‫الجمهورية اليمنية‬

‫جامعة الحكمة‬
‫ترجمة‬
Level 2

:Lectures on
INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE
With Special Reference to Arabic and
English Languages

Taught by
Prof/. Mohammed Al-Mekhlafi
 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

Sana’a University

College of Education

Department of English

Lectures on:
INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE
With Special Reference to Arabic and English Languages

Dr Mohammad Abdu Al-Mekhlafi

Professor of English

Second Edition

2017
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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Second published 2017, by Education Copying Center, Faculty of Education, Sana’a

University

Copyright © 2017 Author

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

INTRODUCTION

Dear Students,

This is a three hour credit course that introduces you to the study of linguistics. It
briefly introduces the branches of linguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax,
semantics and pragmatics. The main aim of the course is to prepare you for future
specialized linguistic courses such as Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax,
Transformational Generative Grammar, History of the English Language, Topics in
Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis.

As an introduction textbook it is written in short units and it has exercises in it in order

to suit EFL students who do not have any prior knowledge in linguistics. It introduces, at a
foundation level, the key concepts and terminology in the areas of language study. The
structure of the English language is examined at the levels of phonetics and phonology,
morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Comparisons between English (the target
language) and Arabic (the mother tongue of the learners) are made whenever relevant.

Undoubtedly, there is no shortage of introductory textbooks on language and

linguistics. However, the raison d’etre of this textbook has grown out of my experience in
teaching this course at the University of Sana’a and elsewhere since 1992. As a matter of
fact, I have gone through a number of introductory textbooks to language and linguistics
and I have done a lot of tailoring in order to make it fit the level and background of the
students as well as the objectives of the course offered.

Course Objectives:

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

1. Develop an awareness of what language is and how it is studied.

2. Identify the key concepts underlying the following linguistic fields: phonetics,
phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
3. Differentiate between the different branches of linguistics.
4. Be prepared to study linguistics courses in the future.

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

Thanks

I would like to thank all the students and teachers who have used this textbook. In
particular I would like to express my thanks to Ms. Haifa Mohammad Ahmad Nassar of the
Faculty of Education in Hajah University who was able to detect a number of typographical
errors in the first edition.

Dr Mohammad Abdu Al-Mekhlafi

Professor of English

Department of English

College of Education

Sana’a University

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CONTENTS
Introduction 3
Unit One : What is Language? 6
Exercise on Unit One 12
Unit Two : What is Linguistics? 14
Branches of Linguistics 18
Exercise on Unit Two 26
Unit Three: The origin of language 27
The development of writing 30
Exercises on Unit Three 35
Unit Four : World languages 36
Exercise on Unit Four 42
Unit Five : History of the English language 44
Exercises on Unit Five 50
Unit Six : Phonetics 52
Classification of sounds 54
Exercises on Unit Six 67
Unit Seven: Phonology 70
Exercises on Unit Seven 84
Unit Eight: Morphology 87
Exercises on Unit Eight 101
Unit Nine: Word Formation 107
Exercises on Unit Nine 121
Unit Ten : Syntax 126
Exercises on Unit Ten 148
Unit Eleven : Semantics 166
General Review 188

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

UNIT ONE

What is language?

Language is a term that has gained various meanings. It might be used to refer to a
course of study in schools such as Arabic Language or English Language, etc. and their
textbooks as well. In computer Science, it refers to a code used in programming such as
BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, etc. It might also be used to refer to other means of
communication such as “Body language””, “Sign language”, “Birds language” It has also
been used to refer to the system of sounds and letters that we use when we talk or write. It
is this last point of view of the term “language” that will be adopted throughout this
textbook.

Definitions of Language

There are different definitions of the term ‘language’. It means different

things to different people, depending on what angle one wants to view it from. A sample of
such definitions is given below.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (1974:472) defines

language as a ‘ method of communicating ideas, feelings and desires by means of a system
of sounds and sound symbols’.

According to Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1987:153) language is

‘the system of human communication by means of a structured arrangement of sounds (or
the written representation) to form large units, e.g. morphemes, words, sentences.’

Aitchison (1987:19) uses the term ‘language’ to mean ‘the specialized sound signaling
system which seems to be genetically programmed to develop in humans’.

Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1989:806)

defines language as ‘the body of words and systems for their use common to people who
are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural
tradition’.

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Encrata Encyclopedia (2006) defines it as ”communication among human beings

that is characterized by the use of arbitrary spoken or written symbols with agreed-upon
meanings.”

An eminent writer on the http://www.@IPL.org defines language as ‘a way to

communicate by voluntary speech. This is unique to humans and inherited.’

Language may be defined as a set of arbitrary spoken or written symbols with

agreed upon meanings which are used for communication among human beings.

A quick examination of the sample of definitions mentioned above yields the

following characteristics of language.

Characteristics of Language:

1. Language is a set of (oral and written) symbols.

Language is basically based on the use of symbols at all levels. The English
language, for example, has 44 oral symbols (sounds) and 26 written symbols (letters).
These symbols are put together to create larger symbols called words. Therefore, key is not
a key, but a symbol that refers to the object .

2. Those symbols are arbitrary.

The same object (meaning), e.g ) may be expressed by different sounds in

different languages as follows:

Arabic = qalam

English = pen

French = stylo. etc.

You can translate the Arabic symbol qalam (‫ )قلم‬or its English equivalent pen into 65
common languages of the world using Google Translate on the World Wide Web
(internet). You will find that each language uses a different symbol for the same object.

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Furthermore, the same sounds or written symbols may refer to different objects
(meanings) in different languages. For instance, in English the word mat means rag
whereas in Arabic mat (‫ )مات‬means died. Thus, in language, there is no necessary
connection between the symbols (sounds and letters) of a word and the object (meaning)
that word refers to. That is, the relationship between words and their meanings is arbitrary.

3. Language is used for communication.

Language enables us to convey our ideas and thoughts clearly to other people. In
other words, language is a means of communication which involves at least two persons as
illustrated in the following figure:

Figure (1-1)

Sender (Speaker) Receiver ( Hearer)

4. Language is learnt.

Every human infant is born with the capacity to acquire or learn language. Noam
Chomsky, an American linguist calls it (LAD) i.e., Language Acquisition Device. This
LAD is presumably in our brains and it is like a creative “recorder” that becomes
operational after constant practice. If you record (learn) Arabic, you can play it back and if
you record (learn) English, you can play it back.

Therefore, language is not an automatic process like crying or laughing. It is,

however, learnt by making efforts and by imitation and practice. If a child is not exposed to
any language, he/she will not be able to speak any language. Let us imagine that a Yemeni
born child is placed in America or Britain where all the people around him/her speak
English. What language will this child be able to speak? Arabic or English? or both? That
depends on whether he/she is exposed to English only or to English and Arabic as well.
Therefore, language is a skill like swimming, driving a car, playing tennis, etc. It can be
learnt through repetition and constant practice.

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5. Language is a system of systems.

Language is a large system containing sub-systems. It contains phonetics, phonology,

morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Each one of those six components
constitutes a system by itself. For example, the sounds of language form their own system
as they function according to rules. Similarly, the syntactic rules govern how words are put
together to make a sentence and the semantic rules (rules of meaning) govern how we put
meanings together. So is the case with phonology, morphology and pragmatics. We can
express this relation in the following diagram:

Figure (1-2)

Language

sounds structure Mm
meaning

Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics

6. Language is related to the culture of its people.

Language and culture go hand in hand. Thus, every language is expected to reflect
in its vocabulary and concepts the beliefs, the customs and the social habits of its people
and their surroundings. For instance, Arabic is known as the language of the Qura’n and as
a result it is full of religious expressions such as in sha Allah, ma sha Allah, Al-
Hamdulilah, etc. It also has more than 20 synonymous words for the English word ‘lion’
such as layth, osamah, ghidhanfar, qaswarah, hizabr, sabʕ, etc. Why? Because it reflects
the culture to which it belongs. In the Arabic culture a ‘lion’ is a symbol of ‘bravery’ and
‘victory’. However, English has words like ‘snow’, ‘sleet’, ‘frost’, ‘ice’, ‘hail’, ‘blizzard’,
because they are used in that environment.

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7. Language is unique to human beings.

Muslims believe that language is a gift from the Almighty Allah to Adam. The Holy
Qura’n says: And He taught Adam the nature of all things; then He placed them before the
angels, and said: “Tell Me the nature of these if ye are right” Al-Baqarah, 31

Linguists such as Yule (2006)1 conclude that no other creature on the planet has the
creativity, communicative range, or sophistication of human language. Therefore, most of
the definitions limit the use of the term language to humans. So we do not expect non-
human to be able to understand any language such as Arabic or English.

Animals and Human Language

We mentioned in the previous section that language is unique to human beings.

Animals on the other hands have their own means of communication. While human
language is learnt, animals’ means of communications are genetically inherited. They
are transmitted from one generation to another. Therefore a dog barks today in the same
way another dog barked thousands of years ago.

Some animals produce sounds and some of them such as parrots can imitate us and
repeat a word or two. This observation initiated a number of experiments that aimed at
teaching some intelligent animals, chimpanzees, human language in the 1950s-1970s.
Animals failed in acquiring human language due to the fact that their vocal tracts and
brains are different from ours. For a summary of those experiments see Yule (2006:13-
15).

1
Yule, George (2006) The Study of Language (Third Edition), Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

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The Knowledge of Language

As children we acquired our mother tongue (Arabic) unconsciously. That is we

were unaware of the particularities of our knowledge of Arabic. For instance, we have no
difficulty in distinguishing between the lunar “al-“as in “al-qamar” and the solar “al-“as in
“ash-shams”. However, most of us will go “Hah?” when asked to state the rule.

The knowledge of language involves the knowledge of the following four skills:

1. Listening

Listening is a language skill that enables us to understand what other people want to say.
It also enables us to know the sounds that belong to our language and the ones that do not
belong to it. Our knowledge of the sound system of our language and how they are
arranged and sequenced enables us to recognize any foreign accent of our language or any
strange sounds.

2. Speaking

Speaking is a language skill that follows the listening skill. As children we spend
almost 9 months listening to our parents and those around us and then we start speaking.
Our knowledge of the different subsystems of language (sounds, words, structures and
meaning) enables us to adjust our language to the different contexts as required. It also
enables us to express our various intentions with different language constructions.

3. Reading

While “speaking” involves the use of the sound system of language, “reading”
involves understanding and making use of the written symbols (letters) of language.

4. Writing

This language skill enables us to use the written symbols of language to express
ourselves and to record our events.

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The above language skills can be classified into receptive and productive skills. The
receptive skills include listening and reading. They are called so because we receive
through our ears the sounds of our language and receive through our eyes the written
symbols of language. The productive skills on the other hand include speaking and writing.
We use our vocal tracts to produce sounds and we use our hands and pens to produce
letters.

Exercises on Unit One

1. What is language? Write down on paper as many definitions of “language” as you can
find in the books, dictionaries and encyclopedias available in the library. Document
your work by mentioning the name of the author, the year of publication, the title of the
reference, place of publication and the publisher. For example, this Textbook can be
documented as follows:
Al-Mekhlafi, Mohammad. (2013) Lectures on Introduction to Language. Sana’a:
Educational Copying Center.

2. State the characteristics of language.

3. Discuss language as a system of systems.
4. Comment on language as a skill.
5. “language is unique to human beings.” Discuss this statement.
6. Write short notes with examples on:
a. The connection between a word and its meaning.
b. The connection between language and culture.
c. The connection between sounds and letters.
7. Complete the table below using Google Translate on the Internet

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Language Word Language Word

Arabic kitab German

English book Greek

Bengali Latin

Bulgarian Hindi

Chinese Italian

French Japanese

Danish Spanish

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UNIT TWO

What is linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It focuses on the study of sounds,

morphemes, words, structures and meanings of a language. It studies the form and function
of language. It also studies how language can change in time and what factors influence its
development and how languages are learned. It also seeks to find answers to these
questions:

 Where did English come from?

 How is speech produced and perceived?

 How do languages differ from other systems of communication?
 How and why do languages change over time?

 How do languages differ from one another in the way they make use of
speech sounds?

 How do languages differ from one another in their grammatical structure?

 How and why do children acquire language?

 What is the relationship between language and culture?

A linguist
A linguist is 'someone who practices linguistics', of course, not 'someone who
speaks a lot of languages fluently'.

How do Linguists Approach Language?

Linguists, unlike scholars in other fields, approach language having in mind the
following principles:

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1. All languages are fundamentally similar

All languages are similar in “principles” and differ in “parameters”. They are like cars
in this. All types of cars are similar in “principles” and differ in “parameters”. That is
all types of cars have engines, tires, steering wheels, brakes, etc. Similarly, all
languages have nouns, verbs and adjectives, etc. However, cars differ in the
“parameters”. That is some cars have the steering wheel on the right side while others
have it on the left side. Similarly, some languages are SVO (like English) while others
are VSO (like Arabic). Furthermore, some cars have mirrors, while others have no
mirrors. Some languages have ‘Verb to be’ like English, while others do not have it like
Arabic.

2. All languages are equally complex

There is no simple language. A language which might be simple in some aspects is
difficult in others. For instance, tenses in English are more complicated than their
counterparts in Arabic. Let us consider the following tenses in English:

1. They drank a cup of tea.

2. They had drunk a cup of tea before they came.
3. They have drunk a cup of tea.
4. They have been drinking a cup of tea.
On the other hand, “adjectives” in Arabic are more complex than that of English
since they agree with the nouns they qualify in number and gender. Let us consider the
following examples:

1. Alwalad altaweel
2. Albint altawilah
3. Alwaladan altawilan
4. Albintan altawilatan
5. Alawlad altiwal
6. Albanat altawilat

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3. Language is a System of Systems

Linguists view language as a system which consists of six sub-systems, namely:
phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences and discourse. Each subsystem has its
own rules and constitutes a system by itself. For example, phonology is a system by itself.
It is the systematic organization of sounds in the language. This system (phonology)
together with the other five systems constitute a large system which is language.

4. Spoken Language vs. Written Language

Linguists make a distinction between oral and written language and they consider the
former as primary and the latter as secondary. They make this distinction because all
languages are oral, but there are a number of languages which do not have a writing system
such as Balochi in Oman.

Speech is spoken and heard, while writing is written and read. Speech typically conveys
more explicit information than writing. Furthermore, human beings everywhere can speak,
but there are still many illiterate people who cannot read or write.

5. Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Rules of Grammar

Prescriptive rules of grammar are what speakers should or should not say. For
example, one common prescriptive rule says: “Do not end a sentence with a preposition.”
For example, * Do you want to go me with?

However, native speakers often say:

What is it made of?

This is the house which I live in.

Who do you want to speak to?

Another common prescriptive rule says: “ Do not split infinitives” while native speakers
often say: “You need to really think about it”. A third example is:

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

Ahmad and I went to school.

vs.

Ahmad and me went to school.

That is according to the prescriptive rules of English grammar, the correct sentence will be
“Ahmed and I went to school.” But native English speakers say: “Ahmed and me went to
school”.

The process of prescribing rather than describing has created a set of English
grammatical rules that sometimes fail to describe what native speakers actually say. Thus,
descriptive rules of grammar are what native speakers say, and when and how they say
them (and not whether they should or should not say them.)

Linguists are more concerned with descriptive than prescriptive rules of grammar. In
other words, they describe what native speakers actually say and they ignore the
prescriptive rules of a language.

6. Competence vs. Performance

Linguistic competence is what one knows about language while linguistic performance is
one’s actual language use. In other words, competence involves “knowing” the language
and performance involves “doing” something with the language.

Linguists use the distinction between competence and performance to illustrate the
intuitive difference between accidentally saying: “* I putted the book on the table.” and the
fact that a learner of English may not know that the past tense of “put” is “put” and say
“*putted” all the time.

7. All languages change all the time

Language is always changing. It varies across time. The rate of change is very
slow. Generation by generation, pronunciation evolves, words develop or decay and the
irregular grammatical rules tend to be regular and simple. For example, in my school days,
the following expressions were considered grammatically incorrect:

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

‘I will do it.’

‘two curriculums’

‘Three vocabularies’

We had to use

‘I shall do it.’ and

‘ two curricula’

‘three vocabulary items’ instead.

Today, the former set of expressions and the latter ones are possible in English.
Why? The answer is English has changed and will continue to change.

Branches of Linguistics
Linguistics shares common ground with other social sciences such as anthropology,
psychology, sociology, archaeology, neurology and history. As a result new disciplines of
linguistics have developed recently in connection with these fields of study. Below are the
main of these disciplines:

1. Applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is a multidisciplinary approach to the solution of language
related problems (Streven, 1992). In other words, it is an area of study and research that
deals with language related problems. It tries to find answers to these basic questions:

 What is the best method of teaching language?

 What is the best age to begin a second language?
 How to asses language skills?
 What is the best textbook for teaching/learning language?
 How languages are learned?
 What is the best syllabus of teaching language?
 How can we give the language learner feedback?

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It is a field of study that benefits from the other fields of study such as linguistics,
psychology, education, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. In short, Applied
linguistics is solving the problems of language learning and teaching with the help of the
recent findings in linguistics, education, psychology, sociology, anthropology and cultural
studies.

Applied Linguistics began life in 1956 when the School of Applied Linguistics at
the University of Edinburgh was opened. One year later (1957), the Center of Applied
Linguistics was opened in the capital of the USA. It is one of the fields to which language
learning and teaching is referable. Applied linguists are interested in “How to help people
learn language”. They bridge the gap between the linguistic theories and the actual needs of
language teaching/learning such as syllabus design.

2. Anthropological linguistics

Anthropological linguistics is the study of language and culture and how they
interact. Anthropological linguists study, for instance, the kinship terms across cultures and
how members of a community communicate with one another in certain cultural and social
events.

Table (2-1)

Term Arabic English

ʕam uncle
Father’s brother

Mother’s brother khal uncle

Mother’s sister khalah aunt

Father’s wife khalah step mother

Mother’s husband ʕam step father

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3. Comparative linguistics

The main goal of this branch of linguistics is to establish the points of similarity and
divergence of two or more languages. For instance in English the adjective usually goes
before the noun, whereas in Arabic and French it is normally in a following position:

Arabic: = alrajul altaweel )the man the tall(.

English: The tall man

French: l’homme grand. (The man tall)

Comparative linguistics is very necessary in translating from one language to

another and therefore it is very necessary in the building of machine translation systems. It
is also a form of family tree building. It is obvious to people learning several European
languages that some are more similar than others and that there may be common roots.

Table (2-2)

Language word word word word

English daughter mother brother father

German Tochter Mutter Bruder

Swedish dotter mamma bror

Norwegian datter mor bror

Dutch dochter moeder broer

Danish datter mor bror

The table above was created using Google Translate. Use the same tool to find out the
equivalent words for father.

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4. Computational Linguistics

Computational Linguistics is the study of language using computers. It deals with

natural language processing, speech recognition, and speech synthesis.

This branch of linguistics goes back to the end of the Second World War when
attempts were made to use computers to translate from Russian into English because of the
political situation at the time. This gave birth to the first generation of computers
SYSTRAN.

Today, there are computer program packages which can perform the following
functions:

 Machine Translation

Translating texts from one natural language to another. “Al-Wafi” ,“Al-Kafi” and
Google Translate are examples of computer programs which can produce automatic
translations from Arabic into English and vice versa. They, however, require post-editing.

 Grammar and Style Checking

Provide editorial critiques of vocabulary usage, grammar, and style that improve
the quality of all sorts of writing.

 Information Extraction

Analyzing texts and answering specific questions (e.g., medical case histories)

 Speech Understanding and Speech Generation.

Telephony based information systems e.g. inquiry systems for bills, plane connections,
tele-banking and Yemen Mobile, MTN, Saba-phone inquiries.

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5. Contrastive Linguistics

Contrastive linguistics is also called Contrastive analysis. It is a method that involves

studying certain aspects in L1 (Arabic) and L2 (English) for the sake of finding out the
differences and the similarities between these aspects. The comparison between Arabic
and English will help us predict the difficulties and errors which will occur in learning
English.

Normally, we do not contrast L2 in its totality with the learners’ L1 in its totality. We
only contrast the corresponding sub-systems from the two languages. For example, we
may contrast the prepositions of Arabic the mother tongue of Yemeni learners with the
prepositions of English (L2). Or we may contrast the articles of Arabic with the articles
of English.

Given below are a few sentences produced by Yemeni learners learning English as a
foreign language. Study the example below and then point out what is wrong about
these sentences.

Example, * The teacher is very angry from me.

Correct English: The teacher is very angry with me.

1. * The weather affected on me.

2. * Teacher, will you learn me English?
3. * Are you empty?
4. * Any service?
5. * It depends on the envelopes.
6. * The book which I bought it very useful.
7. * He refused to drink the medicine.
8. * I want from you to tell me the time.
9. * Our class is in Saturday.
10. * The money is everything in the life.

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6. Descriptive Linguistics

As its name implies, descriptive linguistics describes the grammar of particular

languages. It accounts for the sounds, the parts of speech and how we can put words
together to form sentences. It also describes the form and functions of language. Form is
the means by which a linguistic element is expressed in speaking or writing. Function is
the purpose for which an element of language is used. So sentences of the same form may
have different functions. For example, interrogative sentences in the form of questions may
perform a variety of different functions as illustrated in the following table.

Table (2-3)

Statement Form Function

(Literal (Intended
Meaning) Meaning)

Are you Yemeni? Question Question

Can you open the window? Question Request

Aren’t these sweets delicious? Question Admiration

That dog bites. Statement Warning

This is a beautiful car. Statement Statement/

Compliment

7. Generative Linguistics

Generative linguistics is the most recent school which stresses the idea of language
working as a rule system. So according to this school a grammatical sentence is one where
the set of rules can be applied to derive its structure. It was proposed by Noam Chomsky in
1957. According to Chomsky, TGG allows us to generate an unlimited number of
sentences (Surface Structures) from a limited number of sentences (Deep Structures) via
phrase structure rules and transformational rules.

Let us consider the following example:

Someone did something.

