Misplaced Pages

#929070

70-535: Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of two parts: a lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock); and a grammar , a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences. The lexicon is also thought to include bound morphemes , which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes ). In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions, collocations and other phrasemes are also considered to be part of

140-422: A "grammar" in the sense that most linguists use, particularly as they are prescriptive in intent rather than descriptive . Constructed languages (also called planned languages or conlangs ) are more common in the modern-day, although still extremely uncommon compared to natural languages. Many have been designed to aid human communication (for example, naturalistic Interlingua , schematic Esperanto , and

210-629: A common ancestor and synchronic variation . Dialectologists are concerned with grammatical features that correspond to regional areas. Thus, they are usually dealing with populations living in specific locales for generations without moving, but also with immigrant groups bringing their languages to new settlements. Immigrant groups often bring their linguistic practices to new settlements, leading to distinct linguistic varieties within those communities. Dialectologists analyze these immigrant dialects to understand how languages develop and diversify in response to migration and cultural interactions. Phonology

280-525: A discipline in Hellenism from the 3rd century BC forward with authors such as Rhyanus and Aristarchus of Samothrace . The oldest known grammar handbook is the Art of Grammar ( Τέχνη Γραμματική ), a succinct guide to speaking and writing clearly and effectively, written by the ancient Greek scholar Dionysius Thrax ( c.  170  – c.  90 BC ), a student of Aristarchus of Samothrace who founded

350-435: A discrepancy between contemporary usage and that which has been accepted, over time, as being standard or "correct". Linguists tend to view prescriptive grammar as having little justification beyond their authors' aesthetic tastes, although style guides may give useful advice about standard language employment based on descriptions of usage in contemporary writings of the same language. Linguistic prescriptions also form part of

420-418: A distinct Montenegrin standard is a matter of controversy, some treat Montenegrin as a separate standard lect, and some think that it should be considered another form of Serbian. Norwegian has two standards, Bokmål and Nynorsk , the choice between which is subject to controversy : Each Norwegian municipality can either declare one as its official language or it can remain "language neutral". Nynorsk

490-415: A given time, usually the present, but a synchronic analysis of a historical language form is also possible. It may be distinguished from diachronic, which regards a phenomenon in terms of developments through time. Diachronic analysis is the main concern of historical linguistics. However, most other branches of linguistics are concerned with some form of synchronic analysis. The study of language change offers

560-413: A hybrid known as phono-semantic matching . In languages with a long and detailed history, etymology makes use of philology , the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By analysis of related languages by

630-411: A language's lexicon. Neologisms are often introduced by children who produce erroneous forms by mistake. Other common sources are slang and advertising. There are two types of borrowings (neologisms based on external sources) that retain the sound of the source language material: The following are examples of external lexical expansion using the source language lexical item as the basic material for

700-436: A language's rules. For example, the suffix "-able" is usually only added to transitive verbs , as in "readable" but not "cryable". A compound word is a lexeme composed of several established lexemes, whose semantics is not the sum of that of their constituents. They can be interpreted through analogy , common sense and, most commonly, context . Compound words can have simple or complex morphological structures. Usually, only

770-695: A lexicon, they consider such things as what constitutes a word; the word/ concept relationship; lexical access and lexical access failure; how a word's phonology , syntax , and meaning intersect; the morphology -word relationship; vocabulary structure within a given language; language use ( pragmatics ); language acquisition ; the history and evolution of words ( etymology ); and the relationships between words, often studied within philosophy of language . Various models of how lexicons are organized and how words are retrieved have been proposed in psycholinguistics , neurolinguistics and computational linguistics . Grammar In linguistics , grammar

SECTION 10

#1732772908930

840-424: A minimal description. To describe the size of a lexicon, lexemes are grouped into lemmas. A lemma is a group of lexemes generated by inflectional morphology . Lemmas are represented in dictionaries by headwords that list the citation forms and any irregular forms , since these must be learned to use the words correctly. Lexemes derived from a word by derivational morphology are considered new lemmas. The lexicon

910-510: A part of a more broadly-conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a highly specialized field. Some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other families into Nostratic . These attempts have not met with wide acceptance. The information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as

980-584: A particular language variety involves a speaker internalizing these rules, many or most of which are acquired by observing other speakers, as opposed to intentional study or instruction . Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves more direct instruction. The term grammar can also describe the linguistic behaviour of groups of speakers and writers rather than individuals. Differences in scale are important to this meaning: for example, English grammar could describe those rules followed by every one of

