FRANCIS TSHIMANGA NGOYI CREQUI THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

CONTENTS

0. INTRODUCTION: AIMS OF THE COURSE

CHAPTER ONE: LANGUAGE: A PREVIEW
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Creativity
1.3. Grammar and linguistic competence
1.3.1. Generality
1.3.2. Equality of Grammars
1.3.3. Changeability
1.3.4. Tacitness
1.3.5. Universality of Grammars
1.4. Specialization
1.5. Concluding note
CHAPTER TWO: MORPHOLOGY
2.0. Definition
2.1. The minimal meaningful units of language
2.2. Morphology
2.2.1. Morphemes and Allomorphs
2.2.2. Free and Bound Morphemes
2.2.3. Word Structure
2.3. Word formation
2.4. Inflection
2.5. Morphology and phonology
2.6. Concluding note
CHAPTER THREE: SYNTAX
3.1. Definition
3.2.Categories and structures
3.3. Phrase structure
3.4.Transformation
3.5.Concluding note
CHAPTER FOUR: SEMANTICS
4.1. Definition
4.2. Meaning
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4.2.1. Semantic relations among words.

4.2.2. Semantic relations involving sentences
4.2.3. What is meaning?
4.3. The conceptual system
4.3.1. Fuzzy concept
4.3.2. Graded membership.
4.3.3. Metaphor
4.3.4. Lexicalization of concepts
4.4. Syntactic structure and interpretation
4.4.1. Compositionality
4.4.2. Structural ambiguity
4.5. Other functions in sentences interpretation
4.5.1. The role of beliefs and attitude
4.6. Language, meaning and thought
4.6. Concluding note
CHAPTER FIVE: BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
5.1. Introduction
5.2. The human brain
5.2.1. The cerebral cortex
5.2.2. The cerebral hemispheres
5.2.3. The lobes of the cortex
5.3. Investigating the brain
5.3.1. Techniques in investigating the brain
5.3.1.1. Autopsy studies
5.3.1.2. Computerized axial tomography
5.3.1.3. Cerebral blood flow study
5.3.2. Learning from hemispheric connections and disconnections
5.3. 2.1. Dichotic listening studies
5.3.2.2. Split brain studies
5.4. Aphasia
5.4.1. Nonfluent aphasia
5.4.2. Fluent aphasia
5.5. Acquired dyslexia and dysgraphia
5.5.1. Reading and writing disturbances in aphasia
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5.5.2. Acquired dyslexia as the dominant language deficit

5.6. Linguistic theory and aphasia
5.6.1. Features, rules, and underlying forms
5.6.2. Agrammatism
5.6.3. Function words
5.6.4. The loss of syntactic competence
5.6.5. Agrammatism in other languages
5.7. Where is language?
5.8. Concluding note
CHAPTER SIX: LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT
6.1. Fundamental concepts
6.1.1. Sociolinguistics
6.1. 2. Speech community
6.1.3. Speech variety / language variety
6.2. Social differentiation of language
6.2.1. Social stratification
6.2.2. Other ways of studying social differentiation
6.2.3. The social stratification of English
6.2.4. Language and gender
6.2.5. Euphemism
6.3. Dialectology
6.4. Mixed languages
6.5. Speech situation
6.6. Concluding note

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REFERENCES

Bolinger, D. (1968). Aspects of Language. New York: Hartcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
Hartmann, R. P. K. & F. C. Stork. (1972). Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.
Huddeston, R. (1984). Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge: C.U.P.
Lehmann, W. P. (1976). Descriptive Linguistics: An Introduction. 2nd Edition. New Random
House.
Lyons, J. (ed.) (1971). Introduction of Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge. C.U.P.
O’Grady, W.; M. Dobrovolsky & M. Aronoff. (1991). Contemporary Linguistics: An
Introduction. 2nd Edition. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Richards, J. PLatt & H. Weber. (1985). Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. London:
Longman.
Robins, R. H. (1980). General Linguistics: An Introductory Survey. 3rd Edition London:
Longman.
Tshimanga, N. F. (2002). A Contrastive Analysis of Word Formation in English and Cilubà
L31a. Unpublished Licence Dissertation. ISP: Mbujimayi.

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0. INTRODUCTION: AIMS OF THE COURSE

This Course aims to provide First Graduat students with basic theoretical knowledge of
the linguistic science. Accordingly, it overviews different levels of linguistic analysis:
morphology, syntax and semantics. However, phonetics and phonology are excluded on
purpose, as they are covered in a different course. Besides, it discusses the relationship
between brain and language before tackling the study of language in social context.
At the end of this course, a successful student will be able to:
Explain and discuss basic terms used in linguistics;
Apply the theoretical knowledge acquired in this course to data from a natural
language.

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CHAPTER ONE: LANGUAGE: A PREVIEW

1.1. INTRODUCTION
The very first question that daunts anyone confronted with the study of linguistics is:
What is linguistics? Linguistics is defined as a scientific study of language. A further
question, consecutive to the first is: What is language? This question has been answered in a
variety of ways throughout the history and subfields of the linguistic science. For example, a
system of communication, a medium for thought, a vehicle for literary expressions, and so on
(O’Grady, Dobrovolsky & Aronoff 1991: 1).
However, these definitions seem to say what language is used for rather than what it
actually is. On this ground, following Chomsky, we can view language (I- Language) as part
of the brain to which Chomsky refers as LAD (Language Acquisition Device). This inborn
linguistic competence is made up of a finite set of principles and allows any normal human
being to speak any natural language of the world (I-language). Besides, Chomsky refers to
the native speaker’s performance or E-language (Externalized language).
Contrary to Chomsky, Ferdinand de Saussure considers language as a system of signs that
express ideas, and divided into Langue and Parole. For this linguist, langue refers to the
abstract system of language that is generalized by members of a given speech community,
and parole is the individual acts of speech and the putting into practice of language. Actually,
in this definition, De Saussure stresses the social aspects of language. That is, contrary to
Chomsky who views language in terms of a biological endowment, Saussure considers it as a
social phenomenon. In fact, both views are still debatable throughout the linguistic discipline.

1.2. CREATIVITY
Knowledge of language is creative or generative; that is, it has to account for novelty and
innovations. As such, linguistic knowledge is open-ended in the sense that it must be able to
respond to new experiences, situations and thoughts. Differently put, scope of experience is
so large and puts great demand on language and language should always provide speakers
with words to satisfy such a demand. For example, if there is a new experience, language
must find words to name that new experience.
However, creativity operates within definite boundaries. That is, when new words,
sentences, and so on, are coined, this should be done according to some requirements. That is
why we say that creativity is rule-governed. Consider the following examples:
(1) He wristed the ball into net.
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(2) Kuditeeka (di- ku – di – teek- a).

In the example (1), the verb wrist is coined from the noun wrist and takes the -ed infection
according to the rule of past-formation in English. In (2), the verb kuditeeka is coined by
inserting, the pronominal affix -di- between the verb prefix ku- and the verb stem –teek-
followed by the final basic verbal suffix (BVS) -a (Katamba and Stonham 2006); and this
according to the Cilubà verbal morphology. This shows that any verb, for example, which is
coined in a language such as Cilubà or English should be inflected according to the rules of
the language in which it has been coined. Put simply, it has to behave as the already existing
verbs of the language.
Besides, creativity applies to all the levels of linguistic analysis and occurs if and only if
there is need for it. That is, at the lexical level, for example, we cannot coin new words to
refer to a reality which is already named in the language. The following examples illustrate:
(3) He cartoned the eggs.
(4) *He hospitaled his daughter.
The example (3) contains a verb derived from the noun carton meaning ‘to put into the
carton’. Given that no other term already exists in the lexicon to name this reality, the
sentence (3) is grammatical, correct or allowed. By contrast, we cannot coin a new verb *
hospital, to mean ’put into hospital’ because we already have another verb, viz. hospitalize,
for this reality.

1.3. GRAMMAR AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE

Linguistic competence is the ability which speakers of a language have and which allows
them to produce and understand an unlimited number of utterances including many that are
novel and unfamiliar. That is, speakers of a language do not acquire their language by
learning from what other people say in that language, but they have an innate capacity for
language. On the other hand, Grammar can be defined as a mental system that allows human
beings to form and interpret the words of their language (O’Grady, Dobrovolsky & Aronoff
1991: 1). Grammar is generally divided into the following components:
(1) Phonetics: articulation and perception of speech sounds.
(2) Phonology: the patterning of speech sounds.
(3) Morphology : Word formation
(4) Syntax: Sentence formation
(5) Semantics: The interpretation of words and sounds.

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1.3.1. Generality
All languages have a Grammar. This can be verified by considering a few simple
facts. Since all languages are spoken, they must have phonetic and phonological systems.
Since they all have words and sentences, they also must have morphology and syntax; and
since these words and sentences have systematic meanings, these languages obviously have
semantic principles as well.
Despite this, it is common to hear some people argue that some languages have no
grammar. Actually this is wrong, because such languages are unfamiliar and their
grammatical systems are different from those of languages which are well known. What is
good to say in such a case is that such languages have grammars which are unlike those of
languages such as English and French. In conclusion, although no two languages have
exactly the same grammar, there are no languages without grammar.
Another fact can be pointed out about varieties of the same language such as English.
Actually, English is spoken by many communities around the world. Therefore, the particular
variety of English spoken in each of communities has its own characteristics; for example, in
vocabulary, pronunciation, sentence pattern and so on. This is just a way of saying that each
variety a language has its own grammar.

1.3.2. Equality of Grammars

All grammars are equal, i.e. no grammar is better or more correct than another. From
modern linguistics point of view, all languages and varieties of a particular language have
grammars that enable the speakers to express any proposition that the human mind can
produce. That is, all languages and all varieties of languages are equal as instruments of
communication and thoughts. Accordingly, linguistics is descriptive and not prescriptive.
This means that linguists seek to describe human linguistic ability and knowledge but do not
prescribe one system in preference to another.

1.3.3. Changeability
Grammars change with time. Some changes take place quickly and others slowly.
Likewise, some levels of grammar are more flexible to changes than others. Generally
speaking, the level which is prone to change is vocabulary. An example of change can be
observed when we consider Chaucer’s English and Contemporary English. That is, the
English spoken during Chaucer’s time is totally different from contemporary English. That is
why we generally speak of Old English, Middle English and Contemporary English. In the
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same way, other changes have recently occurred in the vocabulary and grammar (syntax) of
English in line with gender awareness in order to achieve gender –neutral expectations.

1.3.4. Tacitness
In simple words, tacit knowledge is knowledge that you know without knowing that
you have it. Grammatical knowledge is subconscious. That is, all speakers of a language have
a tacit knowledge of its grammar. This knowledge is different from the knowledge of
arithmetic which is taught. Grammatical knowledge, however, is acquired without the help of
instruction when one is still a child and it remains largely subconscious throughout life.

1.3.5. Universality of Grammars

Grammars are alike in basic ways. When you look at two languages superficially, you
can notice that there are many differences between them for example, in their sounds,
vocabularies and word order. However, there are important grammatical principles and
tendencies shared by all human languages; for example, in negating sentences, in combining
into sentences, etc.
(5) a. Not Peter is here
b. Peter not is here
c. Peter is not here
d. Peter is here not.
(6) a. Congolese like money. (SVO)
b. Congolese money like. (SOV)
c. Like Congolese money. (VSO)
d. Like money Congolese. (VOS)
e. Money like Congolese. (OVS)
f. Money Congolese like. (OSV)
It has been observed that the negative particle (element), in most languages, occurs either
before or after the verb. Therefore, the first and last sentences in (five) (5) are rare and the
second and third are more common. Likewise, as far as the word order is concerned, 95 %
(percent) of world languages are SVC, SOV, or VSO languages. Therefore, the first three
sentences in (6) are the most usual while the last three are less so.

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1.4. SPECIALIZATION
Although languages spoken in the world belong to the different families, i.e. they cannot
be traced to a common source; there is a reason to believe that only humans have a special
capacity for language. In other terms, other creatures do not share this linguistic capacity. In
humans, we have the adaptation of certain physiological, mechanisms for linguistic ends. The
so-called speak organs: the lungs, larynx, tongue, teeth, lips, palate, and nasal passages did
not originally evolve for speech. But they were and still are concerned with insuring the
physical survival of the organism. To conclude, the human capacity for speech superimposed
an already existing biological structure.

