Introduction to
General Linguistics
Deny A. Kwary
www.kwary.net
The Textbooks


Contemporary Linguistics
 By. O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Katamba
Introduction to Language
 By. Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams
The Course Materials
Open: www.kwary.net
 Click: Linguistics
 Click: General Linguistics
 Download the lecture materials

The Evaluation
1. 40% Midterm Test
2. 10% Assignment
3. 50% Final Test
What is Language?
Language is the method of
human communication,
either spoken or written,
consisting of the use of
words in a structured and
conventional way.
The Creativity Aspect of Language

Human language must be creative:
allowing novelty and innovation is
response to new thoughts, experiences,
and situations
Linguistic Knowledge

Knowledge of the Sound System: Knowing what sounds
are in that language and what sounds are not.

Knowledge of Words:
Knowing the sound units
that are related to specific
meanings.

Knowledge of Sentences:
Knowing how to form
sentences.

Linguistic
Competence:
What you know
about a
language.

Linguistic
Performance:
How you use this
knowledge in actual
speech production
and comprehension.
Prescriptive Grammar

1762; Bishop Robert Lowth; A Short Introduction
to English Grammar with Critical Notes.
 I don’t have none  I don’t have any
 You was wrong  You were wrong
 Mathilda is fatter than me  Mathilda is fatter than I

Many of those rules were based on
Latin grammar. Latin was assumed
as the respected scientific language
in the 15th – 17th Centuries.
Descriptive Grammar

1985; Randolph Quirk, Sidney
Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and
Jan Svartvik; A Comprehensive
Grammar of the English Language.
 Based on a corpus of actual
spoken and written English.
The Components of a Grammar





Phonetics: the articulation and perception of
speech sounds.
Phonology: the patterning of speech sounds
Morphology: word formation
Syntax: sentence formation
Semantics: the interpretation of words and
sentences
That’s all for today
See you next week…