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Linguistics > Exam 1 > Flashcards

Exam 1 Flashcards

1
Q

Language

A

One of many cognitive abilities made possible by our minds

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2
Q

What does it mean when we say the mind is structured?

A

They mean each cognitive ability works in a very specific way

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3
Q

What is structure?

A

It is a constraint and limitation

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4
Q

What is the language faculty

A

Way of referring to all of the cognitive abilities abilities that give rise to language in humans. But more specifically it is a set of abilities that allow us to convert from physical signals like sound or visual signs to thoughts!

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5
Q

During comprehension…

A

The language faculty turns speech sounds (or signs in sign language) into complex meanings

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6
Q

During productions..

A

The language faculty turns complex meanings into motor commands for the vocal tract or hands in sign language

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7
Q

Phoneme

A

The smallest segment of speech that leads to a meaningful difference between words

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8
Q

Cognitive test for phonemes

A

If the changed sound leads to a different word, then the two sounds are both distinct phonemes in the language! (Rake lake, l and r are different phonemes )

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9
Q

What’s the problem with the alphabet?

A

There is no one to one relationship between symbols (letters) and phonemes

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10
Q

Sound

A

Is a wave that travels through the air. This means that a sound wave is a disturbance in air pressure

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11
Q

Sound waves

A

Are longitudinal waves meaning the oscillation moves in the same direction as the disturbance

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12
Q

Waves in the ocean

A

Are transverse waves, meaning the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction the disturbance is moving

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13
Q

Properties of waves

A

Amplitude and frequency

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14
Q

Amplitude

A

Measure of force applied to an area of air during compression. It’s effect is change in loudness

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15
Q

Frequency

A

Measure of number of compression cycles that a wave completed in a given unit of time. Effect is change in pitch

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16
Q

Do amplitude and frequency affect phonemes?

A

No

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17
Q

Two components to your voice

A

Vocal folds and vocal tract

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18
Q

Vocal tract

A

Acts as a filter to the sound created by your vocal folds. The shape of your oral cavity and pharynx directly affect the properties of the sound

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19
Q

Vocal folds

A

Are the source of your sound

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20
Q

The mind

A

A set of cognitive abilities, perception memory language emotions free will decision making etc

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21
Q

Fundamental frequency

A

The lowest frequency generated by a sound source. For your voice this is the basic pitch that you hear

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22
Q

Harmonics

A

The additional frequencies that are created by the source. There is one harmonic at each integer multiple of the F0.

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23
Q

Property of your voice: frequencies

A

Your vocal folds create a large set of frequencies simultaneously

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24
Q

Filtering by your vocal tract

A

The shape of your vocal tract changes the amplitude of the frequencies created by your vocal folds.

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25
Q

The difference between phonemes

A

Is the difference in the pattern of frequencies that are created by the filtering properties of the vocal tract

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26
Q

Formants

A

The highest amplitude peaks in the frequency spectrum created by the human vocal tract (after filtering)

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27
Q

Can you hear the different frequencies in speech? (Formats)

A

No

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28
Q

Formants are a great example of structure in the human mind

A

You can’t hear the distinct formants in speech.

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29
Q

The properties of the vocal cords (source)

A

Frequency and amplitude, are not critical to speech sounds

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30
Q

Properties of the vocal tract (the filter) are critical?

A

Yes

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31
Q

Sine wave speech

A

Isolating just the formants in speech. Somewhat unintelligible

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32
Q

Ipa

A

Set of symbols to represent each phoneme

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33
Q

Are formants different for different phonemes?