1.5. CONCLUDING NOTE

The present chapter tried to explain the general basic terms such as linguistics and
language and to discuss some properties of language. In short, the chapter has pointed out
that human language is characterized by rule-governed creativity. That is, new forms are
created in a systematic manner in order to cope with novelty and innovation. In addition,
speakers of a language possess a grammar which is a mental system of elements and rules
that allows them to form and interpret familiar as well as novel sentences. That is, they have a
productive and interpretative competence. The grammar governs the articulation, perception,
and patterning of speech sounds, the formation of words and sentences, and the interpretation
of utterances. Contrary to popular beliefs, all languages have grammars that are roughly
equal in complexity and are acquired subconsciously by their speakers. Finally, the existence
of such linguistic systems in humans is the product of unique anatomical and cognitive
specialization.

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CHAPTER TWO: MORPHOLOGY

2.0. DEFINITION
Morphology can be defined as the component of grammar that deals with the internal
structure of words. We distinguish between general morphological theory that applies to all
languages and the morphology of a particular language or specific morphology. These two
branches of morphology need furtherance. General morphological theory is concerned with
delimiting exactly what types of morphological rules can be found in natural languages. In
other terms, this branch of morphology is concerned with determining morphological
universals. On the contrary, the morphology of a particular language is a set of rules with a
dual function. First, these rules are responsible for word formation, i.e. the formation of new
words. Second, they represent the speakers’ unconscious knowledge of the internal structure
of the already existing words of their language.
In this Chapter we will deal with word structure and word formation, taking most
examples from English.

2.1. THE MINIMAL MEANINGFUL UNITS OF LANGUAGE

In most sciences, researchers are concerned with determining the smallest units out of
which other larger units are formed. In mathematics, for example, one needs to know the
digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 before embarking on the formation of larger numbers.
Likewise, biologists talk of cells while chemists talk of subatomic particles. In a language, we
distinguish the basic units of sound, which are meaningless in themselves from the basic
meaningful units, which are made up of individually meaningless sounds.
The smallest meaningless units of sound are called phonemes while the smallest
meaningful units of language are called Signs or morphemes. The latter items are not to be
confused with words which are the minimal meaningful free forms. A free form is an
element, item that can occur in isolation and / or whose position with the respect to
neighbouring elements is not entirely fixed.
(7) The hunters killed the lion.
(8) The lion was killed by the hunters.
(9) Hunters (hunt-er-s are morphemes).
(10) *erhunts
(11) *Serhunt

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The word hunter in (9) is a free form because its position with the respect to neighbouring
elements is not fixed and it can occur in isolation. For example, in (7) it is the second element
while in (8) it is the seventh element. By contrast, in (9) the items –er and –s are bound forms
because they cannot stand in isolation as shown by the ungrammaticality of (10) and (11).
That is, their position with a respect to the neighbouring elements is fixed.

2.2. MORPHOLOGY
There are two basic types of words in human language: simple and complex. A simple
word, for example house, cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful units
(morphemes). This word contains only one morpheme. By contrast, a complex word, for
example hospitalize can be broken down into two or more smaller meaningful units. English
contains both simple and complex words.
The words any language can be divided into two broad types of categories: closed and
open. The closed categories are also known as function words, grammatical words, form
words, empty or structure words. They comprise pronouns, conjunctions, determiners and a
few other words. These categories are known as closed categories because new words (items)
are hardly ever coined in them. By contrast, open categories also known as content words or
full words comprise nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. These are called major lexical
categories. They are open in the sense that because new words may be added to them.
Morphology is more concerned with the open categories than the closed ones. A
member of a major lexical category is called a lexical item. However, a lexical item (word)
can best be thought of as can entry in the lexicon (a list of words or dictionary). Generally
speaking, two kinds of lexicon are distinguished: the mental lexicon which is a component of
a speaker’s mental grammar and the theoretical lexicon.
2.2.1. Morphemes and Allomorphs
A major problem for morphological analysis is how to identify the morphemes that
make up words. To identify morphemes, we have to match strings (chains) of sounds with co-
occurring features of meaning. Let us consider the example (12) below which consists of
plurality in Turkish.
(12) a. /mumlar/ ‘candles’
b. /toplar/ ‘guns’
c. /adamlar/ ‘men’
d. /kitaplar/ ‘books’

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In this example, we can notice that there is only one feature of meaning which is plurality and
only one string of sound /lar/ which is found in all four words. Therefore, we can say that /lar/
is the morpheme marking plurality in Turkish and /mum/ means ‘candle’, /top/ means ‘gun’,
/adam/ means ‘man’, and /kitap/ means ‘book’.
However, this example seams very simple because the plurality morpheme remains
the same. But in reality, many complications can arise because morphemes do not always
have an invariant form. This is the case of the indefinite article in English which has the form
a as in a boy, a girl, and an as in an umbrella, which are respectively used before a consonant
and vowel sounds. Such variant forms of a morpheme are called allomorphs. Note that the
choice of a given allomorph depends on some contextual requirement. We can also mention
the case of the plurality morpheme –s in English which can be pronounced as /s/, /z/‫ ׀‬or /iz/
depending on the context.
2.2.2. Free and Bound Morphemes
A bound morpheme is a morpheme which cannot stand in isolation; that is, it is
always attached to another element. By contrast, a free morpheme can stand in isolation and
is the equivalent of a simple word. For example, in hunter, hunt is a free morpheme while -er
is a bound morpheme. To show that a bound morpheme is always attached, it is compulsory
to make it preceded (if it is a suffix) or followed by a hyphen (if it is a prefix). That is, the
hyphen is appended to the side on which the morpheme is attached.
2.2.3. Word Structure
A complex word such as denationalization contains five morphemes, one of which is
free and four bound. The free morpheme nation is called stem or root and the bound
morphemes are called affixes. An affix is a morpheme which not only must be bound, but
must be bound in a particular position. In addition, each affix attaches only to certain
categories for example verbs, adjectives, and so on. In general, there are 3 types of affixes
depending on the position occupied in the stem or root: suffixes (i.e. affixes occurring on the
left of the stem), prefixes (i.e. affixes occurring on the right of the stem), and infixes (i.e.
affixes occurring inside the stem). Only suffixes and prefixes are found in English.
With the word denationalization, there are 120 (one hundred and twenty) possible
arrangements of its fives morphemes. But of the 120 arrangements, only one could be an
English word. Here the order is so strict because each of the bound morphemes is an affix
which is a morpheme which is attached in a particular position and to a particular base. The
term base is understood as the part of a word to which affixes are added. This is the example
of hunt in hunter. In this case, a base is a root. That is, a stem can sometimes be a root, but
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most of the times, a stem is larger than a root. In practice, the base or stem can be extended,
but the root remains the same.
Note that, there is a difference between a root and a stem. In the word
denationalization, we only have one root which is nation but different stems: nation is the
stem or base to which the suffix -al is added to form the adjective national.
National is also the stem to which the suffix -ize is added to form the verb nationalize. To put
it simply, a stem is the actual form to which an affix is added.
The structure of the entire word may be represented thanks to a set of labelled brackets (13)
or a tree diagram (14).
(13) Labelled Brackets
[[de-[[[nation]N-al]A-ize]V]V-ation]N
(14) Tree Diagram
N

V Af

Af V

A Af

N Af

De- nation -al -ize -ation

In addition, an affix can duplicate the whole or part of the stem with which it occurs.
It is called a reduplicative affix. When it duplicates all the stems, we talk of total duplication
or full reduplication. By contrast, when it duplicates part of the stem, we call this
phenomenon partial reduplication. The following examples illustrate:

(15) Partial reduplication

a. Language: Tagalog
Stem Gloss Reduplicated form. Gloss
Takbuh ‘ run’ Tatakbuh ‘ will run’
lakad ‘ walk ‘ lalakad ‘will walk’

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(16) Full reduplication

a. Language: Turkish
Stem Gloss Reduplicated form. Gloss
tʃabuk ‘quickly’ tʃabuk tʃabuk ‘very quickly’
Javaʃ ‘slowly’ Javaʃ Javaʃ ‘very slowly’
b. Language: Indonesia
Stem Gloss Reduplicated form. Gloss
Oraŋ ‘man’ oraŋ oraŋ ‘all sorts of men’
Anak ‘child’ anak anak ‘all sorts of children’
Maŋga ‘mango’ maŋga maŋga ‘ all sorts of mangoes’

Another device is ablaut which is the replacement of a vowel with a different vowel
as in sing – song – sang – sung. Finally, one word can be formed from another without the
addition of affixes as in export (N) and export (V); this is called zero derivation or
conversion. In such cases, there is a stress shift in English in order to mark the difference
between related nouns and verbs. Here verbs generally have final stress which nouns have
initial stress. However, this rule is not always observed in all cases. For example, in father
(N) and father (V) there is no difference in stress placement. Note that such nonaffixal
morphology is common in other languages and may involve vocalic patters or tone and other
suprasegmental phonological features, sometimes in a complex way.
In English the stress of a new word is almost invariably an already existing word. For
this reason, we say that English has a word-based morphology. However, there are some
problematic cases where it is not always easy to determine the internal structure of the word
or to find out different morphemes which make up a word. For example, in the case of
huckleberry and cranberry, it is tempting to assume that the root is berry. But this leaves us
with the morphemes cran and huckle which are not affixes like un- and re- because they
occur only with one root, viz. berry. Similarly, cran and huckle cannot be called free
morphemes since they never stand alone as independent words. As the state of such
morphemes continues to be problematic for linguists, they classify them as exceptional cases
and refer to them as cranberry morphemes.
In the same way, in words such as receive, perceive, deceive, conceive, or remit,
submit, permit and commit, the apparent affixes in these words do not have the same meaning
as when they are attached to a free morpheme, such as do, in , redo, meaning ‘do again’.

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Likewise -ceive is not a free morpheme because it cannot stand alone as an independent
word.

2.3. WORD FORMATION

Word formation can be defined as the creation of new words. The two most common
types of word formation are derivation and compounding. Derivation is a process by which a
new word is built from a base usually through the addition of an affix. It is also known as
affixation.
It has already been illustrated with the example of denationalization. Derivation creates a
new word by changing the category and / or meaning of the base to which it applies as in
word + -er Worker.
English makes very widespread use of derivation. Following are some example of
English derivational affixes, with information about the type of base with which they
combine and the type of category that results.
(17) Table of some English Derivational affixes
Affix Change Semantic effect Examples
Suffixes
1) - able V A Able to be X’ed Fixable
2) - ation V N The result of x’ing Realization
3) - er V N One who x’s Worker
4) - ing V N The act of x’ing The shooting
V A In the process of x’ing The sleeping
giant
5) - ion V N The result or act of x’ing Protection
6) - ive V A Having the property of doing x Assertive
7) - ment V N The act or result of x’ing Adjournment
8) - al N A Pertaining to x National
9) - ial N A Pertaining to x Presidential
10) - ian N A Pertaining to x Canadian
11) - ie N A Having the property of x Organic
12) - ize N V Put in x Hospitalize
13) - less N Without x penniless
14) - ons N A The property of having or being Poisonous

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15) - ate A V make x activate

16) - ity A N the result of being x stupidity
17) - ixe A V Make x modernize
18) - ly A Adv. In an x manner Quietly
19) -ness A N The state of being x Happiness
Prefixes
1) Ex - N N Former x Ex-president
2) in - A A Not x Incompetent
3) un - A A Not x Unhappy
4) un - V V Reverse x Untie
5) re - V V X again rethink

Each line of this table can be considered as a word formation rule that predicts how
words may be formed in English. Derivation can create multiple levels of word structure, as
illustrated in the word denationalization above. This is called multiple derivation.
Compounding on the other hand, is a process involving the combination of two or
more words with/without accompanying affixes to create a new word as in blackboard. That
is, in compounding, a new word is formed by combining two or more already existing words.
Structurally, two features of compounds stand out:
1. The constituent members of a compound are not equal. The lexical category of the last
member of a compound is the same as that of the whole compound. The first member is
always a modifier of the second. That is, the first is the dependent and the second is the head.
(18) Structure of a Compound
Compound N
A N

Dependent Head Black board

2. A Compound never has more than two constituents. This does not mean that a compound
may not contain more than two words. However, it means that a compound always has a
binary structure. The example below illustrates:

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(19) N

N N
N N

Dog food box

Dep. Head
Dependent Head
As far as the orthography of a compound is concerned, compounds can be written
sometimes as one word, sometimes as separate words and sometimes with an intervening
hyphen. We speak of solid compounds, open compounds and hyphenated compounds
respectively.
(20) a. break fast (Solid compound)
b. Food box (Open compound)
c. Sitting –room (Hyphenated compound)
Finally, it is important to distinguish between compounds and non compounds on the
basics of their stress pattern. Compounds have their first element pronounced more
prominently than the second whereas non compounds have their second element stressed.
(21) a. Blackboard ‘chalk board’ (compound)
b. Black board ‘a board which is black’ (non compound)
c. English teacher ‘who teaches English’ (compound)
d. English teacher ‘from England’ (non compound)

Apart from compounding derivation, we also have other word formation processes. These
are developed in the following lines.
3. Clipping: a word formation process whereby a new word is created by shortening a
polysyllabic word. It is common among students, in a given company, and so on.
(22) a. Prof. (Professor)
b. Phys-ed (Physical-education)
c. Doc (Doctor).
d. Phopho (Phoneticcs & phonology)
e. Lab. (Laboratory)

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Clipping is also noticed in proper names as the following examples illustrate.

