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Linguistics is the scientific study of language. [1] [2] [3] The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language, and analogous systems of sign languages), and pragmatics ...
Some scholars assume the development of primitive language-like systems (proto-language) as early as Homo habilis (2.3 million years ago) while others place the development of primitive symbolic communication only with Homo erectus (1.8 million years ago) or Homo heidelbergensis (0.6 million years ago), and the development of language proper ...
Hockett's Design Features are a set of features that characterize human language and set it apart from animal communication. They were defined by linguist Charles F. Hockett in the 1960s. He called these characteristics the design features of language.
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Language acquisition involves structures, rules, and representation.
The paradigmatic principle - the idea that the process of using language involves choosing from a specifiable set of options - was established in semiotics by Saussure, whose concept of value (viz. “valeur”), and of signs as terms in a system, “showed up paradigmatic organization as the most abstract dimension of meaning” [1]
Languages are grouped by diachronic relatedness into language families. [2] In other words, languages are grouped based on how they were developed and evolved throughout history, with languages which descended from a common ancestor being grouped into the same language family.
General lexicology is the broad study of words regardless of a language's specific properties. It is concerned with linguistic features that are common among all languages, such as phonemes and morphemes. Special lexicology, on the other hand, looks at what a particular language contributes to its vocabulary, such as grammars. [2]
The Integrational theory of language [1] is the general theory of language that has been developed within the general linguistic approach of integrational linguistics. Differently from most other approaches in linguistics , integrational linguistics emphasizes a distinction between theories of language and theories of language descriptions .