Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is grammar?
A set of rules that specify how the units of language can be published to produce meaningful messages
What is language?
A system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and convey meaning
What are phonemes?
The smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than as random noise
What do phonological rules indicate?
How phonemes can be combined to produce speech sound
What are morphemes?
The smallest meaningful units of language
What do morphological rules indicate?
How morphemes can be combined to form words
What is the difference between content morphemes and function morphemes?
Content morphemes that referred to things and events and function morphemes serve grammatical functions such as conjunctions, articles, and prepositions.
What are syntactical rules?
Rules that indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences
What does deep structure referred to?
The meaning of a sentence
What does surface structure referred to?
How a sentence is worded
What is fast mapping?
In which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure
What is telegraphic speech?
Two word sentences – devoid of function morphemes and consist mostly of content words such as more milk or throw ball
What is B. F. Skinners behaviorist explanation of language learning?
According to skinner, we learn to talk in the same way we learn any other skill: through reinforcement, shaping, extinction, and the other basic principles of operant conditioning
What is the nativist theory that Chomsky argues with?
The theory holds that language development is best explained as an innate, biological capacity. It’s argued that language learning capacities are built in to the human brain and are separate from general intelligence
Genetic dysphasia is a condition that is…
A syndrome characterized by an inability to learn the grammatical structure of language despite having otherwise normal intelligence
