linguistics definitions

derivational morpheme

morphemes that attach to words to form entirely new words, often change meaning and syntactic category

inflectional morpheme

morphemes that never change the syntactic category of the word they attach to, always the last morpheme added to a word, small or no meaning change

properties for describing consonants

poa, moa, voicing

properties for describing vowels

tongue height, tongue backness, lip rounding

poa

bilabial, interdental, labiodental, alveolar, post-alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal,

moa

stops (plosives), fricatives, affricates, nasals, approximants, laterals

phonetics

the study of the physical characteristics of speech and how speech is produced and percieved

phonology

the study of sound patterns and systems in language and how speech sounds are represented in the mind

fields of phonetics

acoustic - physical properties, auditory - how sounds are perceived, articulatory - how sounds are produced

phonation

the rapid vibration of the vocal folds that produce the sound source for speech (in larynx)

difference between rhotic and non-rhotic accents

rhotic pronounce [r] in all positions (america, canada, india), non-rhotic do not pronounce [r] after vowels or at end of words unless followed by a vowel (england, anzac)

rounding

vowels can be produced with rounded or unrounded lips (key vs core)

length

vowels can be long or short (heart vs hurt)

height

tongue can be high/close - no obstructions to the flow of air bead, rude, good, can be low-open - tongue low mouth open jaw lowered card, cud, can ve mid - between high and low pet, pot

monophthongs

static vowels (are)

diphthongs

dynamic vowels (eye), it the combined vowel that creates a single vowel (aei and aec)

types of diphthongs

front rising, back rising, falling/centring

front rising diphthong

have glides that move up and to the front (bay, by, boy, beau)

back rising diphthong

have glides that move up and down (how)

falling/centring diphthong

have glides where the end is lower than the start (hear)

minimal pairs

two words that are identical except for one sound segment that occurs in the same position in each word (pea - tea, bee - dee) they provide evidence of different phonemes in the mind

phoneme

sounds that can change the meaning of a word

allophone

a different way of pronouncing the same speech sound (phoneme) in a language without changing the meaning of the word

nucleus

the central, loudest, and most essential part of a syllable, usually filled by a vowel

onset

the initial consonant sound at the beginning of a syllable that comes before the nucleus

coda

the consonant sound or sounds that come after the nucleus in a single syllable

rhyme

the combination of the nucleus and coda (for two words to rhyme they must have the same nucleus and coda)

syntactic categories

noun, verb, adj, adverb, preposition, conjunction, complementiser, determiner

rules of a phonological rule

must have one syllable, must have one stressed syllable, if more than one stressed syllable - they cannot be next to eachother

morpheme

the smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function

root morpheme

what remains when you strip off all the affixes (usually most central meaning of the word)

prefix

a bound morpheme with an affix that is attached to the beginning of a morpheme

suffix

a bound morpheme with an affix that is attached to the end of a morpheme

circumfix

a bound morpheme, parts of which occur in a word both before and after the root

infix

a type of affix added directly into the middle of a word rather than at its beginning or end (abso-bloody-luety)

auxiliary verbs

occur before the main verb in a sentence and add extra bits of meaning

constituents

the basic units of sentence structure

standalone test

ask a question where the alleged constituent would be the answer

replacement by a pro-form test

replace the alleged constituent with a proform like a pronoun

cleft construction test

it is/was X, who/that Y

pseudo-cleft construction test

does the alleged constituent work at the end of the sentence

constituency tests

standalone, replacement by pro-form, cleft construction, pseudo-cleft construction

structural ambiguity

when a sentence or phrase has two or more different meanings because its words can be grouped or combined in multiple grammatical ways

lexical ambiguity

uses words with more than one meaning

petroglyphs

direct image of the object but uncertain whether artistic or communicative purpose

pictograms

picture writings, literal representation of the ideas to be communicated. road signs

rule 1: content words

have three or more letters (in vs inn)

rule 2:

Initial <th> corresponds to /ð/ in function words but corresponds to /θ/ in content words.

rule 3:

Doubled consonants are chiefly used to show that the vowel that precedes them is short, comma vs coma

rule 4:

final e - marks previous vowel as long (mat/mate), voice consonant (bath/bathe), not plural (laps/lapse), homophones (bell/belle)

semantic competence

ability of the speaker/hearer to judge whether a sentence is true or false in a given situation

intransitive verbs

have a subject only and have one argument (jack) swims

transitive verbs

have both a subject and direct object have two arguments (john) devoured (the pizza)

ditransitive verb

have a subject, object and indirect object and have three arguments (mary) gave (john) (the keys)

pragmatics

the study of the aspects of meaning that aren’t attributable to truth-conditional semantics

what kinds of context can influence meaning

time/place, identity, viewpoints, shared knowledge/common ground, goals and intentions

pragmatic maxims

cooperative principle, quality, quantity, relation (relevance), manner

cooperative principle

make contribution as is required, when it is required by the conversation

quality

say what you know to be true, not false things or things that lack evidence

quantity

make contributions as informative as required

relation

make it relevant

manner

avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly

subject-auxiliary inversion

move the aux infront of the subject, the front of the phrase to make it ask a question

declarative

simple statement used to communicate a fact, opinion, observation or explanation

interrogative

request information in the form of answers, usually to confirm something or fill in missing information

imperative

commands, instructions or advice to give others to tell them what to do - with the assumed missing subject at the beginning of the sentence, you

exclamatory

like declarative excpet with more emotion or urgency