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AEN 400: Advanced Theoretical Studies in Grammar Full Summary Notes

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AEN 400: Advanced Theoretical Studies in Grammar Full Summary Notes.
WHAT IS LINGUISTICS
Linguistics is defined as the scientific study of language. In this definition, there are two
key words that we must consider before we proceed. One is ‘scientific’ and the other is
‘language’. Let us begin with ‘language’.

1.2 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
Recall from earlier courses that language is defined as: a system of arbitrary vocal
symbols (signs) used for human communication (Brinton, 2000:3).
Language is said to be rule-governed, creative, universal and innate. It is also said to be a
distinctly human phenomenon. Let us remind ourselves of each of these features briefly.
a) Rule- governed - At all levels of language, there are restrictions on what is allowed
and what is not. Phonologically for example, individual languages place restrictions on
the sounds that can be combined to form words in that language. In English, we can tell
that ‘strum’ could be a possible word but not ‘tpenr’. Morphologically, ‘strumish’ is
possible while ‘ishstrum’ is not. Syntactically, ‘very strumish’ is possible while ‘strumish
very’ is not.
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