ANT 275 Week 3

Deep structure

(Chomsky's focus) what speakers subconsciously know about their language. Abstract level that represents the basic meaning of an utterance.

Adjective phrases (AP)

(can be used as preposition) they modify nouns

Adverb phrases (AdvP)

(can be used as preposition) they modify verbs by: Frequency Duration Time Manner Purpose

Open classes of words

(content words)- the number of these words grow.

Closed classes of words

(function words)- Function words like conjunctions and prepositions. The number of these words usually don't grow that much.

Allomorphs

A variety of a particular morpheme. A the morpheme is used in different contexts, the pronunciation might also change. For example, the plural -s in English changes depending on which word it is attached to, as dog/z/ (voiced nonsibilant), cat/s/ (unvoiced nonsibilant), and bus/ez/. Other examples include internal changes like man to men.

Noun phrases (nominal phrase)

Can function in the sentence as the subject, direct object, indirect object, or object of a preposition. Could be a single noun/pronoun or a variety of longer forms. Ex) Julian mailed a letter. (Julien is the noun phrase and subject. A letter is also a noun phrase and the direct object.)

Declarative

Christine just arrived.

Sanskrit

Earliest preserved scientific grammar was compiled in India

Morphology is the study of the origin of words.

False

Exclamatory

Oh, if Jan were only here!

Compounding

One way to label a new thing/activity. Ex) cross trainer shoes or veggie burger.

Aspect

The ability of verbs to express how activities relate time, as in when in time a specific action was completed. Expresses how activities denoted by verbs are related to time. Particularly well developed in Slavic languages like Czech. In Czech, verbs are perfective, expressing action as complete or concluded. Imperfective, expressing action as incomplete or repeated. Multiplicity of verbal action is iterative form and more intensive frequentative form. Particular phase of verbal action may be initiatory (completed) or terminative. Extent of verbal action may be momentary or durative (expressive continuity). Extent is small or large.

Labeling the Constituents of a Sentence

The smallest constituents/parts of a sentence are the morphemes that make it up. Morphemes make up words. Each word can be labeled as to its part of speech or the subtype of speech (like lexical category).

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful segments that make up a text. Parts that cannot be subdivided further without losing meaning. For example, unthinkable consists of three: un-,-think-, and -able.

Morphophonemics

The study of phonemic differences among allomorphs of the same morpheme, such as /f/ and /v/ in knife and knives, and life and lives.

Initialisms

letters of first word get shortened but you don't pronounce it like a word, just pronounce the letters. Ex) FBI

Neologisms

new words

The English word undesirable contains

one prefix, one suffix, both of which are affixes

Simple sentence

only one subject and one predicate. Ex) The dog ran away.

Blending

the process of taking two or more words, compounding them, clipping parts of them off, and then recombining them. Ex) Nylon - vinyl and rayon, Betatron - beta ray and electron

Ambiguity or polysemantic (lexical) ambiguity

when a word has more than one meaning.

Surface structure

(focus before Chomsky) what the speaker is actually saying. Actual utterance that can be understood and broken down by traditional syntactic analysis.

Yes/no question formation

(obligatory in English) transformation grammarians assume that deep structure of a yes/no question is similar to that of a declarative sentence but with the abstract element labeled Q at the beginning of the sentence. # marks beginning/end of a sentence. Ex) # Q Aaron will eat his lunch #

Recursion in Language

(one of the language facilities; one of Chomsky's innate abilities) how people use rules/words and create an infinite number of possible sentences. Enables us to create an infinite number of sentences.

Analytic (or isolating)

(pure/ideal) every word would be a single, free or root morpheme. There would be no bound morphemes. Meaning usually carried by bound morphemes in other languages is carried by free morphemes. Word order alone conveys grammatical function of the word. Ex) Mandarin and Vietnamese come close to being an ideal analytic.

free morphemes

(the large majority) may occur unattached to other morphemes. Can stand alone as independent words without losing meaning. They can also be combined with other free or bound morphemes, for example, cars, dollhouse, and unhappy.

