Study Guide for ENG1502

2012 University of South Africa

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Printed and published by theUniversity of South AfricaMuckleneuk, Pretoria

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CONTENTS Page

Preface (v)

Learning unit 1: What is Language? 11.1 An Introduction to Foundations in Applied English Language 11.2 What are texts and domains? 31.3 What is language? 41.4 Why study language? 5Conclusion 6References 6

Learning unit 2: Lets listen to the sounds of the English Language 72.1 The discrepancy between spelling and sound 82.2 Basic concepts of the sound system 112.3 Sound production 152.4 Variation in pronunciation 192.5 Attitudes and accents 202.6 Sound patterning 212.6.1 The syllable 212.6.2 Stress and intonation 24Conclusion 25References 25

Learning unit 3: How do we build them? Words and Sentences 263.1 Morphology 263.1.1 Types of morphemes 273.2 Challenges in dividing words into morphemes 303.3 Morphs and allomorphs 313.4 Word formation processes 323.5 Syntax: word order and sentence structure 343.5.1 The sentence 343.6 The basic structure of the sentence 353.7 The conjunction in a sentence 523.8 Sentences in texts 52Conclusion 53References 56

Learning unit 4: I hear what you are saying, but what do you mean? 574.1 What is meaning? 58

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4.1.1 Word order and meaning 584.1.2 Time, space and meaning 594.1.3 Non-verbal language (or paralinguistic tools) and meaning 604.1.4 Signs/symbols and meaning 604.2 Words in context 624.2.1 Ambiguity 624.2.2 Homophones 634.2.3 Synonyms 634.3 Kinds of meaning 644.3.1 Denotation 644.3.2 Connotation 654.3.3 Literal meaning/Implied meaning 654.3.4 Metaphoric meaning 65Conclusion 66References 66

Learning unit 5: One Language: Many Varieties 675.1 Texts in conversational contexts 675.2 Context of situation 695.3 Language and Society 705.4 Language and Social class 725.5 What is Standard English? 74References 76

Learning unit 6: Language in Action 776.1 The importance of context 776.2 Analysing authentic texts in the real world 816.3 Language in literature 95Conclusion 105References 105

Appendices 107

ENG1502/1 (v)

Preface

PREFACE

This study guide forms the core study material for the module ENG1502: Foundations in Applied English Language Studies. The study material comes in a package compris-ing a Study Guide and an accompanying CD.

In this introductory note, we outline the outcomes of the module and its content and we also give guidance on how to use the study material.

Purpose of this module

The purpose of the module is to introduce the study of the English Language. This module is part of the fi rst year English Language and Literature Major offered by the English Studies Department. It forms part of the BA general degree. Its companion fi rst year module is ENG1501: Foundations in English Literary Studies.

The graduate that we would like to produce should:

(1) gain a fi rm background in the theories underpinning the use of the English language.

(2) be able to use the English language with confi dence in all its functions: reading, writing, speaking, or listening.

(3) understand the structure and function of the English language in the various discourses which include literature, media, technology, and others.

To achieve these outcomes, our graduates therefore need to study a foundational module in Applied English Studies in the following areas:

the sounds and sound patterns of the English language (phonetics and phonology) the formation of words and the relationship among them (morphology and syntax) ways in which the language makes meaning and is used in context (semantics,

pragmatics and discourse analysis)

the mutual relationship between language and society (sociolinguistics)

The module offers students an opportunity for a broad exploration and understand-ing of what these aspects of language are and how they relate to each other. The main emphasis is on the application of these theoretical concepts to the English Language and on the laying of a foundation for further explorations in the second year. Unit 1 gives the scope of the module as outlined below:

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PREFACE

Outcomes and Assessment Criteria of the Module

Outcome 1:

Students can describe and explain the structure of texts above single-sentence level.

Assessment criteria:

Students can identify the purpose, structure, audience, tone and style of authentic texts such as advertisements, news reports and political speeches.

Outcome 2:

Students can understand and explain the grammatical and functional structure of the English Language.


Students can:

(1) identify words and phrases in clauses and sentences;(2) describe and explain the functions of the constituents of a sentence;(3) describe the function of the major word classes: noun, verb, adjective, adverb etc.,

and recognise the difference between content and structure words.

Outcome 3:

Students produce their own writing, practising the conventions of academic English.


(1) in written texts, students can substantiate their ideas;(2) use the standard form of the English language;(3) write grammatical sentences;(4) compose properly structured paragraphs;(5) adopt a formal tone and style;(6) organise ideas logically;(7) use correct spelling and punctuation.

Module Layout

There are six units in this module.

With the exception of the last unit, each unit is constructed in the following way: An introduction; outcomes of the unit; discussion of the critical areas of the topic; activities; some feedback; and key terminology and references. Unit 6 is laid out slightly differently. This unit gives you an opportunity to observe some aspects of the language which are covered in the other units as they may be used in real situations.

The activities have been designed to engage students to think critically about how each aspect of the English language relates to others at different levels and in everyday use. Students are expected to complete all exercises, and where feedback has been provided, check their answers. The activities build progressively on one another and are therefore interrelated from one unit to another.

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Preface

In line with the practice in Applied Language and Linguistics, the examples used in the Study Guide have been drawn, as far as possible, from various social contexts. Since many of our students come from Southern Africa, and South Africa, many examples refl ect this context. However, since language is a universal social phenomenon, anyone who speaks a language will relate comfortably to the concepts illustrated.

The CD provides several live examples of the English language as it is spoken by different members of the community of English speakers. Here you have the opportunity to listen to sounds, songs, readings and language as it is really used in various other social scenarios.

Each unit provides you with a modest reading list which you are strongly advised to go through as it will enrich your understanding of some of the concepts discussed in the module.

While all assessment and further activities will be included in the Tutorial letter 101, and on the course website, you are urged to make very productive use of the information and exercises in the prescribed texts.

Prescribed Textbooks

There are two prescribed books which will be used in the fi rst and second year. You are required to buy these books. They are available at a discounted fee at all offi cial Unisa booksellers within South Africa. The following are the titles:

(1) Carter, R., Goddard, A., Reah, D., Sanger, K. & Swift, N. (2008) Working with Texts, London: Routledge.

(2) Mullany, L. & Stockwell, P. (2010) Introducing English Language, London: Routledge.

Recommended References

Richards, C. & Schmidt, R. (2010) Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, (4th ed) London: Pearson Education Limited

In addition to these prescribed books you will also receive some guidelines in your Tutorial Letter 101 about the Electronic resources, recommended works and any other ancillary material.

We would like to thank the listed authors for their contribution to this module.

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UNIT 1: What is language?

1UNIT 1

1What is Language?

1.1 AN INTRODUCTION TO FOUNDATIONS IN APPLIED ENGLISH LANGUAGEThis fi rst year Language Module will provide you with an introduction to the English language. It will familiarise you with the terms and concepts that are used to describe language in a scientifi c and systematic way. These terms and concepts are going to be applied in real life contexts where the English Language is used. You will learn about domains or situations of language use (e.g. home, boardroom, school, court, and so on). Because Applied English language refers to the arena of the use and application of linguistic concepts in different situations, it will be necessary that we introduce you to the defi nitions of technical language analysis terminology such as, syntax, phonetics, phonology, register, genre, text, semantics and pragmatics.

Language is an integral component of any society. In order for us to investigate how language is used in society, we have to study varieties of language, dialects, standards, and attitudes to language. In line with this, the module will introduce some concepts of language in society.

The rationale for this module is taken from the module form, which is an offi cial docu-ment that presents the aims and outcomes for modules at UNISA. We outline this underlying principle below:

(a) The module will equip students with the skills of applied English language studies (such as language usage, writing studies, and discourse analysis). Students will be able to apply their understanding and skills to English language as it functions in various real-life contexts such as, the media and political contexts.

(b) The module aims to introduce students to a systematic description of English Language and to introduce them to the grammatical competences needed to apply their knowledge to the analysis of authentic language data.

(c) The module will introduce meta-language terminology in the discipline of Applied English language studies which is essential for advanced profi ciency and literacy development.

The specifi c outcomes of this unit are the following:

(1) Defi ne what is language, and describe various defi nitions of language.(2) Describe the functions of language.

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(3) Explain the relevance/importance of English Language Studies.(4) Use the knowledge gained to analyse a few texts.

This unit seeks to orientate you to a list of concepts in Applied English language studies that are going to be used in the rest of the Study Guide. These ideas form a foundational knowledge base for the study of language in subsequent years.

