Linguistics - Exam 230116

What different aspects of language are studied in articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonemes and auditory phonetics?

Articulatory phonetics is the study of the physical production, via the vocal organs, of speech sounds, acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech as sound waves in the air, and auditory phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are perceived via the ear.

When can we say the human auditory system has begun working?

At about two months before birth

What is the grammatical function of the proper noun in the following sentence: The professor and her students visited Berlin during the summer

Berlin is the object.

Why is it difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phygrian must have been the original human language?

First, his conclusion was based on very little evidence and, second, it seems more reasonable to assume that the children in his study were producing a goat-like sound from their immediate environment rather than a Phrygian sound from a distant language.

Why isn't glosslalia considered to be communicative language use?

Glossolalia is simply the production of a stream of sounds and syllables as a form of self-expression with no intention to communicate.

What is the difference between grammatical gender and natural gender?

Grammatical gender is based on the type of noun, such as masculine or feminine or neuter, and is not tied to sex. Natural gender is based on sex as a biological distinction between male, female, and neither male nor female

The Old English word gaershoppa underwent metathesis to become which Modern English word?

Grasshopper

What two languages did Sir William Jones think were similar to latin?

Greek and Sanskrit

When she heard some exciting news, one British English speaker exclaimed "Fanflamingtastic!" What is the morphological process involved here?

The addition of flaming to fantastic in this way creates a type of infix or expletive insertion, as described in Chapter 5. More technically, it is an example of tmesis, ("cutting") where a whole word is inserted inside another word.

What is the difference between the position of the larynx in humans and other primates?

It is much lower in the throat in humans

What did Darwin think early human communication was first based on?

Musical notes and rhythm

What kind of opposites can be identified via 'the negative test'?

Non-gradable antonyms

How many fricatives are there in the word mechanic?

None

From which language(s) did English adopt the words die, marry and plant?

Old Norse (die), Norman French (marry) and Latin (plant)

What kind of evidence is used to support the idea that language is culturally transmitted?

One example of the cultural transmission of language is a child with physical features inherited from its natural parents (e.g. Korean) who, if adopted at birth by English speakers, will grow up speaking English (and not Korean).

How do we describe the pragmatic difference between the pair here and now versus there and then?

Speakers use here and now when talking about things close to them and there and then for things distant or not close to them.

What is the lexical relation between the English words swallow (small bird) and swallow (verb)?

They are homonyms

Why are the expressions my PIN number and the ATM machine slightly odd?

They contain unintended repetitions: Personal Identification Number number and Automatic Teller Machine machine.

How did the Gardners try to show that Washoe was not simply repeating signs made by interacting humans?

They designed experiments in which no humans could provide cues and Washoe could still produce correct signs to identify objects in pictures

How do we think the harbor seal was able to yell "Hey! Hey you!"?

They were believed to be imitating something they had heard.

When is an eponym a neologism?

When an eponym (a word based on the name of a person or a place) is used as a new word in the language, it is a neologism. When the Earl of Sandwich's friends started calling his new snack "a sandwich," they created a neologism with an eponym.

What is the difference between a communication system with productivity and one with fixed reference?

With productivity, the system can create new expressions and the potential number of expressions is infinite. With fixed reference, there is a fixed number of signals in the system and each signal only relates to a particular object or occasion.

What was the name of the "language" that Lana learned?

Yerkish

Which two processes were involved in the creation of the verb google, as in Have you ever googled yourself?

coinage (to create the noun) and conversion (changing noun to verb)

How many regular inflectional morphemes are there in English?

eight

What do we call the space between the vocal folds?

glottis

Which process is clearly involved in creating the new term selfie?

hypocorism

Which English words was Viki reported to be able to say?

mama, papa, cup

In the pronunciation of track, which sound(s) would be the nucleus?

the vowel /æ/

How many morphemes are there in the word terrorists?

three (terror + ist + s)

Is the nasal consonant in the everyday pronunciation of "I can go" alveolar or velar?

velar /ŋ/

What is the most common word order in the languages of the world: verb-initial, verb-medial or verb-final?

verb-final

Which of these words begin with a glottal in normal pronunciation? Chip, potato, shoe, thus, who, yet

who

How would you transcribe the final sound in the English word tongue?

ŋ

If you learn that Brother Iz was a native speaker of Hawaiian, how might that help explain his epenthetic vowel in chimney?

"In the phonology of Hawaiian there are only open syllables." (Chapter 4, Task C, page 50). The usual English pronunciation of chimney is /ʧɪm - ni/, with the first syllable closed. Brother Iz changes the word structure to three open syllables /ʧɪ- mɪ - ni/, with the help of that epenthetic vowel.

What was the original meaning of syntax in Greek?

"a putting together" or "arrangement"

What is the main difference between a generative grammar and a traditional grammar?