A

Yes

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34
Q

Representation

A

Object that stands in a symbolic relationship with another object

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35
Q

Mental representation

A

A representation made by your mind, how you interact with the world, created by your mind through your sensory systems

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36
Q

When you hear a sound…

A

You are perceiving the minds representation of the air vibrations based in the workings of the hearing system

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37
Q

The McGurk effect

A

Suggests we fuse audio and visual info during the perception of speech

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38
Q

Articulatory features

A

Property of a phoneme that is related to the way it is produced

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39
Q

Another way to think about phonemes is as

A

Gross motor commands, each phoneme may have several articulatory features, especially if it takes several different simultaneous motor commands to produce a given phoneme

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40
Q

Articulatory features are used to

A

Identify and describe a phoneme

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41
Q

Articulatory features of vowels

A

Height: is the tongue high or low
Backness: is the tongue forward or back

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42
Q

Monopthongs

A

Fancy word for single vowels

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43
Q

Diphthongs

A

Double vowel, a vowel that starts with the tongue in one location in the mouth and ends with it in a second location. Done quickly so it only takes up the place of a single vowel

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44
Q

Articulatory features of consonants

A

Place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing

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45
Q

Place of articulation

A

Where in the vocal tract is the airflow being obstructed?

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46
Q

Manner of articulation

A

How is the airflow being obstructed?

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47
Q

Voicing

A

Are the vocal cords vibrating during this obstruction or not?

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48
Q

Manners of articulation

A

Stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, laterals, approximants

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49
Q

Stops

A

The airflow is completely obstructed BPTDGK

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50
Q

Nasals

A

The airflow is diverted to the nasal cavity NM

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51
Q

Fricatives

A

The airflow is disturbed but not completely stopped FVThSh

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52
Q

Affricates

A

A stop plus a fricative Ch J

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53
Q

Laterals

A

The tongue blocks the air but air escapes around the sides L

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54
Q

Approximants

A

Not much obstruction, similar to vowels RY

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55
Q

Do the vocal cords have to vibrate to create necessary frequency for vowels?

A

Yes

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56
Q

Consonants

A

Obstructions to airflow. Can be voiced or voiceless

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57
Q

Voiced

A

Let the vocal cords vibrate during the obstruction

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58
Q

Voiceless

A

Stop the vocal cords from vibration during the obstruction

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59
Q

Language is actually

A

A sequence of phonemes

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60
Q

Not every sound can appear next to any other sound…

A

There are patterns in the sequences that we use

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61
Q

Gap in the paradigm

A

Tr cannot be put at the beginning of a syllable

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62
Q

Another gap in the paradigm

A

You will never find a plural s after a voiced consonant. And you will never find a plural z after a voiceless consonant

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63
Q

Phonological theory

A

Study of the patterns of sequences of sounds in language in phonology

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64
Q

Three components that build the theory of phonology

A

An underlying representation
A surface representation
A rule that maps from underlying representation to the surface representation

65
Q

Give surface, rule and underlying for tree

A

Surface: chree
Rule: if an “r” follows a “t” change the “t” into a “ch”
Underlying: tree

66
Q

Ipa symbols represents

A

A cluster of articulatory features

67
Q

T articulatory features

A

Voiceless, alveolar, stop

68
Q

B articulatory features

A

Voiced, bilabial, stop

69
Q

Theta articulatory features

A

Voiceless, interdental, fricative

70
Q

I articulatory features

A

High, front

71
Q

U articulatory features

A

High, back

72
Q

First step in converting rules to articulatory features

A

Convert our rules from English orthography to IPA symbols. Then we can look up the symbols in our charts

73
Q

Flap (D)

A

This consonant that appears in writer and rider

74
Q

Rule for flap D?

A

Surface: wriDer riDer
Rule: if an er follows a t or d, they change into a D
Intermediate: writer ri:der
Rule: if a vowel is before d make it longer
Underlying: writer rider

75
Q

What’s the surface difference between writer and rider that makes us hear the t/d instead of D?

A

Difference in the length of time that the vowel is pronounced. Writer is shorter. Ri:der is longer

76
Q

Morphology

A

The relationship between the meaning and shape of words. By shape we mean the sequence of phonemes that make up the word. This is the study of the shape of words

77
Q

How many meanings does unlock able have?