Source: Adapted from Eggins (1994)

Diagram 1

The diagram above illustrates the structure and system of how language relates to people who use it in various situations and cultures. Some of these terms may be unfa-miliar to you, but if you look carefully, you might recognize terms like letters, sounds, wordings, or words, meanings, and culture. There are also technical words on the diagram that are used to describe these familiar terms, which are used in the study of language. These are; phonology, grammar, and semantics (e.g. phonology = the study of sound patterns).

The diagram above represents the wider fi eld of language studies. This module will depart from the smallest circle, and move gradually towards the bigger circles. Although it is clear from the diagram through the various lines that the smallest units of analy-sis of language are sounds and letters, both these take us to the next, bigger circle of words and as you move further outwards, the words convey meanings. Words and the meanings are governed by grammatical rules. For the sake of this fi rst-year module, we are going to look at two main concepts that illustrate the nature of language. These are texts and domains of language use. You may have heard that meaning depends on the context. In other words, a context or domain has meaning potential. That is, meaning is obtained in the context.

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See the diagram below:

1.2 WHAT ARE TEXTS AND DOMAINS? TEXTS AND DOMAINS OF LANGUAGE USE

Domains: business, Law, Media, Politics, Advertising, Science, Technology

Texts: lexis, syntax, grammar, Phonology

Diagram 2

Our main unit of analysis in language studies is a text.

What do you think a text is?

Write down other words that have the stem text, (e.g. textile) and think about what they mean.

Write down at least one defi nition of a text.

As you read this module, you may also want to compile your own fi le or journal where you place or paste your own texts.

Diagram 2 above shows the two-way, simultaneous relationship that exists between a text, and the domains of language use. This diagram illustrates that any given text occurs within a corresponding domain of language. There are many types of texts, as illustrated in Unit 6. It would not be possible to list all of them. Likewise, there are numerous domains of language use.

Carter et. al. (2008:142) say that the word text itself originally meant something woven (Latin texere, to weave textum what has been woven), and you can see a relationship between text, textile (capable of being woven) and texture (having the quality of woven cloth). By text we mean any piece of writing/language that hangs together from the beginning to the end. It has to have unity. Texts do not only have to be written. They can be spoken, e.g. the news that we hear on radio, or the news that we watch being broadcast on Television. A text can also be visual or audio-visual. Indeed, texts that are produced for television are audio-visual. Similarly, some written texts combine both the written and the visual, e.g. Newspaper reports. An art painting, such as, Leonardo Da Vincis Mona Lisa, or the Last Supper can also be a text.

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Domain refers to social categories which locate all instances of language use in vari-ous situations or contexts. It can be the classroom domain, the sports fi eld, a church, a political rally, etc. Notice that a classroom belongs to the larger sphere or domain of education, and a sermon in church belongs to the larger domain of religion. Some of the domains of language use that will be discussed in this module are advertising, politics, literature and media. Domains can be more abstract entities, although we can identify them through various artefacts: texts, drawings, and pictures. A collection of pictures can work together to portray a particular domain.

Once we defi ne the domain or the situation, we can then ask questions like, what is the topic? Is this text spoken or written? What is the meaning of the text? How does the text create this meaning? Who are the interlocutors (or addresser and addressee)? Who are the participants? Answer-ing such questions, will then take us back to other aspects of the study of language where we will be studying concepts like, genre, discourse, register, fi eld, tenor and mode, (as shown in Diagram 1 above). These terms will be explained in more detail in the following units.

New Terminology

As a way of introducing this module, we would like to inform you that you will meet many new terms and therefore, you will have to learn the defi nitions of the terms and how they are applied to the study of language. We have provided glossaries at the end of some units to help you with the defi nition of terms. You should also consult additional sources to learn more about the concepts that are introduced in this study guide. Be aware that certain terms may sound familiar in everyday use but actually they have a special or a technical meaning in Applied Language Studies. Always have examples of each term. Applied Language Studies requires precision and accuracy in the defi nition of terms and examples of the usage of the terms.

1.3 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?The following are some of the defi nitions that have been suggested by different scholars.

Language is sometimes referred to as a semiotic system (Halliday 1979 and Carter et. al. 1997). This means that it is thought to be a system where the individual elements signs take their overall meaning from how they are combined with other elements, (for example, road traffi c lights).

Language is a system of relating forms to meanings, (Delahunty & Garvey 2010:31). Language is a set of rules, unconsciously present in the mind, which enables human

beings to represent and communicate meanings by producing audible, visible, or tactile symbols that these rules systematically relate to those meanings, (Delahunty & Garvey 2010:31).

We use the term language to refer to the general faculty which enables human beings to engage in the verbal exchange of information to talk to each other. The exchange may take place by means of speech, writing, signing, or Braille, ( Jackson & Stockwell 2011).

In this module we view language as a system of relating forms to functions. The fol-lowing is an explanation of what it means to view language as a system. We need to learn forms and functions of the English Language. For example, we learn about the constituents of sentences, such as verbs, nouns, and adverbs. We then move on to learn about how these forms function in a sentence in order to make meaning in conversation or in other texts. For example, we learn about functional aspects of the same forms such

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as, subject of a simple sentence, predicate, or object. Later on we examine authentic texts, such as, poems and recipes, to see how these are used in contexts.

Here is an extract from Delahunty and Garvey (2010:38), which describes why we refer to language as a system and what the elements of a system are.

A language as a system

Rules are not distributed randomly in the mind like potatoes in a sack. Rather, they are systematically related to one another. It is easiest to envision this conception with an analogy. A computer system has a set of components (central processing unit, monitor, keyboard, speakers, and drives of various types) whose overall function is to process information. The components interact with each other; you can, for instance, play a CD while reading your email. The components also contain smaller parts, all of which interact in precise, though limited, ways with each other and with parts of other compo-nents. Language systems likewise have components. The most commonly cited ones are: phonetics/phonology, morphology, vocabulary, orthography/spelling/writing, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse, (Delahunty & Garvey 2010:38).

The following table represents the language system:

Language concept Meaning

Phonetics The study of speech sounds.Phonology The study of the sound patterning system.Lexis The study of the actual words a writer or speaker chooses

to use.Morphology The study of how words are formed.

Syntax The study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules that govern the formations.

Orthography Writing systemsSemantics The study of meaning, how meaning is made and understood.Pragmatics The study of the use of language in communication i.e.

sentences as used in contexts and situations.Discourse How language is organized beyond the sentence, i.e. in larger

texts.

We have defi ned domain, text and what we mean by language as a system above. The rest of the module will clarify some of the components which make up a written or spoken text. It is important to bear in mind that we are analysing language use, and the particular unit of analysis is the text. However, the text is made up of the entire language as a system.

This short discussion should make it clear that the micro- (e.g. text) and macro- (e.g. domains or situations) aspects of language study are connected. More of this will be illustrated in the unit on Language in Action.

1.4 WHY STUDY LANGUAGE?Now that you have been given the defi nitions of language, we would like to highlight the importance of studying and teaching about language. Before reading on;

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What reasons can you give for Language Studies or for studying language?

You may think of many reasons such as, writing, reading, and speaking English in a world where English is the language of doing business. In many countries all over the world, English is an offi cial language.

You might be interested in knowing about language variation (dialects or varieties). You might be interested in standardisation of languages, in how languages are learned, in the relationships between language and culture or society, or in how computers are programmed to understand or produce language. Maybe you are interested in writing, in journalism, or any communication fi eld. You might want to enrich your own fl u-ency and profi ciency in the language. People in various professions frequently have to demonstrate competence and profi ciency in the use of the English Language.

CONCLUSIONIn conclusion, we can say that language is a tool that humans use in order to exchange meaningful messages with some of our fellow human beings by means of texts, which are structured according to the rules and conventions of the particular language that we share with those fellow human beings ( Jackson & Stockwell 2011).

In the rest of the module, language will be studied in context and different features will be traced in persuasive texts such as advertisements and political speeches, as well as in informative texts such as news reports. You will be sensitised to the way language changes according to context, audience and purpose. In other words, you will be in-troduced to the notion of register. The distinction between standard and non-standard English will be discussed; the characteristics of South African English considered. Samples of English in the technological/digital age will be used to demonstrate devia-tions from the standard and to enhance understanding of the constant dynamism of language. The rest of the module focuses on language and context. It further traces different features in persuasive language, discourse analysis and language analysis of literary texts. Sociolinguistic issues, including such concepts as language and identity, power, and gender, will also be introduced.

