From SuiteU. Saved before it disappears. More pages of links were included back to the course writer’s topic on Suite101 but all of those links were 404 so I have not tried to include them.
Linguistics & Semantics
By Antonella Sartor
Introduction
Have you never asked yourself what is the real meaning of ‘language’? (linguistics) Why the words change? (the semantic change) Why one word is pronounced in this way? (phonetic/phonology) What differentiate the languages of world, for example, English from Italian or English from French etc? (phonological rules) Which rules are necessary for word formation or sentence formation? (morphology and syntax) What rules govern people’s behaviour? (pragmatics and speech acts) How can we analyse a poem, a critical essay, a piece of narrative passage?(textual analysis) Which rhetorical figures are the most important? (metaphor, metonymy, connotation, denotation, simile etc)
So, this course will introduce you to the ‘magic world’ of language with its peculiar features. You can ‘take a trip’ by discovering through a series of lessons a ‘new world’ accessible to all who already know the answers to the previous questions to those who have never posed this kind of question before. All this may happen thanks to the simplicity which concerns the structure of this course itself.
The new world called ‘linguistics’ is divided into the following subfields:
‘phonetics’
‘phonology’
‘morphology’
‘syntax’
‘semantics’
‘pragmatics’
‘textual analysis’.
A more deepened study will help you in the comprehension of ‘figurative language’ (metaphor, simile, connotation, denotation, etc.) and in the ‘seizing’ of the mystery of ‘semantic change’ which consequently lead you to the knowledge of the birth of a new word.
In this course, however, there would not be formal essays, and the lessons mix theory and practical advice. Each lessons is divided into eight sessions. The first session will be an overview (introduction) of lesson content. There are also schemes, examples, diagrams that will help you to better understand the topics. Exercises with keys will be included at the end of the lesson itself in order to check and help you in facing the difficulties shown by these subjects. The problems that may arise from the lessons give you the opportunity to post in the discussion area and interact with your tutor/instructor and other students.
At the end of the ‘trip’ you will be able to discover the main peculiar features which are represented by ‘linguistics’, you will be able to analyse at least a simple poem and use easily some rhetorical figures. Moreover there will be many indications that shall help you in this particular ‘travel’ (clearly in this case I am using a figurative language for instance a metaphor).
Apart from books, an internet bibliography which includes several sites where you can look at in case you want to deepen one of the topics treated during the course will be present and located at the end of each lesson.
Please note that this is an advanced level course in Linguistics, and should be taken by serious language students.
Lesson 1: Linguistics and Language
When we talk about ‘linguistics and language’ we must make a clear distinction between the two.
Introduction to Linguistics and Language
Linguistics is conceived as the study of human language and the linguist is someone who engages in his study. Concerning language people have attempt to define it in a number of ways:
-a system for representing things, actions, ideas, and states
-a system of meaning shared among people
-a set of grammatically correct utterances (words, sentences, etc)
-a set of utterances that could be understood by a linguistic community
However for the sake of accuracy here is the definition of the word ‘linguistics’ given in Webster’s dictionary: “the study of human speech in its various aspects (as the units, nature, structure and modification of language or languages or a language including esp. such factors as phonetics, phonology, morphology, accent, syntax, semantics, general or philosophical grammar and the relation between writing and speech).”
Lesson 1: Linguistics and Language
Properties of Language
When talking about language we may say that it is a system of conventionalized symbols by which we communicate. The main properties are:
‘arbitrariness’
‘symbolism’
‘creativity’.
‘Arbitrariness’ can be explained by taking some words as examples:
cane (Italian)
chat (French)
dog (English)
The relationship between speech sounds and meaning is regarded as arbitrary and for this reason different languages have different speech sounds to represent the same things:
English: the rice is burning!
Korean: Pap thanda
Italian: Il riso sta bruciando
Different languages convey the same message. However there are words where the pronunciation suggests the meaning. These are called ‘onomatopoeic words’.
English: cuckoo!
Spanish: cuco!
Italian: cucu!
German: kuckuck
English: buzz
English: hiss
All languages: tic tac
Italian: chichiricchì
English: cock-a-doodle-do
Russian: kukuriku
In the vocabulary of any language there is a small group of onomatopoeic words as the majority words of languages are to be seen as “arbitrary”. The relationship between the words and things is symbolic.
Dog symbolizes a certain class of quadruped
Chair symbolizes a certain type of furniture
Creativity is another important feature of all languages which allow new utterances to be created thanks to new thoughts, experiences, situations.
The little girl ate the apple
The man ate the apple
Both ate the apple
The rabbit ate the cabbage
All these examples have structural similarity. But, for instance, the following sentence “ The rull stud the thrull” does not make any sense since the words have no meaning even though the structure conforms to the rules of English. On the contrary “dog the ate bone the” does not conform to the rules of English. In other examples such as
She wintered in Mexico
He holidayed in Greece
the verbs are created from time expressions. However these two instances:
It midnighted in the festival
He nooned at Shirley’s house
are to be considered incorrect because ‘noon and midnight’ are points of time rather than periods of time.
Thus it is clear from what I have said up to now that languages are rule-governed structures. These rules reflect the systematic structure of language; they are not imposed from the outside but are observed regularity of language behaviour. In each language we have the following characteristics of grammar:
Grammar with its rules and elements
Linguistic competence which correspond to knowledge of language
Linguistic performance which deals with how people use their knowledge of language, that is,
grammar in comprehension and production
All languages have a grammar that can be more or less equal in complexity.
The components of grammar are:
Phonetics: the articulation and perception of speech sound
Phonology: the pattering of speech sound
Morphology: word-formation
Syntax: sentence formation
Semantics: the interpretation of words and sentences
Pragmatics: how to use things with words
More clarifications on the features of language
Talking about ‘human languages’ we can say that their main feature consists in the fact that unities of meaning (signs) are arbitrary and conventional. Nothing in the sound of the words in a language allow us to discover the meaning of the words. The sound, for example, of the words “chaise”, “chair”, “sedia”, do not have any physical relation with the objects described by these words.
Onomatopoeic words (Italian ‘cocodé/chicchiricchì’ used to imitate the song of the chicken or the cock) or rather the sounds that compound them are bound to the object they describe. This is difficult to understand when we become aware that for the same group of objects different onomatopoeic words will be used in different languages (cock-a-doodle-doo in English, kukuriku in Russian etc).
