N.

Jalal 2017

Introduction to Linguistics
Linguistics as a Science
It is commonly believed that linguistics is a scientific discipline in the sense that it deals
with a specific body of material (a corpus), namely spoken and written language; and in the
sense that it proceeds by developing scientific theories for the analysis of natural languages,
theories that go beyond the levels of observational and descriptive adequacies to attain the
level of explanatory adequacy.
In other words, it is generally held that by the scientific study of language is meant that
the investigations are conducted on the basis empirically verifiable observations and on the
basis of a reference to some theory (or theories) of language.
However, for Chomsky, the object of study of linguists is competence rather than
performance. To know about the competence that a native speaker has about his language,
appeal has been made to native speaker’s intuition (the speaker’s judgments) or introspective
evidence for the corroboration or rejection of the acceptability of certain data. The recourse to
the native speaker’s intuition has been used, by some linguists, as proof of the nonscientific
character of linguistics since intuition is not amenable to direct observation and empirical
verification. This, however, is a controversial issue and simply not a valid theoretical
objection because, on the one hand, intuition is also resorted to in other ‘scientific’ disciplines
such as mathematics, physics, etc. As a matter of fact, progress in any scientific branch of
knowledge has always, in the first instance, depended on the intuition or insight of some
individual/scholar. This means that the objection to intuition in a scientific discipline is not to
its use (or all sciences would at once cease to progress), but rather its objections are to its use
as the final justification of a particular theoretical. In other words, intuition could be used as
part of the equipment of the scientist but not as a means of justification of a particular
statement. Initial judgments by native speakers may well be set aside in the light of further
investigations.

Components of Linguistics
The obvious complexity of language makes it unworkable for the linguist to try
and describe it all at once. Thus, the linguist concentrates at any one time on different though
interrelated aspects of his subject matter. These different aspects have been called levels of
analysis. Phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and to a lesser extent semantics and
pragmatics are familiar enough.
Phonetics
General Introduction
The study of speech sounds is called phonetics. The science of phonetics attempts to
describe all the sounds used in all natural languages –the sounds that constitute a small but
extremely important fraction of the totality of sounds that human beings are capable of
producing.
There are three levels of speech sound analysis. The first level, concerned with the
study of the physical properties of the sounds themselves and how sounds are affected while
travelling through the air, is called acoustic phonetics. The second level, concerned with the
study and description of how speech sounds are produced, is called articulatory phonetics.
The last level, concerned with the way the speech sounds are perceived by the hearer is called
auditory phonetics.
Organs of speech

What are the major anatomical components of the speech system for human language?

Subglottal System

The first major segment of the speech system is the subglottal system, which
comprises the lungs, the diaphragm and the trachea.
When the air is pressed out of the lungs, it travels up the trachea, or windpipe, to the
larynx, which contains folds of muscle called the vocal folds (sometimes called vocal cords).
These folds can be relaxed, letting air flow freely through the glottis (the opening between the
vocal folds) or tensed, so that the air vibrates as it passes through the glottis.

Above the Larynx

The area above the larynx consists of three main areas: the pharynx, the nasal cavity,
and the oral cavity. The pharynx consists of the area above the larynx and below the uvular.
The oral cavity is the area from the back of the throat to the mouth. The major parts of the oral
cavity that are used in speech production are the uvular1, the velum2, the tongue, the hard
palate, the alveolar ridge3, the teeth, and the lips.

1
The uvular is that fleshy blob that hangs down in the back of the throat.
2
The velum is the soft palate.
3
The alveolar ridge is a mass of hard cartilage behind the teeth. .
 Diagram of the speech organs

Airstream Mechanisms
In phonetics, initiation is the action by which an air-flow is created. Along with
articulation, it is one of the two mandatory aspects of sound production: without initiation,
there is no sound. The means of initiating a phone is called its airstream mechanism.
There are two directions of airflow: an outward air-flow and an inward air flow.
Sounds pronounced with an outward air-flow are called egressive, and those pronounced with
an inward air-flow are called ingressive.
There are three initiators of air-flow, the lungs, the glottis, and the tongue and three
airstream mechanisms used by natural languages.
Pulmonic: where the air is pushed out of the lungs by the ribs and the diaphragm. All
human languages employ such an airstream as in the production of vowels and many, such as
English and Arabic, use it exclusively.
Glottalic: It is possible to initiate an air-flow in the upper respiratory tract by means of the
vocal cords or the glottis.
 To perform a glottalic pressure initiation, one lowers one's glottis, closes it as if for a
glottal stop, and then raises it, building up pressure in the upper trachea and oral cavity.
Glottalic eggressives are also called ejectives. Since the glottis must be fully closed to form
glottalic egressives, it is impossible to pronounce voiced ejectives.
To perform glottalic suction initiation, the sequence of actions performed in glottalic
pressure initiation is reversed:  one raises one's glottis, closes it, and then lowers it to create
suction in the upper trachea and oral cavity. Glottalic ingressives are also called implosives.
Velaric or Lingual: The initiator here is the tongue. The air in the mouth is rarefied by a
downward movement of the tongue. Velaric stops are more commonly known as clicks, and
are almost universally ingressive.

Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

The airstream from the lungs moves up through the trachea, or windpipe, and through
the opening between the vocal cords, which is called the glottis.
If the vocal cords are apart, the airstream is not obstructed at the glottis and it passes
freely into the supraglottal cavities (the parts of the vocal tract above the glottis), the sounds
produced in this way are called voiceless sounds, such as p,  t, k and s.
If the vocal cords are together and the airstream forces its way through and causes
them to vibrate, such sounds are called voiced sounds; b , d, g, and z are instances of
these sounds. We notice then that the only difference between the first set in the previous
paragraph and the second set in this paragraph is in voicing. The state of the vocal cords
during speech permits us, thus, to classify speech sounds into two large classes: voiced and
voiceless or + voiced and - voiced.

What further differences are there?

Nasal vs. oral sounds:

The top of the pharynx is like a crossroad. The airstream can exit the pharynx in two
ways, depending on the position of the uvular :

 if the uvular is lowered, the air will pass through the nasal cavity ;
 if the uvular is raised, access to the nasal cavity is cut off, and the air can only pass
through the oral cavity.
The sounds produced via the first method are called nasal; those produced the other way, oral.
The nasal/oral opposition concerns vowels as well as consonants.

Articulatory Modification of Sounds

In order to form consonants, the airstream through the vocal tract must be obstructed
in some way. Consonants can therefore be classified according to the place and manner of this
obstruction.
Consonants4:
1. Places of Articulation
Bilabials: sounds produced by bringing both lips together, as in the production of [b], [p], or
[m].
Labiodentals: sounds produced by raising the lower lip and pressing it against the front teeth,
as in [f] and [v].
Dentals: sounds produced by raising the tongue tip or blade and placing it against the upper
front teeth, as in ʇ and θ.
Alveolars: sounds produced by raising the tip or blade of the tongue and placing it against the
alveolar ridge, as in [t], [s], [d], [z], and [n].
Palatals: produced with the front of the tongue and the hard palate, as in j.
Velars: sounds produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate, as in h and g.
Uvulars : they are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the
uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. q is a voiceless uvular stop
(Arabic), x is a voiceless uvular fricative (Arabic, Spanish, etc.)

