UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DEL ECUADOR

FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA, LETRAS Y CIENCIAS DE

English Major

COMPREHENSIVE EXAM

Subject: Linguistics

Professor:

MSc. Diego Maldonado

Student: Karla Cabascango Brito

Summary 1

Morphology
Considering Morphology as the study of the form and formation of words in a
language, we don't have in mind that there is something else in the form of the word.
It is not only the simple words that we are accustomed to seeing represented in
another language. For example, in Swahili form “nitakupenda”, it is represented as “I
will love you” in English, as we can recognize there is a large number of elements
appearing separated into English. These elements are known as morphemes.
Morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function that includes forms
to show past tense or plural. For instance, the word reopened consists of three
morphemes, one minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal unit of meaning
is re- (means again), and a minimal unit of grammatical function is -ed (past tense).
There are two types of morphemes, there are free morphemes, it means that some
of the parts in which words can be divided can stand alone as words. Also there are
bound morphemes that are forms that can't stay alone and are used with another
form. These are affixes. When free morphemes are attached to bound morphemes is
called stem. For example, “carelessness” care (steam/free), -less (suffix/bound), and
-ness (suffix/bound). So, free morphemes are divided into two categories; lexical
morphemes are those which carry the whole meaning in the word described as a set
of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs such as; girl, house, sad, break. The second
category are the functional morphemes, that are, words that bring a function inside of
them to assist lexical morphemes to add details to the meaning. Moreover bound
morphemes can also be divided into two types. In the first category are derivational
morphemes, that are, new words formed from old ones, but the two words are
considered separate words with different meanings. In the second category are
inflectional morphemes, that are, expressing grammatical changes by altering word
forms. For instance, to show singular or plural, past or not, and if it is a comparative
or possessive form. Then, to simplify the differences between derivational and
inflectional, some examples are: older the er- (old English -ra) inflection creates a
different version of the adjective, so derivational morpheme -er (modern English) can
change the grammatical category of a word. For example: teacher. There exists a lot
of problems concerning morphological description trying to analyze English
morphology. The inflectional morpheme -s is added to cat to get the plural cats, but
if we have sheep the plural is sheep, analyzing various languages as a result has
been shown to solve this problem. Is said that a description of English morphology
will have to take account of both historical influences and the effect of borrowed
elements. Before concluding, in the chapter is presented the morphology of other
languages that shows forms and patterns, as an illustration, English darkened
(dark+en+ed), Aztec mictias (mic+tia+s) will kill. According to Gleason 1955 we can
realize how different forms in the languages to understand the morphological
processes and features, to give an example of Kanuri language spoken in Nigeria,
“excellent” adjective-(karite), noun (nəmkarite) “excellence”, in this language nəm is
used as derivational morpheme. Another example is Ganda a language spoken in
Uganda. “doctor” singular (omusawo), Plural “doctors” (abasawo), where there is an
inflectional prefix omu- for singular and aba- for plural. Another example is Ilocano
language spoken in the Philippines uses repetition of the first part of the singular
form. As an example, “head” is a singular úlo, plural-ulúlo “heads” ,the all part of a
form is repeated and this process is called reduplication. The last but not the least
Tagalog language spoken in Philipines too. For example, basa “read”, bumasa
“Read¡”, babasa “will read”, each form is treated as a stem, in the second term the
um- is inserted (infix), to do a future reference they apply to reduplication.
Summary 2

