Introduction to Linguistics

Introduction to Linguistics

Penulis
Abdul Haris Sunubi

Design Sampul & Lay out

Muhammad Ikhsan & Nur Fadillah Nurchalis

Cetakan Pertama
Januari, 2016

vi + 101 halaman; 14,5 x 21 cm

ISBN: 978-602-71216-3-8

Diterbitkan oleh DIRAH

Jl. BTN Bukit Indah Blok I No.4, Soreang Kota Parepare 91132
Tlp (0421) 22687/ +6285 342 027 771
Email: nurfadillahnurchalis@[Link]

ii
PREFACE

Introduction to linguistic is one the subject for the students of

English Program of STAIParepare other Universities in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, textbooks on Introduction to Linguistics are very

scarcely available. Due to the fact, the author is motivated to write this
book. This books aims at providing the students with basic knoledge
of linguistics. By having this knowledge, the students will know what
language is, what linguistics is, the division and branches of linguistic
and the historical development of Linguistic.

This book is organized into eight Chapters, in Chapter I the

historical of linguistic, ancient greek, Ancient Rome,Middle Age.
Chapter II, What is Linguistic, describing of Phonology, Syntax,
Morphology, Semantic, and Pragmatic. Chapter III. Phonology, what
is phonology, phone, phonemic. Chapter IV Morphology, What is
Morphology, morphem, Morph, and Alomorph. Chapter V. Syntax,

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what is syntax, Phrase, Clause, [Link] VI. Semantic,
meaning, conotation and denotation. Chapter VII. Pragmatics,
Utterance, proposition, Reference,. Chapter VIII. Sociolinguistic,
Speech act, Dexis.

Finally, the writer expresses his most propound gratitude to

the Almighty God for his mercy and blessing, and to all colleagues
who save given invaluable suggestions and correction, so that this
book can publish

Parepare, January 7th, 2016

Abdul Haris Sunubi

iv
TABLE OF CONTENT

Preface iii
Table of Content v
The Historical Development of Linguistic 1
Ancient Greek 1
Ancient Rome 2
The Middle Ages 3
The Rennaisance 4
What is Linguistic 5
Definition of Linguistic 6
The Scientific Features of Linguistics 6
The Sub-Fields of Linguistics 7
Basic Consepts Phonology 11
Phonology 11
Phonetics 12
Phonemics 13
Phonem, Phoneme, And Allophone 13
Morphology 29
The Internal Structure of Words 31
Morphemes 31
Words and Morphemes 34
Kinds of Morpheme : Bound Versus Free 34

v
English Syntax 43
Some Basic Concepts 43
Syntactic Construction 45
Semantic 72
Definition of semantic 72
Meaning = Connotation? 73
Meaning = Denotation? 74
Meaning = Extension and Intention 74
How meaning works in language 74
Ambiguity 79
Pragmatics 87
Definition of Pragmatic 87
Speech act 88
Implicatur 89
Sociolinguistic 90
Implicature: Some Basic Oppositions 90
Speech Act 94
Reference 95
Deixis 109
Bibliography 100

vi
The Historical
Developments of Linguistic

The historical of Linguistic

1. Ancient Greek
According to Lapalombara (1976: 3), Greek philosophier were
interested in the study of linguistic phenomenom since as early as the
fourth century B. C. The sstudied language so that they might
discover the answer to some great mysteries of the life. Their motives
for language study were philosophical rather than practical. They
believed that language, in this case the greak language, had been
given to humans as a divine gift.
Among the greek philosopher who were concern with the study
of language were Plato, Aristoteles, the Stoics, Dionysious Thrax.
Plato develop his theory of natural logic. In speculating about words
and their meaning, he concluded that a given word bears and
inherent, natural, and thererefore logical relationship to the thing or
concept for which it stands. Believing as he did in the universal “
righness” of words, plato concentrated his philosophical attention on
the analysis of words and their meaning. He devised what is possibly
the first system of classification in the westen wold. His system was
based on meaning and had only two word classes : Onoma and
rhema. He define that word onoma class as the words indicating the
former of an action or that about which something is asserted; words
1
in the rhema class were those words representing the performing of
the action or the asserting. These two word classes are equivalent to
the noun and verb classes in traditional grammar. Aristoteles, platos
most gifted pupil, continoue the investigation of words and their
meaning in his own philosophical inquires. Aristoteles’ important
contribution to language study are among other: (1) he added a third
words class called syndesmoll ( which is roughly equivalent to the
concjuction class in the traditional grammar, Syndesmoi included all
words that left into rather of plato’s two classes; (2) he made note of
certain structural word features, such as the nouns posses case and
that verb posses tense, (3) the provided the definition of the term
word as the smalles meaningful language language unit. This
definition is probably the earliest definition and very close to the
modern structuralist is definition of morpheme
After Aristoteles, the next important work in language study is
that of Stoicks inquires around 300 B.C. the earliest Stoics added
one more word clas. That is Articles, to Aristotele’s three words
classes, so that the words classes became four, namely, articles,
noun, verbs, and conjunction. Later Stoics philosopher subdivided
words in the noun class into proper and common noun. They also
made detailed studies of tense and agreement in verbs and case in
noun. They also made detailed studies of tense and agreement in
verb and case in nound. According to them, noun posses five cases,
Nominative, Accusative, devine, Genetive, and vocative.
2. Ancient Rome
Years later, when the center of Western civilization had shifted
from Greece to rome, Greek learning came to imfluence nearly every
aspect of cultured romen life, including the study of language. Roman
scholars, who wrote their first latin Grammars, follow the earlier Greek
2
models. This was possible because both Greek and Latin were highly
inflected language with many gramatical similarities.
Among the scholars who were interested in the study of
language were Varro, Quintilan, Donatus, and Priscian. Varro
made independent contribution to Gramatical study. Beside the five
cases of Greek nouns. Latin noun had an addition case, called the
Abiative, not found in Gree, Varro was also interested in the old
anomalist analogist controversy which had concerned language
scholars from the time of Plato’ Cratilus. In fact Roman grammarians
believed that their sacret study was to depend the purity of Latin from
whatever decay the vernacular might impose to correct the corrupt
practice which had already taken place, and to standguard againts
future language detericcration
3. The Middle Ages
The Medieval period is the longest period in the history of
Western Europe. It had lasted for about a thousand years. These
years have been characteristerized by historian as one in which
scholarship suffered decline and during which few new ideas were
generated. The Middle ages scholar called the Medieval period as the
dark ages.
To have a better understanding of developments in language
study during this period, we should try to get a general impression of
the times. The continuing invassion of the Roman armies, which took
place over a span of several centuries. Eventually extended the
roman enpire over a span of geograpical area reaching from northem
Africa to nearly all Western Europe and Endland. The widespred
dissemination of Roman culture, custom, laws, religioun, and Latin
language was an inevitable result of this expansion. Than the Empire

3
began slowly to crumble, due to a number of complex reason, among
other thing, overestension, decentralization, and traubles at home.
4. The Renaissance
The renaissance period lasted from some time in the late 1400s
up to the 17 century. Among the Renaissance Scholars whose work
has only recenly received the attention of twentieth century linguist
were Francisco Sanches de las Brocas or simply Sanctius, a 16
century Spanish classical scholar, Huarte, a Spanish physician.
Minerva ( around 1987) was for many years considered the standard
work on Latin Grammar. He believed that all language, despited their
superfical difference, were simply varied development of single
universal set of underlying principle which were common to all human
language. Huarte argued that human can be distinguish human from
best, the second is generative or creative ability, which make to
human been capable of eloquence and which is quite beyond the
power best.

4
What is Linguistic?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists (people

who are specialists in linguistics) do work on specific languages, but
their primary goal is to understand the nature of language in general
by asking questions such as: …What distinguishes human language
from other animal communication systems? …What features are
common to all human languages? …How are the modes of linguistic
communication (speech, writing, sign language) related to each
other? …How is language related to other types of human behavior?
…etc.
The main goal of linguistics, like all other intellectual disciplines,
is to increase our knowledge and understanding of the world. Since
language is universal and fundamental to all human interactions, the
knowledge attained in linguistics has many practical applications.
Linguists, with some training in other appropriate disciplines, are thus
prepared to seek answers to questions such as: …How can a
previously unstudied language be analyzed and written? …How can
foreign languages best be taught and learned? …How can speech be
synthesized on a computer or how can a computer be programmed to
understand human speech? …How can the language problems of
people with speech abnormalities be analyzed and rectified? …How
are linguistic issues in legal matters to be handled? …etc.

5
1. Definition of Linguistic
Linguistics has also been defined by many linguists. According
to Wardhaugh (1972 :213), linguistics is the scientific study of
language. Oxford Advance Learner Dictionaries (1980) defines
linguistics as the science of language, E.g. of its structure, acquisition,
relationship to other forms of communication. Lado (1964:18) state
that linguistics is the science the described and classified the
language. The linguist identifies and describes the unit and pattern of
the sound system, the words and morphemes and the phrases and
sentences, that is the structure of language. According to Hartman
Dan Stock (1972 :132) linguist is the field of study the subject of which
language. Linguist study language as man’s ability to communicate,
as individual expression, as the cannot heritage of a speech
community, as spoken sound, as written test, etc last but not least.
Francis (1958: 15) defines linguistics as the scientific study of
language.
From the definitions of linguistics given above, we can conclude
that linguistic is the scientific study of language, the scientific
approach to language means that its investigation through
observation that can be proved empirically with reference to general
theory of language structure. In linguistic there is no priority of certain
speech community, linguistic studies any language. It is structure,
uses, and relations to other language. Linguistics also studies how a
language develops into dialects, and studies how that language
changes from period to period.
2. The Scientific Features of Linguistics
According to Francis (1958:15-17), linguistic as the scientific
study of language must comform the following requirements:

6
First, linguistics must have a subject matter. The subject matter
of linguistic is all the system of articulated sound used today by
humans in their carrying on of their affairs, that is all living language. It
is also include records language that have been used at some time in
the past, namely records and magnetic tapes.
Second, Linguistic produce careful objective descriptions. The
method of observation used by linguits various, including simple
listening, phonetic transcription, and the use of various instruments,
such as oscilographs, sound spectograps, and kymograps. Record
made in these way constitute various kinds of objective description.
3. The Sub-Fields of Linguistics
Language is a phenomenon with many layers, from the sounds
that come out of people’s mouths to the meanings that those sounds
express. The field of Linguistics is composed of sub-fields, and most
professional linguists become specialists in one or more of these sub-
fields. The major ones are:
Phonetics: The study of speech sounds themselves.
Phoneticians study both the production of speech sounds by the
human speech organs (articulatory phonetics) and the properties of
the sounds themselves (acoustic phonetics). Phoneticians are
concerned with such questions as: …What are the sounds, from
among all those that humans could make, that actually exist in the
world’s languages? …What specially defines different “accents”?
…Can speakers be identified by “voiceprints”? ...What are the
properties of sounds that would apply in computerized speech
synthesis?
Phonology: The study of the organization of language
sounds. Phonologists are concerned with questions such as: …What
7
sounds contrast in one language but not another (answers to such
questions explain why Spanish speakers have trouble with the
difference between English sh and ch, or why English speakers have
trouble with the different “u” sounds in French words like rue ‘street’
and roue ‘wheel’.)? …What sounds of a language can or cannot occur
one after the other (for example, why can words begin in st- in English
but not in Spanish)? ...How do poets or writers or song lyrics intuitively
know how to match the rhythm of speech to the abstract rhythmic
pattern of a poetic or musical meter?
Morphology: The study of word structure. Morphologists
examine such questions as: …To what extent are ways of forming
words “productive” or not (e.g. why do English speakers say arrival
and amusement but not *arrivement and *amusal)? …What
determines when words change form (for example, why does English
have to add –er to adjectives when making comparisons, but Hebrew
does not add any equivalent)? …How can humans program
computers to recognize the “root” of a word separated from its
“affixes” (e.g. how could a computer recognize walk, walks, walking,
and walked as the “same” word)?
Syntax: The study of how linguistic units larger than the word
are constructed. Syntacticians address such questions as: …How
can the number of sentences that speakers can create be infinite in
number even though the number of words in any language is finite?
…What makes a sentence like visiting relatives can be boring
ambiguous? …Why would English speakers judge a sentence like
colorless green ideas sleep furiously to be “grammatical” even though
it is nonsensical? …How can languages express the same thoughts
even though they construct their sentences in different ways (e.g.
Why does English I saw them there mean the same thing as French je
8
les y ai vus even though the order of elements in French is I them
there have seen)? …How can humans program a computer to
analyze the structure of sentences?
Semantics: The study of meaning. Semanticists answer such
questions as: …How do speakers know what words mean (e.g. How
does one know where red stops and orange starts)? ...What is the
basis of metaphors (e.g. Why is my car is a lemon a “good” metaphor
but my car is a cabbage is not)? …What makes sentences like I’m
looking for a tall student or the student I am looking for must be tall
have more than one meaning? …In a sentence like I regret that he
lied, how do we know that, in fact, he did lie? …How many meanings
can be found in a sentence like three students read three books and
why do just those meanings exist?
In addition to these basic sub-fields there are a number of
“hyphenated” fields of Linguistics, which use the “tools” of the basic
fields. Some of these “hyphenated” fields are the following:
Sociolinguistics: This is the study of how Language is used in
society, addressing such questions as what makes some dialects
more “prestigious” than others, where slang comes from and why it
arises, or what happens when two languages come together in
“bilingual” communities.
Psycholinguistics: This is the study of how language is
processed in the mind, addressing such questions as how we can
hear a string of language noises and make sense of them, how
children can learn to speak and understand the language of their
environment as quickly and effortlessly as they do, or how people with
pathological language problems differ from people who have “normal”
language.

9
Neurolinguistics: This is the study of the actual encoding of
language in the brain, addressing such questions as what parts of the
brain different aspects of language are stored in, how language is
actually stored, what goes on physically in the brain when language is
processed, or how the brain compensates when certain areas are
damaged.

