Ch 2-7 Flashcards
What are the four types of fusion
Isolating
Concatenative
non-linear (markers that are not segmental and integrated with the host stem, relatively rare)
Reduplication
What is Fusion
the degree to which morphological markers attach to a host stem
What is exponence and it realizations
how many grammatical categories may be expressed by the same morpheme
seperative
cumulative/portmanteau
What is flexibility and its realisations?
how much allomorphy does a language allow
flexive (multiple morphemes for the plural)
non-flexive (grammatical function is always marked the same way)
what is synthesis and its realisations
how much accumulated information can a word take?
analytic (no affixation)
synthetic (allow affixation of one lexeme)
polysynthetic (allows affixation with > 1 lexemic root)
Explain the difference between isolating fusion and analytic synthesis
Both refer to a morpheme/lexeme standing on its own and taking no affixation. However, isolating fusion looks at it from the perspective of how morphological markers attach (formal), whereas analytic synthesis looks at it from the amount of information that one word can bear (functional). the same goes for concatenative and synthetic.
what is an agglutinative language
agglutinative languages are languages that are (poly)synthetic. They take many morphemes to their lexical stems. An example is Turkish or Polish.
what is meant by ‘flexitivity is morphologically or phonologically determined?’
Depending on the phonological ending of a word, the morphological affixation can take on different forms. An example are Dutch diminutives.
What is the relevance of typology?
identify the limits and possibilities of human language
Universals and Tendencies - X consonants and Y vowels, word order, word classes etc.
History of contact - are features of languages due to inheritance or contact?
interdisciplinarity
What is Areal classification?
Languages change or inherit features due to areal contact with proximal languages. They do not share ancestors. Recognizable in areas that were formerly or are colonised. –> Creoles & Pidgins?
What is the study of phonology?
Studies how sounds form a system: how are sounds used to form meaningful contrast within languages?
what is the difference between segments and suprasegmentals?
Segments are phonemes that together can form larger units, such as syllables, feet or phonological words. Suprasegmentals are prosodic features, i.e. contrastive units that may carry over across segments. length distinction/unfixed stress/tonal languages. Tonal languages have suprasegmental elements change the meaning of a morphologically similar word.
What are the five articulatory parameters of sound production?
- place of articulation: front or back of mouth
- Airstream mechanism and direction: pulmonic, glottal or velar (clicks)
- degree or manner of blocking soundstream - totally open: vowels
- state of the vocal cords - voiced (open) or unvoiced (closed)
- velic closure (if lowered then no closure –> nasal sound) - nasal or non-nasal
what are different degrees or manners of blocking
totally closed: stops
totally open: vowels
fricatives
lateral
trill
Explain why dutch learners with L1 Chinese or Japanese confuse ‘rijst’ and ‘lijst’ as two similar words.
/l/ and /r/ are contrastive phonemes in Dutch, meaning that they are distinct sounds that distinguish different meaning. In Chinese and Japanese, /l/ and /r/ are not different phonemes, and therefore ‘rijst’ and ‘lijst’ do not hold different meanings in their processing of language. Their brains make them hear [r] and [l] as similar allophones of the same phonemic speech sound in the phonology of Japanese.
What is the sonority principle?
languages prefer to have sonorants (little blocking of airstream, little friction, louder) as the nucleus of the syllable. When there are clusters of consonants in the syllable, the least sonorous consonant is the furthers away from the nucleus. eg. ‘dri’
what are allophones?
allophones are the realisations of abstract phonemes/mental phonological units in actual audible speech behaviour. We do not utter phonemes, we utter allophones. Phonemes and allophones are distinctive in meaning. different environments in which phonemes are realized also create different allophones.
What are minimal pairs?
when two phones create a difference in meaning of words, they are contrastive: they belong to two different phonemes, they realise two different abstract mental units of the sound system. This contrastiveness can be illustrated through minimal pairs, where difference in one phone creates a different word: pot –> rot
what are the three main types of relationships between phones?
Free variation (different allophones can be used in the same phonetic environments)
Complementary distribution (allophones of the same phoneme may only occur in mutually excluding, different environments. eg. before a stressed vowel)
Contrast/minimal pairs
which words belong to the open class and what to they do?
content words: verbs, nouns, adjectives. describe things, actions and qualifications. New words can form in this class
which words belong to the closed class and what to they do?
function words: and , or , it, this. have a grammatical function and new words cannot easily form in this class.
