Language Subsystems and Metalanguage Notes

Metalanguage and Linguistic Terms

Morphology

• Definition: The study of words and their parts.

• Each word consists of one or more morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning within a word.

• Example:

  • 'cat' consists of a single morpheme.

  • 'cats' can be broken down into two morphemes: 'cat' and '-s'.

Root

• Definition: A single morpheme that contains the primary meaning of the word.

• Example: In the word 'cats', the root would be 'cat'.

Stem

• Definition: A word consisting of one or more morphemes that can have an affix attached to it; a part of the word that has meaning but can consist of more than one morpheme.

• Example: 'unbreaking' can be broken down to 'un-' and 'breaking' where 'breaking' is the stem.

• A stem can also be a root.

Free and Bound Morphemes

• Free Morphemes: Indivisible and can stand alone as a word (e.g., 'cat', 'break').

• Bound Morphemes: Rely on a root or stem to be used in a word (e.g., '-s', 'un-', '-ing').

• Hyphens indicate how bound morphemes attach to the root (e.g., 'un-' attaches at the front, and '-s' at the end).

Affixes

• Definition: Bound morphemes are referred to as affixes, categorized based on how they attach to a root or stem.

• Prefix: Attaches to the front of a root or stem (e.g. un-).

• Suffix: Attaches to the end of a root or stem (e.g. -ing).

• Infix: Placed inside a root or stem (e.g., 'abso-bloody-lutely' in informal Australian English).

Inflectional and Derivational Affixes

• Inflectional Affix:

  • Definition: A bound morpheme that attaches grammatical properties to a word, such as tense, number, or possession.

  • Doesn't affect the fundamental meaning or form of the root word.

• Derivational Affix:

  • Definition: Creates or derives a new word from the root or stem that it is attached to, changing the word's meaning or form.

  • The derived word usually has its own entry in a dictionary.

  • Example: The prefix 'un-' changes the meaning of 'breaking' to 'unbreaking'.

Morpheme Classification Example: fashionistas

1. Identify the root morpheme: 'fashion' (free morpheme).

2. Break down '-istas' into '-ista' and '-s'.

3. Categorize each morpheme:

   • 'fashion': free morpheme, root

   • '-ista': bound morpheme, suffix, derivational

   • '-s': bound morpheme, suffix, inflectional

Lexicology

• Definition: The study of words, their form, their meaning, and how they behave within a language.

• Considers a language's lexicon: its complete set of meaningful units (lexemes).

Word Class

• Categorization based on how a word behaves grammatically (also known as a part of speech).

  • Noun (n)

  • Pronoun (pn)

  • Verb (v)

  • Auxiliary verb (aux)

  • Modal verb (mod)

  • Adjective (adj)

  • Adverb (adv)

  • Preposition (prep)

  • Conjunction (conj)

  • Determiner (det)

  • Interjection (interj)

Nouns (n)

• Refer to names of places, people, things, qualities, ideas, or concepts.

• Common Nouns: Refer to things generically (e.g., 'beach', 'wisdom', 'apple'); written in lower-case unless at the start of a sentence.

• Proper Nouns: Specific rather than generic, always capitalized (e.g., 'Saleh', 'Australia'); not usually modified by adjectives or determiners.

Pronouns (pn)

• Replace nouns and noun phrases within a sentence.

• Avoid repeating nouns, making language more varied and cohesive.

• Categories:

  • Subject: Replaces a noun or noun phrase in the subject position.

    • Example: I submitted the assignment.

  • Object: Replaces a noun or noun phrase in the object position.

    • Example: The teacher asked you a question; Maeve liked it.

  • Reflexive: Contains '-self' or '-selves'; refers to another noun or pronoun in the same sentence.

    • Example: Cecily blamed herself for burning the cake.

  • Possessive: Indicates possession or ownership; stands alone without modifying another word.

    • Example: That cat is mine; I believe it's his.

  • Interrogative: Used to introduce a question (e.g., 'what', 'which', 'who', 'whom', 'whose').

