All Paper V(ii)

What is a stem?

any base that is combined with an affix

What does the principle of compositionality say that the meaning of words is made up of?

their constituent parts and how they are combined

3 types of compound in German

endocentric, exocentric, copulative

Why is Merge a binary operation?

because of the two-word phase in language acquisition

4 parts of the inverted y-model

lexicon, syntax, sensory-motor interface, conceptual-intentional interface

Where is the canonical subject position?

external argument sister to TP

1 reason prepositions are a lexical class

they paint a semantic picture

3 reasons prepositions are a functional class

closed class, no common morphology, abstract syntactic content

According to event-related potential studies, how do lexical and functional words differ?

Lexical words stimulate both hemispheres, functional words only stimulate the left side

What did Chanturidze (2019) find about prepositions?

they stimulate responses in the brain linked to both lexical-semantic and structural-syntactic processing

4 tests for argumenthood

obligatory, SUBJ/DO, uniqueness, must be in verbal bracket

2 applications of the derivational prefix ver-

resultative verbs (verarbeiten) and actions that go wrong (verrechnen)

What does the dual mechanism model say?

there are separate parallel processing routes for regular and irregular forms

How are regular forms learned under the dual mechanism model?

through grammatical rules

What is blocking?

under the dual mechanism model, existing forms block looking up rules

Why do overregularisation errors happen according to the dual mechanism model?

there’s not an entry in irregular forms so child can’t block

What does single route processing say?

irregular and regular forms are stored in the lexicon

What is the most important factor for single route processing?

frequency

3 possible explanations for why children make mistakes learning languages

not all of UG present from birth, parts of UG need to mature, errors are due to memory and cognition not UG

What does the constructivist approach say about language learning?

it’s just a type of analogical learning by association

6 stages of language acquisition according to the constructivist approach

words, islands, fully specified schemata, partially specified schemata, semi abstract schemata, fully abstract schemata

2 mechanisms children use to stop mistakes

entrenchment and pre-emption

What error do children make with tense inflection?

applying it to longer phrases

1 example of evidence for gradualness

English-speaking children develop 3 regular past tense allomorphs at different speeds

What is overregularization?

incorrect use of a regular inflectional affix

What model best represents overregularization errors?

u-shaped curve

1 explanation of overregularization errors

rote memory and rule extraction develop in parallel

What does developmental language disorder affect?

Morphology/grammar

What does Williams Syndrome affect?

non-verbal IQ

What did Clahsen and Almazán find about children with DLD and WS?

they had opposite scores on regular and irregular noun plurals, so grammar and lexicon are different systems

1 piece of evidence against the lexicon containing full unanalysed forms

children segment participles into their constituent parts

What are pronouns?

expressions that refer to individuals

What does Postal (1969) say personal pronouns are?

a determiner followed by an unrealised noun

What does transformational grammar say every sentence has?

deep and surface structure

1 problem with Postal’s argument that pronouns are followed by invisible nouns + rebuttal

they don’t always agree with the noun but maybe there’s a limited set of dummy NPs

3 functions of d-words in German

d-pronouns, definite article, relative pronoun

When are d-pronouns used?

with antitopicality

Why are d-pronouns used to disambiguate?

they can’t refer to the aboutness topic

How do d-pronouns differ from personal pronouns?

they have to agree with the antecedent for gender

2 components of a d-pronoun

bound morpheme and agreement morpheme

1 problem with the idea that d-pronouns are made up of a bound morpheme and an agreement morpheme

genitive relative pronouns add more than just article endings

1 example of bahuvrihi compound in German

Blondschopf

What happens when lexemes that are part of compounds are desemanticised?

free forms develop bound uses (affixoids)

What is univerbation?

syntactic phrase gets turned into a compound

What are linking elements such as -s- classed as?

morphologically conditioned stem allomorphy

2 assumptions of Distributed Morphology

syntax is the primary mode of meaningful composition, and composition affects morphemes without phonological context

According to Distributed Morphology, what are the 3 parts of the lexicon?

roots and abstract morphemes, phonological exponents, encyclopaedia of information

3 layers of the clausal spine

event description (VP), temporal location (TP), illocutionary force (CP)

Why are V2 and lexical complementizers both head of CP

they are in complementary distribution

Where do adjunct clauses merge?

with the argument structure layer

5 stages of language acquisition

babbling, 1-word, 2-words, early multi-word, multi-word

What did Grijzenhout and Joppen (1998) find about the babbling stage?

not monolithic, e.g. 19-month old could produce CV and VC but not CVC

2 things children need to learn in order to decode the speech stream

to segment it and identify phonemic contrasts

What is Jakobson’s proposed order in which consonants are acquired?

nasals before orals, front before back, plosives before fricatives

What is Jakobson’s sequence based on?

maximum contrast principle

4 features of inflectional affixes

no shift in word class, abstract meaning, regular, syntactically relevant

4 features of derivational affixes

shift in word class, concrete meaning, unexpected effects, syntactically optional

Who developed the first method for assessing child language acquisition?

Roger Brown

What is Brown’s 90% Criterion?

a morpheme has only been acquired if a child uses it correctly in its obligatory contexts 90% of the time

What does Roger Brown use to measure linguistic maturity?

mean length of utterance in morphemes

1 problem with Roger Brown’s MLU

some languages have more morphemes per utterance

What did Berko (1958) do?

the wug test

2 explanations for overregularization errors

blocking and competition

How do d-pronouns differ from p-pronouns in terms of what antecedent they prefer?

p-pronouns take sentence-initial topic subjects, d-pronouns take sentence-final non-topic objects

coordinative compound example

Hassliebe

example of preposition without semantic content

das Zimmer riecht nach Rauch