English 256/Spring 2016
What do you know when you know a language?
1. You know the phonology of that language.
You know that certain morphemes may have different pronunciations in different contexts.
You know that sounds which are physically different from each other can be versions of the same sound.
You know what sounds are in the language and what sounds are not.
You know what contexts the sounds may appear in.
2. You know the morphology of that language.
You know how the meaningful parts are put together into words.
3. You know the syntax of that language.
You know what sentences are well-formed and what sentences are not.
You know that some sentences are structurally related to others.
You know how to create and understand sentences you never encountered before.
You can recognize ambiguous sentences.
4. You know the semantics of that language.
You know what morphemes mean and what sequences of morphemes mean.