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Psych207 > 9. Language > Flashcards

9. Language Flashcards

1
Q

What are 2 necessary characteristics of a natural language

A
  1. it is regular (governed by a system of rules called grammar)
  2. it is productive (infinite combinations of things can be expressed)
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2
Q

In addition to being regular and productive, what are 2 other characteristics of human language

A
  1. arbitrariness
    - no semblance between word and what it refers to
  2. discreteness
    - system can be subdivided into recognizable parts (sentence, word)

(3) Generative -> slides
- can state, write, or sing something that no one has done before

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3
Q

Explain phonemes vs morphemes

A

Sounds vs. smallest meaningful units

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4
Q

What is phonology

A

Study of how phonemes can be combined in a language

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5
Q

What is morphology

A

identifying the meaningful units in a language

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6
Q

what is syntax vs semantics

A

structure vs meaning

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7
Q

What is the study of pragmatics

A

How listeners and speakers each contribute to the conversation and what assumptions they make
- social rules of language
- includes etiquette conventions

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8
Q

What is linguistic competence vs linguistic performance

A

Competence: underlying linguistic knowledge that lets us understand and produce the language
- not always evident bc of nervousness, tiredness etc

Linguistic performance only reflects linguistic competence in completely ideal situations

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9
Q

What are 2 things that make consonants more complicated

A
  1. differences in place of articulation
    - where the obstruction in airflow occurs
    - vs. vowels, no obstruction
  2. differences in manner of articulation
    - how the airflow is obstructed
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10
Q

What diagram depicts the various constituents of a syntactic sentence

A

a tree diagram

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11
Q

What is the use of tree diagrams

A

can explain why some changes are valid and others arent
- preposing

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12
Q

What is preposing

A

taking a certain part of the sentence and moving it to the front
- usually for emphasis

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13
Q

What are phrase structure/rewrite rules

A

rules in the grammar
etc.
S -> NP VP

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14
Q

What might understanding the semantics of a sentence mean

A

it is the understanding of meaning in language

for a sentence it means:
- understanding each word
- understanding the truth conditions

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15
Q

what is a directive

A

instructions to the listener
etc. “close that door”

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16
Q

what is a commissive

A

the speaker is committing to some later action
etc. “I promise to read a book”

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17
Q

what is an expressive

A

describes the psychological state
etc. “i apologize for eating the last piece of pie”

18
Q

what are declarations

A

where the utterance itself is the action
etc. “you’re fired”

19
Q

“I promise to read a book” is what kind of speech act

A

commissive

20
Q

“you’re fired” is what kind of speech act

A

declarative

21
Q

“i apologize for eating the last piece of pie” is what kind of speech act

A

expressive

22
Q

“close that door” is what kind of speech act

A

directive

23
Q

according to george miller, what are 2 fundamental problems that speech perception should solve

A
  1. speech is continuous
  2. a single phoneme sounds different depending on the context
24
Q

What did Lisker and Abramson show about how we understand speech

A

they played ba or pa by altering the b/p sound and found that it was only distinguished when they fell across a certain boundary

we pay attention to some parts (meaningful) in speech and ignore others

25
Q

what is the phoneme restoration effect

A

listeners restore the missing phoneme when it is covered up during the course of perception

26
Q

According to Garrett what are the two common forms of speech errors and are they related

A

meaning and form

he looked at probability occurrences of both

no; operates separately

27
Q

T/F
As Neely INCREASED the amount of time between the prime word and the target, participants performed better on intentionally primed pairs (Etc. BUILDING-foot) than naturally primed pairs (etc. BODY-hand)

+ what does this mean for semantic priming

A

F

Participants performed worse, possibly due to:
- fast-acting spread of activation
- slow-acting expectancy-driven process

28
Q

What is Phonetic ambiguity

A

A spoken sentence often contains words that are not meant to be heard
- but we ignore these

etc. Remember <-> Ream ember

29
Q

What is Lexical ambiguity

A

Occurs with words that have 2 meanings

30
Q

What is Syntactic ambiguity

A

Different phrasings (parsings) of a sentence lead to different meanings

31
Q

What are saccades

A

“jumps” between fixations when you are reading

32
Q

According to Just and Carpenter’s study, what word would you expect a longer fixation time on and why

of
flywheel

A

flywheel

We spend more time fixing on content words -> semantically rich parts of the text

33
Q

Here are 2 sentences

  1. We got some beer out of the car. The beer was warm
  2. We checked the picnic supplies. The beer was warm

Which one would be deciphered faster, and why? What strategy does Haviland and Clark propose we use

A

2

We use the strategy of given-new and make connections of the new material based on knowledge of old material (antecedent)

2 takes longer because we need to draw more inferences

34
Q

What does it mean for a sentence to have a high propositional complexity

A

There are more basic ideas conveyed

35
Q

What are the 4 maxims of cooperative conversation by Grice

A
  1. Maxim of quantity: correct amount of info
  2. Maxim of quality: try to make it true
  3. Maxim of relation: relevance
  4. Maxim of manner: be clear

QQRM

36
Q

Are subvocal speech and thought equivalent

A

No

37
Q

What is the difference between the Modularity hypothesis and the Whorfian hypothesis for linguistic relativity

A

Modularity: certain perceptual and languages processes are modules
- experiment of lexical ambiguity: this is automatic

Whorfian: believed strong relations exist between language and other cognitive processes, and language constrains the way your world is percieved
- probably false

38
Q

What are a few experiments that counter the Whorfian hypothesis

A
  • Dutch people naming colours in English
  • Chinese speakers being able to draw counterfactual inferences as easily as English speakers
39
Q

explain expressive aphasia (Broca) vs receptive aphasia (Wernicke)

and areas of injury

A

broca: damage to frontal area
wernicke: damange to temporal lobe
both on left

think ordering b - w, f - t

note:
- not completely localized; patients have gotten broca’s aphasia without damage there and vice versa

40
Q

Damage to which side of the brain usually causes aphasia

A

left

due to lateralization (specialization of function between two hemispheres)

41
Q

What does it mean for a language to be arbitrary

A

There is no direct link between the word and its meaning

42
Q

What does it mean for a language to be generative

A

Everyone can say something that no one has said before

Psych207 (12 decks)

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