Exam 1 Flashcards
Action vs. linking verbs
Action: run, forget, make, knead
Linking: be, resemble, seem, become
-Test: Can you replace with = or a form of be? Ex: It tastes bitter; It = bitter; It is bitter.
Count vs. noncount nouns
Count: chair, apple, fan, idea
-can be pluralized, precedes by numerals, preceded by “every” or “each”
Noncount: algebra, rice, jewelry, sand, terrorism
-cannot be pluralized/preceded by numerals
Copula
Form of be (am, is, are, was, were) functioning as a linking verb.
-She is tired.
Transitive vs. intransitive
Action verbs only. Transitive takes an object (ask ____ who/what?); intransitive doesn’t.
- Transitive: I drove the new car.
- Intransitive: I drove on Monday.
Determiners
Occur before nouns. 4 types: articles, possessives, demonstratives, and quantifiers.
Articles
A, an, & the.
- Indefinite articles: a & an
- Definite article: the
Demonstratives
This, that, these, & those.
Possessives
Indicate ownership/belonging.
- Possessive pronouns: my, your, his, her, its, ours, their
- Possessive proper nouns: Bob’s, Italy’s
Quantifiers
All, any, both, each, either, enough, every, few, little, most, much, neither, no, several, some.
Prepositions
Tell about direction/location/time.
- Ex: about, to, at, before, above, since, toward, until
- Test: I walked ______ the table; It happened ______ that time.
Semanticity
Words have meanings.
Arbitrariness
There is no logical connection b/w the form of a word and the thing it refers to.
Discreteness
Messages in the system are made up of smaller, repeatable parts rather than indivisible units.
-Ex: Words break down into units of sound
Displacement
The language user can talk about things that are not present.
Productivity
Language users can understand & create never-before-heard utterances.
-Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Phonetics
The inventory of sounds in a language
Phonology
Rules of how sounds are combined in a language
Morphology
Rules of word formation in a language
Syntax
Rules of sentence formation in a language
Semantics
Rules that govern how meaning is expressed by words and sentences in a language
Descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar
- Descriptive: based on what people say
- Prescriptive: prescribed by a language authority
Lexicon
Our mental dictionary; stores information about words and the lexical rules that we use to build them.
Morpheme
Smallest unit of meaning in a word
Etymology
Historical origin of a word
