مقدمة اللغويات ملخص by Mohammed AL Yahya

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS DISTANCE LEARNING ENGLISH SPECIALISTS

‫جمع واعداد الطالب‬ ‫محمد الغامدي‬

‫جامعة جازان‬

TYPES OF PHONETICS ‫ فروع اساسية‬3 ‫علم الصوتيات ينقسم الى‬

There are three types of the study of the sounds of language. 1

Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of sounds. Auditory Phonetics is the study

1/‫ وهو دراسة الخصائص الفيزيائية للصوت‬: ‫علم الصوات الصوتي‬ of the way listeners perceive sounds. 2/ ‫ وهو دراسة طريقة استماع وادراك الصوات‬: ‫علم الصوات السمعي‬

Articulatory Phonetics (the type this lesson is concerned with) is the study of how the vocal tracts produce the sounds. 3/‫ وهو دراسة معنية بكيف يمكن للمساحة الصوتية باخراج الصوات‬: ‫علم الصوات اللفظي‬

HOW SOUNDS ARE MADE The air stream released by the lungs=‫الرئتين‬goes through the windpipe= ‫القصبة الهوائية‬and comes to the larynx=‫الحنجرة‬, which contains the vocal cords=‫ الحبال الصوتية‬. The vocal cords are two elastic folds which may be kept apart or brought together. The opening between them is called the glottis. This is the usual state of the vocal cords, when we breathe out. If the tense vocal cords are brought together, the air stream forcing an opening makes them vibrate and we hear some voice. Let us pronounce the sound [z]. Put your finger on the larynx and produce the long [s] sound. You will feel the vibration of the vocal cords and hear voice. Such sounds are called voiced. Now produce a long sound [s]. No vibration is felt, no voice is heard. This is a voiceless sound, which is made with the vocal cords kept apart. voiced= when feel the vibration of the vocal cords and hear voice. Voiceless =when No vibration is felt, no voice is heard. On coming out of the larynx the air passes through the pharynx= ‫البلعوم او‬ ‫الحلق‬. The pharyngal cavity= ‫تجويف الحلق‬extends from the top of the larynx to the soft palate, which directs the air stream either to the mouth cavity =‫ تجويف الفم‬or nasal cavity= ‫تجويف النف‬, which function as the principal resonators. The soft palate can be easily seen in a hand mirror. Now open your mouth wide and say the vowel /a:/. Looking into the mirror you will see the soft palate, the very end of which is known as the uvula. The soft palate can easily move. When the soft palate is in its lowered position the air goes up into the nasal cavity and then out through the nose. This is the usual position of the soft palate when we breathe through the nose. This is also the position for the nasal sounds [m, n, ŋ]. If you nip your nose you cannot pronounce these sounds. But as soon as you release the nose the air will continue its way and you will hear the sounds again When the soft palate is raised the uvula forms a full contact with the back wall of the pharynx 2

and the air stream goes through the mouth cavity. This is the most typical position of the soft palate for most of the sounds of many languages. The soft palate is the furthest part of the palate from the teeth. Most of the palate is hard. This hard and fixed part of the palate is divided into two sections: the hard palate (the highest part of the palate) and the teeth ridge or alveolar ridge (the part immediately behind the upper front teeth). You can touch the teeth ridge with the tongue tip. The teeth ridge is very important in English as many consonants are formed with the tongue touching it or close to it. If you still move the tip of the tongue forward you will feel the teeth. The lower teeth are not very important for making speech sounds, while the upper teeth take part in the production of many of them. The lips can take up various positions as well. They can be brought firmly together, kept apart, neutral, rounded or protruded forward or spread. All the organs of speech can be divided into two groups: ‫اهم اجزاء الكلم هواللسان في علم الصوات و اقسامه‬ back part of the tongue= ‫الجزء الخلفي من اللسان‬ front part of the tongue= ‫مقدمة اللسان‬ central part of the tongue= ‫الجزء الوسط من اللسان‬ blade of the tongue tip of the tongue The most important organ of speech is the tongue. Phoneticians divide the tongue into four sections, the part which lies opposite the soft palate is called the back part of the tongue; the part facing the hard palate is called the front part of the tongue; the one lying under the teeth ridge is known as the blade of the tongue and its extremity is the tip of the tongue. By the central part of the tongue we mean the area where the front and back meet. The edges of the tongue are known as the rims. The tongue may lie flat or move in the horizontal or vertical directions. It can also change its shape so that the sides are curved up forming a groove.

