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1. Basic notions of linguistics
- Definition of linguistics as a scientific, descriptive discipline
- Object of linguistics : human language (not individual languages)
- Scientific method in linguistics
- Subfields of linguistics : o Phonetics o Phonology o Morphology o Syntax o Semantics o Pragmatics o Lexicology
- Nature of human language : o Arbitrariness o Discreteness o Open-endedness (creativity) o Displacement
- Semiotics (Saussure): o Sign o Signifier o Signified 2. Basic notions of text linguistics
- Definition of text linguistics
- What is a text? o Medium-dependent vs medium-independent o Text as a unit of meaning o Text vs sentence o Text vs discourse
- Text as product vs text as process
- Approaches to text analysis : o Formal texture Aspect Where it falls Formal texture (general concept) 2. Basic notions of text linguistics Medium-independent formal texture 2 (core) + overlaps 5 & 6 Medium-dependent formal texture 5. Texts + overlaps 2 & 7
- Formal texture is NOT a standard of textuality, t is an analytical perspective
- Medium-dependence ≠ textuality condition
- Texts can be textual without layout or prosody being analysed o Semantic texture o Textual intention
- Interdisciplinary nature of text linguistics
- Text as communicative occurrence
3. The role of the lexicon
- Lexicon / Lexicology
- Lexeme vs word
- Content words vs function words
- Open vs closed classes
- Lexical semantics o Polysemy o Homonymy o Vagueness o Metonymy
- Lexical relations : o Synonymy o Antonymy (gradation, complementaries, converses) o Hyponymy / hypernymy o Part–whole relations
- Lexical cohesion o Repetition o Lexical fields o Semantic networks o Cohesive chains o Lexicon as “semantic infrastructure of the text”
- Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations
- Word formation : o Derivation o Compounding
- Lexicon and textual continuity (coherence, cohesion, thematic progression)
- Lexical patterns and topic indication (collocations, restricted combinations, idioms)
- Lexicon in corpus linguistics and frequency analysis 4. The standards of textuality
- Beaugrande & Dressler’s 7 standards :
- Cohesion (lexical repetition, synonymy, collocations)
- Coherence (event structure, semantic relations)
- Intentionality
- Acceptability
- Informativity
- Situationality
- Intertextuality
- Text-centred vs user-centred standards
- Examples and explanations for each standard
- Constitutive vs regulative principles: o Efficiency (regulative principle) → lexicalized units reduce processing effort o Effectiveness o Appropriateness
- Knowledge of other texts
- Genre and discourse conventions 7. Textuality in digital contexts
- Corpus linguistics
- Digital corpora
- Machine-readable texts
- Corpus tools (Sketch Engine)
- Frequency analysis
- AI-generated texts (ChatGPT case study)
- Corpus methodology (technical tool-based focus)
- Statistical methods (factor analysis, clustering)
- Detailed POS tagging and annotation workflows 01 – 19 /02/ Basic notions of linguistics Linguistics: the scientific (using scientific methods: observation → hypothesis → experimentation → theories) study of language and communication. It observes and classifies naturally occurring phenomena from data to theories. The primary object of linguistics is human language, not individual languages. Its goal is to understand the nature of language in general. Linguistics is descriptive (≠ grammatical), errors reveal authentic uses. Subfield of linguistics
- Phonetics : The study of speech sounds and their acoustic properties
- Phonology : The study of the speech sounds used in a particular language
- Morphology : The study of word structure
- Syntax : The study of sentence structure
- Semantics : The study of linguistic meaning
- Pragmatics : The study of language use (language in context)
- Lexicology : The study of the lexicon (simple and complex words) Language : communication system of signs (perceptible entities i. e. gestures, writing, speech) that create a message. Animal language is different from human language because it cannot be enlarged. Main feature of human language :
- Arbitrariness → different signifiers to express a meaning. They can also be iconic ( moo , buzz )
- Discreetness → language can be decomposed into discrete units
- Open-endedness (creativity) → addition of new words and expression and the possibility of a finite number of units used to create an infinite number of utterances
- Displacement (stimulus-freedom) → language can be used to talk about non-present things The study of communication systems has its origins in semiotics. Saussure:
- A meaning in semiotic systems is expressed by signs (the signified → mental image)
- Signs have a particular form (a signifier → physical manifestation of the linguistic unit in sounds or words) 02 – 20/02/ Text linguistics : the science of text that studies the features of text that allows it to be considered one. What is a text?