References

Carter, R., Goddard, A., Reah, D., Sanger, K. & Swift, N. (2008) Working with Texts, London: Routledge.

Delahunty, G.P. & Garvey, J.J. (2010) The English Language from Sound to Sense, Colorado: WAC Clearinghouse.

Eggins, S. (1994) An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, London: PinterJackson, H. & Stockwell, P. (2011) An Introduction to The Nature and Functions of Language,

London: ContinuumMullany, L. & Stockwell, P. (2010) Introducing English Language, London: Routledge.

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UNIT 2: Lets listen to the sounds of the English Language

2UNIT 2

2Lets listen to the sounds of the English Language

LISTENLISTENThe playwright on my right thinks that some conventional rite should symbolize

the right of every man to write as he pleases

The sons raise meat and The suns rays meet.

What you saying? Come again?

OUTCOMESBy the end of the unit you should be able to:

defi ne some of the key terminology used to discuss the sound system of the English language;

describe the sounds and sound patterns of the English language; explain how sound and spelling relate in English; distinguish between the different sound articulation patterns of the English language; read with understanding the dictionary entries on sound and pronunciation; identify speech variation patterns as used by different speakers.

INTRODUCTIONThis unit presents a discussion of the sound system of the English Language. The aim is to equip you with enough tools to assist you to speak intelligibly. For this reason, this unit is accompanied by a CD in which some of the pronunciation is illustrated. Put simply, this unit is about the art of pronunciation.

Given that the sound system is very wide, and we have limited space, we will be se-lective about what we include in this unit. In applied language studies we are always concerned with application of the theoretical and feature descriptions of language, as such, our focus in this unit will be to observe the sound system in action. We will be using a number of examples from different genres and speech events to illustrate how sound patterning assists with effective language use.

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2.1 THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN SPELLING AND SOUNDTo get us thinking more about how spelling and sound in the English language lets read and listen again to the opening quotation. Observe the play on the sound rite. The words rite , write, right wright are all spelt differently and convey different mean-ings, yet they sound similar. In English grammar such words are called homophones. (See Unit 3 for a detailed description of homophones.) This kind of wordplay is used a lot in poetry for example to create rhythm, rhyme echo and humour. It makes a nice candidate for the game of tongue twisting. I know a book by Thompson titled The Rite to Write about Wright a title that can twist your tongue.

LISTENLISTENSome unknown author has created this verse to illustrate the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation:

I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough? Some may stumble, but not you, on hiccough, thorough, slough, and through? So now you are ready, perhaps, to learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word, that looks like beard, but sounds like bird. And dead, its said like bed, not bead; for goodness sake, dont call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat. (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.) A moth is not a moth in mother, nor both in bother, broth in brother. And here is not a match for there, nor dear and fear, for bear and pear. And then theres dose and rose and lose just look them upand goose and choose And cork and work and card and ward and font and front and word and sword And do and go, then thwart and cart, come, come! Ive hardly made a start. A dreadful language? Why man alive! Ive learned to talk it when I was fi ve. And yet to write it, the more I tried, I hadnt learned it at fi fty-fi ve. Author Unknown

ACTIVITY 1ACTIVITY 1Complete the following table with homophones for the given words. Two words have been done for you as examples.

ate cereal dear sore mist made rain vain horse idle

eight reign

What can you say about the bolded words in the following pairs of sentences?

(a) The silver coin bears the armour of the King.(b) The wild-life at that park is dominated by bears.

(a) Get to the store as soon as possible, it looks like there is a fi re!(b) If we store all the grain in the barn, it will be protected from the rain

(a) I have contracted the fl u and must see a doctor soon(b) We have contracted Omnifoto to cover the event on Wednesday.

(a) Your behaviour blew all our chances of winning.(b) A blue dress would match your hat better than a red one.

Yes, some are either spelled differently and sounded the same or vice versa. This hap-pens a lot in the English language, because, unlike other languages such as Esperanto,

ENG1502/1 9


and some Slavic languages, English spelling does not always refl ect how the word is pronounced.

It is from this behaviour of the spelling and sound relationship in the English language that we have words classifi ed as follows:

homophones: two words are homophones if they are pronounced the same way but differ in meaning or spelling or both (e.g. bare and bear)

homonyms: two words are homonyms if they are pronounced or spelled the same way but have different meanings. (e.g. bank (embankment) and bank (place where money is kept)).

heteronyms: two words are heteronyms if they are spelled the same way but dif-fer in pronunciation (e.g. row (a series of objects arranged in a line), pronounced (r), and row (a fi ght), pronounced (rou)).

homographs: two words are homographs if they are spelled the same way but differ in meaning (e.g. tear (water from the eyes) tear (rip -apart)).

http://www.ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/

In the unit on semantics, you will learn more about how words mean in different con-texts and forms.

ACTIVITY 2ACTIVITY 2This activity aims at getting you to think about words, their sounds and meaning. Its no use being embarrassed hearing someone say Hey, I am off to the bank across the street and you, desperate for money responds and say please get me R200. Please, Im so broke and the person says No I meant the river bank across the street.

Look again at the descriptions of the classifi cations of words and then do the following:

(1) Find 3 sets of words which are homonyms in the English language.(2) Find 3 sets of words which are homophones in the English language.(3) Find 3 sets of words which are heteronyms in the English language.(4) Find sets of words which are homographs in the English language. (see this web

page for examples of homographs: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/wordlist/homogrph.html

It will help if you attempt to use these words in sentences as well to ensure that you understand the differences in meaning.

Lets get back to more sounds now

Why learn about or teach pronunciation?

As Peter Roach (2009, p.6) has highlighted pronunciation exercises can be diffi cult, but if we eliminate everything diffi cult from language teaching and learning, we may end up doing very little beyond getting students to play simple communication games.

The minute you read this unit, you will instantly be reminded of the learning experience on your fi rst week at school, learning the alphabet. I imagine, like me, fi rst, you were puzzled by the 21 +5 symbols, which you were later told are consonants and vowels,

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respectively. You scrambled through them, to memorize each vowel and consonant. As you read books, papers, you kept meeting these symbols; gradually they got so familiar, now, you dont have to think about how they are sounded. So why are we doing this again at University? Well the reasons are simple.

(1) We want to understand the science behind the production of these sounds

(a) Where are they produced? Think about it, the sounds /b/ and /t/ are not articulated at the same places in the mouth. To produce /b/, we use the two lips, but when we produce /t/ we use the tongue and the alveolar ridge.

(b) How are they produced? When we make the sounds /b/ and /p/, we use the two lips but with /b/ we make a noise and use some force, yet with /p/, we dont make a noise and we do not use force.

(2) For those of us whose fi rst language is not English, the study of the sounds of the English language will even be more advantageous.

(3) For those of us whose fi rst language is English, over and above just using the language, we must learn about its form and systemic function which adds to the refi nement of how we can effectively speak the language.

Some people pronounce words like county as cowtry, could as cooled, or put the stress of the word agreement on A as in Agreement instead of aGREEment, putting the stress on the second syllable. The fi rst two examples illustrate the tendency to want to sound every letter in a word, clearly not aware that some letters that come in pairs/clusters, are represented by one sound during pronunciation or that some sounds are silent in the English language. This can only be understood if one studies the phonetics and phonology of a language. The last two examples illustrate a confusion with which part of the word (the syllable) should be stressed. These oddities may be regarded by many as insignifi cant because they do not confuse understanding, but, they do sound clumsy. For example you can enter into both an aGREEment and Argument with someone, but not an Agreement so if the word agreement is pronounced the same as argument, then there may be a communication breakdown, and this is unnecessary, and can be avoided.

Essential Terminology

Lets quickly get the terminology in place.

When studying the symbols at this level we dont call them letters or alphabets, but phonemes. The whole system is referred to as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). (See appendix 1) for a complete chart of the IPA. The IPA was formed to ad-dress the confusion arising from language orthography.

Each language, and so does the English Language, draws its sounds from this interna-tional chart. When you see the chart in appendix 1, you will realize that some symbols/sounds do not exist in the English language. For that reason, in Figure 1, we show only those sounds applicable to the English language.

In total there is a set of 24 consonant phoneme sounds and 20 vowel phoneme sounds (yes, 20 and not 5), in the English Language phonetic alphabet. Some of you will have done this work in your fi rst grade, but you were not aware your teachers were drawing the phonetic variations from this alphabet.

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FIGURE 1: The British English only IPA

Bilabial Labio-dental

Inter-dental

Alveolar Palato-alveolar

Palatal Velar Glottal

Stop p b t d k gFricative f v s z hAffricate Nasal m n Liquid lGlide w j

See the charts below showing the symbols with examples of words.