2. Manners of Articulation
We already have a number of distinct phonetic properties permitting many
overlapping classes of sounds. Both t and s, for example, are in the class of voiceless oral
alveolar sounds. But what distinguishes the t from the s?
At most places of articulation there are several basic ways in which articulation can
be accomplished. The articulators may completely close off the oral tract for an instant or a
relatively long period, they may narrow the space considerably, or they may simply modify
the shape of the tract by approaching each other.
Stops: in the production of stops, a complete closure of the articulators is involved so that the

4
The distinction between consonants and vowels is made in the following manner: If the air, once out of the
glottis, is allowed to pass freely through the resonators, the sound is a vowel. If the air, once out of the glottis, is
obstructed, partially or totally, in one or more places, the sound is a consonant.
airstream cannot escape through the mouth. All other sounds are called continuants because
the stream of air continues without interruption through the mouth opening.
There are two possible types of stops:
Nasal stops: if the air is stopped in the oral cavity but the uvular is down so that it can go out
through the nose, the sound produced is a nasal stop, as in m, n and ŋ.

Oral stops: if in addition to the articulatory closure in the mouth, the uvular is raised so that
the nasal tract is blocked off, the airstream will be completely obstructed. Pressure in the
mouth will build up and an oral stop will be formed. When the articulators come apart the
airstream will be released in a small burst of sound, as in p, b, t, d,k and g5.

Fricatives (also referred to as spirants, from the Latin word spirare: to blow)): in the
production of these sounds, there is a close approximation of two articulators so that the
airstream is partially obstructed and a turbulent airflow is produced, as illustrated by the
sounds f, v, ʇ s, ʃ, and the voiced velar fricative symbolized as ɣ and its voiceless
counterpart x6.

Affricates: these are sounds produced by a stop closure followed immediately by a slow
release of the closure characteristic of a fricative. ʤ and ʧ are such sounds.

Sibilants: these are sounds produced with a hissing noise. The fricatives and the affricates
represent this class.

Obstruents: the nonnasal stops, the fricatives, and the affricates form a class of sounds which
can be distinguished from all other sounds. Since the airstream cannot escape through the
nose, it is obstructed only in its passage through the vocal tract. These sounds are called
obstruents; all other sounds are called sonorants. Nasal stops are sonorants because although
the air is blocked in the mouth it continues to “resonate” and move through the nose. Liquids
such as[l]and [ r ] are also sonorants in that there is some obstruction in the air but not enough
to cause friction.

5
Note that although both the nasal sounds and the oral sounds can be classified as stops, the term stop by itself is
almost always used by phoneticians to indicate an oral stop, and the term nasal to indicate a nasal stop. Thus the
consonants at the ends of the words ‘bad” and “ban” would be called an alveolar stop and an alveolar nasal
respectively.
6
These last two sounds exist in the Arabic words ‫ ﯼ‬dna ‫ ﺍ ﺨ ٯ ﯼﻟ ﺍﻏ‬.
 Some sounds do not fall easily into these two classes (the classes of consonants and
vowels):
Glides such as [ j ] and [ w], for example, are like vowels in that they are produced with little
or no obstruction of the airstream in the mouth; but they are also like consonants in that their
duration is very short. When occurring in a word, they must always be either preceded or
followed directly by a vowel.
Liquids such as [l] and [r] are like consonants in some ways and vowels in others. Because
they are produced with obstructions in the oral cavity they are like consonants, but
acoustically they have “resonances” like vowels.

The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

NB/ Where symbols appear in pairs, the one on the right represents a voiced consonant, while
the one on the left is unvoiced. Shaded areas denote articulations judged to be impossible.

Vowel Classification
The chief characteristic of the vowels is the freedom with which the airstream, once out of the
glottis, passes through the speech organs.
The quality of vowels is determined by the particular configuration/shape of the
vocal tract. Different parts of the tongue may be raised or lowered. The lips may be spread or
pursed. The passage through which the air travels, however, is never so narrow as to obstruct
the free flow of the airstream. Vowels can then be described by articulatory features and are
thus classified in terms of three criteria:
* in terms of the height of the tongue (how high or low is the tongue)
* in terms of the position of the tongue (whether it is front, central or back)
* in terms of lip rounding (whether the lips are rounded or unrounded/spread)

The Cardinal Vowel Chart

Front Central Back
High i u

I ʊ
Mid e o

ε ə ɔ
Low æ a

Note that the vowels in this chart are simple constructs and may not exist in any
language. They are used as references against which we can classify vowels of natural
languages. Note also that [i] is the highest and the most front vowel possible. If you raise your
tongue higher or you push it further, you will end up producing a consonant.

Unrounded Front and Back Vowels

Note also that whereas front vowels are never rounded in English, this is not true in
all languages. French, for example, has both rounded and unrounded front vowels (and back
rounded vowels as well):

[y] as in ‘tu’ [ty]/’you’. The tongue position is as for [i] but the lips are rounded.
[Ø] as in ‘bleu’ [blØ]/ ‘blue’. The tongue position is as in [e]but the lips are rounded.
[œ] as in ‘heure’ [œ]/ ‘hour’. The tongue position is as in [є] but the lips are rounded.
 In Mandarin Chinese we also find the high back unrounded vowel. The Chinese
word meaning “four” is pronounced [sƜ] and contrasts with the word [su], meaning “speed”.

Nasal and Nasalized Vowels

Vowels, like consonants, can also be produced with a lowered uvular permitting air
to escape through the nose. Such vowels are called nasal, or nasalized, vowels.
In English, nasal vowels always occur before nasal consonants; a result of a
regressive contiguous assimilation7. To specify that a vowel is nasalized, the diacritic mark ῀
is placed over the vowel, as shown below:
Bomb [bãm]
In French (and many other languages) nasal vowels may occur when no nasal consonant is
adjacent, as in:
[ε῀] as in ‘vin’ [vε῀] “wine”
[œ῀] as in brun [brœ῀] “brown”
[ã] as in an [ã] “year”
[õ] as in son [sõ] “sound”

Secondary articulation

There are a number of secondary articulations implemented by the position of the

body of the tongue. In labial consonants the tongue is not at all involved in the primary
articulation and hence is free to assume various positions. Similarly, in the production of
dentals, alveolars, and alveopalatals only the tip or the blade of the tongue is utilized for the
primary articulation, leaving the rest of the tongue free. For these frontal consonants the body
of the tongue can, however, assume different positions that “color” the consonant.
The most common of these secondary articulations produced by the body of the
tongue is palatalization, which involves raising the body of the tongue to a high position that
approximates the point it assumes in the articulation of the vowel i. This tongue position can
then be superimposed on the primary articulation of a labial, dental, alveolar, or alveopalatal
consonant. In many Slavic languages there is a significant contrast between palatalized and
nonpalatalized consonants. In Russian we find minimal pairs like brat’ ‘to take’ versus brat
‘brother’ and krof’ ‘blood’ versus krof ‘roof’.

