Introduction to linguistics

Core linguistics
Phonetics
Human speech sounds
Phonology:
Morphology: word structure
Syntax: sentences structure
Semantics; language meaning

Applied linguistics
Neurolinguistics: applying linguistics on neurology
Psycholinguistics ; applying linguistics on psychology
Sociolinguistics: applying linguistics on sociology
Pragmatics: how to understand the meaning of language from context
Stylistics: applying linguistics analyses on literature

, As we studied with Pr, Essafi we dealt with Two chapters, one concerning language and
the second is linguistics,
First, where did language comes from? This question with lead us to some theories,
The first theory is BOW BOW theory, which denotes that human imitate animals (nature
language), like birds and wild animals,
Divine theory: language is a gift from God to human beings,
DONDON theory: humans start by naming things in the external world,
Natural evolution theory; means that we are human and we are different from other
creatures, this can be confused with RATIONALIZM, and we will deal with it later.
Now we will move to deal with the features of language, which means what does make
language unique,
Human languages are:
Arbitrary, it has no organized method while learning it
Flexible: we can find that words in language have more than one meaning,

Productive: we can produce it to communicate

Universalism: we all humans have the capacity to learn language, no one is excluded,
Language is learnable: we acquire it and learn it,
Language is interchangeable: we can give it and take it (conversations)
Language is displaced: we live with it, and it is not stable, its always changeable, it has no
location,
Language is imaginable: we can imagine with it,
Language is TACIT: we can understand it without knowing that
Language is power: it gives you the power to debate and to converse with people and to
convince them
LAD: Language acquisition device: its a faculty that we are born with, a capacity to learn
language, and this device differentiate us from other creatures (Rationalism),
For linguist, all languages are the same
The Old trends of linguistics
Medieval LX

Roman LX

Indian LX

Traditional linguistics: this movement deals only with the written languages, so it was
harshly excluded because it neglected the illiterate people who are not able to write,
however, they remain human with languages
Modern linguistics: this movement was established first By Ferdinand de Saussure who
come with the idea that we must examine the written and the spoken languages, so that
we can include all human categories
Linguist: the person whos his main domain is linguistics
Linguistican who is just interested in linguistics
Historical linguistics: the studies of the state of languages during history (comparative
linguistics)
Diachronic: it deals with the change of languages during time
Synchrony: it deals with the state of language in the time of studying it,
Trend of linguistics (schools of linguistics):

Structuralism: it makes language as an object that we need to study without giving

importance to the content, and the person who produce language, in other words, we deal
only with the structure of language (form) and we neglect the meaning and the producer,
the human, for example:
The fish can fly in the sun,
Here the sentence is grammatically correct, yet the it has no meaning (nonsense)
Functionalism: it endorse that language is a tool that have a function, in our society, the
main use of language is just for social communication, and that what this school is
studying.
Behaviorism: language is a series of reaction and responses that human being act in the
world, we mean her that language is a behaviorist method to respond to others , your
language can represent you behavior .
Rationalism / Mentalist: this school is the most influenced one in linguistics history, the
main point that this school deals with is that language is an innate thing; we are born with
the capacity to learn language (LAD) and that capacity differentiate us from other
creatures
Empiricism: in contrary, the Empiricist school argued that we are born with empty brains
like all creatures, yet we learn language due experience,
Comparative philology: this approach deals with language in a historical process,
Language families : Romance language( French, Italian, Spanish ); Germanic languages(
English, German, Swedish) , Slavic languages( polish, Russian), these languages derived
from Latin language and we call them , proto European languages,
Here we will close the chapter that deals with language and start the other chapter that
concerns Linguistics

Linguistics:

Core linguistics,
As we all know, we dealt only with 2 subfield in Core linguistics, Phonetics and
phonology, and these realms subject matter is as we mentioned before, is human
speech sounds, here we will ask a question that Im sure you all have in your brain,
what is the difference between a speech sound and letter?
To answer briefly, a letter is written, and speech sound is spoken, pronounced
To write a speech sound you have to put it in a square brackets like

