Core Curriculum: Linguistics Final Exam
Competence = abstract structural principles (speaker’s intuitions about native language).
Performance = actual realization of language, which may not directly reflect the principles.
Innateness hypothesis (Chomsky) = languages are naturally acquired by children without
much strain and instructions. So, the human capacity for language is innate. Children show
similar developmental patterns (no matter the language), it’s always successful, and
correction / instruction has little to no effect.
Properties of human language:
- Reflexivity: humans can use language to talk about language.
- Arbitrariness: linguistic units have no natural connection between form and meaning.
- Displacement: language can be used to refer to things that are not in the here / now.
- Open-endedness: the potential number of utterances in human languages is infinite.
- Cultural transmission: humans have a predisposition for language, but the language they
acquire depends on surroundings.
- Duality of patterning: linguistic forms have 2 levels of structure (meaning and form).
Phonetics = the study of speech sounds.
Articulatory phonetics = production of speech by speaker.
Acoustic phonetics = physical properties of sound waves.
Auditory phonetics = perception of speech by hearer.
Sound is air that vibrates. Air molecules are set in motion by an energy source. This causes
them to oscillate and pass on their energy to neighbouring molecules. This way, sound is
sent from the speaker to the listener.
Properties of sound: loudness, pitch, shape of the sound wave.
Deep orthography = languages where the spelling isn’t always similar to pronunciation (ex:
English, French).
Shallow orthography = languages where the spelling is similar to pronunciation (ex: Italian,
Spanish).
Voiceless sounds = when the vocal folds are spread apart, the air passes between them
with no obstruction.
Voiced sounds = when the vocal folds are drawn together, the air repeatedly pushes them
apart as it passes through (vibration).
Obstruent sounds = involve pressure change and noise in their production (plosives,
affricates, fricatives). The velum must be raised. Can be voiced or voiceless.
Sonorant sounds = don’t involve changes in pressure or noise in their production (nasal,
approximants). Velum can be raised or lowered. Always voiced.
Phonology = the study of systems / patterns of speech sounds.
Phoneme = each meaning-distinguishing sound (/ /). They function contrastively (/f/ - /v/).
When 2 sounds share features (/p/ - /k/), they’re members of a natural class of phonemes.
Phones = the sounds that are actually produced in speech ([ ]).
Allophones = a set of phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme (ex: [t] in tar and
star is different).
Complementary distribution = the place where sounds occur are never the same (ex: the
1
,distribution of unaspirated and aspirated stops is mutually exclusive: where you get one kind,
you never get the other).
Parallel distribution = when there’s at least one place in which either sounds may occur.
Minimal pair = when 2 words (ex: fan – van) are identical in form except for one phoneme
occurring in the same position.
Minimal set = when a group of words are identical in form except for one phoneme
occurring in the same position.
Phonotactics = permitted arrangements of sounds.
Voice Onset Time (VOT) = the onset of vocal cord vibration relative to the release of the
stop.
Syllable = σ, a unit containing an obligatory centre part which is usually a vowel.
Nucleus = middle part of the syllable, often the vowel.
Onset = consonants before the nucleus. Onset without consonant: empty onset.
Coda = consonants after the nucleus.
Rhyme = nucleus + coda.
Open syllables = syllables which don’t have a coda (ex: me, to).
Closed syllables = syllables which do have a coda (ex: up, cup).
Consonant cluster = more than one consonant (CC).
Lenition = when the pronunciation of the final consonant changes (ex: secret -> secrecy).
Aspiration [h] = a puff of air following a phoneme (ex: [th] in tar).
Assimilation = sounds become more similar to those in surroundings (ex: better – ‘bedder’).
Nasalization [~] = simultaneous oral and nasal airflow.
Elision = the loss of a sound, usually on unstressed vowels (ex: next day)
Fundamental frequency (F0) = speaker can manipulate the rate of vibration which is
difference in pitch. Higher F0 is higher vibration is higher pitch.
Harmonics / overtones = the individual frequencies that make up a complex sound wave.
Each harmonic is an integer multiple of F0.
