LING 0001 Midterm

Phonetics

Speech as a physical process

Phonology

Systems of linguistic sound structure

Morphology

the structure of words

Syntax

The structure of phrases and sentences

Semantics

The meaning of words and phrases

Pragmatics

How speakers and writers use language to communicate

Lexicon

The inventory of morphemes, words, and phrases

Theoretical linguistics

basic principles of linguistic systems

Descriptive linguistics

systematic description of the facts of particular languages

Historical linguistics

language change and linguistic history

Psycholinguistics

language learning, processing, and use

Computational linguistics

Computational analysis of speech and text

Sociolinguistics

Language in society

Dialectology

Geographical and social variation in language

Prescriptive approach

Asks how people should speak or write

Descriptive approach

Asks how people actually use language

Vocal tract adaptations that allow language

Shorter oral cavity → gave the tongue greater ability to reshape the front/oral part of the vocal tract, helping create different places and degrees of constriction.

Expanded pharynx → created a larger back resonating cavity, greatly increasing the range of possible vocal-tract shapes and therefore vowel contrasts.

Lowered larynx → made the expanded pharynx possible and increased the tongue’s vertical and front–back mobility, allowing a wider range of resonance patterns.

These changes allowed a wider range of vowels and consonants to be produced.

Brain adaptations that allow language

Overall increase in brain size → greater overall processing capacity, supporting a much larger lexicon and more complex linguistic processing.

Wernicke’s area reorganization → improved language comprehension and the mapping between words and meanings.

Broca’s area reorganization → improved motor control of speech and control of sound structure.

Stronger cerebral asymmetry / lateralization → greater functional specialization, with language abilities concentrated mainly in the dominant (usually left) hemisphere.

Cost of adaptations

lowered larynx / expanded pharynx → greater choking and aspiration risk

larger brain → high energy cost

larger brain → problems of gestation, childbirth, and prolonged infant dependency.

Dunbar social adaptation theory

gossip as social grooming: language may have helped maintain social bonds more efficiently than physical grooming.

Deacon social adaptation theory

symbolic communication and social contracts: language may have helped humans represent promises, obligations, and social relationships, making stable cooperation possible.

Spandrel theory (Stephen Jay Gould)

Language may have first appeared as a by-product of some other evolutionary change, such as larger brains, rather than because language itself was initially advantageous.

Structure/Formal Semantics Perspective

Linguistic structure and sentence meaning

can, at least in principle, be studied

independently of communicative use.

Communication/use Semantics Perspective

Meaning cannot be fully understood without

considering speakers, intentions, actions,

interaction, and context.

Gottlob Frege

Formal Semantics: language is a systematic, rule-governed system of logic. The meaning of a sentence is defined by its truth conditions and calculated from the mathematical combination of its parts.

Early Wittgenstein

Believed language can be analyzed as a system connecting words, thoughts, and objects in the world.

Noam Chomsky

Believed linguistic structure can be studied on its own terms, without necessarily explaining it through communication or language use (in this research you might see syntax trees)

Later Wittgenstein

Believed Meaning arises from language use and social interaction. Language consists of different “language games,” each with its own practices and rules, so word meaning cannot be separated from the contexts in which people use words.

J.L Austin

Believed utterances are not only descriptions; they can also be actions (saying sth is also doing sth). To understand an utterance, we often need to know what action the speaker is performing and the communicative context in which it occurs.

H. P. Grice

Believed communication involves reasoning about what other people are thinking and intending (cooperative). Speakers do not always say everything explicitly; hearers infer what speakers mean by considering their intentions, beliefs, and the conversational situation.

Consonants

involve obstructing the air-flow in one way or another (and to different degrees)

Vowels

result when the air-flow passes through the vocal tract with little obstruction

Bilabial articulators

lips = (b) bat, (m) mat, (p) pat

Labiodental articulators

lower lip + upper teeth = (f) fan, (v) van

(Inter)dental Articulators

tongue tip + teeth = (θ) this, (ð) teeth

Alveolar articulators

tongue tip + alveolar ridge = (t) tea, (d) dough, (s) see, (z) zoo

Postalveolar articulators

Front part of tongue + back part of alveolar ridge = (ʃ) ship, (ʒ) treasure, (ʧ) church, (ʤ) judge

Retroflex articulators

tip of tongue curled up towards the area between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate = (ʂ) 十, (ʈɑl) ‘postpone’ vs (ɖɑl) ‘branch’

Velar articulators

back of the tongue + the velum/soft palate = (k) back, (ɡ) bag, (ŋ) bang

Uvular articulators

back of the tongue + the uvula = roue (ʁu), rasse (ʁasə)

Pharyngeal articulators

back of the tongue + the pharynx/“back of the throat”: arabic wars [ħuruwb], arabic eye [ʕajn]