ENGLISH SOUNDS(44)‫عدد الصوات‬ 3

Consonants(24) ……. Vowels(20)

/p/ pen /b/ back / t / tea / d / day / k / key / g / get / ʧ / chair / ʤ / jam / f / fat / v / very / θ / thing / ð / then

diphthongs

/ s / son / z / cheese / ʃ / fish / ʒ / television / h / hot / m / come / n / sun / ŋ / English / l / lamp / r / red / j / yogurt / w / wet

/ i: / see / ɪ / him / е / bed / æ / bad / ɑ: / car / ɒ / hot / ɔ: / saw / ʊ / put / u: / you / ⋀ / cut / ɜ: / bird / ə / China

/ еɪ / make / əʊ / no / aɪ / write / ɒɪ / boy / ɪə / here / ʊə / poor / еə / there / aʊ / now

Consonants =‫هي الصوات الصامتة‬ Vowels= ‫هي حروف العلة‬ Diphthongs=‫الدغامات‬ SOUND DESCRIPTION ‫عادة توصف الصوات عن طريق تطبيقين هما مكان النطق وحالة النطق‬ Normally sounds are described by applying two criteria: place of articulation and manner of articulation ‫ مكان النطق‬: The place of articulation is determined by the active organ of speech against the point of articulation. There may be one place of articulation or focus, or two places of articulation or foci when active organs of speech contact with two points of articulation. SOUND DESCRIPTION CONT. ‫حالة النطق‬ The manner of articulation of consonants is determined by the type of obstruction. The obstructions may be complete and incomplete. When the obstruction is complete the organs of speech are in contact and the air stream meets a closure in the mouth or nasal cavities as in the production of [ p, b, t, d, k, g, ʧ, ʤ, m, n, ŋ ].

In case of an incomplete obstruction the active organ of speech moves towards the point of articulation and the air stream goes 4

through the narrowing between them as in the production of [f, v, s, z, θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ, h, w, l, r, j ].

VOWEL DESCRIPTION ‫) حروف العلة ) المطلوب فهم الساكنة والعله‬ English has twelve vowel sounds. In the table above they are divided into seven short and five long vowels. An alternative way of organizing them is according to where (in the mouth) they are produced. This method allows us to describe them as front, central and back. We can qualify them further by how high the tongue and lower jaw are when we make these vowel sounds, and by whether our lips are rounded or spread, and finally by whether they are short or long. MINIMAL PAIRS Minimal pairs are words with different meanings that have the same sounds except for one. These contrasting sounds can either be consonants or vowels. The words pin and bin, time and dime are minimal pairs because they are exactly the same except for the first sound. Another feature of minimal pairs is overlapping distribution. Sounds that occur in phonetic environments that are identical are said to be in overlapping distribution. The sounds ASSIMILATION IN ENGLISH An interesting observation of assimilation rules is evidenced in the formation of plurals and the past tense in English. When pluralizing nouns, the last letter is pronounced as either [s], [z], or [əz]. When forming past tenses of verbs, the -ed ending is pronounced as either [t], [d], [əd]. If you were to sort words into three columns, you would be able to tell why certain words are followed by certain sounds of [ɪn] from pin and bin are in overlapping distribution because they occur in both words. The same is true for three and through. The sounds of [θr] is in overlapping distribution because they occur in both words as well. SYLLABLE STRUCTURE ‫اهم شيئ التعريف والباقي قراءة للفهم‬ ‫اجزاء للكلمة‬3 ‫هناك‬ nucleus (vowel)= ‫هي النواة وهي نواة لحروف العلة‬ onset (consonant before nucleus)=‫هي البداية والتي سبقت النواة وهي دائما حروف ساكنة‬ coda (consonant after nucleus.)=‫هي الخاتمة‬ There are three peaks to a syllable: nucleus (vowel), onset (consonant before nucleus) and coda (consonant after nucleus.) The onset and coda are both optional, meaning that a syllable could contain a vowel and nothing else. The nucleus is required in every syllable by definition. The order of the peaks is always onset - nucleus - coda. All languages permit 6

