LING 425, study of language

phonetics/phonology

possible speech sounds and sound combinations

morphology

word formation

syntax

sentence formation

semantics

word and sentence interpretation

pragmatics

language use in discourse

Displacement

ability to talk about events remote in space or time from the current situation of the speaker

Productivity

ability to express and understand an infinite number of new sentences

Traditional transmission

transmitted from one generation to the next

Arbitrariness

no dependence between speech sounds and the meanings they represent

Discreteness

set of discrete elements that clearly contrast with one another

Duality of Patterning

linguistic units exist at multiple levels (e.g., meaningless units – sounds – combine into meaningful units – morphemes and words)

Theoretical linguistics

studies competence

Psycholinguistics

studies performance

Consonants defined by

place of articulation

manner of articulation

voicing

Vowels defined by

tongue height

tongue position (front vs. back)

lip roundedness

lax vs. tense quality

sounds articulated using two lips

p,b,m

sounds articulated using bottom lip and top set of teeth

f,v

sounds articulated using the area behind your teeth (alveolar ridge)

t,d,s,z,n,l,r

sounds articulated the velum (the soft palate)

k,g

sounds articulated by completely stopping the air

p, b, t, d, k, g

sounds articulated by using the naval cavity

m, n

sounds articulated by blowing air through a small space (hissing sound)

s, z, f, v, th, sh, zh

phones

all speech sounds

phonemes

speech sounds that can contribute to the meaning

minimal pairs

words that differ in only one phoneme

free morphemes

can stand on their own

bound morphemes

must attach to other morphemes

-ed

past tense (participle)

-s

third person singular, past tense

-ing

progressive

-en

past participle

-s

plural

-’s

possessive

-er

comparative

-est

superlative

N à Adj

boy + ish

V à N

clear + ance

Adj à Adv

exact + ly

N à V

vaccin(e) + ate

Adj à N

tall + ness

V à Adj

read + able

regular inflections

•kid + -s = kids

•dash + -ed = dashed

irregular inflections

•children

•ran

S

à NP VP

NP

à (Det) (AP)  N (PP)

VP

à V (NP) (PP) (Adv) (S)

PP

à P NP

AP 

à Adj (PP)

N

à girl, boy, dog, cat, book, meat, ice-cream

V

à ate, broke, kissed, saw, thought, said

P

à on, under, in, with

Adj

à quiet, red, happy, wormy

Adv

à quickly, hard, yesterday

Det

à a, the

Recursion

Dumbledore is disappointed that Ron is happy that Harry hates Malfoy.

Structural Ambiguity

The wizard [cast a spell on [the child] [with the wand]].

Homonyms/homophones

different words pronounced the same

Polysemy

words with multiple related meanings

Information processing system

sensory stores

working memory

permanent (long-term) memory

episodic memory

memory of an event that happened when one was present

semantic memory

type of memory containing generalized knowledge of the world

procedural memory

type of memory containing information about how to do things

serial processing

when a group of processes takes place one at a time

parallel processing

when two or more processes take place at the same time

top-down processing

information at the higher levels may influence processing at the lower levels (often parallel)

bottom-up processing

proceeds from the lowest level to the highest level of processing (usually serial)

automatic processes

do not require extensive capacity of working memory

controlled processes

require substantial resources

methods of studying psycholinguistic questions

• observation

• judgement

• experiment

Dempster (1981)

Significant differences between older and younger children on memory span test (test of short-term memory) 

Case et al. (1982)

•No substantial increase in overall working memory capacity with development, at least from age six to adulthood

•Functional increase in storage due to greater efficiency of processing (automaticity), not increase in working memory size

Piaget (1952)

Children’s thinking processes are qualitatively different from those of adults

Diamond (1985)

Object permanence tasks in infants – problems stem from memory difficulties

Speech is rapid

•estimates vary between 120-180 wpm

•= 25-30 phonetic segments/second!

Speech is continuous

•no easily identifiable boundaries between words

•but we still segment the speech signal into discrete units of phonemes, words, …

articulatory phonetics

study of speech pronunciation

acoustic phonetics

study of speech perception

bilabial

two lips, /b/, /p/, /m/

labiodental

lower lip & upper set of teeth, /f/, /v/

interdental

tongue between the teeth, ‘the’, ‘through’

alveolar

ridge just behind the upper set of teeth, /n/, /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/...

(alveo-)palatal

‘shine’, ‘measure’, ‘champion’, ‘gym’

velar (back of the palate)

(/k/, /g/)

glottal

/h/, and glottal stop in ‘uh-uh’

uvular

German and French /r/

pharyngeal

Hebrew, Arabic

airflow stops

complete closure of airflow before release (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/…)

airflow fricatives

turbulence (/s/, /z/, /f/, /v/, /h/…)

airflow affricates

stop + fricative  (e.g., chime, cats)

airflow nasals

lowering the velum and letting air pass through the nose (/n/, /m/…)

airflow liquids

mild obstruction of airflow (/l/, /r/)

airflow glides

very slight obstruction of airflow (semi-vowel) (‘yellow’, ‘wet’)

Auditory level of perception

frequency, intensity and temporal properties of the signal

Phonetic level of perception

identifying individual speech sounds (phones) from acoustic cues

Phonological level of perception

identifying phonemes (meaningful sounds)

sound spectrograms

•vertical axis: frequency of speech sound

•horizontal axis: time

•dark band (formant): intensity at specific frequency levels

4 stages in speech perception

1. auditory

2. phonetic

3. phonological

4. lexical, semantic, syntactic

Top-Down Processing

using semantic and syntactic information to decode individual words in fluent speech

Bottom-Up Processing

using acoustic information to encode the speech signal

Bottom-up cues

•VOT

•place & manner of articulation

•speech rate