Linguistics HW Practive

What does "I don't fool with them" correspond to in Standard North American English, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer article?

"I do not belong to their social circle."

Linguistic Savants

- very low nonverbal IQ but shows skills in learning languages Can't: - Take care of himself - Button his own shirt - Walk across the street alone Can: - Learn or recognize dozens of languages

Select the true statement about the differences between SNAE and HKE. (Hint: Write phonetic transcriptions of the SNAE words first.)

All of the above statements are false.

What are the two types of aphasias?

Broca and Wernicke

What is linguistics?

Investigating human language from a scientific perspective.

Susan is a student in the 4rd grade. She is the best player on her soccer team, and excels in her math and science classes. Her favorite subject is Art, and she especially loves to draw birds and dogs. In her art class, Susan has been overheard saying things like "We has five dog," "Her like yellow," and "You like picture?" What do these facts suggest about Susan?

She likely has Specific Language Impairment. Her visual/spatial abilities are intact, and her IQ seems to be in the typical range, but she has problems with grammar.

Is sign language the same as spoken language?

Sign language is a "real" language, and is processed in the same way as spoken languages.

Based on the linguistic facts, what can be said about Standard and non-standard varieties of English?

Standard English and non-standard English varieties have differences in particular grammar rules.

The fact that all languages have sentences with subjects and objects, words, questions, and negation supports the existence of:

Universal Grammar

Select the true statement about the differences between SNAE and ME. (Hint: Write phonetic transcriptions of the SNAE words first.)

Voiceless stops in SNAE are voiceless stops in ME.

We know that the relation between the sound of a word and its meaning is arbitrary because:

different languages have different words that refer to the same objects/concepts.

The Wug Test provides evidence that

even very young children know the phonological rules of their language.

What features do they have in common? [ʊ, ɪ]

height, tenseness

[i] [u]

height, tenseness

What properties distinguish these groups? [i] [ɪ] [u] vs. [o][e][ɛ]

high vs. mid vowels

In the video lecture, Torrence discusses the phenomenon of "Expletive Infixation" in English. This data is important because

it suggests that native speakers of a language know grammar rules that they have never been taught.

What features do they have in common? [z, s, θ, f]

manner

[f] [θ] [s] [ʃ] [h]

manner of articulation, voicing

Voicing

voiced or voiceless - voiced airstream forces way causeing vibration - voiceless air flows freely through glottis

What properties distinguish these groups? [p] [t] [k] vs. [b] [d] [g]

voiced stops vs. voiceless stops

What features do they have in common? [d, g, v]

voicing

[b] [z] [n] [r] [l]

voicing

Phonology

- the sound system of the language, including the sounds that are used and how they may be combined

Phonetics

- the study of the sounds of a language Ex: In english we have the sound B, but we don't have X (but an X sound is in Spanish)

Which statement is true about dialects of any language?

- A dialect is speech form that may be restricted to speakers from a certain geographical area. - A dialect is speech forms that are shared by members of the same socio-economic class. - The most educated and least educated native speakers of a language all speak some dialect. - The variety of language taught in schools, the standard language, is a dialect.

Based on the class videos and cases discussed in the Philadelphia Inquirer article, what can you conclude about dialects of American English?

- A speaker of Standard North American English does not necessarily understand the intended meaning of sentences in other dialects. - A word, like be or dog, may occur in two different dialects, but function differently in each.

Children produce sentences like "Daddy goed to work" that they have clearly never heard from their parents. This serves as evidence against which claim(s) below?

- Children learn language based on what they hear from their parents. - Children do not acquire rules of grammar.

How "like" is used

- He was like, "..." In this case it is used to introduce a quote or thought - She wrote like 20...In this case like is being used to approximate an adverb - "I couldn't speak. Like I have never.." It is being used as a discourse marker - "The clown got like right up.." It is being used as a discourse particle

What are the two types of linguistic knowledge?

- Linguistic Competence: what you can do with language (Ex: knowledge to construct a sentence with 35 cubordinate clauses) - Linguistic Performance: What actually comes out of your mouth (Ex: setnece with 35 subordiante clauses may burn your brain and the brain of the person you are talking to)

Williams Syndrome

- Overall IQ: 40-90, Average IQ: 55 - Limited spatial and motor skills (may not be able to tie shoes or cut with a knife) - Extremely social and friendly - High level of vocabulary and grammar; sometimes slightly "off" semantics - Better-than-average in facial recognition

Neuroimaging and Sign Language

- Sign languages are fully fledged human languages, even though the modality is different than spoken languages Researchers used fMRI to look at areas of brain activation when people process language. English and British Sign Language. - finds that language is laterized to the left hemisphere

We examined reduplication in both Standard North American English and Singlish. What statement is true about these cases?

- The meaning associated with reduplication in Singlish varies according to the part of speech of the reduplicated item. - Reduplication in English is subject to dialect-specific grammatical rules.

What is the evidence for universal grammar?

