Theoretical linguistics is the branch of
linguistics that is most concerned with
developing models of linguistic
knowledge. The fields that are generally
considered the core of theoretical
linguistics are syntax, phonology,
morphology, and semantics. Although
phonetics often guides phonology, it is
often excluded from the purview of
theoretical linguistics, along with
psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.
Theoretical linguistics also involves
the search for an explanation of
linguistic universals, that is,
properties all, or many, languages have
in common.
Major fields
= Phonetics=
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds
with concentration on three main points
Articulation : the production of speech
sounds in human speech organs.
Perception : the way human ears respond
to speech signals, how the human brain
analyses them.
Acoustic features : physical
characteristics of speech sounds such as
color, loudness, amplitude, frequency
etc.
According to this definition, phonetics
can also be called linguistic analysis
of human speech at the surface level.
That is one obvious difference from
phonology, which concerns the structure
and organisation of speech sounds in
natural languages, and furthermore has a
theoretical and abstract nature. One
example can be made to illustrate this
distinction: In English, the suffix -s
can represent either , , or can be
silent depending on context.
Orthographic representation : S, s
Phonetic features:
Phonetic representations: [s], [z], Ø
Perception through the ear: high
frequency sounds accompanied by a
hissing noise.
Acoustic features:
Frequency : 8000 – 11000 Hz
Color : similar to the hissing noise
made by snakes.
Phonological characteristics :
Occurrence : beginning, middle or end of
words.
Accompanied by vowels or consonants.
Distinguishes meanings of words
depending on context: s''low ≠ g''low
Articulatory phonetics
The field of articulatory phonetics is a
subfield of phonetics. In studying
articulation, phoneticians attempt to
document how humans produce speech
sounds. That is, articulatory
phoneticians are interested in how the
different structures of the vocal tract,
called the articulators, interact to
create the specific sounds.
Auditory phonetics
Auditory phonetics is a branch of
phonetics concerned with the hearing,
acquisition and comprehension of
phonetic sounds of words of a language.
As articulatory phonetics explores the
methods of sound production, auditory
phonetics explores the methods of
reception—the ear to the brain, and
those processes.
Acoustic phonetics
Acoustic phonetics is a subfield of
phonetics which deals with acoustic
aspects of speech sounds. Acoustic
phonetics investigates properties like
the mean squared amplitude of a
waveform, its duration, its fundamental
frequency, or other properties of its
frequency spectrum, and the relationship
of these properties to other branches of
phonetics, and to abstract linguistic
concepts like phones, phrases, or
utterances.
= Phonology=
Phonology is the study of how sounds are
used in languages to convey meaning.
Phonology includes topics such as stress
and intonation.
The basic unit of analysis for phonology
is called phoneme. A phoneme is a group
of sounds which are not distinguished by
the language rules in determining the
meaning. In English, for example, [t]
and [tʰ] are different allophones that
represent a single phoneme .
= Morphology=
Morphology is the study of the internal
structure of words. For example, in the
sentences The dog runs and The dogs run,
the word forms runs and dogs have an
affix -s added, distinguishing them from
the base forms dog and run. Adding this
suffix to a nominal stem gives plural
forms, adding it to verbal stems
restricts the subject to third person
singular. Some morphological theories
operate with two distinct suffixes -s,
called allomorphs of the morphemes
Plural and Third person singular,
respectively. Languages differ with
respect to their morphological
structure. Along one axis, we may
distinguish analytic languages, with few
or no affixes or other morphological
processes from synthetic languages with
many affixes. Along another axis, we may
distinguish agglutinative languages,
where affixes express one grammatical
property each, and are added neatly one
after another, from fusional languages,
with non-concatenative morphological
processes and/or with less clear-cut
affix boundaries.
= Syntax=
Syntax is the study of language
structure and phrasal hierarchies,
depicted in parse tree format. It is
concerned with the relationship between
units at the level of words or
morphology. Syntax seeks to delineate
exactly all and only those sentences
which make up a given language, using
native speaker intuition. Syntax seeks
to describe formally exactly how
structural relations between elements in
a sentence contribute to its
interpretation. Syntax uses principles
of formal logic and Set Theory to
formalize and represent accurately the
hierarchical relationship between
elements in a sentence. Abstract syntax
trees are often used to illustrate the
hierarchical structures that are
posited. Thus, in active declarative
sentences in English the subject is
followed by the main verb which in turn
is followed by the object. This order of
elements is crucial to its correct
interpretation and it is exactly this
which syntacticians try to capture. They
argue that there must be a formal
computational component contained within
the language faculty of normal speakers
of a language and seek to describe it.
= Semantics=
Semantics is the study of intension,
that is, the intrinsic meanings of words
and phrases. Much of the work in the
field of philosophy of language is
concerned with the relation between
meanings and the word, and this concern
cross-cuts formal semantics in several
ways. For example, both philosophers of
language and semanticists make use of
propositional, predicate and modal
logics to express their ideas about word
meaning.
See also
Pragmatics
Digital infinity
References
Ottenheimer, H.J.. The Anthropology of
Language: An Introduction to Linguistic
Anthropology. Canada: Thomas Wadsworth.
