English Linguistics

Linguistics

The rational and systematic scientific Study of Language

speech communities

Any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language usage

community of practice

group of people who share an interest in a domain of human endeavor and engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them.

speech event

units of verbal behavior bounded in time and space

Phonetics

the study of how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived

Articulatory phonetics

forming of sounds in the mouth, glottis, and nasal cavity

Acoustic phonetics

physical properties of speech sounds as they travel through the air

Auditory phonetics

perception of sounds by listeners

Phonology

how speech sounds function within a language system

Segmental Phonology

individual speech sounds (segments) as basic units within a structure (consonants, vowles..)

Suprasegmental Phonology

Features that extend beyond single sounds (intonation, stress).

Monophthongs

vowel sounds with a single element

Diphthongs

involve movement of tongue from one position to another

Phonemes

any element in a system which serves to distinguish between meanings

Minimal pairs

• two words with different meanings varying in only one sound

allophone

one of several phonetic realizations of phoneme in the form of a speech sound

rhotic varieties

any variety of English in which /ɹ / is realised as a consonant in all syllabic positions

non-rhotic varieties

any variety of English in which postvocalic /ɹ / is not realised as a consonant

Phonotactics

study of „clear language-specific constraints that regulate which sounds can occur in which position in the word or syllable

Pitch

high or low sound of voice, faster vibration: higher pitch

speech rate

speed of speaking

assimilation

connection of sounds

liaison

connection of sounds from different words

Phonemic gaps

Phonemes in English which are not part of the German phonemic system

Morphology

internal structure of words and the process that create them

Morphemes

minimal units capable of expressing meaning (unfriend)

stems

bases to which bound morphemes carrying grammatical meaning, such as ‘plural‘ attach

roots

bases that cannot be analyzed further into morphemes

morph

actual realizations of morphemes

allomorph

one of several possible phonological realizations of a morpheme

Morphonology / -phonemics

The study of the different phonological realizations of one and the same morpheme

Cranberry morpheme

special class of morphemes which occur only once in the language =unproductive

Productivity

a morphological rule or pattern is productive if it can be applied to new bases and new words can be formed with it (e.g. -er)

Inflectional morphology

grammatical modifications to words through specific suffixes

lexemes

morphological processes that create new words

compound

combination of at least two free morphemes

Derivation

combination of at least one free morpheme and at least one bound lexical morpheme

Conversion

the creation of new words without any formal or external change to the base

Back-formation

e.g. baby-sit -> baby-sitter, self-destruct -> self-destruction

intonation

differentiation between different syntactic structures

intransitive verb

no more information is needable for the context

copula verb

needs complement or adverbial

nucleus

(Kern) vocal, diphthong, syllable cin

monotransitive Verb

need one object

ditransitive Verb

needs two objects (direct + indirect)

complex transitive verb

needs one object + complement / adverbial

declarative sentence

Aussagesatz

interrogative sentence

Fragesatz

imperative sentence

Aussagesatz

exclamative sentence

Ausrufesatz

Semantics

studies the meaning or meaning potential of various kinds of expressions: words, phrases and sentences

Arbitrariness

same words in different languages

Onomatopeia

sounds in different languages

prototype

the best example or ideal of a certain category