Key Formulas & Frameworks
Indo-European (English, Spanish, Hindi, Russian)
Sino-Tibetan (Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan)
Afro-Asiatic (Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic)
Niger-Congo (Swahili, Yoruba, Zulu)
Austronesian (Malay, Tagalog, Māori)
Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada)
Turkic (Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh)
Japonic (Japanese), Koreanic (Korean), Austroasiatic (Vietnamese, Khmer)
Phonology (sound systems) → Morphology (word formation) → Syntax (sentence structure) → Semantics (meaning) → Pragmatics (contextual use)
The five core components of linguistic analysis (morphology to pragmatics)
1. Pre-production (silent period)
2. Early production (1-2 word phrases)
3. Speech emergence (simple sentences)
4. Intermediate fluency (complex sentences)
5. Advanced fluency (near-native proficiency)
Comprehensible input (i+1) drives acquisition
A1 (Beginner) → A2 (Elementary) → B1 (Intermediate) → B2 (Upper-Intermediate) → C1 (Advanced) → C2 (Proficient/Near-Native)
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
Regional (dialects/accents) → Social (sociolects) → Functional (registers/styles) → Idiolect (individual speech)
Diachronic (over time) vs. Synchronic (at one time)
Derivation (happy → happiness) → Compounding (book + shelf = bookshelf) → Blending (breakfast + lunch = brunch) → Conversion (email noun → email verb) → Clipping (advertisement → ad) → Acronyms (NASA) → Borrowing (café from French)
Isolating/Analytic (Mandarin — one morpheme per word)
Agglutinative (Turkish, Japanese — clear morpheme boundaries)
Fusional (Latin, Russian — fused morphemes)
Polysynthetic (Inuktitut — many morphemes per word)
Principles (shared across all languages) + Parameters (settings vary by language)
Principles and Parameters theory explains language acquisition
Core Concepts
Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds (production, acoustics, perception). Phonology studies how sounds function in particular languages. Key concepts: phonemes (distinctive sound units — /p/ vs. /b/ in English), allophones (variations of a phoneme — aspirated vs. unaspirated /p/), minimal pairs (words differing by one sound — "bat" vs. "pat"). The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcribes all human speech sounds.
Morphology
The study of word structure and formation. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units: free morphemes (standalone words — "book") and bound morphemes (must attach — "-s", "un-"). Inflectional morphology changes grammatical categories (tense, number, case — "walk" → "walked"). Derivational morphology creates new words (change meaning or word class — "happy" → "happiness").
Syntax
The study of sentence structure and grammatical rules. Constituents are groups of words functioning as units (noun phrases, verb phrases). Phrase structure rules generate sentences: S → NP + VP. X-bar theory provides a universal template for phrases. Transformational grammar (Chomsky) distinguishes deep structure (underlying meaning) from surface structure (actual sentence) via transformations (passive, question formation).
Semantics and Pragmatics
Semantics studies literal, conventional meaning: lexical relations (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy), compositionality (sentence meaning from word meanings), and truth conditions. Pragmatics studies meaning in context: speech acts (Austin — saying is doing: promises, requests), implicature (Grice — implied meaning beyond literal), deixis (context-dependent words — "here", "now", "I"), politeness strategies (Brown & Levinson — face-saving).
Sociolinguistics
The study of language in relation to society. Key concepts: dialects (regional language varieties), sociolects (social class varieties), registers (situational varieties — formal vs. informal), code-switching (alternating languages/dialects), pidgins (simplified contact languages) and creoles (pidgins that become native languages). Language and identity: ethnicity, gender, age, and social networks shape linguistic variation.
Historical Linguistics and Language Change
Languages change over time through: sound change (Grimm's Law — Proto-Germanic consonant shifts), semantic change (broadening, narrowing, amelioration, pejoration), syntactic change (word order shifts), borrowing (loanwords from contact). The comparative method reconstructs proto-languages by comparing daughter languages. Language families trace descent from common ancestors (Proto-Indo-European → Germanic → English).
Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics
Psycholinguistics studies how the brain processes language: language acquisition (critical period hypothesis — Lenneberg), speech production (Levelt's model — conceptualization, formulation, articulation), speech perception (categorical perception of phonemes). Neurolinguistics localizes language in the brain: Broca's area (production — damage causes non-fluent aphasia), Wernicke's area (comprehension — damage causes fluent but meaningless speech).
Worked Examples & Case Studies
Example 1: Morphological Analysis
Word: "unhappiness"
Analysis: [un-[happy]-ness]
Morphemes: "un-" (bound, derivational — negation), "happy" (free, root), "-ness" (bound, derivational — forms noun from adjective).
Word formation: Derivation (twice). "Happy" (adjective) → "unhappy" (adjective, meaning changed) → "unhappiness" (noun, word class changed).
Inflectional test: Can we add inflection? "unhappinesses" (plural) — yes, inflection attaches outside derivation.