1050-410: A school (attached to a cathedral or monastery) that teaches Latin grammar to future priests and monks. It originally referred to a school that taught students how to read, scan, interpret, and declaim Greek and Latin poets (including Homer, Virgil, Euripides, and others). These should not be mistaken for the related, albeit distinct, modern British grammar schools. A standard language is a dialect that

1120-620: A school on the Greek island of Rhodes. Dionysius Thrax's grammar book remained the primary grammar textbook for Greek schoolboys until as late as the twelfth century AD. The Romans based their grammatical writings on it and its basic format remains the basis for grammar guides in many languages even today. Latin grammar developed by following Greek models from the 1st century BC, due to the work of authors such as Orbilius Pupillus , Remmius Palaemon , Marcus Valerius Probus , Verrius Flaccus , and Aemilius Asper . The grammar of Irish originated in

1190-452: A standard defining nationality or ethnicity . Recently, efforts have begun to update grammar instruction in primary and secondary education. The main focus has been to prevent the use of outdated prescriptive rules in favor of setting norms based on earlier descriptive research and to change perceptions about the relative "correctness" of prescribed standard forms in comparison to non-standard dialects. A series of metastudies have found that

1260-476: A valuable insight into the state of linguistic representation, and because all synchronic forms are the result of historically evolving diachronic changes, the ability to explain linguistic constructions necessitates a focus on diachronic processes. Initially, all of modern linguistics was historical in orientation. Even the study of modern dialects involved looking at their origins. Ferdinand de Saussure 's distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics

1330-428: Is aspirated , but the p in spin is not. In English these two sounds are used in complementary distribution and are not used to differentiate words so they are considered allophones of the same phoneme . In some other languages like Thai and Quechua , the same difference of aspiration or non-aspiration differentiates words and so the two sounds, or phones , are considered to be distinct phonemes. In addition to

1400-437: Is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related by convergence through borrowing or by genetic descent, thus languages can change and are also able to cross-relate. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin among languages. Comparative linguists construct language families , reconstruct proto-languages , and analyze

1470-401: Is a sub-field of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language or set of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages. Phonology studies when sounds are or are not treated as distinct within a language. For example, the p in pin

SECTION 20

#1732772908930

1540-431: Is also organized according to open and closed categories. Closed categories , such as determiners or pronouns , are rarely given new lexemes; their function is primarily syntactic . Open categories, such as nouns and verbs , have highly active generation mechanisms and their lexemes are more semantic in nature. A central role of the lexicon is documenting established lexical norms and conventions . Lexicalization

1610-512: Is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian . Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect , the varieties of a language that are characteristic of particular groups, based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. This is in contrast to variations based on social factors, which are studied in sociolinguistics , or variations based on time, which are studied in historical linguistics. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from

1680-421: Is backed by 27 percent of municipalities. The main language used in primary schools, chosen by referendum within the local school district, normally follows the official language of its municipality. Standard German emerged from the standardized chancellery use of High German in the 16th and 17th centuries. Until about 1800, it was almost exclusively a written language, but now it is so widely spoken that most of

1750-501: Is based on the local dialects of Buenos Aires and Montevideo ( Rioplatense Spanish ). Portuguese has, for now, two official standards , Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese . The Serbian variant of Serbo-Croatian is likewise divided; Serbia and the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina use their own distinct normative subvarieties, with differences in yat reflexes. The existence and codification of

1820-525: Is called descriptive grammar. This kind of linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription , a plan to marginalize some constructions while codifying others, either absolutely or in the framework of a standard language . The word grammar often has divergent meanings when used in contexts outside linguistics. It may be used more broadly as to include orthographic conventions of written language such as spelling and punctuation, which are not typically considered as part of grammar by linguists,

1890-668: Is directly based on Classical Arabic , the language of the Qur'an . The Hindustani language has two standards, Hindi and Urdu . In the United States, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar designated 4 March as National Grammar Day in 2008. Historical linguistics Historical linguistics , also known as diachronic linguistics , is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand

1960-532: Is fundamental to the present day organization of the discipline. Primacy is accorded to synchronic linguistics, and diachronic linguistics is defined as the study of successive synchronic stages. Saussure's clear demarcation, however, has had both defenders and critics. In practice, a purely-synchronic linguistics is not possible for any period before the invention of the gramophone , as written records always lag behind speech in reflecting linguistic developments. Written records are difficult to date accurately before

