Linguistics

For Third Year Students

College of Basic Education

Prepared by

Dr. Mohammed Taher Jasim

A Linguistics lecturer

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 List of Contents
Chapter Topic Page
number
1 What is Linguistics? 3
2 What is Language? 6
3 Deciding where to begin 10
4 Using Language 15
5 Language and Society 19
6 Language and mind 26
7 Language and style 30
8 Morphology 34

9 Syntax 40
10 The Origins of Language 48
11 Semantics 50
12 Pragmatics 55

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 Chapter One (1 st
course)

1. What is Linguistics?
This chapter explains what linguistics involves, and why it is important. It
outlines the main subdivisions of the subject, and shed some light on the
meaning of a Linguist.

The use of language is an integral part of being human. Children all over the
world start putting words together at approximately the same age, and follow
remarkably similar paths in their speech development. All languages are
surprisingly similar in their basic structure, whether they are found in South
America, Australia or near the North Pole.

Linguistics tries to answer the basic questions ‘What is language?’ and ‘How
does language work?’ It probes into various aspects of these problems, such
as ‘What do all languages have in common?’, ‘What range of variation is found
among languages?’, ‘How does human language differ from animal
communication?’, ‘How does a child learn to speak?’, and so on.

2. What is a linguist?

A person who studies linguistics is usually referred to as a linguist. The word

‘linguist’ is unsatisfactory: it causes confusion, since it also refers to someone
who speaks a large number of languages. Linguists in the sense of linguistics
experts need not be fluent in languages, though they must have a wide
experience of different types of language. It is more important for them to
analyse and explain linguistic phenomena such as the Turkish vowel system,
or German verbs, than to make themselves understood in Istanbul or Berlin.

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3. The scope of linguistics (the major branches of Linguistics)

Linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are difficult to
define. A diagram in the shape of a wheel gives a rough impression of the
range covered.

In the centre is phonetics, the study of human speech sounds. A good

knowledge of phonetics is useful for a linguist. Yet it is a basic background
knowledge, rather than part of linguistics itself. Phoneticians are concerned
with the actual physical sounds, the raw material out of which language is
made.

Linguists, on the other hand, are more interested in the way in which language
is patterned. They analyse the shape or form of these patterns rather than the
physical substance out of which the units of language are made.

In Figure 1, phonetics is surrounded by phonology (sound patterning), then

phonology is surrounded by syntax.

Morphology: it study the structure or forms of words.

The term ‘syntax’, used in its broadest sense, refers to both the arrangement
and the form of words. It is that part of language which links together the
sound patterns and the meaning.

Semantics (meaning) is placed outside syntax. Phonology, syntax and

semantics are the ‘bread and butter’ of linguistics, and are a central concern of
this book. Together they constitute the grammar of a language.

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Pragmatics it deals with how speakers use language in ways which cannot be
predicted from linguistic knowledge alone.
Psycholinguistics the study of language and mind
Sociolinguistics the study of language and society.
Applied linguistics the application of linguistics to language teaching.
Computational linguistics the use of computers to simulate language and it’s
working.
Stylistics the study of language and literature.
Anthological linguistics the study of language in cross-cultural setting.
Philosophical linguistics the link between language and logical thoughts.

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 Chapter Two

1. What is Language?
The language is defined as ‘the best means of communication’ . It helps us to deliver
our thoughts, ideas, and feelings toward the others . Language is not only strings of
talks written or spoken but it is also a way of identifying things in our life.

2. The properties of human language and animals

communication.

1- Arbitrariness. ،‫اﻻعتباطيه‬

In animals :there is a link between the signal and the message the animal sends
EX. A cat arches it’s back in attacking attitude.

In human beings ;there is no link between the signal and the message . The symbols
are used ‘’ Arbitrary’’

EX. The word ‘’elephant’’ and the animals it symbolizes.

2- The need for learning.

Animals communicate each other without learning .This system genetically inbuilt.
EX. Chaffinch reared in a sound proof room away from other chaffinches ,it will have
an abnormal type of song.

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In human beings; If someone brought up in isolation he will not acquire language . So
human needs expose to language which is culturally transmitted.

3-Duality. ‫اﻻزدواجيه‬

Animals can use each basic sound only once. So the number of sounds used by
animals is restricted to the number of basic sounds (animals use syllable).

In human beings, the average number of phonemes is between thirty and forty but
each phoneme is meaningless inisolated and it is meaningful if it combined with
another phonemes.

EX. Book , has two lexical features as a verb and as a noun .

book (noun) book (verb)

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4-Displacement. ‫اﻻحﻼل‬

Animals can communicate about things which are in present time . Animals can’t give
information about past or future . They produce sounds in a state of pain ,danger and
shutting.

In human beings . They Can communicate about things that are absent as easily as
about things that are absent. This phenomenon known as (displacement) this
occasionally occurs in animals’ world.

EX. If a bee worker finds new nectar, it returns it does a complex dance in order to
tell the other bees of exact location.

5-Creativity (productivity) : ‫اﻻبداع‬

Most animals have limited number of message which they can send or receive.

EX. Bees can communicate about nectar.

Dolphins in spite of intelligence seem to be restricted to communicate about limited

things.

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However, humans can produce new utterances whenever they want to. A person can
utter sentence which has never been said before.

EX.
S V

Ali sleeps
He sleeps
He is sleeping
The boy sleeps

6-Pattering. ‫النمطيه‬

In human beings: Using phonemes and the letters should be in specific structures and
according to rules. We are obliged to follow the rules in combining words each other.

Take the sounds a, b, s, t. In English, there are only four possible ways in which these
sounds could be arranged, bats, tabs, stab or bast. All other possibilities, such as *
sbat, * abts, * stba, are impossible.

Similarly, consider the words boy, loudly, sneezed, the. Here again, only two
combinations are possible: The boy sneezed loudly, Loudly sneezed the boy. All
others are impossible, such as * The loudly boy sneezed, or * Sneezed boy loudly
the.

