Phonemic awareness

How does the awareness of sounds(phonemes) enhance language learning abilities

Definition
Phonemic awareness deals with the spoken language - students listen to/understand/manipulate phonemes

Development
Phonemic awareness is developed through language rich environment that includes songs, poems, read aloud and word play.

Importance
-teaches children how to blend the sound quickly making a new word.
- helps to link sounds to actual meaning
-words are then learned faster when reader is able to match speech sounds to print.
-helps lay a solid foundation for spelling and word recognition skills.
-help child throughout life in approaching unknown words including ones in foreign language.
- teaching phonemic awareness significantly helps their later reading achievement
- improves comprehension and helps children lean to spell.
-fluency promotes comprehension by freeing cognitive resources needed for understanding.

If without phonemic awareness, child will struggle with reading , writing and spelling.

Branches of Linguistics

What do you see as some of the contributions of the following branches of linguistics contributing to the improvement of the teaching of English in your local environment?

1) Phonetics

Definition
the study of the physical aspect of sounds of language

Importance
The importance of accuracy in pronunciation of individual sounds and also significant consonant cluster like differ/defer, grasp, salmon.
Eg:
in class, the child will get to learn to speak standard english which helps them socially in the future.

Remedy
teacher models, child repeats, child learns how to sound words like /bit/ and /bi:t/

2) Syntax

Definition
the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

Importance
Grammar ensures that the message is not distorted
Eg:
- i don't know who is he; Do this also can
- double negatives - i do not want no carrot.

by correcting child on error of double negatives, student will then be able to form intelligible utterances and not cause confusion to listeners.
Also, by learning syntax, student learns verb meaning.

Remedy
through reading and speaking in standard english, teacher models the correct grammar usage.

3) Semantics

Definition
the study of the meaning of words and fixed word combinations and how these combine to form meaning of sentences

Importance
Knowledge of the correct meanings of word helps the message to be conveyed correctly (revert, chronic, spoil)

Remedy
Teacher imparts large vocabulary library to children so that it would then be easier for students to learn synonyms and antonyms which allows language to be more creative and descriptive.

4) Phonology

Definition
the study of patterns of language sounds

Importance
1)teaching of phonology helps students to facilitate comparison with other language.
2)helps children understand certain rules like /h/ is never articulated (high, through)
3) promoting phonological awareness will teach the child to recognise similar words easily and quickly and sound out unfamiliar words

Remedy
-share texts with adults, teacher reads aloud stories, students follow.

5) Morphology

Definition
-the study of internal structure of words, how they are formed and combined to form other words.

Importance
-Children will associate the meaning of a compounded word with the component words and understand how time changes the formation/reduction of certain words and use the correct forms of words when situation calls for.
Eg: (black board = black piece of thing that teacher writes on)
- good and clear advantage of larger vocab size
-able to understand that certain clipped terms used in everyday life.
(like net - clipping of word internet)

6) Pragmatics

Definition
study of how utterances are used in communicative acts

Importance
-knowledge of the intended speaker meaning promotes sensitivity and minimizes miscommunication.
-students are also made aware of conversation structure which teaches them how to note pitch and tone cues
Eg: i've not done /it'
-> rising tone signals a question instead of a statement.

The Nature of Human Language

Write short notes on the following properties that differentiate human communication from that of animals

Arbitrariness

Definition
There is no correlation between a symbol and what it means; lack of correlation between the linguistic form, sound and meaning.

Eg:
the multiplication symbol (x) does not resemble its meaning.
the relationship between the symbol and what it represents for is thus arbitrary.

In contrast
Telephone (icon) is to indicate that there is a public phone nearby.
The relationship between the icon and what it stands for is thus non arbitrary.
However, the icon and the real thing will never look exactly alike, if so, it would then be known as the referent.

In context of language
The word table does not look or sound like the actual 4 legged wooden thing in our room (table) . In fact, it is known as zhuozi in chinese. There is no logical explanation to why it was so named but the relationship between the word table and its meaning is arbitrary.

Onomatopoeic
Although words are largely symbolic, in the context of human language, words that mimic natural sounds are actually iconic. these words actually do resemble actual sounds to some extent. For eg: Oink sounds like the sound a real pig makes.

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Displacement

Definition
the property of displacement states that we are able to use language to talk about things not in our immediate surrounds or occurring at the moment of speaking.

3 aspects
This means that we are able to use language to talk about things in 3 aspects
1) in space
animals cannot talk about place that is not here but humans are able to talk about things distant in place.
2) in time,
humans are able to talk about things in the past, in the present as well as in the future
3) in reality
humans are able to talk about things that are not in reality; things that are abstract, fiction.