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We can generate unlimited number of surface structure sentences from this DS sentence by
applying the Transformational rules. That is “Someone” can be transformed into unlimited
number of nouns and pronouns such as Ali, Amal, Arwa, Khalid Abdu, he, she, they, .etc.
Similarly, “Something” can be transformed to an unlimited number of nouns and pronouns.

 The student wrote the message.

 The teacher explained the lesson.
 The farmer planted the farm.
 The doctor treated the patient…..

8. Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change and the relationships of

languages to each other. The study of the development of a language at a certain point in
time is termed synchronic (with time), while the study of a language at different points on
the time dimension is termed diachronic (through time).

Figure ( 2 – 1)
Time2
Time1 Describing
changes between Describing
Describing ‘articles’ in
the 2 systems =
‘articles’ in Old Diachronic Modern English
English
Synchronic
Synchronic

9. Neurolinguistics

Neurolinguistics is the study of the brain and how it functions in the production and
acquisition of language. In other words, it is the study of the function of the brain in
language processing.

10. Philosophical linguistics

It is the study of language in relation to philosophy. Another term is Linguistic

Philosophy which explores the relationship between language and reality. The main topics
in philosophical linguistics include the nature of meaning, reference, intentionality,
concepts and thoughts. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates are famous philosophers of language

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in the ancient world. They lived in the 5th Century BC. In the modern world, Noam
Chomsky is a case in point.

11. Psycholinguistics

Psychology is the study of the mind. Thus, Psycholinguistics is the study of the
relationship between language and the mind. It includes:

 First Language Acquisition: how children acquire their first

language.
 Second Language Acquisition: how children/adults acquire a
second language.
 Language Processing: how language is used to code and
decode ideas, concepts, etc. How we produce and understand
language.

12. Structural Linguistics

This school of linguistics attempts to observe all the elements of language, perhaps
starting at the lowest level with the single sounds that go to make up the sound of a word.
After listing all of these, it could go on to list all possible combinations.

For example: Birds fly. (Su + V)

She is clever. (Su + V + SC)

Ahmed wrote a letter. (Su + V + DO), etc.

13. Sociolinguistics

It is the study of interrelationships of language and social structure, linguistic

variation, and attitudes toward language. In other words, it is the study of the social aspect
of language. Topics such as dialects, gender differences, class differences are the main
focus of sociolinguistics.

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Exercise on Unit Two

1. What is linguistics?

2. What is a linguist?

3. Write short notes with examples on:

a. Computational linguistics.
b. Psycholinguistics
c. Comparative linguistics.
d. Applied linguistics
e. Neurolinguistics.
f. Sociolinguistics.

4. How can you differentiate between:

a. Synchronic vs. diachronic study of language?

b. Form vs. function of language?

c. First language acquisition vs. second language acquisition?

d. Competence vs. performance?

e. Prescriptive vs. descriptive.

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

UNIT THREE

The Origin of Language and the Development of Writing:

Where did language come from? When and how did it come to be used by human
beings? How did the first language develop into several languages today? Below are some
answers for these questions.

a. The Divine Source

From the point of view of religion, language is a gift from God to Adam. The Holy
Qura’n states l “And He taught Adam the nature of all things; then He placed them before
the angels, and said: “Tell Me the nature of these if ye are right” ”They said: ”Glory to
Thee: of knowledge. We have none, save what Thou hast taught us: in truth it is Thou Who
art perfect in knowledge and wisdom.” “He said: “O Adam! Tell them their natures.’ When
he had told them, Allah said: ”Did I not tell you that I know the secrets of heavens and
earth, and I know what ye reveal and what ye conceal?” Al-Baqarah 31-33.

Various fields of study have attempted to address the above questions. These fields
include: anthropology, human behavior, neurology, anatomy, developmental psychology,
linguistics, etc.

b. The Innateness of language

This theory is in harmony with the Divine source. According to this theory, language
appears to be biologically innate. In this regard, G. Lewes in his book entitled “The Study of
Psychology” says:

“Just as birds have wings, man has language. The wings give the bird its peculiar
aptitude for aerial locomotion. Language enables man’s intelligence and passions to
acquire their peculiar characters….”

The advocates of the innateness argue that as birds sing songs, human beings use language
to express their feelings. In other words the brains of spiders enable them to weave

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wonderful webs and the brains of bees enable them to build wonderful beehives. Similarly,
the brains of human beings enable them to acquire language. The American linguist, Noam
Chomsky, calls this innate capacity LAD. That is Language Acquisition Device.

In his book entitled “Language and Mind”, Chomsky points out: “When we study human
language, we are approaching what some might call the “human essence,” the distinctive
qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.”

c. The Evolution Theory

The evolutionary theory speculates that in the course of evolution human beings developed
the ability to speak language. In his book entitled From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of
Language, Michael Corballis2 stated that human language did not develop from the cries of
the apes, but from the gestures of man’s hands and face. He also suggests that there are
many differences between human beings and apes, but there are many similarities between
human beings and birds. Birds can sing and some of them (parrots) can speak a few words.
Birds can also store food till winter time and have the ability to remember where food was
stored.

d. The Sounds of Nature

Some scholars suggested that human language developed while people were imitating
sounds of nature such as the sound of a barking dog or the sound of thunder, etc.

 The ‘bow-wow’ theory: According to this theory, language originated

while people were imitating the sounds in nature which are
‘onomatopoeic’ words such as ‘bow-wow’(sound of a dog), ‘bang’, ‘clip’,
‘ding-dong’, ‘puff‘, etc.

 The ‘ding-dong’ theory: This theory believes that there is a connection

between the rhythm of language and the movements it represents (oral
gestures) e.g., ‘mama’ , ‘papa’, ‘bye-bye.

2
Corballis, Michael (2002) From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language. Princeton University Press.

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 The ‘la-la’ theory: people initiated sounds of love.

 The ‘pooh-pooh’ theory : The beginning of human language was there
when people made sounds of anger and pain to express their emotional
feelings.
 The ‘yo-he-ho’ theory: people produced rhythmical grunts.
Spoken vs. Written Language

The spoken form of language is the ability to express one’s thoughts and emotions
by speech sounds. By its nature, the spoken language disappears as soon as it is produced.
Yule (1993) calls this phenomenon ‘rapid fade’.

Unlike speech, writing is information storage. It transmits thoughts to a reader even

after the passage of time, and even after the writer is dead. In this way economic and
cultural notions can be passed on between generations.

Linguists consider the ‘spoken’ language as primary and the ‘written’ language as
secondary. They argue that many languages in the world have only spoken forms and no
written forms. Spoken is also a skill that can be acquired subconsciously, whereas ‘writing’
is a skill that has to be learned consciously. An evidence of this might be that all normal
human beings in the world speak a form of language, but the illiterate ones cannot read or
write even their names.

Table (3-1)

Feature Spoken language Written language

Symbols Sounds letters (alphabet)

Duration Disappears immediately Stays for long time

Function Interaction Transaction

Change Dynamic Static

Form Represents dialects Represents Standard

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The table above sums up the differences between the spoken language and the
written one.

The Development of Writing

Before the development of alphabets, human beings used different ways to record
their thoughts and ideas. They started doing that by means of drawing pictures on stones
which is termed as ‘Pictograms’ (writing with pictures). By their nature, pictograms
represent only the concrete objects and not the abstract ones. Then pictures were used to
represent ideas that are called ‘Ideograms’, as illustrated in the following 3 pictures:

Figure (3-1): Pictograms

1 2 3

The drawing of a balance (1) above could represent a balance. This is a pictogram. It could
represent the idea of ‘justice’. This is an ideogram. Similarly, the drawing of a finger (2)
above could represent a finger. This is a pictogram. It could represent the idea of the ‘Ones
of Allah’. This is an ideogram. Now can you identify the ideogram in picture #3?

After that, pictures were simplified and drawn leaving out much details and this
gave birth to what is known as ‘Logograms’ in which a simplified picture represented a
word.

Figure (3-2): Logograms

= tree = child = sun

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The Alphabets

The oldest known writing system using an alphabet was written by the Phoenicians
who were residing Bilad Al-Sham, what is now Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Their
alphabet had 22 letters. About 4000 years ago, the Phoenicians who were great sailors and
traders, used these alphabets to show ownership and to record exchanges of goods. The use
of a "tally" as a receipt was simple and memorable confirmation of a transaction.

Their alphabet which was a combination of lines, circles and triangles developed
into a successful writing system.

The Arabic Alphabet

The Arabic alphabet originated in around the 4th century AD, from the alphabet of
the Nabataeans, originally Aramaic tribes living in the north, east and south of Sinai(
Egypt). It consisted of 22 letters. Then around 53 H.(675 AD) Abu Al-Aswad Al-Douali, 3a
famous Arab linguist, reformed the Arabic alphabet by introducing the dot system as to
differentiate between the following pairs of letters:
- ‫ ح –خ[ و ]د – ذ[ و ]ر – ز[ و ]س – ش[ و ]ص – ض[ و ]ط – ظ[ و ]ع – غ[ و ]ف‬-‫ ن [ و ]ج‬-‫ ث‬-‫ ت‬-‫]ب‬
[‫ق‬

After that, a system of three vowel marks (diacritics) (Dhumah, Fathah and Kisrah) which
are written above or below the consonant as to show the vowel was introduced.

Figure (3-3)

The Latin Alphabet

3
Dhaif, Shouqi (1979) Al-Madaris Al-Nahwiah, Cairo: Dar Al-Marif

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The Greeks got their alphabet from the Phoenicians about 2800 years ago. They
modified the letter shapes and added vowels to suit their own language, eventually deciding
on writing from left to right and adding spaces between words. Then The Romans adopted
the Greek alphabets.

The Roman alphabet that the English language uses today is almost the same as that
written by the Romans two thousand years ago. It has 26 symbols.

One of the problems with the English written language is that it still represents the
pronunciation of the language several centuries ago. The word night, for example, is today
pronounced /nite/; the spelling ‘night’ reflects the former pronunciation.

Another problem with this alphabet is the frequent mismatch between the sounds of
the language and the symbols (letters) they represent. There are several examples in which
a single sound is represented by 2 or more different shapes (letters) as illustrated below.

Figure (3-4)

ph gh

f
Fan, philosophy, enough Car King Queen

,
philosophy enough

On the other hand, there are several examples in which a single symbol (letter)
represents 2 or more sounds. For example, the letter ‘c’ in ‘cycle’ or ‘ice-cream’ is
pronounced as [s] and [k] respectively. Similarly, the letter ‘s’ in ‘cats’ and ‘dogs’ is
pronounced as [s] and [z] respectively. Thus, there is a frequent mismatch between the
spelling of a word and its pronunciation. This reason among others led to the development
of IPA.

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The value of the IPA is that it enables the sound/pronunciation of a word to be

written down. This new alphabet came to solve the problem of the mismatch between the
way words are written and the way they are pronounced. This is particularly true of
English. For example, ‘write’ and ‘right’ are both pronounced in the same way. When
written using the IPA, they are both the same /raɪt/.

The IPA symbols listed here are the ones used in the Revised and Updated Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. By A.S. Hornby.

Consonants
1. p as in pen 13. s as in so

2. b as in bad 14. z as in zoo

3. t as in tea 15. ∫ as in she

4. d as in did 16. ʒ as in vision

5. k as in cat 17. h as in how

6. g as in got 18. m as in man

7. ʧ as in chin 19. n as in no

8. ʤ as in June 20. ŋ as in sing

9. f as in fall 21. l as in leg

10. v as in voice 22. r as in red

11. θ as in thin 23. j as in yes

12. ð as in then 24. w as in wet

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Vowels and diphthongs

1. i: as in see 11. з: as in fur

2. ɪ as in sit 12. ə as in ago

3. e as in ten 13. eɪ as in page

4. æ as in hat 14. əƱ as in home

5. a: as in arm 15. aɪ as in five

6. o as in got 16. aƱ as in now

7. ɔ: as in saw 17. ɔɪ as in join

8. Ʊ as in put 18. ɪə as in near

9. u: as in too 19. eə as in hair

10. as in cup 20. Ʊə as in pure

Activities:

a. Look up the words ‘some’, and ‘sum’ in your dictionary. To the right of the entry you
will see some IPA symbols enclosed in slanted brackets, e.g., /s m/. Check to see if
the IPA symbols of the 2 words are the same or different?
b. Check from the dictionary the IPA symbols used for ‘law’ and ‘shore’. Write down
the symbol which is used to show that they both have the same vowel sound.
c. Check from the dictionary the IPA symbols used for the initial sound in ‘then’ and
‘thin’. Are they the same or different?
d. Rewrite the following in phonetic transcription:
‘In English, there is a frequent mismatch between the spelling of a word and its
pronunciation.’

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Exercises on Unit Three

1. “And He taught Adam the names of all things; then He placed them before the
angels, and said: “Tell Me the names of these if ye are right.” The Holy Qur’an:
Al-Baqarah (31). In the light of this verse, comment critically on the speculations
concerning the origin of human language.
2. ‘There is often a mismatch between the written form of some words and the way
they are pronounced’. Illustrate this fact .
3. What is IPA? How do IPA symbols differ from ordinary alphabets?
4. Explain and illustrate the following terms:
a. rapid fade
b. logograms
c. ideograms
d. The ‘Bow-wow’ theory
5. How does the “spoken” language differ from the “written” language?
6. Write short notes with examples on:
a. The development of alphabets.

b. The Arabic Alphabet.

c. The Latin alphabet.

d. Interactional vs. transactional function of language.

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UNIT FOUR

World Languages

How many languages are there in the world? There are about 6,800 languages in the
world and they differ in their sound systems and grammatical structures. Below are the
most widely spoken languages in the world (including first and second language
speakers).

Table (4-1)
Language Number of Speakers

Mandarin Chinese 1,365 million

English 1500 million

Hindi 490 million

Spanish 500 million

Russian 277 million

Arabic 293 million

Bengali 215 million

Portuguese 240 million

French 220 million

German 169 million

Adapted from (www.krysstal.com)

Classification of Languages

Linguists classify the 6800 languages of the world into groups based on either their
(1) morphological structures (how words are formed), (2) typological structure (order of
sentence elements), or (3) history (language family trees):

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1. Classification by Word Form

Linguists classify languages of the world into groups based on how words are
formed: Synthetic or Analytic.

 Synthetic Languages
A synthetic language is characterized by the use of inflections to signify
grammatical and other meanings (e.g. Arabic, classical Greek and Latin)

 Analytic Languages
An Analytic language is characterized by word order and function words
(prepositions, articles, auxiliaries, conjunctions) to signify grammatical and other meanings
(Modern English)

2. Classification by Word Order

Linguists have also classified languages into groups based on the sequence of the
sentence elements, i.e., Subject, Verb, Object. Thus, the languages of the world are
classified into the following six possible combinations:

1. SVO [English, French,…] e.g. [The boy ate the apple.]

2. VSO [Arabic, Hebrew,…] e.g. [akala alwaladu altofahata.] (Ate the boy the apple).

3. OSV [Jamamadi (Mexico)]

4. SOV [Turkish, Japanese, Korean,

5. VOS [Malagasy]

6. OVS [Apalai, Makusi (Mexican Languages)]

This classification is based on the ‘Basic’ pattern of each language. Arabic, for
example, is classified as a [VSO] language, however, we can find the following examples:

VSO: e.g., [akala alwaladu altofahata] (Ate the boy the apple)

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SVO [ alwaladu akala altofahata] (The boy ate the apple)

OVS [al?olama yahtarimuhum al-nass] (People respect the scholars).

Most of the languages favor the first pattern, i.e., [SVO].

3. Classification by Family Tree

The 6800 languages of the world belong to about 20 language families such as
Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic), Indo-European, Bantu, Sino-Tibetan, etc. Languages of the
same family tree are related and have the same history. They also have similarities in
vocabulary in the following categories:

1. Physical Environment

Animals: fish, eagle, bear, wolf, (Words like ’tiger’ and ‘lion’ are absent).

Ideology: god, rule, mind

Society: queen, prince, father, mother, brother, sister, ..

Food: harvest, goat, corn, sew,…

Words like : star, year, month, etc.

2. General Terms

Numbers: two to ten

Verbs: be, stand, sit, lie, swallow,..

Adjectives: old, young, new, tall, nice,..

Therefore, their sounds, words, grammars are similar. This does not mean that
every language in the same family tree has all the same words. It only means there are
some similarities which may be traced back to the original parent language.

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The table below shows the word for ‘month’, ‘father’ and ‘one’ in some Indo-
European languages compared with ‘shahr’, ‘abb’, and ‘wahid’ in Arabic that belongs to a
(non Indo-European) language family. This table was generated using Google Translator.
You can translate the words “two”, “three”, “four”, etc. into the languages mentioned in
the table below:

Table (4-2)

English month father one

Dutch maand vader een

German Monat Vater ein

Swedish månad far en

Greek minas pater ένας

French mois pere un

Spanish mes padre uno

Portuguese mês pai um

Italian mese padre uno

Arabic (Hamito-Semitic) shahr abb wahid

Words in one language that are similar in form and meaning to words in a different
language because the two languages are related are called ‘cognates’. For example, the
English word: ‘father’, in the table above, is a cognate with the Dutch ‘vader’ and the
German ‘Vater’. There are also cases in which 2 words in 2 languages are similar, but are
‘borrowings’ and not cognates.

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Table (4-3)

Arabic English Borrowing

‫الكحول‬ alcohol A E
‫راديو‬ radio A E
‫انتفاضة‬ Intifadhah A E
‫سينماء‬ cinema A E

Words that seem similar, but are not, are known as False Cognates. Another term is
the French one ‘Faux amis’ meaning ‘False friends’. An example of that is the French word
‘l’experience’ meaning ‘the experiment’ and not ‘the experience’.

Let us now take a brief look at some of the largest language families, namely: the
Indo-European Family of languages to which the language that we study (English) belongs
and the Hamito-Semitic family of languages to which our Mother Tongue (Arabic)
belongs. Each language family tree includes many individual languages.

The Indo-European Family

Figure (4-1)

Indo European

Centum Languages Satem Languages

Germanic Hellenic Celtic Italic Balto-Slavic Indo-Iranian

Irish Latin

East West North Portuguese Russian Hindi Farisi

High Low Swedish Spanish French

German Old Saxon Anglo-Frisian

Old English

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

The Indo European family is divided into two major branches: The Centum4
(Western) and the Satem (Eastern).

a. The Centum(Western)

This branch includes languages in West Europe including:

Germanic (German, English,.. )

Hellenic (Greek)

Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Manx, Welsh,..)

Italic (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian,..)

b. The Satem (Eastern)

Balto-Slavic (Russian,..)

Indo-Iranian ( Hindi, Persian, Urdu,..)

The Hamito-Semitic Family

Figure (4 – 2)

Hamito-Semitic

Hemitic Semitic

S W E

Coptic Somali Berber Arabic Ethiopian

Hebrew Assyrian Babylonia

The Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) family is divided into two major branches: the Semitic
and the Hemitic

4
The hundred languages

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

a. The Semitic :This branch includes our Mother Tongue (Arabic) and its
sisters or cousins such as Babylonian, Assyrian, Hebrew…
b. The Hemitic: This branch includes languages in Africa such as Berber,
Coptic, Somali,..

Activities:

a. Write down one language for each letter of the alphabet (A-Z) e.g., (a=
Arabic – z = Zulu). You can use your dictionary.
b. Check from an encyclopedia or a large dictionary the origin of the
following English words: Banana, tea, shampoo, tariff
c. Write down from an encyclopedia or a large dictionary the origin of :
10 English words of Arabic origin and

10 Arabic words of English origin.

Exercise on Unit Four

1. In What ways are the languages within the same language family similar?
2. After drawing the family tree of the Indo-European languages, comment
briefly on its branches and sub-branches.
3. Show the place of the Arabic language in the Hamito-Semitic family of
languages.
4. What are cognates? Give examples.
5. Discuss the different ways of classifying languages?
6. Complete the following sentences:
a. In the world of today, about …....of the world’s population speak English.
b. English is the …….... language in the world in terms of its geographical
spread.
c. The relationship between English and ......... is as that between French and
Latin.
d. English is ranked ............... in terms of the number of speakers.

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

e. English comes from the ..…......Germanic branch of the Indo-European family

of languages.
f. Modern English borrowed its alphabet from .............

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UNIT FIVE

History of the English Language

In the previous Unit we saw that English belongs to the Indo European family of
languages. It comes from the West Germanic branch. The history of the English language
is divided into the following three stages:

The Old English Period: 449- 1066 AD

The Middle English Period: 1066 – 1476 AD

The Modern English Period: 1476 – to the present

Old English (449-1066 AD)

The Britons were the earliest inhabitants of the British Isles. They spoke Briton which
belongs to the Celtic group of languages. In 55 BC the Romans invaded Britain and it
became part of the Roman Empire until AD 410. The Roman army left Britain to defend
Rome, the capital of the Romans.

In 449, the first group of the Germanic invaders arrived in Britain. They were three tribes
called the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. They came from what is today called
Germany, Denmark and Holland. The Angles settled in the north of Britain. The Saxons
settled in the west of Britain and the Jutes settled in Kent (south east of Britain). The
Germanic tribes brought with them the Runic alphabet and their own dialects.

The Dialects of Old English

1. Northumbrian: This dialect was spoken by the Angles who settled in the north of
Britain.
2. Mercian: This dialect was spoken by the Angles who settled in the middle of Britain.

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 Lectures on Introduction to Language, 2017

3. Kentish: This dialect was spoken by the Jutes who settled in Kent in the south east of
Britain.
4. Wessex : This dialect was spoken by the Saxons who settled in the west of Britain.
This dialect was the most important dialect because this area includes London which
was a very important place, probably the only city at that time.

After living together for a period of time a lot of mixing happened between these dialects
and a common language called Old English was born. From the name of the Angles the
name of the country Angle land was derived which became later England.

In the sixth century (597), Christianity came to Britain and started to spread. Latin was the
language of the new religion in Britain. In other words, they used Latin to say their prayers
in the churches. Therefore, a number of religious terms came to the English language at
that time.

The following Latin words are some of the words which entered English then:

angel, altar, bishop, box, candle, church, martyr, mass, mat, nun, prayer, plant, priest, and
shrine.

In the eighth century (787), the Vikings, a Scandinavian tribe, invaded some parts of the
coastal areas of Britain. As a result of this contact a number of Old Norse words entered the
English language then.

