Linguistics Midterm

Non-Concatenative Morphological Conversion

Interdigitation, conversion, suppletion,

Interdigitation

Words can have semitic roots and be triconsonantal, meaning they have three consonants where different vowels are interdigitated in them and they all have similar meaning

Arabic K-T-B ‘write’
Kataba = he wrote, kattaba = he caused to write, etc

Conversion (aka Zero Depletion)

Words change part of speech with no overt physical changes. For example, google (n) becomes to google (v)

Suppletion

A completely irregular or unrelated form. This happens with the words that are most frequently used. For example, go → not goed → actually went

Morphosyntactic features/Morphosyntax

The requirement that certain information must be met/expressed in sentences. An utterance is not a grammatical utterance without hitting these requirements.

Inflectional Morphology

Adds necessary grammatical information to the lexeme/root to meet the morphosyntax (requirements). These are obligatory.

Nominal Inflection

Categories where nouns and pronouns change to fit morphosyntax - number, person, gender, and case

Number in nominal inflection

Quantity of the nominal, singular, plural, exactly 2, exactly 3

Person in nominal inflection

Relation of entity to the speaker, 1st (speaker), 2nd (addressee), 3rd (other)

Gender in nominal inflection

Category of the nominal, masculine or feminine
Languages vary in the amount of genders they have, and sometimes it is based on biological sex but sometimes it is not. Sometimes, gender is explicitly marked on the noun (gato/gata) or a determiner or adjective must take a form that matches the noun’s gender.

Case in nominal inflection

Indicates role of entities, nominative (subject)/accusatory (object of the verb)/dative (recipient)/locative (location)

Case in Modern English

Nominative (subject) and accusatory (object of the verb) are weak in English. They are mainly seen through pronouns which must take certain forms based on location. “She kicked the ball to me” vs “I kicked the ball to her”

Verbal Inflectional Morphology

Tense (time of the action relative to the present), aspect (how the action extends over time), familiarity (how close socially the addresses to the speaker), and evidentiality (the speaker’s confidence in the assertion)

Morphosyntactic Feature language specificity

Languages differ in which morphosyntactic features must be expressed morphologically

How to express morphosyntactic features

Both grammatically and through other means. For example, number and time can be expressed without plural/tense through context in “Yesterday, I eat eggs” and “I have two book.”

Derivational Morphology

Systematic way of creating new words in a language which extends vocabulary, is not obligatory. For example, can add a suffix to a particular kind of lexeme = -er attach to verbs (singer, smoker), -ist only attach to nouns or adj (violinist, cartoonist)

Mental Grammar Hypothesis

Language users know morphemes and rules of a morpheme combination so words are actively assembled from mor

Word List Hypothesis

Language users know words and retrieve them from memroy

Morpheme Steps

Step 1: Look for commonalities in form and meaning across the words
Immortal, mortal, mortality, etc

Step 2: Describe how the morphemes combine
What dooes it add to the meaning?
-ness: attaches to adjectives → produces nouns → ‘the state of being X’
un-: attaches to adjectives → produces adjectives → negation

Constituent

A group of morphemes that functions as a single unit,

Allomorphs

is a variant form of a single morpheme, need to look at the same string across English

English Compounding POS

Takes the part of speech of the right member, high school is a kind of school, it is a noun

Head in English Compounding

The stem that gives the compound its part of speech and core meaning. In English, the head is on the right

Modifier in English Compounding

The stem that narrows the meaning of the head

Morphology

Linguistic mechanism pertaining to word formation

Morpheme

a pairing of form and meaning/function, smallest meaning-bearing unit of language

Word

An entity that can function on its own in a sentence. For example, fox, cup holder, foxes. Does not depend on its spelling

Multimorphemic

Apples: apple (meaning morpheme), s (function morpheme)
Undeniable: un-deny-able - change spelling when putting morphemes together, but pronunciation is the same

Monomorphemic

Deny, apple

Root

The portion of a word that bears its central meaning. Sometimes called a lexeme. For example: hope in hopeful

Stem

Whatever an affix attaches to. A stem can be a bare root, or a root that already has affixes on it.

