COAL CITY UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AD LITERARY STUDIES

COURSE CODE: LIN 141

COURSE TITLE: INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL

LINGUISTICS I

COURSE LECTURER: BASSEY, MARY DOMINIC

GENERAL OJECTIVE

The aim of this course is to unravel the concept and the nature of language, theories of the origin of language, characteristics and functions of language as well as the levels/core areas of linguistics and branches of linguistics. This is to enable student appreciate language first as a system and second as a medium of communication.

COURSE CONTENT/COURSE OUTLINE

1. What is language?Human language and Animal communicationThe status of languageTheories of languageFeatures/ characteristics of languageFunctions of language

2. What is linguistics?Levels of linguisticsBranches of linguistics

3. Overview of the levels of linguisticsPhonetics Branches of phoneticsOrgans of speech

Airstream mechanism Phonation typesDescription and classification of consonants and vowels Articulation typesProsodic features

4. PhonologyBasic principles of phonology

5. MorphologyWord and Types of words/constituent structure of word Morpheme and Types of morphemeRootAffixes and affixationWord formation processes

6. SyntaxLexical categoriesPhrasal categories

7. SemanticsTheories of meaningTypes of meaningMeaning relations at word and sentence leve

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

The term language is a complex and multi-dimensional entity. It has been defined variously by different scholars. These definitions stem from different views and perspectives held about language which may be from a social or a functional perspective. One of the oldest and most commonly cited definitions is that put forward by Edward Sapir (1921) who defines language as ‘‘a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.’’ However, this definition as cited in Yul-Ifode (2001:2) has been criticized for being too narrow and too broad simultaneously. It is too narrow in the sense that language communicates much more than ideas, emotions, and desires and too broad in its consideration of the phrase, ‘voluntarily produced symbols’’ because not every voluntarily produced symbol can pass for language except it is extended to the terms such as gestures and postures. Bolinger (1968) defines language as a system of vocal auditory communication using conventional signs composed of arbitrary patterned sound units and assembled according to a set of rules, interacting with the experience of its users. Block and Trager (1942) also define language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates. Ayuwo (2013) defines language as a tool or code system, made up of sounds and graphic symbols used for human communication.

However, the most basic fact about language is that it is quintessentially a human activity. It is the medium through which communication takes place between two or more people, hence language can be broadly and simply defined as a system of communication. It is any system employed in giving, receiving or hiding information and can be made up of sounds and calls, signals and signs, postures and gestures including silence (Ayuwo 2013).

In a nutshell, language is a human medium of communication that involves the use of symbols, the choice of which is made by the speakers of a particular language (Yul-Ifode 2001).

HUMAN LANGUAGE AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION

Human language and animal communication are two separate entities that are often confused to be the same. It is important to note that animals communicate but not through the use of language. Language is specie- specific, this means that only humans use language for effective communication. Human language is systematic and cannot be done haphazardly. It follows the rules and patterns prevalent in such language. Animal communication is not patterned, organized or systematic as human communication (language).

Animals may squeak but only man speaks, hence man has been termed as homoloquens –the speaking one. The argument in favour of animal communication would be that animals have common field of experience which enables them to share meanings among themselves just like the concept of homophily in human communication but this does not however reduce animal

communication to language. In other words, the signs and gestures animals make has meanings to them but cannot be equated to language because the speech performance of animals is not as sophisticated as that of humans.

Many efforts have been made to synergize animal communication and human language but most of this effort has failed. This can be seen in various hypotheses drawn from various scholars on animal communication through the test conducted such as placing animals in the environment of human speech to test their speech forms. When animals use human speech forms, it is a mere imitation and stereotypes of what they hear from humans. The study that is associated with the type of communication used by animals is zoo semiotics (Ayuwo 2013).

Another basic distinction between animal communication and human language is that animal communication is genetic while human language is learnt. Animals communicate the same way from inception because it is handed down to them from birth whereas humans learn new ways of communicating.

LANGUAGE STATUS

There is an erroneous belief that some languages are superior while others are inferior. This has led to the use of such qualifiers as rich, complete, incomplete, civilized, primitive e t c alongside some languages. Relativity is the quality of language that holds that no language is substandard hence, all languages are equal but people tend to attribute different statuses to them for economic, political or aesthetic reasons. In such a situation, the status of a language is its position among other languages. A language may thus be regarded as higher than, lower than or equal to another language in terms of its position, particularly with regard to prestige, power and social class (Yul-Ifode 2001).

For instance, the English language may be considered as superior, complete or higher than our indigenous languages because of the social position it occupies and the economic valency of the speakers, hence it is regarded as the world’s language but this cannot erase the fact that no language is inferior to the other because every language is designed to meet the needs of the speech community that it is native to and no indigenous group is known to have complained of the inadequacy of her language in fulfilling her various desires and needs, this explains the quality of completeness.

THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

It is difficult to succinctly state the origin of language; this has led to the postulations of several theories on the origin of language. The following are some of the theories that explain the root of language;

The Creationist Theory/ Divine Theory: This theory suggests that language came from God to man at creation. This is evident in Genesis 2:19-20 where God gave Adam the divine mandate to give names to the living creatures at the Garden of Eden, hence language can be traced to the first man- Adam. Also, God spoke everything into being and this is a manifestation of the tool of language. Another important account of this theory is the idea of the proliferation of language which has its root from the account of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. Hence, language is a divine fiat from God to man.

The Bow-Wow Theory: This theory is of the view that human language developed through the imitation of sounds of nature, particularly lower animals. Those natural sounds that humans imitate are sounds such as the cries of animals e.g. mew-mew for cats, moo-moo for dogs, quack-quack for ducks e t c. The setback inherent in this theory is that animal cries are not the only natural sounds so how man got words for non-animal objects like stone, fire, or bow cannot be explained by this theory.

The Pooh-Pooh Theory: Language according to this theory, developed as the early man expressed sounds of emotions. Thus, the instinctive cries of joy or pains like growling when angry and screaming when afraid instigate language development. The weak point of this theory is that it has failed to account for non-emotional words like hand, food e t c.

The Yo-he-ho Theory/ Grunt Theory: This theory states that language developed as a result of vocal sounds accompanying muscular efforts such as lifting, heaving and carrying of heavy objects. Examples of such sounds of exertion are u-uh! , aargh! e t c. The problem inherent in this theory is that it does not account for the etymology of non-physical words like beauty, honesty, fidelity, respect, honour e t c.

The Play Theory: The play theory holds that language developed through the habit of the early man delighting in making sounds while going about his day-to-day business. Here, man’s ability to play with words while he goes about his daily business brought about language. This theory was put forward by Charles Darwin the evolutionist.

The Ding-Dong Theory: This theory states that language began when humans started naming objects, actions and phenomena after recognizable sounds associated with it in real life. The first human words were a type of verbal icon, a sign whose form is an exact image of its meaning: crash became the word for thunder, boom for explosion e t c. so language developed from man finding vocal expression for every external stimulus like the striking of the ball and the

corresponding ding-dong sound. It is onomatopoeic in nature but it does not account for naturally noiseless concepts such as rock, sun, sky or love.

The Gesture Theory/ Ta-Ta Theory: This theory has it that language developed from gestures, that is, how the parts of the body are used as a means of communication such as the movement of mouth in babies but this does not explain all about language.

The Musical/La-La/ Sing-Song theory: This theory states that language developed in a song-like or speech like manner. Language here emerged from the sounds of inspired playfulness of love, poetic sensibility, emotional mutterings and the likes.

The Contact theory: According to this theory, language arose from the need for interpersonal contact. This contact may be established through cries for help and signal of identity and belonging. Language begins with a cry that demands satisfaction of some desire.

FEATURES/ CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

The following are some of the features that are peculiar to human language;

Every language has a homeland/Origin: Every language is spoken in a given or specific geographical location before spreading to other areas. Before the spread of the English language to other nations, it was first spoken in England. Hence, England is the homeland of the English language.

Speech is the primary medium of language: Language is basically a spoken phenomenon while the written form is secondary and derivative. The written form is derived from the spoken. Humans first learn how to speak before learning how to write. Writing is a conscious effort of man’s ingenuity.

Language is biological and environmentally conditioned: The human mind is equipped from birth with a blueprint for language which is innate and biological however this biologically determined prerequisite must be complemented by an adequate social environment in language development. The biological endowment for speech is not enough to bring about the emergence of language in an individual but the provision of an environment alongside the biological endowment brings about the emergence of language. For instance, if a child is isolated from the environment of speech even though he has the biological endowment; he/she cannot acquire language. The environment a child finds himself determines the language the child will speak.

Language is ruled governed and systematic: Human language is a rule-governed system. It is made up of rules which condition the organization and patterning of sounds to form words and words to form sentences. Such instances of rules that govern human languages include the rule of

concord, word order e.g. SVO (Subject Object Verb) in English, VSO in Irish and SOV in Turkish as well as sound clusters e t c.

Productivity/ creativity: This refers to the open-endedness of language. This feature serves as a demarcation between animal and human language because the human language can be used to express ideas and sentences which has never been heard before whereas animals do not have the ability to make new sentences because every communication has fixed reference and meaning. Human language is complex and open-ended.

Language exhibits varieties: Every language has two or more varieties. These varieties in a language may be geographical, regional, occupational e t c. Dialect is one of such varieties that are geographically based and dialects of a language are mutually intelligible. The English language has the following varieties: Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Wales, Ghanaian, Nigerian and Liberian e t c all these are different from the RP (Received Pronunciation) which is the standard variety of the English language

Language is a reflection of culture: There are specific words in a language that expresses specific views, beliefs and practices of the speakers. A language will have indigenous words for the different items of food, plants and animals that the speakers are acquainted with. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that human language is culture-bound and so shapes our view of the world and reality. This is seen in the naming systems of things in various languages. It serves the purpose of transferring the culture of a people from one generation or the other.

Language is dynamic: The human language is not static it changes with time whereas animals communicate the same way from inception. As the speakers of a language and the society go through changes, so does their language go through change. The emergence of new experiences brings about new concepts to be expressed by the medium of language, through new words and meanings. Hence, language will continue to change in the direction of the development of its users.

Arbitrariness: This is a feature of language that refers to the absence of any necessary connection between the linguistic form and meaning. In other words, there is no one-to-one correspondence of words and the meanings they imply or things they refer to because the meaning of a word cannot be deciphered by just looking at the object it refers to. In animal communication, there is a direct resemblance between calls and meanings.

Displacement: Animals communicate among themselves only about things happening within their immediate environment whereas humans can communicate about what is happening within their immediate environment and in the past. Displacement is the feature of language which enables us to talk about things that are not necessarily present at the time of discourse. It enables us to talk about things and places whose existence we don’t know and enable users of language to change from the current topic to a topic not contemplated at the beginning of the speech act.

Reflexiveness: This is the capacity of using language to talk about language itself. This may involve the ability to talk about abstract things. The language used to describe language is known as metalanguage.

Duality: A call represents a meaning in animal communication. In other words, every signal has a fixed reference but in human language, several limited/meaningless sounds can be combined to derive unlimited/ meaningful longer expression. Animals do not have the ability to combine their sounds.

Prevarication: This is a language feature which shows the ability to deliberately hide the truth. It is the ability to tell lies by not answering or speaking the truth clearly or completely truthful.

FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE

Language is used by human beings for multifarious purposes.

Informational Role: Language is a tool used to establish communication but the essence of every communication is to disseminate information. Language is therefore used to pass information from one person to the other.

Expressive Role: Language can be used to express emotions, feelings and attitudes. It serves as a vehicle for the expression of personal experiences of the real world.

Phatic Function: This involves utterances that do not seek communication or information but serve the purpose of social solidarity and wellbeing. When language is used to establish contacts, greetings, and relationships, it is said to be performing a phatic function.

Directive Role: Language can be used to influence the behaviour of others as well as to give commands and instructions and also ask question or make request.

Ideational Role: Language is used to establish a link between the natural and the supernatural. This can be done through prayers, incantation, enchantment or libation e t c according to one’s faith.

