The Structure of Language: Study with Video Lessons, Practice Problems & Examples

Language

In this video, we're going to introduce language and we're going to distinguish it from communication. So, communication is the process of exchanging information or signals between organisms. This could be vocal, it could be body language, it could be chemical communication. Pretty much all animals in the animal kingdom have some type of communication. It's a very broad skill that we see.

Now, in contrast, language is a uniquely human skill that involves a structured system of symbols, like words, and rules, like grammar, that we can use to communicate complex ideas and information. And there are a few aspects of human language that we don't see in any other type of animal communication. First, human languages can be used to generate an infinite number of novel utterances. You could theoretically, for the rest of forever, say sentences that nobody has ever said before. You can be combining words in new ways all the time.

That's what makes it infinite. Number 2 is that human languages can be used to refer to intangible or abstract things. We could talk about the future, the past, democracy. You could describe a unicorn even though you've never seen one in real life. That is a unique feature of human language.

And then finally, we can use it internally as we think. We can use it to have internal monologues, we can reflect on our own thoughts and behaviors, we can mentally categorize information, and when we do that, it actually influences neural organization, and we have biological evidence to suggest that. These are the unique features of human language in addition to the use of symbols and rules, words, and grammar, basically. I do want to be clear because I always have students ask this: Well, why don't we consider animal communication language? It doesn't really seem fair sometimes.

And I totally get where you're coming from there. And we make this distinction not to downplay how sophisticated animal communication is. Some species, in particular, like whales, dolphins, and great apes, have really, really complex communication systems and they are incredible things. However, we do not see these specific features in any other animal communication system. We only see these in humans, so that's why we make that distinction.

So the broad takeaway here is that all language is communication. It falls under that broad category, but not all communication is language. Alright. So that is our introduction to language, and I will see you guys in our next video. Bye bye.

The Structure of Language Example 1

All right, so for each of these statements here we're going to say whether it describes language or communication, and we're going to place it in the correct spot on our Venn diagram here. And this is going to be super easy, right? Because we know that only humans use language and all other types of animals use communication systems. So A says that bees perform a waggle dance to direct other bees to pollen. We know that that has to be communication, right?

They're not humans. So, we'll put A there. B is a parent and teenager discussing the pros and cons of different college majors. Definitely sounds like humans, right?

So, we'll put a B there. Also worth noting that here we can see the abstract feature of human language where they're talking about basically hypotheticals for the child's future, pros and cons; those are intangible things. And again, that's a unique feature of human languages. And then C, we have vervet monkeys using different calls to warn colony mates of specific predators. Not humans, so that is going to be a type of communication.

Alright, there you guys have it and I'll see you in the next one. Bye bye!

Which of the following statements are true of language?

I) Language can influence brain organization. 

II) Language has a finite capacity for novel combinations. 

III) Language can describe abstract ideas.

• A. I & II.
• B. I & III.
• C. II & III.
• D. I, II, & III.

Units of Language

This video we're going to be going over the units of language. So, the largest unit of language are sentences. Sentences represent complete thoughts and they follow the rules of grammar, or basically how you are allowed to combine words in that language. We'll talk about that a bit later in the video. But for example, "The hungry dog ate the muffins" is a complete sentence in English.

It has a subject, it has a verb, and it has an object. Now, right below that we have phrases. And these are essentially groups of words. You can think of them as groups of words that kind of fit together but don't make a complete sentence on their own. Often they'll be lacking a verb, a subject, or an object.

So we can take our sentence and break it down into two phrases: "the hungry dog" and "ate the muffins". And you can see how those kind of go together. Like, you can have a hungry dog, right? And you can eat the muffins. But this one lacks a verb and then this one lacks a subject.

Now, moving a bit smaller we have morphemes. And morphemes are going to be the smallest unit of language with meaning. Okay, so we're basically going to be breaking our sentence down into morphemes. And you can see how in our case, for the most part, each individual word is a morpheme. Each of these words can stand alone and has meaning.

But you may have noticed that "muffins" got split into two morphemes. We have "muffin" and then the "s" on the end. And that's because the "s" here has meaning. It adds plurality to the word "muffin". So each of those is a separate morpheme.

So keep an eye out for situations like that. Quite often each word is its own morpheme, but when you have something like, you know, a plural "s" on the end or an "ing" ending making something a continuous verb, those would be separated out and certain prefixes can also, you know, add meaning to a word and then those would be their own morphemes as well. Alright. And then finally we have the smallest unit of language which are phonemes, and phonemes are essentially sound units. So in English we have 44 phonemes.

So it's not quite as simple as just 26 letters, 26 phonemes because certain letters can make multiple sounds, particularly vowels in English can do that. And we can also have certain letter combinations that make unique sounds. For example, "ch" makes a "ch" sound. So if we were to look at the phonemes in the word "dog", and you can see how we added these little slash marks here to indicate that we're not just saying the letter, we're saying the sound. So the phonemes in the word "dog" are "d", "ah", "g".

Those individual sounds that make up the word "dog". So those sound units, those phonemes are the smallest unit of language. So you can kind of think about how morphemes have meaning, those "m's" kind of go together, and phonemes are essentially phonics or just the sounds of a language. Now like we talked about, sentences follow grammar or syntax rules, and these are basically rules that indicate how words can be combined and in what order you are allowed to combine them. Okay?

And that is going to be unique to every different language. So these units of language that we went over are pretty much universal, you'll find them in all human languages, but syntax rules are specific to each language. So just to give you some examples, you don't have to memorize these by any means, but just as an example English uses a subject verb object format. So we would say, "The dog fetched the ball". You would never say, "fetched the ball the dog".

Right? That doesn't sound right. We also have a tendency to put adjectives before the noun that they modify. So you would say the fuzzy cat. Right?

You wouldn't say the cat fuzzy. It doesn't sound right in English. So those are examples of syntax rules. Alright, so those are our units of language and I will see you guys in our next one. Bye bye.

The Structure of Language Example 2

Alright, so what we're going to do here is for each of these words we're going to figure out what morphemes are in that word. So remember, morphemes are going to be our smallest unit of language with meaning. So, our first word is talking, and talking has 2 morphemes, right? We have talk, which of course can stand alone and has meaning, and then that "ing" ending, which is, it's been a hot minute since I took English, but I think is a present participle, and it basically adds continuous tense onto that verb. So, this is adding meaning to the verb talk, so that's why these are separate morphemes.

That's our first one. Our next word is book, and book is just one morpheme, right? That stands alone, it has meaning, so that one is nice and easy. And then, our last word is ducks, and ducks has 2 morphemes. So, we have duck, which of course is a noun, stands alone and has meaning, and then that "s," which adds plurality to the word duck.

Right? So each of those has separate meaning. Alright. So those are our morphemes, and I will see you guys in our next one. Bye bye.

Zola states that morphemes are the smallest unit of language. Is this statement true? If not, how would you correct the statement?

• A. Zola is correct.
• B. Zola is incorrect: morphemes are the largest units of language.
• C. Zola is incorrect: morphemes are the smallest unit of language with meaning.
• D. Zola is incorrect: both morphemes and phonemes are the smallest unit of language.

The statement “They are a student clever” violates which type of rule that governs language?

• A. Phonetic rules.
• B. Implicit rules. 
• C. Syntax rules.
• D. Morpheme rules.