8 - Language Flashcards
list the organization of language order
sentence>phrase>word>morpheme>phoneme
a sentence is made up of _
single or multiple phrases
define morphemes
the smallest meaningful units
words are made up of _
multiple morphemes
define “words”
the smallest complete set of letters/complete discrete unit of meaning
define phoneme
the most basic/smallest unit of sound
the categorization of speech sounds is based on which 3 things? (speech production
- voicing
- manner of production
- place of articulation
how does pressure/air play a part in speech production?
- speaking is about changing the pressure of air that comes out of mouth
- vocal cords can change pressure
- air goes through oral cavity/mouth, goes through manipulation (tongue, teeth, lips) exits mouth
describe voicing
- engaging your vocal cords/folds
- can test if you’re voicing by putting hand on throat and feeling vibration
*whisper = not vibration
someone who doesn’t know how to whisper is always engaging in what part of speech production?
voicing
define manner of production
another way in which we can manipulate air
- how airflow is restricted to produce different sounds/any restrictions that happen in mouth
define place of articulation
- where you position your lips and tongue to manipulate airflow
What are the 2 components of speech perception?
speech segmentation and coarticulation
define speech segmentation
the “slicing” of a continuous speech stream into appropriate segments
define coarticulation
in producing speech, adjacent phonemes overlap
“preparing for the next sound”
how might speech segmentation impact a foreign language speaker?
- seems like locals are speaking very fast
- results from not knowing how to segment the language into meaningful parts
why is coarticulation necessary?
- helps us speak faster
- need to say a lot of consonants pretty quickly (10-15 diff consonant and vowel sounds in a second)
- would take a lot of time if we made sounds discrete
what effect does coarticulation have on the sound of letters?
- because you are preparing for the next sound, the first sound is affected
- exact same sound/consonant sounds can appear in multiple different forms in terms of their actual spectral power/physical properties of the sound that enters auditory system
- makers all the sounds/words you hear unique/with diff acoustic patterns
Prior knowledge and expectations are important in our perception of speech: name the 3 components that affect our expectation
1) regularly used vocab is fairly limited
2) Phonemic restoration effect: top-down processes change what people actually hear
3) context aides word recognition
how does regularly used vocabulary affect speech perception?
if we don’t use certain words/phrases, wouldn’t expect to hear them
describe the phonemic restoration effect
- top down processes change what ppl hear
*breaking up sound with noise, ppl swear that the noise is still there - will still hear the word in completeness
- brain fills it in based on expectations
Is the phonemic restoration effect conscious or unconscious?
unconscious
what happens if you have a gap in a word without adding in a noise?
- people won’t fill it in with anything
- phonemic restoration effect does not work
define categorical perception
people are better at hearing differences BETWEEN categories of sounds (eg. g vs k) than WITHIN categories (diff pronounciations of a d sound)
when interpreting sounds, do you have a gradual shift between hearing different sound combinations?
no, sudden shift when you reach critical threshold
phonemes > morphemes > _
words
what are the 2 considerations for combining phonemes?
- only some combinations of phonemes are acceptable within a language (eg. TL is not ok)
- rules for adjusting phonemes are based on combinations (ex. s sound becomes z in words like bags)
What does a speaker typically know about a word they are using? (4 things)
- know’s the word’s sound
- usually knows the word’s orthography
- knows the rules of syntax
- knows the word’s semantics
define generativity
the capacity to create an endless series of new combinations from a small set of fundamental units
once new words are created, they can be combined with _
other phonemes/morphemes to align with the language’s syntax
“ex. someone who hacks = hacker”
define syntax
rules that govern the structure of a phrase or sentenct
what is the relationship between meaning and syntax?
meaning does not depend on syntax (“me hungry”
- syntax does not depend on meaning “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”
describe phase structure
- a syntactical rule
- sentence is made up of multiple phrases, with noun phrase and a verb phrase
- breakingup sentence makes it easier to understand
there are 2 types of rules in language
prescriptive and descriptive rules
define prescriptive rules
rules describing how something is “supposed to be” in the language
- change over time (acceptance of new words)
define descriptive rules
rules describing the language as it is ordinarily used by fluent speakers and listeners
- ex. phrase structure rules
- pretty constant
what is sentence parsing?
the process of determining each word’s syntactic role in a sentenct, occurs as you read/hear the words
- not an easy task but we do it fluently/effectively
what are garden path sentences?
initially sugegst an interpretation that turns out to be incorrect
- have to readjust roles you gave to word in a sentence
- have to go back and reevaluate what each part meant
when parsing, people tend to look for 2 things
- seek the simplest interpretation
- assume active voice
interpretations in parsing are further influenced by what 3 things?
- function words
- morphemes signalling syntactic roles (ex. “ly)
- background knowledge (can use knowledge to fill in gaps)
define extralinguistic context
the physical and social setting in which we encounted sentences
- “ex party vs office can influence they way you interpret words”
define prosody
the patterns of pauses and pitch changes that characterize speech production
- same prosody used in diff social settings can mean different things
- the point is to convey what is most important to speaker
define pragmatic rules
rules that govern how people actually use a language
ex: conversational “rules expect you to be a cooperative when conversing
answering 7:00 pm to “do you know the time” is an example of what concept?
pragmatic rules
how is common ground used in language?
participants in conversations fill in gaps by drawing on their common ground
- often established in early stages of conversation
Aphasias are _(biology of language)
regions of the brain that have damage, experience some sort of deficit
*broca’s/wernicke’s area
damage to broca’s area results in
intact language comprehension but impacted production (nonfluent)
damage to wernicke’s area results in
being able to produce language but it doesn’t make sense (fluent)
by what age are kids able to converse well?
3-4
how can specific language impairments affect language?
- can have severely impaired language skills
- slow to learn language, difficulty understanding
the use of neural machinery seems to depend on _
language exposure
- evidence: wolf children unable to develop language
BUT dk why they were abandoned, maybe had cognitive impairment
define the overregularization error
an error in which a person perceives or remembers a word/event as being closer to the “norm” than it really is (I thinked/gooses)
children are active learners, what does this mean?
children are sensitive to patterns and regularities, deriving broad principles from what they hear
is overregularization learned?
no, generate that themselves
define linguistic relativity
the hypothesis that people who speak different languages think differently as a result
ex color vocab and categorization might affect how speakers percieve and remember colour
does linguistic relativity in terms of colour mean people can’t perceive certain colours at all?
no, pay less attention to differences in every day life
describe spatial terminology as it applies to linguistic relativity
absolute directions (east/west) vs relative directions (left/right)
- impacts how info is translated
how can descriptions of events vary in language (linguistic relativity?)
- english uses active more than passive voice
- language can affect memory (english has more of a causal link in car accident example, vs spanish were less likely to identify who caused it)
how does bilingualism affect language learning in children?
- learn languages as quickly as monolingual children learn 1 language
- have temporarily smaller vocabularies than monolingual children at early age
- no evidence that they confuse them
what’s a long-term benefit of bilingualism?
has protective effect on onset of disease (alzheimers)
