LINGUISTICS

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.[1][2][3][4] Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context.The earliest known linguistic activities date to Iron Age India (around the 8th century BC) with the analysis of Sanskrit.[citation needed]

The first is the study of language structure, or grammar. This focuses on the system of rules followed by the speakers (or hearers) of a language. It encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words), and phonology (sound systems). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived.

The study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logical structures and real-world references to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. This subfield encompasses semantics (how meaning is inferred from words and concepts) and pragmatics (how meaning is inferred from context).