Add, egg, give, get, guess, law, leg, loose, nag, raise, sky, skin take, they, them, their and
window.

The Characteristic Features of Old English

The history of the English language is a movement from English being a synthetic
language (Old English) to an analytic language (Modern English). The direction of change
is in the direction of great simplification. Old English was a language full of inflections. In
a synthetic language like Arabic and Old English, the grammatical distinctions, i.e., gender,
tense, possessive, etc. are indicated by means of suffixes (part of a word) whereas in an

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analytic language like Modern English the grammatical distinctions are indicated by
separate words (not part of a word). For example, in Modern English we say "My book".
That is the possessive pronoun is a separate word whereas in Arabic (Synthetic) we say
"kitabi". That is the suffix "-i" is added to the root "kitab". In a synthetic language word
order is free while it is fixed in an analytic language. In Modern English there is a
difference between the following two sentences:

a. The man killed the lion.

b. The lion killed the man.

Old English shows this difference by means of inflections (affixes). Old English has four
different case markers for its nouns. They are nominative, genitive, dative and accusative.
For example, the word "stone" was in Old English "stan". It was inflicted as follows:
Nominative : stan-a

Genitive : stan-es

Dative : stan-e

Accusative : stan-as

However, in Modern English there is only one case marker for the genitive and the others
are lost. They remain only in the case of pronouns. The following examples are from
Modern English:

I saw him. (I = nominative , him = accusative)

He saw me. (He = nominative, me = accusative).

I saw my pen. (my = genitive)

This is Mohammad's pen. (Mohammad's = genitive)

That is the student's book.

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Old English, like Arabic, assigns grammatical gender to its nouns. That is every noun is
said to be either masculine or feminine. Grammatical gender is assigning gender to nouns
in an illogical way. For example, the word alqamar "moon" in Arabic is masculine and the
word alshams "sun" is feminine whereas in French la lune the word for "the moon" is
feminine and the word le soliel "the sun" is masculine.

Unlike Old English, Modern English assigns natural gender to its nouns. It is natural in the
sense that all male nouns are assigned masculine and the female nouns are assigned
feminine. The neutral nouns such as table, book, pen, moon, sun,..etc are neuter and we
refer to them by using the pronoun it.

Duality was also a feature of Old English, but it is lost in Modern English. Today we refer
to 2 people as they i.e., plural whereas in Old English there existed a pronoun to refer to 2
people like in Classical Arabic antuma.

Old English spelling was different from the spelling in Modern English. The Old English
uses the Runic alphabet while Modern English uses the Roman alphabet. For example, the
letter k was not part of the alphabet. It was written as c. Another example is that the
combination of letters sh as in English was written as Englisc.

Many languages have contributed words to Modern English, but the basic words that
commonly used are of Anglo Saxon origin. These include prepositions, like to, from, for,
with, under;

Most of the pronouns, like I, we, your, his;

Many of the common nouns and verbs, like house, man, woman, child, meat, eat, food,
ride, was, were, write, etc.

Middle English (1066 – 1476 AD)

King Edward was the last king of the Old English period. He assumed power as the King of
England in 1042. His mother was a French princess and he received his education in
France. He was surrounded by French nobilities. He brought a lot of people from France to

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England and gave them jobs. He was childless and died in 1066. His cousin, Harold,
succeeded him as the king of England for a few months. In December 1066, William the
Conqueror, a French leader from Normandy, invaded England and killed King Harold in
the battle of Hastings. This marks the formal beginning of the French influence on the
English language.

For 200 years, two languages were spoken simultaneously without any mixing. The king,
the rulers and the rich people (nobility) spoke French while the farmers and the ordinary
people spoke English. The names of the animals and their meat illustrate this. The animals
were looked after by the farmers who speak English. Therefore, the English terms
continued to be used to refer to such animals. The meat of such animals was bought by the
nobility. Therefore, the name of the meat is of French origin.

Animal (English) Meat (French)

Cow/ ox beef

Calf veal

Sheep mutton

Goat lamb

Pig pork

The legal terms were introduced into English through the French influence, e.g.,

Court, judge, jury, justice, punishment, cheat, etc.

Modern English (1500 – present)

The Modern English period starts with the invention of printing press. In 1476, William
Caxton introduced printing press into England from Germany. Caxton standardized the
English language by selecting the East Midland dialect as a standard language. He also
stabilized spelling. Therefore, the way we spell words today is the way it was spelled at the
time of Caxton. He stabilized the spelling, but he could not do that to pronunciation, so

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over a period of time a gap exited between the spelling of some words and their
pronunciation.

Night, light, right, eight, island, comb, thumb, etc.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) belonged to Early Modern English. There were three
big developments in the world at the beginning of Early Modern English period: the
Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the British Colonialism.

It was during the Renaissance that most of the words from Greek and Latin entered
English. This period in English cultural history (early 16th century to the early 17th
century) is sometimes referred to as the Shakespearian Age or the Elizabethan Era,
taking the name of the English Renaissance's most famous author and most important
monarch, respectively.

Words related to Fine Arts and music were introduced into English because of the
influence of Italy, e.g., guitar, lute, opera, sonata.

England began the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. As a result, new technical
words were added to the vocabulary of the English language as inventors designed various
products and machinery. Therefore, many words entered the English language such as
camera, electricity, lamp, microscope, train, engine, telephone, telegraph, radio, telescope,
etc.

The Modern English period is mainly characterized by the borrowing of words from other
languages. During the 18th and 20th centuries the British Empire settled in many parts of
the world such as the USA, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. This contact between
the English language and the languages used in these countries resulted in the addition of
many new words to the English vocabulary. For example, alcohol and algebra are Arabic
words, shampoo and turban are Indian and tea and ketchup came from China.

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Activity

Choose the correct answer

1. From 1066- 1250, English was the language of the ……

a. King b. Nobles c. Priests d. Farmers

2. In the Middle English period about …… words entered into English from French.
a. 50 b. 10,000 c. 50,000 d. 100,000

3. The 3rd person plural pronouns “they”, “them” and “their” made their way into English
in the..………..century.
a. 6th b. 10th c. 12th d. 15th

4. Before 1066, when an Englishman slaughtered a “sheep” for food, he ate………

a. veal b. mutton c. beef d. sheep

5. The earliest inhabitants of Britain were the ………

a. Romans b. Picts c. Britons d. Anglo-Saxons

6. The original language of Britain was…………

a. Celtic b. English c. Latin d. German

7. The place names Derby and Rugby are loan words from......
a. Old Norse b. French c. Greek d. German
8. From which language have the following words come into the English we use
today: government, crime, dinner, story, army and court?
a. Celtic b. German c. French d. Old Norse

9. The Normans were the ……..invaders of Britain.

a. first b. second c. only d. last

10. English is the ……..language in the world in terms of its geographical spread.
a. first b. second c. third d. fourth

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11. The language spoken by the Danes was ………..

a. French b. Latin c. Old Norse d. Celtic

12. From which language have the following words come into the English we use
today: give, take, get, birth, death, and ill?
a. German b. French c. Celtic d. Old Norse

13. Modern English is a(n)…………… language.

a. synthetic b. leveled c. analytic d. inflected

14. English borrowed its numerical systems from…

a. Arabic & French b. Arabic& Latin

c. Latin &Greek d. Latin &Old Norse.

15. From which language have the following words come into the English we use today:
prophet, priest, heaven, hell, angel and creed?
a. Celtic b. German c. Old Norse d. Latin
Activity Two: In the following sentences, identify the “FALSE” ones and write their
correct versions. For the correct ones put a tick (√) in the space below each one.

1. The Normans were Scandinavian tribes in origin.

2. The birth of the English language goes back to the 5th century.
3. The Angles settled in the south of Britain.
4. Word order has a fundamental role in Old English.
5. The Anglo Saxons were Germanic tribes.
6. Chaucer introduced printing press into Britain.
7. Normandy is a region in south Scandinavia.
8. The Vikings were Scandinavian tribes.

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UNIT SIX

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics which describes the production of speech sounds. The
main types of phonetics are: articulatory phonetics, auditory phonetics, and acoustic
phonetics.

Articulatory Phonetics

Articulatory phonetics is concerned with the production of speech sounds in terms of

the state of the vocal cords (voiced or voiceless), the place of articulation (bilabial, alveolar,
velar, etc.), and the manner of articulation (stop, nasal, fricative, etc.).

Auditory Phonetics
Auditory Phonetics is concerned with how the listener perceives the speech sounds. In
other words, it focuses on the impact that speech sounds make on the eardrum of the
listener.

Acoustic Phonetics
Acoustic phonetics is the study of speech waves as the output of the vocal tract. In other
words, it describes the volume, pitch, etc. of speech sounds as they travel in the
atmosphere. A spectrograph may be used to record significant characteristics of speech
waves. The following is a spectrograph of the writer’s Arabic pronunciation of “Bismillah
Alrahman Al-Rahiem and his name.

Figure (5 – 1): A Spectrograph

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Of these three types of phonetics, we will present a brief account of articulatory

phonetics including speech sounds and their place and manner of articulation.

Speech Organs

Figure (5-2) The Vocal Tract

This figure shows us the organs that are used in the production of sounds and the
three cavities through which the air coming from the lungs goes out. They are:

1. The Pharyngeal Cavity

2. The Oral Cavity

3. The Nasal Cavity

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Table (5-1) The Articulators and their Latin and Arabic Terms

Place of Articulation Adjective Arabic

(Latin) Term
(Upper + Lower) lips (Bi)labial ‫شفوي‬
(Upper+ lower) teeth Dental ‫سني‬
Alveolar ridge Alveolar ‫لثوي‬
Palate Palatal ‫غاري‬
Velum Velar ‫طبقي‬
Uvula Uvular ‫لهوي‬
Front of tongue Anterior ‫امامي‬
Back of tongue Posterior ‫خلفي‬
Mouth (oral cavity) Oral ‫فمي‬
Nose (nasal cavity) Nasal ‫انفي‬
Pharynx Pharyngeal ‫بلعومي‬
Glottis Glottal ‫مزماري‬

This table shows us the main articulators involved in the production of speech
sounds, the Latin terms used to describe sounds and their Arabic equivalents. There are
also other secondary articulators which are simply a combination of two articulators. For
instance, the lower lip and the upper teeth are involved in the production of /f/ & /v/ and
are called “Labiodentals”. See Table (5-5).

Classification of Sounds

Speech sounds are classified into 3 types: Consonants, Semi-Consonants

and Vowels.

Figure (5-3) Classification of sounds

Speech Sounds

Consonants Semi-consonants Vowels

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I. Consonants

We will begin with consonants because they are easier to describe and understand.
Furthermore, they contribute more to making words understood than vowels do. For
example, the sentences “ thy r frm Ymn”. Or “C- n y-- t- ll m – th- w-y t- B-b –lY-m-n”
are easy for a reader to understand even though all the vowel letters have been left out.
Consonants form the bones of words and give them their basic shape.

The following table displays all the English consonant sounds with examples.

Table (5-2) English Consonants

English Consonants

Symbols Examples Symbols Examples

p Paris l light, ball

b bank r run, bar

m man n nine

shoe, ash,
f feet, phone, rough ∫
sugar

measure,
v voice, love З
vision

θ thin, bath t∫ chat, batch

ð the, bathe ʤ jaw, judge, gin

t tea, cat k kick, cat

d day, bad g game

s see, glass, city ŋ king

z zoo, booze h hi

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The following table displays all the Arabic consonant sounds with examples.

Table (5-3) Arabic Consonants

Arabic Consonants

Symbols Examples Symbols Examples

b bab (door) z Zakah

m Mohammad l laiel (night)

f fikr (thought) r Ramadhan

θ thaʕlab (fox) n noom (sleep)

ð dhaki (clever) ∫ shams (sun)

t tyin (fig) k kalb (dog)

d dien (religion) g gamal (camel)

s salam (peace) h hodhud (hoopoe)

ṣ (‫)ص‬ ṣabr (patience) [x] (‫ )خ‬xal (uncle)

-ð (‫)ض‬ - ð rab (hit) [ ɤ ] (‫ )غ‬ɤ ali (expensive)

ṯ (‫)ط‬ ṯalib (student) [ ћ ] )‫ )ح‬ћ ami (hot)

ḏ (‫)ظ‬ ḏel (shadow) [ ʕ ] (‫ )ع‬ʕrabi (Arabic)

Consonants can be classified according to: (1) the state of the vocal cords, (2) the
place of articulation and (3) the manner of articulation.

1. State of the Vocal Cords

The vocal cords are two flexible tissues in the larynx. They are like projecting
lips. When they are stretched open, air passes freely between them. At other times, they
are drawn together and the passing air causes vibrations. The space between the vocal
cords is called the glottis.

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Consonants are classified into 2 groups (voiced and voiceless) based on the state of
the vocal cords. Voiced consonants are sounds in the production of which the vocal
cords vibrate, whereas voiceless consonants are produced while the vocal cords are apart
and the air goes out without any vibration.

How to Differentiate Voiced and Voiceless Sounds

Now try to feel the difference between the voiced sounds and their counterparts
voiceless sounds by yourself by :

1. putting your fingers on your outside larynx. Now say [ssssssss] and then [zzzzzzzzz].
Can you feel the difference? When you say [zzzzzz] a loud buzzing sound is
produced, but there is no such sound in the case of [ssssss].

2. Placing the palms of your hands on your ears. Now say [ssssssss] and [zzzzzzz].

Now try to differentiate between the following pairs:

Table (5-4) Voiced/Voiceless Consonants

Voiceless Consonants Voiced Consonants

p b
f v
θ ð
t d
s z
k g
∫ З
t∫ ʤ
[ m ],[n], [ŋ], [l] ,
h
[r]
ʔ j
[ṣ] (‫)ص‬ [- ð] (‫)ض‬
[ ṯ ] (‫)ط‬ [ḏ] )‫) ظ‬
[x] (‫)خ‬ [ ɤ ] (‫)غ‬
[ ћ ] )‫)ح‬ [ ʕ ] (‫)ع‬
[q]

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Exercise 1: Circle the words in which the consonant in the middle is voiced.

boxing, mother, robber, leisure, massive, razor, tracking, psychology, consonant,

chicken, paragraph, describe, stomach, sister, fishing, things, middle, phoneme.

Exercise 2 : Take this list of words and decide if the final consonant is voiced or voiceless.

1. Books

2. Wheels

3. Lived

4. Dreams

5. Seats

6. Dropped

7. Exchanged

8. Globes

9. Phones

10. Carts

11. Listened

12. organized

13. Washed

14. Traveled

15. Coats

16. Gloves

17. Shells
18. Watched
19. Started
20. Changed

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2. Place of Articulation

The second way of classifying consonants is based on their place of articulation.

Table (5-5) Place of Articulation

Pharyngeal
Alveolar
Bilabial

Alveo-

Alveo-

Uvular

Glottal
Palatal
Labio-

Dental

Dental

palatal
dental

Velar
p f θ ṯ t ∫ j k q ћ ʔ
b V ð ḏ d З g ʕ h
m ṣ s t∫ ŋ
w -ð z ʤ x
n ɤ
l
r

Bilabials

Sounds produced by the two lips such as [ p ], [ b ], [m] and [w].

Exercise: Circle the words that contain a bilabial consonant.

Student, bed, mango, nice, part, final, wet, yesterday, tomorrow, brother, nothing, dark,
morning, psychology, bomb, chapter, leisure, tomato, write, remember

Labiodentals

Sounds produced by the lower lip slightly touching the upper teeth such as [f], [v].

Exercise 1: Circle the words that start with a labiodental sound.

father, mother, photo, vitamin, TV, ship, fork, vat, chat, farmer, laugh, mark, fish, video,
foot, like, philosophy, finger, drink

Exercise 2: Circle the words that contain a labiodental consonant.

rough, teacher, enough, though, television, thought, thigh, farm, tough. graph, phoneme,
photocopy, velar, voiced

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Dentals

Dentals are sounds in the production of which the front of the tongue makes contact
with the back of the upper teeth. [θ], [ð].

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a dental consonant.

think, these, tomorrow, things, chat, throat, crab, laugh, that, write, theme, with, throat

Alveo-dentals

The Arabic sounds [ ṯ ], [ḏ], [ s ] and [- ð] are alveo-dentals which are sounds
produced by the tip of the tongue making contact with the end of the upper teeth and the
beginning of the alveolar ridge.

Exercise: Circle the words that start with an alveo-dental sound.

‫ المجتهد‬- ‫ االخالق – الصبر‬-‫المغرب – الطاهر – الظل – الضمير – العلم – الدين‬

Alveolars

Sounds produced with the front of the tongue touching the alveolar ridge such as [t], [d],
[s], [z], [n], [l], [r].

Exercise: Circle the words that start with an alveolar sound.

long, write, night, much, pneumonia, maize, dumb, psychology, contact, think, dinner,
ring, light, sister, zoo, civic, lamp

Alveo-palatals

Consonants in the production of which the front of the tongue makes contact with
the end of the alveolar ridge and the beginning of the hard palate. [∫], and [Ʒ] are alveo-
palatals.

Exercise: Circle the words that start with an alveo-palatal sound.

shine, judge, ship, chat, sun, sugar, start, shy, journal, general, get, watch, deaf, chair

Palatal

An articulation involving the front of the tongue and the hard palate, as in [j].

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Exercise: Circle the words that start with a palatal sound.

Yemen, yes, rain, university, yet, white, edge, yellow

Velars

Sounds produced involving the back of the tongue and the velum (soft palate) such
as [k], [g], [ŋ] , [x] and [ɤ].

Exercise: Circle the words that end with a velar sound.

dark, enough, economic, thing, sing, park, queen, contain, mark, strong, chicken, bring,
civic,

Uvulars

An articulation in which the Arabic sound [q] is produced. The back of the tongue is
raised towards the uvula.

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a uvular sound.

‫ ماضي‬- ‫قمر – كلب – قلب – قميص – كريم – قاضي – فاضي‬

Pharyngeals

The Arabic sounds [ћ] and [ʕ] are pharyngeals. They are produced by the root of
the tongue and the back wall of the pharynx.

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a pharyngeal sound.

‫ لغة‬- ‫ حبيب – حكيم – خالد – عدن – حميد – عربي – غربي‬- ‫علم – غريب‬

Glottals

An articulation which involves the glottis. The Glottal sounds are [h] and [ʔ].

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a glottal sound.

hammer, hour, rang, drink, home, hope, ship, health

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3. Manner of Articulation.

Stops (Plosives)

Stops are sounds in the production of which the airstream from the lungs is
completely blocked somewhere in the vocal tract and then suddenly released resulting in
a Plosive sound such as [p], [b], [t], [d], [ṯ], [ḏ], [k], [g], [q], [ʔ].

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a stop sound.

Polite, think, king, tank, nut, rag, barber, lamp, grocery, general, street, psychology,
pneumonia, cream, civilization

Nasals

Nasals are sounds in the production of which the oral cavity is blocked and the
airflow goes out from the nose. The nasals are [m], [n], and [ŋ].

Exercise: Circle the words that end with a nasal sound.

rang, dumb, rain, comb, deaf, king, column, nut, liquid, man,

Fricatives

Fricatives are sounds produced when the airstream is forced through a narrow
opening in the vocal tract so that noise produced by friction is created. They are [f], [v],
[θ], [ð], [- ð], [s], [z], [∫], [З], [ṣ], [x], [ɤ], [ћ], /ʕ/and /h/. Fricatives are further divided
into sibilants and non-sibilants.

a. Sibilants

Sibilants are sounds in the production of which a ‘hissing’ sound is produced. They are
[s], [z], [∫], [З], [ṣ] .

b. Non-sibilants

The remaining fricative sounds are [f], [v], [θ], [ð], [-ð], [x], [ɤ], [ћ], [ʕ]
and [h] . They are produced without a ‘hissing’ sound and thus they are
classified as non-sibilant fricatives.

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Exercise: Circle the words that start with a fricative sound.

Shop, frog, throat, student, farm, veal, zinc, rough, throat, chicken, sure, sky, shy, chat,
contain, rough, shrink, crab, fish

Affricates

An affricate sound is a combination of an alveolar stop ([t] or [d]) and an alveo-

palatal fricative ( [∫] or [З] ) resulting in [t∫] or [ʤ].

Exercise: Circle the words that end with an affricate sound.

much, rich, judge, back, edge, church, phonetic, teach, cheese, watch, contact, shrink

Lateral

A lateral sound is produced by the tongue blade making contact with the
alveolar ridge and the blocked air escapes from the sides of the tongue. [l] is lateral.

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a lateral sound.

Liquid, right, light, remember, rat, lamp, lemon, leather, rain

Liquids

The term ‘lateral’ is used to describe the sound [l] and the term ‘liquid’ covers
both [l] and its counterpart [r]. They are sounds in the production of which the tongue
blade is raised towards the alveolar ridge.

Exercise: Circle the words that start with a liquid sound.

little, rather, drink, rat, nut, late, lime, laugh, read

II. Semi-consonants (Semi-vowels)

As their name implies, semi-vowels are half vowels and half consonants. In other
words, they have the same phonological features as those of vowels and the same
structural features as those of consonants.

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Semi Vowels

[w] We, where, wet

[j] you, beyond

The Structural Features of a Semi –consonant

1. Like a consonant, a semi-vowel takes the article “a”.

e.g. a [ju:nІvЗ:sƏ tІ ] , a [wЗ:d].

2. A Semi-vowel cannot occur as the nucleus of a syllable.

The Phonetic Features of a Semi-vowel

Unlike consonants, the sounds [w] and [j] phonetically behave like vowels. That is
the tongue position in producing [w] is similar to the tongue position in the production of
the vowel [u:] as in too and the tongue position in pronouncing [j] is similar to that in [i:]
as in see. Furthermore, the phonological features of vowels will be discussed later in the
next unit.

Table (5-6) below summarizes the place of articulation as well as the manner of
articulation of both consonants and semi-consonants.

