Linguistica inglese base, Sintesi del corso di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Linguistica inglese base e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! 1 – THE SOUND PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE Phonology: is the description of the system and patterns of speech sounds in a language. Is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language that allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say and hear. /Phoneme/: (lettera scritta) each one of these meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language. It functions contrastively, we know there are two phonemes /t/ and /v/ in English because they are only basis of the contrast in meaning between the words fat and vat, fine and vine. Abstract unit or sound-type (“in the mind”). [Phones]: (lettera pronunciata, suono) many different versions of that sound-type regularly produced in actual speech (“in the mouth”). Are phonetic units and appear in square brackets. Allophones: a set of phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme. (-allo = one of a closely related set). For example the different way in which we can pronounce a sound ( [t] in the word tar or in the word star, we can find an aspiration in the first case). The distinction between phonemes and allophones is that substituting one phoneme for another will result in a word with a different meaning, but substituting allophones only results in a different pronunciation of the same word. Phonemic distinctions: Minimal pairs: pat and bat are identical in form except for a contrast in one phoneme occurring in the same positions. Minimal set: a group of words can be differentiated, each one from the others, by changing one phoneme, always in the same positions. Big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig. Phonotactics: constraints on the sequence or position of English phonemes, permitted arrangements of sounds, are part of every speaker’s phonological knowledge. Basic structure of that larger phonological unit called the syllable. Syllable: must contain a vowel or vowel-like sound, including diphthongs. The most common type of syllable in language also has a consonant ( C ) before the vowel ( V ), CV. The basic elements of the syllable are the onset (one or more consonants) followed by the rhyme, that consist of a vowel, which is treated as the nucleus, plus any following consonant, described as the coda. Syllables like, me, to or no have an onset and a nucleus, but no coda  open syllables. When coda is present, ad in the syllables up, cup, at or hat  closed syllables. Consonant clusters: both the onset and the coda can consist of more than one consonant. The combination /st/ (phoneme) is a cluster (CC) used as onset in the word stop, and as coda in the word post. Voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) and liquid or glide (/l/, /r/, /w/). Coarticulation effects We have been describing speech sounds in syllables and words as if they are always pronounced in slow motion. Speech isn’t normally like that. The process of making one sound almost at the same time as the next sound is called coarticulation. There are two coarticulation effects: - Assimilation : when two sound segments occur in sequence and some aspect of one segment is taken “copied” by the other, the process is known as assimilation. I have to go  [hafta], you and me hafta], you and me  [juenmi] - Elision : the elision of the stop sound. And  [hafta], you and me en], friendship  [hafta], you and me frenscip] 2 – WORD FORMATION Etymology: the study of the origin and history of a word. Coinage: invention of totally new terms. Eponyms: word based on the name of a person or a place sandwich  from the 18 century Earl of Sandwich. Borrowing: taking over of words of other languages. Loan-translation or calque, direct translation of the elements of a words into the borrowing language  skyscraper = grattacielo. Compounding: joining of two separate words to produce a single form  bookcase, fingerprint, sunburn. Blending: taking the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word  smog + fog =smog. Backformation: word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a verb), television  televise, donation  donate, emotion  emote. Conversion: noun comes to be used as a verb (without any reduction), butter  have you buttered the toast? or to print out  printout, to take over  a takeover. Acronyms: initial letters of a set of other words, (CD = compact disk), where the pronunciation consist of saying each separate letter. Derivation: large number of small “bits”, the affixes = un-, mis-, pre-, -ful, -less, -ish, -ism, -ness  unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful,careless, boyish, terrorism, sadness. A word can have prefix, suffix but also both  disrespectful, or also two suffixes  foolishness. Infixes: hallebloodyluja, unfuckinbelivble. This is not normally used in English. 3 – MORPHOLOGY Since the 19th century has also been used to describe the type of investigation that analyzes all those basic “elements” used in a language. Morphemes: minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function; elements such as -s, -er, -ed, -ing. - Free morphemes: can stand by themselves as single words, open, tour. - Bound morphemes: cannot stand alone and are typically attached to another form, affixes, suffixes. - Lexical morphemes: ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs. - Functional morphemes: conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. - Derivational morphemes: make new words or make words of a different grammatical category from the stem, the addition of –ness changes the adjective good to the noun goodness. It can change the category of a word teach  teacher. - Inflectional morphemes: are used to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word, plural or singular, past tense or not, comparative or possessive. (‘s genitivo, s plurale, s terza persona, ing present participle, ed past tense, en past participle, est superlative, er comparative). It never change the category of a word old  older. We can propose morphs as the actual forms used to realize morphemes. But there are different way for making, for exeples, the plural: cats  cat + s, buses  bus+ es. We can recognize the existence o allomorphs, when we find a group of different morphs, all versions of one morpheme. 