How English Works- Exam 1 Prep

English linguistics

Phonology

The study of how sounds are organized within a given language.

Phoneme

What natives speakers hear as a distinctive sound within the language. (The smallest unit of sound)

Allophone

Different variations of phonemes. Ex: P in pop and P in spit are different.

3 ways of thinking about phonetics

1. Acoustics

2. Auditory

3. Articulatory.

What are the 3 characteristics of consonants?

1. Voicing

2. Place of Articulation

3. Manner of articulation.

What are the 3 characteristics of Vowels

1. Tongue height

2. Tongue advancement

3. Tense or lax gestures

Natural class

A set of sound that share feature in such a way as to include all sounds in the set and to exclude all others.

Phonological rules

Express the ways in which sound changes predicably change in certain environments and describes patterns or types of sound changes.

Assimilation

A sound becomes more like the sounds around it.

Forward assimilation: A sound becomes more like the sound before it.

Backwards assimilation: a sound becomes more like the sound after it.

Deletion

Sounds are omitted from words

Metathesis

Sounds switch their order

Ex: brid/bird

Morpheme

The smallest unit of language that carries meaning

Agglutinative language

A language in which a words are formed from strings of relatively stable parts

Synthetic Language

A language that uses morphemes to indicate grammatical function.

A language that expresses meaning by word order.

Open vs Closed morphemes

Open classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, derivational affixes

Closed classes: conjunctions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, determiners, prepositions, inflectional affixes.

Free vs Bound morphemes

Free morphemes: can function as words by themselves

Bound morphemes: cannot function as words by themselves. Ex: -s, un, -ed. Bound morphemes can be further divided into 2 categories inflectional and derivational.

Inflectional morphemes

(Provide the nouns, verbs, adjectives/adverbs that fit in this category.

Gives grammatical information: number, tense, ect. There are 8 in english.

Nouns: plural -s, possessive -’s

Verbs: 3rd person sing present tense -s, progressive -ing, past tense -ed, past participle -en.

Adjectives/adverbs: comparative -er, superlative -est.

Derivational morphemes

Changes the meaning and/or the word class of the word they attach to.

Ex: writer + er → writer (changing a verb to a noun)

child + ish → childish (changing a noun to an adjective

Allomorphs

Variations of a morpheme

What are the 4 ways to make new words in English

1. Combining

2. Shortening

3. Blending

4. Shifting

About Combining

Compounding: a combo of free morphemes

Prefixing: attaching a bound morpheme to the beginning of word

Suffixing: attaching a bound morpheme to the ending of a word.

Shortening

Alphabetism/initialism: ROTC, DH

Acronym: FUPO, AIDS, LOL

Clipping: blog, zine, ship

Backformation: beggar → beg, burglar → burgle

Blending

A word blending the sounds and combining the meaning of two others.

Ex: motel, smog, brunch

Shifting

Functional shift: moving a word from one lexical category to another, applying the new category’s inflectional morphemes to the word.

Ex: email, impact, friend (noun → verb)

Email, emails → emailed, emailing,

Lexical semantics

How words means

Compositional semantics

How words and word order work together to make meaning

Limits of Reference

1. The role of cognition: how we categorize

2. The role of linguistic context (ex: my husband Harold was late vs Harold was my late husband)

3. The role of physical and cultural context

Lexical fields

Help us think about words as they relate to each other.

Words can be in more than one lexical field

Hyponymy

The semantic relationship between a more specific word and a broader term.

Hyponym: a word whose meaning is included in the meaning of another word or the subtype of a more general class.
Hypernym: is the supertype or umbrella/blanket term.

Ex: Hypernym = flower, hyponym = lily or rose

Meronymy

describes the part-whole relationship between words

Ex: Ship: sail, keel, rudder, deck, ect

Antonymy

Types of antonyms

Nongradable (complementary) absolutes at opposite conceptual poles. Ex: alive and dead

Gradable: values at 2 ends of a spectrum. Ex: Wet and Dry. (there is range between the two like damp, moist, ect)

Converses: Word A and word B refer to a single relationship from opposite perspectives. Ex: lend vs borrow & parent vs child.

