The Study of Language (George Yule)
50 flashcards · Literature · by lakesare
What's onomatopeia?
Process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia.Greek onoma, meaning "name", and poiein, meaning "to make". Words that sound similar to the noises they describe are examples of onomatopeia. In English, in addition to cuckoo, we have splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech onomatopeias.
What is the basic idea behind the bow-wow theory of language origin?
Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds that early humans heard around them. Words that sound similar to the noises they describe are examples of onomatopeia. In English, in addition to cuckoo, we have splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech onomatopeias.
Where is pharynx VS larynx?
The pharynx (or the resonator) is above the larynx (or the voice box). Pharyngitis is inflammation of the back of the throat, known as the pharynx. When the larynx moved lower, the pharynx became longer and acted as a resonator, resulting in increased range and clarity of sounds produced via the larynx.
This report is a concise recapitulation of events throughout the entire day.
A brief recitement or enumeration of the major points in a narrative, article, or book [biology] The reenactment of the embryonic development in evolution of the species.
What's meant by "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"? The idea that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" was first proposed by Ernst Haeckel in 1866.
Idea that the development of the human infant is going through exactly the same stages as the human species did (in the development of physical abilities and also language). The idea was very popular for many years, but is no longer taken as seriously, mainly because of a more detailed understanding of how human infants develop language in a context with others who use the language rather than in a context where no language exists beforehand. ontogeny - the development of an individual phylogen…
What's the connection between the innateness hypothesis and Universal Grammar? Innateness hypothesis claims that some knowledge of language is hardwired into the organism.
Noam Chomsky proposed that this innate capacity for language was essentially a type of basic grammar (Universal Grammar) that could develop, with experience, into all the various grammars of different languages. One of the most significant arguments generative grammarians had for the innateness hypothesis is the poverty of the stimulus argument. In this argument, Noam Chomsky put forth that the amount of input a child receives during language acquisition is insufficient to account for the lingu…
Name examples of voiced and voiceless sounds.
Voiced - Z-Z-Z-Z or V-V-V-V, when your Adam's apple vibrates. The vocal folds in larynx are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through, creating a vibration effect. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced.Voiceless - S-S-S-S or F-F-F-F, when your Adam's apple does NOT vibrate. The vocal folds in larynx are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless.
Name morphemes in the word 'reopened'. "The police reopened the investigation".
The word 'reopened' has 3 morphemes: open re- (meaning "again") -ed (indicating past tense).
What are bound VS free morphemes?
bound morphemes - can't stand by themselves E.g. re-, -ist, -ed, -s.free morphemes - CAN stand by themselves E.g. open and tour. We should note that this type of description is a partial simplification of the morphological facts of English. There are a number of English words in which the element treated as the stem is not, in fact, a free morpheme. In words such as receive,reduce and repeat, we can identify the bound morpheme re- at the beginning, but the elements -ceive, -duce and -peat are n…
What are derivational VS inflectional morphemes?
derivational morphemes - used to make new words, or to make words of a different grammatical category from the stem. For example, the addition of the derivational morpheme -ness changes the adjective good to the noun goodness.inflectional morphemes - used to show if a word is plural or singular, if it is past tense or not, and if it is a comparative or possessive form. English has only 9 inflectional morphemes:
What's phone VS phoneme?
phone - distinct speech sound regardless of whether it's critical to the meaning of words. phoneme - distinct speech sound that is critical to the meaning of the word. Phones [ph] and [p] stand for one phoneme /p/.
What's morph VS morpheme?
morph - particular form of a morpheme. morpheme - a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function. Morphs cat + s, bus + es stand for one morpheme ('plural').
List the bound morphemes in 'shortened'.
-en, -ed
List the bound morphemes in 'fearlessly'.
-less, -ly
What are the inflectional morphemes in these expression: "We looked through my grandmother's old photo albums". English has only 9 inflectional morphemes:
"We looked through my grandmother's old photo albums".
Name all articles in this sentence: "The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully". Commonly listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and article.
