that have the same spelling
and pronunciation but different meanings, i.e., stalk (part of a
plant and stalk (to follow)
Homophones- Two or more words that have the same
pronunciation but different meanings and spelling, i.e.,
would/wood, cite/sight
Heteronyms- Two or more words that have the same spelling but
have a different pronunciation and meaning, i.e., Polish/polish
Sample questions
• Which word do you hear when I say ______?
A.
B.
C.
D.
•
[kut]
[kæt]
[cət]
[cæʄ]
How would native English speakers more than likely
pronounce the word “laughed”
A.
B.
C.
D.
[lətId]
[left]
[læft]
[loft]
Objective 2: Knows the various types of
morphemes and understands how words are
morphologically related to each other
Morpheme
• The smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.
Includes all root-words, prefix, suffix and s within the
context of the word.
• Examples:
– Unladylike: The word unladylike consists of three morphemes
(un – lady – like)
• None of these morphemes can be broken up any more without losing
all sense of meaning. Lady cannot be broken up into "la" and "dy,"
even though "la" and "dy" are separate syllables. Note that each
syllable has no meaning on its own.
– Dogs: The word dogs consists of two morphemes (dog – s) /s/ is
a plural marker on nouns
• Note that a morpheme like "-s" can just be a single phoneme and does
not have to be a whole syllable.
– Technique: The word technique consists of only one morpheme
Morphemes
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5lHwZ
mgnXzuV35GoDXAMXArtvkE4VrU
Morphemes
• Root or base word- the key to understanding a
word, because this is where the actual meaning is
determined “happy”
• Prefix- the syllable that appears in front of the
root or base word and can alter the meaning “un”
• Suffix- letter or letters that are added to the end
of a word and can alter tense and/or meaning of
the root or base word “ness”
Unhappiness
Bound Morpheme
• Must be attached to a root word to have full
meaning (affixes – i.e., prefixes and suffixes)
– Example: /un/ means not. /un/ has no meaning
unless it is attached to a root word.
• Unthinkable
– /un/ (bound morpheme)
– think (free morpheme)
– /able/ (bound morpheme)
Free Morpheme
• Units of a word that can stand alone as words
themselves.
Derivational Morphemes
• Affixes (prefixes and suffixes) that can be
added to a word to change its meaning and
may also change its part of speech
– Examples:
•
•
•
•
•
amaze (verb) > amazement (noun)
speak (verb) > speaker (noun)
Perform (verb) > performance (noun)
soft (adjective) > softness (noun)
warm (adjective) > warmth (noun)
Inflectional Morphemes
• Affixes (prefixes or suffixes) that can be added
to a word without changing its part of speech.
• They simply change the inflection of a word.
For example…changing “teacher” to
“teachers” adds the morpheme “s”, but it still
remains a noun.
Inflection
• A grammatical form of the word. In English,
all inflections are suffixes and occur at the
very end of the word.
• English verbs are inflected for mood, tense,
person and number (run, running)
• Nouns and adjectives are inflected for plurality
and possession (teacher, teachers)
• Adjectives are inflected for comparatives and
superlatives (pretty, prettier, prettiest)
Morphemic Analysis
• Grammatical words- of, the, and, which, but,
so, some. Rarely borrowed from other
languages or invented.
• Lexical words- constantly borrowed or
invented (google)
Objective 3: Knows the basic features of English
syntax (e.g., how words are combined into
phrases and sentences and transformations such
as question formation)
Syntax - Grammar
• Governs the form or structure of a language;
the way words are put together in a language
to form phrases, clauses, or sentences.
• The syntax of a language can be divided into
two parts:
– Syntactic classes such as noun, verb, and adjective
– Syntactic functions, such as subject and object
Examples of English Syntax
“show”
• That TV show was boring. (Noun)
• I will show you my new dress. (Verb)
• The band plays show tunes at half time.