(23) a. Liz. (Elizabeth)
b. Joe (Joseph)
c. Pat (Patrick).

4. Back-formation: a process whereby a word is derived from another by deaffixation (a

removal of an affix).
(24) a. editor (N) Edit
b. resurrection (N) Resurrect

5. Blending
Blends are words created by combining parts of two or more words.
(25) a. Motel (motor hotel)
b. Brunch (breakfast + lunch)
6. Acronyms
Acronyms are formed from initial sounds or letters of a stream of words.
(26) a. USA: United States of America
b. U.K.: United Kingdom
c. UCLA: University of California and Los Angeles.

Depending on the usage, acronyms can be read either as groups of letters or as a word. In the
first case we talk of alphabetisms.
7. Coinage
Coinage is the invention of a completely new word. In the preceding lines, we talked
about creativity whereby speakers coin new words in order to account for novelty and
innovations. That is, whenever there is a new reality, language should find a word to name
that reality. Examples of coinage in Cilubà are Luntandalà (Internet) and Nkonga myâku
(Dictionary)
(See Kabuta 2008).
8. Conversion/Zero derivation
It is a process whereby a word changes its category without changing its form as in
spy (V) – spy (N).

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9. Borrowing
Natural languages are not entities closed from one another. By contrast, speakers of
different languages are in frequent contact and this makes it possible for languages to
exchange some of their elements. Borrowing is a phenomenon resulting from language
contact. it is a process whereby words are borrowed from one language and incorporated into
another. Examples of borrowing in French include parking, weekend, cocktail, etc. Words
which are thus borrowed are known as loan words.
10. Calque
It is a way of borrowing a word or phrase from another word or root for root
translation. An example of calque in Kiswahili is Kiwonambari (television).
11. Onomatopoeia.
It is the creation of words that imitate natural sound for example in Cock-a-
dodle-doo, Cuckoo, etc.

2.4. INFLECTION
Instead of creating a new word as derivation or compounding does, inflection
modifies a word form in order to mark a grammatical relation or the grammatical subclass to
which it belongs. Inflection occurs or affixes are added to nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs.
(27) Nouns
a. books (plurality)
b. Tom’s (Possession/genitive case)

(28) Verbs
a. Kicks (3rd person singular)
b. Kicking (Present participle/Gerund)
c. Kicked (Past/Past participle)
(29) Adjectives and Adverbs
a. Faster (comparative)
b. Fastest (superlative)
Three criteria can be set to distinguish between inflection and derivation:
1. Category change
Inflection does not change either the grammatical category or the type of meaning found
in the word to which it applies, for example tall – taller – tallest.
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2. Positioning within the word

The derivational affix (D.A) is closer to the root or stem while an inflectional affix (I.A)
is not. Put differently, derivational morphemes are non-closing morphemes while inflectional
morphemes are closing morphemes. That is, the addition of an inflectional morpheme to a
stem closes the word to further derivation while the addition of a derivational morpheme to a
stem does not. An example of this is *neighborshood which is not grammatically correct.
This shows that inflection takes place after all word formation processes. The example below
illustrates:
(30) N

N Af
N Af

Neighbour –hood -s
DA IA
3. Productivity
Inflectional affixes (I.A) have the relative freedom to combine with stems of the
appropriate category while derivational affixes D.A. characteristically apply to a restricted
class of stems. For example, the derivational affix -ment is only added to a certain category of
verbs as in govern – government, develop – development but not teach - *teachment.
However, an inflectional affix such as -ed can freely combine with any regular verb in
English.
Finally, the set of derivational affixes is larger than that of inflectional affixes because we
can count them as cited above (Nouns, verbs, adjectives and Adverbs).

2.5. MORPHOLOGY AND PHONOLOGY

Morphemes can be realized differently depending on the context in which they are
used. Such contextual variants are known as Allomorphs. These are accounted for by rules
known as morphophonemic rules. For example, the allomorphs of the plural morpheme in
English show a three-way variation illustrated as bellow:
(1) Allomorph /S/ is used after /p, t, k, f, …/ as in books;
(2) Allomorph /Z/ is used after /b, d, g, v, f, m, n…., r, l, w, j/ as in bags
(3) Allomorph /IZ/ is used after /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/

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2.6. CONCLUDING NOTE

The chapter discussed morphology which is the component of grammar in charge of
word formation and word structure. Particularly, the chapter focused on the structure of
words in human language. In short, many words consist of smaller formative elements, called
morphemes. Morphemes can be classified in a variety of ways: free versus bound, roots
versus affixes, prefixes versus suffixes; and can be combined in different ways to create new
words. Two basic processes of word formation in English are derivation and compounding.
Words may also be inflected to mark grammatical contrasts in person, number, gender, case,
tense, and voice. Finally, although the process of word formation may differ, all languages
have the means to create new words and therefore exhibit the rule-governed creativity that is
typical of human language.

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CHAPTER THREE: SYNTAX

3.1. DEFINITION
Syntax can be defined as the analysis of sentence structure. That is, it is the study of
how words are combined to produce sentences or word ordering within a sentence. In short,
syntax is concerned with the architecture of sentences. As already said, the syntactic
component of the grammar is both creative and systematic. That is, speakers of a language
are able to combine words in novel ways, forming sentences they have neither heard nor seen
before. However not just any combination of words will give a well formed sentence. Let us
consider the following examples.
(30) The cat chased the mouse.
(31) *The cat mouse chased the.
In (31) the sentence is ill-formed or ungrammatical, whereas in (30) the sentence is well-
formed or grammatical. Differently stated, (30) is a possible sentence of English while (31) is
not. To show that a sentence is ungrammatical, we make it preceded by an asterisk.
There are various ways and a variety of quite different possibilities in which a sentence
can be analysed. That is, there are several approaches to syntactic analysis among which
mention can be made of Generative Grammar (G.G.), Transformational Grammar (T.G.),
Generative Transformational Grammar (G.T.G.), Principles and Parameters, Minimalist
Program, Systematic Functional Grammar and so on. But in this chapter, we will use a
simplified version of Transformational Syntax.
(32) a. Cibo is in the house.
b. Cibo is where?
c. Where is Cibo t t ?

3.6.CATEGORIES AND STRUCTURES

In any language, words can be grouped together into a relatively small number of classes
called syntactic categories. This classification reflects a variety of factors including the type
of meaning that words express, the type of affixes that they take and the type of structures in
which they can occur. Following are the most central word- level categories to the study of
syntax.
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a) Lexical categories
(1) Nouns (N)
(2) Verbs (V)
(3) Adjectives (A)
(4) Prepositions (P)
(5) Adverbs (Adv.)
b) Non-lexical categories
(1) Determiners (Det.)
(2) Conjunctions (Con.)
(3) Degree words (Deg.)
The most studied syntactic categories are: Nouns (N), verbs (V), Adjectives (A),
Prepositions (P) and Adverbs (Adv.). However, the latter category is less studied than the
first four while the first four categories play a very important role in sentence formation.
Apart from these, language may also contain non-lexical or functional categories, which
include Determiners (Det.), Conjunctions (Con.) and Degree words (Deg.). Some forms are
ambiguous in term of their category. That is, the same word may belong to two or more
categories at the same time. This is the case of conversion or zero derivation.
To determine a word’s category, we can set three criteria:
(1) Meaning
(2) Inflexion
(3) The type of element with which it can combine to form larger utterances.
This last criterion is the most reliable. Two kinds of relations are commonly essential to the
study of syntax: paradigmatic relation or choice relation whereby an item can be substituted
for the other; and syntagmatic relation or chain relation, whereby an item can combine with
others in the syntactic structure. Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Relations are illustrated in
(33) below:

(33) Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Relations

A

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FRANCIS TSHIMANGA NGOYI CREQUI THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

In the above representation, A stands for Paradigmatic relation while B stands for
Syntagmatic relation. Similarly, these two relations can be clarified by means of sentences in
(34) and (35) below:
(34) They bought some tables
(35) He booked two seats.
In these examples, the noun tables can be replaced by the noun seats and vice versa.
Therefore, we say that these two words stand in paradigmatic relation. However, the word
some can combine with tables. We then say that they stand in syntagmatic relation.

ASSIGNMENT
1) Find 25 compounds in Cilubà.
2) By means of examples, illustrate similarities and differences between compounding in
Cilubà, English and French.

3.7. PHRASE STRUCTURE

Sentences are not formed by simply stringing words like beads on a necklace. Rather,
sentences have hierarchical structures consisting of group of words that may themselves
consist of smaller groups of words, and so on. We are going to deal with the internal structure
of syntactic units built around nouns, adjectives, verbs, and prepositions with a focus on the
organizational properties that they have in common. Such units are called phrases.
Phrases are built around a skeleton consisting of two levels: the upper level and the lower
level. The upper level is called phrase level and the lower level is called word level. These
two levels are illustrated in (36) below:
(36) Phrase and word levels
NP VP AP PP Phrase Level

N V A P Word Level

Each phrase has a head which is the central element around which the phrase is built.
Apart from the head each phrase includes a second element that has a special semantic or
syntactic role. This element is called specifier. In addition, a phrase can also include a
complement. In English, the specifier occurs on the left of the head which the complement
occurs on the right.

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FRANCIS TSHIMANGA NGOYI CREQUI THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

To conclude, we can say that the arrangement of the elements that make up a phrase is
regulated by a special type of grammatical mechanism called phrase structure rule. The
phrase structure rule has to tell us the position of specifiers, heads and complements.
If we consider a phrase whose head is X and which is written XP. Its structure can be
illustrated as in (37) below:
(37) Phrase structure rule
a. XP (Specifier) X (Complement)
b. XP

Specifier Head Complement

The example in (37) reads as ‘the phrase XP rewrites as (Specifier) X (Complement). The
brackets show that both Specifier and Complement are optional components of a phrase
while the head is the only obligatory element is the phrase structure. Put differently, we may
have a phrase which is made up of the head exclusively. Similarly, a phrase may contain
another phrase. In the forthcoming lines, we will look at the structure of Noun Phrases (NP or
N’’), Verb Phrases (VP or V’’), Adjectival Phrases (AP or A’’), Prepositional Phrases (PP or
P’’), and Sentences (S or I’’).
a) Noun Phrase: a phrase whose head is a noun
Examples of noun phrases are:
(38) a. The book
b. That teacher

NP Det. + N N’’
Det.: The NP Spec N’
N: book Det. N
N’’ Spec + N’ the N0
N’ N0 The book book
b) Adjectival Phrase: a phrase whose head is an adjective
Examples of adjectival phrases are:
(39) a. very big
b. That good teacher

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AP Deg. + A A’’
Deg.: very AP Deg. A’
A: big Deg. A
A’’ Spec + A’ Very A0
A’ A0 Very big big

c) Prepositional Phrase: a phrase whose head is a preposition

Examples of prepositional phrases are:
(40) a. in the book
b. behind the teacher in the room P’’
PP P + NP Spec. P’
P: in
NP Det. + N NP P0 N’’
Det.: the P NP Det. N’
N: big Det. N in
P’’ Spec + P’ the N0
P’ P0 +N’’ in the book book
P0: in
N’’ Det. + N’
Det.: the
N’ N0
N0: book
d) Verb Phrase: a phrase whose head is a verb.
Examples of verb phrases are:
(41) a. bought the book
b. saw the teacher in the room

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V’’ Spec. + V’ V’’

V’ V0 +N’’ Spec. V’
V0: buy
N’’ Det. + N’ V0 N’’
Det.: the buy Det N’
N’ N0
N0: book the N0
book
e) Sentence or INFL Phrase: a phrase whose head is INFL
Examples of sentences are:
(42) a. The students like the book.
b. That teacher in my class likes the book on the table.
I’’ Spec. + I’ I’’
I’ I0 + V’’ N’’ I’
V’’ Spec. + V’ Det. N’ I0 V’’
0 0
V’ V +N’’ N Spec. V’
V0: buy The students
N’’ Det. + N’ V0 N’’
Det.: the buy Det N’
N’ N0
N0: book the N0
book
3.8.TRANSFORMATION
In a language, some structures, for example sentences, are formed by moving an element
from one position into another. This is known as transformation. A transformational rule tells
us what element can move and to what position. Let’s consider the following examples:
(43) The boy will leave.
(44) Will the boy t leave?

