VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ******** vũ thị vân thuỳ reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese (tõ l¸y tiÕng anh vµ tiÕng viƯt) GRADUATION THESIS Field: Linguistics VINH 2009 VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ******** reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese (từ láy tiếng anh tiếng việt) GRADUATION THESIS Field: Linguistics Supervisor : Cao Thị Phơng, MA Student : Vũ Thị Vân Thuỳ Class : 46 B2 VINH, MAY 2009 Table of contents Acknowledgments Table of contents List of tableS and fingures Abbreviations Part I: Introduction Reason for choosing the topic Aims and objectives of the Study Methods of the Study Scope of the Study Format of the Study Part II: contents Chapter 1: Back ground 1.1 Definition of a word 1.2 Characteristics of a word 1.3 Classification of words 1.3.1 According to the semantic aspect 1.3.2 According to the morphological structure 1.3.3 According to parts of speech (grammatical category) 1.3.4 According to the stylistic aspect of the language 1.4 Word-formation 1.4.1 Derivation and inflection 1.4.2 Compounding 1.4.3 Reduplication 1.4.4 Conversion 1.4.5 Shortening 1.4.5.1 Initialisms 1.4.5.2 Acronyms 1.4.5.3 Clippings 1.4.5.4 Blends 1.4.5.5 Back-formation 1.4.5.6 Sound-imitation 1.4.5.7 Words from manner, names 1.5 Word meaning Chapter 2: Reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese 2.1 Definitions 2.1.1 Defintion of English reduplication 2.1.2 Defintion of Vietnamese reduplication 2.2 Characteristics of reduplicative 2.3 Classification of reduplicative 2.3.1 English reduplicatives 2.3.1.1 Reduplicative compounds proper 2.3.1.2 Ablaut combinations 2.3.1.3 Rhyme combinations 2.3.1.4 Shm – reduplicative 2.3.1.5 – Ma – infix reduplicative 2.3.2 Vietnamese reduplicatives 2.3.2.1 Full reduplicative 2.3.2.1.1 Full reduplicative in which all segments and tone are repeated 2.3.2.1.2 Full reduplicative is formed by a full copy of the base with a modified tone 2.3.2.2 Partial reduplicative 2.3.2.2.1 Alliterative reduplicative 2.3.2.2.2 Ablaut reduplicative 2.3.2.2.3 Rhyme reduplicative 2.3.2.3 Multiple reduplicatives 2.4 Formation of reduplicatives 2.4.1 Full reduplicative 2.4.2 Partial reduplicative 2.4.2.1 Ablaut reduplicative 2.4.2.2 Rhyme reduplicative 2.4.3 Multiple reduplicative 2.4.4 Other formation Chapter 3: Meaning and usage of reduplicatives 3.1 Meaning of reduplicatives 3.2 Usage of reduplicatives Part III: Conclusion References Part I: Introduction Reasons for choosing the topic There are many aspects of language that one might be interested in learning During the course of learning English we have chance to deal with many aspects of English language, in that we are interested in its semantic field Especially, we found it interesting when learning the greed – upon meaning of certain strings of sound and learning how to combine these meaningful units into larger units that also convey meaning Speaker’s linguistics knowledge permits him to combine phonemes into morphemes, morphemes into words, or rather word compounds that carry meaning of some kind from lexical meanings of individuals or from their structural meanings In fact, compounding or word – composition is one of the productive types of word – formation in modern English language Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems, which occur, in the language as free forms In a compound word, the immediate constituents obtain the integrity and structural cohesion that make them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit In compound words, reduplication is a special way to create new words both in English and in Vietnamese Reduplicative compounds are used in variety ways That is the reason why we decide to choose the subject entitle “ Reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese” with a hope that this study will make a small contribution to teaching and learning reduplications Aims of the Study The first aim of this Study is to help the learners improve their knowledge of English and Vietnamese reduplications The second aim of the study is to enrich English and Vietnamese language Lastly, this Study aims at giving a comparison of similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese reduplicatives Methods of the Study To this Study we use these methods: - Collective method - Analytics method - Comparative method Scope of the Study Because of time limit, we cannot come up with all the aspects of reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese; we only focus on some main points of the topic The main points include an overview of reduplicatives and the usage of them in literature The focus here should be restricted to a discussion of compounds base on reduplication in English and in Vietnamese Format of the Study The study is designed into three main parts: Part I: Introduction Part II: Contents Chapter 1: Background Chapter 2: Reduplication in English and in Vietnamese Chapter 3: Meaning and usage of reduplication Part III: Conclusion Besides these three main parts, the thesis also consists of the acknowledgement, the table of contents, the table, abbreviation and the references Part II: CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND 1.1 Definition of a word In Arnold (1986: 28), a word has a sound form because it is a certain arrangement of morphemes; it has its morphological structure, when used in actual speech it may occur in different word forms, different syntactic functions and signal various meanings a word is considered as the central element of any language system; therefore, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, syntax and morphology and so on Thus, what is the word? In this study, we would like to propose some following definitions Firstly, in lexicology, Anstrushina, G B., et.al (1986: 6) state that: - The word is a unit of speech, which severs the purposes of human communication - The word can be perceived as the total of the sounds, which comprise it - The word view structurally, possesses several characteristics To support their concepts, they based on distinguishing between the internal and the external structures of the word The external structure of the word means the morphological structure For example, in the word “impression”, the following morphemes can be: the prefix “im-“, the root “press” and the noun-forming suffix “-ion” The internal structure of the word or its meaning is commonly referred to as the word’s semantic structure In addition, this is the word’s main aspect Another structural aspect of the word is its unity The word possesses both external and internal unity All that Anstrushina, G B., et.al said about the word can be summed up as follows: The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity In Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, Richards, et.al., (p 27) word is the smallest of the linguistic unit which can occur on its own in speech and writing In speech, word boundaries may be recognized by slight pauses In writing, word boundaries are usually recognized by spaces between the words Besides two above word studies, Arnold, I.V (1986) also gave his definition of the word “The word may be defined as the basic unit of language, uniting meaning and form; it is composed of one or more morphemes, each consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation” Within the scope of linguistics, the word has been defined syntactically, semantically, phonologically, and by combining various approaches It has been syntactically defined for instance as “the minimum sentences” by Sweet, H and much later by Bloomfield, L as “a minimum free form” To Sapir, E he took into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects when he called the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning into which sentence involves itself” A purely semantic treatment will be found in Stephen Ullmann’s explanation” will fall into a certain number of meaningful segments, which are ultimately composed of meaningful units These meaningful units are called words” The semantic-phonological approach may be illustrated by Gardiner’s definition: “a word articulate sound symbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken out” The eminent French linguist Meillet, A (1866-1936) combined the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria give this definition: a word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with the particular grammatical employment In Vietnamese, there are also some definitions of a word given by some authors In Hoang Tat Truong (1993), Palmer noted that a word is marked if not by “spaces” or “pauses”, at least by some features of the sound system of language The definition