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Basic Concepts Phonology

1. Phonology
Phonology is the study of the sound systems in language;
studies being what they are, aim to provide us with methods of
analysis which in this case means the analysis of spoken utterances
which provide us the means to represent them on paper in a way that
provides us with a deeper insight into how each language works. The
reader who comes to this book with no knowledge of phonology has a
double handicap: in the place, the handicap of knowing nothing of
phonology (a problem that we hope to do something about quite
soon), but at the same time the potential handicap of already
knowing rather well an old and not very systematic method of
analyzing the sounds of English and representing them on paper:
standard, written English, which we call English orthography (I will use
that term as a synonym for spelling).It would be pointless for me to
ask of you to turn o_ your knowledge of English orthography as you
enter into the arena of phonology, for we can no sooner turn o_ that
knowledge than we could turn o_ our ability to maintain our balance
as we walk down the sidewalk. All we can do is take our knowledge of
written English and try to step back from it; we can try to open our
ears and really listen to what it is that
The term phonology can be used in the wide sense of the word.
When used in this way, phonology covers phonetic and phonemics.

11
This accord with what Francis (1958:30-31) says that phonology is
covers term embracing phonetics and phonemics. This also in
accord with what Akmajan, Denners, dan Harmish (1984:99) says that
phonology is a sub field of linguistic that studied the structure and
systematic patterning of sound in human language. Part of the
phonology involves an investigation of how speech sound are
produce (articulated), in the vocal tract ( an area known as acoustic
phonetic) as well as the study of the physical properties of sound, the
term phonology is often used to refer to the abstract rules and
principles that govern the distribution of sound in a language. In the
narrow of word, phonology refers to phonemic, that is, the branch of
linguistic which studies the ways in which speech sound form systems
and pattern in human language (Fronking & Rodman:71)
2. Phonetics
According To Cristal (1980), Phonetic is the science which
studies the characteristic of human sound making, especially those
sound in speech, provide method for the description classification and
transcription. Three brance of the subject are generally recognized (1)
articulatory Phonetic is the study of the way speech sound are made
(articulated) by the vocal groups (2) acoustic phonetic studies the
physical properties of speech sound, as transmitted between mouth
and ear.(3) auditory phonetic study the perceptual response to
speech sound, as mediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain.
According to O Grady & Dobrovolsky (1989:13) phonetics is the study
of the inventory and structure of the sound of language.
Phonetics The study of speech sounds themselves.
Phoneticians study both the production of speech sounds by the
human speech organs (articulatory phonetics) and the properties of
the sounds themselves (acoustic phonetics). Phoneticians are
12
concerned with such questions as: …What are the sounds, from
among all those that humans could make, that actually exist in the
world’s languages? …What specially defines different “accents”?
…Can speakers be identified by “voiceprints”? ...What are the
properties of sounds that would apply in computerized speech
synthesis?
3. Phonemics
Francis (1958:30) defines phonetics as branch of linguistic
whose subject is the organization of phones ( sounds) into groups or
families called phonemes whose members are the significant sound of
speech. According to Pike (1968:246), phonemics is the study of the
structural arrangement of sound segment in relation to units of sound
in particular language, procedure for the finding of the phonemes of a
language, the theoretical problems concern with the setting up of
phonetic postulated.
4. Phonem, Phoneme, And Allophone
Concernng the distintion between these three concept, Crystal
(1980:265) states that phone

13
a. Most varieties of English have syllabic consonants in some words,
principally [l̩, m̩, n̩], for example at the end of bottle, rhythm and
button. In such cases, no phonetic vowel is pronounced between the
last two consonants. It is common for syllabic consonants to be
transcribed with a subscript mark, so that phonetic transcription of
bottle would be [ˈbɒtl̩] and for button [ˈbʌtn̩]. In theory, such
consonants could be analysed as individual phonemes. However, this
14
would add several extra consonant phonemes to the inventory for
English,[1] and phonologists prefer to identify syllabic nasals and
liquids phonemically as /əC/.[2][3] Thus button is phonemically /ˈbʌtən/
and 'bottle' is phonemically /ˈbɒtəl/.
b. The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is mainly used in Scottish and
Hiberno-English; words with /x/ in Scottish accents tend to be
pronounced with /k/ in other dialects. The velar fricative sometimes
appears in recent loanwords such as chutzpah. Many speakers of
White South African English realize /x/ as uvular [χ].[4]
c. In some conservative accents in Scotland, Ireland, the southern
United States, and New England, the digraph ⟨wh⟩ in words like which
and whine represents a voiceless w sound [ʍ], a voiceless labiovelar
fricative[5][6][7] or approximant,[8] which contrasts with the voiced w of
witch and wine. In most dialects, this sound is lost, and is pronounced
as a voiced w (the wine–whine merger). Phonemically this sound is
analysed as a consonant cluster /hw/, rather than as a separate
phoneme */ʍ/. Thus which and whine are transcribed phonemically
as /hwɪtʃ/ and /hwaɪn/. This does not mean that such speakers
actually pronounce [h] followed by [w]: the phonemic transcription /hw/
is simply a convenient way of representing a single sound [ʍ] without
analysing such dialects as having an extra phoneme. [9]
d. Similarly, the sound at the beginning of huge in most accents is a
voiceless palatal fricative [ç], but this is analysed phonemically as the
consonant cluster /hj/ so that huge is transcribed /hjuːdʒ/. As with
/hw/, this does not mean that speakers pronounce [h] followed by [j];
the phonemic transcription /hj/ is simply a convenient way of
representing the single sound [ç].[9] The yod-dropping found in Norfolk
dialect means that the traditional Norfolk pronunciation of huge is
[hʊudʒ] and not [çuːdʒ].
15
e. This phoneme is conventionally transcribed with ⟨r⟩ (the IPA
symbol for the alveolar trill), even though its pronunciation is usually a
postalveolar approximant; it is often slightly labialized: [ɹʷ]. For other
realizations of /r/, see below. In non-rhotic accents, such as Received
Pronunciation and Australian English, /r/ is subject to the phonotactic
constraint that it can only appear before a vowel.
Consonant examples
The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence
of the above consonant phonemes in words.
/m/ Map
/n/ Keen
/ŋ/ King
/p/ Pit /b/ Bit
/t/ Tin /d/ Din
/k/ Cut /ɡ/ Gut
/tʃ/ Cheap /dʒ/ Jeep
/f/ Fat /v/ Vat
/θ/ Thigh /ð/ Thy
/s/ Sap /z/ Zap
/ʃ/ Dilution /ʒ/ Delusion
/x/ Loch
/h/ Ham
/r/ Run
/j/ Yes
/w/ We
/l/ Left

16
Although regional variation is very great across English
dialects, certain patterns of allophony can be observed in the vast
majority of English accents. (See also Allophones of vowels below.)
Sonorants
Received Pronunciation has two main allophones of /l/: the
clear or plain [l], and the dark or velarized [ɫ]. The clear variant is used
before vowels when they are in the same syllable, and the dark
variant when the /l/ precedes a consonant or is in syllable-final
position before silence.
o In Wales, Ireland, and the Caribbean, /l/ is always clear, and in
Scotland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada it is always dark.
o In General American, /l/ is generally dark, but to varying degrees:
before stressed vowels it is neutral or only slightly velarized. [10] In
southern U.S. accents it is noticeably clear between vowels, and in
some other positions.[11]
o In Southern England, New Zealand, and some parts of the United
States, /l/ can be pronounced as an approximant or semivowel
([w], [o], [ʊ]) at the end of a syllable (l-vocalization).
Depending on dialect, /r/ has at least the following allophones
in varieties of English around the world:
o alveolar or postalveolar approximant [ɹ]
o retroflex approximant [ɻ]
o labiodental approximant [ʋ]
o alveolar flap [ɾ]
o postalveolar flap [ɽ̺]
o alveolar trill [r]
o voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] (the Northumbrian burr)
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In some rhotic accents, such as General American, /r/ when not
followed by a vowel is realized as an r-coloring of the preceding vowel
or its coda: nurse [ˈnɝs], butter [ˈbʌtɚ].
For many speakers, /r/ is somewhat labialized, as in reed [ɹʷiːd]
and tree [tʰɹ̥ ʷiː]. In the latter case, the [t] may be slightly labialized as
well.[12]
The distinctions between the nasals are neutralized in some
environments. For example, before a final /p/, /t/ or /k/ there is nearly
always only one nasal sound that can appear in each case: [m], [n] or
[ŋ] respectively (as in the words limp, lint, link – note that the n of link
is pronounced [ŋ]). This effect can even occur across syllable or word
boundaries, particularly in stressed syllables: synchrony is
pronounced [ˈsɪŋkɹəni] whereas synchronic may be pronounced
either as [sɪŋˈkɹɒnɨk] or as [sɪnˈkɹɒnɨk]. For other possible syllable-
final combinations, see Coda in the Phonotactics section below.
Phonotics
Phonotactics is the study of the sequences of phonemes that
occur in languages and the sound structures that they form. In this
study it is usual to represent consonants in general with the letter C
and vowels with the letter V, so that a syllable such as 'be' is
described as having CV structure. The IPA symbol used to show a
division between syllables is the dot [.]. Syllabification is the process
of dividing continuous speech into discrete syllables, a process in
which the position of a syllable division is not always easy to decide
upon.
Most languages of the world syllabify CVCV and CVCCV
sequences as /[Link]/ and /[Link]/ or /[Link]/, with consonants
preferentially acting as the onset of a syllable containing the following
18
vowel. According to one view, English is unusual in this regard, in that
stressed syllables attract following consonants, so that ˈCVCV and
ˈCVCCV syllabify as /ˈCVC.V/ and /ˈCVCC.V/, as long as the
consonant cluster CC is a possible syllable coda; in addition, /r/
preferentially syllabifies with the preceding vowel even when both
syllables are unstressed, so that CVrV occurs as /CVr.V/. This is the
analysis used in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.[46] However,
this view is not widely accepted, as explained in the following section.
Syllable structure
The syllable structure in English is (C)3V(C)5, with a near
maximal example being strengths (/strɛŋkθs/, although it can be
pronounced /strɛŋθs/).[47] From the phonetic point of view, the
analysis of syllable structures is a complex task: because of
widespread occurrences of articulatory overlap, English speakers
rarely produce an audible release of individual consonants in
consonant clusters.[48] This coarticulation can lead to articulatory
gestures that seem very much like deletions or complete
assimilations. For example, hundred pounds may sound like [hʌndɹɪb
pʰaʊndz] and 'jumped back' (in slow speech, [dʒʌmptbæk]) may
sound like [dʒʌmpbæk], but X-ray and electropalatographic studies
demonstrate that inaudible and possibly weakened contacts or lingual
gestures may still be made. Thus the second /d/ in hundred pounds
does not entirely assimilate to a labial place of articulation, rather the
labial gesture co-occurs with the alveolar one; the "missing" [t] in
'jumped back' may still be articulated, though not heard.
Division into syllables is a difficult area, and different theories
have been proposed. A widely accepted approach is the maximal
onsets principle:[53] this states that, subject to certain constraints, any

19
consonants in between vowels should be assigned to the following
syllable. Thus the word 'leaving' should be divided /ˈliː.vɪŋ/ rather than
*/ˈliːv.ɪŋ/, and 'hasty' is /ˈheɪ.sti/ rather than */ˈheɪ[Link]/ or */ˈheɪst.i/.
However, when such a division results in an onset cluster which is not
allowed in English, the division must respect this. Thus if the word
'extra' were divided */ˈ[Link]ə/ the resulting onset of the second
syllable would be /kstr/, a cluster which does not occur in English. The
division /ˈ[Link]ə/ is therefore preferred. If assigning a consonant or
consonants to the following syllable would result in the preceding
syllable ending in an unreduced short vowel, this is avoided. Thus the
word 'comma' should be divided /ˈkɒm.ə/ and not */ˈkɒ.mə/, even
though the latter division gives the maximal onset to the following
syllable, because English syllables do not end in /ɒ/.
In some cases, no solution is completely satisfactory: for
example, in British English (RP) the word 'hurry' could be divided
/ˈhʌ.ri/ or /ˈhʌr.i/, but the former would result in an analysis with a
syllable-final /ʌ/ (which is held to be non-occurring) while the latter
would result in a syllable final /r/ (which is said not to occur in this
accent). Some phonologists have suggested a compromise analysis
where the consonant in the middle belongs to both syllables, and is
described as ambisyllabic.[54][55] In this way, it is possible to suggest
an analysis of 'hurry' which comprises the syllables /hʌr/ and /ri/, the
medial /r/ being ambisyllabic. Where the division coincides with a
word boundary, or the boundary between elements of a compound
word, it is not usual in the case of dictionaries to insist on the maximal
onsets principle in a way that divides words in a counter-intuitive way;
thus the word 'hardware' would be divided /ˈhɑː.dweə/ by the M.O.P.,
but dictionaries prefer the division /ˈhɑː[Link]ə/.

20
In the approach used by the Longman Pronunciation
Dictionary, Wells claims that consonants syllabify with the preceding
rather than following vowel when the preceding vowel is the nucleus
of a more salient syllable, with stressed syllables being the most
salient, reduced syllables the least, and full unstressed vowels
("secondary stress") intermediate. But there are lexical differences as
well, frequently but not exclusively with compound words. For
example, in dolphin and selfish, Wells argues that the stressed
syllable ends in /lf/, but in shellfish, the /f/ belongs with the following
syllable: /ˈdɒlf.ɪn/, /ˈself.ɪʃ/ → [ˈdɒɫfɨn], [ˈseɫfɨʃ], but /ˈʃel.fɪʃ/ →
[ˈʃeɫˑfɪʃ], where the /l/ is a little longer and the /ɪ/ is not reduced.
Similarly, in toe-strap Wells argues that the second /t/ is a full plosive,
as usual in syllable onset, whereas in toast-rack the second /t/ is in
many dialects reduced to the unreleased allophone it takes in syllable
codas, or even elided: /ˈtoʊ.stræp/, /ˈtoʊst.ræk/ → [ˈtʰoˑʊstɹæp],
[ˈtʰoʊs(t̚)ɹʷæk]; likewise nitrate /ˈnaɪ.treɪt/ → [ˈnʌɪtɹ̥ ʷeɪt] with a
voiceless /r/ (and for some people an affricated tr as in tree), vs night-
rate /ˈnaɪ[Link]ɪt/ → [ˈnʌɪt̚ɹʷeɪt] with a voiced /r/. Cues of syllable
boundaries include aspiration of syllable onsets and (in the US)
flapping of coda /t, d/ (a tease /ə.ˈtiːz/ → [əˈtʰiːz] vs. at ease /æt.ˈiːz/
→ [æɾˈiːz]), epenthetic stops like [t] in syllable codas (fence /ˈfens/
→ [ˈfents] but inside /ɪn.ˈsaɪd/ → [ɪnˈsaɪd]), and r-colored vowels
when the /r/ is in the coda vs. labialization when it is in the onset (key-
ring /ˈkiː.rɪŋ/ → [ˈkʰiːɹʷɪŋ] but fearing /ˈfiːr.ɪŋ/ → [ˈfɪəɹɪŋ]).

