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Psychology of Language > W2: the structure of language > Flashcards

W2: the structure of language Flashcards

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1
Q

What is a phoneme?

A

The smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning

p in “tap,” separates it from “tab,” “tag,” and “tan.

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2
Q

What is a minimal pair?

A

A pair of words that only differ by one sound, they have different meanings because of this
E.g. pin/bin, cot/got, sue/zoo

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3
Q

What is the difference between phonetics and phonology?

A

Phonetics: focus on physical properties of sounds and how they are produced

Phonology: focus on the category that a sound fits in that language

E.g. the ‘c’ in can and scan is physically different

  • phonetics would say that they sound different and are said differently so they are different phones (aspirated vs. unaspirated)
  • phonology would say it doesnt make any difference to their meaning in english, they are the same phoneme
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4
Q

How do we make sounds?

A

By expelling air from our lungs through vocal tract

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5
Q

The air expelled from our lungs when making sounds can be…

A

Undifferentiated
Constrained
Restricted
Stopped

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6
Q

When air from lungs is unobstructed what do we get?

A

Undifferentiated noise

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7
Q

When air from lungs is obstructed what do we get?

A

Particular sounds e.g. consonants and vowels

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8
Q

What makes a consonant sound?

A

Sound that is stopped or restricted

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9
Q

What makes a vowel sound?

A

Sound that is constrained

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10
Q

What is the international phonetic alphabet (IPA)?

A

It is the worldwide standard for representing sounds unambiguously as letters do not consistently represent certain sounds

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11
Q

What are syllables?

A

Rhythmic units words can be divided into

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12
Q

What are the categories of number of syllables in words?

A

Monosyllabic - 1
Bisyllabic -2
Polysyllabic - many

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13
Q

What are morphemes?

A

Smallest meaningful parts of words
E.g. trees - tree + s =2
rewriting - re + write + ing = 3

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14
Q

What are the two different kinds of morphemes?

A

Morphemes can be free or bound

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15
Q

What are free morphemes?

A

They can stand alone

Tree, write, help

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16
Q

What are bound morphemes?

A

They add meaning but cannot stand alone

un, re, s, ing, ful

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17
Q

Explain the wug test

A

Classic test of morphological knowledge in children
‘This is a wug. Now there is another one. There is two of them. There are 2 ….’

Children as young as 4 years can consistently produce the right answer - this means that even children under the age of 4 have this rule as it is not a familiar word (know that ‘s’ is a plural ending)

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18
Q

What are inflectional morphemes? and what do each of the variations mean?

A

They are bound morphemes that can provide information about a word and its grammatical function

e.g. plural =s 
possessive = 's or s'
past tense = ed
present continuous verb = ing 
comparative = er
superlative (absoloute most) = est
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19
Q

What are derivational morphemes?

A

They are bound morphemes that can create new meaning un + happy = unhappy

They allow us to create thousands of words

20
Q

What is syntax?

A

The study of word order and of rules for how words can be combined

21
Q

Syntax can be considered to be…

A

A skeletal frame, with slots for words

As well as a tool to help to determine whether a sentence is grammatical and logical

22
Q

Explain SOV in terms of sentence structure

A

SUBJECT - OBJECT - VERB

Sentence structure - word order shows us who did what to whom (grammatical relations)

Subject: thing that is doing something
Object: the thing that is having something done - object of what is happening in the sentence
Verb: the doing word - that tells us what is happening

23
Q

Languages that have freer word order rely on what to show grammatical relations?

A

Affixes

24
Q

What are semantics?

A

The study of the literal meaning

Also examines the relationships between words of connected meaning

25
Q

Why can words and their meanings be dissociated? (3)

A

The translation of words between languages isn’t perfect - not every language will have words that map perfectly to English

Ambiguity and synonymy: some words may have more than one meaning or may share a meaning with another word

Influence of context: the surrounding context may influence the interpretation of some words

26
Q

What are synonyms? Are they common in English?

A

Are words that mean exactly the same as another word -

True synonyms are rare but near-synonyms are common

27
Q

What are antonyms? and what are the different types?

A

Words with meanings opposite to each other

May be mutually exclusive pairs - push/pull where it is one or the other 
Or gradable (deep/shallow, big/little)
28
Q

What is homophony?

A

When words sound the same, may be spelled the same but they have different meanings (tap(water)/tap(knock)

29
Q

What are heterographic homophones?

A

Words that sound the same
BUT
Different meaning and spelling
E.g. pie and pi

30
Q

What is homography?

A

Words that are spelt the same that have different meanings (gum/gum)

May also be pronounced differently (tear/tear)

31
Q

What are polysemy words?

A

Means there are multiple meanings for the same word (same spelling, same sound)

When you hear the word, certain meanings may be activated more than others

E.g. Bank (river)/bank (finances)

32
Q

What are pragmatics?

A

Actual/literal meaning

How language is used to accomplish goals such as informing, promising and requesting (speaker meaning)

33
Q

What is register?

A

The fashion in which we choose to speak to suit our audience

34
Q

What is a concept?

A

A mental representation of a category

35
Q

What influences the categorisation of a word?

A

Perceived structure of the world (categorising sheep with cats and dogs because similar properties such as on 4 legs)

Cognitive economy (way easier to have animal category and put all animals into it so we don’t need to store heaps of information multiple times)

36
Q

Explain hierarchical relationships

A

Have a basic level
E.g. potato

As well as a superordinate level - what the basic level belongs to
E.g. Food, vegetable, import

And a subordinate level that the basic level can be divided into
E.g. Kennebec, Pinkeye, Dutch cream

37
Q

What are associative networks?

A

Word meaning = sum of all associations to a word

  • No structure
  • No relations between words
  • No hierarchy of information
  • No cognitive economy

Not sufficiently powerful enough to capture meaning

38
Q

What are semantic networks?

A

A semantic network is a cognitively based graphic representation of knowledge that demonstrates the relationships between various concepts within a network. A hierarchy may order the organization of a semantic network’s nodes.

39
Q

What are the criticisms of the semantic network model?

A

May be too hiearchical (some things are not hiearchical)

Is it how many nodes apart things are or how frequently they occur together (Robin and bird occur together a lot but penguin and bird dont as often)

40
Q

Labial consonant sounds are made from?

A

The lips

p, b, w and m

41
Q

Where are labiodental consonant sounds made?

A

With the lips and teeth

F and V

42
Q

Where are dental consonant sounds made?

A

Between the teeth

Th

43
Q

Where are alveolar consonant sounds made?

A

At the alveolar ridge

T, d, s, z, n, r and l

44
Q

Where are post-alveolar consonant sounds made?

A

At the alveolar ridge and palate

sh, zh, ch, j and y

45
Q

Where are velar consonant sounds made?

A

At the velum

k, g, ng

46
Q

Where are glottal consonant sounds made?

A

At the glottis

h and uh

Psychology of Language (13 decks)

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