LIN 306: Study Guide for Test 1

This set of flashcards covers key concepts from the LIN 306 lecture notes, focusing on linguistic theory, language acquisition, syntax, morphology, and semantics.

What does linguistics study?

Linguistics studies mental grammar and mental lexicon, focusing on what native speakers know to produce and understand language.

What is the difference between prescriptive grammmar and descriptive grammar?

Prescriptive grammar outlines rules for correct language use, while descriptive grammar describes how language is actually used.

Define grammaticality and grammaticality judgments.

Grammaticality refers to whether a sentence adheres to the rules of a language, while grammaticality judgments are the intuitions about whether a sentence is grammatical or ungrammatical.

What is linguistic competence?

Linguistic competence is the knowledge of a language that allows individuals to produce and understand grammatical utterances.

What is linguistic performance?

Linguistic performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations, which may involve errors and deviations from competence.

Explain universal grammar.

Universal grammar is the theory that proposes an innate set of grammatical principles shared by all human languages.

What does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggest?

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that the structure of a language influences its speakers' worldview and cognitive processes.

What are the four kinds of linguistic knowledge?

Phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

What are the two major language centers in the brain?

Broca's area and Wernicke's area.

What is Broca's aphasia?

Broca's aphasia is a condition characterized by difficulties in speech production while comprehension remains relatively intact.

What is Wernicke's aphasia?

Wernicke's aphasia is a condition where individuals can produce fluent speech but have difficulty understanding language and often use nonsensical words.

Define anosognosia.

Anosognosia is a lack of awareness of one's own health condition, often seen in patients with certain types of aphasia.

What is the critical period for language acquisition?

The critical period refers to a developmental window in which language acquisition occurs most easily.

Who were Isabelle and Genie in the studies of language acquisition?

Isabelle was a child who learned to speak normally after isolation, while Genie was a child who could only learn limited vocabulary after severe deprivation.

What does linguistic relativity imply?

Linguistic relativity implies that language can influence thought and perception.

Define morphological analysis.

Morphological analysis involves examining the structure of words and their components (morphemes) to understand their meanings.

What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphology?

Inflectional morphology alters a word to express grammatical relationships, while derivational morphology creates new words by adding prefixes or suffixes.

Specify what productivity means in morphology.

Productivity refers to the ability to create new words or forms using existing morphological rules.

What are syntactic categories?

Syntactic categories include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, and determiners.

What are phrase structure rules?

Phrase structure rules are prescriptions that describe how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences.

What is recursion in syntax?

Recursion allows elements (like clauses) to be nested within one another, enabling the generation of complex sentence structures.

What are arguments vs adjuncts in syntax?

Arguments are essential grammatical constituents that complete the meaning of a phrase, while adjuncts are optional modifiers.

What does semanticity mean in human language?

Semanticity refers to the capacity of language to convey meaning.

What is pragmatics?

Pragmatics studies the ways in which context influences the interpretation of communication.

What is compositionality in semantics?

Compositionality is the principle stating that the meaning of phrases and sentences is derived from the meanings of their parts.

What distinguishes sense from reference?

Sense is the meaning of an expression, while reference is the actual entity the expression points to.

Define entailment in semantics.

Entailment is a relationship where the truth of one statement guarantees the truth of another.

What is ambiguity?

Ambiguity occurs when a sentence can have multiple meanings.

Explain the difference between a performative and a constative speech act.

Performative speech acts enact an action through speech (like making promises), while constative speech acts state facts that can be true or false.

What are Grice's Maxims?

Grice's Maxims are conversational principles that include quantity, quality, relation, and manner, guiding effective communication.

What is syntactic ambiguity?

Syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can be parsed in multiple valid ways leading to different interpretations.

What is the importance of context in semantics?

Context is crucial in determining meaning and appropriateness of utterances in communication.

Define deictics in linguistics.

Deictics are words that require contextual information to convey meaning, such as personal pronouns, time markers, and locatives.

What is the significance of speech acts in communication?

Speech acts illustrate how utterances can perform actions beyond just conveying information, affecting social realities.

What is a tautology?

A tautology is a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form.

What is an example of lexical semantics?

Lexical semantics studies the meanings of words and their relationships, like synonyms and antonyms.