Chapter 10- Language

Question 1

Morphemes:

Answer 1

• Smallest language units that carry meaning
• Free morphemes- stand alone units (talk, apple)
Bound morphemes- attached to free morphemes (-ed, -s)

Question 2

Phonemes:

Answer 2

Smallest unit of sound that can serve to distinguish words in language

Question 3

Voicing

Answer 3

Vocal folds (2 flaps of muscular tissue) in larnyx rapidly opening and closing

Produced when you make “z” sound, but not “s” sound

Question 4

Manner of Production

Answer 4

○ Distinguish sounds based on how airflow is restricted
○ i.e. creating “s”, “sh”, “f” sound narrows airway
○ i.e. creating “p”,”b” sound stops air flow completely for a brief period of time

Question 5

Place of Articulation:

Answer 5

Place of Articulation:

Question 6

Bilabial Sounds

Answer 6

□ Lips closed

i.e. “p”,”b”

Question 7

Labiodental sounds

Answer 7

□ Top teeth to bottom lip

i.e. “f”, “v”

Question 8

Alveolar sounds

Answer 8

□ Tongue behind upper teeth

i.e “t”,”d”

Question 9

Speech Segmentation:

Answer 9

“Slicing” stream of speech into appropriate segments (no gaps to indicate where one phoneme ends and the next one begins)

Question 10

Coarticulation:

Answer 10

• Production of phonemes overlap
• i.e. While saying the word “soup” when you produce the “s” sound, mouth is already moving into position to produce vowel sound
• Makes speech production faster and more fluent
“s” sound when you say soup is different from “s” sound preceding other vowels

Question 11

Phonemic Restoration Effect:

Answer 11

• Supplement input from phonemes with other knowledge
i.e. Researchers replaced “s” in “legislature” with noise, but when presented in a sentence like “The state governors met with their respective legi*latures”, participants swore they heard the whole word

Question 12

Categorical Perception:

Answer 12

• People are better at hearing differences between categories of sounds than they are at hearing differences within category of sounds
• i.e. Very sensitive to difference between “g” and “k”, not so sensitive to differences between 2 “p” sounds
• Ignored subphonemic variations
i.e. Want to know if sound is “pa” (path) or “ba” (bath), but don’t care exactly how it is pronounced, so variations of each sound is ignored

Question 13

Orthography:

Answer 13

Sequence of letters that spell a word

Question 14

Generativity of Language:

Answer 14

• Capacity to create an endless series of new combinations, all built from the same set of fundamental units
Combine morphemes to create new words, adjust phonemes when words put together in new combinations…etc

Question 15

Syntax:

Answer 15

• Rules governing sequence of words in a phrase or sentence

Doesn’t depend on meaning

Question 16

Phrase Structure Rules:

Answer 16

• List of elements that must appear in a phrase, and specify the sequence of those elements
Determines overall organization of sentence

Question 17

Prescriptive Rules:

Answer 17

• Rules describing how language is “supposed to be”
• i.e. “aint” is not a proper word
Always changing

Question 18

Descriptive Rules:

Answer 18

• Rules characterizing language as it is ordinarily used
• Phrase structure rules
• Regularities in phrase structure
i.e. noun phrase (the boy) followed by verb phrase (loves his dog)

Question 19

Sentence Parsing:

Answer 19

• Figure out each word’s syntactic role in a sentence

Occurs as soon as each word is heard, as opposed to waiting to hear the entire sentence

Question 20

Garden Path Sentences:

Answer 20

• Sentences in which you are initially led to one interpretation, but that interpretation is wrong
• Problem with sentence parsing as each word appears
i.e. “the secretary applauded for his efforts was soon promoted”, initially “applauded” is thought to be the main verb

Question 21

Active/Passive Sentences:

Answer 21

Most sentences are active as opposed to passive, so people tend to assume they’ll be hearing active voice sentences (initial noun phrase is the doer of the action)
i.e. Assume “the secretary applauded” as the secretary performing the action of applauding

Question 22

Extralinguistic Context:

Answer 22

• Physical and social setting in which you encounter sentences
  
  • i.e. See 2 apples on a table, one on a towel, one not. “put the apple on the towel in the box”.

Context prevents confusion

Question 23

Prosody:

Answer 23

• Rhythm and pitch cues in speech

Can prevent ambiguity such as garden path phrases

Question 24

Pragmatics:

Answer 24

How language is ordinarily used

Question 25

Aphasia:

Answer 25

Damage to specific parts of brain that results in disruption of language

Question 26

Nonfluent Aphasia:

Answer 26

• Result of damage to Broca’s area in left frontal lobe

Verbal comprehension abilities intact, but can’t produce language

Question 27

Fluent Aphasia:

Answer 27

• Result of damage to Wernicke’s area

Patients able to talk freely, but speech doesn’t make sense (comprehension affected)

Question 28

Specific Language Impairment (SLI):

Answer 28

Normal intelligence and no problems with muscle movements required to produce language
Slow to learn language, have difficulties understanding and producing many sentences

Question 29

Overregularization Errors:

Answer 29

• Over reliance on speech patterns results in errors

i.e “yesterday we goed”, “I have 2 foots”, “I willn’t”

Question 30

Semantic Bootstrapping:

Answer 30

Children rely on knowledge of semantic relationships as a basis for figuring out syntax

Question 31

Wolf Children:

Answer 31

• Discovered wold mother in den with 2 human children

Had animal like qualities, couldn’t be rehabilitated to use language normally

Question 32

Linguistic Relativity:

Answer 32

• View that language you speak forces you into certain modes of thought
• i.e. Languages with richer colour vocabulary result in perceiving colours differently
• Language has unique effect on cognition (categories used in language are the categories used in your thoughts)- irreversible
Language guides what you pay attention to, and attention effects shape cognition- reversible