A

2, can’t be locked or can be unlocked

78
Q

Words that that have the form un-x- able, where x is reversible

A

Seems to have two meanings

79
Q

Compositional

A

The meaning of a string is compositional if the meaning can be derived from the independent meanings of the parts ( if the meanings are composed of the meanings of the smaller parts) ex undoable

80
Q

Morpheme

A

The smallest unit of language that carries a distinct meaning

81
Q

Plural

A

The s in these words seem to mean something like multiple (desks pencils boots)

82
Q

Past tense

A

The ed in these words seems to mean something like in the past

83
Q

Pre (preset prepay prequalified)

A

Seem to mean something like before

84
Q

Word with single morpheme

A

One unit that carries meaning: the entire word itself

85
Q

Some words that contain two morphemes

A

Desks- s is a morpheme, desk is a morpheme

Preset- pre is a morpheme, set is a morpheme

86
Q

Free morphemes

A

Morphemes that can be a stand alone word

87
Q

Bound morphemes

A

Can only occur attached to a free morpheme

88
Q

Theory of morphology

A

Theory of the types of morphemes

89
Q

Affixes

A

A word used to refer to bound morphemes

90
Q

Prefix

A

A bound morpheme that appears before the free morpheme

91
Q

Suffix

A

A bound morpheme that appears after the free morpheme

92
Q

Infix

A

A bound morpheme that appears inside of a free morpheme

93
Q

Word stress

A

Extra acoustic prominence that we give certain syllables inside of words

94
Q

The fucking insertion rule

A

The word fucking can only be inserted in the position immediately before the primary stressed syllable

95
Q

Compound words

A

Words composed of two or more free morphemes

96
Q

Nobel compounds that I

A

Compounds made up on the fly
They tend to stress on the second word and have a fully compositional meaning. Also tend to have two means. Example cookie chair

97
Q

Lexicalized compounds

A

Compounds stored as complete units. Tend to stress first word and be written as single unit and have single meaning. Example teacup

98
Q

Ambiguity

A

A word is ambiguous if there is more than one possible meaning

99
Q

Hierarchical structure example

A

Complex words are compositional and the difference in structure leads to a difference in meaning
Ex un lockable
Unlock + able

100
Q

Hierarchical structure

A

Smaller units are combined to form larger units

101
Q

Trees

A

Used to demonstrate hierarchical structure. Two lines converge into a node that is labeled to show that they formed a new unit with certain properties

102
Q

Presence of morpheme in a multi morpheme word will..

A

Have systematic effects due to compositionality

103
Q

Semantics

A

Meaning

104
Q

Lexical semantics

A

Meaning of words

105
Q

Where is the meaning in speech signal?

A

There is no way to transmit meaning in an acoustic signal. We must have the meaning stored in our memory paired with sound

106
Q

3 human memory components

A

Sensory

107
Q

Long term components

A

Procedural (skills)

Declarative

108
Q

Declaritive memory components

A

Episodic (events)
Semantic (concepts)
Lexicon

109
Q

Lexicon

A

The section of long term memory dedicated to storing words

110
Q

The lexical decision task

A

Timing the retrieval of words

111
Q

Timing of word retrieval

A

How long it takes a person to decide whether the letters form a word or not

112
Q

The idea behind the lexical decision task

A

In order to say yes or no you need to access the stored word. This means that the task will engage in the processes necessary for lexical access

113
Q

Reaction time

A

Amount of time it takes to respond to a word

114
Q

Logic of reaction times

A

If two conditions in an experiment differ in reaction time, then the processes deployed during those conditions differ

115
Q

Frequency of occurrence

A

Of a word is the number of times that a word occurs

116
Q

Corpus

A

A collection of text that was written or spoken by people

117
Q

The frequency effect

A

High frequency words have faster lexical decision times and vice versa

118
Q

The advantage of frequency as an organising principle

A

Maximises efficiency. The most used are the easiest to retrieve

119
Q

Semantic network

A

The idea that words or concepts are connected based on their semantic relatedness

120
Q

Word association task

A

Say a word and say the first word in your head

121
Q

Spreading activation

A

Process by which nodes in the network activate nodes that they are connected to, at eac step activation decreases because the concept isn’t as strongly associated