All this implies that signs (unities of meaning which form a message) are conventional and arbitrary form. The words of a language have been chosen by human beings to represent a given set of objects, ideas, or phenomena. Speaking the same language as someone else, then, means sharing a certain number of conventions. Languages are regarded as creative because during our lifetime we would rarely repeat the same sentence twice. This happens thanks to the composition of languages themselves which in their turn are made up of combinable and divisible particles that can be expressed by the slightest change in a statement. And an almost infinite number of sentences can be created by starting from a limited number of words and sounds.
On the other hand, the meaning of a sentence is not necessarily the addition of the meaning of each word that forms it. Moreover the same word can have more than one meaning, that is, it can be polysemic. For example the word ‘cane’ in Italian means either ‘dog’ or ‘cock’ (referring to ‘rifle gun’-rifle at half cock-). The word ‘leaf’ in English means either ‘the leaf of a tree/plant or the page in a book. The context in which the sentence has been produced is necessary to any ambiguity which would arise in avoiding such cases. Language seen as a mental faculty allowing oral communication is innate while the code allowing its realization is learned.
Lesson 1: Linguistics and Language
Other important Features of Language
These two words are distinct as they have nothing in common from the point of view of meaning : an intermediate pronunciation leads to one or other of the words. Restraint does not allow language to intensify the signifier and then to intensify the meaning correspondingly in the same way this is done by the use of shouts or interjections:
A but uttered softly implies doubt
A but uttered loudly can, instead, imply a greater conviction of doubt
Speaking of “ semantic omnipotence “ (with language we can talk about whatever we like) we intend to refer to the capacity of language to talk about everything . It allows us to carry out a list of different functions, of which the most well known are those taken into consideration by the linguist, Jakobson.
Explanations of Jakobson’s communicative functions
He stated that a common code is not sufficient for a good communicative process and for this reason it is necessary a context from which the object of communication is drawn. He allocates a communicative function to each of the components;
The Emotive Function: it focuses on the addresser’s own attitudes towards the content of the message is emphasized (examples can be seen in ‘Emphatic Speech, Interjections, etc)
The Conative Function: it is directed to the addressee (a typical example is found in the ‘vocative’)
The Referential Function: it refers to the context. The function, here, that emphasizes the communication is dealing with something contextual (it is also called ‘representative’ by Bulher)
The Phatic Function: it is necessary to establish contact and refers to the channel of communication. There are some of these utterances that are employed to maintain contact between two speakers.
The Metalinguistic Function: it concerns the code itself and is seen as the function of language about language. An example of Metalanguage is this whole reader and we use it in order to examine the code. This function, however, is predominant in questions like ‘Could you please repeat your answer?’ where the code is misunderstood and needs correction or clarification.
The Poetic Function: it is given to the messages that usually convey more than just the content and they are always to be seen as a creative ‘touch’ of our own (Examples: rhetorical figures, pitch or loudness etc)
Another essential property of language concerns the linguistic messages which can present (unlike messages in other natural codes) a high degree of structural elaboration with a vast scale of linking and functional relationships between the elements which are arranged linearly . The reciprocal placement, in a linguistic sign, of the elements which replace is never unimportant: so much so that the relationship between the elements or parts of the signs gives rise to a close multiple structure which can be perceived in the “ syntax “ of the message , and which is called “ syntactic complexity “.
The most relevant features are:
1) Order of contiguous elements:
Joseph hits Hugo
(linear positions in which they combine)
2)Structural connections and subordination which are operative between non-contiguous Elements
3)Embedding
The dog which is barking is Hugo’s
4)The presence of parts of the message capable of providing information about the syntactic Structure:
(conjunctions , coordinates , such as : and/but ; subordinates such as : that, because etc.)
5)Possibility of irregularity in the syntactic structure.
To conclude what has been said up to now on the properties of human verbal language, we may assert that language is a typically ambiguous system; it is sufficient to note that the phenomenon of “ polysemy “ and “ homonomy “ (e.g., “leaf “ referring to both the leaf of a tree and to the leaf of a book etc.).
A system which sets not biunique but multiple (plurivoche ) similarities between the elements of a list and those of the list associated with these is ambiguous. Ambiguity must not be seen as a negative factor, but, contrary to what it might appear to be in an exclusively logical-formal key, as a valuable factor naturally connected closely with “ semantic omnipotence “ and “ productivity “. In fact, together they allow for exceptional flexibility of the linguistic tool and , thanks to this adaptability, for the expression of new contents and experiences.
The problems, however, which may derive from ambiguity are often systematically made unambiguous by the context which intervenes in the interpretation of messages. Language is a system which organizes:
‘A system of signs with a mainly phonic-acoustic meaning’, fundamentally arbitrary at all levels and doubly articulated which express every expressible experience , possessed as interiorized knowledge allowing us to produce an infinite number of sentences starting from a finite set of elements.
The essential dichotomies that must be taken into consideration are, therefore:
Synchrony/diachrony
( e.g. a phenomenon of Etymology )
abstract system and concrete achievement (between power and action, between energeia)
virtual activity, and ergon
the carrying out process.
Other distinctions crop up, in modern linguistics , in accordance with three main dichotomies:
Opposition pairs langue/parole ( Saussure )
stem/use (Hjelmeslev )
competence/use (Chomsky)
and as opposition between “ paradigmatic axis / syntagmatic axis “ which came into fashion after Saussure, where it appeared, moreover, as an opposition between associative/syntagmatic:
Paradigmatic Axis:
The dog barks
The cat miaows
The cock crows
Syntagmatic Axis
The young
bitch
chatters
Explanation:
One may maintain that the paradigmatic axis concerns relationships from a point of view of the system, whilst the syntagmatic axis concerns relationships from the point of view of the structures which realize the potentialities of the system. The paradigmatic axis supplies the resevoirs from which the single liguistic units can be drawn; the syntagmatic axis ensures that the combinations of units are formed according to the restrictions suitable for any language.
*the barks dog
*the miaows cat
are sentences which are incorrectly formed – I would say they are impossible – given that they do not respect syntagmatic coherence or paradigmatic choices of the English language. This can be found in any language e.g. *il abbaia cane (Italian) ; *le boit chat (French).
Lesson 1: Linguistics and Language
Modern Linguistic Tendencies
“ European Structuralism “ headed by Saussure asserts that the ideas concerning the consideration of language as a system of signs where all is held in mutual relationship – therefore, the value of each element depends on its relationship with the other elements of the system – developed in different directions in other European schools between the thirties and the fifties.
