An Introduction to Linguistics

By: Geryl Dillo Cataraja, MAEd English

Academic Year 2020-2021

 Purpose of the Module
This Module is intended for Bachelor of Secondary- English Major students. It gives
focus of the course for a particular time period. It is important to note, that the topics and
information that are covered, establishes a time period and a brief description of the type
of activities were prepared to be completed. Goals and objectives for the course were set
down, these learning goals and objectives are specific for the module. These include
what should be expected to get out of a particular module.

Module Title and Description

An Introduction to Linguistics
This accessible module is the only introduction to linguistics in which each packet
teaches courses on that topic, ensuring balanced and uniformly excellent coverage of the
full range of modern linguistics. Assuming no prior knowledge, the text offers a clear
introduction to the traditional topics of structural linguistics (theories of sound, form,
meaning, and language change), and in addition provides full coverage of contextual
linguistics, including separate chapters on discourse, dialect variation, language and
culture, and the politics of language.

Module Guide
This packet includes a thorough description of the learning activities what the
student will be doing as he/she works through this module. This includes discussions and
activities for the purpose of explaining, discussing, or elaborating on concepts from the
module. This would also be the place to link video conferencing, and chat room
discussions that are serve as the means of interaction between students and faculty for
this module period and help students meet the objectives associated with this period of
time in the course. Assessments are also considered to give opportunities for immediate
feedback to the students as far as how much of the material they are understanding and
retaining. Comprehensive instructions on how to create, submit, or accomplish every
learning activity in a module is provided.

Module Outcomes

Students will develop:

 Ability to understand and articulate general issues concerning nature & function of
language. These include the basic mechanisms common to all languages: The
domains of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
 Ability to acquire knowledge of the ways different human languages embody these
mechanisms.
 Ability to analyze specific sounds & understand systematic properties of sound
system of English.
 Ability to recognize and analyze the grammatical system of English and other
languages.
 Ability to analyze the structure and function of language as used in natural
discourse.
 Ability to compare and contrast languages in terms of systematic differences in
phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Module Requirements
The module will run over 4 weeks, varied learning exercises/ activities and assignments
to complete to assess students’ progress. This module lists the readings students should
complete by the end of the module. Due dates throughout the time period of the module
are due by the end of the module.
 Packet 1
An Introduction to Linguistics
(Phonetics & Phonology)

By: Geryl Dillo Cataraja, MAEd English

Academic Year 2020-2021

PACKET
1 PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

PACKET PREVIEW
The module will first explore about the
KEY TERMS sounds of speech. Without sound, communication
can still take place – with a nod or a wave, a
Articulatory photograph or a drawing. There can even be
phonetics, language without sound: those who cannot hear
phonetic use languages based on manual signs instead.
Yet for most of us most of the time, getting our
symbols,
message across involves encoding it in sounds.
consonants, Even when we write, we use symbols that are
vowels, based on speech (though sometimes not very
syllables, directly).The study of the sounds of speech can
phonology, be divided into the disciplines of phonetics and
phonemes, phonology. Phonetics studies speech sounds as
physical objects. While Phonology studies how
allophones
languages organize sounds into different
patterns.
 Course Pre-test
Direction: Read each items carefully and encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. The study of human speech sounds in a language that form systematized patterns is
called...
a) Phonetics
b) Phonology
c) Phonetics and Phonology
d) Articulators

2. Choose the best description for the first sound in the American pronunciation of the
word 'teeth.'
a) ALVEOLAR
b) VELAR
c) LABIODENTAL
d) ALVEOLARPALATAL

3. Choose the correct transcription for 'grab'

a) /'græb/
b) /'graed/
c) /'græd/

4. Choose the correct transcription for 'pluck'

a) /'plack/
b) /'plæck/
c) /'plʌk/

5. Choose the correct transcription for 'stream'

a) /'strim/
b) /'strɪm/
c) /'striːm/

6. Which one of the following words that violates the phonological rules of English
language?
a) Stroke
b) Gnome
c) brish
d) Mblath

7. ____________are the abstractions of speech unit which differ one meaning from
another.
a) Segments
b) Morphemes
c) Orthography
d) Phonemes

8. Orthography is _________________.
a) The pronunciation of a word that represents the alphabetics spelling.
b) The production of any speech
c) The study of the phonetics symbols
 d) The alphabetic spelling of words that represents the way they are
pronounced

9. Choose the correct transcription for 'went'

a) /'went/
b) /'wənt/
c) /'wɜːnt/

10. Choose the correct transcription for 'mood'

a) /'mud/
b) /'mʊd/
c) /'muːd/

11. Lexicon is define as ________.

a) A branch of Linguistics
b) the list of the words of any language
c) None of them

12. Morphology is define as ______.

a) A branch of Linguistics
b) The study of words structures
c) All of the above

13. What are words?

a) Something that is arbitrary
b) pairing of sound and meaning
c) All of the above

14. The Aims of Morphology are_______.

a) Identification of morphemes
b) Study of meaning
c) Identification and study meaning of morphemes
d) Studies and identifies morphemes and assign meaning to them

15. What are morphemes?

a) Suffixes
b) Small units of words
c) the study of words structures

16. Morphemes are grouped into the following classes ________.

a) Closed and open
b) Free morphemes
c) Bound morphemes

17. Free morphemes are____________.

a) Morphemes that cannot stand alone as a word, and must be attached to a
free morpheme
b) Words or morphemes that keep the same form every time used and are
unchangeable, including conjunctions
 c) Words that are made up of only one morpheme and can stand alone as an
English word

18. Bound morphemes are___________.

a) Words or morphemes that keep the same form every time used and are
unchangeable, including conjunctions
b) Morphemes that cannot stand alone as a word, and must be attached to a
free morpheme
c) Words that have morphemes that change depending on the grammar and
meaning of a sentence, including nouns

19. Inflectional bound morphemes_____.

a) Can change the meaning of the entire word
b) Cannot change the meaning of the word
c) Can stand by themselves

20. Derivational morphemes_______.

a) Never change the part of speech of the word
b) Often change the part of speech of the word
c) Words that have morphemes that change depending on the grammar and
meaning of a sentence, including nouns

21. Syntax is the study of_______________.

a) Word formation
b) How language is used to communicate within its situational context
c) Linguistic meaning
d) Phrases, clauses, and sentences

22. _________________ was one of the most influential linguists in the field of syntax.
a) Paul Broca
b) Carl Wernicke
c) Noam Chomsky
d) William Shakespeare

23. Which diagram is used to study syntax?

a) Tree diagram
b) Venn diagram
c) Network diagram
d) Flow chart

24. In the sentence “The fat man ate food,” which part is the noun phrase?
a) Man
b) Ate
c) The fat man
d) Ate food

25. In the sentence, “The fat man ate,” which part is the verb?
a) Man
b) Ate
c) The fat man
d) Ate food
26. Which of the following does not fall in the category of “determiner”?
a) This
b) Their
c) Those
d) Tall

27. NP + VP = ?
a) Clause or sentence
b) PP
c) NPV
d) (D) (AP) N

28. Open class or content words are defined as__________________.

a) the words that convey conceptual meaning
b) words that are open to interpretation
c) words that cannot be added to a language
d) words that do not carry conceptual meaning

29. What is NOT an example of a content word?

a) a noun
b) a pronoun
c) a verb
d) an adverb

30. What is the most important word or a head in the NP?

a) preposition
b) verb
c) novel word
d) noun

31. Semantics is_________________.

a) the study of word formation.
b) the study of the sound system of language.
c) the study of meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.

