GENERAL LINGUISTICS

DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

Lecturer : Dr. Dwi Haryanti

Arranged by:
Novi Fitri Puspitasari
S200130048

MAGISTER OF LANGUAGE STUDIES

MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
2015
0

DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS
Novi Fitri Puspitasari
S200130048
Graduate Program of Language Study, Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta, 2015, Surakarta
novifitripuspitasari0808@gmail.com

Abstract
Language is one of the most important and characteristic forms of human behavior. Language
cannot be separated from humans live because it is used to connect society. One approach has,
however, received little attention until very recently: descriptive linguistics. Descriptive
linguistics provides analyses of the grammars of languages. In defining classes and assigning
rules in language based on a structural analysis of the phonology, morphology, syntax, and
semantic of a language, it proceeds objectively, showing how important features of language
in relation to each other. The aim of this paper is to understand more about the descriptive
linguistics and about how phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantic become the key to
know how language works. Because of it, the writer has an eager to know why the descriptive
linguistics is crucial in human behavior as it used to connect in the society.
Keywords: descriptive linguistics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic
A. Introduction
Language cannot be separated from humans live because it is used to connect society.
People can also describe their ideas, feelings, and desire to other people using the
language. Siahaan (2008:3) states that language is a unique human inheritance that plays
the very important role in humans live, such as in thinking, communicating ideas, and
negotiating with the others. One approach has, however, received little attention until very
recently: descriptive linguistics.
In writing this paper, the writer sees that descriptive linguistics is one of the important
aspects in the linguistics field. Descriptive linguistics itself is a discipline in which the
principles of linguistics, or the scientific study of language, are presented through
description of one language. It is a required course for many disciplines, in that it
combines understanding of the technical materials of language (phonemes, morphemes,
syntax, semantic, etc.) with critical thinking skills that are universally appreciated.
Descriptive linguistics aims to provide an understanding of language by analyzing it in
its various uses. Descriptive linguists deal with one language at a time, such as
contemporary English, Chinese, or Japanese (Lehmann, 1976:15).
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The aim of this paper is to understand more about the descriptive linguistics and about
how phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantic become the key to know how language
works. Because of it, the writer has an eager to know why the descriptive linguistics is
crucial in human behavior as it used to connect in the society.
B. Descriptive Linguistics
Descriptive linguistics is one of the branches of micro linguistics that study on how to
describe the language as it is at a certain time. Descriptive linguistics provides analyses of
the grammars of languages. It also means by the study of how language is constructed. For
example, the writer wants to go to China and people there instead of English, Chinese
people usually speak Mandarin, so the writer needs to know about Mandarin so that the
writer can understand what the Chinese people are talking about. According to Gleason
(1961:11),
Using the phoneme and the morpheme as their basic units, linguists have been able
to build a comprehensive theory of the expression side of language, and to make
detailed and comprehensive statements about the expression systems of specific
languages. This is what is ordinarily called descriptive linguistics.

Descriptive linguistics can be divided into four parts; phonetic and phonology,
morphology, syntax, and semantic.
1. Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics and phonology are related, dependent fields for studying aspects of
language. Phonetics is the study of sound in speech; phonology is the study (and use)
of sound patterns to create meaning. Phonetics focuses on how speech is physically
created and received, including study of the human vocal and auditory tracts,
acoustics, and neurology. Phonology relies on phonetic information for its practice, but
focuses on how patterns in both speech and non-verbal communication create
meaning, and how such patterns are interpreted. Phonology includes comparative
linguistic studies of how cognates, sounds, and meaning are transmitted among and
between human communities and languages.
According to Hayes (2007:2), phonetics studies speech sounds in ways that are
close to speech stream, focusing on production, acoustics, and perception. Phonetics is
the study of actual sounds of human languages, their production and their perception.
According to Weda (2012:23), one of things that everybody knows about language is
that they have different accents. Languages have different accents: they are

pronounced differently by people from different geographical places, from different

social classes of different ages and different educational background (Roach, 1987:4).
Phonology is simply the study of how the sounds in a language are used. Poole
(1999:55) stated that phonology is concerned with which sounds a language uses and
how it arranges them. It is concerned with the contribution of sounds to the task of
communication. The difference is very important though often enough it is not evident
whether a phenomenon is phonetic in nature or phonological. The field of phonetics is
a multiple layered subject of linguistics that focuses on speech. In the case of oral
languages there are three basic areas of study:
Articulatory phonetics: the study of the production of speech sounds by the

articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker

Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical transmission of speech sounds from

