Exam 1 Review Flashcards
Arbitrariness of language
the relationship between speech sounds and the words they refer to has no natural reason
creativity of language
each language has an infinite combination of sentences
displacement
spatial or temporal; talk about something that is not present
sound symbolism
words that imitate the sounds associated with the actions or objects they refer to
descriptive grammar
true model of mental grammar of native speakers
prescriptive grammar
“proper” grammar
Kanzi
learned 200 symbols (slower than children) but created word order rules or used fixed formulas
Nim Chimpsky
learned 125 ASL signs, created different sign sequences but with no rules
Alex the parrot
Rico the border collie
linguistic determinism theory
language determines how you perceive the world, more words for snow means you see different types
morpheme
smallest unit of linguistic meaning or grammatical function
free morpheme
can be words by themselves
bound morpheme
must be affixed to another morpheme
root
smallest word, no affixes
stem
root + affix
affix
bound morphemes used to create new words
types of affixes
prefix, infix, suffix, circumfix
derivational morphemes
change part of speech or meaning
inflectional morphemes
solely grammatical, no change to meaning or part of speech
allomorph
same meaning, but different sound or spelling
affixation
compounding
joins together two previously existing words
blending
joining only parts of existing words
back-formation
new word from subtracting an affix
acronyms
initials of several words
abbreviations
shortening existing words
eponyms
words derived from proper names
reduplication
doubling an entire free morpheme or part of it
birdsong similarities to humans
have regional dialects, are passed down in families, and can only be acquired up to a certain age
differences in ape and human language
in apes: variable acquisition, copying, repeating signs, no babbling
