Language Change and General

Question 1

Acronym

Answer 1

A word made up out of the initial letters of a phrase.

Question 2

Agglutinative/Agglutinating Language

Answer 2

A type of language in which words consist of lengthy strings of forms.

Question 3

Analogy

Answer 3

A change that affects a language when regular forms begin to influence less regular forms.

Question 4

Aphasia

Answer 4

A language disorder resulting from brain damage, which affects a person’s ability to produce or understand grammatical and semantic structure.

Question 5

Back-formation

Answer 5

A process of word formation where a new word is formed by removing an imagined affix from another word (editor to edit)

Question 6

Broca’s Area

Answer 6

An area of the brain that controls the expression of spoken language.

Question 7

Calque

Answer 7

A borrowed item in which parts are translated separately into the new language.

Question 8

Coinage

Answer 8

The creation of a new word out of existing elements (post person)

Question 9

Comparative Method

Answer 9

A technique that compares forms taken from cognate languages to see if they are historically related.

Question 10

Creole

Answer 10

A pidgin that has become the mother tongue of a speech community.

Question 11

Critical Period

Answer 11

A period of time in child development during which language is thought to be most easily learned.

Question 12

Etymology

Answer 12

The study of the origins and history of the form and meaning of words.

Question 13

Folk Etymology

Answer 13

Altering an unfamiliar word to make it more familiar (asparagus to sparrowgrass)

Question 14

Idiolect

Answer 14

The linguistic system of an individual speaker.

Question 15

Inflecting Language

Answer 15

A language in which words express grammatical relationships by using inflections.

Question 16

Isogloss

Answer 16

A line on a map showing the boundary of an area in which a linguistic feature is used; the lines mark such features as vocabulary (isolex), morphology (isomorph), philology (isophone), semantics (isoseme), or sociocultural use (isopleth).

Question 17

Isolating Language

Answer 17

A language in which words are invariable and grammatical relations are shown mainly by word order, e.g. Chinese

Question 18

Jargon

Answer 18

The technical language of a special field, unintelligible utterance with good intonation, used by young children when learning to talk.

Question 19

Metathesis

Answer 19

Alteration in a normal sequence of elements, esp sounds (aks for ask)

Question 20

Pidgin

Answer 20

A language with a reduced range of structure and use, with no native speakers.

Question 21

Speech Community

Answer 21

A group of people, identified regionally or socially, who share at least one language or variety.

Question 22

Substrate Language

Answer 22

A variety that has influenced the structure or use of a more dominant variety or language (the superstratum) in a community.

Question 23

Suppletion

Answer 23

The use of an unrelated form to complete a paradigm (go/goes/going/gone/went)

Question 24

Universal

Answer 24

A property found in the analysis of all languages.

Question 25

Wernicke’s Area

Answer 25

An area of the brain that controls language comprehension.