2030-587: Is generally used in the context of a single language. Therefore, multi-lingual speakers are generally thought to have multiple lexicons. Speakers of language variants ( Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese , for example) may be considered to possess a single lexicon. Thus a cash dispenser (British English) as well as an automatic teller machine or ATM in American English would be understood by both American and British speakers, despite each group using different dialects. When linguists study

2100-441: Is linguistic change in progress. Synchronic and diachronic approaches can reach quite different conclusions. For example, a Germanic strong verb (e.g. English sing ↔ sang ↔ sung ) is irregular when it is viewed synchronically: the native speaker's brain processes them as learned forms, but the derived forms of regular verbs are processed quite differently, by the application of productive rules (for example, adding -ed to

2170-403: Is not significant and syntax is highly significant in an analytic language. For example, Chinese and Afrikaans are highly analytic, thus meaning is very context-dependent. (Both have some inflections, and both have had more in the past; thus, they are becoming even less synthetic and more "purely" analytic over time.) Latin , which is highly synthetic , uses affixes and inflections to convey

Lexicon - Misplaced Pages Continue

2240-399: Is promoted above other dialects in writing, education, and, broadly speaking, in the public sphere; it contrasts with vernacular dialects , which may be the objects of study in academic, descriptive linguistics but which are rarely taught prescriptively. The standardized " first language " taught in primary education may be subject to political controversy because it may sometimes establish

2310-442: Is the most common of word formation strategies cross-linguistically. Comparative historical linguistics studies the evolution of languages and takes a diachronic view of the lexicon. The evolution of lexicons in different languages occurs through a parallel mechanism. Over time historical forces work to shape the lexicon, making it simpler to acquire and often creating an illusion of great regularity in language. The term "lexicon"

2380-561: Is the process by which new words, having gained widespread usage, enter the lexicon. Since lexicalization may modify lexemes phonologically and morphologically, it is possible that a single etymological source may be inserted into a single lexicon in two or more forms. These pairs, called a doublet , are often close semantically. Two examples are aptitude versus attitude and employ versus imply . The mechanisms, not mutually exclusive, are: Neologisms are new lexeme candidates which, if they gain wide usage over time, become part of

2450-482: Is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses , phrases , and words . The term may also refer to the study of such rules, a subject that includes phonology , morphology , and syntax , together with phonetics , semantics , and pragmatics . There are, broadly speaking, two different ways to study grammar: traditional grammar and theoretical grammar . Fluency in

2520-496: Is the study of patterns of word-formation within a language. It attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of speakers. In the context of historical linguistics, formal means of expression change over time. Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology . Along with clitics , words are generally accepted to be the smallest units of syntax ; however, it is clear in most languages that words may be related to one another by rules. These rules are understood by

2590-610: The First Grammatical Treatise , but became influential only in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In 1486, Antonio de Nebrija published Las introduciones Latinas contrapuesto el romance al Latin , and the first Spanish grammar , Gramática de la lengua castellana , in 1492. During the 16th-century Italian Renaissance , the Questione della lingua was the discussion on the status and ideal form of

2660-400: The comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction . Less-standard techniques, such as mass lexical comparison , are used by some linguists to overcome the limitations of the comparative method, but most linguists regard them as unreliable. The findings of historical linguistics are often used as a basis for hypotheses about the groupings and movements of peoples, particularly in

2730-482: The comparative method , linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In that way, word roots that can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family have been found. Although originating in the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done in language families for which little or no early documentation

2800-515: The conventions used for writing a language. It may also be used more narrowly to refer to a set of prescriptive norms only, excluding the aspects of a language's grammar which do not change or are clearly acceptable (or not) without the need for discussions. The word grammar is derived from Greek γραμματικὴ τέχνη ( grammatikḕ téchnē ), which means "art of letters", from γράμμα ( grámma ), "letter", itself from γράφειν ( gráphein ), "to draw, to write". The same Greek root also appears in

2870-475: The origin of language ) studies Lamarckian acquired characteristics of languages. This perspective explores how languages adapt and change over time in response to cultural, societal, and environmental factors. Language evolution within the framework of historical linguistics is akin to Lamarckism in the sense that linguistic traits acquired during an individual's lifetime can potentially influence subsequent generations of speakers. Historical linguists often use

Lexicon - Misplaced Pages Continue

2940-639: The 12th century, compares the Hebrew language with Arabic in the Islamic grammatical tradition . Belonging to the trivium of the seven liberal arts , grammar was taught as a core discipline throughout the Middle Ages , following the influence of authors from Late Antiquity , such as Priscian . Treatment of vernaculars began gradually during the High Middle Ages , with isolated works such as