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 Chapter Three

1. Deciding where to begin

This chapter points out that language can be explored in different ways, and outlines
how this exploration can be carried out.

Language is an enormous and very complex phenomenon. If one wants to study it,
where should one begin? People tend to argue about this. One way of studying
something complex is to suggest that it is like something we humans already know
something about.

2. Language as a game

Language can be regarded as a complicated type of game, assuming a ‘game’ to be ‘a

specified type of activity governed by rules’. The various facets involved in a game
can show why there is some disagreement when linguists try to decide where to begin
studying language.
In a typical game, such as chess or soccer, anyone trying to find out how the game is
played has to deal with three broad types of question:

1.the aims of the game,

2. the principles of interaction, and
3. the permitted moves.

Under the aims of the game, comes the fundamental question: what are people trying
to do when they play it? In soccer, the players are trying to kick the ball into a net in
order to score. The ‘aims’ of language involve not only the broad functions
(conveying information, expressing emotion, keeping in touch socially, and so on), but
also more specific purposes for which language can be used, such as:
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Obtain information: Where’s the teacher?
Make someone do something: Shut the door!
Make a promise: I’ll pay you next week.

The principles of interaction involve questions such as:

How many people can play?

Do they all play at the same time?
or do they take it in turns?

If so, how does one know when a person’s turn is over? Within language, people take
it in turns to speak, and each language tends to have certain socially prescribed ‘turns’.
For example, in English, a greeting is usually followed by another greeting:

John: Good morning, Laura.

Laura: Good morning, John.

Under permitted moves, linguists explore which ‘moves’ are permitted, and which
not. In chess, some pieces can move across the board only in straight lines, and others
only diagonally.

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With regard to language, there are rules underlying well-formed sequences of a
language.

In English, for example, verbs precede their objects, as in

The cat ate the canary, rather than The canary ate the cat.
* The cat the canary ate

When dealing with language, one might at first sight want to tackle these facets in the
order listed above. But in practice, there is a problem. It is easier to specify the basic
permitted moves than it is to give a clear account of the aims and principles of
interaction, which are closely interwoven with the social structures of the society
involved. For this reason, the majority of professional linguists prefer to begin with
those aspects of language which can most easily be detached from the social
background. They therefore start with the permitted moves or, in linguistic
terminology, the grammar of the language. They consider this to be the core of
linguistic study, and expect to add on its interrelationships with society at a later stage.

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Therefore, we shall be moving from the basic linguistic core outwards. In other words,
we shall start from the centre of the circle diagram shown in lesson 1 (Figure 1), and
move out to the edges later.

But a decision as to where to begin does not necessarily imply an overall order of
importance: people put on their socks before their shoes, but they are not necessarily
giving more importance to socks than to shoes.

3. Why is language like a game?

Because it is governed by rules just like games, and it deals with types of question.

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1. The aims of the game

In a game comes the question, what are people trying to do when they play?
For example in soccer they are trying to score while the aim of language is to:

A. Conveying information
B. Expressing emotion
C. Keeping in touch socially
D. Obtain information
E. Make someone do something
F. Make a promise
G. Principles of interaction.

2. Principles of interaction

In game question like; how many people can play? Do they all play of the same time
or in turns? In language people take it in turns to speak, as in greeting is usually
followed by another greeting.

3. Permitted moves;

In chess game some pieces can move across and some moves diagonally. While in
language there are rules, for example verbs precede their objects.

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 Chapter Four

1. Using Language

This chapter discusses ‘pragmatics’, which explores aspects of meaning not

predictable from the linguistic structure. Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that
studies those aspects of meaning which cannot be captured by semantic theory. In
brief, it deals with how speakers use language in ways which cannot be predicted from
linguistic knowledge alone. In a narrow sense, it deals with how listeners arrive at the
intended meaning of speakers. In its broadest sense, it deals with the general principles
followed by human beings when they communicate with one another. Consider the
following interaction:

Him: Oh, Mary, I'm glad you're here.

Her: What's up?
Him: I can't get my computer to work.
Her: Is it broken?
Him: I don't think so.
Her: What's it doing?
Him: I don't know. I'm useless with computers.
Her: What kind is it?
Him: It's a Mac. Do you use them?
Her: Yeah.
Him: Do you have a minute?
Her: Sure.
Him: Oh, great. (Yule: 2008:57

In the conversation above, you can notice that there is no actual request from him to
her to do anything. We might characterize the question ' Do you have a minute?' as a
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request. In this context, the response 'sure' is taken to be an acknowledgement not
only of having time available, but a willingness to perform the action.

In many ways, pragmatics is the study of “invisible” meaning, or how we recognize

what is meant even when it isn’t actually said or written. In order for that to happen,
speakers (or writers) must be able to depend on a lot of shared assumptions and
expectations when they try to communicate. The investigation of those assumptions
and expectations provides us with some insights into how more is always being
communicated than is said.

2. The cooperative principle

An American philosopher, Paul Grice, is sometimes regarded as the ‘father of
pragmatics’. Grice emphasized that human beings communicate efficiently because
they are by nature helpful to one another. He attempted to specify the principles which
underlie this cooperative behaviour, and proposed four ‘maxims’ or rules of
conversation.

1. Maxim of quantity Give the right amount of information when you talk. If
someone at a party asked ‘Who’s that person with Bob?’, a cooperative reply would
be ‘That’s his new girlfriend, Alison.’ An uncooperative reply would be an over-
brief one, such as ‘A girl’, or an over-long one, such as ‘That’s Alison Margaret
Jones, born 20 years ago in Kingston, Surrey, daughter of Peter and Mary Jones
… etc.’

2. Maxim of quality Be truthful. For example, if someone asked you the name of an
unfamiliar animal, such as a platypus, reply truthfully, and don’t say ‘It’s a
kookaburra,’ or ‘It’s a duck,’ if you know it’s a platypus.