School of Prague ( Jakobson, Trubeckoi, Mathesius etc) School of Paris (Martinet) School of Copenaghen (Hjelmeslev: Glossematic Theory is considered too abstract and mathematical) School of London (Firth)
The main evident features of these schools ( except in the case of Glossematics) is the stress on a unctional prospective (or Functionalist) which sees language as a basic instrument of communication and the structures correlated, instead, to functions. In America, despite the anthropological and typological trend which was present at the beginning of XX century in Sapir’s work, “Structuralism“ is widespread, on the contrary, in a model which is strongly descriptive and positivist called “distributionalism “ or “ Taxonimic Structuralism “ (worthy of great consideration is the scholar Bloomfield). This model aims at analysing language only on the behavioural basis which is empirically verifiable of the messages it produces apart from the functions and meanings.
Opposed to Structuralism we have Generativism with its founder Noam Chomsky who tackles the study of language from a formal perspective contrasting any other linguistic trend that priveleges empirical data inductively. He is inspired by models which are, on the one hand, mathematical and, on the other psychological, considering language as a chiefly innate faculty with its autonomous organisations which must be studied according to strictly deductive methods. The generative theory has, however, in almost 40 years, undergone to continuous change of results and a significative re-orientation which have slowly changed its order and main categories: from the “standard “ theory at the end of the years “ 60 – 70 “ to the so-called theory of “ Principles and Parameters “.
There are many other modern linguistic tendencies which are of great importance : Pike’s “ Tagmemics “, tesniere’s “ Grammar of Value (Valenza) “, Halliday’s “ Functional theories “, the Amsterdam School of Dik and the studies of Typological Linguistics.
The studies of “Typological Linguistics“ are usually based on principles more functional than formal that try to understand which are the potential mecchanisms of language and which are those already effected . What is therefore universal and what changes in the structure of language referring above all to the different ways in which the disparate languages of different linguistic families existing in the world realize the categories of the linguistic system.
STRUCTURALISM IN EUROPE
SAUSSURE ( FREI , BALLY , etc. )
Saussure emphasized a synchronic view of linguistics in contrast to the diachronic historical study) of the 19th century . The synchronic view sees the structure of language as a functioning system at a given point in time. This distinction was a breakthrough and became generally accepted. A “sign “ is the basic unit of ‘langue’ (language ) (a given language at a given time). Every ‘langue’ (language )is a complete system of signs. ‘ Parole ‘ (word ) (the speech of an individual ) is an external manifestation of ‘langue’ (language ). Another important distinction is the one between syntactic relations, which takes place in a given text, and paradigmatic relations.
School of Prague with Trubeckoj Jakobson
To these we owe ‘the phonological theory’ from which we draw the notion of ‘phoneme’ based on the concept of opposition. Jakobson apart from setting out the principle of Diachronic Phonology , set up the analysis of ‘phonemes’ in distinctive binary opposition.
School of Copenaghen with Hjelmeslev Brondal
To Hjelmeslev we owe ‘the theory of Glossematics’. He develops in a systematic way many intuitions belonging to Saussure, and his ideas have turned out to have a great influence on literature, especially concerning literary theory through the semilogical elaboration of the concept ‘sign’ and the attempt to deepen the notion of ‘form of contents’ that leads to the introduction of structural semantics.
Structuralism in U.S
Sapir: his influence is still of vital importance even nowadays. He contributes in an original way to the elaboration of ‘phoneme’ and he has also written pages worthy of consideration concerning the cultural and psychological aspects of language.
Bloomfield: we owe to him the strict elaboration of analysis in ‘immediate constituents’ which is the basis of Syntagmatic Grammar with ‘tree graphs’ which will be used by Chomsky (the founder of the so called Generative Grammar) in the context of ‘generative Grammar’.
Halliday ‘s functionalism: his semiotic theory whereby language being a pragmatic and social phenomenon must be explained in all its aspects in relation to its linguistic usage.
Lesson 1: Linguistics and Language
Conclusions
The study of Linguistics concerns language in general. People speak between 3000 and 6000 different languages around the world. We always think to ourselves what is that these languages have in common, and what is it that differentiates them? Each language is a very complicated system which includes thousands and thousands of different words where many difficult rules are necessary to combine these words into sentences. Children for instance learn their language relatively fast and they do not need any kind of language lessons. How it is possible that children have no trouble learning such a complicated system while, at the same time, there are still many problems in teaching a computer to understand language responding in a natural way?
Being languages are so complicated, the study of Linguistics shall be divided into several subfields. Each subfield deals with a different aspect of language.
Morphology, for example, is the study of word form. How do speakers of a language combine words to make new ones (compounds) ‘mooreland, moonlight, honeymoon, senzatetto, pellerossa, etc.’. How do we know what the tense aspect is of a verb we have never heard before?
Syntax, on the contrary, refers to the study of a sentence formation. Which step do speakers have to take to transform an indirect question into a direct question (reported speech into direct speech). What is the best way to represent the structure of a coordinate sentence?
The study of word meaning is called Semantics. There are many words which have more than one meaning called polysemic words but this does not seem to bother the listeners in understanding what the speakers say.
Pragmatics concerns the way people behave in daily life. It studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others (David Christal).
Textual analysis (textual linguistics) deals with the communicative functions, cohesion, co-reference, etc. In writing texts we consider the structure in paragraphs, connective elements such as titles, explanations, cross references, etc. Moreover a typology of texts (from a tale to an article, from a law to a piece of crime news, from the words of a song to an advertising spot etc) is developed in order to individualize the structure, functions and the conditions of intelligibility.
Not only do we have the capacity to manipulate a great number of words and sentences but also we can adapt the usage of our language by considering the context itself. Sometimes it happens that we cannot understand a word that we read or hear. Notwithstanding this we are often able to fill the gaps thanks to the context itself.
In a given situation where it is difficult to understand the other person owing to the high volume of music or to the noise of traffic we can do necessary adaptations in order that the communication may work well. Moreover peoples who speak in the same way do not exist. It is just the existence of this kind of variations that allows us to identify our interlocutor, for instance, when we are at the telephone.
Notwithstanding these interpersonal divergences we can understand a lot of sentences we hear. At the moment there is not a complete grammar for any human language. We know how to speak but as a whole we have much difficulty in explaining what we know. Consequently it is the duty of Linguistics to ‘render’ explicit what we know about language.