7
More will be said about this process subsequently.
 Similarly, the body of the tongue can assume a high back attitude, creating the
possibility of velarization. In English the “clear” l of ‘leaf’ is phonetically opposed to the
“dark” (velarized) lˠ of ‘feel’.
The so-called emphatic consonants of the Semitic languages like Arabic involve the
secondary articulation of pharyngealization in which the root of the tongue is retracted toward
the back of the pharynx. Thus in Moroccan Arabic we find minimal pairs like the following,
where the dot under a letter stands for pharyngealization: ṣeef ‘summer’ versus seef ‘sword’;
ḍamm ‘to annex’ versus damm ‘blood’, ṭi:n ‘clay’ versus ti:n ‘figs’, etc.

PHONOLOGY
Phonetics and phonology
When approaching the sound system of a language, it is necessary to study not only how
the sounds are produced and what their physical properties are (that is how they are made and
what their acoustic correlates are), but also how these sounds structure and function in that
language. Thus, Trubetzkoy wrote (1939:10): “It is the task of phonology to study which
differences in sound are related to differences in meaning in a given language.”

Redundancy and Distinctiveness

Two languages can have the same phonetic segments, and yet these segments may have
different phonological properties or functions in the two languages. Consider a fragment of
the phonologies of English and Thai. Phonetically, English has two kinds of voiceless stops:
aspirated [ph, th, kh] and unaspirated [p, t, k]. Aspirated stops are found at the beginnings of
words/syllables and unaspirated stops after word-initial s (and elsewhere).
There are also two series of voiceless stops in Thai: an aspirated series and an
unaspirated one. The Thai words ‘to split’ [phàa] and ‘forest’ [pàa] illustrate the same
difference between [ph] and [p] as in the English words ‘pin’ and ‘spin’. However, if the
comparison were to stop at the observation that English and Thai share a common inventory
of aspirated and unaspirated stops, an important phonological distinction would be missed.
En English, the two different ps are found in different environments. The fact that one p
is aspirated and the other is not is predictable from the place it falls within the word. Thus,
given the environments,
# # ------------in # # s-----------in
(where # # marks the beginning of a word) it would sound un-English to put [p] instead of
[ph] in the first blank and [ph] instead of [p] in the second blank. The same distribution is
observed in the words ‘tick’ and ‘stick’, pronounced with [th] and [t], and the words ‘kin’ and
‘skin’, pronounced with [kh] and [k]. Since the presence or absence of aspiration can be
predicted from the environment of the voiceless stops in a word, aspiration is said to be
redundant in English.
The difference between English and Thai is that aspiration is not redundant in Thai.
Since [ph] and [p] both occur in exactly the same environment in ‘to split’ and ‘forest’, it is
not possible to predict whether a given p will be aspirated or unaspirated in this language.
When two words such as [phàa] and [pàa] differ only by one sound, they are said to constitute
a minimal pair. The difference between the two sounds is sufficient to signal a difference in
meaning. Examples of minimal pairs in English are ‘pin’ and ‘bin’, ‘cat’ and ‘cad’. In Thai, if
we pronounce [ph] instead of [p], we risk pronouncing a word of a different meaning (for
example, ‘to split’ instead of forest’). In English, on the other hand, if we pronounce [ph]
instead of [p], as in the non-native sounding [sphin], we probably will not be misunderstood,
since aspiration is a redundant property predictable from the presence or absence of a
preceding [s]. If we pronounce [b] instead of [ph], however, a word of a different meaning will
result (for example, ‘bin’ instead of ‘pin’). This means that [b] and [ph] is not redundant in
English.
Now since both p’s are capable of occurring in the same place in a word in Thai, and
since the substitution of one for the other results in a word of a different meaning, aspiration
is said to be distinctive in Thai. We now begin to appreciate Trubetzkoy’s definition of
phonology when he rightly pointed out that the concerns of phonology go beyond those of
phonetics, in the sense that in phonology we are concerned with the distinctive vs. redundant
function of speech sounds (or more particularly features). Thus, if phonetics is concerned with
how sounds are produced, etc., phonology is concerned with how sounds function in different
languages.
Distinctive sound units, that is, those which are capable of distinguishing words of
different meanings, are termed phonemes, whereas redundant sounds, that is, those which are
predictable from given environment, are termed contextual variants or allophones.

Levels of Sound Representation

The preceding sections have illustrated that there are two separate (though
interdependent) fields, phonetics and phonology, and that for any given language it is possible
to provide either a phonetic description or a phonological description. The units of phonetic
description are sound segment (or phones), while the units of phonological description are
phonemes. In order to characterize the relationship between the phonemes of a language and
its inventory of phonetic segments, two levels of sound representation are distinguished, a
phonological level and a phonetic level. Phonological representations consist of sequences of
phonemes, transcribed between slashes (/…/); phonetic representations consist of sequences
of phones transcribed between square brackets ([…]). Thus the phonological representation of
the English word pin will be /pin/, while its phonetic representation will be [phin].
Since the phonological level represents the distinctive sound units of a language and not
redundant phonetic information (such as the aspiration of the initial ph of English ‘pin’, it is
appropriate to think of it as approximating the mental representations speakers have of the
sounds of words in their language. As seen from the German words ‘lachen’ [laxən] ‘to laugh’
and ‘riechen’ [ri:çə n] ‘to smell’, orthographic ch is pronounced both as a velar fricative [x]
and as a palatal fricative [ç]. Whether ch will be pronounced [x]or [ç] can, however, be
predicted from what precedes it: ch will be pronounced [x] if it is preceded by a back vowel;
it will be pronounced [ç]if it is preceded by a front vowel, a consonant, or zero:’
[x] [ç]
buch ‘book’ ‘mich’ me
hoch ‘high’ ‘pech’ pitch
noch ‘still’ ‘horch’ hark!
Bach ‘strem’ ‘China’ China
Because the phonetic difference between [x] and [ç] can be predicted from context, the two
sounds are derived from the same unit on the phonological level, that is, from the same
phoneme. The phonological identity of the two phonetic realizations [x[ and [ç] is of course
reflected in German orthography. More important, however, is the claim inherent in deriving
these two sounds from the same phoneme; namely, it is claimed that speakers of German
mentally “store” [x ] and [ç] as one unit in their brain. Since there can never be a contrast
between two such sounds found in mutually exclusive environments, the difference between
[x] and [ç] can never serve to make a meaning difference between two words. In this sense
[x]and [ç]are comparable to the earlier example of [p]and [ph] in English. Thus both ‘lachen’
and ‘riechen’ will be represented phonologically with the phoneme /x/, although the /x/ of
‘riechen’ is pronounced [ç].