21
Onset
The following can occur as the onset:

All single consonant phonemes

except /ŋ/

Stop plus approximant other than /j/: play, blood, clean, glove, prize,
/pl/, /bl/, /kl/, /ɡl/, /pr/, /br/, /tr/,[1] bring, tree,[1] dream,[1] crowd,
/dr/,[1] /kr/, /ɡr/, /tw/, /dw/, /ɡw/, /kw/, green, twin, dwarf, language,
/pw/ quick, puissance

Voiceless fricative plus approximant

other than /j/:[2] floor, sleep, thlipsis,[3] friend,
three, shrimp, what,[4] swing,
/fl/, /sl/, /θl/,[3] /fr/, /θr/, /ʃr/, /hw/,[4] thwart, reservoir
/sw/, /θw/, /vw/

Consonant plus /j/ (before /uː/ or

/ʊr/): pure, beautiful, tube,[5] during,[5]
cute, argue, music, new,[5] few,
/pj/, /bj/, /tj/, /dj/, /kj/, /ɡj/, /mj/, view, thew,[5] suit,[5] Zeus,[5]
[5] [5]

/nj/,[5] /fj/, /vj/, /θj/,[5] /sj/,[5] /zj/,[5] /hj/, huge, lurid[5]

/lj/

/s/ plus voiceless stop:[6]

speak, stop, skill
/sp/, /st/, /sk/

/s/ plus nasal other than /ŋ/:[6]

smile, snow
/sm/, /sn/

/s/ plus voiceless fricative:[3]

sphere, sthenic
/sf/, /sθ/
22
/s/ plus voiceless stop plus
approximant:[6] split, sclera, spring, street,
scream, square, smew, spew,
/spl/, /skl/,[3] /spr/, /str/, /skr/, /skw/, student,[5] skewer
/smj/, /spj/, /stj/,[5] /skj/

/s/ plus voiceless fricative plus

approximant:[3] Sphragistics
/sfr/

Notes:
a. For a number of speakers, /tr/ and /dr/ tend to affricate, so that
tree resembles "chree", and dream resembles "jream".[59][60][61]
This is sometimes transcribed as [tʃr] and [dʒr] respectively, but
the pronunciation varies and may, for example, be closer to [tʂ]
and [dʐ][62] or with a fricative release similar in quality to the
rhotic, i.e. [tɹ̝̊ ɹ̥ ], [dɹɹ], or [tʂɻ], [dʐɻ].
b. In some dialects, especially Shetlandic English, /wr/ (rather than
/r/) occurs in words beginning in wr- (write, wrong, wren,
etc.).[citation needed]
c. Words beginning in unusual consonant clusters that originated in
Latinized Greek loanwords tend to drop the first phoneme, as in
*/bd/, */fθ/, */ɡn/, */hr/, */kn/, */ks/, */kt/, */kθ/, */mn/, */pn/, */ps/,
*/pt/, */tm/, and */θm/, which have become /d/ (bdellium), /θ/
(phthisis), /n/ (gnome), /r/ (rhythm), /n/ (cnidoblast), /z/
(xylophone), /t/ (ctenophore), /θ/ (chthonic), /n/ (mnemonic), /n/
(pneumonia), /s/ (psychology), /t/ (pterodactyl), /m/ (tmesis), and
/m/ (asthma). However, the onsets /sf/, /sfr/, /skl/, /sθ/, and /θl/
have remained intact.

23
d. The onset /hw/ is simplified to /w/ in many dialects (wine–whine
merger).
e. There is an on-going sound change (yod-dropping) by which /j/
as the final consonant in a cluster is being lost. In RP, words with
/sj/ and /lj/ can usually be pronounced with or without this sound,
e.g. [suːt] or [sjuːt]. For some speakers of English, including
some British speakers, the sound change is more advanced and
so, for example, General American does not contain the onsets
/tj/, /dj/, /nj/, /θj/, /sj/, /stj/, /zj/, or /lj/. Words that would otherwise
begin in these onsets drop the /j/: e.g. tube (/tuːb/), during
(/ˈdʊrɪŋ/), new (/nuː/), Thule (/ˈθuːliː/), suit (/suːt/), student
(/ˈstuːdənt/), Zeus (/zuːs/), lurid (/ˈlʊrɪd/). In some dialects, such
Welsh English, /j/ may occur in more combinations; for example
in /tʃj/ (chew), /dʒj/ (Jew), /ʃj/ (sure), and /slj/ (slew).
f. Many clusters beginning with /ʃ/ and paralleling native clusters
beginning with /s/ are found initially in German and Yiddish
loanwords, such as /ʃl/, /ʃp/, /ʃt/, /ʃm/, /ʃn/, /ʃpr/, /ʃtr/ (in words such
as schlep, spiel, shtick, schmuck, schnapps, Shprintzen's,
strudel). /ʃw/ is found initially in the Hebrew loanword schwa.
Before /r/ however, the native cluster is /ʃr/. The opposite cluster
/sr/ is found in loanwords such as Sri Lanka, but this can be
nativized by changing it to /ʃr/.
Other onsets
Certain English onsets appear only in contractions: e.g. /zbl/
('sblood), and /zw/ or /dzw/ ('swounds or 'dswounds). Some, such as
/pʃ/ (pshaw), /fw/ (fwoosh), or /vr/ (vroom), can occur in interjections.
An archaic voiceless fricative plus nasal exists, /fn/ (fnese), as does
an archaic /snj/ (snew).

24
A few other onsets occur in further (anglicized) loan words,
including /bw/ (bwana), /mw/ (moiré), /nw/ (noire), /zw/ (zwieback),
/kv/ (kvetch), /ʃv/ (schvartze), /tv/ (Tver), /vl/ (Vladimir), and /zl/ (zloty).
Some clusters of this type can be converted to regular English
phonotactics by simplifying the cluster: e.g. /(d)z/ (dziggetai), /(h)r/
(Hrolf), /kr(w)/ (croissant), /(p)f/ (pfennig), /(f)θ/ (phthalic), and /(t)s/
(tsunami).
Others can be replaced by native clusters differing only in voice: /zb ~
sp/ (sbirro), and /zɡr ~ skr/ (sgraffito).
Nucleus
The following can occur as the nucleus:
 All vowel sounds
 /m/, /n/ and /l/ in certain situations (see below under word-level
rules)
 /r/ in rhotic varieties of English (e.g. General American) in certain
situations (see below under word-level rules)
Coda
Most (in theory, all) of the following except those that end with
/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/ or /dʒ/ can be extended with /s/ or /z/ representing
the morpheme -s/-z. Similarly, most (in theory, all) the following
except those that end with /t/ or /d/ can be extended with /t/ or /d/
representing the morpheme -t/-d.
Wells (1990) argues that a variety of syllable codas are
possible in English, even /ntr, ndr/ in words like entry /ˈɛntr.ɪ/ and
sundry /ˈsʌndr.ɪ/, with /tr, dr/ being treated as affricates along the
lines of /tʃ, dʒ/. He argues that the traditional assumption that pre-
25
vocalic consonants form a syllable with the following vowel is due to
the influence of languages like French and Latin, where syllable
structure is [Link] regardless of stress placement. Disregarding
such contentious cases, which do not occur at the ends of words, the
following sequences can occur as the coda:

The single consonant phonemes except /h/,

/w/, /j/ and, in non-rhotic varieties, /r/
Lateral approximant plus stop or affricate: help, bulb, belt, hold,
/lp/, /lb/, /lt/, /ld/, /ltʃ/, /ldʒ/, /lk/ belch, indulge, milk
harp, orb, fort, beard,
In rhotic varieties, /r/ plus stop or affricate:
arch, large, mark,
/rp/, /rb/, /rt/, /rd/, /rtʃ/, /rdʒ/, /rk/, /rɡ/
morgue
Lateral approximant + fricative: /lf/, /lv/, /lθ/, golf, solve, wealth, else,
/ls/, /lʃ/ Welsh
In rhotic varieties, /r/ + fricative: /rf/, /rv/, dwarf, carve, north,
/rθ/, /rs/, /rz/, /rʃ/ force, Mars, marsh
Lateral approximant + nasal: /lm/, /ln/ film, kiln
In rhotic varieties, /r/ + nasal or lateral: /rm/,
arm, born, snarl
/rn/, /rl/
Nasal + homorganic stop or affricate: /mp/, jump, tent, end, lunch,
/nt/, /nd/, /ntʃ/, /ndʒ/, /ŋk/ lounge, pink
Nasal + fricative: /mf/, /mθ/, /nθ/, /ns/, /nz/, triumph, warmth, month,
/ŋθ/ in some varieties prince, bronze, length
Voiceless fricative plus voiceless stop: /ft/,
left, crisp, lost, ask
/sp/, /st/, /sk/
Two voiceless fricatives: /fθ/ fifth
Two voiceless stops: /pt/, /kt/ opt, act
26
Stop plus voiceless fricative: /pθ/, /ps/, /tθ/, depth, lapse, eighth,
/ts/, /dθ/, /ks/ klutz, width, box
Lateral approximant + two consonants: /lpt/, sculpt, twelfth, waltz,
/lfθ/, /lts/, /lst/, /lkt/, /lks/ whilst, mulct, calx
In rhotic varieties, /r/ + two consonants: warmth, excerpt, corpse,
/rmθ/, /rpt/, /rps/, /rts/, /rst/, /rkt/ quartz, horst, infarct
Nasal + homorganic stop + stop or fricative: prompt, glimpse,
/mpt/, /mps/, /ndθ/, /ŋkt/, /ŋks/, /ŋkθ/ in thousandth, distinct, jinx,
some varieties length
Three obstruents: /ksθ/, /kst/ sixth, next
Note:
For some speakers, a fricative before /θ/ is elided so that
these never appear phonetically: /fɪfθ/ becomes [fɪθ], /sɪksθ/
becomes [sɪkθ],[who?] /twɛlfθ/ becomes [twɛɫθ].
Syllable-level rules
 Both the onset and the coda are optional
 /j/ at the end of an onset cluster (/pj/, /bj/, /tj/, /dj/, /kj/, /fj/, /vj/, /θj/,
/sj/, /zj/, /hj/, /mj/, /nj/, /lj/, /spj/, /stj/, /skj/) must be followed by /uː/
or /ʊə/
 Long vowels and diphthongs are not found before /ŋ/ except for
the mimetic words boing and oink[63]
 /ʊ/ is rare in syllable-initial position[64] (although, in the northern
half of England, [ʊ] is used for /ʌ/ and is common at the start of
syllables)
 Stop + /w/ before /uː, ʊ, ʌ, aʊ/ (all presently or historically /u(ː)/)
are excluded[65]
27
 Sequences of /s/ + C1 + V̆ + C1, where C1 is a consonant other
than /t/ and V̆ is a short vowel, are virtually nonexistent[65]
 The distinction between "long" and "short" vowels is conflated
before /ŋ/, the only vowels that occur before /ŋ/ in native words
being /ɪ æ ʌ ɒ/ (as in sing sang sung song), plus /ɛ ʊ/ in
assimilated non-native words such as ginseng and Sung
(Dynasty), /ɔɪ/ in the mimetic words boing and oink, and /aʊ/ in a
few proper names such as Taung.

28
Morphology

The term morphology is Greek and is a makeup of morph-

meaning 'shape, form', and -ology which means 'the study of
something'. The term is used not only in linguistics but also in biology
as the scientific study of forms and structure of animals and plants,
and in geology as the study of formation and evolution of rocks and
land forms. We are going to stick to morphology in linguistics, as the
scientific study of forms and structure of words in a language.
Morphology as a sub-discipline of linguistics was named for the first
time in 1859 by the German linguist August Schleicher who used the
term for the study of the form of words. [2] Today morphology forms a
core part of linguistics.
According to Cristal (1980:232-233), Morphology is a branch of
grammar that studies the structure or the form of words, particularly
through the use of morpheme, in generally, morphology is divided into
two fields. The study of inflectional (inflectional morphology), and
the study of word formation (lexical or derivational morphology)
if the emphasis is on technique of analyzing words into morpheme,
especially as practice by American structural Linguist in the 1940 and
1950. According to Bauer (1983:33), morphology studies the internal
structure of word form. In morphology, the analysis divides word form
into constituent form natives (most of which are morphs in the form of
roots or affixes), and attempts to explain the occurrence of each
formative morphology can be divide into two main branches, namely,
29
inflectional morphology and word formation (also called lexical
morphology), inflectional morphology studies various form of lexeme,
while word formation new lexemes from certain bases. Word
formation can be further divided derivation and compounding
(composition) derivation is concerned with the formation of new
lexemes through affixation, while com pounding is concerned with the
formation of new lexemes from two or more potential stems.
Derivation can also sometimes to be divided into class maintaining
derivation and class changing derivation. Class maintaining
derivation is the derivation of new lexeme whose class is the same as
base from which the lexeme is formed, while class changing
derivation produce lexemes whose class is different from its base.
Compounding is usually divided according to the class or category of
words of the compound words that are produce into compound noun,
compound verb, compound adjective. To make it clear, the summary
of morphology is given below in the form of diagrams.
Morphology

Inflectional Morphology Word Formation

Derivation Compounding

Class Maintaining Class changing Comp.N Comp.V [Link]

