Week Two - The Structure of Language

Question 1

What is a minimal pair?

Answer 1

A pair of words that differ by only one sound, with different meaning because of this e.g., pin/bin

Question 2

How do we make speech sounds?

Answer 2

Column of air expelled from lungs, through vocal tract

Question 3

Air unobstructed =

Answer 3

undifferentiated noise

Question 4

Air obstructed =

Answer 4

a particular sound

Question 5

Sound is what in consonants?

Answer 5

Stopped or restricted

Question 6

Sound is what in vowels?

Answer 6

Sound is just constrained

Question 7

What does the IPA do?

Answer 7

Represents sounds unambiguously

Question 8

What are syllables?

Answer 8

Rhythmic units of words

Question 9

What is monosyllabic?

Answer 9

Only one syllable

Question 10

What is bisyllabic?

Answer 10

Two syllables

Question 11

What is polysyllabic?

Answer 11

More than two syllables

Question 12

What are inflectional morphemes?

Answer 12

Bound morphemes that provide info about a word and its grammatical function

Question 13

What are derivational morphemes?

Answer 13

Bound or free morphemes that can create new meaning and change the grammatical function of a word (un+happy)

Question 14

Syntax sentence structure

Answer 14

Subject: The person/thing that is doing something
Object: The person/thing that is having something done to them
Verb: The doing word

Question 15

What is stored in the mental lexicon?

Answer 15

Meaning
Syntactic category
Sound
Written appearance

Question 16

How can words and their meanings be dissociated?

Answer 16

1. Translation of words between languages
2. Ambiguity and synonymy (some word have more than one meaning
3. Influence of context

Question 17

Two types of synonyms?

Answer 17

True: car/automobile
Near: chair/seat

Question 18

Two types of antonyms?

Answer 18

Mutually exclusive: push/pull

Gradable: deep/shallow

Question 19

What are Homophony words?

Answer 19

Words that sound the same but have different meanings (may be spelled the same)

Question 20

What are heterographic homophones?

Answer 20

Sounds the same but have different meaning and spelled differently

Question 21

What are homography words?

Answer 21

Words that are spelled the same but have different meanings/pronunciations

Question 22

What is polysemy?

Answer 22

Multiple meanings for the same word eg bank, plane

Question 23

What is a concept?

Answer 23

A mental representation of a category

Question 24

Categorisation of the world is influenced by? 2

Answer 24

• Perceived structure of the world

- Cognitive economy

Question 25

Associative network of meaning?

Answer 25

Word meaning = sum of all associations to a word
- no structure, relationships, hierarchy info, no cog economy
Not sufficiently powerful to capture meaning

Question 26

Semantic network of meaning?

Answer 26

Associations between items have semantic value themselves

- much more powerful way of capturing word meaning

Question 27

3 stages of hierarchical relationship word meaning?

Answer 27

Superordinate
Basic
Subordinate
eg Su = food
eg Ba = potato
eg Sub = kennebec

Question 28

Criticisms of C & Q Model?

Answer 28

too hierarchical
semantic distance vs conjoint frequency
incorrect predictions

Question 29

Labial consonant sounds are made?

Answer 29

With the lips eg., p, b, m and w

Question 30

Labiodental consonant sounds are made?

Answer 30

With the lips and teeth eg., f and v

Question 31

Dental consonant sounds are made?

Answer 31

Between the teeth eg., th

Question 32

Alveolar consonant sounds are made

Answer 32

at the alveolar ridge eg., t, d, s, z, n, r and l

Question 33

Post-alveolar consonant sounds are made?

Answer 33

at the alveolar ridge and palate eg., sh, zh, ch, j, and y

Question 34

Velar consonant sounds are made?

Answer 34

at the velum eg., k, g, ng

Question 35

Glottal consonant sounds are made?

Answer 35

at the glottis eg., h and uh