Topicalization

(type of movement transformation) creates a derived sentence with different focus/emphasis than the basic structure. Ex) I love Christine Christine, I love

Determiners

(type of specifier)- specifiers for nouns, adverbs, etc.

What is the total number of morphemes in the following sentence: "She cooks tasty soups and stews"?

10

Noam Chomsky

1950s; (best known linguist in the world for the past 50 years. Still active politically thus influencing beyond linguistics. Departed from structural approach (describe in terms of function. Start with parts then syntax) to linguistics. He thought language learning was driven by an internal capacity to acquire language. Something that humans have that helped us acquire language that evolved with humans).

How many different morphemes (not how many morphemes) are there in the following sentence: "She cooks tasty soups and stews"?

9

Co-occurrence restrictions

A limitation on the use of that morpheme. Label each root as to the subtype of its category. Like whether the verb is transitive or intransitive. Ex) transitive verb is limited to sentences that have a direct object.

constituent analysis

A way to break down a (linguistic) unit to find its smallest linguistic elements, such as the morphemes, of a word. It is especially useful when studying unknown languages.

Imperative

Aaron, come here.

Dependents

All parts of the phrase that are NOT the head.

Suffix

An affix attached to the end of a stem; eg., when -s is attached to car, the plural form cars is created

Prefix

An affix that is attached to the beginning of a word, such as un- in unlikely

Infix

An affix that is inserted within a root or stem of a word, as opposed to the beginning or end. Placed within another morpheme. Fairly common in Native American, Southeast Asian, and African languages.

Derivation

Another way new words are created. Adding a derivational affix. Sometimes new affixes are formed and derive a new set of words. Refers to how new words are formed from existing ones by changing the word class, commonly accomplished by using derivational affixes: the noun friend can be changed to an adjective with the addition of -ly, creating friendly.

Trade Names

Another way we get new words is from company names. Use the company name for product regardless of brand. Ex) Xerox, Aspirin, Kleenex

Foreign Word Borrowing

Another way words come into a language. Very prominent in English as it is spoken in many place and British colonizers were everywhere.

Phrase

Any constituent (part) of a clause. Commonly named for one of their main elements, such as noun phrases, verb phrases, etc. May be a string of words or just one word.

generative or transformational (or transformational-generative) grammar

Chomsky's notion of the underlying grammatical rules of language that indicate what sentences are possible and not possible to generate.

Negative

Darby is not here.

Polysynthetic language

Each word is the equivalent of a whole sentence in other languages. Can be very long and make up numerous morphemes. Ex) from native language in Alaska: qasuirrsarvigssarsingitluinarnarpuq, "someone did not find a completely suitable resting place." qasu (tired) root, -irr (not), -sar (cause to be), -vig (place), -ssar (for suitable), -si (find), -ngit (not), -luninar (completely), -nar (someone), -puq (third person singular).

Interrogative

Has Andrew just arrived?

linguistic formalism

Help us understand how cultures think about, and talk about, their world.

Case forms

In English, retained in interrogative pronoun (who/whom) and several personal pronouns (me, the objective case form of I, and him, her, us, and them).

case forms

Inflectional system used to mark a word's function in a sentence. In English, only in interrogative (who/whom) and in several personal pronouns (me, him, her, us, them).

Universal grammar (UG)

Innate language acquisition device that is the result of human evolution. Claim children can learn language without a lot of input from the environment. Permits child to proceed from the general rules that Chomsky thought all languages had to specific rules for their own language.

Back-Formation

Looks like derivational process even though the new word was not directly derived from an existing route. Can be very difficult in nonwritten languages. Longer form before clipped form. Ex) Televise clipped from television rather than being the root for it. Televise did not come first and therefore cannot be the root.

Second half of 1900s

Noam Chomsky's approach of transformational-generative grammar.

Fusional or inflectional language

One bound morpheme may convey several bits of information. Ex. Komnatu (Russian; means room) U at the end is a bound morpheme and suffix that conveys the meaning as feminine and singular and identifies the word grammatically as a direct object in the accusative case.