- In the everyday language a text is something we can see or touch or a written document.
- “Text” from an etymological point of view comes from Latin “ textere ” → “weave” a sequence of sentences interwoven structurally and semantically. “ Texture ” involves unifying and idiolectal (style) features ≠ textuality that is a feature of all texts.
- According to the dictionaries a text is written → medium-dependent.
- A text can also be medium-independent from its medium → it can be spoken (wording of language material regardless of its medial embodiment. It is more abstract)
- A text is “the main part of a written document ” (rather than the introduction or pictures)
- A text is a piece of writing devoted to describing a specific topic
- A text is a complex unit of sentences (written or spoken) used in education for discussion or examination
- A text is meaningful unit
- A text is a communicative unit produced with intention in a specific context Text as a technical term of linguistics
- A unit of a language in use → not abstract, medium-independent. It is any passage of whatever length that forms a unified whole → a unit of meaning. It is not a grammatical unit (like a sentience or a clause) and it is not defined by its size (Halliday).
- The abstract theoretical construct that underlines what is a discourse. Utterances can be assigned textual structure (Van Dijk).
- The total of all linguistics expressions in the sense of a corpus → a collection of texts (Bussmann).
- Large quantities of raw text processed directly to present the researcher with clear evidence (Sinclair).
- It is impossible to give a comprehensive definition of text, it is a polysemous term, and its meaning are bound to specific theories.
- Prototypically: a text is a monologic product of writing constituting a unit larger than a sentence. Discourse
- In the everyday language a discourse is spoken or written communication between people. It differs from text because the latter does not include people or their
o interpreting and receiving texts
- Social functions of texts → how they operate within society. Text as Product This approach treats a text as a finished object and examines:
- Cohesion → linguistic ties within the text.
- Coherence → logical relations between ideas.
- Topical organization → how topics develop.
- Illocutionary structure → what functions sentences perform.
- Communicative functions → the purpose the text serves. Text as Process This approach focuses on how a text comes into being:
- How speakers/writers produce texts
- How listeners/readers interpret them
- How meaning emerges during communication Together, the two perspectives offer a full understanding of textual communication. Text linguistics is interdisciplinary and interacts with:
- Literary studies
- Rhetoric
- Stylistics
- Anthropology
- Sociology
- Discourse analysis
- Cognitive science
- Pragmatics
- Lexicology
- Corpus linguistics This reflects how texts operate simultaneously as linguistic, social, cultural, and cognitive phenomena. Textuality According to Beaugrande & Dressler (1981), a text is a communicative occurrence that meets seven standards of textuality. If even one of these standards fails, the result is non-communicative and considered a non-text. The 7 constitutive standards of textuality
- Cohesion (text-centred) Cohesion (refers to surface textual connections : actual words and structures that link one part of a text to another. Examples: pronouns, repetition, parallelism, conjunctions. Cohesion relies on grammatical dependencies. If we drastically change the order of sentences, cohesion breaks down. Cohesion ensures that:
- Sentences relate to one another
- The text does not appear as a random set of disconnected clauses
- References are clear
- “ Slow children at play ” → without proper cohesion (or punctuation), multiple interpretations are possible. Text linguistics aims to explain how people still resolve such ambiguities. Cohesion operates beyond sentence boundaries , contributing to the unity of whole texts. Example nursery rhyme: “Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to fetch her poor dog a bone. But when she got there, the cupboard was bare and so the poor dog had none.”
