Intro to Linguistics

Morpheme

The smallest unit with meaning or grammatic function.

Lexical Categories

Verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries, prepositions, conjunctions.

Open Class Lexical Categories

Have many members and can have new members added to them (Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).

Closed Class Lexical Categories

Typically small and do not have new members added to them (Pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, prepositions).

Stem (Root/Base)

The core of the word to which morphemes attach, carrying the main semantic content.

Affix

Morphemes that attach to the stem, including prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix.

Inflectional Morpheme

Creates different grammatical forms of the same word, providing grammatical information and are highly productive.

Derivational Morpheme

Creates new words from other words, changing the meaning or lexical category.

Compounding

Formation of a new word from two independent words, with stress usually on the first word. (atype of morphological process)

Syntax

The structure of phrases and sentences, organizing words into phrases and phrases into sentences.

Constituents

Syntactic chunks forming coherent units within a sentence.

Referent

The specific entity in the world to which an expression refers.

Denotation

Linguistic/referential meaning

Connotation

Social and affective meaning of a word.

Nouns

Lexical category that may be marked with plurals and possessives. They are syntactic; they can be preceded by modifiers such as determiners (the book, a book), adjectives (red book), numbers (two books), possessives (her book). They can serve as the subject, object of a sentence, or object of a preposition.

Adjectives

They are comparative (happier) and superlative (happiest). Syntactically, they precedes nouns, they can be preceded by too or very, and fit the frame “it seems… “

Adverbs

can be derived from adjectives like adding -ly. Syntactically, they may immediately precede or follow a verb (quickly ran; ran quickly), may start or end a sentence (quickly she ran to the store; she ran to the store quickly), and provide information about time (then, yesterday) or place (here).

Pronouns

Closed class with limited numbers (I/me, you, he/him, she/her, it, we/us, they/them). They change in form depending on whether they serve as an object or a subject (I saw her; she saw me). Syntactically, they can be substituted for a noun phrase and can be the subject /object of a sentence or object of preposition (I saw him; I stood on it).

Auxilaries

Irregular, limited number of words (be, have, will, should, can). They preced the main verb.

Prepositions

Do not take suffixes or prefixes. Closed class with limited words (at, to, for, from, about, above, under, on, before).

Conjuctions

Do not take suffixes or prefixes. Closed class with limited words (and, or, but, while, because). They link two words or phrases together.

Alternation

morpheme interchange (ex. men/man) (form of morphological process)

Reduplication

process of forming new words via repetition. Full reduplication is when the whole morpheme is repeated. (do you like-like him?). Partial reduplication is when part of a morpheme is repeated (fanchy-schmancy). (type of morphological process)

Lexical ambiguity

same word has different meanings (homonymy)

test for constituency: Movement

If some part of a sentence can be moved to the beginning of a sentence, it’s a constituent. (ex. I went to the library before I went home vs Before I went home, I went to the library).

test for constituency: Clefting

a special kind of movement. (ex. It was the black cat that ran up the tree vs. It was up the tree the black cat ran).

test for constituency: Coordination

If you can coordinate two strings of words with “and” and can then switch the order, then each chunk is likely a constituent. (The tiger ate the meat and drank the water vs the tiger drank some water and ate the meat)

Noun Phrase

Must contain a noun or a pronoun. One NP can be substituted for another NP (ex. the black cat ran up the tree vs my great aunt ran up the tree)

Verb Phrase

must contain a verb. One VP can be substituted for another VP. (ex. the black cat ran up the tree vs the black cat ate). 

Prepositional Phrase

Prepositional and noun

Intranstive verb

a verb that takes only one argument (it does not take an object) ex: the dog slept.

transtive verb

a verb that takes two arguments (a subject and an object) ex: the dog chased the man.

distransitive verb

a verb that takes three arguments (a subject, object, and indirect object) ex: I gave a mouse a cookie.