the speaker to the listener

Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception and perception of speech sounds by
the listener
Phonology concerns itself with systems of phonemes, abstract cognitive units of

speech sound or sign which distinguish the words of a language. Phonetics, on the
other hand, concerns itself with the production, transmission, and perception of the
physical phenomena which are abstracted in the mind to constitute these speech
sounds or signs.
1.1. IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In principle this alphabet is designed to
give an accurate written transcription of sounds, one that is uniform for all
languages. Since the IPA is an international standard, it is vital that one
understands how it works (and can read or write using it). The complete set of
symbols is rather complex, but luckily one does not have to know all of it
(Kracht, 2003:13-14).
Figure 1. The International Phonetic Alphabet (Consonant)

Figure 2. IPA consonant column labels.

Figure 3.
IPA
consonant
row labels

Vowels:
A speech sound created by the relatively free passage of breath through the
larynx and oral cavity, usually forming the most prominent and central sound of a
syllable. Vowels are distinguished on the basis of Height and Backness. The
IPA diagram resembles the place of articulation of the vowels.
Figure 4. The International Phonetic Alphabet (Vowel)

Figure 5.
column

IPA vowel row and

labels

1.2. The Phoneme

Phonology also takes a look at the rather abstract concept of a phoneme. A
phoneme of a language or dialect is an abstraction of a speech sound or of a
group of different sounds which are all perceived to have the same function by
speakers of that particular language or dialect. Kenneth L.
Phoneme is a sound or set of sounds that makes a difference in the meaning
of a language. For example, the English word "through" consists of three
phonemes: the initial "th" sound, the "r" sound, and an "oo" vowel sound. Notice
that the phonemes in this and many other English words do not always
correspond directly to the letters used to spell them.
According to Gleason (1961:14), the first step studying any spoken language
is to determine the phonemes. When speaking of phonemes, it's important to note
that they do not stand alone as words. They are simply sounds that have no
meaning on their own. For instance, the phoneme 'sh' in English has no meaning

on its own. However, stick it in front of the letters 'oes' and you have the word
'shoes.'
The phoneme paradigm constituting the phonological system of a given
language makes part of the native speaker's competence. It makes it possible for
him to expect certain types of constructions and recognize certain physical
differences of sounds (Sajavaara, 2001:243).
1.3. Phones and allophones
According to Yule (2006:45), phones are phonetic units and appear in
square brackets. According to Radford (2009:77) said that the two variants [p ph]
of the phoneme /p/ are allophones of the phoneme. In other words a phoneme
may be realised by more than one speech sound and the selection of each variant
is usually conditioned by the phonetic environment of the phoneme. The term
allophone is based on Greek expression meaning different sound.

For example:

1.4. Minimal pairs and sets

Phonemic distinctions in a language can be tested via pairs and sets of
words. When two word such as pat and bat are identical in form expect for a
contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same position the words are described
as a minimal pair. Minimal pair is a set of two distinct words differing in only a
single sound. The difference is only the stop but the speech environment is
identical. Gleason (1961:18) also stated that it will be necessary to mark them as
7

representations of phonemes, by enclosing phoneme symbols in /

/ (e.g. /t/

till, /d/ dill, /b/ bill, /p/ pill).

A minimal set is when a group of words can be differentiated, each one
from the others, by changing one phoneme (always in the same position in the
word) (Yule, 2006:46). For example, one minimal set based on the vowel
phonemes of English could include feat, fit, fat, fate, fought, foot, and another
minimal set based on consonant phonemes could have big, pig, rig, fig, dig, wig.
2. Morphology.
Morphology is the study of how sound sequences have meaning. In other
words, it's the study of how different languages give meaning to individual sounds or
phonemes.
2.1. Morpheme
Morley (2000:151) stated that the basic unit of grammatical meaning is the
morpheme. It is the element, therefore, that is involved in the study of word
composition/structure (e.g. prize; be, 1 morpheme; train/s; teach/er, 2
morphemes). According to Yule (2006:63) the definition of a morpheme is a
minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function. Units of grammatical function
include forms used to indicate past tense or plural. For example, in the sentence
The police reopened the investigation, the word reopened consists of three
morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal unit of
meaning is re-(meaning again) and a minimal unit of grammatical function is
ed (indicating past tense).
The writer likes to remember it by just thinking it's how different morph
together to make meaning sounds. With this in mind, a morph is the smallest
unit of sound that has meaning.
According to Kracht (2003:79), the first to notice is that words come in
different classes. For example, there are verbs (/to imagine/) and there are nouns
(/a car/), there are adverbs (/slowly/) and adjectives (/red/). From a
morphological point of view, the three are distinct in the following way. Verbs
take the endings /s/, /ed/, and /ing/, nouns only take the ending /s/. Adjectives and
adverbs on the other hand do not change.