open syllables (Consonant + Vowel), but not all languages allow closed syllables (Consonant + Vowel + Consonant). DISTRIBUTION AND VARIATION Contrastive distribution: Two sounds are said to be contrastive if replacing one with the other results in a change of meaning. Examples: Cat—hat; mad—mat; etc. Complementary distribution: phones appear in differing environments; are allophones of the same phoneme. Examples: cat [khat]—key [ki:]; and the same for the /t/ sound in top and stop Free variation is the interchangeable relationship between two phones, in which the phones may substitute for one another in the same environment without causing a change in meaning. BASIC TERMINOLOGY ‫مصطلحات اساسية‬ Morphology: the branch of grammar that deals with the internal structure of words. ‫فرع من القواعد التي تتعامل مع البنية الداخلية للكلمة‬ Syntax is primarily concerned with the ways in which words are put together in sentences. ‫تهتم في المقام الول بطرق التي توضع فيها الكلمات مع بعضهما في الجمل‬ Word Formation is the study of how words are formed in a language through various processes. ‫هو الذي يدرس كيف تشكلت الكلمات في اللغة من خلل عمليات مختلفة‬ Note that grammar is the broader term used for morphology and syntax. ‫القواعد هو مصطلح واسعة استخدمت للنحو والصرف‬ MORPHS ‫هو نطق الصوت وهو اصغر وحدة لغوية‬ A morph is the phonetic realization of a morpheme If we consider the elements in words like works, worked, worker, workhouse, we find in a first step in the analysis recurrent forms: work, -s, -ed, -er, house. These are called morphs, i.e. phonological representations of an element, a segment, which is not yet classified MORPHEMES A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language. ‫هو اصغر وحدة لها معنى في قواعد اللغة‬ Carelessness, co-pilots . If we compare words such as worker, baker or corner, hammer, we can see that worker and baker can be split up into the meaningful units work + 7

er or bake + er, whereas the analysis of corner and hammer does not result in the elements corn + er or ham(m) + er, because in both cases -er has no meaning (and neither corn- nor ham- have anything to do with either ´grain´ or ´meat´)

AFFIXATION ‫اللواحق‬ There are two categories of affixes: derivational ‫ مشتق‬and inflectional ‫المعرب‬. The main difference between the two is that Derivational affixes (are added to morphemes to form new words that may or may not be the same part of speech) and Inflectional affixes (are added to the end of an existing word for purely grammatical reasons). ‫هناك نوعين فئات من اللواحق اولها الشتقاقي والعرابي ) قواعدي ( الختلف الرئيسي بينهما اللواحق‬ ‫المشتقه المضافة للمورفين لتشكل الكلمة الجديده قد تكون او تكون في نفس الجزء من الكلمة واللواحق‬ ‫النشقاقيه مضافة لنهاية الكلمة الموجوده لسباب نوحية بحته‬ AFFIXATION ‫تعريفهما مابين القوسين له نوعين‬ derivational =‫اشتقاقي ويتعلق بالمعنى‬ inflectional = ‫نحوي يتعلق بالقواعد‬ Derivational and inflectional. The main difference between the two is that derivational affixes are added to morphemes to form new words that may or may not be the same part of speech and inflectional affixes are added to the end of an existing word for purely grammatical reasons. Normally the prefix would change the meaning but not the part of speech, whereas the suffix would change the part of speech and retains a relevant meaning to the original. ‫ا البادئة تدخل على الكلمة تغير معناها‬ Prefix= ‫يسمى البادئة وعادة ياتي في البداية ويغير المعنى وليغير نوع اللكلمة‬ Suffix =‫ يسمى اللحقة وهو يغير نوع الكلمة مع تغيير بسيط في المعنى مثال‬hope-hopefull STUDY THESE EXAMPLES PREFIXES REDESIGN DISHONEST MISUSE

