Linguistics Final Exam Terms

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Constituency

Back 1

If a group of words can stand alone, they form a constituent. This can be through various linguistic test, called constituency tests.

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Structural Ambiguity

Back 2

Ambiguities that are a result of different structures.

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Coordination

Back 3

When two or more constituents of the same syntactic category are joined by a conjunction such as and/or. Ex: Bread and Butter

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Head

Back 4

The central word of a phrase whose lexical category defines the type of phrase. Ex: The noun man is the head of "the man came to eat."

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Phrase

Back 5

NP, VP, PP, CP

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Complements

Back 6

The constituent(s) in a phrase other than the head that complete the meaning of the phrase and which is c-selected by the verb. Ex: In VP "found a puppy", NP "a puppy" is a complement of the verb found.

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Sytactic Categories

Back 7

"Parts of Speech", expressions of the same grammatical category can generally substitute for one another w/o loss of grammatically.

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Phrase Structure Rules

Back 8

Principles of grammar that specify the constituency of syntactic categories and of phrase stucture trees. Ex: VP-> V NP

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CP

Back 9

A phrase that contains a complementizer (that, if, whether) followed by the embedded sentence.

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Recursion

Back 10

When a category repeats itself hence permitting phrase structures of potentially unlimited length. Ex: VP->VP PP

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Transformational Rules

Back 11

A syntactic rule that applies to an underlying phrase structure tree of a sentence and derives a new structure by moving or inserting elements. Ex: The wh- movement and do insertion relate the d-structure sentence. Ex: "John saw who" to the s-structure "Who did John see"

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d-structure

Back 12

Any phrase structure tree generated by the PSR of a transformational grammar. The basic syntactic structure of grammar.

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s-structure

Back 13

The structure that results from applying transformational rules to a d-structure. It is syntactically closest to actual utterances.

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transitive verbs

Back 14

A verb that c-selects an obligatory noun phrase complement. Ex: find

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ditransitive verbs

Back 15

A verb that appears to take 2 NP objects. Ex: He gave Sally his cat.

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intransitive

Back 16

A verb that must not have a direct object complement. Ex: Sleep

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Principles

Back 17

Rules of UG.

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Parameters

Back 18

The small set of alternatives for a particular phenomenon made availiable by UG. Ex: UG specifies that a phrase must have a head and possibly complements; a parameter states whether the complements precede or follow the head.

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Ambiguity

Back 19

Term used to describe a word, phrase or sentence with multiple meanings.
-Structural: Identify with trees
-Lexical: One word that makes sentence ambiguous (bank)

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Lexeme

Back 20

Smallest unit of meaning

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sense

Back 21

what sentence is reffering to (capital of WI=Madison)

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reference

Back 22

Part of meaning of NP that associates it with some entity

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truth

Back 23

value that sentence has

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Situational Truth

Back 24

May be T or F depending on the real world (Bud's house has 5 sides)

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Analytical Truth

Back 25

Necessarily true as a result of words in it (bachelor is a single man)

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Contradictory Truth

Back 26

Necessarily false as a result of the words in it (bachelor is a married man)

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Lexical Composition

Back 27

A method used to charaterize the sense of words in terms of SF that define it.

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Semantic Features

Back 28

Part of word meanings, reflect or intuitions about what the words mean (minimal contrastive element of words meaning)

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Polysemy

Back 29

One word has two meanings (bank)

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Homophony

Back 30

Two words, sound same, different spellings (flower, flour)

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Overlap

Back 31

Features in common, mother/daughter/aunt

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hyponomy

Back 32

one word inside a bigger word (pig/sow)

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synonymy

Back 33

Two words, same meaning

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antonymy

Back 34

opposites

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relational

Back 35

buy/sell, parent/child

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gradable

Back 36

good/bad

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complementary

Back 37

female/male

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Agent

Back 38

Doer of action

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Theme

Back 39

Thing done to

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Location

Back 40

Place

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Goal

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Destination

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Source

Back 42

Original place

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Instrument

Back 43

Something that aids agent in action

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Experience

Back 44

One receiving sensory input

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Extension

Back 45

Set of entities to which a word or expression refers to.
Ex: Dog refers to canine, hound refers to specific breed of canine

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Referent

Back 46

The entity designated by an expression. Ex: John knows sue. referent=actual person, John

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Anaphora

Back 47

Already referred to in discourse. Ex: Anna loves herself.

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Dixis

Back 48

Epression that has one meaning but refers to different entities as the extra linguistic context changes. -Spatial: close, very close, very far
-Temporal: day before, yesterday I went to the movies

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Entailment

Back 49

When the meaning of the first sentence includes the meaning of the second sentence (Bill suffered from a fatal heart attack, Bill is dead)

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Presupposition

Back 50

Assumptions made in sentence (Unicorns have horns, There are unicorns)

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Universal Grammar

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The innate principles and properties that pertain to the grammars of all human languages.

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Principles

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Linguistic properties common to all languages

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Parameters

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Instantiation of these common things in language specific ways (SOV word order)

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Critical Period Hypothesis

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Theory that states there is a window of time between early childhood and puberty for learning a first languages and beyond which fist language acquisition is almost always incomplete.

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The degeneracy problem

Back 55

From which adult would a child have heard "cat stand up table"

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Fis effect

Back 56

Child says 'fis' although knows 'fish' is the intended word

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Negative Evidence

Back 57

Parents don't overly teach grammar, not instructed by negative evidence

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Parentese

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"Simplified Speech", higher pitch, inversion for y/n ?'s

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Overgeneralization

Back 59

Children's treatment of irregular verbs and nouns as if they were regular. Shows child has learned regular rules but not that there are exceptions to them.