ENG523:

BASIC CONCEPT IN LINGUISTIC

Que-1 Write a critical note on linguistics.

5 Marks

Ans:- Linguistics is the scientific study of language, specifically of language form, language
meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the description of language have
been attributed to the 4th century BCE Indian grammarian Pn ini, who was an early student
of linguistics and wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his A dhyy

Linguistics analyses human language as a system for relating sounds (or signs in signed
languages) and meaning.Phonetics studies acoustic and articulatory properties of the
production and perception of speech sounds and non-speech sounds. The study of language
meaning, on the other hand, deals with how languages encode relations between entities,
properties, and other aspects of the world to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as
to manage and resolve ambiguity. While the study of semantics typically concerns itself with
truth conditions, pragmatics deals with how context influences meanings
The part of linguistics that is concerned with the structure of language is divided into a
number of subfields:

Phonetics - the study of speech sounds in their physical aspects

Phonology - the study of speech sounds in their cognitive aspects

Morphology - the study of the formation of words

Syntax - the study of the formation of sentences

Semantics - the study of meaning

Pragmatics - the study of language use

Aside from language structure, other perspectives on language are represented in specialized
or interdisciplinary branches:

Historical Linguistics

Sociolinguistics

Psycholinguistics

Ethnolinguistics (or Anthropological Linguistics)

Dialectology

Computational Linguistics

Psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics

Que-2 "Meaning" is not showed but conveys, elaborate in the light of theories of
semantics
5 Marks
Ans:- The nature of meaning, its definition, elements, and types, was discussed by philosophers
Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. According to them "meaning is a relationship between two sorts of
things: ign and the kinds of things they mean (intend, express or signify)". One term in the
relationship of meaning necessarily causes something else to come to the mind. In other words: "a
sign is defined as an entity that indicates another entity to some agent for some purpose". As
Augustine states, a sign is something that shows itself to the senses and something other than itself to
the mind (Signum e quod e ipum enui e praeer e aliquid animo oendi; De dial., 1975, 86).
The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. Namely:
1. There are the things in the world, which might have meaning;
2. There are things in the world that are also signs of other things in the world, and so, are
always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind);
3. There are things that are always necessarily meaningful, such as words, and other nonverbal
symbols.
All subsequent inquiries emphasize some particular perspectives within the general AAA framework.
The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of
meaning:

Pychological heorie, exhausted by notions of thought, intention, or understanding;

Logical heorie, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with
extension, reference, or denotation;

Message, content, information, or communication;

Truth conditions;

Usage, and the instructions for usage; and

Measurement, computation, or operation.

The first sort of theorya semantic theoryis a theory which assigns semantic contents to
expressions of a language. Approaches to semantics may be divided according to whether
they assign propositions as the meanings of sentences and, if they do, what view they take of
the nature of these propositions.
The second sort of theorya foundational theory of meaningis a theory which states the
facts in virtue of which expressions have the semantic contents that they have. Approaches to
the foundational theory of meaning may be divided into theories which do, and theories
which do not, explain the meanings of expressions of a language used by a group in terms of
the contents of the mental states of members of that group.

Que-3 Describe in detail the components of meaning.

5 Marks

Ans:- Componential Analysis is a technique that helps to describe relations between meaning.
Traditionally word meanings are studied with the help of such relations among the words as
'synonymy', 'antonymy', 'hyponymy', and 'polysemy'. But with the help of componential analysis, the
formal description of word-meanings, the contrasts and combinations of meaning can be elaborated.
The more convenient way to represent these meanings is to write formulas in which the dimensions of
meaning are expressed by feature symbols like HUMAN and ADULT: + HUMAN human
+
ADULT adult + MALE 'male - HUMAN animal, brute, - ADULT young - MALE female
The meanings of the individual words can then be expressed by combinations of these features : Man
: + HUMAN + ADULT + MALE Woman : + HUMAN + ADULT - MALE Boy : +
HUMAN - ADULT + MALE Girl
: + HUMAN - ADULT - MALE These formulas are called
the COMPONENTIAL DEFINITIONS of the words concerned; they can be regarded as formalized
dictionary definitions.
The dimensions of meanings themselves will be called semantic OPPOSITIONS. We have the
following lexical relations that make the use of the above type of formulae.
Synonymy : The relation of synonymy between two items also uses the same type of formulae. For
example, the words adult and grown up are synonymous with each other. They can be defined as
+ HUMAN + ADULT : though the two words differ in their stylistic meaning : adult is rather formal
and grown - up is colloquial.

