Language Study An Introduction

What is language? Human A system of signs Vocal Conventional Communicative Changes over time

Assumptions about Language We ought not to make value judgments that one language is better than another. All living languages change. Language roots can be extrapolated. Languages spread for political, economic, or military reasons, not because they are easier to speak or understand, or because of their intrinsic beauty.

Terminology: Structure Phonology--study of the sound system of a language Etymology--study of word origins Morphology--study of the smallest units of meaning in a language (individual words or suffixes, prefixes, etc) Syntax--study of the structure and organizing of words into sentences

More terminology: structure Semantics--study of meaning and how it changes over time Pragmatics--study of the conventions of conversation or communication Inflection--a modification inside a word which changes its meaning (ex: run-ran; child-children; Jane-Jane’s)

Types of language Synthetic--information packed into individual words; highly inflected language [ex-Old English, Latin] Analytic--information contained in word order, not individual words [ex-Present Day English] Agglutinative--information contained in smaller-than word units [rare]