122
Q

Semantic priming

A

Words that are semantically related to each other make each other faster during lexical decision

123
Q

2 organising principles of the lexicon

A

Frequency effect and semantic priming

124
Q

Prescriptive rules

A

These are rules that are prescribed by people who care about style. They are not rules for constructing sentences in your mind

125
Q

Syntactic rules

A

Rules for building sentences
They are in your mind, you use them every time you speak/hear a sentence
They are complex, they tell you where to put every single word in a sentence
These were never taught to you explicitly. You learned as a small child

126
Q

Syntax

A

The field that studies the structure of sentences

127
Q

Grammar/grammatical rules

A

A set of syntactical rules

128
Q

Prescriptive grammar

A

They are about style.

129
Q

Descriptive grammar

A

The rules that are actually in your mind. They are subconscious

130
Q

Three pieces of evidence that suggest that sentences are governed by syntactic rules

A

Word order matters
You understand novel sentences
Infinite number of sentences

131
Q

Word order matters

A

You know words in sentences need to go in a certain order. There are times that dictate exactly where each word must go in the sentence. If broken the sentence becomes ungrammatical

132
Q

You understand novel sentences

A

You can understand sentences you’ve never heard before which means sentences are not memorised

133
Q

Are morphemes memorised?

A

No because you can’t understand words you’ve never heard before

134
Q

Categories

A

Human mind takes advantage of the idea of categories to reduce the number of rules

135
Q

Two words that share the same syntactic category…

A

Can appear in the same position in a sentence

136
Q

Words in the same syntactic category

A

Words that can fit the same position. Example: nouns

137
Q

Syntactic categories

A

Bound, prepositions, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, complementizers, they reduce rules needed

138
Q

Items stored in the lexicon consist of…

A

A sound(phonetic representation)
Semantic( meaning) representation
Syntactic category

139
Q

Do sentences have hierarchical structure?

A

Yes. They can have the same set of words leading to two distinct meanings

140
Q

Structure building rules for syntax

A

Label the syntactic categories of words

Figure out which words combine together

141
Q

Phrase

A

When two or more words are combined together

142
Q

Head of phrase

A

Syntactic category that lends it’s name to the phrase. Ever my phrase has a head

143
Q

Head of the phrase is important because..

A

It determines the properties of the phrase

144
Q

Phrase structure rules

A

Structure building rules in syntax used to construct phrases from two or more words or phrases

145
Q

Components to theory of syntax

A

Syntactic category and phrase structure rules

146
Q

Principles and parameters theory

A

Theory used to solve paradoxes of linguistic variation

147
Q

Principles

A

General principles that govern the way languages work. These properties are shared by all human languages

148
Q

Parameters

A

A finite set of options or settings that determine how languages can vary

149
Q

Example of syntactic principle

A

Phrase structure. Phrases in all languages appear to have heads. All languages appear to combine words into phrases

150
Q

A phonetic principle. Articulatory features

A

All languages studied so far use Sen set of articulatory features to create phonemes

151
Q

Null subject parameter

A

In Spanish and Italian, if subject has already been discussed you can omit subject completely. In English and French you need the pronoun.
English/French always have a subject
Spanish/Italian omit known/weather subjects and subjects when subject is after verb

152
Q

Head parameter

A

Another important syntactic parameter. Determines whether heads come first in their phrases. (Head initial) or at the end (head final)

153
Q

English v Japanese

A

English has head parameter as head initial and Japanese has head parameter as head final

154
Q

English and Japanese: mirror images

A

Subjects are strange. They are always to the left in IPs

Ignoring subjects they are mirror images of each other

155
Q

First power of p and p

A

Ability to capture abstract universal properties of languages as principles

156
Q

Second power of p and p

A

Ability to capture large amounts of variation with very few parameters

157
Q

Do parameters capture all of the variation?

A

They are only intended to capture systematic variation

158
Q

Unsystematic variation

A

Like choice of phonemes and morphemes, require other mechanisms like memory to predict

Linguistics (2 decks)

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