4 – GRAMMAR The study of the meaning of the words, what the words conventionally mean. Conceptual meaning: is the type of meaning that dictionaries are designed to describe, Associative meaning: some people may associate the expression low-calorie when used to describe a product with healthy, but this is not the part of the basic conceptual meaning of the expression. In linguistic semantics we’re more concerned with trying to analyse conceptual meaning. Semantic features: The hamburger ate the boy the oddness of this sentence does not derive from their syntactic structure, we have well-formed structure, but the kind of noun that can be the subject of the verb ate must denote an entity that is capable of eating; so we need semantic features “+animate, - animate”, “+human –human”, “+female –female”. Agent: the entity that perform the action that are typically human, but also a non-human entities cause actions (the wind). Theme: the entity that is involved in or affected by the action. Instrumen t : when an agent uses another entity in order to perform an action. Experiencer: an entity who has feeling, perception or state. If we see, know or enjoy something, we’re not really performing an action. Location: where an entity is. Source: where the entity moves from. Goal: where it moves to. L exical relations Synonymy: two or more words with very closely related meanings. We should keep in mind that the idea of sameness of meaning used in discussing synonymy is not necessarily total sameness. There are many occasions when one word is appropriate in a sentence but its synonym would be odd. Antonymy: two forms with opposite meanings. Gradable antonyms such as the pair 2big/small”, that can be used in comparative forms. Also, the negative of one member does not necessarily imply the other. “My car isn’t” old doesn’t necessarily mean “My car is new”. Non-gradable antonyms comparative constructions are not normally used, we don’t describe someone more dead than another. The negative of one member imply the other member. “My parents aren’t alive” does indeed mean “My parents are dead”. Hyponymy: when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another animal/dog. Horse is a hyponym of animal, or cockroach is a hyponym of insect. In these two examples animal and insect are called superordinate. Two or more words that share the same superordinate term are co-hyponyms. This relation captures the concept of “is a kind of”. Prototypes: while the words canary, cormorant, duck, pelican, robin (etc) are equally co-hyponyms of the superordinate bird, they are not all considered to be equally good examples of the category “bird”, according to some researchers “robin” it is. Homophones: two or more different (written) forms have the same pronunciation. Homonyms: when one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings bank, bank of a river. Polysemy: when we encounter two or more words with the same form and related meanings. Foot (of person, of bed, of mountain) or run (person does, water does, colors do). In dictionary polysemous has a single entry with a numbered list of the different meanings of that word. Homonyms have typically two separate entries. Based on similarity. Metonymy: based on a close connection. Container-contents relation bottle/water, can/juice “he drank the whole bottle” Whole-part relation car/wheels, house/roof Representative-symbol relationship king/crown, the President/the White House (has announced). Collocation: one way we use to organize our knowledge of words. If you say hammer I will say nail. Corpus linguistic: large collection of texts thanks to we can discover which collocation are most common. 7 – PRAGMATICS The study of what speakers mean, the invisible meaning, or how we recognize what is meant even when it isn’t actually said or written. Context Linguistic context how we can recognize if we are meaning the bank as the building or the bank of a river. Co-text is the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence. Physical context if we see the word bank on the wall of a building in a city we understand, so the physical location will influence our interpretation. Deixis: words (deictic expressions) that can’t be interpreted at all if we don’t know the context. You’ll have to bring it back tomorrow because she isn’t here today. To point to things it, this, these To point to people (person deixis) him, them, those To point to a location (spatial deixis) here, there, near To point to a time (temporal deixis) now, then, last week Reference: an act by which a speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (o reader) to identify something. To perform an act of reference we can use proper nouns (Chomsky, Jennifer, Whiskas), other nouns in phrases (a writer, my friend, the cat) or pronouns (he, she, it). Mr. Kawasaki a man who drove his motorcycle fast and loud through the neighborhood. Inference: additional information used by the listener to create a connection between what is said and what must be meant. If X is the name of the writer of a book, then X can be used to identify a copy of a book by that writer. Picasso is in the museum, Jennifer is wearing Calvin Klein. The inference is what the listener does, the presupposition is an assumption made by the speaker. Anaphora: referential relationship, the second or subsequent referring expression. The first mention is called the antecedent. We found a house to rent, but the kitchen was very small  if X is a house, then X has a kitchen. Antecedent = house, anaphoric expression = the kitchen. Presupposition: what a speaker (or writer) assumes is true or know by a listener (or reader) can be described as presupposition. These are useful for interrogators or trial Mr. Buckingam, how fast were you going when you ran the red light? there is a presupposition that Mr. did in fact run the red light. If he simply answers the How fast part of the question, by giving a speed, he is behaving as if the presupposition is correct. Whether you say My car is a wreck or the negative version My car is not a wreck, the underlying presupposition (I have a car) remains true despite the fact that the two sentences have opposite meanings, “constancy under negation”. Speech act: it is the action performed by a speaker with an utterance, actions such as requesting, commanding, questioning or informing. If you say I’ll be there at six, you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act of promising. Direct speech act: interrogative structure such as Did you? Are they? Can we? is used with the function of a question. Indirect speech act: Can you pass the salt? we’re not really asking a question about someone’s ability, we use it to make a request. You left the door open has a declarative structure and, as a direct speech act, would be used to make a statement. However if you say this to someone you want that person to close the door. You are using the declarative structure to make a request. It is possible to have a strange effects if one person fails to recognize an indirect speech act Do you know where Roma is? – Yes. Politeness: Positive and negative face pag 135 8 – DISCOURSE ANALYSIS