Language and Linguistics
Item 1: Language
Basic Units of Language
- Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound representing language.
- Syllable: Consists of one or more phonemes that are pronounced in a single broadcast voice.
- Morpheme: The minimum unit endowed with meaning.
- Word: The union of one or more morphemes, with which we get a complete lexical unit of meaning.
- Syntactic Group or Phrase: A word or group of words connected by relationships that have meaning and serve a whole.
- Statement, Phrase, and Sentence: The minimum communication unit is the sentence, which is the union of one or more syntactic groups.
- If the statement is organized into a structure of subject and predicate, it is called a clause.
- If it has no structure, it is called a sentence.
- Text: The maximum communication unit and may consist of one or several statements.
Sentence Modalities
Based on communicative intent, we distinguish the following types of sentences:
- Declarative: Modality with which the speaker presents information objectively.
- Interrogative: The speaker intends to get information that is unknown. Can be direct or indirect, total or partial.
- Exclamatory: Expresses emotions such as joy, fear, etc. Often uses exclamation points.
- Dubitative: Expresses doubt or possibility of what is communicated. Uses adverbs and phrases of doubt.
- Desiderative: The speaker expresses a wish. Usually recognized by terms such as “hopefully,” “to see if…”
- Imperative or Hortatory: The speaker intends to convey orders or prohibitions. Uses the imperative mood for affirmative commands and the subjunctive mood for negative commands.
All these sentence modalities may be affirmative or negative.
Neologisms
New words that appear in a language are called neologisms. Words that are no longer used are called archaisms.
Neologisms are words that are incorporated into a language, whether from another language or whether they are newly created.
Development and Introduction of Neologisms
- Loan: Taking words and phrases from another language.
- Learned Prefixation and Suffixation: Creating words using elements of Greek and Latin.
- Semantic Change: Occurs when a word already existing in a language takes on a new meaning.
General Rules of Accentuation
The tilde (accent mark) is placed over the vowel of the stressed syllable in the following cases:
- Acute words: Ending in a vowel, -n, or -s. The stressed syllable is the last.
- Grave words: That do not end in a vowel, -n, or -s. The stressed syllable is the penultimate.
- Esdrújula words: The stressed syllable is the antepenultimate (third from last). Sobresdrújula words: The stressed syllable precedes the antepenultimate.
- Note: Capital letters in proper nouns also receive a tilde when the rules require it.
Accentuation of Diphthongs, Triphthongs, and Hiatuses
- Diphthongs: The union of two vowels in one syllable. Diphthongs follow the general rules of accentuation.
- If the word should carry a tilde, it is placed over the strong vowel.
- If the diphthong consists of a strong vowel and a weak vowel, the accent will be on the strong vowel. If it consists of two weak vowels, the accent will be on the second vowel.
- Triphthong: The union of three vowels in one syllable. Triphthongs also follow the general rules of accentuation.
- If the word should carry a tilde, it is placed over the strong vowel.
- Hiatus: The separation of two adjacent vowels in different syllables.
- If the hiatus is formed by a strong vowel followed by a weak vowel, or vice versa, always put the accent on the strong vowel.
- In other cases, general rules are followed.
Technological Lexicon
The technological lexicon refers to the full set of artificial creations made by humans, their processes, and production methods. Features:
- Neologisms: Each new discovery or invention needs a new name: a neologism.
- Anglicisms: Today, most innovations come from the Anglo-Saxon world.
- Acronyms: Words formed by the first initial letters of other words.
Item 2: Text
Basic Units of Communication
- Statement: The smallest unit of communication.
- Text: The maximum communication unit, has full meaning.
Types of Texts
Texts can be classified in different ways by:
- Communicative Intent: The text may be intended to convince, explain, inform, entertain, etc.
- Type of Discourse: We find narrative, descriptive, expository, and argumentative texts.
- Transmission Channel: They can be oral, written, audiovisual, or electronic.
Components of Texts
- Extralinguistic Components:
- Participants: The individuals involved in the act of communication.
- Context: Location, time, and environment in which communication takes place.
- Communicative Intention: The ultimate purpose of the text.
- Linguistic Components:
- Adaptation: For a text to be appropriate, it must satisfy the communicative intention of the author, respect the conventions of language use, and use the appropriate linguistic register.
- Coherence: A text is coherent if it contains the information necessary for its understanding, and if that information is logically distributed and organized.
- Cohesion: For a text to be cohesive, it is necessary to use various grammatical processes that facilitate understanding and create connections between different parts of the text.