Vowel quality = the specific acoustic characteristics that differentiate vowels, depending on
the shape of the vocal tract.
Formants = prominent frequency peaks in the acoustic spectrum of speech that result from
the resonant frequencies of the vocal tract.
Etymology = the study of the origin / history of a word.
Ways to make neologisms (= new words):
- Borrowing = borrowing from other languages. Loan-translation / calque = direct
translation of a word (ex: skyscraper – wolkenkrabber, Wolkenkratzer, gratte-ciel).
- Compounding = joining of 2 words (ex: fast food). Blending is when the combination of 2
forms produce a single new term (ex: smoke and fog -> smog).
- Clipping = a word of >1 syllable reduced to a short form (ex: gasoline -> gas). With
hypocorisms, a longer word is reduced to a single syllable + -y or -ie (ex: breakfast ->
brekky). Backformation is when a noun is reduced to a verb (ex: emotion -> emote).
- Conversion = a change in the function of a word, like a noun to a verb (ex: vacationing).
- Coinage = the invention of totally new words. New words based on the name of a person /
place are called eponyms (ex: jeans from Genoa where the cloth was made). Acronyms
are new words formed from the initial letters of other words (ex: NASA). An initialism is the
same, but when the letters are pronounced separately (ex: CD).
2
, - Derivation = when prefixes, suffixes, infixes are added (ex: careless, absogoddamlutely).
- Analogy = new words are formed similar to existing words (ex: yuppie – hippie and yippie).
Morphology = the study of forms.
Morphemes = a minimal unit of meaning / grammatical function (ex: talks, talker, talking).
Stems = the basic word forms which bound morphemes attach to.
Morphs = the actual forms used to realize morphemes (ex: cats - /kat/ + /s/).
Allomorphs = a variant phonetic form of a morpheme.
Free morphemes = can stand by themselves as words (ex: new). Lexical morphemes are
nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (ex: girl, break, sad, never). Functional morphemes
are articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns (ex: the, and, on, me).
Bound morphemes = can’t stand by themselves as words (ex: re-, -ist). Derivational
morphemes are used in the derivation of words (see above). Inflectional morphemes are
used to show if a word is plural / singular, past / present, or a comparative / possessive (ex:
‘s, laughing). They never change the grammatical category.
Grammar = a system of linguistic elements and rules.
Nouns = words used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places, qualities, phenomena,
and abstract ideas. Proper nouns begin with a capital letter (ex: Cathy, Rome).
Articles = the indefinite article is a/an, and the definite article is the.
Adjectives = words used, often with nouns, to provide more information (ex: large objects).
Verbs = words used to refer to actions and states involving people and things in events.
Adverbs = words used, often with verbs, to provide more information about actions, states,
and events (ex: slowly, yesterday). Some adverbs are also used with adjectives to modify
information about things (ex: really, very).
Prepositions = words used to provide more information about time, place, etc (ex: at, in).
Pronouns = words referring to people and things already known (ex: she, herself, they, it).
Conjunctions = words used to make connections between events (ex: and, but, because).
Agreement = parts should grammatically agree in number, person, tense, voice, gender.
Word order = the basic English word order is NP-V-NP (SVO).
Prescriptive grammar = a set of rules for the correct way to speak or write.
Descriptive grammar = an objective description of a speaker’s knowledge of language
(competence), based on their use of language (performance). One type of this is structural
analysis: to investigate the distribution of forms in a language. Another is constituent
analysis: identifying small constituents and how they also form larger constituents.
Syntax = the structure and ordering of components within a sentence.
Generative grammar = a set of rules which can produce an unlimited number of correct
structures. Deep structure: the underlying rules specifying which elements are merged to
form structures. Surface structure: each different individual phonological construction that
we create from these rules.
Noun phrase (NP) = a noun (head) in combination with other words, like a determiner.
Verb phrase (VP) = a verb in combination with other words, often nouns (direct object).
Transitive verbs = verbs that occur with a direct object.
Constituent = a unit which contains smaller items (ex: the and dog). It can always be
replaced by a single word (like a pronoun), move as a unit, and be replaced by “did/do so”.
