# Q1c · Linguistic foundations

Subject: Natural Language Processing

Exam: TEE

Reader: https://deep-learning-study-room.vercel.app/nlp/#tee/papers/legacy-r24/q1c

Canonical: https://deep-learning-study-room.vercel.app/read/nlp/tee/papers/legacy-r24--q1c/

Previous examination · complete worked answers

**Question. Define linguistic foundation and explain its importance in NLP.** [5 marks]

### Answer

**A phoneme** is a sound unit that can distinguish meanings in a language, such as the /p/ and /b/ contrast in “pat” and “bat”. A phoneme is a sound, not necessarily one alphabet letter. **A morpheme** is the smallest meaning-bearing grammatical unit: cats = cat + plural -s; unhappy = un- + happy.

**A lexeme** is an abstract vocabulary item grouping its inflected forms: write, writes, wrote and writing belong to WRITE. A **phrase** is a group of words functioning together; a **clause** normally contains a predicate and its associated participants; a **sentence** expresses a complete grammatical unit.

| Level | What it analyses | Concrete example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Phonetics / phonology | Physical sounds / sound patterns in a language | Distinguish bat from pat |
| Morphology / lexical analysis | Word structure and lexical items | un + help + ful → unhelpful |
| Syntax | Grammatical arrangement and relationships | The dog chased the cat: subject, verb, object |
| Semantics | Meaning of words and composed expressions | The dog is the chaser; the cat is chased |
| Discourse | Connections across sentences | “Riya arrived. She smiled.” → She refers to Riya |
| Pragmatics | Intended meaning in the situation | “It is cold here” may request closing the window |

word forms

→

grammatical structure

→

sentence meaning

→

cross-sentence context

→

speaker intention

### Three worked interpretations

**“The cats are sleeping.”** Morphology identifies cat + s as plural. Syntax connects “cats” to “are sleeping”. Semantics represents animals engaged in sleeping.

**“Aman bought a laptop. It was expensive.”** Sentence-level syntax alone does not identify “it”. Discourse connects “it” to the laptop across the sentence boundary.

**“Wonderful, another power cut!”** The word wonderful is positive literally, but situational context can indicate sarcasm and frustration. This is a pragmatic interpretation.

The analysis levels are conceptual descriptions. Modern systems may learn several jointly rather than executing a compulsory separate module for every level.

Morphology = word ke andar; syntax = sentence ka structure; semantics = meaning; discourse = sentences ka link; pragmatics = intention.