    • Example: Who are you? Which would you like?

  • Relative: Introduces a relative clause by relating that clause to the noun it modifies (e.g., 'which', 'what', 'who', 'whom', 'whose', 'that').

    • Example: The man who stole the bicycle was arrested.

  • Demonstrative: Refers to a particular place, person, or thing; replaces the entire noun or noun phrase (e.g. this, that, these, those).

    • Example: Do you see the potato cake he's holding? I gave him that.

Verbs (v)

• Express actions, states, or occurrences.

• Represent actions in relation to time: past, present, and future, with verbal marking of time.

• Simple form describes tense without additional modification.

• Four forms (aspects): simple, progressive, perfect progressive, and perfect.

Tense and Aspect

• Simple Present: I write books.

• Present Progressive: I am writing a book.

• Present Perfect Progressive: I have been writing a book.

• Present Perfect: I have written a book.

• Simple Past: I wrote a book.

• Past Progressive: I was writing a book.

• Past Perfect Progressive: I had been writing a book.

• Past Perfect: I had written the book before I saw the cover.

• Simple Future: I will write a book.

• Future Progressive: I will be writing a book.

• Future Perfect Progressive: Next week, I will have been writing this book for six months.

• Future Perfect: I will have written five books by the end of next year.

Participles

• A form of a verb used to construct certain tense and aspect forms (e.g., 'have written', 'was writing').

• Can be used as adjectives to modify a noun (e.g., 'the swimming fish').

• Example: The inspiring choir is singing a new song.

Infinitives

• Formed by adding 'to' before the base form of the verb.

• Can be used as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.

• Show purpose or intention (e.g., 'I want to go').

• Modify nouns (e.g., 'I want something to eat').

• Act as the subject of a sentence (e.g., 'to go now would be silly').

• Appear after adjectives (e.g., 'I'm happy to help').

Syntax

• The study of how words are combined into structures that communicate meaning – phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Phrase

• A group of one or more words that, together, form a single structural unit that conveys meaning.

• Does not contain both a subject and a verb.

• The type of phrase (noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.) is named after the word class category of the word that is most important within the phrase.

Clause

• A set of words that must contain both a main noun phrase (the subject) and a main verb (part of the predicate).

• The predicate describes the action of the subject.

Sentence

• A set of words that contains at least one subject (implicit or explicit) and at least one predicate.

• It can contain one or more clauses.

Sentence Type

• The categorization of a sentence based on its function or purpose in communication.

• There are four types of sentences in English: declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamative.

Sentence Structure

• The way clauses are structured or joined together in a sentence.

• There are five sentence structures: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex, and fragment.

Word Order

• Refers to the way words are positioned to construct phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Semantics

• The study of meaning – both logical meaning and lexical (dictionary) meaning.

• The study of understanding and meaning-making when we consider words, phrases, sentences, and texts as a whole.

Semantic Domain

• Contains a group or range of words that have related meanings.

Inference

• The process of making meaning from a text by determining information that is not explicitly present in that text.

• Meaning often relies on cultural or social understanding of a particular context.

Phonetics

• The study of how we make speech sounds and how we classify them.

• Focuses on the physical properties of sounds and speech production.

Phonology

• The study of the patterns that speech sounds form within a language, including how sounds are organized, and the variations that occur both within languages and between them.

Prosodic Features

• Elements of speech that exist outside single sounds such as vowels or consonants.

• Involves considering the acoustic elements of our voices that affect whole sequences of syllables.

• In English Language, we consider five prosodic features: pitch, intonation, stress, tempo, and volume.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• A set of universally agreed-upon symbols that represent every sound in every language.

Discourse

• Written or spoken texts that are longer than a sentence.

• Discourse analysis is the study of how speakers use language to structure and communicate meaning.

Pragmatics

• The study of how language is used within a given context, and how context contributes to meaning.

Paralinguistic Features

• Features of speech such as prosodic features, vocal effects, and non-verbal communication.