Week 9 Flashcards
Words
Linguistic units with a form and a meaning.
Which specifications are there of words?
- Semantic specification (def.)
- Phonological specification (pron.)
- Syntactic specification (noun)
Where is the memorised information about words stored? And what does it contain?
In the mental lexicon (also dictionaries), contains lexical items (lexemes) and grammar.
How much words/information is stored in the human brain?
The number of words known by an adult is roughly between 50,000 and 250,000.
The average English speaking 6 year old known 10,000 words and the average high-school graduate 60,000.
Why are not all words lexical items?
You know the meaning of rabbitless even though it is not a real word, and it isn’t stored in your mental lexicon.
What are idioms? Where are they stored?
Idioms are multi-word expressions whose meaning cannot be predicated on the basis of their parts. They are stored in the lexicon.
Complex words (multi-morphemic)
Words consisting of more than one building block (rabbitless). These building blocks are called morphemes.
Morphemes
Building blocks of a word, defined as the smallest unit of a language with a meaning.
Base of a word
Free morpheme
Rabbit in rabbitless
Suffix of a word
A bound morpheme
-less in rabbitless
Word tokens and word types in I had the apple, then I had the banana
Word tokens: 9
Word types: 6
Sound-symbolic words
Boom, zap, splash.
Slime, slug, slide, sleaze (motion)
Also, slight, slow, sleep
Mental lexicon
A lexical that exists in your brain; learning a word involves learning an association. Memorised information about words is stored in the mental lexicon.
Simple words
Contain one morpheme.
Clipping
Creating new words by shortening already existing words.
Info from information
Fridge from refrigerator
Ad from advertisement
Math from mathematics