Eponyms

People's Names- create names for things usually based on something person did.

Inflection

Refers to changes in the form of a word to mark different grammatical functions, such as number (singular and plural) or "inflecting" for tense (e.g., talk, talked, talks, talking). Use of affixes to indicate grammatical relationships (number, case, person, tense, and others). Plural/possessive in nouns, comparative/superlative in adjectives, and third-person singular present-tense and past-tense/progressive/past-participle in verbs.

word order

Refers to how words are arranged in a phrase or a sentence. Languages like English and Chinese use word-order strategy, word order indicates grammatical relationships. Most languages use both inflections and indicate grammar through word order. Chinese more strictly word-order based (don't have to change inflection between "she left him" and "he left her". Czech and Latin more strictly inflectional. Word order does not indicate grammatical relationship of words of a sentence. Inflections: "parts of speech" such as suffixes, prefixes, or other markers.

Transformational Rules (T-rules)

Relate the spoken form of the sentence to their underlying meaning. Relate their surface structure to their deep structure. Different surface structures may have the same deep structure. Different deep structures may have the same surface structure.

rewrite rules

Rules used to generate sentences as part of Chomsky's generative grammar. For example, S-->NP VP, means that a sentence S is supposed to be rewritten as a noun phrase NP and a verb phrase (VP); each of these phrases could be rewritten further by successive transformations.

Insertion Transformations

Sentence undergoes transformation. Words inserted into a basic sentence but keeps the same deep meaning. Sometimes adding words that don't have meaning allow the sentence to be grammatical. Ex) He knew she was here He knew that she was here

Syntactic Construction

Sentences are not a random combination of morphemes. Structures built on basic rules of combinations. Must have two constituents (parts): subject and the predicate.

transformational rules

Statement that describes the transformation of a specific grammatical structure. To avoid ill-formed sentences and can make grammar do even more things. Take some simple/basic sentence and apply one of these rules to it to derive some other kind of sentence. can be used repeatedly (productive) and in many new cases. Ex) rule "-s to -ed to get the past tense". Take He walks to the store to He walked to the store.

Substitution Transformations

Substitute for another part of speech without changing the meaning. Ex) Tony thought that Tony was the best. Tony thought that he was the best.

Discourse

The main analytical unit of communicative behavior that varies in duration, such as greeting or a conversation. Can be spoken and written, planned or unplanned, poetic or businesslike.

Morphology

The study of the formation of words and the different parts of words, such as stems and suffixes. Study of word structure, including classification of and interrelationships among morphemes.

Linguistic units that have a meaning but contain no smaller meaningful parts are called morphemes.

True

The Constituent Structure of Sentences

Units combine to make large units and then the large units combine to make even larger ones until we have the entire sentence (the largest constituent/part of itself).

Synthetic language

Uses bound morphemes to change the meaning or grammatical function of free morphemes. Usually a mixture of these different types. Three types: fusional/inflectional, agglutinating, and polysynthetic

Open-form compound

a space between the morphemes. Ex) real estate

derivational affixes

adjective to verb (modern to modernize), noun to adjective (friend to friendly), verb to noun (speak to speaker), and adjective to adverb (abrupt to abruptly). Replaced dual forms.

Affixes

attached to other morphemes (bound)

What kind of morpheme (allomorph) is exemplified by a change rather than an addition, as in the pluralization of mouse to mice? It is a _______________ morpheme.

bound

Derivational morphemes

bound morphemes that change the lexical category or meaning of the form. Ex) in the word honorary, HONOR is a free morpheme with a definable meaning. ARY would be hard to define but its function is clear. It changes noun HONOR into adjective HONORARY. Or it can change the meaning all together like IN in INFIRM. Infirm and firm are opposite in meaning,

Inflectional morpheme

bound morphemes that only serve grammatical functions and DO NOT change the essential meaning or lexical category of a word. Ex) S in CATS that changes it from singular to plural. In the word dreamed, the ED is the inflectional suffix called a tense marker. Does not change meaning, makes it a dream that happened before.