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Table (5-6)

Place of Articulation

Pharyngeal
Alveolar
Bilabial
Manner

Alveo-

Alveo-

Uvular

Glottal
Palatal
Labio-

Dental

Dental

palatal
dental

Velar
Plosive P ṯ t k q ʔ

B ḏ d g

Nasal M n ŋ

Fricative f θ ṣ s ∫ x ћ h
ɤ
v ð -ð z З ʕ

Affricate t∫

Lateral l

Liquid r

Semi-V. W j

III. Vowels

A vowel is a voiced sound in producing which the air comes out in a continuous
stream through the pharynx and mouth; there being no obstruction or narrowing such
could cause audible friction.

Table (5- 7) Pure Vowels5

Vowels
Symbols Examples Symbols Examples
i: sea, see cup, cut, bun
ɪ sit, hit u: due, new, zoo
e ten, men Ʊ put, book, sugar
3: fur, bird o got, hot
hat, mat ɔ: saw, law, dog
ə another, ago a arm, farm, father

5
Some linguists such as Daniel Jones differentiate between pure vowels and cardinal vowels. Pure vowels
belong to a particular language such as Arabic whereas cardinal vowels are used as a reference point in
studying the vowels of any language.

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The Vowel Chart

In order to describe the vowel sounds, we can distribute them in a chart form as
follows:

Diphthongs

As its name indicates, a diphthong is a double sound or a combination of two

vowels. In other words it is a sound that begins as one vowel and ends as another within
the same syllable such as the sound in 'boy'. We begin with the vowel sound of /ɔ / and
end with something like /ɪ/. English has eight diphthongs as illustrated below.

Table (5- 8) Diphthongs

Diphthongs

Symbols Examples Symbols Examples

eɪ page ɔɪ join

əƱ home ɪə near

aɪ five eə hair

aƱ now Ʊə pure

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Exercises on Unit Six

I. Draw an outline figure of the vocal tract and label all of its parts.
II. True or False:

Indicate whether the following statements are True or False? If a statement is false, write
its correct version.

1. [ b ], [v], [z] and [ŋ] are voiced consonants.

2. [n] and [m] are the only nasals.
3. All consonants are oral.
4. In English, voiceless sounds are more in number than the voiced ones.
5. Voiced sounds are produced because of the uvula’s vibration.
6. In English, there are 6 labial sounds.
7. All English vowels are oral.
8. The affricate sounds are [∫] , [Ʒ], [t∫] and [ʤ].
9. Arabic sounds are produced in 7 different places
10. There are 2 cavities in the vocal tract.
11. English sounds are produced in 7 different places.

II. Write the phonetic description of these sounds:

a. [d] b. [ð] c. [t∫] d. [j] e. [?] f. [θ] g. [r]

III. Write the phonetic symbol for the following:

 voiced alveolar fricative [ ]

 voiceless glottal fricative [ ]
 voiced alveo-palatal fricative [ ]
 voiced velar nasal [ ]

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IV. Match the English terminology on the left with their Latinated counterparts on the
right. The first one has been done for you.

Example: - j - Tip (of the tongue)

a. larynx

1. Teeth b. pharynx

2. Lips c. glottis

3. Vocal cords d. denti

4. Soft palate e. epiglottis

f. labia

g. velum

h. labia

i. apex

V. Describe the final sound in the following words:

Sing, comb, box, paragraph, thinks, things, tough, thumb, nice, write, fish, economic,
rough, laugh, speech

VI. Define and illustrate the following terms

phonetics, fricatives, bilabial sounds, voiced sounds, velar sounds, glottal sounds,
affricates, the uvulars, the liquids, a sibilant sound, articulatory phonetics, the alveolar
sounds, the palatal sounds, the pharyngeal sounds.

VII. Answer the following questions

1. English sounds are divided into3 types, what are they?
2. What is phonetics? How are speech sounds classified?
3. Compare and contrast the consonant sounds of Arabic with that of English.

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4. What are the different organs of speech involved in the production of English
consonants?
5. What are the different organs involved in the production of Arabic consonants?
6. How can you differentiate between a vowel and a semi-vowel?
7. In your own words explain the value of Phonetics to you and to all the students of the
departments of English in Yemen?

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UNIT SEVEN

Phonology

Phonology is the study of the system of speech sounds of a language.

Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another. For
example, /f/ and /v/ are phonemes because they make a meaning difference in the following
words:

fan van ;

strife strive.

fine vine

In the following pairs of words /p/ and /b/ are also different phonemes because they make a
meaning difference in English and not in Arabic.

back pack

bark park

bray pray

cub cup

robe rope

Minimal Pairs

Minimal pairs may be defined as two words which are identical in form except for
one phoneme occurring in the same position. They are the first method that can be used to
distinguish phonemes of a language. The following are minimal pairs in Arabic.

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/s/ / ṣ/ /q/ /k/

/sar/ / ṣar/ /qalb/ /kalb/

/mas/ /maṣ/ /qum/ /kum/

/sam/ /ṣam/ /baqi/ /baki/

Phonemes, Phones and Allophones

A phone is defined as a speech sound, while a phoneme is a minimal contrastive unit

in the sound patterns of any language. A phoneme is the unit of analysis in phonology
whereas a phone is the unit of analysis in phonetics. We use [ ] to represent a phone and / /
to represent a phoneme such as [ p] , /p/. Now the question that one might ask is that are all
the phones of a language considered to be phonemes? The quick answer to this question is
"No". Let us compare the different sounds of the [p] in ‘park’ and ‘speak,’ -- they sound
very different. In [pha:k], the sound [ph] is uttered with a period of voicelessness marked
phonetically as a little 'h' which is termed aspiration whereas in [spi:k] the sound [p] is
unaspirated since it came after the sound [s]. So [ph] and [p] are two sounds or allophones
- variants of a sound which the speakers of the language do not perceive as conveying
differential meaning – of the same phoneme /p/.

In Arabic [g] and [З] are two allophones of the same phoneme, while in English [g]
and [З] are two separate phonemes. e.g.

Arabic = Aljamiaah algamiaah (university)

English = get jet

Classification of Phonemes
In the last unit (Phonetics) we described consonants in terms of the state of the glottis
(voiced or voiceless), the place of articulation (bilabial, labio-dental, dental, etc.), and the
manner of articulation (stop, nasal, etc.). Here we use more or less the same features to
describe phonemes. To describe [ p ] and [ b ] we can say that both of them are bilabial and

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stop whereas the feature, voiced, distinguishes [ b ] from its counterpart [ p ]. Thus any
feature that distinguishes a phoneme from another one is called a Distinctive Feature
which is binary in form + or - . For example one distinctive feature that distinguishes /t/
from /d/ is ± voiced. The /t/ is -voiced whereas the /d/ is +voiced.

These features make our job easy to write phonological rules.

English Phonemes are classified according to the presence or absence of the following
distinctive features:

1. ± Consonantal : All vowels and semi-vowels are (-consonantal) while the rest
are (+ consonantal).
2. ± voiced : All vowels, semi-vowels and most of the consonants are (+ voiced).
/p/, /f/, / θ/, /t/, /s/, /∫/, /t∫/, /k/, /h/, / ṣ/, / ṯ/, /x/, / ћ/ and / ʔ / are ( - voiced).
3. ± Stop(Plosive) ≠ Continuant
Try to pronounce /s/ continuously. The result is something like /ssssssssssssss/. Now try the
same thing with the sound /p/. You see. You have to stop each time you produce /p/.
In other words /p/ is unlike /s/. It is – continuant. + stop or – continuant are sounds
such as /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /ṯ/, /ḏ/, /k/, /g/, /q/ and /ʔ/. The others are said to be continuant.

4. ± Nasal
Nasal sounds are /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/. The other sounds are called – Nasal or oral.

5. ± Fricative
The following sounds are [+ fricative]: /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /- ð/, /s/, /z/, /∫/, /З/, /ṣ/, /x/, /ɤ/,
/ћ/, /ʕ/and /h/. The other sounds are [- fricative].

6. ± lateral
/l/ is the only Lateral sound.

7. ± coronal
The dental, alveo-dental, alveolar and alveo-palatal sounds are + coronal, while the
other sounds are – coronal. This feature is very important for describing the Arabic
lunar '-al' and the solar '-al'. If '-al' is followed by a [+ coronal] sound it becomes solar

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'-al' as in (ash-shames). If '-al' is followed by a [- coronal] sound it becomes lunar'-al'

as in (al-qamar).

8. ± anterior
Sounds that are [+ anterior] are sounds that are produced in the front of the oral cavity. It
includes the bilabial, the labiodental, dental, and alveolar sounds. The others are [-
anterior] or [+ back].

9. ± syllabic
This feature is very useful in describing vowels. All vowels are [+syllabic]. All consonants
and semi-vowels are considered [-syllabic].6 +Syllabic sounds can occur as the nucleus
of a syllable while –syllabic sounds cannot.

10. ±High
This feature describes the tongue while producing a sound. When the tongue is higher than
the neutral position, sounds produced in this manner are described [+high]. All
consonants are + high except /h/ and /?/.

11. ±Rounded
This feature describes the position of the lips in the production of some vowels. When
the lips are round, sounds produced in this manner are [+ rounded]. /w/ is the only
consonant which is + Round.

12. ±Tense/ Lax

This feature is used to describe vowels. Tense sounds are produced with a greater degree of
muscular tension in the vocal tract.

6
Some linguists such as Fromkin and Rodman (1993) consider some consonants such as /l/, /r/, /n/,and /m/ as
both [± syllabic].

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Table (6 -1)
Phonological Features of English Consonants and Semi-consonants
sound consonant Syllabic voiced stop fricative Coronal Nasal back

p + - - + - - - -
b + - + + - - - -
t + - - + - + - -
d + - + + - + - -
k + - - + - - - +
g + - + + - - - +
f + - - - + - - -
v + - + - + - - -
θ + - - - + + - -
ð + - + - + + - -
s + - - - + + - -
z + - + - + + - -
∫ + - - - + + - +
З + - + - + + - +
m + - + - - - + -
n + - + - - + + -
ŋ + - + - - - + +
l + - + - - + - -
r + - + - - + - -
h + - - - + - - +
w - - + - - - - +
j - - + - - - - +

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Table (6 - 2)
Phonological Features of Arabic Consonants and Semi-consonants

sound consonant Syllabic voiced stop fricative Coronal Nasal back

b + - + + - - - -
t + - - + - + - -
d + - + + - + - -
ṯ + - - + - + - -
ḏ + - + + - + - -
k + - - + - - - +
g + - + + - - - +
f + - - - + - - -
θ + - - - + + - -
ð + - + - + + - -
s + - - - + + - -
z + - + - + + - -
∫ + - - - + + - +
З + - + - + - - +
ṣ + - - - + + - -
-ð + - + - + + - -
ћ + - - - + - - +
ʕ + - + - + - - +
x + - - - + - - +
ɤ + - + - + - - +
m + - + - - - + -
n + - + - - + + -
l + - + - - + - -
r + - + - - + - -
h + - - - + - - +
w - - + - - - - +
j - - + - - - - +
ʔ - - - + - - - +

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The Phonological Features of Vowels

In the last unit we defined a vowel as 'a voiced sound in producing which the air
comes out in a continuous stream through the pharynx and mouth; there being no
obstruction or narrowing such could cause audible friction'. Here, as you can see, we
have highlighted the most important words in this definition. They represent the
phonological features of vowels. We can just use the proper phonological terms as we have
done when we described the consonants. We can also place [±] to the left of such features
as required. Then, we can come up with the following phonological features of vowels:

1. + voiced

2. + aggressive (the air comes out)

3. + continuant

4. + oral.

5. – obstruction

6. – narrowing

7. – fricative

The Structural Features of a Vowel

a. A vowel takes the article “an” and not “a”. e.g., “I bought an orange”.
b. A vowel can occur as the nucleus (center) of a syllable e.g.,

m n

nucleus

Phonological Rules

We can write the phonological rules using either the sounds themselves or their
phonological features. For example, English vowels become nasalized when they come
before a nasal sound. This can be written in the form of rules as follows:

 [æ ] → [ ] / -[n]. OR

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We can read this rule as follows:

A vowel becomes nasalized when it occurs before a nasal sound. This diacritic [~]
placed above a sound means that that sound is nasalized.

Types of Phonological Rules

Fromkin and Rodman (1993) divide the phonological rules into the following four
types:

1. Assimilation Rules
2. Addition Rules
3. Deletion Rules
4. Metathesis Rules

Syllable

It is a unit in speech which is often longer than a sound and smaller than a whole
word. For instance the word ‘syllable’ consists of 3 syllables as follows: syl.la.ble

Table (6-3)
No of Syllables Examples
1 syllable Book, pen, tall, short, ten, back, sing, eat
2 syllables College, today, eating, very, action, above
3 syllables In.ton.ation, , or.gan.ize, out.stand.ing
4 syllables Par.lia.men.tary, res.er.va.tion,
5 syllables Re.spon.si.bil.ity, edu.ca.tion.al.ist,
6 syllables Ir.re.spon.si.bil.ity, in.ter.na.tion.al.ism

Words having only one syllable are called ‘monosyllabic’, while words with 2 or more
syllables are called ‘polysyllabic’.

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Syllable Structure
Syllable

onset nucleus coda

C VC
| | |
m n

Onset is the first part of a syllable. It is always a consonant or a semi-consonant (C ) such

as /f t/ , / ju:nɪv3:s ə tɪ/.

Nucleus is the core of a syllable. A syllable may occur without a coda and/or an onset, but
not without a nucleus. It is always a vowel sound (V).

Coda is what comes after the nucleus of a syllable. It is always a consonant (C).

Open and Closed Syllables

A syllable which ends with a coda (C ) is called a closed syllable. The following are
examples of closed syllables: pen, book, fat, talk, fast, hat, mat and rat. A syllable that ends
with a nucleus (V ) is called an open syllable. The following are examples of open
syllables: two, no, key, see, sky, cry, spy, to, so, free and who.

Simple Syllable Structure

A simple syllable is a syllable in which the onset and the coda can be realized by a
single consonant. It is illustrated in the following table.
Table (6-4)
No Type Example
1 CVC pen, man, fat , can, hat
2 CV to, so, no, do
3 VC in, at, of, on
4 V I, a

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Table (6-4) shows us that the onset can have a zero realization as in type 3 and 4. It can
have a single consonant as in type 1 and 2. Similarly, the coda has a zero realization in
types 2 and 4. It can have a single consonant as in types 1 and 3.

Complex Syllable Structure

Complex syllable structure involves 2 or 3 consonants as the onset and/or the coda of
the syllable. This phenomenon is termed consonant cluster. It is illustrated in the
following table.

Table (6-5)

No Syllable Examples
1 CCVC steal, speak, green
2 CVCC Desk, act, risk, mark, task, sank
3 CCVCC Speaks, spent, spark, flask, start
4 CCV Cry, sky, spy
5 CVCCC thanks, sixth, text
6 CCCVC street, scream, strong, stress
7 CCCVCC script, springs, slept, brisk
8 CCVCCC Twelfth, prompt
9 CVCCCC Sixths, texts

The Structure of the Onset

As is evident from the examples listed in Table (6-5) above, the onset can be realized
by a consonant cluster consisting of two or three consonants. The following are examples
of words in which the onset is realized by a two consonant cluster: Green, speak, steal, cry,
twelfth, script, sky, spark, smoke, snake, still,

The following are examples of words in which the onset is realized by a three consonant
cluster: Street, spring, scream, strong, spray, splash, square, squeeze, scream, screen,
stray,

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When the onset consists of a consonant cluster of three consonants, the first consonant in
such a cluster must be /s/; the second consonant must be a voiceless stop (/p/, /t/ or /k/) and
the third consonant must be a glide (/l/, /r/, /w/ or /j/). The first consonant of the onset is
called Pre-initial; the second one is called the Initial and the third one is called the Post
initial as in the following diagram:

S t r ee t

Pre-initial Initial Post initial

The following are examples of words in which the onset is in the form of pre-initial +
initial: school, smoke, sphere, spin, snail, state, spell, stay, smart, stop, steam,

The following are examples of words in which the onset is in the form of initial + post
initial: black, beauty, cue, drink, flat, green, glide, glare, plate, tree, treat, twice, queen,
quick,

The following are examples of words in which the onset is in the form of pre-initial + post
initial: slow, slide, slight, slim, slab, slice, swim, sweet,

The Structure of the Coda

In English, the coda can be realized by a consonant cluster consisting of two, three or
four consonants. In other words, in English the maximum number of consonants that can
occur in the coda of a syllable is four. The following are examples of words in which the
coda is realized by a consonant cluster consisting of two consonants:

Act, ask, apt, best, bank, books, bend, bent, find, fast, field, fifth, lamp, link, rest, risk,
send, went, would

The following are examples of words in which the coda is realized by a consonant cluster
consisting of three consonants:

Banks, text, twelfth, helped, next, fifths, prompt

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The following are examples of words in which the coda is realized by a consonant cluster
consisting of four consonants:

Texts, tempts, prompts, sixths, twelfths

The structure of the coda can be described as follows:

1. Pre-final = [m, n, ŋ , l, s]
2. Final = [any of the rest]
3. Post-final 1 = [t, d, s, z, θ ]
4. Post-final 2 = [t, d, s, z, θ ]
5. Post-final 3 = [ s ]

The following diagram shows the structure of the coda of the word: prompts

Pro m p t s

Pre-final Final post-final 1 Post-final 2

The following diagram shows the structure of the coda of the word: texts

Texts= Te k s t s

Final Post-final1 post-final2 post-final3

In Modern Standard Arabic we can find three types of syllable structures as follows:

No type example
1 CV ka.ta.ba ‫كتب‬
2 CVC mum.taz ‫ممتاز‬
3 CVCC bint ‫بنت‬

Syllables uttered with a greater degree of force are called stressed syllables, while
syllables uttered with a relatively small degree of force are called unstressed syllables.

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Stress

Stress may be defined as the degree of force with which a syllable is uttered. It is an
important part of language. It makes language clearly understandable and gives music to it.
It is indicated by a vertical stroke placed above the stressed syllable.

Types of Stress

1. Word Stress
Word stress refers to ‘stress’ placed on a syllable of a word. In the following words
if we stress the first syllable, it becomes a noun and if we stress the second syllable, it
becomes a verb.

`export, `insult, `practice, `progress, `conduct,

Noun
`increase
ex`port, in`sult, prac`tice, prog`ress, con`duct,
Verb
in`crease

When a word is stressed it is a ‘strong form’ and when it is unstressed, it is a ‘weak form’.
Stressed Unstressed

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, Prepositions, articles,

interrogative pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries,

2. Sentence Stress
Sentence stress means ‘stress’ placed on a particular word or words of a sentence. Let us
consider the following sentence ‘This is my book’ we have different meanings by the shift
in stress:

1. `This is my book. ( Only this, not other )

2. This `is my book. ( Why do you deny it?)
3. This is `my book. ( Not yours)
4. This is my `book. ( Nothing else than book)

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Intonation

Intonation might be defined as the variations that take place in the pitch of voice in
connected speech. It is used to carry additional information than that expressed by the
words in the sentence.

Types of Intonation
1. Rising Intonation
In this type of intonation we start speaking with a low pitch of voice and then it goes
up. The symbol that is used to indicate this type of intonation is / . It may have a
grammatical function to indicate that an utterance is a 'Yes-no' question and not a
statement.

 Ready?
 Are you hungry?
 Did you do your homework?
2. Falling Intonation
In this type of intonation we start speaking with a loud pitch and then the voice goes
down. The symbol used to indicate this type of intonation is \ . It is used in the
following types of sentences:

1. Factual sentences or answers such as

 This is a nice car.
 He is a teacher.
 Ali lives in Sana'a.
2. To indicate the speaker's attitude to the matter discussed. e.g.,
 But I TOLD \ you.
 This is not what I SAID \.
3. In 'Wh-' questions e.g.
 When did you go there \ ?
 What is your name \ ?

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4. In question tags e.g.

 You are Yemeni, aren't you \ ?
5. In commands e.g.
 Close your books \.
6. In exclamatory sentences e.g.
 What a beautiful car \ !

It is also possible to have a combination of the two types of intonation mentioned above. In
the following examples, we normally start with a rising intonation and end with a falling
intonation.

 Is it a book / or \ dictionary?
 Are they students / or \ teachers?
 Is it Arabic / or \ English?

Comparison between English and Arabic Sounds

In Both [b], [m], [w], [f], [θ], [ð], [s], [z], [t], [d], [l],
[r], [n], [∫], [З], [j] , [k], [g], [h]

In English [p], [v], [t∫], [ʤ], [ŋ]

In Arabic [ ṯ ], [ ḏ ], [ṣ], [- ð], [q] , [x] , [ɤ] , [ћ] ,[ʕ]

Exercises on Unit Seven

A. Say whether the following statements are True or False. If the statement is false,
correct it to make a true statement.
b. Articulatory phonetics is concerned with instrumental measurement of the waves of
sound.
c. / ∫ / is an affricate sound.
d. All English consonants are oral.
e. Voiced sounds are produced because of the uvula’s vibration.
f. All English vowels are oral.

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g. The alveolar ridge is the commonest point of articulation for English consonants.
h. / t∫ / is a voiceless sound.
i. The word “consonants” consists of four syllables.
j. /w/ is a round consonant.
k. The consonant that precedes the nucleus is called the coda.

B. Choose the correct answer

1. Which one starts with an affricate?

a. shop b. character c. chair d. sugar

2. Which one starts with a glide?

a. uncle b. writer c. uniform d. hour

3. Which one starts with a lateral?

a. winter b. remember c. lamp d. yawn

4. In which of the following the consonant in the middle is voiceless?

a. teacher b. father c. leisure d. glide

5. Which one ends with a voiceless stop sound?

a. king b. stomach c. march d. thumb

6. Which word contains a labio-dental sound.

a. though b. rough c. through d. thought

7. The vowel in “see” also occurs in:

a. great b. hit c. key d. eye

8. Which of the following contains a rounded vowel?

a. make b. but c. put d. cut

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9. Which of the following contains a front vowel?

a. heat b. hut c. four d. two

10. The center (heart) of a syllable is called a …………..

a. coda b. onset c. nucleus d. cluster

11. The phonetic symbol for voiced pharyngeal fricative is…

a. /? / b. / ‫ ؟‬/ c. /h/ d. /q/

12. The consonant that can occur as the pre-initial is….

a. /l/ b. /w/ c. /m/ d. /s/

13. The consonant that comes after the nucleus is called…

a. Coda b. onset c. cluster d. nucleus

14. Which of the following is not possible to occur in English?

a. spret b. squeen c. slain d. spting
15. The diphthong in the word “Shy” also occurs in …
a. My b. she c. their d. we

4. Define and illustrate the following terms:

Allophone, phoneme, phonology, nucleus, stress, syllable, intonation

a. What are the structural features of a vowel?

b. What are the phonological features of a semi vowel?
c. Study the following example from the Tihami dialect:

(laysa min ambir amsyamu bamsafar). Can you identify what type of change has
occurred?

