Linguistics: Morphology, Phonetics, Grammar and Syntax Explained

Introduction to Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language and is one of the four subfields of anthropology. Linguistics encompasses a number of subfields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words combine into phrases and sentences), and phonology (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units). Other sub-disciplines of linguistics include evolutionary linguistics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and more.

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.^[1] It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the abstract, grammatical characterization of systems of sounds.

Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

Voiced: when the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through.

Voiceless: when the vocal cords are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded.

Morphology

Morphology is a field of linguistics focused on the study of the forms and formation of words in a language. A morpheme is the smallest indivisible unit of a language that retains meaning. The rules of morphology within a language tend to be relatively regular, so that if one sees the noun morphemes for the first time, for example, one can deduce that it is likely related to the word morpheme.

What is a Morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language. For example, the word dogs consists of two morphemes and one syllable: dog and -s, a plural marker on nouns. Note that a morpheme like "-s" can be a single phoneme and does not have to be a whole syllable.

Types of Morphemes

• Bound morpheme: a morpheme that cannot stand alone as an independent word.
• Free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone. Example: re-open-ed.

Free morphemes include:

• Lexical morphemes: carry the content of a sentence, e.g., boy, sad, long.
• Functional morphemes: consist of conjunctions and prepositions, e.g., because, when, but.

Bound morphemes include:

• Derivational morphemes: used to form words in a different grammatical category, e.g., good → goodness.
• Inflectional morphemes: used to produce new forms of a word that indicate aspects of its grammatical function.

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term also refers to the study of such rules, a field that includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. Linguists do not normally use the term to refer to orthographical rules, although usage books and style guides that call themselves grammars may also refer to spelling and punctuation.

Prescriptive Approach

When you prescribe something, you tell how it should be. For example, when teachers say, "never end a sentence with a preposition" (e.g., For whom is this? vs. Who is this for?).

Descriptive Approach

When you describe something, you tell how people really use it in actual life. The descriptive approach observes and records how language is used in practice, and it is the basis of all linguistic research. Serious scholarly descriptive work is usually based on text or corpus analysis, or on field studies. Unlike prescription, descriptive linguistics avoids value judgments and makes no recommendations.

Syntax

Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language.

Generative Grammar

Generative grammar holds that language is a structure of the human mind. The goal of generative grammar is to build a complete model of this inner language.