English exam revision Flashcards

Question

Babbling stage

Answer 1

From around six to twelve months of age babies start to experiment with sounds. By this stage they have developed better motor control of their mouth, neck, head and lungs. They can also see better, meaning they can copy the faces of their caregivers. This all allows them to start practising mimicking sounds. Universally across languages, the informal words for parents or close family (ie mum, dad, mama, baba rather than father, and mother) are made up of the sounds that babies make in this stage.

Answer 2

From around 12 to 18 months of age, young children start to utter their first words. They start to connect these with meaning, rather than making random sounds. In this stage, children will use one word to mean many things. For example, they might say 'dog' to show you that they have seen a dog, or they might say 'dog' to get you to pass them their dog toy. They use one word to represent a whole phrase hence holophrastic.

Answer 3

Between 18 to 24 months, the toddler will start connecting two words together to from a greater meaning. By now the child has a better understanding of both syntax and semantics. In English, two word utterances usually develop as a noun + verb e.g ... 'mama look'.

Answer 4

Children enter this stage between 24 and 30 months. This stage is categorised by a combination of content words but the the omission of grammatical function words. For example, 'I want go park' vs 'I want to go to the park'.

Answer 5

From around 30 months onwards, children enters the multi-word stage. Children will start to use grammatical function words, their vocabulary increases and they are able to make more sophisticated word combination to express thoughts, requests and ask questions. Phrasing becomes more complex in this stage and will continue to develop into adulthood.

Answer 6

The theory that children are born with innate knowledge about the structure of language, which allows them to adopt any language. This innate grammar involves a set of language rules that are assumed to be universal, shared by all languages of the world.

Answer 7

Proposes that children acquire language through social interaction, in combination with their general cognitive skills; that they gain knowledge and skills by using language throughout their life; and that an important role is played by caregivers using infant- or child-directed speech.

Answer 8

The hypothesis that learning a new language in beginning of early childhood and ending around puberty. During this period the brain has a higher level of neuroplasticity (ability to change). Alter this time, learning grammar is more dificult.

Answer 9

Applying a grammatical pattern when it is not appropriate in adult language. When acquiring language, children tend to overgeneralise the morphological patterns for plurality (e.g. 'tooths' for 'teeth') and verb tense (e.g. 'runned' for 'ran').

Answer 10

The study of words and their parts. Each word consists of one or more morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning within a word

Answer 11

Free morphemes are indivisible and can stand alone as a word. Bound morphemes rely on a root or stem to be used in a word. Using the previous examples, 'cat' and 'break' are both free morphemes because they can stand alone, whereas '-s', 'un-' and '-ing' are all bound morphemes.

Answer 12

go before the root e.g DIS-interested

Answer 13

Go after the root e.g walk-ING

Answer 14

Goes inside the root e.g fan-BLODDY-tastic

Answer 15

Inflectional - -Grammatical function - no word class change - small or no meaning change - Often required by rules of grammar - follow derivational morphemes in a word -productive derivational - -lexical function - may cause work class change - some meaning change - never required by rules of grammar - precede inflectional morphemes in a word - some productive, many non- productive

Answer 16

- Usually begins with a determiner (this, the, that, a, my) - Usually has a noun or pronoun as the head word - Plays the role of a subject (what is modified by the predicate), object (receiver of the action) or can be complement (to modify a subject or object) in a clause. - You can identify a noun phrase with a substitution test- replace the whole phrase with something you know to be a noun or pronoun. e.g- The happy mouse ate the cheese,

Answer 17

- The part of the sentence that contains the main verbs, other verbs and their dependents (direct and/or indirect objects) - The head work is the main verb of the clause - Plays the role of the predicator and sometimes the whole predicate - Only one verb phrase can exist per clause - You can identify a verb phrase with a substitution test- replace the whole phrase with something you know to be a verb. e.g- I ate a potato cake.

Answer 18

- The head word is an adverb - Plays the role of an adverbial in a sentence, giving info about place, time, frequency, manner or degree. - Do not include the subject and verb as part of adverb phrase - Multiple adverbs can be found in each sentence or clause - You can identify an adverb phrase with an omission test - remove the adverb phrase and see if the sentence still makes sense. e.g- I ate the potato cake very quickly.

Answer 19

- An adjective phrase is a group of words headed by an adjective that describes a noun or a pronoun. - They can occur either before or after a noun (predicative or altributive adjectives). - Plays the role of the predicate complement (sometimes referred to as either the subject or object complement) - Multiple adjective phrases can be found in a single sentence - Includes the pre-modifier (words that come before the head word and modify it in some way) You can identify an adjective phrase with a substitution test - replace the whole phrase with something you know to be an adjective e.g- I wore a bright pink fluffy jumper.