"The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully"
Name all adverbs in this sentence: "The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully". Commonly listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and article.
"The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully"
Name all prepositions in this sentence: "The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully". Commonly listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and article.
"The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully"
Name all pronouns in this sentence: "The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully". Commonly listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and article.
"The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully"
Name all conjunctions in this sentence: "The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully". Commonly listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and article.
"The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully"
[Parts of speech] What are adverbs VS pronouns?
Adverbs - slowly, yesterday Adverbs are words used, typically with verbs, to provide more information about actions, states and events (slowly, yesterday).Pronouns - she, they Pronouns are words (she, herself, they, it, you) used in place of noun phrases, typically referring to people and things already known (She talks to herself. They said it belonged to you).
[Parts of speech] What are prepositions VS conjunctions?
Prepositions - at, in, on, near, with, without Prepositions are used with nouns in phrases providing information about time (at five o'clock, in the morning) and place (on the table, near the window) involving actions and things.Conjunctions - and, but, because, when Conjunctions are words used to make connections and indicate relationships between events (Chantel's husband was so sweet and he helped her a lot because she couldn’t do much when she was pregnant).
What's wrong with defining pronouns as "words used in place of nouns"?
It's better to say pronouns are "words used in place of noun phrases". Noun phrase is a phrase that performs the same grammatical function as a noun. If noun phrases could be used instead of the nouns, then we'd write The man ate the sandwich as *The he ate the it.Instead we usually say He (= The man) ate it (= the sandwich).
Create a labeled and bracketed analysis of this sentence: The thief stole a wallet.
What's a proper noun VS common noun?
proper noun - noun that identifies a single entity (e.g. London, Jupiter, or Sarah) common noun - which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (city, planet, person, corporation)
[Phrase structure rules] How can you interpret this rule?
A noun phrase consists of either: Article + optional Adjective + Noun Pronoun Proper noun Noun that identifies a single entity (e.g. London, Jupiter, or Sarah)
[Phrase structure rules] What's NP vs PN?
NP - Noun Phrase PN - Proper Noun Proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity (e.g. London, Jupiter, or Sarah).
[Phrase structure rules] What's Pro vs Prep vs PP?
Pro - Pronoun That reminds me of something.Prep - Preposition PP - Prepositional Phrase Philip ate in the kitchen.
[Phrase structure rules] Draw the phrase structure tree for the phrase "A dog followed the boy".
[Phrase structure rules] Explain what's C and CP.
C - Complementizer CP - Complement Phrase That's how we can create recursive sentences: we begin with S on the left and, as we rewrite symbols, we eventually have S on the right, allowing us to go back to the beginning and go through the set of rules again (and again).
[Phrase structure rules] Complete the following tree diagram.
Name 2 examples of semantic features for the word 'boy'. Semantic features represent the basic conceptual components of meaning for any lexical item
+animate +human -female Semantic features: basic elements such as "human", included as plus (+human) or minus (−human), used in an analysis of the components of word meaning.
Name examples of gradable and non-gradable antonyms.
gradable antonyms - big/small, fast/slow The negative of one member of a gradable pair does not necessarily imply the other.E.g., My car isn’t old, doesn’t necessarily mean My car is new.non-gradable antonyms - alive/dead, married/single The negative of one member of a non-gradable pair does imply the other.E.g., My grandparents aren’t alive does indeed mean My grandparents are dead.
Using semantic features, how would you explain the oddness of the sentence "The television drank my water"?
The verb drink requires a subject with the feature [+animate], and the noun television has the feature [-animate].
What's anaphora?
Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly. The pronoun 'it' is an anaphora; it points to the left toward its antecedent 'the plate'.Anaphora can be defined as subsequent reference to an already introduced entity. The connection between antecedents and anaphoric expressions is often based on inference, as in these examples.We found a house to rent, but the kitchen was very small. Antecedent: a house, anaphora: the kitchen.
[Pragmatics] What's the presupposition in a sentence 'Jane no longer writes fiction'?