SUFFIXES DESIGNER HONESTLY USER, USEFUL, USELESSNESS

-s

INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES ‫)انواع اللواحق ) القواعدية‬ ‫ الضمير الغائب‬he she it 3rd person singular present she waits -ed -ing -ed -s

past tense

she waited

progressive

she's eating

‫ الماضي‬past participle

she has eaten

‫ الجمع‬plural

three apples

-'s

‫ الملكيه‬possessive

Hassan's son

-er

‫ المقارنه‬comparative

This is better

-est

‫ التفضيل‬superlative

He is the best

Note that the pronunciation of –s and –ed depends on the preceding sound as seen in Allomorphs. TERMINOLOGY IN WORD FORMATION ‫مصطلحات تشكيل الكلمة‬ 1- Etymology ‫اصل الكلم‬ The study of the origin and history of a word 2- Coinage ‫اختراع لكلمة جديده‬ The invention of totally new terms. The most typical sources are invented trade names for commercial products that become general terms. New words based on the name of a person or a place are called eponyms. 3- Borrowing ‫كلمة ماخوذه من لغه ثانيه‬ The taking over of words from other languages. 4- Compounding ‫كلمات مركبه لتصبح كلمة واحده‬ joining of two separate words to produce a single form: bookcase, fingerprint, textbook, wallpaper, wastebasket and waterbed. See how compounds are stressed: ‘White House white ‘house ‘blackbird black ‘bird Blending ‫دمج كلمتين مستقله لتخرج مصطلح جديد‬ The combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term: ( smog) smok -fog===smog, ‫ضباب الدخان‬ (Brunch ] brekfast-lunch===brunch ( ‫مصطلحات‬.( ‫افطار متأخر‬ 5-

Clipping ‫اختصارات وكلمات مخففه‬ This occurs when a word of more than one syllable (facsimile) is reduced to a shorter form (fax), usually beginning in casual speech. Consider: prof, doc, flu, lab, exam, phone . 6-

Backformation ‫تحويل السم الى فعل‬ Typically, a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a verb). Opt from option, televise from television, babysit from baby-sitter. 7-

Conversion ‫تغيير وظيفة الكلمة‬ A change in the function of a word, as for example when a noun comes to be used as a verb (without any reduction), is generally known as conversion. Printout (n), bottle (v)‫التعبئه‬ 9- Acronyms ‫كلمة جديده تتشكل من حروف جديده من اول حرف من كل كلمه‬ These are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words. NATO, VCR, CD. 10- DERIVATION Explained earlier ‫كتابة لواحق‬ 8-

GRAMMAR ‫كيف تجمع الكلمات لتكون جمله‬ Grammar is defined as “a description of the structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units such as words and phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language. It usually takes into account the meanings and functions these sentences have in the overall system of the language. It may or may not include the description of the sounds of a language.” SYNTAX ‫علم النحو‬ Syntax is a major component of the grammar of a language, which is concerned with “the ways in which words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences, making some sentences possible and others not possible within a particular language.” Both definitions above are taken from Jack C. Richards and Richard Schmidt (2002). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (3rd edn.) PARTS OF SPEECH ‫أجزاء الكلم‬ Verb be, drive, grow, sing, think Noun brother, car, David, house, Riyadh Adjective big, foolish, happy, talented, tidy 10

Adverb happily, recently, soon, then, there Preposition at, in, of, over, with Determiner a, an, my, some, the Conjunction and, because, but, if, or Verb,Noun ,Adjective ,Adverb = Open Preposition ,Determiner ,Conjunction=Closed ‫وقد ذكر الكتاب ملحظة ان ادوات التعريف والتنكيروالضمائر متعلقة بمحددات وتصنيفات للسماء وان‬ ‫الفعال المساعدة تشتمل سلسلة الفعال‬ Note that the book mentions articles and pronouns as classes; the former is related to determiner and the latter to nouns in our classification. Auxiliaries are included with the verb category. THE NOUN Nouns can be classified in many ways, one of which whether they are countable ‫ معدود‬or mass nouns,‫ محسوس‬concrete or abstract ‫ مجرد‬, masculine ‫ مذكر‬or feminine ‫مؤنث‬. From a grammatical point of view, the pronoun is a good example to show the noun-verb relationship and agreement in terms of: Gender ‫ الجنس‬masculine ‫ مذكر‬feminine ‫)مؤنث ) مذكر أو مؤنث‬ Person ‫نوع الضمير التذكير والتأنيث‬ Number ‫جمع أو مفرد‬ NOUN-VERB AGREEMENT ‫توافق بين السم والفعل‬ The best example to understand the noun-verb agreement is through the use of the auxiliary “be”. I am a teacher. She is a teacher. You are teachers. They were teachers. It was beautiful. THE VERB ‫الفعل‬ 11

