Lecture 7- Language

Question 0

What phonemes and what is phonology?

Answer 0

Phonemes- smallest units of speech that produce sound

Phonology- putting sounds together

Question 1

What 3 things according to Chomsky make language uniquely and universally human?

Answer 1

1. Generative/recursive - infinite sentence
2. Universal grammar - all languages have some form of subject, object, verb
3. Critical period- language can be easily learnt until age 7

Question 2

Do phonemes vary from person to person? Why?

Answer 2

Yes, sounds are produced differently dependent on a number of things such as accent, cold etc

Question 3

What is Libermans motor theory of speech perception?

Answer 3

“The idea that the invariance lies in production, not acoustic signal” ie. we hear sounds according to how we produce them

Question 4

What is the McGuirk Effect? Give an example.

Answer 4

When 2 computational things are completed at once- perception is distorted. For example participants listened to the sound “ba” and watched someone say “ga”. The participants then reported hearing and seeing “da”. This is because da is closer to ba in sound than ga. And ga is closer looking with da than ba.

Question 5

What are morphemes? What are the two types of morphemes?

Answer 5

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning (prefixes,suffixes etc) 
Content morphemes (coney meaning) m- anti-, -able 
Functional morphemes (grammatical function)- -s, -ed, -ing

Question 6

Explain what is meant by syntax.

Answer 6

Syntax is rules that govern the construction on sentences and phrases.

Question 7

What is recursion in language?

Answer 7

Recursion is the idea that sentences are technically never ending and clauses can be continually chucked into sentences.

Question 8

What is parsing?

Answer 8

Parsing is throwing in random words for description which don’t particularly make sense eg. Sleep restlessly?

Question 9

What does chomskys universal grammar suggest about the underlying cognitive mechanisms of language?

Answer 9

Innate language acquisition device

Question 10

What are pragmatics?

Answer 10

The use of language in different settings. (Eg. Politely, sarcastically)

Question 11

What are the four Gricean Maxims?

Answer 11

Maxim of Quantity- make your contribution to the conversation as informative as required but no more informative than is appropriate
Maxim of Quality- your contribution should be truthful
Maxim of relation - you should make your contribution relevant to the aims of the conversation
Maxim of manner- you should try to avoid obscure expressions, Vague utterances etc

Question 12

What is effected by brain damage to Broca’s area?

Answer 12

Productive aphasia - can understand language but have trouble producing particularly syntax

Question 13

What is effected by brain damage to wernickes area?

Answer 13

Receptive aphasia- can produce language but can’t understand it. When producing language paraphasia occurs (incorrect selection of words)

Question 14

What is conduction aphasia?

Answer 14

The ability to hear speech and speak (somewhat paraphasia) but has trouble repeating language back

Question 15

In language acquisition , what occurs at approximately 8 months of age?

Answer 15

Pronunciation of words begins, phoneme babbling

Question 16

In language acquisition, what occurs at 18-24 months of age?

Answer 16

Rapid word acquisition!

Question 17

In language acquisition, what occurs at approximately 10-15 months of age?

Answer 17

Real words begin to appear

Question 18

In language acquisition, what occurs at 2-4 years of age?

Answer 18

Syntax !

Question 19

At what age does recursion, theory of mind and mental time travel occur?

Answer 19

4 years of age

Question 20

What 2 things suggest that language is innate rather than learnt? Examples.

Answer 20

Critical period (7years old) eg Genie but a lot of brain plasticity early childhood.

Poverty of stimulus- children still say things that they haven’t been explicitly taught. Eg. Overextensions -foot = foots

Question 21

What is the Sapir- whorf hypothesis? Explain the strong and weak version. Which is more correct?

Answer 21

The Sapir- whorf hypothesis attempts to explain whether or not speakers of different languages, think differently.
The strong version suggests that the thoughts generated in one language are impossible to express in another.
The weak version suggests that each language has a favoured way of thinking due to biases. Eg German? Has a word to describe some weird feeling- we don’t have this- so slight differences in thoughts

Question 22

What evidence supports the early bloomer theory?

Answer 22

3 independently discovered locations of language invention throughout the word