Linguistics

1. General Linguistics

1.1. Phonetics

1.1.1. IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

1.1.2. Consonants

Consonant is an obstructed airflow.

It is categorized based on the articulatory settings: place and manner of articulation, and voicing.

1.1.2.1. Alveolar

치경, 치조

1.2. Phonology

1.2.1. Phoneme

음소

Set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound. In other words, the smallest possible phonetic unit that distinguishes one word from another.

A phoneme can have multiple allophones.

1.2.2. Prosodeme

Suprasegmental Phoneme, Tone Unit
운소

a linguistic unit of sound—such as stress, pitch, tone, or duration—that extends over more than one segment of sound and can change the meaning of a word.

Examples include stress, tone, length (chroneme).

1.2.3. Phonotactics

Branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes.

A syllable consists of

Onset
Rhyme
- Nucleus
- Coda

where the nucleus is always required.

1.2.4. Ablaut

The system of apophony (regular vowel variation) in the Proto-Indo-European language. For example, man-men, sing-sang-sung, gibt-gabt.

1.3. Morphology

The study of how words are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language.

1.3.1. Morpheme-based

An approach of morphology in which morphemes are combined to form a word-form. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression.

There are free morpheme and bound morpheme. Free morphemes, like cat, can be used by themselves, while bound morphemes, like -s, cannot.

1.3.2. Lexeme-based

There is one lexeme for one concept, and they are modifed based on inflectional rules and form a word-form.

1.3.3. Paradigm

Complete set of related word forms associated with a given lexeme

For examples, conjugation of verbs, declension of nouns.

1.4. Syntax

1.4.1. Grammar

1.4.1.1. Traditional Grammar

Parts of Speech In English, usually,

Noun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Pronoun
Preposition
Conjunction
Interjection
Article

1.4.1.2. Syntactic Category

1.4.1.2.2. Phrasal Categories

AP Adjective Phrase
AdvP Adverb Phrase
PP Adposition Phrase
NP Noun Phrase
VP Verb Phrase
etc.

1.4.1.3. Grammatical Cateogry

1.4.1.3.1. Case

Category of nouns and noun modifiers.

1.4.1.3.1.1. Nominative

주격 relating to or denoting a case of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (as in Latin and other inflected languages) used for the subject of a verb.

1.4.1.3.1.2. Accusative

대격 relating to or denoting a case of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives that expresses the object of an action or the goal of motion.

1.4.1.3.1.3. Dative

여격 (in Latin, Greek, German, and other languages) denoting a case of nouns and pronouns, and words in grammatical agreement with them, indicating an indirect object or recipient.

1.4.1.3.1.4. Genitive

속격 relating to or denoting a case of nouns and pronouns (and words in grammatical agreement with them) indicating possession or close association.

1.4.1.3.1.5. Ablative

1.4.1.3.1.6. Vocative

1.4.1.3.1.7. Locative

1.4.1.3.1.8. Instrumental

1.4.1.3.2. Person-Number-Gender

1.4.1.3.3. Tense-Aspect-Mood

1.4.1.3.4. Voice

1.4.1.3.5. Possession

1.4.1.3.6. Definiteness

1.4.1.3.7. Politeness

1.4.1.3.8. Causativity

1.4.1.3.9. Clusivity

1.4.1.3.10. Interrogatives

1.4.1.3.11. Transitivity

1.4.1.3.12. Valency

1.4.1.3.13. Polarity

1.4.1.3.14. Telicity

1.4.1.3.15. Volition

1.4.1.3.16. Mirativity

1.4.1.3.17. Evidentiality

1.4.1.3.18. Animacy

1.4.1.3.19. Associativity

1.4.1.3.20. Pluractionality

1.4.1.3.21. Reciprocity

1.4.1.4. Inflection

Affixation or apophony is commonly used.

1.4.1.4.1. Conjugation

Inflection of verbs

1.4.1.4.2. Declension

Inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc.

1.5. Semantics

The study of linguistic meaning, in particular context-free meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts.