The speech sounds should be meaningful and functional; they must have meaning to
be examined in linguistics,
For example, if you sneezes , you will produced a speech sounds like (atcho) ,
however, those speech sounds have no importance as soon as they mean nothing,
and are not produced to communicate.
Types of airstream mechanism:
There are two types: the first one we called the Egrissive, we mean here that the air
while producing a speech sound , build in the level of the lungs, and get out
(OUT=EGRISSIVE) . The second type is the impressive=IN the air comes from outside
to enter to the person lungs.
Airstream mechanism: is a system by which the air flows and generated
Pulmunic: the air is in the lung
Glottalic: the air is in the glottal
Velaric: the air is in the velum
In phonetics we have three main branches:
Articulatory phonetics: how speech sounds are produced.
Acoustic phonetics: how speech sounds are transmitted
Auditory phonetics: how speech sounds are perceived
But in our chapter, we are going to deal with only (articulatory phonetics).
As we mentioned before, in phonetics, we are going to deal in speech sounds in
general, yet we need to know the type of speech sounds that we are going to study in
this chapter in linguistics.
Speech sounds generally are lateralized/ divided: into two Groups:
Consonants/ vowels
The first one that we are dealing with is the consonants, but what differentiate
consonants from vowels, as soon as they are both speech sounds?
To produce a consonant, we must use TWO organs of speech to produce it, yet the
vowels need only one organ (the movement of the tongue) to produce a vowel, we will
illustrate more in the coming sections.
To describe a consonant you need 3 descriptions to adapt the correct answer in the
exam.
The first is the place of articulation: where this speech sounds was produced, and
what are the organs which we use to produce them

To produce a speech sound we need organs and those organs, and these organ exist
in our mouth,
Our mouth is divided into two areas, the oral cavity: (the place where the tongue and
the teeth and the palate till the glottis exist) and the nasal cavity, (it took place above
the oral cavity)
The second is the Manner of articulation, how the speech sounds is produced, and
that include in the first place the way the air flows,
The last one is Voicing: consonants can be voiced and voiceless, and that by
examining the vibration in the vocal cords, try to produce (b) and (p) you will find that
B is more powerful and take more energy than the soft P.
In place of articulation, we have 10 places and each place denotes that organ that we
use to produce it,
Bilabials: here we use the lips to produce a consonant like (p), (b), (m) and (w)
Labiodentals: here from the first sight labiodentals contains two words (labio) = lips
and dental (teeth), so we produce a certain consonant by using here two organs, lips
and teeth, specifically, the upper teeth with the lower lip, try to produce (V) and (f)
Dental: here the tip of the tongue touches the teeth, like in( ) like bo(th) and ( ) in
(Th)ese, here we can notice that the tip of the tongue reach the back of the teeth
Alveolars : immediately after the teeth you will find a small bone like a step after the
teeth, we call this place the alveolar ridge, when the tip of the tongue reach the
alveolar ridge, we produce consonants like( T) and (d) , (s) and (Z) and (L) and (R ),
Alveopalatals: just after the alveolar ridge, we have a place that we call the hard
palate, its a bony organ and hard, in alveopalatal we can notice that the word contain
two organs: the palate and the alveolar ridge, and when the front of the tongue rich
that place we produce consonants like: = sh: shoes, and = j : jeans and ( ) like in
the word (change) and () like in the word (generation)
Palatals: we produce palatal consonants by an interaction between the palate and the
blade of the tongue, like in word (new ) N here become( ) try to say, neuro , or new,
you will immediately figure out that the blade of the tongue touches the palate
Velars: just after the palate we have a soft place that we call the velum(soft palate)
and when the blade of the tongue reach the velum, we produce consonants like (k)
and (g) and (x)= kHz in words like khadija,
Uvulars: uvula is that small flesh that we can see when we face a mirror, it has a
function in producing consonants like the Arabic ( q) in qalb ()
Pharyngeals : at the level of the pharynx ( )we produce consonants like (h) and
()= ()
Glottals : the glottis is the last back part in the oral cavity, whenre we produce a
consonant like ()=()