Performative Role: Language can be used to bring into being a new state of affairs as soon as an utterance is made. This is the role performed by language in the joining of a man and woman in holy matrimony by a priest, swearing in of newly elected/ appointed government functionaries like ministers, judges and legislators, matriculation and convocation ceremonies as well as the creation story in Genesis 1: 3 e. t c.

Ludic Role: Language can be used for entertainment and amusement. This is the role played by language when it is used by comedians to create an arena of laughter and relief.

WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?

Linguistics is a field of study that is devoted to the study of language. It is often defined as the scientific study of human language. It is considered scientific on the basis of its operation which involves the use of scientific processes such as observation, data collection, formulation of hypothesis, analysis of data and formulation of theories in its study of language. Linguistics as a science is exhaustive and consistent. Its analyses are justifiable and verifiable according to stable principles. It strives for economy in its descriptions and presentations and makes general statements by formulating rules and theories about the materials described.

It is an objective and not a subjective discipline. It does not prescribe what a language should be but describes what language is. It tells how language works and not how it should work, what people speak and not how they should speak. Hence, the opinion of a linguist does not count in the analysis of a language. One who engages in the study of language phenomenon is known as a linguist.

Several scholars contributed to the growth of linguistics such as Noam Avram Chomsky but Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist is often regarded as the father of modern linguistics.

Linguistic study can be theoretical or descriptive, diachronic or synchronic, micro or macro. It is theoretical when its focus is the establishment of the general principles that govern or underlie the study of languages and descriptive when its focus is on the establishment of facts about a particular language. It is diachronic when it studies the changing nature of language, that is, how language has been used over a period of time while synchronic studies language as it is used at a particular time. It is micro when it focuses on the core areas of language and macro when it studies language in connection to other disciplines.

General linguistics is a broad term for investigations which are concerned with the nature of language, procedures of linguistic analysis, e t c without considering to what use these can be put. It contrasts explicitly with applied linguistics.

LEVELS OF LINGUISTICS

There are five levels or core areas of linguistics namely, phonetics which deals with human speech sounds and the organs that produce them, phonology which deals with sounds of a particular language and how they form patterns, morphology which deals with the internal structure of words, syntax which deals with the rules governing the formation of phrases and sentences and semantics which deals with the study of meaning. The levels of linguistics talk about what is happening within a language. It is also known as micro-linguistics or intra-linguistics. They are autonomous and independent of other disciplines. The levels of linguistics are broadly classified into level of content and level of expression. The level of expression talks

about sounds which includes phonetics and phonology while the level of content talks about meaning and they include; morphology, syntax and semantics.

BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS

Branches of linguistics refer to the interaction between linguistics and other disciplines. It is also known as macro-linguistics or extra-linguistics. It studies language with respect to the consequences of the interaction of human language with other disciplines while the levels focus on language as a system in itself (Yul-Ifode 2001). The following are some of the branches of linguistics, however as new disciplines continue to emerge, the scope of linguistic interaction will continue to expand, hence branches of linguistics are said to belong to the open group unlike the levels which belong to the closed group.

Sociolinguistics: Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies the relationship between language and the society. It is concerned with the way in which language is used in the society with respect to the speech patterns of different social groups based on different variables such as age, education, ethnicity, religion, gender, geographical location and class. These groups have peculiar speech forms that are reflected in their pronunciations and communication for example dialects, idiolects and sociolects which are examples of language variation based on geographical location individual’s idiosyncrasies and class distinction. The culture of the people is taken into consideration when dealing with any society; hence sociolinguistics looks at language as an aspect of culture of a given society.

Historical Linguistics: This is a branch of linguistics that deals with the historical development of language over time. It is also known as diachronic linguistics as opposed to synchronic which is non-historical. Hence, historical linguistics involves studying language change with respect to history where linguistic is seen making interaction with historical facts about language in terms of the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics.

Anthropological Linguistics: This studies language variation and use in relation to human cultural patterns and beliefs which are investigated through the use of theories and methods of anthropology. Anthropology is the holistic scientific and social study of humanity using method of ethnography which is also an aspect of anthropology, hence anthropological linguistics overlaps with ethnolinguistics as well as sociolinguistics. The features that are likely looked at in anthropological linguistics are those linguistic features that can identify a person as members of a specific community with specific beliefs either socially, occupationally or religiously (Yul-Ifode 2001).

Ethnolinguistics: This is a branch of linguistics which studies language of a particular ethnic group. It is often concerned with regions where ethnicity plays major role in language description and culture. Ethnography is a branch of anthropology which scientifically describes

specific human cultures and society. It studies how ethnic views and cultural perception influence language across societies.

Psycholinguistics: Psycholinguistics deals with the interaction of language and human behavior, in other words language and the mind. It studies how human behavioral traits underlie language acquisition, speech perception and production. The ability to generate grammatical and meaningful utterances as well as proper understanding of these utterances which is often influence by psychological processes and cognitive abilities is what psycholinguistic seem to explore. Hence, psycholinguistics looks at how cognitive abilities impede or improve language use.

Clinical Linguistics: It deals with the application of linguistic theory in the study of language disorders. It analyses written and spoken disorder of language via findings made in linguistics as well as working with speech pathologists, audiologists and therapists in correcting those speech disorders or language impairment.

Neurolinguistics: This deals with language use and the brain. It focuses on the place of the central nervous system in coordinating all the activities associated with language such as processing language data; reception and production.

Biological Linguistics: This has to do with the biological processes responsible for language development. It studies the biological systems or pre-conditions such as innate language faculties or organs of speech, that underlie emergence of language in an individual most especially in child language development by taking cognizance of language emergence stage and the critical stage. Any defects in any of these stages will be referred to clinical linguistics where the defects can be corrected by speech pathologists. Clinical linguistics, neurolinguistics and biological linguistics are interwoven.

Computational Linguistics: It is the branch of linguistics that involves the application of computational techniques in processing language data. Through computational linguistics, phonetic and linguistics problems can be elucidated. Language and speech laboratories are computer-based. They are used in language parsing and annotations as well as storage and translation of language data. Speech recognition and synthesis deals with how spoken languages can be understood using computers. Corpus linguistics compiles linguistic data in electronic format.

Mathematical Linguistics: This is the branch of linguistics that involves the use of mathematical techniques in analyzing linguistic data. It employs statistical and algebraic concepts in representing textual information.

Philosophical Linguistics: As the name implies, it has to do with the interaction between linguistics and philosophy. It involves the ability to use language to understand logical concepts and reasoning.

Applied Linguistics: Applied linguistics involves the application of theories and principles in linguistics to practical matters associated with language. An example of practical matters that has to do with language includes language teaching, remedial linguistic therapy, and language planning e t c. it is different from theoretical linguistics and most times used as a cover term for other branches of linguistics.

Forensic Linguistics: This involves the application of language analysis and evidence in resolving legal and crime issues such as voice detection and speech qualities of individuals which provides facts that could be used to identify culprits in serious legal matters.

Geolinguistics: This is simply the interaction between language and geography. How language can be used in explaining and understanding geographical conditions.

Stylistics: This involves the interaction between language and literature. It is the study of the use of language in literature and the interpretation of texts with regards to the tonal style of the writer.

Pragmatics: This is the branch of linguistics that studies the relationship between language and context; how language is used in context. It sees language from the users point of view; a functional perspective.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What distinguishes man from animals? Discuss 2. Linguistic is the scientific study of human language, discuss.

PHONETICS

Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds. It studies the actual sounds that the human vocal organs are capable of producing. It identifies, classifies and describes human speech sounds. There are three branches of phonetics namely; articulatory phonetics, acoustics and auditory phonetics.

Articulatory Phonetics: This branch of phonetics studies the human vocal organs and how speech sounds are produced using these organs. There are three phases of articulatory phonetics namely; the initiation phase, the phonatory phase and the articulatory phase.

The Initiation Phase: This has to do with the source of the air that is responsible for the production of a particular sound. The air for each sound could be initiated from the lungs, the pharynx or the velum.

The Phonatory Phase: This has to do with voicing. It deals with the state of the glottis that is whether the sounds produced are voiced or voiceless sounds.

The Articulatory Phase: This has to do with the different articulators that are responsible for speech sounds. It is concerned with how the speech organs come together to produce speech sounds.

Acoustics Phonetics: This is a branch of phonetics that studies the physical transmission of speech sounds. It deals with sound waves and how sounds travel from the speaker to the hearer.

Auditory Phonetics: This is the branch of phonetics that is concerned with speech perception. It studies how speech sounds are being perceived by the hearers.

ORGANS OF SPEECH

Organs of speech are those parts of the body that interact in the production of speech sounds. They were not designed specifically for speech; they have their primary biological function. Therefore speech adaptation is only a secondary function of these organs. These organs are broadly classified into three namely; the respiratory system, the phonatory system and the articulatory system.

The Respiratory System: The respiratory system comprises of the lungs, the diaphragm, the trachea (windpipe) and the bronchial tubes. The lungs are large spongy bodies consisting of many tubes in a descending order of size within a cavity formed by the rib cage and the diaphragm. It is like an inverted tree which branches first into two large tubes called the bronchial tubes at the base of the wind pipe and then into smaller tubes known as bronchioles and then into much smaller tubes known as the alveoli. The lung the basis of the respiratory system and performs the primary biological function of supplying the blood with oxygen and cleansing it of carbon-dioxide. The diaphragm is the muscle that separates the stomach from the

thoraxic cavity. The thoraxic cavity is the region in the mammalian body between the neck and abdomen as well as the cavity containing the heart and lungs. The two lungs are joined with two tubes known as the bronchial tubes. The moment they join together and become one, they become the trachea (windpipe).

The Phonatory System: The phonatory system comprises of the larynx and the pharynx. The larynx is a casing made up of muscles and cartilages. It is situated in the upper part of the windpipe (trachea). The forward part of the larynx is prominent in the neck below the chin and quite noticeable in adult males, and is commonly called the Adam’s apple. The larynx is the voice box. It houses the vocal cords. The vocal cords/folds are made up of ligaments and elastic tissues which appear as thin lips stretching across the larynx. The vocal cords can be brought together or separated by the movement of the cartilages. Hence, the vocal cord can either be open in a v-shape form or closed along their entire length. The opening between the vocal cords is known as the glottis. The main function of the vocal folds is to produce voice, to make speech audible. Biologically the primary function of the vocal cords is to act as a valve which can prevent foreign bodies into the trachea and lungs or which may have the effect of enclosing the hair within the lungs to assist in muscular effort on the part of the arms or abdomen. Above the glottis, we have the pharyngeal, the nasal and the oral cavities which are otherwise referred to as the supra glottal cavities. These cavities function in speech as resonators of the tone or sound produced by the larynx.

The pharynx is the cavity or chamber above the larynx, behind the mouth and nose. There are three parts of the pharynx namely; the laryngopharynx which is the part of the pharynx immediately above the larynx , the oro-pharynx which is the part of the pharynx leading towards the oral cavity and the naso-pharynx which is the part of the phaynx leading towards the nasal cavity.

The Articulatory System: The articulatory system comprises of the mouth (oral cavity) and the articulators. The organs in the oral cavity are divided into the two namely; organs at the roof of the mouth (upper part) and organs at the floor of the mouth (lower part). The organs at the roof of the mouth include the upper lip, upper teeth, the alveolar ridge (upper teeth ridge), hard palate te, soft palate (velum) and the uvular. The alveolar ridge is like a bridge and is clearly seen behind the teeth. The hard palate is a bony arch-like structure after the teeth ridge while the soft palate also known as the velum which can be raised or lowered and the curve of the hard palate is what gives way to the velum. The uvular is the extension of the velum that is hanging down at the roof of the mouth. The velum terminates at the extreme of the roof of the mouth with as little hanging point known as the uvular. The organs at the floor of the mouth include the lower lip, the lower teeth and the tongue. The tongue is divided into the tip/apex, the front, the blade the centre, back and root. The tip of the tongue is the extreme front position of the tongue. The blade is the part that follows immediately after the tip, in other words, the side of the tongue. The front is the part of the tongue lying opposite the hard palate in its resting position. The back is the part of the tongue that lies opposite the soft palate when it stretches. The root is the part of the tongue

that lies adjacent to the pharyngeal wall. The root could be pushed forward of which it widens the pharyngeal wall, hence we have an advanced tongue root [ATR] but if it is pulled backwards it narrows the pharyngeal wall, hence we have a retracted tongue root. The articulators are those organs that are above the larynx. They are divided into two; the active and the passive articulators. The passive articulators are those articulators at the roof of the mouth while the passive articulators are the articulators at the floor of the mouth. The passive articulators remain where they are while the active articulators initiate the movement by going to meet the passive articulators where they are to make contact, hence the name active articulators. The teeth, the hard palate and the pharyngeal wall are the only parts of the oral chamber that are relatively fixed while others are moveable. The lips is the only moveable part that affects considerably the shape of the oral cavity, they vary in rounding and protrusion to extreme spread. Hence, they can be said to be rounded or unrounded in the production of sounds.