According to Poole (1999:75), allomorph is the plural of morphemes. Thus

morpheme may have different phonetic realisations. For example, /s/, /z/ and /iz/
are in complementary distribution.
2.2. Free and bound morphemes
In morphology a basic word is defined as a free morpheme and the
morpheme into the basic word it is attached is called as a bound morpheme
(Siahaan, 2008:12). According to Yule (2006:63), there are free morphemes, that
is, morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words and also bound
morphemes, which are those forms that cannot stand alone and are typically
attached to another form. For example, open and tour are free morphemes and
re-, -ist, -ed, -s are bound morphemes.
The broadest and most comprehensive classes of morphemes in English are
roots and affixes. All affixes (prefixes and suffixes) in English are bound
morphemes (Gleason, 1961:58). For example, walk, talk, follow,etc are roots and
ed, -s, -ing, etc are affixes. Two different types of affixes are prefixes and
suffixes. Prefixes are affixes which precede the root with which they are most
closely associated. Suffixes are affixes which follow the root with which they are
most closely associated (Gleason, 1961:59). For example, /in-/ in incomplete for
prefixes and /-i/ in boyish for suffixes.
The free morphemes can generally be identified as the set of separate
English word forms such as basic nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc (Yule, 2006:63).
When using free morphemes with bound morphemes attached are known as
stems. For example:
Carelessnees
Care -less
-ness
Stem suffix suffix
(free) (bound) (bound)
2.3. Lexical and functional morphemes
Free morphemes fall into two categories; lexical morphemes and
functional morphemes. Yule (2006:64) said that lexical morphemes is that set of
ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs that people think of as the words that carry
the content of the message people convey, and other types are called functional
morphemes. The some examples of lexical morphemes are: girl, man, house,
tiger, sad, long, yellow, sincere, open, look, follow, break. Some examples of
9

functional morphemes are: and, but, when, because, in, near, above, in, the, that,
it, them. So functional morphemes is a set consists largely of the functional
words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns
(Yule, 2006:64).
2.4. Derivation and inflectional morphemes
Lehmann (1976:125) stated that,
In some languages parts of words belonging to one class, such as nouns or
verbs, may be modified consistently according to sets. In English, for
example, verbs may be modified by the addition of a suffix in the third
singular present, for example, sees; by a change in the stem in the past, for
example, saw; or by the addition of a suffix in the past participle, for
example, seen, and in the gerund, for example, seeing. In this way English
verb consists of sets of five forms, often called the infinitive; the third
singular present, the past, the past participle, and the gerund.

Besides free morphemes, bound morphemes can also be divided into two
types; derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes. According to
Yule (2006:64), derivational morphemes are to make new words or to make
words of a different grammatical category from the stem. For example, the
addition of the derivational morpheme ness changes the adjective good to the
noun goodness. And inflectional morphemes are not used to produce new words
in the language, but rather to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a
word (Yule, 2006:64). For example,
Jims two sisters are really different.
One likes to have fun and is always laughing.
The other liked to read as a child and has always taken things seriously.
One is the loudest person in the house and the other is quitter than a mouse.
For example above, the writer can see that two of the inflections, -s (possessive)
and s (plural), are attached to nouns. There are four inflection attached to verbs,
-s (3rd person singular), -ing (present participle), -ed (past tense) and en (past
participle). There are two inflections attached to adjectives:-est (superlative) and
er (comparative). In English, all the inflectional morphemes are suffixes (Yule,
2006:65).
2.5. Morphological description
The writer can now take most sentences of English apart and list all the
elements. For example, in sentence The childs wildness shocked the teachers,
the writer can identify eleven morphemes.
The
child
-s