According to a transformational rule known as inversion, the auxiliary will has moved in (44)
to the beginning of the sentence in order to form a yes-no question. In addition, we can also
have a type of transformation known as wh-movement. Let us consider the following
examples:
(45) You can eat a mango.
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FRANCIS TSHIMANGA NGOYI CREQUI THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

(46) Can you t eat a mango?

(47) What can you t eat t ?

In (47) what, which replaces the NP a mango (direct object), has moved to form a wh-
question.

3.9. CONCLUDING NOTE

The chapter was devoted to syntax, that is, the component of grammar in charge of
phrases and sentence formation. That is, the chapter was concerned with some of the
fundamental devices involved in forming sentences in human language. Phrase structure rules
determine the structure of a sentence’s deep structure, subcategorization information ensures
a match between heads and the complements with which they appear in syntactic structure,
and transformations can modify deep structures in various ways to produce surface structures.
Taken together, these devices make up an important part of our overall linguistic competence
in that they provide the means to combine words into phrases and sentences in novel ways.
Finally, although the precise rules for sentence formation differ from language to language,
Universal Grammar provides all languages with the same general types of mechanisms
(syntactic categories, phrase structure rules, and transformations). Many of the differences
among languages can be traced to the existence of a set of parameters, each of which makes
available a variety of alternatives.

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CHAPTER FOUR: SEMANTICS

4.1. DEFINITION
All the components of grammar so far discussed were concerned with form but
semantics is concerned with the message conveyed by different forms. We call this message
or content meaning. Accordingly, we can define semantics as the component of grammar
which studies meaning.

4.2. MEANING
Meaning has been the object of research by various disciplines among which
philosophy, psychology, and so on.
4.2.1. Semantic relations among words.
Words and phrases are able to enter into a variety of semantic relations with other
words and phrases in a language. These relationships help identify those aspects of meaning
relevant to linguistics analysis.
1. Synonymy
Synonyms are words or expressions that have the same meanings in some contexts.
Examples of synonyms are
(48) a. Big vs. large
b. Purchase vs. buy
c. Remember vs. recall
d. Automobile vs. car
e. Youth vs. adolescent
Linguists believe that it is inefficient for a language to have two words or phrases
whose meanings are absolutely identical in all contexts and that complete synonymy is
therefore rare or non-existent.
2. Antonymy
There are words or phrases that are opposites with respect to some components of
their meaning. The following examples illustrate.
(49) a. Dark vs. light
b. Man vs. woman
c. Boy vs. girl
d. Bad vs. good

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In these examples, the two words contrast with respect to at least one component of their
meaning. For example, the meaning of boy and girl are opposites with respect to sex,
although they are alike with respect to species because both are human beings.
3. Polysemy and homophony
Polysemy occurs where a word has two or more related meanings. Following are some
examples.
(50)
Word Meaning A Meaning B
Bright Shining Intelligent
To glare To shine intensely To stare angrily
A deposit Minerals in the earth Money in the bank

Homophony exists where a simple form has two or more entirely distinct meanings. In
such cases it is assumed that there are two or more separate words with the same
pronunciation rather than a single word with different meanings. Polysemy and homophony
create lexical ambiguity as in the following sentences.
(51) Mpiana bought a pen.
Example (51) means that Mpiana bought either a writing instrument or a cage. In actual
speech or writing, the surrounding words and sentences usually make the intended meaning
clear as illustrated in (52).
(52) Mpiana bought a pen because he’s going to write a letter.

4.2.2. Semantic relations involving sentences

1. Paraphrase
Paraphrases are two sentences that can have the same meaning. Following are examples
of paraphrases.
(53) a. The police chased the burglar.
b. The Burglar was chased by a police.
(54) a. Cibola bought a book to my young sister.
b. My younger sister bought the book from Cibola.
In examples (53) and (54) above, the sentence in a is a paraphrase of that in b and vice versa.
In a paraphrase, if one sentence is true, the other must be true, if it is false the other must
be false. Paraphrases are said to have some truth conditions. However, in the examples above,

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there are subtle differences because the stress is put on different elements. That is why as is
the case with synonymy, many linguistics find that there is no possibility for a language to
have completely synonymous sentences.
6. Entailment
Entailment is a relation in which the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the truth of
another. In the case of examples just given, that is, paraphrase, the relation between sentences
in each pair is mutual because the truth of either sentence guaranties the truth of the other.
However, Entailment can be asymmetrical as in the following examples.
(55) a. The hunters killed the bear.
b. The bear is dead.
(56) a. Mutombo is a boy.
b. Mutombo is young.
7. Contradiction
Sometimes, if one sentence is true, then another one must be false, we say that there is a
contradiction. Here are some examples.
(57) a. Kabeya is a bachelor
b. Kabeya is married.

4.2.3. What is meaning?

Although it is relatively easy to determine whether two words or sentences have
identical or different meanings, it is much more difficult to determine precisely what meaning
is in the first place. In fact, despite many centuries of study, we still know very little about the
nature of meaning or how it is represented in a human mind. But it is important to review
briefly some of the better known proposals and the problems that they encounter.
1. Connotation
Connotation is the set of association that the use of a word can evoke. Connotation is
different from denotation which is the real meaning of a word. To understand what meaning
is, we have to look beyond denotation. The component of grammar which provides the
information about the meaning of individual words relevant to the interpretation of sentences
is the lexicon. The lexicon is therefore the basic repository of meaning within the grammar.
2. Referents
A referent is the entity to which a word refers. Therefore, the meaning of the word dog
corresponds to the set of entities (dogs) that it picks out in the real world.

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3. Extension and intention

It is not always possible to equate the meaning of a word with its referent. This has led to
a distinction between extension and intention. A word’s extension corresponds to the set of
entity that it picks out in the world by contrast its intention corresponds to its inherent sense,
the concepts that it evokes. The following example illustrates.
(58) a. The President of Congo
b. Extension: Joseph
c. Intention: Leader of the country.
4. Semantic features
Another approach to meaning tries to acquire a word’s intention with an abstract
concept consisting of smaller components called semantic features. Such an approach is
called componential analysis. It is important when we represent similarities and differences
among words with related meaning. Following are examples of componential analysis for
man, woman, boy, girl.
(59) a. man: boy:
+ HUMAN + HUMAN
+ MALE + MALE
+ ADULT - ADULT
b. woman: girl:
+ HUMAN + HUMAN
- MALE - MALE
+ ADULT - ADULT

4.3. THE CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM

4.3.1. Fuzzy concept
We tend to think that the concept expressed by the words and phrases of our language
have precise definition with clear-cut boundaries that distinguish them from other concepts.
However, if this is true for the concept expressed by the phrase member of parliament, it is
not for rich. We do not must for sure how much one must be worth to be called rich. This is
because of the notion of richness which does not have clear-cut boundaries. It is what we call
a fuzzy concept. In other words, a fuzzy concept is that which does not have clear-cut
semantic boundaries.

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4.3.2. Graded membership.

An important fact about concepts is that their members can be grated in terms
typicality. That is, some members of concepts are central while others are peripheral. For
example, the concept student can include university students, secondary pupils or nursery
school pupils.
However, when people say student what comes first in mind is university students.
Similarly, the concept cup has different members. Some are central and some others are
peripheral. The central members have more features than the peripheral ones and are
therefore prototypical examples of the class.

4.3.3. Metaphor
The concepts expressed through language are not isolated from each other. Rather,
they make up a large network, with many interconnections and associations among the
various subparts. A good example of this is metaphor, the understanding of one concept in
terms of another. Here are some examples of metaphor.
(60) Time is money.
(61) Mukàjì nkambele. ‘A wife is a groundnut’
In (60) time is conceptualized as money while in (61) a wife is understood in terms of
groundnut. Accordingly, time and mukàjì ‘wife’ belong to the target domain while money and
kambele ‘groundnut’ belong to the source domain.
Metaphors are culture dependent. Another very prevalent metaphor involves the use
of words that are primarily associated with spatial orientation to talk about physical and
psychological states. For example, consider the following:
(62) I was feeling down yesterday but this morning I am feeling up.
In this example, the health state is conceptualized in terms of spatial orientation. Therefore,
well is up while unwell is down. This kind of metaphor is known as spatial metaphor.

4.3.4. Lexicalization of concepts

At the present time, there is no reason to believe that human beings, in different
linguistic communities, have different conceptual systems. That is, there is ample evidence
that languages can differ from each other in terms of how they express concepts. For
example, to express the concept of colour, English may use more terms than Cilubà.

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Lexicalization can be defined as the process whereby concepts are encoded in the words of a
language.
4.4. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION
4.4.1. Compositionality
The meaning of a sentence is determined by the meaning of its component parts and
the manner in which they are arranged in syntactic structure.
4.4.2. Structural ambiguity
Some sentences are ambiguous because their component words can be arranged into
phrases in more than one way. This is called structural ambiguity which is different from
lexical ambiguity which is the result of polysemy or homophony. For example, consider the
following:
(63) Old men and women
(64) The student killed the thief with a knife.
Example (63) may mean either (1) old men and old women or (2) old men and women.
Similarly, (64) may be interpreted as (1) student with a knife or (2) a thief with a knife.

4.5. OTHER FUNCTIONS IN SENTENCES INTERPRETATION

Syntactic structure provides only parts of the information needed to determine the
meaning of the sentence. Other necessary information comes from pragmatics, which include,
the speaker’s and addressee’s background attitude and beliefs, the understanding of the
context in which a sentence is uttered, and their knowledge of how language can be used to
inform, to persuade, to mislead, and so forth. Put differently, there are other elements which
are not present in the sentence, but which can help to understand or interpret the sentence.
This section focuses on the role of pragmatics in sentence interpretation.

4.5.1. The role of beliefs and attitude

Non-linguistic knowledge and beliefs can also play an important role in the
interpretation of what is said. For example, they permit the selection the antecedent for a
pronominal in the following examples.
(65) The judge denied the prisoner’s request because he was dangerous.
(66) The judge denied the prisoner’s request because he was cautions.
The knowledge necessary to the interpretation of the sentences above can be found outside of
these sentences. Beliefs about groups in society viz. judges and prisoners help us to interpret

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dangerous as referring to the prisoner and cautious to the judge. Another example can be
found in (67), which is a common children’s riddle.
(67) The son of Pharaoh’s daughter is the daughter of Pharaoh’s son.

4.6. LANGUAGE, MEANING AND THOUGHT

Language might play a role in shaping how we think. That is, the particular language
people speak shapes the way in which they think and perceive the world. The best known and
most influential version of this idea is known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. This hypothesis
has been so named in honour of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, the two linguists
who articulated it most clearly. Sapir, for instance wrote in 1929:
Human beings ... are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has
become the medium of expression for their society ... the ‘real world’ is to a large
extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. (p. 242)

Several years later, Whorf expressed essentially the same sentiment when he made the
following claim.
We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native language. The categories
and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because
they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a
kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds – this
means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. (p. 242)

Two types of linguistic phenomena are commonly cited in support of the Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis: cross-linguistic differences in vocabulary, and variation in the type of
grammatical contrasts a language encodes. The first type of phenomenon is exemplified by
the fact that Eskimo has far more words for snow than does English, or that Arabic has more
words for sand. From this, it is sometimes concluded that Eskimo and Arabic allow their
speakers to make perceptual distinctions pertaining to snow and sand that English speakers
cannot.
A more plausible explanation is that language is shaped by the need to adapt to the
cultural and physical environment. According to this alternate view, if a language has a large
vocabulary in a particular area, it is because subtle distinctions of that type are important to
its speakers. Even speakers of a language without an extensive vocabulary in that area should
be able to make the relevant contrasts if they become important to them. This is presumably
why skiers, for instance, are able to distinguish among many different types of snow, even
though their language may not have a separate word for each. Where necessary, they can then

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use the resources of their language to describe these distinctions by creating expressions such
as powder snow.

