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Introduction to Language

Introduction to Language

Language is the ability to produce and comprehend spoken and written words; linguistics is the study of language.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Describe the key properties and features of language

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

Grammar is a set of rules for generating logical communication.

All languages have a grammar, and native speakers of a language have internalized the rules of that language’s
grammar.

Every language has a lexicon, or the sum total of all the words in that language.

Phonetics and phonemics are the study of individual units of sound in languages.

Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of language.

Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, and the rules of grammar that sentences obey.

Semantics is the study of sentence meaning; pragmatics is the study of sentence meaning in context.

Key Terms

lexicon: The sum total of all words in a language.

grammar: The set of rules a language obeys for creating words and sentences.

Language is the ability to produce and comprehend both spoken and written (and in the case of sign language, signed) words.
Understanding how language works means reaching across many branches of psychology—everything from basic neurological
functioning to high-level cognitive processing. Language shapes our social interactions and brings order to our lives. Complex language
is one of the de ning factors that makes us human. Two of the concepts that make language unique are grammar and lexicon.

Grammar

Because all language obeys a set of combinatory rules, we can communicate an in nite number of concepts. While every language has
a di erent set of rules, all languages do obey rules. These rules are known as grammar. Speakers of a language have internalized the
rules and exceptions for that language’s grammar. There are rules for every level of language—word formation (for example, native
speakers of English have internalized the general rule that -ed is the ending for past-tense verbs, so even when they encounter a
brand-new verb, they automatically know how to put it into past tense); phrase formation (for example, knowing that when you use the
verb “buy,” it needs a subject and an object; “She buys” is wrong, but “She buys a gift” is okay); and sentence formation.

Lexicon

Every language has its rules, which act as a framework for meaningful communication. But what do people ll that framework up with?
The answer is, of course, words. Every human language has a lexicon—the sum total of all of the words in that language. By using
grammatical rules to combine words into logical sentences, humans can convey an in nite number of concepts.

Introduction to Linguistics

Language is such a special topic that there is an entire eld, linguistics, devoted to its study. Linguistics views language in an objective
way, using the scienti c method and rigorous research to form theories about how humans acquire, use, and sometimes abuse
language. There are a few major branches of linguistics, which it is useful to understand in order to learn about language from a
psychological perspective.

Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics is the study of individual speech sounds; phonology is the study of phonemes,
which are the speech sounds of an individual language. These two heavily overlapping
sub elds cover all the sounds that humans can make, as well as which sounds make up
di erent languages. A phonologist could answer the question, “Why do BAT and TAB have
di erent meanings even though they are made of the
same three sounds, A, B and T?”

Morphology

Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of language like su xes and
pre xes. A morphologist would be interested in the relationship between words like “dog”

Major levels of linguistics: This diagram outlines

Syntax

Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, or how people put words into the right order so that they can communicate meaningfully.
All languages have underlying rules of syntax, which, along with morphological rules, make up every language’s grammar. An example
of syntax coming into play in language is “Eugene walked the dog” versus “The dog walked Eugene.” The order of words is not arbitrary
—in order for the sentence to convey the intended meaning, the words must be in a certain order.

Semantics and Pragmatics

Semantics, most generally, is about the meaning of sentences. Someone who studies semantics is interested in words and what real-
world object or concept those words denote, or point to. Pragmatics is an even broader eld that studies how the context of a sentence
contributes to meaning—for example, someone shouting “Fire!” has a very di erent meaning if they are in charge of a seven-gun salute
than it does if they are sitting in a crowded movie theater.

The Structure of Language

All languages have underlying structural rules that make meaningful communication possible.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Explain the hierarchy of the building blocks of language

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

The ve main components of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Along with grammar,
semantics, and pragmatics, these components work together to create meaningful communication among individuals.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of meaning within a language but that doesn’t have
meaning by itself.

A morpheme is the smallest unit of a word that provides a speci c meaning to a string of letters (which is called a
phoneme). There are two main types of morpheme: free morphemes and bound morphemes.

A lexeme is the set of all the in ected forms of a single word.

Syntax is the set of rules by which a person constructs full sentences.

Context is how everything within language works together to convey a particular meaning.

Key Terms

lexeme: The set of in ected forms taken by a single word.

phoneme: An indivisible unit of sound in a given language.

morpheme: The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning, such as “un-“, “break”, and “-able” in the
word “unbreakable.”