32. "If Jasmine cannot go to the morning appointment, she will go to the afternoon one.
(one = appointment)." This is an example of what type of linguistic reference?
a) Anaphora
b) Coreference
c) Deixis

33. The study of reference can be divided into which two areas..
a) prototype
b) speaker reference
c) linguistic reference
d) coreference

34. Truth conditions are the study of conditions under which a statement can
be judged as true or false. Truth conditions can exist in individual sentences or between
sentences.
 a) True
b) False

35. "A triangle has four sides" is an example of a _______________ sentence.

a) synthetic
b) analytic
c) contradictory

36. This is a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that must be assumed to be true in

order to judge the truth or falsity of another sentence. Example: "Rosa bombed
anatomy."
a) Analytic sentence
b) Entailment
c) WH questions
d) Presupposition

37. Lexical ambiguity refers to________.

a) words that have the same meaning.
b) a word that contains the meaning of a more general words.
c) a word that has more than one meaning.
d) words that have different meanings.

38. Select the two words that would be an example of "gradable antonyms".
a) hungry
b) borrower
c) lender
d) full

39. Connotations are associations that speakers have with words. Choose all the
words that have positive connotations.
a) Veteran
b) Geezer
c) Senior Citizen
d) Old Coot

40. Semantics can be divided into the study of which three categories? (Choose the
three that apply)
a) Sense
b) Reference
c) Pragmatics
d) Truth
 Learning Plan

Phonetics studies speech sounds as physical objects. Phoneticians ask questions such
as:
 How many different sounds do languages use?
 How does sound travel through the air?
 How is it registered by the ears?
 How can we measure speech?

Phonology studies how languages organize sounds into different

patterns. Phonologists ask questions such as:
 How do languages restrict, or constrain, sequences of
sounds?
 What sorts of changes (alternations) do sounds undergo if
sequences arise that don’t obey the restrictions?
 How are sounds organized?

Learning Outcomes

The outcome of this lesson are to:

• show how to transcribe English words using IPA transcription
• describe the basic properties of suprasegmental aspects of
speech, and how languages differ in their use of them
• describe some of the physical properties of sound waves
• interpret some basic aspects of waveforms, pitch tracks, and
spectrograms
• explain phonemic and allophonic distributions
• describe some of the most common phonological alternations
• introduce some of the major goals of phonological theories
Exercise 1

How many speech sounds are there in the following words? You can use a dictionary

to check your answers.

Example: cat – 3; book – 3; rattle – 4.

1) porch 9) universal
2) sculptures 10) group
3) cure 11) mathematics
4) surgeon 12) word
5) argue 13) wrap
6) sergeant 14) psalmist
7) mailbox 15) prudential
8) starring 16) snub

Question: What conclusion can you make about the relationship between the number

of letters and the number of speech sounds in the analyzed English words?

Phonetics

Phonetics is the branch of linguistics which studies the characteristics of speech

sounds. Since in English and some other languages there is a considerable discrepancy
between spelling and sound, phonetic alphabets have been created in which one letter
corresponds to one sound. The best-known and most widely used one is the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The phonetic transcription is given in square
brackets, for example fee [fi:] or daytime [deitaim].
Phonetics is traditionally divided into articulatory phonetics, which studies how
speech sounds are produced, auditory phonetics, which studies how they are perceived
by the ear; it investigates the
perception of pitch and loudness of
sounds, and acoustic phonetics,
which looks at the physical
characteristics of speech sounds.
Individual speech sounds are
called segments. All the speech
sounds are classified into
consonants and vowels. Vowels
are pronounced without or with
very little obstruction in the vocal
tract and they make the nucleus of
a syllable. Consonants are
produced with some constriction in
the airflow through the vocal tract.
 According to their place of articulation, the English consonants are further classified
into bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatal, velar, and glottal. According to the
manner of articulation, they are grouped into stops, fricatives, and affricates. In addition,
consonants are called oral, if the air escapes through the mouth; the majority of
consonants are oral. However, if the velum is lowered and the air escapes through the
nose, a nasal consonant is produced (e.g. the first sound in new or mouse).
The English vowels are classified into simple vowels (or monophtongs) and
diphthongs. Diphthongs show a noticeable change in quality during their pronunciation
(e.g. the vowels in play and count). The manner of the articulation of vowels depends
on the position of the tongue and lips. They are grouped into high, mid, and low; front,
central, and back, and rounded and unrounded. The distinction between lax and tense
vowels shows that the first are produced with relatively less tension and are shorter than
their tense counterparts, which show a greater vocal tract constriction. The vowel in fit
is lax and the vowel in feel is tense.
Two speech sounds – [w] and [j] – are articulated with the tongue like a vowel, yet
they function like voiced consonants and are called glides (sometimes the term semi-
vowel is used).
Length, pitch, and stress are prosodic (or suprasegmental) features, which means
that they exist over the segmental values of the speech sounds in a syllable. In English,
the stressed syllables are louder, a bit longer and higher in pitch. Pitch change in spoken
language that is related to differences in word meaning (i.e. change in pitch can show
differences in word meaning) is called tone. However, English is not a tone language. It
is intonation language, where the change in pitch functions on the sentence level and
its movement here shows an emotional meaning (anger, joy, irony, etc.) or grammatical
meaning (e.g. statements vs. questions).

Exercise 2

After each of the following articulatory descriptions, write in phonetic brackets the sound

described.

Example: voiced labiodental fricative – [v].

1. high back rounded lax vowel

2. voiced labiodental fricative
3. voiced palato-alveolar affricate
4. voiced palatal glide
5. voiced velar nasal
6. voiced interdental fricative
7. low front unrounded vowel
8. high front tense unrounded vowel
9. mid central lax unrounded vowel
10. mid-high front unrounded vowel
 Exercise 3

Which of the following pairs of words show the same vowel quality? Transcribe each

word.

1) back – bake 11) hide - hid

2) pool – pull 12) least - leave
3) school – scope 13) grasp - grass
4) snug – snuff 14) howl - huff
5) cot – caught 15) dump - damp
6) bid – bead 16) fight - flight
7) soap – soak 17) fiend - friend
8) luck – lick 18) key - kick
9) late – lake 19)number - numeral
10) fell - feel

Exercise 4

Transcribe the following words, as you would pronounce them in isola- tion. Mark the

stresses. Then check your transcription with a dictionary.

1) Political 7) anguish
2) development 8) education
3) pearl 9) variable
4) English 10) saliva
5) comprehensible 11) component
6) miniature 12) predator

Questions and tasks:

1. What is the role phonetic transcription? Why is it important to have a standardized

phonetic alphabet like the International Phonetic Alphabet?
2. Describe the sound producing system.
3. What is the main difference in articulating voiced and voiceless speech sounds?
4. (Advanced) Diacritics are additional markings on the written symbols in phonetic
transcription. Why are they necessary?
 Phonology

Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies the patterning of speech sounds
in languages. To a large extent, it is related to phonetics but has a different focus.
Whereas phonetics concentrates on the physical articulatory and auditory aspects of
speech sounds, phonology investigates sound types that subsume all the variations
of speech sounds which we actually produce while speaking. For example, it gives
explanations why the consonant cluster [ps] is not pronounced word-initially in English
but is possible in Lithuanian or Russian, or why [p] is aspirated in the words like put,
pity, and rump, but is non-aspirated in spite, splash, and spirit. It also concentrates on
native speaker’s linguistic knowledge about the sound arrangements in their
language. This knowledge is mostly intuitive. Thus a native speaker of English can
recognize that a form like flib could be a possible English word, though actually such
a word does not exist. On the other hand, a native English speaker can say that a form
like ngick is simply not possible and “does not sound English”. The task of a
phonologist is to give objective linguistic explanations for this phonological knowledge.
The central term in phonology is phoneme, which is defined as the smallest

meaning distinguishing sound unit. In other words, phonemes can distinguish words
with different meanings. For example, /p/ and /b/ are two separate phonemes because
they can distinguish words (pit and bit; pull and bull, etc.). However, aspirated and
non-aspirated [p] never distinguish words with different meanings and are just
predictable variants of the same phoneme. They are said to be predictable because
they occur in different environments - the non-aspirated [p] is used after [s] and the
aspirated one in all other positions. Such predictable phonetic variants of a phoneme
are called allophones.
Allophones never occur in the same phonetic environment and are, therefore, said
to be in complementary distribution. Phonemic distinc- tions are checked using the
minimal pair test. If a substitution of one phoneme for another results in a word with a
different meaning, we have two different phonemes. Comparing the same phonemes
/p/ and /b/, we may notice that they are very similar in their articulation, only /b/ is
voiced and /p/ is voiceless. Such distinguishing characteristics of pho- nemes are
called distinctive features. If the feature is present in a pho- neme, it is marked with
a plus sign and if it is absent, it is marked with a minus sign. Thus /b/ is presented as
[+VOICE] and /p/ as [-VOICE].
Each phoneme in a language can be described providing a set of features for that
phoneme. It is interesting to note that the inventories of phonemes are different in
different languages. For example, /l/ and /r/ are allophones in Japanese, and in
Russian long and short vowels do not differentiate words.
A distinction is made between phonetic and phonological transcription. Phonetic
transcription is given in square brackets, [ ], and phono- logical transcription employs
slashes, / /.
One more field of study in phonology is the possible patterning of sounds and the
constraints on the sequence, ordering or position of pho- nemes in various languages.
These possible sequential arrangements of phonological units in a language are called
phonotactics. In English, for example, /spm-/ or /nb-/ are not possible initial
phonotactic sequences.

Exercise 1

Find minimal pairs of words that would contrast the following English phonemes:

1) /f/ - /v/ 5) /i:/ - /i/

2) /t/ - /d/ 6) /i/ - /ai/

3) /m/ - /n/ 7) /u:/ - /u/

4) /s/ - /z/ 8 /au/ - /ai/

Exercise 2

Which of the following words could make minimal pairs?

flesh, map, park, tool, Ben, cut, tale, knack, pale, dark, screen, dare, fleet, fresh, ban,

nap, scream, cat, tail

Questions:

1. What is the difference between an allophone and a phoneme?

2. Why is aspiration not a distinctive feature in English?

Tasks:

1. Explain the difference between accidental and systematic gaps in the inventory of
possible English words. Think of your own exam- ples of accidental and/or
systematic gaps both in English and Lithuanian.
2. (Advanced) Contrasts of phonemes are language-specific. Find ex- amples of
phoneme contrasts from different languages that are not found in English.
 Packet 1 Summary

The goal of this chapter has been to describe the sounds of speech, from the
point of view of a phonetician and of a phonologist. Phoneticians study the physical
aspects of linguistic sounds: Movements of the structures of the vocal tract, place and
manner of articulation, the propagation of sound waves through the air, hearing and
speech perception, computer measurement of fundamental frequency and formant
structure. Phonologists study the more abstract organization of sound patterns: Syllable
structure, phonotactic constraints, alternations the relationship between underlying and
surface representations.

We began this chapter by posing questions that phonologists and phoneticians

ask, and have attempted to survey some of the preliminary answers that have been
proposed. Phonologists and phoneticians have learned a lot about how speech sounds
are made, how they are perceived, and how they are organized. But many questions
remain.
•What new sounds and sound patterns remain to be discovered?
•How can we best (and most quickly) describe and preserve the sounds and
sound patterns of the diverse languages that are dying out?
•As we gain more and more knowledge of how our mouths and ears work (from
more and more sophisticated measuring devices), how can we incorporate this
knowledge into our acoustic and articulatory models?
•As we gain more and more knowledge of how our brains work, how can we
incorporate this knowledge into our phonological models?
•How do cognitive patterns and articulatory events influence and constrain each
other?
•What is the right set of distinctive features? Are phonological features and
articulatory gestures one and the same?
 Suggestions for further reading

Johnson, Keith 2003, Acoustic and auditory phonetics, 2nd edition, Oxford and Malden,
MA: Blackwell. A very readable introduction to the physics of sound, speech perception,
and computer speech processing.

Kenstowicz, Michael 1994, Generative phonology, Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
A more advanced and thorough introduction to phonology, with extensive data sets.
Ladd, D. R. 2000, Intonational phonology, Cambridge University Press. Introduction to
the study of intonation from a linguistic perspective.

Ladefoged, Peter 2001, A course in phonetics, 4th edition, Oxford and Malden, MA:
Blackwell. A practical guide to phonetics, emphasizing practice in articulation and
transcription.

Ladefoged, Peter and Maddieson, Ian 1996, The sounds of the world’s languages,
Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. A survey and detailed description of the articulation
and acoustics of all the sounds in the IPA chart.

Spencer, Andrew 1996, Phonology, Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. A very
accessible introductory text.

Yip, Moira 2002, Tone, Cambridge University Press. A comprehensive overview of tonal
phonology.
 Packet 2
An Introduction to Linguistics
(Morphology)

By: Geryl Dillo Cataraja, MAEd English

Academic Year 2020-2021

PACKET
2 MORPHOLOGY

PACKET PREVIEW
This packet introduces the subject of
morphology, the study of the internal structure of
KEY TERMS words and their meaningful parts. Morphological
processes fulfill two basic purposes: (1) to create
Affix, new words in a language and (2) to modify
allomorph, existing words. We may associate a word with a
compound, certain basic idea, image or event, but modifying
derivation, the exact form of a word can also contribute
infix, inflection, important information, such as who is participating
lexicon, in an event, when or how it occurred, or something
morpheme, about the speaker’s attitude toward it. The more
morphology, complex the word, the more information of this
prefix, root, sort it is likely to convey. By manipulating various
stem, suffix, parts of a word, we can shade, intensify, or even
tense, word negate its basic meaning, or change its
grammatical role within a sentence. Different
languages, of course, have different ways of
doing this.
 Learning Plan

What is a word?

Imagine you were in an environment where everyone

around you was speaking a language you’d never heard before,
and you couldn’t understand a single word of what they were
saying. That typical phrase – “couldn’t understand a single word” –
underscores our intuition that words are the fundamental building
blocks of language. The foremost task of any language learner,
including young children acquiring their native language, is to figure
out how to segment and analyze the wall of talking-noise around
them into meaningful units – namely, words and their meaningful
parts.
But what is a word, exactly? Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1989) defines a word as
the smallest independent unit of language, or one that can be separated from other
such units in an utterance.

Learning Outcomes

The outcome of this lesson are to:

• introduce key concepts in the study of complex word analysis
• provide a concise description of some of the varied morphological phenomena found
among the world’s languages
• illustrate methods used to derive and support linguistic generalizations about word
structure in particular languages
• touch briefly on how knowledge of complex word forms comes to be acquired.
Exercise 1

Say which of the given words are simple and which are complex.

1) moody 9) critical
2) glove 10) Arabic
3) engagement 11) ambulance
4) enough 12) discuss
5) office 13) disconnect
6) off-duty 14) handbag
7) shoulder 15) needful
8) teacher 16) seasoned

MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is the branch of linguistics which studies the structure of words and
types of their formation. It is generally divided into inflectional morphology (which
studies inflections of a language) and derivational morphology (which studies the
types of word formation).
Morpheme is the basic unit in
morphology. It is defined as a
minimal unit of meaning or
grammatical function. Thus, the
word unlocked in the sentence “He
unlocked the door” has three
morphemes (un- is used to show an
opposite; lock – means to fasten
with a key, and –ed indicates past
tense). There are morphemes that
can be used as single words (e.g.
book, run, nice, one). They are
called free morphemes. Others cannot stand alone and have to be attached to another
morpheme (e. g. un-, -ment, -ed, -s). They are bound morphemes.

