Englisches Seminar

Getting to Know... English Linguistics

Describing and analyzing the English language: One aim of a degree course in English is to teach you the skills and tools required to analyze language. We look at sound systems, the way that the phrases and sentences are built up, how the vocabulary of English is structured, and how people learn languages. Since using language is a fundamental part of what it is to be human, there are many fascinating questions to answer.

Linguistics deals with language as a system (phonetics/ phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), language as a means of communication (pragmatics, socio- and psycholinguistics, language acquisition) and the historical development of English.

Below you can find a teaser for the topics and concerns of linguistics.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the part of linguistics that is concerned with meaning in context. Language in real life use often works differently from what the formal theories of semantics would predict. An important part of pragmatics are the Gricean maxims, which are a set of rules that speakers follow to communicate effectively. The Gricean maxims are comprised of the following:

  1. Maxim of Quality: Make your contribution one that is true.
     
  2. Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as necessary, but not more so.
     
  3. Maxim of Relation: Make your contribution relevant to the current conversation.
     
  4. Maxim of Manner: Make your contribution in a clear, brief, and orderly manner.

It's Your Turn Now!

Name the Maxim.

Sometimes, speakers violate one of the maxims intentionally to achieve a certain function. But sometimes, a violation can lead to failed communication.

Consider the following situations and statements:

Situation 1: John had a busy day. In the morning he was at school, in the afternoon he was at soccer practice. In the evening he calls his friend and tells him:
"Today, I played soccer and went to school."
Situation 2: Grace goes to hand her friend Timothy a glass of water, but drops it. It shatters on the floor, so Timothy comments:
"Good job, Grace."
Situation 3: Alec is a fan of mountain climbing, and last year he finally managed to make it to the top of Mount Everest. When he meets his old friend Clary, she asks if Alec has been up to anything exciting lately. Alec tells her:
"Last year, I tried to climb Mount Everest."

Once your have made up your mind, simply click on the statement to reveal the correct answer and additional information. 

Which Gricean Maxim is the speaker violating in situation 1?

MAXIM OF MANNER (MAXIM 4).

This is an unfortunate violation of maxim 4. The order in which John named the day's activities implies that the soccer playing took place before he went to school, not after.

Which Gricean Maxim is the speaker violating in situation 2?

MAXIM OF QUALITY (MAXIM 1).

Timothy intentionally violated maxim 1. By making a statement that is obviously untrue under the circumstances, his statement receives an ironic meaning.

Which Gricean Maxim is the speaker violating in situation 3?

MAXIM OF QUALITY (MAXIM 2).

This is an unfortunate violation of maxim 2. There are groups of words that describe a similar concept with differing degrees of informativeness, for example planning an action is less informative than trying an action, which in turn is less informative than accomplishing an action. The use of the less informative term trying implies to the listener that the more informative variant of accomplishing the action is not true (= using accomplish would have violated maxim 1), otherwise the speaker would have used the most informative option that was relevant to the context. Since the successful climbing of Mount Everest would have been relevant to the conversation, Clary is left to infer that Alec used the less informative try because the more informative contribution, accomplish, would have been false. 

In short: I tried implies I didn't succeed.

Now Clary will never know the true heroism of Alec...

Syntax and Morphology

Morphology is the linguistic discipline that deals with word structure, whereas syntax deals with sentence structure. Together, they describe how morphemes combine into words, which combine into phrases, which combine into sentences.

Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in a word. There are root morphemes, which have an inherent, lexical meaning (e.g. bake), and there are affixes, which are usually very short and have a functional meaning (e.g. 3rd-person 's'). Take a look at the following words:

  • trees
  • unhappy
  • eats
  • discolouration
  • releasing

It's Your Turn Now!

Guess the Parts of Speech.

In English, words of different word categories can often look the same.

Take a look at the following selection and decide for each word if it is a noun, a verb, an adjective, a preposition or if can belong to several of those groups.

Once your have made up your mind, simply click on the statement to reveal the correct answer and additional information.

walk

VERB, NOUN.

Here is an example of its usage as a verb: "Let's walk together!"

Here is an example of its usage as a noun: "Sounds like a walk in the park."

rich

ADJECTIVE.

Here is an example of its usage as an adjective: "She is among the 100 richest people in the world."

behind

PREPOSITION, NOUN.

Here is an example of its usage as a preposition: "The cat is sitting behind the couch."

Here is an example of its usage as a noun: (censored...)

burning

VERB, NOUN, ADJECTIVE.

Here is an example of its usage as a verb: "The fire is burning."

Here is an example of its usage as a noun: "The burning of Rome is an important part of the city's history."

Here is an example of its usage as an adjective: "He felt a burning pain."

Semantics

Semantics is the part of linguistics that is concerned with meaning. Semantics concerns both the meaning of single words and the way the meanings of the words combine produce the sentence meaning. A fun exercise is the computation of truth values of sentences.

Each of the following sentences consists of 2 subordinate clauses, which are linked via a connector (and, or, if, if and only if). Each connector has its own truth conditions, which determines under which circumstances the whole sentence is true.

It's Your Turn Now!

True or False?

Imagine a situation in which Lisa is eating popcorn but not watching a movie.

See if you can work out which of the four sentences below are true and which are false.

Once your have made up your mind, simply click on the statement to reveal the correct answer and additional information.

Lisa is watching a movie *and* eating popcorn.

FALSE.

For a sentence with the connector "and" to be true, both sub-clauses need to be true. Since only one of them is true, the combined sentence is false.

Lisa is watching a movie *or* eating popcorn.

FALSE.

For a sentence with the connector "or" to be true, at least one of the sub-clauses needs to be true. In fact Lisa is eating popcorn, and that is enough to make the whole sentence true.

*If* Lisa is watching a movie, she is eating popcorn.

TRUE.

A sentence with the connector "if" is only wrong in one situation: if the condition (the if-clause) is true, but the consequence (the then-clause) is wrong. If the condition is wrong, as in this case, the whole sentence is automatically true. This sometimes takes some thinking about.

*If and only if* Lisa is watching a movie is she eating popcorn.

TRUE.

For a sentence with the connector "if and only if" to be true, the condition and the consequence need to be either both true or both wrong. In this case, the condition is wrong, but the consequence is true. The sentence means something like: If Lisa watches a film then she eats popcorn, but otherwise she never eats popcorn.