BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

Directions: Answer the following substantially through comprehensive and veracious

discussion, and appropriate citation using the APA format. Attach the reference list of the
sources that you utilized.

1. Explicate the fundamental connection between the human brain and

language development.
One of the mysteries of human brain is how it understands and produces
language. Without the brain, there would be no language. The human brain has a few
areas that are specific to language processing and production. When these areas are
damaged or injured, capabilities for speaking or understanding can be lost, a disorder
known as aphasia. These areas must function together in order for a person to develop,
use, and understand language. The human brain is split into two hemispheres. The left
hemisphere controls any muscular activity on the right side of the human body and the
right hemisphere operates vice versa.  The left hemisphere is the one for right-handed
people, the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa.
The two regions of the brain’s left hemisphere that play important roles in
language processing are Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. Broca’s area is activated in
hearing individuals when they are speaking and in deaf people when they are signing.
Wernicke’s area is involved in the comprehension of both speech and signs. A damage
of the brain can cause impairment of language. This is what we called Aphasia. It may
affect mainly a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of
objects, or the ability to put words together into sentences, or the ability to read.
Advances in non-invasive brain recording techniques have led to dramatic improvements
in the understanding of the localization and temporal dynamics of human language.
The connection of the brain to language development was seen through this explanation.
We can now describe the function of a given brain area within the language processing
domain. Taking a more general perspective, we suggest that a given area, for example,
Broca’s area, receives its particular domain specific function as part of a particular
domain-specific network which, for the language domain, involves the posterior and for
the action domain it involves the parietal cortex. Every part of the brain must function
well so that language acquisition will be further develop
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 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

2. Discuss how inflection and derivation processes in morphology form and

reconstruct lexical categories.

Morphological complexity plays a key role in languages such as English by

introducing systematic and productive elements to the language, broadening the range of
possible meanings through the use of multiple morphemes within a word. There are two
types of affixes in English, inflectional (-s) and derivational (-er), both of which combine
with a stem to form a morphologically complex word. According Clahsen et al.(2003)
inflections create a new form but not a new lexical entry.  Derivational affixes function in
changing the meaning and in many cases the grammatical category of the stem. One the
example is the addition of the derivational morpheme -ize changes the adjective normal
to the verb normalize. Similarly, we can derive the adjectives helpful and helpless by
adding the derivational morphemes -ful and less to the noun help. On the other hand,
Inflectional morpheme never change the grammatical category. Just like the word tall and
taller. These are both adjectives. The inflectional morpheme - simply produces a different
version of the adjective tall but does not change grammatical category.

As in many languages of the world, English also has some irregularities or

exceptions in its morphology. So far, we have only exemplified English words in which
various inflectional and derivational morphemes can be simply recognized as distinct
minimal units of meaning or grammatical function.

3. Compare and contrast the following:

Ellipses and coordination

Coordination is a very common element in sentence structure: the placing

together of elements that have exactly the same syntactic function. The coordinators or
coordinating conjunctions are closed class with four members: and, or, nor, but. If two
items are coordinated then the coordinator or coordinating conjunction must come
between the two conjuncts. If there are more than two conjuncts in the coordination, then
the coordinator must appear between the last two conjuncts or between all the conjuncts.
We can coordinate two or more complete constituents. That kind of coordination is what
we call simple coordination. In that kind of coordination, we can coordinate just about
any two or more constituents of the same kind. A conjunct is an item which is
coordinated with another item. I sang and danced, sang is one conjunct and danced is
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another.
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 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

Ellipsis is a technical term for a hole or omission. When the grammatical structure
would seem to call for a particular structure, but it's not there and you could
unambiguously tell what should fill that hole, that's an ellipsis. Ellipsis is most commonly
used to avoid repetition, and in this respect, it is like substitution.

The tallest girl in the class is as smart as the shortest…

If you want some of that fruit, I can give you plenty…

Mary wanted the red dress and I gave her the blue…

Moreover, coordination allows two or more items to be joined to make a larger

item of the same type. In simple coordination the complete constituents are coordinated
to constituents of the same type to make larger constituents. In complex coordination, one
or more of the conjuncts does not form a constituent because something is missing or
ellipted from that material to avoid the repetition.

Text and Context in Pragmatics

Text and Context considers some fundamental topics in the semantics and
pragmatics discourse. People, primarily and essentially, use combinations of these
language units to express a whole idea in verbal communication. Text, as a linguistic
term, is used to refer to these combinations. That is to say, a text can express the whole
idea of the communicator. It is basically highly specific term and refers to the written
word. Brown and Yule (1983) in their Discourse Analysis define text as ―the verbal
record of a communicative act. Text is produced and interpreted between two people in
certain context, because human beings use language to communicate with others.

On the other hand, context can be classified into co-text, situational context and
cultural context, about which many linguists have done a lot of researches on the
relations between text and context. In the linguistic communication, context determines
text and text reflects context. (Ren Shaozeng,1995). One has to understand why people
say what they say and how they say it in a specific circumstance according to different
aspects in the cognitive context using appropriate text. We can say that text is use to give
an idea or communicate with a given context.