In the previous section for nouns we mentioned three main grammatical features related to nouns; in fact, one more point was left out, i.e. THE CASE (genitive ‫المضاف‬, nominative ‫صيغة المجرور‬, accusativeh ‫ النصب‬, etc). That is more or less related to the role of the noun phrase in the clause or the sentence. In this section, we will do the same: three features will be given for the verb, and the fourth one will be ruled out, i.e. THE MOOD (indicative ‫الدلليه‬, imperative ‫الجملة الحتمية‬, subjunctive ‫الحتماليه‬, etc.). TENSE ‫الزمنه‬ ‫هناك زمنين‬ Tense= ‫زمن ماضي وحاضر وهادا الزمن يختص بالقواعد النحوية‬ Time = ‫المستقبل زمن يختص بالمعنى‬ TENSE refers to the absolute location of an event or action in time, either the present or the past. It is marked by an inflection of the verb. There is no future tense, but there is a future time. Tense is a grammatical notion whereas time is a semantic one. Future Time can be expressed by various forms, such as the use of will and going to. They play They played. He is happy We were happy. But I will be happy; it will be happy. ASPECT ‫ هذا المصطلح مرتبط بالزمن وهو يهتم بهيئة الفعل وله نوعين‬: perfect = ‫ هو الفعل التام ويستخدم‬have progressive=‫ هو الفعل المستمر ويستخدم‬verb to be The English verb has two aspects: perfect and progressive. The former is indicated by the use of ‘’have’’ and the latter is revealed by the verb ‘’be’’. The case of the verb is described by the use of the tenseaspect relationship. If the verb has no aspect, then it is said to be simple. ASPECT refers to how an event or action is to be viewed with respect to time, rather than to its actual location in time. I clean my room. (present simple (non-perfect, non-progressive). I cleaned my room. past simple I was cleaning my room. progressive 12

I am cleaning my room. (present progressive (non-perfect) He has fallen from the tree. (present perfect) He had fallen before you came. (past perfect) I have been waiting for you. (present perfect progressive)

VOICE ‫) الصيغه ) المبني للمعلوم والمبني للمجهول‬ active = ‫المبني للمعلوم‬ Passive= ‫المبني للمجهول‬ Passive= ‫ يستخدم مع‬verb to be ‫ويكون التصريف الثالث كما يكون في صيغة التمام‬ There are two voices in English: active and passive. The auxiliary “be” is used to indicate the passive voice. The use is similar to that of the progressive aspect with one main difference being in the inflection of the verb: the progressive aspect adds the -ing whereas in the passive voice the –ed inflection is added, i.e. the verb is transformed to the past participle form. See the examples. EXAMPLES OF VOICE I gave her flowers. I have given flowers in the party. I am distributing flowers. B(is – am – are-was-were )E +V( distribut-ING)= PROGRESSIVE ASPECT

She was given flowers. Flowers have been given in the party. Flowers are being distributed. BE +V-ED= PASSIVE VOICE HIERARCHY ‫التركيب الهرمي للجمله‬ . We can represent this schematically as follows sentences consist of one or more... clauses consist of one or more... 13

phrases consist of one or more... Words SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS SEMANTICS= ‫هو علم الدللة‬ Lexical= ‫هو الهم من العبارة‬ ‫هو دللة المفردات ومايتعلق بمعاني الكلمات وعلقة الكلمات بغيرها من كلمات ومعاني‬ Lexical semantics is concerned with the meanings of words and the meaning of relationships among words, while phrasal semantics is concerned with the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word. Pragmatics is the study of how context affects meaning, such as how sentences are interpreted in certain situations. Semantic properties are the components of meanings of words. For example, the semantic property "human" can be found in many words such as parent, doctor, baby, professor, widow, and aunt. Other semantic properties include animate objects, male, female, countable items and non-countable items. LEXICAL RELATIONS ‫العلقات الدللية – علقة المفردات‬ Not only can words be treated as 'containers' or as fulfilling 'roles', they can also have 'relationships'. In everyday talk, we frequently give the meanings of words in terms of their relationships. If you were asked to give the meaning of the word conceal, for example, you might simply reply "it's the same as hide", or give the meaning of shallow as "the opposite of deep“.