30
1. The Internal Structure of Words
If morphology is the study of the internal structure of words, we
need to define the word word before we can continue. That might
sound easy - surely we all know what a word is. In texts they are
particularly easy to spot since they are divided by white spaces. But
how do we identify words in speech? A reliable definition of words is
that they are the smallest independent units of language. They are
independent in that they do not depend on other words which means
that they can be separated from other units and can change
position. Consider the sentence: The man looked at the horses.
The plural ending –s in horses is dependent on the noun horse to
receive meaning and can therefore not be a word. Horses however, is
a word, as it can occur in other positions in the sentence or stand on it
sown: The horses looked at the man. - What is the man looking
at? - Horses. Words are thus both independent since they can be
separated from other words and move around in sentences, and the
smallest units of language since they are the only units of language
for which this is possible.
Cristal (1980:283-285) state that words is utterance unit which
has a universal intuitive recognition by the native speaker, either in
spoken language or written language. But there are some difficulties
to reach the consistent use of the term in terms of other categories of
linguistic description and in the comparison with other language which
have a different structural typed. This problems is related to the
identification and definition of word.
2. Morphemes
Although words are the smallest independent units of language,
they have an internal structure and are built up by even smaller
31
pieces. There are simple words that don’t have an internal structure
and only consist of one piece, like work. There is no way we can
divide work (wo-rk?) into smaller parts that carry meaning or
function. Complex words however, do have an internal structure and
consist of two or more pieces. Consider worker, where the ending –
er is added to the root work to make it into a noun meaning someone
who works. These pieces are called morphemes and are the
smallest meaning-bearing units of language.[4]
We said that words are independent forms, and a simple word
only consisting of one single morpheme is therefore
a free morpheme, that is, it is a word itself. Examples are house,
work, high, us and to. Morphemes that must be attached to another
morpheme to receive meaning are bound morphemes. If we break
the word unkindness into its three morphemes un-, kind and -ness, we
get two examples of bound morphemes: un- and -ness, as they
require the root kind to make up a word. These are also
called affixes as they are attached to the stem. The affix un- that go
to the front of a word is a prefix and -ness that goes to the end is
a suffix.
There are also infixes and circumfixes, although they are not
very common in English. We mostly see infixes as curse words
integrated in morphemes like the ones you can see below [5], or like
the example from the American sitcom you can see below. A circumfix
is a morpheme that attaches to the front and the back of a word, as
you can see in the examples of Dutch past tense below:

32
The graphic shows free and bound morphemes according to
positions
Drawing Morphology Trees
In order to show the internal structure of a word, we draw
morphology trees. The following pictures demonstrate a simple
morphology tree and a complex morphology tree:

33
3. Words and Morphemes
What is word? O’ Grady and Dobrovosky (1989:90-91) state
that the word is the best defined in term of the way in which it patterns
syntactically. In this way, the word can be defined as a minimal free
form. A frase form is an element tha can occur in isolation and or
whose position with respect to neigboring elements is not fix.
Words though they may be definable as minimal free forms,
arre not minimal meaningful units of language we are looking for,
since they are often broken down futher. In linguistic, these minimal
units are called morphemes. A words may consist of one or more
morpheme. The word fried. For example, only consist of two
morphemes, and the words friendliness consisit of three morphemes.
4. Kinds of Morpheme : Bound Versus Free
The morphemes in the word helpfulness, just discussed, do not
all have the same status. Help, -ful and -ness are not simply strung
together like beads on a string. Rather, the core, or starting-point, for
the formation of this word is help; the morpheme -ful is then added to
form helpful, which in turn is the basis for the formation of helpfulness.
34
In using the word ‘then’ here, I am not referring to the historical
sequence in which the words help, helpful and helpfulness came into
use; I am talking rather about the structure of the word in
contemporary English
According to Wether they can stand alone or not, morpheme
can be devided into free morpheme and bound morpheme. Free
morphemes are all morphemes that can stan alone, namely, morpmes
which can constitute words by themselves, and bound morpheme are
all morphemes which must attach to other elements. Roots or stems
usually belong to free morpheme, whereas affixes belond to bound
morphemes. Akmajan (1984: 68) classify all morphems as follow:

Morphemes

Free Morphem Boud Morphem

Content words Function word Affix Bound Bases Contracted

Nouns Conjuntion re cran ‘II

Verbs Articles un - ‘d
Adjectives Demostrative de - “ve
Adverb Preposition

35
a. Morpheme, Morp, And Alomorph
Bauer (1983:13-16) defines that a morpheme as the minimal
units of grammatical analysis, a morph as the segment of a word
form which represents a particular morphemes, and an allomorph as a
phonetically, lexically, or gramatically condition member of aset
morphs representing a particular morphemes
Word that is part of the implicit linguistic knowledge of all
English speakers, whether or not they know anything about the
history of the English language. There are two reasons for calling
help the core of this word. One is that help supplies the most precise
and concrete element in its meaning, shared by a family of related
words like helper, helpless, helplessness and unhelpful that differ
from one another in more abstract ways. Another reason is that, of the
three morphemes in helpfulness, only help can stand on its own – that
is, only help can, in an appropriate context, constitute an utterance by
itself.

36
That is clearly not true of -ness, nor is it true of -ful. (Historically
-ful is indeed related to the word full, but their divergence in modern
English is evident if one compares words like helpful and cheerful with
other words that really do contain full, such as half-full and chock-full.)
In self-explanatory fashion, morphemes that can stand on their own
are called free, and ones that cannot are bound. A salient
characteristic of English – a respect in which English differs from
many other languages – is that a high proportion of complex words
are like helpfulness and un-Clintonish in that they have a free
morpheme (like help and Clinton) at their core. Compare the two
column of words listed at (1), all of which consist uncontroversially of
two morphemes, separated by a hyphen:
read-able b. leg-ible
hear-ing audi-ence
en-large magn-ify
perform-ance rend-ition
white-ness clar-ity
dark-en obfusc-ate
seek-er applic-ant
The rationale for the division is that the words in column a. all
contain a free morpheme, respectively read, hear, large, perform,
white and dark. By contrast, in the words in column b., though they
are similar in meaning to their counterparts in a., both the morphemes
are bound. If you know something about the history of the English
language, or if you know some French, Spanish or Latin, you may
know already that most of the free morphemes in belong to that part
of the vocabulary of English that has been inherited directly through
37
the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family to which
English belongs, whereas all the morphemes have been introduced,
or borrowed, from Latin, either directly or via French. We will return to
these historical matters. Even without such historical knowledge, it
may strike you that the words are on the whole somewhat less
common, or more bookish, This reflects the fact that, among the most
widely used words, the Germanic element still predominates. It is thus
fair to say that, in English, there is still a strong tendency for complex
words to contain a free morpheme at their core. Is it possible for a
bound morpheme to be so limited in its distribution that it occurs in
just one complex word? The answer is yes. This is almost true, for
example, of the morpheme leg- ‘read’ in legible at least in everyday
vocabulary, it is found in only one other word, namely illegible, the
negative counterpart of legible. And it is absolutely true of the
morphemes cran-, huckle- and gorm- in cranberry, huckleberry and
gormless. Cranberry and huckleberry are compounds (a kind of
complex word to be discussed in Chapter 6) whose second element is
clearly the free morpheme berry, occurring in several other
compounds such as strawberry, blackberry and blueberry; however,
cran- and huckle- occur nowhere outside these compounds. A name
commonly given to such bound
b. Inflection and Derivation
According to O Grady and Doborsky (1989: 108) the
differences between inflection and derivation are as follaw:
First Inflection does not change the grammatical category of the
word to which it applies, wheraes derivation change the category and
or the meaning of the form to which applies.

38
Example: [[ BooK]N S}N
[[ Hospital]N Ize]V
Second, a derivational affix (DA) must be clser to the root then
an inflectional affix (IA).
Example: Neighbor hood s
Root DA IA
This example shows that the inflection takes place after all
word formation processes including derivation. Based on their
productivity, inflectional affixes typically have very few exceptions.
Whereas derivational affix characteristically apply to restricted classes
of them. The suffix-S, for example, can combine virtually with any
noun that allows a plural form wheraes the suffix- ize can combine
with only certain noun and adjective to form a verb.
c. Word Structure
Complex words have an internal structure. The complex word
decentralization consist of five morphemes: de centre al ize action.
The free morpheme is centre because it can stan alone as a word.
While the other words are bound morpheme. To show the internal
structure of this word. These parts or morpheme must be put together
in a particular way, with particular arrangement and order. There are
five morpheme can produce 120 possible combination, but only one
could be English word, that is decentralization.
The structure of word decentralization can best be seen as the
result of beginning with the simple free form, centre, called the root of
the word, and adding affixes succesively, one at the time, as follow:

39
Centre (N)
Central (adj)
Centralize (v)
Decentralize (v)
Decentralization (N)
The structure of the whole word can be represented by using
either a set of labelled brackets or a tree diagram as follow:
N

V AF

AF V

Adj AF

N AF

De Centre Al Ize Action

Word
Root Affix
Affix Root

Un Ready Able
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d. Word Formation
According to O,Grady and Doborsky (1989: 100), the two most
common types of word formation are derivation and compunding.
Both of the which create new words form already exiting morphemes.
Derivation is the process by which a new word is built from a base,
usually through the addition of the affix. Compunding on the other
hand is a process involving the combination of two words (With or
without accompanying affixes) to generate a new word.

1) Derivation
Derivation produce a new word by changing the class and/or
meaning of the base to which it applies. The derivational affix-er, for
example, combines with a verb to produce a noun with a meaning one
who does X as shown in the following (X Represent the base)
N
V N

Speak er
Verbs Derived noun
Hear Hearer
Listen Listener

2) English Derivational Affies

In the following table, O’Grady & Doborsky (1989:97) list some
of the English derivational affixes:

41
AFFIXES
Suffix Change Semantic Example
Effect
Action Verb Noun The result of Realization
X+ing
Er Verb Noun One who Workers
X+ing
Ing Verb Noun The act of X The shooting
+ ing
Ion Verb Noun The result or protection
act of X +
ing
Ment Verb Noun The act of goverment
the result of
X+ ing
Ity Adj Noun The result of Activity
being X
Ness Adj Noun The state of Greatness
being X
Ize Adj Verb Make X Hospitalize
Ate Adj Verb Make X Activate
En Adj Verb Make X Widen
Fy Noun Verb Make X Beauty
Able Verb Adj Able to be Fixable
X-ed

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English Syntax

1. Some Basic Concepts

a. Syntax
The term of syntax has been defined by many linguist. Crystal
(1980.345) defines syntax as the study of the rules governing the way
words are combined to from senteces in a language. In this use.
Syntax is opposed to morphology, the study word structure. In
alternative definition is the study of the interrelationship between
elements of sentence structure, and of the rules governing the
arrangement of sentence sequence. Robert (1964:1) define syntax as
the area of grammar which
Linguists define syntax the word sentence. For this web page,
sentence will be taken to mean: 'a sequence of words whose first
word starts with a capital letter and whose last word is followed by an
end punctuation mark (period/full stop or question mark or
exclamation mark)'. On the basis of this definition, some of the
sentences written by ESL students (indeed by all writers) will be
correct, and other sentences will be problematic. Good readers
(English teachers, for example!) can quickly see the difference
between a correct and a problematic sentence.
b. Construction
To make clear what is construction is, in the following some
definition of it is a given. According to Gleason (1961: 132), a
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construction is any significant group of word (morpheme) Crystal
(1980:85) states that in the general of sense in linguistic, construction
refers to the overall process of internal organization of grammar unit a
sentence, for example being constructed out of morpheme by
application of a set of rules. More specially, it is refers to syntagmatic
result such as process, a particular type of construction ( contractional
types or pattern).
c. Immediate constituent
Gleason (1961:133) defines that immediate constituent as one
of the two or view. Constituent of which are given construction is
directly formed. For example, the old man who lives there and has
gone to his son’s house are immediate constituent of the utterance.
We can therefore define constituent as any syntactically unit to form a
construction. A construction can be defined as any syntactically unit
contain constituent, for example the construction the girls in the room
is itself made up of eight constituent. One of prepositional phrase, two
noun phrase, and five words. Only two of these,however, ( the girl in
the room) are immediate constituent. Each of these constituent, then
must be futher out into thier immediate constituent.
d. Immediate constituen analysis
The immediate constituent analysis, first developed by Leonard
Bloom field is an important methodological tool by syntactic analysis.
According to the immediate constituent. If one or both the immediate
constituent consist of construction, then they must be futher cut into
their immediate constituent unit single words are reached. The last
string of constituent (words) are called the ultimate constituent. To
illustrate this procedure, and example is given in the following.

44
The pretty girl in the car are smiling gaily can be analyzed by using a
three diagram as follow:
S
Np Vp

Np Prep.p Vp Adp.p

Det Np Pre Np Aux V

Adj.p N Det N

The pretty Girl in the car are smiling Girl

2. Syntactic Construction
There are three syntactic construction: (a) Phrase, (b) clause,
(c) sentence . according to Ellison & Picket (1963:73) is unit are
composed of two or more words potentially, which does not have the
characteristic of clause, namely subject and practically the predicate.
A clause according to cook (1969:65) is unit grammar. A construction
in which the constituent is a potential base, and which the constituent
are subject and predicate, object, adjunt that combine to form the
base. And asentence, according to Cook (1969:39), is grammatical
intonation contour, and the constituents are the clauses, connecting
particies, and intonation pattern.