We will discuss the names of the sounds later.

2.2 BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE SOUND SYSTEMThe study of the sound system is referred to as phonetics and phonology. At the level of phonetics, we study the speech sounds, how they are articulated, (articulatory phonetics), how they are transmitted (acoustic phonetics) and how they are received

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(auditory phonetics). At the level of phonology, we study the ways in which the sounds are combined, and patterned, as such we have syllable structures, and other features above the segment level, the suprasegmental features of stress, intonation, pitch and length. In this unit as well as units 4 and 6, you will read more about how these features can make our everyday language work for communication.

In this unit we focus on articulatory phonetics, that is, how sounds are produced. However, you can read more on acoustic and auditory phonetics on your own, or if you happen to study speech therapy, linguistics, or music, you will get to know more about other branches of phonetics. The descriptions are included in appendix 2 for those of you who may be interested.

Articulatory phonetics

This refers to the study of how sounds are produced using the human vocal apparatus. In articulatory phonetics, we describe and classify sounds according to where and how they are produced. This shall form the main pre-occupation of this unit.

Other key terminology to support your understanding is: phoneme, phonemic and phonetic. As noted earlier, in the phonetics and phonology discourse, we dont call the sounds, alphabets, but we call them phoneme sounds.

In the next unit you will learn that the smallest segment of a word is a morpheme. In this unit we are making you aware that, the smallest segment of a sound is a phoneme which can distinguish between two words. Lets take the two words pit and pet. They differ in one vowel sound e and i; doom and room, they differ in the consonants /d/ and /r/, otherwise they are the same. Note that in writing, when we represent a pho-neme, we put it between slashes /d/. This is how all phonemic sounds are represented.

The dictionary is a very good basic resource for you if you want to see information about words. Take a quick look at any word in your dictionary, after every word entry, you will fi nd the phonemic transcription inside slashes, or a phonetic transcription inside brackets, which illustrates the way the word is pronounced.

Here are some examples of the words bias and feat graduate and strike as repre-sented in the dictionary.

ENG1502/1 13


feat /fi :t/ n. a remarkable, skilful, or daring action; exploit; achievement: feats of strength ... (example taken from the Collins English Dictionary)

The entries in the dictionary provide you with very useful information. As you can see in the examples above, the information touches on pronunciation, meaning, on word usage, on accent/stress patterns, and on word morphology. The examples also illustrate that different dictionaries use different methods to enter words. So choosing a diction-ary also requires understanding what information you are looking for in the entry. If you get stuck on a word, go to the dictionary. Part of the aim of this unit is to help you understand how to read the dictionary entries on sound and pronunciation.

From now on remember to enclose /t/ in between slashes, if you are refering to t as a sound. This will make more sense to you if you look at the way th in the words thin and this are pronounced. You will realise that the manner of voicing is different, in thin it is voiceless and in this it is voiced. Therefore, to represent these sounds you cannot use the same symbol for th, these are letters of the alphabet and as sounds they are represented as follows:

/ / = as in thin

/ / = as in this

Dont be confused by the terminology. You will come across the two phrases phone-mic symbols and phonetic symbols used a lot in the literature on phonetics and phonology, they are not interchangeable. A phonemic symbol shows fewer features than a phonetic symbol and unlike the phoneme sound, the phonetic symbol will

14

be enclosed in square brackets [a]. Phonetic representation is more precise and much more complex than phonemic representation. For our purposes we will use phonemic systems to refer to sounds.

To illustrate the differences, lets look at the sound /p/ in peat and /t/ in take. The sounds have aspiration, that is, when you pronounce them, you push air out, almost like you have put an h sound [ph] and [th]. Phonetically you would represent the word peat as [phi t] and phonemically as /pit/. In the former, the aspiration is shown using the aspirant and the diacritic mark on the vowel sound.

LISTENLISTEN

Lets listen to some words taken from: http://edition.englishclub.com/esl-magazine/pronunciation-25-words/

Lets practise these words together:

Listen to the word. (wait for a one second pause after) Say the word with me. Say the sentence with me.

Are you ready for this?

(1) thistle (allow a pause and then repeat with me). Be careful not to step on the thistle.(2) crisps. Potato chips are called crisps in England.(3) should. You should not pronounce the l when you say the word should.(4) would. Would and wood sound the same when you say them out loud.(5) clothes. Put on warm clothes before you head outside today.(6) order. The order of these words is not important.(7) murder. A man was charged with murder over the holidays.(8) air. The air is so cold you can see your breath.(9) literature. You can download classic literature for free online.

(10) language. English is a diffi cult language to learn.(11) onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia refers to words that sound like their meaning.(12) deterioration. It is diffi cult to watch the deterioration of a friends health.(13) little. If you practise, your English will improve little by little.(14) assailant. The assailant was caught by the police.(15) catastrophic. A catastrophic earthquake struck the centre of the city.(16) alter. Dont alter your plans just because I cant go.(17) exclamation. One exclamation mark is enough to get your point across.(18) crocodile. Captain Hook was petrifi ed of the crocodile in the movie Peter Pan.(19) unfortunate. It is unfortunate that the weather has delayed our trip.(20) six. Six plus six equal twelve, which is also known as a dozen.(21) development. The development of new technology has allowed us to receive in-

formation very quickly.(22) decision. It wasnt my decision to have a picnic in the rain.(23) ambulance. When you hear an ambulance you must pull over to the side of the road.(24) law. The law states that residents must clear their sidewalk when it snows.(25) low. If you bend down low, you will see where the children are hiding.

ENG1502/1 15


ACTIVITY 3ACTIVITY 3Find a telephone directory and look-up 25 surnames you have diffi culty pronouncing. Why do you think you have diffi culty with these names?

2.3 SOUND PRODUCTIONKnowing how sounds are produced is an important skill for teachers and anyone learn-ing the English language.

What do we do with our mouth when we pronounce words?

We shall begin by looking inside the mouth where all these sounds are made.

The vocal tract

The following diagram shows the vocal tract and some of the important areas at which the consonant sounds of the English language are produced.

We start with the consonants.

This is a sketch of the head showing all the articulators. You will need to look at it carefully as the sounds are described, and you will often fi nd it useful to have a mirror and a well-lit place so that you can look inside of your mouth as you practice placing your sounds.

FIGURE 3Figure 3 above shows all the organs involved in speech production.

The description of consonants involves identifying three aspects/features of a sound namely; place, manner and voicing. Where in the vocal tact are sounds made? How are they produced? What is the state of the voice during production?

16

Figure 4 shows the sounds at their place of articulation.

Places of articulation

FIGURE 4When a sound is produced, two articulators are involved: one is the active articulator (the one that moves) and the other the passive articulator (the one that the other moves toward). During consonant production, the airstream which moves from the lungs through the vocal tract, must be obstructed. The consonants are therefore classifi ed according to the place and manner of obstruction.

Name of sound Place of Obstruction

Bilabial The point of maximum constriction is made by the coming together of the two lips. /b, p, m/

Labiodental The lower lip articulates with the upper teeth. /f, v/

Dental/interdental The tip of the tongue articulates with the back or bottom of the top teeth. th ///

Alveolar The tip or the blade of the tongue articulates with the forward part of the alveolar ridge. /t, d, s, z, n, l/

Postalveolar/palato-alveolar

The tip or the blade of the tongue articulates with the back area of the alveolar ridge. /, , t, d/ as in fi sh, garage, rich, and ridge, respectively.

Palatal The front of the tongue articulates with the domed part of the hard palate. /j/ as in yes

Velar The back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate. /k, g, /

Uvular The back of the tongue articulates with the far back of the soft palate, including the uvula. /

Glottal The vocal folds are brought together; in some cases, the func-tion of the vocal folds can be part of articulation as well as phonation, as in the case of [h]

TEphonemic_GreyBlue21.exe (possible web link)

ENG1502/1 17


ACTIVITY 4ACTIVITY 4Look at the following chart as you listen to the track on the CD.

Look at the set of words and tick yes or no to indicate whether the word has a con-sonant of the place of articulation shown on the left or not.