How can we determine the underlying phoneme?

Distribution (context): the underlying phoneme is usually the sound which occurs in the
elsewhere environment, i.e. in the most diverse set of environments
Phonetic plausibility (to be explained in class)
Universal tendency (to be explained in class)
Phonological Rules
Phonological rules convert phonological representations into phonetic ones. While we
shall look in detail at numerous phonological processes in languages subsequently, the
different kinds of operations that phonological rules can perform are summarized below:
1. Phonological rules can delete segments. For example, /la fə n ɛ: tr/ ‘the window’ is
converted to la [fnɛ:tr] in French by a phonological rule which can be schematized as follows:
ə → ø / VC -------- 8
This rule states that schwa may be deleted (that is it becomes zero or ø) when the preceding
consonant is in turn preceded by a vowel. This rule, however, is optional, since it is possible
for the same speaker to pronounce either [la fnɛ:tr] (in fast or allegro speech) or la [fə n ɛ:tr]
(in slow, articulated speech).
2 .Phonological rules can insert segments. For example, Spanish inserts [ɛ] before word initial
/sC/ sequences, and which can be schematized as follows:
Ø → ɛ / # # -------- sC
This rule is obligatory.
3 .Phonological rules can change segments and produce alternations. A particularly clear
example of such a rule is seen in the following forms:
we miss you → [wI mIʃ(y)u]
we please you → [wI plIʒ(y)u]
we bet you → [wI bɛʧ(y)u]
we fed you → [wI fɛʤ(y)u]
The phonetic forms on the right represent possible pronunciations of these forms in American
English. In careful speech, speakers may pronounce wI mIs yu, etc., but the more rapid the
pace, the more likely that forms such as the above will be heard. The following optional rule
is therefore:
s ʃ
z ʒ
t → ʧ /-----y
d ʤ
This rule states that /s/ becomes [ʃ], /z/ becomes [ʒ], /t/ becomes[ʧ], and /d/ becomes[ʤ]
before /y/ (which in turn may be deleted, as indicated by the parentheses in the phonetic

8
The segment to the left of the arrow is to be read as the input to be changed by the rule. The segment to the
right of the arrow represents the change, while the information to the right of the « environment slash » /
indicates the phonetic context in which the rule takes place.
transcriptions)9. Because of this rule, a word such as ‘miss’ will have two pronunciations. It
will be pronounced [mIs] in a context such as we miss it [wI mIs It], but [mIʃ] in a context
such as we miss you.
4. Finally, there are occasional cases where phonological rules can permute or interchange
segments. This operation, known as metathesis, as when ask is pronounced [æks], converts
phonological /AB/ to phonetic [BA].

Phonological Analysis
Different Views of the Phoneme
In Chapter 1 the difference between phonetics and phonology was discussed. It was
claimed that in some cases phonological representations are not identical to phonetic
transcriptions/representations and that two languages can have exactly the same inventory of
phonetic sounds (or phones), but significantly different phonological systems. That is the
same sounds can be organized and function in different ways.
All phonologists agree that it is necessary to recognize both phonetic units (phones) and
phonological units (phonemes). But there are many differences beyond this basic agreement.
In Chapter 1 the phoneme was defined as a minimal unit of sound capable of distinguishing
words of different meanings. In the following sections we shall present three views of the
phoneme. The first view, held by linguists in America in the 1940s and 1950s, attempted to
assign sounds to phonemes on the basis of their distributional properties. The second view,
held by the Prague School in Europe in the 1930, assigned sounds to phonemes on the basis of
their functioning within a system of oppositions. The third group of linguists view the
phoneme as a psychological sound unit10.

The Phoneme as a Phonetic Reality

The first view asserts that the phoneme represents a physical phonetic reality. That is,
sounds which belong to the same phoneme share important phonetic properties. Thus Daniel
Jones (1931:74) defines the phoneme as “a family of sounds in a given language, consisting

9
Although this phonological rule is written in terms of segments, such notation is actually an abbreviation. Rules
typically apply to classes of phonetically related segments, and not to arbitrary classes of unrelated segments.
Thus the change of /s,z,t,d/ to[ʃ,ʒ ,ʧ,ʤ] involves something more general than four segments changing into four
other segments. In particular, the four phonological segments /s,z,t,d/ have in common that they are alveolar
consonants. The four phonetic segments [ʃ, ʒ,ʧ, ʤ] have in common that they are alveopalatal consonants. Thus,
in order to reveal that these two classes of segments are not composed of random members, the rule by which the
former consonants are converted into the latter consonants before /y/ should, as a first approximation be written
as follows:
Alveolar → Alveopalatal/ ----y
C C
10
We will concentrate on the first view, however.
of an important sound of the language together with other related sounds, which take its place
in particular sound-sequences.” Similarly, Gleason (1955: 261) defines the phoneme as “a
class of sounds which: (1) are phonetically similar and (2) show certain characteristic patterns
of distribution in the language or dialect under consideration.” Under this view the phoneme
is seen as a convenient label for a number of phonetic units. Thus /p/ may stand for [p], [p h],
etc.

*Minimal Pairs
The major task for phonologists holding this view of the phoneme is to determine
which sounds belong in the same class. In order to do this, it is necessary to examine the
distribution of the sounds in question. If two sounds which are phonetically similar occur in
the same phonetic environment, and if the substitution of one sound for the other results in a
difference in meaning, then these sounds are assigned to different phonemes. Thus, to
continue with the same example, if [ph] is substituted for the [b] in bin, a different word
results (namely pin). On the other hand, if [ph] is substituted for the [p] in spin, we do not
obtain a different/meaning word but rather a slightly distorted mispronunciation. We conclude
that ph and b belong to different phonemes, while [ph] and [p] belong to the same phoneme.
It can be easily demonstrated that two sounds belong to different phonemes if we find
two words which differ only in that one word has one of these two sounds in a given position,
while the other word has the other sound in the same position. Two such words, which differ
only by one sound, are said to constitute a minimal pair. We thus conclude that whenever we
can establish a minimal pair11, the two different sounds are phonetic manifestations of two
different phonemes.