AIRSTREAM MECHANISM

An airstream is a moving current of air brought about by the movement of the organs of speech. It is made possible by the action of certain parts of the organs attached to the wall of a chamber which is made flexible and with the ability of being enlarged or reduced in volume. This part of the organ which is capable of enlarging or reducing the air chamber is known as the initiators. Air can be pulled in or pushed out through the help of the initiator. The action or movement of the initiator initiates the airstream which provides the sound energy. The air chamber is where the air for each airstream is enclosed. An initiator together with its air chamber constitutes an airstream mechanism. The direction of the airstream can be egressive or ingressive. When the body of air in the chamber of a particular airstream mechanism is pushed out by the movements of the initiator from the centre of the chamber, we have an egressive airstream but when the body of air is pulled in by an outward movement of the initiator away from the centre of the chamber, we have an ingressive airstream. Air is rarefied in the ingressive airstream while in the egressive airstream, air is compressed.

There are three types of airstream mechanism namely;

a. The pulmonic airstream mechanismb. The glottalic airstream mechanismc. The velaric airstream mechanism

Pulmonic Airstream Mechanism: The lungs constitute the air chamber for the pulmonic airstream mechanism while the respiratory muscles (muscles surrounding the lungs/the rib cage) with or without the diaphragm make up the initiator. When the walls of the lungs are moved up, air is expelled from the lungs and we have a pulmonic egressive airstream but when the walls of the lungs are moved downwards and air is taken in, we have the pulmonic ingressive airstream. All sounds in English language and majority of the sounds in other languages of the world are

produced using the pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism while the pulmonic ingressive is used for paralinguistics acts such as voice disguise and non-linguistics acts such as voice disguise and yawning, snoring e t c.

Glottalic Airstream Mechanism: The air above the closed glottis in the pharyngeal cavity constitutes the body of air that is set in motion this airstream. The pharyngeal cavity is the air chamber while the closed glottis is the initiator. The closed glottis can be moved up and down. When air is forced out by an upward movement of the closed, we have the glottalic egressive airstream and when air is sucked in by its downward movement, we have a glottalic ingressive airstream. Sounds produced with the glottallic egressive airstream are known as ejectives. Ejectives are often unvoiced and represented with the symbol [’] after a consonant or cluster of consonants like [p’ t’ k’]. They are found in Hausa and Zulu languages while sounds produced with the glottalic ingressive airstream are known as implosives which are either voiced or unvoiced. They are transcribed with a right-faced hook attached to the consonant symbol for plosives like [ƥ ɓ ɗ]. Ejectives can be fricatives or stops while implosives are always stops.

Velaric Airstream Mechanism: This is also known as the oral airstream mechanism because the oral cavity constitutes the air chamber for it. The initiator is the firm contact made between the back of the tongue and the velum. When the back of the tongue in contact with the velum is pushed forward in the mouth, we have the velaric egressive airstream and when it is pulled downwards and backwards sucking air into the mouth, we have the velaric ingressive airstream. Clicks are sounds produced with the velaric ingressive airstream. They are found in South African and South Western African languages – Xhosa, Zulu, Khoisa.clicks can be voiced or voiceless. They are voiced when a pulmonic airstream is used simultaneously. No language is said to employ the velaric egressive airstream in the production of speech sounds. Examples of clicks include the bilabial, dental, alveolar, palate-alveolar and alveolar lateral respectively [ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ].

Clicks, implosives and ejectives are non- pulmonic sounds. They are not produced with the source of air from the lungs.

PHONATION TYPES

Phonation refers to the act of sound-making. The term phonatory is used to refer to the states which the glottis assumes in the production of sounds. The states of the glottis include the following:

The Voiceless State of the Glottis: Here, the vocal cords are drawn wide apart so that the airstream passes through the opening quite freely. This is the state the glottis assumes during quiet and normal breathing. When the glottis assumes this state for the production of a speech

sound, it is open and said to be in a state of breath. Sounds produced with this state of the glottis are known as voiceless sounds and are produced with breath.

Voiced state of the glottis: This state of the glottis is also known as the glottis in vibration. Here, the vocal cords are drawn loosely together in such a way that they are set into vibration as the airstream from the lungs passes through them. All languages of the world employ this state of the glottis.

Breathy voice state of the glottis: This state of the glottis is characterized by some vibration of the vocal cords as well as a free flow of air at the same time through the glottis. The glottis is fairly open at one end and narrower at the other end. They are not as close in voiced state neither are they open as in voiceless state but there is a little opening which causes the vocal cords to flap as air passes through them with force. Sounds produced with the glottis in this state are known as murmured or breathy-voiced. It is marked by the use of a subscript umlaut [..] under the symbol for a voiced segment.

Whisper state of the glottis: This is also known as the narrow state of the glottis. Here, the vocal cords are so narrowed that the airstream is disturbed as it passes through them with a soft hissing noise that is technically known as whisper. The vocal cords are not so close to be set in vibration and are not as wide apart as in the open state. Sounds produced with this state of the glottis are known as whispered.

Creaky voice state of the glottis: This is also known as the laryngealised state of the glottis. Here, the anterior ligamental ends of the glottis are brought together in such a way that they are set in vibration by the force of the passing airstream while the arytenoid cartilage at the posterior end is held tightly together. The noise that is emitted in this state is referred to as glottal fry. This is the state the glottis assumes when in lifting an heavy object, one tries to prevent air from slipping away which could affect the muscular effort. A tilde is usually placed under the symbol for a voiceless sound to indicate a creaky voice.

Closed glottis: Here, the glottis is completely closed as the vocal cords are brought tightly together with such firmness that the airstream cannot force them apart. The only sound that is produced with this state of the glottis is the glottal stop and is symbolized as [?]. The glottal stop is found in Hausa, Fulfulde languages. This is the state of the glottis that is used for non-linguistic acts such as coughs and hiccups.

DESCRIPTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF SOUNDS

The sounds that we make in speech are of two types and they are the vowel sounds and the consonant sounds. They are also known as segments.

CONSONANTS

Consonant are sounds produced with the obstruction of the flow of air while vowel sounds are made without such obstruction. There are three main criteria for describing or classifying consonants according to IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and they are; state of the glottis, place of articulation and manner of articulation. The state of the glottis refers to the state the glottis assumes in the production of a consonant sound. The state of the glottis may be voiced or voiceless in the production of a consonant sound, hence the sounds are either voiced e g [v] or voiceless [f]. The place of articulation is the point where the air for speech production is obstructed; this could involve contact between the two lips (Bilabial ), the lower lip and the upper front teeth (Labiodental), the tip/blade of the tongue with the back of the upper teeth/alveolar ridge (Dental), tip/blade of the tongue and the alveolar ridge (Alveolar), tip/blade of the tongue and the region between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate (Palatal alveolar/post alveolar/alveopalatal), the tip of the tongue curled backwards to the hard palate (Retroflex), the front of the tongue and the hard palate (Palatal), the back of the tongue and the soft palate/velum (Velar), the back of the tongue and the uvular (Uvular), the root of the tongue and the pharyngeal wall (Pharyngeal), the two vocal cords (Glottal). The following are examples of sounds that belong to the aforementioned places of articulation respectively [p v ɵ t ʃ ɽ ɲ ŋ ʁ ʕ Ɂ]. Manner of articulation describes the way the airstream is interrupted by the various organs of speech. It is technically referred to as stricture, that is, the degree of the closure of the vocal tract. There are three ways by which the vocal tract could be obstructed; by a complete obstruction of the air passage, by narrowing the air passage so that audible friction is heard and by slightly narrowing the air passage without causing any audible friction that the air flows out freely. Sounds produced by a complete obstruction of the flow of air are known as stops. Stops can be classified based on the vellic action and the type of airstream mechanism involved. Oral and nasal stops are stops produced based on the vellic action. The velum may be lowered thereby blocking the part that leads to the vocal tract and allowing air to pass through the nostrils; hence, a nasal stop is produced. The velum may also be raised thereby blocking the tract that leads to the nasal cavity and allowing air to flow out through the mouth; hence, an oral stop is produced. The oral stop is further sub-classified into plosives, ejectives, implosives and clicks based on the type of airstream mechanism involved which are pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism, glottalic egressive airstream mechanism, glottalic ingressive airstream mechanism and velaric ingressive airstream mechanism respectively. Sounds produced by the narrowing of the air passage so that audible friction is heard include; fricatives and affricates. Fricatives are sounds produced by a partial obstruction of the airstream so that audible friction is heard as the air passes through the narrow closure of the vocal tract. They may be classified into flat and grooved fricatives based on the amount of friction noise that accompanies their production. Flat also known as slit

fricatives are produce with the tongue flat in the mouth with a wide slit as the air passes out with some turbulence [f v ɵ ð ]. The grooved fricatives are produced with great friction noise with the tongue forming a groove directed over the teeth [s z]. Fricatives can also be classified into central and lateral based on the direction of the friction noise. Central fricatives are fricatives in which the friction noise flows out centrally, all fricatives are classified as central apart from the lateral fricatives while lateral fricatives are fricatives in which the friction noise flows out from the sides of the mouth, they are found in Zulu [ɬ ɮ]. Affricates are sounds produced by the combination of a plosive and fricative stricture in a sequence but as a unit [ʧ ʤ]. Approximant is a sound produced by slightly narrowing the air passage without causing any noticeable noise or friction. They are also known as frictionless continuants, semi- vowels or glides. Approximants can be classified into central and lateral approximant. Central approximants are produced with the air flowing out centrally without any friction [w j] while lateral approximants are produced with the air escaping from the sides of the mouth [L]. Hence, the description of the consonant [p] would be voiceless bilabial plosive e t c.

Other consonantal gestures

In addition to stops, fricatives and approximants, there are other consonantal gestures which include; tap, flap and trill/roll. Taps are produced by the obstruction of the airstream by one hit or single tap of the active articulator against the passive one [ɾ]. Flap though sometimes regarded as tap involves the active articulator striking against the passive one in passing as it returns to its rest position [ɽ]. Trill also known as roll is produced when the active articulator vibrates against the passive one thereby shutting off and releasing the flow of air in brief periods, they may involve series of two or three taps [r].