Place of articulation

Word Yes No Word Yes No Word Yes No Word Yes No

Bilabial apple lamb Yell bankVelar knot break Cast ghostAlveolar scare quick Dark knotDental thick bake Hitch roughAlveolar palatal

craze push Measure action

Labio-dental

Manners of Articulation

This refers to the degree and kind of obstruction of a consonant sound in the vocal tract. The articulators may close off the oral tract for a brief or relatively longer period; they narrow the space or modify the shape of the tract. If we take the example of /t/ and /s/, both sounds are articulated by the tongue touching the alveolar ridge, thats why they are called alveolar sounds, but the degree of constriction is different. With /s/ the air is not stopped, but fl ows through, yet with /t/ the air is blocked briefl y before it is released. For that reason /s/ is called a fricative because the air is allowed to fl ow with audible friction. The /t/ is called a stop or plosive because the airfl ow is fi rst stopped before it is released.

In line with the behaviour of the airfl ow, there are several manners articulation. Stops, as noted, are sounds whose production requires that air be stopped before release; fricatives involve a slight opening between the articulators to allow the air to escape with frication; affricates involve a stop, followed by very gradual release resulting in friction. Affricates start like stops and end like fricatives. Approximants are released by means of a greater opening in the vocal tract, therefore unlike fricatives, there is no friction created. As their name suggests they approximate closure. In this group are the glides and liquids. Nasals are produced with the airfl ow stopped at the oral cavity and released through the nose. Other manners are trills and taps. For examples of each of these see the following table.

Voicing

A sound can either be voiced or voiceless. Voiced sounds those where during sound production, the vocal folds vibrate, and voiceless sounds are when the vocal folds are apart and not vibrating. Voiced sounds are all the sounds on the right in the chart above where a square shares two sounds. They are /b, v, , d, z, , d, g/. The sounds on the left are voiceless. Only stops, fricatives and affricates show alternation between voiced and voiceless sounds, whereas the other manners of articulation approximants and nasals are always voiced. In describing a sound, we refer to:

e.g. Voiceless bilabial stop /p/; voiced bilabial stop /b/; voiced alveolar nasal /n/ and voiced alveolar fricative /z/.

18

ACTIVITY 5ACTIVITY 5Try this:

(1) Give the appropriate three-term description for each of the following sounds (e.g. [k]: voiceless velar stop): [f] [b] [] [] [t] [ j]

(2) Give the appropriate phonetic symbol for each of the following sounds:

(a) a voiced palato-alveolar fricative(b) a voiced alveolar stop(c) a voiced velar stop(d) a voiced dental fricative(e) a voiced labio-dental fricative

(3) What phonetic property distinguishes each of the following pairs of sounds (e.g. [p] and [b]: voicing; [s] and []: place of articulation; [t] and [s]: manner of articulation)?

(a) [k] and [g] (b) [b] and [d] (c) [d] and [z](d) [z] and [] (e) [] and [] (f) [d] and [g]

(4) Which of the following English words begin with a fricative?ship, psychology, veer, round, plot, philosophy, think, late, xylophone

(5) Which of the following English words end with a fricative?stack, whale, swim, epitaph, half, halve, hash, haze, phase, use, path, cuts, pleads

(6) Which of the following English words begin with a stop?Philanderer, plasterer, parsimonious, ptarmigan, psyche, charismatic, cereal, carping, kinky ghoulish, grueling, guardian, thick, tickle, bin, dreary

(7) Describe the position and action of the articulators during the production of the following sounds (e.g. [d]: the blade of the tongue forms a constriction of complete closure with the alveolar ridge; the vocal cords are vibrating): [b] [k] [] [v]

Adapted from English Phonetics and Phonology by Phillip Carr

Some of you will be news readers. It is very important to articulate the sound, know where to place the articulators as this affects the clarity of the sounds to the listeners.

Vowels (short, long and diphthongal)

As noted, there are, in total 24 vowels in the English language. Vowels can be grouped into three categories as shown below. Please study them closely as vowel articulation is the most challenging for speakers of English.

The charts below shows the vowels with examples:

ENG1502/1 19


There is no burning need for you to memorise all these strange symbols. However, if you get into the habit of using them and paying attention to the entries in the diction-ary, you will fi nd them very helpful for pronunciation.

LISTENLISTEN

Listen to the recording as the vowels are pronounced.

If you would like to hear all the sounds made by native speakers of British and Ameri-can English visit the following website and listen.

http://fonetiks.org/engsou2am.html

http://www.stuff.co.uk/calcul_nd.htm

2.4 VARIATION IN PRONUNCIATION

LISTENLISTEN

Listen to the recordingListen to the recording

We have recorded a short passage read by speakers whose fi rst languages are different. We have recorded a short passage read by speakers whose fi rst languages are different. They will introduce their language and read.They will introduce their language and read.

At the end of the recording do and think about the following:At the end of the recording do and think about the following:

(1) Write down what your fi rst impression was of the way each of the readers read the text?

(2) Did you pick any variations? If so which ones? (in case you are not sure feel free to replay the track

(3) Which of the readers was more intelligible on a scale of 1 = less to 5 = very intel-ligible. Remember this is not a scale to rate good or bad but what made intelligible reading to you. Be ready to defend your choice, when this is discussed either in your discussion forum of myUnisa or in the tutorial letter.

20

2.5 ATTITUDES AND ACCENTSIt is very diffi cult to make judgements on what is good and bad pronunciation. I went onto one blog and picked the following comments about South African accents.

Re: South African Pronunciation!!

Reply #60 on: June 03, 2011, 07:36:30 am

I am a South African/American and I think the whole accent thing is silly. I try hard to retain my South African accent. There are plenty of countries that have thick ac-cents have they spoken to a Phillipines teacher or someone from India lately? How about Scotland or Ireland and as someone posted earlier there are differnet accents inside the US, ex. a Southerner vs a Minnesotan.

they will get used to it its helpful to expand their horizons. Dont change your accent!


Reply #61 on: June 03, 2011, 07:57:16 am

I am from America and to be quite honest some (but not all) South African accents are hard for me to understand. They were quite of few South Africans at the EPIK Orientation and some of there english were bad.

I imagine that there english were better than this ...

As for the the original topic, being from England Ive been told by some co-teachers that I can be hard to understand at times but Ive noted that these are the ones who I struggle to understand too. The teachers who have a higher level of English never have any trouble. I think that often it is an excuse to save face. I agree with a previous poster that even in American there are lots of different accents so saying that they can only understand an American accent is just their excuse to make themselves not look bad in front of the other teachers and you.


Reply #62 on: June 03, 2011, 08:54:09 am

Im still young but I think its a recent thing that South Africans are starting to notice their different regional accents. I was born in Durban, well the Kloof area which is different to the regular hey bru though I can speak it having gone to school in Dur-ban. Since I lived in Cape Town for 4 years Im now told Cape Town can be heard in my pronunciation where as Im continually asked to say things like Nine and Fish when in Cape Town. Anyhow my point is its a contextual thing and if it requires some tweaking on your part to be heard and understood that should not be an issue however you need not feel that you have to abandon your identity. Anyhow being South African is more than the way you speak or what you eat etc etc.

ENG1502/1 21


ACTIVITY 6ACTIVITY 6What is your opinion regarding the South African pronunciations or any other pronun-ciation maybe in your own country if you are not South African? More about varieties including varieties in accents is covered in Unit 5 of this module.

2.6 SOUND PATTERNINGPhonology

In the previous sections, we considered the phonetic features of the individual sounds. What the section has done is give you the ammunition, the tools and the terminology for dealing with speech production. However, sounds dont exist in isolation, they occur in the company of other sounds. Phonology describes sound behaviour and patterns in the context of more than one sound appearing together. For our purposes we will look at syllables, stress, and intonation. We have chosen these because they have been identifi ed as another problematic area for language users.

2.6.1 The Syllable

Lets look at and read the poem below entitled The moon was but a chin of gold by Emily Dickison.

The MOON was BUT a CHIN of GOLDA NIGHT or TWO aGO,And NOW she TURNS her PERfect FACEUPON the WORLD beLOW.

The poem has been written in such a way as to show where stress is put on parts of a word. For instance in the word PERfect the stress is the fi rst syllable and the one syl-lable words that are stressed are also written in capital fonts.

LISTENLISTENListen to the recording on the CD to hear the effect of the beat on the rhythm cre-ated in the poem. What this poem demonstrates is how syllables are used to create rhythm in poetry.

Look at the poem again. You will notice that the fi rst line has four stressed syllables, the second line has three stressed syllables, the third line has four stressed syllables and the fourth has three stressed syllable. So the pattern is 4-3-4-3. Each line starts with an unstressed syllable. When you study poetry you will be told that the pattern that Emily has used is an iambic meter.

So what is a Syllable?

