Linkage (linguistics)

Imagine that you have some building blocks of different shapes and colors, and you want to make a tower. You can link them together by matching the shapes and colors of each block, so they fit perfectly one on top of the other.

Similarly, in linguistics, linkage refers to the way we connect different parts of a sentence or discourse to create meaning. We link individual words or phrases together based on their meaning, grammar, and context, in order to form a coherent message.

For example, let's take the following sentence: "Tom likes to eat pizza." We can see that "Tom" is the subject of the sentence, "likes" is the verb, and "pizza" is the object. By linking these parts together, we can understand that Tom has a preference for pizza as a type of food.

But linkage can be more complex than just simple sentences. In longer texts or conversations, we use different devices to link ideas together or to refer to previous information. For instance, we use pronouns (such as "he" or "it") to refer to someone or something already mentioned, or we use connective words (like "and" or "because") to show the relationships between different parts of a text.

Overall, linkage is a crucial aspect of language, as it allows us to communicate effectively and express our thoughts in a meaningful way.