POLYSEMY=‫امتداد دللي‬ ‫أي ان هناك كلمات تكون تحوي اكثر من معنى العلقة بين تلك المعاني بسبب المتداد الدللي‬

A polysemous word is a word that has related meanings usually through semantic relations, e.g. hand, leg, head, mouth, fork, tongue, crane HOMONYMS ‫علقة مرتبطة بامتداد دللي يعني وجود تشابه‬

When two words have two different and unrelated meanings but with the same pronunciation and/or the same spelling, then those two words are homonymous. ‫نفس الهجاء لكن يختلف النطق‬

Same spelling, different pronunciation: tear(‫ )يمزق ودموع‬. ‫يختلف الهجاء ويتشابه النطق‬ Different spelling, same pronunciation: hear-here, hair-hare, soulsole, meet-meat, right-write, our-hour. ‫نفس الهجاء ونفس النطق‬ 3. Same spelling, same pronunciation: bank(v,n), left(‫)مصعد ويسار‬, Will((‫سوف وبئر‬, well (‫)جيد وبئر‬, mine, hide. book(‫)حجز وكتاب‬ 1.

SYNONYMY ‫ التعريف هي مفردات مختلفة لها نفس المعنى‬/ ‫ليس ترادف تام وانما قريب للمعنى‬

Synonyms are two words with very closely related meanings, which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences. Examples of synonyms are the pairs: broad - wide, hide - conceal, almost – nearly, cab - taxi, liberty -freedom, answer – reply. It should be noted that the idea of 'sameness of meaning' used in discussing synonymy is not necessarily 'total sameness'. There are many occasions when one word is appropriate in a sentence, but its synonym would be odd. EXAMPLE Whereas the word answer fits in this sentence: Cathy had only one answer correct on the test, its near-synonym, reply, would sound odd. Synonymous forms may also differ in terms of formality. The sentence My father purchased a large automobile seems much more serious than the following casual version, with four synonymous replacements: My dad bought a big car. Synonymy is a relation between predicates (meanings), and not between words (i.e. word-forms). MORE EXAMPLES (1) deep/profound (a) You have my deep/profound sympathy (b) This river is very deep (profound is unacceptable.) 15

(2) broad/wide (a) The river is very broad/wide at this point. (b) He speaks with a broad Scottish accent (not a wide accent) (3) earth/soil (a) They filled the hole with good soft earth/soil. (b) The rocket fell back to earth when its motors failed (not back to soil) ANTONYMS Two forms with opposite meanings are called antonyms, and commonly used examples are the pairs quick - slow, big - small, long - short, rich, Poor - happy - sad, hot - cold, old - young, male - female, true false, alive - dead., liquid – solid - gas, red – green - yellow. ANTONYMY TYPES Antonyms can be binary (Truth of one implies the falsity of the other, and the reverse is true): single—married, dead—alive, male—female, or gradable (Truth of one implies the falsity of the other, but the falsity of one does not imply the truth of the other): small—large, hot—cold, young —old, good—bad. They are words which the existence of one implies the existence of the other, and these are called converse anonyms: buy—sell, go—come, depart—arrive, husband—wife, up—down, below—ab0ve, give—receive, east—west. Incompatible antonyms consist normally of sets, such as liquid, sold, gas, days of the week, seasons of the year, months, colours, etc HYPONYMY When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another, the relationship is described as hyponymy, and some typical example pairs are daffodil -flower, dog - animal, poodle - dog, carrot - vegetable, banyan –tree. The concept of 'inclusion' involved here is the idea that if any object is a daffodil, then it is necessarily a flower, so the meaning of flower is 'included' in the meaning of daffodil. Or, daffodil is a hyponym of flower. 16

