ALIN 220 exam #1 misc

Suprasegmental features

the “extra” features of a word that aren’t necessary to distinguish individual sounds in the IPA system; usually marked with diacritics

includes: intonation, pitch, stress, tone, duration/length

Broad transcription

a transcription including only a word’s basic consonants and vowels

Narrow transcription

a transcription including suprasegmental features, also accounting for a word’s phonetic environment influencing how a given sound is pronounced

Differences and debates about human and nonhuman animal communication

Some people think humans have an innate language ability and that some non human primates haven’t done enough to imitate language, others think that human children acquire language through gesture and reference to their physical environment like other animals

Poverty of stimulus

Language is learned without being directly taught

Competence model of linguistics

A model of what speakers know when they know a language, their mental grammar

Performance model of linguistics

A model of how speakers actually use their linguistic competence

Acquisition model of linguistics

A model that reflects changes of competence and performance as a person acquires a language

Descriptive linguistics

How a language is actually spoken

Prescriptive linguistics

How a language is supposed to be spoken