Instructor : RENIEL BELMES GERERO

Course and Code Name : Major 1 ( LINGUISTICS )

Term : First Semester Academic Year 2020-2021
Consultation Time : 5:30- 7:00 / 7:00-8:30 1 hour/MWF
Consultation Venue : NB 8
References : google.com
Introduction to Linguistics

Study Guide/Handout No. 3

Focus: Introduction to Linguistics

Linguistics is the study of human language, its nature, origins and uses. This course will give the students an
overview of the field of modern linguistics and basic skills in linguistic analysis. It also investigates how language
are learned and how they change over time. Thus, it gives a standard direction to shape the students’ understanding about
the structures, elements and principles of language.

At the end of this lesson, students are expected to:

1. get familiar with the Syntactic Structures.

2. understand the semantic development of language.
3. describe and explain the pragmatics of language

Syntactic Structures

1. Structure of Predication has two components: a subject and a predicate; e.g. the seagull flies, the water level

rose abruptly, the trial has begun

2. Structure of Complementation has two basic components: a verbal element and a complement; e.g. disturbed

the class, rendered service, be conscientious

3. Structure of Modification has two components: a head word and a modifier, whose meaning serves to broaden,

qualify, select, change, or describe, or in some way affect the meaning of the head word; e.g. responsible

officers, trusted friend, impartially conducted

4. Structure of Coordination has two basic components: equivalent grammatical units and joined often but not

always by a coordinating conjunction; e.g. bread and butter, peace not war, neither extrovert nor introvert.

Semantics

1. Lexical ambiguity refers to a characteristic of a word that has more than one sense, e. g. the English word fly is
ambiguous because it has more than one meaning: ‘an insect,’ ‘a zipper on a pair of pants,’ or ‘a baseball hit
into the air with a bat.’

2. Syntactic ambiguity refers to the characteristic of a phrase that has more than one meaning, e.g. English

literature teacher can mean ‘a teacher of English literature’ or ‘a literature teacher who is from England.’

3. Synonymy refers to words having the same sense; that is, they have the same values for all of their semantic

features. happy and glad; reply and respond; hastily and hurriedly are synonymous words in English.

4. Hyponymy is a characteristic of a word that contains the meaning of another word; the contained word is known

as the superordinate. For example, sampaguita contains the meaning of flower; therefore, sampaguita is a

hyponym of the superordinate flower. Put another way, a hyponym is a word whose meaning contains all the

same feature values of another word, plus some additional feature values.
 5. Antonymy refers to the characteristic of two words which are different both in form as well as meaning. An

antonym conveys the opposite sense (binary antonyms), e.g. rich - poor; good – bad. They are also words

whose meanings differ only in the value for a single semantic feature; e.g. rich – poor; rich is marked [+wealth]

and poor is marked [- wealth]; dead – alive; dead is marked [-life] and alive is marked [+life]. Gradable

antonyms are words that describe opposite ends of a continuous dimension, e.g. hot and cold. Not everything

that can be hot or cold is, in fact, either hot or cold. Liquid, for example, may be warm or cool.

6. Homonymy refers to sense relation in words with the same phonetic form but different in meaning, e.g. bat
meaning ‘a nocturnal animal’ and bat meaning ‘an equipment used in baseball or softball.’

7. Coreference refers to the sense relation of two expressions that have the same extra linguistic referent. In the
sentence “Mercury is the nearest planet from the sun,” Mercury and the nearest planet from the sun are co-
referential because they both refer to the same extra linguistic object – the planet Mercury in the solar system.

8. Anaphora is a linguistic expression that refers to another linguistic expression; e.g. “The tsunami killed
thousands of people. It was devastating.” It in the second sentence is used anaphorically (to point backwards) to
refer to ‘the tsunami’.

9. Deixis refers to the characteristic of an expression that has one meaning but can refer to different entities
within the same context of utterance. Deictic expressions have a ‘pointing function.’ Examples of deixis are
you, I, she (personal pronouns); here, there, right, left, (expressions of place); this, that, those, these
(demonstratives); now, yesterday, today, last year (time expressions).

10. Entailment is a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that follows necessarily from another sentence. A
sentence entails another if the meaning of the first includes the meaning of the second; it is also called
paraphrase. For example, the sentence, ‘Raul had a fatal accident’ entails that ‘Raul died’ since it is impossible
to figure in a fatal accident without loss of life. Semantically speaking, fatal means [-life] while died also
means [-life].