Syntax

When the word syntax comes to our minds we think about the
arrangement of words, so syntax is defined as the analysis of the
structure of phrases and sentences. It is mentioned the “all and only”
criterion, that is, if we write rules for the creation of well-formed
structures, we have to examine all of this rules. The revised rules can
produce well-formed structures because we can create a large number of
English phrases using different rules. It is one of the goals of syntactic
analysis, where we have a small set of rules that can produce a variety of
well-formed structures. This set of rules are presented as generative
grammar because it can be used to produce, create new sentence
structures. Generative grammar it is a system of formal rules specifying
how deep structures are to be transformed into surface structures. For
example, the dog bit the cat (deep structure) where the basic components
are represented, and the cat was bitten by the dog.( surface structure)
where it has different syntactic forms of individual sentence. Semantic
interpretations also require information about structure. Thus, in
structural ambiguity two distinct deep structures express different ideas.
For example, the idea: Annie had an umbrella and she bumped into a man
with it. The second idea: Annie bumped into a man and the man
happened to be carrying an umbrella. This two different ideas could be
represented in the same surface structure like this; Annie bumped into a
man with an umbrella, that is, two different interpretations.The rules of
grammar will also need the crucial property of recursion. In this, we can
put sentences inside other sentences and these sentences can be
generated inside another sentence. Notice these: we produce sentences
like: Mary helped George. Cathy knew that Mary helped George, and this
two sentences can be put inside the other sentence like this: John
believed that Cathy knew that Mary helped George. It can be an essential
part of the theory of the structure. There is a way to create a visual
representation of a syntactic structure that is creating tree diagrams. A
tree diagram is a way of representing the hierarchical nature of a
structure in a graphical form. It is named a "tree diagram” because the
classic representation resembles a tree, even though the chart is
generally upside down compared to an actual tree, with the "root" at the
top and the "leaves" at the bottom.Tree diagram provides us with visual
representation of the constituents of the corresponding expression. In
syntactic analysis there are some symbols that are used as abbreviations
for syntactic categories. For instance, S - (Sentence), NP- (Noun Phrase),
PN- (Proper Noun), N-(Noun), VP-(Verb Phrase), Adv-(Adverb), V-(Verb),
Adj-(Adjective), Prep-(Preposition), Art-(Article), * (ungrammatical
sentence), → (consist of/ rewrites as), () optional constituent, { } one and
only one of these constituents must be selected. Thus, we could think in doing the
tree more dynamic and useful, this provides us with a very large number of
sentences with a very small number of rules, that rules are called phrase structure
rules. Phrase structure rules generate structures. For example, The first rule states
that S - NP a sentence rewrites as a noun phrase and a verb phrase. The second
rule states that NP- {Art (Adj+) N, Pro, PN} a noun phrase rewrites as either an
article plus an optional adjective plus a noun, or pronoun, or a proper noun, the other
rules follow a similar pattern VP - V NP (PP) (Adv), PP - P NP. As we know, phrases
and rules generate structures. To turn these structures into recognizable English, we
also need lexical rules that specify which words can be used when we rewrite
constituents such as PN { Mary, George }, N- { Girl, Dog, Boy }, Pro- { It, you, he },
Art-{ A, An, the }, V -{ Help, run, play }. We can rely on these rules to generate the
grammatical sentences but not ungrammatical sentences. Deeper structures of the
sentences in English generate sentences with a fixed order, that is, correct for
declarative forms but, not for interrogative forms of the sentences. In question, we
move one part of the structure to a different position: this process is called
movement rule. Traditionally, such sentences are called clauses (that-clause) In the
above examples, that is called complementizer (C).We can say that sentences with
that are Complement Phrase (CP). For instance, Mary helped George. Cathy knew
that Mary helped George.John believed that Cathy knew that Mary helped George.
Complement Phrase Rule S- NP, VP- VP V, CP- CP C S.
Summary 3

Semantics
The chapter on syntax presents the importance of syntactic rules to
account for all well-formed structures in a language. Semantics is the
study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences. When we define
words, we deal with the conceptual meaning rather than the associative
meaning.For example, we understand that conceptual meaning covers
those basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed by the
literal use of a word. It is the type of meaning that dictionaries are
designed to describe. Some of the basic components of a word like
"cradle" in English might include 'a small low bed for an infant often
furnished with rocket.' These components would be part of the conceptual
meaning of "cradle." However, different people might have different
associations or connotations attached to a word like "cradle." They might
associate it with ecological footprint, life cycle or more modernly with
those of “green design”, “circular economy” or zero waste. There is a way
to study conceptual meaning that could be helpful in accounting for the
oddness, for example, The hamburger ate the boy, The table listens to the
radio, The horse is reading the newspaper, The oddness of these
sentences does not derive from their syntactic structure. According to the
basic syntactic rules for forming English sentences, we have well-formed
structures like this, The hamburger (NP) ate(V) the boy (NP). This
sentence is syntactically good, but semantically odd. Since the sentence
The boy ate the hamburger is perfectly acceptable, we may be able to
identify the source of the problem.The components of the conceptual
meaning of the noun hamburger must be significantly different from those
of the noun boy. The kind of noun that can be the subject of the verb ate
must denote an entity that is capable of ‘eating’. The noun hamburger
does not have this property and the noun boy does. Now we determine
the important features of meaning that any noun must have in order to be
used as the subject of the verb ate. Feature = animate being boy: +
animate [+ = has the feature], hamburger: − animate [ − = doesn't have
the feature]. We can think in a word as an abstract representation of a
role, that means, a situation described by a sentence. In a simple
sentence such as: The girl runs the marathon, the verb describes the
action, the noun phrase describes the entities (people and things) who do
the action. In the sentence there are defined semantic roles also known as
thematic roles. Agent (the entity that performs or is affected by the
action), Theme (the entity that is simply being described), If an agent uses
another entity in order to perform an action, that other entity fills the role
of Instrument, when a NP is used to represent an entity as the person who
has a feeling, perception or state, it fills the role of Experiencer,Location
(where an entity is), Source Goal (Where an entity moves from is: the
source where an entity moves to is: the goal). Furthermore, words have
relationships in everyday talk, and we frequently give the meaning of the
words in terms of their relationships. It is called lexical relationships. For
instance, Synonymy are two or more words with very closely related
meanings, for example, almost/nearly, big/large. Antonyms are two forms
with opposite meanings, Examples, (alive/dead), (big/small).
Hyponymy when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of
another,Example,animal/dog,Prototype explain the meaning of certain words in
terms of resemblance to the clearest example, (a Bird)-Pigeon & sparrow are closer
to the prototype than ostrich & penguin. ,Homophones Two or more words with
different forms and the same pronunciation,Examples, Bare/bear, meat/meet,
flour/flower, Homonyms Homonyms: Two or more words with the same form and
pronunciation that are unrelated in meaning Examples: bank (of a river) bank
(financial institution) mole (on skin) mole (small animal), Polysemy are two words or
more with the same form and pronunciation, and with related meanings. Examples,
Head = the object on top of your body, Head = the person at the top of a company or
department.Foot = of person/ of bed/ of mountain, Run= person does/ water does/
colors does., Metonymy container-contents relation.Bottle/water e.g. He drank the
whole bottle, House/roof,Representative-symbol relation, King/crown,The President/
the White House The White House has announced. Using one of these words to
refer to the other is an example of metonymy , Collocations which words tend to
occur with other words. hammer/ nail, table/ chair, butter/ bread.

