1.

The Origins of Language

This chapter explores various speculative theories about how human language might have
originated. Since language predates writing by tens of thousands of years, we can’t be certain of
its origin, but several ideas have been proposed:

The Divine Source

Many cultures believed language was a divine gift. For example, in Christianity, God gave Adam
the power to name things. The idea is that if children grow up without hearing any language, they
would naturally start speaking the original, divine language. However, such experiments (like
those allegedly conducted by Egyptian Pharaohs or King James IV of Scotland) have never
produced meaningful results.

The Natural Sound Source

This theory suggests that the first words were imitations of natural sounds, like “cuckoo” or
“bang.” This is called the “Bow-Wow Theory”. A related idea, “Pooh-Pooh Theory,” claims that
language began with emotional interjections like “ouch!” or “ugh!” While there may be some
truth, language today is far more complex than sound imitation or exclamations.

The Musical Source

Some scholars believe language developed from music—perhaps our ancestors sang before they
spoke. Emotional and rhythmic sounds may have gradually evolved into structured speech.

The Social Interaction Source

Language might have developed because of the need for cooperation. Early humans may have
used simple vocal sounds during tasks that required coordination (like hunting or building),
helping to build social bonds.

The Physical Adaptation Source

Human physiology supports speech. Features like upright posture, a lowered larynx, a flexible
tongue, teeth, lips, and a complex vocal tract distinguish us from other primates. These
adaptations made articulated speech possible.

Teeth and Lips / Mouth and Tongue / Larynx and Pharynx

These anatomical parts evolved to support speech. For instance, flat, upright teeth and a small,
muscular tongue allow us to produce distinct sounds.

The Tool-Making Source

The brain coordination required for using tools is similar to that needed for language. Developing
fine motor skills for tool use may have enhanced the ability to control mouth movements and
develop language.

The Human Brain

Humans have uniquely large and lateralized brains (left hemisphere controls language for most
people). The critical period hypothesis suggests there’s a limited window in early life to acquire
language naturally.

The Genetic Source

This refers to the idea that humans are genetically predisposed to develop language, supporting
the innateness hypothesis by Noam Chomsky. It suggests we are born with a “language
acquisition device” (LAD) in our brains.

2. Animals and Human Language

This chapter compares animal communication with human language.

Communication

Animals communicate in various ways—via sounds, gestures, chemicals—but their systems are
limited compared to human language.

Properties of Human Language

Charles Hockett identified key features that distinguish human language:

• Displacement: We can talk about things not present (past, future, imaginary).
• Arbitrariness: No natural connection between word and meaning (e.g., “tree” is just a
symbol).
• Cultural Transmission: Language is learned culturally, not genetically.
• Productivity: Humans can create and understand new utterances they’ve never heard
before.
 • Duality: Language has two layers—individual sounds (phonemes) and combinations of
them to form meaning.

Talking to Animals / Chimpanzees and Language

Attempts to teach animals language (especially apes) show mixed results:

• Washoe: A chimp taught American Sign Language (ASL); she learned about 100 signs
and even taught others.
• Sarah and Lana: Used visual symbols to communicate; they could respond to
commands but with limited creativity.
• Kanzi: A bonobo who spontaneously learned lexigrams (symbols) by observing others
being trained; he showed some understanding of word order and creativity.

The Controversy

Critics argue that these apes are trained to mimic behavior, not to produce language creatively.
Human language involves deeper syntax and abstract thought.

3. The Sounds of Language

Here, we shift to phonetics—the study of the physical sounds of human speech.

Phonetics

Phonetics looks at how sounds are produced, transmitted, and heard. It’s the foundation of
understanding language acoustically and articulatorily.

Consonants

Produced with a noticeable obstruction in airflow. Classified based on:

• Voicing (voiced = vocal cords vibrate, voiceless = they don’t)
• Place of articulation (where in the vocal tract the obstruction occurs)
• Manner of articulation (how the airflow is affected)

Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

Put your fingers on your throat and say “zzz” (voiced) and “sss” (voiceless). Feel the vibration?

Place of Articulation
Key places:
• Bilabial: both lips (p, b)
• Alveolar: ridge behind teeth (t, d)
• Velar: soft palate (k, g)
• …and more.

Familiar vs. Unfamiliar Symbols

Linguists use IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) to write sounds, not letters. Some symbols
are intuitive (like /p/), others are less familiar (like /θ/ for “th” in “think”).

Transcribing Sounds (Not Letters)

Important: Phonetic transcription shows how words are pronounced, not how they’re spelled.

Manner of Articulation

Describes how airflow is modified:

• Stops: complete blockage (p, t, k)
• Fricatives: partial blockage (f, s)
• Nasals: air through the nose (m, n)
• etc.

Consonant Chart

Displays all consonant sounds in rows (places) and columns (manners) for easy reference.

Glottal Stops and Flaps

• Glottal stop: sound in “uh-oh” (pause in the middle).
• Flap: quick sound in “butter” (American pronunciation sounds like “budder”).