Fig 1: The IPA Consonant Chart

ENGLISH CONSONANTS

There are twenty-four consonants in English

Bilabial Labio-dental

Dental Alveolar Palato-alveolar

Palatal Velar Glottal

Plosive P b t d k gFricative f v ɵ ð s z ʃ ӡ HAffricate ʧ ʤNasal m n ŋLateral approximant

l

Trill/liquid rSemi-vowel w j

Fig 2: English Consonant Chart

VOWELS

Vowels are sounds produced with a spontaneous flow of air. They can be defined as central, resonant, continuant oral sounds. Vowels are regarded as central because the air flows out from the centre of the mouth; they are resonant because there is no friction in the production of the sounds while they are continuant because there is no obstruction of the airstream as they flow continually until they have been completed. They are regarded as oral sounds because the air flows out through the mouth except there is a modification influenced by their environment of occurrence. There are three main criteria for describing and classifying vowels according to IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and they are; height of the tongue, part of the tongue raised and shape of the lips. The height of the tongue is the highest position of the tongue (hump) with respect to the root in the production of a particular vowel. The tongue could be as high as possible to the roof of the mouth when producing a particular vowel and such vowels are known as close vowels/high vowels [i] and the tongue could be as low as possible to the floor of the mouth when producing a particular vowel and such vowels are known as open vowel/low vowel [ɑ]. The intermediate positions between these two vowels are known as close-mid/half-close and open-mid/half – open respectively. The part of the tongue that could be raised in the production of a vowel could be either the front for front vowels [i], the centre for central vowels [Ʌ] or the back for back vowels [u]. The shape of the lips could be rounded for rounded vowels [o] or spread for unrounded vowel [e] in the production of a vowel. Hence, the description of the vowel [i] would be close front unrounded vowel e t c

The Primary Cardinal Vowel

The primary cardinal vowels are vowels used as a reference vowel for describing vowels of other languages. It is an arbitrary independent vowel system devised by Daniel Jones. They do not belong to any vowel of any particular language and act as boundary limits in vowel sound production because they are produced at extreme positions in the mouth or limit of the total vowel area, Yul- Ifode (2008). Cardinal vowels are also known as peripheral vowels. There are eight primary cardinal vowels; five of them are unrounded while three are rounded. The primary cardinal vowel 1 [i] and 5 [ɑ] are referred to as hinge vowels.

Front Centre Back

Close i u

Close-mid e o

Open-mid ɛ ɔ

Open a ɑ

Fig 3: The Primary Cardinal Vowel Chart

The secondary cardinal vowel and other vowel positions

There are eight secondary cardinal vowels; five of them are rounded while three are unrounded. They are not all peripheral as the primary cardinal vowels but they have fixed and unchanging quality like the primary cardinal vowels. The secondary cardinal vowel 9 to 13 are rounded while 14 to 16 are unrounded unlike in the primary cardinal vowel where 1 to 5 are unrounded while 6 to 8 are unrounded. The other vowel positions are mainly central vowels.

Fig 3: The Primary and the Secondary Cardinal Vowel Chart with other vowel positions (IPA chart).

VOWELS OF ENGLISH

There are twenty-five vowels in English and they are divided into three namely; monophthongs, diphthongs and triphthongs.

Monophthongs: These are vowels that do not involve any noticeable change in quality in their production. They are also known as pure vowels. There are twelve monophthongs in English and they are divided into long and short. The long ones are produced with longer vowel duration than the short ones and are usually indicated with a colon before the long vowel. The following are monophthongs in English;

/i:/ as in peak

/ı/ as in pick

/ɛ/ as in bed

/ӕ/ as in bad

/a:/ as in laugh

/ɔ/ as in yacht

/ɔ:/ as in port

/ᶷ/ as in sugar

/ᶷ:/ as in food

/Ʌ/ as in love

/ə:/ as in bird

/ə/ as in father

Diphthongs: These are vowels that involve a change from one vowel quality to the other. There are eight diphthongs in English and they are divided into closing and the centering diphthongs. The closing diphthongs are produced when there is a movement from an opening vowel position to a closed vowel position while the centering diphthongs are produced when the tongue glides towards the centre of the tongue as in the case of the central vowel, schwa [ə] which must always accompany all centering diphthong. The following are diphthongs in English;

/ei/ as in baby

/əu/ as in note

/ai/ as in eye

/au/ as in doubt

/ɔi/ as in boy

/iə/ as in fear

/eə/ as in heir

/uə/ as in cure

Triphthongs: These are vowels that involve two detectable changes in quality. It is the combination of three vowel sounds which are pronounced as a unit. There are five triphthongs in English;

/eiə / as in player

/aiə/ as in fire

/ɔiə/ as in loyal

/əuə/ as in lower

/auə/ as in tower

ARTICULATION TYPES

There are two broad types of articulation based on the type of strictures involved and they are; simple/single and complex articulation.

Simple/single articulation: This is a type of articulation which involves only one primary stricture in one place of articulation e g [p]

Complex articulation: This is a type of articulation which involves one stricture at two different places of articulation or two different strictures at the same place of articulation. There are three types of complex articulation and they are; sequential, double and secondary articulation.

Sequential articulation: This is when sounds are produced with two primary single strictures occurring as a sequence, one stricture after the other and often in one place of articulation e g affricates. An affricate is made up of the combination of a plosive and fricative stricture in a sequence e g [ʧ] and [ʤ].

Double articulation: This involves the combination of two single strictures of the same type in two different places of articulation both occurring at the same time and not a movement from one stricture to the another as with affricates. The articulators here are of equal strength, non is subordinate to the other e g labial velars [kp] and [gb] as in [kpe] ‘call’ and [gbe] ‘carry’ in Yoruba.

Secondary articulation: This involves the superimposition of an articulation with a lesser degree of stricture on another one with a greater degree of stricture. The primary stricture is the one with the greater degree of closure while the secondary stricture is that with less a stricture. There are several types of secondary strictures and they are as follows;

Labialization: This is a secondary articulation that involves the addition of lip rounding to a primary stricture in the production in the production of particular segments. It is symbolized by a raised [w] after the segment with the primary stricture.

Palatization: This involves the addition of a high front tongue position like the vowel [i] to the main articulation of a consonant sound. It is symbolized by a raised [j] after the segment with the primary stricture.

Velarization: This is the superimposition of a secondary stricture which involves the raising of the back of the tongue to the same position as it occupies in the production of a close back unrounded vowel [ɯ] in the production of a segment. It often occurs with the production of the English dark/velarised L [ƚ].

Pharyngealisation: This involves the addition of a back unrounded vowel-like tongue position as for [ҁ] to a primary stricture. It is symbolized by the use tilde just like in velarization.

Glottalisation: This involves the superimposition of a glottal constriction as in the glottal stop on a primary stricture. It is symbolized with a raised glottal stop sign [Ɂ] or an apostrophe [’] placed after the symbol with the primary stricture.

Nasalization: This involves an addition of a nasal feature to a primary stricture without inherent nasality. It is phonetically considered as a modification that involves the superimposition of a lowered velum (nasal resonance) on an oral sound. It is often found in vowels when they occur in the environment of nasal consonants.

VOWEL HARMONY

Vowel harmony is a phonological feature or phenomenon that is common in many West African languages whereby the vowels of a language are divided into two mutually exclusive sets in such a way that all the vowels in one set tend to co-occur in a given word and do not co-occur with the vowels of other set. All the vowels used in a simple non-compound and non-borrowed words must belong to just one of the two sets, there is no mixture of vowels from both sets. However, vowel harmony can also occur across morpheme boundaries whereby some affixation processes are conditioned by vowel harmony. It can be simply defined as a phonological feature whereby within a designated domain, usually, a single word, all the vowels of a language are so constrained that all of them must have property or properties in common as determined by the phonological environment. There are several features that are responsible for the presence of vowel harmony in languages one of it is the advanced tongue root [ATR] feature found in West African languages. The root of the tongue can be advanced or retracted. When it is advanced or pushed forward the pharyngeal wall becomes wider. When it is retracted or pushed backward the pharyngeal wall becomes narrower. Hence, the vowels are divided into wide vowels [+ATR] and narrow vowels [-ATR]; [i e o u a] and [ı ɛ ɔ ʊ ə] respectively. The vowel [a] is neutral in some languages and can co-occur with both sets. There are two types of vowel harmony namely; complete or partial vowel harmony. A language has complete (total/full) vowel harmony when the vowels are divided into two mutually exclusive sets whereby vowels from one set cannot co-occur with the other sets e g Igbo and Akan. The following are examples of words in Igbo that illustrates complete vowel harmony [ózú] ‘corpse’ and [ʊzɔ] ‘road’. Partial vowel (incomplete/half) harmony occur when there are exceptions to the co-occurrence of vowels from each set in a language e g Yoruba and itshekiri. The following are examples of words in Yoruba that illustrates partial vowel harmony [eku] ‘rat’ and [ɛrʊ] ‘load’.

SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES

These are those features that spread over more than one segment of speech. They are also known as prosodic features or prosodies. These features are marked over segments or superimposed on segments; hence they are seen as beyond the segments and they are syllable, pitch, stress, tone and intonation.

SYLLABLE: There are several theories that describe the syllable. Yul-Ifode (2008), identifies two of these theories namely; the stetson’s motor chest theory and the prominence theory. The stetson’s motor chest theory identifies a correlation between the syllable and bursts of activity of the intercostals muscles. Each syllable is said to correspond to an increase in air pressure released from the lungs in a series of chest pulses, the increase being greater in emphatic speech. Syllables are thus emitted one at a time by the speaker as independent muscular gestures. The criticism inherent in this theory is that it is difficult to measure chest pulses, particularly when two vowels co-occur as a sequence of two syllables but said in a singular muscular effort e g buying [baiŋ], sewing [səuŋ]. The prominence theory argues that in any given string of sounds

some sounds are intrinsically more sonorous than the others, the central part of the syllable being identified at each peak of sonority and vowels with greater power constitute such peaks of sonority or prominence while consonants are considered less sonorous and are usually found at the valleys of prominence e g bag [bӕg] and go [gəu]. The criticism inherent in this theory is that it has failed in identifying clear boundaries in certain adjacent syllables. Although one can put a boundary in go and bag but one cannot put a boundary in words like danger and buster. There is no universal acceptable definition of syllables; most definitions seem to allow in the principle of location of peaks but fail to tell where to place boundaries between syllables. However, a syllable may be defined as sequences of sounds which can be pronounced in isolation. Consonants and vowels are the constituents of the syllable. Every syllable must have a nucleus. The nucleus is usually a vowel but when there is no vowel, it can be a syllabic nasal or liquid. The nucleus is marked with a vertical stroke under the sound if it is a consonant [!] e g []. The nucleus can be the only member of a syllable e g [] oh. A syllable in addition to the nucleus may begin or end with a consonant. When the nucleus is not followed by any consonant at the end, the syllable is called an open syllable and the syllable structure will be cv, ccv, cccv e t c. when the nucleus is followed by a consonant, the syllable is called a closed syllable. The consonant constituting the opening segment is the onset while the consonant constituting the closing segment is the coda. The nucleus either a vowel, syllabic nasal or liquid is known as the centre or peak. The onset and the coda are collectively known as margins while the nucleus and the coda are collectively known as rhyme.

PITCH: This is the auditory phonetic attribute of a sound, the situation which enables a speaker and a listener to order and place the sound on a scale going from high to low and vice versa. It is directly related to the rate of the vocal cords. One of the factors that determine pitch of a sound is the tension of the vocal cords, the rate of air flow from the lungs, different states of the glottis. There is rise in pitch in the whisper state of the glottis and low pitch in the creaky state of the glottis. The pitch of the voice can be used to convey information such as stress, tone and intonation. The variation of the pitch of the voice can be used to indicate certain personal characteristics of an individual whether one is a male or female, adult or child e t c or the emotional state of an individual. Change of pitch is achieved by stretching and tensing the vocal cords and changing the sub-glottal pressure.

STRESS: This is the degree of force employed in the production of a syllable. There are two distinctions of stress namely; stressed and unstressed. A sound is stressed if during its production relatively greater articulatory energy is expended on it. A change in stress means a change in the degree of force or initiatory power. The basis for the manifestation of stress is the pulmonic pressure. Stress is marked in the IPA with the use of a short raised vertical line. Engglish is a stressed language. There are three degrees of stress in English namely; primary, secondary and unstressed. The primary stress is the stress which carries the greater force and is marked by a superscript while the secondary stress is the stress that is produced with a lesser force and is marked by a subscript and the unstressed is produced without any degree of stress and is marked

without any sign. Monosyllabic words are not stressed in English because a single syllable does not constitute peak in articulatory force. Every content word in English is stressed. Stress can sometimes be achieved by lengthening a syllable or vowel. A syllable with the primary stress in English usually sounds longer. Stress is significant in differentiating the meaning of words as in import(n) and im port(v).