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3. Maxim of relevance Be relevant. If someone says, ‘What’s for supper?’, give a
reply which fits the question, such as ‘Fish and chips’, and not ‘Tables and chairs’ or
‘Buttercups are yellow.’

4 Maxim of manner Be clear and orderly. For example, describe things in the order in
which they occurred: ‘The plane taxied down the runway, and took off to the west’

‫الطائره تحركت على المدرج وأقلعت إلى الغرب‬

rather than,
‘The plane took off to the west and taxied down the runway,’
‫الطائره اقلعت الى الغرب و تحركت على المدرج‬
which might confuse people as to what actually happened.

3. Politeness
Shut the door!
I wonder if you’d mind shutting the door.
There’s quite a draught in here.

If you wanted someone to shut the door, you could in theory use any of the sentences
above. But in practice, the first, a direct command, would be uttered perhaps only to a
young child. To anyone else, it would seem somewhat rude.

This avoidance of directness is partly culturally based: ‘Why did that man look
offended when I said, “Pass the salt”?’ asked one puzzled visitor. She was even more
bewildered when told that it would be better to say: ‘I wonder if you could possibly
pass the salt.’ Why such a fuss, she queried, about a small quantity of salt? But in

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spite of cultural variation, the idea that it is politer to say things indirectly may be
universal.

Humans everywhere tend to be polite in similar ways, based on two basic social
requirements: ‘No criticism’ and ‘No interference’. Humans want to be approved of,
and they do not want to be imposed upon. Consequently, anyone with social know-
how will minimize criticism of others and will avoid interfering with their liberty, at
least overtly.
These requirements of ‘No criticism’ and ‘No interference’ have an effect on
language. Any criticism or interference will be a social risk. Therefore speakers have
to balance up the advantages and disadvantages of ‘straight talking’. They must tot up
the social distance between themselves and those they are talking to, the power
relationship, the cultural norms, and make a decision. But suppose someone had an
urgent request, and felt obliged to impose on another person, what happens? There are
various strategies which are used to soothe the situation. For example, anyone
imposing is often pessimistic:

I don’t suppose you could lend me a pound, could you?

Or they might try to minimize the imposition:

I won’t keep you a minute, but …

Or they might just apologize:

I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but …

The various strategies occur worldwide, but they are not all necessarily found in every
language. Each culture has its own preferred strategies.

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 Chapter Five

Language and Society

1. Sociolinguistics

The term sociolinguistics is used generally for the study of the relationship between
language and society. This is a broad area of investigation that developed through the
interaction of linguistics with a number of other academic disciplines.

2. Language and regional variations

Every language has a lot of variation, especially in the way it is spoken. If we just look
at English, we find widespread variation in the way it is spoken in different countries
such as Australia, Britain and the USA. We can also find a range of varieties in
different parts of those countries. In this lecture, I will investigate aspects of language
variation based on where and how that language is used.

a. Standard Language

Standard language has no specific region. It is the variety associated with

administrative, commercial and educational centres, regardless of region. If we think
of Standard English, it is the version we believe is found in printed English in
newspapers and books, is widely used in the mass media and is taught in most schools.
It is the variety we normally try to teach to those who want to learn English as a
second or foreign language. It is clearly associated with education and broadcasting in

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public contexts and is more easily described in terms of the written language (i.e.
vocabulary, spelling, grammar) than the spoken language.

b. Accent and Dialect

Technically, the term “accent” is restricted to the description of aspects of

pronunciation that identify where an individual speaker is from, regionally or socially.
It is different from the term dialect, which is used to describe features of grammar and
vocabulary as well as aspects of pronunciation.

The sentence ''You don’t know what you’re talking about'' will generally “look” the
same whether spoken with an American accent or a Scottish accent. Both speakers
will be using forms associated with Standard English, but have different
pronunciations. However, this next sentence – ''Ye dinnae ken whit yer haverin’
aboot'' – has the same meaning as the first, but has been written out in an
approximation of what a person who speaks one dialect of Scottish English might say.

Two British English speaking visitors (B and C) and a local Irish English speaker (A)
are involved in a conversation in Donegal, Ireland.

A: How long are youse here?

B: Till after Easter.
(Speaker A looks puzzled.)
C: We came on Sunday.
A: Ah. Youse’re here a while then.

It seems that the construction ''How long are youse here?'', in speaker A’s dialect, is
used with a meaning close to the structure “How long have you been here?”
referring to past time. Speaker B, however, answers as if the question was referring to
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future time (“How long are you going to be here?”). When speaker C answers with a
past time response (We came on Sunday), speaker A acknowledges it and repeats his
use of a present tense (Youse’re here) to refer to past time. Note that the dialect form
youse (= “you” plural) seems to be understood by the visitors though it is unlikely to
be part of their own dialect.

c. Dialectology

Despite occasional difficulties, there is a general impression of mutual intelligibility

among many speakers of different dialects of English. This is one of the criteria used
in the study of dialects, or dialectology, to distinguish between two different dialects
of the same language (whose speakers can usually understand each other) and two
different languages (whose speakers can’t usually understand each other). This is not
the only, or the most reliable, way of identifying dialects, but it is helpful in
establishing the fact that each different dialect, like each language, is equally worthy
of analysis. It is important to recognize, from a linguistic point of view, that none of
the varieties of a language is inherently “better” than any other. They are simply
different.

d. Bilingualism and diglossia

In many countries, regional variation is not simply a matter of two (or more) dialects
of a single language, but can involve two (or more) quite distinct and different
languages. Canada, for example, is an officially bilingual country, with both French
and English as official languages. For most of its history, Canada was essentially an
English-speaking country, with a French-speaking minority group. In such a situation,
bilingualism at the level of the individual tends to be
a feature of the minority group. In this form of bilingualism, a member of a minority
group grows up in one linguistic community, mainly speaking one language
(e.g.Welsh in Britain or Spanish in the United States), but learns another language
(e.g. English) in order to take part in the larger dominant linguistic community.
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e. Pidgins and creoles

