Almen sprogvidenskab Assignment: Linguistics Fundamentals

This assignment from SDU's General Linguistics course explores fundamental concepts in linguistics. Part I focuses on the fundamentals, including iconic and symbolic aspects of language sounds, complementary distribution, free variation, bound and free morphemes, inflectional and derivational morphemes, and lexical processes like compounding and affixation, with examples from Savosavo and Carolinian languages. Part II examines language as a social phenomenon, exploring different types of language variation, such as regional and dialectal variations, and strategies for first and second language learning, highlighting similarities and differences between child language acquisition and second language learning. The assignment provides detailed explanations and examples to illustrate these linguistic concepts.

SDU ENGELSK OG AMERIKANSKE
STUDIER
Hand out: 17. December kl. 9.00 – via Blackboard
Hand in: 17. December kl. 12.00 – via Blackboard
General linguistics/Almen sprogvidenskab
Winter 2019/2020

Part I: Fundamentals of Linguistics
1. Are language sounds or letters iconic or symbolic? Is it always a simple distinction? Explain
and provide examples.
Sounds are both ionic and symbolic. According to Tian et al., (2015), words are grouped in this two
forms to bear meanings. For instance, the front vowels E, I, YU are used to depict tender subjects
while back vowels such as O, U, and Y are used to describe things that may cause fear such as
anger, pain, envy, and sorrow. The researcher adds that sign is arbitrary to covey the meaning of
sound which brings the aspects of symbolism in sounds. He argues that the type of sounds that we
use to refer to different aspects could be the same but the difference is created by the symbols used.
This is based by the consensus agreed upon by the speakers. Finally, the researchers adds that, since
words are used arbitrary, they can have meanings in relation to others which brings about Iconism
in sounds. These ideas have been permeated to the study of words since the 19th century. There are
different forms of symbolism that are used to describe languages. The first form of symbolism is
Onomatopoeia. This is the imitative attribute of sound that suggest that somethings makes sound
such as ‘Whoosh’, ‘Bang’, and ‘Crash’. Clustering is the second form of symbolism. This involves
grouping together words that share certain factors in common. For instance, words that start with
same prefix or end with the same prefix can be grouped together. Words can also be grouped
together according to their meanings. On the other hand, iconsims becomes apparent when same or
referent words are compared. This involves analyzing a group of words that have the same meaning
but have different sounds. For instance, 'stamp', 'stomp', 'tamp', 'tromp', 'tramp', and 'step'. The /m/
which appears before the /p/ make the sound more powerful and in most cases audience will focus
on the sound rather than the meaning of the words. This type of iconim is used across all words.
Finally, this is not always a simple distinction since words differ in meaning and pronunciation
depending on the context that they are used.
2. Using linguistic terminology, explain briefly the following linguistic concepts and provide
an example of each:

In linguistics, the term complementary distribution refers to the relationship between two or
different elements of the same kind. However, in this case, one element is found in set of
environment while the other one is found in a non-intersecting or complimentary set of
environments. On the other hand, free variation is the relation between two phones. In this
case, the phones may substitute each other in the same environment without causing any
change in their meanings. The phones are interchangeable. Free variation mainly occurs due to
phonemes and allophones.
In linguistics, a bound morpheme is usually the elementary unit of morphosyntax. It only
appears as part of larger expressions. On the other hand, a free morpheme stands alone. In a
nutshell, it’s a type of free form morpheme.
Lastly, according to linguistics, inflectional morphemes never change the grammatical
category (part of speech) of a word. However, derivational morphemes often change the part
of speech of a word. Thus, the verb read becomes the noun reader when we add the
derivational morpheme -er. It is simply that read is a verb, but reader is a noun.
3. Below you find two language samples that demonstrate typical lexical processes.
A. This sample consists of four examples of Savosavo (a Papuan language).
In this sample, two lexical processes are of interest. Describe the two processes briefly and how
they function in Savosavo.
There are aspects of lexical processing which are specific to certain languages. They convey
more meaning than written words. For instance, most alphabetically written scripts tend to be
physical, hence altering their meanings is quite difficulty. Even after the words have been
separated within a sentence, their meanings still relation unchanged since boundaries to such
meanings are not defined. Therefore, in the recognition of spoken words there is no guarantee
that the sensory information being processed corresponds to a whole word. In fact the one may
process the beginning of a word while in real sense it’s the end of another word. This is known
as compounding. For instance, in the following Savosavo language based words, elu elu which
means to gather Ngali nuts in the Savosavo language, outlines that the words Ngali Nuts and