TONES: This refers to variations in pitch which affects the meaning of words. It is a function of pitch in distinguishing the meanings of words and is usually marked on syllabic segments of a language. Tones are enclosed in square brackets before segments or marked above segments orthographical. Tones languages are languages whose words are made up of vowels and consonants as well as tones and the tones bring about changes in the meaning of words. Many African and Asian languages are tone languages. There are two types of tones and they are; level tones and contour tones.

Level tones: These are tones that remain at one unchanging pitch level. Languages that mainly use level tones are known as level tones or register tone languages. There are three types of level tones; low, mid and high. An example of a language with the three level tones is Yoruba as in come [wá], beans [èwà], food [óunjē]. Register tone languages have other features of tones known as downstep while others use downdrift. Downstep is the non-authomatic non-predictable lowering of tones as in the sequence of two high tones in a word in Ibibio where the second tone is higher than the first. Downdrift is a phenomenon that involves the authomatic lowering of a high tone by a preceding non-initial low or of a low tone by a preceeding high which is already lowered. Languages with downdrift are known as terraced level language while those without are called descrete level languages. Both downdrift and downstep are found in terraced level languages and they are collectively known as register lowering or key lowering. Contour tone is also known as gliding tones. Languages that have tones that are rising and falling are known as contour tone language

INTONATION: This refers to pitch patterns which stress over whole phrases and sentences. It is therefore the pitch variation, the overall pitch contour of a sentence. The variation sin the pitch of the voice in the same utterance give rise to different intonation patterns distinguished for a particular language. Intonation can perform the following functions; attitudinal and syntagmatic function. Attitudinal functunction is used to express emotions such as anger, sadness, indecision, happiness e t c. The syntagmatic function is divided into accentual, grammatical or discourse. Accentual helps to produce prominence on syllable that needs to be perceived as stressed syllables and in particular placing of tonic stress. It marks out the words to which it belongs as the most important units and also indicates the place of a speaker. Grammatical function is when it aids the listener in recognizing the grammatical or the syntactic structure of the utterance that is being said through the information provided by intonation. In English a falling pitch movement is associated with statements while a rising pitch turns into a yes or no question. Discourse can be used to signal a listener what could be taken as new information and what is already given. It can suggest when a speaker is indicating some sort of contrast or link with

material in another tone unit. In conversation, it can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected. Discourse can also be used to show how clauses and sentences go together in spoken discourse for example subordinate clauses often have lower pitches, faster tempo and narrower pitch range than their main clause.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS

1. What is phonetics?2. Sounds are divided into two, discuss.

PHONOLOGY

This is the study of the sounds of a particular language and how the sounds form pattern. It is interested in the significant sounds of a language and the sound system of such language.

PRINCIPLES OF PHONOLOGY

There are three basic principles of analyzing the sound system of a language and they are; contrast, variation and distribution.

Contrast: This means distinctiveness or separateness. Two sounds are said to contrast if they are distinctive, significant and phonemic in the language. Phonemes are sounds that are distinctive and effect meaningful changes to words. Phonemes are written in slant strokes/bracket while phones are enclosed in square brackets. The phoneme is the smallest functional unit and discrete element in the phonological system of any language. They are determined by the substitution of one sound for another and when the substitution results in a change of meaning, the two sounds are said to be phonemes e g cat /kæt/ and mat /mæt /, man /mæn/ and pan /pæn/ e t c the words cat and man as well as man and pan are minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are used to show the sounds that contrast and are phonemic in a language. Hence, when two different forms are identical in every way except for a contrast in one phoneme, which occurs in the same position in the string of segments, we say they constitute a minimal pair. In other words, they are distinguished by different sounds in a single position. They are used to determine the status of a phoneme.

There are two types of contrast: Contrast in identical environment and Contrast in analogous environment.

Contrast in identical environment: two sounds are said to contrast in identical environment if the words in which they occur have different meanings brought about only by the presence of these sounds occurring at the same point in each of the words e g fine /fain/ and vine /vain/, pin /pın/ and bin /bın/, bat /bæt/ and cat /kæt/ e t c . Three notable things in this type of contrast is as follows; difference in meaning, different sounds at the point/position of contrast and the same environment. Contrast is language specific and certain sounds that contrast in one language may not contrast in another.

Contrast in analogous environment: analogous environments are environments which are not identical but so nearly identical that by some reasoning, contrast can be proved for segments in such environments. Words used in testing contrast in analogous environments are similar but not identical. The three notable things in this type of contrast is that there is a difference in meaning, difference in sounds at the point of contrast and difference in the environment of the sounds being contrasted. The environment is not identical but is similar enough to bring about contrast. Near minimal pair is what is used to test sounds that contrast in analogous environment e g shoulder [∫əƱƚdə] and soldier [səƚʤə], pleasure /plɛᴣə/ and pressure /prɛ∫ə/.

Variation: This is the second most important principle in phonemic analysis. It is the opposite of contrast. When two sounds are not in contrast, they are variants of the same phonemes and are said to be predictable. A phoneme may be phonetically pronounced, realized or modified in more than one way because sounds slur into each other when we speak as a result of their environment e g ten bikes /tɛn baiks/ [tɛmbaiks] , bet /bɛt/, bent [bɛnt]. The nasalized vowels are realized because they co-occur with an inherent nasal sound. Phonemes that have more than one realization are known as allophones. Allophones are simply variants of the same/single phoneme and are written in square brackets. The distinguishing fact about an allophone and a phoneme is that a substitution of one phoneme for another brings about a change in meaning but the substitution of an allophone for another does not result in a change in meaning. Variation simply talks about predictability that is, being able to predict the environment where a particular sound occurs.

There are two types of variation: Condition variation and Free variation.

Condition variation: In condition variation, sounds are conditioned by the environment they occur. For instance, the voiceless plosives [p t k] in English are often aspirated when found in word syllable initial position but unaspirated or unreleased when found elsewhere e g [pʰɪt] ‘pit’ and /spɪt/ ‘spit’, [tʰɪl] ‘till’ and /stɪl/ ‘still’, [kʰɪt] ‘kit’ and /skɪt/ ‘skit’. [p, pʰ] , [t, tʰ] and [k, kʰ] are allophones of the phonemes / p t k/ respectively. Aspiration is a puff of air accompanying the release of a voiceless stop; it is a period of voicelessness after the stop articulation and before the start of a voicing for the vowel sound. The voiced plosives are usually devoiced in final position e g lead [li:ḍ], dead [dɛḍ]. The dark l and the clear l occur in different positions. In English, the dark l also known as the velarised l occurs in word final position while the clear l occurs at word initial position e g feel [fi:ƚ] and lead [li:d] respectively. When two sounds do not occur in the same environment, it means they are in complimentary distribution/condition variation. In other words, where one sound occurs the other will never occur there. The two sounds are said to be mutually exclusive.

Allophones of the same phoneme are sounds that must share the same phonetic features. In other words, they must be phonetically similar to some extent and must not contrast in identical or analogous environment. They are sounds which are derived from and are represented by a single phoneme. Allophones of the same phoneme are named after the phoneme with the widest occurrence or highest distribution, that is, the phoneme that can occur in all the environments.

Phonemes are sometimes phonetically similar while allophones must always share some degree of phonetic similarity. When sounds are phonetically different they belong to different phonemes but when they are phonetically similar their status is not known, they may be allophones or phoneme because allophones are always phonetically similar while phonemes are sometimes similar.

Free variation: Two sounds occur in free variation if they occur in the same environment without bringing about a difference in the meaning of the word. For instance the sounds [i] and [ɛ] in the English words export /ɪkspɔ:t/ or / ɛkspɔ:t/ and examination /ɪgzæminei әn/ or / egzæminei әn/ꭍ ꭍ do not change the meanings of the words in which they occur. [i] and [ɛ] are not allophones of the same phoneme because they are, they are allophones of different phonemes but in free variation.

Distribution: This refers to the distribution or the occurrence of a unit whether it is a phoneme, a syllable or a word. For instance in English, consonant sounds can occur in final position as in the word stop but in other languages consonants may not occur in final position. Also, there are cases of consonant clusters in English as in the word stripe which may not be found in other languages. When three sounds occur contiguously in a word there is a rule. The first rule is that the first sound must be a voiceless alveolar fricative and is either followed by a voiceless alveolar or bilabial plosive while the third is that the third sound may be a lateral alveolar e g split, splash e t c. Thus the syllable structures of words can be derived.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What is phonology?2. Discuss the three basic principles of phonology.

MORPHOLOGY

The importance of words in a language cannot be overemphasized, hence its focus in morphology. Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words.

What is a word?

According to Palmer (1971:48), the term word is not a clearly definable linguistic unit. It is one of the most problematic linguistic units to deal with and people often find it difficult to identify word boundaries and word status. Hence, scholars have proposed three criteria for identifying a word and they include;

a. The minimum free form criterion: The major proponent of this criterion is Leonard Bloomfield. He is of the view that words are minimum free form which means that a word is the smallest unit and capable of independent existence. Hence, any linguistic unit which qualifies to be called a word must not require the presence of another grammatical unit to express its meaning (Ndimele 1999:5). In other words, it can be pronounced alone with meaning and complete utterance. It is different from such words as –en, -ing, -ed, -er e t c. whose meanings can only be complete when they occur with other units.

b. Uninterruptibility, Cohesiveness or Insertability criterion: A word is one of the most consistent and cohesive linguistic units unlike the sentence whose internal structure is mobile. A word is a small grammatical unit into which no other linguistic unit can be inserted to break its sequence. However, there are variants of words based on the environment they occur and when other units can be inserted to a word then it is no longer a word but two different words.

c. Isolability and pause technique: Hockett is one of major proponent of this theory. According to him a word is any segment of a sentence bounded by successive points at which pausing are possible (Hockett 1958:167). Words are bounded by spaces in writing but distinguished by pauses in speech.

A word may therefore be defined as a minimum independent unit having an identifiable meaning and grammatical function with a fairly consistent phonological shape (Ndimele 1999: 3) or simply defined as a minimal linguistic unit that has an independent meaning and grammatical function. Hence, the minimum free form criterion is the one that features more in the definition of word and has made huge impact in linguistics.

TYPES OF WORDS/ THE CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE OF WORDS

The types of words are classified according to the constituent structure o these words. The elements that make up grammatical unit are referred to as constituents while grammatical units

are words, phrases or sentences. Based on the internal structure or constituents that make up a word, we have the following types of words;

i. Simple word: A simple word is a word that can exist by itself without the addition of any affixes. It is a free morpheme which consists of only one root without any bound element attached to it e g house, pen, book, girl e t c it simply consist of a free morpheme.

ii. Compound word: A compound word is a word which consists of two or more morphemes which are capable of independent existence. It simply consist of two or more free morphemes e g blackboard, football, brother-in-law, chief-in-waiting e t c

iii. Complex word: This is a word which consists of one root accompanied by one or more bound elements/morphemes. It simply consist of one free morpheme with two or more bound morphemes which may occur before or after or within the root e g chairs, unacceptable, kingdom, talking, amoral, unfaithfulness, enslavement e t c.

iv. Compound-complex word: This is a word that consist of two or more free morpheme and one or more bound morphemes/elements e g briefcases, armchairs, brothers-in-law, upliftment, sleepwalking e t c

MORPHEME

A morpheme refers to the smallest indivisible meaningful unit of an utterance which may not, however exist in isolation. It is the basic unit of analysis in morphology. They are short sequences of sounds used to build words; hence they are regarded as word building blocks (Ndimele 1999). They are absolute minimal unit and are not subject to further division, hence they are indecomposable.

Every morpheme has some meaning associated with it. It consistently maintains its core meaning irrespective of the environment it finds itself. The meaning of a morpheme is often associated with other units, in other words, the meaning a morpheme get is based on the lexical item they co-occur with.

The term morpheme is often confused with the term syllable. However, syllables are mere sequences of sounds which are capable of being pronounced in isolation. A syllable may be longer than a morpheme but it has no meaning.

TYPES OF MORPHEME

There are two types of morpheme which are; the free morpheme and the bound morpheme.