Words which consist only of one morpheme are called simple words. Words
consisting of two or more morphemes are called complex. Complex words have a
root and one or more affixes (prefixes or suffixes). The form to which an affix is
added is called a base (or a stem). Thus in the word assertiveness, assert is the root
and the base for –ive and assertive is the base for –ness).
Derivation is one of the major types of word formation. Another very productive
type is compounding – the process of joining two or more words to form a new word;
e.g. raincoat, sky-blue, team-mate, or talking head. As can be seen from the given
examples, the spelling of compounds varies. They can be written as one word,
hyphenated or written as two separate words. In the latter case they are treated as a
word and not a phrase because they represent a single unit of meaning. In numerous
cases the meaning of a compound can be deduced from its constituent parts (e.g. a
bookshelf is a shelf that you keep books on; sun- beam is a beam of light from the
sun). Such compounds are said to be transparent from the point of view of their
meaning. Yet there are com- pounds whose meaning does not follow from the
meanings of the constituent parts (e.g. black sheep is not a sheep but a person
who is regarded by other members of their family as a failure; the grass roots are the
ordinary people in an organization, rather than the leaders).

Conversion is a type of word formation when the function of a word changes (such
as a noun to a verb or vice versa), e.g. butter (N) – butter (V); walk (V) – walk (N) or
open (Adj) – open (V).

Other types of word formation in English include clipping, blending,

backformation, initialisms (abbreviations and acronyms), and onomatopoeia. In
addition, words are borrowed from other languages (which the English language has
done extensively throughout its his- tory) or totally new words can be invented. The
first are called borrowings, e.g. the noun chef- “a skilled cook, especially the main
cook in a restaurant” - has been borrowed from French; the noun series – “a number
of similar things arranged in a row” – has come from Latin, and the noun avocado –“
a type of fruit” - has come from Mexican Spanish. The newly made words, often trade
names, are called coinages. They often become general words, e.g. xerox, teflon or
aspirin.

Exercise 2

What parts of speech are formed with the following derivational affixes? Give an
example with each affix.

1) – ful 6) in -
2) – able 7) re -
3) – ize 8) ex -
4) – ly 9) im -
5) – en 10) un –

Exercise 3

Indicate prefixes and suffixes in the given words.

1) implant (V) 9) controllable (Adj)

2) verbal (Adj) 10) preschooler (N)
3) thoughtful (Adj) 11) reschedule (V)
4) slowly (Adv) 12) thirsty (Adj)
5) co-star (N) 13) stuffing (N)
6) cookie(N) 14) disobey (V)
7) cooker (N) 15) underground (N)
8) cookery (N) 16) uncontrollable (Adj)

Exercise 4 (Advanced)

Draw a tree structure for the given words.

1) deafen 6) frightened
2) reread 7) economically
 3) timeless 8) bumper car
4) interplanetary 9) anybody
5) stony-faced 10) optionally

Exercise 5

The given words can be either nouns or verbs (i.e. the process of con- version can be
applied). Find out whether the change of stress can be used to make the distinction
between some nouns and verbs.

1) work 7) convict
2) import 8) nail
3) love 9) play
4) retreat 10) record
5) imprint 11) knife
6) dust 12) outrage

Exercise 6

The following words have all been formed by compounding. Draw a tree structure for
each word. The head of the compound determines the part of speech of the word,
yet it is advisable to check the given words in a dictionary.

1) light bulb 6) round-up

2) hard copy 7) grass roots
3) bitter-sweet 8) green card
4) barking mad 9) stuck-up
5) round-table 10 shipshape

Exercise 7

The words in Column B have been created from the corresponding word in Column A.
Say what type of word formation has been used in each case.

Column A Column B

govern government
international, police Interpol
babysitter babysit
foot, step footstep
laboratory lab
Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome AIDS
influenza flu
fruit, juice fruice
drama dramatist
The National Health Service NHS
 Exercise 8 (Advanced)

The following compounds are fully or partially idiomatic, i.e. their meanings are not
easily understood from the meanings of the constituent parts. Try to guess their
meanings and then check them in a dictionary.

1) bug-eyed 9) touchstone
2) bluestocking 10) tourist trap
3) Chinese whispers 11) playpen
4) trigger-happy 12) red-top

5) mystery shopper 13) red-letter day

6) surface mail 14) red giant
7) tearjerker 15) pepper spray
8) top dog 16) numbskull

Exercise 9

Say which initialisms are abbreviations and which are acronyms. For what word does
each letter stand for?
For example: the EEC (abbreviation) – the European Economic Community.

1) UFO 7) THX 13) PDQ

2) BA 8) IED 14) H. E.
3) CD-ROM 9) GPS 15) N/A
4) CD-RW 10) GPA 16) OAP
5) PDF 11) GHQ 17) DIY
6) SWOT (analysis) 12) WC 18) R&R

Exercise 10

Say whether the words in the given sets are related to one another by the process of
inflection or derivation.

1) girl, girls, girl’s, girls’

2) play plays, played, playing
3) play, playful, player, playable
4) nice, nicer, nicest
5) friend, friendly, friendless, friendship

Questions and tasks:

1. Compare English and Lithuanian inflections. What can you say about their
numbers? What kinds of inflections exist in Lithuanian but are absent in English?
2. Conversion is very productive in present-day English but not in Lithuanian. Why?
3. Using a dictionary, find five examples of clipping and five exam- ples of blending
and present them to the class.
 Packet 2 Summary

A key part of knowing a language is the ability to construct and interpret the words
of that language. The branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relation between
form and meaning within words and between words is called morphology. The basic unit
of language that combines both a form and a meaning is the morpheme. Simple words
consist of just one morpheme, whereas complex words consist of more than one
morpheme and may consist of many. There are different kinds of morphemes. Those
bearing richer lexical meaning and belonging to the major lexical categories of nouns (N),
verbs (V), and adjectives (A) are called lexemes, and may serve as the root for additional
morphological operations. Those serving primarily to signal a grammatical function are
called grammatical morphemes. The actual phonetic forms of morphemes can vary
systematically depending on certain conditioning factors; these variant forms are known
as allomorphs.
Languages make use of various morphological operations to modify the form and
meaning of lexemes. The most common process is affixation, in which a morpheme is
added to a base (either a root or another affix). Other processes include reduplication
(the copying of all or part of a root), internal root changes such as ablaut and suppletion
(involving the replacement of all or some part of a root’s segments), suprasegmental
change (in which a shift in word stress or tone is used to signal a morphological contrast),
and compounding (in which two lexemes are combined to form a new lexeme). These
morphological operations are used in the service of two major functions: derivation and
inflection. Derivational morphology creates new lexemes from existing ones, with a
change in the word’s lexical category or meaning, or both. Inflectional morphology adds
grammatical information to a lexeme, as required by the particular grammatical rules of
each language. Some common inflectional contrasts found among the world’s languages
are person, number, gender, case, tense, aspect, and mood.
Finally, we briefly considered how children manage to acquire some of these
grammatical contrasts. Children appear to be able to keep track of distributional
regularities found in the input – for example, correlations between gender distinctions and
the phonological regularities of roots. The meanings of grammatical forms such as case
and tense marking must be deduced from the use of these forms in informative and
minimally contrastive language contexts.
 Suggestions for further reading

Bauer, L. 2003, Introducing linguistic morphology, 2nd edition, Washington, DC:

Georgetown University Press.This book is a well-written introduction to morphology with
a good balance between data and theoretical issues. The second edition includes new
chapters on psycholinguistic approaches to morphology and morphological change over
time within a language.

