Final

Question 1

What does “prescriptivist” mean?

Answer 1

There is one correct grammar
Everyone should speak the language in the same, “proper” way
There are rules that people should follow (prescribed)
Often based in latin or other languages
eg: no split infinitives, no prepositions at the end of sentences

Question 2

What does descriptivist mean?

Answer 2

There are correct grammarS
language is constantly changing, people speak/write according to their context

Question 3

What is the role of linguistics?

Answer 3

-to describe variations (dialects) that exist for specific reasons and purposes
-understanding the differences uncovers those purposes

Question 4

What is code switching?

Answer 4

Changing your grammar (consciously or subconsciously) to fit in

Question 5

What are linguistic semantics?

Answer 5

study of what words mean
Philosophy of language
Words mean something but are themselves nothing (signifier0 figner pointing at the moon, signified- the moon)
Words can mean different things at the same time
Different aprroaches to studying meaning and how we choose content words
May be literal meanings or underlying meanings (read between the lines)
How combinations of words convey meaning
How parts of a sentence work together

Question 6

What is the topic of a sentence?

Answer 6

What the sentence is about
It is not always the subject
often first part of the sentence
When it is changed it is called a marked form
Topic: gives clues to the reader/listener
-this is what’s important
-this is what I’ll talk about next

Question 7

What are thematic roles?

Answer 7

Agent- caused the action
Patient- is changed by the action (degrees of being a patient strong-weak)
Benefactive- receives something from another’s actions
Theme- undergo acts but are not changed by them

Question 8

What are spatial roles?

Answer 8

Goal: destination point of the action
Locative: gives the static location of an action (usually in relation to something else, probably not in relation to you (deixis= [prepositions])
Directional: gives the direction that an action takes (implies movement action is currently happening)

Question 9

What type of event is the verb in a sentence?

Answer 9

Material: indicates an action
Existential: something being or existing
Mental: thought processes or how we process info in our brains, how our senses interpret things we take in sensory
Verbal: how we interpret what someone is saying

Question 10

What relationship to time (tense) is the verb

Answer 10

Present
-no affixes

Past
-ed, irregular forms (other ways to express time: auxillary +form of content verb)

Future (modal)

Present/past/future perfect
-to have + participle (past/present/future)

Present/past/future continuous
-to be + present participle

Question 11

What words show time in sentences?

Answer 11

-Verbs are the main way to express time
-Adverbs and Adverbials- Today, tomorrow, last year, next month, etc (modify a verb- adverb, adverbials- modify a verb but have multiple words)
-Participles- form of a verb that’s used as either an adjective or a part of another verb tense

Question 12

What is realis

Answer 12

Degrees of certainty (indicative mood)

Question 13

What is irrealis

Answer 13

Degrees of uncertainty (subjunctive mood +)

Question 14

Which words in a sentence express irrealis

Answer 14

irrealis is expressed in English through Modal verbs, advers, neation
Modal verbs: modify the content verb/ modal + bare infinitive
Adverbs: degree of certainty
Negation: requires a modal or auxillary with verbs/can be done with morphology or adverb

Question 15

Why is future not really a tense?

Answer 15

because we can’t know the future
so any discussions of the future cannot be certain
the future by definition is irrealis

Question 16

What is implicature?

Answer 16

Pragmatics- the speaker’s intentions; the meaning the speaker intended to convey
Semantics- the meaning of words; the many ways words convey meaning
H Paul Grice
Assumptions underlying all language exchanges
Conversation is oriented to these assumptions
-inferences based on what is said and assumptions
Implicate: convey meaning indirectly
Implicature: how we can understand people when they speak indirectly (The cooperative principle)
Cooperative Principle
Four Maxims: the maxim of quality, quantity, relevance and manner

Question 17

What are the Four Maxims in the Cooperative Principle

Answer 17

Maxim of Quality: speak truthfully, specifically
-do not say what you believe to be false
-do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
Maxim of Quantity:
-make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange
-do not make your contribution more informative than is required
Maxim of Relevance
-make your contribution relevant to the topic and not giving info that is not needed
Maxim of Manner: express yourself clearly and specifically,
-avoid obscurity (being purposefully confusing)
-avoid ambiguity (vagueness)
-be brief
-be orderly

Question 18

What are minimal pairs?

Answer 18

Words that differ by only one sound in the same position for each word
Pin & Bin
Nip & Nib
There are literally thousands of minimal pairs.
Here are more examples; what are the sounds being compared in each?
Sit & Seat
Hat & Cat
Hat & Chat
Know & Now
Back & Bag
Sea & She
Thin & Thing
With & Whizz
Lithely & Lively
Coffee & Copy
These are useful for understanding the differences in how letters are pronounced. That means they do not have to have the same spelling – you are comparing the sound, not the spelling.

Question 19

What are dipthongs?

Answer 19

2 vowels together as 1 vowel
“long” vowels
spy, cow, low, toy

Question 20

What is Canadian raising?

Answer 20

Vowel Shift on dipthongs /ay/ and /aw/ before voiceless obstruents: p, t, k, s, f

Use phonology to explain a phenomenon that happens in certain accents and use shape of the mouth to talk about it (where tongue goes and where sound comes from)

Phonological processes that affects the pronounciations of dipthongs

Onsets of the dipthongs /ay/ and /aw/ are raised to mid vowels when they come before voiceless consonants (tongue is raised closer to the roof of the mouth and the mouth is more closed)
Hypothesized to be a remnant of the Great Vowel Shift

Question 21

What is a schwa?

