English Words

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English Words ( 4 )

Nidhu Bhusan Das : Structure Words have certain characteristics which distinguish them from Content Words. They occur frequently, they are a closed class, they are structural markers and they provide grammatical framework of a sentence. Let us now go for details. 1. Frequency: Structure Words occur frequently in an English sentence. The occurrence is more frequent that that of Content Words. According to one count, on an average, one-third or more of the words that occur in a text are Structure Words. Besides, Structure Words occur with equal frequency in all kinds of styles and varieties of English. This is not the characteristic of Content Words. The occurrence of Content Words depends on various factors like the theme, the choice of style, the level of education of the person addressed. The content words that occur in a discussion on politics are not likely to occur in a discussion on biology, the content words used in an informal communication are unlikely to occur in a formal communication. Structure Words, on the other hand, are always the same. We do not have substitutes for articles, auxiliaries, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. in English. So, their frequency is the same in every style and every use except in cases as in telegrams where structure words are often dropped to save cost. 2. A Closed Class: Structure Words are limited and only a few in number. There are two articles (a/an & the), 25 -30 pronouns, 60 -70 prepositions, 35-40 conjunctions, 15 -16 auxiliaries and a few other words. Their total number in English is not more than 200 -250. On the other hand, the number of Content Words is huge, and increasing. The content words form an open class. 3. Structural Markers: Structure Words always occur with content words belonging to the major parts of speech nouns, verbs, etc. As the consonants by themselves cannot form a word, so the content words cannot by themselves form a sentence. Structure words must be there to combine with the content words to form a good sentence. 4. Provide Grammatical Framework: Structure Words (also inflections) function as structural markers. They tell us the grammatical category of the words with which they occur. Once we know the grammatical categories of all the words in a sentence we know its grammatical structure to a great extent. The framework contributes its own meaning. It is called structural meaning. If we pluck out the structure words, the structural meaning is gone.( to be continued )

Re : Pollution of Bengali

Nidhu Bhusan Das : Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the glorious Language Martyr Day, now observed across the globe as International Mother Language Day, courtesy to UNICEF, the question of the pollution of Bengali Language may be discussed. Prof. Sayeed Manjurul Islam of Dhaka University has dealt with the issue in his essay ‘Language Pollution Is as Destructive as River Pollution’. Alluding to the erudite essay, Anandabazar Patrika of Kolkata shared the concern of Prof. Islam in an editorial on 19 February 2012 and spoke against the unnecessary use of foreign words and phrases by Bangalee bilinguals where Bengali words and phrases are enough to serve the purpose. In such cases, often, the sense of snob value inspires the bilinguals to go for code mixing. Thus in our day to day conversations, we say train aaj two hours late chalchhe (train runs two hours late today), club secretary khub corrupt lok, mairi (club secretary is surely a corrupt person). One could easily, clearly and quite meaningfully say, Train aaj dui ghanta bilambey chalchhe, club sampadak khub durneetiparayan lok, mairi. ‘Train’ and ‘Club’ are the English words like chair, table, etc which have been accepted and absorbed in Bengali in the process of evolution. But we can easily go sans ‘corrupt’, ‘late’ and such other words. Yet we tend to use them when we are snobs. We have demonstrated our skill to coin the phrase ‘Amor Ekushe’ (Immortal 21st) to mean the Language Martyr Day 21st February. None questions why instead of 21st February, 8th Falgun is not used, perhaps, because of the fact that the coinage has been so natural. This is not the case when we try to yoke words and phrases as Supra Language (SL) with the Base Language (BL) just to show off our capacity to use foreign language, whatever be its desirability and efficacy. True, we cannot but use words like ‘computer’,’ internet’ , ‘netizen’ , ‘e-mail’ ‘egine’,etc . They have gained international currency in the absence of adequate terminology in our language. A language may become rich when it accommodates words to augment its expressiveness and vocabulary. However, we should not be indiscriminate in this regard. To check indiscriminate borrowings, we need have continuative language planning and regular morphological and syntactical processes at work for the enrichment of our mother tongue, as for the protection of the prestige of this language Barkat , Salam, Rafuque and Jabbar laid down their lives on 21st February 1952.

Language and Communication

Nidhu Bhusan Das : We use spoken and written language to speak out our mind,to communicate or share our feeling,emotion,attitude,knowledge,perception etc. with others.the spoken language is phonological realization of the message while the written one is orthographic realization of the same. Now,from the obove, it is evident language involves organization of phonemic and other elements, and is,therefore,a recognized structure.A phoneme-level understanding may make it clear.CAT is a phonemic organization,a sound image. Now, if we replace phoneme C by B , R, S,F ,we get BAT,SAT,RAT,FAT respectively.The change of the initial phoneme yields different sound images. It means there is a case of change in organization or structure.Phonemic organization is the smallest possible linguistic structutre.There are phrase,clause and sentence level structures in language.These structures are the reflection of the speech habit of a speech community. A language has two predominant forms - standard and dialect. We shall, here, deal with the structures of the standard form. Phrase A phrase is a group of words without a finite verb.It yields partial meaning e.g., on the table, by him,about the matter. Sentence : A sentence is a group of word which, having a finite verb,gives complete sense e.g., We use language for communication. Clause : A clause is a sentence within a sentence e.g.,I know that he is a doctor(complex and combination of two sentences -' I know' and 'He is a doctor'), I know him and he is a doctor(combination of two sentences -' I know him' and 'He is a doctor' ). We express different feelings ,attitudes etc when we speak.So,we have different types of sentences in respect of our expression and articulation.We have thus Statement,Question,Desires and Exclamation. Their forms are different. Language is,therefore,a structured tool of communication. We communicate because we are social beings ,and social life is shared life. That communication and language are for each other is evident when we consider the basic oral and aural nature of the two. In case of language someone speaks and someone hears.In communication,there is a communicator and there is a receiver - the person communicated to.The communicator is also known as ENCODER(who encodes the message into linguistic signs,and the receiver is known a DECODER (who decodes the message ).The communicator/ encoder in oral communication encodes the message phonologically and delivers the same to the receiver/decoder for decoding. In written communication the message is delivered orthographically to the receiver who is a reader.Radio is an example of oral and aural communication in which the oral and aural nature of language is realized.In case of TV communication a new dimension is added to the oral and aural nature of language.Books,newspapers represent communication through orthographic realization Posted by www.niblog.com at 1:26 PM