Linguistics 114: Exam 1

10/05/2014

Chapter 1:
What is language?
Language is the ability to produce sounds to form words, words to form phrases, and
phrases to form sentences.
What is linguistics?
Linguistics Competence: our knowledge of words and grammar
Linguistics Performance: how we use this knowledge in our speech production and
comprehension
What are the building blocks of language (what is it that we know when we know a
language)
Phonetics:
Phonology: Rules for combining sounds into words
Morphology: Rules of word formation
Lexicon: Mental Dictionary
Syntax: Rules for combining words into phrases and phrases into sentences
Semantics: Rules for assigning meaning
Pragmatics:
What are the differences between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
Descriptive: It does not tell you how you should speak; it describes your basic
linguistic knowledge
Prescriptive: Prescribing rules of grammar; not to tell people what they know but
rather to tell them what they should follow.

What characteristics are common to all languages?

Creativity: is a universal part of human language
o Increase the length and complexity of sentences
Knowledge of sounds: are in the language and what sounds are not
Knowledge of words: that Is you know which sequences of sound relate to specific
meanings and which do not.
Distinguish well formed (grammatical) from ill formed (ungrammatical) sentences
How is human language distinct from animal communication.
Its discreteness, meaning that because its composed of discrete units, youre able to
convey multiple meanings depending on how you arrange these units.
Chapter 10:
Neurolinguistics:
Psycholinguistics:
Language is processed in the
We know that language is processed because
Brocas Aphasia:
Wernickes Aphasia:

Critical Period:
Modularity of the brain:
Origins of Language:
How does pinker contribute to this?

Chapter 12:

What types of writing systems are there?

Examples of each:
Why is the studying of writing relevant, considering that most of the worlds
languages are not written?
Chapter 5:

Why do we have an International Phonetic Alphabet?

The inventors of this International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA knew that the a phonetic
alphabet should include just enough symbols to represent the fundamental sounds of all
languages.
Consonants: How are they articulated?
State of the glottis:
Places of articulation:
o Interdentals: these sounds, both spelled th, are pronounced by inserting the
tip of the tongue between the teeth.
o Alveolars: words that are pronounced with the tongue raised in various way to
the alveolar ridge.
o Palatals: the construction occurs by raising the front part of the tongue to the
plate.
o Velars: another class of sounds is produced by raising the back of the tongue
to the soft palate or velum.
o Uvulars: sounds are produced by raising the back of the tongue to the uvula.
o Manner of articulation: speech sounds also vary in the way the airstream is
affected as it flows from the lungs up and out of the mouth and nose.
o Voiceless: when the vocal cords are apart so that air flows freely through the
glottis into the oral cavity.
o Voiced: when the vocal cords are together, the airstream forces its way
through and causes them to vibrate.
Manners of articulation:
Nasal consonants are created when you completely block air flow through your
mouth and let the air pass through your nose.
There are three nasal consonants in English.
1. /m/ - "mad" and "clam" - oral passage is blocked by closing the lips (bilabial).
2. /n/ - "no" and "man' - oral passage is blocked by pressing tongue tip against the
alveolar ridge (alveolar).
3. // - "going" and "funk" - Oral passage is blocked by pressing the the back of your
tongue against the soft palate (velar).

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Stop consonants , similar to nasal consonants, occur when the vocal tract is closed
completely, but for stops the airflow is NOT redirected through the nose. Instead, the
air quickly builds up pressure behind the articulators and then releases in a
burst.
English contains the following stop consonants:
/p/ - purse and rap - oral passage is blocked by closing the lips (bilabial).
/b/ - "back" and "cab" - oral passage is blocked by closing the lips (bilabial).
/t/ - "tab" and "rat" - oral passage is blocked by pressing the tongue tip against the
alveolar ridge (alveolar)
/d/ - "dip" and "bad" - oral passage is blocked by pressing the tongue tip against the
alveolar ridge (alveolar)
/k/ - "kite" and "back" - block airflow with the back of the tongue against the soft
palate (velar).
/g/ - "good" and "bug" - block airflow with the back of the tongue against the soft
palate (velar).
Fricative Consonants, in contrast with nasal and stop consonants involving a
complete blockage of the vocal tract, fricative sounds involve only a partial blockage
of the vocal tract so that air has to be forced through a narrow channel.
For example, the /t/ stop consonant is created when you block airflow completely
with your tongue against the alveolar ridge, but if you let up with the tongue a bit and
let the air seep through, you make an /s/ fricative consonant.
The English fricative sounds are as follows:

