Language

Question 1

what is language

Answer 1

system of communication using arbitrary sounds or symbols to express feelings, thoughts, ideas and experiences
uniquely humans (when defined as having complex grammar and productivity)

Question 2

the universality of language

Answer 2

all cultures have a language - 5000 documented worldwide
we are driven to communicate - deaf children invent novel sign language
everyone with normal capacity = develops language and uses it easily
language development in infants is similar across cultures
languages are unique but the same

Question 3

how are languages unique but the same

Answer 3

different words, sounds and rules

all have nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, past/present tense

Question 4

skinner view on language

Answer 4

language learned through reinforcement

Question 5

chomsky view on lnaguage

Answer 5

syntactic structures
human language coded in the genes
underlying basis of all language is similar
review of skinner - phrases like i hate you mommy = can’t of heard before and isn’t reinforced, studying language is a window to the mind

Question 6

psycholinguistics

Answer 6

discover psychological process by which humans acquire and process language

• comprehension
• speech production
• representation
• aquisition

Question 7

hierarchical organization of language

Answer 7

larger texts - discourse
phrases and sentences - syntax
words - semantics
units of meaning - morphemes
speech sounds - phonemes

Question 8

production of phonemes

Answer 8

modulation of air by mouth and nose
flow of air from lungs
involves vocal dols in the larynx, lips, oral cavity, soft palate and dental conconant region

Question 9

phonology voicing

Answer 9

whether vocal folds vibrate (z,b,d,v)
or not (s,t,p,f)

Question 10

phonology manner of produciton

Answer 10

whether air is fully stopped (b,p,d,t)

or merely restricted (z,s,v,f)

Question 11

phonology place of articulation

Answer 11

where in the mouth the air is restricted
closing of the lips - b,p
top teeth against bottom lip (v,f)
tongue behind upper teeth (d,t,z,s)

Question 12

phonemes are created

Answer 12

by combining 3 features
-voicing
-manner of production
-place of articulation
engish = 44 phonemes
some language = only 12, some many more

Question 13

complex speech perception

Answer 13

many words have no clear boundaries yet speech segmentation is effortless
ambiguity in speech segmentation - same phonemes but how do we distinguish between two different sentences eg guy vs sky is falling
coarticulation

Question 14

what is coarticulation

Answer 14

the blending of phonemes at word boundaries

Question 15

aids to speech perception

Answer 15

perception of language is constructed
-use prior knowledge to fill in missing information (top down processing)
phonemic restoration effect
-fill in missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word presentation
-occurs even when participants are aware that a phoneme is missing

Question 16

example how do we tell did you vs djoo

or big girl vs big earl

Answer 16

context (when presented in isolation people only understoof 1/2 of their own words)
understanding the meaning
understanding of sound and syntactic rule (eg tl is not acceptable sequence at the beginning of a word in english)

Question 17

cateogircal perception

Answer 17

continuous variation of sounds are filtered to produce clear phonemes
we are very sensitive to difference between categories eg p vs b but to within category differences (one p vs another p sound)

Question 18

lexicon

Answer 18

all words a person 
understands
triangle model - need to look up
orthography = written
phonology = spoken /.../

Question 19

phoneme

Answer 19

shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of the word

Question 20

morphemes

Answer 20

smallest unit of language that has meaning or grammatical function
free morpheme stand alone
bound morpheme - has to be bound to a free morpheme

Question 21

for each word a speaker knows what kinds of information is there

Answer 21

phonology
orthography
syntax
semantics

Question 22

referent

Answer 22

actual object, action or event in the world a word refers to

• conceptula information
• semantic knowledge
• not every word or phrase has a referent
• unicorn, perfect world, president of US (non-stable referent)

Question 23

generativity

Answer 23

size of vocab is fluid
new words can be formed (eg computer words)
words can take on new meanings (hacker)

Question 24

ambiguity in language / having more than one meaning

• phonological
• syntactic (global and local)
• lexical

Answer 24

-phonological - sky vs guy falling
-syntactic (global) - he wants to discuss sex with jay leno
-syntactic (local) because he ran the second mile went quickly (garden path sentence)
-lexical - the man found several insects, spiders and other bugs in the room
lexical ambuguity refers to multiple meanings being assigned to one word

Question 25

cross-modal priming task

Answer 25

listen to this sentence
at the same time watch computer screen and perform lexical decision on words that appear
indicates tha immediately after hearing the word bug both meaning are primed but only briefly (so no delay both ant and spy = reaction time, but after a dealy only the context of bug workd so ant quick and spy slow)

Question 26

generativity

Answer 26

almost infinite number of sentences can be created by combining finite set of words
but - there are rules governing which combinations of words are acceptable and which are not
syntax = rules governeing the sequences of words in a phrase or sentence

