Formal Properties of Language

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Formal Properties of Language
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Grammar

• Morphology
• Syntax
• Semantics

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Morphology

• Is concerned with how phonemes are combined by
  language into larger units
• Words one or more morphemes

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Morphological Example

• Cow
• Cow- boy
• Affixes bound morphemes
• dis --- dis-like

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Syntax

• rules that determine how words should be combined
  to make sense to speakers of a language
• (English) word order critical for meaning (you,
  are, and there)
• There you are
• You are there
• Are you there?

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In Romance languages

• Order of words not important
• Spanish
• Tu estabas ahi
• You were there

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Mandarin, Chinese

• Meaning primarily determined by tone
• Ma
• High Mother
• Risinghorse
• Fallingscolding

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Exceptions to syntax rules

• Eat
• Ate
• eated

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Morphological Analysis

• Morphology the analysis of the structure of
  words
• Morphemeswords
• Cat or Cat-S
• /P/ /I/ /N/ PIN

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Roots (stems) and Affixes

• Roots they have meaning in themselves
• cat,good, happy
• AffixesAre attached to roots (express
  grammatical meanings)
• un-, -s, -ing, -ly
• Three kinds of affixes Prefixes un-happy
• suffixes happy-ness
• and infixes

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Morphological Typologies

• Classification of languages according to how they
  structure words out of morphemes
• Isolating languages few morphemes, simple
  method prefix and suffix (English)
• Agglutinating languages words containing many
  morphemes, highly regular rules (Turkish)
• Synthetic or polysynthetic Words containing many
  morphemes, very complex rules (Inuktitut)

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Qasirrsarrvigssarsingitluinarpug

• someone did not find a completely suitable
  resting place

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Grammatical meanings

• Tense (time of the events occurrence)
• I visited the zoo
• Aspect (manner in which an events occurs)
• I am visiting the zoo
• Mode (likelihood of an events occurrence)
• I could visit the zoo

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Syntax

• Is an analytical tool that linguists utilize to
  study the structure of sentences, including
  construction of phrases, clauses, and the order
  of words
• Example
• The dog chased the cat
• The cat chased the dog

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Semantics

• The study of meaning in language, including the
  analysis of meanings of words and sentences
• Types of meanings produced by language
  situational, social and cultural

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Language rules over regularalizations

• Past tense of regular verbs (english)by adding ed
  as in worked
• I gave I gived
• I took I taked

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Linguistic interference

• Idiomatic expressions
• En este momento (literal translation) at this
  moment (Instead of now)
• Drive down the parkway and park on the driveway.
• Chop the tree down and cut the pieces up.
• His nose is running and his feet smell.

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Grammatical meanings

• Tense I visited the zoo
• aspect