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UNIT EIGHT

Morphology (The Structure of Words)

Morphology is the study of the structure of words. The word is a unit of linguistic
description that reflects the phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of a language. In
spoken language there is no clear break which would help one to identify each single word
in speech. For example, Let us read the following sentences:

1. Ibrahim’sintheclassroom.
2. Ibrahim is in the classroom.
3. ‫تقعاليمنفيجنوبجزيرةالعرب‬
4. ‫تقع اليمن جنوب جزيرة العرب‬
5. Jesuisneataizmaisj’habiteasana’a.(French)
6. Je suis ne a Taiz mais j’habite a Sana’a.

How many words are there in each of the sentences above? What makes you say so?
Answering these two questions leads us to another question, namely, what does it mean to
know a word? Knowing a word fully means the ability to understand, say, read and write it
correctly. It also means the ability to know its morphological structure which is indicated
by the form of the word. The form of the word “book” (singular) as against
“books”(plural).

Words can be divided into segments or parts as follows:

 Books = book + s

 Linguistics = linguist + ic + s
 Unfaithfulness = un+ faith +ful +ness
 Internationally = inter + nation + al +ly
 Tomorrow = tomorrow
 He = he
 I=I

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These parts are called morphemes which are the smallest units of meaning. In the above
examples, “He”, “I” and “tomorrow” are words that consist of one morpheme each, whereas
“books” is a word that consists of two morphemes.

Morphemes vs. words

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English defines a word as a

“sound or combination of sounds (or the written or printed symbols) forming a unit of the
grammar or vocabulary of a language”. A morpheme, on the other hand, might be defined
as the smallest unit of meaning.

Both the word and the morpheme have a unit of meaning and in some cases as in
“tomorrow” and “he” the morpheme is the same as the word since they cannot be further
divided into small units of meaning. However, a word may be divided into two, three or
more segments (morphemes). For example, the word “books” has a meaning which can be
divided into two morphemes (book + plural or s). Similarly, the word “unfaithfulness” is a
meaningful unit by itself which can be divided into four meaningful parts or morphemes as
follows:

Un = (negative meaning)+ faith + ful (derives an N into an Adj.) + ness (expresses state
or quality).

Morphemes vs. syllables

A morpheme is a grammatical (meaning) unit while a syllable is a phonological (sound)

unit. A morpheme may consist of one, two or more syllables. It might be a part of a syllable
as illustrated in the following table

word morpheme syllable

book book book

pens Pen + s pens

tomorrow tomorrow to.mor.row

reading read + ing read.ing

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Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

“Morpheme” is a grammatical term while “morph” is the actual orthographic

representation of that grammatical term.

Word Morpheme Morph

students plural -s
speaks 3rd person “s” -s
taller comparative -er
talked simple past -ed
unhappy negative un-

In English, the plural morpheme is divided into regular plurals that take the morph (–s), e.g.
teacher teachers, and irregular plurals that have the same morpheme (plural), but
different morphs as follows:

Word Plural Morpheme Morph

child children plural ren
man men plural a e
woman women plural a e
foot feet plural oo ee
tooth teeth plural oo ee
mouse mice plural ou i
louse lice plural ou i
analysis analyses plural i e
crisis crises plural i e
thesis theses plural i e
phenomenon phenomena plural on a
criterion criteria plural on a
datum data plural um a
curriculum curricula plural um a
cactus cacti plural us i

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nucleus nuclei plural us i

focus foci plural us i
fish fish plural zero
deer deer plural zero
sheep sheep plural zero

Allomorphs

Allomorphs are variant phonetic and/or orthographic forms of the same morpheme.
For instance the negative morpheme “in-“ can become “im-“, “-il-“, “ir-“ depending on the
following consonant.

incomplete, inappropriate, insufficient, informal

immoral, immortal, immobile,

impossible, impolite, importable

illogical, illegitimate, illiterate

irregular, irresponsible, irrespectable

Similarly, in Arabic the definite article morpheme “al-“ meaning “the” can be either lunar as
in albab, alqamar, al3ilm, etc or solar as in ash-shams, at-tamer, as-salam, ath-thiab, etc
depending on the consonant at the beginning of the word (lunar or solar).

Plural allomorphs

In English, the plural morpheme (-s), is pronounced in three different ways

depending on the sound that precedes it.

 s /s/ when it occurs after a voiceless sound.

books, parks, mats, stops,

 s /z/ when it occurs after a voiced sound.

dogs, computers, malls, homes

 s /iz/ when it occurs after a sibilant sound.

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sandwiches, classes, churches, horses

Past-tense allomorphs

-ed / t / when it occurs after a voiceless sound.

parked, cooked, pushed, missed, searched

-ed /d / when it occurs after a voiced sound.

opened, played, occurred, changed, prayed

-ed / id/ when it occurs after a /t/ or /d/.

started, needed, founded, treated, divided

Types and sub-types of morphemes

The following diagram illustrates the types and sub-types of English morphemes.

morpheme

free bound

Functional Lexical inflectional derivational

class changing class maintaining

Free morphemes
Free morphemes are words that can stand alone, e.g., boy, go, nice, well, under,
etc. They are of two types: Lexical
and Functional. Lexical morphemes include all nouns such as book, pen, student , verbs
such as go, eat, teach , all adjectives such as tall, clever, nice and all adverbs such as
clearly, patiently, quickly. Functional morphemes include articles, auxiliaries,
conjunctions,..etc.

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Bound morphemes
Bound morphemes are morphemes that cannot stand alone. They have to be attached to
other elements such as un-, il-, ir-, -ness, -ly, - er, etc. They are of two types:
Inflectional morphemes and Derivational morphemes.

Inflectional morphemes
Inflectional morphemes are used to express grammatical aspects such as singular/
plural. For example, the plural noun books is inflected from the singular noun book by the
addition of the inflectional morpheme ‘s’. The two forms book and books are the same and
the choice between them is a matter of grammar, i.e., plural vs. singular. The following are
the English inflectional morphemes.

No Inflectional Example
Grammatical function
1 -s plural books

2 -s Present simple3rd speaks

person singular

3 -‘s Possessive Osama’s book

4 -ed Simple past played

5 -ed Past participle He has finished

6 -ing Present participle He is reading.

7 -er Comparative taller

8 -est Superlative the tallest

Derivational morphemes
As their name indicates, derivational morphemes derive or change the form and
category/class of a word. For instance, the adjective national is derived from the noun

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nation by the addition of the morpheme al. They are subdivided into class changing
morphemes and class maintaining morphemes.

Class Changing Morphemes

In English there are affixes that are added to words of one syntactic category and
change them into words of another syntactic category. For instance, the addition of –ly into
adjectives change them into adverbs.
quick (adj.) + ly quickly (adverb)

The following are also some examples of class changing derivational morphemes:

teach(V) + er teacher (N)

nation (N) + al national (Adj.)

modern (Adj.) + ize modernize (V)

Class Maintaining Morphemes

Let us examine the following examples:

education (N) educationist (N)

king (N) kingdom (N)

economic (Adj.) economical (Adj.)

friend friendship

The addition of the affix –ist to the word education changes its form into another noun ,
educationist, but maintains the same class as the first one, i.e. N N.

Elements of Word Structure

1. Root:
A root is what remains after taking out all the affixes such as friend in unfriendly or
nation in internationally.

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2. Prefix:

A prefix is a word element that comes at the beginning of a word and modifies its
meaning such as re- in rewrite, mal- in maltreat and dis- in dislike.

The following table shows the types and subtypes of prefixes in English classified
on the basis of their meaning. Most of them are bound morphemes that cannot occur as
independent words.

Prefixes in English

Prefix Meaning Examples

type

il- illegal, illegible, illegitimate, illiterate

im- immoral, immortal, immature, impatient,

in- inappropriate, informal, injustice

ir- irrelevant, irrational, irregular

Negative

dis- Not dislike, discontinue, disfavour

mis- misuse, misbehave, miscalculation

non- non-Muslim, non-fatal, non-human

un- uneducated, unreal, unhappy

mal- maltreat, malnutrition, maladministration

semi- Half Semicircle

mini- Small Minicomputer, minibus, mini-camera

micro- Very small Microcomputer, microbiology, microfilm

Size

macro- Very large Macrocomputer, macro-structure

ante- Before Antecedent, ante-natal, anteroom, antedate

pre- Before Precede, pre-academic, pre-birth

Time

post- After Post-examination, post-natal

inter- Within International, inter-city, inter-department

Location

sub- Under Submarine,

trans- Across Trans-America, transatlantic, trans-world

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mono One Monologue, monosyllabic, monogamy

bi- Two Bilingual, bicycle, bilateral

tri- Three Triangle, tri-syllabic, tricolor

quart- Four quartrain

Number
penta- Five Pentagon, pentagram

hexa- Six hexagon

septa- Seven September

oct- Eight Octopus, octave, octagon

deci- Ten Decimeter, deciliter, December,

auto- Self Automobile, autobiography, autograph

pro- For Pro-West, pro-union, pro-government

co- With Co-education, co-worker

anti- Against Anti-war, anti-peace, anti-democracy

re- Again Reread, redo, restart

Other

Example:
Re-write
Verb

Write
Re-
root
Prefix

3. Suffix

A suffix is a word element that can be added to the end of a word and modifies
its meaning such as: -er in reader, -ness in happiness and –dom in kingdom.

quickly
Example: Adverb

Quick -ly
Root suffix
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The following table contains the most common suffixes in English.

No Function Suffix Example

1 Noun- -age mileage
forming -ance/ -ence maintenance, independence
-ation information
-dom freedom
-er / -or teacher, actor
-hood brotherhood
-ian electrician
-ing swimming
-ion conversion
-ism magnetism
-ist educationist
-ity electricity
-ment government
-ness happiness
-ship relationship
2 Verb- -ate activate
forming -ify simplify
-ize computerize
-en shorten

3 Adjective- -able comparable

forming -al logical
-ar circular
-ed educated
-ful colorful
-ic magnetic
-ish blackish
-ive active
-less careless
-ous dangerous
4 Adverb- -ly quickly
forming

4. Infix

An infix is a word element that is inserted in the middle of a root to form another
word. Infixes are commonly found in the Arabic language, but not in English. Let us look
at the following example:

‫شارب‬

Shaarib “drinker

‫رب‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ش‬

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From the above example it is clear that in Arabic all verb roots that are composed of only 3
consonants such as ‫( خرج‬kharaj) “went out” or ‫( دخل‬dakhal) “entered” take the infix /‫ أ‬/ to
be nouns.

Root (V) N
‫قتل‬ ‫قاتل‬
‫ضرب‬ ‫ضارب‬
‫سحب‬ ‫ساحب‬
‫ربط‬ ‫رابط‬
‫شعر‬ ‫شاعر‬

5. Base

A base is what remains after taking out the last derivational morpheme added such as
friendly in unfriendly and friend in friendly.

6. Stem
A stem is what remains after taking out the last inflectional morpheme added, e.g.,
in misunderstandings the stem is misunderstanding.

The Structure of Words:

We saw earlier in this unit that words may consist of only one morpheme (simple) such
as “book” or 2 morphemes or even more (complex) such as “computerization”. We can use
tree-diagrams to show the structure or the hierarchical organization of these words. The
following are tree-diagrams of the structure of the words: teachers, internationally and
enlarged.
Noun

N Inf. Suffix

V Der. Suffix

Teach -er -s

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Adv

Adj Der. Suffix

Pref Adj

N Der. Suf

Inter- nation -al -ly

Adj

V Inf

Pref Adj

En- large -ed

Categories of Words

Words are classified into grammatical categories and subcategories according to the
function they perform in a sentence. The terms nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are used to refer to such categories. With
respect to their meaning, grammarians further divide these categories into 2 main classes,
namely Content Words and Functional Words.

1. Content (Lexical) Words

These words have meanings by themselves. They stand for things (Nouns) such as
book, school, tree, computer ; actions (Verbs) such as go, eat, study, read; qualities
(Adjectives) such as clever, beautiful, large and Adverbs such as quickly, randomly,
absolutely, entirely, etc.
Lexical words are also called Open Class. New members are added to this class every
now and then as new words are coined or borrowed from other languages (see Word
Formation, at the end of this Unit).

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Noun

Proper Common

Concrete Abstract(feelings)

Countable Uncountable

Verbs

Aux Lexical

Transitive intransitive

Adjective

Gradable non-gradable

Adverb etc.

Time place manner frequency

2. Grammatical (Functional) Words

Grammatical words have no meanings of their own. They are used, however, to signal
grammatical relationships. Grammatical words include Pronouns, Articles, Prepositions,
Conjunctions, Auxiliaries, Determiners and Interjections.
Functional words are also termed Closed Class whose membership is closed and no
new members are added.

Pronoun

Personal reflexive possessive interrogative relative demonstrative

Numerals

Cardinal Ordinal

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1, 2, 3,…. First, second, third,….

Determiners

Article pronoun quantifier

The, a I, my,… little, more, all,….

Conjunction

Coordinating subordinating
(And, but, or) (when, if, therefore,…)

Multiple Membership
Occasionally, a word may belong to two or more categories as illustrated in the
table below.

word N V Adj. Adv Prep Conj. Example

answer √ √ Write the answer.

Answer the question.

Keep this food in a can.

can √ √
They caned it.

import √ √

up √ √

early √ √

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Adjectives & Adverbs

1. The students came to university by an early bus

2. I went to bed early

3. Ali is a fast driver.

4. He drives fast.

5. This is a hard nut to crack.

6. Ahlam works hard.

While the above word categories fit for all languages including Arabic, traditional Arabic
grammarians divide words into three categories, namely: ism (noun), fi3l (verb) and harf
(particle).

Exercises
Exercise1: Complete the following words and then indicate the type and the meaning of
the prefix as in the example.

Example: prehistory. (time prefix , meaning before).

1. bi ………………….. ( )
2. dis…………………...( )
3. inter…………………( )
4. macro……………….( )
5. anti………………….( )
6. hexa…………………( )
7. sub…………………..( )
8. mono………………..( )
9. mini………………….( )
10. auto………………….( )

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Exercise 2: Complete the following words that end with the following suffixes as in the
example.

Example: leadership.

a. …………………..ify.
b. ………………….ment.
c. …………………tion.
d. ……………..…..ive.
e. …………………ful.
f. …………………ic.
g. …………………ness.
h. …………………ish.
i. …………………ly.
j. …………………less.

Exercise 3: Describe the nature of prefixes in the following words:

1. bilingual …………………………………
2. uneducated…………………………………
3. minibus …………………………………
4. discontinue …………………………………
5. decade …………………………………
6. foretell …………………………………
7. maltreat …………………………………
8. insane …………………………………
9. irregular …………………………………
10. transplant …………………………………
11. immoral …………………………………
12. international …………………………………

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Exercise 4: Describe the nature of suffixes in the following words:

1. teacher …………………………………
2. simplify …………………………
3. blacken …………………………
4. readable …………………………
5. idealism …………………………
6. refusal ……………………………
7. attractive ………………………
8. useful ………………………………
9. madness ………………………
10. heavily ………………………………
11. popularize ………………………
12. management ………………………

Exercise 5: Give the morpheme(s) of each of the following words and then the structure of
words using a tree-diagram:

1. irreplaceable …………………………
2. pretests ……………………………
3. misleads ……………………………
4. illogical ……………………
5. unhappiest ……………………….
6. readers ………………………….
7. enlarged ……………………………
8. subcategories ……………………
9. reviewers …………………………
10. teachers’ …………………………

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Exercise 6: Divide the following words by placing ( + ) between their separate morphemes
and then show their meanings as in the example.

Example: nationalization = nation + al (changing N→Adj.) + ize (changing Adj

→V) + tion (changing V →N).

1. imperfect …………………………………
2. incapable …………………………………
3. dishonest …………………………………
4. disagree …………………………………
5. misjudge …………………………………
6. non-smoker …………………………………
7. malfunction …………………………………
8. mini-market …………………………………
9. microscope …………………………………
10. macro-objectives ………………………
11. pre-war …………………………………
12. post-election …………………………………
13. inter-family …………………………………
14. monotone …………………………………
15. bi-annual …………………………………
16. pro-democracy ………………………

Exercise 7: Multiple Choice:

1. Identify the answer which correctly shows the different parts of the word: inaccuracies
A) inaccuracies ( )
B) in (free) accurate (free) acy (bound) es (bound)
C) in (prefix) accurate (root/stem) acy (suffix) ies (suffix)

D) in (b.i.) accurate (root/stem) acy (b.d) es (b.i.)

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2. The correct morphological analysis of the word endangered is:

A) endangered ( )
B) en (bound derivational prefix) + danger (root) + ed (bound deri. or inflect. morpheme
depending on the context)
C) en (bound derivational prefix) + danger (root) + ed (bound derivational morpheme)
D) en (bound derivational prefix) + danger (root) + ed (bound inflectional morpheme)

3. The correct morphological analysis of the word translation should look like:
A) translation ( )
B) translate (root) + ion (bound derivational or inflectional morpheme depending on the
context)
C) translate (root) + ion (bound derivational morpheme)
D) translate (root) + ion (bound inflectional morpheme)

4. Break the following sentence into its constituent morpheme

Evidently, the global financial crisis is hitting America

A) Evi/dent/ly, /the/ glob/al/ fin/an/cial/ cri/si/s is hitt/ing/ America/ hard/est.

B) Evidently, /the/ glob/al /financ/ial /crisi/s/ is /hitt/ing/ America/ hard/est.
C) Evident/ly, /the/ glob/al/ fin/anc/ial/ crisis/ is /hitt/ing/ America/ hard/est.
D) Evident/ly, /the/ glob/al/ financ/ial/ crisis/ is /hitt/ing/ America/ hard/est.

Exercise 8: Identifying the grammatical categories of words. Give three examples of words
belonging to each of the categories and subcategories below.

1. noun (proper, common, mass, count)

2. verb (transitive, intransitive, ditransitive)
3. adjective (gradable, ungradable)
4. adverb (place, time, manner, means, instrument.)
5. pronoun (person, possessive, interrogative, relative, reflexive)

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6. preposition
7. article (demonstrative, definite, indefinite, possessive

Note: Infixes are rare in English (informal, vulgar or obscene), e.g. three-goddamn-thirty
in the morning

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UNIT NINE

Word Formation: The Addition of New Words to Dictionaries

Human languages have the ability to create new words to their dictionaries
especially in the area of the open class categories, i.e. in their nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs as to meet the new developments and inventions in the area of science, technology,
industry, products, and other aspects of life.

The English language, for instance, contains about 700,000 words in addition to
another 300,000 technical terms. Some of these words have been inherited from the Anglo-
Saxons, while many other words have come into it by means of word formation processes.
In fact, new words are always being added into the dictionaries of languages. Below we
will cover the common methods of word formation processes and identify current examples
in both Arabic and English which are the result of those processes.

Borrowing:

The taking over of words from other languages is termed “borrowing” and the result
is “loanwords”. Loanwords sometimes are adapted as to fit the phonological and
grammatical patterns of the host language. For instance the foreign words ”television” "
and “radio” are adopted by native speakers of Arabic as "‫ "تلفزيون‬and “‫ ”راديو‬respectively.
Below are some more examples of English words that made their way into the Arabic
language accompanying products and technological instruments.

Arabic words of English origin

‫انترنت‬ Internet

‫تلفزيون‬ television

‫تلفون‬ telephone

‫جام‬ jam

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‫ساندوتش‬ sandwich

‫سينماء‬ cinema

‫فاكس‬ fax

‫كمبيوتر‬ computer

‫ميكروسكوب‬ microscope

Similarly, the English language has also adopted a great number of loan-words from
the Arabic language. Below are a few examples.

English words of Arabic origin

Admiral Amir-al-bahr

Alcohol Al koh’l

Algebra Aljebr

Algorithm Al-Khawarizmi

Alkali Al-qali

Almanac Al-manakh

Assassin hashashin

Camphor kafur

Chemistry al-kemia

English has also borrowed terms from other languages in different parts of the world.
Historically, borrowing words from other languages was very common. According to some
etymologists about 70- 80 % of the English vocabulary are loan words from nearly 50
languages. Below are some illustrative examples.

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English words from other languages

Language Word(s)

Bantu zebra
Chinese tea
Czech robot
Dutch boss
French Commence, bureau,
café, attaché, coup
Greek Acronym, pneumonia,
panorama, psychology
Hindi shampoo
Italian malaria, piano
Japanese karate
Latin advocate, street,
agenda, memorandum,
sponsor
Mexican tomato
Persian chess, lilac
Portuguese coconut
Spanish potato

Derivation

Derivation or affixation is the most common process in the production of new

English words. It is the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new words.
For example, in national -al is a derivational suffix that derives a noun into an adjective.
The advantage of this process is that you learn a number of words by making very little
effort. There are plentiful examples of roots, prefixes and suffixes in English that come
from Latin and Greek origin.

Anthrop is a Latin root meaning human. When we add the suffix logy which means
study of , it will become anthropology which means the scientific study of humanity.

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Method + ology = methodology (the scientific study of methods). Psycho (mind) + logy
(study of) = psychology ( the study of mind).

The longest word in the English language consists of a root and a number of affixes:

Pneu+ mono + ultra + micro + scop + ic + silico + volcano + coniosis =

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis which is according to the Oxford English
Dictionary "a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing
inflammation in the lungs".

