Language and Thought L1 Flashcards
What is a phoneme?
Single unit of sound that changes meaning (e.g. dog to log)
Do all languages have the same phonemes?
No, each has its own unique set
What do phonemes combine to create?
Morphemes
What are morphemes?
The smallest language unit which carries meaning
What are the two categories of morphemes?
- unbound/free =words
- bound= Affixes, suffixes (inflections)
How many morphemes does the word dishonest contain and of what type?
2, honest=unbound, dis=bound as meaning is only realized when attached to a word (acts as prefix)
What is second way to class morphemes?
content or function
What are content morphemes?
- Semantic processing relies on processing content words (carry meaning)
- They map into concepts
Is the number of content morphemes fixed?
No, as new ideas/concepts emerge need new content morphemes to talk about them
What are function morphemes?
- Syntactic processing relies on processing function words (have grammatical function)
- link content words
Is the number of function morphemes fixed?
Yes, they are known as a closed class as can’t add to them
What are some examples of function morphemes?
of, in, to, ed (past tense), s (plural, possessive, third person singular) the last two are bound morphemes that have a function
What classes of words are usually content words?
- noun
- verbs
- adjectives
- adverbs
What classes of words are usually function words?
- pronouns
- prepositions
- conjunctives
What is brocca’s aphasia? What are the characteristics?
- mainly a speech production issue (appears to understand well)
- stilted speech, laborious, using mainly content words, missing function words to link into sentences that make sense in terms of syntax
Where is the language relevant area of the brain?
In right handed people is in the left hemisphere, mostly lower edge of frontal lobe and upper edge of temporal lobe
Where is brocca’s area?
located near areas that control speech muscles (so brocca’s aphasia limits production)
What is syntax?
- Refers to the structure of language (phrases and sentences)
- Learn implicitly
What are the two things syntax is cued by?
- word order
- word class
What is the standard word order in English? Is this the same in other languages?
- subject-verb-object (SVO)
- different languages have different word orders
What does word order help us identify?
Word class
What is aphasia?
The inability to produce and understand language
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
Sentences are fluent and syntax/grammar is intact but semantics (meaning) is lost due to inability to map what they are hearing to meaning
Where is Wernicke’s area?
- left temporal lobe
- next to the primary audition cortex which translates sounds into meaning
What does syntax cue?
Meaning
What is a proposition?
Statement that expresses an idea
What is the difference between the surface and deep structure of language?
- Surface= organization of words at surface level (what you are hearing)
- deep= meaning of sentence
Who was famous for coming up with the idea of deep versus surface language?
Noam Chomsky
What does this mean?
:one deep structure but two surface structures
Words in two sentences are organized differently but the underlying meaning is the same
What does this mean?
:a single surface structure can have two very different deep structures
Words are organized the same but the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous
e.g. I saw a zebra flying over Africa (were you doing the flying or was the zebra?)
Put in order in terms of how language is constructed:
- Phrase
- Phoneme
- Word
- Sentence
- Morpheme
- Sentence
- Phrase
- Word
- Morpheme
- Phoneme
