INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - SEMANTICS OF WORDS AND SENTENCES

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - SEMANTICS OF WORDS AND SENTENCES

Idiosyncratic semantic constraints in the grammar result in reference being made using one form instead of another. Logical constraints result in reference not being made at all. Meaning is not merely a reference to concepts in the real world. It depends on linguistic factors in part unique to each individual language; meaning depends not only on the logical combination of real world concepts. The system of language cannot be described only in terms of extra-linguistic logic.

 
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - SEMANTICS OF WORDS AND SENTENCES

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - SEMANTICS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH PRAGMATICS

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - SEMANTICS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH PRAGMATICS

The Module has tried to analyze the basic concept of Semantics and Pragmatics. It has presented various types of semantics on the basis of the occurrence of the meaning. The module has also tried to bring out various types of meaning in various context and the formation of meaning in the sentence. It has discussed the term Pragmatics and several types of contexts in which meaning is formed in regard to the pragmatics. It has also presented different Clements of pragmatics such as Entailment, Presupposition and Implicature. The study has broadly come up with the study of relationship between Semantics and Pragmatics.

 
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - SEMANTICS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH PRAGMATICS

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - EMPTY CATEGORY

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - EMPTY CATEGORY

NPs can be overtly and non-overtly present in a sentence. Overt NPs are physically present and phonetically pronounced while non-overt NPs are not physically present and pronounced at the surface structure. Anaphor, pronominal and referential expressions are three types of overt NPs and their behavioral features in a sentence is regulated by binding mechanisms. Empty category is a cover term for PRO, pro, NP-trace and Wh-trace. All these are non-overt NPs and except PRO rest of the three empty categories share behavioral features with their overt counterparts. Pro behaves like pronominal, NP-trace has the same behavioral features as that of an anaphor and wh-trace behaves like referential expressions. Out of these four empty categories, PRO and pro are base generated and the other two are movement generated. PRO is the non-overt subject occurring at the subject position of non-finite clauses that is an ungoverned position. In English, it is also a case less position. PRO can have either controlled or arbitrary reference. A control PRO can either have a reference controlled by the subject of the matrix clause, known as subject control or it can be controlled by the object of the main clause, therefore the term, object control. Arbitrary PRO has a generic reference. Small pro is the non-overt subject pronoun occurring at the subject position of finite clauses in Pro-drop languages. The presence and absence of pro at the subject position of finite clause in a language is determined by the pro-drop parameter. English is not a pro-drop language. Traces are results of movement rule move-ɑ.When an element in syntactic structure moves from one syntactic position to the other through move-ɑ, it leaves behind traces. Traces can be of two types namely, NP-trace and Wh-trace. NP-trace is a result of DP-movement from one argument position to another. The trace that is left after that movement is called NP-trace. Wh-traces are results of wh-movement i.e. movement of wh- words to the spec of CP, that is movement of a maximal projection to a non-argument position. Wh- movements leave behind Wh-trace. Empty Category Principle governs two of the empty categories namely, NP-trace and Wh-trace. According to ECP, empty categories especially traces must be properly governed. This sums up empty categories.

 
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - EMPTY CATEGORY

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - LINGUISTICS ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - LINGUISTICS ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY

A popular approach points to the similarities between the ontogeny and phylogeny of language. The ontogeny and phylogeny argument has force only if the parallels between primate and child language are genuine. Traditionally, children's language is believed to include abstract linguistic representations and processes even though their speech output may be constrained by nonlinguistic factors, such as working memory limitations.

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - LINGUISTICS ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - WH- Movement

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - WH- Movement

In linguistic there are various types of movement which affects either heads or maximal projections. Wh-movement is an important phenomenon in a language. It is based on government and binding theory. This is a transformational approach of the theory of universal grammar which was developed by Noam Chomsky in 1980s. It is also called as Principles and Parameters theory as it accepts that all languages have universal structural principles together with various parameters on a language-specific basis. According to this theory Universal grammar has two components that are levels of representation and system of constrains. A language can be represented by different levels. First one is mental lexicon which stores different words then predicates which encode their semantic relationship by assigning theta-roles. The lexical items are arranged at D-structure. X-bar theory regulates the position of specifiers adjuncts and complements around a head X within a phrase XP.

The term Wh-movement originates from early Generative Grammar of 1960s and 1970s and used as reference to the transformational analysis. The Wh-expression appeared in its canonical position at deep structure and then moved leftward out of that position to land its derived position at the front of the sentence/clause at surface structure.

 
INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS - WH- Movement