Pidgin is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purpose, such as
trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who did not know each
other’s languages. As such, it would have no native speakers. The origin of the term
“pidgin” is thought to be from a Chinese version of the English word “business.”
There are several English pidgins still used today. They are characterized by an
absence of any complex grammatical morphology and a somewhat limited vocabulary.
Inflectional suffixes such as -s (plural) and -’s (possessive) on nouns in Standard
English are rare in pidgins, while structures like tu buk (“two books”) and di gyal
place (“the girl’s place”) are common. Functional morphemes often take the place of
inflectional morphemes found in the source language. For example, instead of
changing the form of you to your, as in the English phrase your book, English-based
pidgins use a form like bilong, and change the word order to produce phrases like buk
bilong yu.

When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes
the first language of a social community, it is described as a creole.

3. Language and social variation

People who live in the same region, but who differ in terms of education and
economic status, often speak in quite different ways. Indeed, these differences may be
used, implicitly or explicitly, as indications of membership in different social groups
or speech communities.

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a. Education and Occupation
Although the unique circumstances of every life result in each of us having an
individual way of speaking, a personal dialect or idiolect, we generally tend to sound
like others with whom we share similar educational backgrounds and/or occupations.
Among those who leave the educational system at an early age, there is a general
pattern of using certain forms that are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who
go on to complete college. Expressions such as those contained in 'The boys throwed
somethin’ or 'It wasn’t us what done it' are generally associated with speakers who
have spent less time in education. Those who spend more time in the educational
system tend to have more features in their spoken language that derive from a lot of
time spent with the written language, so that 'threw' is more likely than 'throwed' and
who occurs more often than what in references to people. The observation that some
teacher “talks like a book” is possibly a reflection of an extreme form of this influence
from the written language after years in the educational system.
As adults, the outcome of our time in the educational system is usually reflected in our
occupation and socio-economic status. The way bank executives, as opposed to
window cleaners, talk to each other usually provides linguistic evidence for the
significance of these social variables.

b. Register and Jargon

Another influence on speech style that is tied to social identity derives from register. A
register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific
context, which may be identified as situational (e.g. in church), occupational (e.g.
among lawyers) or topical (e.g. talking about language).

We can recognize specific features that occur in the religious register (Ye shall be
blessed by Him in times of tribulation), the legal register (The plaintiff is ready to take

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the witness stand) and even the linguistics register (In the morphology of this dialect
there are fewer inflectional suffixes).
One of the defining features of a register is the use of jargon, which is special
technical vocabulary (e.g. plaintiff, suffix) associated with a specific area of work or
interest. In social terms, jargon helps to create and maintain connections among those
who see themselves as “insiders” in some way and to exclude “outsiders.” This
exclusive effect of specialized jargon, as in the medical register (e.g. Zanoxyn is a
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug for arthritis, bursitis and tendonitis), often leads
to complaints about what may seem like “jargonitis.”

c. Slang
Slang is more typically used among those who are outside established higher-status
groups. Slang, or “colloquial speech,” describes words or phrases that are used instead
of more everyday terms among younger speakers and other groups with special
interests. The word bucks (for dollars or money) has been a slang expression for more
than a hundred years, but the addition of mega- (“a lot of”) in megabucks is a more
recent innovation.

d. Vernacular language
The term “vernacular” has been used since the Middle Ages, first to describe local
European languages (low prestige) in contrast to Latin (high prestige), then to
characterize any non-standard spoken version of a language used by lower status
groups. So, the vernacular is a general expression for a kind of social dialect, typically
spoken by a lower-status group, which is treated as “non-standard” because of marked
differences from the “standard” language

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e. The sounds of a vernacular
Vernaculars is the tendency to reduce final consonant clusters, so that words ending in
two consonants (left hand) are often pronounced as if there is only one (lef han). This
can affect the pronunciation of past tense -ed forms in certain contexts, with
expressions such as 'iced tea' and 'I passed the test' sounding like ice tea and I pass the
tess. Initial dental consonants (think, that) are frequently pronounced as alveolar stops
(tink, dat), with the result that the definite article (the) is heard as [də], as in You da
man!. Other morphological features, such as possessive -’s (John’s girlfriend) and
third person singular -s (she loves him), are not typically used (John girlfriend, she
love him). Also, when a phrase contains an obvious indication of plural number, the
plural -s marker (guys, friends) is usually not included (two guy, one of my friend).

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 Chapter Six

Language and mind

This chapter looks at psycholinguistics. It defines psycholinguists and outlines how

children acquire language, how adults comprehend speech, and how they produce it.

1. Psycholinguistics

It is often defined as the study of language and the mind. It explores what goes on in
the human mind as an individual acquires, comprehends, produces and stores
language.

2. Acquiring language

It used to be thought that animal behaviour could be divided into two types: that which
was inborn and natural (for example, dogs naturally bark), and that which was learned
and unnatural (dogs may be taught to beg).

Both nature and nurture are important. Innate potentialities lay down the framework,
and within this framework, there is wide variation depending on the environment.
When individuals reach a crucial point in their maturation, they are biologically in a
state of readiness for learning the behaviour. They would not learn it at this time
without a biological trigger and, conversely, the biological trigger could not be
activated if there was nobody around from whom they could learn the behaviour.
Human infants pay attention to language from birth. They produce recognizable words
at around 12–15 months, and start putting words together at around 18 months. The
urge for language to emerge at this time is very strong, and only extraordinary

26
circumstances will suppress it – as in the case of Genie, a Californian teenager who
from the age of 20 months had been confined to one small room, and had been
physically punished by her father if she made any sounds. Naturally, she was without
speech when she was found. But all normal children, and some abnormal ones, will
begin to speak if they hear language going on around them.