Katamba, F. 1993, Morphology, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Although this book is
currently out of print and riddled with typographical errors, it is nonetheless still the
clearest, best organized introduction to morphology around, with lots of interesting data
and exercises. Borrow it from your library!

Pinker, S. 1994, “Words, words, words,” The language instinct (chapter 5), New York:
William Morrow. This chapter from Pinker’s popular book on language is accessible,
entertaining, and filled with many interesting facts, such as: the word glamour comes from
the word grammar; English verbs have four inflectional forms (e.g. quack, quacks,
quacked, quacking), whereas Turkish verbs have around two million; and the average
English-speaking high school graduate probably knows around 60,000 words – about
four times more than the number of words used by Shakespeare.

Spencer, A. 1991, Morphological theory: an introduction to word structure in generative

grammar, Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. At a more advanced level, this is one of
the most comprehensive morphology textbooks available. It provides a good overview of
various schools of thought and theoretical debates in the field. The exercises are also
more challenging.
 Packet 3
Packet 2
An Introduction to Linguistics
(Syntax)

By: Geryl Dillo Cataraja, MAEd English

Academic Year 2020-2021

PACKET
3 SYNTAX

PACKET PREVIEW
KEY TERMS In order to understand the subtleties of
sentence structure, it is necessary to understand
how phrases are built from the words they contain,
Phrase,
how phrases are combined into larger phrases
compositionality
and sentences. It is also necessary to understand
, determiner,
what can happen to phrases and sentences after
phrase, formal
they are built – namely, parts of them can be
syntax,
moved and deleted. Movement and deletion take
functional,
place under particular restrictions, and speakers
category,
“know” these restrictions, apparently without this
functional,
being taught to them. All languages share these
syntax,
fundamental structural properties, but the
inflection,
principles that underlie them are broad enough to
phrase,
allow considerable differences among languages.
language, organ,
The chapter includes a sampling of these
lexical category,
differences. We are presenting the structure of
pronoun,
sentences with a primary emphasis on their form.
specifier,
However, there has been considerable research
Grammar
about the effect on the structure of sentences that
comes from its use by language users. The
chapter concludes with an example of this
research and how it compares with a more formal
approach.
 Learning Plan

Key Terms

Many linguists argue that the capacity to acquire key aspects of natural
language is exclusively human. Human language is built on an
intricate foundation of grammatical principles. People don’t have to
learn a lot of what they know about these principles. The grammatical
principles we are talking about don’t have much to do with the grammar
you learn in “grammar school.” In fact, you have probably never heard
of them, precisely because apparently they don’t have to be taught.
What children know about language goes beyond what they should be
able to derive from what they hear, and very far beyond anything they
are explicitly taught.

What could they get from the evidence around an argument?

Learning Outcomes

The outcome of this lesson are to:

• explain how sentences are constructed
• explain the notions “language organ” and “Universal Grammar”
• present examples of subtle restrictions that limit the ways in which sentences can be
constructed and interpreted
• present a few examples of differences in sentence structure in languages from around
the world
• present the differences between formal and functional analysis of sentence structure
Exercise 1

Mark the grammatical sentences in each set. Determine why the other sentences are
not grammatical.

1) The girl put.

The girl put on the table.
The girl put carefully.
The girl put the apples on the table.
2) John slept the bed. John slept.
John slept on the bed.
3) The children took.
The children took three.
The children took three books. Three books took
the children.

SYNTAX

Syntax is the branch of linguistics that studies sentence structure. In his theory of
generative grammar, Noam Chomsky has pointed out to the astonishing fact that a
speaker of any language can produce and understand an infinite number of
sentences. The inventory of phonemes of a language is finite, the number of words
may reach hundreds of thou- sands, and it would very difficult to try to count all the
existing words of a language. However, to say how many sentences there are in a
language is really an impossible task. A speaker can create new sentences by add-
ing prepositional phrases, adjectives, clauses, etc.
The traditional grammar, which has its roots in the description of the classical
languages – Greek and Latin – provided the distinction and description of the parts of
speech: nouns (window, idea, Mary, milk), verbs (give, play, believe, have, be),
adjectives (nice, new, open), ad- verbs (very, quickly, really), prepositions (on, of,
without, despite) pro- nouns (she, you, somebody), articles (a, the) conjunctions (and,
when, though), and interjections (oh, phew). Modern linguists, though accepting this
distinction, point out to some incompleteness of the definitions of parts of speech.
Thus, for example, nouns may be defined as words referring to people, entities,
qualities or abstract notions; adjectives are words that modify nouns, expressing
quality, property or attribute of a person or entity,
etc. In these definitions parts of speech are
presented including their essential meaning
properties but not all their functional properties
are revealed. Yet the distinction of parts of
speech (or lexical categories) is of crucial
importance because it helps to classify the
words of a language.
Using the rules of syntax, we combine words
into phrases and phrases into sentences.
English has fixed Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)
word order. Therefore, the sentence The
children took all the apples. is correct
(grammatical) but the sentence *Took all the
apples the children. is ungrammatical.
 Sentences are not just lineal strings of words – they may be analyzed hierarchically
into phrases. For example, the following sentence contains three phrases, indicated
by bracketing. [The diligent students] [have completed] [the last task].

A phrase may consist of one word or a group of words. The substitution test may
be used to show the identity of a phrase, i.e. a single word can often replace it. For
example, the phrase the diligent students can be replaced by the pronoun they.
Another way to test the reality of phrases is the movement test – a whole phrase can
be moved as a unit. Compare the two sentences:
a) He put the cake on the kitchen table.
b) On the kitchen table, he put the cake.
The main types of phrases are: the noun phrase, the verb phrase, the adjective
phrase, the adverb phrase, and the prepositional phrase. Each type of phrase has the
head – the lexical category around which the phrase is built. A phrase can contain
only the head. Some examples of noun phrases: a book, the book, people, these
people, the red carpet. Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition and a noun
phrase: on the table, with a spoon, in the crowded street, etc.

According to Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar, a finite set of formal rules

project a finite set of sentences upon the potentially infinite number of sentences of a
language. To put it more simply, there are a certain number of formal rules which
explain the structure of the sentences in a language. One of the main rules states that
a sentence consists of a noun phrase and a verb phrase. The hierarchical structure of
a sentence can be represented by tree structures, i.e. diagrams showing the
hierarchical organization of phrases. On the whole, the analysis of sentence structure
proceeds along a number of different lines, depending on the linguistic school and
model of analysis.
Sentences are classified into different types. The majority of linguists make a
distinction between functional and formal classifications. From the point of view of
their function, sentences are divided into statements (She closed the window.),
questions (Did she close the window?), commands (Close the window!), and
exclamations (What a big window!). The formal classification makes a distinction
between declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative sentences. One more
categorization of sentences is into simple, complex and compound. Simple sentences
have one Subject – Verb unit, e.g. The cat jumped on the couch. A compound
sentence consists of two or more main clauses, e.g. He is a busy man, but he
promised to help me with this problem. We have a complex sentence when one clause
is used as a main clause and another is added to express subordinate meaning,
developing some aspect of the main clause, e.g. When I first saw the building, I was
amazed by its size.
Exercise 2

Determine what part of speech each word in the given sentences represents.

1) A woman was injured in the accident and was taken to hospital.

