INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTISC

What is linguistics?

Linguistics is usually defined as the scientific study of language. Such a statement, however, raises, two further questions : what do we mean by scientific? And what do we mean by language? The first one can answered relatively easily but the second needs to be examined more fully.

What is language?

Put at its simplest, a language is a set of signals by which we communicate. Human beings are not the only species to have an elaborate communication system.

The components of language

When parrot utters words or phrases in our language, we understand them although it is reasonably safe to assume that the parrot does not. the parrot may be able to reproduce intelligible units from the spoken medium but has no awareness of the abstract system behind the medium.

Thus, our study of  language will involve us in an appraisal of the following levels of language :

Language

  

Phonology  - sound

Morphology –meaningful combinations of sounds

Lexis – words

Syntax –meaningful combinations of word

Semantics – meaning

PHONOLOGY

Phonology is the study of the sound system of  language : the rules that govern pronunciation.

(the word phonology itself comes from the Greek word phone , which mean voice).The emphasis in modern phonology, as it has developed over the last 30 years, has been primarily on the psychological system that underlies pronunciation, and secondarily on the actual physical articulation of speech.

The organ of speech :

Figure two shows the main organs of speech :

The jaw,the lips,the teeth,the teeth ridge (usually called the alveolar ridge),the tongue,the hard palate,the soft palate(the velum),the uvula,the pharynx,the larynx and the vocal cords.the mobile organ are the lower jaw the lips,the tongue,the velum,the uvula,the pharynx,and the vocalcords and although it is possible to learn to move each of these at will,we have most control over the jaw,lips and tongue. The tongue is so important in  the production of speech sounds that,for ease of reference, it has been divided,into four main areas,the tip,the blade,(or lamina),the front and the back as shown in fig.

PHONETICS

Human beings are capable of producing an infinite number of sounds but ni language uses more than a small proportion of this infinite set and no two human languages make use  of exactly the same set of sounds. When we speak, there is no continuous movement of such  organs as the tongue,the velum(soft palate), the lips and the lungs. We put spaces between individual words in the written medium but there are no similar spaces between individual words in the written medium but there are no similar spaces in speech. Words are linked together in speech and are normally perceived by one who does not know the language (or by a machine) as an uninterrupted stream of sound. We shall, metaphorically, slow the process down as we examine the organs of speech and the types of sound that result from using different organs.

MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is the study of word formation.(the word morphology itself comes from the Greek word morphe which mean form). Morphology is to words what syntax is to sentences. That is  morphology is the study of the architecture of words, just as syntax is the study of the architecture of sentences.

SYNTAX

Syntax is the study of the architecture of phrases,clauses,and sentences ; that is , of the way they are constructed. In contrast to semantics,syntax is of the better understood areas within linguistics. In fact,during the last 30 years,more has probably been written about syntax than about any other area within linguistics.

SEMANTICS

Semantics is the study of  linguistics meaning ; that is, the meaning of worda,phrases,and sentences. Unlike pragmatics,semantics is part of grammar proper, the study of the internal structure of language.

LEXICOLOGY

Lexicology is the study of words and whereas many readers will be new to the study of sounds or word segments,most of us feel that we are very familiar with words.indeed,when we think of language we tend to think about words.




REFERENCES
AN INTRODUCTION OF LINGUISTICS BY LORETO TODD