4. Discuss the role of language in building interdisciplinary research.

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Interdisciplinary research faces a range of challenges in achieving effective

communication between discipline-based experts, of which language is key. Dialects,
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metaphor and articulation are identified as three overlapping aspects of language which
 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

play an important role in developing understandings between different disciplines. It is

now widely established across the higher education sector that new approaches to
building interdisciplinary research capacity are needed, bringing together the disparate
expertise needed to solve complex problems (Roelofs et al. 2018). It is also said that
interdisciplinary research is an approach to evolving scientific knowledge, in which
researchers from different disciplines work at the borders of those disciplines in order to
address complex questions and problems. Demonstrating a working knowledge and
mastery of research competencies will be vital for successful interdisciplinary
collaborations.

In addition, applying theories and methods of other disciplines in developing

integrated theoretical and research frameworks will be beneficial to this endeavor.
Moreover, giving and receiving constructive feedback will foster efficient and effective
information exchange, strong working relationships, and internal commitment among
team members. Interdisciplinary study allows for synthesis of ideas and the synthesis of
characteristics from many disciplines. This will omit individual differences and would
help to develop important, transferable skills. The role of language is sure to foster a love
of learning, ignite a spark of enthusiasm and address learning differences for students.

5. Elucidate how the structural analysis of phrases, clauses, and sentences provides
clarity of language components

A complete understanding of the structural parameters is crucial to the understanding

of the meaning of sentences. They provide structure and meaning to almost all the
languages. Any group of meaningful words that don’t make complete sense is a phrase. If
taken alone without other words, it will not be meaningful at all however, it occurs inside a
sentence as its structural part. A clause is also a group of words but this group must contain
the subject and a predicate. Hence, a clause can make complete sense even when present
outside the sentence.

Another import type is the clause is that part of a sentence that contains the subject
and the predicate. The phrases and clauses provide a sense to a sentence. A complete
understanding of the structural parameters is crucial to the understanding of the meaning
of sentences and the clarity of language components. These parts of structure of language
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are very necessary to have better understanding od the meaning of a specific message.
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 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

Lastly, we have sentences. We define a sentence as a collection of words that make

a certain intended sense. The definition is also sometimes put as a collection or group of
words that make sense to a reader. A sentence may contain a subject, a predicate, verbs
and auxiliary verbs Grammatically, we say that a sentence must have a predefined
structure. Different types of sentences are used for different purposes and in different parts
of a paper, but the foundation of all good sentences is a strong subject and verb.  A
sentence needs to begin with clear, strong words so that you will provide a concise and
meaningful sentence.

In this case I can say that phrases, clause and sentences paly a votal role in language in
providing clarity of the language. The use of appropriate words will surely give a
meaningful and effective ideas. Not only that these components should priorities so that
effective communication will be utilize.

6. Illustrate the following using tree diagrams:

brought the new chair

VP

Verb NP

brought Det Adj.P

the
Adj. Noun

new chair

Their building was inaugurated on Monday.

NP VP

det N aux
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VP
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Their V Prep.P
building was
g
 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

inaugurated Prep. N

on
Monday

References:

Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. New York: Cambridge University
Press. 6-6

Clahsen H., Sonnenstuhl I., Blevins J. P. (2003). “Derivational morphology in the

German mental lexicon: a dual-mechanism account,” in Morphological Structure in
Language Processing eds Baayen R. H., Schreuder R., editors. (Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter; ) 125–155 [Google Scholar] [Ref list]

Coordination and Ellipses

Friederici AD. The Brain Basis of Language Processing: From Structure to Function.
Physiol Rev 91: 1357–1392, 2011; doi:10.1152/physrev.00006.2011. Language
processing is a trait of human species.

Human Language and the Brain: Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-

hostos-childdevelopment/chapter/human-language-and-the-brain/

Language and Brain Proseminar ”Linguistically relevant films Retrieved from:

https://www.tuchemnitz.de/phil/english/sections/linguist/independent/kursmaterialien/ter
mpapers_online/plontke_lang&brain.pdf

Language and the Brain

http://ling.umd.edu/~colin/research/papers/phillips_sakai2005.pdf

Language and the human brain http://udel.edu/~dlarsen/ling101/slides/brain.pdf

Lihong Shen.(2012) Context and Text: Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2,
No. 12, pp. 2663-2669, December 2012.

Shaozeng Ren. (1995).The Discourse Functions of Tense in English, Foreign Language,

3,22-29

https://literalminded.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/coordination-and-ellipsis-part-1/

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/299f/7df39b03c466fd19527a3445ed37ef342396.pdf
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https://public.wsu.edu/~gordonl/Grammar_Book/Chapter_6.pdf
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https://semanticsmorphology.weebly.com/inflectional-and-derivational-morphemes.html
 BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-difference-between-text-context-260948

https://www.slideshare.net/merykul95/coordination-and-ellipsis?from_action=save

https://www.toppr.com/guides/business-correspondence-and-reporting/sentence-types-
and-word-power/phrases-clauses-sentences/

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