- all languages have words - all have ways of aquiring new words - all languages have something noun-y and something verb-y - all human language have negation, this is unique to humans - all languages can form questions - all languages have ways to discuss past, present, and cuture events - all languages have ways to discuss both concrete and abstract things or events - all languages permit displacements, the ability to talk about things other than the here and now or things that don't exist - all languages exhibit creativity - exhibit stimulus-freedom, the ability to say anything - all humans learn language

Place of Articulation

- bilabials - labiodentals - interdentals - alvelars - palatals - velars - uvulars - glottis

Wernicke's aphasia

- can produced fluent sentences but it does not make sense in meaning - speech is fluent, grammar not affected, has a problem with choosing words. - semantics is not okay, the syntax is okay, comprehension is not okay

Descriptive Grammar

- describes the rules that a speaker actually uses (Ex: The car needs to be fixed. That's something I can't deal with)

Syntax

- how to build good phrases (Ex: I ran up the hill vs. Up the hill, I ran) - almost like grammar

Morphology

- how to build good words, contracting words in your language (Ex: unhappy - un-happy)

Prescriptive Grammar

- it dictates the rules that a speaker must follow (Ex: The car needs to be fixed. That is something with which I cannot deal)

What are the universal properties of language?

- it is arbitrary - it is creative - it is structure by universal grammar - it uses prescriptive and descriptive grammar

Broca's Aphasia

- lesions found in the front lobe - semantics/meaning is okay, syntax/structure is not, okay, and comprehension is mostly okay - has broken syntax, words are coherent

What is the criteria for classifying consonants?

- place of articulation - voicing - manner of articulation

Sign Language Aphasia

- sign languages use visual-spatial cues - visual sptatial information is typically in the right hemisphere, however these cues encode linguistic information for users of sign language

Noam Chomsky and Creativity of Language

- speaker uses this finite set of building blocks and rules to create and understand an infinite set of sentenses - creativity is a universal property of human language

Semantics

- the meaning of words and sentences (Ex: The child told her mother to eat - who is eating? - the mother)

In the video, the narrator says, "uptalk is simply the sound of your voice going up at the end of a sentence or a thought, instead of down where a period would be." Is this a descriptive or prescriptive statement?

Descriptive - he is simply explaining what the phenomenon is, as it is used by speakers.

What is dichotic listening?

Different dounds are played simultaneously to differen ears, and speech sounds in the right ear are almost always reported

Why can/can't Joe name items in his left visual field?

Given the contralateral nature of brain function, stimuli in the left visual field are processed in the right hemisphere. Therefore, he cannot name items in his left visual field.

Consider the following quote and then answer the question below. "When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not." Would this sentence be correct according to a descriptive grammar of English?

No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because native speakers of English reject such sentences.

Are spoken and signed languages fundamentally different?

No. Signed languages activate Wernicke's Area and Broca's Area.

Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a similar underlying structure. Is the basic blueprint that all human languages follow. We are born with it. It is a series of principles that characterize all grammars.

The data from Singlish is important because it shows that...

Non-standard varieties of English can possess grammatical intricacies that are absent in the standard language.

What is the wada test?

One hemisphere of a patient's brain is temporaily put to sleep, and then the patient is asked to count numebrs, identify objects, and respond to questions. - If the left brain is put to sleep then the left hemisphere is anestheized, the subject is unable to produce language. But can identify the picture of an the object.

Split Brain

Patients whos corpus callosum has been cut to treat epilepsy.

Consider the following scenario: Your friend, who is a French major, is telling you about her travel plans for the summer. She says, "Every day I'll be able to visit the McDonald's by the Eiffel Tower. They make the best McRib ever. Ahh! I can't believe I get to spend two whole months in Feris, Prance....Ha ha, well, Paris, France!"

Performance: Your friend knows English grammar, and recognizes that she has made an error.

Is the discussion of getting rid of "uptalk" an example of language descriptivism or prescriptivism?

Presciptivism: The narrator suggests how language should be spoken as opposed to how speakers actually speak it.

[ɪ] [ʊ] [ə] [ɛ]

Tenseness

Why are the forms in the right column be ungrammatical?

The -ity suffix does not attach to nouns.

Consider next data from Patient B, when a speech therapist provides her with a mug and Patient B says: "It is used to hold coffee and tea. It's made of ceramic, with a handle that you can hold. I have one on my desk at home, but I really can't remember what it is called." The patient's response indicates that...

The patient has Anomia because there are difficulties naming objects. But the syntax is fine.

Consider the following statement, "Joe can name items that are presented in his right visual field." Choose the statement below that best describes the facts about Joe.

The statement is true because an item in the right visual field will be processed in the left hemisphere.

Joe is presented with two items simultaneously - a car in the right visual field, and a dog in the left visual field. When asked what he sees, he responds, "Car".

The statement is true because the stimulus presented to the right visual field will be processed in the left hemisphere.

What does SLI suggest about the relation intellectual abilities and language?

There is no relationship between them.

What is true about the [s], [z], and [ɪz] that typically occur on plural nouns?

