Fundamentals of Language
Communication
The process by which one organism transmits information to and influences another
Language
Individually meaningless symbols (sounds, letters, gestures) that can be combined according to agreed upon rules to produce meaningful messages
I. Phonology (the study of sounds & a language’s sound system)
· Phoneme - basic unit of sound
· English - 45 (consonants, vowels, blends)
· combined to make morphemes
II. Grammar
a. Morphology
i. the study of smallest units of meanings- units don’t have to be words- and how those units are combined to form words
ii. Morpheme- basic unit of meaning (words, prefix, suffix. etc.)
iii. Examples
1. “Unladylike”- three morphemes (un, lady, like)
2. “Dogs”- two morphemes (dog, s)
b. Syntax
i. the rules that govern how words are combined to convey meaning
ii. Every language has a set of rules that governs how words are combined.
iii. Sentence structure
Example: The dog barks at the cat.
Subject - dog
Verb - barks
Object - cat
The noisy dog barks loudly at the bird-
Adjective, Subject verb adverb object.)
Consider the following sentences:
Odie bit Garfield .
Garfield Odie bit.
Garfield bit Odie.
The actual structure of a language- Words appear in a sentence in a specific order
English, Spanish, Swahili – SVO – She eats cookies.
Korean, Dutch, Japanese – SOV – She cookies ate.
ASL – OSV – cookies she ate (this is true for basic ASL, not
advanced)
III. Semantics (the study of words)
a. the definition of words & the meanings of sentences are arbitrarily assigned within a culture
b. culturally specific
c. contextually specific