Intro to Linguistics Final

(definitions that could be on the final)

Place of articulation

a term used to indicate the place in the vocal tract where the constriction for a consonant is made

manner of articulation

a term used to indicate how a consonant is produced by modifying the airstream through the vocal tract

voicing

vibration through the vocal folds

plosive

a stop made with the velum raised so that no air escapes through the nose

fricative

a consonant made with a nearly complete constriction so that air escapes through a small opening, resulting in turbulent noise

nasal

a consonant made with the velum lowered, so that air escaped through the nose

affricate

a sound that begins with a stop and ends with a fricative

approximant

a consonant produced with a constriction that does not limit airflow out of the oral cavity

phonetics

the study of the sounds of human languages

phonology

the study of the sound systems of human languages

phoneme

smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language

allophone

a phonetic variant of a phoneme found in a specific segmental environment

minimal pair

a pair of different words that differ only in the segments under investigation

near minimal pair

a pair of different words where the segments under investigation are in identical segmental environments

contrastive distribution

a distribution of sounds where the use of one sound or the other in the same environment creates a different word

complementary distribution

a distribution of sounds where each sound occurs in a set of mutually exclusive environments

free variation

a distribution of sounds where each sound may occur in the same segmental environment without changing the meaning of the word.

assimilation

a phonological process where one sound takes on one or more phonetic characteristics of one or both sounds in its environment

underlying representation

the form of a morpheme or word that consists of only phonemes and exists before the application of phonological rules

natural class

a group of segments that fall within a specific description to the exclusion of all other sounds in the language

sonorant

a sound that is a vowel, glide, liquid, or nasal

Obstruent

a sound that is a plosive, fricative, or affricate

liquid

a sound that is a lateral approximant or rhotic

glide

a sound that is [w] or [j]

sibilant

a sound that is one of [s z ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ]

morphology

the study of word formation in the world’s languages

morpheme

the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning or function

content morpheme

a morpheme that carries semantic content

function morpheme

a morpheme that provides information about the grammatical relationships of the words in a sentence

allomorph

a variant of a morpheme that occurs in a specific phonetic environment

root

the morpheme is a word that contributes the most semantic content to a word

affix

a bound morpheme that attaches to a root or a stem

prefix

an affix that is attached to the beginning of a root or stem

infix

an affix that is inserted into a root or stem

suffix

an affix that is attached to the end of a root or stem

inflection

a morphological process that causes a word to be modified to indicate grammatically relevant information (such as person, number, tense, gender)

derivation

a morphological process that changes a word’s part of speech or meaning

isolating/analytic

a type of language that ideally has a morpheme per word ratio of 1:1 and no fusion

agglutinative

a type of language that ideally has a high morpheme per word ration and no fusion

fusional/inflectional

a type of language that ideally has a high morpheme per word ratio and fusion

polysynthetic

a type of language that typically has noun incorporation and words that can express the meaning of an entire sentence

alternation

the morphological process of changing segments in a morpheme to make new words

suppletion

a morphological process in which the two forms are significantly different from one another but are still treated as forms of the same word

fusion

a morphological process that results in a single morpheme expressing two or more meanings

Portmanteau morpheme

a single morpheme that expresses two or more meanings

concatenative morphology

a morphological process that involves combining two or more words to create a morpheme

nonconcatenative morphology

a morphological process that creates a word other than through the combination of two or more morphemes

syntax

the study of the rules of sentence formation in human language

phrase structure rule

a rule that generates a syntactic phrase from words and phrases

constituent

a string of words that speakers can manipulate as a single chunk

recursion

the ability of a syntactic phrase of some type to contain another syntactic phrase of the same type

semantics

the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences

pragmatics

the study of how context contributes to meaning

lexical semantics

the study of the meaning of morphemes and words, especially content ones

compositional semantics

the study of phrase and sentence, meaning, including the meaning of function words and morphemes

entailment

a relationship between propositions where the content of one proposition B is included in the other proposition A: if proposition A entails proposition B, then if proposition A is true, proposition B must also be true

presupposition

an underlying assumption that must be known or taken for granted in order for an utterance to make sense

accommodation

the process by which a participant in a conversation decides to accept (and not question) information presupposed by an utterance, even though the presupposition was not satisfied

maxim of quality

a conversational maxim that requires a speaker to not say what they believe to be false, and to not say things for which they lack evidence

Maxim of relevance/relation

a conversational maxim that requires a speaker to be relevant

Maxim of quantity

a conversational maxim that requires a speaker to make their contribution as informative as is required, and not to make their contribution more informative than is required

maxim of manner

a conversational maxim that requires a speaker to avoid words or phrases that are hard to understand or ambiguous, and to be brief and orderly