45
a. Phrase
According to Cook (1969:9), the phrase level is that level that is
below the clause level above the world word level. The phrase is
composed of words and typically fills slots at clause level. It is a
construction in which the constituted is closed knit morpheme
sequence which functions a typical unit at the clause level whose
constituent are words. Phrases are words groups that fill the same
slots at clause level as are filled by single words. Elson & Pickett
(1963:73) defines the phrase as unit composed of two or more word
potentially, which does not have the charasteristic of clause, and
typically, but not always, fill slots on the clause level.
There are two criteria that can be used to classify phrases: (1)
according to the relationship of element in the structure, and (2) and
according to number and types of words that become the headss of
the structure. Phrase consit of exocentric phrase and endocentric
pharse. Exocentric phrase consit of Noun Phrase, verb phrase,
adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional pharase.
1) Noun Phrase
Noun phrase is word group with noun as its head. A noun pharse
may consist of determiner which function as the modifier and a noun
which is the head of the group.
Examples:
 A man
 The students
 His book
 One book
 Etc

46
Noun phrase may also consist of a determiner, and adjective or
a noun as modifier, and a noun as head
Examples:
 A clever students
 The young man
 The good characters
 This new car

2) Verb Phrase
A verb phrase is a word group with verb as its head. A verb
phrase may consist of an auxalary as modifier and a verb as head.
Examples:
 Can speak
 May go
 Must study
 Will come

3) Adjective Phrase
An adjective phrase is a word group with adjective as the head.
This head is commonly preceded by an intensifer. Intensifers are
function words which modify adjectives and adverbs. In the following,
a rather complete list intensifier in English is given:
Examples:
 very beatiful
 quite calm
 rather easy
 so sweet

47
4) Adverb Phrase
an adverb phrase is word group with adverb as its head
which can be preceded by intensifier.
Examples:
 Very quickly
 Rather slowly
 So late
 Quite well
b. Clause
According to Cook (1969:65), the clause is gramatical unit in
which the constitute is a potential sentence based, and in which the
constituent are the subject, predicate, object, and adjunt that combine
to form the base. clause consit of independent clause and dependent
clause. Independent clauses is clause that can stand alone as a
major sentence. Dependent clause is clause that can not stand alone
as a major sentence. independent clause consit of transitive
clause,intransive clause, equative [Link] dependent clause
consist of nominal clause, adjectival clause, adverbial clauses.
Independent Clause
1) Transitive clause
Transive clause are clause whose predicates are filled by
transitive verbs, namely verbs that must take objects, like visit, write,
read,play, speak, love.
Examples:
 Mia visited his uncle last week
 He speaks English very well
 They play football every afternoon
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2) Intransitive Clause
Intransitive clause are clause whose predicates are filled by
intransitive verb, namely verbs taking no direct object, like work, go,
sit stand, rest, look, talk,laugh, come, etc.
Examples:
 He is looking around the office righ now
 Budi is sitting at his desk
 They stood in front of the class

3) Equative Clause
Equative Clauses are clause whose predicates are filled by
equative verbs, like be, become, grow, seem appear, look, remain,
feel, smell, taste,etc.
Examples:
 Wahyu is my brother
 She become nurse
 He looks very handsome
Dependent Clause
1) Nominal clause
Nominal clause are clauses that function or act like noun. They
can function as the subject, object, or complement. Nominal clause
are commonly introduced by the relaters, like, what, where, who, how,
why.

49
Examples:
 What have said
 I do not know where he lives
 I do not understand what he has said

2) Adjective Clauses
Adjective clause are clauses that function like adjectives. They
can function as modifiers of noun in sentence, and they are commonly
introduced by the relaters, like that, who, whom,ect.
Examples:
 The man, who come yesterday, is my uncle
 The book, that you bought last week, is very interesting
 The person, who lives next door, has gone to his son’ house

3) Adverbial Clause
Adverbial clauses are dependent clauses that function as
adverb, they can express place or location, time or temporal manner,
reason, purpose, and condition.
Example:
 I left the book where I bound it
 He was watching a tv program when I came
 He be haves as if he were drunked

c. Sentence
According to Cook (1969:39), the sentence is a grammatical
unit or construction in which the constitute in any utterance with final

50
intonation. And the constituents are clause, connecting particles, and
intonation pattern. And consist of subject, predicate, and objects.
Subject/predicate: All sentences are about something or
someone. The something or someone that the sentence is about is
called the subject of the sentence. In the following sentences the
subjects are shown in red. Note how the subject is often, but not
always, the first thing in the sentence.
 John often comes late toclass. My friend and I both have a dog
named Spot.
 Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in
2004.
 The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down
to make way for a new supermarket.
 Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird
with long blue tail feathers.
 The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks
excellent English.
 On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.
 Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the
students are well-prepared.
 Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.
The predicate contains information about the someone or
something that is the subject. The example sentences above are
shown again, this time with the predicate marked in green.
 John often comes late to class. My friend and I both have a dog
named Spot.
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 Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in
2004.
 The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down
to make way for a new supermarket.
 Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird
with long blue tail feathers.
 The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks
excellent English.
 On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.
 Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the
students are well-prepared.
 Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.
Simple subject/predicate: As you can see from the example
sentences above both the subject and the predicate can consist of
many words. The simple subject is the main word in the subject, and
the simple predicate is the main word in the predicate. The simple
subject is always a noun/pronoun and the simple predicate is always
a verb.
In the following sentences the simple subject is shown in red and the
simple predicate is shown in green.
 My ESL teacher speaks a little Russian.
 The young girl with the long black hair fell from her bike yesterday
in heavy rain.
 At the back of the line in the cafeteria yesterday was a large brown
dog with a yellow collar around its neck!

52
 My friend and I are going on holiday together this year.
 Your mother or your father must come to the meeting.
 Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird
with long blue tail feathers.
From the last three examples sentences above you will notice
that the simple subjects and simple predicates can be more than one
word.
Advice: To write strong, clear sentences you must know who
or what you are writing about (subject) and what you want to say
about them or it (predicate). Your writing will be more interesting if the
subject is not the first thing in every sentence you write.
[Link] types:
One way to categorize sentences is by the clauses they
contain. (A clause is a part of a sentence containing a subject and a
predicate.) Here are the 4 sentence types:
 Simple: Contains a single, independent clause.
o I don't like dogs.
o Our school basketball team lost their last game of the season 75-
68.
The old hotel opposite the bus station in the center of the town
is probably going to be knocked down at the end of next year.
 Compound: Contains two independent clauses that are joined by
a coordinating conjunction. (The most common coordinating
conjunctions are: but, or, and, so. Remember: boas.)
o I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats.
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o You can write on paper, or you can use a computer.
A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the
students was injured.
 Complex: Contains an independent clause plus one or more
dependent clauses. (A dependent clause starts with a
subordinating conjunction. Examples: that, because, while,
although, where, if.)
o I don't like dogs that bark at me when I go past.
o She did my homework, while her father cooked dinner.
o You can write on paper, although a computer is better if you
want to correct mistakes easily.
Note: A dependent clause standing alone without an
independent clause is called a fragment sentence - see below.
 Compound-complex: Contains 3 or more clauses (of which at
least two are independent and one is dependent).
o I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats because they
make her sneeze.
o You can write on paper, but using a computer is better as you
can easily correct your mistakes.
A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the
students was injured, although many of them were in classrooms at
the top of the building.
Advice: Writing that contains mostly short, simple sentences
can be uninteresting or even irritating to read. Writing that consists of
mostly long, complex sentences is usually difficult to read. Good
writers, therefore, use a variety of sentence types. They also
54
occasionally start complex (or compound-complex) sentences with the
dependent clause and not the independent clause. In the following
examples the dependent clause is shown in red:
 Although it was raining, we decided to go fishing.
 If it doesn't rain soon, the river will dry out.
 Because the road was icy and the driver was going too fast, he
was unable to brake in time when a fox ran into the road in front
of him.
Note: Sentences can also be categorized according to their
function.
Note: Independent clauses are also called main clauses.
Dependent clauses are also called subordinate clauses.
b. Problematic 'sentences'
To write a correct sentence, you need to have a good
understanding of what a sentence is. Students who don't have this
understanding, or don't take care, often include problem sentences in
their writing. Native English speakers are just as likely to write
problem sentences as ESL students. There are three main types of
problem sentence:
Run-on sentences: These are two sentences that the writer
has not separated with an end punctuation mark, or has not joined
with a conjunction. (Click the following run-ons to see where they
should be separated into two sentences.)
o I went to Paris in the vacation it is the most beautiful place I
have ever visited.

55
o It's never too late to learn to swim you never know when you
may fall from a boat.
o If you're going to the shops can you buy me some eggs and
flour I want to make a cake.
o I like our new math teacher, she always explains the work very
clearly.
o He was late to school again, his bus got caught in heavy traffic.
Advice: It is helpful to read your written work aloud. When you
speak, you will make natural pauses to mark the end of your
sentences or clauses. If there is no corresponding end punctuation
mark in your writing, you can be almost certain that you have written a
run-on sentence.
Sentence fragments: Fragment sentences are unfinished
sentences, i.e. they don't contain a complete idea. A common
fragment sentence in student writing is a dependent clause standing
alone without an independent clause. In the each of the following
examples the fragment is the second 'sentence', shown in red:
o I don't think I'm going to get a good grade. Because I didn't
study.
o She got angry and shouted at the teacher. Which wasn't a very
good idea.
o He watched TV for an hour and then went to bed. After falling
asleep on the sofa.
o She got up and ran out of the library. Slamming the door behind
her.

56
o I have to write a report on Albert Einstein. The famous scientist
who left Europe to live in the USA.
o After riding my bike without problems for over a year, the chain
broke. 40 kilometers from my house!
Advice: If your 'sentence' is a dependent clause, or it doesn't
contain both a subject and a predicate, then it is not a proper
sentence. You can often detect fragments if you read your writing
backwards sentence by sentence, i.e. from the last sentence to the
first one. You can usually correct a fragment by connecting. Good
writers, who have a full understanding of the sentence, occasionally
choose to write a sentence fragment. So you may see sentence
fragments in the fiction or even some of the non-fiction you read. As
an ESL student, however, you should avoid fragments (except when
writing your own creative stories).
 Rambling sentences: A rambling sentence is a sentence made
up of many clauses, often connected by a coordinating
conjunction such as and, or, so.
o John usually gets up before 7 o'clock, but yesterday his alarm
clock did not ring, so he was still asleep when his boss called
him at 10.30 to ask where he was and tell him that he would
lose his job if he was late again.
o Although the blue whale has been protected for over 30 years
and its numbers are increasing, especially in the North Pacific,
where whale hunting has been banned, it is still at risk of
extinction as its habitat is being polluted by waste from oil
tankers and its main food, the plankton, is being killed off by
harmful rays from the sun, which can penetrate the earth's

57
atmosphere because there is a huge hole in the ozone layer
over Antarctica.
Advice: A rambling sentence is quite easy to spot. You have
almost certainly written one if your sentence contains more than 3 or 4
conjunctions. If you read the sentence aloud and run out of breath
before reaching the end of it, you have written a rambling sentence. If
your sentence stretches over many lines of writing, you have certainly
written a rambling sentence and most probably a run-on sentence too.
Unlike run-ons or fragments, rambling sentences are not
wrong, but they are tiresome for the reader and one of the signs of a
poor writer. You should avoid them.
General advice: If you are not sure whether you have written a
good, correct sentence, ask your teacher! And remember: The more
you read in English, the better a writer you will become. This is
because reading good writing provides you with models of English
sentence structure that will have a positive influence on your own
written work.
Note: Good writing consists not only of a string of varied,
correctly-structured sentences. The sentences must also lead from
one to the next so that the text is cohesive and the writer's ideas are
coherent. For information on these two important concepts, go to the
Language words for non-language teachers page and click on
Cohesion.
c. Heads and modifiers
Our discussion of syntax begins with two central ideas. The first
is that certain elationships hold between words whereby one word,
the head, controls the other words, the modifiers. A given head may

58
have more than one modifier, and may have no modifier. The second
idea is that words are grouped into phrases and that groupings
typically bring together heads and their modifiers. In the large dog, the
word dog is the head, and the and large are its modifiers. In barked
loudly, the word barked is the head and loudly the modifier. (Criteria
for recognising heads and modifiers will be given below.) A phrase,
then, is a group of interrelated words. groups of interrelated words can
be moved around inside clauses as a single unit; here, we
concentrate on the fact that in such groups we recognise various links
among the words, between heads and their modifiers. This
relationship of modification is fundamental in syntax. It will play an
important role in the account of different types of clause. and is
crucial to discussions of word order in different languages. How are
we to understand the statement ‘one word, the head, controls the
other words, the modifiers’? Consider in the sentences which also
introduce the use of the asterisk – ‘*’ – to mark unacceptable
examples.
(1) a. Ethel was sitting at her desk.
b. *The Ethel was sitting at her desk.
(2) a. *Accountant was sitting at her desk.
b. The accountant was sitting at her desk.
c. Accountants audit our finances every year.
Example (1a) is a grammatical sentence of English, but (1b) is not
grammatical (at least as an example of standard English). Ethel is a
type of noun that typically excludes words such as the and a. (Nouns
are 1 described in on word classes. Here, we will use nouns that
accord with their traditional definition as words that denote people,
places and things.) Accountant is a different type of noun; if it is
59
singular, as in), it requires a word such as the or a. In , accountants
consists of accountant plus the plural suffix -s and denotes more than
one accountant. It does not require the. Plural nouns, of course,
exclude a or an but allow words such as some or more, as shown in .
*I would like an accountants to sort out my tax return.
Example
It can only mean that different types of salt were spread.
a. The gritter spread salt.
b. The gritter spread the salt.
c. The gritter spread salts.
Note: too that a plural noun such as gritters allows either less or
fewer, as in and, whereas salt requires less and excludes fewer, as in
and
a. This gritter spread less salt than that one.
b. *This gritter spread fewer salt than that one.
c. There are fewer gritters on the motorway this winter.
d. There are less gritters on the motorway this winter.
The central property of the above examples is that Ethel,
accountant, salt and gritter permit or exclude the plural suffix and
permit or exclude words such as the, a, some, less and fewer – note
that Ethel excludes the, a, some, less and fewer; salt in excludes a
and fewer; gritters excludes a; accountant allows both the and a, and
so on. We have looked at phrases with nouns as the controlling word,
but other types of word exercise similar control. Many adjectives such
as sad or big allow words such as very to modify them – very sad,
very big – but exclude words such as more – sadder is fine but more
60
sad is at the very least unusual. Other adjectives, such as wooden,
exclude very and more – *very wooden, *more wooden. That is,
wooden excludes very and more in its literal meaning, but note that
very is acceptable when wooden has a metaphorical meaning, as in
The policeman had a very wooden expression. Even a preposition
can be the controlling word in a group. Prepositions link nouns to
nouns (books about antiques),
Adjectives to nouns and verbs to nouns (aimed at the target).
Most prepositions must be followed by a group of words containing a
noun, or by a noun on its own, as in (They sat) round the table,
(Claude painted) with this paintbrush, (I’ve bought a present) for the
children. A small number of prepositions allow another preposition
between them and the noun: In behind the woodpile (was a
hedgehog), (An owl swooped on the rabbit) from up in the beech tree.
In allows behind and from allows up. That is, the preposition controls
whatever word or phrase follows it. Another aspect of this control can
be seen from the fact that in standard English prepositions can be
followed by pronouns, but they exclude I, he, she, we and they and
require me, him, her, us and them: *I’ve bought a present for she, I’ve
bought a present for her.
d. Heads, modifiers and meaning
The distinction between heads and modifiers has been put in
terms of one word, the head, that controls the other words in a
phrase, the modifiers. If we think of language as a way of conveying
information – which is what every speaker does with language some
of the time – we can consider the head as conveying a central piece
of information and the modifiers as conveying extra information. Thus
in the phrase expensive books the head word books indicates the
very large set of things that count as books, while expensive indicates
61
that the speaker is drawing attention not to the whole set but to the
subset of books that are expensive.
In the longer phrase the expensive books, the word the
signals that the speaker is referring to a set of books which have
already been mentioned or are otherwise obvious in a particular
context. The same narrowing-down of meaning applies to phrases
containing verbs. Note first that different verbs have different powers
of control. Some verbs, as in , exclude a direct object (to use the
traditional terminology and anticipating, other verbs require a direct
object, as in, and a third set of verbs allows a direct object but does
not require one:
*The White Rabbit vanished his watch / The White Rabbit vanished.
b. Dogs chase cats / *Dogs chase.
c. Flora cooks / Flora cooks gourmet meals.
Consider the examples drove and drove a Volvo. Drove
indicates driving in general; drove a Volvo narrows down the activity
to driving a particular make of car.
Consider further the phrase on the plate. The first word, on,
signals a relationship between some entity, say a piece of toast or a
knife, and the surface of something; the plate tells us what that
something is, that HEADS AND MODIFIERS is, it narrows down the
meaning ‘being on’ to ‘being on a particular plate’. Finally in this brief
set of examples, we return to the point made earlier in passing that
heads may have several modifiers.
This is most easily illustrated with verbs; the phrase bought a
present for Jeanie in Jenners last Tuesday contains four modifiers of
bought – a present, for Jeanie, in Jenners and last Tuesday. A