2) If you commit a serious crime, you could be sent to prison.
3) A couple were drinking tea at a table by the window.
4) Susan gave an amused laugh.
5) We got there at about five o’clock.
6) He got into the car quickly and drove off.
7) The tourists left the lake and climbed higher.
8) The girl who came into the room was small and slender.
9) The older men couldn’t find a job if they left the village.
10) Stay with me until I go.

Exercise 3

Draw a tree structure for each phrase and determine the type of phrase.

1) the book
2) a new book
3) very intelligent
4) on the shelf
5) with the new binoculars
6) so stupid
7) ideas
8) the brilliant ideas

Exercise 4 (Advanced)

Draw tree structures for the following sentences.

1) A man entered the room.

2) Students must study.
3) The new students can bring their reports on Friday.
4) The players left the field without protest.
5) The clever dog found the meat in the kitchen.
6) The latest news was about politics.
7) Sharks may appear in this lagoon.
8) The girl took a bottle of milk from the fridge

Exercise 5

Indicate cases of coordination and subordination of clauses.

1) The girl who was injured in the accident is now in hospital.

2) She said you took her notes.
3) More and more money is being given to social projects, and it is reasonable to
expect that this will become a common practice.
4) I asked if I could borrow his car but he refused.
5) The medicine, which is being tried at several medical institutions, has already
 helped a number of patients who have failed to respond to other remedies.
6) He was waiting for the girl, who was buying ice cream.
7) The woman who was driving the car was all dressed in black.
8) I try to ignore the noise they make in the kitchen but I simply can’t.
9) One passenger was killed and another seriously wounded.
10) When I finish this project, I will go on a week holiday in Bahamas.
11) When his assignment was finished, he returned home and spent the evening
watching TV.
12) Sarah got her BA diploma in English philology and now plans to study
management.
 Packet 3 Summary

Perhaps the most startling thing about the structure of sentences is not about
structure at all, but the fact that much of grammatical structure does not have to be
learned. People “know” a lot about what is or isn’t a possible grammatical structure
without having been taught, or even having had the right kind of experience to have
learned it. Instead, there appears to be a language organ that encompasses a person’s
language ability, with its own intrinsic properties. These properties determine much of
what the ultimate structure of someone’s grammar will be, independently of their
experience. This line of reasoning is called the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument. One
principle of the structure of sentences is compositionality; the fact that sentences are
composed of clauses and phrases, which in turn are made up of smaller clauses and
phrases or words. Compositionality is achieved by projection of simple phrases from
words from the mental lexicon. The phrases projected take on the lexical and functional
categories of the words that project them. Some phrases have complement and/or
specifier branches which merge with phrases that have been projected from other words.
A special kind of merger is called adjunction, which allows modifiers (such as adjectives
and adverbs) to be included in phrases. Once phrases are constructed by projection and
merger, they can be further modified by movement and deletion.

Grammars are finite but are capable of producing an infinite number of sentences.
This is achieved by recursion, which allows the same grammatical processes to apply
repeatedly, with no principled limitation on how often they may apply. This means that
there is no longest sentence in any language, and consequently no limit to the number of
sentences it has. Three recursive devices that all languages have are multiple adjunction,
embedding, and coordination. From birth, children seem to “know” structural principles
restricting the movement and deletion of phrases. Without being taught, they also “know”
the principles of the Binding Theory, which limits the possibilities of coreference between
nominal expressions.

This chapter has emphasized what is in common across languages, but there are
remarkable differences among languages as well. The word order between heads and
complements can vary and not all languages have movable WH-phrases. Grammatical
gender is far more varied and important to the syntax of many languages than it is in
English. The approach to the structure of sentences presented here, formal syntax, is
based on deducing abstract grammatical principles from observing what sentences are
possible and not possible, without regard to how they are used. An alternative approach,
functional syntax, emphasizes the influence of language use on its structure. It is possible
that a more inclusive approach, complementing structural and functional analysis, would
lead to a more thorough understanding of sentence structure than either type of analysis
can offer on its own.
 Suggestions for further reading

Pinker, Steven 1994, The language instinct, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. An
engagingly written and prize-winning book for non-specialists explaining the concept of
Universal Grammar, which Pinker calls the language instinct.

Baker, Mark C. 2001, The atoms of language: the mind’s hidden rules of grammar, New
York: Basic Books. Another book for non-specialists about Universal Grammar, but
focusing on the differences among languages, with examples. The atoms of language is
somewhat more challenging than The language instinct.

Newmeyer, Frederick J. 1998, Language form and language function, Cambridge, MA,
and London: MIT Press. Comparison of formal and functional analysis of syntax by a
committed formalist with sympathy for functional work. Chapter 1 is an excellent overview
of the issues involved.

Radford, Andrew 2004, Minimalist syntax: exploring the structure of English, Cambridge
University Press.Clearly written, but detailed and technical, presentation of the theory of
used in most of this chapter.
 Packet 4
An Introduction to Linguistics
(Semantics)

By: Geryl Dillo Cataraja, MAEd English

Academic Year 2020-2021

PACKET
3 SYNTAX

PACKET PREVIEW

KEY TERMS
There are two main fields within linguistics
that study meaning. Semantics focuses on the
Context of use,
literal meanings of words, phrases, and
lexical
sentences; it is concerned with how grammatical
semantics,
processes build complex meanings out of simpler
modifier,
ones. Most linguists who study meaning combine
pragmatics,
the study of semantics and pragmatics. While a
predicate,
semanticist is technically someone who studies
quantifier,
semantics, in fact most semanticists investigate
semantic
both semantics and pragmatics. In this chapter,
meaning,
we will discuss semantics,.
semantics
 Learning Plan

Speaker’s meaning and semantic meaning

Everyone knows that language can be used to express meaning, but it is not
easy to define meaning. One problem is that there are several dimensions
of meaning. Imagine that I ask you, “Can you give me an apple?” while
looking at a bowl of apples on the table beside you. What I literally asked
is whether you have the ability to give me an apple; this is the semantic
meaning of what I said. Sometimes people will make an annoying joke by
responding only to the semantic meaning of such a question; they’ll just
answer, “Yes, I can.” But what I almost certainly want is for you to give me
one of the apples next to you, and I expect you to know that this is what I
want. This speaker’s meaning is what I intend to communicate, and it goes
beyond the literal, semantic meaning of what I said. Linguists study both
semantic meaning and speaker’s meaning. Let’s look at semantic meaning first.

Learning Outcomes

• explain the difference between speaker’s meaning and semantic meaning

• introduce the complexity of lexical semantics and the basics of one way of thinking about
lexical meaning
• illustrate the role of the major grammatical constituents in semantic meaning: subjects
and other arguments, predicates, modifiers, and quantifiers
• describe the nature of intentional meaning and the basics of three intentional
phenomena: modality, tense, and aspect
Exercise 1

Determine whether the given pairs of words represent synonymy or an- tonymy.