Explain grammaticalization
when a content word assumes the grammatical characteristics of a function word. Can be both formal (reduction, cliticisation, affixation) and functional.
what is the Jespersen Cycle
An example of (formal & functional) grammaticalisation. At first a word is added for strengthening purposes of the negation (for example). Then comes a formal reduction of the original negation. this can then be followed by another strengthening addition. –> example of French: Je ne dis –> Je ne dis pas –> Je dis pas
what is derivation and how does it differ form inflection?
Derivation is a process for languages to form new lexemes. Affixing, reduplication and prosodic modification are examples of derivation. Inflection carries grammatical information such as number, case, and gender, while derivation does not. Derivation only serves to create new words, and those words can then take on inflectional morphology.
What is compounding?
Compounding is another way for languages to form new words. A new compound is not just two separate words, but actually forms its own phonological unit.w
what are the four most common lexical classes in PoS
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
what are the 7 most common functional/grammatical classes in PoS
pronouns, adpositions (pre/post), numerals, articles, auxiliaries, conjunctions, interjections.
How can you define whether a word belongs to a certain wordclass?
by establishing the distributional/syntactic properties of a word, and if it behaves in the expected manner. As well as establishing its structural or ‘syntagmatic’ (morphological) properties. Referring to semantic meaning alone is not enough (nouns referring to things, persons, places and abstract notions & verbs referring to actions and processes, and states)
what are distributional properties?
The syntactic behaviour of a word, where a N can function as both S or O of a verb, V can be inflected for number and person of the subject and word order, where in Greek A follows the adjective and precedes the noun.
what are structural or ‘syntagmatic’ properties?
Properties that are word internally. what is the morphological behaviour of a word?
What is noun incorporation?
A noun incorporated into a verb. this can change the action performed into a general action, rather than referring to a specific entity undergoing the action. can also lead to a decrease in valency
what are the parameters of ordering in any language?
- order of words in phrases
- order of phrases in clause
- order of words in clauses = non-configurational
How can you recognise syntactic units?
- they stick together in movement
- intonational contours tend to coincide with syntactic units
- their own syntactic structure -> glue of order
- glue of agreement
How does the glue of agreement work (concord)?
Agreement is based on shared semantics (grammatical meaning) of controller and target. in agreement you have a controller and a target. In ‘het meisje’ ‘meisje’ is the controller that asks for agreement of the target ‘het’.
How does the glue of government work?
Government is not based on shared semantics of controller and target. with government, the feature specification of the governee is determined merely by the presence of the governor. The governor thus imposes specific restrictions on the morphosyntactic properties of the governed member, but does so without necessarily sharing any of its properties. They therefore do not share their semantics, as the governor does not have to have the inherent semantic content that the shape of the governee indicates. Opposite to agreement, the governee is typically a nominal and the governor can be of various kinds.
what is the animacy hierarchy
a language dependent hierarchy that shows which entities are higher up the hierarchy in terms of definiteness. Where a NP is placed in the hierarchy can prescribe their morphosyntactic behaviour.
Why is animacy in the animacy hierarchy a misleading term?
Because terms of kinship are not necessarily more animate than descriptive terms of gender (mother - woman). The hierarchy becomes more transparent when viewed as a sociocentric orientation or that it is arranged to a principle of empathy.
What are the categories associated with the NP?
- internal properties: gender, animacy, noun classes: animate, feminine, masculine
- Number of referents of a NP: singular, dual, trial, paucal, (global) plural.
- Pragmatic information status of NP in context: (in)definiteness, (in)specificity, identifiability
- Case: external relation of NP as argument of the verb (subject, object, adjunct)
what are noun classes (gender) ?
Noun classes refer to the categorisation of nouns into different classes (gender derives from latin genus ‘kind,sort’), and gender or noun classes are identified through agreement and are realised through fusional processes such as affixation. In gender systems, nouns obligatorily belong to one noun class or another in a closed grammatical system.
What are classifiers?
Classifiers are free and invariant forms that assign nouns to a given category/noun class, usually semantically based. classifiers may function as nouns themselves, and constitute a more open class of markers than gender markers.
what is the ergative case
The ergative is typically used to mark the semantic role of agent. it is also used to mark the subject of a transitive clause.