Answer 21

a schwa (ə)
mid-central vowel sound in spoken languages represented by (ə). It’s a neutral vowel that occurs in unstressed syllables, such as the “a” in “about” or “e” in “moment”

Question 22

What is a morpheme?

Answer 22

Free and bound
Free: basically the same as “word”
2 types: lexical – carries the message; content words
Functional- relationship of lexical; function words
Bound: cannot stand on their own- must be attached to a root (free) morpheme
Affixes:
-suffix: after the root
-prefix: before the rooth
3 types:
-derivational- change the form or meaning of a word
-changes the part of speech
-usually a suffix “ adding “ly” to the adjective “sudden” changes it to an adverb
-common derivational suffixes and some prefixes
* VerbNoun: -ment, -ance, -er, -ation, -ent, -ee, -ism, -age, -ive
* NounVerb: -ize, -ify, en-
* AdjectiveNoun: -ness, -cy
* VerbAdjective: -able, -esque, -ful, a-
* AdjectiveVerb: -en, -ory, be-
* NounAdjective: -al, -ar, -ic, -id, -ize
* Derivational – meaning
* Changes the lexical meaning
* Almost always a prefix
* Common derivational prefixes
* Changes positive to negative: A-, ante-, anti-, de-, dis-, ex-, il-, im-, in-, ir-, non-, un-, with-
* Other changes in meaning: Ambi-, auto-, bi-, circum-, di-, eco-, geo-, hyper-, intra-, maxi-, meta-, midi-, neo-, pan-, poly-, pro-, re-, semi-, sur-, trans-, tri-
-inflectional- change the grammar of a word but not the form or meaning
-doesn’t change part of speech or content meaning
-adds a grammatical element
-always suffix
-Very few:
* -s/-es: 3rd person sing (verb) or plural (noun)
* -ed: regular past & past participle
* -en: irregular past participle
* -ing: present participle
* -er: comparative
* -est: superlative
* -’s: possessive

Question 23

What is an agglutinative language?

Answer 23

Lexical free morphemes more likely to be agglutinative (attached to other morphemes
Functional free morphemes more likely to stand alone
Adding free and bound morphemes to a root to create compound ideas
Modern English: not very agglutinative
Agglutination is bound morphemes
OE was more agglutinative than modern
Still remnants: houseboat, snowball, railroad

Question 24

What are content words?

Answer 24

Nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs

Question 25

What are function words?

Answer 25

Show the relationship of content words
Their meaning is in their grammatical function
Closed category: rarely add or change
-determiners: words that modify nouns (the, this, that, some, a drink, etc)
-include information like shared knowledge, count vs noncount, number, or deixis (location in relation to something else)
- Categories:
o Articles: a/an, the
o Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
o Possessive pronounds: my, your, his, her, its, our, their
o Quantifiers: a few, many, some, a lot, a lot of, not enough, too much
o Numbers, one, 2 |||
-prepositions
- Show the relationship among words (often deictic)
- Location: at, in, on, above, below, between, over, inside, in front of, behind
- Time: at, in, on, for, during, before, after
- Direction: to, from, towards, away across, along
-conjunctions
- FANBOYS: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So (*Yet and So can also be adverbs)
- Connects clauses, phrases and words
o Clauses: we ate cookies and drank hot chocolate
o Phrases: Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go.
o Words: I bought slippers and chocolates for my brother-in-law
- Subordinating conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs aka linking adverbs, connective adverbs
o Adverbs (form) with a connecting function
o Only link an independent and a dependent clause
-pronouns
- Stand in for a proper noun
o Must refer to something previously mentioned
o Personal: he, she, it, they, them, me, we, you, LGBTQ+)
o Indefinite: all, anything, everyone, none, no one, one, some, someone
o Demonstrative: this, that, these, those, such
o Relative: as, that, what which, whatever, who
o If you just use that and not for example “that hat” (which would be a determiner) makes it a pronoun
-auxillary verbs
- Modify the main (content) verb
- Most common: have, be, do
- Modal: can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must
- Negative: expressing negative with “not”
- Some tenses:
o Perfect (relatively: past event with present consequences)- have +past participle (-ed+)
o Continuous (also called progressive- in action relative to time)- be + present participle (-ing)
o Passive: be + past participle
o Questions, tag questions: Do you? Will you? Can you?
o Ellipsed response to yes/no questions: I do. I will. I can
o Specific order:
 Modal auxillary
 Tense auxillary/ies
* For future: going to
 Main/content verb

Question 26

What is syntax?

Answer 26

Means: sequence or order
- Study of the way words are put in order in different languages
Generative syntax:
- Part of generative grammar
- Universal grammar (Noam Chomsky)
- Syntax can be studied separately from meaning
Form vs function:
- A content word can have a consistent form but have several functions
- Most common: a noun (form) can function as an adjective
Generative syntax tree Diagrams
Words-> Phrases -> simple sentences

Question 27

What is a constituent test?

Answer 27

Constituents: smaller component s of a sentence or clause
Constituents we are interested in:
- Noun phrase
- Preposition phrase
- Verb phrase
- Adjective phrase
- Adverb phrase
Constituent tests: sometimes clear; other times vague
Tests to see which words go together

Question 28

What is the part of speech?

Answer 28

Subject: the thing (noun, pronoun) doing the action
-includes everything before the verb phrase
Predicate: the verb phrase and everything after