Ambiguous Sentences

can also be detected by native speakers. Has more than one meaning.

Dependent clause

cannot stand alone as a simple sentences but must be attached to an independent clause. Often begins with a relative pronoun or a subordinating conjunction. Ex) although it is tempting

Compound sentences

combined two simple sentences. With or without coordinating conjunction. Ex) The dog and the cat ran away. We studied all day for the test; now it is time to rest.

Predicate

comment or assertion made about the topic

Complex sentence

contains a simple sentence and one or more dependent clauses. Ex) Although it is tempting, I will not be going to Las Vegas.

generative grammar

develop a finite device (very limited set of rules) capable of generating an infinite number of correct and well-formed grammatical sentences in that language. -Utilizes rewrite rules. Assumes the existence of several basic categories and conventions to modify and change them, such as NOUNs, VERBs, and ARTICLEs.

structural approach

did examine sentences and phemes with constituent analysis (provides various tools to allow us to try to find the smallest linguistic elements). Ex) (unhelpful+ness), then (un+[(helpful)+ness]), then (un+[([help]+[ful])+ness]). Could also clarify phrases like old men and women if it meant "old men and women of any age" or "old men and old women". -Was problematic because not all sentences can be clarified this way. Ex) brackets will not determine if visiting relatives can be a nuisance means the relatives are a pain to be around or if having to go visit them is bothersome.

allomorphs

different phonetic forms (sound different) but have the same meaning. Rules depending on what other sounds are near it. Ex) more than one is usually suffix -s in English but can be pronounced three different ways (/s/, /z/, /ez/)

Agglutinating language

each bound morpheme adds only one specific meaning to the root morpheme. Ex) "Ember" (Hungarian; means man). To make the plural men, the suffix -em is added. Only adds concept of plurality to the root word. Much like the English -s.

In Latin, the arrangement of words in a sentence does not indicate which noun is the subject and which is the object, but rather is used to show _______________.

emphasis

-gate

following Watergate to indicate something fishy/not right/unethical is going on

animacy

grammatical/semantic category of nouns based on how sentient/alive they are in their language's hierarchical scheme. Navajo

Prepositional phrases (PP)

headed by a preposition and include a noun phrase. Ex) The farmer from Iowa is going into the store. (two prepositional phrases: from Iowa and into the store. From Iowa modifies the noun farmer and tells you where he is from (adjective phrase; adjectival prepositional phrase). Into the store modifies the verb going and tells us where the farmer went (adverb phrase; adverbal prepositional phrase).

Head of a compound

how a compound is categorized into a part of speech. Determines grammatical category of the compound. In English, usually to the right of all other morphemes in the word. Ex.) in evergreen, schoolhouse, and spoon-fed, the heads are GREEN, HOUSE, and FED.

Phrase Structure Rules

how constituents/parts are arranged and when they can occur as part of other constituents within hierarchical structure of a sentence. list a series of these starting with the most general/top level kind noun phrase/verb phrase and then breaking it down to most specific.

Cyber-

indicate something electronic

Hyphenated compound

individual morphemes are connected by a hyphen. Ex) father-in-law, eight-year-old

Closed-form compound

individual morphemes are fused together. Ex) GREENHOUSE has no space in between and forms one kind of new word.

Lexicon

list of all the morphemes in that language used to form words. Each morpheme is accompanied by a set of specifications, such as information on meaning, pronunciation, and various other grammatical features of that morpheme. Specifies whether each lexical entry/morpheme is a prefix, suffix, or a root. If root, lexical category is also included.

Specifiers

makes the meaning of the head more precise

Cases

manner of categorizing nouns, pronouns, adjectives, participles, and numerals according to their traditionally corresponding grammatical functions within a given phrase, clause, or sentence.

derivation

means by which new words are formed from existing ones. Changing one word class to another. Done through:

Movement Transformations

moving of the verb particle to the other side of the direct object. Change in surface structure but deep structure stays the same. Ex) Anthony took off his shoes. Anthony took his shoes off.

circumfixes

on both sides of root

Complements

provides further information about the head.