3. The rule-governed nature of child language

‫طبيعة لغة الطفل التي تحكمها القواعد‬
In spite of the numerous controversies surrounding child language, psycholinguists are
at least in agreement on one major point. Children are not simply imitating what they
hear going on around them as if they were parrots. The learning processes involved are
far more complex. Child language is never at any time a haphazard conglomeration of
random words, or a substandard version of adult speech. Instead, every child at every
stage possesses a grammar with rules of its own even though the system will be
simpler than that of an adult.
For example, when children first use negatives, they normally use a simple rule: ‘Put
no or not in front of the sentence.’ This results in consistent negative sentences which
the child could not possibly have heard from an adult:

No play that.
No brother drink all tea.

A rather more obvious example of the rule-governed nature of child language are
forms such as mans, foots, gooses, which children produce frequently. Such plurals
occur even when a child understands and responds correctly to the adult forms men,
feet, geese. This is clear proof that children’s own rules of grammar are more
important to them than mere imitation. Children do not, however, formulate a new rule
overnight, and suddenly replace the old one with a new one. Instead, there is

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considerable fluctuation between the old and the new. The new construction appears at
first in a limited number of places. A child might first use the word what in a phrase
with a single verb:
What mummy doing?
What daddy doing?
What Billy doing?

then only gradually extend it to other verbs, as in:

What kitty eating?

What mummy sewing?

3. Understanding syntax

We now know quite a lot about word recognition. But it is still unclear how separate
words are woven together into the overall pattern. To some extent, the process is
similar to word recognition, in that people look for outline clues, and then actively
reconstruct the probable message from them. They jump to conclusions on the basis of
outline clues by imposing what they expect to hear onto the stream of sounds. For
example, consider the sentence:

The boy kicked the ball threw it back.

Most people who hear this sentence feel that there is something wrong with it, that
there is a word left out somewhere, and that it would preferably be:

The boy who kicked the ball threw it back.

The boy kicked the ball, then threw it back.

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However, they realize that it is in fact perfectly well formed when shown a similar
sentence:

The boy thrown the ball kicked it back.

(The boy to whom the ball was thrown kicked it back.)

The problem arose because when interpreting sentences, people tend to impose a
subject–verb–object sequence on them.

29
 Chapter Seven
Language and style

This chapter looks at the definition of style, and discusses stylistics. It also briefly
discusses the origin and emergence of stylistics and its branches.

1.1. What Style is:

For a normal layman, it seems an easy process to define or give an idea about an
aspect, a phenomenon or any other thing related to his life.

Concerning the term ''style'' presented here, though this is not the main concern of this
lecture, our normal layman may say style is '' the procedure by which I can go on
living, deal with others, and it is the manner by its help I can evaluate others'
behaviour and being evaluated''.

Searching for such kind of definitions will be a tiring process. Since people are not
alike and we could not find two persons who are completely identical, each one may
provide us with their own definition.

In his ''Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary'', Hornby (1974:860) defines style as

''manner of writing or speaking.... of doing anything especially when it is
characteristic of an artist or of a period of art''.

30
1.2. What Stylistics is

Stylistics, as the term appears, is the study of style. It is a branch of general linguistics.
To understand this well, the term must be divided into its original components. As it
looks, the term consists of two main components; ''style-istics''. It is the development
of the twentieth century. Finch (2000:189) believes that stylistics is the study of style.

The emergence of linguistics and its noticeable development has encouraged

specialists to think of '' a more systematic attempt to provide a linguistic foundation
for literary effects as well as ... non-literary text'' (ibid).

Crystal (1985:292) states that stylistics is '' a branch of linguistics which studies the
features of situational distinctive uses, 'varieties' of language''.

Turner (1973:7) made a very distinct and a thorough definition that shows the learners
the following facts:

1. Stylistics is a branch of linguistics.

2. It studies the uses of language variations.

3. The most important fact is that it works as a bridge that links language with
literature.

Turner's definition agrees with Widdowson's (1975) who illustrates that stylistics is
the '' study of literary discourse from a linguistic variation''.

31
1.3. Origin and emergence

Originally, stylistics, as mentioned before, has been the preserve of literary criticism.
It was regarded as a part of what is known as ''Rhetorics''

It is believed that the development of descriptive linguistics were the other reason
behind the development of stylistics in the world in the American and British
universities in particular.

1.4. Branches of Stylistics

A fruitful tree is the one that has so many branches among which the fruit are
distributed. It is a natural fact that the greater or the larger the number of branches it
has, the more fruitful and important it will be.

Stylistics, as many other subjects and disciplines, is similar to a fruitful tree. Its
importance and necessity has been the main reason for sub-dividing it into branches.
Since it is a part of linguistics and it is concerned with the study of language, its main
branches are dependent on the main levels of language.

The main branches are:

1. Lexical Stylistics: It studies the functions of direct figurative meanings, also the
way contextual meaning of a word is realized in the text.

32
2. Grammatical Stylistics: This branch is sub-divided into morphological and
syntactical stylistics. The former views the grammatical categories of different parts of
speech, whereas the latter studies syntactic means for word order and word
combinations, and different types of sentences.

3. Phonostylistics: It deals with phonetical organization of prose and poetic texts.

4. Functional stylistics: It tackles the sub-divisions of language and its possible use
''newspapers, colloquial style, informal ...''.

33
 Chapter Eight nd
(2 course)

Morphology
1. Morphology

It is a branch of grammar, which studies the structure of forms

of words, primarily through the use of the morpheme construct.

2. Morpheme

A morpheme is a unit in language that carries meaning. It may be

composed of one sound or two sounds or several sounds. The size of the
unit is not important, what is important is that the unit should have
meaning and that we should not be able to break it down into smaller
units with meaning.
A morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:

1. It is a word or part of word that has meaning.

2. It cannot be divided into small meaningful parts without violation of its meaning
or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in different verbal environments with relatively stable meaning.