62
present signals what was bought and narrows down the activity from
just buying to buying a present as opposed, say, to buying the weekly
groceries. For Jeanie narrows the meaning down further – not just
‘buy a present’ but ‘buy a present for Jeanie’, and similarly for the
phrases in Jenners and last Tuesday. Complements and adjuncts The
last example, bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners last Tuesday,
brings us to the second major distinction in this chapter. Modifiers fall
into two classes – obligatory modifiers, known as complements, and
optional modifiers, known as adjuncts.
The distinction was first developed for the phrases that modify
verbs, and indeed applies most easily to the modifiers of verbs; we
will focus on verbs, but the distinction is also applied to the modifiers
of nouns. Before discussing the division of modifiers into
complements and adjuncts, we must take the example at the
beginning of this paragraph and convert it to a complete clause, say
My mother bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners last Tuesday. We
saw from that the verb controls whether a direct object is excluded,
required or merely allowed. (The term ‘direct object’ is discussed.
From these examples, we might conclude that the verb controls
only the phrases that follow it; but the verb can be seen as controlling
every other phrase in the clause. (My) mother in the revised example
above is the subject of the verb. the subject of a clause plays an
important role; nonetheless, in a given clause the verb controls the
subject noun too. Bought requires a human subject noun; that is, it
does in everyday language but behaves differently in the language of
fairy stories, which narrate events that are unconstrained by the
biological and physical laws of this world. A verb such as requires a
subject noun denoting a liquid; if in a given clause it has a subject
noun denoting some other kind of entity, imposes an interpretation of
63
that entity as a liquid. (Of course, some entities can be either liquids
or solids; molten steel flows, solid steel does not.)
Thus people talk of a crowd flowing along a road, of traffic
flowing smoothly or of ideas flowing freely. Such talk offers a view of
the crowd moving along a road held in by the buildings on either side
and propelled by a mysterious motive force, just as a river moves
along in a mysterious fashion held in by its banks. What we are
considering is the distinction between literal language and figurative
or metaphorical language.
The distinction will not be explored here, but it is important to
be aware that many of the constraints which linguists discuss apply to
literal language but dissolve in figurative language. Returning to the
clause My mother bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners last
Tuesday, we will say that the verb bought controls all the other
phrases in the clause and is the head of the clause. It requires a
human noun to its left, here mother ; it requires a noun to its right that
denotes something concrete (although we talk figuratively of buying
ideas in the sense of agreeing with them). It allows, but does not
require, time expressions such as last Tuesday and place expressions
such as in Jenners. Such expressions convey information about the
time when some event happened and about the place where it
happened. With verbs, such time and place expressions are always
optional and are held to be adjuncts.
The major exception is which has its own syntactic patterns.
Phrases that are obligatory are called complements. (The term
‘complement’ derives from a Latin verb ‘to fill’; the idea conveyed by
‘complement’ is that a complement expression fills out the verb (or
noun and so on), filling it out or completing it with respect to syntax
but also with respect to meaning. The term ‘adjunct’ derives from the
64
Latin verb ‘join’ or ‘add’ and simply means ‘something adjoined’,
tacked on and not part of the essential structure of clauses.) All verbs
in English declarative clauses require a noun to their left; even where
the buyers are known, they must be mentioned by means of a noun.
Verbs such as also require a noun to their right. Without one, the
clause in which they occur is incomplete and the message conveyed
by the clause is incomplete for speakers of English.
Clauses The technical term ‘clause’ has slipped into the
discussion without being explained. Suppose we want to describe
different paperweights. To distinguish them, we talk of their shape,
height, weight and colour and the material from which they are made.
Shape, height and so on are the basic units we use to describe the
paperweights, but we might need other units that enable us to talk
about height (inches, centimetres), weight (ounces and grammes) and
colour (blue, green). In order to talk about syntax coherently, we need
units for our analysis.
One unit is the phrase, which enables us to describe the
relationship between other units, namely heads and modifiers, as in
the accountant, very unhappy and in behind the sofa. Another unit is
the clause, which enables us to talk coherently about the relationships
between verbs and different types of phrase. An ideal clause contains
a phrase referring to an action or state, a phrase or phrases referring
to the people and things involved in the action or state, and possibly
phrases referring to place and time. My mother bought a present is a
clause.
The phrase my mother refers to the buyer, bought refers to the
action and a present refers to what was bought. We can add the
phrase for Jeanie, which refers to the person benefiting from the
action. Finally, we can tack on, or leave out, the place phrase in
65
Jenners and the time phrase last Tuesday. The clause is a unit which
as a minimum consists of a verb and its complements but which may
consist of a verb, its complements and its adjuncts. The clause is a
useful unit because it gives us a framework for discussing the
relationship between, for example, bought and the other phrases. We
will see later that it also gives a framework for talking coherently about
constituent structure and statements, questions and commands
Note that in the last paragraph but one, one of the phrases that
turned out to be adjuncts contains a preposition, in, while the other
one consists of an adjective, last, and a noun, Tuesday. (Nouns and
prepositions and the general concept of word classes will be
discussed. The example of the excursion to Jenners conveniently
illustrates the lack of a reliable correlation between the type of a given
phrase (does it have a preposition, noun or adjective as its head?)
and the phrase’s function as complement or adjunct. Consider. The
cat shot into the kitchen on Sunday morning carrying a dead mouse.
As in the Jenners example, the time expression on Sunday morning
signals the time when the event happened. Like the phrase carrying a
dead mouse, it is optional. Consider now the phrase into the kitchen
and its relationship to shot.
This phrase is obligatory with this particular verb. *The cat shot
is not acceptable, whereas The cat shot off or The cat shot into the
kitchen are correct. That is, the phrase into the kitchen is obligatory
and therefore a complement of shot. It expresses direction, where the
cat moved to, and directional phrases in general are complements.
We must note, however, that directional phrases are not always
obligatory. Consider The cat pranced into the kitchen carrying a dead
mouse. If the phrases into the kitchen and carrying a dead mouse are
excised, what is left is still an acceptable sentence, The cat pranced.
66
Nonetheless, the directional phrase into the kitchen is treated as a
complement.
The reason is that the occurrence of directional phrases is
closely bound up with the meaning of verbs; verbs expressing movement
allow or require them. Verbs that do not express movement exclude them, as in
*The cat lies onto the rug in front of the fire vs The cat lies on the rug in front of
the fire. In contrast, phrases expressing the place where something
happened occur with all sorts of verbs, whether or not they express
movement. At this point, we anticipate Chapter 5, ‘The lexicon’, and
describe the state of affairs in terms of what goes into the dictionary
entries of verbs; if it has to be stated in the dictionary whether a given
verb or subset of verbs excludes (or requires) a particular type of
phrase, that phrase is a complement. The dictionary entry for lie must
state that it excludes directional phrases, whereas the entry for shoot
(at least in the meaning it has in must state that shoot requires a
directional phrase. The dictionary entry for prance will state that the
verb allows a directional phrase but does not require one.
Dictionary entries and collocations An important point implicit in
the preceding paragraph is that the status of phrases as complement
or adjunct varies from verb to verb. This point is worth emphasising
here because it is part of the larger question of the relationship
between grammar and dictionary that will be discussed in Chapter 5.
It also introduces a third property of complements. English possesses
(as do other languages) combinations of verb and object in which the
actual lexical items that can occur are severely limited.
In English (at least in the UK) you can toast bread, toast
marshmallows or even toast your toes. You do not grill bread, in spite
of the fact that the processes of toasting and grilling are similar (if you

67
choose not to use the toaster). Similarly, we talk of braising meat (but
not usually other items of food).
Other areas than cooking offer examples of particular verbs
typically combining with particular nouns; people lay tables, chop or
split logs and kindling (even in these days of almost ubiquitous central
heating), make beds and vire money or funds (if you are a civil
servant or university administrator). These regular fixed combinations
of verbs and nouns are called collocations, and they involve heads
and complements. Fixed combinations of verb and adjective are also
found – prove useless, prove necessary – and a good number of
verbs require particular prepositions. Blame someone for something
and blame something on someone are set expressions in which only
the prepositions for or on can occur; this is information that must be
stated in the dictionary entry for blame.
It must be made clear that these collocations are not proposed
as a criterion for recognising complements. The central criteria are
whether or not a particular phrase is HEADS AND MODIFIERS 7
obligatory with a particular verb, as with shot and into the kitchen in
(7), or whether a particular type of phrase has to be mentioned in the
dictionary entry for a particular verb. The collocational facts constitute
interesting extra information but, and this is the difficulty, are not
confined to verbs and their complement nouns; they apply to
adjectives and nouns – heavy smoker, heavy drinker, staple diet,
staple crop, staple industry – and to combinations of adjective and
another word, for example, brand new, wide awake, rock solid, frozen
hard.
On the main criterion for complements, being obligatory, brand,
wide, rock and hard are not complements of new, awake, solid and
frozen, which is why collocations are not a test for complement status
68
but merely an additional set of interesting facts. Verbs, complements
and the order of phrases This chapter finishes with one more
technical term and one last fact about heads and complements. The
relationships between heads and modifiers are called dependencies
or dependency relations. heads have been described as controlling
modifiers; modifiers are said to depend on, or to be dependent on,
their heads. Heads and their modifiers typically cluster together to
form a phrase, certainly in formal written language. In accordance with
a long tradition in Europe, verbs are treated here as the head, not just
of phrases, but of whole clauses. In clauses, the verb and its
complements tend to occur close together, with the adjuncts pushed
towards the outside of the clause, as shown by the examples :
a. Maisie drove her car from Morningside to Leith on Wednesday.
b. On Wednesday Maisie drove her car from Morningside to Leith.
c. Maisie drove her car on Wednesday from Morningside to Leith.
In the object her car is next to the verb, followed by the
directional phrases from Morningside and to Leith. As discussed
above, objects and directional phrases are complements. The time-
when phrase on Wednesday is at the end of the clause in (9a) and at
the beginning of the clause in (9b). In (9b), it is closer to drove, but
this is not important. What is important is the fact that the adjunct
does not come between the head and any of the complements. This
does happen in where on Wednesday separates the complement her
car from the other complement to Leith. Example is at the least
awkward – although there might be contexts in which that order of
phrases would be appropriate. Every phrase contains a head and
possibly, but not necessarily, one or more modifiers. Each clause has
a head, the verb.

69
There are two types of modifiers, namely complements and
adjuncts. Adjuncts are optional; complements are typically obligatory
and are always mentioned in the lexical entries for verbs (or nouns or
prepositions). Many collocation restrictions apply to heads and
complements (but also to phrases other than complements). Heads
and complements are typically adjacent; where a head has two or
more complements, adjuncts typically come before or after the
sequence of head and complements. Exercises Consider the
modifiers of the verbs in the following sentences. (For the purposes of
this exercise, exclude the grammatical subjects.) Which of the
modifiers are obligatory and which are optional? Which of the
modifiers are complements and which are adjuncts?
1. Sir Thomas agreed with Edmund.
2. Mr Elton delivered a charade to Emma for a friend.
3. She thrust the documents into her briefcase.
4. Raskolnikov killed the old woman with an axe.
5. Mr D’Arcy met the Gardiners at Pemberley in the summer.
6. Frank sent a piano to Jane Fairfax.
7. The porter placed the letter on the secretary’s desk.
8. Harriet imagined that Mr Elton would propose to her.
9. The picnic was held at Box Hill in the summer.
[Treat was held as a single verb.]
10. He executed great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes.
11. We were expecting the worst that day in 1968.

70
Pick out four examples of heads and modifiers in each of the
following sentences (which are from William Dalrymple’s book From
the Holy Mountain (Flamingo, 1998).
You will notice that modifiers may themselves contain heads.
Thus in the phrase sitting at her desk the head sitting is modified by at
her desk. The phrase at her desk has as its head the word at, which
has as its modifier the phrase her desk. The head of the latter phrase
is desk, which has her as its modifier. I ate breakfast in a vast
Viennese ballroom with a sprung wooden floor and dadoes dripping
with recently reapplied gilt. HEADS AND MODIFIERS.

71
Semantic

1. Definition of semantic
Semantics, the study of word meaning and sentence meaning,
abstracted away from contexts of use, is a descriptive subject. It is an
attempt to describe and understand the nature of the knowledge
about meaning in their language that people have from knowing the
language. It is not a prescriptive enterprise with an interest in advising
or pressuring speakers or writers into abandoning some meanings
and adopting others (though pedants can certainly benefit from
studying the semantics of a language they want to lay down rules
about, to become clear on what aspects of conventional meaning they
dislike and which they favour). A related point is that one can know a
language perfectly well without knowing its history. While it is
fascinating to find out about the historical currents and changes that
explain why there are similarities in the pronunciations or spellings of
words that share similarities in meaning – for example: armsbody
parts, armsweapons, army, armada and armadillo – this kind of
knowledge is not essential for using present-day English, so it is not
covered in this book. Historical linguists investigating language
change over time sometimes concern themselves with semantic (and
pragmatic) matters. They are then doing historical (linguistic)
semantics (and/or pragmatics).