Functions = subject, predicate, head, modifier, complements
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Competence = abstract structural principles (speaker’s intuitions about native language).
Performance = actual realization of language, which may not directly reflect the principles.
Innateness hypothesis (Chomsky) = languages are naturally acquired by children without
much strain and instructions. So, the human capacity for language is innate. Children show
similar developmental patterns (no matter the language), it’s always successful, and
correction / instruction has little to no effect.
Properties of human language:
- Reflexivity: humans can use language to talk about language.
- Arbitrariness: linguistic units have no natural connection between form and meaning.
- Displacement: language can be used to refer to things that are not in the here / now.
- Open-endedness: the potential number of utterances in human languages is infinite.
- Cultural transmission: humans have a predisposition for language, but the language they
acquire depends on surroundings.
- Duality of patterning: linguistic forms have 2 levels of structure (meaning and form).
Phonetics = the study of speech sounds.
Articulatory phonetics = production of speech by speaker.
Acoustic phonetics = physical properties of sound waves.
Auditory phonetics = perception of speech by hearer.
Sound is air that vibrates. Air molecules are set in motion by an energy source. This causes
them to oscillate and pass on their energy to neighbouring molecules. This way, sound is
sent from the speaker to the listener.
Properties of sound: loudness, pitch, shape of the sound wave.
Deep orthography = languages where the spelling isn’t always similar to pronunciation (ex:
English, French).
Shallow orthography = languages where the spelling is similar to pronunciation (ex: Italian,
Spanish).
Voiceless sounds = when the vocal folds are spread apart, the air passes between them
with no obstruction.
Voiced sounds = when the vocal folds are drawn together, the air repeatedly pushes them
apart as it passes through (vibration).
Obstruent sounds = involve pressure change and noise in their production (plosives,
affricates, fricatives). The velum must be raised. Can be voiced or voiceless.
Sonorant sounds = don’t involve changes in pressure or noise in their production (nasal,
approximants). Velum can be raised or lowered. Always voiced.
Phonology = the study of systems / patterns of speech sounds.
Phoneme = each meaning-distinguishing sound (/ /). They function contrastively (/f/ - /v/).
When 2 sounds share features (/p/ - /k/), they’re members of a natural class of phonemes.
Phones = the sounds that are actually produced in speech ([ ]).
Allophones = a set of phones, all of which are versions of one phoneme (ex: [t] in tar and
star is different).
Complementary distribution = the place where sounds occur are never the same (ex: the
1
,distribution of unaspirated and aspirated stops is mutually exclusive: where you get one kind,
you never get the other).
Parallel distribution = when there’s at least one place in which either sounds may occur.
Minimal pair = when 2 words (ex: fan – van) are identical in form except for one phoneme
occurring in the same position.
Minimal set = when a group of words are identical in form except for one phoneme
occurring in the same position.
Phonotactics = permitted arrangements of sounds.
Voice Onset Time (VOT) = the onset of vocal cord vibration relative to the release of the
stop.
Syllable = σ, a unit containing an obligatory centre part which is usually a vowel.
Nucleus = middle part of the syllable, often the vowel.
Onset = consonants before the nucleus. Onset without consonant: empty onset.
Coda = consonants after the nucleus.
Rhyme = nucleus + coda.
Open syllables = syllables which don’t have a coda (ex: me, to).
Closed syllables = syllables which do have a coda (ex: up, cup).
Consonant cluster = more than one consonant (CC).
Lenition = when the pronunciation of the final consonant changes (ex: secret -> secrecy).
Aspiration [h] = a puff of air following a phoneme (ex: [th] in tar).
Assimilation = sounds become more similar to those in surroundings (ex: better – ‘bedder’).
Nasalization [~] = simultaneous oral and nasal airflow.
Elision = the loss of a sound, usually on unstressed vowels (ex: next day)
Fundamental frequency (F0) = speaker can manipulate the rate of vibration which is
difference in pitch. Higher F0 is higher vibration is higher pitch.
Harmonics / overtones = the individual frequencies that make up a complex sound wave.
Each harmonic is an integer multiple of F0.
Vowel quality = the specific acoustic characteristics that differentiate vowels, depending on
the shape of the vocal tract.
