AtL Test 1 Flashcards
Noun phrase
Syntactic unit that refers to a thing or set of things
Clause
Whole sentence or sentence within a sentence
Implicit noun phrase
Meaning not pronounced e.g. they seem to us [(they) to like each other]
Linguistic universal
Properties that all languages share
Stem
Core of a word bearing central meaning
Morpheme
Smallest linguistic bearing meaning
Two kinds of morphology
- Inflectional
- Word formation
Inflectional morphology
Grammatical morphology e.g. tense, number, agreement
Nominative case
Subjects or citation form of noun
Accusative
Objects of verbs
Dative case
Used to convey notion of “to”
Locative case
Conveys “at” “in” “on” etc
Gloss
Micro-translation to clarify structure e.g. ‘hand-plural-2 plural.-loc’
Morphosyntactic representation
Bundle of morphological features specifying grammatical content of a word
Aspect
Sets boundaries of action of the verb time e.g. completed vs non-completed
Isolating language
One with little or no inflectional morphology e.g. English or Chinese
Agglutinating language
Rich inflectional morphology and each morpheme expresses a single morphosyntactic feature e.g Turkish or Swahili
Inflecting language
Has a rich morphology and each morpheme expresses multiple morphosyntactic features e.g. Latin
Compounding
Chaining together of two stems
Single Headed compound
Whereby one stem in the compound categorises it e.g. houseboat = boat, boathouse = house
Two-headed compound
No single categorises e.g. Austria-Hungary
Infixation
Insertion of segments into some location in the base
Reduplication
Morphological process whereby part of the word is copied
Idiolect
Version of a language spoken by one single person
Node
Any unit in a tree
A constituent
Combine a node with all the material going “downhill” from that node
Terminal nodes
Nodes at the bottom of the tree
Constituent head
‘Core’ of a constituent expressing the essence of meaning - of a PP - Prep, of NP - Noun
Modifier (syntax)
Anything within a phrase not the head
Sentence requirements
Subject and predicate
Syntax - dominate
Node X dominates node Y if you can get to Y by going downhill in the tree
Daughter
In syntax tree, if X directly dominates Y, Y is the daughter
Sister nodes
Two daughters of the same node are sisters
Constituency test
Clefting sentences e.g. it was Alice who put the book on the table
Closed class
We cannot easily invent new members of the syntactic class e.g. auxiliaries
Root node
Highest node in a tree
Competence
What is happening and how e.f. Knowledge of how to walk
Performance
Factors restricting competence e.g. exhaustion, lifespan
Why draw trees?
- Describe subject verb agreement (agree with head)
- Negative polarity items (anything)
- Passivisation
- Wh-questions
Free morpheme
Morpheme that can stand alone e.g. dog - cannot be broken down further into morphemes
Bound morphemes
Morphemes that cannot stand alone - er etc.
Complement clause
Embedded clause next to the verb e.g. he expected that she would go
Critical period
The idea that there is a key age range within which humans acquire language rapidly - if not exposed until later, language and cognitive delays
Poverty of the stimulus
Idea that there are insufficient tokens for children’s learning of language and grammar to be explained by observation - something innate
Domain-general explanation
Big brain, more neurons, desire to communicate explains children’s language learning
Domain specific explanation
Somewhere in the brain is some special knowledge about language
Allophone
Variant of a phoneme
Natural classes
Groups of sounds grouped by phonetic features e.g. +voiced +alveolar
Complementary distribution
Indication that two segments are allophones - they never occur in the same environment
Free variation
Two sounds in free variation = can appear in the same place without affecting meaning - indicates allophones - never draw from single example as can be inconclusive
How to identify phonemes
Use minimal pairs - a single change in sound causes a change in word meaning
Four evidences of the poverty of the stimulus
- Wug test - children recognise abstract patterns by age 4
- Produce ungrammatical sentences (don’t giggle me)
- 6-8m babies sensitive to phonemic distinctions
- Gleitmann - multiple interpretations of events possible / limits (abstract words and subset words)
Four evidences of the poverty of the stimulus
- Wug test - children recognise abstract patterns by age 4
- Produce ungrammatical sentences (don’t giggle me)
- 6-8m babies sensitive to phonemic distinctions
- Gleitmann - multiple interpretations of events possible / limits (abstract words and subset words)
Four evidences of the poverty of the stimulus
- Wug test - children recognise abstract patterns by age 4
- Produce ungrammatical sentences (don’t giggle me)
- 6-8m babies sensitive to phonemic distinctions
- Gleitmann - multiple interpretations of events possible / limits (abstract words and subset words)
