Linguistics Exam 1 Study Guide with
verified answers
What is linguistics? - ANS ✔✔Investigating human language from a scientific perspective.
anomia aphasia - ANS ✔✔-difficulties naming objects. But the syntax is fine.
-People with this language disorder often feel they have words on the tip of their tongue
-It's usually caused by damage to your brain's left hemisphere.
Two ways of approaching language: - ANS ✔✔1. Language is a kind of tool:
-It's something we have and use in the world. It is a tool for communication. I have some
meaning that I want to express, and I am able to take that meaning and encode it into sounds.
Or if we're talking about a signed language, hand shapes. And the listener uses language as a
tool for communication because the listener takes these speech sounds that are coming at him,
and it somehow is able to decode these speech sounds or the hand shapes
2. Language is a kind of knowledge that you have
--What do you know when you know a language? You have a finite set of building blocks and
rules and then a set of rules that allow you to take these basic building blocks and combine
them into more complex structures. So you take this knowledge, and you actually deploy it in
the world, given your knowledge of language
Unconscious Knowledge: Expletive Infixation - ANS ✔✔-native speakers of a language know
word-creation rules that they have never been taught.
-ex. I can guaran-*******-tee you of that
What a fan-****in'-tastic day!
,Building Blocks and Rules: Phonetics - ANS ✔✔The inventory of sounds in your language
(sounds)
-Ex. You know that buh is an English sound. You know that [x] "huh" is not an English sound. So
[x] "huh" is the sound that would be found at the beginning of the Spanish name [xose] Jose
McGurk effect - ANS ✔✔part of your knowledge of phonetics-- that is to say, the sounds of your
language is you actually know the way a person's mouth looks when they make particular
sounds. This effect shows that you intuitively know the mouth shape of a particular sound
-Your perception of sound changes when you open and close your eyes. The way a person's
mouth moves and what you hear changes the way you hear the sound coming out even if it is
the exact same sound playing over again
Building Blocks and Rules: Phonology - ANS ✔✔Understanding the sound patterns that are
possible in your language (how sounds interact)
There are many words in English that begin with [tr] ex. Train, truck, tree, trampoline, etc.
What about the opposite sound sequence, [rt]?
-there are no English words that begin with the sound sequence [rt].
-So why is it that it is possible to combine certain sounds-- [tr] - in one order, but not the other
order?
-So part of your knowledge of English is that it's possible to have [tr] at the beginning of a word,
but it's not possible to have [rt] at the beginning of a word.
-Ex. How the plural "s" is pronounced like in "eels" or "caps"
The sound "s" in eels sounds like [z]
The sound "s" in caps, sounds like [s]
,The sound "s" in toads sounds like a [z]
Wug Test - ANS ✔✔present children, in this case, with novel nouns and novel verbs, and you ask
them, OK, how do you make the plural of a word you've never heard before?
To illustrate that what the child has learned is grammar and not a huge memory bank of
phrases, Jean Gleason invented a test called the Wug Test. This test shows how children can
apply the rules of their language even to nonsense words that they could never have heard
before.
Without effort we can pluralize nouns and put them into tenses like past and present tense
We have a sort of rule system, starting at a very young age
Knowledge of Language: Morphology - ANS ✔✔Another set of building blocks that you have is
found within words (word structure)
You know a variety of words in your language
You know potential words in your language
You know how to form more complex words from less complex ones
You have knowledge of morphology and word structure
Building Blocks and Rules: Lexicon - ANS ✔✔your mental dictionary of the words you know
Words such as: brown, cow, speak, fast, insipid, nefarious, prevaricate, etc.
, You know words that may never be in a dictionary
Your lexicon lets you build more complex words:
-She talks/ is talking/ talked
-Differ/ different/ differentiate/ differentiation/ differentiational
Another part of your knowledge that is crucial is that you know that there are constraints on
how a word can be built.
-You cannot just start with differ, and then create differatient, whatever that would mean. You
know that you can only combine those pieces of the word, like differentiate-- you can only
combine them in certain orders.
Building Blocks and Rules: Complex Word Structures - ANS ✔✔Your knowledge of language
allows you to build complex word structures:
-"Hey, did they change the failed password security question answer attempts limit?"
-"Ministers mull volcano ash cloud flight chaos measures."
-"I just got an airbag malfunction safety recall follow-up notice."
Building Blocks and Rules: New words: - ANS ✔✔If you encounter something you've never seen
before, you might make up a new word for it using available words in your language and
combine them together like "blobfish"
-shopaholic came from the word alcoholic
Building Blocks and Rules: Syntax: - ANS ✔✔How to build good phrases and sentences
(sentence structure)
Syntax: How to build good phrases and sentences
verified answers
What is linguistics? - ANS ✔✔Investigating human language from a scientific perspective.
anomia aphasia - ANS ✔✔-difficulties naming objects. But the syntax is fine.