seems to be the most satisfactory is that the word is the fundamental unit of language It is a dialectical unity of form and content The content or meaning of the word is not identical to notion, but it may reflect human notion and in this sense many be considered as the form of their existence Semantically, Nguyen Hoa (2004)defined word as follows: words are regarded as the smallest indivisible meaningful unit of a language, which can operate immediately Thus so far have there been many definition about word from different aspects Among them, the most common one is that word is the smallest independent and meaningful unit of a language 1.2 Characteristics of a word We can consider some following characteristics of a word (i) The word is an indivisible unit Sapir point out the very important characteristics of the word is its indivisibility It cannot be cut into without a disturbance of meaning, one or two other or both of the several parts remaining as a helpless waif a comparison of the article “a” and the prefix “a-“ in “a lion” and “alive” A lion is a word group because we can separate its elements and insert other words between them such as: “a living lion” or “a dead lion”, etc but alive is a word, it is uninterruptible, i.e structurally impermeable: nothing can be inserted between its elements 10 rhyme of both syllables Below are some typical changes found in Vietnamese ablaut reduplication [u] – [i]: (22) đủng đỉnh (go slowly) (23) mũm mĩm (chubby) (24) phúng phính (plump) [ơ] – [ê]: (25) cồng kềnh (bulky) (26) bồng bềnh (afloat) (27) hổn hển (be breathless) [o] – [e]: (28) thỏ thẻ (to be soft – spoken) (29) nhỏ nhẻ (to be soft – spoken) (30) hom hem (gaunt, skinny) [ô] – [a]: (31) mộc mạc (simple and rough) [ê] – [a]: (32) nhề nhà (tain over a drink) (33) lệch lạc (slanted, biased) [ng] – [nh]: (34) bồng bềnh (afloat) [nh] – [ng]: (35) chông chênh (askew) [ng] – [k]: (36) mông mênh (vast, immense) [u] – [ă]: (37) vùng vằng (speak angrily) [ư] – [ă]: (38) thủng thẳng (go slowly with leisure) [ư] – [a]: (39) chững chạc (stately dignified) (40) vững vàng (stable, steady) [u] – [ơ]: (41) ngu ngơ (stupid) [a] - [ô]: (42) dại dột (stupid) Words in [] are observed as a basic element in the pattern whereas the others are pseudo – morphemes and it is impossible to determine which is the basic morpheme in those compounds 2.3.2.2.3 Rhyme reduplicative Combination of this type consists of two elements as those in English However, they can either be two pseudo – morphemes with no 35 lexical meaning or one basic morpheme functioning as a free unit with some certain lexical meaning and one reduplicative morpheme bearing only the structural meaning, going with the base For example: (41) tham (greedy) → tham lam (covetous) (42) khóc (cry) → khóc lóc (to whine) (43) khom (be bent/curved) → lom khom (be bent down) In examples listed above, the basic element is determined either in initial or final position Rhyming prefixes and the same tone are present in following examples: (44) loắt choắt (of man, very small) (45) linh đình (formal) (46) lim dim (half closed, half opened) In examples from (44) to (46), it is hard to see which is a base, and [i] is observed to be the most common rhyme prefix With this kind of rhyming reduplication, an alliterative harmony is often found The most common are as follows: [l] – [đ]: (47) lác đác (scattered) lốm đốm (dotted) lênh đênh (drift) [l] – [k] (48) lỉnh kỉnh (cumbersome) luống cuống (at a loss) luẩn quẩn (hang around) [l] – [t] (49) lúng túng (confused, puzzled) Linh tinh (miscellaneotic) lẻ tẻ (scattered, sporadic) [c] – [nh] (50) càu nhàu (grumble) cằn nhằn (grumble) 2.3.2.3 Multiple reduplicative 36 If two constituents are found in partial and full reduplication, than in multiple reduplication three, usually four, sometimes six elements are present For example: (52) lúng túng → lúng ta lúng túng (embarrassed) lắt lẻo → lắt la lắt lẻo (perehed up) (53) ấp úng → ấp a ấp úng (influent) Ĩng ánh→ óng a óng ánh (shiny) (54) sát sạt → sát sàn sạt (very close) con → cỏn cịn (very small) tí ti → tí ti ti (very tiny) (55) hớt hải → hớt hơ hớt hải (very hurry) Nhí nhảnh → nhí nha nhí nhảnh (lively) (56) lôi → lôi lổi thổi lồi thồi (untidy, slovenly) bối rối → bối rối bổi rổi bồi (confused) All these compounds of multiple compounds are used with much ironic and derogatory connotation