4.7. CONCLUDING NOTE

The chapter was devoted to the study of semantics, a component of grammar in charge of
meaning in words, phrases and sentences. Accordingly, the chapter surveyed a broad range
of phenomena including the nature of meaning, the role of syntactic structure in the
interpretation of sentences, and the effect of pragmatics on the understanding of utterances.
Although serious problems and obstacles remain in all these areas, work in recent years has at
least begun to identify the type of relations and principles involved in the understanding of
language. These include the notions of extension and intension in the case of word meaning,
the speaker’s and addressee’s background beliefs as manifested, for example, in
presuppositions, the context provided by the setting and the discourse, etc.

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CHAPTER FIVE: BRAIN AND LANGUAGE

5.1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we will be concerned with the understanding of how language is
represented and processed in the brain. This field of study is called neurolinguistics.
Although the study of the relationship between brain and language is still young, we know
much about which parts of the brain are involved in various aspects of language production
and comprehension.

5.2. THE HUMAN BRAIN

The human brain is contained within the skull and weighs about 1, 400 grams of
pinkish-white matter. It may be the most complex 1, 400 grams in the galaxy. For most
human history, however, the role of the brain as the centre of mental life remained
completely unknown. Even the Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that its primary function
was to cool the blood. We know much more about the structure and the functioning of the
brain. But in many ways we are still quite like Aristotle, finding it hard to believe that this
wrinkled mass of nerve cells could be the stuff that dreams, fears, and knowledge are made
of. Nevertheless it is, and the task of the brain science or neuroscience is to understand how
the breadth and depth of human experience is coded in brain matter.
The brain is composed of nerve cells called neurons. Neurons are the basic
information processing units of the nervous system. The human brain contains about 10
billion neurons that are organized into highly complex networks. That is, one neuron can be
directly linked with up to 10,000 other neurons. But the brain is not only a mass of
interconnected neurons; it is composed of structures which play specific roles in the
integrated functioning of the brain.

5.2.1. The Cerebral Cortex

The brain contains all the neurological structures above the spinal cord and appears to
have evolved from the bottom up. The lower brain structures are shared by almost all
animals. These structures are responsible for the maintenance of functions such as respiration,
heart rate, and muscle coordination that are essential to the survival of all animals.
At the highest level of the brain, that is, the cerebral cortex, the differences are most
pronounced. Reptiles and amphibians have no cortex at all, and the progression from lower to
higher mammals is marked by dramatic increases in the proportion of cortex to total amount
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of brain tissue. The human brain has the greatest proportion of cortex to brain mass of all
animals.
In humans, the cortex is the grey wrinkled mass that seats like a cap over the rest of
the brain. The wrinkled appearance results from the cortex being folded in upon itself. This
folding allows a great amount of cortical matter to be compressed into the limited space
provided by the human skull in much the same way as the folding of a handkerchief allows it
to fit into a jacket pocket. It has been estimated that 65 percent of the cortex is hidden within
its folds.
It is the human cortex that accounts for our distinctness in the animal world and it is
with the human cortex that the secrets of language representation and processing are to be
found. That is the reason why the remainder of the discussion of brain structure, in this
chapter, will focus on the features of the cerebral cortex.

5.2.2. The Cerebral Hemispheres

When looking at the cortex, we can observe a fold on its surface. These folds of cortex
have two parts, the sulci are the areas where the cortex is folded in, and the gyri are the areas
where the cortex is folded out. The deep sulcus is called fissure because of its size; which
extends from the front of the brain to the back and is called longitudinal fissure. It separates
the left and right cerebral hemispheres. In many ways, the cerebral hemispheres can be
considered to be separate brains and indeed are often referred to as the left brain and the right
brain. There are two main reasons for this: the first reason is that the hemispheres are almost
completely anatomically separate. The main connection between the two brains is a bundle of
nerve fibers known as corpus callosum, whose primary function is to allow the two
hemispheres to communicate with one another.
The other reason for considering the hemispheres to be separate brains is that they
show considerable functional distinctness. In terms of muscle movement and sensation, each
hemisphere is responsible for half the body – oddly enough, the opposite half. In short, the
brain hemispheres have contralateral responsibilities. That is, the right brain controls the left
part of the body and the left controls the right part of the body. These contralateral
responsibilities of the cerebral hemispheres account for the fact that people who suffer
damage to one hemisphere of the brain as a result of a stroke or accident will exhibit paralysis
on the opposite side of the body.
The hemispheres function differently with respect to higher cognitive functions. The
left hemisphere seems to excel in analytic tasks such as arithmetic and the right hemisphere
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excels in tasks which require an overall appreciation of complex patterns such as the
recognition familiar faces and melodies. But complex mental activities probably involve the
coordinated functioning of both hemispheres. The representation of the language in the brain
provides a useful example of this.
Most right-handed individuals have language represented in their left cerebral
hemisphere and are therefore said to be left lateralized for language but not every aspect of
language is represented in the left hemisphere of right-handers. Adults who have had their
left cerebral hemispheres surgically removed lose most, but not all of their linguistic
competence. They typically lose the ability to speak and process complex syntactic patterns
but retain some language comprehension ability.
It has also been reported that right-handed patients who suffer damage to the right
cerebral hemisphere exhibit difficulty in understanding jokes and metaphors in everyday
conversation. These patients are able to provide only a literal or a concrete interpretation of
figurative sentences such as He was wearing a loud tie. The reason why they frequently
misunderstand people is that they cannot use loudness and intonation as cues to whether a
speaker is angry, excited, or mere joking. Thus the right hemisphere has a distinct role to play
in normal language use.
Finally, a consideration of language representation in the brains of left-handers make
matters even more complex. Contrary to what might be expected, few left-handers have a
mirror image representation for language, that is language localization in the right
hemisphere. Rather, they tend to show significant language representation in both
hemispheres. Thus, left-handers are generally less lateralized for language.
In sum, although the left and right hemispheres have different abilities and different
responsibilities, complex skills such as language do not always fall neatly into one
hemisphere or the other. Research into why this is the case constitutes an important part of
neuroscience. This research promises to reveal much about the cerebral hemispheres and
about the individual representations and processes that comprise language.
5.2.3. The Lobes of the Cortex
As already mentioned earlier, the cerebral hemispheres make distinct contributions to the
overall functioning of the brain. In addition, each hemisphere contains substructures which
appear to have distinct responsibilities. The substructures of the cortex in each hemisphere
are called lobes. Like the hemispheres, the lobes of the cortex can be located with reference
to prominent fissures, sulci, and gyri, which are useful as orientation pints in much the same
way that rivers and mountain ranges are useful in finding particular locations on a map. The
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central sulcus also called the fissure of Rolando extends from the top of the cortex to another
groove known as lateral fissure also called the Sylvian fissure. These two fissures are
important in the delineation of the cerebral lobes. The frontal lobe lies in front of the central
sulcus and the parietal lobe lies behind it. The temporal lobe is the area beneath the lateral
fissure. The fourth lobe, the occipital lobe, is not clearly marked by an infolding of the cortex,
but can be identified as the area to the rear of the angular gyrus, which has been found to play
an important role in reading. To conclude, the following table presents different lobes as
alongside their specialization.
(68) Cerebral lobes and their specialization
N0 LOBE NAME SPECIALIZATION
1 Frontal lobe Planning, prediction, speech, discrete movements of the body
2 Parietal lobe Reading ability, sensation of pain, temperature, touch, pressure, taste
3 Temporal lobe Audition, memory processing, sensory integration
4 Occipital lobe Visual processing

5.3. INVESTIGATING THE BRAIN

5.3.1. Techniques in Investigating the Brain
5.3.1.1. Autopsy Studies
Until recently, the only way to study the brain is through autopsy studies (study of the
brain of the dead persons) carried out on patients who had some neurological disorders. The
relationship was established between the patient’s behaviour before death and the part of the
brain which was found damaged after autopsy. One of such a study was made by Broca, a
French neurologist. He found that a patient who could not speak for 20 years also developed
a paralysis of the right arm and leg. After the autopsy of his brain, Broca found that he had a
severe damage called a lesion to his brain at the left frontal lobe and this area is now called
Broca’s area and is in charge of speech production. Therefore, the impairment of the ability
to speak as a result of brain damage is called Broca’s aphasia.

5.3.1.2. Computerized Axial Tomography

Autopsy analysis has been and continues to be an important tool in the understanding
of the brain. But an autopsy can only be carried out after the patient’s death. Therefore,
whatever information it reveals about the nature and extent of the patient’s brain damage can
no longer be of any use in treating the patient. Computerized Axial Tomography also called

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CT scanning is a relatively new technique which uses a narrow beam of X-rays to create
brain images that take the form of a series of brain slices. CT scans have offered
neuroscientists their first opportunity to look inside a living brain. However, like autopsy, CT
scanning provides a static image of the brain. It is most useful in identifying brain lesions and
tumours.

5.3.1.3. Cerebral Blood Flow Study

Recently, a number of new techniques have emerged that also make it possible to
study the brain in action. One such technique is the cerebral blood flow study. The technique
capitalizes on one of the brain’s many interesting properties – it is extremely hungry of
oxygen. Although the brain accounts for only 2 percent of total body weight, it consumes
about 20 percent of the oxygen the body uses while at rest. This oxygen is, of course, carried
to the brain by the blood. In the cerebral blood flow technique, the subject inhales a gas that
contains a radioisotope such as Xenon 133 which enters the blood-stream and is monitored
with a radioisotope detector. The detector is attached to a computer that produces images of
how much blood is going to particular parts of the brain. Then, the subject is asked to engage
in various sorts of cognitive activities. The neuroscientists observe the relationship between
the subject’s activity and the vertebral blood flow.
Cerebral blood flow studies have greatly increased our knowledge of where language
processing takes place in the brain. It has been found, for example, that when subjects speak,
much blood flows to the occipital lobe (because it is responsible for visual processing), to the
angular gyrus (which has a special role to play in reading), and to other areas of the left
hemisphere. These observations support the view that the left hemisphere is primarily
responsible for language and that there are specific language areas within the left hemisphere.

5.3.2. Learning from Hemispheric connections and Disconnections

In the techniques described above, information about language representation in the
brain is gained through an investigation of the brain itself. This subsection examines the
behaviour that can be associated with a particular brain activity.
5.3. 2.1. Dichotic Listening Studies
Dichotic listening studies have been extremely important in the accumulation of
knowledge we possess about the specialization of the cerebral hemispheres. The technique
capitalizes on the property of the brain that each hemisphere is primarily wired to the
opposite side of the body including the head. So, most of the input to your right ear goes to
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the left hemisphere of your brain. Now, if the left cerebral hemisphere is indeed specialized
for language processing in right-handers, these individuals should process language better
through the right ear.
If you are right-handed, you will most probably be able to verify this by observing the
difference between holding a telephone receiver to your right ear and holding it to your left
ear during a conversation. When the receiver is held to the right ear, it will appear that the
speech is louder and clearer. This phenomenon is called right ear advantage (REA). In the
laboratory technique, stereo earphones are used and different types of stimuli are presented to
each ear. In general, the right ear shows advantage for words, numbers, and Morse code,
whereas the left ear shows an advantage for the perception of melodies and environmental
sounds such as bird songs.
5.3.2.2. Split Brain Studies
If the left hemisphere is wired to the right ear, why is it possible to understand speech
presented to the left ear? There are two reasons for this. The first is that the auditory
pathways to the brain are not completely crossed – there are also secondary links between
each hemisphere and the ear on the same side of the body. The second is that the right
hemisphere receives information from the left ear, that information can be transferred to the
left hemisphere via the corpus callosum – the bundle of fibers that connects the two
hemispheres.
Evidence concerning the crucial role that the corpus callosum plays in normal brain
functioning comes from the study of patients who have had this pathway surgically severed
as a treatment for severe epilepsy. Studies that have investigated the effects of this surgery on
cognition are referred to as split brain experiments. They have provided dramatic illustrations
of what happens when the hemispheres cannot communicate with one another.
It appears from the behaviour of split brain patients that although the right hemisphere
does show some language understanding, it is mute. In one of the many split brain
experiments, a patient is blindfolded and an object, for example a key, is placed in one hand.
When the key is held in the right hand, the patient can easily name it, because the right hand
is directly connected to the left hemisphere, which can compute speech output. However,
when the key is placed in the left hand, the patient cannot say what it is. This right
hemisphere, which receives information from the left hand, knows what is there, but it can
neither put this into words nor transfer the information across the severed corpus callosum to
the left brain.

