Introduction to General Linguistics – Comprehensive Flashcards

These 100 flashcards summarise key terms, theories, and concepts from HBET1103 Introduction to General Linguistics, covering phonetics, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, animal communication, and linguistic typology.

What is linguistics?

The scientific study of language, including its structure, meaning, and context.

How do phonetics and phonology differ?

Phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds; phonology studies the cognitive rules governing their patterning in a language.

What does morphology examine?

The internal structure of words and the rules for word formation.

Define syntax.

The set of rules and principles that govern how words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

How do semantics and pragmatics differ?

Semantics deals with literal meaning of words and sentences; pragmatics deals with meaning in context and speaker intention.

What is prescriptive grammar?

A set of rules dictating how language ‘should’ be used based on standard norms.

What is descriptive grammar?

A system that describes how speakers actually use language without judging correctness.

Define linguistic competence.

A speaker’s implicit, subconscious knowledge of their language’s rules.

Define linguistic performance.

The actual use of language in real situations, influenced by factors like fatigue or stress.

What is displacement in human language?

The ability to talk about things not present in time or space (e.g., past, future, hypothetical).

What is productivity in language?

The capacity to create an infinite number of novel utterances from finite resources.

Give an example of arbitrariness in language.

'Dog', 'chien', and 'gato' all refer to the same animal but the sounds used are unrelated to the animal itself.

What is a mother tongue?

The first language naturally acquired by a child, usually spoken at home during early childhood.

Define cultural transmission in language.

The process by which language is learned through social interaction rather than inherited genetically.

What does articulatory phonetics study?

How speech sounds are produced by the movement of vocal organs.

What is acoustic phonetics?

The study of the physical properties of speech sounds, such as frequency and intensity.

Define auditory phonetics.

The study of how the ear and brain perceive speech sounds.

Name the three subsystems involved in speech production.

Respiratory system, phonatory system, and articulatory system.

Identify the place of articulation for /p/.

Bilabial (both lips).

What is meant by manner of articulation?

The way airflow is modified in the vocal tract to produce a consonant (e.g., stop, fricative).

Define phoneme.

The smallest contrastive sound unit that can change meaning in a language.

Define allophone.

Contextual variants of the same phoneme that do not change word meaning.

What is phonotactics?

Language-specific rules that govern permissible combinations and positions of sounds.

Differentiate monophthong and diphthong.

A monophthong has a single, steady vowel quality; a diphthong glides from one vowel quality to another within a syllable.

What is aspiration?

A burst of breath that accompanies the release of some voiceless stops (e.g., [ph] in English 'pat').

What is a spectrogram?

A visual representation of a sound’s frequency (y-axis) over time (x-axis) showing intensity via darkness.

Define morpheme.

The smallest meaningful unit in a language.

Difference between free and bound morpheme?

Free morphemes can stand alone (e.g., 'book'); bound morphemes must attach to another morpheme (e.g., 'un-').

What is a derivational affix?

A bound morpheme that creates a new word or changes word class (e.g., -ness, un-).

What is an inflectional affix?

A bound morpheme that adds grammatical information without changing word class (e.g., -s, -ed).

Define allomorph.

Variant pronunciations of a morpheme (e.g., English plural -s as [s], [z], [ɪz]).

What are lexical words?

Content words that carry meaning (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).

What are function words?

Closed-class words that express grammatical relationships (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners).

What is a clitic?

A bound item that behaves like a word but attaches phonologically to a host (e.g., English ’s).

Define suppletive forms.

Irregular morphological forms not phonologically related to their root (e.g., go–went).

What is syntax in linguistics?

The study of sentence structure and word order.

What is a constituent?

A natural grouping of words that functions as a unit within a larger structure.

Define phrase.

A constituent that functions as a syntactic unit, headed by a lexical category (e.g., NP, VP, PP).

Difference between clause and phrase?

A clause contains at least a subject and predicate; a phrase does not necessarily contain both.

What is the substitution test?

Replacing a group of words with a single word or pronoun to test for constituency.

What is the movement test?

Moving a string of words to another sentence position to check if it stays grammatical, showing constituency.

Define structural ambiguity.

A sentence that has more than one syntactic interpretation (e.g., “I saw a man with a telescope”).

What is a phrase structure rule?

A formal rule that states how a type of phrase is built from other constituents (e.g., NP → Det (Adj) N (PP)).

Describe a noun phrase (NP).

A phrase headed by a noun, optionally containing determiners, adjectives, and modifiers.

What is an independent clause?

A clause that can stand alone as a complete sentence.

What is an embedded (dependent) clause?

A clause that functions as part of another clause and cannot stand alone.

Define semantics.

The study of meaning in language at the level of words, phrases, and sentences.

Define pragmatics.

The study of meaning in context and how speakers use language to achieve goals.

Differentiate reference and sense.