(Adjective)
The Eight parts of Speech
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Noun
Verb
Pronoun
Adjective
Adverb
Preposition
Interjection
Conjunction
Degrees of Adjectives
Base
Comparative
Superlative
High
Higher
Highest
Thick
Thicker
Thickest
Beautiful
More Beautiful
Most Beautiful
Bad
Worse
Worst
Verb tense
• Present
• Past
• Future
Active Verb Tense
Verb Tenses
Simple
Progressive
Perfect
Perfect
Progressive
Present
I write
I am writing
I have written
I have been
writing
Past
I wrote
I was writing
I had written
I had been
writing
Future
I will write
I will be writing I will have
written
I will have been
writing
Types of Pronouns
Personal
Relative
Indefinite
Demonstrative
Interrogative
reflexive
I, me, mine
you, your,
yours
he, him, his
she, her, hers
It, its, who,
whom, whose
we, us, ours
they, them,
theirs
Who,
whom,
whoever,
that, which
all, another, any,
anyone, anything,
everyone,
everything, each,
both, neither, no
one, none
someone,
something, few,
some, many, most,
several
this
that
these
those
who
whom
which
what
Whose
myself
yourself
himself
herself
itself
ourselves
Yourselves
themselves
I will cook
dinner
myself.
Ends in -self
or -selves
and refers
back to
another
noun or
pronoun in
the sentence
It is mine.
Takes the place
of a person,
place or thing
The chef
who won
the prize
studied in
Paris.
Introduces
a relative
clause and
links to
another
part of the
sentence.
Everyone came to
dinner.
That car is the
one I want.
Who is the
author of that
book?
Refers to an
unknown person,
place or thing
Represents a
thing or things
Used to ask
questions
Sentences
• Parts of a Sentence
– Subject- The topic of a sentence consists of a noun
or pronoun and all the words that modify it. “The
snow”
– Predicate- Makes a statement or a comment
about the subject and consist of all the verbs and
the words that modify it. “falls quietly.”
The snow falls quietly.
– Compound subject- Two or more subjects
– Compound predicate- Two or more predicates
Sentence Types
– Simple- A complete thought consisting of a
subject and a predicate.
• The bus was late.
– Compound- Two independent clauses joined by a
coordinator (and, or, nor, but, for, yet, so)
• Tom walked to the bus station, and he took the bus.
– Complex- Consists of dependent clause (not a
complete thought) and independent clause joined
by using a subordinator (although, after, when,
because, since, while)
• After I write the report, I will submit it to my teacher.
Sentence Purpose
– Declarative: Makes a statement: “Anna will feed
the dog.”
– Interrogative: Asks a question: “Anna, have you
fed the dog?”
– Imperative: Gives a command: “Anna, please feed
the dog.”
– Exclamatory: Expresses a sense of urgency: “Anna,
go feed the dog right now!”
Sentence Transformations
• Yes/No questions: Sentences may be transformed into
yes/no questions. (auxiliary verb + subject + main verb
+ rest of sentence:)
– He lives in Chicago. Does he live in Chicago?
• Information questions: Sentences may be transformed
into information questions. (question word + auxiliary
verb + subject + main verb + rest of sentence.)
– Susan lives near Orlando. Where does Susan live?
• Active Voice to Passive Voice or vice versa: Sentences
may be changed from one voice to another voice.
– I saw John. John was seen by me. John was being helped by me. I was helping
John.
More Sentence Transformations
• Indirect Objects: The word “to” (phrase marker) may
be deleted.
– I gave a cookie to him. I gave him a cookie.
• Imperatives: The imperative or commands have no
expressed subject.
– You sit. You jump. Sit! Jump!
• Negatives: Linguists distinguish between two types of
negation:
– Affirmative sentences may be transformed into negative
sentences where the whole sentence is negative.
• Marion is happy. Marion is not happy.
– Parts of sentences may be negative.
• Juliana is happy. Juliana is unhappy.
Objective 4: Basic features of semantics and
how combinations of words convey meaning
Semantics
• The branch of linguistics concerned with
meaning.
• The meaning of a sentence (or phrase) is
usually assumed to be derived from the words
in a sentence, but meaning is often derived
from the who sentence and its context.
Presupposition
• Speech that is not spoken, but nevertheless,
understood by the speaker.
– “The Headquarters of the American Orchid
Society of American is located in Delray Beach,
Florida”
– Presupposes that there is an American Orchid Society
Implication
• Concerns implications the listener can make
from utterances without actually being told.
– I tried to send an email to the director.
– Implies that for some reason I was unsuccessful
Prosodic Features
• Use of stress and tone to convey meaning
– Jonathan visited Miriam
• Visited Miriam and no one else.
Idioms
• Very difficult for English Language Learners
because their meaning is figurative, not literal.
• Best studied in context, not isolation.
• Compose a book of the literal and figurative
meanings.
• The ball is in his court.