Language - Chapter 9 Flashcards
Define the structure, localization, and use of language.
Structure: using grammar as a system of rules and principles to follow that allow for specific properties of the expression
Localization: different physical mechanisms, regions in the brain
Use: expression of thought, social relationships, communication ideas, clarifying
Why can we not say that animals are speaking a language to each other?
Humans defined what language is and we don’t know enough about how animals speak so it won’t fit into our definition.
What are the 4 main characteristics of language?
- Regular: governed by a system of rules
- Productive: there is an infinite combination of things to be expressed
- Arbitrariness: there is a lack of necessary resemblance between words and what it refers to (the word dog doesn’t feel or sound like a dog but we called it that as it is a symbolic meaning)
- Discreteness: a system can be subdivided into recognizable sections (sentences - words - syllables - letters)
What are the 5 key characteristics of the structure of language?
- Phonology: phoneme is the smallest unit of sound we can make
- Morphology: morpheme is the smallest unit of sound we can make that has meaning
- Syntax: this is the rule for how we put sentences together (structure)
- Semantics: giving meaning to words and phrases
- Pragmatics: all the social rules of language (not interrupting someone when they are talking)
What are the 5 parts of the semantic aspect of language?
Anomaly (why cant you say certain phases)
self-contradictions (knowing something isn’t true) ambiguity (based on the context of the meaning)
synonym (not old enough is saying too young)
entailment (uncle is also assuming that its a male)
We acquire all these things without consciously learning them
What are pragmatics?
Social rules that we acquire unconsciously from our environment
Explain the 2 main problems with speech perception.
- language is continuous (when hearing a foreign language, we just hear a continuous flow of words and are not able to break it up into individual words)
- A single phoneme sounds different depending on the context (hear things based on your expectations) (Baby and bunny have the same first phoneme but because of the context given by the rest of the word, you interpret it differently)
What are the 2 main traits to define a natural language?
Regular (using grammar as a rule system) and productive (infinite combinations can be expressed)
other characteristics can include arbitrariness and discreteness
Define grammar for the language.
Grammar is going to refer to the set of rules that are followed to produce proper sentences. They might not always be the most polite way of speaking, but the way of speaking forms intelligible and recognizable phrases of the language.
Describe linguistic competence and performance
Competence refers to the underlying linguistic knowledge that lets people produce and comprehend the language.
Performance would reflect linguistic competence only under completely ideal conditions that can never be achieved (examples of not ideal conditions are when you are tired, environment changes, lapse of memory)
Define phonetics and phonology.
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds and phonology is the study of the systemic ways in which speech sounds are combined and altered.
How do consonants and vowels differ?
Vowels: they work by obstructing airflow and changing your mouth shapes and the position of your tongue
Consonants: using involve closing part of your mouth and they differ in the place of articulation (manner of airflow).
What diagram is used to explain how syntax is used in language?
A labelled tree diagram nad it depicts the categorical constituent structure of the sentence. This can help you see what changes can be made to the sentence and how moving around words can affect it.
What is the lexical-insertion rule?
This allows the insertion of words (lexical items) into the structures generated by the phrase structure rules.
Define truth conditions.
They are the circumstances that are put on a sentence that make something true or not.
What 3 things are required in order to understand the meaning of the sentence?
- meaning of each word
- syntax of the sentence
- truth conditions
What are the 5 different kinds of utterances?
Assertive (asserting one’s beliefs), Directive (instructions from speaker to listener), commissives (commit the speaker to later action), expressive (psychological states), and declarations (utterance is itself the action)
What are the things that we do and don’t pay attention to when understanding someone’s speech?
We pay attention to certain acoustic properties, which will make a difference in the meaning, and we won’t pay attention to things like pitch and accent as they are not meaningful and don’t change the way we interpret the message.
Describe how the context effect can work.
This effect describes how visual cues can affect how sound is perceived. This is shown by a number of studies showing how speech perceptions is subject to a number of other context effects. This is also shown to be used as something to help people perceive the text and give background to the message.
What were the 2 kinds of speech error that occur?
- errors with showing meaning relations (using a finger instead of the toe)
- errors that showed formed relations (using guest instead of goat)
Define lexical ambiguity.
This occurs with words that have two meaning (examples is back, body part of to go back somewhere)
Define saccade.
Jumps between fixations when reading
What is the eye-mind hypothesis?
The interpretation of each word occurs during the time it is fixated. The time spent on each fixation provide information about ease of interpretation.
What is the propositional complexity fo a sentence?
It is the number of basic ideas being conveyed. The more propositions there are, the harder it will be to process.