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5.4. APHASIA
Occasionally, humans suffer damage to particular parts of the brains. The most
common cause of such brain damage is a stroke also known as a cerebrovascular accident. A
language deficit caused by damage to the brain is called aphasia. That is, aphasia is a
language deficit caused by damage to some part of the brain. The study of aphasia is by far
the most important to in investigation of language in the brain. By observing and
documenting the varieties of aphasic symptoms, neurolinguists have the best chance of
identifying the major components of language in the brain.
In general, the amount and type of aphasic disturbance that a patient will exhibit
depends on how much the brain is damaged and where it is damaged.
5.4.1. Nonfluent aphasia
Nonfluent aphasia also known as motor aphasia results from damage to parts of the
brain in front of the central sulcus. As already pointed out earlier, an important part of the
frontal lobe is concerned with motor activity and that the bottom rear portion of the frontal
lobe, Broca’s area, is responsible for the articulation of speech. Nonfluent patients show slow
effortful speech production. That is why we call them nonfluent. The most severe form of
nonfluent aphasia is global aphasia; here the patient is completely mute. Of the less severe
forms, Broca’s aphasia is the most important.
The speech of Braca’s aphasics is very halting. Patients have great difficulty in
accurately producing the needed phonemes to say a word. For example a patient who wishes
to produce the sentence in (69 a) would be likely to produce the utterance in (69 b).
(69) a. It’s hard to eat with a spoon.
b. ... har eat ... wit ...pun
The ellipsis dots (...) between the words in (69 b) indicate periods of silence in the production
of the utterance. Sentences produced at this slow rate tend to also lack normal sentence
intonation. This is a common characteristic of the speech of Broca’s aphasics and is called
dysprosody. Note how the patient simplifies the consonant clusters in the words hard and
spoon and changes the /Ɵ/ to /t/ with the word with. The speech errors that result from these
sorts of phonemic errors are called phonemic paraphasias.
The patient also omits a number of words that would normally be used in this
utterance. The words that are omitted are: it, is, to, a – the sort of words that we too would be
likely to omit if we were writing a telegram. These ‘little words’ are called function words
and their omission in the speech of Broca’s aphasics has been referred to as telegraphic
speech.
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One possible account of the speech of Broca’s aphasics is that it results from an
economy of effort. Speech production is very effortful for these patients so they use as few
words as possible because, like telegram writers, they are ‘paying’ by the word. But there are
other characteristics of their linguistic abilities that point to a deeper cause – the disturbance
of syntactic competence.
In addition to omitting function words, Broca’s aphasics tend to omit inflectional
affixes such as –ing, -ed, and –en in words such as running, chased, and broken. They also
show difficulty judging the grammaticality of sentences. For example, given sentences such
as the ones in (70) below, Broca’s aphasics will not always be able to determine which ones
are grammatical and which ones are not.
(70) a. The boy ate it up.
b. *The boy ate up it.
c. *Boy ate it up.
d. The boy ate up the cake.
Finally, a close examination of the comprehension of Broca’s aphasics offers further
support to the view that there is a syntactic component to the disorder.
(71) a. The mouse was chased by the cat.
b. The dog was chased by the cat.
c. The cat was chased by the mouse.
Broca’s aphasics tend to interpret sentences such as (71 a) correctly. In a sentence such as
this, knowledge about the behaviour of cats and mice helps the patient to guess correctly at
the meaning of the sentence. For sentences such as (71 b), however, in which knowledge of
the world is not a reliable guide to comprehension, patients are unsure about the meaning.
Finally, Broca’s aphasics tend to interpret a sentence such like (71 c), we recognize it as
describing an unlikely event, but our interpretation is driven by the syntax of the sentence,
not by our knowledge of the world. Many Broca’s aphasics appear not to have this ability.
These sorts of observations have lead many neurolinguists to reconsider the
traditional view that Broca’s aphasia is simply a production deficit. The possibility that
Broca’s aphasia also involves some central disturbance of syntactic competence is intriguing
and may lead to a deeper understanding of how syntactic knowledge is represented in the
brain.
A final point about Broca’s aphasia is of a less technical nature but is of great
importance to the understanding of the syndrome as a whole. Broca’s aphasics are accurately
aware of their language deficit and are typically very frustrated by it. It is as though they have
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complete understanding of what they should say, but to their constant dismay, find
themselves unable to say it.

5.4.2. Fluent Aphasia

Fluent aphasia results from damage to parts of the left cortex behind the central
sulcus. It is also known sensory aphasia. Fluent aphasics have no difficulty producing
language, but have a great difficulty selecting, organizing, and monitoring their language
production. The most important type of fluent aphasia is Wernicke’s aphasia. The syndrome
is named after the German physiologist, Carl Wernicke, who in 1874 published a now famous
report of a kind of aphasia that was almost the complete opposite of Broca’s aphasia. It was
determined from autopsy data that this type of aphasia was associated with a lesion in the
temporal lobe just below the most posterior (rear) portion of the lateral fissure. In severe
cases, the lesion could also extend upward into the lower portion of the parietal lobe. This
area of the brain is now known as Wernicke’s area.
In contrast to Broca’s aphasics, Wernicke’s aphasics are generally unaware of their
deficit. Their speech typically sounds very good: there are no long pauses; sentence
intonation is normal; function words are used appropriately; word order is usually
syntactically correct. The problem is that the patient rarely makes any sense. In a less severe
case of Wernicke’s aphasia, the patient produces a number of errors. Although the patient is
able to produce some well-formed structures, these structures appear intermittently amidst
various unrelated fragments. Not only are these constructions unrelated to each other, they
are unrelated to the interlocutor’s questions. In short, a less severe type of Wernicke’s aphasia
is characterized by a speech resulting from a semi-random selection of words and short
phrases. However, in very severe cases of this syndrome, phonemes are also randomly
selected and the result is speech that has the intonational characteristics of English but
actually contains very few real words of the language. This is termed jargon aphasia.
In short, our discussion of fluent and nonfluent aphasia has demonstrated how normal
language use is a marriage of content and form. In the case of nonfluent aphasia, form is
compromised but the content of language remains relatively intact. In contrast, fluent aphasia
is characterized by a rapid flow of form with little content.

5.5. ACQUIRED DYSLEXIA AND DYSGRAPHIA

Reading and writing involve a complex array of perceptual and motor skills. In this
section we will consider impairments of reading and writing which are caused by damage to
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the brain. The impairment of reading ability is called acquired dyslexia or acquired alexia.
By contrast, the impairment of writing ability is called acquired dysgraphia or acquired
agraphia. In both cases the term acquired indicates that the patient possessed normal reading
and/or writing ability prior to brain damage and distinguishes the syndromes from
developmental dyslexia and developmental dysgraphia, which deal with disturbances of
reading and writing development in children.

5.5.1. Reading and Writing Disturbances in Aphasia

Acquired dyslexia and dysgraphia typically accompany the aphasic syndromes
discussed above. Most Broca’s aphasics show writing disturbances that are comparable to
their speaking deficits. In other words, a patient who cannot pronounce the word spoon will
also not be able to write it correctly. This resulting error in writing, for example poon instead
of spoon is called paragraphia. In spontaneous writing, Broca’s aphasics also tend to omit
function words and inflectional affixes. Finally, while the silent reading of Broca’s aphasics
is very good, their reading aloud shows the same telegraphic style as their spontaneous
speech. These observations reinforce the view that the deficit in Broca’s aphasia is much
more than a speech articulation deficit. It is a production deficit at a very deep level of
language planning.
Wernicke’s aphasics also show reading and writing deficits that match their deficits in
speaking and listening. The writing of Wernicke’s aphasics is formally very good. They
typically retain good spelling and handwriting. Their written production, however, like their
speaking, makes little sense. Reading comprehension is also impaired in Wernicke’s aphasia.
Besides, patients can see the letters and words, but cannot make any sense of them. Again the
conclusion to be drawn is that Wernicke’s aphasia, like Broca’s aphasia, is a central
disturbance of language competence – the knowledge that underlies language functioning. In
such cases of central language disturbance, whatever impairment the patient has in listening
and speaking will be matched in reading and writing.

5.5.2. Acquired Dyslexia as the Dominant Language Deficit

In addition to the reading and writing deficits that accompany aphasia, there are many
cases where the disruption of reading and writing ability is the dominant symptom. This
typically follows damage in and around the angular gyrus of the parietal lobe. An analysis of
these types of disabilities has led to some very interesting theories about the nature of reading
at least in English.
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It is important to say a word about the abilities involved in the reading of words.
Some words are familiar to speakers and may be easily recognized while other are unfamiliar.
The question is to know one can know how to pronounce words in the latter category. Many
theorists believe that readers maintain a set of spelling-to-sound rules that enable them to read
new words aloud. These rules are important in the development of reading ability and in the
addition of new words to our reading vocabulary.
Phonological dyslexia is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems to
have lost the ability to use spelling-to-sound rules. Phonological dyslexics can only read
words that they have seen before. Asked to read a word such as blug aloud, they either say
nothing or produce a known word that is visually similar to the target, for example blue or
bug.
Surface dyslexia is the opposite of phonological dyslexia. Surface dyslexics seem
unable to recognize words as wholes. Instead they must process all words through a set of
spelling-to-sound rules. This is shown by the kinds of errors they make. Surface dyslexics do
not have difficulty reading words such as bat that are regularly spelled. They read irregularly
spelled words such as yatch, however, by applying regular rules and thus producing /jat∫/.
The most interesting aspect of surface dyslexics’ reading ability is that they
understand what they produce, not what they see. For example, a surface dyslexic
would be likely to read the word worm as /worm/ and not /wərm/. When asked what
the word means, the patient would answer: the opposite of cold.
Data from acquired dyslexia allow researchers to build models that specify the
components of normal reading ability and their relationship to each other. clearly, this
type of analysis plays a very important role in the development of our understanding
of language, the mind, and the brain.

5.6. LINGUISTIC THEORY AND APHASIA

Looking at aphasia in terms of linguistics theory gives as a new perspective of
language in the brain. Linguistic theory has been traditionally concerned with the structure of
language, not with how it is used in the processes of reading, listening and writing. In
contrast, the traditional way of looking at aphasia has been in terms of what the patient can
and cannot do. The involvement of theoretical linguistics in the study of aphasia has caused a
minor revolution in the field. Aphasia researchers have begun to think about the deficit in
terms of the loss of knowledge representations such as semantic features, phonological rules,

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and perhaps syntactic tree structures. Theoretical linguists have also found that the study of
aphasia offers an important area for tasting theoretical distinctions such as the one between
derivational affixes and inflectional affixes.

5.6.1. Features, Rules, and Underlying Forms

In the area of phonology, the phonemic paraphasias of Broca’s aphasics usually differ
from the target phoneme by only one distinctive feature, for example, ‘with’ [wit] and can
therefore be easily described by phonological rules. Observations like these lead us to believe
that phonological features and rules might be good tools to characterize how language is
represented and produced.
In the area of morphology, the study of aphasia has offered empirical support for the
theoretical distinction between inflection and derivation. Broca’s aphasics show a sensivity to
this distinction in their omission of affixes in speech. Inflectional affixes are commonly
dropped, but derivational affixes are usually retained. Perhaps most interesting is the
tendency of some aphasics to produce underlying forms of morphemes in reading and
repetition. Asked to repeat the word illegal, for example, some aphasics will produce inlegal,
using the underlying form of the negative prefix rather than the allomorph that should occur
before a base beginning with /l/. Again, errors such as these point to the possibility that
phonological processes such as nasal assimilation and the notion of underlying form are not
only an elegant way to represent linguistic competence but are also relevant to the processing
of language in the brain.
The study of aphasia also stands to shed light on the nature of semantic
representations. Most of the work in this area has concentrated on the many subvarieties of
acquired dyslexia. In a syndrome known as deep dyslexia, patients produce reading errors,
which are systematically related to the word that they are asked to read.(in the sense that they
share some semantic features but not others). Given the word mother, for example, a deep
dyslexic is likely to read father.
The detailed study of semantic deficits associated with brain damage has also led to
some very surprising discoveries. Most aphasics and dyslexics find abstract words much
more difficult to express than concrete words. But there have been reports of concrete word
dyslexia in which the patient shows exactly the opposite problem (having difficulty with
concrete words such as table). There has even been a report of a patient who shows a
selective inability to read words that refer to fruits and vegetables.