The syllable is a phonological unit consisting of segments around a central vowel. The total number of syllables equals the number of vowels. Syllables are not only useful to know to understand rhythm in poetry; they are also useful in music. If you listen to a rap, its movement is measured using syllable based rhythm.

22

The syllable is also the environment for marking stress in words. So if you want to change the meaning of a word or indicate its category, you use stress.

LISTENLISTENListen to this rap song (a song by one SA rapper)

Work out the rhythmic pattern of the song. Which syllables are stressed?

LISTENLISTENLets take this example using the word record (2 syllable word)

(a) Can you give a REcord of your work. record is a noun, the fi rst syllable is stressed.

(b) Can you please reCORD your work. record is a verb, and the second syllable is stressed.

The beats mark the number of syllables in this word, as such the pitch rises on the stressed syllable. Words such as the record above are called heteronyms, spelled the same but different in meaning. The difference in meaning is signalled by the stress placement.

ACTIVITY 7ACTIVITY 7Rewrite the following words to show the placement of stress to bring out the meaning of the word. Two have been done for you.

Word No of syllables Stress place

Pencilphotographyphysiologypolitical 4 second syllablepolitics 3 fi rst syllableSubject(v)Produce(v)Produce (n)

ACTIVITY 8ACTIVITY 8We can do a quick overview of the syllable count on the following words. Please com-plete by fi lling in the blank spaces for the number of syllables for each word. Use the following basic rules. Count the number of vowels, each vowel carries one syl-lable, subtract any silent vowels at the end of each word, subtract one vowel from a diphthong vowel. Remember that we are using the 24 vowel sounds set shown in the vowel chart and not the 5 vowels you did in Grade one.

Word No. of syllables Word No. of syllables

inform 2 syllables mortalinformation immortality

ENG1502/1 23


informative 5 syllables immortalpossibility intelligent 4 syllablespossibility intelligentsiadrama intelligentlydramatic possible 3 syllablesdramatically possibility

A very important thing to note is that in English there are consonant clusters that are not allowed. For example you can never have a word in English beginning with a consonant cluster of ng yet in a number of African languages, such as Zulu, you can.

ACTIVITY 9ACTIVITY 9How many syllables does each of the following words have?

comment, discuss, confi scate, fairy, ferry, reading, idea, deal, appreciate, interesting, develop, development.

What this tells us is that learning about syllables is useful for literary appreciation; for music creation and for understanding meaning of words that share certain spell-ing features.

How do we know when and when not to stress a syllable? The word COMment has 2 syllables and the fi rst syllable is stressed. A lot of second language users stress the second syllable and when they do, the word sounds like comMENT which is the stress pattern for the word comMEND . Unless someone was listening carefully to the context in which the word has been used, they may be confused by the meaning.

You have to be aware of this difference, especially if your fi rst language is not English or unlike English which is a stress-timed language, yours is a syllable-timed language. In many African languages every syllable carries a similar weight, in English the weight varies from one syllable to another. As such, in English there are stressed and unstressed syllables.

The big question is: Where should I put the stress for words? The principles noted below uses words which will make sense to you if you read them in conjunction with Unit 3 of morphology and syntax.

Here are some guidelines on how to determine stress in English. These are not rules, but guidelines as there may be exceptions.

(1) A word is normally stressed on the fi rst syllable, unless there is a reason to put the stress somewhere else.

(2) The reasons are either suffi xes (like -ity or -ion) or prefi xes (like con-, dis-, ex- or in-).

(3) If the suffi x (ending) starts with the letters i or u this will affect the position of stress in a word.

Sample suffi xes: -ion, -ual, -ial, -ient, -ious, -ior, -ic, -ity, etc. The stress comes on the syllable before the suffi x. Examples: Atlantic, comic, suffi cient, explanation, residual. There are only a very few exceptions to this rule.(4) Other suffi xes do not affect the stress of a word.

24

Sample suffi xes: -al, -ous, -ly, -er, -ed, -ist, -ing, -ment

Examples: Permanent, permanently, develop, development

(5) Prefi xes are not normally stressed in two-syllable words, except in some nouns or adjectives.

Examples: To expand, to de fend; but an expert, a report.

Bisyllabic nouns starting with a prefi x need to be learned individually

Prefi xes are usually stressed in three-syllable nouns and adjectives, but not always stressed in verbs.

Examples: Continent, incident, exercise; to consider, to envisage but to indicate (All three syllable verbs ending in -ate are stressed on the fi rst syllable).

http://linguapress.com/grammar/word-stress.htm

You will learn more about prefi xes and suffi xes in the next unit.

2.6.2 Stress and intonationAnother very important phonological feature for someone learning to speak another language is stress and intonation. We have talked about stress in the preceding sec-tion on the syllable and you now know that the syllable is the environment for stress in English. So the syllable, stress and intonation are interrelated.

Intonation is a very important skill in social circles. One of the issues noted in Unit six is that language is used to create tone and attitude which goes a long way to com-municate meaning in your statement. So to become a good listener and communicator, you need to understand how intonation works.

One basic principle of stress is that content words are stressed, but it is up to the speaker to choose which words to stress.

LISTENLISTENListen to the following script on the CD.

The following person was asked to say Hello to:

(1) a friend they meet regularly(2) a friend they havent seen for a long time.(3) a neighbour they dont like(4) a 6 month old baby(5) someone doing what they shouldnt be doing(6) to know if someone is listening

How far do you think the reader achieves to convey an attitude or emotion. State which attitude you think is shown.

Intonation helps us achieve some of the discourse functions mentioned in UNIT 6:

show attitude = express emotions, confi dence interest, doubt, pain, irony etc.

ENG1502/1 25


accentuate certain functions = where to place stress grammatical functions = indicate grammar and syntax structures i.e. when to pause

between phrases and clauses and sentences. discourse functions = signals new and given information; when a speaker is

indicating contrast; what kind of response is expected of the listener

At the sentence level we can hear a lot of stress and intonation. Depending on which word is stressed, the meaning changes.

Look at this sentence and try to read it with the stress on the bolded words.

You want to talk to me? I am not interested. (the speaker doesnt want to talk to the listener)

You want to talk to me? I am not interested?(the speaker is surprised the hearer thinks he/she is not interested to talk to them).

LISTENLISTENListen to the following sentences. What meaning do you think is intended by the speaker?

The sentence on which this is based is: John could only see his wife from the door.

Voice A:John could not see his wife from the door.

Voice B: John could only see the other people in the room.

Voice C: The only place John could see his wife from was the door.

What you will have noticed in the readings is that intonation can fall or rise.

CONCLUSIONIn this unit we have introduced several basic concepts of the sound system. we hope you now have a working idea of the basic tools of pronunciation, the place and the manner where sounds are produced. You should also be aware now that there is no one to one correspondence between sound and spelling. Sound production must be learned with special attention given to the variations that come with place, manner, and voicing; as well as stress and intonation.

References

Fromkin, R. et. al. (2005) An Introduction to Language, London. Thomson and Wadsworth.Ladefoged, P. (2001) Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sound of Language, UK.

Blackwell Publishing.Ladefoged, P. (2000) A course in Phonetics, London. Thomson and Wadsworth.Roach, P. (2000) English Phonetics and Phonolog y, London. Cambridge University Press.

26

3UNIT 3

3How do we build them? Words and Sentences

OUTCOMESBy the end of this unit you should be able to:

defi ne morphology and syntax identify both simple and complex morphemes distinguish types of morphemes and their functions describe irregular forms, and identify spurious relationships of words describe the structure and formation of sentences

INTRODUCTIONThe aim of the fi rst part of the unit is to introduce the process of word formation. The study of word formation is known as morphology. The information that you will read in this unit will help you understand how words are formed in the English language and also why certain word forms are not appropriate in certain sentence forms. This section of the unit is also of value if you are interested in developing the vocabulary of the English language. Equally important in this unit is the focus on the relationship between word forms and sentence structure; that is the relationship between morphol-ogy and syntax.

The aim of the second part of this unit is to introduce you to the key patterns and structures of the grammar of the English language. We have selected a few of these as we cannot do all in one unit. For you to know how meaning is created in texts, you have to understand how the language used to create the texts is structured and patterned. The patterning that this unit will focus on is at the sentence level.

In the introductory chapter it was noted that one level at which language operates is that of the sentence and that the sentence is composed of many units. This unit discusses the different units and explains how they are put together into meaningful wholes.

