What is phonology?

Phonology is the study of the sounds of a language. When spoken, English can sound like an
unbroken string of sounds, but it is actually made up of many smaller sound units, called
phonemes. These small pieces of sound are the “building blocks of words.” For literacy
development, phonemic awareness is the important process where children learn to hear and
break down words into the individual sounds, blend sounds, and manipulate sounds to make new
words.

For English, Standard American English is often the model for studying and determining the
sounds of English, but there are many variations of English which have phonological differences,
what native speakers might perceive as different ‘accents’.

When considering how English sounds are made, the most significant parts of the mouth are the
lips, teeth, tongue, and different parts of the top of the mouth. The following website includes
audio and video of the different sounds of English and a few other languages, and provides
models of how native speakers make these sounds:
Phonetics: The Sounds of English

The sounds of English can be organized by consonants and vowels. Consonants depend on the
place of articulation (where the sound is made in vocal tract), the manner of articulation (how
close the articulators or parts of the mouth get to change airflow to make a sound), and voicing
(whether vocal chords produce sound or not). With different combinations of these 3 factors,
English speakers produce stop sounds (i.e. /p/, /b/, /d/), fricatives (i.e. /f/, /v/, /h/), affricates (i.e.
ch, j), nasals (i.e. /m/, ng), and liquids and glides (i.e. /l/, /r/. Vowels are all voiced (vocal chords
producing sound) and rely on the placement of the tongue in the oral cavity, affected by the
height, frontness, and tenseness of the tongue.

Phonological rules explain what happens when sounds change in different contexts of words,
including:

 Assimilation: a sound in a word becomes more similar to surrounding sounds (i.e. the
different pronunciation of –ed based on the sound preceding it)

 Deletion: sounds are excluded from words (i.e. “labratory" for laboratory or “an” for and)

 Insertion: sounds are added to words, most commonly an affix (i.e. “sumpthing” for
something).

 Metathesis: sounds are reversed in order (i.e. “aks” for ask or “pasketti” for spaghetti)
What is Morphology?

Blogging, bromance, ridonkulous.

These are some newer words that have been added to English to describe new concepts, ideas,
and current trends. Though they may seem spontaneous and unstructured at times, these and all
words use set patterns of word formation, structure, and meaning, outlined in the study of
morphology.

All words are made up of small units called morphemes, some of which can be used
independently (i.e. and, dog, fun), and some of which are not independently words but hold
meaning (i.e. prefixes: un-, re-; suffixes: -ing, -ly).

Morphemes are grouped into two main classes:

 Closed Classes: Words or morphemes that keep the same form every time used and are
unchangeable, including conjunctions (i.e. and), pronouns (i.e. he, she), auxiliary verbs
(i.e. may, can), determiners (i.e. the, a), prepositions (i.e. of, from), and inflectional
suffixes (i.e. XXX).
 Open Classes: Words that have morphemes that change depending on the grammar and
meaning of a sentence, including nouns (i.e. dogà dogs), verbs (i.e. walkà walking),
adjectives (i.e. poor), adverbs (i.e. poorly), and derivational affixes (i.e. prefixes: in-, un-;
and suffixes: - ly, -s).

In both open and closed morpheme groups, morphemes can be separated into free and bound
morphemes:

 Free morphemes: Words that are made up of only one morpheme and can stand alone as
an English word (i.e. quick, up). Most root words in English are free morphemes.
 Bound morphemes: Morphemes that cannot stand alone as a word, and must be attached
to a free morpheme.
o Inflectional bound morphemes can change the meaning of the entire word, but
does not change the meaning of the root word or the part of speech. It includes all
suffixes, plural –s (dogs), possessive –s (doctor’s), third-person singular present –
s (he walks), progressive –ing (he is walking), past tense –ed (he walked), past
participle –ed/-en (he has walked/taken), comparative –er (funnier), and
superlative –est (funniest).
 o Derivational morphemes often changes the part of the speech of the word, like
from a noun to a verb, and the meaning of the word. These include prefixes (i.e.
anti-, pre-, un-) and some suffixes (i.e. –ness, -er both change verbs to nouns).

Words are made based on a hierarchy of morphemes, or morphology tree, where the root word
first provides the core meaning of the word, followed by derivational morphemes, and last
inflectional morphemes. It is a complex and structured process that is often automatic and
intuitive for native English speakers.

Here are some ways that new words can be formed, from most to least common:

Combining Processes:

 Compounding- Combining free morphemes to create new word (i.e. lunchroom,

hallway, punchbowl).

 Prefixing- Adding a prefix at the beginning of a word (i.e. rerun, untie, and decode).
 Suffixing- Adding a suffix at the end of a word (i.e. lovely, hacker, diskette)

Shifting- when a word is used in one grammatical category and then switches to a new use, it
has functionally shifted and is a new word (i.e. e-mail and text were initially only nouns, but
underwent shift to also become verbs).

Shortening Processes

 Alphabetism- Forming new word from initials of a phrase and word is pronounced as
letters (i.e. “CPU” from Central Processing Unit or “DRA” from Developmental Reading
Assessment)

 Acronymy- Forming new words from initials, but pronounced as a word (RAM for
Random Access Memory or radar for radio detection and ranging).
 Clipping- Word is shortened by taking a part away, at the beginning or end of the word
near its root word (i.e. net from Internet or cell from cellular).
 Backformation- Affix is removed from a word to form a new word (i.e. defragment –
using backformation by taking off suffix in fragmentation to make “fragment,” and then
prefixing with de-)

Blending- joining two or more words, but one word is shortened in the process (i.e. Internet
from interconnected network).