*Complementary Distribution
When two sounds are found in different environments, this is termed complementary
distribution; the two sounds are found in mutually exclusive environments.
These environments may be stated in terms of syllable, morpheme, or structure or in
terms of adjacent segments. An example involving both comes from standard Spanish
dialects. Although the words saber ‘to know’, nada ‘nothing’, and lago ‘lake’ are written with
b, d, g, they are pronounced respectively [saβer], [naɟa], and [laɣo ], that is with the voiced
nonstrident fricatives [β], [ ɟ], and [ɣ]. On the other hand, these letters are pronounced [b], [d]
and [g] in the words banca ‘bench’, demora ‘delay’, and gana ‘desire’. If one were to look at

11
The existence of minimal pairs facilitates the work of the linguist seeking to establish phonemic contrasts in
this way. As Hockett (1955:212) puts it: “minimal pairs are the analyst’s delight, and he seeks them whenever
there is hope of finding them.”
the facts of Spanish, one would discover that the sounds [β, ɟ, ɣ] are in complementary
distribution with the sounds [b, d, g]. In these examples voiced stops appear at the beginning
of a word, while voiced fricatives appear between vowels. That it is the intervocalic
environment that is conditioning the voiced fricatives is seen from the following examples:
la banca [la βaŋka] ‘the bench’
la demora [la ɟemora] ‘the delay’
la gana [la ɣana] ‘the desire’
When one adds the feminine definite article la, the voiced stops are then in intervocalic
position (that is, between vowels), and must therefore “spirantize” to become [β, ɟ, ɣ]. Since
these voiced fricatives (or spirants) are in complementary distribution with the voiced stops,
we have only one series of phonemic consonants and not two. In a phonemic analysis based
on the distribution of sounds, [b] and [β] would be said to be allophones of the same phoneme
/b/, just as [d] and[ ɟ] are allophones of /d/, and [g] and [ɣ]allophones of /g/. An allophone,
then, is a phonetic realization of a phoneme in a particular environment. The voiced fricative
[β] is the allophone of the phoneme /b/ found between vowels, just as the voiced stop [b] is
the allophone of /b/ found at the beginning of a word.
In more recent approaches to phonology, such statements of allophonic distributions have
been superseded by the explicit formulation of phonological rules. Thus a rule such as the
following,
b β
d ɟ / v ---- v
g ɣ
would be postulated for Spanish, by which underlying (or phonemic) /b, d, g/ are converted to
[β, ɟ, ɣ] between vowels. In terms of distinctive features, this rule would be formulated as
follows:
+ voice
-nasal → [+ cont]/[+syll]------[+syll]
An oral voiced consonant becomes continuous (that is, a fricative) between vowels.

*Phonetic Similarity
While complementary distribution is generally a clue to the phonological analysis of a
language, there are cases where one might wish to maintain phonemes in complementary
distribution. That is, it may be necessary to view some sounds in complementary distribution
as belonging to separate phonemes. One well-known case concerns the distribution of [h] and
[ŋ] in English. As seen in such words as head, heart, enhance, and perhaps, [h] occurs only at
the beginning of a syllable. On the other hand, as seen in such words as sing [siŋ], singer [siŋ-
ǝr] and finger [fiŋ-gǝr], [ŋ] always occurs at the end of a syllable. Just as there are no English
syllables ending in [h], there are no English syllables beginning with [ŋ]. It would thus appear
that [h] and [ŋ]are in complementary distribution and should therefore be assigned as
allophones of the same phoneme.
A solution which would assign [h] and [ŋ] to the same phoneme would appear
unsatisfactory to most phonemicists, since the two sounds appear to have very little in
common, unlike [p] and [ph] in English or [b] and [β] in Spanish, for example.

*Free Variation
Thus far we have discussed cases where two phones are assigned to one phoneme. In all
of these cases the two allophones have been seen to be conditioned by context. For this reason
they are sometimes referred to as contextual variants or combinatory variants (Trubetzkoy,
1939:49). However, it is possible that two phones may appear in the same context without
causing change in meaning. In this case they are usually analyzed as free variants or optional
variants (Trubetskoy, 1939:46). In English, final voiceless stops occur both aspirated and
unaspirated, for example [mæph] or [mæp°]…In these two words, two phones are found in the
same context, and no meaning difference results. We therefore cannot assign [ph] and [p°] to
different phonemes. This difference would appear to have no effect on the establishing of
phonemic contrasts, and the same speaker may sometimes use one phonetic realization of a
phoneme and sometimes the other.
It is sometimes necessary to speak of free variation among phonemes. Thus the difference
between /i/ and /ɛ/ normally makes a meaning difference, for example beat and bet. However,
the word economics can be pronounced with either initial /i/ or /ɛ/, without a consequent
meaning change. Similarly, although /u:/ and /u/ contrast in words such as kook and cook, the
words roof and root can be pronounced with either of these vowels. It is therefore possible not
only to have noncontrasting allophones in the same context but also to have noncontrasting
phonemes in the same context in isolated words.

Data Analysis
Chatino, a language of Mexico (Gleason, 1955).
kAta’ ‘you will bathe’ siyu’ ‘juice’
kIsu’ ‘avocado’ sula’ ‘open!’
kUsU?wa’ ‘you will send’ tiye’ ‘stomach’
sE?e’ ‘place’ la?a’ ‘side’
ʃI ?i’ ‘sad’ lo ?o’ ‘where’
tA?a’ ‘fiesta’ ndiki’ ‘you are burning’
tIhi’ ‘water’ nguʃi’ ‘tomato’
tU?wa’ ‘mouth’ ki’? ‘fire’
kino’ ‘sandal’ ha’? ‘grass mat’
Nb: ’stands for stress and ? for the glottal stop
1) Account for the distribution of voiced vowels and voiceless vowels (indicated by
upper case letters) and decide which of the two phonetic realizations is closest to the
underlying phoneme.
2) Is stress predictable in this language?
3) Convert the underlying representations of ‘avocado’ and ‘fire’ into their correct
phonetic representations.

Papago, an Uto-Aztecan language, has a five-vowel system, with three high vowels and two
nonhigh vowels.
tatai ‘tendon’ ʧinig ‘to move the lips’
tatal ‘mother’s younger ʧikpan ‘work’
brother’
tamʃ ‘gums’ daswua ‘to pile’
tohnto ‘degenerate’ doaiʤda ‘healing’
tokih ‘cotton’ ʤɨgos ‘storm’
todsid ‘to frighten’ ʤɨwikon ‘to scrape’
ʧuagia ‘net bag’ ʤuni ‘dried cactus fruit’
ʧuʧul ‘chicken’ dakpon ‘to slip’
ʧukma ‘dark’ do?ag ‘mountain’
ʧɨposid ‘to brand’ ʤusukal ‘lizard’
ʧɨlwin ‘to rub’ ʤuhki ‘rain’
ʧɨgitog ‘to think’ ʤiwhiadag ‘arrival’

There is a pattern to the distribution of the dental stops t and d versus the palatal affricates ʧ
and ʤ. Account for the distribution of dental stops and palatal affricates and decide which set
is basic and which set is derived by a phonological rule.

Data from a hypothetical language:

bide ‘car’ phithar ‘man’
ima:d ‘economics’ bidi ‘plane’
khamun ‘woman’ ħanu:t ‘child’
sidi ‘father’ ema:d ‘economics’
nithap ‘girl’ sedi ‘mother’
thari:k ‘history’
1. Is aspiration predictable in this language? If yes state the phonological rule which
accounts for the distribution of voiceless stops.
2. Consider the [e] and [i] phones in this language. Are they phonemes, allophones or
free variants?