Semantics

focuses on meaning; the study of meaning in general (words, sentences), and the study of the relationship between language and the world (truth conditions, implicatures).

Sense

a mental representation of an expression’s meaning.

Reference

the collection of all referents of an expression.

Social meaning

information about the speaker’s background or the context.

Affective meaning

information about the speakers emotions or attitude.

Meronyms

the referent is a part of another item (Ex. finger is a part of a hand).

Complementary antonym

denial of one implies assertion of the other (if one thing is true, the other can’t be true ex: pass or fail).

Gradable antonym

meanings are opposite but they lie on a spectrum (ex: hot and cold).

Reverse antonym

one word in the pair suggests movement that “undoes” the movement suggested by the other (ex. left and right)

Converse antonym

opposing points of view; for one member of the pair to have reference, the other must as well. (In order for X to happen, Y must happen also; Ex in order for something to be receive, someone has to have sent it).

Polysemy

One word with two or more related meanings. (ex. leg of body or leg of chair).

Morphology

the form (structure) of words

Mental Lexicon

where words and their information are associated with them are stored

Free bound morpheme

can stand alone as its own word

Bound morpheme

Cannot stand alone as its own word, must be attached to another morpheme.

Suppletion

Irregular word formation. Inflected forms are phonetically unrelated to the shape of the root. (is/was, go/went). (type of morphological process)

Morphological analysis

1. Find two words whose translation differs in only one unit of meaning
   2. Find differences in the form of the two words
   3. Hypothesize that the differences in form
   (additional morphemes, etc.) cause the meaning difference
   4. Isolate the morphemes and label them

Syntax is…

rule-governed, hierarchical

Test for constituentcy: substitution

Can it be substituted by a pro-word (pronoun, form of do like here or there or with a word question that can be answered with the exact phrase)?

structural/syntactic ambiguity

different meanings are caused because the same sequence of words has multiple possible constituent structures. 

conceptual metaphor

Large scale metaphors that impact several different areas within language.

Componential analysis

the meaning of a word is reducible to a binary set of features.

pragmatics

How context affects language use

Linguistic context

what has already been said. For example, “Yes” can mean “Yes, I will marry you” because of the question that was already asked.

Situational context

non-linguistic factors that affect meaning like shared knowledge about the world or what’s happening

Social context

includes information about the speakers and what each of their roles are

Dieticts

“Placeholder” words whose meaning is always determined by the context in which they are uttered.

Pronoun dietict

he, she, it

Spatial dietict

here, there

Temporal dietict

here, then, now

Felicitous

utterance is appropriate relative to context in which it occured

Infelicitous

utterance is innappropriate

Grice’s Copperative Principle

speaker’s ‘intend’ for successful communication to take place and obey cultural norms of talk.

Grice’s Maxims

rule of thumb that cooperative speakers generally follow. Guidance that helps ensure effective communication. There are four maxims: quality, relevance, quantity, manner.

Maxims of Quality

be truthful; the contribution one makes is true to the best of one’s knowledge.

Maxims of Quanitity

make your contribution as informative as required. Do not make your contribution more informative that is required. Ex: Is there a gas station nearby? Yes, this is where it is.

Maxim of manner

avoid obscurity and ambiguity. Be orderly, clear, and brief. For example, a baking recipe that is out of order and has no measurements.

Morphological Processes

Compounding, alternation, suppletion, redupilcation

Syntactic Structures

Co-occurence, subjects/objects, oblique, transtivity

Co-occurence

for some expressions, if they show up in a sentence, then another expression is required to occur in that sentence as well. (ex. the verb “hit” requires an object).

Subject

Noun that is doing the event

Object

Noun that is having something done to it

Oblique

the object of a preposition (ex. Mary put the book on the table)

Hyperonym/hyphonym

superordinate term/subordinate term

Discourse markers

“Filler words” that help facilitate conversational flow, manage relationships between conversational participants.