1) long – short 6) lucky - fortunate

2) casual – informal 7) free - independent
3) instantly – immediately 8) promote - downgrade
4) rebellious – obedient 9) above - below
5) give – take 10) private - public

Exercise 2

Linguists say that synonyms are never completely equivalent in their meaning. Check
the definitions of the given synonyms in a dictionary and determine their meaning
differences.
1) look, watch, gaze, stare, scrutinize, peep
2) lazy, idle, sluggish, languid
3) clever, intelligent, intellectual, brainy, smart, bright

SEMANTICS

Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning in language. It is

generally accepted that words, phrases, and sentences have meaning. Lexical
semantics studies the meanings of words and sense relations (such as synonymy,
antonymy and hyponymy). Sentence semantics (or sentential semantics) is
concerned with the meaning of sentences.
The meaning of words is part of human linguistic knowledge. The meaning of the
majority of words is conventional, i.e. all speakers of a language intuitively agree on
their meanings. If they did not, it would not be possible for people to communicate with
each other.
It is possible to analyze meanings of words decomposing them into more basic
semantic features. Thus the noun man can be described as having the features [+
HUMAN], [+MALE], and [+ADULT]. Componential analysis helps to clarify how
words relate to other words. Com- paring man and boy, it can be noted that the two
words are differentiated only by one semantic feature: boy is characterized as [-
ADULT].
Linguists acknowledge that it is difficult both to define and to analyze the meaning of
a word. One of the reasons is that word meaning is not homogeneous. A distinction is
drawn between denotation, which is understood as the relationship between words
and the entities in the world to which they refer, and connotation, which is understood
as the additional (often emotional or evaluative) associations suggested by words.
Denotation is reflected in the dictionary definitions of words. Thus the denotation of
the word wolf is “a wild animal that looks like a large dog and lives and hunts in groups”
(Longman Dictionary of Con- temporary English 2007: 1897). However, for a lot of
people the word may arouse associations of danger and rapacity, and these
associations may be treated as the word’s connotation. The word home has the mean-
ing of a place (house or apartment) where you live, yet it has additional associations
of safeness and warmth. Denotations of words are more stable and established, while
connotations are less determinate.
 Within the vocabulary, words are semantically related to one another in different
ways. Sense relations are paradigmatic, i.e. they reflect the choice and the
substitution of one word for another in a particular context.
One of the most widespread sense relations is synonymy, or same- ness of
meaning. However, there are no strict or perfect synonyms, i.e. two words usually do
not have exactly the same meaning. Compare the adjectives beautiful and pretty. Both
mean someone or something that is attractive to look at. Beautiful describes someone
who is good-looking in a very special and even exceptional way, whereas pretty refers
to someone or something that is pleasant to look at but not impressive.
Antonyms are word that are opposite with respect to some element of their
meaning; for example, big and small both describe size, but opposite in regard to the
extent of the size. A large number of antonymic pairs are adjectives, but this sense
relation is also found among other word classes. Three different types of oppositeness
of meaning can be distinguished: gradable antonyms (gradables),
complementaries, and converses. Gradable antonyms represent a more or less
relation, i.e. more of one is less of the other. For example, rich – poor, fast – slow, tall
– short. Complementaries represent an either/or relation, which means that the
negation of one is the meaning of the other. For example, dead – alive, married –
single. In a pair of converses, one de- scribes a relation between two objects and the
other describes the same relation when the two objects are reversed. For example,
teacher – pupil, parent – child, buy – sell.

Semantic relations among sentences

Three types of such relations can be distinguished – paraphrase, entailment, and

contradiction.
If two sentences have the same meaning, they are called paraphrases of each
other. For example, the sentence The cat chased the mouse. is a paraphrase of the
sentence The mouse was chased by the cat. Entailment is a semantic relation
between two sentences when the truth of one sentence implies the truth of another
but not vice versa. For example, the sentence Peter saw a fox. entails Peter saw an
animal.

However, to say that Peter saw an animal does not mean that he saw a fox – he might
have seen a wolf, a lion, etc.
Two sentences are contradictory when they both cannot be true at the same time.
In other words, if one sentence is true, the other has to be false. For example, Miranda
is alive. is a contradiction to Miranda is dead.
Exercise 3

Mark the following pairs of words as homophones, homographs or homonyms. (Check

the pronunciation of the words).

1) bat (animal) – bat (wooden implement)

2) route (a way from one place to another) – root (the part of a plant under the
ground)
3) bow (to bend the top part of your body) – bow (a weapon used for shooting
arrows)
4) rose ( a flower) – rose (the past tense of rise)
5) bear (an animal) – beer ( a drink)
6) bear (animal) – bear (to bravely accept a difficult situation)
7) race (running) – race (one of the main groups that people can be divided
into)

Exercise 4

There are several kinds of oppositeness of meaning. Indicate whether the pairs of
words are gradables, complementaries or converses.

1) expensive – cheap 6) father - son

2) husband – wife 7) in - out
3) soft – hard 8) buy - sell
4) pretty– plain 9) legal – illegal
5) false – true 10) deep - shallow

Exercise 5

Which of the three semantic relations (paraphrase, entailment and contradiction) is

represented in the given pairs of sentences?

1) John is a bachelor. John is married.

2) Mary gave me this book.
It was Mary who gave me this book.
3) My brother studies at Vilnius University. My brother is a
student.
4) Kate bought a chair. Kate bought
something.
5) My uncle built this house twenty years ago.
This house was built by my uncle twenty years ago.
6) Susan is the only child. William is Susan’s
brother.
7) My cat’s name is Socks. I’ve got a cat.
8) He saw a big mouse. He saw a big
animal.
Exercise 6 (Advanced)

Using the definitions of the given words, carry out their componential analysis. The
definitions are taken from Longman Dictionary of contemporary English. 2007.

Footwear
Shoe – something that you wear to cover your feet, made of leather or some other
strong material
Boot – a type of shoe that covers the whole foot and the lower part of the leg
Sandal – a light shoe that is fastened onto your foot by bands of leather or cloth, and
is worn in warm weather
Sling back – a woman’s shoe that is open at the back and has a narrow band going
around the heel
Moccasin – a flat comfortable shoe made of soft leather
Platforms – shoes that have a thick layer of wood, leather, etc. under the front part
and the heel
Slipper – a light soft shoe that you wear at home
Clog – a shoe made of wood with a leather top that covers the front of your foot but not
your heel

Exercise 7 (Advanced)

Using the definitions of the given words, carry out their componential analysis. The
definitions are taken from Longman Dictionary of contemporary English. 2007.

Hairstyles:
Bob – a way of cutting hair so that it hangs to the level of your chin and is the same
length all the way round your head
Braid – a length of hair that has been separated into three parts and then woven
together
Crew cut – a very short hair style for men

Dreadlocks - a way of arranging your hair in which it hangs in thick pieces that look
like ropes
Ponytail – hair tied together at the back of your head and falling like a horse tail
Bun – if a woman’s hair is in a bun, she fastens it in a small round shape at the back
of her head
Mohican – a hairstyle in which the hair is cut off the sides of the head, and the hair on
top of the head is made to stick up and is sometimes brightly coloured
Perm – straight hair made curly by using chemicals
Exercise 8 (Advanced)

Which of the given words, in your opinion have connotations? What kind of
associations do they arouse to you?

1) sea
2) school
3) table
4) candle
5) street
6) soup
 7) train
8) bear
9) pencil

Questions and tasks:

1. English is very rich in synonyms. The fact is related to the English language
history. Can you explain this relationship?
2. (Advanced) Componential analysis helps to analyze groups of words with related
meanings. But it is not easily applicable to all kinds of words. What words would
be difficult or even impossible to analyze using this method? Why?
3. (Advanced) Using a dictionary of synonyms, choose a synonymic set of four – five
words and compare their meanings. Then check their typical usage in a dictionary
of collocations.
4. Sentence semantics is also called truth-conditional semantics. How do you
understand this term?
 Packet 4 Summary

Semantic meaning is the literal meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence; speaker’s

meaning is what a language user intends to communicate by his or her words. Semantic
meaning is derived in accordance with the Principle of Compositionality through the
interplay of lexical meaning, grammatical structure, and the context of use. Speaker’s
meaning is in turn derived from the interaction between semantic meaning and the
context of use. Semantics, the study of semantic meaning, focuses on the contribution
which particular words or features of grammar make to meaning, and in this vein
semanticists study such things as individual parts of speech, predicates, arguments,
quantifiers, and so forth.