Acronyms:

New words formed by combining the initial sounds or letters of a number of words and
uniting them into a combination that is itself pronounceable as a separate word. e.g.:

 Aids = acquired immune deficiency syndrome

 BASIC (in computers) = Beginners’ All-Purpose Symbolic Instructional Code
 Google = Global Organization of Oriented Group Language of Earth
 Laser = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
 NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration
 NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 OPEC = Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
 PIN = Personal Identification Number
 Radar = radio detecting and ranging
 Ram = random access memory
 Rom = read only memory
 Scuba = self contained underwater breathing apparatus
 UNESCO = United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization
 Virus = Vital Information Resources Under Siege
 Windows = Wide Interactive Network Development for Office Work Solution
 Yahoo = Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle

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Now, let us examine the following examples:

 BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation

 CD = Compact disc
 CLP = Community Livelihood Project
 CPU = Central Processing Unit
 DVD = Digital Video Disk
 GPS = Global Positioning System
 GSM = Global System for Mobile
 LBC = Lebanon Broadcasting Corporation
 LCD = Liquid Crystal Display
 LED = Light Emitting Diode
 MBC = Middle-east Broadcasting Corporation
 MP3 = Music player 3
 PDF = Portable document format
 SMS = Short Message System
 USA = The United States of America
 USB = Universal Serial Bus
 UAE = The United Arab Emirates
 UK = The United Kingdom
 VGA = Video Graphics Array
 WHO = World Health Organization

The last group of examples is pronounced as a series of letters (letter words).

They are termed “abbreviations”. Unlike abbreviations, acronyms are pronounced
as words (syllable words).

In some cases, the first two letters of a word are taken. For example: Wi-Fi =
Wireless Fidelity

The following are some of the common Latin abbreviations in English

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Abbreviation Meaning in Latin Meaning in English

A.D. Anno domini In the year of the Lord

A.M. Ante meridiem Before midday

B.A. Baccalaureus Artium Bachelor of Arts

B. Sc. BaccalaureusScientiae Bachelor of Science

e.g. Exempli gratia For example

etc. Et cetera And the rest

i.e. Id est That is

M.A. Magister Artium Master of Arts

M.D. Medicinae Doctor Doctor of medicine

No Numero Number

P.A. Per annum Every year

Ph D. Philosophiae Doctor Doctor of philosophy

P.M. Post meridiem After midday

P.S. Post scriptum Written after

Vs. Versus Against

Chatters on Facebook and Twitter use many acronyms in their chatting. The
following are some of the common acronyms used.

ASAP = as soon as possible

B4 = before

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BRB = be right back

CU = See you

HRU? = How are you?

IDK = I don't know

lol = Laughing out loud

R = are

ttyl = talk to you later

In Arabic, we can identify a few examples of acronyms especially in Geometry

such as:

‫ نق = نصف‬, ‫ ظتا = ظل تمام الزاوية‬,‫ ظا = ظل الزاوية‬,‫ جتا = جيب تمام الزاوية‬,‫جا = جيب الزاوية‬
‫القطر‬

‫حماس = حركة المقاومة االسالمية‬

‫فتح = حركة التحرير الفلسطينية‬

‫ص ب = صندوق بريد‬

Compounding
It is the process of combining two or more separate words together to produce a
single new word. The following are some examples of compound words in English.

 armchair
 bedroom
 blackboard
 bookcase
 classroom
 keyboard
 mailman
 sunburn
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 sweetheart
 textbook
 wallpaper
 wastebasket

Compound words are sometimes spelled with no space between the two elements as
in the examples above, however sometimes they are either hyphenated such as mother-in-
law, ice-cream, home-made, duty-free, etc. or written with a space between the 2 elements
such as air conditioner, White House, dinning room, book token, tennis shoe, cat lover, etc.

Arabic names such as Abdulkariem, Abdulrahman, Amat-Alsalam, etc. are examples of

compounding.

Clipping
It is the process of shortening a polysyllabic word without any change in its
meaning or its grammatical category. It is therefore a syllable structure process
which is used to make the word shorter. Clipping in English is of the following
types:

1. back-clipping :
 Admin. > administration
 Cinema > cinematography
 Dorm > dormitory
 Exam > examination
 Lab. > laboratory
 Math > mathematics
 Mike > microphone
 Photo > photography
 Prof. > professor
 Taxi > taximeter
 Veg. > vegetarian

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2. front-clipping:

 Phone > telephone

 Plane > aeroplane
5. medial clipping:
 e-mail > electronic mail
6. mixed:
 Flu. > influenza
 fridge > refrigerator

Conversion

It is simply converting a word of one category into a word of another category without
adding any affix. This process is also called zero derivation, functional shift or multiple
class membership. For example, some people now use the noun water as a verb such as:

Osamah watered the plant in the morning.

Another example is the noun butter which is now used as a verb in sentences like: Have
you buttered my sandwich? We can identify the following subtypes of functional shift in
English.

1. Noun < Verb

Facebook to facebook

e.g., On Twitter we tweet and on Facebook we facebook.

a comb to comb

a knife to knife

a referee to referee

a chair to chair

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a bottle to bottle

butter to butter

sand to sand

a smart-bomb to smart-bomb

2. Verb < Noun

to update an update
to run a run
to guess a guess
to spy a spy
to print out a printout

3. Adjective < Verb

a. The bottle is empty. I will empty the bottle.

b. It is dirty. Don't let children eat chocolates inside the car. They will dirty it.
4. Adjective < Noun

He is poor. The poor live in small houses.

She is weak. The weak will fail.

5. Preposition < Verb

Up to up e.g. They up the price.

Down to down

6. Stress shift

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The stress is shifted from the first syllable to the second syllable resulting
in a change in category.

Noun < Verb

éxport expórt
ímport impórt
cómbine combíne
ímplant implánt
réwrite rewríte
tránsport transport

Blending
The process of taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the
other word to produce a new one is termed blending. This process is similar to that of
making compound words, but the difference is that parts of the combined words are deleted
in this process. For instance, brunch is formed from Breakfast and lunch. Below are more
examples of this process.

 Bit > binary & digit

 Camcorder > camera & recorder
 Fortran >Formula &Translation
 Frelicious > fresh & delicious
 Gasohol > gasoline & alcohol
 Gubbish > garbage & rubbish. For instance, ‘This computer is gubbish’
(Working badly).
 Modem > Modulator & Demodulator
7. Motel > motor& hotel
8. Smog > smoke & fog
9. Telecast > television& broadcast
10. Spam > Spice & ham
11. Transistor > transfer & resistor

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12. Webinar > Web & seminar

Blending in the Arabic language may be illustrated by the following examples:


‫ اسيوي‬+ ‫افرواسيوي = افريقي‬ 
‫ اسيا‬+ ‫اوراسيا = اوروبا‬ 
Coinage
The invention of totally new words which are usually invented for brand names is
termed coinage. There are two types of coinage. The first type is called neologism in which
the words are created out of the blue and without reference to any other word. The
following are examples of words that made their way into English by the process of
neologism:

 Google
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Blog
 Pantene
 Paramol
 Xerox
 Teflon
 Tide
 Windows
 Galaxy
 Aspirin , etc.

These newly coined words have no links with any other word in the language itself or in
any other language.

The second type of coinage is called eponyms in which the new words are derived from
the names of people or places. The following examples illustrate this point:

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 Sandwich = The Earl of Sandwich

 Fahrenheit = Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German scientist
 Volt = Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist
 Watt = James Watt, a Scottish scientist
 Pasteurization = French chemist who invented the process.

Backformation

The regular process is to derive a noun from a verb by means of adding an affix
or more to it. For instance, the noun education was derived from the verb educate + ion and
the noun revision was derived from the verb revise + ion and so on.

Educate (V) + ion < education (N)

Revise (V) + -ion < revision (N)

Backformation, on the other hand, is a process in which a word (usually a noun) is reduced
to form another word (usually a verb), but in a backwards manner. That is the word editor
came into existence first and then later on the verb edit was back formed based on a false
analogy with other words such as create < creator

Create (V) + or < creator (N) = Normal derivation

Editor (N) - or < edit (V) = Backformation

Thus, it becomes very difficult to come up with other examples of this kind unless
you know the history of words. Here are more examples of Backformation.

 Twitter < tweet

 burglar< burgle
 donation < donate

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 emotion > emote

 enthusiasm < enthuse
 option > opt
 peddler< peddle
 resurrection < resurrect
 sculptor < sculpt
 swindler < swindle
 television < televise

Multiple Processes

This term refers to the operation of more than one process at work in the creation of a
single word. For instance, the word e-mail involves 2 processes, namely: [1] compounding
(electronic + mail) and [2] acronym (electronic < e). Another example is the verb lase. Two
processes were involved in forming it. The first one is the process of acronym to form the
original word laser and the second process is backformation by which the verb lase was
backformed from laser.

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Exercises:

Exercise 1:

Identify the process used in the formation of the following words as (acronym,
blending, compounding, clipping etc.) The first one has been done for you.

No Word Process
1 Modem Blending
2 Radar
3 Editor < edit
4 Photograph < photo
5 WHO
6 Water < to water
7 NASA
8 Tyfal
9 Gubbish
10 Alcohol
11 Kit kat
12 Telecommunications
13 Influenza < flu
14 Keyboard
15 Cinema
16 Beef
17 Nylon
18 Option < opt
19 Fortran
20 Classroom
21 Bank < to bank
22 Laser
23 MA

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24 Microphone < mike

25 Interpol
26 Malaria
27 Fax
28 Telecast
29 Internet
30 Brunch

Exercise 2: Define and illustrate the following terms:

a. acronym……………………………………
b. backformation …………………………….
c. clipping ……………………………………
d. blending ……………………………………
e. derivation …………………………….……
f. conversion ………………………………..
g. compounding …………………………….

Exercise 3: What do the following abbreviations stand for?

a. MBC = ……………………………..……………
b. LBC = ……………………………..……………
c. PTO =……………………………..……………
d. GSM = ……………………………..……………
e. SMS = ……………………………..…………
f. CD = ……………………………..……………
g. ROM = ……………………………..……………
h. MP3 = ……………………………..……………
i. KSA = ……………………………..……………
j. RAM =……………………………..……………
k. LED = ……………………………..……………

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Exercise 4: Choose the correct answer

1. The following words are examples of what types of word formations?

Infotainment, brunch.
A) compounds B) clipping

C) derivations D) blends

2. The following words are examples of what types of word formations? handyman,
handshake, motorbike
A) compounds B) clipping

C) derivations D) blends

3. What is the function of the following morpheme in the following words? –ance.
Governance, continuance
A) makes a noun B) makes a verb

C) makes an adjective D) makes and adverb

4. What is the role of the following morpheme? ate –

passionate, articulate

A) makes a noun B) makes a verb

C) makes an adjective D) makes and adverb

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Exercise 5: Match the terms in A with the correct definitions from those in B.

A
1. Acronym
2. Backformation
3. Blending
4. Clipping
5. Conversion
6. Free morpheme
7. Root
8. Stem

a. A change in the function of a word.

b. Taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of
the other one.

c. What remains after taking out the last inflectional morpheme.

d. Creating a verb from a noun.

e. Forming a word from the initial letters of a set of words.

f. Reducing a word into a short form.

g. The irreducible core of a word.

h. The smallest unit of meaning.

r. i. It can occur as an independent unit.

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Exercise 6 : The words in each group are closely related except one that does not fit in that
group. Spot the odd one out.

1. reader – manager – teacher – grocer – eater- founder

2. math – Prof - lab – cinema - modem – admin- flu
3. morals-skippers-sandwiches – rings –battles- tomatoes
4. parked- marched- stuffed- assessed-demolished- wanted
5. children- taken- eaten- spoken- broken- written
6. speaks – speaking- spoke – speaker- spoken

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UNIT TEN

Syntax (the order of words)

Syntax is the study of how words are put together to form acceptable phrases and
sentences.

Knowledge of Phrases and Sentences

Words are grouped into phrases and phrases are grouped into sentences. A sentence may be
defined as a sequence of words that starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop. Let
us try to make possible combinations of the following jumble of words:

bit man dog the The

a. *Dog the bit man the.

b. *The bit the man dog.

c. *The man the bit dog.

d. * The dog the man bit.

e. ? The man bit the dog.

f. The dog bit the man.

Now, we can notice that there is an asterisk (*) before (a-d) which means that they are not
syntactically correct. In other words, they are not grammatical according to English syntax.
To understand how the sequence of words in ( f ) is acceptable, we can say that it is
organized into three groups (phrases). Let us think of the words as if they are put into three
boxes as follows:

The dog bit The man

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Each box is called a phrase. The first box is a noun phrase (NP) because the headword
(dog) is a noun. The second box is a verb phrase (VP) because the headword (bit) is a verb.
The third box is again an NP because the headword (man) is a noun.

To understand how the other sequences of words (a-e) are not acceptable, we must say that
in (a) the article (the) came after the nouns “dog” and “man”. However, in English articles
must come before nouns and not after them. In (b) and (c), the article (The) came before the
verb and we know that articles occur only before nouns and not before verbs. In (d) the
verb came after the object (the man) and it must come before it since English is a Subject
(S), Verb (V) and Object (O) language. (e) is preceded by a question mark which means
that it is correct according to English syntax, but it is not acceptable at the meaning
(semantic) level.

Elements of Phrase Structure

In English, we can identify five types of phrases as follows:

1. Noun Phrase (NP)

2. Verb Phrase (VP)

3. Adjective Phrase (Adj. P)

4. Adverb Phrase (Adv. P)

5. Prepositional Phrase (PP)

1. Noun Phrase (NP)

A noun phrase is a word or a group of words in which the head word is a noun or
pronoun. The following are examples of NPs. The headwords of the main NPs are written
in italics.

a. Sana’a

b. It

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c. Sana’a University

d. Sana’a , Aden and Taiz

e. The university of Sana’a

f. The capital of the Republic of Yemen

g. All the very nice cities in the Republic of Yemen

h. Sana’a which is the capital of Yemen

In the above examples, (a) consists of one word which is the headword of the NP and (b)
consists of a pronoun (It) which is also the headword of that NP. In (c), there are two
nouns which are SANA’A and UNIVERSITY. The second noun UNIVERSITY is the
headword of that NP and the first noun SANA’A is a pre-modifier of the headword. (see
Pre-modifiers below). In (d) there are 3 nouns, namely: SANA’A, ADEN and TAIZ. Each
one is a headword by itself. In (e), the headword is UNIVERSITY and OF SANA’A is a
post modifier of that headword. In (g), the headword is SITIES and what comes before it
is a pre-modifier and what comes after it is a post modifier. Similarly in (h) the headword
is SANA’A and WHICH IS THE CAPITAL OF YEMEN is a post modifier of that
headword.

Now, try to identify the headword of the following NPs.:

a. The teacher

b. The day of his death

c. Amal and Arwa

d. She and he

e. All the books on the shelf

f. They

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g. The clever students and the teacher

h. The very clever students who are from Yemen

i. The bird sitting on the branch of that tree

The following diagram summarizes the structure of an NP

NP

Det. Pre-Mod HW Post Mod.

The clever students in that class

Modifiers

There are two types of modifiers which are pre-modifiers and post modifiers.

Pre-Modifiers

A pre- modifier is what comes before the headword of a phrase and modifies its meaning.
Adjectives that come before the headword of an NP are pre-modifiers of that HW.

a. The wild dog bit the clever man.

b. The poor little black dog bit the rich Yemeni man.

c. The hungry, cold, wet dog bit the man.

d. The pretty new English teacher is from Yemen.

Determiners are also pre-modifiers. They are only used in NPs. They are of three types:
pre-determiners, central determiners and post determiners.

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Det.

Pre-Det. Central Post Det.

Pre-determiners

Among the pre-determiners are included all, both, such, what, etc. They may be illustrated
by the following examples:

What a beautiful girl!

Such an answer

All such students

Both the questions

Central determiners (articles, demonstratives, possessive pronouns, specifying genitive, no,

any, each, every, another, some)

The name of that boy is Ahmed.

This boy is clever.

Every such student will be given a prize.

Which book do you want?

My brother and his friend are clever.

Post determiners (cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers, next, last, little, less, least, many,
more, most, few , fewer, fewest)

The first two pages of that book are not clear.

The first boy came here yesterday.

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His second child is tall.

She is the most beautiful girl in the class.

Post Modifiers

A post modifier is what comes after the headword of an NP and modifies its meaning. It
can be a word, a phrase or a clause. The post modifiers may be illustrated by the following
examples:

a. The girl there is my sister.

b. The student outside is clever.

c. The university of Sana’a has two campuses.

d. The student in that class is friendly.

e. The student who came late is Ali.

f. The girl who was here is not Yemeni.

g. The best way to learn English is to practice it.

h. The easiest way to get high marks is to study hard.

Exercise:

Analyze the following NPs indicating the HW, Pre-Mod., Post Mod., Pre-Det., Central Det.
and Post Det.

a. Every such student

b. What a nice book!

c. Many students in that large class

d. All those beautiful flowers which are on the table

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e. All the nice, red, little flowers in that garden behind the hall

f. A very difficult examination paper

g. The president of that student union

h. All those Yemeni teachers

i. The price of the most useful books in that bookshop

j. The first few pages of that useful book in my library

k. All those books in these shops in this book exhibition

l. Ahmed’s brother’s children property

m. Both the teachers in Sana’a University

n. The name of that boy who is in that class

o. A woman who can tell you her age

2. Verb Phrase (VP)

A verb phrase is a word or a group of words in which the head word is a verb. The
headword of a VP is always a lexical verb. The VP may be illustrated by the following
examples:

a. Read.

b. I saw him.

c. Ali has told me a nice story.

d. Asma is playing.

e. The nail has been hammered into the wall.

f. Fatimah could have been writing the letter.

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g. Her neighbor is looking after her baby.

h. The student looked up the word in the dictionary.

Auxiliary verbs function as pre-modifiers of the HW while the prepositions that occur with
prepositional verbs as in ( g ) above and the particles that occur with phrasal verbs as in ( h
) function as post modifiers of the lexical verb.

Types of Auxiliaries:

1. Modal Auxiliary

A modal auxiliary is a verb that is used before another verb to express meanings such as
ability, permission, possibility, necessity or advice.

The modal verbs are can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will and would.
Need and used to can follow some of the grammar patterns of modal verbs, but are also
used like ordinary verbs.

He may do it.

It can be done.

He could have done it.

This will be done tomorrow.

The book will be written.

The modal auxiliaries are usually followed by an infinitive without to, e.g.,

You can do it.

Modal auxiliaries do not take an ‘s’ for the third person singular pronouns, e.g.,

He should do it

She should do it.

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Modal auxiliaries can have different functions as illustrated below:

Modal Function Example

Ability Ali can speak English.

can Request Can I borrow your pen?

Asking for Can I sit here?

permission
Can I help you with those bags?
Offer

I left my country so that I could

Ability in the past get a good job.
could Asking for Could I give you my homework
permission tomorrow?
Request Could you help me?

will Offer I will give you some if you like.

Promise I will visit you on Friday.

Prediction It will rain next week.

Offer Would you like a cup of tea?

would Asking for Would you mind closing the

permission door?

Request Would you make me a cup of

tea?
Preference
Would you like coffee or tea?

shall Offer Shall I make you a cup of tea?

Suggestion Shall we meet in your house?

should Advise You should see a doctor.

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Prediction Prices should go up next year.

may Asking for May I sit here?

permission
I may be at home tomorrow.
Possibility

might Possibility They might send us a message.

must Obligation/Necessity I must leave now.

Prohibition You must not use the phone

while driving.

ought to Advice You ought to close the windows

before you leave the house.

2. Auxiliary of Perfective aspect

The perfect aspect is formed with the auxiliary verb "to have" + the past participle. It is
used for finished actions that are relevant to the time referred to or ones that continue up to
the time referred to:

I have done my homework.

She has read an English book.

They had studied English.

3. Auxiliary of Progressive aspect

Progressive (or continuous) verb forms in English are those made by following a form of
the verb "to be" with the present participle (the "-ing" form) of a verb.

I am reading a book.

They are doing their homework.

He is coming to class.
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She was reading a book.

4. Periphrastic Auxiliary

The auxiliary "do" can be used as a Yes or No question marker, e.g. Do you speak English?
It can also be used as a negative statement marker, e.g., He does not speak French. When
"do" occurs in examples like these, it contains no meaning on its own. It is called the
periphrastic use of "do".

Verb to do (do, did, does) in questions and in negatives.

Does he do it?

Didn’t he do it?

Do you want it?

He didn’t want to do it.

5. Auxiliary of the Passive

The passive voice is used when we want to emphasize the object of a sentence rather than
the subject. This means that the subject is either less important than the action itself or that
we do not know who or what the subject is. It is formed by using a form of "be" + past
participle.

These cups are broken.

I was written a letter.

This has been done already.

6. Emphatic Auxiliary

Emphasis involves replacing the finite verb by the verb's bare form and adding a form of
"do" to the sentence in the appropriate tense (either present or past tense). This form of
"do" then receives emphatic stress.

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He did go home.

Do bring the book tomorrow.

He does speak English.

She did answer the question.

Exercise: Identify the type of Auxiliary verb in the following sentences:

1. A woman who can tell you her age can tell you anything.

2. I have done my homework.

3. Do tell me the truth.

4. He needn’t go home.

5. I don’t like the way it was presented.

6. They have finished their work.

7. She is writing a message.

8. That message is being written.

Exercise: Do as required between brackets:

1. They might be writing their homework. (ADD have)

2. Ali was playing football (ADD will).

1. Ahlam must be cooking lunch for the family. (ADD have)

2. They had played football. (ADD will)

7. She is doing it. (ADD have)

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8. It could have been being done. (DELETE have)

9. They could have been finishing their meal. (DELETE be)

10. The work had been completed satisfactorily. (ADD may)

11. He can be hiding somewhere. (DELETE can)

12. She has been working very hard. (ADD could)

3. Adjective Phrase (Adj. P)

An adjective phrase is a word or a group of words in which the head word is an adjective.

Examples: the clever boy

the beautiful girl

Saltah tastes delicious.

The Order of Adjectives:

When we use two or more adjectives to describe something, we have to follow the
following order:

1. Opinion
Examples: nice, bad, useful, beautiful, horrible, amazing, etc.
2. Size
Examples: tall, short, big, small, heavy, light, etc.
3. Age
Examples: old, young, 20- year- old, etc.
4. Shape
Examples: triangular, round, circular, rectangular, etc.