Homonyms

Words with different meanings that share a word form

Ex: bank- land on the side of a river VS bank- a place to keep your money

Homophones

Sound the same. Ex: blue vs blew

Homographs

Share the same spelling but have different meanings. Ex: bass vs bass.

What is language?

Human language is a conventional system of signs that allows for the creative communication of meaning.

Minimal pairs

Pairs of words that differ by only one phoneme, such as "bat" and "pat."

Syntax

The systematic ways we combine words to make phases, clauses, sentences.

The systematic ways we combine clauses to form more complex sentences.

Lexical category

A classification of words based on their syntactic function, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Form

Refers to the structural elements of a language, like the words and their grammatical structures. (A lexical class of words that serve a specific syntactic function in sentences, such as nouns or verbs.

Function

The role that a word or phrase plays in a sentence, influencing its meaning and grammatical structure.

Open class categories (syntax)

Categories of words that can easily accept new members, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Count nouns

Nouns that can be counted and have both singular and plural forms, such as 'apple' or 'car.' They’re quantifiable and can be used with numbers.

Non-count nouns

Nouns that cannot be counted individually and do not have a plural form, such as 'water' or 'information.' They represent substances or abstract concepts. They are used with quantifiers like 'some' or 'much' instead of numbers.

Ex: dirt.

Attributive position vs Predicative position

Attributive position refers to the placement of adjectives before the nouns they modify, while predicative position places adjectives after linking verbs, describing the subject. Predicative can also be after an intensifier such as 'very' or 'too.'

5 forms of verbs

The five forms of verbs include the base form, past simple, past participle, present participle, and third person singular. These forms are essential for constructing different tenses and grammatical structures.

1. Bare (zero ending) ex: nap

2. 3rd person singular present ex: naps

3. Past tense (-ed ending) ex: napped

4. Present participle (-ing ending) ex: napping

5. Past participle (-en ending) ex: napped

6 grammatical categories verbs conjugate for

1. Person (1st, 2nd, 3rd)

2. Number (singular vs plural)

3. Tense (present, past, future)

4. Aspect (simple, perfect, progressive)

5. Mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive)

6. Voice (active, passive)

5 types of transitivity

1. Intransitive: no complement needed

2. Transitive: direct object needed

3. Ditransitive: direct object AND indirect object needed

4. Linking: subject complement needed

5. Object predicative: direct object & object complement needed.

Direct Object

Recipient of the action of the verb. In a sentence, usually answering the question "what?" or "whom?" after the verb.

Indirect object

To or for whom a verb’s action is done.

Object compliment

A noun or adjective phrase that modifies (or renames) the direct object.

Inflectional morphology

er/est for flat adverbs. more/most for others

Derivational affixes

A letter or group of letter that is added to a word to create a new form of an existing word.

Ex: -ly (sometimes but not always)

Closed class lexical categories

1. Prepositions

2. Conjunction

3. 3. Pronouns

4. Determiners

5. Auxiliaries

Prepositions

Precede noun phrases (can also serve as particles or adverbs)

Conjunctions

Connect words, phrases, or clauses

3 Types of Conjunctions

1. Correlative conjunctions: FANBOY (for, and, nor, but, or, yet)

2. Correlative conjunctions: come in pairs (either…or, neither…nor, not only… but also)

3. Subordinating conjunction: connect clauses ONLY and subordinate one to the other

Pronouns + types of pronouns

Replace the noun phrases so they can go anywhere a noun phrase can go.

1. Personal: I, me, you, us, ect

2. Indefinite: someone, anyone, nobody, etc.

3. Interrogative: who, what, which, etc

4. Demonstrative: this, that, these, those

5. Relative: that, which, who, etc.

Discourse analysis

The systematic study of connected text above the level of a sentence, focusing on the structure and function of language in communication, the context in which discourse occurs, and the social implications of language use. This includes examining how meaning is constructed in spoken and written texts, the relationships between speakers and listeners, and the influence of cultural and situational factors on communication.

