HESP120 Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics

Competence

What we know when we know a language, based on assumptions

Performance

How we make use of observable rules

Lexicon

Collection of all words a language user knows

Perspective grammar

Set of taught rules on how people should speak (good and bad)

Descriptive grammar

How people actually speak

Signs

Iconic: bears resemblance to what it represents

Symbolic: arbitrary relationship

Conventionalized: Iconic --> symbolic

Mode

Ways for messages to be transmitted and received (auditory, visual, tactile)

Semanticity

All words have a meaning and/or serve a purpose

Pragmatic function

Words have a useful purpose

Interchangeability

Ability for you to send and receive a message (conversation)

Cultural transmission

Language learned through interaction and society

Arbitratiness

Ability to understand signals not logically related to their meaning

Discreteness

Ability to combine smaller units into more complex messages

Displacement

Ability to talk about things not present

Productivity

Produce + understand messages that have never been expressed before

Phonetics

Study of individual speech sounds out of a speakers mouth

Phonology

Study of the organization of speech sounds within a speakers head

Larynx

Voice box passageway containing the glottis which houses the vocal folds. All used in producing vibrations to create sounds.

Suprasegmental features

Nuances when talking face-to-face

Length, tone, innotation, stress

Usage

How we are able + do use language

Functions

Purpose of language (to cause a change in people's minds or the physical world)

Form

Basic parts

Dipthongs

[aɪ] (bite), [eɪ] (bait), [aʊ] (bought), [oʊ] (boat), [ɔɪ] (boy)

Obstruents

Stop, fricative, affricate, flap

Sonorants

produced with uninterrupted air

Phonemes

An abstract mental representation of a category in the sound system of a language.

Allophones

The variants of a phoneme considered to be 'the same' by speakers of a language- cannot signal a difference in meaning

Minimal pairs

Pairs of words that differ in meaning but are identical in form except for one sound in the same position

Free variation

A term used to describe allophones that may be exchanged for one another in a particular phonetic context (cannot predict the environment which allophone occurs)

Complementary distribution

Can predict where each allophone appears- never occur in the same phonetic environment

Parts of a syllable

Onset: beginning of a syllable, cannot be a vowel

Rhyme:

• Nucleus: central part, usually a vowel

• Coda: End of a syllable, cannot be a vowel

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language, they have order and an internal structure

Free morpheme

Can stand alone as a complete word and does not need to be attached to make sense

Bound morpheme

Cannot stand alone as a complete word; must attach to a free morpheme (-ed, -s, pre-, un-, -ist, -ation)

Inflection

Create different grammatical forms of the same words, and

give info about the word for the root to make sense in a sentence

Derivation

Create new words out of other words, changing the meaning of the word or its lexical category

Types of affixes

Prefix

Suffix

Infix (insert inside the stem)

Circumfix (goes around the stem)

Interweaving (root letters distributed throughout the word)

Ambiguous affixes (-ing, -ed, -en, -er)

Open lexical category

Have many members and can have new members added to them (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Closed lexical categories

Typically small and do not have new members added to them. Do not add morphemes to them. (pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries)

Syntax

The principles and processes that govern sentence structure (not the same as meaning)

Constituents

Syntactical chunks that function as a larger unit within a sentence (a word CAN be a the smallest consituent)

Substitution (constituency test)

Substitute with a pro-word (pronoun, do, here/there) or question word and answer with the exact phrase

Movement (constituency test)

Chunk can be moved to the beginning of the sentence and still make sense (one-directional test)

Clefting (constituency test)

It was ____ that ___'d (only proves yes)

Coordination (constituency test)

Coordinate chunks with "and" and reverse them then likely they are constituents

Intransitive

Verb with one argument (NP (subject))

Transitive

Verb with two arguments (subject and (direct) object)

Ditransitive

Verb with many arguments (subject, direct object, indirect object) (ex. ate)

Grammatical relations

NP ---> V (predicate)

Subject

Object

Indirect object

Oblique: (NP object of a preposition)

Lexical ambiguity

Same word with different meaning (ie. bark)

Structural ambiguity

When a single phrase has two (or more) different constituent structures and therefore meanings

Sense

Mental representation of a lexical item that only exists in our minds

Referent

Physical thing you are referring to (word can have 0-inifity referents)

Prototype

Cognitive reference point (first thing that comes to mind related to a word)

Word sense

(Growing) mental lexicon

Types of definitions

Dictionary

Mental image

Usage-based

Hyponymy

Specified word within a larger category (dog)

Hypernym

Larger category with specified words (animals)

Synonym

When two words have the same referent

Gradable pairs (antonymy)

Degree of oppositeness (wet, damp, dry)

Complementary pairs (antonymy)

Mutually exclusive (married, umarried)

Reverses (antonymy)

One word undoes the other (ascend, descend)

Converses (antonymy)

A change in perspective created opposing POV's (lend, borrow)

Entailment

When the validity of an expression is based on another

Mutual entailment

When 2 propositions say the same thing in different ways

Incompatible (entailment)

When it is impossible for 2 propositions to both be true

Pure intersection

Identifies a set belonging to both the original noun group and new adjective group (green sweater)

Relative intersection

Relative interpretation/not a fixed adjective (fresh)

Anti intersection

When the reference of the adjective cannot overlap with the reference of the noun (Fake Picasso)