-People with this language disorder often feel they have words on the tip of their tongue
-It's usually caused by damage to your brain's left hemisphere.
Two ways of approaching language: - ANS ✔✔1. Language is a kind of tool:
-It's something we have and use in the world. It is a tool for communication. I have some
meaning that I want to express, and I am able to take that meaning and encode it into sounds.
Or if we're talking about a signed language, hand shapes. And the listener uses language as a
tool for communication because the listener takes these speech sounds that are coming at him,
and it somehow is able to decode these speech sounds or the hand shapes
2. Language is a kind of knowledge that you have
--What do you know when you know a language? You have a finite set of building blocks and
rules and then a set of rules that allow you to take these basic building blocks and combine
them into more complex structures. So you take this knowledge, and you actually deploy it in
the world, given your knowledge of language
Unconscious Knowledge: Expletive Infixation - ANS ✔✔-native speakers of a language know
word-creation rules that they have never been taught.
-ex. I can guaran-*******-tee you of that
What a fan-****in'-tastic day!
,Building Blocks and Rules: Phonetics - ANS ✔✔The inventory of sounds in your language
(sounds)
-Ex. You know that buh is an English sound. You know that [x] "huh" is not an English sound. So
[x] "huh" is the sound that would be found at the beginning of the Spanish name [xose] Jose
McGurk effect - ANS ✔✔part of your knowledge of phonetics-- that is to say, the sounds of your
language is you actually know the way a person's mouth looks when they make particular
sounds. This effect shows that you intuitively know the mouth shape of a particular sound
-Your perception of sound changes when you open and close your eyes. The way a person's
mouth moves and what you hear changes the way you hear the sound coming out even if it is
the exact same sound playing over again
Building Blocks and Rules: Phonology - ANS ✔✔Understanding the sound patterns that are
possible in your language (how sounds interact)
There are many words in English that begin with [tr] ex. Train, truck, tree, trampoline, etc.
What about the opposite sound sequence, [rt]?
-there are no English words that begin with the sound sequence [rt].
-So why is it that it is possible to combine certain sounds-- [tr] - in one order, but not the other
order?
-So part of your knowledge of English is that it's possible to have [tr] at the beginning of a word,
but it's not possible to have [rt] at the beginning of a word.
-Ex. How the plural "s" is pronounced like in "eels" or "caps"
The sound "s" in eels sounds like [z]
The sound "s" in caps, sounds like [s]
,The sound "s" in toads sounds like a [z]
Wug Test - ANS ✔✔present children, in this case, with novel nouns and novel verbs, and you ask
them, OK, how do you make the plural of a word you've never heard before?
To illustrate that what the child has learned is grammar and not a huge memory bank of
phrases, Jean Gleason invented a test called the Wug Test. This test shows how children can
apply the rules of their language even to nonsense words that they could never have heard
before.
Without effort we can pluralize nouns and put them into tenses like past and present tense
We have a sort of rule system, starting at a very young age
Knowledge of Language: Morphology - ANS ✔✔Another set of building blocks that you have is
found within words (word structure)
You know a variety of words in your language
You know potential words in your language
You know how to form more complex words from less complex ones
You have knowledge of morphology and word structure
Building Blocks and Rules: Lexicon - ANS ✔✔your mental dictionary of the words you know
Words such as: brown, cow, speak, fast, insipid, nefarious, prevaricate, etc.
, You know words that may never be in a dictionary
Your lexicon lets you build more complex words:
-She talks/ is talking/ talked
-Differ/ different/ differentiate/ differentiation/ differentiational
Another part of your knowledge that is crucial is that you know that there are constraints on
how a word can be built.
-You cannot just start with differ, and then create differatient, whatever that would mean. You
know that you can only combine those pieces of the word, like differentiate-- you can only
combine them in certain orders.
Building Blocks and Rules: Complex Word Structures - ANS ✔✔Your knowledge of language
allows you to build complex word structures:
-"Hey, did they change the failed password security question answer attempts limit?"
-"Ministers mull volcano ash cloud flight chaos measures."
-"I just got an airbag malfunction safety recall follow-up notice."
Building Blocks and Rules: New words: - ANS ✔✔If you encounter something you've never seen
before, you might make up a new word for it using available words in your language and
combine them together like "blobfish"
-shopaholic came from the word alcoholic
Building Blocks and Rules: Syntax: - ANS ✔✔How to build good phrases and sentences
(sentence structure)
Syntax: How to build good phrases and sentences