3.1 MORPHOLOGYMorphology is simply the study of how words are shaped. Morphology refers to how words are created. It is potentially a key component to learning and understanding new words and vocabulary (Mcbride-Chang et. al. 2007). In light of this statement, this unit

ENG1502/1 27

UNIT 3: How do we build them? Words and sentences

introduces you to the activity of formulating words and understanding new vocabulary in English. You will also learn that some words look like they stem from the same base yet they do not. This technique is used a lot in poetry.

In order to understand morphology it is important to understand how it relates to mor-phemes. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units that combine to form words. The smallest part of a word that has a grammatical function or meaning could be an affi x: a prefi x or suffi x. Prefi xes are attached to the front of the root of the word as in the example below, the {un-} in the word unable is the prefi x, and suffi xes are attached at the end of the word as is the case in the word laughed {-ed} is the suffi x. These small-est units contain meaning, as such, they make a difference in the meaning of a word.

ACTIVITY 1ACTIVITY 1Modify the following English words into different word forms by adding either a prefi x or suffi x.

Expect, interfere, school, take, and qualify.

3.1.1 Types of MorphemesFree and bound morphemes

Read the paragraph below and take note of the underlined words:

A girl confessed at the counsellors offi ce. Im the happiest girl in town, she fl attered. I come home to enjoy the company of my family. We spend the eve-nings laughing and giggling around the dinner table. We have always been a happy family. Mom and Dad have always been churchgoers.

In this passage the base word girl can be classifi ed as a simple morpheme because it is free and it can stand on its own and other morphemes such as -ish (girlish) can be at-tached to it to create a new word. The word fl attered is a complex morpheme because it has the potential of being segmented further into smaller units. Flattered can be broken down as follows fl at+ter+ed. Before we go much further let us learn more about free and bound morphemes.

Free Morphemes: Lexical and grammatical morphemes

Column 1 of Table 1 contains words with single morphemes called free morphemes. When you read the words in column 1, they are all complete words which cannot be broken down any further into smaller units, this makes them free morphemes (fi sh, coal, skin, depart, nominal). A free morpheme is a word that cannot be broken down into smaller units. It is a word that carries meaning on its own. Further examples of free morphemes are words such as car, boy, shop, girl, school. Free morphemes fall into two categories: lexical morpheme and grammatical morphemes. Lexical morphemes carry the content of the messages we convey (examples of lexical morphemes are those given above). Grammatical morphemes consist of function words such as con-junctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns, for example (and, because, a, and, for, of, I). Free morphemes are also known as base words. Simple words, also known as monomorphemic words can also be called free morphemes; complex words, also known as polymorphemic words are words that contain more than a single morpheme (for

28

example words in column 2 and column 3 of Table 1. These are words such as fi shes, coals, skinniest, nominalisation etc.).

Column 1

One morpheme

Column 2

Two morphemes

Column 3

Three morphemes +

Fish Fish/es Fish/er/iesCoal Coal/s

Skin Skin/ny Skin/ni/est

Establish Establish/ed

Establish/mentNominal Nominal/ise Nominal/isa/tion

Depart Depart/ure

Depart/ing

Depart/ed

Table 1

ACTIVITY 2ACTIVITY 2Identify the free morphemes in the short paragraph provided below.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that Ive been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticising anyone he told me, just remember that all people in this world havent had the advantage that youve had.

(Extracted from the Introduction: The Great Gatsby P7)

Bound Morphemes: Infl ectional and derivational

Column 2 of Table 1 contains examples of bound morphemes. Though critical in giving meaning to a word, a bound morpheme is a morpheme that does not carry meaning when left to stand alone, it needs a base word (free morpheme) to be attached to in order to carry meaning, for example -ny in the word skinny is the bound morpheme.

In the previous section we identifi ed different kinds of free morphemes. We now identify different kinds of bound morphemes. They are also divided into two categories: the infl ectional morphemes and derivational morphemes. These kinds of morphemes are also known as transforms because they transform the original word from one word category to another. Infl ectional morphemes are those that do not affect the gram-matical status of a word, the addition of the infl ectional morpheme on a noun will still leave the affected word as a noun. In fact the English language contains about ten forms of infl ectional morphemes, these are:

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Infl ections Examples

Noun pluralsPossessive caseThird person singular verbsPast tense -edThe -ing form of the verbThe past participle form of a verb -edThe -er comparison form of the adjectiveThe -est comparison form of the adjective

Table 2 (Adapted from Horne and Heineman 2006)

Another important factor with English infl ections is that they are all suffi xes, that is they are all word-endings or affi xes attached to the end of the words. Derivational morphemes on the other hand, are the segments which affect the grammatical status of the original word. In English these can be prefi xes or suffi xes. The addition of these morphemes onto root words affects the grammatical status of the original word. A derivational morpheme frequently changes the original word from one grammatical class to another. For example, the word skin is a noun, but the addition of the bound morphemes -ny to make it skinny and derives an adjective from the noun. Go back to column 2 of Table 1 to identify more derivational morphemes.

ACTIVITY 3ACTIVITY 3

In Table 2 you are given types of infl ections in the English language. Fill in the ex-ample column with examples of these infl ectional morphemes.

Summary of morphemes

grammatical

free bound

function word infl ectional affi x

can, to, and, she -ed, -s, -er

lexical

free bound

content word derivational affi x

house, garden, door hopeful, unhappy

ACTIVITY 4ACTIVITY 4

Read the paragraph extracted from the editors introduction of the novel The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald. In the paragraph, the italicized words can be broken down into morphemes. Break them down and then identify the free and bound morphemes found in each word. Use the following table to cluster the words:

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Free morphemes/base morphemes Bound morphemesBase Base/mentTrick Trick/ed

If Fitzgerald thought of Gatsby as some sort of American Trimalchio thrown up by the riotous licence of the Twenties, he certainly subjected him to some remarkable metamorphoses. (He is called Trimalchio just once in the novel.) But there are some distinct genealogical traces of Gatsbys ancient ancestor. In the Satyricon Trimalchio is fi rst mentioned in the conversation of two friends discussing where that nights feast is to be held: Do you not know at whose it is today? Trimalchio, a very rich man, who has a clock and a uninformed trumpeter in his dining-room, to keep telling him how much of his life is lost and gone. Gatsbys concern with time its arrestability, recuper-ability, repeatability is equally obsessive ...

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (p vii)

3.2 CHALLENGES IN DIVIDING WORDS INTO MORPHEMESSpurious relationships of words

It is often a challenge to identify irregular forms of words that cannot be broken down into morphemes. For example: words such as department and depart may seem connected. However, the two words are not related in any way, taking the verb depart which means to leave has no connection with the word department which is a noun referring to a section of a large organisation. Therefore, the word department cannot be divided into two morphemes depart +ment because the two words carry completely unrelated mean-ings. More examples of spurious relationships of English words are wall and wallet, wig and wiggle, corn and corner, ham and hammer.

Irregular forms

English has many irregular forms which may use different infl ections than regular ones.

The regular form

Mary kicks the door open

when changed to the past tense it reads thus

Mary kicked the door open

There are three common irregular forms in English.

The irregular form that uses different infl ections than regular ones:

Waiters bring the food to customers

Waiters brought the food to customers

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The irregular form that involves internal vowel changes (also known as ablaut words):

The girls throw the towels away

The girls threw the towels away

that involve historically unrelated forms:

They go to the shop on foot

They went to the shop on foot

NOTE, it is advisable to always use a dictionary if you are not sure of the appropriate form of a word.

ACTIVITY 5ACTIVITY 5How would you consider the relationship between the given pairs of words below? That is, are they spurious, irregular or ablaut? Describe the relationship.

Culture and cult

Supplement and supple

Mandatory and mandate

Moderator and mode

New Vocabulary

You may agree that English is one of the fastest growing languages in the world. First, it grows fast in terms of the number of speakers of the language and secondly, in terms of rapid expansion of its vocabulary, probably due to it serving as a lingua franca in many countries.

Now that you have been introduced to the system of word formation in English, you may wish to introduce new English vocabulary into your collection.

ACTIVITY 6ACTIVITY 6In the last line of the paragraph from the Great Gatsby, the italicised words are not in the English Dictionary. This means that these are possible new words that the author of the novel created. Can you come up with at least fi ve new words that you think can be added in the English language. Give reasons for your suggestion.

3.3 MORPHS AND ALLOMORPHSMorph

Read the short paragraph below and take note of the underlined words:

I visited the workhouse last week. The workers worked in the building until late. However, the youngest worker works for only three hours a day. The adult workers often work for more than ten hours a day.