Why the importance of displacement

Displacement is built on top of social communication system which is based on facial expression, gesture and sounds.
However, it is an aspect of communication that cannot be replaced by gesture, grunts, facial expression, body language and other non linguistic communication.
It involves in some way of symbolizing by creating abstract referent.

Eg:
- we're able to talk about mythical creatures like dragons and fairies (whose existence we are not sure about)
- a person can relate what he did last summer in Britian even though now is not summer and he is not in Britain

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Productive

Def
the ability of the human language to create new words and utterances

Explanation
- human language are not limited to reproducing sentences they have heard but also produce and comprehend novel utterances.
-thus humans are able to communicate a wide variety of information.
- a finite number of linguistic units and rules are capable of yielding an infinite number of grammatical utterances.
- thus humans are able to communicate facts, opinions and emotions regardless event in the past, present or future.
Eg :
Pidgin is a contact language that was formed to enable communication between inhabitants of a country with no common languages

Evolution
- humans are constantly making new words as inventions are created and new ways of living emerge.
For eg:
1)i invented a new type of candy and decided to give it a brand name 'sweeeeeeeetiez'
2) the above sentence may have never been used before, it is a complete new utterance which has been just been composed by me.
3) age of computers with new words like mouse, facebook, blog, frienster

Comparison to animals
For animals, every signal has a fixed reference which means that it can only refer to one idea and meaning cannot be broadened.
Bees for examples have a fixed set of signal. This gives them the inability to communicate the concept of vertical distance.

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Cultural Transmission

Definition
Acquiring of language and not inherit it the way human get genes from parents.
Language is passed on from one language user to the next, consciously or subconsciously.

• Eg :If we have chinese parents, we will inherit physical features like black hair. However it doesn't mean we'll grow up speaking one of the chinese languages. If we grew up in the Great Britian instead, we will most likely grow up speaking British English
  

How language is passed on
) Language is culturally transmitted to the extent that learners acquire linguistic competence on the basis of the observed linguistic behavior of others.

• Eg:Thai children grow up speaking Thai.

2) cultural transmission leads to cultural evolution.
3) the distinctive structural characteristics of human language are a consequence of its cultural transmission.

• Eg: French children learn to put adjectives after the noun but English children learn to put adjectives before the noun

Difference
Animals like the German sheepdog born in Germany will make the same sound as the one born in Thailand.
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Duality

Definition
Language is organised in 2 layers, 1) layer of sounds 2) layer of meaning

Eg :
the word cat is both a symbol meaning a feline animal and a sequence of 3 sounds : /k/ /ae/ /t/

Duality of patterning

***2 levels of minimal units
1) alphabet for writing and phonemes for speech which do not have meaning on their own
2) the level where the meaning emerges as a result of combination of the units from level one.

Important property to help make use of the existing inventory of sounds in language to form countless words simply by manipulating the combination of sounds.

Eg:
In english, there are distinct sounds like /p/, /ae/ , /t/
However we can combine these sounds together to form the word pat /paet/
it can also be /aept/ /taep/

Different from animals
Eg:
cows say moo, can never say oom.
dogs can say bow-wow, can never say wow-bow.
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Discreteness

Definition :
-sounds in a language are meaningfully distinct and separable.
- language can be broken into discrete units ( words and phonemes )
Eg:
the word mess consists of 3 separate sounds and phonemes /m/ /e/ /s/

-there is no gradual continuous shading from one sound to another in linguistic system although there may be a continuum in the real physical world
-consists of small units, words which can be combined into larger units (sentences)

Eg;
In english /t/ and /d/ are meaningful.
-helps us to differentiate between two words tin and din which refer to 2 different things.
Phonemes can be differentiated easily using minimal pairs where the words sound very similar but have only 1 differing sound.
- /paet/ /paed/ /tIn/ /dIn/

Eg: the|cat|is|fat
small units (words) combine to be larger units , sentences

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Surprisingly

Discuss if the ing-suffix in the word Surprisingly is an inflectional or derivational suffix.

1) The word suprisingly is an adverb.
2) in this case, we know that the ing-suffix is an inflectional ing-participle that can only be attached to verbs.
3) thus, if suprise + ing , the word class of this word should remain as a verb.
4) however, the ly suffix can only be attached to adjectives to form verbs. (surprising+ly) --> Adjective ---> adverb where there is a change in word class.
5) thus ing-suffix cannot be an inflectional suffix.
6) it should instead be a derivational suffix that changes the word class of the word surprise
(surprise+ing) to an adjective.
7) also, inflectional suffix must appear at the end of the word. In this case, it is followed by another suffix -ly
8) thus, the 'ing' suffic is clearly not inflectional. It can only be derivational