LIVING THINGS creature plant animal insect tree vegetable flower horse cockroach pine carrot daffodil The relation of hyponymy captures the idea of 'is a kind of ', as when you give the meaning of a word by saying "a serpent is a kind of snake". It is often the case that the only thing some people know about the meaning of a word in their language is that it is a hyponym of another term. Terms for actions, such as cut, punch, shoot and stab, can all be found as cohyponyms of the superordinate term injure. PROTOTYPES While the words canary, dove, duck, flamingo, parrot, pelican, robin, swallow and thrush are all equally co-hyponyms of the superordinate bird, they are not all considered to be equally good exemplars of the category 'bird'. For many American English speakers, the best exemplar, or the prototype, of 'bird' is the robin. The concept of a prototype helps explain the meaning of certain words, like bird, not in terms of component features (e.g. 'has feathers’ ,'has wings'), but in terms of resemblance to the clearest exemplar. Thus, even native speakers of English might wonder if ostrich and penguin should be hyponyms of bird (technically, they are), but have no trouble deciding about sparrow or pigeon. The last two are much closer to the prototype. METONYMY The relatedness of meaning found in polysemy is essentially based on similarity. The head of a company is similar to the head of a person on top of and controlling the body. There is another type of relationship between words, based simply on a close connection in everyday experience. That close connection can be based on a container–contents relation (bottle/water, can/juice), a whole–part relation (car/wheels, house/roof) or a representative–symbol relationship (king/crown, the President/the White House). Using one of these words to refer to the other is an example of metonymy. PRAGMATICS In many ways, pragmatics is the study of “invisible” meaning, or how we recognize what is meant even when it isn’t actually said or written. In order for that to happen, speakers (or writers) must be able to depend on a lot of shared assumptions and expectations when they try to 17

communicate. The investigation of those assumptions and expectations provides us with some insights into how more is always being communicated than is said. CONTEXT One kind is described as linguistic context, also known as co-text. The co-text of a word is the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence. The surrounding co-text has a strong effect on what we think the word probably means. How do we usually know which meaning is intended in a particular sentence for the word BANK? We normally do so on the basis of linguistic context. If we hear someone say that she has to get to the bank to withdraw some cash, we know from this linguistic context which type of bank is intended. More generally, we know how to interpret words on the basis of physical context. If we see the word BANK on the wall of a building in a city, the physical location will influence our interpretation. DEIXIS There are some very common words in our language that can’t be interpreted at all if we don’t know the context, especially the physical context of the speaker. These are words such as here and there, this or that, now and then, yesterday, today or tomorrow, as well as pronouns such as you, me, she, him, it, them REFERENCE In discussing deixis, we assumed that the use of words to refer to people, places and times was a simple matter. However, words themselves don’t refer to anything. People refer. We have to define reference as an act by which a speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something ANAPHORA We found a house to rent, but the kitchen was very small. I caught a bus and asked the driver if it went near the downtown area. In the first example, we must make an inference like “if X is a house, then X has a kitchen” in order to interpret the connection between antecedent a house and anaphoric expression the kitchen. In the second example, we must make an inference like “if X is a bus, then X has a driver” in order to make the connection between a bus and the driver. We have 18

used the term “inference” here to describe what the listener (or reader) does. When we talk about an assumption made by the speaker (or writer), we usually talk about a “presupposition.” PRESUPPOSITION In a more general way, we design our linguistic messages on the basis of large-scale assumptions about what our listeners already know. Some of these assumptions may be mistaken, of course, but mostly they’re appropriate. What a speaker (or writer) assumes is true or known by a listener (or reader) can be described as a presupposition. POLITENESS We can think of politeness in general terms as having to do with ideas like being tactful, modest and nice to other people. In the study of linguistic politeness, the most relevant concept is “face.” Your face, in pragmatics, is your public self-image. This is the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. Politeness can be defined as showing awareness and consideration of another person’s face. THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE The co-operative principle is stated in the following way: “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” MAXIMS OF CONVERSATION The Quantity maxim: Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required. The Quality maxim: Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack adequate evidence. The Relation maxim: Be relevant. The Manner maxim: Be clear, brief and orderly. SCHEMA 19

A schema is a general term for a conventional knowledge structure that exists in memory. We were using our conventional knowledge of what a school classroom is like, or a â&#x20AC;&#x153;classroom schema,â&#x20AC;? as we tried to make sense of the previous example. We have many schemas (or schemata) that are used in the interpretation of what we experience and what we hear or read about.

Best Wishes M.ALghamdi