Linguistics Morphology Syntax Semantics Definitions And Terminology The

Linguistics, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics. Definitions And Terminology.

The Science: Definitions Linguistics: – The science which studies language as a system of human communication. Morphology: – The study of the internal structure of words. Syntax: – The study of the combination of words. Semantics: – The study of the meaning of linguistic expressions.

The Levels of Language and Linguistics

Grammatical Components A unit is a linguistic sequence of varying composition which itself carries a grammatical structure or which operates in the structure of other grammatical patterns. Five grammatical units: – Sentence, clause, group, word, morpheme. Units are related to each other hierarchically on the scale of rank. – All units, except the sentence, are characterized by their function in the patterns.

Grammatical Functions and Categories Kernel clause structure: – Subject and predicate. Group: – Subject, predicator, object, complement, adjunct, conjunct, disjunct. Words: – Determiner, modifier, head, complement, operator. Phrase: – NG (noun group), Adj. G (adjective group), VG (verb group), Adv. G (adverb group), PG (prepositional group), Poss. G (possessive group). Words: – Noun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction. Functions refer to what a linguistic item does whereas categories refer to form and word-class.

A sample of constituent analysis