QUIZ FOR THE WEEK 2-11-2016

Question for the week 

Who is the father of modern linguistics?

Write and post your answer in comments.

2-11-2016 MORPHOLOGY

Morphology

Morphology is the study of word formation and the internal structure of words. morphology. This term, which literally means ‘the study of forms’, was originally used in biology, but, since the middle of the nineteenth century, has also been used to describe the type of investigation that analyzes all those basic ‘elements’ used in a language. What we have been describing as ‘elements’ in the form of a linguistic message are technically known as ‘morphemes’.

Morphemes

 The definition of a morpheme is “a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function”. Units of grammatical function include forms used to indicate past tense or plural, for example. In the sentence The police reopened the investigation, the word reopened consists of three morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal unit of meaning is re- (meaning ‘again’) and a minimal unit of grammatical function is -ed (indicating past tense). The word tourists also contains three morphemes. There is one minimal unit of meaning tour, another minimal unit of meaning -ist (marking ‘person who does something’), and a minimal unit of grammatical function -s (indicating plural).

Classification of Morphemes

Free and bound morphemes

 There are free morphemes, that is, morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words, for example, open and tour. There are also bound morphemes,which are those forms that cannot normally stand alone and are typically attached to another form, exemplified as re-, -ist, -ed, -s. 

Lexical and functional morphemes

What we have described as free morphemes fall into two categories. The first category is that set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs that we think of as the words that carry the ‘content’ of the messages we convey. These free morphemes are called lexical morphemes and some examples are: girl, man, house, tiger, sad, long, yellow, sincere, open, look, follow, break. We can add new lexical morphemes to the language rather easily, so they are treated as an ‘open’ class of words. 

Other types of free morphemes are called functional morphemes. Examples are and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in, the, that, it, them. This set consists largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. Because we almost never add new functional morphemes to the language, they are described as a ‘closed’ class of words.

SYLLABUS

University of Al-Zaytuna College of Arts and Science, Tarhuna 

Department of English Language 

SYLLABUS FOR B.A ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMME 2016-2017

 COURSE INFORMATION

TITLE – THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

Subject Code   – TL 401

Credit Hours       – 2 Hours Weekly

Target Audience  – Fourth Year Undergraduates

COURSE MATERIAL

Text book prescribed   -    The Study of Language 

Author                       -      George Yule

Publication                 -      Cambridge University Press

COURSE EVALUATION

Participation & Activities  -5%

Mid-Year Examination    - 35%

Final Examination          - 60%

COURSE OBJECTIVE:

Ø  To understand the nature of language and the scope of linguistics

Ø  To study the sounds of speech in terms of phonetics and phonology

Ø  To understand the study of morphology and morphological processes

Ø  To study restrictions that limit the ways in which sentences are constructed

Ø  To present the differences between formal and functional analysis

COURSE CONTENT

Universal properties of language: Displacement – Discreteness- Cultural transmission - Productivity- Arbitrariness – Duality- Variability

Phonetics and phonology (The sounds of language): Articulatory phonetics- The vocal tract – Place of articulation – Manner of Articulation – Acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics – Phonology – Phonemes and allophones – Alternation and allomorphs – Types of phonological alternations _ Assimilation, dissimilation and elision

Words, word-formation, and morphology

Etymology; Coinage; Borrowing; Compounding; Blending; Clipping; Backformation; Conversion; Acronyms; Derivation; Prefixes and suffixes; Infixes; Multiple processes; Morphemes; Free and bound morphemes: Lexical and functional morphemes; Derivational and inflectional morphemes; Morphological description

Grammar and Syntax

Grammar; Traditional grammar; The prescriptive approach; The descriptive approach; Structural analysis; Immediate constituent analysis; Labeled and bracketed sentences; Generative grammar; Syntactic structures; Deep and surface structures; Structural ambiguity

References:

George Yule, The Study of Language, 3^rd edition, Cambridge University Press (2006)

An Introduction to Linguistics, Postgraduate Certificate Course, CIEFL, Hydrabad, India (2005)

Stuart C. Poole, An Introduction to Linguistics, Palgrave Macmillan, (2000)

Instructor: Shaiju Abraham Panikulam

WELCOME

WELCOME 

Welcome to the Theoretical Linguistics page!  Here you will find an overview of the subject-Theoretical Linguistics - for the academic year 2016-2017. Linguistics gives you a host of valuable intellectual skills including reasoning, and learning how to study language scientifically. 

This blog is a humble attempt for the inquisitive minds just to taste the vast ocean of e-learning. Students are advised to visit the blog regularly to prepare themselves for the weekly lectures as lecture-notes are updated and uploaded on the previous day of the lecture. A prior reading of the lessons and active participation in the discussion would benefit the students for a better understanding of the subject. 

Wish all my students a successful academic year 2016-2017.

Mr.Shaiju Abraham Panikulam

Linguistics Instructor

College of Arts and Science

Tarhuna-Libya