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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 ...
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, [1] involving analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. [2]Language use was first systematically documented in Mesopotamia, with extant lexical lists of the 3rd to the 2nd Millennia BCE, offering glossaries on Sumerian cuneiform usage and meaning, and phonetical vocabularies of foreign languages.
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who defined the modern discipline of linguistics, first explicitly formulated the distinction using the French word langage for language as a concept, langue as a specific instance of a language system, and parole for the concrete use of speech in a particular language.
Categorial grammar is another example of logical grammar in the modern context. More lately, in Donald Davidson's event semantics, for example, the verb serves as the predicate. Like in modern predicate logic, subject and object are arguments of the transitive predicate. A similar solution is found in formal semantics. [16]
Corpus linguistics is an empirical method for the study of language by way of a text corpus (plural corpora). [1] Corpora are balanced, often stratified collections of authentic, "real world", text of speech or writing that aim to represent a given linguistic variety . [ 1 ]
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use as a native language.The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such as Latin and Classical Chinese, which are studied for their cultural and linguistic value.
Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown out of the earlier discipline of philology, [5] the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. Initially, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics, primarily as a tool for linguistic reconstruction. [6]
Linguistics is heterogeneous in its methods of research, so that each area of theoretical linguistics may resemble methodologically either formal science or empirical science, to different degrees. For example, phonetics uses empirical approaches to study the physical acoustics of spoken language .