Two Linguistic Questions .

[Ali]

Hi dear English masters .
I've encountered some questions about linguistic and hope those guys who have academic studies of English will share their ideas with me .
The first question is :
"How can a limited number of symbols represent all the speech sounds of the world?"
2nd :
"Why can't we use phonetic symbols instead of our common alphabets?"
The questions are come out of the book "The Study Of Language" written by "George Yule".
I know it's a bit hard to answer these kinds of question which have not a specific answer and also are a topic for researches or compositions perhaps , but all in all , these 2 are the questions that I have to answer in our exam of the following wednesday .
I searched for the in the books but unfortunately nothing was found !
So I started lookin for them answer in the web and first of all Our English Section of the Forum .
So i will be glad that you friends share your worthy ideas with me about these 2 question .
Best Regards
Ali

[Reza1969]

Hi Dear Ali

I don't quite remember the things I've read in George Yule's book, but I think if you go through your book once more, I'm sure you can find the answers of your questions.

I have my own answers, however, and I hope they will help you.

1. Becuase the mystery lies in the connotaion of the meaning not denotation.

2. Because of the variety of origins every language has.

But I think the questions are pretty vague. For example, what is meant by speech sounds and (specially ) symbols exactly?

And also, about the second question, Does the question mean to start using the phonetic symbols from now on or since the begining?

[Ali]

Hi Dear Reza ,
Thanks for your reply .
About going through the book again I have to say that I don't think it will be usefull because the studious guys esp girls of the class have already checked the book up fully and if there were something usefull about these questions in it they would find them !
About vague points are the questions your are right ,
the first question just wants to mention that why we cannot have letters for all the speech sounds ands sounds created by human and the second why we don't use the phonectic symbols which are much more clear for undestanding the pronunciation instead of our common alphabets , doesn't matter when .
By the way , so much thanks for your cooperation .

[vighil]

regardless of the connotation and denotation , the problem has something to do with the universals of language which are not yet completely come to an exact satisfactory ending.

[fuji]

1. Becuase the mystery lies in the connotaion of the meaning not denotation.

Hi

I could not find any relevance between the question and the answer. Could you please elaborate a little more on that? I think he is discussing phonology and not semantics. Or have I missed the point?

Masoud