11. Presupposition refers to a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that is assumed to be true in order to judge the
truth or falsity of another sentence. It also refers to the truth relation between two sentences; one sentence
presupposes another if the falsity of the second renders the first without a truth value; e.g. The sentence ‘The
King of Canada is dead.’ presupposes that ‘There exists (is) a King of Canada.’ The first sentence presupposes
the second sentence because if the second sentence is false, then the first sentence has no truth value.

Pragmatics

1. Speech act theory. Every utterance of speech constitutes some sort of act (promising, apologizing,
threatening, warning, etc.). Every speech act consists of three separate acts:

Locutionary force an act of saying something; it is a description of what a speaker says, e.g., I promise to return

your book tomorrow.

Illocutionary act/force is the act of doing something; it is what the speaker intends to do by uttering a sentence,

e.g., by saying “I promise to return your book tomorrow,” the speaker has made an act of promising.

Illocutionary act is an act of affecting someone (i.e., the listener); it is the effect on the hearer of what a speaker

says, e.g., by saying “I will return your book tomorrow,” the hearer may feel happy or relieved that s/he will

get the book back

2. Categories of Illocutionary Acts. These are categories proposed by John Searle to group together closely
related intentions for saying something.
 Declaration. A declaration is an utterance used to change the status of some entity – for example, Foul! uttered
by a referee at a basketball game. This class includes acts of appointing, naming, resigning, baptizing,
surrendering, excommunicating, arresting, and so on.

Representative. A representative is an utterance used to describe some state of affairs – for example,
Recession will worsen in Europe in the next five years. This class includes acts of stating, asserting, denying,
confessing, admitting, notifying, concluding, predicting, and so on.

Commissive. A commissive is an utterance used to commit the speaker to do something – for example, I’ll meet
you at the library at 10:00 a.m. This class includes acts of promising, vowing, volunteering, offering,
guaranteeing, pledging, betting, and so on.

Directive. A directive is an utterance used to try to get the hearer to do something – for example, Review
thoroughly for the exams. This class includes acts of requesting, ordering, forbidding, warning, advising,
suggesting, insisting, recommending, and so on.

Expressive. An expressive is an utterance used to express the emotional state of the speaker – for example,
Congratulations for topping the bar exam!. This class includes acts of apologizing, thanking, congratulating,
condoling, welcoming, deploring, objecting, and so on.

Question. A question is an utterance used to get the hearer to provide information – for example, Who won the
presidential election? This class includes acts of asking, inquiring, and so on. (Note: Searle treated questions as
a subcategory of directives; however, it is more useful to treat them as a separate category.)

3. Conversational Maxims are rules that are observed when communication takes place in a situation where
people are cooperative. When people communicate, they assume that the other person will be cooperative and
they themselves wish to cooperate.

In the “Cooperative Principle,” the following maxims or rules govern oral interactions:

Maxim of quantity – a participant’s contribution should be as informative as possible – “Give the right amount

of information, neither less nor more than what is required.”

e.g. A: Are you attending the seminar?

B: Yes, I am.

Maxim of quality – a participant should not say that which is false or that which the participant lacks evidence -

“Make your contribution such that it is true; do not say what you know is false or for

which you do not have adequate evidence.”

e.g. A: Who did you see enter the room last?

B: The janitor

Maxim of relation – a participant’s contribution should be related to the subject of the conversation – “Be

relevant.”

e.g. A: Why did you come late?

B: I had to take my son to school.

Maxim of manner – a participant’s contribution should be direct, not obscure, ambiguous, or wordy – “Avoid

obscurity and ambiguity; be brief and orderly.”

e.g. A: Are you accepting the position?

B: Yes, I am. Thank you for your trust in me.

 4. Implicatures refer to statements that imply a proposition that is not part of the utterance and does not follow as a
necessary consequence of the utterance.

For example: Dan says to his wife Nitz,“Uncle Ernie is driving us to Tagaytay” to which Nitz responds, “I

guess I’d better take tranquilizers.” Nitz’s utterance raises the implicature that Uncle Ernie must be a fast,

reckless driver.

Instructor : ___________________________________________
Course and Code Name : Major 1 ( LINGUISTICS )
Term : First Semester Academic Year 2020-2021
Consultation Time : 5:30- 7:00 / 7:00-8:30 11/2 hours/TTH
Consultation Venue : NB 8
Reference : Introduction to Linguistics

Learning Task No. 4

Answer the following items below.

1. Give at least three sentences showing some lexical or syntactic ambiguity.

2. Give at least one sample for each of the following semantic units:

a. Synonymy

b. Hyponymy

c. Meronymy

d. Homonymy

e. Coreference

f. Anaphora

g. Deixis

h. Entailment

i. Presupposition