They are allomorphs of a single morpheme because they all mean "plural" and their appearance is predictable.

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of this type of aphasia?

They are unable to retrieve vocabulary.

Savants are significant for the study of language because:

They show that low IQ can be accompanied by high language ability.

Clinician: "What's the weather like today?" Patient: "Fully under the jimjam and on the altigrabber." Based on the above utterance alone, what type of aphasia do you think this patient has?

Wernicke's aphasia

The Wada Test suggests that language is lateralized to the left hemisphere because:

When the left hemisphere is anesthetized, a patient is able to identify an object that they held, but cannot use language to name it.

For understanding the relationship between language and intelligence, why is Williams Syndrome of interest?

With Williams Syndrome there is a dissociation between language and other cognitive abilities like IQ.

Select the true statement about the differences between SNAE and HKE. (Hint: Write phonetic transcriptions of the SNAE words first.)

Word final [l] following a +back vowel in SNAE is deleted in HKE.

Select the true statement about the differences between SNAE and ME. (Hint: Write phonetic transcriptions of the SNAE words first.)

Word final voiced stops in SNAE are voiceless stops in ME.

Does Susan's case support the claim that there is no relationship between general intelligence and language ability?

Yes, because Susan has typical range intelligence but impaired language abilities.

We have discussed the difference between lexical and functional morphemes. Is there independent evidence to support the idea we should divide morphemes into these two classes?

Yes. Broca's Aphasia and Specific Language Impairment selectively affect functional morphemes, but not lexical ones.

Consider a subject taking a hypothetical dichotic listening experiment. "Sa" is played in her left ear, while "ka" is played simultaneously in her right ear. When asked what she heard, the subject reports that she heard "ka". If language is lateralized to the left hemisphere, is this result expected?

Yes. If language is lateralized to the left hemisphere, then the stimulus presented to the right ear should be reported.

You go to a website looking for new words that have been added to English dictionaries since 2016. You see that three prepositions have been added. Should you be surprised?

Yes. Prepositions are from a closed lexical class. So, I would not expect to find any new ones.

What are the IPA vowels of each? sock soot see plow cake poke hoot vice mud fin

[a] [ʊ] [i] [aw] [e] [o] [u] [aj] [ʌ] [ɪ]

How is the word "iron" pronounced in South African English?

[ajən]

Translate to IPA: "buffalo"

[bəfəlo]

Place of articulation and Voicing: a. [d], [z], [n] b. [p], [b], [m] c. [g], [k], [l] d. [f], [p], [θ]

[d], [z], [n]

Which of these sounds is different from the others with respect to the feature backness? a. [u] b. [ɔ] c. [i] d. [ʊ]

[i]

Translate to IPA: "clutch"

[kləʧ]

How is the word "lawyer" pronounced in South African English?

[lɔjə]

Which of these sounds is different from the others with respect to the feature place? a. [k] b. [g] c. [ŋ] d. [n]

[n]

How is the word 'pecan' pronounced in South African English?

[pikən]

Translate to IPA: "sketchy"

[skɛʧi]

Translate to IPA: "satellite"

[sæɾəlaɪt]

Which of these sounds is different from the others with respect to the feature manner? a. [m] b. [n] c. [b] d. [v] e. [ŋ]

[v]

How is the word "aluminum" pronounced in South African English?

[ælumɪnijəm]

Palatal: a. [g], [v] b. [ʤ], [ʧ] c. [ʧ], [g] d. [ʤ], [v]

[ʤ], [ʧ]

Translate to IPA: "jungle"

[ʤʌŋgəl]

Lexicon

a dictionary; a specialized vocabulary used in a particular field or place - language or your mental dictionary; words that are not in any wirrten dictionary and may never be (Ex: cow, brown, speak, fast, googleable, rollable)

What properties distinguish these groups? [tʃ] [dʒ] vs. [f] [θ] [ʃ] [ʒ]

affricatives vs. fricatives

Vocal Tract

alveolar ridge hard palate velum (soft palate) uvula pharynx glottis

What properties distinguish these groups? [t] [d] [n] [s] vs. [k] [ŋ] [g]

alveolars vs. velars

What features do they have in common? [u, o, ʊ]

backness, rounding

Lateralization

cognitive function that relies more on one side of the brain than the other (the left hemisphere processes language first) - evidence for this is by looking into dichotic listening, wade testing, and split brain patients

Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

often omit "function" or grammatical words like "of, the, is etc" Ex: meowmeow chase mice, show me knife, it not long one - SLI children fall in the typical IQ range and have normal ablity in speech and comprehension - it is only a lingusitic ability and often only specific aspect of their grammat that are impaired

[k] [g]

place of articulation, manner of articulation

What features do they have in common? [t, s]

place, voicing

What is a dialect?

refers to any variety of a language that is shared by a group of speakers (everyone speaks a dialect)

What properties distinguish these groups? [i] [u] [a] [e] [o] vs. [ɪ] [ʊ] [ə] [ɛ] [æ]

tense vs. lax vowels