Suggestions for further reading

Green, G. 1996, Pragmatics and natural language understanding, 2nd edition, Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. This short, engagingly written book discusses a
remarkably wide range of issues in pragmatics. It emphasizes a single, coherent
perspective on the nature of pragmatics: pragmatics is a component of cognitive science
which aims to understand the crucial role which the intentions and plans of speakers have
in creating meaning.

Martin, R. 1987, The meaning of language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. This book gives
an accessible introduction to the philosophical issues relevant to the study of meaning,
including many not touched on in this chapter. It also briefly develops some standard
ideas about compositional semantics.

Portner, P. 2004, What is meaning? An introduction to formal semantics, Oxford and

Malden, MA: Blackwell. This book gives a introduction to contemporary formal semantics
without requiring any logical or mathematical machinery. It discusses philosophical
issues and the meanings of a wide variety of words and grammatical constructions,
including referential noun phrases, predicates, modifiers, quantifiers, tense, aspect, and
modality.
 Course Posttest

Direction: Read each items carefully and encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. The study of human speech sounds in a language that form systematized patterns is
called...
e) Phonetics
f) Phonology
g) Phonetics and Phonology
h) Articulators

2. Choose the best description for the first sound in the American pronunciation of the
word 'teeth.'
e) ALVEOLAR
f) VELAR
g) LABIODENTAL
h) ALVEOLARPALATAL

3. Choose the correct transcription for 'grab'

d) /'græb/
e) /'graed/
f) /'græd/

4. Choose the correct transcription for 'pluck'

d) /'plack/
e) /'plæck/
f) /'plʌk/

5. Choose the correct transcription for 'stream'

d) /'strim/
e) /'strɪm/
f) /'striːm/

6. Which one of the following words that violates the phonological rules of English
language?
e) Stroke
f) Gnome
g) brish
h) Mblath

7. ____________are the abstractions of speech unit which differ one meaning from
another.
e) Segments
f) Morphemes
g) Orthography
h) Phonemes

8. Orthography is _________________.
e) The pronunciation of a word that represents the alphabetics spelling.
f) The production of any speech
g) The study of the phonetics symbols
 h) The alphabetic spelling of words that represents the way they are
pronounced

9. Choose the correct transcription for 'went'

d) /'went/
e) /'wənt/
f) /'wɜːnt/

10. Choose the correct transcription for 'mood'

d) /'mud/
e) /'mʊd/
f) /'muːd/

11. Lexicon is define as ________.

d) A branch of Linguistics
e) the list of the words of any language
f) None of them

12. Morphology is define as ______.

d) A branch of Linguistics
e) The study of words structures
f) All of the above

13. What are words?

d) Something that is arbitrary
e) pairing of sound and meaning
f) All of the above

14. The Aims of Morphology are_______.

e) Identification of morphemes
f) Study of meaning
g) Identification and study meaning of morphemes
h) Studies and identifies morphemes and assign meaning to them

15. What are morphemes?

d) Suffixes
e) Small units of words
f) the study of words structures

16. Morphemes are grouped into the following classes ________.

d) Closed and open
e) Free morphemes
f) Bound morphemes

17. Free morphemes are____________.

d) Morphemes that cannot stand alone as a word, and must be attached to a
free morpheme
e) Words or morphemes that keep the same form every time used and are
unchangeable, including conjunctions
 f) Words that are made up of only one morpheme and can stand alone as an
English word

18. Bound morphemes are___________.

d) Words or morphemes that keep the same form every time used and are
unchangeable, including conjunctions
e) Morphemes that cannot stand alone as a word, and must be attached to a
free morpheme
f) Words that have morphemes that change depending on the grammar and
meaning of a sentence, including nouns

19. Inflectional bound morphemes_____.

d) Can change the meaning of the entire word
e) Cannot change the meaning of the word
f) Can stand by themselves

20. Derivational morphemes_______.

d) Never change the part of speech of the word
e) Often change the part of speech of the word
f) Words that have morphemes that change depending on the grammar and
meaning of a sentence, including nouns

21. Syntax is the study of_______________.

e) Word formation
f) How language is used to communicate within its situational context
g) Linguistic meaning
h) Phrases, clauses, and sentences

22. _________________ was one of the most influential linguists in the field of syntax.
e) Paul Broca
f) Carl Wernicke
g) Noam Chomsky
h) William Shakespeare

23. Which diagram is used to study syntax?

e) Tree diagram
f) Venn diagram
g) Network diagram
h) Flow chart

24. In the sentence “The fat man ate food,” which part is the noun phrase?
e) Man
f) Ate
g) The fat man
h) Ate food

25. In the sentence, “The fat man ate,” which part is the verb?
e) Man
f) Ate
g) The fat man
h) Ate food
26. Which of the following does not fall in the category of “determiner”?
e) This
f) Their
g) Those
h) Tall

27. NP + VP = ?
e) Clause or sentence
f) PP
g) NPV
h) (D) (AP) N

28. Open class or content words are defined as__________________.

e) the words that convey conceptual meaning
f) words that are open to interpretation
g) words that cannot be added to a language
h) words that do not carry conceptual meaning

29. What is NOT an example of a content word?

e) a noun
f) a pronoun
g) a verb
h) an adverb

30. What is the most important word or a head in the NP?

e) preposition
f) verb
g) novel word
h) noun

31. Semantics is_________________.

d) the study of word formation.
e) the study of the sound system of language.
f) the study of meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.

32. "If Jasmine cannot go to the morning appointment, she will go to the afternoon one.
(one = appointment)." This is an example of what type of linguistic reference?
d) Anaphora
e) Coreference
f) Deixis

33. The study of reference can be divided into which two areas..
e) prototype
f) speaker reference
g) linguistic reference
h) coreference

34. Truth conditions are the study of conditions under which a statement can
be judged as true or false. Truth conditions can exist in individual sentences or between
sentences.
 c) True
d) False

35. "A triangle has four sides" is an example of a _______________ sentence.

d) synthetic
e) analytic
f) contradictory

36. This is a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that must be assumed to be true in

order to judge the truth or falsity of another sentence. Example: "Rosa bombed
anatomy."
e) Analytic sentence
f) Entailment
g) WH questions
h) Presupposition

37. Lexical ambiguity refers to________.

e) words that have the same meaning.
f) a word that contains the meaning of a more general words.
g) a word that has more than one meaning.
h) words that have different meanings.

38. Select the two words that would be an example of "gradable antonyms".
e) hungry
f) borrower
g) lender
h) full

39. Connotations are associations that speakers have with words. Choose all the
words that have positive connotations.
e) Veteran
f) Geezer
g) Senior Citizen
h) Old Coot

40. Semantics can be divided into the study of which three categories? (Choose the
three that apply)
e) Sense
f) Reference
g) Pragmatics
h) Truth
 REFERENCES

Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. and E. Finegan 1999. Long- man
Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.

Crystal, D. 1994. Dictionary of Language and Languages. Penguin Books. Crystal, D.

1997. Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. (4th edition)

Blackwell.

Fromkin, V, Rodman, R. and Nina. Hyams. 2007. An Introduction to Lan- guage.

Thomson Wadsworth.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. 2007. (4th edition). Long- man.

O’Grady, W., Dobrovolsky, M. and F. Katamba. 1999. Contemporary Lin- guistics: An

Introduction. London and New York: Longman.

Yule. G. 2006. The Study of Language. (3rd edition). Cambridge: Cam- bridge
University Press.