Chapter One - Metalanguage Review Flashcards
Phonetics
Study of how we make speech sounds and how we organise these sounds
Phonology
Study of the patterns that speech sounds form within a language
Morphology
Study of words and their parts
Morpheme
Smallest units of meaning within a word
Lexicology
Study of words and how they behave within a language
Syntax
Study of how words are ordered into phrases, clauses and sentences
Discourse
Written or spoken texts that are longer than a sentence
Pragmatics
Study of how language is used within a given context, and how context contributes to meaning
Semantics
Study of understanding and meaning in communication, including both logical meaning and lexical meaning
Connected speech processes
Assimilation, vowel reduction, elision and insertion
Assimilation
Speech sounds change to be more like neighbouring sounds.
How does assimilation occur?
Change of place of articulation, manner of articulation or voicing
What is an example of assimilation?
‘handbag’ is often pronounced as ‘hambag’ where the /n/ sound assimilates to the following /b/ sound by becoming a bilabial nasal /m/
Vowel Reduction
In unstressed syllables, vowels become less distinct and are reduced to a more central vowel, typically a schwa.
What is an example of vowel reduction?
The vowel sound in the first syllable of ‘banana’ is reduced - not pronounced with the same quality as the stressed vowel in the second syllable.
Elision
Omission of a sound or syllable in spoken language, such as the contraction of phrases.
Examples of elision
‘I have’ is contracted to ‘I’ve’ in speech with the elision of the ‘h’ and ‘a’ sounds
Insertion
Addition of sounds for ease of pronunciation
What is an example of elision?
‘warmth’ often has an extra /p/ sounds making it sound like ‘warmpth’
Prosodic Features of speech
Elements of our voices that affect whole sequences of syllables
Pitch, intonation, volume, tempo and stress
Pitch
Relative height, ranging between high and low of auditory sound
Intonation
Patterns of pitch variation across phrases, clauses and sentences
Stress
Intensity placed upon a syllable within a word. Increase length, volume of pitch of a syllable compared to others to create emphasis
Tempo
Relates to the pace with which an intonation unit is delivered
Volume
Relative increase or decrease in decibels across an intonation unit
Increasing volume on a single syllable can create stress.
The international phonetic alphabet
System of symbols used to represent the sounds in human speech
What are morphological patterns?
Word formation processes
What is affixation (with an example)?
Use of affixes (including either prefixes or suffixes) to create
neologisms. An example includes ‘government’ from ‘govern’ with the suffix ‘-ment’.
What are abbreviations (with an example)?
Abbreviations are shortened forms of words or phrases.
They can include shortenings, initialisms
and acronyms.
An example includes ‘VCAA’, where ‘V’ is said as a letter and CAA is pronounced ‘car’.
What are shortenings (with an example)?
A shortening is the abbreviation of a word by reducing its length. Examples include ‘pram’ from
‘perambulator’ and ‘all caps’, where ‘caps’ is a shortening of ‘capitals’.
What is compounding?
Compounding is the process of joining two or more whole words to create a single word. Examples include ‘bookcase’ and ‘swimsuit’. Some compounds are hyphenated, such as ‘sister-in-law’.
What is Blending?
Blending refers to the process of combining two or more words, where at least one word has undergone a form of abbreviation before being joined. An example includes ‘kidult’ (kid + adult).
What is Backformation?
Backformation is the process of creating a new word by removing what is falsely perceived to be an affix from an existing word. An example includes ‘televise’, which was backformed from ‘television’.
What is Conversion?
Conversion of word class involves changing the class or role of a word, without changing its morphology. An example includes ‘email’, which was once only a noun but it now also a verb.
What are initialisms?
Formed by taking the first letters of words in a string of words and pronouncing them as letters or a combination of letters and other symbols. The initialism cannot be pronounced as a whole word. An example includes ‘VCE’.
What is an acronym?
Formed by taking the first letter of each word in a string of words and pronouncing them as a new word. Examples include ‘ANZAC’ and ‘lol’.
What is a contraction?
A contraction is word formed by removing some letters from words and marking the missing letter/s with an apostrophe. Examples include ‘she’s’ and ‘it’s’.
Word Classes
Categorized based on how a word behaves grammatically
Nouns
Words that name places, people, things, qualities, ideas or concepts
Pronouns
Pronouns replace nouns and noun phrases within a sentence.
Verbs
Verbs express actions, states or occurrences. Verbs can take on inflectional morphemes such as the suffixes ‘-ed’ and ‘-ing’ to indicate past and present tense. Future tense is not marked by inflecting a verb in English; instead, the modal auxiliary verb ‘will’ is often used to provide information about future tense
Auxiliary Verbs
Two types: primary and auxiliary
Supports the main verb of the sentence
Primary Auxiliary Verbs
Construct tenses that cannot be conveyed by inflectional morphemes on the main verb alone to show expression of time, continuity or completion of an action.
be, have, do
Modal Auxiliary Verbs
Express possibility, ability, intent, obligation or necessity
Can, could, will, would, should, shall, may, might, must, ought.
Adjectives
Describe or modify nouns and pronouns, providing more information about them. Indicate qualities
Adverbs
Modify verbs, adjectives