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5. Color
Examples: white, black, red, blue, etc
6. Nationality
Examples: Yemeni, American, British, Indian, etc.
7. Material
Examples: paper, gold, silver, wool, wood, glass, etc.

Examples: This is a nice, new, white, Japanese car.

This is a beautiful, rectangular, black, leather bag.

That is a big, rectangular, green ruler.

Note: When we use “and” between adjectives, we have to use adjectives from the same
class.

A nice Yemeni student.

But not * A nice and Yemeni student.

A Yemeni and English student (Adj. of nationality).

This is a black and white film. (Adj. of color).

Exercise: Arrange the following words to make a correct adjective phrase (Adj P).

1. Yemeni many farmers friendly coffee

2. Swiss some chocolates delicious
3. meal Yemeni a traditional
4. 30-inch our monitor brand-new
5. sandals and his ugly yellow plastic orange
6. website an new interesting
7. television an Egyptian series excellent
8. hotel a five-star seaside fabulous
9. businessmen and rich powerful Arab several

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10. brown leaves and orange autumn some

11. leather my black jacket old
12. educational a program popular

4. Adverb Phrase (Adv P)

An adverb phrase is a word or a group of words in which the head word is an adverb.

Examples: They ran quickly.

He speaks quite fluently.

He did it more nicely than ever.

5. Prepositional Phrase (PP)

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that start with a preposition.

Examples:

1. After the revolution in Yemen

2. From behind the curtains

3. On the table near the door

4. On the basis of your interpretation of the sentence

5. In front of the class.

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Elements of Sentence Structure

1. Subject (Su)

The subject of the sentence is who or what the sentence is about. It is a noun or pronoun. It
controls the form of the verb (the teacher, the student, he, they, etc.)

I have been putting up with his rude words for a long time.

The gossip turned out to be false.

2. Verb (V)

What does the subject do? The infinitive form of all verbs is: to _______ . If the root fits
after “to” and makes sense, it is a verb. (to go, to read, to write, etc.)

1. Ali writes a letter.

2. The bottle contains sugar.

3. The student speaks three languages.

3. Direct Object (DO)

When there’s one object it is the DO. It answers the question: “What?” or What is the
action done to? It can be the subject of a passive sentence. It can be a noun or pronoun.

The students wrote the letter

They study English

Ibrahim bought a mobile.

My mother is cooking lunch.

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4. Indirect Object (IO)

When there are 2 objects, one of them may be the Indirect Object. It indicates to whom the
action takes place. It is a noun or pronoun.

The students wrote me a letter. They wrote a letter to me.

He told his friend a story. He told a story to his friend.

The teacher explained them the difficult point.

The new mobile cost me 50000 Yemeni Riyals.

5. Benefactive Object (BO)

The Benefactive Object indicates for whom the action takes place. It is a noun or pronoun.
When the Benefactive Object comes before the Direct Object, it looks very similar to the
Indirect Object. How can we differentiate between them? The answer is that we apply the
test of TO vs. FOR. That is we start first with the Direct Object and then the Indirect
Object or the Benefactive Object. If it takes the preposition TO, it is an Indirect Object. If
it takes the preposition FOR, it is a Benefactive Object.

My father bought me a car. My father bought a car for me.

She cooked him a meal. She cooked a meal for him.

They kept me a chair. They kept a chair for me.

6. Subject Complement (SC)

The Subject Complement comes after verb “to BE” and verbs of censes such as “look,
sound, taste and smell”. It can be a noun, a pronoun, an adjective or a prepositional phrase.

She is a clever student.

Saltah tastes delicious.

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The new mobile looks beautiful.

It sounds better

The students are in the class.

7. Object Complement (OC)

The Object Complement is a word or a group words that describe the DO.

My father named me Mohammad.

The students elected Asma representative.

I like my tea hot.

They considered him genius.

8. Adverbial

 Adverbs are mobile. It can change its place in a sentence.

Quietly, he entered the classroom.

He quietly entered the classroom.

He entered the classroom quietly.

Sometimes, there is a change in the meaning of the sentence. Let us compare the following
2 sentences:

Happily, he did not die.

He did not die happily.

Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia is credited with inventing a sentence that can be
made to have eight different meanings by placing ONE WORD in all possible positions in
the sentence:

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"I hit him in the eye yesterday."The word is "ONLY".

1. ONLY I hit him in the eye yesterday. (No one else did.)
2. I ONLY hit him in the eye yesterday. (Did not slap him.)
3. I hit ONLY him in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit others.)
4. I hit him ONLY in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit outside the eye.)
5. I hit him in ONLY the eye yesterday. (Not other organs.)
6. I hit him in the ONLY eye yesterday. (He doesn't have another eye.)
7. I hit him in the eye ONLY yesterday. (Not today.)
8. I hit him in the eye yesterday ONLY. (Did not wait for today.)

This is the beauty and complexity of the English language- made possible only because of
the word ‘’only’’.

 Adverbs are optional. They can be omitted.

He entered the classroom. (quietly)

 Adverbs show place, time or manner.

Probably he will arrive tonight.

He does it slowly every morning.

9. Verb Complement (VC)

A verb complement can be an adverb which is not optional (obligatory)

The students live in Sana’a.

He put the book on the table.

But, he found the book on the table is an adverb because it is optional. You can delete it.

Verbs that cannot be passivized are followed by verb complements.

Ali married Arwa.

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A equals B.

That girl resembles her mother.

The bottle contains sugar.

The tempest reminds me of Shakespeare.

Basic Sentence Patterns

1. Subject + Verb

A simple sentence usually consists of a noun phrase and a verb phrase.

 Birds fly.

 Lions roar.

 Babies cry

 The sun rises in the morning.

2. Su + V + SC

 The customer is always right.

 She looks beautiful.

 A hungry man is an angry man.

 Saltah tastes delicious.

3. Su + V + DO

 They eat Saltah every day.

 Ahlam bought a new dress

 She studies English.

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 They are playing football.

4. Su + V + IO + DO

 Ahmed told me a nice story.

 My student wrote me a letter.

 Our teacher teaches us this course.

 His students gave him a present.

5. Su + V + BO + DO

 My father bought me a nice book.

 Ali called me a taxi

 She cooked her husband a nice meal.

 My students kept me a chair.

6. Su + V + DO + OC

 I named my little baby Ibrahim.

 The pot should not call the kettle black.

 The crow thinks her young the fairest.

 I like my tea hot.

7. Su + V + VC

 A equals B.

 That boy resembles his father.

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 They live in Sana’a.

 That bottle contains milk.

8. Su + V + DO + VC

 He compared me with my brother.

 He put the book on the table.

 Amran reminds me of Al-Zubieri

9. Su + V + IO + DO + OC

 The mechanic returned me my car unrepaired.

 They returned me my book without the cover.

 The waiter gave me back my tea still cold.

 The washer man returned me my shirt without a button.

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Exercise 1: Write down the sentence pattern to which each of the following sentences
belongs, as in the example:

EXAMPLE: Babies cry. = Su + V

1. They have made Sana’a green.

2. The washer man returned me my shirt without a button.
3. The students of Level Two kept me a chair.
4. Her sister is studying English.
5. They live in Sana’a.
6. You have asked me the same question.
7. I promised my children a trip to Aden.
8. My son hired a bicycle.
9. During the war, many people lost their homes.
10. The wall collapsed.
11. Arwa put the book on the bag.
12. The pot should not call the kettle black.

Exercise 2: Indicate whether the following statements contain IOs or BOs?

1. Akram returned me my book.

2. Amani bought her sister a gift.
3. The phone cost Amal 30,000 Riyals.
4. My friend delivered me the package.
5. Ali got his sister a new mobile.
6. Please pass me Saltah.
7. The students kept their teacher a chair.
8. My mother made me Bint Al-Sahn.
9. They reported the police their problem.
10. He explained us his idea.

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Sentence Structure

A sentence normally consists of two constituents, namely: a noun phrase (NP) and a verb
phrase (VP). This allows us to formulate the following Phrase Structure (PS) rule:

S NP VP

The arrow stands for “is written as” or “ consists of”.

The students are studying English.

(NP) (VP)

Using a tree diagram to represent the structure of a sentence is very common.

The students are studying English

NP VP

Art N Aux V NP

The students are studying English

This tree diagram has nine nodes. They are S, NP, VP, Art, N, Aux, V, NP and N. The lines
that connect the S node with the NP node and the VP node are called branches. Similarly,
the lines that connect the NP node with the Art node and the N node are called branches,
too. S is the root or mother node since it dominates the NP and the VP nodes while the VP
is the sister of the NP. The NP has two daughters, Art and N while the VP has three

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daughters; Aux, V and NP. In other words, the VP has three immediate constituents and
one non-immediate constituent, the N node.

The Structure of the NP

Earlier in this Unit, the NP was defined as a word or a group of words in which the head
word is a noun or pronoun. It has the following structures:

1. NP

Ahmed

2. NP

Art N

The students

3. NP

Art Adj P N

Adj

The clever students

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4. NP

Pre-Det Art Adj P N PP

All the very clever students of this class

5. NP

Art N S

The students who are from Yemen

Based on the above NP structures (1-5), we can write a rule for the structure of the NP as
follows:

NP (Pre Det) (Det) (Adj P) N (PP) (S)

This rule says that an NP must consist of a noun or pronoun. This head word (N) may be
preceded by a pre-determiner, determiner and/or adjective phrase. It may be followed by a
prepositional phrase (PP) or a clause called here a sentence (S).

In structure (4) above, we used two triangles under the Adj P and the PP nodes. Similarly
we used a triangle under the node S in Structure number (5). The use of the triangle means
that we do not want to show the detailed structures here. We will talk about them
somewhere else.

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Exercise: Draw a tree structure for each of the following NPs:

1. Many students in this department

2. These few exceptions

3. The teacher’s book

4. A road through the park

5. The bird sitting on the branch of that tree

6. Every other day

7. All these expensive university books

8. A sign on the wall

9. Half Arwa’s books

10. What a clever girl!

11. Much useful information

12. The subject of Introduction to Language and Linguistics

The Structure of the VP

Earlier in this Unit, a VP was defined as a word or a group of words in which the head
word is a verb. It has the following structures:

1. VP

Aux V

Tense

Present read

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2. VP

Aux V

T Mod Perf Prog Pass

Past will have-en be-ing be-en write

It would have been being written.

3. VP

Aux V NP NP PP

Past tell me a story in the evening

4. VP

Aux V S

Past say that tomorrow is a holiday

He said that tomorrow is a holiday.

Based on the above VP structures (1-5), we can write a rule for the structure of the VP as
follows:

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VP Aux V NP

NP NP

NP Adj P

NP PP

Adj P

PP

Aux Tense (Mod) (Perf) (Prog) (Pass)

Exercise: Draw a tree structure for each of the following VPs:

1. is reading

2. Hammered the nail into the wall

3. Put the book on the table

4. Has been doing it carefully

5. Said that the exam would be next week

6. Would have been being built

7. Compared me with my brother

8. Returned me my shirt without a button

9. Will be a teacher next week

10. Is very clever

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The Structure of the PP

A prepositional phrase (PP) usually consists of a preposition and an NP. It has the
following structures:

1. PP

P NP

For me

2. PP

P NP

Art N

On the table

3. PP

P PP

From behind the curtain

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Based on the above PP structures (1-3), we can write a rule for the structure of the PP as
follows:

PP P NP

PP

Exercise: Draw a tree structure for each of the following PPs:

1. After the revolution in Yemen

2. Away from home

3. On the table near the door

4. From within the room

5. On the bases of your interpretation of the sentence

The Structure of the Adj P

An adjective phrase (Adj P) may consist of only an adjective. It has the following
structures:

1. Adj P

Adj

Beautiful

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2. Adj P

Degree Adj

Very clever

3. Adj P

Adj PP

Fond of her

Adj P (Adv) Adj (PP)

The Structure of the Adv P

An adverb phrase (Adv P) may consist of only an adverb. It has the following structures:

1. Adv P

Adv

quickly

2. Adv P

Degree Adv

Very quickly

Adv P (Deg) Adv

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Exercise: Draw a tree structure for each of the following phrases:

1. Very fast

2. Quite randomly

3. Rather quickly

4. Very interesting

5. Extremely proud of Yemen

6. Very clever

Now let us draw a tree structure for each of the following sentences:

1. Her father bought her a nice mobile.

2. Ali is from Taiz, but he lives in Sana’a.

3. While I was walking it started to rain.

1. S

NP VP

Pro N Aux V NP NP

T Pro Art AdjP N

Adj

Her father past buy her a nice mobile

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2. S

S conj S

NP VP NP VP

N V PP N V PP

P NP P NP

N N

Ali is from Taiz but he lives in Sana’a

3. S

Conj S S

NP VP NP VP

N Aux V Pro VG

T Prog

While I past be-ing walk it started to rain

Exercise: Draw tree structures for these sentences:

1. That he was not killed is a miracle.

2. I know that he passed the exam.

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3. The teacher thought that the students were absent.

4. The teacher of Intro. to Language put the book on the table.

5. The students will be having the exam very soon.

6. He must have been ill.

7. The students could have chosen their representatives.

8. She will be a teacher next year.

9. Fatima might have been sitting in her room.

10. That girl must have finished her homework.

Structural Ambiguity

Each of the following sentences has two possible meanings because each sentence is
structurally ambiguous. Each sentence has two tree structures.

1 Fatima fed her baby carrots.

b. Fatima fed her baby carrots.
NP VP NP NP

c. Fatima fed her baby carrots.

NP VP NP NP

2 I drove the visitor from Taiz.

a. I drove the visitor from Taiz.

NP VP NP PP

d. I drove the visitor from Taiz.

NP VP NP

Now let us draw two structures for each sentence in order to show the two different
meanings.

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Structure 1

NP VP

Aux NP NP

Pro T V Pro N N

She past feed her baby carrots

Structure 2

NP VP

Aux NP NP

Pro T V Pro Adj P N

She past feed her baby carrots

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Structure 1

NP VP

Pro Aux V NP PP

T Art N P NP

I past drive the visitor from Taiz

Structure 2

NP VP

Pro Aux V NP

T Art N PP

P NP

I past drive the visitor from Taiz

Exercise: Draw two alternative tree structures for each of these sentences:

1. He pushed the ball under the desk.

2. Ali untied the parcel for Ibrahim.

3. Ahmed has written a study of education in Yemen.

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4. She hit the man with the hat.

5. The Yemeni history teacher is late today.

6. The tall boys and the girls are in the class.

Exercises on Unit Ten

1.Arrange the following words into a properly ordered noun phrase (not a sentence).

large rice three those Yemeni plates white

2. Analyze the following NPs indicating the types of determiners.

1. All those Yemeni diplomats

2. That cat is on the roof.

3. All those beautiful flowers

4. Any such questions will be rejected

5. Both the teachers in that university

6. The third unit of that book

7. What a nice book!

8. His every wish

9. Half his many books

10. All these books in these shops

3. Which of the following contains an emphatic aux.?

a. She may have done it. b. Do they know it?

c. Do bring my book tomorrow. d. It has been being done.

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Which of the following contains a periphrastic Auxiliary?

a. He can't do it. b. He didn't do it.

c. He hasn't done it. d. He won't do it

4.Analyze the following VPs indicating the type of each Aux.

1. He will be writing a letter.

2. He will be present tomorrow.

3. They might have been delayed by heavy traffic.

4. I would have got high grades.

5. He might have been sleeping all the time.

6. I could have run the hill.

7. It must have been a big dog.

8. It must have been being built.

9. You cannot have seen a wolf in the park.

10. He could have deposited the money.

11. Don’t you know the rule?

12. We will have lived in Sana’a for 20 years.

5. Study the following sentences and then say to which sentence pattern do they
belong?

1. The dark hour is before the dawn.

2. The crow thinks her young the fairest.

3. The milk has gone sour because of the weather.

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4. The first two pages of that useless book in the teacher’s personal library are
very important.

5. They are traveling to Taiz by bus.

6. They told me a very interesting story.

7. They named their son Khalid.

6. Draw a tree structure for each of the following sentences:

a. Sana’a is the capital city of the Republic of Yemen.

b. The University of Sana’a was built in 1970.
c. The day of his death was a dark cold day.
7. Find out a sentence that has the structure described by the formula.

a. NP + past + have + en + V + NP

b. NP + present + M + be + ing + V + NP

c. NP + present + have + en + be + ing + V

d. NP + present + M + be + ing + V + PP

e. NP + present + M + be + ing + V + NP + NP + PP

f. NP + past + M + have + en + be + ing + V

g. NP + past + M + be + NP

h. NP + present + M + be + NP

i. NP + present + M + have + en +be + ing + V

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UNIT ELEVEN
Semantics

What is Semantics?

Semantics is the study of meaning and the main goal of this branch of linguistics is to
explain the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.

Types of Meaning:
Linguists distinguish between the following types of meaning:
1. Lexical vs. Grammatical Meaning
Examine the following sentences and then answer the questions that follow:
a. A cat ate an eagle.
b. A cat ate the eagle.
c. The cat ate an eagle.
d. The cat ate the eagle.
e. An eagle ate a cat.
f. An eagle ate the cat.
g. The eagle ate the cat
h. The eagle ate a cat.

Do the sentences above (a-h) refer to the same “cat” and “eagle”? Of course, the answer
is “NO”. The “lexical” meaning of the words “cat” and “eagle” is the same, but their
“grammatical” meaning as illustrated above (a-h) is different. Both the “cat” and “eagle”
in (a) are preceded by the indefinite article, while in (b) “eagle” is preceded by the
definite article and so on.

2. Denotative vs. Connotative Meaning:

Almost every word has two kinds of meanings:

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Denotative meaning is the straightforward dictionary definition. It refers to the central

meaning of a word or a sentence. It can also be considered as the part of the meaning that
relates a word or a sentence to the real world. For example, the denotative meaning of the
word “man” is a “two legged, intelligent, giving birth, warm-blooded creature.
Connotative (emotive) meaning refers to the ideas and feelings associated with the
word. In other words, it is an additional meaning that a word or a sentence conveys in
addition to its main meaning.
Example: Ali wore a blue shirt today. (Denotative)
Ali was blue after his wife died. (Connotative)

They also tell us about the language user’s attitudes and emotions toward the object or
the event that has been described. For instance, the word “owl” may be defined as “a kind
of bird”, but there are other features people associate with this bird. For the Arabs, this bird
is associated with “death, sadness, destruction,…”. However, in the West, it is associated
with “wisdom, cleverness,
John never puts himself in a bad situation. He is an owl.

Meaning Relations
The basic terms that show semantic relations between words are antonymy,
synonymy, polysemy, hyponymy and metonymy.

Antonymy

Two words that have an opposite meaning are said to be antonymous. However,
Dead is not the opposite of live in the same way as sell is the opposite of buy. Similarly,
tall is not the opposite of short in the same way as male is the opposite of female. Thus,
antonyms are of the following types:

1. Complementary (binary):

There are pairs of words in the case of which the presence of one indicates the
absence of the other. That is, when one is used, the other cannot be and vice versa.
The following pairs are complementary antonyms:

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 Dead alive
 Employed unemployed
 True false
 Single married

Alive +

Dead -

Thus, if someone is dead he cannot be alive. And when someone is alive, he cannot be
dead.

Exercise: Are the following pairs of words binary antonyms?

1. married / unmarried
2. hot / cold
3. breakfast/ lunch
4. same/ different
5. correct/ incorrect
6. love/ hate
7. borrow/ lend
8. male/ female
9. animate / inanimate
10. Yemeni / non-Yemeni

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2. Gradable Antonyms:

When two words are at opposite ends of a continuous scale of values, they are
called “Gradable Antonyms”.

Hot → warm → cool → cold

Gradable scale

Love→ like → indifferent to → dislike→ hate

Thus between hot and cold lies some other terms such as warm and cool. Similarly,
between love and hate lies other terms such as like, be indifferent to and dislike. Gradable
antonyms differ from the non-gradable ones as follows:

1. Gradable antonyms accept the adverb “very” before them whereas others do
not.
e.g. “very long”, “very tall”, “very beautiful” are acceptable. But not “*very dead”,
“*very single”.

2. We can also ask the question “How…?” e.g., “How tall is he?” But not “*How
dead is he?”
3. We can use gradable antonyms in the “comparative” and “superlatives” forms,
but we cannot use “binary antonyms” in these forms.
“Ali is taller than Ahmad”. But not “*Ali is deader than Ahmad”.

Exercise: Are the following pairs gradable antonyms?

1. Long / short 5. stupid / clever

2. fail / pass 6. good / bad
3. beautiful / ugly 7. easy / difficult
4. happy / sad 8. top / bottom

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“Ali is tall” implies “Ali is not short”.

But: “Ali isn’t tall” does not mean that “Ali is short”. It may mean that Ali is neither tall
nor short.

3. Relational Antonyms:

The following pairs are relational antonyms:

 employer / employee
 send / receive
 give / take
 teacher / student
 husband / wife
 buy / sell
 “A” is taller than “B” → “B” is shorter than “A”.

“teacher of”

Arwa Ibrahim
“student of”

Exercise: Are the following pairs relational antonyms?

1. doctor/ patient 5 . love/ hate

2. pass/ fail 6. poor/ rich
3. parent/ child 7. borrow / lend
4. own / belongs to 8. reveal / conceal

4. Multiple Systems:

There are antonyms which involve more than two terms. For example, the
“physical-state system” includes the following three terms: “solid, liquid, and gas”.

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Thus, the following sentence: “It is not solid” is antonymous with both “It is liquid”
and “It is gas”.

There are also systems which can have either four members (Spring, Summer, Fall, and
Winter), seven members (Saturday…Friday), twelve members (January…December), or
open-ended members (colors, animals, trees, etc.)

Exercise: Are the following pairs multiple antonyms.

1. South /North 5. cat / mouse

2. bed / chair 6. easy / difficult
3. happy / sad 7. mother / daughter
4. below / above 8. circle / rectangular
Exercise: Are the following pairs binary, gradable, relational, or multiple antonyms?