1. Free morpheme: These are morphemes which can occur in isolation without necessarily having to be attached to other grammatical units. They are morphemes that have independent existence and meaning e g practice, interrupt, justice, good, beauty, slow e t

c. All free morphemes are words. They can be divided into lexical and grammatical morpheme.

a. Lexical morpheme: these are morphemes that have independent dictionary meaning of their own. All content words are lexical morphemes e g nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They carry the content of the message we convey.

b. Grammatical morphemes: these morphemes are also known as functional morphemes. They are morphemes that perform grammatical function and do not have independent dictionary meaning of their own. They show or mark grammatical relationships in the larger constructions they co-occur e g pronouns, determiners, prepositions and conjunctions.

2. Bound morpheme: These are morphemes that are not capable of independent existence. They cannot occur in isolation or stand on their own and therefore must be attached to other grammatical units. Bound-morphemes are not full-fledged words. E g –ness, un-, trans-, demi-, im-, -ive, -fy, -ly,- lity, -ion e t c. They can be divided into bound roots, affixes and clitics.

ROOT

A root is the central part of a word. It is that part of a word in which we can attach other morphemes as well as that part of the word that remains when other morphemes or bound elements have been removed. It is also referred to as the base. However, a root can be a base though a base is longer than the root. The root of a word is usually the heart of the word that carries the central meaning of a word e g unfaithfulness, transformation, protective e t c. There are two types of root namely; free root and bound root.

Free root: a free root is a root that can stand on its own or occur alone when other bound elements have been removed e g determination [determine], houses [house], teachers [teach], Productive [product] e t c.

Bound root: this is a root word that cannot exist by itself or occur in isolation. They require the presence of other morphemes e g receive [ceive], admit [mit], dental [dent] e t c. Bound roots can be contracted or non- contracted.

Contracted: a contracted root is a type of root where one or more of its elements have been removed or deleted. It is often indicated by an apostrophe in some writing conventions e g I’ll , we’ve , he’d e t c . It is epileptic in nature and must always look for a substantive host in its vicinity to attach itself.

Non-contracted bound root: these are not full-fledged words in isolation; they require the presence of an element before or after them to make sense e g receive [receive], admit [admit], predator [predator], maternity [maternity], dental [dental].

Most bound roots in English are latinate. Many of the verb roots in Igbo are bound e g -ri ‘eat’,

-gbu ‘kill’, -gbo ‘vomit’ e t c.

AFFIXES AND AFFIXATION

An affix is a bound morpheme which is always attached to the root or base of a word. They do not have independent existence while affixation is the morphological process of attaching affixes to the root or base or base of a word. Affix is the general term/ cover term for all bound morphemes. They can be classified based on their position or based on the functions they perform.

By position, affixes are classified based on whether they occur before the root word (prefix), after the root word (suffix), inside or within the root word (infix), between two root word which may or may not be identical (interfix) or surrounding the root word (circumfix). The circumfix is sometimes called a discontinuous morpheme. They are not common but are found in Maylay language and some Nigerian languages like Eleme and Esan e g perasaan ‘feeling’/rasa ‘feel, utuemin ‘hotness’/tue ‘hot’, esie ‘to go’/si ‘go’ respectively. The circumfix in these languages are pe…an, u…min, e…e respectively. An interfix interrupts the sequence of two roots. It is mostly found in Igbo and some parts of rivers states e g ekwurekwu ‘talkative’/ -kwu ‘talk’, anumanu ‘mammal’/anu ‘meat’, afuruafu ‘indian hemp’/ -fu ‘wrap’; -r-, -m-, -ru- are interfixes in Igbo. Infixes are found in the Philistines languages like Bontoc and Tagalog e g in Tagalog, sumu:lat ‘one who writes, su:lat ‘write’ and sinu:lat ‘tht which is written’/ su:lat ‘write’ , the infixes here are –um- and –in- respectively. In Bontoc, fumikas ‘to be strong’/ fikas ‘strong’ ,srnee ‘a drill’/see ‘to drill’; -um- and –rn- are examples of infixes. Prefixes and suffixes are common to all languages e g unreliable, un- and –able are examples of prefix and suffix in English language.

By function, affixes are either inflectional or derivational. They are inflectional when they mark grammatical function without changing the part of speech of the word to which it is attached to. Affixes can be said to be inflectional when they inflect for/ mark number (singular/plural) e g boy(s), tense ( past, present, future) e g park(ed) , persons (1st, 2nd, or 3rd ) e g eat(s) for third person. It is derivational if they are used to create new words and may bring about a change or no change in the class of speech of the derived word. They alter the meaning the meaning of the word to which they are attached. Hence derivational affix can be class maintaining or class changing. Class maintaining derivational affixes are affixes that do not change the parts of speech of the word they are attached to e g father (n) – fatherhood (n), bed (n) – bedsheet(n), akpokoro ‘table’ - afongokopkoro ‘tablecloth’. Class changing derivational affixes are affixes that change the part of speech of the word to which they are attached e g rely (v) – reliable (adj), witch (n) – bewitch (v) , sad(adj) – sadness (n), kwo ‘sing’- akwoikwo ‘singer’.

CLITICS: Clitics are different from affixes. They can be attached to any host irrespective of the part of speech/word class of the host, provided the host is located at an appropriate position. Hence, they are promiscuous in nature. Affixes are attached to certain words that belong to certain part of speech. Clitics are found in Degema. They are classified into two based on the position they occur namely; proclitic and enclitic. Proclitic is attached before the root of its host while enclitic is attached at the end of its host. An example of enclitic is the contracted negative marker (n‘t) in English.

WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

Apart from affixation, there are other word formation processes which enable languages to create new words, these are; borrowing, coinage/neologism, clipping, blending, backformation, conversion, acronyms and compounding. Some or all of these strategies are employed by languages of the world.

Borrowing: this involves the process of taking words from one or more languages to fit into the vocabulary of another. It emerged as a result of language contact. Terms associated with borrowing include; locus, recipient language and the donor language. The donor language is the language from which a lexical item is borrowed while the recipient language is the language that borrows the new word. The locus is the person that establishes the contact between the two languages or the person that borrows from the languages. There are different forms of borrowing namely; loan word, loan blend and loan translation. Loan word is that which a recipient language borrows from the donor language to mean the same in the recipient language as it is in the donor language e g tycoon (Japanese), piano (Italian), Zebra (Bantu), Fiance (French), coup d’état (French) e t c. Loan blend is a hybrid word created by combination of the morphemes of one or more languages. In order words part of the word comes from the recipient and the donor language e g ite pootu ‘metal pot’, uzo moto ‘tarred road’ in Igbo e t c. loan translation also known as calque is when a word is created using the morphemes of a recipient language to represent all the senses in a donor language e g mkpo itie -an object for sitting ‘chair’, ekebe nduse -a box for watching pictures ‘television in Ibibio, in Igbo, we have ugbo elu –a vessel that flies, ‘aeroplane’, ugbo mmiri –a vessel that moves on water, ‘boat’, ugbo ala –a vessel that moves on land ‘vehicle’ e t c.

Coinage/neologism: it is a morphological process of creating new words to name previously non- existent objects or phenomena that results from cultural contacts e g Xerox –a company that produces photocopying machine which recently refers to the process of photocopying, crane –a name for a large bird with a long neck which now means a heavy-duty machine and Kleenex –a brand of facial tissue which now means facial tissue itself. Coined words often gain currency within the speech community in a passage of time.

Clipping: clipping also known as abbreviation is a process of creating new word by shortening already known words. A clipped word retains the same meaning and the part of speech of the longer one from which it is derived e g phone (telephone), maths (mathematics), exam (examination), gas (gasoline) e t c.

Blending: it is the process of creating new words by joining parts of two or more already existing words in the same language. Hence, two words in a language a joined to form new words in a language e g brunch [breakfast + lunch], motel [motor + hotel], urinalysis [urine + analysis], smog [smoke + fog] e t c.

Back formation: this is a reduction process where new words are created by reducing the length of some words. It is systematic and involves changing the part of speech of the word e g televise (v) from television (n), beg (v) from beggar (n), donate (v) from donation (n), edit (v) from editor (n) e t c.

Conversion: this is a process that involves the change of the parts of speech of a word without necessarily undergoing any reduction or enlargement by way of affixation or change in spelling e g import (n) and import (v). When words with the same spelling can function as noun and verb at the same time then the word is said to undergo a functional shift or category change.

Acronyms: this involves the creation of new words from the initial letters of a sequence of words acronyms consist of capital letters e g AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), UNO (United Nations Organization), RADAR (Radio Detecting and Ranging), UNESCO (United Nations international Children Emergency Fund) e t c.

Compounding: this is a process of joining two or more independent roots to form new/single words. A word formed in this nature is known as a compound. E g landlord, pickpocket, spoon-feed, freeze-dry, outrun, headstrong, hardworking, fallout e t c. Words from different parts of speech can be formed as compounds and they often do not maintain their separate meanings. In other words, their overall meaning is not equal to their individual meaning.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS

1. What is morphology?2. Differentiate between bound morpheme and free morpheme.

SYNTAX

This is the level of linguistics that studies the rules governing the formation of phrases and sentences in a language. It is concerned with the combination of words to form longer stretches of utterances.

Syntactic Categories

There are two primary categories in syntax and they are lexical categories and phrasal categories.

Lexical Categories: This refers to the classes that words belong to. They are referred to as part of speech by traditional grammarians or word-class in modern linguistics. Words can be broadly classified into two broad classes namely; the open class and the closed class.

The open class refers to those classes of words that admit new membership. They have indefinite and unlimited membership and are productive in nature because new words can be produced and accommodated by these classes of words. Examples of words that belongs to these class include; nouns, verbs (main verb), adjectives and adverbs.

Nouns: A noun is any word that functions as the subject of a sentence or the object of a verb in a sentence. Nouns can be classified into proper noun which names specific persons, places, occasions, days of the week and months of the year (James, Enugu, Christmas, Thursday, March e t c), common nouns which refers to entities that belong to the same class (boy, man, woman, girl, goat, table e t c), it is subdivided into concrete and abstract as well as count and non-count nouns. Concrete nouns are nouns that are tangible and can be seen or touched (tree, dog, table, man e t c) while abstract nouns on the other hand lack tangibility and cannot be seen or touched (love, hatred, honesty, pride, kindness e t c), count nouns refers to things that are countable and can be separated into units (book, chair, girl, spoon e t c) or non-count nouns which refers to entities that cannot be counted or separated into units (water, sugar, ink, sand e t c), collective nouns are nouns that refer to a group of things (congregation, audience, committee, e t c)

Verbs: A verb is traditionally seen as an action word or a doing word. It is often referred to as the most important element of a predicate. A predicate is that part of a sentence that says something about the subject. Syntactically, verbs can be classified into main/lexical and auxiliary verbs. A main verb is a verb that occurs in a sentence with or without a helping (auxiliary) verb. It has an independent dictionary meaning. Auxiliary verbs are helping verbs, they assist the main verb. Morphologically, verbs are classified into regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs are those verbs that take -ed in their past and past participle form e g walk/walked/walked e t c while irregular verbs are verbs that do not take -ed in their past and past participle form rather they form their past and past participle forms in unpredictable ways e g sing/sang/sung e t c Semantically, verbs can be dynamic or stative. Dynamic verbs are those verbs that express actions or events (run, buy, eat, die, marry, elope e t c) while stative verbs are verbs that do not express actions but a state of affairs (is, was, smell, know, remain, seem e t c), they do not co-

occur with the –ing progressive marker. Other classes of verb include transitive and intransitive verbs which are also a syntactic classification of verbs based on their occurrence in a sentence. Transitive verbs are verbs that co-occur with objects. They can be subdivided into monotransitive or ditransitive verb. Monotransitive verbs are verbs that require only one object e g open as in Mitchell opened the door. Ditransitive verbs are verbs that require two objects e g buy as in John bought Peter a pair of trousers. Intransitive verbs on the other hand, are verbs that do not require the presence of an object e g dance as in the boy is dancing. They sometimes take objects that are known as cognate objects which are objects named after the action expressed by the verb e g sing a song, dream a dream e t c some intransitive verbs optionally omit their objects and they are known as pseudo-transitive e g drive as in I can drive or I can drive a car.

