Week 1

Question 1

Phonetics

Answer 1

The physical properties of speech sounds.

Question 2

Phonology

Answer 2

The way speech sounds pattern in languages.

Question 3

Morphology

Answer 3

The internal structure of words.

Question 4

Syntax

Answer 4

The internal structure of sentences.

Question 5

Semantics and pragmatics

Answer 5

The study of meaning and meaning in context.

Question 6

Linguistics

Answer 6

The scientific study of language

Question 7

Design properties of human language

Answer 7

1. Reflexivity
2. Arbitrariness
3. Displacement
4. Open-endedness
5. Cultural transmission
6. Duality of patterning

Question 8

Reflexivity

Answer 8

Humans can use language to talk about language.

Question 9

Arbitrariness

Answer 9

Linguistics units (“words”) have no natural connection between form and meaning.

Question 10

Displacement

Answer 10

Language can be used to refer to things that are not ‘in the here and now’.

Question 11

Open-endedness

Answer 11

The potential number of utterances in human language is infinite.

Question 12

Cultural transmission

Answer 12

Humans have a predisposition for language; but the language that they acquire depends on their surroundings.

Question 13

Duality of patterning

Answer 13

Linguistic forms have two levers of structure: meaning and form.

Question 14

Meaning

Answer 14

Morphemes

Unbelievable
[[un-] [[believe] [-able]]]

Question 15

Form

Answer 15

Phonemes (IPA)

Question 16

How many languages are there supposedly?

Answer 16

6,000

Question 17

What suggests that humans are predisposed to learn language?

Answer 17

Children naturally acquire languages in the first years of their lives without much strain and without any explicit instruction.

Question 18

Natural languages also include…

Answer 18

Creole languages, which arise naturally from contact between two or more languages.
• Papiamento

Question 19

Natural languages

Answer 19

1. Sign language
2. Creoles

Question 20

How are sign languages produced? And spoken languages?

Answer 20

In the visual-gestural modality.

Spoken languages are produced in the oral-auditory modality.

Question 21

What is a common misconception about sign languages?

Answer 21

That sign languages are manual representations of spoken language. Instead they are independent languages, with a level of grammatical complexity equal to that of spoken languages.

Question 22

The innateness hypothesis

Answer 22

Children naturally acquire languages in the first years of their lives without much strain and without any explicit instruction.

This observation has led to the idea that the human capacity for language is innate. This hypothesis is associated first and foremost with the linguist Chomsky.

Question 23

What evidence of acquisition is there to back up the innateness hypothesis?

Answer 23

1. The process of first language acquisition is relatively independent from the environment, the degree of linguistic input and the ambient language.
2. Children show similar development patterns, irrespective of the language they’re learning.
3. The acquisition process is always successful, unless there’s pathology.
4. Correction and instruction by caregivers has little to no effect.
5. The linguistic input that the child received is full of mistakes and incomplete utterance, yet this doesn’t affect the acquisition negatively (‘poverty of the stimulus’ argument).

Question 24

‘Poverty of the stimulus’ argument.

Answer 24

The linguistic input that the child received is full of mistakes and incomplete utterance, yet this doesn’t affect the acquisition negatively.

Question 25

What evidence of biology is there to back up the innateness hypothesis?

Answer 25

1. Some language disorders (SLI) appear to be heredity.
2. There is some evidence that certain genes may be involved in building the neural circuitry necessary for language.
3. If language is uniquely human property, then it must include an innate aspect.

Question 26

External language

Answer 26

1. Spoken language (oral-auditory modality
2. Sign language (visual-gestural modality)