Data from a hypothetical language

3. ‘khAtir man ‘parfIkt perfection
4. ‘miki car ‘ekli physics
5. ‘tOpto dog bit’raf to hate
6. ‘bitraf hatred ‘minsIf love
7. ‘ikli physics par’fIkt to perfect
8. ‘kAtir woman ‘meki house
9. ‘tOkIs cotton min’sIf to love
NB: Vowels written in capital letters are devoiced and the symbol ‘stands for stress.
1. Is aspiration predictable in this language?
2. Is stress predictable in this language?
3. Consider the [e] and [i]phones in this language. Are they allophones, phonemes or free
variants?
4. Is devoicing predictable in this language? If yes, provide a formal rule to account for this
Process?

Data from a hypothetical language:

phAt car a‘kĩŋ monkey
pad house i‘bu table
a‘bus child hil milk
vũŋ water giz butter
sU‘fũnga democracy heb boy
e‘bu table bĩn‘bu chocolate
hig‘do dog pAt bus
bĩŋ scooter kã‘mĩnda plane
bas‘ta fire hi‘ba girl

1. Account for the distribution of voiced vowels and voiceless vowels and decide which of the
two phonetic realizations is closest to the underlying phoneme. Provide a formal rule to
account for this process.
2. Is aspiration predictable in this language?
3. Is stress predictable in this language?
4. Is nasalization predictable in this language?
5. Consider the [e] and [i]phones in this language. Are they allophones, phonemes or free
variants?
6. Are [t] and [d] two phonemes or two allophones in this language?
7. Are [h] and [ŋ] two phonemes or two allophones in this language?
8. Convert the underlying representations of ‘democracy’ and ‘bus’ into their correct phonetic
realizations.
NB: 1) Voiceless vowels are indicated by upper case letters, the symbol ‘stands for stress and
the symbol ~ stands for nasalization.
2) Justify all your answers.

Morphology
Morphology is a sub-discipline of linguistics that studies word structure and word
formation. While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear
that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example,
English speakers recognize that the words dog, dogs and dog-catcher are closely related.
These speakers intuit that dog is to dogs just as cat is to cats; similarly, dog is to dogcatcher
as dish is to dishwasher. The rules comprehended by the speaker in each case reflect specific
patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those
smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that
studies such patterns of word-formation and word structure within languages.

Fundamental concepts
Lexemes and word forms
The term "word" is ambiguous in common usage. To take up again the example of
dog vs. dogs, there is one meaning in which these two are the same "word" (they are both
nouns that refer to the same kind of animal, differing only in number), and another meaning in
which they are different words in that they aren’t interchangeable; thus we can’t substitute the
word dog for the word dogs in the following sentence: The dogs are happy.
The distinction between these two meanings of the term "word" is arguably the most
important one in morphology. The first sense of "word," the one in which dog and dogs are
"the same word," is called lexeme. The second sense is called word-form. We thus say that
dog and dogs are different forms of the same lexeme. Dog and dogcatcher, on the other hand,
are different lexemes; for example, they refer to two different kinds of entities.
At the basic level, words are made of "morphemes." These are the smallest units of
grammar: roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Native speakers recognize the morphemes as
grammatically significant or meaningful. For example, "schoolyard" is made of "school" +
"yard", "makes" is made of "make" + a grammatical suffix "-s", and "unhappiness" is made of
"happy" with a prefix "un-" and a suffix "-ness".

Inflection vs. word-formation

Given the notion of a lexeme, it is possible to distinguish two kinds of morphological
rules. Some morphological rules relate different forms of the same lexeme; while other rules
relate two different lexemes. Rules of the first kind are called inflectional rules, while those of
the second kind are called word-formation. The English plural, as illustrated by dog and dogs,
is an inflectional rule; compounds like dogcatcher or dishwasher provide an example of a
word-formation rule. Informally, word-formation rules form "new words" (that is, new
lexemes), while inflection rules yield variant forms of the "same" word (lexeme).

Compounding and derivation

There is a further distinction between two kinds of word-formation: compounding
and derivation. Compounding is a process of word-formation that involves combining
complete word-forms into a single compound form; dogcatcher is therefore a compound,
because both dog and catcher are complete word-forms in their own right before the
compounding process was applied, and are subsequently treated as one form.
Derivation involves affixing bound (non-independent) forms to existing lexemes,
whereby the addition of the affix derives a new lexeme. One example of derivation is clear in
this case: the word independent is derived from the word dependent by prefixing it with the
derivational prefix in-, while dependent itself is derived from the verb depend.
Bound morphemes are morphemes that can only occur when attached to root
morphemes. Affixes are bound morphemes. Common English bound morphemes include:
-ing, -ed, -er, and pre-. Morphemes that are not bound morphemes are free morphemes.
 An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a base morpheme to form a word. An affix
can be a prefix (attached before another morpheme), a suffix (attached after another
morpheme), an infix (inserted within another morpheme), a circumfix (attached before and
after another morpheme), or a suprafix (attached suprasegmentally to another morpheme).
Affixes are bound morphemes by definition. Prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes.

affix example

undo
prefix
prefix + root

looking
suffix
root + suffix

fanfuckingtastic
infix12
ro- + infix + -ot

enlighten
circumfix13
circum- + root + -fix

produce (noun)
suprafix produce (verb)
(changing stress)

Two more processes can be added: reduplication and alternation where Reduplication
is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated. This
repetition is used to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc. It is
found in many languages, though its importance and productivity varies.
In the Malayo-Polynesian family, reduplication is used to form plurals. In Bahasa
Malay, for instance, rumah means "house", and rumah-rumah means "houses".
The Nama language uses reduplication to increase the force of a verb: go, "look", go-
go "examine with attention".
Mandarin Chinese also uses reduplication: ren, "person", renren "everybody".
Japanese does it too: toki "time", tokidoki "sometimes, from time to time". Note that
in these languages reduplication is not a productive process, i. e. it's not part of a regular
system.

12
English infixes only exist in exclamatory constructions like the given example.
13
English circumfixes do not exist other than en- -en, which is not productive now.
 In Linguistics, Alternation is when a set of morphosyntactic properties is
phonologically expressed in two or more different ways in different words. For example:

CAT + PLURAL → cat + s

DOG + PLURAL → dog + z
CHURCH + PLURAL →churches + iz
-s, -z and -iz are alternate ways of expressing the English plural. We can formulate a simple
rule for this as follows: If the last sound of a word is voiceless, pluralize it with -s. If the last
sound of a word is voiced, pluralize it with -z. If the last sound is a sibilant, pluralize it with –
iz.
Because the rule for determining which alternate to use depends on the surrounding
sounds, the s/z alternation is called a phonologically-conditioned alternation.