Adjectives: These are words that qualify a noun. They can be classified into attributive or predicative adjective, variable or invariable. Attributive adjectives are adjectives that occur before a noun e g the beautiful girl, fat woman e t c. Predicative adjectives are adjectives that occur in the predicate part of a sentence often after a linking or a copula verb e g the girl is beautiful, lions are fierce e t c. A copula verb is a verb that is used to link the subject of a sentence to its predicate e g the verb to be. Some adjectives function both predicatively and attributively and they are known as central adjectives e g beautiful as in the girl is beautiful and the beautiful girl, wicked as in she is wicked and the wicked landlord e t c. while adjectives that perform only predicative function are known as peripheral adjectives e g afraid as in the man is afraid, awake as in the baby is awake e t c. Adjectives can be variable or invariable. Variable adjectives are adjectives that take –er and –est in their comparative and superlative form e g tall as in taller and tallest. Invariable adjectives are adjectives that take more and most rather than –er and –est to mark their comparative and superlative form e g beautiful as more beautiful and most beautiful.

Adverbs: Traditionally adverbs are words that modify a verb, adjective or another adverb. They are often regarded as words that provide specific information about a place, time or manner of a verb, adjective or a sentence. They also take –er and –est like adjectives e g sooner/ soonest e t c. One of the things that is sometimes used to identify adverbs is the suffix –ly e g slowly, quickly e t c though not all words with –ly are adverbs e g fatherly.

The closed class refers to those classes of words that cannot admit new membership. They have a restricted and limited membership which is stable and unchanging; hence they cannot accommodate new words. Examples of words that belong to this class include; determiners, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions, particles and intensifiers.

Determiners: This is a cover term for articles (a, an, the), possessives (my, their, his, your), quantifiers (some, few, much) and numerals (one, two, first second). They are words that signal the presence of nouns or noun phrases.

Pronouns: These are words that function as substitutes for nouns or constructions that have noun or noun like element. There are several types of pronouns which are personal pronouns which refers to people (I, you, she, they), reflexive pronoun which points back to the doer of an action (myself, yourself, herself, themselves), reciprocal pronoun which expresses mutual relationship (each other and one another), demonstrative pronoun which expresses proximity (this, that, those), interrogative pronoun which is used to ask question (what, which, who, how), relative pronoun which is used to introduce a subordinate clause (who, whose, that), indefinite pronoun which are pronouns that do not make direct reference (everyone, nobody, many, all) and impersonal pronoun which do not refer to particular persons (one).

Auxiliary verbs: These are verbs that help the main verb to mark tense and perform other grammatical function. They are often known as helping verbs and occur before the main verb in a sentence in some languages. Auxiliary verbs are divided into primary auxiliary or modal auxiliary verbs. The primary auxiliary verbs can occur without a main verb in a sentence and they include be, have and do while the modal auxiliary verb cannot occur without a main verb in a sentence and they are can/could, shall/should, may/might, will/would, must, ought to, used to, need and dare.

Prepositions: These are words that show relationship between two nouns. They typically occur before a noun or its equivalent. They are classified into simple and complex preposition. Simple preposition are prepositions that consist of simple words e g and, is, between, under e t c while complex prepositions are prepositions that consist of a preposition, a noun and another preposition e g in accordance with, in lieu of, at variance with, by virtue of e t c

Conjunctions: These are words used to link items in a sentence. They are divided into two which are subordinating and coordinating conjunction. Subordinating conjunction are used to link elements of unequal status e g that, which, while, although, because e t c Coordinating conjunctions on the other hand are used to link elements of equal status. They can be sub-classified into additive which indicates addition (and), alternative which indicates a choice (or) and adversative which indicates contrast (but).

Intensifiers and Particles: Intensifiers function as modifiers of adjectives or adverb and express degree of quality in an entity e g too , quite, extremely e t c while intensifiers though are not absolutely parts of speech but perform some function at the word class level e g to, not e t c

Phrasal Categories: This refers to the category that is higher than the word. A phrase is a group of words with a head element which is optionally accompanied by a dependent pre-modifier or post-modifier element. The head is the most important element in a phrase. A phrase gets its name from the head element. Traditionally, a phrase is a group of related words that does not have a subject of verb and without a predicate or finite verb. Examples of phrasal categories or

types of phrase include; the noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase and the prepositional phrase.

Noun phrase: A noun phrase obligatorily has a noun or a nominal element as the head. It functions as the subject, direct object, indirect object or the complement of a preposition in a sentence. A noun phrase may have a noun as the only element and can also co-occur with modifiers. The following are some of the possible construction of a noun phrase;

NP = N [Matthew]

NP = Det + N [The boy]

NP = Det + Adj + N [The intelligent boy]

NP = Det + Adj+ N + PP [The most intelligent boy in class]

NP = Det + N + PP [The boy in primary six]

NP = Det + Adj + N + S’ [The intelligent boy that made all his papers at one sitting]

Verb phrase: A verb phrase obligatorily has a verb as the head. It functions as a predicate in a sentence. The following are some of the possibilities of a verb phrase construction;

VP = Vi [Matthew sings]

VP = Vt + NP [Close the door]

VP = Vt + NP + NP [Give the man a raise]

VP = Vcop + Adv/Adj/ NP [He is away/strong/ a footballer]

VP = V + S’ [Matthew said that he will travel today]

Adjective phrase: An adjective phrase obligatorily has an adjective as the head. It functions as a subject complement, object complement and as a modifier of an NP. The following are some of the possible realizations of an adjective phrase;

AdjP = Adj [Beautiful]

AdjP = Int. + Adj [Extremely beautiful]

AdjP = Adv + Adj [Unnecessarily angry]

AdjP =Adj + PP [Full of surprises]

AdjP = Adj + S’ [He is happy that he passed the test]

Adverb phrase: An adverb phrase obligatorily has an adverb as the head. It is often accompanied by modifiers. The possible realization of an adverb verb is as follows;

AdvP = Adv [Quickly]

AdvP = Int. + Adv [Very quickly]

AdvP = Adv + PP [Unfortunately for the boy]

Prepositional phrase: A prepositional phrase obligatorily has a preposition as its head. It consists of a preposition and a complement. The following are possible realization of a prepositional phrase;

PP = P + NP [In the field]

PP = P + S’ [I am worried about the poor condition of health facilities in Africa]

PP = P + Ger. N [He became better after taking his drugs]

CLAUSE

A clause is a sentence-like construction within a sentence. It is a group of words with a finite verb which has a subject and a predicate. There are two types of clauses; main clause and the subordinate clause.

Main/ independent clause: This is a clause that expresses a complete thought. It does not depend on any part of a sentence for its complete meaning. It is equivalent to a sentence e g John is happy.

Subordinate/dependent clause: This is a clause that cannot stand on its own. It depends on other parts of the sentence for its complete meaning. It functions as a noun, adjective or adverb e g That Peter refused to go to school today surprises me (noun clause), the cake that Mary baked tastes nice (adjective/relative clause), I saw the boy before going to the market (adverbial clause)

SENTENCE

A sentence is the largest grammatical unit. It is made up of a group of words that expresses a complete thought. It is divided into two parts; the subject and the predicate. A subject is that part of a sentence of which something is said about while the predicate is that part of the sentence that says something about the subject. The predicate slot of a sentence begins with a verb.

TYPES OF SENTENCES

A sentence may be classified based on structure or based on the function they perform. Structurally, a sentence can be classified into the following;

Simple Sentence: This is a sentence that contains one main clause. In other words, it contains only one main verb e g the boy helped the lady.

Compound Sentence: This is a sentence that has two or more clauses or two or more sentences linked by a coordinating conjunction e g I called him but he did not answer.

Complex Sentence: This is a sentence that has one main clause and one or more dependent clauses or subordinate clauses e g I saw the house that Peter built.

Based on the functions sentences perform, we can have the following sentences;

Declarative Sentence: This is a sentence that makes statements or gives information. It is a sentence that states facts e g Paul loves football.

Interrogative Sentence: This is a sentence that asks questions e g What is your name?

Imperative Sentence: This is a sentence that conveys commands, instructions or directives e g Don’t touch it.

Exclamatory Sentence: This is a sentence that expresses surprise e g How are the mighty fallen!

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS

1. Discuss word level categories and phrasal categories.2. What is a sentence?

SEMANTICS

Semantics is an area of linguistics that deals with the study of meaning. It studies the meaning of words and sentences in a language.

Meaning is not a stable phenomenon; it is a phenomenon that can be influenced by different variables this is because an expression can be subject to a number of interpretations depending on the speaker, hearer or context. The meaning of meaning cannot be clearly stated and no linguist has been able to provide a precise and accurate definition of meaning. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in an attempt to account for the meaning of meaning presented twenty – two definitions of meaning in their monumental book titled ‘The Meaning of Meaning’ in 1923 yet no precise and satisfactory answer can be given to the question: what is meaning?

According to Ndimele (2007), there are two views to the nature of meaning which are; the naturalist view which is derived from the works of Plato and it says that the meaning of a word is the thing or entity that it represents. However, the problem with this view is that it may be difficult to know or see the things or entities that words refer to because not every word has an object in the real world. The conventionalist view on the other hand is a view that is largely traceable to the works of Aristotle and is of the view that the connection between sound and meaning is arbitrary and never direct. In other words, words are associated with concepts; these concepts are what the human mind use in linking the sounds associated with the word to the entity represented by the word.

Sense and reference are two important concepts which are often distinguished in linguistic studies. Sense refers to the ordinary linguistic meaning of an expression. It is the decontextualized meaning of an expression which is abstracted while reference is concerned with the physical object in the extra-linguistic world which is represented by an expression. it is sometimes referred to as denotation.

Theories of Meaning

There are three theories of meaning which can be used to account for the meaning of meaning and they include;

The Referential Theory of Meaning: C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards are the proponents of this theory. This theory states that the meaning of an expression is the actual entity or object in the real world to which the expression refers. The actual object is the referent. It believes that the meaning of a word is an entity which can be represented in the physical world that is for the meaning of a particular word, there is a physical object to show or to represent it. One interesting thing about this theory is that it denies a direct link between expressions and their referents. The connection between a linguistic unit and its referent is only possible through thought. It is also known as denotational theory of meaning.

The Mentalist Theory of Meaning: The major proponents of this theory are Glucksberg and J. Danks. This theory is a refinement of the referential theory of meaning. It denies the assumption that the meaning of a word is the physical image that the word represents because not all words or expressions have physical objects that they refer to. This theory simply states that the meaning of a word or an expression is the mental image or idea of the word or expression that is formed in the mind of the speaker or hearer as soon as the word or expression is uttered, that is the meaning evoked when a linguistic item is mentioned. The mental theory of meaning sees meaning more as a mental activity rather than a physical one. This theory is not encompassing because not all linguistic items have mental images and some may have more than one mental image. Mental images are vague and cannot be subjected to any empirical investigation or test.

Use, Contextual or Operational Theory of Meaning: L. Wittgenstein, German scholar in his book entitled philosophical investigations, proposed the use theory of meaning as an alternative. He says it is silly or a serious mistake to regard meanings as entities; rather the meaning of any linguistic expression is determined by the context in which it is used. Hence, the meaning of an expression is the effect(s) that it creates in a particular context in which the expression is used. Also, Malinowski, one of the earliest proponents of this theory argues that language should not be studied devoid of context.

There are other approaches to the theory of meaning which are; the behaviourist approach and the componential analysis approach.

The behaviourist approach: The proponents of this theory are of the view that the meaning of an expression is either the stimulus that evokes it or the response that it evokes or a combination of both in particular occasions of utterance. This approach was proposed by Bloomfield. Here, meaning is described in terms of observable stimuli and response made by participants in specific situations or the terms of the situation in which a linguistic item is used.

