1.

Name the properties of language and explain the differences between human and animal
communication.

We cannot explain the source of language with any certainty but the study of language has
revealed that there are 9 properties of language. They are –

a.) Duality – phonemes in phonology alone do not have any meaning unless they are put
together. Let us take the example of word ‘cat’. Cat has 3 letters (cat also has 3 independent
phonemes, two consonants and a vowel, k, a, and t. Cat is one syllable. This division is made in
morphology). Thus we have the structure of sounds and the structure of grammar. This is called
duality.

b.) Arbitrariness – there is no connection between a linguistic for and its meaning. For example
‘books’ – there is no logical argument for why it is called book. We have a tacit mutual
understanding about what to call each object.

c.) Productivity – We articulate/produce infinite sentences. Novel utterances are consonantly

d.) Displacement – We can communicate what happened in past. We can also predict future
events. We can explain something that is not physically present.

e.) Specialization – Speaker and listener are characterized by what side of the communication
they are on.

f.) Cultural Transmission – The cultural exposure plays a crucial role. A Bengali child brought
up in Tamil-Nadu will grow up to be more likely a Telgu person.

g.) Discreteness – Human language is composed of sets of distinct sounds. One sound on its own
may convey one meaning; multiple sounds combined in a particular order convey a difference
meaning. Even repeated sounds have a particular meaning.

h.) Ambiguity – Any language has some kind of ambiguity in it. Like on the surface it may seem
that any phrase or sentence has one and only one meaning but further scrutiny can reveal more
than one meaning. Example – “old men and women” – this phrase has two meanings embedded
in it. The first is that both men and women are old here and the second meaning is that only the
men are old and not women.

i.) Interchangeability - any communication has a speaker and a listener. Listeners become
speakers and vice-versa during a conversation.

Differences between human communication and animal communication

a) Animal communication is a closed system (not possible to add anything), whereas human
communication is an open system (we can go on adding).
 b) Animal communication is finite and limited while human communication is infinite and
unlimited.
c) Animal communication cannot extend beyond a few communicative forms while human
communication is extendable. Words and their meanings can change in human
communication.
d) Animal communication is not modifiable while human communication is modifiable.
This is the reason why accents exist.
e) Animal communication does not have variety whereas human communication does.
f) Animal communication is inherited while human communication is achieved through
labour. This is proved through various experiments conducted on different animals.
g) Animal communication is non-structured while human communication has structure of
sounds and structure of grammar.
h) Animal communication is behavioral whereas human communication is behavioral as
well as cognitive.
i) Animal communication is non-creative whereas human communication is creative.
j) Animal communication is unconditioned by geography while human communication is
heavily conditioned by geography. Cultural influence on human language acquisition.

2.) Explain the features of a vowel in the English drawing the diagram of human speech
mechanism.

The most common view is that vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of
air as it passes from the larynx to the lips. Vowel sounds are produced with free flow of air. They
are all typically voiced. To describe vowel sounds, we consider the way in which the tongue
influences the shape through which the airflow must pass. To talk about a place of articulation,
we think of the space inside the mouth as having a front versus a back and a high versus a low
area. Different languages have different ways of dividing their sounds into consonants and
vowels. To know in what way vowels differ from each other we must first consider the shape
and the position of the tongue.

Vowels have three distinctive features –

1. Tongue height: In this diagram the high vowels represent vowels made with the body of the
tongue close to the roof of the mouth while the low vowels are made with the mouth open and
the body of the tongue away from the roof of the mouth. Try saying "ee" then "a" (as in cat)
repetitively. Feel your tongue move up for the "ee" and down for the "a" (as in cat). Notice the
different tongue heights represented in the small diagram above.

2. Tongue position: The blue vowels represent vowels produced with the body of the tongue
toward the front of the mouth. The pink vowels are produced with the body of the tongue toward
the back of the mouth. The yellow vowels have a more neutral tongue placement. Try saying
"ee" then "oo" repetitively and feel your tongue move from front to back.

3. Roundness: Another important difference among the vowels is whether the lips are rounded or
unrounded. For example the "oo" has rounded lips while the "ee" has the lips spread apart. In
North American English the high back vowels are rounded.

3.) explain the differences between cardinal vowels and pure vowels with the help of
diagrams
A pure vowel is a sound that is articulated at the beginning and end of the word. It is relatively
fixed and will glide in the up and down direction. Pure vowels are also known as monophthongs
as they provide a single sound while pronouncing the words. As stated earlier, you won’t be able
to notice any glide or shift from one sound to another. If you observe the position of the tongue,
the mouth will remain the same when these words are pronounced. There are 12 pure vowels or
monophthongs in English – /i:/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/, /u:/, /e/, /ə/, /ɜ:/, /ɔ:/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ɑ:/ and /ɒ/.

Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of
languages. They are classified depending on the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the
mouth, how far forward or back is the highest point of the tongue and the position of the lips,
either rounded or unrounded.
A cardinal vowel is a vowel sound produced when the tongue is in an extreme position,either
front or back, high or low.

cardinal vowels

pure vowels
Cardinal vowels and pure vowels are very different categories of vowels with no overlap in the
definitions. Cardinal vowels were designated by Daniel Jones in 1956 as the reference vowels for
describing the sounds of any language in terms of (1) tongue position high or low, (2) tongue
position forward or back, and (3) lip roundedness (these qualities are now measured by formant
frequency). While there is some overlap of individual vowels, you can see that the definitions
indicate distinct sets of vowels and those Cardinal vowels describe a specific function that
general definitions of vowels don't carry: their function is to describe any language by three
uniform qualities (height, blackness’, roundedness).
4.) Draw the vowel chart and explain any five vowels of your choice with five examples each.

Three major factors in the production of vowels are the openness, or height, of the mouth, the
position of the tongue, and the roundness of the lips.

 If a vowel is produced while the mouth is almost closed, it would be considered a close If
the vowel is slightly more open, it would be considered a mid-vowel. And if the mouth is
open very tall, it would be considered an open vowel.
 If the tongue is positioned near the front of the mouth, any vowel produced would be
a front If the tongue were set slightly more back in the mouth, the vowel would be
a central vowel. If the tongue were set in the far back of the mouth, the vowel would be
a back vowel.
 If a vowel is produced while the lips are tense and rounded, it would be considered
a rounded. If the vowel is produced while the lips are relaxed, it would be considered
an unrounded vowel.

⟨ɔ⟩ - open-mid back rounded vowel. Examples – caught /kɔ:t/, pork /pɔ:k/, horse /hɔ:s/, form
/fɔ:m/, storm /'stɔ:m/

<u> - close back rounded vowel. Examples - boot /bu:t/, group /gru:p/,  beautiful /ˈbjuː.tɪ.fəl/,
loot/lu:t/, loop/lu:p/

⟨i⟩ - close front unrounded vowel. Examples – meet /'mi:t/, seek /'si:k/, feet /'fi:t/, neat /'ni:t/,
week /'wi:k/

⟨ʌ⟩ - open-mid back unrounded vowel. Examples – cut /kʌt/, luck /lʌk/, fuss /fʌs/, cup /kʌp/, nut/
nʌt /

⟨ɜ⟩ - open-mid central unrounded vowel. Examples – burn /'bɜ:n/, bird /'bɜ:d/, heard /'hɜ:d/,
earn /'ɜ:n/, learn /'lɜ:n/

5 what is a dipthong? Explain either centering dipthongs or frontal dipthongs with appropriate
exmples in transcription.