1.6. Pragmetics

The study of how context contributes to meaning

1.6.1. Grice's Maxims

Coorperative principle
Four maxims of conversation, Gricean Maxims

The four maxims are:

Maxim of quantity (informativity)
Maxim of quality (truth)
Maxim of relation (relevance)
Maxim of manner (clarity)

1.6.2. Speech Act Theory

Locutionary Act: The words themselves Illocutionary Act: The act you're performing by saying them Perlocutionary Act: The effect it has on the listener

2. Historical Linguistics

Diachronic Linguistics

2.1. Etymology

2.1.1. English

2.1.1.1. Pronouns

Shifted around the Middle English c. 1150 to c. 1470

'they' is introduced from the Old Norse language around 1200 A.D.
'she' came about around 1200 without distinguished origin.
'thou', 'thy', 'thee' were singular second person pronouns, and Ye was plural second person pronoun. The shift happened slowly from 1200 to 1600 due to the French influence of T-V distinction.
Singular 'they' is about 700 years old, but 300 years ago grammarians prescribed that it is plural.
- Various methods were devised such as 'he or she', generic 'he' or neopronouns were developed to mitigate this rule.

2.1.1.2. Affirmation to Negative Questions

Originally 'Yea' [jɛɪ] and 'Nay' [nɛɪ] was used to affirm and contradict positive questions, and 'Yes' and 'No' was for negative questions.

Specific vocabularies like this exits in other languages:

Language	Affirm Positive	Affirm Negative	Contradict Positive	Contradict Negative
Romanian	da	ba da	nu	ba nu
French	oui	si	non	non
German	ja	doch	nein	nein
Hungarian	igen	de	nem	nem

Refer Why We Should Bring Back “Yea” and “Nay!” - YouTube

2.2. Language Family

Group of languages that shares the same ancestry.

This shows the distributions of the primary language families.

2.2.1. Indo-European

It is the most spoken language family spoken around Europe, Russia, Persia, and India, accounting for 46% of the world population.

indo-european and uralic language family tree.png

2.2.1.1. Romance

The descendant of the Latin
Summarizing Romance sound shifts - YouTube

There was 20 letters, with C being the [k] sound, V being the [u] or [w] sound, L being the dark L [ɫ], with additional K, Y, Z to express the Greek words.

2.2.1.1.1. Western-Romance

2.2.1.1.1.1. Ibero-Romance

Spanish

some f are replaced with h

2.2.1.1.1.2. Gallo-Romance

Large germanic influences

French

2.2.1.1.1.3. Italo-Romance

2.2.1.1.2. Eastern-Romance

Heavy Slavic influences

2.2.1.2. Germanic

What Makes the Germanic Languages Unique (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, No…

2.2.1.2.1. West Germanic

Frisian

spoken in the coastal region of the Netherlands and Germany

2.2.2. Sino-Tibetan

Spoken around China, Myanmar, etc.

Chinese and Tibetan

2.2.3. Niger-Congo

Sub-Saharan Africa
It is a hypothetical language family, as we are not sure of it.

2.2.4. Afroasiatic

Also known as Hamito-Semitic.
It is the fourth largest language family.

North Africa
Mesopotamia
Arabian peninsula

2.2.4.1. Semitic

Hebrew

2.2.5. Koreanic

2.2.6. Japonic

3. Interlinear Gloss

4. Homonym

5. Linguistic Relativity

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Language influences worldview or cognition.

The strong hypothesis that says language limits and determines thought has been rejected by the linguists, while the weak hypothesis that says language can nudge perception in some domains has experimental evidences.

It is clear to me that vocabulary help one to think more structurally.

6. Writing Systems

6.1. Abjads

Symbols only for consonants, with optional diacritics for vowels. e.g. Hebrew, Arabic.

6.2. Alphabets

Separate symbols for consonants and vowels. e.g. Latin.

6.3. Abugidas

Base symbol for a consonant-vowel pair, and it is modified for different vowels. e.g. Devanagari.

6.4. Syllabaries

One symbol for each syllable. e.g. Japanese.

6.5. Logo-syllabaries

One symbol for each syllable, and those symbol is also an logogram or pictogram. e.g. Chinese.

7. Sign Languages

Sign languages are separate language from its verbal counterparts. They have their own grammar and vocabulary.