What are the four fundamental elements that make a language?

What are the four fundamental elements that make a language?
A . An alphabet, phonetics, phonology, and semantics
B. An alphabet, a lexis, phonetics, and semantics
C. An alphabet, morphology, phonetics, and semantics
D. An alphabet, a lexis, a syntax, and semantics

View Answer

Answer: D

Explanation:

Topics: language alphabet lexis syntax semantics

We can say that each language (machine or natural, it doesn’t matter)

consists of the following elements:

An alphabet:

a set of symbols used to build words of a certain language (e.g., the Latin alphabet for English,

the Cyrillic alphabet for Russian, Kanji for Japanese, and so on)

A lexis:

(aka a dictionary) a set of words the language offers its users

(e.g., the word "computer" comes from the English language dictionary, while "cmoptrue" doesn’t;

the word "chat" is present both in English and French dictionaries,

but their meanings are different)

A syntax:

a set of rules (formal or informal, written or felt intuitively)

used to determine if a certain string of words forms a valid sentence

(e.g., "I am a python" is a syntactically correct phrase, while "I a python am" isn’t)

Semantics:

a set of rules determining if a certain phrase makes sense

(e.g., "I ate a doughnut" makes sense, but "A doughnut ate me" doesn’t)