Presupposition is that Jane once wrote fiction. A presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to a utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Questions like this, with built-in presuppositions, are very useful devices for interrogators. If the defendant is asked by the prosecutor, Okay, Mr. Buckingham, how fast were you going when you ran the red light?, there is a presupposition that Mr. Buckingham did in fact run the red light.If he sim…
[Pragmatics] What's the "constancy under negation" test for identifying a presupposition.
Whether you say My car is a wreck, or My car is not a wreck, the underlying presupposition (I have a car) remains true despite the fact that the two sentences have opposite meanings. This is called the "constancy under negation" test for identifying a presupposition.
[Pragmatics] What's a speech act?
The action performed by a speaker with the utterance -"request", "command", "question", or "inform". If you say, I'll be there at six, you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act of "promising".
[Pragmatics] What's face, in particular negative and positive face?
Face is your public self-image. negative face - being not imposed upon. positive face - being liked, appreciated, approved. Brown and Levinson defined positive face two ways: as "the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others executors", or alternatively, "the positive consistent self-image or 'personality' (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants". Negative face was defined as "the want of every '…
[Pragmatics] In these examples, is the speaker appealing to positive or negative face? If you're free, there’s going to be a party at Yuri's place on Saturday. Let's go to the party at Yuri's place on Saturday. Everyone's invited.
negative ("If you're free") positive ("Let's go")
[Discourse analysis] What's cohesion VS coherence?
Cohesion - when text has good ties between words and phrases. Coherence - what makes a text semantically meaningful. Cohesive but incoherent text:By itself, cohesion would not be sufficient to enable us to make sense of what we read. It is quite easy to create a highly cohesive text that has a lot of connections between the sentences, but is very difficult to interpret. Note that the following text has connections such as Lincoln – the car, red – that color, her – she, letters – a letter, and s…
[Discourse analysis] What are hedges in pragmatics/discourse?
Hedges are words or phrases used to indicate that we're not really sure that what we're saying is sufficiently correct or complete. The party was somewhat spoiled by the return of the parents. (adverb)I'm not an expert but you might want to try restarting your computer. (clause)That's false, isn't it? (tag question clause)
ASL (American Sign Language) VS signed english?
ASL (American Sign Language) - is a complete, unique language developed by deaf people, for deaf people and is used in its purest form by people who are Deaf. Being its own language, ASL not only has its own vocabulary, but also its own grammar that differs from English.Signed English - is a system to communicate in English through signs and fingerspelling. Signed Exact English uses English grammar (that is, you are signing English).
Logographic VS phonographic languages?
logographic language - symbols represent words. phonographic language - symbols represent sounds.
What are cognates in languages?
Cognates are words in different languages that are similar in form and meaning. The English words mother, father and friend are cognates of the German words Mutter, Vater and Freund.
What's a pidgin language?
A language that developed for some practical purpose (e.g. trading), among groups who did not know each other's languages. As such, it would have no native speakers. The origin of the term “pidgin” is thought to be from a Chinese version of the English word “business.”A pidgin is described as an “English pidgin” if English is the lexifier language, that is, the main source of words in the pidgin. There are several English pidgins still used today. They are characterized by an absence of any com…
Name 2 meanings of the word creole.
A person of mixed European and black descent. A mother tongue formed from the contact of two languages through an earlier pidgin stage. A creole has native speakers, a pidgin has none.
[English] What does cf. stand for?
Short for the Latin: confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare". Used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed.
What's a ligature?
Two letters joined as a single glyph. In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letters are joined as a single glyph. The common ampersand (&) developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters e and t (spelling et, Latin for and) were combined.
What's NB or n.b.?
Nota Bene, Latin for "note well". The markings used to draw readers' attention in medieval manuscripts are also called nota bene marks. The common medieval markings do not, however, include the abbreviation NB. The usual medieval equivalents are anagrams from the four letters in the word nota, the abbreviation DM from dignum memoria ("worth remembering"), or a symbol of a little hand ☞.