A generative grammar is used to produce sentence structures. It is a grammar for production. A traditional grammar simply describes sentence structures. It is a grammar for analysis.

How do we describe the vowel in the normal pronunciation of hot?

It is a low back vowel

Which English phoneme has the features: - voice, + velar, + stop?

/k/

With which of the seven sources would you associate the following quotation? "Chewing, licking, and sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities, which, in terms of causal observation, have obvious similarities with speech"

1.12 The physical adaptation source.

What percentage of human breathing while speaking normally consists of in-breaths?

About 10%

When did written language develop?

About 5000 years ago. (3000 B.C.)

How many language families have been identified?

About thirty

What is an aspirated sound and which of the following words would normally be pronounced with one? kill, pool, skill, spool, stop, top

An aspirated sound is one pronounced with a stronger puff of air. Words containing aspirated consonants in initial position are kill, pool and top.

What is the difference between an open and a closed syllable?

An open syllable ends with a vowel (as nucleus) whereas a closed syllable ends with a consonant (as coda).

The English phrase road rage has become the expression vejvrede among Danish speakers. What is this process called?

Calque

To which branch of Indo-European does Gaelic belong?

Celtic

What are cognates?

Cognates are words in different languages that are similar in form and meaning.

What two things did early humans need to take control of in order to produce intonation?

Control of the vibration of the vocal folds and control of respiratory (breathing) patterns

Do phrase structure rules represent deep structure or surface structure?

Deep structure

What is displacement?

Displacement is a property of language that allows language users to talk about things not present in the immediate environment

Why do you think that young deaf children who become fluent in sign-language would be cited in support for the innateness hypothesis?

If these deaf children do not develop speech first, then their language ability would not seem to depend on those physical adaptations of the teeth, larynx, etc, that are involved in speaking. If all children (including those born deaf) can acquire language at about the same time, they must be born with a special capacity to do so. The conclusion is that it must be innate and hence genetically determined

What was wrong with the older Latin-influenced definition of English pronouns?

In the older definition, pronouns were described as "words used in place of nouns." If this was correct, we could use he instead of man and it instead of sandwich, and rewrite The man ate the sandwich as *The he ate the it. Because we usually say He (= The man) ate it (= the sandwich), it would be better to define pronouns as "words used in place of noun phrases."

Why are interjections such as Ooh! or Yuck! considered to be unlikely sources of human speech sounds?

Interjections contain sounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech production. They are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk, produced on exhaled breath.

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 and all modern languages have words that are onomatopoeic in some way (like "bow-wow") (cuckoo)

Why is reflexivity considered to be a special property of human language?

Reflexivity is the property that enables humans to use language to think and talk about language itself and does not appear to be present in any other creature's communication system.

What phrase is used more often instead of "thematic roles" and what other term is used instead of "theme" in the semantic analysis of noun phrases?

Semantic roles and patient

How does Spanish differ from German in the number of grammatical genders?

Spanish has two genders (masculine and feminine) whereas German has three (masculine, feminine and neuter).

What was considered to be the key element in Kanzi's language learning?

The key element seemed to be early exposure to language in use.

Where is the pharynx located?

The pharynx is above the larynx (or the voice box or the vocal folds). 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.

What is meant by the phonotactics of a language?

The phonotactics of a language are the permitted arrangements of sounds that obey constraints on the sequence and ordering of phonemes in that language.

How is the term "prototype" used in semantics?

The prototype is the characteristic instance of a category, as in the case of "robin" being the clearest example, or prototype, of the category "bird" for many American English speakers.

What is wrong with the following rule of English syntactic structure: A prepositional phrase rewrites as a preposition followed by a noun

This rule will produce both grammatical structures (with Mary), but also ungrammatical structures (*with woman), which is undesirable in terms of the "all and only" criterion. The rule can be improved by replacing "noun" with "noun phrase" to be able to generate both with Mary and with a woman.

What is the difference between the -er morphemes in the words smaller and singer?

We add -er to the adjective small to create another adjective smaller. Since this doesn't change the category of the word (adjective -> adjective), it is an inflectional morpheme. When we add -er to the verb sing, we get the noun singer. This process does change the category of the word (verb -> noun) in this case, so it is a derivational morpheme.

What do we call the process whereby a new word is formed to be similar to an existing word?

analogy

If Sarah could use a gray plastic shape to convey the meaning of the word red, which property does her "language" seem to have?

arbitrariness

Which word-formation process is the source of the English word modem?

blending

What kind of morpheme is the suffix in slowly?

bound, derivational morpheme

Does this phrase (big black bag) contain a minimal pair, a minimal set, or neither?

one minimal pair (big, bag)

What is the tense and voice of the verb in the following sentence: my parents were married in Rome

past tense, passive voice

What property did Washoe's language seem to have when she used an expression such as "water bird" to refer to a swan?

productivity

Is phonology mainly concerned with sound tokens, sound types or sound spelling relationships?

sound types