conceptual categories

Question 1

A conceptual category

Answer 1

is a specific element of meaning that speakers of a language pay special attention to grammatically.

For example:
- number is a conceptual category in English
- time is a conceptual category in English

Question 2

Conceptual categories (morphologically)

Answer 2

regular modification to the shape of words to express a conceptual category.

For example:
number- crocodile/crocodiles
past tense - call/called
Genitive - Donald Duck/ Donald Duck’s

Question 3

Conceptual categories (syntactically)

Answer 3

combining words or arranging them in a particular order to express a conceptual category.

For example:
A tugboat towed a barge. A barge towed a tugboat.
more awkward - comparative
most awkward - superlative
Let’s go! - 1st person imperative

Question 4

Conceptual categories (lexically)

Answer 4

the use of an unpredictable lexical form to express a conceptual category.
For example: strong and weak suppletion

Question 5

Strong Suppletion

Answer 5

singular: person

plural: people

present: go

past: went

Question 6

weak suppletion

Answer 6

singular: goose

plural: geese

present: buy

past: bought

Question 7

Isomorphism

Answer 7

singular: sheep

plural: sheep

present: cut

past: cut

Question 8

The mental lexicon

Answer 8

the dictionary of a language stored in the speaker’s memory, typically understood as a collection of lexical entries/lexemes.

• anything lexical that can’t be figured out by means of rules

For example: compounds (dog-eat-dog), idioms (a shot in the dark)

Question 9

What is not stored in the mental lexicon?

Answer 9

forms of lexemes produced through the application of rules:

past (walked), plural (pigeons), Genitive (donald duck’s)

Question 10

How does an item become a part of the mental lexicon?

Answer 10

• high frequency of an item leads to lexicalization
• new items can enter the lexicon via coinage, borrowing, compounding, clipping etc

Question 11

(full lexical words) nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Answer 11

• larger in form
• belong to open classes
• have broad and rich meanings
  -take primary stress

Question 12

(grammatical functors) pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries, conjunctions, determiners, affixes

Answer 12

• smaller in form
• occur in relatively closed classes
• have a very narrow specific meaning
• usually unstressed