Semantics studies the meaning of words and it surely deals with the creativity of language thanks to the presence of several rhetorical figures or tropes (imagery, metaphor, connotations etc). Imagery, icon, metaphor and symbol are figures of speech or artistic conventions, in which one thing stands for another in a kind of semantic relation. Image is the representation of an object or scene which conveys only itself. In common usage, the word ‘image’ refers to a physical depiction of something, as in a photographic image, or in common speech: “he is the image of his father”. The words are used with the intention of describing something. By extension, however, the image also exits in a mental representation, as in the memory or the imagination.
There is a good physical example of this in the common experience of looking at a bright light source, then closing one’s eyes and still seeing the ‘afterimage’, apparently on the backs of the eyelids. Metaphor compares two things that are alike in some way so as to clarify our understanding of one of them. The metaphor is used above all by poets because they want to make their readers seeing an aspect of something they have not noticed before. Writers of prose take use of metaphors to make a difficult idea easier to understand, by comparing something which is unfamiliar to something which is familiar; in ordinary speech people use metaphors for emphasis.
All metaphors, however, have one fact in common, that is, they do not announce they are comparing one thing to the other. They say for instance that ‘Mark is John’, and leave to the reader or the hearer to figure out in what way Mark is like John. The difference between metaphor and simile is that in metaphor the comparison is implied, while in simile it is explicit. So metaphors have a way of activating previous experiences and associations. At first glance they can seem ambiguous and paradoxical, but in practice they can explain complex concepts both quicker and more accurate than a more literal explanation. In many areas, especially where instant communication of complex messages must be achieved, metaphor have become more and more important.
Linguistics and its subfields (see for example Semantics) have a prominent place being the basis of each deepened study of words and sentences. The search of the origin of words have involved since ancient times (antiquity) many scholars who sought for not only the history but also the destiny itself of terms (nomen est omen). We need to know the forms and meanings of words but chiefly we need to “travelling in time” learning the mystery of words, the iron phonetic rules, the charm of analogies, the curiosity of apparent equalities of sounds or meaning among languages. And all this is given by Linguistics which is science, art and intuition.
Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
In this lesson we will study two important subfields of Linguistics: Phonetics and Phonology.These two basic topics are concerned with speech, that is, with the ways humans produce and hear speech.
Brief Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics and Phonology are concerned with speech, that is, with the ways humans produce and hear speech. On the one hand Phonetics the scientific study of the sounds of human language, includes three main branches: Articulatory Phonetics, Acoustic Phonetics, Auditory Phonetics.
Articulatory Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced by brain and mouth. Acoustic Phonetics is interested in the study of the physics of speech sound. Auditory Phonetics deals with the study of how sounds are perceived by the ear and the brain. On the other hand, Phonology deals with the systems and the patterns of sound that occur in certain types of languages.
Both disciplines must be studied together: while Phonology is the study of the abstract side of the sounds of the language, Phonetics studies the actual realizations. As we know Speech is a complex human phenomenon which involves mental and physical components so the two disciplines must be studied together for its complexity.
Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
Articulatory Phonetics Consonants Vowels Syllables
Articulatory phonetics is a more widespread approach to the study of speech sounds probably because the sophisticated equipment needed to analyse speech acoustically was not available until the 1940’s. Unlike auditory and acoustic phonetics, the only “machine” necessary to study the sounds is the human machine as Articulatory phonetics studies how the human vocal tract or speech mechanism produces the sounds.
The sounds are classified by voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation. In studying articulation, the phonetician is attempting to document how we produce speech sounds. That is, articulatory phoneticians are interested in how the different structures of the vocal tract, called the articulators (tongue, lips, jaw, palate, teeth etc), interact to create the specific sounds. In order to understand how sounds are made, experimental procedures are often followed. They can measure how the tongue makes contact with the roof of the mouth in normal speech production by using a technique called Electropalatography an instrumental technique for determining tongue/palate contact during speech. The technique utilises an artificial palate with 62 silver electrodes embedded in its tongue-facing surface.
Each palate is made to fit the subject and normally requires a simple dental impression and subsequent fitting. Oral communication is based on sound waves produced by the human body. The initial moment of this rather complex process is the expelling of the air from our lungs. The lungs can therefore be considered the very place where speech production originates. The air stream follows a road that is called the vocal tract. The lungs are a pair of organs, situated inside the thoracic cavity called the chest. Variations are due to different positions of the body, to the quality, quantity and intensity (loudness) of the sounds we articulate Larynx.
The larynx (or voice box) is made mostly of cartilage and sits at the top of the trachea. The larynx provides a rigid framework within which two bands of muscle, the vocal folds (in Italian these are called ‘corde vocali’) are stretched across the top of the airway to the lungs. Tongue: The tongue plays a decisive role in forming the constrictions for many consonants and in distinguishing vowels.
The tongue is the most mobile and flexible structure in the vocal tract, and differences in vowel quality are determined largely by shapes the tongue assumes without significantly constricting the vocal tract. Pharynx: The pharynx is the open space at the back of the throat that runs from the back of the nasal cavity down to the larynx. Velum: The velum is the back part of the soft palate and is a moveable structure, when pressed up and back it closes the airway from the mouth into the nasal cavity. Epiglottis: The epiglottis is the small structure that projects backward into the airway just above the larynx and vocal folds.
A consonant, in terms of sound production, is a sound which is obstructed in some way by a tongue or lip contact as in /k/ keep or /b/ beep, as opposed to the unobstructed sound of a vowel. In terms of the sound system, the consonant is a sound that typically occurs at the beginning or the end of the syllable rather than in the middle of it, thus contrasting with vowels. The consonant sounds are classified by voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation. Voicing: As the airstream comes to or from the lungs, it passes through the opening between the glottis. If the vocal cords are open, the air passes through without obstruction and the sounds that are made in this way, are described as voiceless. If the vocal cords are closed, then the air passing through the glottis causes them to vibrate producing voiced sounds. Place of Articulation: here we have to do with the position of the tongue and the lips.
