Linguistics Midterm 2

semantics

the study of the literal meaning of words and sentences

lexical semantics

meanings of words and the meaning relationships among them

compositional semantics

the meanings of phrases and how phrasal meanings are combined

sense

the abstract representation of meaning

reference

what a “sense” connects to in the real world. (concrete example)

Prototype

the first mental image of a sense that you think of

usage-based definition

description of words based on how they are used in real life

Hyponymy

when one word represents a type of another (ex: a parrot is a hyponymy of a bird)

Hypernymy

one word generalizes another (ex: dog a is hypernym of poodle)

synonym

one word has a similar or the same meaning as another (ex: couch, sofa)

anotonymy

words that have opposite meanings (ex: hot/cold)

gradable antonyms

words on a gradient, there is a “middle ground” between the antonyms (ex: hot/cold)

complementary antonyms

words that are distinct, with no middle ground. can be one or the other, not both. (ex: married and unmarried)

Reverse antonyms

words with two opposing ideas related to movement or direction (ex: up and down, expand/contract)

Converse Antonyms

Words that imply two opposing viewpoints/perspectives. (ex: send/receive, employer/employee)

Mental Image Definition

description of words based on their sense. flawed because people may have slightly different prototypes for each word.

Dictionary-style definition

description of words based on how they are formally defined. Flawed because this may create a definition loop.

Grice’s Maxims

Key principle and expectations that guide conversation

Quality

The speaker is saying things that they know to be true and have reasonable evidence for.

Relevance

the speaker is saying things that are relevant to the conversation/ previous question.

Quantity

Speaker makes the conversation as informative as required by the context of the conversation

Manner

The speaker is breief, direct, orderly, and avoids obscurities in conversation.

Flouting

intentional violation of maxims to convey an implication

Assertion

A type of speech act that conveys information

Question

A type of speech act that elicits information

Request

A type of speech act that elicits information or an action

Order

A type of speech act that demands action

Promise

A type of speech act that commits the speaker to an action

threat

a type of speech act that commits the speaker to an action the hearer does not want

Performative speech acts

a particular action named by the verb is accomplished in performance of the speech act

Performative Verb

Denotes purely linguistic actions. speech acts must be first person and verb must be present tense.

Direct speech acts

utterances that perform its speech act in a direct and literal manner

indirect speech acts

utterances that perform its speech act in an indirect and nonliteral manner

Declarative

A type of sentence that makes a claim or expresses a proposition

interrogative

a type of sentence that expresses a question. in english, it may have an auxiliary very precede the subject.

Imperative

a type of sentence that expresses a command. In English, it may begin with a bare verb stem that does not have and explicit subject.

Innateness Hypothesis

Theory of language acquisition that says humans are genetically predisposed to acquire and use language

Imitation Theory

Theory of Language Acquisition that says children learn language solely by copying adults. This was disproved since children can form novel sentences.

Reinforcement Theory

Theory of language acquisition where children learn language through reward and punishment

active construction of grammar theory

theory of language acquisition that says children are trying to construct the grammatical system of the language from the ground up.

connectionist theory

theory of language acquisition that says children learn from statistical frequency of forms in the input by making associations between words.

Social interaction theory

theory of language acquisition that assumes children acquire language through social interactions with adults and older children.

Overextention

Overuse of a word or category to represent things that do not actually belong to that group.

Underextention

not including an object in a word/category that the object is actually included in

Overgeneralization

using certain grammar rules in instances where they do not apply like they normally do.

Deictic Expression

words that have a context-dependent meaning such as “i” “they” “she” “yesterday”. Relative terms such as large or small are also difficult for children to grasp

simultaneous bilingualism

the acquisition of two languages from birth

Sequential bilingualism

acquiring one language from birth, shortly followed by the acquisition of another language at a young age

Second Language Acquisition

when a person learns a second language later in life after the critical period

overt prestige

prestige associated with the “standard” dialect

covert prestige

prestige that exists among members of a group of non-standard dialects that defines how people should speak ti be considered members of the group.

Synchronic

analysis of language tat a particular point in time

diachronic

analysis of language development through time

unconditioned sound change

every example of a sound changes, no matter the word or surrounding sounds in the word

[x]—>[y]

conditioned sound change

sound changes because of the influence of surrounding sounds

[x]—>[y]/C_D

Proportional Analysis

a pattern is borrowed from elsewhere in the language to creat ea new form

Paradigm Leveling

a specific type of proportional analogy in which irregular inflections become regularized

Back Formation

a kind of analogy in which a new stem is created from a longer version

Folk Etymology

An unrelated morpheme is used to describe an object, giving the morpheme a new meaning.

Acronym

formation of a new word by combinging the first letters (ex: laser, radar, idc)

blends

formation of a new word by combining two existing words/morphemes (ex: brunch)

clipping

formation of a new word by shortening an existing word (ex: dormatory → dorm)

coining

formation of new words by making them up (ex: Kleenex, Bandaid)

Conversion

formation of new word by shifting part of speech (ex: noun Google → to Google or verb run→ a run)

eponyms

formation of words derived from people’s names

Palatization

a type of place assimilation, tends to turn to the [j] “y” sound, stops → affricates

Epenthesis

addition of a sound to a word

metathesis

reversing the order of two sounds to reduce a consonant cluster

fronting assimilation

back rounded vowels become front vowels

mutual intelligibility

when speakers of one variety are able to understand speakers of another variety

fossilization

process through which forms from a speaker’s nonnative language usage become fixed and don not change even after years of institution

transfer

influence of one’s native language on the learning of subsequent languges