wild

-ness
10

Functional
shock
lexical
-s
Inflectional

lexical
-ed
inflectional

inflectional
the
functional

lexical
teach
lexical

derivational
-er
derivational

Morphology is intimately related to syntax. For everything that is larger than a

word is the domain of syntax. So, the next topic is syntax.
3. Syntax
When people concentrate on the structure and ordering of components within a
sentence, they are studying the syntax. The word syntax comes originally from
Greek and literally means a putting together or arrangement (Yule, 2006:86).
Syntax determines how the chosen words are used to form a sentence. Syntax is the
study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular
languages" is the first sentence of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures. The study of
syntax is a branch of the field of linguistics, which has as its main goal a
characterization of human language.
3.1. Generative grammar
Yule (2006:87) stated that the mathematical perspective helps to explain the
meaning of the term generative, which is used to describe this type of grammar.
In basic algebra, there is an expression such as 3x + 2y, and give x and y the
value of any whole number, then that simple algebraic expression can generate
an endless set of values by following the simple rules of arithmetic. When x = 5
and y = 10, then the result is 35. The endless set of such results is generated by
the operation of the rules. Such a set of explicit rules is generative grammar
(Yule, 2006:87). Productivity of language is phrase structure rules and
transformational rules.
3.2. Syntactic structure
A generative grammar defines the syntactic structure of a language. Yule
(2006:87) said that the grammar will generate all the well-formed syntactic
structure (e.g. sentence) of the language and will not generate any ill-formed
structures. This has been called the all and only criterion, that is, all
grammatical sentence and only the grammatical sentences will be produced.
3.3. Deep and surface structure
11

The deep structure is an abstract level of structural organization in which

all the elements determining structural interpretation.
Sentences that have alternative interpretation
Sentences that have different surface forms but have the same underlying
means
Surface structure means how the sentence is actually represented. For example:
Charlie broke the window.
The window was broken by Charlie.
Charlie who broke the window.
Was the window broken by Charlie?
From the example above they have difference in their surface structure, means
difference in syntactic forms. But they have the same deep or underlying
structure.
3.4. Structural ambiguity
How superficially similar sentences are different? It is multiple meanings.
E.g. Annie whacked the man with an umbrella. Same surface structure but
different deep structure. E.g. The boy saw the man with a telescope. The question
is what is the scope of with the telescope? Does it modify only the man or
does it modify saw the man?
Structural ambiguity (1)

Structural
ambiguity (2)

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3.5. Recursion
Rules can be applied more than once in generating sentence. E.g. repeat
prepositional phrase more than once. The gun was on the table near the window
in the bedroom in the pink house. And put sentences inside sentences. This is the
cat that ate the rat that ate the cheese that was sold by the man that lived in the
city that was on the river .. No end to recursion-produce longer complex
sentences.
3.6. Phrase structure rules
According to Yule (2006:91), phrase structure rules is the structure of
phrase of a specific type will consist of one or more constituents in a particular
order. Some words seem to belong together. For example, {The crazy man} {is
jumping off the bridge}. Groups of words that belong together are called
constituents. The component that determines the properties of the constituent is
the head, and the constituent can be referred ro as a phrase (e.g. noun phrase).
Yule (2006:92) said that,
The first rule in the following simple phrase structure rules stated that a
sentence rewrites a noun phrase and a verb phrase. The second rules stated
that a noun phrase rewrites as an article, an optional adjective and a noun or a
pronoun or a proper noun.
S
NP VP
NP {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
VP V NP (PP) (Adv)
PP Prep NP

3.7. Lexical rules

Phrase structure rules generate structures. In order to turn those structures
into recognizable English, lexical rules will be needed. It specifies which words
can be used when we rewrite constituents such as N (Yule, 2006:92). The first
rule in the following set states that a proper noun rewrites as Mary or George.
Example in Yule (2006:92-93):

13

People can rely on these rules to generate the grammatical sentences 1-7
below, but not the ungrammatical sentences 8-10.

As a way of visualizing how the phrase structure rules form the basis of
these sentences, can be draw the tree diagram for sentence 7.

3.8.
Complement phrases
The word that as used in this example John believed that Catchy knew that
Mary helped George, is called a complementizer (C). The role of that as a
complementizer is to introduce a complement phrase (CP) (Yule, 2006:93). For
example in the sentence Catchy knew that Mary helped George, the writer can
identify one CP which contains that plus Mary helped George. It is obviously
that Mary helped George is a sentence (S). So, the writer now in a position to
define a CP in the following way: a complement phrase rewrites as a
complementizer and a sentence, or

CPC S. The writer can also see from

the same sentence that the complement phrase (CP) comes after a verb (V) knew.
This means that it is using the CP as part of a verb phrase (VP), as in knew that
Mary helped George. So, there must be another rule that says: a verb phrase
rewrites as a verb and complement phrase, or VPV CP (Yule, 2006:94).
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3.9.

Transformational rules
Phrase structure rules represent deep structure- always generates structures
with fixed word order.
Mary saw George recently
Recently Mary saw George
Transformational rules means take a specific part and attach it in another
place.
You will help Cathy
Will you help Cathy?

4.