The classifications are: labials, where ‘sounds are made by using the lips’ include bi-labials where the two are pressed together (for instance with /m/, /b/) and labio-dentals where the two lips are in the top teeth touching the bottom lip (/v/, /f/); dentals where ‘the tongue touches the teeth’, include interdentals where the tip of the tongue is inserted between the upper and the lower teeth (see the example ‘teeth’); coronals, where ‘the tongue touches the roof of the mouth’ include alveolars in which the tip of the tongue touches the ridge behind the top teeth. (/d/, /s/) and palatals where the tongue presses up against the hard part of the roof of the mouth as in ‘people’; or alveopalatals in which the tongue is pressed against both the alveolar ridge and the hard palate, such as in ‘chair’; velars where the tongue is pressed against the soft part of the roof of the mouth (for example /g/, /k/); glottals in which sounds are made in the opening between the vocal cords as in ‘button’.
Another descriptor for the classification of the consonant sounds is the ‘Manner of Articulation’, or to be more precise the way the airstream is affected as it travels through the vocal tract: stops are formed the moment in which a total obstruction of the airflow exists for a brief moment, that is, the mouth is closed completely; fricatives in which the mouth is nearly closed in such a way that the air flows turbulently through the channel (/f/ /v/); affricates a stop is followed immediately by a fricative (in ‘chair’ and ‘judge’ begin with fricatives). Approximants: the mouth is fairly open and they include: liquid /r/ /l/ in which there exists some obstructions but the air flows more freely than in fricatives. The different liquids are: ‘lateral /l/)’, ‘retroflex’, ‘trill [x] o [R] found, for instance, in the Italian word rosa’, flap or tap as in the word ‘butter’; glides or semivowels with little or no obstruction but the air is present in the production of these sound which include the initial sounds of words such as you /j/ and wait; nasals are sounds that are made by forcing the air through the nasal cavity instead of the oral cavity /m/, /n/.
In terms of sound production, a vowel is a single speech sound produced by vibrating the vocal cords and not obstructing the mouth in any way, as in the /æ/ of ‘bank’, shaped by the position of the lips into rounded and unrounded sounds in English /i:/ bee and /u:/ boo. In terms of sound structure, a vowel occurs typically as the core of the syllable rather than at the beginning or the end, thus contrasting with consonant. The sound vowels cannot be described in the same way as consonants. We can talk about voicing as all vowels are voiced, but it is not possible to refer to the manner of articulation: the air flow without obstruction during the vowel production. Vowels are determined by changes in position of lips, tongue and palate, and these changes can be very difficult to detect. The vowel chart attempts to map the position of the tongue and jaw in articulating vowels. In English vowels can also glide into one another to form diphthongs and even triphthongs. Moreover, they are far more difficult to transcribe than consonants and are also an extremely important area of English, phonology as they make up the greatest difference between English varieties.
A diphthong is a type of vowel produced by moving the tongue as it is produced from one position towards another, for example in English /iə/fear and /ləv/law. It may correspond to one or two written letters. The syllable is a structural unit and within this structure we are able to identify a sequence of consonants C and vowels V. Not only in Grammar we can parse a grammatical structure but also in phonology we can parse syllabic structure.Closed syllables have at least one consonant following the vowel: the most common closed syllable is the CVC syllable. Open syllables are syllables that end in a vowel: the most common open syllable is the CV syllable. There are a large number of monosyllabic words in English: this means that they have a single vowel. Even in Italian there are some monosyllabic words. English: V: “I” /æ/; CV: “me” /mi:/; CCCV: “spray”/spræe/; CVCCCC: “sixths”/sikss/; CCCVC: “spring”/sprinŋ/. Italian: CV: “tu”/tu*/; CV: “no”/n/; CVC: “con”/kon/. In Italian there are, however, very few monosyllabic words that end with a consonant. On the other hand by examining the legal consonant+vowel sequences in English monosyllabic words we can get a good idea of what types of syllable structure are legal in English language.
Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
International Phonetic Alphabet (or IPA) is needed to write down the sounds of languages in a consistent fashion, and its aim is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. In furtherance of this aim, the IPA provides the academic community worldwide with a notational standard for the phonetic representation of all languages.
It was originally developed by British and French phoneticians under the auspices of the International Phonetic Association, established in Paris in 1866. The alphabet has undergone a number of revisions during its history, including some major ones codified by the IPA Kiel Convention (1989). Most letters are taken from the Roman Alphabet or derived from it, some are taken from the Greek Alphabet, and some are apparently unrelated to any standard alphabet. The sound-values of the consonants that are equal to those in the Latin Alphabet in most cases correspond to English usage [p], [b], [t], [d], [k],[g], [m], [n], [f], [v],[s], [h],[z], [l], [w].
Concerning the vowel symbols, they are identical to those in the Latin Alphabet ([a], [e],[i], [o],[u]) and match roughly to the vowels of Italian and Spanish: [i] is like the vowel in ‘meet’ while [u] is like the vowel in ‘food’ etc. Most of the other symbols that are shared in the Latin Alphabet like [j], [r], [c] and [y] correspond to sounds those letters represent in other languages, [j] has the sound value of English ‘y’ in yoke (= German); whereas [y] has the Scandinavian or Old English value of the letter (=German y or ü, Greek Ү or French u). The general principle is to employ one symbol for one speech segment, avoiding letter combinations such as ‘sh’ and ‘th’ in English orthography. Letters that have shapes that are modified Latin letters usually correspond to a similar sound.
For example, all the ‘retroflex consonants’ have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonants but with a rightward pointing hook coming out of the bottom. Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA signs to transcribe slightly modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols used for suprasegmental features such as stress, tone etc.
Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
Phonology
To sum up we can say that ‘Phonetics’ is the physical manifestation of language in sound waves, and it is this discipline that explains how these sounds are articulated and perceived. ‘Phonology’; on the other hand, is the mental representation of sounds as part of a symbolic cognitive system, that is, it expresses how abstract sound categories are manipulated in the processing of language.
Therefore whilst “Phonetics” studies the individual sounds of speech, “Phonology” concerns the way in which the sounds interact with one another, the whole system of sounds and not only the sounds in themselves. When we know a language, we know which sounds belong to it and which sounds are foreign to it. We also know which ones affect the meaning of the words.
Anyone who knows English , for instance , knows that “sip” and “zip” and “sip” and “sit” mean two different things . Linguists are aware that if they substitute a sound in a word with another one which, in its turn , changes the meaning, the two sounds that ensue are defined “distinctive”. It’s a question of “phonemes” : units of distinctive and opposition phonological description , that is to say , the smallest phonic unit capable of producing a transformation of meaning by means of “commutation”.