i. /f/ - "fro" and "calf"- air is forced through the upper teeth and lower lip
(labiodental)
ii. /v/ - "vine" and "have" - air is forced through the upper teeth and lower lip
(labiodental)
iii. // - "thick" and "bath" - air is forced through upper teeth and tongue (dental)
iv. // - "the" and "rather" - air is forced through upper teeth and tongue (dental)
v. /s/ - "suit" and "bus" - air is forced through tongue and alveolar ridge (alveolar)
vi. /z/ - "zit" and "jazz" - air is forced through tongue and alveolar ridge (alveolar)
vii. // - "shot" and "brash" - air is forced through the tongue and point just beyond
alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)
viii. // - "vision" and "measure" - air is forced through the tongue and point just
beyond alveolar ridge (post-alveolar)
ix. /h/ - "happy" and "hope" - actually /h/ isn't a fricative. It's technically not even
a real consonant sound since there's no constriction/obstruction of airflow. But I
didn't want him to be lonely all by himself so I put him with the fricative boys :)
Affricate: The Affricate consonants start as stops with air building up behind an
articulator which then releases through a narrow channel as a fricative (instead of a
clean burst as stops do).

1. The English affricate sounds are:

/t/ - "chick" and "match" - air is blocked with tongue just beyond the alveolar
ridge (post-alveolar), then released as a fricative.
2. /d/ - "jam" and "badge" - air is blocked with tongue just beyond the alveolar
ridge (post-alveolar), then released as a fricative.
3. The other approximant sound is the 'English r' sound (written as // in IPA),
which actually has different ways of being articulated in English depending on
the speaker. It's typically classified as an alveolar approximant. Some people
articulate their // in the post-alveolar region.
(Notice how your tongue never actually comes in contact with the top of
your mouth, which is why it is classified as an approximant.)
Lateral consonants are created when the tongue blocks the the middle of your mouth
so that air has to pass around the sides. There is one lateral consonant in English - /l/
- ("luck") which is created when you place the tongue at the alveolar ridge.
If you play close attention, however, you will notice that there are actually two two
distinct /l/ sounds in English. The second /l/ sound is called Dark L (which would
"Leonard" or something), and it is created by moving the back of your tongue
toward the velum.

Vowels: How are they articulated:

Height
Backness
Rounding
Tense/ Lax
What Classes can sounds be grouped into:
What are suprasegmental features:
Examples:
Airstream Mechanisms:
Anatomy of the vocal track:
Sign language equivalents of phonetic units:

5 (look at notes)
How does pinker contribute to topics in this unit.

Chapter 6: Phonology
How do you determine phonemes of a language ?
Minimal Pairs: when two words with different meanings that are identical except
for one sound segment that occurs in the same place in each word.
Contrastive Distribution: is the relationship between two different elements, where
both elements are found in the same environment with a change in meaning.
/zIp/ and /sip/ is not a minimal pair, nor is seal /sil/ and eels /ilz/

How do you determine what allophones a phoneme has ?

Complementary distribution
Ho do you represent phonetic variation? (writing phonological rules)
What are common phonological processes?
What is the homorganic nasal rule?

Syllable Structure:
Features and natural classes:
Chapter 2: Morphology
What is morphology?
The study of internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed.
What are morphemes?
The basic morphological unit of language which can no longer be further divided
Types of morphemes:
Content words (open class words) vs function words (closed class verbs):
Open Class Words- (Content words):
o Nouns
o Verbs
o Adverbs
Closed Class words- (Function words):
o Conjunctions
o Prepositions

o Articles
o Pronouns
Free vs Bound Morphemes:
Free Morphemes: It can constitute a word by itself
Bound Morphemes: They are never words by themselves but are always part of a
word at the beginning, middle, or end.
Derivational Vs inflectional
Derivational Morphemes: When combined with a root, change either the semantic
meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness,
the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from
an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a
derivational morpheme, for it inverts the meaning of the word formed by the root
kind.

Inflectional Morphemes: Productive, and apply freely to nearly every appropriate

base (tense, number, person, so forth). Inflectional morphemes modify a verb's tense
or a noun's number without affecting the word's meaning or class.

How do we form new words?

Compunds:
Acronyms:
Abbreviations:
Etc:
Be able to do a morphological analysis:
How does pinker contribute to this section