Affixes

Material added to an existing form, small little bits that gets added to stems. Prefix or suffix

Free morphemes

Can be used by themselves as words. Most roots are free, but some are bound (aggressive, aggressor does not come from aggress)

Bound morphemes

Cannot be used by themselves as words and must be attached to another morpheme. Affixes are bound.

Where did bound roots come from?

Borrow words from other language and those words have a root that can stand on its own

Concatenative Morphology

Morphological elements are neatly combined (end-to-end)

Affixation

Addition of an affix to a stem through prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and circumfixes

Infixes

Put it in the middle, /harupo/ → /haru-A-po/ ‘not slip’

Circumfixes

Two part on the outside

Compounding

Concatenation of stems, compounds function as a single syntactic word (e.g., a single noun). For example, bookshelf, highschool, The Tufts University study abroad program

Reduplication

The entire root or part of the root is copied.

Infixation in English

Functions as an intensifier, abso-fxcking-lutely, must occur before a stressed syllable

Reduplication present in English

Prototypicality (salad - salad), dismissal (deficit - shmeficit), child-directed (bye-bye, choo choo train, super duper)

Umlaut

A back vowel becomes a front vowel, seen traces in English with goose ~ geese, foot ~ feet

Semantics

The subfield of linguistics that studies meaning, does not study how context matters for meaning (pragmatics)

Concept v Semantics

Concept - non-linguistic understanding, universal

Semantics - what is literally expressed by linguistic utterances. Semantics helps us carve up conceptual info into the space of meaning that language describes, language-specific

Lexical semantics

Focus on words

Compositional semantics

Focuses on how words combine

Reference

Semantic concept - one thing a word can do is refer to things in the world. iPhone refers to certain types of phones, bark refers to the dog’s internal state

Proper Nouns - Reference

Proper Nouns have a specific referent. Sunil Kumar → points to one person. Even if multiple people have the same name, it doesn’t matter because it is intended to refer to the indvidiual

Referent

The one specific thing the word picks out to point to

Common nouns - reference

Refer to many things, such as mug, cat, table. There are many mugs/cats/tables

Referential words without a reference

Unicorn, Santa Claus. Still referential because they still point to something.

Words that do not function referentially

Yeah, hello, thanks, goodbye

Sense

The information that determines what an expression picks out - the intrinsic, mental, conceptual meaning of a word which may be independent of the real-world object it points to. (Morning/evening star being different despite both referring to Venus)

Some sense can point to different reference at different times - who the president is as he president changes

Can have sense, but no reference (unicorn)

Semantic Tool - Entailment

A → B: A entails B

“I like all animals” entails “I like pigs”

Mutual entailment

Works in both directions, both include each other

Synonymym/Synonyms

Words with the same (or nearly the same) meaning.

Synonym Test

Swap one for the others. If the two words have mutual entailment, they are synonyms.

I bought a car ←> I purchased a car.

Works in both directions - synonyms

Differences in synonyms

Register (formal v casual) → purchase/buy, child/kid

Connotation (attitude) → slender/skinny

Collocation (what words they go with) → big sister/large sister (for big/large)

Variety (as in dialect) → soda/pop

Antonym

Words with opposite meanings, share almost all their meaning and differ on one dimension

Hot/cold: both about temperature

Complementary Antonyms

alive/dead, pass/fail, married/single

Tests:

Not x→y = YES - Not alive → dead

Neither x nor Y? = Contradiction, can’t really sayn neither alive nor dead

Very X, X-er than… = Eh, not really “very dead” or “more married”

Gradable Antonyms

Opposite ends of the same scale

Hot/cold, tall/short, cheap/expensive

Not x→y = No: not hold doesn’t mean it is cold

Neither x nor Y? = OK: neither hot or cold

Very X, X-er than… = OK: Very hot, taller than Kim

Reverses (Antonyms)

One undoes the change the other makes. For example, tie/untie, enter/exit, rise/fall, lock/unlock

Can X and Y describe the very same situation: No, Solena tied her shoe and Solena untied her shoe are two separate events, one undoing the other

Converses Antonyms

the same relation described from opposite ends. For example, lend/borrow, buy/sell, above/bellow, employer/employee