- Old Mother Hubbard → she (proform)
- to the cupboard → there (locative repetition)
- poor dog → the poor dog (repetition)
- a bone → none (ellipsis/proform) 04 – 27/02/
- Coherence (text-centred) Coherence refers to the perceived unity and meaningful continuity of a text or discourse. A text is coherent when its parts:
- Contribute to a common topic
- Display logically ordered relations (temporal, causal, argumentative)
- Maintain referential continuity
- Fit within a recognizable situation or communicative frame It operates at multiple levels:
- Local coherence → relations between adjacent propositions
- Global coherence → overall thematic and structural unity
- Situational coherence → compatibility within a shared scenario The relations are marked by connectives. Inference is a cognitive progress that derives from implicit meaning form explicit information. It allows the reader to fill gaps not directly stated. It relies on context, background knowledge and logical reasoning. It operates at:
- Referential level (anaphora). Reference is the ability to denote something.
- Bridging level (connecting proposition)
- Elaborative level (adding plausible but non-necessary information)
- Predictive level (anticipating upcoming events)
- Causal-effect level (establishing event relations) Coherence is not only in a text but constructed by the reader. Without interference coherence can’t be achieved. Without coherence, inference becomes unstable.
- Intentionality (user-centred, textual communication form a producer to a receiver) → producer’s attitudes that should fulfil his intentions. A listener assumes that the material presented id purposeful and meant to reach a certain aim → cooperative principles (Grice). When cohesion is distorted, text users use tolerance (hybrid structures do not disturb communication).
- Acceptability (user-centred) concerns the receiver’s attitude and his good will to assume that the word is meaningful, purposeful and he should work out the intended meaning and goal. If acceptability is restricted → non-cooperation (the receiver raises questions when the text intentionality is obviously in effect).
Inflectional → help, helps, helped, helping Orthographic → HELP, Help, help People can learn to transfer from one medium to the other. On a medium-independent approach, linguistic elements and structures are subject to medium-transferability (from speech to writing and vice versa, without loss of information). We won’t consider medium-bound expression (intonation/layout). A text is a unit of language that can be analysed across different structural levels → levels of constituency → meaning is not tied to a single level of linguistic organisation, and it is distributed across a hierarchy of ranks. Language is structured in order layers where each higher rank is composed of units from the rank below. Each rank consists of units that function as constituents of the higher level. This hierarchical structure allows grammar to be described systematically. Units (highest to lowest)
- Clause complex
- Clause
- Phrase
- Word
- Morpheme Instantiation is the relationship between the abstract system of language ( langue ) and its concrete realisations in texts ( parole ). Linguistic descriptions operate at different levels of abstraction, and actual texts represent instantiations of more general structural patterns. 06 – 06/03/ Clause → grammatical unit consisting of a subject and a predicator (and other clause elements such as object, complement, or adverbial). Clause can be combined in various ways to make complex sentences; they are the building blocks → sentences (written) utterances (spoken). 5 major clause elements in English:
- Subject (S)
- Predicator (P)
- Object (O)
- Complement (C)
- Adverbial (A) Each clause element be realised by more than one word class, except for verbs. Clause structure in functional elements :
- Subject (S)
- Verb (V)
- Object (O)
- Complement (C)
- Adverbial (A) Elements can combine into recurring clause patterns (SVO, SVC, SVA) → realisations of more abstract grammatical possibilities. Kernel sentences (simple clauses) are basic structures which underlie most of English’ sentences (SV, SVO, SVC, SVA, SVOO, SVOC, SVOA).