3010-429: The 16th century onward, such as Grammatica o Arte de la Lengua General de Los Indios de Los Reynos del Perú (1560), a Quechua grammar by Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás . From the latter part of the 18th century, grammar came to be understood as a subfield of the emerging discipline of modern linguistics. The Deutsche Grammatik of Jacob Grimm was first published in the 1810s. The Comparative Grammar of Franz Bopp ,

3080-615: The 7th century with Auraicept na n-Éces . Arabic grammar emerged with Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali in the 7th century. The first treatises on Hebrew grammar appeared in the High Middle Ages , in the context of Midrash (exegesis of the Hebrew Bible ). The Karaite tradition originated in Abbasid Baghdad . The Diqduq (10th century) is one of the earliest grammatical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. Ibn Barun in

3150-455: The Italian language, initiated by Dante 's de vulgari eloquentia ( Pietro Bembo , Prose della volgar lingua Venice 1525). The first grammar of Slovene was written in 1583 by Adam Bohorič , and Grammatica Germanicae Linguae , the first grammar of German, was published in 1578. Grammars of some languages began to be compiled for the purposes of evangelism and Bible translation from

3220-446: The advent of written representations , formal rules about language usage tend to appear also, although such rules tend to describe writing conventions more accurately than conventions of speech. Formal grammars are codifications of usage which are developed by repeated documentation and observation over time. As rules are established and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often produces

3290-484: The basic form of a verb as in walk → walked ). That is an insight of psycholinguistics , which is relevant also for language didactics , both of which are synchronic disciplines. However, a diachronic analysis shows that the strong verb is the remnant of a fully regular system of internal vowel changes, in this case the Indo-European ablaut ; historical linguistics seldom uses the category " irregular verb ". The principal tools of research in diachronic linguistics are

3360-441: The development of the modern title page . Often, dating must rely on contextual historical evidence such as inscriptions, or modern technology, such as carbon dating , can be used to ascertain dates of varying accuracy. Also, the work of sociolinguists on linguistic variation has shown synchronic states are not uniform: the speech habits of older and younger speakers differ in ways that point to language change. Synchronic variation

3430-440: The earlier discipline of philology , the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. Initially, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics , primarily as a tool for linguistic reconstruction . Scholars were concerned chiefly with establishing language families and reconstructing unrecorded proto-languages , using the comparative method and internal reconstruction . The focus

3500-418: The explanation for variation in speech, particularly variation in the speech of an individual speaker (for example, why some speakers say "I didn't do nothing", some say "I didn't do anything", and some say one or the other depending on social context). The formal study of grammar is an important part of children's schooling from a young age through advanced learning , though the rules taught in schools are not

3570-475: The explicit teaching of grammatical parts of speech and syntax has little or no effect on the improvement of student writing quality in elementary school, middle school or high school; other methods of writing instruction had far greater positive effect, including strategy instruction, collaborative writing, summary writing, process instruction, sentence combining and inquiry projects. The preeminence of Parisian French has reigned largely unchallenged throughout

SECTION 50

#1732772908930

3640-714: The former German dialects are nearly extinct. Standard Chinese has official status as the standard spoken form of the Chinese language in the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (ROC), and the Republic of Singapore . Pronunciation of Standard Chinese is based on the local accent of Mandarin Chinese from Luanping, Chengde in Hebei Province near Beijing, while grammar and syntax are based on modern vernacular written Chinese . Modern Standard Arabic

3710-405: The head requires inflection for agreement. Compounding may result in lexemes of unwieldy proportion. This is compensated by mechanisms that reduce the length of words. A similar phenomenon has been recently shown to feature in social media also where hashtags compound to form longer-sized hashtags that are at times more popular than the individual constituent hashtags forming the compound. Compounding

3780-416: The highly logical Lojban ). Each of these languages has its own grammar. Syntax refers to the linguistic structure above the word level (for example, how sentences are formed) – though without taking into account intonation , which is the domain of phonology. Morphology, by contrast, refers to the structure at and below the word level (for example, how compound words are formed), but above

3850-409: The historical changes that have resulted in the documented languages' divergences. Etymology studies the history of words : when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Words may enter a language in several ways, including being borrowed as loanwords from another language, being derived by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by

3920-459: The history of modern French literature. Standard Italian is based on the speech of Florence rather than the capital because of its influence on early literature. Likewise, standard Spanish is not based on the speech of Madrid but on that of educated speakers from more northern areas such as Castile and León (see Gramática de la lengua castellana ). In Argentina and Uruguay the Spanish standard