Vowels

Produced without major obstruction. Defined by:

• Height (high, mid, low)
• Backness (front, central, back)
• Roundedness (rounded or unrounded lips)

Diphthongs
Complex vowels that glide from one sound to another (e.g., “boy” /ɔɪ/, “my” /aɪ/).

American and British Diphthongs

Diphthong use differs across accents. British English may use different diphthongs in words like
“go” or “here.”

Subtle Individual Variation

Even speakers of the same dialect pronounce words slightly differently—this is called idiolect.

4. The Sound Patterns of Language

Now we move from physical sounds to phonology—how sounds function in a language.

Phonology

The study of abstract sound systems. Focuses on patterns, not just raw sounds.

Phonemes

The smallest contrastive sound units (e.g., /p/ vs /b/ in “pat” vs “bat”). Changing a phoneme
changes the meaning.

Natural Classes

Groups of sounds sharing features (e.g., all voiceless stops: /p, t, k/).

Phones and Allophones

• Phones: actual speech sounds.
• Allophones: variations of a phoneme that do not change meaning (e.g., the aspirated /
pʰ/ in “pin” vs. unaspirated /p/ in “spin”).

Complementary Distribution

Allophones occur in different environments and never overlap (e.g., [pʰ] only at word-initial
position).

Minimal Pairs and Sets

Words differing by just one phoneme (e.g., “pat” vs. “bat”). Help identify phonemes in a
language.

Phonotactics

Rules about which sound combinations are allowed in a language (e.g., “str” is allowed in English
but not “zbn”).

Syllables

Each syllable has:

• Onset: beginning consonants
• Nucleus: central vowel
• Coda: ending consonants
The rhyme includes the nucleus and coda.

Consonant Clusters

Two or more consonants together (e.g., “spl-” in “splash”).

Coarticulation Effects

Sounds influence each other in fluent speech:

• Assimilation: a sound becomes more like a nearby one (e.g., “have to” → “hafta”)
• Nasalization: vowels become nasal before nasal consonants (e.g., “man”)
• Elision: omitting sounds for ease (e.g., “friendship” → “frenship”)

Normal Speech

Natural speech is full of shortcuts, variations, and linked sounds—phonology studies these
patterns.

Review Elements in All Chapters

• Study Questions: Encourage you to reflect on key concepts.
• Tasks: Practical exercises to apply what you’ve learned.
• Discussion Topics/Projects: Broader questions to think critically and creatively.
• Further Reading: Suggested texts for deeper exploration.
⸻

5. Word Formation

This chapter explains how new words are created in a language. These processes are fascinating
because they show how language evolves over time.
• Neologisms: These are newly coined words or expressions. As society changes, new
words are constantly created (e.g., “blog,” “selfie,” “binge-watch”).
• Etymology: The study of word origins. Etymology helps us understand where words
come from and how their forms and meanings have changed (e.g., etymology of “alcohol” comes
from Arabic).
• Borrowing: Taking words from other languages. English has borrowed many words, like
piano (Italian) or croissant (French).
• Loan-Translation (Calque): A special type of borrowing where the elements of a foreign
expression are translated literally. For example, skyscraper is translated into French as gratte-
ciel (scratch-sky).
• Compounding: Combining two words to make a new one. These can be open (ice
cream), hyphenated (mother-in-law), or solid (toothbrush).
• Blending: Merging parts of two words. For example, brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog
(smoke + fog).
• Clipping: Shortening a longer word (e.g., advertisement becomes ad, telephone
becomes phone).
• Hypocorisms: A type of clipping where a longer word is shortened and an -ie or -y is
added (e.g., movie from moving picture, telly from television).
• Backformation: Removing a supposed affix to make a new word. Editor → edit, or
donation → donate.
• Conversion: Changing a word’s grammatical category without changing its form. For
example, to Google (verb) comes from Google (noun).
• Coinage: The invention of totally new words, often from brand names, like Kleenex,
Xerox, Google.
• Acronyms: Words formed from the initial letters of phrases. They can be said as words
(NASA, RADAR) or spelled out (FBI, ATM).
• Derivation: The most common word formation process in English. Involves adding
affixes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes) to base words. Example: unhappy, happiness.
• Prefixes: Go before the root (un-, re-, pre-)
• Suffixes: Go after (-ness, -ful, -less)
• Infixes: Inserted into the middle of a word (rare in English, but seen in informal
expressions like fan-bloody-tastic).
• Multiple Processes: Sometimes, more than one process is used. For example, delicate
→ delicatessen → deli involves borrowing, clipping, and shortening.
⸻