For example, the word (cats) is composed of two units (cat-s). The first unit refers
to the animal: the second unit refers to the number of animals (more than one).
34
Now (cat) itself cannot be broken down further. (at) has a meaning, of course;.
but the name of (cat) is not made up of (c) or /k/ + at.

3. Homophones

When two morphemes have the same sound but they signal two
different things, they are called (homophones) such as the Morphem (-s)
that expresses two things: plurality and third person singular as in:
(book---- books), (he speaks English). It proves necessary to point out
that the first (-s) has a lexical (dictionary) meaning, while the second (-
s) has a structural function.
Morphemes do not usually occur by themselves; they normally
combine together to form large unit word, phrases, and sentences. For
example, a word like (mis- under- stand- ing), which is a familiar
English word is composed of four morphemes.

35
4. Types of Morphemes

Generally speaking, there are two types or morphemes. The first is a morpheme
that can stand by itself, or that can be uttered alone with meaning such as the word
(eat), and it is called a (free morpheme) or an (independent morpheme). The
second is a morpheme that cannot stand by itself: it must be attached to another
morpheme (free morpheme) in order to be used and to form a word; such a
morpheme is called a (bound morpheme) or a (dependent morpheme). Here are
examples of bound morphemes:

(re-) (play--- replay)

(-ly). (quick quickly)
(-er) (teach — teacher)
(un-) (happy--- unhappy)

Another classification of the morphemes put them into two classes: (bases and
affixes).
A base is that morpheme in the word that has the principal (main) meaning such as
the morpheme (annoy) in the word (annoyance).
An affix is that morpheme which is bound and usually tied to the base morpheme,
such as the affix (ing) in the word (speaking).
Affixes are of four types from the point of view of their position in relation to
the base (root) and they are as follows:

1. Prefixes which occur before the bases as in (un) in the word (unhappy)
2. Suffixes which occur after the bases as in (-s) in the word (rooms).
3. Superfixes which occur above the bases in the form of a supersegment as in.
36
 (‘transport) — (n.) and (transport) — (v ).
4. Infixes which occur within the bases as in (man — men).

37
Affixes may be added to the base (root) or to constructions having a root and one or
more other morphemes which may be called (stems). A stem is ,therefore, any
morphemes or combination of morphems to which an affix is added. A word like
( manly) contains a stem (man), which is also a root, and a suffix (-ly). But
(manly) is a stem, and, (-ness) is a suffix in (manliness). Some stems or words like
(blackboard) contain two roots — in this case (black and board are called
compounds.

From the point of view of their function, affixes are either derivational or
inflectional. The inflectional suffixes are few in number and are as follows:

1) Noun plural (-s) as in (dogs)

2) Noun possessive (-'s) as in (dog's tail)
3) Third person singular (-s) as in (she arrives).
4) Verb present participle (ing) as in (reading)
5) Verb past tense (-ed) as in (stayed)
6) Verb past principle (-en) as in (chosen).
7)Comparative (-er) as in (sweeter).
8)Superlative (-est) as in sweetest)

All other suffixes are called derivational. The inflectional suffixes differ from
derivational suffixes in the fo1lowing ways, to which there are a few exceptions:

1. They do not change the part of speech.

Examples: book, books (both nouns).
Read, reads (both verbs).
Cold, colder (both adjectives)
2. They come last in a word.
e.g., shortened, industrializing

38
3. They go with all stems of a given part of speech

Examples: He chats. drinks, dreams.

4. They do not pile up; only one ends a word.

Examples: working, higher, written.

Derivational suffixes, on the other hand, have the following characteristics:

1. The change the part of speech.

e.g.,
act
(tion) action n.
(tive) active adj.
(ivate) activate v.

2. The do not close off a word.

e.g
fertile
fertilize
fertilizer
fertilizers
fertilization

39
 Chapter Nine
Syntax
1. Syntax
Syntax from Greek (syntassein) to arrange together, refers to the study of the
ways in which words are combined to form sentences, and it is considered the
link between sound and meaning. In all descriptions, however, syntax implies
the rules governing acceptable arrangements of smaller units into larger ones.

Other linguists define syntax as the combination of words into larger structures -
phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Every native speaker of a langrage acquires- subconsciously set of intricate

rules for joining words together and building grammatical sentences. However.
each one of these native speakers needs to study the grammar of his own
language thoroughly and consciously in order to be conscious of the system and
the way their language operates. Such understanding has certain practical uses
in the study of writing and it permits more efficient discussion of the structure
of the written material.
When such a study is undertaken by a foreign learner of a language their
knowledge of the language they are learning proves beneficial and even vital for
reproducing and correctly writing this second language. Such knowledge is not
easily acquired; it requires constant drilling and continuous progressional
practice starting from the smallest possible sentences and progressing towards
the most complex ones.

40
2. Process of Syntactic Analysis

Grammatical structures of English are usually analyzable into two main sub-
structures: this means that almost all English sentences can be divided into two
main parts; the first part is the (noun phrase); that is a noun or noun and its
modifiers, and the Second part is normally a verb or a verb and its modifiers
the (verb phrase).

The noun phrase consists of a noun and all the words and word groups that
belong with the noun and cluster around it. The noun itself is called the
(headword) or (head noun), and the other words and word groups are
modifiers of the noun as in:

Flowers.

The flowers.

The yellow flowers.

The yellow flowers in the garden.

The yellow flowers in the garden that gaily blooming.

The verb phrase, on the other hand, consists of a verb and all the words and
word groups which belong with the verb and cluster around it. The verb itself is
called the (headword) or (head), and the other words or word groups are the
auxiliaries, modifiers, and complements of the verb as in:

41
soon arrive.
arrive late.
soon arrive at the station.
will arrive with them.