In manner of articulation, we are examining HOW we produce consonants

Oral Stops or plosives: in this level while producing a consonant, the air stops then
explodes, like in (p) you stop for a short period, then you the air explodes, these we
call them, stops or plosive , like (p) (b) , (k) , (g) (t) , (d)
Nasal stops; the air get out from the nasal cavity not the oral cavity , the consonant
produced from your nose, like in (n) and (m) and ()
Fricatives: the air stream is free; its not stopped, or unleashed, like in (s) and (z) and
(x) () and (h)
Affricates : it combination between the stops and the fricatives like the consonant (t)
= (t) is a stop and () is fricative ,
Liquids : in this level we have only two consonants: (L) and (R ) but we can distinguish
between them by lateralization/ division
In (L) we can notice that the air flow from the tongues sides which mean divided , so
(L) is a lateral liquid , yet (R ) is a non lateral liquid because the air flows from the
tongues surface,
The last manner of articulation is the glide or semivowels or approximants, we call
them semivowels because they are near from being vowel, either consonants, like (w)
and (j)=
The last feature in the consonants description is the voicing, it may seem an easy task
to distinguish voiceless from voiced consonants.
Examples:
(p) Is a bilabial oral stop voiceless
(t) is an alveolar oral stop voiceless
(r ) is an alveolar non lateral liquid voiced
(z) is an alveolar fricative voiced
For vowels, it may seems hard to have a standard reference to refer to, because
vowels differs from one to another, yet cardinal vowels were established t o make a
reference for all vowels
As we mentioned before in consonants we need 3 levels to describe a certain
consonant, nevertheless, a vowel need 4 levels to be described,
The Vertical position of the tongue: is the tongue get high or take a meddle place or
low,
The horizontal position of the tongue: when the tongue get high or low , which part of
it moves, the front? Or the central, Or the back?

Vowels need Energy to be produced, however, vowels are not the same in their
production, some of them need more energy like () in ( cat) which is pronounced as
(kt), or less energy, like the vowel () in (Cut) = Kt
So for the long vowels we called them tense like ()
And the short vowels we called the LAX like ()
The last level is the shape of the lips: how the lips becomes while producing thee
vowel, for example:
The lips get spread/ unrounded in some vowels like: (i) and (a) and ()
The lips get rounded in vowels such as (o) and (u)
Now if you are asked to give a description of a vowel, your answer shall be like:
(i): high

front

unrounded

The tongue get a high position

bilabial

Labio-dental

Stop
P b
Nasal
M
fricative
F
Affricate
Liquid
gilde
w

the front part of the tongue the lips are spread

dental Alveolar Alveo-palatal palatal velar

T
V

tense

d
N
z

Lr

it needs more energy

uvular

g Q

pharyngeal glottal

To understand the vowels more try to access to the internet and look for in youtube
website about Cardinal vowels,
Here we will close the chapter of phonetics, as we said before, phonetics deals with
speech sounds in general , and phonology in specific because in phonetics we deals
with all languages in a genanral way of analyses, yet, each language has its own
phonology, for example:
English phonology is different from the french phonology and the Arabic phonology,
we will explain it later,

Phonology
In phonology we study the pattern of speech sounds in each language, it refers to the
knowledge that we have about our native language, the pattern of sounds that we have
about our language

When we use a particular speech sound between brackets, we represent a speech

sounds in the surface , but in phonology , we use slaches /x/ to refer to what we call a
phoneme,
A phoneme is the abstract speech sound that we have in our brain( not represented) in
the external world,
Phonology is practical, we mean here that we apply analyses in a certain DATA, that
can be a mother tongue, or a foreign language, and analyze how a certain speech
sounds can be changed without changing the meaning, or how they can be changed
with the change of the meaning, or how they can be completely different in term of
position and the meaning,
To illustrate more, I will provide a data with analyses solved,
When we are giving a certain Data, we have 3 phonological rules to apply on, the first
one is the minimal pair/ minimal set: in this level, we must look in the Data and look for
the Speech sounds that we are asked to examine, and search for the position of these
speech sounds, without giving importance to the meaning, example:
Examine the following Data:
1-/Kade/ : dog

