Components of Language

Language has two specific components — lexicon and grammar.

The lexicon is the vocabulary of a language consisting of words.

Additionally, words are formed by combining phonemes, the basic sound units of a language. Different languages have different sets of phonemes, such as “ah” vs. “eh.”

Phonemes combine to form morphemes, the smallest units of language that convey meaning. For instance, the word – unhappiness has three morphemes — "un," "happy," and "ness."

The other component of language, grammar, is the set of rules used to convey meaning through the lexicon.

For example, "ed" is added to most verbs in the English language to indicate past tense, such as "walk" becomes "walked."

Semantics and syntax are parts of grammar. Semantics involves deriving meaning from morphemes and words, while syntax organizes words into sentences. For example, "She read the book" is correct, but "Read she book the" is not.

Pragmatics allows language to convey more than words alone, such as when "It's cold in here" implies a desire to close the window or turn on the heater.