Reference is the real-world entity a word denotes; sense is the conceptual meaning or associations of the word.

What is a hyponym?

A word whose meaning is included within that of a more general term (e.g., ‘rose’ is a hyponym of ‘flower’).

What is a meronym?

A word that names a part of something (e.g., ‘wheel’ is a meronym of ‘car’).

Define polysemy.

The coexistence of multiple related meanings within a single word (e.g., ‘head’ of a body, company, table).

Name two main types of antonyms.

Complementary/non-gradable (dead/alive) and gradable (hot/cold).

What is a speech act?

An utterance that performs an action (e.g., promising, requesting).

Define illocutionary force.

The intended function of a speech act (e.g., commanding, questioning, stating).

State Grice’s maxim of quantity.

Give as much information as required, but no more than necessary.

What are felicity conditions?

Contextual requirements that must be met for a speech act to be appropriate and successful.

Define sociolinguistics.

The study of language in its social context, including variation and change.

What is a speech community?

A group of people who share the same language norms and practices.

Difference between code-switching and code-mixing?

Code-switching alternates languages above the clause level; code-mixing inserts elements of one language into another within the same clause.

What is a regional dialect?

A language variety characteristic of a particular geographic area.

Define register.

A variety of language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting (e.g., legal register).

What is diglossia?

A situation where two varieties of a language are used in different social contexts (high vs low variety).

Explain language shift.

The gradual replacement of one language by another within a community.

What is language death?

The complete cessation of use of a language when its last speakers die or stop using it.

What is a respect variety?

A register or speech level used to show politeness or social hierarchy (e.g., Korean honorifics).

Define psycholinguistics.

The interdisciplinary study of how language is processed and represented in the mind and brain.

What is categorical perception?

The tendency to perceive speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories despite continuous acoustic variation.

Function of Broca’s area?

Primarily responsible for speech production and grammatical processing.

Function of Wernicke’s area?

Primarily responsible for speech comprehension and lexical access.

Define aphasia.

Language impairment caused by brain damage, affecting production, comprehension, or both.

Purpose of fMRI in language studies?

To localise brain regions active during language tasks by measuring blood-flow changes.

Purpose of EEG/ERP in language studies?

To measure the timing of brain responses to linguistic stimuli with millisecond precision.

What is a garden-path sentence?

A sentence that initially leads the parser to an incorrect interpretation, requiring reanalysis (e.g., “The old man the boats”).

List the main stages of speech production.

Conceptualisation → lexical selection → syntactic/phonological encoding → articulation.

Define the holophrastic stage.

Stage (around 12 months) where a child uses single words to express whole ideas.

At what age does canonical babbling typically appear?

Around 6 months of age.

What is telegraphic speech?

Early multi-word utterances lacking function words and inflections (e.g., “Mommy go work”).

State the critical period hypothesis.

The idea that there is an optimal window in childhood for acquiring native-like language proficiency.

Provide an example of overgeneralisation error in child speech.

Saying “goed” instead of “went.”

What is the innateness hypothesis?

Chomsky’s proposal that humans possess an innate language faculty (Universal Grammar).

Key difference between first and second language acquisition?

FLA is typically subconscious and naturally timed; SLA often requires conscious effort and may never reach native-like proficiency.

Name one factor that strongly influences SLA success.

Motivation (integrative or instrumental).

What is the purpose of the honeybee waggle dance?

To communicate the distance and direction of food sources to other bees.

Primary function of bird songs?

Territorial marking and mating displays, often learned socially.

What do vervet monkey danger calls signal?

Specific predators (eagle, snake, leopard) prompting different escape behaviours.

Which design feature of language does the bee dance illustrate?

Displacement – referencing food not present at the hive.

What is the FOXP2 gene linked to?

Human speech and language ability; mutations cause specific language impairment.

State the bow-wow theory of language origin.

Language began as imitations of natural sounds (onomatopoeia).

Describe the oral-gesture theory.

Language evolved from manual gestures that gradually became vocalised as speech.

Define language universal.

A structural feature or principle found in all human languages.

Difference between absolute and non-absolute universals?

Absolute universals apply to every language; non-absolute (tendencies) apply to most but not all.

Contrast analytic and synthetic languages.

Analytic languages use few bound morphemes; synthetic languages use many to mark grammatical relations.

Characteristic of agglutinating languages?

Each bound morpheme encodes one grammatical meaning and boundaries are clear (e.g., Turkish).

Most common basic word orders globally?

SOV and SVO.

Difference between register tones and contour tones?

Register tones use relative pitch levels; contour tones rely on pitch shape changes within a syllable.

What is an implicational universal?

A universal stating that if a language has feature X, it will also have feature Y (e.g., mid vowels imply high vowels).

Give a functional explanation for language universals.

Languages converge on structures that efficiently serve communicative needs under cognitive and biological constraints.