Ling Exam Flashcards
how are humans specialized for language
- overbite for fricatives
- jaw structure evolved overtime
linguistic competence
Innate knowledge that a native speaker attains, which enables them to judge implicitly whether certain utterances are acceptable or not
universality
there are many principles and properties that are shared among languages
mutability
all grammars have and continue to change over time (evolve)
the brain
Broca’s area: production of speech
motor cortex: controls the movement of muscles
- close to each other, signal does not have to travel far
proposition
describes the location or a position
ex. across, inside, around
inflection
the process of changing the form of a word to indicate grammatical categories like tense, person, number, gender, mood, voice, and case
morphology
the study of the formation of words
morpheme
the smallest unit of language that carries meaning
root
the core of the word, no affixes
stem/ base
complex, consists of of one or more roots and derivational affixes
inflectional morpheme
grammatical function
derivational morpheme
adds meaning (changes syntactical category)
subject-verb agreement
the person and number of a verb are those modification in which it agrees with its subject
allomorphs
variations of the same word seen in different environments
ex. a and an
tense
grammatical category (past, present, future) that provides information about the time of an event’s occurrence
aspect
the properties of an event or situation denoted by the verb phrase (context)
aspectual verbs
verbs that help indicate that an action is ongoing or complete such as, continue to dance; stop driving
person
1st, 2nd and 3rd person
number
singular and plural (countable quantities)
Perfective
verb tenses or markers used to indicate a one-time, completed action or unit of time. There is an aspect of a point in time. (past, present or future)
imperfective
verb tenses or markers used to indicate actions that are incomplete, ongoing or habitual (happens routinely). There is an aspect of flow of time
agreement
a grammatical rule that states that words in a sentence must align in number, gender, or person.
definiteness
a semantic feature that distinguishes between noun phrases that are identifiable in a given context and those that are not.
concrete nouns
things we can touch (table furniture)
abstract nouns
things we can’t touch
(idea, peace)
common noun
a word that refers to a general, unspecified person, place, thing, or idea (car, idea)
proper nouns
name of a place or person (London, Susan)
countable nouns
table, ideas
uncountable nouns
furniture, peace
mass nouns
milk, sugar
back formation
a linguistic process that involves creating a new word by removing or changing the end of an existing word
ex. examination > exam
coinage
creation of a new word through sources like commercial products
ex. kleenex
conversion
a word is assigned to a new word class without any change in form
ex. host (noun and verb)
borrowing
words which can originated in one language are now used in another
ex. vinum (Latin) > vin (French)
compounding
two or more words are joined together
ex. underground
blending
joining the beginning of one word and the end of another
ex. brunch
clipping
shortening a longer word
ex. hippo
derivation
creating a word by adding affixes to the original word
ex. help > helpless
reduplication
repeating an entire word
partial reduplication
repeating part of a word
suppletion
a change in grammatical category, changes the form of the word
ex. go > went
partial suppletion
part of the word form changes
ex. teach > taught
internal change
the form changes inside the word
ex. goose > geese
comparative
compared to another (-er)
superalitive
compared to more than one (-est)
alternation
when part of the word is pronounced differently because of the surrounding word elements
ex. thief > thieves
assimilation
neighbouring sounds influence each other so that they are pronounced more similarly
ex. bank (k becomes nasalized because of the n)
dissimilation
alteration of a sound within a word to make it less similar to another adjacent or nearby sound
ex. February (drop the r)
spoonerisms
switching parts of two words in a phrase
ex. jelly beans and belly jeans
phonology
the study of sound patterns in a language
phonetics
the study and classification of speech sounds in a language
phoneme
distinctive sounds that allow us to distinguish between different words
- minimal pairs (same environment)
ex. pad, bad, mad
allophones
variations of a sound that do not result in a change in meaning
- complementary distribution (different environment)
ex. top and stop (aspirated t)
phonotactics
describes the possible combinations of sounds in a specific language
repair strategy
when words don’t fit the phonotactic constraint, the speaker will repair it for ease of articulation
vowel harmony
vowels within a domain adjust to share one or more phonological features such as height or rounding
elision
the omission of sounds, syllables or words
ex. I don’t know > I dunno
epenthesis
the insertion of a segement
ex. warmth > warmpth
metathesis
the transportation of sounds or syllables in a word
ex. jewelry
grammar
allows humans to form and interpret words and sentences in their language (system, structure and rules)
predicate
verb phrase
auxiliary verb
specifies the verb
non-modal: will can should
modal: be, have, do
degree word
describes a measure of adj or P
ex. very, to, almost
quantifier
describes the quality of N
ex. some, many, a few
complementizer
connects complement clauses to a matrix clauses
ex. that, if, for
preposition
before it’s complement
ex. in, under, above
postposition
after it’s complement
ex. ago, notwithstanding
intransitive
verbs used without an object
ex. sleep, smile, walk
transitive
verbs used with an object
ex. see, eat, read
collocations
some syntactic categories are often found side by side
ex. det and nouns
possession
on constituent owns/ rules another
ex. my, your, his
person deictic
first, second, third, inclusive, exclusive
spatial deictic
descriptions of objects and their relation in space
ex. here, there, that
temporal deictic
the various times involved in and referred to in an utterance
ex. now, then, later
associative
a grammatical category that expresses “x” and the group (of one or more members) associated with “x” where x is nominal, usually a person
ex. Susan and her colleagues
benefactive
one constituent receives the benefit of the situation in the clause
ex. she opened the door for Tom
genitive
an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun
ex. Mary’s book is about the men of Rome
locative
indicates a location
ex. the book is on the table
ergative
the grammatical case that identifies a nominal phrase as the agent of a transitive verb
absolutive
the case is used to mark both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb
nominative
generally marks the subject of a verb
accusative
the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb
dative
the recipient or beneficiary of an action, typically a given action
phrase
consists of one or more words (obligatory head and optional specifier and/or complements)
ex. the man
clause
consists of one or more phrases (subject and a predicate, with any objects)
ex. the man laughed
sentence
consists of one or more clauses
ex. the man laughed because the joke was funny
main clause
would form a complete sentence by itself
matrix clause
contains a subordinate clause and determines the central situation of a sentence
subordinate clause
a clause that cannot stand alone and adds information to a sentence
embedded clause
a type of subordinate clause placed within the main clause, cannot stand alone
recursive embedded clause
the sentence is expressed by using a clause embedded in a clause, embedded within another clause
complement clause
a subordinate clause that functions as the subject or object of a verb, thereby completing the sentence
relative clause
has a subject and verb, can’t stand alone, gives more information about a noun
transformations
a syntactic rule that can move an element from one position to another
simple sentences
one independent/ main clause
compound sentence
two coordinated independent clauses, joined together by a conjunction
complex sentence
main clause + subordinate clause(s) (while, since, if)
infinitive
a form of the verb that is typically used together
with another verb in many languages
ex. I can read
