PY 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Phoneme, Metalinguistic Awareness
Language is a system of symbols and rules that is used for meaningful
communication. A system of communication has to meet certain criteria in
order to be considered a language:
• A language uses symbols, which are sounds, gestures, or written characters
that represent objects, actions, events, and ideas. Symbols enable people to
refer to objects that are in another place or events that occurred at a different
time.
• A language is meaningful and therefore can be understood by other users of
that language.
• A language is generative, which means that the symbols of a language can
be combined to produce an infinite number of messages.
• A language has rules that govern how symbols can be arranged. These rules
allow people to understand messages in that language even if they have
never encountered those messages before.
The Building Blocks of Language
Language is organized hierarchically, from phonemes to morphemes to
phrases and sentences that communicate meaning.
PHONEMES
Phonemes are the smallest distinguishable units in a language. In the English
language, many consonants, such as t, p, and m, correspond to single phonemes, while
other consonants, such as cand g, can correspond to more than one phoneme. Vowels
typically correspond to more than one phoneme. For example, o corresponds to
different phonemes depending on whether it is pronounced as in bone or woman.
Some phonemes correspond to combinations of consonants, such as ch, sh, and th.
MORPHEMES
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in a language. In the English language,
only a few single letters, such as I and a, are morphemes. Morphemes are usually
whole words or meaningful parts of words, such as prefixes, suffixes, and word stems.
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Document Summary
Language is a system of symbols and rules that is used for meaningful communication. A system of communication has to meet certain criteria in order to be considered a language: a language uses symbols, which are sounds, gestures, or written characters that represent objects, actions, events, and ideas. These rules allow people to understand messages in that language even if they have never encountered those messages before. Language is organized hierarchically, from phonemes to morphemes to phrases and sentences that communicate meaning. Phonemes are the smallest distinguishable units in a language. In the english language, many consonants, such as t, p, and m, correspond to single phonemes, while other consonants, such as cand g, can correspond to more than one phoneme. Vowels typically correspond to more than one phoneme. For example, o corresponds to different phonemes depending on whether it is pronounced as in bone or woman. Some phonemes correspond to combinations of consonants, such as ch, sh, and th.
