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    Phonology

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    fmendoza.7creative
    This document discusses several key aspects of the English language, including phonology, syntax, semantics, and the mental lexicon. It explains that understanding even a simple word requires accessing its phonological representation, orthographic representation, grammatical properties, and meaning stored in our mental lexicon. While the form of words does not indicate their meaning, speakers can assign new meanings to words over time as long as the language community accepts these meanings. The document also provides an example showing how English speakers can automatically generate the plural form of novel words using regular pluralization rules.

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    Phonology

    Uploaded by

    fmendoza.7creative
    13 views2 pages
    This document discusses several key aspects of the English language, including phonology, syntax, semantics, and the mental lexicon. It explains that understanding even a simple word requires accessing its phonological representation, orthographic representation, grammatical properties, and meaning stored in our mental lexicon. While the form of words does not indicate their meaning, speakers can assign new meanings to words over time as long as the language community accepts these meanings. The document also provides an example showing how English speakers can automatically generate the plural form of novel words using regular pluralization rules.

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    Linguistics

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    This document discusses several key aspects of the English language, including phonology, syntax, semantics, and the mental lexicon. It explains that understanding even a simple word requires accessing its phonological representation, orthographic representation, grammatical properties, and meaning stored in our mental lexicon. While the form of words does not indicate their meaning, speakers can assign new meanings to words over time as long as the language community accepts these meanings. The document also provides an example showing how English speakers can automatically generate the plural form of novel words using regular pluralization rules.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    13 views2 pages

    Phonology

    Uploaded by

    fmendoza.7creative
    This document discusses several key aspects of the English language, including phonology, syntax, semantics, and the mental lexicon. It explains that understanding even a simple word requires accessing its phonological representation, orthographic representation, grammatical properties, and meaning stored in our mental lexicon. While the form of words does not indicate their meaning, speakers can assign new meanings to words over time as long as the language community accepts these meanings. The document also provides an example showing how English speakers can automatically generate the plural form of novel words using regular pluralization rules.

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    of 2

    2 ENGLISH WORDS

    such as PHONOLOGY, the study of how sounds are used to represent words in speech,
    SYNTAX, the study of sentence structure, and SEMANTICS, the study of meaning in
    language.
    In order to use even a very simple word, such as frog, we need to access various
    types of information from the word-store which we all carry around with us in the
    MENTAL LEXICON or DICTIONARY that is tucked away in the mind. We need to
    know:

    [1.1]

    (i) its shape, i.e. its PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION/frg/ which enables


    us to pronounce it, and its ORTHOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION frog. if
    we are literate and know how to spell it (see the Key to symbols used on page
    xix):
    (ii) its grammatical properties, e.g. it is a noun and it is countable-so you can have
    one frog and two frogs;
    (iii) its meaning.

    But words tend not to wear their meaning on their sleeve. Normally, there is nothing
    about the form of words that would enable anyone to work out their meaning. Thus, the
    fact that frog refers to one of these simply has to be listed in the lexicon and committed
    to memory by brute force. For the relationship between a LINGUISTIC SIGN like this
    word and its meaning is ARBITRARY. Other languages use different words to refer to
    this small tailless amphibian. In French it is called (la) grenouille. In Malay they call it
    katak and in Swahili chura. None of these words is more suited than the others to the
    job of referring to this small reptile.
    And of course, within a particular language, any particular pronunciation can be
    associated with any meaning. So long as speakers accept that sound-meaning
    association, they have a kosher word. For instance, convenience originally meant
    'suitability' or 'commodiousness' but in the middle of the nineteenth century a new
    meaning of 'toilet' was assigned to it and people began to talk of 'a public convenience’.
    In the early 1960s the word acquired the additional new meaning of 'easy to use,
    designed for hassle-free use’ as in convenience food.
    We are the masters. Words are our servants. We can make them mean whatever we
    want them to mean. Humpty Dumpty had all this worked out. The only thing missing
    from his analysis is the social dimension. Any arbitrary meaning assigned to a word
    needs to be accepted by the speech community which uses the language. Obviously,
    language would not be much use as a means of communication if each individual
    language user assigned a private meaning to each word which other users of the
    language did not recognise.
    Apart from that, it is instructive to listen in on the lesson on the nature of language that
    Humpty Dumpty gave to Alice (see overleaf).
    Let us now consider one further example. All competent speakers of English
    know that you can add -s to a noun to indicate that it refers to more than one entity. So,
    you say cat when referring to one and cats if there is more than one. If you encountered
    in the blank in [1.2a] an unfamiliar word like splet (which I have just made up), you
    would automatically know from the context that it must have the plural form splets in
    this position since it is specified as plural by all. Further, you would know that the plural
    of splet must be splets (rather than spletren by analogy to children or spleti by analogy
    to stimuli). You know that the majority of nouns form their plural by adding the regular
    plural suffix or ending -s. You always add -s unless express instructions are given to do
    otherwise. There is no need to memorise separately the plural form of most nouns. All
    we need is to know the rule that says 'add -s for plural. So, without any hesitation, you
    suffix -s to obtain the plural form splets in [1.2b]:

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