Introduction to Linguistics
What are the components of a language? How do
humans acquire language? How do languages change
over time?
History of Linguistics
Ancient linguistics
India - first systematic study of language – Sanskrit
grammarians
Panini - wrote Ashtadhyayi – a detailed description of
Sanskrit grammar
William Jones – comparative linguistics – Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin – common ancestor – Proto-Indo-European
Jacob Grimm – Grimm’s Law – systematic sound changes
across languages
Structuralism
- views language as a set of rules and structures
that could be analyzed scientifically.
Ferdinand de Saussure
- Father of modern linguistics
- Language consists of signs: the signifier (sound
or word and the signified (concept it
represents)
- Language should be studied synchronously (as
it exists at a given point in time than
diachronically (across time)
- Emphasizes the relationship between elements
in the language system rather than individual
words or sounds
- Believes that language is a social institution
Roman Jakobson - European
- Prague school of linguistics
- Contributed to phonology and semiotics
- Analyzes how sounds can be used to create
meaning within a system
Distinctive features theory (phonology) – every
phoneme (distinct sound can be broken down into
smaller, binary features such as:
- Voicing (voiced vs voiceless)
Voiced – vocal cords vibrating (e.g., [b], [d], [g])
Voiceless - without the vocal cords vibrating
(e.g., [p], [t], [k])
- Nasality
Nasal sounds involve the airflow through the
nose (e.g., [m], [n], [ŋ] as in "sing")
Oral sounds do not involve the nose (e.g., [b],
[d], [p])
- Place of Articulation
Bilabial - both lips - (e.g., [p], [b], [m])
Dental - tongue against the teeth (e.g., [θ] in
"thin," [ð] in "this")
Alveolar - the tip of the tongue makes contact
with or comes close to the alveolar ridge, which
is located just behind the upper front teeth [t],
[d], [n], [l], [s], [z]
Velar - back of the tongue against the soft part
of the roof of the mouth (velum) such as [k] and
[g]
- Manner of Articulation
Stops - produced by completely blocking the
airflow in the vocal tract, followed by a sudden
release of air ([p] in pat, [b] in bat, [t] in top, [d]
in dog, [k] in cat, and [g] in go)
Fricatives - produced by narrowing the space
between two articulators, creating friction as air
passes through ([f] in fat, [v] in vat, [s] in sit, [z]
in zebra, [ʃ] in ship, and [ʒ] in measure)
Affricates - begin as stops but are released into
a fricative ([ʧ] in chip and [ʤ] in judge)
Nasals - produced by blocking the oral cavity
while allowing air to flow through the nose ([m]
in mat, [n] in net, and [ŋ] in sing)
Liquids - produced with a relatively open vocal
tract, allowing air to flow around the sides of
the tongue ([l] in lip and [r] in run)
Glides (semivowels) - produced with a smooth,
continuous motion of the articulators, often
moving toward a vowel sound – similar to
vowels but function as consonants ([j] in yes
and [w] in we)
Trills - produced by rapid, repetitive contact
between one articulator (often the tongue) and
another ([r] in Spanish perro (dog))
- Other features
High vs low
High - raising the tongue toward the roof of the
mouth (e.g., [i], [u])