What is wrong with the word Kingsdom

Kingsdom,

the word kingsdom is made up of king+s+dom.
In this case, there is a problem as -s suffix is a plural suffix that is inflectional and can only occur with nouns.
However, it is incorrect to place -dom suffix behind the word kings as Kings is not a free morpheme, there cannot be another occurence of suffix after the inflectional suffix (unless it is a possessive). Inflectional Suffix always en

thus in this case, the word kingsdom cannot be possible.
It should instead be King+dom+s where the derivational suffix -dom comes before the plural suffix -s. this is still possible as the derivational suffix does not change the word class of the word king (still noun)

Tests for everything

Adverbial, Postmodifier

Test : Stand-alone test.
-ask the following questions for Adverbial : How, Where, When, Why
-ask the following questions for Postmodifier : Who, What, Which

For eg : He hid the pencil under the table

Where qn : Where did he hide the pencil?
Ans : Under the table.

--> Using the stand-alone test, under the table is a constituent. As it answers a where question, it is thus functioning as an adverbial.

What qn : what did he hide?
Ans : the pencil under the table.

--> using the stand-alone test, the pencil under the table is a constituent. In this case, pencil functions as the head noun in this noun phrase. Thus, under the table is the postmodifier of the head noun pencil as we can insert relative pronoun that within the noun phrase 'the pencil that was under the table"

Enraged cow injures farmer with axe

How qn : How did the enraged cow injure the farmer?
Ans : with the axe.

--> Using the stand-alone test,with the axe is a constituent. As it answers a How question, it is thus functioning as an adverbial.

What qn : who did the enraged cow injure?
Ans : the farmer with axe

--> using the stand-alone test, the farmer with axe is a constituent. In this case, farmer functions as the head noun in this noun phrase. Thus, with xe is the postmodifier of the head noun pencil as we can insert relative pronoun whowithin the noun phrase 'the farmer who was with axe"

The pupils we were investigating last week passed the test

Who qn : Who passed the test?
Ans : The pupils we were investigating last week.
--> the pupils were being investigated last week

--> Using the stand-alone test,the pupils we were investigating last week is a constituent. As it answers a who question and appears before the main verb phrase, it is thus functioning as a subject.

Who qn : who passed the test last week?
Ans : The pupils we were investigating
->the pupils passed the test last week

--> using the stand-alone test, the pupils we were investigating is a constituent.As it answers a who question and appears before the main verb phrase, it is thus functioning as a subject. In this case, last week is not part of the subject but is functioning as an adverbial.

For the above 2 sentences, the meanings of the sentences changes when last night is considered as/as not part of the constituent that functions as the subject.

Demonstrate that on his jacket is a constituent in Sentence A
but not a constituent in sentence B


Simon saw there was a stain on his jacket
Before leaving, Simon put on his jacket.

As 'on his jacket' is a preposition phrase, we can only apply the cleft test

Sentence B: It was on his jacket that Simon put before leaving.
-> in this case, the prepositional phrase 'on his jacket' cannot be shift as a single unit in the above cleft sentence as it changes the initial meaning of the sentence
-> instead, it should have been, it was his jacket (not his pants) that Simon put on before leaving
Sentence A : It was on his jacket (not on his pillow) that Simon saw a stain.
In this case, the prepositional phrase can be moved as a single unit in the cleft sentence. This shows that it is a constituent

Explain why we regard my sister as an indirect object in sentence A
but a direct object in sentence B
A : I cooked my sister a wonderful dinner
B:I made my sister rather angry.

Test for Objects
-passivisation (where indirect object can be shifted by the preposition to or for)
A wonderful dinner was cooked by me for my sister.

The passivisation test is simply the use of be+Ved/en. The attachment of ‘to’ or ‘for’ describes the postponement test:

I cooked a wonderful dinner for my sister.

My sister was cooked a wonderful dinner by me.
-> In this case ,there are 2 objects ( seen by 2 noun phrases - sister and a wonderful dinner) ,
--> the indirect object is realised by the earlier which can be shifted by preposition to/for when sentence is passivised.

Test for object ( can be passivised
My sister was made rather angry by me
-> in this case, sister is a object as it can be passivised

Rather angry was made my sister by me.
(Passivisation test fails for rather angry)
-> however, my sister in this case will be only object and thus, direct object as objects can only be realised by noun phrases.
-->Rather angry is an adjectival phrase that functions as an object complement (can be proved by inserting a copular verb )instead.

Show how the movement test can demonstrate that up smoking is not a constituent in the following sentence.
Last month, my father gave up smoking.

Up smoking is a preposition phrase, thus we will use the cleft test to prove that it is not a constituent in the following sentence.