Glottal articulators

vocal cords = (ʔ) uh-oh! (closure of the vocal folds); (h) hip (relaxed vocal folds)

Plosive

complete obstruction in mouth or glottis, creating a build up of pressure usually followed by a release

Flap

brief complete obstruction, with no build up of pressure

Nasal

Velum lowers and allows airflow through the nose

Fricative

Continuous airflow, but obstructed enough to create turbulence

Affricate (not on IPA chart)

a stop + a fricative

Trill

Continuous airflow but sufficient obstruction to create a vibration of one articulator against another

Approximant

relatively slight obstruction and continuous airflow

Voiceless consonant

speech sounds produced with relaxed, open vocal cords that do not vibrate, relying instead on airflow through the mouth and tongue, teeth, or lips

Voiced consonant

speech sounds produced when air passes through the vocal cords (vocal folds) in the larynx, causing them to vibrate and create a buzzing or humming sound

Syntactic constituethood

a group of words (or a single word) that functions as a single, coherent unit within the hierarchical structure of a sentence

Substitution constituenthood test

If a string of words can be replaced by a single pro-form (such as a pronoun like it or they for noun phrases, or do so for verb phrases), the string is a constituent.

Movement test for constituenthood

If a group of words can be moved together to a different position in the sentence (such as the beginning of the sentence), it is a constituent

Question-answer test for constituenthood

If a string can stand alone as a direct, grammatical answer to a wh-question, it is a constituent.

Clefting test for constituenthood

If a string can be placed into the focus position of an it-cleft frame (It was [X] that [Y]), it is likely a constituent

Free morpheme

the smallest unit of language that carries meaning and can stand alone as an independent word (ex. dog)

Bound morpheme

the smallest grammatical unit of a language that cannot stand alone as an independent word. It must attach to something to convey meaning (ex. un-)

Open-class morpheme

content-bearing words like nouns and verbs that continuously welcome new terms as language evolves

Closed-class morpheme

functional elements like pronouns and conjunctions that have a fixed, unchanging membership (ex. she)

Root/Stem morpheme

The basic, unanalyzable core piece of a word (ex. touch in untouchable)

Affix morpheme

Bound morpheme that attaches to a root, stem, or base to modify its meaning or create a new word form (prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix)

Inflectional morphology

Adapts a word to express grammatical relationships (tense, plural, case).

Derivational morphology

Changes the word's primary meaning or its part of speech

Allomorph

Different phonological realizations of the same morpheme. In other words, you pronounce the same morpheme in different contexts differently

Clitics

a word-like linguistic unit that acts syntactically as an independent word, but depends phonologically (in pronunciation) on an adjacent word, called its host (ex. possessive ‘s)

Linguistic expression

A meaningful unit of language, such as a morpheme, word, phrase, or sentence, considered independently of any particular use.

Utterance

An actual instance of language use by a speaker in a particular context.

Sense (intension)

the abstract semantic content of an expression, which helps determine what it can refer to.

Reference (extension)

what an expression picks out in the world (the particular thing)

Metaphor

Extension through similarity or analogy

Metonymy

Using an associated entity to refer to something (ex. “The Crown” to mean the monarchy)

Synecdoche

Based on a part–whole relationship. Often considered a subtype of metonymy (ex. using “wheels” to mean car)

Denotation

What an expression denotes

Connotation

Additional associations that an expression evokes

Polysemy

One word has multiple related senses

Homonymy

Distinct words happen to share a pronunciation, even spelling (ex. two and too)

Synonymy

Sameness or similarity of meaning

Antonymy

Oppositeness of meaning

Hyponymy

Inclusion within a broader category (ex. cat in relation to animal)

Hypernymy

The converse of hyponymy (ex. animal in relation to cat)

Incompatibility

Mutual exclusion within a category (ex. red and green)

Principle of Compositionality (Frege's Principle)

The meaning of a complex expression depends on the meanings of its parts and the way those parts are syntactically combined.

Direct speech act

occurs when the grammatical form of an utterance directly matches its intended communicative function (ex. Shut the window.)

Grice's Cooperative Principle

conversational participants generally assume that others are cooperating to achieve the purposes of their exchange

Four conversational maxims

Quality, quantity, relevance, manner

Conversational implicature

meaning that a listener infers from what a speaker says, together with context and expectations about conversational cooperation.

Indirect speech act

an utterance where the literal sentence type (such as a statement, question, or command) differs from the speaker's true primary illocutionary intention (ex. Isn't it cold in here?)

Declarative

making a statement, declaring a fact, or providing information

Interrogative

a word, phrase, sentence, or grammatical clause used to ask a question or request information

Imperative

a command, or a grammatical mood used to give orders, instructions, or requests

Flow of reference

Speakers must avoid assuming knowledge that listeners do not have or introducing familiar information as if it were new

How to mark given or new info

Referring expressions (ex. pronouns vs proper noun), definiteness, word order (known info before new)