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5.6.2. Agrammatism
Many theorists now believe that Broca’s aphasia involves a central syntactic deficit.
The syndrome that is characterized by telegraphic speech has been given the name
Agrammatism – to indicate that grammatical ability has been lost. Agrammatism is the
aphasics disturbance that has been most studied by linguists. It is characterized by the
omission of function words such as it, is, to, and a, the omission of inflectional affixes, and
by comprehension deficits in cases where the correct interpretation of a sentence is dependent
on syntax alone.
In recent years, many linguists have become involved in the problems of
characterizing the agrammatic deficit. These problems have raised both specific questions
such as: What exactly is a function word? and general questions such as: Is it possible to lose
syntax? The involvement of linguists has also generated cross-linguistic studies of
Agrammatism that provide interesting insights into the interaction between characteristics of
the syndrome and characteristics of particular languages.

5.6.3. Function Words

Intuitively, function words are grammatical words that can be distinguished from
content words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. In terms of formal syntax, however, they
are quite heterogeneous. They include pronouns, auxiliaries, determiners and prepositions –
items that do not fall into any single syntactic category. Much of the recent work in this area
by linguists has concentrated on working out what exactly the so-called function words have
in common. Some researchers have suggested that they form a phonological group – they are
all words that do not normally take stress. Others have pointed out the fact that function
words do not normally take affixes and therefore form a morphological group. Still others
have suggested that syntactic theory should be modified so that all the words that are lost in
Agrammatism fall under the heading functional category (this would involve changing the
status of prepositions, which are currently treated as lexical categories).
Whatever the outcome of this debate, it is clear that neurolinguistic evidence has
presented a new set of challenges to the field of formal linguistics. One of these challenges is
to build bridges between normal and pathological linguistic competence by finding units of
analysis that are appropriate to both.

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5.6.4. The Loss of Syntactic Competence

Another, much more general, challenge is to define what it means to possess syntactic
competence such that we can speak of its loss. This challenge has forced researchers to
address the question: What is the essence of syntactic knowledge? Is it the hierarchical
arrangement of elements? Is it the representation of abstract entities such as traces?
Some researchers have suggested that Agrammatism involves in the loss of the ability
to form hierarchical representations. They claim that agrammatics interpret sentences as
strings of content words and assign thematic roles to nouns (as opposed to NPs) according to
a default of strategy such as: The first noun is the agent. This strategy works reasonably well
for simple sentences in which the first noun can be assigned the thematic role of agent and
the second noun the role of theme as in sentence (72 a). it results in miscomprehension,
however, for sentences such (72 b) and (72 c), where the first NP does not have the role of
agent.
(72) a. The girl kissed the boy.
b. The girl was kissed.
c. It was the girl that the boy kissed.
Other researchers have argued that Agrammatism does not involve the loss of
syntactic competence, but rather an alteration of that competence. They have claimed that
agrammatics show hierarchical arrangements of elements but can no longer represent the
traces that indicate an NP’s position in deep structure. As a result, they are unable to
recognize that the subject NP bears the theme role since they do not realize that it is the
complement of the verb in deep structure.

5.6.5. Agrammatism in Other Languages

Data from other languages have suggested that the original characterization of
Agrammatism as a syndrome in which function words and inflectional affixes are lost may
not reflect the true nature of this deficit, but rather reflects the fact that such deletions are
possible in English.
In English, affixes are typically attached to a stem that is itself a free form. The past
form of the verb watch, for example, is created by the addition of –ed; the third person
singular is created by the addition of –s. However, not all languages work this way. In
Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, the stem is typically a string of three consonants, which
is unpronounceable in its uninflected form. Inflections are produced by inserting vowels into
the triconsonantal ‘skeleton’. For example, the Hebrew root for the verb to write is /ktv/. The
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masculine third person present form of the verb is /kotev/ and the masculine third person past
form is /katav/. If Hebrew agrammatics simply ‘lose’ inflectional affixes the way they do in
English, they should not be able to produce any verbs. As it turns out, Hebrew agrammatics
do produce verbs, but instead of dropping inflectional forms, they choose randomly among
them. This sort of evidence has provided a convincing argument against the view that
agrammatic language from a simple economy of effort. Rather, it seems that it is a linguistic
deficit that involves the mis-selection of linguistic forms. It is only in languages such as
English, where the stem is also a legal free form, that the Agrammatism is characterized by
affix omission.

5.7. WHERE IS LANGUAGE?

This chapter has been an outline of some important findings that have greatly
increased our understanding of the types of language disturbances that result from damage to
the brain, as well as our understanding of the association between specific areas of the brain
and particular language functions. We have seen that Broca’s area plays an important role in
the articulation of speech, and in the ability to create syntactic representations. Wernike’s
area plays a key role in language comprehension and the area surrounding the angular gyrus
plays a special role in reading.
On the other hand, we have shown that, in an important sense, normal language use
involves the integrated functioning of the entire cortex. Even right-handers who are strongly
left lateralized for language show some language deficit in cases of damage to the right
hemisphere. Finally, virtually all forms of aphasia are accompanied by word-finding
difficulties. This observation suggests that the storage and retrieval of word forms may be
diffusely represented in the brain.
Therefore, there is no simple answer to the question ‘where is language?’ Even if
there were, the task of neurolinguistics would be far from done, for the truly important
question concerning language in the brain is not Where is it? But What is it? Indeed, the
answer to the first question may have little to do with the answer to the second question.
Ultimately, the goal of neurolinguistics is to understand, in neurological terms, what
language is. The field of neurolinguistics is still a long way from being able to specify how
syntax is coded in brain matter, or even how a word is represented. Nevertheless, as our
discussion of Agrammatism has revealed, recent work by neurolinguists has resulted in
important new perspectives on the nature of language competence.
.
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5.8. CONCLUDING NOTE

This chapter is concerned with how language is represented and processed in the
human brain. Dichotic listening studies and split brain studies have shown that the left
hemisphere of the brain carries most of the responsibility for language processing in right-
handed individuals. Neuroscientists have also used autopsy studies, Computerized Axial
Tomography, and cerebral blood flow studies to determine the relationship between particular
areas of the left hemisphere and specific language functions. It has been found that Broca’s
area is primarily responsible for speech production, Wernicke’s area is primarily responsible
for language comprehension, and the area surrounding the angular gyrus plays an important
role in reading. Most of our knowledge concerning language representation in the brain
comes from the study of aphasia – language disturbance resulting from damage to the brain.
Neurolinguists, trained in both linguistics and neuroscience, carefully examine the manner in
which linguistic competence is affected by brain damage. Their goal is to increase our
understanding of how linguistic knowledge is coded in brain matter and how this knowledge
is used in the process of language comprehension and production.

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CHAPTER SIX: LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT

In this chapter, we will look at a variety of social contexts in which one can examine
both the use of language and the impact of extralinguistic factors on language. The topics
range from regional variation in language through social variation in language to studies of
language use in interaction. The goal is to convey the fact that a speech community is highly
complex and structured. A reading of this chapter should leave an awareness that the reality
of language in social contexts is not one proper speech versus all other speech but of a set of
complementary speech varieties that constitute the structured speech community. The chapter
also reveals the analytical techniques and theoretical assumptions that underlie the topics
examined.

6.1. FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

6.1.1. Sociolinguistics
This term refers to the sub-discipline of linguistics that treats the social aspect of
language. It also refers to all research about language in social context. Such research ranges
from the very limited and localized context of a single conversation to studies of language
use by the whole population. Given these quite diverse of research interest, it might be
assumed that many sociolinguists do not share the same fundamental concepts or goals. This
is to some extent true.

6.1. 2. Speech Community

Despite the fact that there are a number of ways of approaching the study of language
in social context, there are nevertheless certain terms and concepts that are common to most
of them. All sociolinguistic studies concern language in a social context, treating speakers as
members of social groups. The group isolated for study is called a speech community. A
speech community may have few members as a family or many members as China. The
important characteristic is that the members of a speech community must, in some reasonable
way, interact linguistically with other members of the community; they may share closely
related language varieties, they may share attitudes toward linguistic norms, or they may be
part of a single political entity.

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6.1.3. Speech Variety / Language Variety

This term refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by one speaker or a group of
speakers. The distinguishing characteristics of a speech variety may be lexical, phonological,
morphological, or syntactic. Usually, they are the combination of all of these. There are
different speech varieties:
1. Social speech varieties: they are known as social dialects or sociolects.
2. Regional speech varieties or regional dialects
3. Functional speech varieties or registers
Sociolects can be broken down into several smaller categories, for example in terms of
the socio-economic status of speakers, the ethnic, sex, occupational or age groups. In most
speech communities, there is a single speech variety called Standard which is perceived by
the members of community to be higher in status and more correct than the others. Apart
from the above speech varieties, we can also mention idiolect which is a variety spoken by
any single speaker. It is determined by the sociolect and the regional dialect of the speaker.
In conclusion, besides the interspeaker differences in speech associated with the
geographical area and the social characteristics of the speaker, there are intraspeaker
differences associated with the speech situation.

6.2. SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION OF LANGUAGE

Social differentiation of language in its broadest sense refers to correlation between
variation in language use and a speaker’s membership in various social groups.

6.2.1. Social Stratification

Perhaps the most frequently invoked social correlate of language differentiation is the
socioeconomic status (SES). SES is associated with the income level type of occupation, type
of housing, education level, and similar characteristics of the speakers. Sociolinguistic
investigations which focus on SES usually involve large random surveys of urban
populations. They typically require respondents to read aloud passages, word lists, and sets of
minimal pairs. They also attempt to elicit speech that more closely resembles natural
(unaffected) language by asking respondents to tell a story about some interesting experience.
The data collected from these surveys are then subjected to quantitative analysis, which may
involve statistical methods.
Approaches to the study of linguistic differentiation in the speech community that
proceed from the assumption that SES is an important (or most important) correlate of
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differences in language usage generally arrive at 9or proceed from) a view of vertical
variation which is known as social stratification of language. It is probably fair to say that
most sociolinguistic studies over the past decades or so have been concerned with this
vertical variation of language and that most have viewed it as a function of the speaker’s
membership in a particular socio-economic class.
Stratification of language, while widespread in the world, is probably not universal. It
is, on the other hand, reasonable to claim that social differentiation of one sort or another is
universal. Underlying this claim is the belief that there are always differences in speech
communities and these differences correlate with the existence of social groups within the
community. These social groups may be functions of the socioeconomic status, gender, age,
ethnicity, or other characteristics of their members.

6.2.2. Other Ways of Studying Social Differentiation

Two alternative approaches which are challenging the traditional methodology are
social network analysis and Principal Components Analysis.
Social Network Analysis A sociolinguist using the social network approach does not rely on
large random samplings of a population but, rather, examines first-hand from the perspective
of a participant-observer the language use of a pre-existing social group. Just as most
sociolinguists may assume that social stratification exists and that this has significance for the
interpretation of data, researchers using the social network approach also make certain
assumptions. These researchers attach importance to the nature of the relationships (and
resulting interactions) of a speaker and interpret linguistic variation in terms of the kinds and
densities of relationships the individual enjoys in various groups.
The density of a network is related to the potential for communication among
members of the network and can be either closeknit or looseknit. A person’s social network
will consist of everyone in every group in which the person plays some role. Closeknit
networks, which typically characterize speakers of the highest and lowest SES groups, exert a
great deal of peer pressure on speakers. They thus associated with language maintenance,
since speakers in such a network, in that they interact with the same relatively limited set of
people in a number of different kinds of relationships, reinforce each other’s speech habits.
Closeknit networks among the high SES groups reinforce either a standard speech variety or
one with high status. Closeknit networks among low SES groups are loci for nonstandard
speech varieties.