Accentuation of Monosyllables
As a general rule, monosyllables do not use accent marks. However, the diacritical tilde is used to differentiate words that have the same form but different meanings and different grammatical categories. For example:
- él (he) vs. el (the)
- tú (you) vs. tu (your)
- mí (me) vs. mi (my)
- sé (I know) vs. se (reflexive pronoun)
- dé (give, subjunctive) vs. de (of, from)
- té (tea) vs. te (you, object pronoun)
Item 3: Word Formation Processes
Derivation
Derivation involves adding one or more derivational morphemes to a word.
- Prefixes: Placed in front of the word.
- Suffixes: Placed behind the word.
Composition
Composition involves combining two or more words. The composition process can be varied.
Parasynthesis
Parasynthesis includes:
- Words formed by derivation and composition: Parasynthesis combines two or more words and adds a derivational morpheme.
- Words formed by prefixation and suffixation: Parasynthesis involves adding a prefix and a suffix to a word, with the peculiarity that there is no single word with the suffix alone, nor with the prefix alone.
Other Word Formation Processes
- Acronym Creation: Joining the initial letters of a complex expression you want to abbreviate.
- Acronymy: Uniting elements of a complex expression you want to abbreviate.
- Shortening: Reducing the length of the original word.
Accentuation of Words Made of Several Building Blocks
1. Compound Words
- Compound words written as a single word follow the general rules of accentuation.
- Compound words written with a hyphen or a preposition are stressed individually, i.e., each part is accented as if it were a separate word.
2. Verbs United to One or More Pronouns
Words formed from a verb and one or more pronouns placed after the verb are accented according to the general rules of accentuation.
3. Adverbs Ending in -mente
Adverbs ending in -mente retain the tilde in the same place where the corresponding adjective carries it.
Legal Language
The main features of legal language are:
- Technicality: All professional languages have their own technical terms, most of which come from Latin but may also come from other languages.
- Fixed Formulas: Certain words or phrases that are repeated in the headings of legal documents, conclusions of law, etc.
- Archaic and Conservative Syntax: The style of legal language often lags behind contemporary language.
- Objectivity and Clarity: Avoiding ambiguous words or sentences in the statement of facts and conclusions.
Item 4: The Noun Phrase
Definition
The noun phrase is a word or set of words whose core is a noun, a pronoun, or a noun substitute.
Roles of the Noun Phrase
- Subject (S)
- Direct Object (DO)
- Indirect Object (IO)
- Article (Art.)
- Predicative Complement (Pred. Comp.)
- Agent Complement (Agent Comp.)
- Adverbial (Adv.)
- Regimen Complement (Reg. Comp.)
- Noun Complement (N Comp.)
- Adjective Complement (Adj. Comp.)
- Adverb Complement (Adv. Comp.)
The Verb and the Verb Phrase
Definition
Verbs are words that express actions, states, or processes located in time.
Form
- Root: Gives the lexical meaning of the verb.
- Endings: Give information about the grammatical meaning of the verb (tense, mood, person, number).
Verbs function as the core of the verb phrase. The verb phrase is a set of words whose core is a verb.
Periphrasis
A periphrasis is a grammatical construction that uses multiple words to express what could be conveyed by a single verb. It can be used to explain the manner or aspect of the verbal action.
- Mode: Obligatory, probable, etc.
- Aspect: Inceptive, progressive, iterative, perfective, etc.
Components of the Verb Phrase
| Component | Function |
|---|---|
| Core | Word that provides the basic meaning of the verb and selects the rest of its components. This is always a verb. |
| Modifiers | Words that restrict the meaning of the core or provide additional information about the action, state, or process.
|
| Complements | Words or sets of words that complete or clarify the meaning of the core.
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Complements can include: direct object, indirect object, circumstantial complement, predicative complement, agent complement, and attribute complement.
Use of H
The following are written with h:
- Words that begin with hia-, hie-, hue-, hui-.
- Forms of verbs that have h in their infinitive.
- Words beginning with Greek and Latin compositional elements, such as hecto-, hetero-, hemi-, hyper-, homo-.
- Words that belong to the same lexical family as other words that begin with h.
Paronyms and Homophones
- Paronyms: Words that are spelled and pronounced similarly but have different meanings.
- Homophones: Words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
Examples of Paronyms and Homophones
| Without H | With H |
|---|---|
| a (to, preposition) | ha (from the verb haber) |
| ola (wave) | hola (hello) |
| haber (to have, infinitive) | a ver (let’s see) |
| echo (done, past participle of hacer) | hecho (from the verb echar) |
Note
Some words that carry h in the diphthong hue- do not transfer the h to other words in their lexical family.