*It was up smoking that my father gave last month.
-'Up smoking' cannot be shifted as a single unit in the cleft sentence as it produces a funny sentence.
-This is because gave up is a phrasal verb that cannot be split up into gave and up(prep).
-The sentence should have been,

*It was smoking that my father gave up last month
In this case, smoking can be shifted as a single unit in the cleft sentence. Smoking is thus a constituent

Demonstrate that on your red tie is not a constituent in sentence A but is a constituent is sentence B.
A: You should put on your red tie.
B : there is some dirt on your red tie.

Use cleft test for preposition phrases as passivisation will not work.
A *It is on your red tie that you should put.
-'on your red tie' cannot be shifted as an entire constituent in this cleft sentence. It should instead be
*It is your red tie(not the blue tie) that you should put on.
-In this case, put on is a phrasal verb and cannot be split

B * it is on your red tie (not between your shirt) that there is some dirt
- in this case, 'on your red tie' can be shifted as an entire constituent in the cleft sentence. Thus it is a preposition phrase functioning as an adverbial

Demonstrate that a genius in the following sentence is an object complement and not a direct object
Many people have called Einstein a genius

Objects and complements are recognised by noun phrases. In this case a genius can be either an object or a complement.

Test for object : Passivisation
*Einstein was called a genius by many people.
- Passivisation test passes; einstein = object
*A genius was called Einstein by many people.
-Passivisation test fails for a genius. thus it must be a complement

Test for object complement - Be insertion Test
*Many people have called einstein (is) a genius.
- the Be insertion test works as Einstein can be a genius. Thus a genius is an object complement

Explain the ambiguity of the following sentence in terms of
the function of the prepositional phrase with a smile.
Sam watched the girl with a smile.

How Qn - How did sam watch the girl
Ans : With a smile.
In this case, the prepositional phrase answers a how question. It is thus functioning as an adverbial

Who Qn : Which girl did sam watch
Ans : the girl with a smile
In this case, the girl with a smile is an entire constituent that with form Noun Phrase. With a smile is thus a post modifier of the head noun girl.

The phrase ten dollars in the following sentence is usually classified as a direct object. Explain the problems with this classification.
The bag costs ten dollars

Test for objects is usually through the passivisation test or through probing that answers the who /what/ which question.

In this case, ten dollars is a noun phrase which allows it to be either an object or an complement.
However, it can only either be an object or a subject complement as the bag is a subject. Object complement cannot exist without an object.

Test for object -- Passivisation
However in this case, ten dollars cannot be passivised.

Test for subject complement -----Be replacement test
the bag is ten dollars.
The Be replacement tests fails as it produces a ridiculous result; a bag cannot be ten dollars.

Since the noun phrase ten dollars is neither an subject/object complement, it must be an object

Actually, ‘The bag is ten dollars’ is acceptable. Note that the question asks why it is problematic to regard ‘ten dollars as an object. Your answer does not address this issue at all. You should work along this line:

n The passivisation test does not work.

n ‘Ten dollars’ is regarded as object only because it (the price) does not refer to the book. (That is, ‘ten dollars’ cannot pick out the book for us.) Since the price does not refer to the book, it cannot be the subject complement. It must therefore be the direct object.

Homonymy VS Polysemy

Write short notes on Homonymy and Polysemy

Homonymy
- describes a situation where a homonym has 2 or more meanings that are totally unrelated
-same form, same pronunciation but different meaning
- In dictionary, meanings are categorised as separate entries

Eg: Bark of a tree vs bark of a dog.
-there are no related meanings for both words
Stalk of a flower vs the verb stalk

Polysysemy
-describes a situation where a polysemy has 2 or more meanings that are related.
-same form, same pronunciation with related meanings
- in dictionary, meaning are categorised under a single entry
-basic meaning can be extended into another meaning in a non literal way. this is known as a metaphor

Eg: ceiling which means inner surface of the wall
can be extended metaphorically as price ceiling, wage ceiling
Eg: hands of the clock.
Hands in this case would be polysemy to the basic meaning as it also performs a pointing function.
Hands of the clock is directing to us the time of the day.

Meronymy or Not

Look at the utterance

I've got wheels.

What do you have to say about this sentence in relation to the concept Meronym?

1) technically speaking, wheels is a meronym of car
2) However, in accordance to this sentence, the word 'wheels' does not seem to imply wheels of the car but the entire car.
3) in this case, the part (wheels) is used to refer to the whole (car)
4) the relationship of the wheels and the car is thus no longer a part whole relationship.
5) also, the word 'wheels' does not include the entire car as part of its meaning.
6) the part 'wheels' is used is if it is the whole. This is known as synecdoche.

Difference between meronymy and synedoche
while synedoche takes over the meaning of the whole, meronym retains the meaning of the part relative to the whole.