4- / maten/ : frog

2-/kate/ : sleep

5- / malen/ : clear

3-/maden/ : kill

6-/ kufa/ : here

The question here is: are (t) and (d) and (l) separate phonemes or, are allophones of
the same phoneme,
The answer here is
(t) And (d) are separate phonemes, why because they have the same environment /
position and they dont have the same meaning, so we have here a minimal set in the
cases number 3 and 4 and 5
See the Data again, you will find out that we have a minimal pair there, in the cases
number 1 and 2
They have the same position and the meaning differs, the meaning is not important in
the cases of the minimal pair and set
The rule is the free variation, it is probably easy to look for the free variation as soon
as you are asked to examine a data and look for phonemes inside words that have the
same position and the same meaning, for example:
Examine the following Data,
1-/ ku:zi/ : girl

4- /fa:sin/ : boy

2-/ ku:si / : girl

5- / bo:zan:/ murder

3-/Bo:san/ : kill

6-/ fa:zin/ the sea

Here the question will be :

Are ( s) and (z) separate phonemes? Is there any free variation in the following data?
or are they allophones of the same phoneme?
Here we have a free variation in the case 1 and 2 because they have the same meaning
and the same position and also in the case number 3 and 5 , yet in number 4 and 6 we
dont have a free variation because the meaning changes ( boy) and ( the sea) here we
have a minimal pair.
So the answer here will be like that: free variation , because they occur in the same
place and have the same meaning

But you have always to look at the phonemes that your asked to
examine , be careful
The last phonological rule here is what we called Complementory distribution ,
Examine the following Data,
1-/Deutsch/: German language
man

5- /Deutsher/ : German

2-/Bite/ : sorry

6- /Volk/ : people

3-/tun/ : kill

7- /medchen/ : girl

4-/Traurig/ : Bad

8-/Gut/ : Good

The question here is : are (t) and (d) separate phonemes? Is there any free variation?
Or are they allophones of the same phoneme? State the phonological rule,
The fisrt thing that we do here is to look for a minimal pair, but we dont have here,
then is there any free variation? Awfully no, so the last step here is to start analyzing
the data follow this method:
Create a small chart like this:
T
V-C -V-C -V-V
V-C : between a Vowel and Consonant

D
--V-C

V-V between two vowels

-- = in the beginning of the word
So here we found that (T) has more cases than( D) , so (T) is the phoneme and then
we put a tree like that:

/T/

(D)

(T)

Initially and V-C

elsewhere

We put elsewhere under (T) because it has more cases then (D) , look at the chart
above.
So the answer her is that (D) and (T) are allophones of the phoneme /T/
The secondary articulation :
In this chapter we are going to talk about how some consonant affect other when we
try to communicate with each other(casual speech)
They are 5 secondary articulation which are:
Palatalzation / pharyngealazation/ nasalization/ labilazation/ aspiration
If we want to palatalize a certain consonant, we must know first what are the palatal
consonant that we have in this process , the palatal consonant is (j) like in Arabic for
example:
I hate you ======= when we pronounce it, it becomes I hatch you ( I hit ju)
So the question here , how does the consonant (t) becomes (tch)
Here the answer is that the palatal (y)=(j) affect the ( t) to become tch in our casual
speech
So the process here is palatalazation
Another example in palatalazation is loose you
When we pronounce it becomes (lu ju) so how the (s) becomes () ?
The process is palatalisation because we palatalized the s to became in our casual
speech,
The second one is labilasation, as we mentioned above , we need palatals to affect
consonants, but in this process we need the bilabial (w) to labialize a certain
consonant for example:
The word (few) is produced like (fu: ) however it becomes ( fw) in our informal
conversation, so the consonant F is labialized by the consonant W which affects it
when we try to converse ,
Nasalization : here we dont have this process in the English language, yet in French
for example, the word ( bon) is produced with the (n) like (bo) but the nasal ( n) affect it
a little, so we produced it with some of the nasal influence on the vowel (o)

Pharyngealazation, is the process in which the pharyngeal consonant (H) affects a

certain consonant like aspiration, however in the English language, we have it only in
the voiceless stops like(p) and (t) and (k) for example:
Paul is a name , but in (P) we can find that it can be affected by the consonant ( h) and
produced like Paul ,
This is all folks , Good luck