Clause complex but when she got there the cupboard was bare and so the poor dog had none 2 independent clauses the cupboard was bare / and so the poor dog had none (coordinated independent clause) 1 dependent clause which is part of the cupboard was bare: but when she got there Unit Instantiated by Clause complex Dependent clause Independent clause Independent clause Clause SVA SVC SVO Phrase NP + VP + AdvP NP + VP + AdjP NP + VP + NP Word class Pro + V + Adv Det + N + V + Adj Det + Adj + N + V + Pro Words she/got/there the/cupboard/was/bare the/poor/dog/had/none Information structure : the analysis of the way we order elements in the sentence to make some of them more important than others → pragmatics (purpose of the speaker). Speakers structure sentences to connect with what is already known , introduce new information, and guide the listener’s attention. In the normal clause in English the new information occurs towards the end of the clause. The subject referents usually come early in the clause. We can alter the information focus by placing one clause element in a focal position → flexibility of grammatical encoding (fronting, cleft sentences, transformations). Allo-sentences Different sentences may share propositional meaning but differ structurally. Active: The man closed the door. Passive: The door was closed by the man. The meaning remains comparable, but the structure changes. These differences affect information structure and textual organization. Structural variation thus interacts with discourse-level concerns such as focus and foregrounding. These are systematic options that allow speakers to manipulate information structure → syntax is linked to textual organisation → grammatical choices influence how information is packaged and interpreted within discourse. The content if a clause pattern (= the meaning of a preposition), does not change in its allo-sentences. Regular patterns of changes → Transformational Grammar → active transforms into passive Active NP1 + VP + NP2 → Passive NP2 + VP + by NP The dog ate my dinner → My dinner was eaten by the dog The meaning change is regular with the emphasis on the suffering of the action and the actor, or the initiator of the action can be dropped → My dinner was eaten The double object construction form can alter the object and the beneficiary: NP1 + VP + NP2 + NP3 NP1 + VP + NP2 + PP She sent Jim a card She sent a card to Jim
B: They^2 were destroyed by the rain. B: ()^3 Destroyed by the rain. Odd exchange: B's answer does not start with what is mutually known or given Felicitous exchange: coreferential links between the topic of crops (common ground) in A's question and B's answers. B’s answers can be view as allo-sentences which instantiate the clause pattern SVO → The rain destroyed the crops The notion of cohesion refers to the way sentences and parts of sentences combine to ensure that there is propositional development. The ordering of clause elements is not arbitrary but plays a crucial role in signalling information flow in discourse. The distinction between objective and subjective order highlights how grammatical organisation interacts with communicative intent:
- Objective → neutral syntactic sequence, we proceed from what is already known to what is being made known, it pays regard to the reader ( waiter, in my soup there is a fly )
- Subjective → when the new information comes first, the arrangement reflects the speaker’s perspective often foregrounding what is most relevant from the speaker’s viewpoint rather than the listener ( waiter, there is a fly in my soup ) Dimension Objective Order Subjective Order Orientation Listener-oriented Speaker-oriented Information focus Neutral progression Emphasis-driven Discourse effect Linear development Highlighting/evaluation Function Propositional sequencing Perspective marking Information in a sentence can be:
- Given^4 (old) → already known, mentioned, or inferable
- New^5 → introduced for the first time Textual coherence The organisation of clauses within a text reflects patterns of thematic progression. These patterns contribute to textual coherence by structuring how information is introduced, maintained and developed across discourse → syntactic variation becomes a strategy for structuring discourse:
- Theme : typically encodes what the clause is about (often given information) it appears first (beginning of the sentence) in the clause and often encodes given or presupposed information
- Rheme : introduces new or focal information, it appears in a later position (^2) Reference to NP with a pronoun → lexical cohesion → passive and coreferential pronoun (^3) Ellipsis → passive and omitted because there is a shared knowledge (^4) Given, theme, topic (^5) New, rheme, comment
Exam
- Clause structure/pattern
- Marked or unmarked sentence
- Theme and rheme Textual cohesion Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The one presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except by recourse to it. Realization of cohesion:
- Reference → cohesion is not a property of isolated sentences but a relational phenomenon across textual units, coreference → textual items refer to the same entities in the extralinguistic world or in the created text world a. Endophoric reference (text-internal relations) i. Anaphoric reference points backwards ii. Cataphoric reference point forward Autonomous style (endophoric) → independent of a shared situation between the communication partners → appropriate for writing → new entities are properly introduced and can be referred to with endophoric reference. b. Exophoric reference (external situation) Non-autonomous style (exophoric) → depends on the shared situation → appropriate for face-to-face communication (the surrounding objects are mutually accessible → common ground between the speaker and the hearer). Deictic expressions ( this, that, here, there, she, they, tomorrow ) refer and forth and situate the speaker in relation to what is said. They are inappropriate for a first mention in situations as in writing and telephoning. 08 – 19 /03/ The standard use of reference (in semantics and speech act theory) is the relation between a linguistic expression and an object of the extralinguistic reality → referent^6 (the entity to which the sign refers). Reference is the act of referring to something (referent) and, in textual linguistic, it is the ability of some words to refer to others in earlier or later parts of the text. It has a cohesive effect, and it ensures cohesion through links between elements. “It is a relationship between things, or facts; it may be established at varying distances, and although it usually serves to relate single elements that have a function within the clause (processes, participants, circumstances).” For instance, the situation Dinner is linked to several participants, objects, and actions that can be evocated as referent in a text talking about dinners. Reference words do not have a full meaning in their own right; we must refer to something else. Their function is to establish links across texts. They can be demonstrative adjectives, definite articles, and pronouns (deictics). (^6) Signifier : cat Signified : domestic feline (mental image). Together with the signifier they make a sign. Referent : external reality
content → carry the meaning of a sentence → semantically autonomous
- Open-ended (there are new nouns being invented all the time (new inventions in technology and science, fashion and trends) → a recurrent phenomenon - Perform the function of clarifying the relations that hold between the pieces of content that content words introduce. - The meaning of function words is more readily dependent on the content words to which they are related - Small (closed) classes → tend to remain constant through time, the emergence of a new function word is an isolated phenomenon, when it occurs, the new function word may be the outcome of the transformation of a preexisting word form with lexical meaning into a function word Word classes determine the behaviour of a linguistic item in larger structures and signal its similarity to the other words in that class:
- Word-classes
- Syntactic categories
- Parts-of-speech (PoS)
- Lexical categories How to identify a word class : structuralist approach → meaning → a word class need to be defined not by a vague concept of general meaning, such as defining nouns as “naming words.” We need a rigorous assessment of the behaviour (function) and form of the members of the prospective class or category (morphological properties and syntactic properties). Nouns Morphological properties:
- Plural suffix (countable)
- Possessive morpheme’s
- Specific derivational suffixes: - ism, - hood, - ment Syntactic features:
- A noun is the head of a noun phrase
- It can occur after a definite or indefinite article or a determiner
- May have several adjectives between the article and the noun Syntactic function in the clause:
- Subject: The crocodile (ate my hat)
- Object: ( The president announced) his plans
- Complement: ( This substance is) refined sugar
- Adverbial: Every night (they sing a song)
- Adjectival: world happiness report Verbs Lexical verbs Modal verbs
FULL/HEAVY VERBS
- grammatical meaning LIGHT VERBS
Auxiliary verbs - lexical meaning
- grammatical meaning Adjectives Morphological features
- Gradable
- Comparative and superlative forms (big, bigger, biggest)
- Regularly have preceding intensifying adverbs (totally awful)
- Non-gradable adjectives
- Meanings which cannot be modified by adverbs (colour, material or nationality) Functional features
- Attributive and predicative functions Lexical cohesion and structure Structural semantics → the vocabulary of a language is related by features and relations → chains of words of related meaning linking across sentences. If there is some kind of semantic link (membership of a semantic field) between the items in adjacent or nearby sentences, then there will be lexical cohesion. Excursus : How is lexicon structured and organized? Every word is involved in a network of associations. Associations may be based on:
- Similarity of meaning
- Similarity of form
- Similarity of form and meaning 09 – 20/03/ 10 – 24/03/ De Saussure (1959): a term is the centre of a constellation, where an infinite number of coordinated terms converge graphic formula to represent association in the form of a diagram. Structuralist viewpoint : the units of language are defined by the relationships they hold with other units of the language (diagram). Relationship between words a. Two or more units can fulfil similar functions in a structure
- Associative relations
- Paradigmatic relations ( in absentia , two words are said to be in a paradigmatic relationship with each other about their function) Syntagmatic relations