6. Morphology

Morphology studies the structure of words and how words are formed from morphemes, the
smallest units of meaning.
• Morphemes: Minimal units of meaning. For example, unbreakable has three
morphemes: un-, break, -able.
• Free Morphemes: Can stand alone as words (e.g., book, run, cat).
• Bound Morphemes: Cannot stand alone and must attach to free morphemes (e.g., -s,
-ed, un-).
• Lexical Morphemes: Carry content meaning, like nouns, verbs, adjectives (e.g., girl,
write, happy).
• Functional Morphemes: Grammatical words like and, in, the, that.
• Derivational Morphemes: Used to make new words or change grammatical categories
(e.g., happy → unhappy, teach → teacher).
• Inflectional Morphemes: Used to indicate grammatical features (e.g., cats, walked,
faster). English has 8: -s (plural), ’s, -s (3rd pers. sing.), -ing, -ed, -en, -er, -est.
• Morphological Description: Describing how morphemes combine to form words.
• Morphs and Allomorphs: Morphs are the physical forms of morphemes. Allomorphs are
variations of a morpheme (e.g., the plural morpheme in cats /s/, dogs /z/, boxes /ɪz/).
• Special Cases: Irregularities, such as men (not mans) or went (past of go).
• Other Languages: Some languages (like Kanuri, Ganda, Ilocano, Tagalog) have richer
morphological systems with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes that work differently than English.

7. Grammar

Grammar is the system of rules that governs how words are put together.
• Traditional Grammar: Based on Latin and Greek models, categorizing words into parts
of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.).
• Parts of Speech: The traditional categories: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition,
conjunction, pronoun, interjection.
• Agreement: Grammar requires agreement in number (singular/plural), person, gender,
etc. (e.g., He eats, not He eat).
• Grammatical Gender: Some languages assign gender to nouns (masculine/feminine/
neuter), unlike English where gender is mostly natural.
• Traditional Analysis: Involves parsing and labeling sentence parts based on their
grammatical roles.
• The Prescriptive Approach: States how language should be used, often based on rules
(e.g., don’t split infinitives, don’t end a sentence with a preposition).
• Captain Kirk’s Infinitive: Famous split infinitive: “To boldly go…” It challenges
prescriptive rules.
• The Descriptive Approach: Describes how language is actually used by speakers,
without judging right or wrong.
• Structural Analysis: Looking at how words function in a sentence by examining their
distribution and position.
• Constituent Analysis: Breaking sentences into parts or “constituents” to see how they
group together (e.g., The boy / ate / the cake).
• Subjects and Objects: The subject performs the action, the object receives it. (The cat
[subject] chased the mouse [object]).
• Word Order: English uses Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). Other languages may differ
(e.g., Japanese uses SOV).
• Language Typology: Classifies languages based on their grammatical structures (e.g.,
isolating, agglutinative, inflectional).
• Why Study Grammar?: To understand how language works, how sentences are formed,
and how meaning is constructed.

8. Syntax

Syntax is the study of sentence structure and how words combine into phrases and sentences.
• Syntactic Rules: Rules that allow us to generate grammatical sentences and avoid
ungrammatical ones.
• Generative Grammar: A theory that describes the implicit knowledge speakers have
about syntax.
• Deep and Surface Structure:
• Deep structure: underlying meaning.
• Surface structure: how the sentence is actually spoken or written.
• Example: Charlie broke the window vs. The window was broken by Charlie – same deep
structure, different surface forms.
• Structural Ambiguity: When a sentence has more than one meaning due to its
structure. Example: She saw the man with the telescope (Who has the telescope?).
• Syntactic Analysis: Examining sentence structure in detail.
• Phrase Structure Rules: Rules like:
• S → NP + VP
• NP → Det + N
• VP → V + NP
These rules describe sentence patterns.
• Lexical Rules: Specify which words can fill which categories (e.g., Det = the, a, my).
 • Tree Diagrams: Visual tools showing the structure of a sentence. They show how words
group into phrases and clauses.
• Tree Diagrams of English Sentences: Examples show how components like NP and VP
connect to form S (sentence).
• Just Scratching the Surface: Even simple sentences have deep structure and complex
rules behind them.

9. Semantics

Semantics studies meaning in language.

• Meaning: Can be word-level or sentence-level. Words are linked to concepts and
experiences.
• Semantic Features: Basic elements of meaning (e.g., [+human], [+animate], [-female]
for man).
• Componential Analysis: Breaking words down into sets of semantic features to
compare meaning.
• Words as Containers of Meaning: Words can be seen as holding meaning, but context
matters too.
• Semantic Roles: Roles participants play in actions:
• Agent: does the action (John opened the door).
• Theme: receives the action (The door was opened).
• Instrument: means used (with a key).
• Experiencer: feels something (She heard a noise).
• Location, Source, Goal: where something is, starts, or ends (e.g., from the kitchen → to
the table).
• Lexical Relations:
• Synonymy: Words with similar meaning (big ~ large).
• Antonymy: Opposites (hot vs. cold).
• Hyponymy: Hierarchical relationships (rose is a kind of flower).
• Prototypes: Most typical example of a category (robin for bird).
• Homophones: Same sound, different meaning (bare / bear).
• Homonyms: Same form, unrelated meanings (bank of a river vs. bank for money).
• Polysemy: One word with related meanings (foot of a person, foot of a mountain).
• Word Play: Puns, jokes based on multiple meanings or sounds.
• Metonymy: Using one entity to refer to another related one (e.g., The White House =
the U.S. government).
• Collocation: Words that often appear together (e.g., make a decision, strong tea).
• Concordance: A tool showing every occurrence of a word in a text, useful for studying
collocations and patterns.