Polysemy : If synonymy involves two words having the same meaning, Polysemy is the opposite of
Synonymy. In Polysemy one word has more than one definition. For example, the world man has,
besides its definition +HUMAN + ADULT + MALE, a broader definition with the single feature
+HUMAN. i.e. e.g. MAN : + HUMAN + ADULT + MALE ( Meaning 1)
MAN : +
HUMAN
(Meaning 2) The second meaning of man represented in this definition is as found in a
sentence like man is mortal or All men must die.
Incompatibility : It is the exclusion of one meaning from another. The notion of incompatibility is
preferred to antonymy to indicate contrasts of meaning/ semantic contrastiveness . The notion of
antonym indicates that words contrast only on a single dimension. But this is not the case in reality. In
fact, words may contrast with other words on a number of dimensions at once. The antonym of
woman can be both girl and man on the basis of adulthood and sex respectively. So to avoid
this vagueness or inadequacy of the term antonym, the term incompatibility is preferredWoman :
+ HUMAN
+ ADULT
- MALE incompatible with woman in the sense used above.
Justifying a Componential Analysis : Justifying a componential analysis means that the contrasts and
combinations of meaning one has recognized are necessary and sufficient to explain relevant data.
Hyponymy and incompatibility can be used to define some type of tautology and contradiction as
well, That woman is a female is a tautology. That girl is a man is a contradiction. There is close
relation between entailment and hyponymy. Parallel to the statement, every proposition entails itself,
that means every componential analysis may be validated by making use of it to predict basic
statements. Thus the term COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS is one of the methods or techniques. It is
used for analyzing meaning of a word. With the help of this, the meaning of a word can be reduced to
its ultimate contrastive elements. Semantic representation of word meanings and semantic relations
like synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, hyponymy (which are discussed later in detail) - is possible with
componential analysis. Sex (male/female), adulthood (young /adult), species (human/non human)
are components of meaning. These term represent components of meaning. SUBJECT

Que-4 How does pragmatics emerge in the field of linguistics Analyze?

5 Ma

Ans.:- Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context
contributes to meaning The meaning of the word emergence means rise and development.
Generally, it has been asserted that Pragmatics as a branch emerged in 1960s. However, there are
many earlier developments in history which are responsible for its rise and development as a separate
branch of knowledge. Pragmatics is essentially an interdisciplinary branch of knowledge. The
emergence of Pragmatics is closely connected to the alternative tradition in Linguistics.
The linguists like Franz Boas, Edward Sapir and Whorf are some of the earlier linguists who
represented this alternative tradition. In the beginning of the 20th century, Edward Sapir and, his
pupil, Whorf proposed their hypothesis of the relation between language and the real world. Charles
Morris is one of those linguists who studied language from the perspectives of the functions that
language serves in the real world. According to him, Semiotics, a science of signs, has three distinct
branches: Syntactics (syntax), Semantics and Pragmatics. Syntactics is the study of the formal relation
of signs with one another. Semantics is the study of the relations of the signs to the objects to which
the signs refer to. Pragmatics is the study of the relation of the signs to the interpreters.
Malinowski classified two functions of language: Magical and Pragmatic. According to him, the
Pragmatic function is associated with the understanding of language as a mode of action. J. R. Firth,
the British linguist, similarly realized that language cannot be completely understood unless some

reference to the context of situation has been understood. As a result, he proposed his theory of the
Context of Situation.
The generation which followed Bloomfield treated Linguistics as the study of phonetics and
phonemics. These linguists were of the opinion that syntax was too abstract to study. Moreover, they
never thought of language having any relation to the real world in which it is used. The basic task of
the linguist, according to them, is to analyze language in order to reach at the morphemes and predict
the possible combinations of the morphemes. Chomsky, however, in 1950s discovered the centrality
of syntax in Linguistics but he did not study meaning of language seriously.
In 1970s, some linguists like Katz and Foder attempted to find out ways to include the study of
meaning into the formal linguistic theory. Lakoff argued that syntax could not be legitimately
separated from the study of language use. So Pragmatics appeared on the linguistic mapThus the
theory of the Speech Acts was established. This theory is one of the central theories in Pragmatics.
The theory established the view that language is not simply used to give information. Rather, it is used
to behave in the social world. Searle, another scholar, investigated the Speech Act Theory proposed by
Austin, elaborated and refined the earlier theory and provided the account of the conditions
compulsory for the functioning of the Speech Acts.
Thus, Austin and Searle are the two scholars who proved to be the central figures in the consideration
of Pragmatics. H. P. Grice strengthened modern treatment of meaning by distinguishing two kinds of
meaning, natural and non-natural. Brown and Levinson consider politeness from philosophical
perspectives; whereas, Leechs theory of politeness is based on linguistic perspectives. Leech argued
that the semantic representation of a sentence is distinct from its pragmatic interpretation. Semantics
is rule-governed; whereas, Pragmatics is principle-controlled.
The rules of grammar are fundamentally conventional; the principles of Pragmatics are fundamentally
nonconventional. Pragmatics relates to the sense of an utterance through its pragmatic force.
Grammatical correspondences are defined by mappings; whereas, the Pragmatic correspondences are
defined by the problems and their solutions. Grammar is formal, ideational; pragmatics is functional,
textual and interpersonal. Thus, Pragmatics emerged as a separate branch of Linguistics