Semantic
Semantics
(as the

study

of

meaning)

is

central to the study of communication. Semantics is also at the centre of the study of
the human mind. Semantic is the study of meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.
Semantics as one branch of linguistics parallels to and interact with syntax and
phonology. If syntax and phonology study the structure of expressive possibilities in
language, semantics studies the meanings that can be expressed. So, semantics is a

15

fruitful and exciting point of departure of the current discussion. To understand

language:
The meaning of words and the morphemes that compose them.
Words into phrases and sentences
Context in which determines the meaning (Pragmatics).
Lexical semantics is words and meaning relationship among words). Phrasal/
sentential semantics is syntactic units larger than a word). What a speaker
conventionally means (objective or general meaning) not what he is trying to say
(subjective or local meaning). Three types of semantic analysis:
Words as containers Semantic features
roles they fulfill Semantic roles
relationship with other words lexical relation
4.1. Semantic features
Syntactically correct sentences but semantically odd.
The hamburger ate the man.
My cat studies linguistics.
The table listens to the radio
This relates to the conceptual components of the words hamburger, cat & table
not human.

4.2.
Semantic
Words

roles
are

described according to the roles they fulfill with the situation described in a
sentence.
The boy kicked the ball
Verb indicates action
Boy performs the action= agent
Ball undergoes the action= theme
The NPs describe the role of entities (people or things) involved in the action, i.e.
they have certain semantic (or thematic) roles.
Agent= the entity that performs the action
Theme= the entity that undergoes the action
Experiencer= one who perceives something
Instrument= an entity used to perform an action
Location= the place where the action happens
16

Source= the place from which an action originates

Goal= the place where the action is directed
John is writing with a pen
agent
instrument
Mary saw a mosquito on the wall
experiencer
theme location
The children ran from the playground to the pool
agent
source
goal
4.3. Lexical relation
Analysis in terms of lexical relations- explain the meaning in terms of the
relationship with other words
Synonymy: words that have the same meanings or that are closely related in

meaning
Antonymy: words that are opposites in meaning, e.g. hot & cold.
Hyponymy: Words whose meanings are specific instances of a more general
word, i.e. one thing is included (kind of) in another thing. E.g. cats and dogs

are hyponyms of the word animal.

Prototype: Characteristic instance. E.g. furniture chair is a better example

than bench or stool.

Homonymy: A word which has two or more entirely distinct (unrelated)

meanings. E.g. Race: contest of speed or ethnic group

Homophony: Different words pronounced the same but spelled differently.

E.g. two, to and too.

Polysemy: A word which has multiple meanings related by extension. E.g.

bright: shining ; intelligent

Metonymy is "a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly
associated feature is used to name or designate something." A short definition
is "part for whole." E.g.,
He drank the whole bottle. (container-content)
The White House announced. (king-crown)
I gave her a hand. (whole-part)
A word substituted for another word with which it is closely associated e.g.
bottle is used for water.

C. Conclusion
Descriptive linguistics is the study how language is constructed. Descriptive linguistics
can be divided into four parts; phonetic and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic, and
pragmatic.
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Phonetics focuses on how speech is physically created and received, including study of
the human vocal and auditory tracts, acoustics, and neurology. Phonology is the study of
how the sounds in a language are used. A phoneme is a sound or set sounds that makes a
difference in the meaning of a language. Morphology is study of how sound sequences
have meaning. With this, a morph is the smallest unit of sound that has meaning. Syntax is
the way in which are arranged to form sentences and phrases. The last is semantic.
Semantic is the study of meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.
References
Gleason, Henry Allan. 1961. An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics. Toronto: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston.
Siahaan, Sanggam. 2008. Issues in Lingusitics. Graha Ilmu, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Weda, Sukardi. 2012. Stress Shifts of English Utterances Made by Indonesian Speakers of
English (ISE).
http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijel/article/view/18221/12086
Accessed at 12.21 a.m. March, 22th 2015
Roach, Peter. 1987. English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Sajavaara, Kari. 2001. Finnish-English Phonetics and Phonology. IJES, vol. I, 2001, pp.
241-256. http://revistas.um.es/ijes/article/download/47781/45771. Accessed at
5.26 p.m. March, 22th, 2015
Morley, G. David. 2000. Syntax in Functional Grammar: An introduction to
lexicogrammar in systemic linguistics. Continuum, London
Poole, Stuart C. 1999. An Introduction to Linguistics. Palgrave Publisher Ltd., New York
Lehmann, Winfred Philipp. 1976. Descriptive Linguistics. Random House Inc., Canada,
Toronto
Yule, George. 2006. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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