Phonology: The branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages.
Phonologist: A linguist who specializes in phonology.
Phonemes: is a basic unit of a language's phonology. They are sounds not letters. The same phoneme can be represented by different letters.
Morphology: The study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language.
Morphologist: a linguist who specializes in morphology
morphemes: is the smallestunit of language that carries meaning. formed by combining phonemes.
Syntax: the study of how words are arranged to create phrases, clauses and sentences.
Syntactician: a linguist who specializes in syntax.
syntax: forms meaningfull sentences above word level
semantics: the study of the meaning of phrases, clauses and sentences
semanticist: a linguist who specializes in semantics
sociolinguistics: the study of language in society.
neurolinguistics: the study of language in the brain
communication: the transfer of information
communication in language: human language allows us to communicate with infinite variety
language has arbitrary signs: to assign meaning into certain words. it isnt necessary for there to be a connection between the form of the word and the meaning. Very arbitrary.
language has displacement: humans are able to talk about the past and future while animals can only live in the present. we can talk about hopes and dreams which is unique to humans.
language has discrete infinity: with limitedsounds humans can create an infinite amount of words with different meanings and expressions
language is combinatorial: it has the ability to combine words and phrases to mean different things but animals can only communicate a limited number of needs and wants.
Properties of language: Arbitrary signs, displacement, discrete infinity, and combinatorial
language:
human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication
a system of communication of meanings through complex arbitrary signals or symbols in a significant syntax