lexicogrammatically forms or categories → the substitute functions structurally within the clause, not interpretively. It is a relation between linguistic items, whereas reference is a relation between meanings. Substitution is a (textual) relation between words, reference is a relation between the meaning of a word and its environment, where the environment can be the text or the real world. Substitution differs from reference in that it replaces a linguistic with another form rather than pointing to it. Substitution contributes to cohesion by substituting words that have already been used, its function is that to avoid the need to repeat the same words too many times. Substitution of NPs or clauses (pronouns, demonstrative pronouns). Substitution of VPs (the dummy auxiliary verb do). Three major types: i. Nominal substitution (one/ones) ii. Verbal substitution (do) iii. Clausal substitution (so, not)
- Ellipsis : omission of sections of an utterance. or “substitution by zero.” Not simply something unsaid, but something that is understood in terms of structural presupposition. “An elliptical item is one which leaves the specific structural slots to be filled from elsewhere” → like presupposition by substitution (which is explicit → place-marker), but in ellipsis case nothing is inserted into the slot (substitution by zero). Function: avoids unnecessary repetition and is more economical. Features: it is more frequent in informal and spoken language styles. Ellipsis operates at three levels: i. Nominal ellipsis ( It was quite a surprise to find that most galaxies appeared red-shifted: nearly all Ø were moving away from us ) ii. Verbal ellipsis ( The scramble might be a training exercise, or it might be not Ø ) iii. Clausal ellipsis ( The cheque is still valid. The Bank can tell them Ø ) b. Lexical units , based on lexical structures (their relations, the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary)
- Paradigmatic relations between words (synonyms, opposites, superordination hypernym, hyponym, whole-part)
- General words , as special type of hypernym, used anaphorically Superordinate members of major lexical sets. Their cohesive use is an instance of the general principle whereby the superordinate item operates anaphorically as a kind of synonym
- Morphologically complex lexemes : Lexical cohesion operates through semantic relations between lexical items, but it is also supported by morphological processes that create lexical networks. Word-formation processes such as derivation and compounding contribute to cohesion by generating semantically related lexical families. Morphological processes strengthen lexical cohesion by building structured lexical families and by maintaining conceptual continuity while allowing variation. i. Derivation : process by which words have a morpheme added that changes their meaning and often their class too. Derivational morphemes do not attach to words in a very regular way, can be either prefixes or suffixes. A
word can contain many derivational affixes that may change or not the word class and always precede the inflectional suffixes. Nouns can be derived from verbs or adjectives. Noun derivational affixes act as nominalizers and create nominalizations ( ation, ness, ment convert verbs or adjectives into abstract nouns, other nominalizing elements such as er, ant, ee create agentive nouns. Derivation creates new vocabulary items. Some groups of words with shared semantic features have similar derivations. These groups form word families ( beauty becomes beautiful becomes beautifully ). Compounding is the combining of two free morphemes into a single word that is not necessarily the sum of the meanings of the individual words ( blackboard, blackbird, black market, car wash, paperback, wastepaper basket ). It is considered the most productive type of word formation process in English. Compounds are formed through various combinations of parts of speech. Noun compounds Verb compound Pattern Example Pattern Example Noun + noun sandcastle, ashtray, armchair Noun + verb babysit, brainwash Adj + noun blacklist, hardcover Verb + verb dive-bomb Verb + Noun pick-pocket, playroom, washing machine Adj + verb dry-clean Verb + Prep/adv drive-in Adv + verb downgrade Adjective compound Adverb compound Noun + adj sea-sick, earthbound Adv + adv into, throughout Adj + adj blue-green Adv + adj off-white
- Repetition : the exact repetition of words creates cohesion. The repetition of identical syntactic frames but with different words also creates cohesion (parallelism). The cohesive relation between lexical items is not limited to referential identity. Coreference is referential identity and is mainly established by implicit devices: i. Coclassification is mainly established by implicit devices, in this type of meaning relation, the things, processes, or circumstances to which, the cohesively related elements, refer belong to an identical class, but each element refers to a distinct member of this class. It is a lexical cohesive relation where items belong to the same general semantic class, but they are not synonyms (no direct meaning overlap), ideally relied by substitution ore ellipsis
ii. Coextension occurs between explicit lexical items. Items are cohesively
linked because they both refer to something within the same general field of meaning. Coextension means the items exist in the same semantic space, but each extends in a slightly different direction. Coextension often involves similarity of meaning. Examples include antonymy and metonymy