72
According to Crystal (1980:315) semantic is a major branch of
linguistics devoted to study of meaning in language. He futher states
that this term is also used in philosophy and logic. But not with the
same range of meaning or emphasis as in linguistics.
Semantics is a sub discipline of linguistics which focuses on the
study of meaning. Semantics tries to understand what meaning is as
an element of language and how it is constructed by language as well
as interpreted, obscured and negotiated by speakers and listeners of
language. Semantics is closely linked with another sub discipline of
linguistics, pragmatics, which is also, broadly speaking, the study of
meaning. However, unlike pragmatics, semantics is a highly
theoretical research perspective, and looks at meaning in language in
isolation, in the language itself, whereas pragmatics is a more
practical subject and is interested in meaning in language in use.
Semantics is the study of meaning, but what do we mean by
'meaning'?

Meaning has been given different definitions in the past.

2. Meaning = Connotation?
Is meaning simply the set of associations that a word evokes, is
the meaning of a word defined by the images that its users connect to
it? So 'winter' might mean 'snow', 'sledging' and 'mulled wine'. But
what about someone living in the amazon? Their 'winter' is still wet
and hot, so its original meaning is lost. Because the associations of a
word don't always apply, it was decided that this couldn't be the whole
story.
73
3. Meaning = Denotation?
It has also been suggested that the meaning of a word is simply
the entity in the World which that word refers to. This makes perfect
sense for proper nouns like 'New York' and 'the Eiffel Tower', but
there are lots of words like 'sing' and 'altruism' that don't have a solid
thing in the world that they are connected to. So meaning cannot be
entirely denotation either.

4. Meaning = Extension and Intention

So meaning, in semantics, is defined as being Extension: The
thing in the world that the word/phrase refers to, plus Intention: The
concepts/mental images that the word/phrase evokes.[2]
5. How meaning works in language:
The study of semantics looks at how meaning works in
language, and because of this it often uses native speaker intuitions
about the meaning of words and phrases to base research on. We all
understand semantics already on a subconscious level, it's how we all
understand each other when we speak. One of the things that
semantics looks at, and is based on, is how the meaning of speech is
not just derived from the meanings of the individual words all put
together, as you can see from the example below

74
Semantics also looks at the ways in which the meanings of
words can be related to each other. Here are a few of the ways in
which words can be semantically related.

75
Semantic
Definition Example
relationship

Words are synonymous/ synonyms

Begin and start,
when they can be used to mean the
Big and large,
Synonymy same thing (at least in some contexts -
Youth and
words are rarely fully identical in all
adolescent.
contexts).

Words are antonyms of one another Big and small,

Antonyms when they have opposite meanings Come and go,
(again, at least in some contexts). Boy and girl.

A word is polysemous when it has two

or more related meanings. In this case Bright- shining
the word takes one form but can be and bright-
used to mean two different things. In intelligent.
Polysemy
the case of polysemy, these two Mouse- animal
meanings must be related in some way, and mouse- on
and not be two completely unrelated a computer.
meanings of the word.

Bat- flying
mammal and
Homophony is similar to polysemy in
bat- equipment
that it refers to a single form of word
used in cricket.
Homophony with two meanings, however a word is a
Pen- writing
homophone when the two meanings
instrument and
are entirely unrelated.
pen- small
cage.

76
Sentences can also be semantically related to one-another in a
few different ways.
Semantic
Definition Example
relationship

One relationship that two

sentences can have with each
other is being paraphrases of each
other. This is a good example of
'The boys like the
how we all understand semantics
girls' and 'the girls
already on some level because
are liked by the
people can easily tell when a
boys',
Paraphrase sentence is a paraphrase, because
'John gave the
when two sentences are
book to Chris' and
paraphrases of each other, even
'John gave Chris
though the form is different you will
the book'.
understand the same meaning from
them. Paraphrases have the same
truth conditions; if one is true, the
other must also be true.

Entailment is a little more tricky

than paraphrase in that the two
sentences don't mean exactly the
same thing, instead, when one
Entailment
sentence entails another, for the
second sentence to be true, the
first one must be true. There are
two different types of entailment.

77
'John is married to
Rachel' and
When each sentence entails the 'Rachel is John's
Mutual
other, i.e. each sentence must be wife',
enatilment
true for the other to be true. 'Chris is a man'
and 'Chris is
human'.

'Rachel is John's
wife' entails 'John
is married' (but
John is married
does not entail
With asymmetrical entailment, only
Rachel being his
one of the sentences must be true
wife), 'Rachel has
Asymmetrical for the other to be true, but that
two brothers'
entailment sentence may be true without the
entails 'Rachel is
other sentence nescessarily having
not an only child'
to be true.
(but Rachel not
being an only child
does not entail
Rachel having two
brothers).

'Rachel is an only
Sentences can also be
child' and 'Rachel's
semantically related when they
brother is called
Contradiction contradict each other. Sentences
Phil', 'Alex is alive'
contradict each other when for one
and 'Alex died last
to be true the other must not be.
week'.

78
6. Ambiguity:
One of the aspects of how meaning works in language which is
studied most in semantics is ambiguity. A sentence is ambiguous
when it has two or more possible meanings, but how does ambiguity
arise in language? A sentence can be ambiguous for either (or both!)
of the following reasons: Lexical Ambiguity: A sentence is lexically
ambiguous when it can have two or more possible meanings due to
polysemous (words that have two or more related meanings) or
homophonous (a single word which has two or more different
meanings) words. Example of lexically ambiguous sentence:
'Prostitutes appeal to the Pope'. This sentence is ambiguous
because the word 'appeal' is polysemous and can mean 'ask for help'
or 'are attractive to'. Structural Ambiguity: A sentence is structurally
ambiguous if it can have two or more possible meanings due to the
words it contains being able to be combined in different ways which
create different meanings. Example of structurally ambiguous
sentence: 'Enraged cow injures farmer with axe'. In this sentence
the ambiguity arises from the fact that the 'with axe' can either refer to
the farmer, or to the act of injuring being carried out (by the cow) 'with
axe'.
English Proverb
 A fruitless life is useless life
Meaning : Hidup tidak berarti tanpa berbuat sesuatu yang
bermanfaat.
 A good book as a great friend
Meaning : Buku yang bermanfaat adalah teman yang hebat.
 A little better than none
Meaning : Sedikit lebih baik daripada tidak sama sekali

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 A man without ambition is like a bird without wing
Meaning : Seseorang yang tidak punya cita-cita, seperti
burung tak bersayap
 A tree is known by its fruit
Meaning : Seseorang dinilai dari karyanya
 Be what you want to be
Meaning : Jadilah apa yang kamu inginkan
 Bending without breaking
Meaning : Mengalah bukan berarti kalah
 Better forgiven than resentment
Meaning : Lebih baik memaafkan daripada berlaku dendam
 Better lose the saddle than the horse
Meaning : Lebih baik baik berhenti dan kehilangan hal kecil,
daripada dilanjutkan dan beresiko kehilangan semua.
 A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Meaning : Teman sejati adalah teman yang bukan ada hanya
dikala senang, melainkan yang selalu ada dikala susah.
 A pig in poke.
Meaning : Tertipu karena tidak tahu, membeli sesuatu tanpa
tahu kualitas barang yang dibeli.
 Action sspeak louder than words.
Meaning : Perbuatan lebih berarti daripada kata-kata yang
hanya diucapkan saja.
 Better late than never.
Meaning : Lebih baik telat daripada tidak sama sekali.
 Blood is thicker than water.
Meaning : Darah lebih kental daripada air. Saudara
mempunyai ikatan lebih kuat daripada hanya sekedar teman.
 Die in the last ditch.
Meaning : Berjuang sampai titik darah penghabisan, berjuang
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untuk mendapatkan/mempertahankan sesuatu tanpa ada satu
pun yang menghalangi.
 Don’t judge abook by it scover.
Meaning : Jangan menilai buku dari sampulnya, penampilan
luar yang buruk tidak menjamin jika didalamnya buruk pula.
 Easy come, easy go.
Meaning : Sesuatu yang didapatkan dengan gampang,
biasanya akan hilang dengan gampang juga.
 Handsome is a shand some does.
Meaning : Budi pekerti yang tinggi dan sopan lebih penting
daripada penampilan luarnya saja.
 Home sweet home.
Meaning : Tidak ada tempat yang paling nyaman selain rumah
kita sendiri.
 Kill two birds with one stone.
Meaning : Menyelesaikan beberapa tugas hanya dengan
mengerjakannya satu kali.
 Laughter is the best medicine.
Meaning : Tertawa adalah obat yang terbaik, dengan tertawa
biasanya penyakit menjadi lebih ringan diderita.
 Man proposes but God disposes.
Meaning : Manusia hanya berusaha tetapi Tuhan yang
menentukan berhasil atau tidaknya.
 No gain without pain.
Meaning : Tidak ada kesuksesan tanpa perjuangan dan
usaha.
 Sell some one down the river,
Meaning : Mengkhianati teman sendiri dikala mendapat
musibah.

81
 To build castle in the air.
Meaning : Mengharapkan sesuatu yang tidak mungkin dimiliki.
 Two head sare bigger than one.
Meaning : Pemikiran dua orang untuk menyelesaikan suatu
masalah lebih baik daripada hanya dipikirkan oleh satu orang.
 Well begun is hal fdone.
Meaning : Memulai pekerjaan dengan cara yang baik akan
memudahkan pekerjaan selanjutnyadanbisa dianggap telah
menyelesaikan setengah dari pekerjaan.
 When the cat is away the mice will play.
Meaning : Jika kucing pergi tikus akan bermain, longgarnya
pengawasan akan memudahkan orang untuk melakukan
penyelewengan.
 Where there is smoke there is fire.
Meaning : Ada asap ada api, Semua kejadian pasti ada
sebabnya.
IDIOM
Idioms Arti
Cut off Memotong, berhenti
Damn it! Sialan!
Depend on Bergantung pada
Desire to Ingin
Die away Menghilang pelan pelan
Die down Menurun, melemah
Die off Mati
Die out Hilang pelan-pelan
Do without Hidup tanpa
Down to earth Realistis, praktis

82
Dress up Mengenakan pakaian
Drop by Singgah
Drop in Mampir
Drop off Meninggalkan
Drop out Keluar
Fall behind Ketinggalan
Fall off Jatuh
Fed up with Dijejali dengan
Find out Menemukan
For nothing Cuma-Cuma
For sale Untuk dijual
For the sake of something Demi kepentingan
From now on Mulai dari sekarang
Get along with Tinggal, hidup
Get along Maju
Get back Kembali
Get home Pulang
Get lost Menghilang
Get over Mengatasi
Get over it Menyadari
Get rid of Melepas
Give away Menyerahkan
Give in Menyerah
Give out Membagi
Give way Mengalah
Go ahead Terus maju
Go by Berlalu
Go on Teruskanlah
Go over Memeriksa
83
Go through Mengalami
Go wrong Tak beres
Good-will Kemauan
Good heavens1 Astaga, bukan main
Good-looking Bagus, tampan
Had better Sebaiknya
Hand over Menyerah
Hang on Tunggu
Have on Memakai
Hold on Menahan
I see O,,begitu
In fact Sebenarnya
In the end Pada akhirnya
In time Pada waktunya
In vain Sia sia
In view of Mengingat
Keep an eye on Mengawasi
Keep off Jauhi
Knock down Memukul jatuh
Let alone Apalagi
Look after Merawat
Look around Mencari
Look in Mampir
Look into Menyelidiki
Look on Menonton
Look out Awas
Look over Memeriksa
Look up Mencari kata kata
Make a living Mencari nafkah
84
Make believe Berpura-pura
Make friends Berteman
Make good Berhasil
Make it Berhasil mencapinya
Make good time Berpergian dengan cepat
Make out Berhasil
Make over Merubah
Make sense Jelas
Make sure Memastikan
Make up Berdamai, merias
Make up for Mengisi, mengejar
Never ever Tak pernah lagi
No longer Tidak lagi sekarang
No way Ngga mau
Not at all Tidak sama sekali
Now and then Kadang-kadang
On the other hand Sebaliknya
On the way Dalam perjalanan menuju
On time Tepat waktu
Pass away Meninggal dunia
Pass by Melewati
Pass out Tak sadarkan diri
Pay a call Berkunjung
Pick out Memilih
Pick up Mengambil
Point out Menunjukkan
Put an end Mengakhiri
Put down Meletakkan
Put off Menunda
85
Put on Mengenakan
Put out Mematikan
Put together Merakit
Put up Mendirikan
Put up with Memberikan toleransi
Read over Membaca sekilas
Red-handed Tertangkap basah
Right away Sekarang
Run away Lari
Run into Menubruk
Run out Habis (stok)
Run over Menabrak (kendaraan)
Set about Mulai
Set fire to Membakar
Set free Membebaskan
Shake hands Berjabat tangan
Show up Muncul
Show off Beraksi
Stand for Melambangkan

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Pragmatics

1. Definition of Pragmatic
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that
studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics
encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in
interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy,
sociology, linguistics and anthropology. Unlike semantics, which
examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given
language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning
depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g.,
grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the
context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those
involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors.[2] In this
respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner,
place, time etc. of an utterance.
The study of pragmatics explores the ability of language users
to match utterances with contexts in which they are appropriate; in
Stalnaker’s words, pragmatics is “the study of linguistic acts and the
contexts in which they are performed”(1972:383). The teaching of
pragmatics aims to facilitate the learners’ability to find socially
appropriate language for the situations they [Link] second
and foreign language studies and teaching, pragmatics encompasses