Answer 20

The person or thing the sentence is about

Answer 21

What is written or said about the subject

Answer 22

The indirect object is the noun phrase that is indirectly affected by the verb. In the example above, it's the recipient 'Mary'. Normally, when an indirect object comes after a direct object, it is introduced using 'for' or 'to', such as in the sentences 'The teacher wrote a test for her class' and 'I gave a gift to my mum'.

Answer 23

The direct object is the noun phrase that is directly affected by the verb. In the example above, this is 'the book', because it’s the book that is moving from one person to the other.

Answer 24

Adverbials provide extra information about a verb. They often say where, when, how, or how often something occurs. The cat was purring [on my lap.] The train will arrive [in the morning.] She performed [poorly.]

Answer 25

A complement is a word or set of words that is necessary to complete the meaning of a subject or a predicate. They are essential to understanding; if the complement is removed, the sentence will no longer make sense.

Answer 26

e.g- when, how, if

Answer 27

A clause that can stand alone as a sentence. e.g- I like cake.

Answer 28

e.g- and, or

Answer 29

- Sentences that contain one clause and one predicate - E.g they danced all day long. - Often used to make important points or to make info very clear

Answer 30

- Sentences that contain two or more main clauses - Clauses are joined with a coorinating conjunction (FANBOYS) - E.g the horses black AND it runs very quickly. - used to connect pieces of info that are equivalent. - can create a story- telling quality - A repeated subject can be elliptic or replaced with a pronoun.

Answer 31

- contains one independent/main clause and one or more dependant/subordinate clause - E.g when Johnny goes shopping (dependent), he buys lots of corn (independent). - Clauses are typically connected by a subordinating conjunction. - Subordinate clause provide extra info about the main clause - this is why they are dependent on the clause to make grammatical sense.

Answer 32

- Contains two or more independent/ main clauses and one or more dependent/ subordinate clauses. - That means at least three clauses. - Should contain at least one coordinating conjunction and at least one subording conjunction - E.g - when (subording conjunction) Johnny goes shopping, he buys a lot of corn but he doesn't buy meat because (subording conjunction) he's vegetarian. - E.g - Cordelia likes to dance and [she likes to] play to flute, however (subording conjunction) she's not very good at either.

Answer 33

These are sometimes called helping verbs because they help express the main verbs tense, mood or voice. (e.g- be, are, was, do, does, have, had, were, been).

Answer 34

Words like can, should, would, may, might, must, shall, will and could.

Answer 35

Adverbs are lexemes that modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs and sentences. e.g- lots, little, barely, far, least, nearly, fully, extremely, really, enough, somewhat and rather.

Answer 36

Prepositions are a word that shows the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and some other word or element in the rest of the sentence.

Answer 37

Conjunctions link words, phrases, clauses and sentences together. e.g- 'for', 'and', 'nor', 'but', 'or', 'yet' and 'so'.

Answer 38

A subordinator links clauses and sentences to each other in a way that demonstrates a parent-child relationship. The 'parent' sentence is referred to as the independent clause, and the 'child' sentence as the dependent clause. E.g- after, before, than, whereas, because, although, as, even though, if, until, when and though

Answer 39

A word placed before a noun to provide information such as quantity, ownership and specificy. (e.g- a, this, your)

Answer 40

expresses feelings and emotions E.g- Oh my!

Answer 41

Pronouns are words that we use in place of nouns (or other pronouns) in a sentence to make it less repetitive and less awkward.

Answer 42

Identifies places, people and things; or names qualities, ideas or concepts.

Answer 43

often verbs are seen as 'doing words'. A more accurate definition is that words express actions and states of being.

Answer 44

semantic field refers to a set of lexemes that are semantically related. E.g- lexemes in the semantic field of 'talents' might include: singing, dancing, tight-rope walking, juggling, speed-reading.

Answer 45

"An inference is a conclusion that has been reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning." - Linked to situational context (function, field, mode, setting, relationship) - Linked to cultural context (unspoken rules and background knowledge) Consider this sentence: Speaker A: Is grace home yet? Speaker B: The volleyball championship is tonight.

Answer 46

- Express a command - typically omit a 2nd person pronoun e.g- (you) eat your dinner

Answer 47

- asks a question -typically starts with a interrogative pronoun and inverts the subject -verb order -typically ends with a question mark - e.g- how colourful are the balloons?

Answer 48

- typically employs on interjection or starts with 'how' or 'what' - can end with an exclamation (but not always) - e.g- wow, what a great idea!

Answer 49

- make a statement - standard word order - e.g- the boy ate his dinner