ESTRENG

• English is the world's largest native language and the official language in 70 countries
• English is considered the actual universal language
• In the era of world mass communication, the concept of a Universal Language is more significant
• Before this era, Greek, Latin, and French were to some extent universal languages, mainly in Europe
• In Asia, due to international standards and globalization, most countries have adapted English as their main language for education
• Some countries use English not only as the medium of instruction but also as their official and indigenous languages
• Linguistics is the scientific study of language, involving the analysis of language form, meaning, and context
• Linguistics includes the study of the structure and development of a particular language, its relationship to other languages, and the connection between language and mind
• Philology is the study of language in oral and written historical sources, at the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics
• Ferdinand de Saussure is known as the Founder of Modern Linguistics
• Avram Noam Chomsky is known as the Father of Modern Linguistics
• Subfields of Linguistics:

  • Morphology: breaking down and building up words
  • Phonology: sound language
  • Syntax: arrangement of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences
  • Pragmatics: meaning within the text, about the text, beyond the text
  • Semantics: word meanings and lexical relations
• Morphology is the study of patterns of word formations
• Morphology looks into the meaningful structural unity of words
• Morphology comprises the analysis, identification, and categorization of the lexical grammaticality of a certain language
• A morpheme is the smallest unit of language meaning
• A morpheme can be added to another morpheme to form a specific meaning or can mean something by itself
• Free morphemes can stand on their own
• Bound morphemes cannot stand on their own and need to be attached to a free morpheme
• Bound morphemes are also called affixes
• Inflectional morphemes are inserted within the root or stem word to create new words without changing their meaning
• Inflectional morphemes are concerned with grammatical functions such as plurality, possession, or tense
• Derivational morphemes are affixes attached to a free morpheme, changing their functional meaning
• Derivational morphemes are concerned with lexical innovations since the new word formed has a different semantic meaning
• A root is a form that is not further analyzable in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology
• A root is the basic part always present in a lexeme
• A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology
• In the form 'untouchables', the stem is 'untouchable', and in 'touched', the stem is 'touch'