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Social networks have been likened to a Chinese fan, in which each group is both
separate but at the same time exhibits overlap with other groups and all groups converge on
the person to its centre. Thus the nature and frequency of interactions in the family group will
differ from those among fellow workers, members of the same sports team, neighbours, and
the like. In a sense, such studies can lend weight to the notion that we ‘talk like those we talk
to’, more especially where those interactants are in a closeknit network.
Principal Components Analysis The newest technique to challenge the traditional approach
is Principal Components Analysis (PCA). This approach has been used in studies of Sydney,
Australia, and St. John’s, Newfoundland, speech communities. PCA is highly quantitative. It
uses statistical techniques that allow the investigator to examine a large number of linguistic
variants, to compare speakers with similar linguistic characteristics (displayed on graphs in
clusters) and, only as a last step, to determine what social similarities are shared by these
linguistically characterized groups of speakers. A particular ‘Principal Component’ is a set of
variables (such as the phonological ones) which can be shown statistically to give the best
account of the data. Groups of people who share particular linguistic features are
characterized in terms of those sets of linguistic features rather than with respect to
preconceived sociological features. Given the lack of a priori assumptions about the
relevance of particular social categories, the results of PCA studies are seen by the
investigators as more reliable pictures of social differentiation than was possible using
traditional methodologies.
6.2.3. The Social Stratification of English
The United States is distinctive in that, instead of a national standard there are a small
number of regional dialects that are regarded as correct in their area. We term this variety or
these varieties as Standard English. These varieties differ principally in their phonology, and
hardly at all in their written form. It is relatively easy to tell an educated Bostonian from an
educated Charlestonian by listening to even their most careful speech; it is virtually
impossible to distinguish the two on the basis of their written work. Varieties other than the
standard are termed nonstandard. This term is to be preferred to the designation substandard,
which suggests some inherent inferiority of such varieties. In fact, the selection of standard
and nonstandard varieties of English and other languages has to do with historical facts about
who spoke which variety when; it has nothing to do with anything intrinsic to the varieties.
Were English history a bit different, Cockney English might be standard English in Great
Britain, and prescriptivists would have great fun in criticizing those speakers who actually
pronounce written h’s.
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6.2.4. Language and Gender

Using the words language and gender in the same context can lead to confusion.
Linguists use the word gender as a label for certain ways languages may subcategorize their
lexicons. The word does not ultimately refer to sex. In popular use, however, and in other
social sciences gender refers to social distinctions drawn between men and women here, we
will use gender in the sociological sense and grammatical gender to refer to the internal
language categories.
Any discussion of language and sex implies that observed differences between the
speech of men and women are biological rather than social. It is far from clear at the present
stage of research what correlations can be made between the biological sex of an individual
and his or her speech. There is a considerable literature on the general topic of language and
gender, which may be taken as including all of the following;
(1) differences in language use associated with the gender (or sexual orientation)
of the speaker or addressee (person spoken to)
(2) differences in language use associated with the gender (or sexual orientation)
of the referent (person spoken about)
(3) efforts to alter the language with respect to ways gender is or is not encoded
Two different, but not necessarily contradictory, views have been advanced as to the
relationship between language and gender. One view, which has characterized much
sociolinguistic research in this area, holds that gender differences in language are simply a
reflection of the way society works. Another view, one often associated with some feminists,
claims that, far from merely reflecting the nature of society, language serves as a primary
means of constructing and maintaining society. The continued use in English, for instance, of
male forms (such as chairman) in a generic sense excludes women and is seen as
perpetuating a social order in which women are invisible. Thus attitudes as to how people
should talk and, indeed, how they are to regard their own status within society are formed by
language and continue to be reinforced unless language changes (or is altered).
There is certainly truth in both of these views. Clearly language does mirror society
with respect to what is seen as important and even normal. On the other hand, if groups
(whether gender, ethnic, or other) are marginalized by the way they are categorized or
labelled by language, then this issue must be addressed and certain aspects of the language
may need to be changed in order to include rather than exclude particular groups (p. 432).
Gender-Exclusive Differentiation

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Gender-exclusive differentiation refers to the radically different speech varieties men

and women possess in a particular society. In some societies, a woman or a man may not
normally be allowed to speak the variety of the other gender. It is in this sense that the
varieties are gender-exclusive. A society in which this is the norm is typically one in which
the roles assigned the sexes are rigid, and in which there is little social change.
This phenomenon has been observed in some Amerindian societies but is no longer as
widespread as it probably was in the remote past. A study of Koasati (a Muskogean language
spoken in Louisiana) showed that members of this speech community possess different verb
forms based on the gender of the speaker.
Gender-exclusive differentiation has assumed an even more radical form, and a rarity,
is one in which the gender of the speaker and that of the addressee are both encoded in the
language. An example of this is Biloxi, an extinct language of the Siouan family. In this
language, the form of an imperative would vary according as the speaker is a male addressing
a male or a female and vice versa.
Gender-Preferential Differentiation
Gender-preferential differentiation is much more common in the languages of the
world than is gender-exclusivity. This phenomenon is reflected in the relative frequency with
which men and women use the same lexical items or other linguistic features. If, as is often
asserted, female English speakers use words such as lovely and nice more often than do male
speakers, we can claim that English speakers exhibit gender-preferential differentiation.
Women have also been shown to possess a greater variety of specific colour terms than men
in North American society. There is no evidence to show that women have more acute colour
perception than do men. Men are reputed to possess larger lexicons in areas associated with
traditional male activities (such as particular occupations and sports). These examples may
appear stereotypical, but they do reflect the sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, differences
between the activities of members of the two genders. ‘It is not language that is sexist but the
attitudes of its speakers’ (p. 434).
Other differences between men’s and women’s language in North American society
are seen in women’s more frequent use of politeness formulas. That is, women are more
likely to use less direct ways of requesting than the straight forward command. In other
terms, although all the ways of phrasing a request are available to all speakers, these ways are
not equally selected by male and female speakers.
Talking about men and women, the most obvious way in which sex differences with
respect to a referent are manifested in English is through grammatical gender. The use of
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English pronouns is instructive in this regard. We do not employ he, for instance, to refer
only to males. In Standard English, it is used as a generic third person singular pronoun when
the sex of the referent is unknown or irrelevant. Thus, we occasionally still hear sentences
such as Did everyone turn in his assignment today? even if the entire group of referents
consists of women. However, we more often hear utterances such as the following: No one
can with impunity take the law into their own hands. in this sentence, we have an instance of
singular (gender-indefinite) they, which is widespread in colloquial English and which
denotes an indefinite individual of unspecified gender. For people who utter sentences of this
sort, the pronouns she and he are reserved for reference to individuals whose gender is
known.
English nouns, though not overtly marked for gender like those in Latin, Russian, or
many other languages, do distinguish between women and men. Generally in English, nouns
referring to occupations are at one both masculine and generic. There occasionally are female
forms for the names of occupations (sculptress, actress, usherette) but these evolved to
connote more than just the sex of the practitioner of the occupation. Many observers feel that
these and similar forms trivialize the women so labelled. A woman who acts in films
pointedly identified herself as an actor in an interview, not as an actress. She said that actor
connoted for her someone who was serious about the craft, while actress did not.
The element –man has come under considerable scrutiny in the recent past with
respect to its reference. The pervasiveness of male-referential forms used generically (as in
chairman, postman, and mankind) disturbs many observers, who feel that such language not
only reflects discriminatory historical values but also perpetuates them (p. 434).
This concern has resulted in moves to eliminate discriminatory forms from language.
In many instances, the suffix –man has been changed to gender-neutral –person. Other
morphological processes have resulted in the creation of new forms (a postman becomes a
letter carrier, and a fireman becomes a fire fighter). Changes have also come about in the use
of pronouns. In many cases, regulations, laws, and the like have been rewritten to eliminate
discriminatory masculine forms, replacing them with forms such as he/she or generic they.
Whatever the future holds, many people’s sensitivity to the ways in which the gender of
referents is (or is not) encoded in language has been heightened over the past few years.
Replacement of sexist nouns with gender-neutral ones and a few adjustments in the
use of third-person pronouns contribute, of course, to the creation of a less biased language.
Advocates of the view that language does not merely mirror society but rather molds it would
point to further and more wide-ranging examples of sexism which should be reformed.
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Deferential uses of language by women (the use of politeness formulas or hedges, for
example) would be supplemented by more assertive behaviour. Unequal treatment of men
and women in various areas of the language would be levelled out. For, in this view, as long
as these inequalities exist, they reinforce the status quo and leave women as a marginalized
group.
6.2.5. Euphemism
Euphemism is the avoidance of words that may be seen as offensive, obscene, or
somehow disturbing to listeners or readers. Items that are euphemized are said to be tabooed.
The word taboo was borrowed from the Tongan language and, in its most general sense,
refers to a prohibition on the use of, mention of, or association with particular objects,
actions, or persons. As originally used in Polynesia, taboo had religious connotations, But in
sociolinguistics it now denotes any prohibition on the use of particular lexical items. Taboo
and euphemism are thus two faces of the same coin.
In the English-language speech community, the most obvious taboos are not religious
but sexual. Despite a recent tendency toward the relaxation of some prohibitions on the use of
explicit terms relating to sex, many such taboos still exist. These long ago gave rise to the use
of euphemisms (often technical terms of Latin and Greek origin) in ordinary conversation.
They enabled speakers to avoid the more earthy colloquial lexical items.
The first item in the taboo list in (73) is an example of the lengths to which Victorians
went in order to avoid mention of anything they felt to be suggestive. Leg was seen to be too
explicit a reference to the body, particularly the female body, and thus was replaced by the
more generic term limb.
(73) Taboos and Euphemisms relating to sex
Tabooed word Euphemism
Leg Limb
Cock Rooster
Breast Bosom
Fuck Copulate, make love

This was the language fashion during an age when women wore floor-length dresses and
piano legs were covered out of modesty on the part of their owners. Rooster is a North
American euphemism for older cock. It is derived from the verb roost and replaced a word
that had come to be used to denote ‘penis’.

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Another set of taboos in the English-speaking world have to do with excrement (see
74 below).
(74) Taboos and Euphemisms relating to excrement
Tabooed item Euphemism
Shit Poop
Fart Break wind
Piss Pee
Toilet Convenience, facility, commode

The word toilet is an interesting example of a euphemism that, after long use, has itself come
to be taboo. It came to be used in French in the past as a euphemism for the word meaning
restroom. It originally meant ‘little towel’. English speakers who avoid a word such as toilet
in the late twentieth century might be deemed prudish, but they do nevertheless exist.

6.3. DIALECTOLOGY
Dialectology is the study of regional dialects. The early works in dialectology were
concerned mainly with phonology, then with phonology and sometimes lexicon in second
place. Dialectologists have been comparatively less interested in morphology and syntax.
Sociolinguistics is bigger than the regional or dialectology because it encompasses different
levels of linguistic analysis.

6.4. MIXED LANGUAGES

No natural language is in any sense pure or free from all influence from other
languages. In the world, most languages are mixed. That is, they are composed of elements
from many sources. Examples of this situation are pidgins and creoles. A pidgin is the
combination of two or more different languages. It is not the native language of any group
and it may be used to facilitate communication in trade, and so on (lingua franca.). On the
other hand, a creole is a language which has originated as a pidgin but has become
established as a first language in some community.

6.5. SPEECH SITUATION

Speech situations are social situations in which there is use of speech. The speech
situation is studied by interactional sociolinguistics. A speech situation comprises a number

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of components. In analysing a speech situation, the sociolinguist seeks to specify how each of
these components is realized. Among these components, we can mention the setting, the
participant, etc. The setting can be a classroom, a market, etc. while the participant can be
addresser or addressee.

6.6. CONCLUDING NOTE

This chapter looked at a variety of social contexts in which one can examine both the
use of language and the impact of extralinguistic factors on language. This is the concern of
sociolinguistics which treats the social aspects of language use. Accordingly, the chapter
examines different speech varieties. It also addressed the speech community which is highly
complex and structured. Finally, the chapter also tackled gender and language, dialectology,
mixed languages, euphemism and taboo as well as speech situation.

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