1. before / after 6. good /bad

2. beautiful / ugly 7. cheap / expensive
3. correct/ incorrect 8. Monday / Wednesday
4. own /belong to 9. red / green
5. in front of / behind 10. thick / thin

Synonymy
Synonymy is the relationship between two or more words that have more or less the same
meaning and can often be used interchangeably without changing the sense of the sentence.

Examples of perfect synonymy are hard to find, most probably because there is little point
in having two words with the same meaning. Thus few examples of synonymy can be
found.

The following pairs are examples of synonyms:

 Autumn, fall
 Rarely, scarcely
 Coach, sofa

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 Freedom, liberty
 Nearly, approximately
 Jail, prison
 World, universe
 Number, digit
 Amount, quantity
 Taxi, cab

Exercise 1: In the following examples, do the underlined words have the same meaning?

1. A. Al-Siteen is a very wide street.

B. Al-Siteen is a very broad street.
2. A. These apples are ripe.
B. These apples are red.

3. How many children/ kids have you got?

4. You have my deep/ profound sympathy.
5. This is an easy/ short sentence.
6. His father bought/ purchased him a new car.
7. Ali is a nice/ handsome boy.
8. Arwa tried to hide/ conceal the truth.
9. His brother is a taxi / cab driver.
10. You can find the book on the sofa / coach.
11. Akram lives in a very large house / apartment..
12. The suspect was sentenced ten years in prison / jail.

In some cases we may find more than two synonymous words. This is due to the fact that
English was in contact with other languages such as French and Latin. Therefore, some
words made their way into English from these languages.

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Native (Anglo Saxon) French Latin

ask question interrogate

kingly royal regal

single bachelor spinster

time age epoch

Polysemy:

A word is said to be polysemous when it has two or more related meanings. For
example the word coach has the following meanings:

Sofa

Coach  bus

trainer

Exercise A: Give at least two synonymous meanings for the following words. The first one
has been done for you.

1. Corn a.) grain b.) on the foot

2. Park a.)…………… b.) …………...…
3. Heat a.)…………………. b.)………………
4. Charge a.)………………… b.)……….………
5. Claim a.)……………….… b.)………………
6. Earth a.) ………………… b.)………………

Exercise B: Try to answer the following riddles. The answers are provided below.

1. What has a tongue, but can’t speak?

2. What has hands, but can’t write?

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3. What has teeth, but can’t bite?

4. What has a foot, but can’t walk?
5. What has a heart, but can’t love?
6. What has a head, but can’t think?
7. What has an eye, but can’t see?
8. What has four legs and one back, but can’t walk?
9. It weeps until it dies, what is it?

ANSWERS: (a shoe, clock, comb, mountain, city, nail, needle, chair, candle)

Homonyms:

When two words have the same pronunciation and/or spelling, but unrelated
meanings, they are called as “homonyms”. For example,

Kan can can the can, but the can can’t can Kan.

The following dialogue contains the following homonymous words: (what/ Watt) (not/
Knott) (will / Will)

Mr Watt : Hello, are you there?

Mr Knott : Yes, who are you please?

Mr Watt : I'm Watt.

Mr Knott : What's your name?

Mr Watt : My name is John Watt.

Mr Knott : John what?

Mr Watt : Yes, are you Jones?

Mr Knott : No, I'm Knott.

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Mr Watt : Will you tell me your name, then?

Mr Knott : Will Knott.

Mr Watt : Why not?

Mr Knott : My name is Knott.

Mr Watt : Not what?

Mr Knott : Not not, Knott, Will Knott.

Mr Watt : What?

Homonyms are of the following types:

1. Words which have the same pronunciation, but different spellings and meanings. Such
words are known as homophones.
A B

Night knight

Write right

Great grate

2. Words which have the same pronunciation and the same spelling, but different
meanings.

A B

Bank ( financial institution) bank = (side of a river)

Hide (conceal) hide = (skin)

Can ( modal aux.) can = (tin)

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3. Words which have the same written form, but different pronunciations and different
meanings. They are called “homographs”.
A B

Lead [li:d] = to show the way. lead [led] = the name of a metal.

Exercise: Are the following pairs of words homophonous? The first two pairs have been
done for you.

1. Write right ( ).
2. God good (x)
3. Road rod ( )
4. Son sun ( )
5. Sent cent ( )
6. Fell fill ( )
7. Lesson lessen ( )
8. By buy ( )
9. Sent saint ( )
10. Knight night ( )
11. Know now ( )
12. In inn ( )

While dictionaries treat polysemous words under a single entry, they treat homonyms in
separate entries. Riddles make use of homonyms.

a. Why is a tree often mistaken for a dog? (Because of its bark)

b. How many “C’s” are there in Africa? ( the letter “c” vs. “sea”)
c. What has two banks but no money? (a river)
d. What happens if “I” goes instead of “U”? ( letters I, U vs. pronouns I, you)

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Exercise: Decide whether the following words are examples of polysemy or homonymy.

1. bark ( of a dog vs. of a tree)

2. bank ( money institution vs. side of a river)
3. head ( of a body vs. of a department)
4. can ( Modal auxiliary vs. a tin)
5. ear ( of corn vs. part of head)
6. pupil ( a student vs. of an eye)
7. heart (of a body vs. of a city)
8. drive ( as in drive a car vs. as in drive a nail).
9. leg ( of a person vs. of a chair)
10. hide ( a skin vs. conceal)
Arabic Homonyms:

As we may expect homonyms exist in other languages. In Arabic for, example, we can find
several examples of each type of hyponyms.

1. dhahab a. “gold” b. “He went”

2. taqah a. “window” b. “power”
3. ʕam a. general b. swam

4. yasier a. walk b. easy/ little

5. jubn a. cheese b. cowardness

Exercise: Give at least two meanings of the following Arabic words:

1. ʕain )‫(عين‬

2. Mayna ) ‫ميناء‬

3. Tatasawar ‫تتصور‬

4. Jenah ‫جناح‬
5. tabaraʕ ‫تبرع‬
6. Safqah ‫صفقة‬

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Homophones:

1. Alwara (behind) ‫الوراء‬ alwara (the World)‫الورى‬

2. Kalamatni (talked to me) ‫ كلمتني‬kalamatni(got tired)‫كل متني‬
3. Arak (I see you) ‫اراك‬ arak (Type of a tree) ‫اراك‬
Hyponyms
When the meaning of a word is included in the meaning of another, the relationship
is described as hyponymy. The word which has a wider meaning is called the
“superordinate” term and the word whose meaning is included in the meaning of the
superordinate term is called the “hyponymy”. Thus, the meaning of furniture is included
in the meaning of chair (“Chair” is a kind of “furniture”).

The set of animals

Superordinate Hyponyms

Animals Dog, cat, cow, mouse, lion,…..

Colors Red, orange, yellow, green,..

Buildings School, hospital, office, house

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Exercise: Find the “superordinate” word of the following set of words:

1. apple , banana, orange, pear

2. teacher, secretary, doctor , nurse, accountant, pilot
3. Sana’a, Aden, Taiz, Hadhramout, Hodieda, Ibb
4. Nile, Mississippi, Ganges, Danube, Thames
5. Arabic, English, French, German, Japanese
6. Toyota, Mazda, Honda , Mercedes, Suzuki
7. Football, tennis, baseball , basketball
8. eyes , head, ears, legs, hands, stomach
Exercise: Look at the following superordinates and then complete the missing hyponyms.

1. Country
Yemen, Britain, America, India,……

2. College
Arts, Education,………..,………..,……….,

3. Emotion
………..,…………,……………,………….,

4. Car
………,…………..,………..,…………,…

5. Meat
……….,…………….,…………,………….,…

Metonymy

A metonymy is a word or phrase which is used to stand in for another word. For example,
Can you give me a hand? Normally the word “hand” refers to the physical part of our body,
but in this context the word “hand” stands in for the word “help”.

Here are some more examples of metonyms.

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 Sana’a University sends you its greetings. It refers to the staff.

 Lend me your ear. It stands in for (Give me your attention).
 The Yemeni Government (the Ministers)
 The pen is mightier than the sword. (The written word)
 Use your eyes properly (sight)

Semantic Features:

A semantic feature is a method that can be used to express the presence or absence of pre-
established semantic properties by using plus and minus signs. For example, the feature [+
male] is part of the meaning of boy, and so is the feature [- adult] but other features are
needed to make the whole sense or meaning of the word boy. Here are more semantic
features:

boy girl man woman cow house tree

male + - + - - + -

adult - - + + + + -

animate + + + + + + -

Semantic features are used to describe the oddness of sentences. For example, Arwa is my
brother can be described as an odd sentence because Arwa has the feature [-male] while
brother has the feature [+male]. Therefore, the result is an odd sentence. We can solve this
oddity by assigning another word which has the feature [- male] or [+female] such as sister,
mother, aunt or niece.

Another example is the odd sentence: My pen drank a cup of tea. The oddity of this
sentence resulted from the use of the word pen which is [-animate] followed by the verb
drink which requires its subject to be [+ animate]. Furthermore, the phrase a cup of tea
requires a subject that has the feature [+ human]. Our knowledge of the world around us

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makes us understand that [+ animate] can drink water or milk, but only [+ human] can
drink a cup of tea.

Exercise: How would you describe the oddness of the following sentences, using semantic
features?

1. Fatima is my uncle.
2. That chair speaks two languages.
3. My car is saying hello.
4. Colorless green shirts are very nice.
5. My brother is the only child.
6. My father is younger than me.
7. He saw me tomorrow.
8. He took a front seat at the back.
9. He gave me a piece of cake, so I ate it and gave it back to him.
10. My brother sleeps awake.
11. She broke a front bone in her back.
12. The man who killed his widow is over there

Ambiguity
Ambiguity is the possibility of interpreting a phrase or sentence in two or more different
ways. For example, “I am at the bank.” can either mean that I am on the side of the river or
that I am inside the financial institution. Ambiguity is of the following three types:

 Phonological Ambiguity
I scream for ice-cream

Why choose? White shoes.

 Lexical Ambiguity
Asma cannot bear children.

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A: Asma cannot carry children.

B: Asma cannot tolerate children.

C: Asmaa cannot give birth to children.

 Structural Ambiguity
I drove the visitor from Taiz.

It can either mean that I drove him from Taiz or that I drove him.

The following are examples of ambiguous sentences:

1. I saw the man with the telescope.

2. I found him a good doctor.
3. I know him better than you.
4. Ibrahim loves his mother and so do I
5. Ali hit the boy with the hat.
6. The tall boys and the girls are in the class.
7. The parents of the bride and the groom are coming.
8. Flying planes can be dangerous.
9. Begging children may be troublesome.
10. The boy carried the chair with a broken leg.
11. The Yemeni history teacher is late today.

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Exercise: Disambiguate the following sentences by writing at least two unambiguous

sentences for each.

1. He took the photograph.

i. A: ………………………………
ii. B: ……………………………….

2. Collect all the books in that room.

i. A: ………………………………
ii. B: ……………………………….

3. She found him a sincere friend.

i. A: ………………………………
ii. B: ……………………………….

4. Ahmed finally decided on the boat.

i. A: ………………………………
ii. B: ……………………………….

5. The chicken is ready to eat.

i. A: ………………………………
ii. B: ……………………………….

Entailment:

Entailment is another meaning relation which can be illustrated as follows:

 I saw a girl entails I saw a person.

 The car was hidden by the trees entails The car was concealed by the trees.
Hyponymy involves entailment. To say This is a cat entails This is an animal.

Similarly, This is a boy entails This is male. Thus, hyponymy is to entailment as synonymy
is to paraphrase.

The meaning of the verb boil is included in the term cook, but not the other way round.
That is the verb boil does not include the verb cook. Thus, we can say that Fatima is

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boiling eggs entails Fatima is cooking eggs. However, Fatima is cooking eggs does not
entail Fatima is boiling eggs.

Exercise: Are the following statements True or False?

1. I saw a car entails I saw a Toyota.

2. I saw a Toyota entails I saw a car.
3. I saw a man entails I saw a person.
4. I saw a person entails I saw a man.

Paraphrases:

In addition to synonymous words, we may find synonymous phrases and sentences.

The following pairs of sentences are synonymous. In other words they are paraphrases of
each other.

1. a.) Osamah is going to Taiz by car.

b.) Osamah is driving to Taiz.

2. a.) Ahmed is flying to Hodieda.

b.) Ahmed is going to Hodieda by plane.

3. a.) My brother owns this house.

b.) This house belongs to my brother.

4. a.) Not all the students joined the trip to Aden.

b.) Some students did not join the trip to Aden.

5. a. Ali lives in the capital of Yemen.

b. Ali lives in Sana’a.
Exercise: Are the following pairs of sentences paraphrases of each other?

1. a. Not all Yemenis chew qat.

b. Some Yemenis do not chew qat. Yes / No

2. a. My brother owns this house.

b. This house belongs to my brother. Yes / No

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3. a. Abdulla married my sister.

b. My sister is married to Abdulla. Yes / No

4. a. They are not rich.

b. They are poor. Yes / No

5. a. Lion is the king of the forest.

b. Lion is the strongest animal in the forest. Yes / No

6. a. Ahmad saw this car.

b. Ahmad bought this car. Yes / No

7. a. The pen is on the book.

b. The book is under the pen. Yes / No

8. a. Ali wrote a letter.

b. The letter was written by Ali. Yes / No

9. a. I cannot hide the truth.

b. I cannot tell you the truth. Yes / No

10. a. Fatima is Ahmad’s wife.

b. Ahmad is Fatima’s husband. Yes / No

Contradiction:
A CONTRADICTION is a sentence which is necessarily FALSE, because of the senses of
the words in it. For example, Asma is my brother. This sentence is a contradiction because
of the senses of Asma and brother . The following are more examples:
 Yemen is in Africa.
 Sana’a is in the south of Yemen.
 Ibb is the capital city of Yemen.
 That married man is single.
 Birds are vegetables.
Anomalous Sentences (Odd )

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The semantic features of words determine what other words they can be combined with.
When we do not observe such combinations of words, the result is anomalous sentences
which seem nonsense (odd).
 This door wants a cup of tea.
 My car speaks 3 languages.
 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
 That bachelor man is married.
 That child has 3 children.

Presupposition:
We have the ability to know which sentences are meaningful and which are not. Thus, we
cannot ask such questions:
1. Has your father got any sons?
2. A: What day is today?
B: Today is Saturday?
A: I see. Then, what day is tomorrow?
3. How many husbands do you have?

GENERAL EXERCICE 1:
I. Indicate the semantic relationship between each pair of the following:
1. hot cold
2. male female
3. coach sofa
4. night knight
5. frog animal
6. I saw a girl. I saw a person.
7. true false
8. ear (of body) ear (of corn)
9. buy sell
10. ice-cream I scream.

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II. Disambiguate the following sentences by writing two unambiguous sentences for each:
1. Ali took the photograph.
2. I know him better than you.
3. The boy carried the chair with a broken leg.
4. They found him a sincere friend.
5. The chicken is ready to eat.
III. Write short notes with examples on the following:

1. Connotative meaning vs. denotative meaning.

2. Gradable antonyms vs. binary antonyms.
3. Homonyms vs. polysemy.
4. Synonymy vs. antonymy.
5. entailment vs. hyponyms.
6. Grammatical meaning vs. lexical meaning.
7. Superordinate words vs. hyponyms.
8. Semantic ambiguity vs. contradiction.
III. How would you describe the oddness of the following sentences, using semantic
features?

j. That man is very beautiful.

k. My bag told me that it was hungry.

l. That little baby is married.

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GENERAL REVIEW:
TASK ONE: Indicate whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
1. In English, voiced sounds are more in number than the voiceless ones.
6. A synthetic language is characterized by word order.
7. Arabic is a member of the South Semitic branch of languages.
8. There are about 5000 languages in the world.
9. Writing is a skill that can be acquired consciously.
10. The study of language at a certain point in time is termed "diachronic".
11. Consonants can never occur as the nucleus of a syllable.
12. Ideograms are based on pictograms.
13. There are 2 cavities in the vocal tract.
14. Linguists consider the spoken language as primary.
15. / ∫ / , /t/, /?/ , /f/ and / s/ are voiceless sounds.
16. IPA is phonetic.
17. All English consonants are oral.
18. Voiced sounds are produced because of the uvula’s vibration
19. All English vowels are voiced.

Task Two: Choose the correct answer

1. Semi vowels behave like ………………. structurally.
a. vowels b. consonants c. syllables d. nucleus

2. According to the ……theory, language originated while people were imitating the
sounds in nature.
a. Bow-wow b. La-la c. Pooh-pooh d. Evolution

3. Which one ends with an affricate?

a. stomach b. chemistry c. finishes d. match

4. Which one starts with a lateral?

a. left b. what c. remember d. yes

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5. Which one ends with a voiceless stop sound?

a. sing b. nice c. lunch d. linguistic

6. The last sound in “pens” also occurs in………….:

a. teachers b. students c. classes d. books
7. Which one is not a member of the Italic branch of languages?
a. Rumanian b. Swedish c. Portuguese d. French

8. Arabic and ……. are members of the Semitic languages.

a. Persian b. Bengali c. Hebrew d. Yiddish

9. Which one is not a member of the Germanic branch of languages?

a. Polish b. Dutch c. Norwegian d. Swedish

10. English and …… are members of the Germanic branch of languages.

a. French b. Irish c. Dutch d. Spanish

11. Which one contains an unaspirated voiceless stop?

a. stream b. pet c. come d. tears

12. Which one contains an open syllable?

a. eat b. see c. tear d. sat
13. The productive skills are …………………..
a. listening & speaking b. reading & writing
c. speaking & writing d. listening & writing

14. Which of the following contains a zero morph?

a. men b. brothers c. feet d. fish

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Task Three: Match the terms in A with the correct definitions from those in B.
A
1. Allophone 2. Binary feature 3. C.A. 4. Coda
5. Glottis 6. LAD 7. Language 8. Liquid 9. Linguistics
11. Logograms 11. Minimal pair 12. Morph 13.
Performance 14. Phone 15. Phoneme 16. Phonology 17.
Pictograms
18. Plosive 19. Velum 20. VSO
B

a. One's actual language use.

b. Arabic language.
c. It involves studying certain aspects in L1 and L2.
d. The capacity to acquire or learn language.
e. _ continuant
f. Symbols used to represent pictures.
g. /l/ , /r /
h. The scientific study of language.
i. The space between the vocal cords.
j. Any of the different forms of a phoneme.
k. -ed
l. A feature which is used to classify sounds in terms of + or -.
m. The unit of analysis in phonology.
n. The description of the patterns of sounds in a language.
o. Symbols used to represent words.
p. 2 words which are identical in form except for one sound.
q. What comes after the nucleus of a syllable.
r. Soft palate
s. s. A system of systems.
t. t. [m].

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TASK FOUR; Complete the following sentences.

8. The symbol of “high front tense” is……………………

9. The symbol of “voiceless velar stop" is ……………….
10. The symbol of “ voiced pharyngeal fricative” is …………
11. The symbol of “ voiceless glottal fricative” is ……………
12. The symbol of “mid central” is………………..
13. English comes from the ……………….. Family of languages.
14. The English language uses the ………………alphabet.
15. ………….may be defined as the degree of force with which a syllable is
uttered.
16. The study of sound waves is termed ………… phonetics.
17. /s/, /z/ and /Iz/ are 3 allomorphs of the plural……………..

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Selected References
Aarts, Flor and Aarts, Jan. (1982). English Syntactic Structures: Functions and Categories
in Sentence Analysis. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Aitchison, Jean. (1987). Teach Yourself Linguistics. Kent: Hodder and Stoughton.

Akmajian, Adrian et al. (1990). An Introduction to Language and Communication. (Third

Edition). London: The MIT Press.

Cipollone, N., Keiser, S. And Vasishth, S. (Eds.) (1998) Language Files: Materials for an
Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Columbus: Ohio State University.

Corballis, Michael. (2002). From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language. Princeton
University Press.

Dhaif, Shouqi (1979) Al-Madaris Al-Nahwiah, Cairo: Dar Al-Marif.

Fabb, Nigel. (2005). Sentence Structure (Second Edition). London: Routledge.

Fromkin, Victoria and Rodman, Robert. (1988). An Introduction to Language.(Fourth

Edition). Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Hall, C. (2005). An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. London: Continuum.

Hock, Hans. (1986). Principles of Historical Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hurford, James and Heasley, Brendan. (1983). Semantics: A Coursebook. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Leech, Geoffrey. (1981). Semantics: the Study of Meaning. London: Penguin.

Richards, Jack; Platt, John and Weber, Heidi. (1987). Longman Dictionary of Applied
Linguistics. Essex: Longman.

Roach, Peter. (1991). English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Swan, Michael. (1980). Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thakur, Damodar. (1987). A Handbook of English Grammar and Usage. Patna: Bharati
Bhawan.

Thakur, Damodar. (1997). Linguistics Simplified: Morphology. Patna: Bharati Bhawan.

Thakur, Damodar. (1998). Linguistics Simplified: Syntax. Patna: Bharati Bhawan.

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Thakur, Damodar. (1999). Linguistics Simplified: Semantics. Patna: Bharati Bhawan.

Yule, George. (2006). The Study of Language. (Third Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

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About the Author

Prof. Dr. Mohammad Abdu Ahmad Al-Mekhlafi is currently a Professor of English. He

got his PhD in ELT from the EFL University, Hyderabad, India in 1999. He also attended
Ball State University in the USA where he was awarded a Master degree in Linguistics and
TEFL in 1992.

Throughout his varied career in the field of Education, Mohammad has worked as a
teacher educator at the Department of English, Faculty of Education, Sana’a University,
Yemen since 1989. He was the Head of the Department of English (2001 – 2005). He
worked as the Dean of the Faculty of Languages, Arts and Education in Al-Yemenia
University (2001 – 2007). He worked as a visiting lecturer in TEFL at Sohar University in
the Sultanate of Oman (2007 – 2012). He also worked as the Head of the Department of
English in the College of Languages and Social Sciences in the Future University (2014-
present). His main areas of research interest are: teacher training, error analysis, writing
instruction, grammar instruction and second language pedagogy. He has participated in
more than 20 international conferences in Britain, the USA, India, the UAE, Oman,
Malaysia and Yemen.

E-mail: malmekhlafi@yahoo.com

Websites: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mohammad-abdu-al-mekhlafi/30/322/754

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