Every language is di erent. In English, an adjective comes before a noun (“red house”), whereas in Spanish, the adjective comes after
(“casa [house] roja [red].”) In German, you can put noun after noun together to form giant compound words; in Chinese, the pitch of your
voice determines the meaning of your words; in American Sign Language, you can convey full, grammatical sentences with tense and
aspect by moving your hands and face. But all languages have structural underpinnings that make them logical for the people who
speak and understand them.

Rapping in American Sign Language: Shelby Mitchusson performs an ASL translation of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. ASL and other
sign languages have all the same structural underpinnings that spoken languages do.

Five major components of the structure of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. These pieces all work
together to create meaningful communication among individuals.

Phonemes

A phoneme is the basic unit of phonology. It is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a
change of meaning within a language, but that doesn’t have meaning by itself. For example, in
the words “bake” and “brake,” only one phoneme has been altered, but a change in meaning
has been triggered. The phoneme /r/ has no meaning on its own, but by appearing in the word
it has completely changed the word’s meaning!

Phonemes correspond to the sounds of the alphabet, although there is not always a one-to-
one relationship between a letter and a phoneme (the sound made when you say the word).
For example, the word “dog” has three phonemes: /d/, /o/, and / g /. However, the word
“shape,” despite having ve letters, has only three phonemes: /sh/, /long-a/, and /p/. The
English language has approximately 45 di erent phonemes, which correspond to letters or Major levels of linguistic structure: This
diagram outlines the relationship between
combinations of letters. Through the process of segmentation, a phoneme can have a types of linguistic units. Speech sounds
make up phonemes, which make up words.
particular pronunciation in one word and a slightly di erent pronunciation in another. Words make up sentences, which have
literal meanings and contextual meanings.

Morphemes

Morphemes, the basic unit of morphology, are the smallest meaningful unit of language. Thus, a morpheme is a series of phonemes that
has a special meaning. If a morpheme is altered in any way, the entire meaning of the word can be changed. Some morphemes are
individual words (such as “eat” or “water”). These are known as free morphemes because they can exist on their own. Other
morphemes are pre xes, su xes, or other linguistic pieces that aren’t full words on their own but do a ect meaning (such as the “-s” at
the end of “cats” or the “re-” at the beginning of “redo.”) Because these morphemes must be attached to another word to have
meaning, they are called bound morphemes.

Within the category of bound morphemes, there are two additional subtypes: derivational and in ectional. Derivational morphemes
change the meaning or part of speech of a word when they are used together. For example, the word “sad” changes from an adjective
to a noun when “-ness” (sadness) is added to it. “Action” changes in meaning when the morpheme “re-” is added to it, creating the word
“reaction.” In ectional morphemes modify either the tense of a verb or the number value of a noun; for example, when you add an “-s”
to “cat,” the number of cats changes from one to more than one.

Lexemes

Lexemes are the set of in ected forms taken by a single word. For example, members of the lexeme RUN include “run” (the unin ected
form), “running” (in ected form), and “ran.” This lexeme excludes “runner (a derived term—it has a derivational morpheme attached).

Another way to think about lexemes is that they are the set of words that would be included under one entry in the dictionary
—”running” and “ran” would be found under “run,” but “runner” would not.

Syntax

Syntax is a set of rules for constructing full sentences out of words and phrases. Every language has a di erent set of syntactic rules,
but all languages have some form of syntax. In English, the smallest form of a sentence is a noun phrase (which might just be a noun or
a pronoun) and a verb phrase (which may be a single verb). Adjectives and adverbs can be added to the sentence to provide further
meaning. Word order matters in English, although in some languages, order is of less importance. For example, the English
sentences “The baby ate the carrot” and “The carrot ate the baby” do not mean the same thing, even though they contain the exact
same words. In languages like Finnish, word order doesn’t matter for general meaning—di erent word orders are used to emphasize
di erent parts of the sentence.

Context

Context is how everything within language works together to convey a particular meaning. Context includes tone of voice, body
language, and the words being used. Depending on how a person says something, holds his or her body, or emphasizes certain points
of a sentence, a variety of di erent messages can be conveyed. For example, the word “awesome,” when said with a big smile, means
the person is excited about a situation. “Awesome,” said with crossed arms, rolled eyes, and a sarcastic tone, means the person is not
thrilled with the situation.

LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

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