Lesson 1: Introduction Flashcards
What is linguistics?
the study of language
What is form?
sounds
What is meaning?
concept
What is a conventional relationship?
relationship between form and meaning is comprehensible
ex: native language
What is an arbitrary relationship?
relationship between form and meaning is incomprehensible
linguistic competence
what you can do with language
ex: our knowledge of words and grammar
linguistic performance
what actually comes out of your mouth
ex: how we use our knowledge in speech production
What is language?
- a tool
- a kind of knowledge
phonetics
the inventory of sounds in your language
phonology
rules for combining sounds into words
morphology
rules of word formation
lexicon
mental dictionary of the words you know
syntax
rules for combining words into phrases and sentences
semantics
rules for assigning meanings to words in sentences
arbitrariness
the relationship between a word and its meaning is arbitrary
the object is still the same even if the word isn’t
creativity
speakers use a finite set of building blocks and rules to create and understand an infinite set of novel sentences
universal grammar
the set of universal properties possessed by all languages
True or False:
All children acquire language spontaneously.
True
descriptive grammar
linguist’s description/model of the mental grammar
what speaker’s rules actually are
prescriptive grammar
rules of grammar
what speaker’s rules should be
We know that the relation between the sound of a word and its meaning is arbitrary because:
A. Different languages have different words that refer to the same objects/concepts.
B. All languages have similar words that refer to some of the same objects/concepts.
C. Onomatopoeic words are similar across languages.
D. Children acquire the language of their environment effortlessly.
E. Onomatopoeic words are in fact different across languages.
A. Different languages have different words that refer to the same objects/concepts.
Consider the following sentence:
“I don’t need nothing from you.”
Would this sentence be correct according to a typical prescriptive grammar of English?
A. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because a sentence is not supposed to have double negatives in English.
B. Yes. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as correct because there are many examples of such sentences in the works of well-known writers like Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, and Twain.
C. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because double negatives only appeared in English in the early 20th century.
D. Yes. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because native speakers of English actually say things like this.
E. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because Classical Latin did not permit such double negatives.
A. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because a sentence is not supposed to have double negatives in English.
Consider the following sentence:
“I don’t need nothing from you.”
Would this sentence be correct according to a descriptive grammarian?
A. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because English does not have double negatives.
B. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as correct because such sentences are grammatical in a number of other languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian.
C. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because double negatives only appeared in English in the early 20th century.
D. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because native speakers of English actually say things like this.
E. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because Universal Grammar permits this option.
D. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because native speakers of English actually say things like this.
Consider the following quote:
“When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.”
Would this sentence be correct according to a descriptive grammar of English?
A. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because it displays lack of linguistic competence.
B. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as correct because the intended meaning is clear to native speakers of English.
C. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because native speakers of English reject such sentences.
D. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because a native speaker’s performance sometimes yields such sentences.
E. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because Universal Grammar does not allow for such a word order in a natural language.
F. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because this word order is found in Old English, but not in modern English.
C. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because native speakers of English reject such sentences.