Morphophonemic rules

rules to how you change the sound and still have it be the same meaning in a specific phonetic environment. Depends on what other sounds are near it. Ex) the three rules listed above for when to use /s/, /z/, or /ez/.

Morphemic analysis:

search for smallest contrastive unit of grammar.

Deletion Transformations

sentence undergoes transformation. Keeps the same meaning as before but something is removed. Ex) You come here Come here

Which of the English words listed below has a zero allomorph of the plural morpheme?

sheep

Clipping

snipping a section of a word to form a shortened version. stat from statistics, fan from fanatic, perm from permanent wave, exam from examination

gender

some languages distinguish nouns according to several genders, each of which may correspond in form with pronouns, adjectives, and even verbs.

First half of 1900s

structural (complex system of interrelated elements) and descriptive (how language is actually used rather than what it ought to be) approaches.

Television

tele (transmit) and vision (something seen). Not derived from televise, which came about from notion that words like revision are formed from revise.

reduplication

the doubling or repetition of a phoneme or phonemes. Often characteristic of Native American languages and Pacific islands. Quite limited in English (goody-goody, wishy-washy).

Prescriptive

the rules for how you should do things

Transformational/generative grammar

the study of the rules in the development of grammar or the transformation of sentences between themselves to change meaning.

Morphological Typology

the study/classification of language based on how morphemes create words. The types are ideals, there are always exceptions.

Independent clauses

the two simple sentences can exist by themselves.

bound morphemes

they do not occur on their own but only in combination with another morpheme. For example, dis-, -ing, -ly, and -s. In English, occur in limited numbers. Plural morpheme is not an exception to morpheme alternants. Morphemes also vary in length: plural, possessive, and third-person singular. Have /s/ as one of their several allomorphs.

The sentence "Dogs bite thieves" contains __________.

three free morphemes and two bound morphemes

syntax/prescriptive grammar

to determine what are the correct rules everyone should follow for writing sentences.

Subject

topic of the sentence

Compound-complex sentences

two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. Ex) When the teacher assigned the reading for the exam (dependent), many students were stunned (independent), but they agreed to study (independent).

inflection

use of affixes to indicate grammatical relationships (number, case, person, tense, and others). -limited to plural and possessive markers in nouns (mothers/mother's), comparative and superlative markers in adjectives (taller/tallest), and third-person singular present-tense and past-tense/progressive/past-participle markers in verbs (waits, waited, [is] singing, and beaten).

Synonymous Sentences

using a different set of words with the same meaning. Ex) Felines are more fastidious than canines. Cats are cleaner than dogs.

Root

usually a morpheme, but not always a free morpheme, that serves as the building block for other words. Added bound morphemes to the root are called affixes.

Descriptive syntax/descriptive grammar

what people actually do and the variability that exists within a particular language.

Structural (syntactic) ambiguity

when constituents (parts) of a sentence can be organized in more than one way.

Part-of-speech ambiguity

when neither words not structures are ambiguous but various constituents (parts) can be labeled as different parts of speech/lexical categories. Ex) Andrew will forget tomorrow

Compound

when you add two or more roots together.

Head of a phrase

word that determines the syntactic or phrasal category of that phrase. If one word, that word is the head. If two or more words in lexical category the phrase is named for, then the one that carries the central meaning of the phrase is the head. EX) if the head is a noun, noun phrase.

Analogy

words formed are analogous to those formed by following appropriate established rules.

Acronyms

words formed from first letter or letters of more than one word. Different from initialisms. Popular because they can be said faster and more easily remembered. Ex) NASA, SCUBA

descriptive approach (Chomsky)

write words/phrases phonetically and then completed phonemic analysis and devised transcriptions to understand morphology. Sentence structure was secondary.