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30 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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counting # of languages is difficult because: |
-dialects vs. diff languages = hard to differentiate -newly discovered languages in remote areas -spoken tongue vs. signed language -languages constantly die out/are resurrected
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arbitrary indicators |
can be present when the thing indicated is absent. can also be changed. language is a system of arbitrary signs |
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language as a structure |
grammatical competence - mental capacity that enables speakers to form grammatical sentences (phonology, morphology + lexicon, syntax, semantics)
discreteness - separate elemental sounds
duality - meaningless elements combined into meaningful ones
recursion & productivity - recursion - incorporating structures within similar linguistic structures productivity - ability to produce limitless # of sentences
communicative competence - the capacity to use language appropriately
displacement - represent things/events that are not present |
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pragmatics |
relationship btwn expression & meaning AND context & interpretation |
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language variation depends on |
cognitive factors - limits of human lang-processing capabilities
social factors - human interaction
organization of societies |
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all communication systems have: |
- a mode of communication (vocal, visual, tactile (touch), chemical) - semanticity - meaning - pragmatic function - serves some meaningful purpose |
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some communication systems have |
reciprocality - members can send + receive messages cultural transmission - learned, not innate arbitrariness - no discreet relationships |
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TRUE LANGUAGE |
creativity (productivity) - you can produce new utterances b/c there is an infinite # of possible utterances displacement - ability to abstract, to talk abt s/t distant in space or time discreteness - recognize units in words duality - lang can be viewed as having 2 levels: meaningful parts + elements that make up the meaning but do not hold meaning themselves |
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communicative competence |
how to use lang appropriately pragmatics (norms) + sociolinguistic factors |
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how endangered is the lang? |
- where is it spoken? - who speaks it? - who learns it? no one? (moribund) no one but a linguist? (moribund) |
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why linguists focus on speech over writing |
speech = primary, writing = secondary writing: more formal, educated, edited. must be taught; most people are illiterate - many lang unwritten speech: humans developed speech 100s of 1000s of years ago; writing is much more recent |
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lexicon |
internal, mental "dictionary". mostly unconscious knowledge
using a word requires 4 types of knowledge: 1. its sounds + their sequencing (phonology) 2. its meaning(s) (semantics) 3. how related words are formed (morphology) 4. how + where to fit it in a sentence (syntax) |
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morpheme |
smallest meaningful unit of a word. words can be one-morpheme or multi-moprheme
root morpheme - cat is the root of catty
stems - can be roots or more than roots... truthful (stem) + ly (suffix)
organized hierarchically affixes: attach to stems (prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes) |
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Lexical categories |
parts of speech - looking @ what words it can occur w/ (syntax) - looking @ related forms of the word (morphology) |
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verb |
s/t that has a set of related forms systematically can be preceded by words like can + will subcategories: irregulars, transitive (noun phrases), intransitive (w/o noun phrases)
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nouns |
most take -s for plural subcategories: count nouns |
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adjectives |
related set of forms (superlatives) w/ irregulars (ex: more, most) can fit into regular syntactic frame: the (adj.) guy |
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pronouns |
"stand in" for nouns/phrases
demonstrative - this/that interrogative - who/what relative - begin relative clauses indefinite - someone/anyone |
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determiners |
set of words have distributional properties of articles |
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prepositions |
(+ post-positions) precede noun phrases |
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conjunctions |
and, but, or subordinating: because, while, etc. |
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adverbs |
catch-all for other word modifiers. can modify verbs, adj, whole sentences |
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open classes vs. closed categories of word categories |
-open: nouns, verbs, adj -closed: pronouns, conjunctions |
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inflectional vs. derivational morphemes |
inflectional - add grammatical info to the stem (pluralizing, possessive, conjugations, verb tenses, comparatives + superlatives) derivational - change the meaning and/or the lexical category of a word |
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free vs. bound morphemes |
free - can occur on their own (true, simple, orange) bond - cannot stand alone (-s, -ness) |
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content morphemes |
carry semantic weight. free or bound |
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function morphemes |
provide grammatical info. not just inflectional morphemes; can be free or bound
ex: -s, of, the |
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how new words are made |
(open word classes) 1.formed from existing words + parts 2. borrowed from other languages 3. made up |
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allomorphy |
some morphemes can change when they join w/ other morphemes ex: simple + ify = simplify NOT simpleify |
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morphological types of languages |
isolating (aka analytical) - ea. word tends to be an individual morpheme agglutinating (synthetic) - words made up for many morphemes (easily decomposed) polysynthetic - sentences made up of few highly agglutinative words inflectional (aka fusional) - heavy use of inflections; words cannot be easily decomposed
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