Have you ever heard the sentence:
“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”
Did you know that it is considered grammatically correct? (Hint: it uses tons of homonyms and homophones!) Read more about the sentence here on Wikipedia.
And listen to Ryan Whalen, Co-founder of Mango Languages, and other Mangoes discuss this concept. We’ll certainly have your head spinning!
Morphology is the study of the structure of words.
Words can be broken into morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning.
Morphemes can be words; for example giraffe, jump, purple, and quick are all morphemes and also words. However, one word can consist of one or many morphemes. Giraffes, jumped, purplish and quickly are all words but each consists of two morphemes. And, antidisestablishmentarianism is only one word but contains seven morphemes!
A few morphemes like the past tense –ed and plural –s, in English must attach to another morpheme (usually the root word, i.e., jump-ed and giraffe-s). These morphemes are referred to as bound morphemes. Morphemes that are not under this restriction are called free morphemes.
Some languages have a one to one correspondence between word and morpheme. Languages of this type are called isolating languages. For example, Classical Chinese is considered a highly isolating language where each morpheme corresponds to a single syllable and a single character. In contrast to isolating languages, agglutinative languages can form entire sentences by “gluing” affixes to the root word. Turkish is a good example of an agglutinative language. In Turkish, “Cevaplayamadıklarımızdandır” translated, “It must be one of those which we couldn’t answer” has nine morphemes!
What is the word with the highest number of morphemes you can come up with in English?
Many people want to learn a foreign language. However, there are two main misunderstandings of foreign language learning.
1) “I have to go to a class to learn a language.”
Languages are mostly learned by practicing and using and so it is more effective to learn a language with individualized applications at one’s own pace.
2) “I have to learn a language through communication with people.”
This is too big an objective to start with. Somehow, non-native speakers would find it frustrating because few native speakers would be patient enough to communicate with them if their oral proficiency is minimum. Therefore, it’s better to start with more listening practice and gradually build up vocabulary and grammar, as well as confidence to speak in a second language.
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Jinrong Li
There is a famous parable of six blind men and an elephant that originated from India. In one version of the story the six blind men were brought together and asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant’s body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a snake; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a spear.
The field of Linguistics has its own elephant- human language. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Similar to the blind men, linguists examine different areas of language and therefore describe language in different ways.
1. Syntax (contrary to what it sounds like, it is not an increase in the price of beer or gambling) is a subfield of linguistics which focuses mainly on the grammar of language. Syntacticians study the structure of sentences and try to answer the question, “What are the underlying rules and principles that govern the construction of sentences?”
2. While syntax studies the structure of sentences, morphology focuses on the structure of words.
3. Phonology is another subfield of linguistics. Phonology analyses the way sounds function in languages.
4. Related to phonology is another subfield of linguistics, phonetics. However, phonetics does not concentrate on the combination or function of sounds but rather on the actual production or articulation and physical properties of all possible human speech sounds.
5. Another perspective of language is the relationship between words and meaning. This is the focus of semantics, another branch of linguistics. Yet other linguists examine language as it affects and is affected by social relations. This perspective is referred to as sociolinguistics. There are still even more branches of linguistics, i.e., psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, etc.
So you see, there are many different perspectives and ways to describe language. Many times we think of human language as simple and easy – pretty much everyone speaks their native tongue by around age three without having ever been read a grammar book or been explicitly taught the rules of sound production and function, or of word and sentence structure. However, the reality is that human language is a huge complex “elephant” and viewing its different parts and from different perspectives has been the direction taken in the field of linguistics. But, this does not mean that these branches are in complete disagreement about what language is or the principles that govern its creation, acquisition or usage. Rather, each subfield gives a different description because it focuses on a different part of the “elephant”. In order to best describe human language linguists analyze its different parts but must not forget the whole – that language isn’t just the long tusk, flat ear, or coiled trunk. It’s the whole elephant.
Whether you are learning a second language or producing and selling language learning materials, it pays to understand some of the factors that influence second language learning. This is the first of a few short installments on the topic of second language learning.
University of Southern California linguist Stephen Krashen has identified two main modes of picking up a language — conscious ‘Learning’ and subconscious ‘Aquisition’. Language learning means a rule-based approach to new languages and is common in classroom settings. Teachers present students with grammar and pronunciation rules and then give examples of how these rules play out in real life. Language Aquisition, on the other hand, is most commonly identified with immersive language learning. Imagine, for example, an immigrant child who spend hours each day with her peers and absorbs (or ‘aquires’) the new language.
According to Krashen, the most effective language study focuses on language aquisition rather than grammar rules. When students are actively engaged in speaking and listening their focus is on the message being communicated rather than the form of the communication. Successful students know their grammar but they don’t use rules to form the sentences they speak. Rather they have developed a feel for the language that lets them create sentences more organically. Their knowledge of grammar is used sparingly, to do some last-minute editing before the words come out of their mouths. This function of the grammar is commonly termed the “monitor” since it monitors, reviews and edits what the mind produces.
What does this mean for you? If you are learning a second language, put yourself in situations where the focus is on conversation and communication. Don’t ignore grammar, but don’t worry if you don’t know the perfect way to communicate your thoughts. The process of interacting with native speakers is as important to your success as any language book you study.
