Chapter 9 Flashcards
how can ideas become sounds and then back to ideas
consistent well defined patterns
What are morphemes (free vs bound)
smallest language unit that carries meaning
free- can stand alone ‘cat’
bound - must be attached to another morpheme -s, -ed
What are phonemes
smallest unit of sound that can serve to distinguish words
what are vocal folds?
two flaps of muscular tissue within the larynx
What is voiceing? how is it produced
a buzzing sort of vibration produced by rapid opening and closing of vocal folds
- sounds can be voiced or voiceless
What is manner of production?
How the airflow is restricted (allows us to distinguish sounds)
- complete stop or continuous airflow?
what is place of articulation
Where the airflow is restricted
- labiodental, alveolar
labiodental sounds
front teeth close to bottom lip /f/ and /v/
alveolar
tongue behind teeth /t/ and /d/
what are the 3 production features we use to categorize speech sounds
- manner of production
- voicing
- place of articulation
- sounds that only differ by one sound similar while those differing by multiple features sound more distinct
how many different phonemes
40
misperceptions in speech are usually off by
one production feature
normal speaking rate = ___ phonemes per second, ___ per minute
15, 180
people can follow speech that is ____ words per minute.
250,
define speech segmentation
slice stream of sound into appropriate segments
What evidence proves the illusion of hearing spaces b/w words is in fact an illusion?
- people hear pauses in the wrong place when they don’t understand what someones saying
- When we physically measure speech stream there are no pauses
- foreign languages sound uninterupted and fast because we don’t have the skills to segment
What is coarticulation
We don’t produce phonemes one at a time, instead they overlap
How do we use our knowledge about vocabulary when perceiving speech
when you hear the first syllable all words starting with that sound get activated
- with the second syllable tthe cohort narrows
- and so on till you find a match
The importance of context was shown using the phonemic restoration effect. what is it, and how was it shown?
researchers modify tape-recorded sentences, take out a single syllable from one of the words and replace it with a burst of noise
- participants generate the missing sound on their own because of the context and claim to have heard it along with the burst of noise
- in addition they can’t tell where the noise appeared in the word
How did Pollack and Pickett demonstrate the benefits of context? (sentence splicing)
Recorded conversations and then spliced out individual words and presented them to new subjects
- they were only able to identify half without context
- with context they were easy to understand
define categorical perception
People are much better at distinguishing sounds across categories and are surprisingly insensitive to differences within a category
- beneficial because it allows you to hear differences that matter while ignoring variation within a category
How is categorical perception demonstrated in the data?
Computer generates stimuli longer the /ba/ –> /pa/ continuum.
- we expect there to be a graded- membership pattern, however there is an abrupt shift at the phonemic boundary so that half the stimuli is identified as /pa/ and the other half at /ba/ with no fine degradation within either category
what determines whether a plural is pronounced as /s/ or /z/
how the base noun ends
- ends with voiced sound = /z/
- ends with voiceless sound = /s/
can these phoneme combination principles be observed for novel or made up cases ?
yes - wugs
- even in young children
define referent
what a word refers to
- if you know a word’s referent you know what it means
why does a words meaning involve more than it’s referent?
- because some words don’t have referents (unicorn)
- some referents are temporary ( president)
so what does it mean to know a word?
knowing the relevant concept
define generativity
capacity to create an endless series of new combinations with a set of fundamental units
what does it mean to know a language? is this knowledge conscious?
To know how to create new forms by combining morphemes and how to adjust phonemes based on their combinations
no people can’t explain why or how they do this
why is semantic meaning not sufficient for determining if a sentence is gramatical?
some sentences have no meaning but are still gramatical
what are phrase structure rules?
stipulations that list the elements that must appear in a phrase as well as the sequence for those elements
what must a sentence consist of?
an NP and a VP
what are prescriptive vs. descriptive rules
perscriptive: how language is suppose to be used according to grammer books. Proper language - defined by the most prestigious social group
descriptive: characterizing the language as it is used by fluent speakers/listeners
ex. phrase structure rules