Example 2: Syntactic Analysis — Phrase Structure
Sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
Analysis:
S → NP + VP
NP → Det + Adj + Adj + N = "The quick brown fox"
VP → V + PP = "jumps over the lazy dog"
PP → P + NP = "over the lazy dog"
NP → Det + Adj + N = "the lazy dog"
Tree: [S [NP [Det The] [Adj quick] [Adj brown] [N fox]] [VP [V jumps] [PP [P over] [NP [Det the] [Adj lazy] [N dog]]]]]
Example 3: Pragmatics — Implicature Analysis
Dialogue:
A: "Do you want to go to the party tonight?"
B: "I have an exam tomorrow."
Analysis: Literal meaning: B states a fact. Implicature (Grice): B implies "No, I can't go."
Cooperative Principle: B assumes A will infer the relevant meaning.
Maxim of Relation: B's response is relevant to A's question.
Calculation: If B had an exam tomorrow, studying tonight is necessary → B cannot attend → B declines invitation politely.
Case Study: Language Revitalization — Māori (New Zealand)
Background: Māori (Te Reo Māori) is an Austronesian language spoken by Indigenous Māori people. By the 1980s, only 5% of Māori spoke their language fluently due to colonization and English-only education policies.
Revitalization Strategies: (1) Kōhanga Reo (language nests) — Māori-medium preschools established 1982, (2) Māori Language Act 1987 — made Māori an official language, (3) Māori Television — launched 2004, (4) Community immersion programs, (5) Technology — Māori language apps, online dictionaries. Results: 2018 census showed 185,000 Māori speakers (4% of NZ population). Model for global language revitalization (Hawaiian, Welsh, Irish).
Case Study: Pidgin and Creole Languages — Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea)
Background: Tok Pisin ("talk pidgin") emerged during German/British colonial rule as a contact language between English-speaking colonizers and indigenous Papua New Guineans.
Linguistic Development: (1) Pidgin stage: Simplified grammar, limited vocabulary (300-500 words), no native speakers, used only for trade/labor. (2) Creole stage: When children acquire pidgin as native language, grammar expands, vocabulary grows (3,000+ words), becomes full language. (3) Features: SVO word order, prepositions, reduplication ("tok" = talk, "toktok" = discussion), loanwords from English ("haus" = house), German ("raskol" = rascal), and local languages. Now: 4 million speakers, official language of PNG, used in parliament and media.
Practice Problems
Problem 1: Identify the morphemes in "internationalization". Is each free or bound? What word formation process is used?
Answer: inter- (bound, derivational) + nation (free, root) + -al (bound, derivational) + -ize (bound, derivational) + -ation (bound, derivational). Processes: derivation (multiple). Root: "nation".
Problem 2: Transcribe the following words using IPA: "ship", "sheep", "bathe", "bath".
Answer: ship [ʃɪp], sheep [ʃiːp], bathe [beɪð], bath [bæθ]. Demonstrates phonemic contrasts (ɪ vs. iː, θ vs. ð).
Problem 3: Identify the speech act in: "I promise to finish the report by Friday."
Answer: Commissive (Austin's classification) — commits speaker to future action. Performative verb "promise" explicitly marks the speech act. Felicity conditions: speaker intends to commit, listener wants the act, act is possible.
Problem 4: What is the difference between a dialect and a language? Why is the distinction political as well as linguistic?
Answer: Linguistically, dialects are mutually intelligible varieties; languages are not. But the distinction is political: "A language is a dialect with an army and navy" (Weinreich). Example: Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligian but called "dialects" of Chinese for political unity. Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) are mutually intelligian but called separate languages due to national boundaries.
Problem 5: Analyze Grice's Conversational Maxims in: A: "Where's the salt?" B: "Somewhere in the kitchen."
Answer: Maxim of Quantity: B's response is less informative than expected. Maxim of Quantity (second maxim): "Do not make your contribution more informative than is required." B's vagueness implicates: "I don't know exactly where it is" or "You should be able to find it easily." A infers B doesn't know the precise location.
Problem 6: What is code-switching? Give an example from Spanglish or Hinglish.
Answer: Code-switching = alternating between languages within a conversation. Spanglish example: "I'm going to the store para comprar leche" (I'm going to the store to buy milk). Hinglish example: "Mujhe kal meeting attend karni hai" (I have to attend a meeting tomorrow). Can occur within sentences (intra-sentential) or between sentences (inter-sentential).
Problem 7: What is the Critical Period Hypothesis? What evidence supports and challenges it?
Answer: CHP: Language acquisition is biologically constrained to a critical period (roughly birth to puberty). Supporting evidence: Genie (isolated child, limited language recovery), Johnson & Newport (later L2 learners show lower ultimate attainment), feral children. Challenges: Some adult learners achieve near-native proficiency; cognitive maturity may aid explicit learning; sensitive period rather than critical period; variable across domains (phonology more constrained than syntax).
Problem 8: Identify the semantic relationship: (a) "big" and "large", (b) "dog" and "animal", (c) "buy" and "sell".
Answer: (a) Synonymy — same meaning. (b) Hyponymy — "dog" is a hyponym of "animal"; "animal" is the superordinate. (c) Converseness — relational opposites; "A buys from B" implies "B sells to A".