In Italian , p/t/k are phonemes because they are in opposition in the “smallest pairs” (minimal pairs ) [ pane / tane / cane ] converting functionally ; e/e are functionally weak phonemes as the opposition of [ pèsca / pesca ] is held to be appreciable only in the case of a few speakers (normally from Tuscany ) . In English , too , we find “smallest pairs” (minimal pairs) words which have exactly the same number of sounds which differ only in one phoneme. Examples: cat / cup; chunk / junk; ship /chip.
The smallest pairs ( minimal pairs ) are pairs of linguistic units which are only in opposition on a pertinent tract ( pertinent tract ). Another example can be taken from French: unvoiced / voiced: port/bord. Occlusive/pertinent : peur/fleur. Contrary to a sound which can be heard and measured, a “phoneme” is an abstract entity , a class of sounds which share the same oppositions of other sounds in a language. Phonetical distinct sounds can help to realize the same “phoneme”.
Therefore, “allophones” are phonetic variants of a same phoneme divided into : combinatory variants and free variants. In English, /l/ and /p/ are in opposition, but there are cases in which /l/ alone has two main realizations: when it appears initially, for instance in ‘let’ we call it a‘light’ /l/ because it is realised pretty much as an /l/, but when it appears at the end after a back vowel, as in ‘fell’, it velarises to a ‘dark’/l/.
When we pronounce the word , we clearly don’t think what kind of /l/ we are using, however, these different realizations are the ‘allophones’.
We often ask ourselves when a ‘phone’ is an allophone of one phoneme rather than another. Three criteria are applied in answering our main question: complementary distribution, free variation and phonetic similarity. Complementary distribution is said of two phones that are only allophones of the same phoneme if they do not appear in the same context.
Explanation: the Italian nasal consonants of the words ‘inchiostro’ ‘angolo’ [ink and corner] are identified in our mind with /n/ and /ŋ/ not with the other two nasal consonants such as /m/ or /ɲ/. So we can also say that /n/ and /ŋ/ are in complementary distribution because their distribution is such that in the context where one of these segments is present, there cannot be the other (segment).
The two segments exclude each other in a certain phonetic context. In other words, the phonetic element is not predictable from the context and, for this reason, it is not distinctive. If they cannot appear in the same phonetic context, then we cannot swap them. This makes sense if we remember that mostly allophones are different from one another as a result of ‘assimilation’, yet in the same phonetic context they would assimilate in the same way and thus be the same.
Assimilation makes one sound more like a neighbour (the fact that in English the ‘morpheme’ of the plural is pronounced [s] if the sound is voiceless such as in the word cat[s], and by [z] if the sound is voiced, such as in the word do [z] , is an instance of partial progressive assimilation). If we are dealing with the Combinatory Variants, the allophone of a phoneme A is a sound A’ phonetically distinct from the canonical conversion of A which shares with A a certain number of distinctive phonetical features and occurs with respect to this in complementary distribution, never in opposition in the same context. The Nasal Labio – dental [ n ] in “inverno” is, in Italian, an “allophone” of the phoneme /n/( for the sake of graphic convenience, an “allophone” is indicated by the phonetic symbol between square brackets ).
The allophonic statute is strictly idiolinguistic as that which is an allophone of a given phoneme in a language may be a distinct phoneme in another language : [ ŋ ] is an allophone of /n/ in Italian ( this only occurs in front of a velar consonant where [ n ] does not occur ) ; this is not the case in English where /n/e/ŋ/ are in opposition, for example, /’bæn/ “band” which is in opposition to /’bæŋ/ “explosion”.
Minimal pairs are used to determine different phonemes in a language; so they are seen as words that have the same number of sounds differing only in one phoneme. Examples of minimal pairs in English and Italian: Ship /chip, Cat /cap, Pane / cane Kale / care, sane / sale, Pazzo/ pezza. Whether the speaker uses the uvular fricative or the alveolar trill , the meaning of the words does not change. This means that we have free variants of the same phoneme when two different entities meet in the same ‘environment’. In Italian, for example [ca[r]o] or [caRo] are different pronunciations of the same word. This can be caused by the defective pronunciation or by the particular habits of the speaker. In the case of the ‘short vowel’[i] and the ‘long vowel’ [i:] we have an ‘allophone’ of a single phoneme. As the short vowel [i] only occurs before voiceless consonants, and the long vowel [i:] occurs only before voiced consonants, they do not contrast.
However, the Phonological Rules which explain when and where phonemes will vary in pronunciation are made up of three main parts: a) Vowels – Consonants and their subclasses. b) The Phonetic change that will occur. c) The environment where the change takes place.
Phonologists created a kind of technical notation to define the different rules. The symbols are: C (consonants) V(vowels) L(liquid) G(glide) $ (syllable) ___$ (at the end of a syllable) $___ (at the beginning of the syllable) # word boundary #___ (at the beginning of a word or in the same word) ____# (at the end of a word).
Slashes // phonemes (i.e. /k/) and brackets [] are necessary to represent phonetic symbols. The symbol = implies “equal”, the use of the arrow → “becomes” (or is changed to).
The + and – , on the other hand , mean ‘presence or absence’ of a phonetical feature ( the voiceless, alveolar, stop /t/ would be [-voice] [+alveolar] [+stop]).
Some instances concerning English phonological rules: [-voiced +stop]→[+aspired]/$__: a voiceless stop becomes aspirated at the beginning of a syllable ( tip, biker); [-voiced +alveolar+sop]→[+glottal stop]/___[+nasal]#: a voiceless alveolar stop becomes a glottal stop when before a nasal in the same word (button); [+vowel ]→[+nasal]/___[+nasal]: a vowel becomes nasalized before a nasal sound (sun, wonder).
Phonological rules are very important as they ensure that the phonotactics of the language are respected even in ‘derived environments’.
They also place sounds in‘complementary distribution’ (that is they derive allophones from underlying phonemes): the distribution of aspirated stops is predictable because they are derived by rule from underlying voiceless stops in a specific ‘environment’. In phonology and phonetics, we call tract each feature which defines a sound either from the articulatory or the acoustic point of view.
Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
Prosodic Features and Conclusions
In addition to stress, intonation, tempo and rhythm called ‘prosodic features’, we have other effects produced by the alteration of the quality of the voice, which makes it breathy or husky , thus changing the timbre. All these are seen as paralinguistic features. Stress or loudness is necessary to give emphasis, combined with other things such as changes of tone and tempo.
