Linguistics Note

Micro Linguistics vs. Macro Linguistics

  • Micro Linguistics:

    • Phonology: The study of sound systems of languages.
    • Lexicology: The study of words and their meanings.
    • Morphophonology/Morphophonemic: Study of the interaction between morphology and phonology.
    • Morphology: The study of word formation.
    • Morphosyntax: The study of the intersection of morphology and syntax.
    • Syntax: The study of sentence structure.
    • Semantics: The study of meaning in language.
    • Phonetics: The study of speech sounds (production, transmission, and reception).

  • Macro Linguistics (Applied Linguistics):

    • Sociolinguistics: The study of language in relation to society.
    • Psycholinguistics: The study of the psychological aspects of language.
    • Comparative Linguistics: Comparing languages to find similarities.
    • Historical Linguistics: The study of language change over time.
    • Neurolinguistics: The study of the neural mechanisms in the brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.
    • Anthropological Linguistics: The study of the relationship between language and culture.
    • Language Acquisition: The study of how people learn languages.

Phonetics vs. Phonology

  • Phonetics:

    • Belongs to descriptive linguistics.
    • Studies the production, transmission, and reception of speech sounds.
    • Does not focus on one specific language.
    • The study of the actual sounds of language.

  • Phonology:

    • Belongs to theoretical linguistics.
    • Studies different patterns of sounds in different languages.
    • Can study one specific language.
    • The study of how speech sounds form patterns.

Branches of Phonology

  • Phonetics:

    • Production/Articulation: How speech sounds are produced.
    • Acoustic: The physical properties of speech sounds.
    • Auditory: How speech sounds are perceived.

  • Phonemics:

    • Distribution/Function: How speech sounds function in a language.

Phoneme

  • Definition:
    • An ideal sound unit with a complete set of articulatory gestures.
    • The basic theoretical unit describing how speech conveys linguistic meaning.
    • In English, there are approximately 44 phonemes.
    • Types: vowels, semivowels, diphthongs, and consonants.
  • Origin:
    • Comes from the Greek word "phonos," meaning sound or voice.
    • The smallest sound unit within oral words.
  • Representation:
    • Phonemes are spoken, and graphemes are written.
    • Some words have a direct correspondence between phonemes (oral sounds) and graphemes (written letters).

Phone

  • Definition:
    • The actual sounds produced in speaking (e.g., the "d" in "ladder").

Allophones

  • Definition:
    • The collection of all minor variants of a given sound (e.g., the "t" in "eight" versus the