HEL Exam #1
language family
a group of similar languages
inflectional language
a language that expresses grammatical relationships primarily by means of affixes attached to the roots of words (Latin and Greek)
Analogy
a process whereby one form of a language becomes more like another with which it has somehow associated."
sporadic change
addition of a vocabulary item to name a new product may be a sporadic change that has little impact on the rest of the lexicon (kleenex)
systematic change
affect an entire system or subsystem of the language
sibilants
apex is brought near the roof of the mouth and air is pushed past the tongue to make hissing sound
PDE
1800-
Proto-World. Proto-Human. Proto-Sapiens
Attempts to get back to the First Language
Types of semantic change
Generalization/narrowing, amelioration/pejoration, strengthening/weakening, abstraction/concretization, denotation/connotation
Stammbaum Theory, or "Tree Model
argues that languages split into dialects much like parents beget offspring.
Morphology
arrangement and relationships of the smallest meaningful units in a language
syntax
arrangement of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences
dorsum
back of tongue
alveolar ridge
bony structure located just behind the upper front teeth
abstraction/concretization
change in becoming more abstract or concrete
amelioration/pejoration
change to a more favorable/negative meaning
derivational
changes meaning or part of speech
affricates
combination of stop plus fricative
types of systematic change
conditioned and unconditioned
syllabic consonant
consonant that forms a syllable on its own, like the m, n and l in the English words rhythm, button and bottle, or is the nucleus of a syllable, like the r sound in the American pronunciation of work
lexical morpheme
content words with referents in the real world
uvula
cylindrically shaped extension of velum that hangs down over the back of the tongue
hard palate
dome-shaped bony plate at roof of mouth
Generalization/narrowing
extension of meaning to cover wider semantic areas/restriction in the range of meaning of a word
outer history
the events that have happened to the speakers of a language leading to changes in the language, e.g. invasion.
August Schleicher
the first to compare the world's language families to the branches of a tree
glottis
opening between vocal cords
vocal cords
pair of elastic muscular bands rather like thick rubberbands
What are the interrelated systems of a language?
phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and semantics
five systems of language
phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and semantics
affixes
prefixes and suffixes
fricatives/spirants
produced by impeding but not totally blocking the stream of air form the lungs
Sir Walter Scott
provided explanation food having French names
denotation
real-world reference of a word changes
articulators
the movable parts of the speech tract: lips, tongue, and uvula
phonology
the sounds of a language and the study of these sounds
prosody
the stress patterns of a language
phonemics
the study of sounds of a given language as significantly contrastive members of a system
phonetics
the study of the sounds of speech taken simply as sounds and not necessarily as members of a system
ME
1100 AD to 1500 AD
EMnE
1500-1800
OE
450 AD to 1100 AD
When was Indo-european language spoken?
5000 BC-3000 BC
Nostratic
A hypothesized ancient "superfamily" of languages-a subdivision of the "Proto-World" approach
Native word
A word that has been in a language since its beginnings
Wellentheorie or "Wave Model
According to this theory, new features of a language spread from a central point in continuously weakening concentric circles, similar to the waves created when a stone is thrown into a body of water. This should lead to convergence among dissimilar languages.
basque
Language Isolate
Prosody
Stress patterns of a language
inner history
The changes that occur within a language itself that cannot be attributed to external forces
Monogenesis
The idea that all modern humans, and thus all human languages, originated with a small group of people. This theory is consistent with the "out of Africa" theory (OOA) that posits that all modern humans can be traced to peoples living in east Africa tens of thousands of years ago. This view is debated among linguists today
Joseph Greenberg
The linguist whose analysis identified the four major language families in Africa
orthography
The method of representing the sounds of a language by written symbols; essentially, the "art of spelling."
Etymology
The study of word origins and relationships
Johannes Schmidt
Wave model/ Wellentheorie
Sir William Jones
founded the correlation between Sanskrit, Latin and Greek
blade
front of tongue
isogloss
geographic boundary line delimiting the area in which a given linguistic feature occurs
phoneme
group of sounds that never contrast significantly with one another that speakers treat as the same sound
vowel descriptors
high, mid, low, front, central, back; tense, lax
articulatory description
how these sounds are produced by the mouth and tongue
inflecitonal
indicates a grammatical feature such as number, tense or possession
phonemes
individual members of a language system
two types of affixes (other than prefixes and suffixes)
inflectional and derivational
strengthening/weakening
intensification/weakening of meaning
Plosive
is a stop consonant that is released quickly, with a brief explosive sound known as a release burst
labials and bilabials
lips
lexicon
list of all the morphemes in the language
Asterisk
means either that the word or morpheme is unattested (i.e., we do not have a written text demonstrating that form), or that the example is ungrammatical
cognate languages
members of a language family
fussion
merge
morphemes
minimum units of meaning
voicless
no vibration of vocal cords
allophones
noncontrastive variants that comprise a phoneme
points of articulation
nonmovable portions of speech tract with which an articulator comes in contract or near contact
function morphemes
signal relationships within the language itself
velum/soft palate
soft muscular tissue behind hard palate
velar
sounds produced when back of tongue (dorsum) comes into contact with the velum
fission
split
plosives
stops; sounds produced by blocking the flow of air completely at some point in the mouth and then fully releasing it
aspiration
strong puff of air
semantics
study of meanings or all the meanings expressed by a language; the relationship between language and the real world
Languages are _______ and ___________.
systematic and conventional
dental and interdental
teeth
labiodental
teeth and lips
connotation
the entire set of associations that one makes to a word in addition to its literal sense
apex
tip of tongue
voiced
vocal cords vibrate
resonants
voiced only
Semivowels
vowel-like consonants: that is, the air-flow is not stopped or impeded so as to cause a friction-sound, but the aperture through which the air passes is smaller than the aperture of any vowel. Also, in forming words, semivowels appear in positions where consonants normally appear
diphthongs
vowel-like sound produced while the tongue is moving from one vowel position toward another
