Intro To Linguistics Flashcards
What do you know when you know a language?
You have a finite set of building blocks and rules, you know how to use them
What is phonetics?
The inventory of sounds
What is lexicon?
A mental dictionary. The amount of words you know
What is morphology?
Building more complex words through knowledge of language
What is phonology?
Rules for sound patterns
What is syntax?
Rules for building good phrases and sentences
What is semantics?
The meaning of words and how to use them
Creativity is a _______ ________ of human language
Universal property
What is linguistic competence?
What you know in your mind, what you can do
What is linguistic performance?
What actually comes out of your mouth, what you do do
Linguistic competence is a mental representation of language or _______ _______?
Mental grammar
What is descriptive grammar?
A linguist’s description of mental grammar; what the rules actually are; a description of what was actually said
What is prescriptive grammar?
The rules of grammar dictated by the authorities on language; what speaker’s rules should be according to these authorities
What is universal grammar?
A set of universal properties all languages use
What is language?
A means of communication. Speakers encode meanings into sound and listeners decode speech sounds (or hand shapes) into meaning