Utterance

The realization of a unit of speech in a specific context (the basic unit of spoken discourse)

Communicative competence

The knowledge that we bring to using language as a communicative tool in conversation with other speakers.

Components of Speech Acts

Locutionary acts: the referential meaning of an utterance (like the literal meaning)

Illocutionary act: the intended meaning of the utterance/the conventional force that an utterance is understood to have (what you really mean)

Perlocutionary act: the effect achieved by the utterance. (did you get what you want)

*in a direct speech act the locutionary & illocutionary acts are the same.

Grammatical forms

Declarative: a sentence/statement

Interrogative: a question

Imperative: a command

Grice’s Cooperative Principle

Quantity: Keep it brief/only be as informative as required

Quality: Strive for truthfulness, no BS, no intentional lies.

Relation: Be relevant. Ensure your contributions are pertinent to the conversation.

Manner: Be direct/ clear, brief, orderly. Avoid ambiguity & unnecessary wordiness.

Conversational implicature

1. Speaker’s intent: the speaker makes a statement assuming it conforms to the conversational maxims/norms

2. Listener’s interpretation: the listener assumes the statement conforms to maxims and interprets accordingly.

Relevance in conversation

1. Assumptions of relevance: listeners assumes that all contributions are relevant.

2. Cognitive processing: People work to connect seemingly unrelated statements in meaningful ways.

3. Context consideration: shared cultural experiences influence how relevance is interpreted in conversation.

Lakoff’s Rules of Politeness

1. Formality/distance: Avoids imposing on other. Maintain appropriate social distance in interactions.

2. Hesitancy/deference: provide options of response. Allow the listener freedom in their response.

3. Equality/camaraderie: act as equals. Foster a sense of friendliness and rapport in conversation.

Brown & Levinson’s face theory

Positive fact: the desire to be approved of & liked by others.

Negative face: the desire to be unimpeded and free from imposition.

Face-threatening acts: actions that potentially damage either positive face or negative face.

Positive politeness strategies

1. Compliments

2. Expressions of gratitude

3. Seeking agreement: find common ground to establish rapport and solidarity.

Negative politeness strategies

1. Indirect speech acts

2. Hedging

3. Apologies

Dialectology

ways of mapping difference

Isogloss

An isogloss is a geographic boundary that separates areas where different linguistic features or dialectal variants are used. It represents the line marking the differences in phonetic, lexical, grammatical, or morphological features between dialects. Different isoglosses can overlap, highlighting the complex nature of regional language variations.

Social factors influencing change

1. Change from above: deliberate conscious change.

2. Change from below: unconscious change

Pidgins

A simplified but stable language that develops as a means of communication between speakers of different native languages it is often limited vocabulary & grammatical features and it is developed for a particular purpose, trade for example.

Creole

The language that results when a pidgins becomes a native language, rapidly regaining vocabulary & grammatical features.

*there is a creolistic hypothesis of the origin of AAE

Complementizer

A functional category or part of speech that includes words used to introduce complement clauses, which provide additional information about the subject or object of a sentence. Complementizers signal the relationship between clauses and typically consist of words like 'that,' 'whether,' and 'if.' They are crucial in embedding clauses within sentences, enabling complex sentence structures. For example, in the sentence 'I believe that he will come,' 'that' acts as a complementizer introducing the clause 'he will come,' thereby clarifying what is believed.

Relative clauses

They’re adjectival, they modify the noun.

A dependent clause that modifies a noun or noun phrases & often introduced by a relative pronoun.

Adverbial clause

A dependent clause that modifies a verb, adjective, or adverb, providing additional information about the action or state expressed in the main clause. Adverbial clauses typically answer questions such as when, where, why, how, and to what extent. They often begin with subordinating conjunctions like 'because,' 'although,' 'if,' 'when,' or 'since.' For example, in the sentence 'She sings beautifully because she practices every day,' the adverbial clause 'because she practices every day' explains the reason she sings beautifully.