Allomorphy and morphophonology

In the exposition above, morphological rules are described as analogies between
word-forms: dog is to dogs as cat is to cats, and as dish is to dishes. In this case, the analogy
applies both to the form of the words and to their meaning: in each pair, the first word means
"one of X", while the second "two or more of X", and the difference is always the plural form
-s affixed to the second word, signaling the key distinction between singular and plural
entities.
One of the largest sources of complexity in morphology is that this one-to-one
correspondence between meaning and form scarcely applies to every case in the language. In
English, we have word form pairs like ox/oxen, goose/geese, and sheep/sheep, where the
difference between the singular and the plural is signaled in a way that departs from the
regular pattern, or is not signaled at all. Even cases considered "regular", with the final -s, are
not so simple; the -s in dogs is not pronounced the same way as the -s in cats, and in a plural
like dishes, an "extra" vowel appears before the -s. These cases, where the same distinction is
effected by alternative changes to the form of a word, are called allomorphy.
This kind of allomorphy is due to the interaction between morphology and
phonology. Phonological rules constrain which sounds can appear next to each other in a
language, and morphological rules, when applied blindly, would often violate phonological
rules, by resulting in sound sequences that are prohibited in the language in question. For
example, to form the plural of dish by simply appending an -s to the end of the word would
result in the form *[dɪʃs], which is not permitted by the phonotactics of English. In order to
"rescue" the word, a vowel sound is inserted between the root and the plural marker, and
[dɪʃəz] results.
An extreme case of allomorphy is called suppletion, where two forms related by a
morphological rule cannot be explained as being related on a phonological basis: for example,
the past of go is went, which is a suppletive form.
In other words, Suppletion is the replacement of a regular form by an unrelated word.
In English "go" has the past tense "went", and "be" has various unrelated parts such as "am"
and "was".
The study of allomorphy that results from the interaction of morphology and
phonology is called morphophonology.

Data from a hypothetical language: phonology and morphophonemics

infinitive gloss past simple future simple
tip smoke itipi satip
pit eat ipiti sapit
dip love idipi zadip
tik hate itiki satik
lev find eleve zalev
tek swim eteke satek
tit teach ititi satit
lav find alava zalav
1. What are the stop phonemes in this language? Justify your answer.
2. Are i and e phonemes, allophones or free variants? Justify your answer.
3. How is the past tense morpheme phonetically realized in this language? Provide a formal
rule if possible.
4. How is the future tense morpheme phonetically realized in this language? Provide a formal
rule if possible.

Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences, and
that determine their relative grammaticality. Modern research in syntax attempts to describe
languages in terms of such rules.
A sentence can be broken down into smaller constituents, called syntactic categories. A
syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as a noun phrase or a verb phrase, which
can be decomposed into smaller syntactic categories, or lexical categories, such as noun s or
verbs, which cannot be further decomposed.
Lexical categories are traditionally called the parts of speech. They include nouns,
verbs, adjectives, and so on.
Phrasal categories are groups of words that function as single units in the syntax of a
sentence.
Most phrases have a head or central word which defines the type of phrase. In English
the head is often the first word of the phrase. Some phrases, however, can be headless. For
example, the rich is a noun phrase composed of a determiner and an adjective, but no noun.
Phrases may be classified by the type of head they take:
*A noun phrase (abbreviated NP) is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally
accompanied by a set of modifiers. The modifiers may be:
determiners: articles (the, a), demonstratives (this, that), numerals (two, five, etc.), possessives
(my, their, etc.), and quantifiers (some, many, etc.); in English, determiners are usually placed
before the noun; adjectives (the red ball); or complements, in the form of a prepositional
phrase (such as: the student of physics ), or a That-clause (the claim that the earth is round );
*A verb phrase or VP is a phrase headed by a verb. A verb phrase may be constructed from
a single verb; often, however, the verb phrase will consist of various combinations of the main
verb and any auxiliary verbs, plus optional specifiers, complements, and adjuncts. For
example, consider the following sentences:
(1)
a. Dogs bark.
b. Mary saw the man through the window.
c. John gave Mary a book.
Example (1a) contains the verb phrase made up only of the verb bark. Example (1b) contains
the main verb see, the noun phrase (NP) complement the man, and the prepositional phrase
(PP) adjunct through the window. Example (1c) contains the main verb gave and two
complements, the noun phrases Mary and a book.
Up to the mid/late 1980s, it was thought that some languages lacked a verb phrase.
These included languages with free word order (so-called non-configurational languages, such
as Japanese, Hungarian, or Arabic). The current view in generative grammar is that all
languages have a verb phrase, including the ones just mentioned. The apparent lack of a verb
phrase is a consequence of constituents having moved from their positions.
*A Prepositional phrase (PP) is a phrase whose head is a preposition (e.g. in love, over the
 rainbow).
*An Adjectival phrase is a phrase whose head is an adjective as head (e.g. full of toys)
*An Adverbial phrase is a phrase whose head is an adverb (e.g. very carefully)

Phrase structure rules

Phrase-structure rules are a way to describe a given language's syntax. They are used to
break a natural language sentence down into its constituent parts (also known as syntactic
categories) namely phrasal categories and lexical categories. A grammar which uses phrase
structure rules is called a phrase structure grammar.
Phrase structure rules are usually of the form A→ B C, meaning that the constituent A
is separated into the two subconstituents B and C. Some examples are:
S → NP VP
NP → (Det) N
VP → V NP
The first rule reads: An S consists of an NP followed by a VP. This means A sentence
consists of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase. The next one: A noun phrase consists of
a determiner followed by a noun. The third one: A verb phrase consists of a verb followed by
a noun phrase.
Phrase structure rules, however, are not powerful enough to provide an adequate
description of the syntax of natural languages (wh-questions…), hence the need of
introducing rules of a new kind, called transformational rules.

Semantics and Pragmatics

Meaning has been studied at various times by a variety of disciplines. As a bridge
discipline between linguistics, philosophy and logic, semantics is concerned with the study of
meaning. The controversial issue, however, is what is meaning or what is the meaning of
14
meaning? In fact, ever since Ogden and Richards (1923) published their classic treatise on
this topic, and indeed since long before that, it has been customary for those interested in the
study of meaning to emphasize the fact that the noun meaning and the verb to mean,
themselves, have many distinguishable meanings. Some idea of the range of these meanings
may be obtained from a consideration of the following sentences:
1. What is the meaning of ‘a bachelor’
2. What do you mean?
14
Ogden, C.K., and Richards, I.A. (1923). The Meaning of Meaning, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 8th
edition, 1946.
In sentence (1), the word meaning is similar to ‘to signify’, that is what does the word literally
signify15; whereas in sentence (2) we are concerned with intended meaning or speaker
meaning16.