Can X and Y describe the very same situation: Yes, Solena lent Ben $5 ←> Ben borrowed $5 from Solena

Mutual entailment

Closed scale for gradable antonyms

has an endpoint on one end

completely full (fullness is closed)

Open scale for gradable antonyms

Completely tall (height is open)

Hyponymy

“is a kind of”

X is a hyponym of Y if every X is a Y

Poodle is a hyponym of dog because every poodle is a dog, but not every dog is a poodle

Not reversible (Y is not X)

Hyponymy Chains

poodle → dog → mammal → animal

Co-hyponyms

Words themselves aren’t related to each other but both are hyponyms for the same word

Dog is a hyponym for mammal, cow is a hyponym for mammal. Dog and cow are not related but they are co-hyponyms

Hyponyms for verbs

Can also seen hyponyms in verbs

murdered → killed

Meronymy

“is part of”

a word for a part of the thing another word names

Wheel is a meronym of bicycle

“An X is a part of Y” = a finger is a part of a hand

Holonym

a word for the whole that another word’s referent is part of

bicycle is a holonym of wheel

“A Y has an X” = a tree has a branch, tree is a holonym for branch

Homonym

Two different words with a shared form but unrelated meanings

Bat (baseball) v bat (animal)

Homophones

Sound alike (to, too, two)

Homographs

Words that share the same spelling or sound exactly the same, but have different meanings or pronunciations

Polysemy

One word with multiple related meanings

Mouth: of a person/of a river

Bright: shining/intelligent

Different from homonym because there is a connection to some degree

Thematic Roles

Describes the role that an entity plays in an action or relation

Agent

The individual performs an action; the doer of the action

Allen sent the book to Mary

Patient

Something that is acted upon as part of an acton

Maria hit the ball

Theme

Something which moves, literally or metaphorically, as part of an action

Allen sent the book to Mary

Source

The location/individual from which movement occurs

The train went from Boston to NYC

Goal

The location/individual to which movement occurs

The train went from Boston to NYC

Location

The location at which something happens

They wrote the novel in the library

Experiencer

Someone who experiences something

She dreamed about the World Cup

Instrument

Something an agent uses to make something happen

They wrote the book with a pen

Cause

Something that causes something to happen

The sun ripened the corn

Stimulus

Something that causes an experience

Antonio likes pasta

Agent v Cause

Add deliberately

Also, only agents use tools.

Sam deliberately opened the door = yes, so agent

Sam opened the door with a tool = yes, so agent

The wind deliberately opened the door = no, so cause

The wind opened the door with a tool = no, so cause

Agent v Experiencer

Agents do something, while something happens to an experience

She (deliberately) listened to music = agent (she is doing the listening)

She (deliberately) heard the music = experiencer (something happens to her)

Patient v Theme

Test: add but it didn’t move (or change). A contradiction = a theme

Bob sent the book to Mary, but the book didn’t move = contradiction - theme

The corn ripened, but it didn't change = contradiction - theme (metaphorical movement)

Maria hit the ball, but the ball didn't move = no contradiction - patient

Cause v Stimulus

A stimulus is a cause of an experience, so it always comes paired with an experiencer.

Test: is someone experiencing something?

The thunder shook the windows. → windows don’t experience anything

The thunder frightened the dog. → dog is experiencing fright, thunder is the stimulus

Lexicalized concept

a language has a particular word for a language. Different concepts are lexicalized in different languages

Manner

Describes the specific motion encoded by a verb. For example, jump, hop, skip, prance

Path

describes a physical or abstract trajectory. For example, enter, exit, ascend, descend, topple

English path/manner encoding

English is a manner language. The other kind of information (typically path) is usually encoded in prepositional phrases

“She skipped to the house”

Signed languages

Natural languages that utilize manual and facial articulations. They contain all levels of linguistic structure and each level is governed by language-specific rules.

Gesture

A manual movement used for communication. Non-linguistic communication such as a thumbs up

Sign

A lexicalized item of a sign language

Deaf v deaf

Deaf = group pf people who share a language - ASL - and a culture

deaf = audiological condition of not hearing