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A morph is a unit which is a segment of a word-form. If we consider the elements in the underlined words like (the youngest) works, worker, worked, workhouse, we fi nd in a fi rst step recurrent forms followed by variant forms: work (recurrent), -s (variant), -ed (variant), -er (variant), house (variant). These are called morphs, i.e. phonological representations of an element, a segment, which is not yet classifi ed, (http://www.anglistik.phil.uni-erlangen.de/dozenten/barnickel/Newwords.pdf). Would it be possible to replace the morphs found in the underlined words with others? Try to do that and see how the paragraph will sound.

Allomorphs

Allomorphs: an allomorph is a single morpheme with more than one phonological realization, for example: say/sez, a/an. Often the result of history of the language. A group of different morphs is called allomorphs, these are different versions of one morpheme. For example, allomorphs are realisations or variants of morphemes. They occur in all types of morphemes: in lexical morphemes such as offi cial from offi ce, in roots as in reception from receive, in derivational morphemes as in impossible vs. incorrect and in grammatical endings, such as voiced /d/ in loved vs. unvoiced /t/ in walked.

ACTIVITY 7ACTIVITY 7(a) What is the difference between a morph and a morpheme? Your defi nition should

also include examples.(b) Identify the function of each italicised morph in the underlined words given in the

passage below:

At the signing ceremony which was attended by the national press, Prof Salitou Toure, President of IUGB said this is an important day in the history of IUGB and we are privileged to partner with a world renowned institution such as Unisa. We are sure to learn from your experience with the objective of making our university the hub of excellence in the region ... (Unisa Intcom dated 24 February 2012).

3.4 WORD FORMATION PROCESSESCompounding is the process of forming a word from two base forms. These base forms can be free or bound morphemes. For example pickpocket, blueberry, cut-throat, bitter-sweet, back street, baby sit. There are different ways of spelling compound words, you can spell them as single words as is the case in the fi rst two examples, or you may put a hyphen in between the two words as is the case in the middle two examples or spell the words separately as is the case in the last two examples. Different dictionaries spell compounds differently. However, it is important to note that whichever form you adopt, be as consistent as possible in your writing.

Another interesting point to note when studying compounds is that they are categorized into different types. These are called endocentric compounds, exocentric compounds and coordinative compounds.

Endocentric compounds are those compounds that represent a subtype of the head, for example garden chair, facecloth.

Exocentric compounds are those compounds that name a subtype, but the sub type is not represented by either the head or the modifi er in the compound, for example redhead.

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Coordinative compounds are those compounds in which both elements are heads and each contribute equally to the meaning of the whole. For example bitter-sweet.

Conversion is a process whereby a word is used in a different word form. For example, a noun is used as a verb as in the girls butter their bread each time they eat white bread.

Reduplication is a type of a compound in which both elements are the same or slightly different. For example, humpty-dumpty, wishy-washy. However, English makes very little use of this type, except in the names for childrens games.

Acronyms are words formed from the initial sounds of words. For example, SARS (South African Revenue Services), UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organisation).

Blends are when two words merge into each other. For example, brunch (breakfast and lunch). Think of mostly new words in the English vocabulary such as email (electronic + mail), webinar (worldwideweb + seminar), Prevacid (prevent acid).

Clippings are an informal shortening of a word to a single syllable. For example ad (advert, advertisement)

ACTIVITY 8ACTIVITY 8Think of more examples of compound words of English and categorise them in the table below.

Compound word Type of compound

Morphology Glossary

Affi x is a morpheme attached either at the beginning, middle or end of a word.

Allomorphs are variant forms of a single morpheme.

Base is an expression to which an affi x can be attached.

Bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot occur unattached but plays a critical role in giving meaning to a complete word.

Derivational morpheme is a morpheme that changes the grammatical status of a word from one word class to another.

Free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand on its own, that is word that cannot be broken down into smaller units.

Infl ectional morpheme is a suffi x morpheme that serves to only modify the gram-matical properties of the base word in which they occur.

Morphs are a minimal grammatical form of a word. This sounds similar to a morpheme but it is different because this indicates the variant forms of a single morpheme. It is illustrated by { } in linguistics.

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Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a word.

Irregular words are often words that use unusual infl ections than the regular ones.

Prefi xes are morphemes attached at the beginning of a word.

Suffi xes are morphemes attached at the end of a word.

Regular words are words that use usual infl ections in verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

Root is that part of a word that remains irrespective of the addition of different morphemes.

Spurious words are words that seem to stem from the same root yet they are not. For instance words such as wall and wallet. The two words are not related in meaning.

3.5 SYNTAX: WORD ORDER AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE

3.5.1 The SentenceThe largest unit of word combination is the sentence. We have all written many sen-tences, some correct and others incorrect. This Unit attempts to show you what tools you need in order to see what words do when they are in the company of others, how they relate to each other to create meaning.

Units in a sentence

The units that make up a sentence start with the word. In your high school years you will recall the major parts of speech you learned. As a way to remind ourselves of what these are, and in particular how they function in real language, we will highlight the parts of speech, sometimes referred to as word categories.

The verbs (words of action-wash, eat, give, etc), the nouns (words referring to person, thing, place or idea), the adjectives (words denoting quality, or describe nouns), the adverbs (words that modify a verb, adjectives, other adverbs and sentences), and the minor parts of speech: the prepositions (denote several notions such as time, loca-tion e to, along, with, into tc), pronouns (words can be used instead of or to refer to nouns), articles (the defi nite the, and indefi nite articles a and an), conjunctions (coordinating and subordinating see list on page 52), auxiliary verbs (verbs used to support the main verb be, have, do, will can, could, shall, should, must, might etc).

At the lexical level, this is what we have, the elements sometimes referred to as parts of speech or word categories.

ACTIVITY 9ACTIVITY 9Identify the parts of speech of each of the words in this short except.

Historical Perspective

Later came the fi rst of the Nguni people who arrived with herds of cattle, and mined red ochre in the hills south of Malelane. Early smelters, which pre-date the main

ENG1502/1 35


Nguni infl ux, have been excavated, indicating that the use of iron and copper was well advanced during these years. Similarly, early pottery fragments and sculptural artifacts unearthed in the hills on the Long Tom Pass, notably the Lydenburg heads have been described as a major art fi nd .

Did you fi nd?

Later (adverb) came (v) the (article) Nguni (n) people (n) who (pronoun) arrived (v) with (preposition) herds (n) of (preposition) cattle (n), and (conjunction) mined (veb) red (adjective) ochre (n) in (preposition) the (article) hills south of Malelane. Early (adverb) smelters (n), which (pronoun) pre-date (v) the (article) main Nguni (n) infl ux (n), have been excavated, indicating that the use of iron and copper was well advanced (v) during these years. Similarly, early pottery fragments and sculptural artifacts (n) unearthed in the hills on the Long Tom Pass, notably the Lydenburg heads have been described as a major art fi nd.

This basic identifi cation process is easier to do. It names these elements as isolated units and does not take into account their relationship with the other words in whose company they appear. What syntax does is to examine these in context as both single elements and elements within a group.

3.6 THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE SENTENCEThe known structure of the English language sentence is in two parts; the subject and the predicate. The predicate constitutes of the verb and sometimes the verb and the compliment. Below are some examples of simple sentences showing the different patterns in which the sentence could look like.

As des cribed in The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers a predicate is the com-pleter of a sentence. The subject names the do-er or be-er of the sentence; the predicate does the rest of the work. A simple predicate consists of only a verb, verb string, or compound verb:

The water evaporated. The water has been evaporating. The water evaporated, disappeared into the air, and never seen again.

A compound predicate consists of two (or more) such predicates connected:

The water began to fl ow into the river and eventually fi lled the pond below the stream.A complete predicate consists of the verb and all accompanying modifi ers and other words that receive the action of a transitive verb or complete its meaning.

My car (subject) has been stolen. (predicate)

John (subject) drove my car (predicate).

The president (subject) gave all the Cabinet ministers a car. (predicate).

Tatiana is attentive. (predicate).

The dog died. (predicate).

The subject is always in a noun phrase or nominal form and the predicate in a verb phrase or verbal form. Given that the noun can be substituted with a pronoun, the

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noun phrase could be as in He is coming. Of course, a noun phrase can appear inside the predicate as well, as the object, as in The priest is a corrupt fellow, where corrupt fellow is the noun phrase.

Here are some examples taken from Silva (1995) which show the structural composi-tion of the simple sentence.

Subject Predicate

Noun phrase Verb phrase Noun phraseShe (pronoun) was humming

(auxiliary + verb)

an old church song

(determ

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