In fact, all sentences consist of two parts: the first part is the noun phrase and it
is called the (subject) of the sentence and the second part is the verb phrase
known as the (predicate).

3. The Major Syntactic Structures

The major syntactic structures that are discussed here are of two main types:

3.1 Utterances that may be described as (incomplete sentences) and

3.2. Utterances that may be described as (complete sentences).
Incomplete sentences are of two main types:

a. Greetings and Leave-takings ( that consist of initial utterances and response

utterances).

b. Response utterances ( that usually follow statements or questions).

For example

Greetings/leave-takings Response
Good morning Good morning
Hello Hello
See you See you
Merry Christmas Merry Christmas
42
Congratulations Thank you

Statements/Questions Response

What is your name? John Smith

How was your trip? Very Fine

Complete sentences are discussed under different headings. The basic sentence
types (patterns) are considered under the heading of complete sentences. In fact,
linguists differ in presenting basic sentence patterns and their number.
Stageberg (1971: 170), for example, mentioned nine basic patterns and they are
as follows:

Pattern (1) N be Adj

Ali is good

Note: (be= am, is, are. was, were)

Pattern (2) N be Adv

The boy was here

Pattern (3) N1 be N1
My brother is a doctor

Pattern (4) N In.v

The boys arrived

Note: (In.v= Intransitive verb ‫)فعل ﻻزم‬

43
Pattern (5) N1 Tr.v N2
Huda bought a dress

Note: (Tr.v= Transitive verb ‫) فعل ﻣﺘعد‬

Pattern (6) N1 Tr.v N2 N3

The teacher sent the student a letter

Pattern (7) N1 Tr.v. N2 +

a. N2
b. Adj
c. Pronoun
d. Adv of Place
e. Present Participle
f. Past Participle

a. The players chose Harry Captain.

b. He considered her beautiful.
c. I thought the caller you.
d. We supposed him upstairs.
e. I imagined him eating.
f. I believe him seated.

Pattern (8) N LV. Adj.

The teacher seems young

44
Note: (LV. = linking verbs such as: seem, feel, sound, stay, remain, smell,
taste...etc)

Pattern (9) N1 LV. N1

The teacher remained my friend.

4. Chomsky's Transformational Grammar

The term transformational grammar, and more exactly, transformational

generative grammar is briefly defined as: one that contains a list of symbols
including and a list of rules for combining these symbols in various ways to
produce every English sentence. Such grammar is said to generate all possible
sentences in a language. These rules permit native speakers to determine the
grammaticality of any new sentence.

To discuss a syntax of a language, Transformationalists introduced a number of

rules and they called them (phrase-structure-rules). These rules begin with a
single symbol (S) (sentence) and progress through ordered expansion until
no further expansions are possible. The rules are as mentioned below:

P1: S (SM) Nue [SM= sentence modifier, Nue= Nucleus]

P2: Nue NP+VP [NP= noun phrase, VP= verb phrase]

P3: VP aux+MV (mannar)(place)(time)(reason)

[aux=auxilary, MV= main verb]

45
P4: Aux tense (M)(have-en)(be-ing)
[M= Modals such as will, shall, may, should, must...etc]
P5: Tense present
past

NP
P6: MV be AP
Place

V (NP)

P7: NP (Det) N (Pl)

[Det=determiners such as the, a, an] [Pl=plural]

P8: AP (intens) Adj

[intens= intensifiers such as very, extremely, so, too ..etc]

This process of transformation can be illustrated in tree diagrams.

Example 1:
John hit the ball.

46
Example 2:
The man will hit the ball

47
 Chapter Ten
The Origins of Language

1. The Divine Source:

The basic idea, the theory is that: “If infants were allowed to grow up without
hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using the original
"God-given" language. many societies throughout history believed that
language is a gift of the God to humans . Genesis "Adam gave names to all
living creatures" humans were created from the start with an innate capacity to
use language.

2. The Natural Sounds Source :

Primitive words could have been imitation of the natural sounds which early
men and women heard around them for example " cuckoo, splash, bang, boom".
This view has been called " bow-wow theory" of language origin and these
words echoing natural sounds are called " onomatopoeic words" *

A similar suggestion : the origin sounds of language came from natural cries of
emotion, such as, pain, anger and joy for example " ouch! , Ah! , hey! "

* Yo-heave ho theory : the sounds of a person involved in physical effort could

be the source of human language especially when that physical effort involved
several people and had to be coordinated. The importance of yo-heave ho theory
is that it places the development of human language in some social context.

48
3. The Oral-Gesture Source:

The theory comes from the idea that there is a link between physical gesture and
orally produced sounds. First of all a set of physical gesture was developed as a
means of communication. Then a set of oral gestures specially involving the
mouth developed which the movements of the tongue, lips and so on where
recognised according to patterns of movement similar to physical gesture.

4. Physical Adaptation:

Human teeth, lips, mouth, tongue, larynx, pharynx and brain have been created
in such a way to coordinate in producing speech sounds, their places
connections and coordinative functions make humankind different from all
living creatures.

5. The genetic Source:

The idea here is that humans are genetically equipped to acquire language.

49
 Chapter Eleven

Semantics

This chapter will be about ‘semantics’, (the study of meaning). It will provide
valuable clues to the ways in which a language organizes its vocabulary. It will
also show how the meanings of ‘lexical items’ (words) are linked together in
larger meaningful structures. In addition, it will show that the study of
synonyms (similar meaning words) and opposites can be useful.

1. What is Semantics?

The study of meaning is normally referred to as semantics. A linguist who is

studying meaning tries to understand why certain words and constructions can
be combined together in a semantically acceptable way, while others cannot.
For example, it is quite all right to say:

My brother is a bachelor.
The boy tasted the chocolate and then ate it.

but not:

My brother is a spinster!
The boy ate the chocolate and then tasted it !

