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31 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Give an example of the need for structure in:
phonology
Categorical perception occurs because the continuous speech stream is turned into segments. The phonological units of structure are syllables, segments, and features and they are organized into hierarchal levels in that order (syllables being the largest units). An example of ambiguity in phonological structure would be the syllabification of ex-wife. The first syllable could either contain /eks/ or /ek/ (then the second syllable would be /swajf/. This ambiguity is evidence that there is an underlying structure.
Give an example of the need for structure in:
morphology
Words have an internal structure consisting of smaller units such as morphemes, the smallest unit of language that carries meaning/function. Roots and affixes contribute to the meaning/function of the larger word. With the word “unlockable”, the prefix and the verb could be bracketed off together or the verb and the suffix could be bracketed off together. Different groupings would supply different interpretations. This ambiguity is evidence that there is an underlying structure.
Give an example of the need for structure in:
syntax
In syntax, words are likely to be grouped together to form constituent structures. “Old men and women visited me.” It is ambiguous whether the both men and women were old or only the men were old and the women were not. The two structures would correspond to two different interpretations. This ambiguity is evidence that there is an underlying structure.
subcategorization frame
Certain words or word phrases require specific complements. The phrase “the child devoured” requires a noun phrase after, such as “a sandwich”. However, it would be incorrect to state: *The child devoured.
phrase structure rule
There is a hierarchical design in which words are grouped together into large structural units called phrases, arranged in accordance with the X bar theory. A phrase can be broken down into a head, a specifier, and a complement.
distinctive feature
A feature that serves to distinguish contrastive forms such as voice, sonorant/obstruent, and continuant

+voice /b/ /d/ /g/ -voice /p/ /t/ /k/
+sonorant vowels, glides, liquids, nasals
-sonorant stops, fricatives, affricates
+continuant vowels, glides, liquids, fricatives
-continuant stops
circumfix
an affix morpheme that is placed around another morpheme
Il ne lit pas
infix
an affix morpheme inside another morpheme
-in- Tagalog
derivational morpheme
changes syntactic category of the words/morphemes attached to (love --> lovable)
inflectional morpheme
never changes syntactic category of the words/morphemes attached to (book--> books)
negative polarity item
words that only work with negative contexts (no one, anyone, any, at all)

John doesn't have any potatoes.
*John has any potatoes
Few students studied at all. No students studied at all.
*Many students studied at all.
speech community
group of people who share social conventions, or sociolinguistic norms, about language use
North American, Canadian, from Quebec
register
type of speech more associated with a specific speech situation characterized by particular phonological, lexical, syntactic properties

legal register
recipe register
substrate
language with lower prestige than another

The local language disappears and the intrusive language persists.

Gaulish is a substratum of French.
superstrate
language with higher prestige than another

local language persists and the intrusive language persists

In French, Latin is the superstratum and Gaulish is the substratum.
drift
predicts change that is triggered by a move toward optimization and once that is achieved, no motivation for further movement (it is "getting to a perfect state", when languages tend to change to something).

ex. phonological space
phonological space
an example of drift
phonemic contrasts maximize distinctiveness with respect to the vocal tract. In other words, say a language only has 3 vowels that are widely spaced apart, but if it has more than 3 they will be re-spaced so the contrast among them remains.

ex. Vowel shift from middle English to modern created a push chain, which maximizes contrast. [i]>[aj]
comparative method
the reconstruction of properties of a parent language through the comparison of its descendant languages (earlier stage of language known as a proto-language)

The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages (English, Spanish, German, French....)
compositionality
the meaning of a sentence (i.e its truth conditions) is determined by the meaning of its parts and the way in which those parts are structured.

the sentence "Socrates was a man": Once the meaningful lexical items are taken away—"Socrates" and "man"—what is left is the pseudo-sentence, "S was a M". The task becomes a matter of describing what the connection is between S and M.
modularity
the brain is organized into self composed modules. the language module is made up of various components that work together

Broca's aphasics have speaking deficits as well as writing disturbances like agraphia, demonstrating that the speaking module and writing module are not separated.
Internalist vs. Externalist theories of meaning
externalist: meaning is defined in terms of properties in the real world

internalist: meaning is defined in terms of people's mental states
What is the main evidence for semantic features on words, and what is the main evidence against it?
Equally appropriate antonyms of "boy" (semantic features: male, young) are "girl" or "main". However, the antonym of boy can't be "woman" (female, old) because for two words to be antonyms you have to have one feature of meaning with opposite values. If you have 2 features opposing, you no longer have an antonym.

