Final exam

Question 1

what is one way that language change?

Answer 1

words broaden or narrow their meaning

Question 2

What did the word “bimbo” start out as?

Answer 2

a term for babies

Question 3

what did the word “starve” initially mean?

Answer 3

“Die” then became to mean “die from hunger” then just “suffer from hunger”

Question 4

where did the word limelight come from?

Answer 4

It was a word referring to light being made from a burning lime, now it is an abstract noun

Question 5

are words stored alphabetically?

Answer 5

no

Question 6

Writing that drops down from one line and continues in a reverse order

Answer 6

boustrouphedon

Question 7

what did writing first start off as?

Answer 7

pictures

Question 8

using pictures as a unit to relay words

Answer 8

rebus device

Question 9

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, but __ sounds in the English language

Answer 9

44

Question 10

what is the name of the sound that represents the ng combination in the English language

Answer 10

Engma

Question 11

There are at least __ ways to spell “sh”

Answer 11

13

Question 12

How does George Bernard Shaw say that “fish” could technically be spelled?

Answer 12

Ghoti

Question 13

what is the job of the International Phonetic Association?

Answer 13

attempt to represent all the sounds spoken in the world’s languages

Question 14

As a language develops, it tends to become more _____

Answer 14

regular

Question 15

what are the two classes of verbs?

Answer 15

strong and weak

Question 16

why don’t children make mistakes when changing statements into questions?

Answer 16

They are primed to learn to invert the highest auxiliary

Question 17

_____ allow us to test the idea that people learn to transform sentences

Answer 17

Traces

Question 18

Remnants of where words used to be in a sentence before a transformation

Answer 18

Traces

Question 19

when children are learning speech and learn to leave out non-essential words

Answer 19

telegraphic speech

Question 20

When someone points to an object and says its name, young children tend to assume that it is the whole object being referred to�

Answer 20

whole object constraint

Question 21

Children tend to assume that words are basic level descriptors. That is, they assume dog versus animal�

Answer 21

taxonomic constraint

Question 22

Tend to assume that if an object has a name, it is unlikely that a new name will refer to it�

Answer 22

mutually exclusive constraint

Question 23

how do we know that humans come here ready to speak?

Answer 23

language is universal, has equal complexity, cerebral areas, throat modifications, linguistic biases

Question 24

words that people who learn a language later in life have difficulty pronouncing�

Answer 24

Shibboleth

Question 25

when adults are forced to learn a new language, they often develop modified forms of the language�

Answer 25

pidgin

Question 26

_______has been emphasized as the real difference between humans and other animals�

Answer 26

verbal language

Question 27

three features that seem to demarcate language from other types of communication�

Answer 27

arbitrary sign, generative grammar, refer to removed objects�

Question 28

Ex:The sound cat doesn’t look like a cat, has no whiskers, doesn’t sound like cat, and the written form doesn’t resemble either�

Answer 28

Arbitrary sign

Question 29

the rules that we use to assemble the words into a meaningful utterance�

Answer 29

syntax

Question 30

two basic ways to define the grammar of a language�

Answer 30

inflected and distributed

Question 31

represents the relationships among words by inflections (e.g., Latin, German)
�

Answer 31

inflected language

Question 32

uses word order with a heavy emphasis on prepositions and auxiliary . Usually word order is more fixed

Answer 32

distributed language

Question 33

What are Grice’s conversation maxims?

Answer 33

quantity, quality, relevance, manner

Question 34

Make contribution as informative as required, but no more

�

Answer 34

quantity

Question 35

Make contribution true �

Answer 35

quality

Question 36

Make contribution relevant to ongoing conversation �

Answer 36

relevance

Question 37

Be clear, avoid obscurity, ambiguity

Answer 37

manner

Question 38

ekename

Answer 38

also name

Question 39

the beginnings or endings of words often get shifted

Answer 39

rebracketing

Question 40

one word will glom onto another word and become modified in such a way that one cannot reconstruct the original word

Answer 40

grammaticalization

Question 41

Subject is briefly shown a letter string and asked if it is word (e.g., is ballet a word)

Answer 41

lexical decision task

Question 42

Subjects are asked to fill in the missing letters to make a word (e.g., b-l-e-)

Answer 42

word fragment completion

Question 43

Subjects are asked to add letters to make any word they wish (e.g., bal—)

Answer 43

word stem completion

Question 44

western cultures tend to emphasize a ______ categorization

Answer 44

taxonomic

Question 45

eastern cultures tend to emphasize a ______ categorization

Answer 45

thematic

Question 46

the attempt to reconstruct the past using what we know about psychological processes

Answer 46

psychohistory

Question 47

if we know how ___ changes occur then we can work backwards to get the original state of affairs by removing these changes

Answer 47

memory