Formants = prominent frequency peaks in the acoustic spectrum of speech that result from
the resonant frequencies of the vocal tract.
Etymology = the study of the origin / history of a word.
Ways to make neologisms (= new words):
- Borrowing = borrowing from other languages. Loan-translation / calque = direct
translation of a word (ex: skyscraper – wolkenkrabber, Wolkenkratzer, gratte-ciel).
- Compounding = joining of 2 words (ex: fast food). Blending is when the combination of 2
forms produce a single new term (ex: smoke and fog -> smog).
- Clipping = a word of >1 syllable reduced to a short form (ex: gasoline -> gas). With
hypocorisms, a longer word is reduced to a single syllable + -y or -ie (ex: breakfast ->
brekky). Backformation is when a noun is reduced to a verb (ex: emotion -> emote).
- Conversion = a change in the function of a word, like a noun to a verb (ex: vacationing).
- Coinage = the invention of totally new words. New words based on the name of a person /
place are called eponyms (ex: jeans from Genoa where the cloth was made). Acronyms
are new words formed from the initial letters of other words (ex: NASA). An initialism is the
same, but when the letters are pronounced separately (ex: CD).
2
, - Derivation = when prefixes, suffixes, infixes are added (ex: careless, absogoddamlutely).
- Analogy = new words are formed similar to existing words (ex: yuppie – hippie and yippie).
Morphology = the study of forms.
Morphemes = a minimal unit of meaning / grammatical function (ex: talks, talker, talking).
Stems = the basic word forms which bound morphemes attach to.
Morphs = the actual forms used to realize morphemes (ex: cats - /kat/ + /s/).
Allomorphs = a variant phonetic form of a morpheme.
Free morphemes = can stand by themselves as words (ex: new). Lexical morphemes are
nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (ex: girl, break, sad, never). Functional morphemes
are articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns (ex: the, and, on, me).
Bound morphemes = can’t stand by themselves as words (ex: re-, -ist). Derivational
morphemes are used in the derivation of words (see above). Inflectional morphemes are
used to show if a word is plural / singular, past / present, or a comparative / possessive (ex:
‘s, laughing). They never change the grammatical category.
Grammar = a system of linguistic elements and rules.
Nouns = words used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places, qualities, phenomena,
and abstract ideas. Proper nouns begin with a capital letter (ex: Cathy, Rome).
Articles = the indefinite article is a/an, and the definite article is the.
Adjectives = words used, often with nouns, to provide more information (ex: large objects).
Verbs = words used to refer to actions and states involving people and things in events.
Adverbs = words used, often with verbs, to provide more information about actions, states,
and events (ex: slowly, yesterday). Some adverbs are also used with adjectives to modify
information about things (ex: really, very).
Prepositions = words used to provide more information about time, place, etc (ex: at, in).
Pronouns = words referring to people and things already known (ex: she, herself, they, it).
Conjunctions = words used to make connections between events (ex: and, but, because).
Agreement = parts should grammatically agree in number, person, tense, voice, gender.
Word order = the basic English word order is NP-V-NP (SVO).
Prescriptive grammar = a set of rules for the correct way to speak or write.
Descriptive grammar = an objective description of a speaker’s knowledge of language
(competence), based on their use of language (performance). One type of this is structural
analysis: to investigate the distribution of forms in a language. Another is constituent
analysis: identifying small constituents and how they also form larger constituents.
Syntax = the structure and ordering of components within a sentence.
Generative grammar = a set of rules which can produce an unlimited number of correct
structures. Deep structure: the underlying rules specifying which elements are merged to
form structures. Surface structure: each different individual phonological construction that
we create from these rules.
Noun phrase (NP) = a noun (head) in combination with other words, like a determiner.
Verb phrase (VP) = a verb in combination with other words, often nouns (direct object).
Transitive verbs = verbs that occur with a direct object.
Constituent = a unit which contains smaller items (ex: the and dog). It can always be
replaced by a single word (like a pronoun), move as a unit, and be replaced by “did/do so”.
Functions = subject, predicate, head, modifier, complements
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