Reduplication- repeating a morpheme to make new word (i.e. knock-knock or no-no). This is a
lesser used process, but common in children’s developing language (mama, dada, booboo) and
literature (rhyming pairs like Henny Penny, Humpty Dumpty). It is also more common in South
Asian languages

What is semantics?

Semantics is the study of the meaning of language. Lexical semantics looks at individual word
meaning, defining words by connecting it to actual concept, objects, and other words and by
considering personal experiences and understanding of words, role of syntax in word meaning,
and the influence of physical and cultural contexts of words. Compositional semantics looks at
how individual words and syntax make sentences with meaning. In everyday use, meaning goes
beyond just learning the dictionary meaning. A strong understanding of words helps us know
where to use words in a sentence, how and where to use in a social setting, what all the possible
meanings are for a word, and what other words might be used in their place.

When considering how we understand words, there are many different ways to approach word
meaning, two of which include:

 Componential Analysis: Words defined by the components that make up each word:

i.e. Dog [+mammal] [+ domesticated]

[+carnivore]

 Lexical Fields: Word meaning by how it is grouped into a web of related words and
meaning.

i.e. Household Pets: dog, hamster, parakeet,

cat, goldfish

In defining words, we can also consider semantic relationships, such as:

 Hyponyms- a hierarchical semantic relationship, where a general term has numerous

subordinate terms (hyponyms) that fall under it
 i.e. Dog --> Pekingese, mutt, terrier,
Dalmatian

 Meronyms- a whole to part hierarchical relationship

i.e. Dog --> paws, snout, tail, ears

 Synonyms- words that have the same meaning

i.e. Violet/purple, cemetery/graveyard, etc.

 Antonyms- words that have opposite meanings

i.e Fat/thin, loud/soft, etc.

 Homonym- words that share the same spelling or pronunciation, but have different
meanings

i.e. Four/For (homophones- same

pronunciation), Sink as in kitchen sink/sink
as in fall down into something
(homographs- same spelling &
pronunciation)

Semantic change occurs when words change in their meaning through use over time and in
different contexts.

 Generalization refers to when the meaning of a word becomes more general, to include
more meaning/conceptual area that the original meaning of the word.

 Specialization is when the word meaning “narrows”, getting more “specialized” and
specific.

 Metaphorical extension is when a word is connected metaphorically to another

situation/context and the word meaning changes through the extended use of the word in
conceptually similar contexts.

 A euphemism is when people use a certain word in place of a more literal, blunt word, in
an attempt to make something sound more pleasing (i.e. passed away, instead of died).

 A dysphemism is almost the opposite of euphemism and refers to when a word meaning
is changed when used in certain contexts in order to make the word sound worse.

 Pejoration goes beyond dysphemism, where a word meaning takes on negative

connotations more permanently, due to constant dysphemism or contextual factors
(social, cultural, historical, etc.).
  Amelioration of a word endows the word with more “positive or socially accepted”
meaning and use from a previously negative or neutral meaning.

At the sentence meaning level, one might look simply at the composition of sentences to
understand meaning, though the underlying context of sentence provides lots of meaning as
well. Compositionality looks at how sentences mean by looking at the parts of the sentence and
how they are put together to make meaning. However, when using sentences for functional and
everyday purposes, we find meaning in context, not just in the abstract parts. For example, one
phrase can have many different meanings, depending on the context it is used in. “You’re on
fire” can mean a literal fire if someone’s clothes catch fire, or can mean that someone is doing
really well on successive tasks. Idioms are exemplars for the importance of context for
meaning. Idioms are sayings where the meaning of the statement does not come directly from
the meaning of the words used, but instead meaning comes from metaphor to an original
situation or setting or from use in literature or shared cultural experiences. For example, “Being
saved by the bell” is an idiom who roots lie in boxing, where the bell was rung just in time for a
fighter to make it, and now the metaphor applies to anyone who is saved just in time.

What is syntax?

When you preview text with your students, do you point out different sentence structures or patterns,
to help get them ready to read and access the material? Well, you are helping them with learning about
syntax- the grammatical and structural basics of English.

Syntax helps us to make clear sentences that “sound right,” where words, phrases, and clauses each
serve their function and are correctly ordered to form and communicate a complete sentence with
meaning.

The parts of speech are groups of words that make up the grammar of the English language, which
include open-class words (changeable and accepts new words, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and
adverbs) and closed-class words (function words and rarely accepts new words, such as prepositions,
conjunctions, pronouns, complementizers, determiners, and auxiliary verbs). In these categories, words
can be described by their morphological forms and typical position in a sentence. The following website
“Parts of Speech” by Heather MacFadyen offers a detailed explanation and review of the different parts
of speech and how they are used in
sentences: http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/partsp.html.

Next, we must look at grammar at the phrase, clause, and sentence level. Constituents are groups of
words that go together and fit into larger units, which are then built into sentences. Let’s look at the
following sentence:

The happy boy jumped swiftly over the rock by the pond.

The smaller constituents (i.e. the happy boy, the pond, the rock- all noun phrases) fit into larger
constituents (i.e. by the pond- prepositional phrase), and even larger constituents (the rock by the pond-
bigger noun phrase). These constituents follow a hierarchical structure:

Word --> Phrase --> Clause --> Sentence

In English, the 5 types of phrases include: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb
phrases, and prepositional phrases. Clauses are composed of noun phrases as the subject and verb
phrases as the predicate. Some clauses can stand independently as a sentence, and others are
dependent or subordinate. Compound sentences can be formed by joining two independent clauses,
joined by a conjunction or punctuation (semicolon or colon). To learn more about phrases, clauses, and
sentence structure rules, you can look at this section on MacFayden’s website on parts of a
sentence: http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/partse.html