Question 27

syntax - descriptive rules

Answer 27

what english is - basic rules of suntax

Question 28

syntax - prescriptive rules

Answer 28

what english is supposed to be. the proper way to structure sentences
changes from one generation to the next
split infinitives or not eg to bolgly go or to go boldly

Question 29

phrase stucture…

Answer 29

aids comprehension

Question 30

global ambiguity of syntax

Answer 30

The syntactic organization of the words can change the meaning of the sentence.
Results in ambiguity – multiple meanings mapped onto one form/sentence (think back about lexical ambiguity)
Same sequence of sounds can result in multiple word meanings
Here, same sequence of words can result in multiple sentence meanings

Question 31

generativity

Answer 31

almost infinite number of sentences can be created by combining finite set of words
but there are rules = some combinations are acceptable and others are not
syntax = rules governining the organisation of words in a phrase of sentence

Question 32

desciprtive vs prescriptive suntax

Answer 32

descriptive = how we use language
prescriptive = how we ought to use language

Question 33

relation with syntax and meaning

Answer 33

different

good syntax does not mean sentence will have meaning and vice versa

Question 34

sentence passing

Answer 34

the process of figuring out how words map onto the syntactic structure in order to understand a sentence
parsin on-line (incrementally vs waiting to the end of the sentence?
= self-paced reading

Question 35

garden path sentences

Answer 35

get confused as nect word that appear does not match with what you were expecting to come next
eg the old man the boats
are locally ambiguous
-once all info is obtained, there is only one interpretation
but some sentences are globally ambiguous
-the sentence itself does not provide disambiguating information
=top down cues: can us eprevious knowledge to disambiguate

Question 36

parsing garden path sentences

Answer 36

people parse sentences incrementally (ie one word at a time)
late closure = new words assumed to be part of the same phrase (attach word to the phrase currently being processed)
minimal attachment = comprehender seeks the simplest phrase structure(simplest syntactic structure, fewest nodes possible
comprehender seeks parsimony

Question 37

sentence parsing and babckground knowledge

Answer 37

background knowledge plays a part
Hearing “the detectives examined…” leads people down the wrong path. Hearing “The evidence examined…” does not.
Evidence would be weird as the subject. Evidence doesn’t have agency to do the examining
Knowledge about the actions detectives vs evidence can take
extralinguistic context also helps

Question 38

sentence processing and eye tracking

Answer 38

go over recordings slide 16, language 2

Question 39

prosody

Answer 39

patterns of rythm and pitch changes
signals the difference between a question and an assertion
emphasises elements of a sentence

Question 40

pragmatics

Answer 40

intended meaning (beyond the literal meaning)

Question 41

grice’s cooperative principle

Answer 41

make your controcersial contribution such as is require, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged
assume speakers and listeners act cooperatively and rationally

Question 42

4 Gricean maxims

Answer 42

maxim of quality - be truthful
maxim of quantity - ne informative
maxim of relation - be relevant
maxim of manner - be intelligible (avoid obscurity, ambiguity, be brief, be orderly)

Question 43

to communicate effectively there must be

Answer 43

common ground

information that is assumed to be shared by both the speaker and the listener

Question 44

why is language the way it is

Answer 44

communicative efficency
tradeoff between
-production ease = speaker says whta is leasst effortful to produce
communicative goal = speaker says what is most likely to be understood by the listener

Question 45

zipf’s ;aw

Answer 45

word length is inversley related to word frequency
higher frequency words shorter word length
lower frequency words longer word length

Question 46

language learning

Answer 46

children are amazingly adept at learning a language
learn phonemes of language before 1 yo
converse by 3-4 yo
even without complete exposure to language, children develop some language eg home signing

Question 47

lack of negative evidence

relation to language learning

Answer 47

children tend to only receive positive evidence about language, not negative evidence
eg their syntax is basically never corrected

Question 48

statistical learning of language

Answer 48

more likely hypothesis

eg 8 month old infants learned to recognise bidaku within a string of other nonsense

Question 49

language and thought

Answer 49

eskimo has 50 words for snow

proposed means they must experience snow very differently

Question 50

linguistic determinism

Answer 50

the language you speak changes the way you think and perceive the world
-whorfian hypothesis
probably not that drastic. more likely
-increased attention
-expertise in categorization

Question 51

colour in language

Answer 51

need to go over recordings slides 34 ish

Question 52

is there a cognitive advantage to being bilingual

Answer 52

is it really the case that bilinguals have better executive functions
inbibitory control - bilib=nguas need to inhibit language they are not currently using
task switching - code switchnig between languages requiers switching between tasks
is unclear differences in memory etc

Question 53

language in the brain

Answer 53

left lateralized
comes from lesion studies and aphasic case studies
aphasia = a disruption in language due to brain damage
two main types = brocas and wernickes

Question 54

brocas aphasia

Answer 54

associated with nonfluent aphasia

eg girl give mother toy

Question 55

wernickes aphasia

Answer 55

associated with fluent aphasia

rambling