Firstly, it may be observed in multiple compounds that root itself is a two – element reduplication of either the alliterative or rhyming sub – types in partial reduplication The tone of root and reduplication is always of the same register except in the cases of: • Two elements of root bear the same tone whereas one element of reduplication has an opposing tone as in the last sequence in (54) • The reduplicative element in (55) always bears an opposing tone as compared to that of the root Secondly, the first element of the four – element reduplication in (52), (53), and (56) is an exact copy of the first element of root The second element is formed by using the same initial consonant of the second element of root with vowel [a] and either tone [Ø] or [–] 37 2.4 Formation of reduplicatives Through the kinds of reduplication in English and in Vietnamese, we can give the ways to form it or formation of reduplication 2.4.1 Full reduplicative In general both English and Vietnamese reduplication formation process can follow this formulate FR = Ro (1) In which: FR: full reduplication Ro: root However, because of tonal system in Vietnamese the formulate (1) can be changed into: FR = Ro + tone (2) or FR = 2Ro + modified tone (3) The modified tone in Vietnamese is divided into two groups: high level ([Ø], ['], [?]) and low level ([–], [~], [·]) For example: (1) ack – ack (anti aircraft fire) Bang – bang (sound of gun) buồn buồn (rather sad) (2) cào cào Chuồn chuồn (3) đo đỏ (somewhat red) loảng xoảng (sound of breaking or falling to the ground) 2.4.2 Partial reduplicative 2.4.2.1 Ablaut reduplicative In the ablaut reduplicative, the first vowel is most always a high vowel and the reduplicated ablaut variant of the vowel is a low vowel This is the type where the vowel changes (CV1C – CV2C) For example: [i] – [a]: chit – chat (gossip) Tick – tack (soft sound of o’clock) Hỉ 38 Xí xố [i] – [o]: hip – hop (rap music culture) Dingdong (sound of bell) Others: hee – haw (sound of a donkey) Gew – gaw See saw (playground equipment) Hốc hác Mũm mĩm 2.4.2.2 Rhyme reduplicative In this type, the initial consonant (or consonant cluster) is replaced by another (C1VC – C2VC) For example: [h] – [t]: hoity – toity Hotsy – totsy hấp tấp [t] – [m]: tussy – mussy tủn mủn 2.4.3 Multiple reduplicative These kinds of reduplication are found much more in Vietnamese than in English In Vietnamese there are some formulating for this type Let us consider some: For four – syllables reduplicative: - The first formulate is AB’AB in which B’ is the derivation of B, AB is the root If the two first syllables are [?], the two following syllable are [–] For example: cẳn nhẳn cằn nhằn, etc If the two first syllables are ['], the two following syllable are [·] For example: trúc trắc trục trặc, etc 39 - The second formulate is ABAC like in: bổ xiên bổ xẹo, chua loe chua loét, etc - The third one is AABB such as ù ù cạc cạc, hằm hằm hè hè, etc For triplication: affect one time on one morpheme or syllable in Vietnamese and in English this kind of triplication is formed by adding “a” or an ablaut For example: In English: tic – tac – toe Rat – a – tat Pit – a – pat In Vietnamese: sát → sát sàn sạt → sành sanh dưng → dửng dừng dưng 2.4.4 Other formation In English, there are two extra formation process of reduplication in which the - ma – infix or shm/schm can be added For example: baby – shmaby Car – shmar Purple – ma – ple Chapter 3: Meaning and usage of reduplicatives 3.1 Meaning of reduplicatives Reduplicatives play an important role in making language more various and vivid because of its own characteristics In this part, we can consider these meaning of reduplications 40 - Reduplicatives express the increasing intensity of meaning compared with the basic morpheme For example: → sành sanh đau → đau điếng Teeny (teensy) → teeny – weeny (teensy - weensy) - Reduplicatives express the decreasing intensity of meaning compared with the basic morpheme For example: Nhẹ → nhè nhẹ xinh → xinh xinh Chat → chit – chat - Reduplicatives express the disparaging meaning For example: Dilly – dally Wishy – washy In Vietnamese, to express disparaging meaning we use “iếc” symbolization or words consist of “eo” For example: hát → hát hiếc kịch → kịch kiếc lượn → lượn lẹo xiên → xiên xẹo bạc → bạc bẽo - Reduplicatives express the blunt sounds or physical conditions For