50
These sentences are all well formed syntactically: nouns, verbs, and so on are
all in the right order. But they are contradictory. An English hearer could
interpret them only by assuming that the speaker has made a mistake, in which
case they would say, for instance, ‘A brother can’t be a spinster, you must mean
“bachelor” ’
A linguist studying semantics would also like to know why anyone who knows
a language can recognize certain phrases and sentences as having similar
meanings, and would ask how it is that people can recognize:

Indicate to me the route to my habitual abode,

I am fatigued and I wish to retire,

as nearly equivalent to:

Show me the way to go home,

I’m tired and I want to go to bed,

A further human ability which needs explaining is the fact that hearers not only
recognize ambiguous sentences, but they can also use the surrounding context to
choose the most likely of the possible interpretations. For example:

Visiting aunts can be a nuisance.

is ambiguous. Are the ‘’aunts’’ coming to see us, or are we going to see them?
But if someone came across the sentence:

51
Visiting aunts can be a nuisance: I wish we didn’t have to go.
they would have no doubt that we are visiting the ‘’aunts’’, rather than vice
versa.

2. Synonyms and opposites

To gain a fuller understanding of how lexical items hang together within a

language, we need to look at the different types of relationship which exist
between words. For example, the synonyms and opposites of a word can give
valuable insights into its links with the rest of the vocabulary.

Lexical items can be regarded as synonymous if they can be interchanged

without altering the meaning of an utterance. e.g.

I am nearly ready for the exam.

almost/nearly,
big/large,
broad/wide,
freedom/liberty, etc.

He snapped the stick in half.

He broke the stick in half.

52
By studying interchangeable items, a linguist can build up a picture of those
with similar meanings.
Perfect synonymy is rare. That is, it is very unusual for two lexical items to
have exactly the same meanings in all contexts. Occasionally, such synonymy is
found between formal and informal vocabulary items.

To return to the words snap and break:

He snapped his fingers.

does not mean the same as

He broke his fingers.

And although

He broke the record for the 100-metre sprint.

Women always afraid of dogs.

is an acceptable sentence,

He snapped the record for the 100-metre sprint.

would seem unusual to most English speakers.

53
The study of opposites is more complex, as there are several different types of
opposite e.g.

quick-slow,
big-small,
long-short,
rich-poor, etc.

The most obvious type is a pair of words in which the negative of one implies
the other:

He is not married: he is single.

He is not single: he is married.

54
 Chapter Twelve

Pragmatics

1. Pragmatics
Pragmatics is mainly defined as the study of the speaker’s intended meaning it
is also known as “Using language”. It is concerned with how the language used
in context. It deals with how the listeners arrive the attended meaning of the
speaker.

1.1 The cooperative principles (CP).

These maxims are proposed By H.Grice .

1-Maxims of quantity: give the right amount of information when you talk if
someone at the party asks “who is that person with Bob?”
A cooperative answer would be “that is his new girlfriend, Alison” and
uncooperative answer would be “A girl’’.

2- Maxims of quality: be truthful, do not say anything without evidence or

something with lack information .
Ex/ If someone asks you about unfamiliar animals such as platypus answer it
truthfully.

3- Maxim of relevance: be relevant stick to the topic.

55
Ex/ if someone asks what do we have for supper?
Say” fish and chips “ not saying “ chairs and tables”.

4- Maxim of manner:
You are required to be clear and provide clear information.

1.2 Speech acts.

A speech act in linguistics and the philosophy of language is an utterance that

has performative function in language and communication. According to Kent
Bach, "almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once,
distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of
saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising,
and how one is trying to affect one's audience.

Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering,
greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating.

1- Direct speech act : It is a direct quotation of something said .

Ex/ Go to the bed.
In a judge’s statement “I sentence you five years in the jail” this sentences
behaves like action here we notice that as if the judge took the person to the
imprisonment.

2- Indirect speech act: the speech whose force differs from what is to be the
literal meaning of the sentence uttered.

56
Ex/ The weather is hot.
The explanation of this indirect speech means “open the window”.

2. Discourse analysis

2.1 Discourse analysis

It is the study of analyzing units larger than sentences, phrases and words. It is
a broad term for the study of the ways in which language is used in texts and
contexts. It is also called discourse studies. Also is the study which deals with
the whole situation, the idea behind meaning.

The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation,

communicative event) are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of
sentences, propositions, speech, or turns-at-talk. Contrary to much of
traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use 'beyond
the sentence boundary' but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring'
language use, not invented examples.[1] Text linguis cs is a closely related
field. The essential difference between discourse analysis and text linguistics is
that discourse analysis aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics of a
person/persons rather than text structure.

2.2 Taking it in turns.

Turn-taking is a type of organization in conversation where participants speak
one at a time in alternating turns. In practice, it involves processes for
57
constructing contributions, responding to previous comments, and
transitioning to a different speaker, using a variety of linguistic and non-
linguistic cues.
One man and three women in military fatigues converse while standing
Individuals involved in a conversation take turns speaking.
While the structure is generally universal, turn-taking conventions vary by
culture and community. Conventions vary in many ways, such as how turns are
distributed, how transitions are signalled, or how much overlapping is
acceptable.
In many contexts, conversation turns are a valuable means to participate in
social life and have been subject to competition. It is often thought that turn-
taking strategies differ by gender; consequently, turn-taking has been a topic
of intense examination in gender studies. While early studies supported
gendered stereotypes, such as men interrupting more than women and
women talking more than men, recent research has found mixed evidence of
gender-specific conversational strategies, and few overarching patterns have
emerge.

2.3 Repairs
It is the means of correcting other people mistakes. If a person you are talking
to make a mistake, this mistake must be repaired.

Types of repairs
1-Self-repair : when the person corrects his mistakes by himself .
Ex/ Could you hand me a spoon ?
A teaspoon that is .

58
2-Other repair : when the person corrects others mistakes .
Ex/ I assume you mean a teaspoon .

59