The componential analysis: This theory evolved from the views that lexical items compose of semantic features and that these lexical items belong to a set if they share same aspects of meaning. The whole idea of CA is that the meaning of a lexical item can be determined by reducing it to its ultimate contrastive elements so that the lexical item can be distinguished from other lexical items in the same language. The contrastive features are done using the sense components in upper case. Sense components are concepts into which meanings of words can be decomposed e g [+HUMAN, -MALE, + ADULT] = woman. CA forbids the presence of two opposing contrastive features in expressing the meaning of a word e g [+ADULT –ADULT] for woman.

TYPES OF MEANING

The various types of meaning have been broadly classified into three namely; conceptual, associative and thematic.

Conceptual meaning: This is also known as the denotative, central or primary meaning of words. It refers to the ordinary dictionary meaning of a word that is commonly shared by individuals. It is free of contextual colourings and emotional overtones of speakers and hearers. It is in its pure and sacred state with universal implications.

Associative meaning: This is a type of meaning that a word conveys over and above its ordinary dictionary meaning or commonly shared sense. It is unstable, open-ended and variable in nature. It can be influenced by the age, sex, experiences and exposure of an individual. It is not central and does not have any universal implication.

Types of Associative Meaning

Connotative meaning: This refers to the emotive or evaluative meaning which an expression or a word conveys beyond its ordinary everyday meaning. This is due to the feelings and colourings that have become associated with a word or expression and are aroused in the mind when they are uttered or heard. It is not strictly the general meaning but what shades of emotion people attach to words. For instance pig has the connotation of dirty while woman is associated with weakness while strength is associated with lion.

Collocative meaning: This refers to the meaning a lexical item conveys depending on the company it keeps. It is the association a word acquire on account of its environment. Some associations are perceived to be normal and certain lexical items exhibit the natural tendency to co-occur e g august visitor, auspicious event, school of whales, flock of sheep, beautiful lady, and handsome man e t c

Reflected meaning: This has to do with an expression that has more than one conceptual meaning. It arises in situations when an expression has multiple conceptual meaning. It is a feature of polysemous words where one of the senses of a particular word becomes dominant. When words have two senses, the second sense of the word tends to rub off the primary meaning of the word. It usually goes with taboo words e g intercourse (social communication), turgid (strong), ejaculation (saying), erection (stand), release (come up) e t c all have two meanings or reflected meaning. They cannot be used in their ordinary innocent senses anymore because of what they reflect.

Affective meaning: Meaning becomes affective when words are chosen in a particular manner to communicate something about the attitude or feeling of the speaker towards his hearers or the subject matter of discourse. Interjections like oh! alas! Sir, mummy, daddy, reflects emotion.

Stylistics/social meaning: This is the meaning a word or expression conveys about the social circumstance of its use. They are meanings words convey due to the fact that they are associated with certain pattern of speech, language variety or social setting. The choice of word that an individual uses can reveal his social background, regional or geographical dialect or social distance in terms of the degree of formality between the speaker or hearer. E g Might I have your book? and May I have your book? are both formal but while the former is rare, the later is common. Also can I have your book? is casual and less formal. The social meaning of text is decoded through the recognition of different dimensions and levels of styles within the same language.

Thematic meaning: This refers to the meaning an expression or lexical item conveys depending on how the speaker organizes his message in terms of ordering, focus and emphasis. This can be achieved through topicalisation, focalization, passivisation and prosodic features like tones, stress and intonation. Thematic meaning is derived from where one puts ones emphasis. This is a way of achieving communicative prominence e g John kicked the ball, it was John who kicked the ball e t c

MEANING RELATIONS AT WORD LEVEL

Meaning can be derived from words in several ways and they include;

Synonymy: This is a term that is used to refer to sameness in meaning. It shows the degree of similarity between words. Synonyms can be divided into total or near synonym. Total synonym also known as complete or absolute synonym is a situation where there is complete sameness in meaning between words. These words are said to mean exactly the same thing and have the same communicative effect in all context e g rarely and seldom, anybody and anyone e t c. Near synonym also known as broad synonym is a situation where words have the same reference but differ in associative meanings. These words are said to have same communicative effect in some context e g ripe and mature, idea and conception.

Polysemy: This is a term that is used to refer to a meaning relation whereby a single lexical item has several related meanings e g head which could mean a leader of a group, a part of the body, part of a furniture or part of a coin.

Homonymy: this is a term that is used to refer to lexical items which have the same form but differ in meaning. Words that have the same form but differ in meaning are known as homonyms. Homonyms are what bring about lexical ambiguity e g pupil which could mean a part of the eye or a school child. There are two types of homonyms namely; homophones and homographs. Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation but are spelt differently e g cite/sight/site. Homographs on the other hand are words that have the same spelling but different meaning e g wind which could be a noun or a verb.

Hyponymy: This a hierarchical kind of meaning relationship between words whereby all the senses of several words are included within the meaning of one word. The more general term that includes the meaning of the specific term is referred to as generic/ hypernym/ super-ordinate while the more specific word is referred to as the hyponym or the subordinate term. All the words whose meanings are embodied in the meaning of the general word and belong to the same class are referred to as co-hyponyms e g cutlery [hypernym] spoon, fork, knife [co-hyponyms].

Semantic opposition: The meaning of a word can sometimes be defined in terms of what it is not. This is may be likened to antonyms but semantic opposition covers all forms of oppositeness. There are two types of semantic opposition namely; binary and non-binary contrast. Binary contrast is a two way distinction of contrast in words by the use of plus (+) and (-). It states that the presence of a particular quality in an entity necessarily implies the absence of another contrasting quality in the same entity. Words which exhibit binary contrast can be gradable or non-gradable. Gradable opposition involves two maximal poles or two extremes with some intermediate positions in this type of opposition. Gradable opposition can be divided into polarity or hierarchy opposites. Polarity opposites involves two extreme contrast on a scale with intermediate positions between lexical items e g hot and cold with warm, lukewarm, tepid and cool as intermediate positions. Hierarchy opposite involves a sense of ordering from the highest to the lowest and vice versa e g centimeter to kilogram, one month and one week and vice versa. Non-gradable opposition involves absolute contrast of lexemes with no sense gradation. They are classified into three namely; complementary, relational and directional opposites. Complementary opposite is an opposition where the assertion of one quality in an entity implies the denial of another quality in that entity e g dead and alive, male and female, perfect and imperfect. Relational opposite is an opposition where members have interdependence of meaning such that one member of the pair presupposes the other and are reciprocal in nature e g give and take, buy and sell, master and servant. Directional opposite is an opposition that involves spatial relationship where lexical item express in one of two opposite direction with respect to a given place e g north and south, right and left, up and down, come and go. Non-binary contrast is a semantic opposition that is not perceived in terms of plus or minus but in multiple compatibilities. Multiple incompatibilities refer to a situation where lexemes which belong to a particular semantic field are analyzed in terms of several binary distinctions. Non-binary contrast is divided into cyclic or serial contrast. Cyclic contrast is a kind of contrast which holds between lexical items that belong to a class where there are more than one alternative to the choice of a contrasting lexical item e g days of the week, months of the year and colour spectrum e t c which can be expressed in cycles. Serial contrast is a contrast that exist between lexical items of many member set where there are two outermost members such that the other members are ordered between two extremes e g letters of the alphabet, numerals, grading system e t c serial contrast lexemes may be ordered in scales or ranks. A scale is a sense relation where lexemes of the same semantic field are serially organized in terms of graded classification e g excellent, good, fair, poor and bad. A rank is a sense relation in which lexemes are serially

organized in terms of hierarchy either from the lowest to the highest or vice versa e g from field marshal to private in military.

MEANING RELATIONS AT SENTENCE LEVEL

There are various types of meanings that can be derived at sentence level and they include;

Paraphrase: This is a semantic relation where two or more sentences express one meaning. There are two types of paraphrase namely; lexical and structural paraphrase.

Lexical Paraphrase: This is a situation whereby two or more sentences have the same interpretation because a particular lexical item has been replaced in the sentence e g

Doctors are indispensable people in the world

Physicians are indispensable people in the world

Structural Paraphrase: This is a semantic relation whereby two or more sentences expresses the same meaning or have the same interpretation due to the arrangement of words in the sentence e g

Learning linguistics is interesting

Linguistics is interesting to learn

Ambiguity: This is a semantic relation where two or more sentences can be given more than one interpretation. There are three types of ambiguity which are lexical, structural and phonological ambiguity.

Lexical Ambiguity: This is a situation where two or more sentences have more than one meaning due to the presence of a lexical item in the sentences e g

Michael is going to the bank [Bank here could be a financial institution or the river bank]

The test has been conducted [Test here could be a medical test or an academic test]

Structural Ambiguity: This is a semantic relation whereby a sentence has more than one interpretation base on the organization of the sentence and how the words modify one another in the sentence e g

Visiting relatives can be boring

The men were fired yesterday

All American history teachers were in the meeting

Phonological Ambiguity: This is a semantic relation where there are several interpretations to the meaning of a sentence because of the pronunciation of a lexical item which could have different meaning effects on the hearers e g my uncle lost his sight [ sight here could imply site or cite]

Tautology: This is a meaning relation that involves needless repetitions of words with the same meaning e g the dead man is not alive, my bachelor brother is unmarried e t c

Anomaly: This is a type of semantic deviance which results when two semantic primes or features which are incompatible are combined in describing a phenomenon e g *long man, *tall rope,* long tree e t c

Contradiction: This is when two opposing propositions are presented at the same time e g the dead man is alive, the bachelor is married to Martha, the girl with a bad voice can sing, the round table is square e t c

Redundancy: This results when the presence or absence of a linguistic unit does not affect the meaning of the construction in which it occurs e g four in number, round in shape, the extreme end, illegal murder, 11 am in the morning.

Analyticity: This is a meaning relation in which the grammatical form and the lexical meaning of words in a construction makes the statement true e g bachelors are unmarried men, spinsters are unmarried women.

Collocation: This is a meaning relation that exists between words that often co-occur in sentences. These words though have their independent meanings but usually represent one sense of meaning when they co-occur e g a crying shame, as fit as a fiddle, a school of whales e t c.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS

1. What are the meaning relations at word and sentence level?2. Discuss the different types of meanings.

REFERENCES

Ayuwo, J.G. 2013. Language in Society. Port Harcourt: Gen-x Print.Bloch, B. and G. Trager. 1942. Outline of Linguistic Analysis. Baltimore: Waverly Press.Bolinger, D. 1968. Aspects of Language. New York: Harcourt. Brace Jovanovich, Inc.Ladefoged, P. 1985. A Course in Phonetics. 2ndedn. New York. Harcourt Brace and WordNdimele, O-M. 1999. Morphology and Syntax. M & J Grand Orbit Communications Ltd.Ndimele, O-M. 2001. Ed. Readings on Language. Port Harcourt; Emhai Books.Ndimele, O-M. and K.H. Innocent. 2006. Fundamentals of Mass Communication. Port Harcourt:

Orbit Communications Ltd and Emhai Press.Ndimele, O-M. 2007. Ed. Semantics and Frontiers of Communication. Port Harcourt: University

of Port Harcourt Press.Ndimele, O-M. 2007. Ed. 2007. An Advanced English Grammar and Usage. Aba: National

Institute for Nigerian Languages. Sapir, E.1921. Language. New York: Harcourt.Yul-Ifode, Shirley. 2001. An Introduction to Language in History and Society. Port Harourt:

University of Port Harcourt Press.Yul-Ifode, Shirley. 2008. A Course in Phonology. Port Harourt: University of Port Harcourt

Press.

RECOMMENDED TEXT

An introduction to language by Victoria A. Fromkin, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyans

Linguistics; An introduction by William B. MC Gregory

A course in general linguistics by Ferdinard De Saussure

Languages and Linguistics: An introduction 1st edition by John Lyons

Linguistics, an introduction to language and communication 6th edition by Richard Demers.

A course in Phonetics 6th edition by Peter Ladefoged and Keith Johnson.

Linguistics, an introduction by Andrew Ratford, Martin Arkinson, David Britain, Harald Clahsen, Andrew Spenser second edition.

Oxford concise dictionary of linguistics

Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones.