What is Linguistics?

Linguistics is the science of language, including the sounds or signs,

words, and grammar rules. Words in languages are finite, but sentences
are not. It is this creative aspect of human language that sets it apart
from animal languages, which are essentially responses to stimuli.
The rules of a language, also called grammar, are learned as one
acquires a language. These rules include phonology, the sound system,
morphology, the structure of words, syntax, the combination of words
into sentences, semantics, the ways in which sounds and meanings are
related, and the lexicon, or mental dictionary of words.
The part of linguistics that is concerned with the structure of language is
divided into a number of subfields:
Phonetics - the study of speech sounds in their physical aspects
Phonology - the study of speech sounds in their cognitive aspects
Morphology - the study of the formation of words
Syntax - the study of the formation of sentences
Semantics - the study of meaning
Pragmatics - the study of language use

What is Phonetics?
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. Although language is
obviously composed of sound, speech sounds came to be the main
focus of linguistic investigation only in the 20th century. 19th century
linguists were more interested in written rather than spoken language.
Only with the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in the early
20th century did linguists recognize the primacy of sound in human
language and the secondary, superficial nature of writing.
Phonetics has three branches:
1) Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of
sounds, the air wave frequencies of which sounds consist. The
frequency of vibrations measured in hertz; volume of sound
measured in decibels. Instruments used to measure and record speech
sounds include the sound spectrograph, which produces readouts
called sound spectrograms.
2) Auditory phonetics is the study of how sounds are perceived by
the human ear or recognized by the brain. (Mention Oronyms,
Mondegreens.)
3) Articulatory phonetics is the study of how sounds are produced by
the vocal apparatus. Articulatory phonetics will be the main focus of our
study.

Definition of Consonants &Vowels

Consonants : the sounds in the production of which there is an
obstruction of the air- stream at some point of the vocal tract .
Vowels : the sounds in the production of which no articulators come
very close together and the air-stream passes through the vocal
tract without obstruction.

SOUND CLASSIFICATION
VOWEL VOCOID VERSUS CONSONANT CONTOID
In phonetic terms i.e. from an articulatory view the difference between
consonants and vowels is that the former are produced with either a
partial or complete obstruction in the flow of air at some point in the
vocal tract.
This, however, causes some difficulty since an examination of sounds
like /j/ and /w/ reveals that these are, in fact,produced like vowels. So,
why are they commonly classified together with consonants? The reason
is that phonologically, they be havel ike consonants in that they do not
appear at the centre of syllables (a feature shared by all vowels), but at
the edges. This ambiguity vowel like by nature, consonant like in
behaviour is also reflected in their traditional name of semi vowels.
(sometimes also semi-consonants).
In order to avoid mixing phonetic and phonological criteria, some
phoneticians prefer the terms contoid and vocoid toconsonants and
vowels. In this, purely phonetic approach, /j/ and /w/ are considered
vocoids, together with all the sounds we usually refer to as vowels.
Every language in the world has contoids/consonants, with most of them
having about 22-23. The largest number of consonants ever recorded for
a language is 95, whereas the lowest is 6.

PLACE OF ARTICULATION
The description of consonants is much simpler than that of vowels in
view of the fact that it is much easier to identify the exact place of
articulation as a result of the strictur, i.e. the narrowing of the airstream
at some point in the vocal tract. The International Phonetic Alphabet
contains the following eleven possible places of articulation for
consonants (from front to back).
1.Bilabial: made with the two lips (e.g./p/, /b/, /m/).
2.Labiodental: the lower lip articulates with the upper teeth (e.g./f/, /v/).
3.Dental: the tongue tip and rims articulate with the upper teeth
(e.g./T/, /D/).

4.Alveolar: the tongue tip and/or blade articulates with the alveolar ridge
(e.g. the RP English /n/, /s/).
5.Postalveolar(orpalato-alveolar): the tongue blade articulates with the
alveolar ridge,while the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard
palate (e.g. the initial sounds in ship /SIp/,genre// check/tSek/, and jail
/dZeIl/).
6.Retroflex: the tongue tip articulates with the back of the alveolar ridge.
Many speakers of American English have a retroflex r sound (/}/) in, for
instance,car.
7.Palatal: the front (or blade) of the tongue articulates with the hard
palate (e.g.j/).
8.Velar: the back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate (e.g.
/k/, /g/).
9.Uvular: the back of the tongue articulates with the uvula: e.g. the r
sound in French or the variant (in which the uvula taps rapidly against
the back of the tongue).
10.Pharyngeal: the root of the tongue is pulled backwards towards the
posterior wall of the pharynx. These sounds are a typical feature of
Semitic languages, especially Arabic. As amovement of the root of the
tongue also involves a movement of the epiglottis, these sounds may
also be said to be epiglottal. However, in practice, this term is restricted
tosounds in which the epiglottis is the primary articulator, as is the case,
for instance, in some sounds used in Chechen (Northern Caucasia),
which involve the epiglottis being folded back and down to cause a
closure of the airflow.
11. Glottal: sounds involving an obstruction or narrowing of the glottis
(e.g./g/ /h/)

What is lexicology?
Lexicology (from Gr lexis word and logos learning) is the part of
linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the properties
of words as the main units of language.
Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of
scientific research, its basic task being a study and systematic

description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and

current use. Lexicology is concerned with words, variable wordgroups, phraseological units, and with morphemes which make up
words.

The subject matter of lexicology is separate words, their

morphological and semantic structure, and the vocabulary of the
language, which includes words, word combinations, their origin,
development and current use.
Lexicology has lots of connections with other branches which also have
word as a central unit. If lexicology studies the meaning of the word,
Grammar studies grammatical problems. Both study roots, morphemes,
affixes. But, unlike grammar, lexicological function is to name objects.
Word is the smallest part of the sentence, and the sentence in its turn is
the smallest communicative unit.
Lexicology studies various lexical units: morphemes, words, variable
word, groups and phraseological units. We proceed from the assumption
that the word is the basic unit of language system, the largest on the
morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic

analysis. The word is a structural and semantic entity within the

language system.
Also lexicology has connections with Phonetics. If we change the stress,
we change the meaning of the word and even part of the speech: rEcord
recOrd, cOment comEnt; blackboard black board, blackbird black
bird.

Word Formation
Word formation is the process of creating new words. The following word
formation processes result in the creation of new words in English:
Derivation
Back-formation
Conversion
Compounding
Clipping
Blending
Abbreviations
Acronyms
Eponyms
Coinages
Nonce words
Borrowing
Calquing
Derivation
Derivation is the word formation process in which a derivational affix
attaches to the base form of a word to create a new word. Affixes, which
include prefixes and suffixes, are bound morphemes. Morphemes are
the smallest linguistic unit of a language with semantic meaning. Bound
morphemes, unlike free morphemes, cannot stand alone but must attach
to another morpheme such as a word. For example, the following two
lists provide examples of some common prefixes and suffixes with
definitions in English:

Prefixes
a- without, not
co- together
de- opposite, negative, removal, separation
dis- opposite, negative
en- cause to be
ex- former, previous, from
in- negative, not
non- absence, not
re- again, repeatedly
un- negative, not, opposite, reversal
Suffixes
-able sense of being
-er agent
-ful characterized by
-fy make, become, cause to be
-ism action or practice, state or condition
-less lack of
-ly -like
-ology study, science
Derivation may result in new words of the same grammatical form, e.g.,
noun to noun, or of different grammatical forms, e.g., verb to noun. For
example:
Grammatical Form Retaining Derivation
verb to verb: appear disappear
noun to noun: friend friendship
adjective to adjective: practical impractical
Grammatical Form Changing Derivation
verb to noun: preserve preservation
verb to adjective: bore boring
noun to verb: code codify

 noun to adjective: nature natural

adjective to noun: ugly ugliness
adjective to verb: sweet sweeten
adjective to adverb: quick quickly
Note that, although both processes involve the affixation of suffixes,
derivation differs from inflection in that inflection results in the creation of
a new form of the same word rather than a new word. For example, the
addition of the third person singular -s inflectional suffix to verbs creates
the third person singular form of verbs, e.g., eat and eats, and the
addition of the plural -s inflectional suffix to nouns creates the plural form
of nouns, e.g., dog and dogs. Both eats and dogs are new forms of the
same word, eat and dog, rather than new words.

Back-Formation
Back-formation is the word formation process in which an actual or
supposed derivational affix detaches from the base form of a word to
create a new word. For example, the following list provides examples of
some common back-formations in English:
Original Back-formation
babysitter babysit
donation donate
gambler gamble
hazy haze
moonlighter moonlight
obsessive obsess
procession process
resurrection resurrect
sassy sass
television televise
Back-formation is often the result of an overgeneralization of derivation
suffixes. For example, the noun back-formation entered the English
lexicon first, but the assumption that the -(at)ion on the end of the word
is the -ion derivational suffix results in the creation of the verb back-form.
Back-formation, therefore, is the opposite of derivation.
Conversion is the process in which a word of one grammatical becomes
a word of another grammatical form without any changes to spelling or
pronunciation. For example, the noun emailappeared in English before

the verb: a decade ago I would have sent you an email (noun) whereas
now I can either send you an email (noun) or simply email (verb) you.
The original noun email experienced conversion, thus resulting in the
new verb email. Conversion is also referred to as zero derivation or null
derivation with the assumption that the formal change between words
results in the addition of an invisible morpheme. However, many
linguistics argue for a clear distinction between the word formation
processes of derivation and conversion.

Noun to Verb Conversion

The most productive form of conversion in English is noun to
conversion. The following list provides examples of verbs converted from
nouns:
Noun Verb
access to access
bottle to bottle
can to can
closet to closet
email to email
eye to eye
fiddle to fiddle
fool to fool
Google to google
host to host
knife to knife
microwave to microwave
name to name
pocket to pocket
salt to salt
shape to shape
ship to ship
spear to spear
torch to torch
For example:

 My grandmother bottled (verb) the juice and canned (verb) the

pickles.
My grandmother put the juice in a bottle (noun) and the pickles in
a can (noun).
She microwaved (verb) her lunch.
She heated her lunch in the microwave (noun).
The doctor eyed (verb) my swollen eye (noun).
Noun to verb conversion is also referred to as verbification or verbing, as
humorously discussed by .

Verb to Noun Conversion

Another productive form of conversion in English is verb to conversion.
The following list provides examples of nouns converted from verbs:
Verb Noun
to alert alert
to attack attack
to call call
to clone clone
to command command
to cover cover
to cry cry
to experience experience
to fear fear
to feel feel
to hope hope
to increase increase
to judge judge
to laugh laugh
to rise rise
to run run
to sleep sleep
to start start
to turn turn

 to visit visit
For example:
The guard alerted (verb) the general to the attack (noun).
The enemy attacked (verb) before an alert (noun) could be
sounded.
Sometimes one just needs a good cry (noun).
The baby cried (verb) all night.
We need to increase (verb) our productivity to see an increase
(noun) in profits.
Verb to noun conversion is also referred to as nominalization.

Other Conversions
Conversion also occurs, although less frequently, to and from other
grammatical forms. For example:
adjective to verb: green to green (to make environmentally
friendly)
preposition to noun: up, down the ups and downs of life
conjunction to noun: if, and, but no ifs, ands, or buts
interjection to noun: ho ho ho I love the ho ho hos of
Christmastime.

Compounding
Compounding is the process in which two or more lexemes combine into
a single new word. Compound words may be written as one word or as
two words joined with a hyphen. For example:
noun-noun compound: note + book notebook
adjective-noun compound: blue + berry blueberry
verb-noun compound: work + room workroom
noun-verb compound: breast + feed breastfeed
verb-verb compound: stir + fry stir-fry
adjective-verb compound: high + light highlight
verb-preposition compound: break + up breakup
preposition-verb compound: out + run outrun
adjective-adjective compound: bitter + sweet bittersweet

 preposition-preposition compound: in + to into

Compounds may be compositional, meaning that the meaning of the
new word is determined by combining the meanings of the parts, or
noncompositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word cannot be
determined by combining the meanings of the parts. For example, a
blueberry is a berry that is blue. However, a breakup is not a relationship
that was severed into pieces in an upward direction.
Compound nouns should not be confused with . For example, the
adjective black of the noun phrase black bird is different from the
adjective black of the compound noun blackbird in that black of black
bird functions as a noun phrase modifier while the black of blackbirdis an
inseparable part of the noun: a black bird also refers to any bird that is
black in color while a blackbird is a specific type of bird.
Clipping
Clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced or
shortened without changing the meaning of the word. Clipping differs
from back-formation in that the new word retains the meaning of the
original word. For example:
advertisement ad
alligator gator
examination exam
gasoline gas
gymnasium gym
influenza flu
memorandum memo
photograph photo
public house pub
raccoon coon
reputation rep
situation comedy sitcom
telephone phone
The four types of clipping are back clipping, fore-clipping, middle
clipping, and complex clipping. Back clipping is removing the end of a
word as in gas from gasoline. Fore-clipping is removing the beginning of
a word as in gator from alligator. Middle clipping is retaining only the
middle of a word as in flu from influenza. Complex clipping is removing
multiple parts from multiple words as in sitcom from situation comedy.

Blending
Blending is the word formation process in which parts of two or more
words combine to create a new word whose meaning is often a
combination of the original words. For example:
advertisement + entertainment advertainment
biographical + picture biopic
breakfast + lunch brunch
guess + estimate guesstimate
hazardous + material hazmat
motor + hotel motel
prim + sissy prissy
simultaneous + broadcast simulcast
smoke + fog smog
Spanish + English Spanglish
spoon + fork spork
telephone + marathon telethon
web + seminar webinar
Blended words are also referred to as portmanteaus.
Abbreviations
Abbreviation is the word formationprocess in which a word or phrase is
shortened. Initialisms are a type of abbreviation formed by the initial
letters of a word or phrase. Although abbreviation is largely a convention
of written language, sometimes abbreviations carry over into spoken
language. For example:
Written Abbreviations
Apr. April
cm centimeter(s)
d. died, died in
dept. department

Dr. doctor
Jr. Junior
Mr. Mister
oz ounce(s)
Sun. Sunday
yd yard(s)
Spoken-Written Abbreviations
A.M. ante meridiem [in the morning]
B.C.E. Before Common Era
i.e. id est [that is]
JFK John Fitzgerald Kennedy
OJ orange juice
PMS premenstrual syndrome
RSVP rpondez s'il vous plait
VIP very important person
Abbreviation is related to both the word formation processes of clipping
and blending.
Acronyms
Acronyms are words formed by the word formation process in which an
initialism is pronounced as a word. For example, HIV is an initialism for
Human Immunodeficiency Virus that is spoken as the three letters H-I-V.
However, AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
that is spoken as the word aids. Other examples of acronyms in English
include:
ASAP as soon as possible
laser - light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASDAQ - National Association of
Automated Quotations

Securities Dealers

PIN personal identification number

radar - radio detection and ranging
scuba - self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

TESOL Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

WASP White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
Acronyms are related to the word formation process of abbreviation.
Eponyms
Eponyms are a word form by the word formation process in which a new
word is formed from the name of a real of fictitious person. For example:
atlas Atlas
boycott Charles C. Boycott
cardigan James Thomas Brudnell, 7th Earl of Cardigan
guillotine Joseph Ignace Guillotin
jacuzzi Candido Jacuzzi
luddite Ned Ludd
malapropism Mrs. Malaprop
mesmerize Franz Anton Mesmer
mirandize Ernesto A. Miranda
narcissistic Narcissus
nicotine Jean Nicot
pasteurization Louis Pasteur
sadistic Marquis de Sade
salmonella Daniel Elmer Salmon
Coinages
Coinage is the process in which a new word is created either deliberately
or accidentally without using the other word formation processes and
often from seemingly nothing. For example, the following list of words
provides some common coinages found in everyday English:
aspirin
escalator
heroin

 Google
kerosene
Kleenex
Laundromat
linoleum
muggle
Notice that many coinages start out as brand names for everyday
items such as Kleenex for a facial tissue. Coinages are also
referred to simply as neologisms, the word neologism meaning
"new word."
Borrowing
Borrowing is the word formation process in which a word from one
language is borrowed directly into another language. For example, the
following common English words are borrowed from foreign languages:
algebra Arabic
bagel Yiddish
cherub Hebrew
chow mein Chinese
haiku Japanese
kielbasa Polish
murder French
near Sanskrit
paprika Hungarian
pizza Italian
smorgasbord Swedish
tamale Spanish
Borrowed words are also referred to as loanwords.
Calquing

Calquing is the word formation process in which a borrowed word or

phrase is translated from one language to another. For example, the
following common English words are calqued from foreign languages:
beer garden German Biergarten
blue-blood Spanish sangre azul
commonplace Latin locus commnis
flea market French march aux puces
free verse French vers libre
loanword German Lehnwort
long time no see Chinese ho ji bu jin
pineapple Dutch pijnappel
scapegoat Hebrew ez ozel
wisdom tooth Latin dns sapientiae
Calques are also referred to as root-for-root or word-for-word
translations.