example: loảng xoảng lục đục ding – dong bow - wow 41 Besides these above meanings, Vietnamese reduplicatives also express the generalization meaning For example: → cối Chùa → chùa chiền Chim → chim chóc 3.2 Usage of reduplicatives With its characteristics, reduplication creates a new form of words makes language various and vivid Thus, reduplication is used widely in daily speech as well as in literature Reduplication is often used as a literary device in poetry and other compositions The focus in this part is the usage of reduplication in literary works to understand more about it Many poets and writers are fond of using reduplication in their works In Vietnamese, the rate of using reduplication is very high We can count some famous names: Doan Thi Diem, Che Lan Vien, To Huu, Nguyen Du, Xuan Dieu, etc Let’s consider these examples: Trĩ xập xoè mai bẻ mai Khói mù nghi ngút ngàn khơi Con chim bạt gió lạc lồi kêu thương ………… Gà eo óc gáy sương năm trống Hoè phất phơ rủ bong bốn bên Khắc trời đằng đẵng niên Mối sầu dằng dặc tựa miền bể xa (Chinh phụ ngâm khúc, p56) Nao nao dòng nước uốn quanh Nhịp cầu nho nhỏ cuối ghềnh bắc ngang Sè sè nắm đất bên đường 42 Ràu ràu cỏ nửa vàng nửa xanh (truyện kiều, p.78) Những luồng run rẩy rung rinh Đôi nhánh khô gầy sương mỏng manh (Đây mùa thu tới, p.24) Lơ thơ cồn cỏ gió đìu hiu Đâu tiếng làng xa vãn chợ chiều Nắng xuống trời lên sâu chót vót Sơng dài trời rộng bến cô liêu (Tràng giang, p 56) Reduplicatives are used as symbolism method with the purpose of increasing its symbolism, makes the works vivid and easy to come into readers’ mind “Những chùm thảo đỏ chon chót, bong bẩy chứa lửa, chứa nắng” (mùa thảo quả, p45) “Vai kĩu kịt, tay vung vẩy, chân bước thoăn tiếng lợn eng éc, tiếng gà chíp chíp, tiếng vịt cạc cạc, tiếng người nói léo xéo” (buổi chợ trung du, p.34) from these above examples, we can recognize the rate of using reduplicative compounds Dai Xuan ninh (2006) makes a statistics and realizes In 1600 sentences of Che Lan Vien there are 70 reduplications with the rate: 22/1 In 3157 sentences of To Huu there are 375 reduplications with the rate: 8.5/1 In the first 1000 sentences of Truyen Kieu (Nguyen Du), there are 218 reduplications with the rate 4.5/1 Reduplicative also appears in folk songs It describes the common animals such as: 43 Con mèo nằm bếp co ro Ít ăn ngủ lo làm Or Ếch ao Vừa ngớt mưa rào Nhảy bì bọp Reduplication also reflects the life of people Một tay quét dọn cửa nhà Việc làm cùi cụi mà tội than Meanwhile: Nợ quan làng phải trả Quan ngồi hể quan chơi Love the eternal topic of time is mentioned with different motions: Em thắm thêu Anh cá liệng lờ giếng khơi Em nghe tin anh dóng dả Cũng lửa đốt bốn bề lưng em Đôi ta không thấp không cao Rung rung hẹ nao nao gừng Thương em mần Lờ đờ lững đững trăng trời Together with the variety of Vietnamese reduplication in literature, many English writers also use reduplication as a device Especially, the name of Shakespeare W, who was fond of reduplications, used them not just for comic effect, but also at critical dramatic moments Some well known examples: the weird sisters in Macbeth will meet again, “when the hurly – burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won” “Hurly – burly” signals the sisters’ contempt for human effort In Hamlet, Claudius admits that it was a mistake to bury Polonius in secret haste: “we have done but greenly, in hugger – mugger to 44 inter him” In The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, the Catholic Hotspur complaints that the great pagan magician Glendower speaks “such a deal of skimble – skamble stuff, as puts me from my faith” A less famous but still wonderful reduplicative appears in All’s Well That Ends Well, where the braggart soldier and go the wars: “he wears his honor in a box unseen, that hugs his kicky – wicky here at home, spending his manly marrow in her arms, which should sustain the bound and high curvet, of Mar’s fiery steed.” In other poems: Into this Universre, and Why not knowing Nor Whence, like Water willy – nilly flowing And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I know not Wither, willy – nilly blowing (The rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) Look out helter – skelter She’s coming down fast Yes she is Yes, she is coming down fast (Helter Skelter) In The Street Lawyer, we can look at these