Summary 4

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of speaking meaning about what people mean by their
utterances rather than what the words or phrases might mean by themselves. The
importance of the context,the circumstances and the audience or meaning and
public importance.The study of how people get more communicated than said.The
inferences are made by listeners or readers in order to arrive at an interpretation of
the intended meaning.A great deal of what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is
communicated.The study of “invisible meaning”.deixis and distance: “pointing via
language” to accomplish this pointing we use deictic expressions or indexicals. I.e:
“What’s that?” (used to indicate sth. in the immediate context.) deictic expressions
depend on the speaker and hearer sharing the same spatial context, in face-to-face
interaction.There are types of indexicals person deixis: used to point people. (me,
you) spatial deixis: used to point location (here, there). temporal dexis: used to point
location in time (now, then). i.e: “i’ll put this here, ok?”.There are three categories,
speaker (I) addressee (you) others (he- she-it- they) social deixis, forms used to
indicate relative social status. in many languages deictic categories become markers
of relative social status.Honorifics expressions that mark that the addressee is of
higher status.Spatial deixis forms used to point to location i.e: “here” and “there”
“come” and “go” psychological distance when speakers mark how close or distant
something is perceived to be. Temporal deixis forms used to point to location in time.
i.e: “now” - “then” in contrast to now, the distal expression then applies to both past
and future time relative to the speaker’s present time. i.e: “i was in scotland then” “i’ll
see you then”.Reference and inference: an act in which a speaker or writer, uses
linguistic forms to enable a listener or reader, to identify something. words in
themselves do not refer to anything. people refer. Referring expressions are
linguistic forms like proper nouns, definite or indefinite noun phrases, and pronouns.
The choice of one type of these expressions rather than another is based on what
the speaker assumes the listener already knows. For example: “look at him” (use of
pronoun) “the woman in red” (definite article) “a woman was looking at you”
(indefinite article and pronoun) so, reference is tied to the speaker’s goals and
beliefs about the listener knowledge in the use of language. Inference for successful
reference to occur, we must recognize the role of inference and collaboration
between speaker and listener in thinking what the other has in mind, sometimes we
use vague expressions relying on the listener’s ability to infer what referent we have
in mind: i.e: “the blue thing”, “that stuff” we sometimes even invent names. An
example of indirect speech acts: “move out of the way!” – (the only direct
command.),“do you have to stand in front of the t.v?”(a question functioning as an
indirect command), “you’re standing in front of the t.v!”.(a declarative functioning as
an indirect request).Politeness linguistic interaction is necessarily a social
interaction,we take part in a wide range of interactions, mostly with strangers, where
the social distance determined by external factors is dominant. However, there are
other factors, like the imposition or degree of friendliness, which are often
negotiated. Politeness “polite social behaviour” within a culture. We assume that
participants in an interaction are generally aware of such cultural norms and
principles of politeness. Positive or negative face, is the public self-image of a
person. It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and
expects the others to recognize politeness in an interaction that can be defined as
the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face.