Gather have the same sound but different meaning. Moreover, Affixation is another lexical
process that is evident in this language. It includes adding a morpheme or affix to change the
meaning of a word. For instance, kuma mean to harvest. However, when –ra is added to the
same word, the meaning changes to sweet potatoes.
B. This sample consists of five entries in Carolinian-English Dictionary, their etymology and
translation into English, along with some additional information. (Note: Extra information below
the entries.)
Explain the main lexical process these entries have in common and how it has influenced
Carolinian orthography.
kkaaba˚ [JPN < ENG canvas] n. Canvas, oilcloth, raincoat. Compare birin.
kkalabwoos [CHAM* < SPAN calabozo] n. Jail. Synonym imwarosch.
kiyáárots (or kaarots) [ENG] n. Carrot. Synonym ninzin.
koof [ENG] n. coffee.
kooriˇ (or kkoori) [JPN] n. Ice, shaved ice. Synonym

Extra information:
[ENG] = English
[JPN] = Japanese
[SPAN = Spanish
˚キキキキキ Kyanbasu in Japanese
*[CHAM] = Chamorro, an Austronesian language containing a huge number of words of
Spanish origin. ˇ キ Kōri in Japanese
The evident process in this case is duplication.
4. Explain the following ‘sentence and utterance’ meaning:
The main difference between utterance and sentence is that utterances do not convey complete
meanings while sentences convey complete meanings. In this case,
Joan: Theo and I are going to the cinema tomorrow to watch The Goldfinch. Want to come along?
Susan: I have promised to go check up on my sister who was taken ill last week.
In the first case displays the language displays a complete a complete meaning. For instance, it
defines all characters as well as the place where the film, Goldfinch, will be aired. On the other
hand, the second statement can be defined as an utterance. In this case only few specifics
concerning the characters and places are given.
Part II: Language: A human phenomenon
5.
A. Language is a social phenomenon. Explain.
B. Using linguistic terminology, describe at least two different types of language variation.
Language is a social phenomenon means that it exist only in the society. It is mainly
geared towards nourishing, developing, and establishing human relations. In addition,
language acts as a set of codes that facilitate learning and use within a specific community.
To many people, language entails expressions of what they have in the mind and what
they know or understand inform of symbols and spoken sounds. Besides, language is used
as an inmate symbol that is often used to talk in more technical terms. One of the major

roles that language has been playing in the society is facilitating communication. People
have been able to communicate with each other regardless of their backgrounds. Finally, a
language is facilitated through faculty codes. Owing to the fact that there are different
codes that exists, different people have been able to use different codes which bare held by
each human being in common. On the other hand, there are two main forms of linguistic
variations. One common type of linguistic variation is regional variation. This is the
difference among speakers of the same language. Examples include occupational dialect.
For instance the word bugs has a very different meaning to a computer scientist and an
exterminator. Dialectal Variation is the last form of linguistic variation.
6.
A. Children use a variety of strategies for first language learning. Name and explain at least two.
B. What similarities and differences (if any) are there between child language learning and second
language learning?
It is very difficult for young children to learn new languages (Nam & Han, 2016, p. 4293; Gordo et
al., 2016, p. 241). However, they still manage to understand such languages. To achieve this, there
are several strategies that must employed. The first strategy is coupling written and spoken
instructions. In regard to this, children whose first language is not English can have a rough and
discouraging activity trying to understand other languages (Levine et al., 2018, p. 436). In this
context, use of images when possible can increase the children’s verbal activities as well as
highlighting key information that is contained in their first languages. Teaching sight words can also
be used to improve children’s ability to develop the first language. According to research, 50 to 70
percent in all words in lower classes must be aided by elementary materials. In regard to this, there
are several differences which are evident in first and second language. First, first language is
acquired while the second language is learned. The difference between the two languages evolves
between their qualities. Although both languages are important to a child, first language can be
termed to be more important that second language. The first language needs more guidance that the

first. Finally, second language is not natural and does not require any form of guidance and
instructions.

References
Nam, H. and Han, B., 2016. Learning multi-domain convolutional neural networks for visual
tracking. In Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (pp.
4293-4302).
Levine, S., Pastor, P., Krizhevsky, A., Ibarz, J. and Quillen, D., 2018. Learning hand-eye
coordination for robotic grasping with deep learning and large-scale data collection. The
International Journal of Robotics Research, 37(4-5), pp.421-436.
Tian, Y., Luo, P., Wang, X. and Tang, X., 2015. Pedestrian detection aided by deep learning
semantic tasks. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition (pp. 5079-5087).
Gordo, A., Almazán, J., Revaud, J. and Larlus, D., 2016, October. Deep image retrieval: Learning
global representations for image search. In European conference on computer vision (pp. 241-257).
Springer, Cham.