quotations: “Just another street bum in from the cold happened all the time in downtown Washington But we had security guards to deal with the riff – raff.” (p 2) “I dreaded the neat little rows of pink phone messages Polly had on my desk, the memos from higher – ups being, the nosy chit – chat from the gossipers and the inevitable “how you doin’?” from friends and those genuinely concerned and those who couldn’t care less.” (p.93) 45 “I gave myself fifty – fifty odds of being arrested within the week.” (p 249) “The building’s foyer was several stories tall, with fountains and shops around the perimeter, escalators zigzagging up ward It was the perfect place to hide and watch for Hector Palma.” (p.297) Here are in the adventure of Tom Sawyer: “He was eating an apple and giving a long, melodious whoop at internals, followed by a deep – toned ding – dong, ding – dong, for he was personating a steam boat”.(p.20) “He presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering blart, and then began to tip – toe and look warily out, this way and that.” (p.123) “No, Tom is true – blue, Huck and he’ll come back.” (p 167) Part III: conclusion recapitulation before the ways to English and Vietnamese reduplicative are presented, the study has dealt with some theoretical backgrounds about definition, characteristics, classification of words, word - formation and 46 word meaning with the aims at providing readers with a brief overview on words Next in chapter 2, we have pointed out the definition of English and Vietnamese reduplicatives, the ways to classify and build up them therefore the readers can understand more about them finally, chapter presents the meaning and usage of reduplicatives by giving examples with the purpose of making study more pratical Suggestions for further studies in this study, the author focuses mainly on the background of reduplicative and presents some main points of them because of time limit and the scope of the study, the thesis cannot deal with all the aspects of reduplicatives, thus we would like to propose some other topic to further studies: • A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese reduplicatives • comparison of English reduplications and other ways of building up a new word 47 References Antrushina, G.B (1986) English lexicology Moscow: Moscow Higher Press Arnold, I.V (1986) The English Word Moscow: Moscow Press Hoang Tat Truong, (1993) Basic English Lexicology Ha Noi: Truong Dai hoc Su Pham Ngoai Ngu Ha Noi Nguyen Hoa, (2004) Understanding English Semantics Ha Noi: Dai Hoc Quoc Gia Ha Noi 48 Jackson, H & Amvela, E.Z (2000) Words, Meaning and Vocabulary London: Cassell Richards, J & et.al (1985) Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics London: Longman O’grady, W & Dobrolsky, M (ed) (1987) Contemporary Linguistics New York: St Martine’s Press Grisham, J (1998) The Street Lawyer New York: Bantam Dell Twain, M (2000) The Adventure of Tom Sawyer Oxford: Oxford University Press 10 Do Huu Chau, (1998) Co So Ngu Nghia Hoc Tu Vung Ha Noi: Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc 11.Nguyen Thien Giap, (1996) Tu Vung Hoc Tieng Viet Ha Noi: Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc 12.Hoang Van Hoanh, (1994) Tu Dien Tu Lay Tieng Viet Ha Noi: Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc 13.Phan Trong Luan,& et.al (2007) Ngu Van 11 (vol 1, 2) Ha Noi: Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc 14.Tran Dinh Su, & et.al (2008) Ngu Van Nang Cao 12 (vol 1, 2) Ha Noi: Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc 15.http://vi.wiktionary.org/wiki retrieved on Dec 23, 2009 16.http://ngonngu.net/index.php?p=208 retrieved on Dec 23, 2009 17.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication retrieved on Dec 24, 2009 49 ...VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ******** reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese (từ láy tiếng anh tiếng việt) GRADUATION THESIS Field: Linguistics Supervisor... aspects of reduplicatives in English and in Vietnamese; we only focus on some main points of the topic The main points include an overview of reduplicatives and the usage of them in literature... it interesting when learning the greed – upon meaning of certain strings of sound and learning how to combine these meaningful units into larger units that also convey meaning Speaker’s linguistics