Theories of Meaning
Linguists, philosophers and logicians have attempted to construct explanations of
meaning in natural languages via three ways: one, by defining the nature of word meaning;
two, by defining the nature of sentence meaning; and three, by explaining the process of
communication.
In the first way, word meaning is taken as the basic construct (or starting point) in
terms of which sentence meaning and communication can later be explained. In the second, it
is sentence meaning which is taken as basic, with word meanings characterized in terms of the
systematic contribution they make to sentence meanings. In the third, both sentence meanings
and word meanings are explained in terms of the ways in which sentences and words are used
in the act of communication.
This three-way approach to meaning is justifiable and is in no way an arbitrary
decision. First, there clearly is a relation between words and objects. We do use words to refer
to objects and to actions and the explanation of this relation is indubitably the task of
semantics. Second, sentences are used to describe events, beliefs, opinions and other
situations, and it is unquestionably the task of semantics to account for the nature of the
relation between sentences and states of affairs or attitudes. Finally, since language is the
vehicle by means of which we effect communication, that the interpretation of language be
explained in terms of its role in communication is a legitimate claim17.
These three aspects of meaning; word meaning, sentence meaning and
‘communicative’ meaning are in fact reflected in different uses of the word mean. Thus,
corresponding to word meaning is:
1. A spinster means “an unmarried woman”
Corresponding to sentence meaning is:
1. The sentence James murdered Mary means that someone named James deliberately
killed someone called Mary.

15
Which is the concern of Semantics.
16
Which is the concern of Pragmatics.
17
Note, however, that it is generally agreed upon that this is not the task of semantics but rather that of
pragmatics. Semantics is defined as the study of meaning in isolation whereas pragmatics is defined as the study
of meaning in context. More will be said about these two components subsequently.
In these two uses, the word ‘mean’ has a meaning approximating ‘to indicate’. But the word
‘mean’ is also used in a different situation to mean speaker meaning. Consider the following
dialogue between speaker A and speaker B:
3. A: Are you going to bed soon?
B. What do you mean?
A. I mean that I’m tired, and the sooner you go to bed, the sooner I can.
In this situation, ‘mean’ is attributable to speaker intended meaning; that is what the speaker
means by what he says, and not word or sentence meaning.
In what follows, we will start out with the most traditional way of explaining meaning;
that is the one which equates the meaning of a word with its reference in the world.
General theories of meaning have typically been developed by philosophers rather than
linguists, and it might be wondered whether they have any significance for linguists, for
whom a theory of meaning, besides its explanatory adequacy, should account for a number of
semantic phenomena and semantic relations, such as synonymy, antonymy, ambiguity, etc.
In the sections below, we will present some of these so-called theories of meaning. We
will show that most of them do not account for some of these semantic phenomena; that they
are inadequate, mistaken and even downright false. However, it is important to understand
why they will not do because if they cannot establish what meaning is, they can at least
establish ‘what meaning is not’.

The Referential Theory of Meaning

The slogan of this theory would be “Don’t ask me for the meaning of a particular
word, ask me for what it refers to”. In other words, this ‘theory’ claims that there is a one-to-
one correspondence between names and objects18. The Toubkal, for instance, refers to the
object (the mountain) in the Atlas; similarly, the name Jalal refers to the teacher of semantics
in the English Department. This relationship between words and objects is referred to as a
relationship of reference.
However, there are a number of reasons to believe that any theory which attempts to
explain all aspects of meaning in terms of reference is outright false.
In the first place, there are a number of embarrassing counter-examples. First, there
is no sense in which function words19 such as simple coordinate conjunctions, correlative
conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, subordinators, prepositions, interrogative pronouns, etc.,

18
Reference here carries with it presuppositions of ‘existence’ or ‘reality’. To say that a particular word ‘refers
to an object’ implies that its referent is an object which ‘exists’ (is ‘real’).
19
Function words, such as conjunctions, prepositions, etc., have little or no clear content, as opposed to content
words, such as nouns, verbs, adjective, and adverbs.
refer to anything. Certain words then have sense, but no reference. This is a possibility which
is ruled out by the referential theory of meaning, according to which a word which has no
reference will automatically be deprived of a sense.
Furthermore, certain words have reference but no sense. Though for proper names
there is a one-to-one correspondence between words and objects/individuals, it is not obvious
that proper names have any meaning at all, for it makes no sense to ask ‘What is the meaning
of the word/name Chomsky?20’ Proper names, thus, clearly refer to objects in the world, yet
most speakers would agree that they have no meaning. This claim is incompatible with the
referential theory of meaning, according to which, if a word has a reference, it automatically
has sense. Similarly, commonly used proper names like Susan will be predicted on the
referential theory as not only ambiguous, because they refer to many different people, but also
as more ambiguous than little-used proper names like Blodwen, which refers to fewer people.
There are expressions/words which ‘refer’ to non-existent objects, such as ‘the
unicorn’,’God’, ‘Satan’, etc. Now since these words have no reference in the outside world,
this theory would predict that they are meaningless, which is not the case. Due to their
semantic intuitions, speakers of English have no trouble comprehending the meaning of these
expressions.
In fine, this ‘theory’ will also come up with wrong predictions concerning synonymy
on the basis that it would predict that two words or expressions which refer to the same object
would have the same meaning, which is downright false. Frege’s (1982)21 refutation of the
referential theory is well known in this respect: The phrases the morning star and the evening
star both refer to the same planet/object (Venus), but they do not mean the same thing. This
theory then does not meet one of the basic requirements; that of accounting for synonymy.
To conclude, the attempt to characterise meaning in terms of reference seems to enter
into too many problems to be a convincing one. This is not of course to suggest that words do
not refer but merely that the relationship of reference does not provide an adequate basis for
the explanation of word meaning.

The Conceptual Theory of Meaning

As a ‘theory’ of meaning, it then claims that a word or an expression has a meaning
if and only if it is associated with some concept, and that two words/expressions have the
same meaning if and only if they are associated with the same concept. Notice how this would

20
Some names in some languages, for example El Jadida in Moroccan Arabic, do develop out of meaningful
expressions; but the more they function like names the less relevant their meanings are.
21
Gottlob Frege is a German philosopher and mathematician.
avoid the defects of the referential theory: the reference of the morning star is identical with
the reference of the evening star, but the concept of the morning star need not be identical
with the concept of the evening star.
The truth of a conceptual theory, however, inevitably depends on what concepts are
taken to be and how the associative relation between words/expressions and concepts is
defined. In other words, the basic question to pose is what is a concept?
Moreover, an account in terms of concepts (no matter how we define them) is open
to objections similar to those raised against the referential theory of meaning. In particular,
words such as and, because, or, etc. are counter-examples to this view, for it is not clear
whether their interpretation can be analysed in terms of concepts. It will not do to suggest that
the meaning of and is the concept of co-ordination, for what is co-ordination other than
joining two entities by and? In like manner, it is meaningless to explain or as having the
concept of disjunction for its meaning when in order to explain disjunction one needs to refer
to or.
Last but not least, the general problem remains: to explain meaning in terms of concepts
is unempirical.

Truth-conditional Semantics
Truth-conditional semantics claims that it is the characterization of what we mean by
talking of the meaning of a sentence, not the characterization of word meaning, which is the
basis for a semantic theory; and that to know the meaning of a sentence is to know under what
conditions it would be true. Meaning is thus equated with truth. (TO BE CNTD IN
SEMESTER 6)

References
Crystal, D. (1974). Linguistics. PB
Lyons, J. (1973). New Horizons in Linguistics. PB.
Wilson, D. & Smith, N. (1979). Modern Linguistics. PB.