Ch. 1 Generative Grammar Flashcards
Syntax
The level of linguistic organization that mediates between sounds and meaning, where words are organized into phrases and sentences
Language (capital L)
The psychological ability of humans to produce and understand a particular language. Can also be called Human Language Capacity, or i-Language.
language (lowercase l)
A language like English or French. These are the particular instances of the human language. Also be called e-langauge
Generative Grammar
A theory of linguistics in which grammar is viewed as a cognitive faculty. Language is generated by a set of rules or procedures. We will be looking at the Principles and Parameters approach
The Scientific Method
Observe some data, make generalizations about that data, draw a hypothesis, test the hypothesis against more data
Falsifiable Prediction
To prove that a hypothesis correct you have to look for the data that would prove it wrong. The prediction that might prove a hypothesis wrong is said to be falsifiable.
Grammar
Not what you learned in school. This is the set of rules that generate a language.
Prescriptive Grammar
The grammar rules as taught by so called “language experts.” These rules, often inaccurate descriptively, prescribe how people should talk/write, rather than describe what they actually do.
Descriptive Grammar
A scientific grammar that describes, rather than prescribes, how people talk/write.
Anaphor
A word that ends in -self or -selves
Antecedent
The noun an anaphor refers to
Asterisk
use to mark syntactically ill-formed sentences.
Gender (Grammatical)
Masculine vs. Feminine vs. Neuter. Does not have to identical to the actual sex of the referent
Number
The quantity of individuals or things described by a noun.
Person
The perspective of the participants in the conversation. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