However, there is no coherent way of defining a small set of semantic features for a bigger, complex structure. We define "boy" as male and young and "man" as male and old, but these words can be subdivided into other things. Also, semantic features can be suspended given the right context (ex. coercion)
What is coercion? Provide an argument for it.
To force an interpretation because of the environment

The creature was light ---> need to coerce context
A man entered the room intelligent --> something was done to change his intelligence after he entered
What is markedness? How is markedness determined?
Markedness is the quality of being relatively complex/rare in world languages. For child acquisition, markedness refers to the distance that a linguistic concept possesses from the initial assumptions of a child.
Syllable structure CVCV is unmarked, or not initially assumed, so that kids wouldn't have consonant clusters at the outset.
What is meant by the term "critical period"? What is the evidence for it?
Kids have a window for learning a language, with the deadline being puberty.
Evidence: a child who becomes aphasic, having a brain injury that results in a language deficit, has a much higher recovery rate than an adult.
It is much harder to learn a 2nd language after puberty than before.
What are the overall areas of the brain that are responsible for language, and what areas are responsible for what functions?
Cerebral cortex is the highest level of the brain that holds language representation and language processing.
Right and left hemispheres divided by the corpus callosum. Most right handers have language represented in the left cerebral hemisphere and are said to be lateralized for language; whereas more left handers do not lateralize language -- it is represented in both hemispheres.

Broca's area is the lower rear of the left frontal lobe, responsible for speech production.
Weirnecke's area is responsible for language comprehension.
Distinguish synchrony and diachrony. What role can restructuring play in requiring that this distinction be maintained?
synchrony is the description of a language at one point in time. diachrony is the description of a language at two points in time.
restructuring is changing the underlying representation. by restructuring, you cannot see where something originated from because it would be completely new and changed. by synchronically describing a representation, you may only view an intial form or the end product but not both.

ex. there is the synchronic rule of dropping the "ne" in French. but suppose you never got the "ne" and just had "pas". by showing that the "ne" dropping might have occurred, you would have to view it diachronically but not synchronically.
What are variable rules? How do they differ from other types of rules that we have studied in this course?
They are optional rules governing sites of free variation (/pot/ with or without aspirated p).
Sociolinguistics care about variable rules: speakers alternate between different forms that have the same meaning and stand in free variation, but in a way that the probability of choice of either form is conditioned by a variety of social factors. So these variable rules are probabilistic--more or less likely to apply rather than assumed to apply every time a particular environment is found.
What is X bar theory? What is the main evidence for it?
All phrases have a three level structure (X, X', XP)
All phrases have a Head (X)
If there is a complement, attached at the intermediate X'.
If there is a specifier, attached at the XP level (includes det, adv, degree word)

The substitution test shows evidence that phrases are syntactic units. Elements can be replaced with they, it, do so. Elements that do not form constitutents cannot be replaced in this way.
What is rule ordering? Give an example of necessary rule ordering.
Each rule gets one chance to apply. If rule A ordered before rule B, rule A must get its chance.

Vowel lengthening then flap rule for writer and rider. Note that the /t/ and /d/ are both pronounced as [ɾ], but also that there is a marked difference in vowel length. The application of flap rule erases the distinction between /t/ and /d/ such that the environment for the vowel lengthening rule is gone. One rule applies to the outcome of another rule, removing the environment for the application of the first rule.
Distinguish the naturalistic and experimental methods of investigation.
Naturalistic: observe and record spontaneous utterances, produces longitudinal data because they examine language development over a long period of time. (advantage= observing development as an ongoing process, disadv= some structures may occur rarely in everyday speech...speech samples only capture a small portion of their utterances at any point in development)

experimental: impose specifically designed tasks, producing non-longitudinal data used to test hypotheses (adv: control for specific productions, disadv: possibility that child's performance will be affected by extraneous factors like shyness)