3990-439: The language's speakers. At smaller scales, it may refer to rules shared by smaller groups of speakers. A description, study, or analysis of such rules may also be known as a grammar, or as a grammar book . A reference work describing the grammar of a language is called a reference grammar or simply a grammar . A fully revealed grammar, which describes the grammatical constructions of a particular speech type in great detail

4060-402: The level of individual sounds, which, like intonation, are in the domain of phonology. However, no clear line can be drawn between syntax and morphology. Analytic languages use syntax to convey information that is encoded by inflection in synthetic languages . In other words, word order is not significant, and morphology is highly significant in a purely synthetic language, whereas morphology

4130-413: The lexicon. Dictionaries are lists of the lexicon, in alphabetical order, of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Items in the lexicon are called lexemes, lexical items, or word forms. Lexemes are not atomic elements but contain both phonological and morphological components. When describing the lexicon, a reductionist approach is used, trying to remain general while using

4200-577: The minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English, and topics such as syllable structure, stress , accent , and intonation . Principles of phonology have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages , but the phonological units do not consist of sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones. Morphology

4270-511: The nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical linguistics involves several key areas of study, including the reconstruction of ancestral languages, the classification of languages into families , ( comparative linguistics ) and the analysis of the cultural and social influences on language development. This field is grounded in the Uniformitarian Principle , which posits that

SECTION 60

#1732772908930

4340-452: The neologization, listed in decreasing order of phonetic resemblance to the original lexical item (in the source language): The following are examples of simultaneous external and internal lexical expansion using target language lexical items as the basic material for the neologization but still resembling the sound of the lexical item in the source language: Another mechanism involves generative devices that combine morphemes according to

4410-472: The prehistoric period. In practice, however, it is often unclear how to integrate the linguistic evidence with the archaeological or genetic evidence. For example, there are numerous theories concerning the homeland and early movements of the Proto-Indo-Europeans , each with its own interpretation of the archaeological record. Comparative linguistics , originally comparative philology ,

4480-413: The processes of language change observed today were also at work in the past, unless there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. Historical linguists aim to describe and explain changes in individual languages, explore the history of speech communities, and study the origins and meanings of words ( etymology ). Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown out of

4550-418: The same information that Chinese does with syntax. Because Latin words are quite (though not totally) self-contained, an intelligible Latin sentence can be made from elements that are arranged almost arbitrarily. Latin has a complex affixation and simple syntax, whereas Chinese has the opposite. Prescriptive grammar is taught in primary and secondary school. The term "grammar school" historically referred to

4620-739: The speaker, and reflect specific patterns in how word formation interacts with speech. In the context of historical linguistics, the means of expression change over time. Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages . Syntax directly concerns the rules and principles that govern sentence structure in individual languages. Researchers attempt to describe languages in terms of these rules. Many historical linguistics attempt to compare changes in sentence between related languages, or find universal grammar rules that natural languages follow regardless of when and where they are spoken. In terms of evolutionary theory, historical linguistics (as opposed to research into

4690-649: The starting point of modern comparative linguistics , came out in 1833. Frameworks of grammar which seek to give a precise scientific theory of the syntactic rules of grammar and their function have been developed in theoretical linguistics . Other frameworks are based on an innate " universal grammar ", an idea developed by Noam Chomsky . In such models, the object is placed into the verb phrase. The most prominent biologically oriented theories are: Parse trees are commonly used by such frameworks to depict their rules. There are various alternative schemes for some grammar: Grammars evolve through usage . Historically, with

4760-415: The time increases. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited due to chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed. Several methods are used to date proto-languages, but the process is generally difficult and its results are inherently approximate. In linguistics, a synchronic analysis is one that views linguistic phenomena only at

4830-547: The words graphics , grapheme , and photograph . The first systematic grammar of Sanskrit originated in Iron Age India , with Yaska (6th century BC), Pāṇini (6th–5th century BC ) and his commentators Pingala ( c.  200 BC ), Katyayana , and Patanjali (2nd century BC). Tolkāppiyam , the earliest Tamil grammar, is mostly dated to before the 5th century AD. The Babylonians also made some early attempts at language description. Grammar appeared as

4900-604: Was initially on the well-known Indo-European languages , many of which had long written histories; scholars also studied the Uralic languages , another Eurasian language-family for which less early written material exists. Since then, there has been significant comparative linguistic work expanding outside of European languages as well, such as on the Austronesian languages and on various families of Native American languages , among many others. Comparative linguistics became only

#929070