The aim of stress is to convey certain kinds of meaning in reference to semantics and pragmatics. It can show us ‘urgency’ or ‘anger’ or ‘command’. Intonation deals with the tone of voice. We have different levels of pitch: if we want to ask a question, we use a rising intonation, while if we wish to make a simple statement, we use a falling intonation.
Tempo, on the contrary, is the speed at which we speak and can be quick or slow. All this may depend on the situation in which we find ourselves. It can also reflect some kinds of meaning or attitude when we are giving, for instance, a real answer to a question, being perhaps so rapid as to convey distraction or rage.
Rhythm includes patterns of stress, tempo and pitch. We find formal and repetitive rhythm in music, rap, poetry , but more or less all speech has rhythm.
The accent is unique and personal, too, and the use of our sound system can be adapted to different situations.
However, we think that accents serve to mark out people by geographical region, by social class and by education. Moreover, the so – called received pronunciation (RP) is a special accent, a regionally neutral accent employed as a standard for broadcasting and some other kinds of public speaking.
The syllable however plays an important role in the prosody. What follows now is a scheme to clarify the main features of Prosody itself: “Length”: the relative duration of a number of successive syllables or the duration of a given syllable in one environment relative to the same syllable in a different environment. It can be measured by using the spectrogram. There are some confounding factors such as difficulty in determining syllable boundaries or the intrinsic length of some vowels versus others ‘tense versus lax’. “Loudness”: there are changes of loudness that occur within one syllable or the relative loudness of a number of successive syllables that are formed by variations in air pressure which comes from the lungs. It is used in English as a basic means to indicate word stress even if differences can also be obvious in length and pitch.
Factors that confound can be seen in intrinsic loudness of some vowels versus others ‘/a/ versus /i/. “Pitch”: the varying height of the pitch of the voice over one syllable or over a series of syllables which are created by changes in the rate of vocal vibration. Factors that confound can be seen in intrinsic pitch of some vowels versus others /i/ versus /o/. “Intonation”: it means melody of speech and implies rhythmic structure of language. Its unity of analysis consists in ‘tone group’, ‘foot’, ‘tonic syllable’ and the Tone Group Boundary Criteria is composed of: Presence of a pause; Major Pitch Movement; Lengthening of a word-final syllable; Register or voice quality change.
The human language is characterized by a complex system of signs. The linguistic system, with the many functions peculiar to it, represents from our earliest age an effective means of communication made up of symbols, arbitrary and conventional representations endowed with a “double articulation” system which allows man linguistic creativity. “ Double articulation “is the property by means of which languages are organized in two different structural levels.
The phonic units (without meaning),when combined, result in a unity of a superior level endowed with meaning. The level of sounds (without meaning) is called the second articulation, while the superior level (with meaning) is called the first articulaton. As the Italian linguist ‘De Mauro’ says in his book “Linguistica elementare” written in 1998, in language there is something which is considerably different from walking, breathing, feeding, and this difference derives from the existence of a very large number of languages that are highly different even among themselves. Thus, the complexity of language as a mental and psychological phenomenum is such that we cannot understand all the aspects if we only adopt one point of view.
Lesson 3: Morphology
In this lesson we talk about morphology: the study of word formation.
Morphology
Morphology, for instance, deals with a) the study of word formation b) the way in which speakers of different languages combine words to make new (ones) called compounds. Examples: Bulldog; sittingbull; mooreland; moonlight; senzatetto; pellerossa.
Morphology is a term which derives from Greek [G morphologie, Fr. Morph-+ -logie morpho=form and logy= study, speech] and traditionally it has been accepted with the aim of classifying the part of grammar which deal with the word formation owing to three main factors: the segmentation of various components (root, stem, suffix, ) example: prefix stem suffix [re- arrange- d (rearranged)] derivation (obtained) through composition. Example: ‘creation’ derives from ‘create’ but we are in front of two separate words.
The change (declension, suffixation, inflection): the declension was found above all in the early Indoeuropean languages (gender, number, case) and is a presentation in some prescribed order of the inflectional focus of a noun, adjective, pronoun.
Great part of Indoeuropean languages, except German and some Slavish languages (for instance Russian) do not have any longer the casual inflection reducing the declension only to morphological variations with references to ‘number and gender’.
Italian: libr (o) (singular) versus libr (i) (plural); French ami (singular) versus ami(s) (plural); English boy (singular) versus boy(s) (plural).
Suffixation is a process by which a suffix is a morpheme that is added to a word to create another word by derivation “Felon” thus becomes a new word by adding ‘y’ felony (noun) and an adjective by adding ‘ous’ “felonious”.
The inflection is the change of form that words undergo to mark such distinctions as those of case, gender, number, tense, mood, voice, comparison, person form, suffix or element involved in such variation. Examples: shop/shops; friend/friends; the morpheme ‘s’ clearly expresses the relation between the singular and plural.
Thus Morphology studies the internal structures of words: the parts that make up words (morphemes), the way in which morphemes are combined (word formation processes) and surely the principles (laws) that regulate the processes of word formation. Therefore ‘a morpheme’ is the smallest unit in grammar it is either a word in its own right called free morpheme ‘cat’ ‘chat’ ‘gatto’ or part of a word called bound morpheme (cats chats gatti)’.
Grammatical morphemes form part of grammar , such as the plural ‘s’ ‘s’ ‘i’ in cat, chat, gatto while the morphemes that change one word into another, for example, ‘cook’ ‘cookery’ ‘cookbook’ are part of derivational process whose meaning is “the formation of a word from an earlier word or base usually by the addition of an affix usually an uninflectional as in ‘rebuild’ from ‘build’ or ‘boyish’ from boy. A functional change as in ‘picnic’ (verb) from ‘picnic’ (noun) or a back-formation as in ‘peddle’ from ‘peddler’.
Other examples are ‘trumpet+ er = trumpeter’ or ‘wind+mill= windmill’(contrasting clearly with grammatical inflection).
There are two main classes which deal with morphemes: lexical morphemes (stems, roots, lexemes) and grammatical morphemes (called bound morphemes). Examples: ‘Lexical morphemes’ Italian: amic- buon-; English friend, good, play. Grammatical morphemes Italian: i/e amic/i, amiche; English: ‘s’ in ‘friends or in plays’ Lexical morpheme. Explanation: In the word ‘boys’ we have two morphemes ‘boy’ and ‘s’‘boy’ is a lexical morpheme (with its features ‘human’ ‘male’ ‘not adult’ ‘s’ in a grammatical morpheme (its meaning is ‘plural’). Italian: ‘celermente’ there are two morphemes ‘celer’ lexical morpheme ‘mente’affix.
Sometimes ‘morphemes’and ‘words’ can coincide. In Italian ‘bar’ ‘sempre’ ‘ieri’ are words formed by only one morpheme and for this reason they are called ‘monomorphemic’.
Lesson 3: Morphology
Morphemes and Words
The morpheme is defined as the minimal unit of language which carries meaning. If we look at the word ‘dogs’ we can see two morphemes, that is, ‘dog’ and ‘s’. Other words such as ‘truthfully or unhappy’ can be divided into three morphemes ‘truth-ful-y’ and two morphemes ‘un-happy’. So ‘un’ means ‘not’, ‘happy’ describes a state of neural activity that produce a feeling of “well-being” and “contentment”. ‘Ful’ means having the quality of, while ‘truth’ implies the quality or state of being “faithful”, ‘y’ is an instance of specified action (suffix). We can say that the meaning of a morpheme always stays the same. When we look at the word ‘unbearable’ we intuitively feel that it is divided into ‘un’ ‘bear’ ‘able’.
Are we sure that this word is composed of three morphemes? And what can we do with the word ‘deambulation’? Is it right to divide it into de-am-bu-la-tion or are there any other combinations? We can split ‘cranberry’ into two morphemes ‘cran-berry’ but ‘cran’ does not occur alone as an independent term in English or as a morpheme in any other word as it does not carry any meaning of its own. Thus we must think of ‘morphemes’ as minimal meaning-carrying units because of the existence of some borderline case such as ‘cran’ in ‘cranberry’ or ‘ceive’ in ‘receive’ ‘deceive’ ‘conceive’. Instead, the word is considered as the smallest unit of grammar which can stand alone (boy (s), tree (s), cat (s): ‘boy’ is a word but ‘s’ is not a word: “Act, activate, activity, activities” are words but ‘ive, ity, ities’ are not words.
The word can also be a lexical or a functional word : a‘lexical’ word implies that the word is a ‘full word’ and it is perhaps understood when it is associated with a contentful concept. In word like ‘boy’, ‘dog’, ‘tree’ we might think of concept they express by relating to a picture or design of a typical boy, dog, or tree. If we think of verbs such as ‘to smile, to run, to read etc.’ we also need to have a contentful notion of what these activities are. The same happens with adjectives (when a person is described some adjectives must be employed: tall, heavy, kind etc.
These adjectives need to be associated with concepts which turn out to be a bit more abstract. Therefore a ‘lexical word’ is a morpheme which has a dictionary meaning, a full word, a content word (dog, cat, boy, girl, take, green etc. / cane, gatto, ragazzo, ragazza, prendere, verde etc.), while a ‘functional word’ (also called an empty word or a form word) is a word that has less of a contentful concept associated with it and is necessary to some functions in grammar (the (il), a (un), of (di), and (e)). So lexical categories consist of mostly lexical words, on the other hand, functional categories consist mostly of functional words. Verbs, nouns, adjectives (V, N, A) are the three basic lexical categories: determiners, complementations, conjunctions (D, C, C) are the three basic functional categories.
Lesson 3: Morphology
Types of Morphemes
Morphemes: they are the smallest units of language, that is, any part of a word that cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts including the whole world itself. Examples: items, stems. The word ‘stems’ can be divided into meaningful parts (stem/ and plural suffix ‘s’). Neither of these can be divided into smaller parts that have meaning. For this reason ‘stem’ and ‘s’ are to be seen as morphemes. Free morphemes can stand alone as independent words ‘stem’, bound morphemes cannot stand alone as independent words and they need to be attached to other morphemes.
Affixes have plural ‘s’ and are always bound while sometimes ‘root’ can be bound. Examples: ‘meaning-ful or ceive of deceive’. Content morphemes are morphemes that have relatively more specific meaning than function morphemes and fall into the classes of Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb. Functional morphemes are morphemes that have relatively less specific meaning than content morphemes; their function consists of signalling relationships between other morphemes.
They generally fall into classes such as Articles (a, the) Prepositions (of, at), Auxiliary Verbs (was smiling, have opened). Simple words consist of single morphemes and the words cannot be analysed into smaller meaningful parts (item, dog, cat); complex words consist of root morphemes plus one or more affixes (items, dogs, reading, readers). Base is an element (free or bound, root morpheme or complex word) in which additional morphemes are attached. It is also called ‘stem’. A base can also be a single ‘root’ morpheme as in the following example: tolerant in intolerant. However the base can be regarded as a word itself that has more than one morpheme.
Here, there is an instance: ‘subconsciously: sub-conscious-ly’. We have the word ‘conscious’ as a base to form another word ‘subconsciously’. Root usually is free and is a morpheme around which words can be built thanks to the addition of affixes: the root ‘clear’ can have affixes added to it so as to form ‘clearer, clearest, unclear, clearly’. Affixes are bound morphemes which are attached to a base.
They are divided into ‘prefixes’ that are attached to the front of a base, ‘suffixes’ that are attached to the end of a base and ‘infixes’ that are rarely found in English and are inserted inside of a root. Examples: prefix ‘de’ (decodify), (deambulation), (decoder); ‘un’ (untrue), (untidy); suffix ‘ly’ (manily), ‘able’ (capable), ‘ous’ (dangerous). Examples with both prefixes and subfixes are ‘unspeakable’(un-speak-able), ‘subconsciously’ (sub-conscious-ly), ‘unbelievable’ (un-believe-able).
Lesson 3: Morphology
Morphological Processes
Inflection process is the process by which affixes combine with roots with the aim of indicating basic grammatical categories, for instance, tense, plurality (dog-s, call-ed: ‘s’ indicates plurality while ‘ed’ indicates the tense of the verb and are inflectional suffixes). This process, however, is seen as the process which adds very general meaning to existing words and it is not considered as the ‘creator’ (metaphorically speaking) of new words (inflectional affixes—grammatical markers—-marking words for grammatical features).
Inflection (case, number, gender, marker) doesn’t change the part of speech class for the word. English has only eight inf