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speech acts, conversational structure, conversational implicature,
conversational management, discourse organization, and
sociolinguistic aspects of language use, such as choice of address
forms.
These areas of language and language use have not
traditionally been addressed in language teaching curricula,leading
one of our students to ask if we could teach him “the secret rules of
English. Pragmatic rules for language use are often subconscious,
and even native speakers are often unaware of pragmatic rules until
they are broken (and feelings are hurt or offense is taken). Pragmatics
does not receive the attention in language teacher education
programs that other areas of language do. Nevertheless, rules of
language use do not have to be “secret rules” for learners or teachers.
A growing number of studies exist that describe language use in a
variety of English-speaking communities, and these studies have
yielded important information for teaching pragmatics. From the
teacher’s perspective, the observation of how speakers do things with
words has demystified the pragmatic process at least to the point
where we can provide responsible, concrete lessons and activities to
language learners. We are in the position to give assurance that they
can learn pragmatics in their second or
2. Speech act
A speech act in linguistics and the philosophy of language is
an utterance that has performative function in language and
communication. According to Kent Bach, "almost any speech act is
really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by
different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying
something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or
promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience." The
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contemporary use of the term goes back to J. L. Austin's development
of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary, illocutionary,
and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts are commonly taken to include
such acts as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and
congratulating.
 assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of
the expressed proposition, e.g. reciting a creed
 directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a
particular action, e.g. requests, commands and advice
 commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some
future action, e.g. promises and oaths
 expressives = speech acts that express the speaker's attitudes
and emotions towards the proposition, e.g. congratulations,
excuses and thanks
 declaratives = speech acts that change the reality in accord with
the proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing
someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife

3. Implicatur
Implicature is a technical term in the pragmatics subfield of
linguistics, coined by H. P. Grice, which refers to what is suggested in
an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied (that
is, entailed) by the utterance.[1] For example, the sentence "Mary had
a baby and got married" strongly suggests that Mary had the baby
before the wedding, but the sentence would still be strictly true if Mary
had her baby after she got married. Further, if we add the qualification
"— not necessarily in that order" to the original sentence, then the
implicature is cancelled even though the meaning of the original
sentence is not altered.
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Sosiolinguistic

1. Implicature: Some Basic Oppositions

Implicature is a component of speaker meaning that constitutes
an aspect of what is meant in a speaker’s utterance without being
part of what is [Link] a speaker intends to communicate is
characteristically far richer than what she directly expresses; linguistic
meaning radically underdetermines the message conveyed and
understood. Speaker S tacitly exploits pragmatic principles to bridge
this gap and counts on hearer H to invoke the same principles for the
purposes of utterance interpretation. The contrast between the said
and the meant, and derivatively between the said and the implicated
(the meant-but-unsaid), dates back to the fourth-century rhetoricians
Servius and Donatus, who characterized litotes – pragmatic
understatement – as a figure in which we say less but mean more
(“minus dicimuset plus [Link] 1987 and Horn 1991a).
In the Gricean model, the bridge from what is said (the literal
content of the uttered sentence, determined by its grammatical
structure with the reference of indexicals resolved) to what is
communicated is built through implicature. As an aspect of speaker
meaning, implicatures are distinct from the non-logical inferences the
hearer draws; it is a category mistake to attribute implicatures either to
hearers or to sentences (e.g. P and Q) and subsentential expressions
(e.g. some). But we can systematically (at least for generalized

90
implicatures; see below) correlate the speaker’s intention to implicate
q (in uttering p in context C), the expression p that carries the
implicature in C, and the inference of q induced by the speaker’s
utterance of p in C. Subtypes of implicature are illustrated by (1a–c)
(after Grice 1961: §3); the primed member of each pair is (in certain
contexts) deducible from its unprimed counterpart:
(1) a. Even KEN knows it’s unethical.
a′. Ken is the least likely [of a contextually invoked set] to know it’s
unethical.
4 Laurence R. Horn
b. [in a recommendation letter for a philosophy position]
Jones dresses well and writes grammatical English.
b′. Jones is no good at philosophy.
c. The cat is in the hamper or under the bed.
c′. I don’t know for a fact that the cat is under the bed.
Unlike an entailment or logical presupposition, the inference
induced by even in (1a, a′) is irrelevant to the truth conditions of the
proposition: (1a) is true if and only if Ken knows it’s unethical. The
inference is not cancelable without contradiction (#Even Ken knows
it’s unethical, but that’s not surprising), but it is detachable, in the
sense that the same truth-conditional content is expressible in a way
that removes (detaches) the inference: KEN knows it’s unethical (too).
Such detachable but non-cancelable aspects of meaning that are
neither part of, nor calculable from, what is said are conventional
implicatures, akin to pragmatic presuppositions (Stalnaker 1974).

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Indeed, along with connectives like but, the now classic
instances of conventional implicature involve precisely those particles
traditionally analyzed as instances of pragmatic presupposition: the
additive component of adverbial particles like even and too, the
“effortful” component of truth-conditionally transparent “implicatives”
like manage and bother, and the existential component of focus
constructions like clefts. But in contrast with these non-truth-
conditional components of an expression’s conventional lexical
meaning,1 the inferences induced by (1b, c) are NON-conventional,
i.e. calculable from the utterance of such sentences in a particular
context, given the nature of conversation as a shared goal-oriented
enterprise.
In both cases, the speaker’s implicature of the corresponding
primed proposition is cancelable (either explicitly by appending
material inconsistent with it – “but I don’t mean to suggest that . . .” –
or by altering the context of utterance) but non-detachable (given that
any other way of expressing the literal content of (1b, c) in the same
context would license the same inference).2 What distinguishes (1b)
from (1c) is the generality of the circumstances in which the inference
is ordinarily licensed. Only when the speaker of (1b) is evaluating the
competence of the referent for a philosophy position will the
addressee normally be expected to infer that the speaker had
intended to convey the content of (1b′); this is an instance of
particularized conversational implicature.3 In (1c), on the other hand,
the inference – that the speaker does not know in which of the two
locations the cat can be found – is induced in the absence of a special
or marked context. The default nature of the triggering in (1c)
represents the linguistically significant concept of generalized
conversational implicature. But in both cases, as with conventional

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implicature, it is crucially not the proposition or sentence, but the
speaker or utterance, that
induces the relevant implicatum.
The significance of the generalized/particularized dichotomy
has been much debated; cf. Hirschberg (1991) and Carston (1995) for
skepticism and Levinson
(2000a) for a spirited defense.4 Whatever the theoretical status of the
distinction, Implicature 5 it is apparent that some implicatures are
induced only in a special context (if Mr. Jones had been applying for
a job as a personal secretary, Grice’s remark in (1b) would have
helped, rather than torpedoed, his candidacy), while others go
through unless a special context is present (as in the utterance of
(1c) as a clue in a treasure hunt). The contrast between particularized
and generalized implicature emerges clearly in this scene from When
Harry Met Sally (1989 screenplay by Nora Ephron). Harry (Billy
Crystal) is setting up a blind date between his buddy Jess (Bruno
Kirby) and his woman friend – but not (yet) girlfriend – Sally (Meg
Ryan):
(2) Jess: If she’s so great why aren’t YOU taking her out?
Harry: How many times do I have to tell you, we’re just friends.
Jess: So you’re saying she’s not that attractive.
Harry: No, I told you she IS attractive.
Jess: But you also said she has a good personality.
Harry: She HAS a good personality.
Jess: [Stops walking, turns around, throws up hands, as if to say
“Aha!”]
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Harry: What?
→ Jess: When someone’s not that attractive they’re ALWAYS
described as
having a good personality.
Harry: Look, if you were to ask me what does she look like and I said
she has a good personality, that means she’s not attractive.
But just because I happen to mention that she has a good
personality, she could be either. She could be attractive with a
good personality or not attractive with a good personality.
Jess: So which one is she?
Harry: Attractive.
⇒ Jess: But not beautiful, right?
Jess’s first arrowed observation incorrectly reanalyzes a particularized
2. Speech Act
When we speak we can do all sorts of things, from aspirating a
consonant, to constructing a relative clause, to insulting a guest, to
starting a war. These are all, pre-theoretically, speech acts – acts
done in the process of speaking. The theory of speech acts, however,
is especially concerned with those acts that are not completely
covered under one or more of the major divisions of grammar –
phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics – or under
some general theory of actions. Even in cases in which a particular
speech act is not completely described in grammar, formal features of
the utterance used in carrying out the act might be quite directly tied
to its accomplishment, as when we request something by uttering an
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imperative sentence or greet someone by saying “Hi!” Thus, there is
clearly a conventional aspect to the study of speech acts. Sometimes,
however, the achievement cannot be so directly tied to convention, as
when we thank a guest by saying, “Oh, I love chocolates.” There is no
convention of English to the effect that stating that one loves
chocolates counts as an act of thanking.
In this case, the speaker’s intention in making the utterance
and a recognition by the addressee of that intention under the
conditions of utterance clearly plays an important role. Note that
whether convention or intention seems paramount, success is not
guaranteed. The person to whom the conventionalized greeting “Hi!”
is addressed might not speak English, but some other language in
which the uttered syllable means “Go away!,” or the guest may not
have brought chocolates at all, but candied fruit, in which cases these
attempts to extend a greeting and give a compliment are likely to fail.
On the other hand, failure, even in the face of contextual adversity, is
also not guaranteed. Thus, one may succeed in greeting a foreigner
who understands nothing of what is being said by making it clear
through gesture and tone of voice that that is the intent. Much of
speech act theory is therefore devoted to striking the proper balance
between convention and intention. Real-life acts of speech usually
involve interpersonal relations of some kind: A speaker does
something with respect to an audience by saying certain words
3. Reference
Hockett and Altmann (1968: 63–4) presented a list of what they
found to be the distinctive characteristics which, collectively, define
what it is to be a human language. Among the characteristics is the
phenomenon of “aboutness,” that is, in using a human language we
talk about things that are external to ourselves. This not only includes
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things that we find in our immediate environment, but also things that
are displaced in time and space. For example, at this moment I can
just as easily talk about Tahiti or the planet Pluto, neither of which are
in my immediate environment nor ever have been, as I can about this
telephone before me or the computer I am using at this moment.
Temporal displacement is similar: it would seem I can as easily talk
about Abraham Lincoln or Julius Caesar, neither a contemporary of
mine, as I can of former president Bill Clinton, or my good friend John,
who are contemporaries of mine.
This notion of aboutness is, intuitively, lacking in some
contrasting instances. For example, it is easy to think that animal
communication systems lack this characteristic – that the mating call
of the male cardinal may be caused by a certain biological urge, and
may serve as a signal that attracts mates, but the call itself is
(putatively) not about either of those things. Or, consider an example
from human behavior. I hit my thumb with a hammer while attempting
to drive in a nail. I say,
“Ouch!” In so doing I am saying this because of the pain, and I am
communicating to anyone within earshot that I am in pain, but the
word ouch itself is not about the pain I feel. If, on the other hand, I
say, with unnatural calmness, “Pain is present in my thumb,” then I
am in this instance talking about pain. Such intuitions have, for the
most part, been extremely compelling,In fact so compelling that the
correspondence theory of meaning has, since classical times, in one
form or another, been by far the most persistently pursued notion of
how meaning in language is best characterized. Not to put too fine an
edge on it, this is quite simply the idea that the significance or import
of Reference 75 natural language utterances is found in the ways in
which they correspond to facts and things in the world around us. In
96
present times, this finds its clearest articulation in the framework of
model-theoretic semantics. Yet not everyone finds these basic
intuitions of aboutness quite so compelling as to base a theory of
natural language meaning upon them. Most notably in the twentieth
century, Wittgenstein is generally interpreted as articulating quite a
different view of natural language meaning which, at best, treats
“aboutness” as derivative or epiphenomenal (Wittgenstein 1953).
Chomsky (1981, 1992, 1995a), Hornstein (1984), Ludlow
(2003) and others have articulated a similarly skeptical view about its
centrality. Since this chapter is about (the notion of) reference, I set
aside consideration of such alternatives and focus exclusively on work
which does find this initial intuition most compelling. The word
about(ness) itself, however, is a folk notion that is too general and
vague to really get at something fundamental about natural language.
We may ask, quite sensibly, what is Beethoven’s Third Symphony
about, what is the relationship of a couple really about, what is a
painting by Mondrian about, or what was the First World War all
about, anyway? Even if we confine ourselves to linguistic utterances,
we find ourselves with a slippery notion that is subject to all sorts of
doubt and uncertainty. In saying to a person on the street “My garden
is poor this year,” I could very sensibly be talking about the cool
weather, the lack of rain, the presence of pests, or a decision I made
some time ago to plant a certain variety of tomatoes. I could be talking
about any of these things, and more. However, the one thing that is
clear that I am talking about in this instance that seems inescapable is
quite simply that I am, in fact, talking about my garden. This is,
obviously, because in uttering the sentence, I use the phrase my
garden, whereas in this instance there is no particular mention of
rain, weather, pests, or poor plant selection.

97
To distinguish these two types of aboutness, the term reference
is going to be used for those things overtly mentioned in the utterance
of a sentence. Thus, I may be talking about the dry weather, but I am
referring to my garden (and the current year as well). This is helpful,
in that it localizes and objectifies a certain type of aboutness in a
reasonably clear and intuitive way. Yet, even here there is all manner
of cause for question and uncertainty. For example, in the utterance
above, might I also be referring to myself (by using my),
4. Deixis
Deixis is a big black fly in the ointment. Deixis introduces
subjective, attentional, intentional and, of course, context-dependent
properties into natural languages. Further, it is a much more pervasive
feature of languages than normally recognized. This complicates a
tidy treatment within formal theories of semantics and pragmatics.
Deixis is also critical for our ability to learn a language, which
philosophers for centuries have linked to the possibility of ostensive
definition. Despite this theoretical importance, deixis is one of the
most empirically understudied core areas of pragmatics; we are far
from understanding its boundaries and have no adequate cross-
linguistic typology of deictic expression.
This article does not attempt to review either all the relevant
theory (see,e.g., the collections in Davis 1991, section III, or Kasher
1998, vol. III) or all of what is known about deictic systems in the
world’s languages (see, e.g., Anderson and Keenan 1985, Diessel
1999). Rather, I attempt to pinpoint some of the most tantalizing
theoretical and descriptive problems, to sketch the way in which the
subject interacts with other aspects of pragmatics, and to illustrate the
kind of advances that could be made with further empirical work. A
word on terminology: I will use the terms deixis and indexicality largely
98
co-extensively – they reflect different traditions (see Bühler 1934 and
Peirce in Buchler 1940) and have become associated with linguistic
and philosophical approaches respectively. But I will make this
distinction: indexicality will be used to label the broader phenomena of
contextual dependency and deixis the narrower linguistically relevant
aspects of indexicality.

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