Curzan and Adams Chapter 1

Question 1

metathesis

Answer 1

a systematic process of sound change; involves the reversal, or switching places, of two sounds

Question 2

human language

Answer 2

a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning

Question 3

signifier

Answer 3

the linguistic form; the string of sounds

Question 4

signified

Answer 4

the concept to which the signifier refers (be that a real-world object or an abstract idea)

Question 5

linguistic sign

Answer 5

the relationship of the signifier and the signified; a meaningful word

Question 6

langue

Answer 6

the underlying abstract system of language; the signs and their relationships to one another both in the lexicon and combined into sentences

Question 7

parole

Answer 7

actual speech that speakers produce

Question 8

linguistic competence

Answer 8

a speaker’s knowledge of the grammatical rules that govern his or her language; the mental rules that explain our ability to construct grammatical utterances

Question 9

linguistic performance

Answer 9

a speaker’s realization of grammatical rules in his or her speech

Question 10

recursion

Answer 10

the capacity of language to embed an infinite number of elements into its grammatical structures

Question 11

grammatical (linguistic)

Answer 11

all language constructions that conform to the systematic rules of a language and are, therefore, comprehensible to another speaker of the language

Question 12

grammatical (general)

Answer 12

sentences that conform to rules in grammar or usage books for how we should write

Question 13

grammar (linguistic)

Answer 13

the structure and rules governing a language at the level of sound, word formation, syntax, and semantics

Question 14

linguistics

Answer 14

the principled study of language as a system

Question 15

phonology

Answer 15

the study of sound systems and sound change, usually within a particular language

Question 16

phonetics

Answer 16

the description and classification of sounds more generally and the study of their production and perception

Question 17

morphology

Answer 17

the study of how words form

Question 18

semantics

Answer 18

the study of meaning, the relationship between linguistic signs and the things or ideas they represent

Question 19

syntax

Answer 19

the structure of phrases, clauses, and sentences

Question 20

pragmatics/discourse analysis

Answer 20

explain how we manage to communicate with language

Question 21

stylistics

Answer 21

the study of language as it is used in written contexts, usually literary, but including courtroom rhetoric, political speeches, journalism, poetry, novels, and graffiti

Question 22

sociolinguistics

Answer 22

the study of language in use more generally, including the study of language variation by region or by socioeconomic status, gender, race, age, or other category

Question 23

applied linguistics

Answer 23

encompasses all applications of linguistic theory to real world problems including areas such as language policy, language education, language acquisition and loss, speech pathology, lexicography, and discourse analysis

Question 24

historical linguistics

Answer 24

study of processes of language change and their results

Question 25

diachronically

Answer 25

historically

Question 26

synchronically

Answer 26

present

Question 27

psycholinguistics

Answer 27

the ways in which we acquire and understand language

Question 28

theory of mind

Answer 28

understanding of our own and others’ full range of mental states, including beliefs, desires, and intentions

Question 29

displacement

Answer 29

the ability to project forward and backward in time

Question 30

reflexes

Answer 30

word descended from an etymon

Question 31

cognates

Answer 31

words or languages that are related to each other through a shared ancestor word or language

Question 32

etymon

Answer 32

parent word from a parent language; ancestor of reflexes

Question 33

Grimm’s law

Answer 33

the observation that certain Indo-European consonants (mainly stops) undergo regular changes in the Germanic languages that are not seen in non-Germanic languages such as Greek or Latin

Question 34

proto-language

Answer 34

a language for which we have no written evidence, but which we can infer from comparison of its descendents and development of the laws according to which its sounds and word-forms changed

Question 35

internal factors

Answer 35

those inherent to the structure, especially the sound structure of the language

Question 36

social factors

Answer 36

those that depend on the behavior of speech communities

Question 37

cognitive factors

Answer 37

those that depend on our comprehension of the language and on our mind’s language processes