Intro to Linguistics – Comprehensive Review Flashcards

99 Q&A flashcards that cover fundamental terms, theories and processes from chapters on language origins, phonetics, phonology, morphology, grammar, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, neurolinguistics, and first & second language acquisition.

Approximately when did spoken language emerge in human history?

Between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Roughly how old is the earliest written language?

About 5,000 years old.

What does the Divine Source hypothesis propose about language origins?

Human infants would spontaneously speak a God-given original language if not exposed to any other speech.

Name one historical experiment that attempted to discover the ‘original’ language.

Herodotus’ Phrygian experiment (bekos = bread) or King James IV of Scotland’s experiment (expected Hebrew).

What is the “Bow-Wow” theory of language origin?

Early words were imitations of natural sounds (onomatopoeia such as cuckoo, splash, bang).

What is the “Pooh-Pooh” theory?

Speech developed from instinctive emotional cries such as ouch, wow, yuck.

What does the “Yo-He-Ho” theory emphasize?

Rhythmic grunts and chants coordinating physical effort in social groups.

During normal walking, about what percentage of the breathing cycle is exhalation?

Approximately 90 % exhalation and 10 % quick in-breaths.

In neurolinguistics, what does it mean that the human brain is ‘lateralized’?

Each hemisphere has specialized functions; language is typically left-hemisphere dominant.

State the Innateness Hypothesis in one sentence.

Humans are genetically equipped with a special capacity to acquire language.

What does IPA stand for?

International Phonetic Alphabet.

Define articulatory phonetics.

The study of how speech sounds are physically produced by the vocal tract.

How do voiced and voiceless sounds differ?

Voiced sounds involve vibrating vocal folds; voiceless sounds are produced with the folds apart and not vibrating.

What is meant by ‘place of articulation’?

The location in the vocal tract where airflow is constricted to produce a consonant.

Give a voiced bilabial consonant example.

/b/ or /m/ or /w/.

Where is the alveolar ridge?

The rough bony ridge immediately behind the upper front teeth.

Which English sound is glottal, produced in the space between the vocal folds?

/h/ as in hat.

List the six main manners of articulation in English consonants.

Stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, glides.

How are vowel sounds generally produced?

With a relatively free flow of voiced air through the mouth.

Define a phoneme.

The smallest meaning-distinguishing sound unit in a language’s abstract system.

What are natural classes?

Groups of phonemes sharing the same set of distinctive features, e.g., [+bilabial, –voice, +stop].

What is an allophone?

A physically different pronunciation of a phoneme used in specific contexts.

Phone vs. phoneme – what’s the difference?

A phone is an actual speech sound; a phoneme is its abstract, meaning-distinguishing category.

What is complementary distribution?

Allophones of the same phoneme never appear in the same phonetic environment.

Define a minimal pair.

Two words differing in only one phoneme in the same position, e.g., bad vs. mad.

What does phonotactics study?

Language-specific constraints on how sounds can be sequenced.

Name the three parts of a syllable.

Onset, nucleus, coda (nucleus + coda = rhyme).

What is assimilation in speech?

A sound becomes more like a neighboring sound, e.g., have to → /hæftə/.

Define nasalization.

Adding nasal airflow to a vowel before a nasal consonant, marked with a tilde.

What is elision?

The omission of a sound segment in casual speech (e.g., ‘He must be’ → ‘He mus’ be’).

What is a neologism?

A newly coined word or expression.

Define borrowing with one example.

Taking a word from another language, e.g., piano (Italian).

What is a loan translation (calque)?

A borrowed expression translated morpheme-by-morpheme, e.g., skyscraper from French gratte-ciel.

Explain compounding.

Combining two free words to create a new word (e.g., textbook).

Explain blending.

Merging parts of two words (smoke + fog → smog).

What is clipping?

Shortening a polysyllabic word (advertisement → ad).

Define hypocorism.

Clipping plus adding ‑y or ‑ie (television → telly).

What is backformation?

Creating a new word by removing an apparent affix (babysitter → babysit).

What is conversion (functional shift)?

Changing a word’s grammatical category without alteration (noun ‘email’ → verb ‘to email’).

Define coinage with an example.

Inventing an entirely new word, e.g., Google, Teflon.

What is an eponym?

A word derived from a person or place name, e.g., teddy bear from Theodore Roosevelt.

Give an example of an acronym.

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

What does derivation involve in word formation?

Adding affixes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes) to create new words.

Define multiple processes in word formation.

A word created by more than one process, e.g., snowball (compounding + conversion).

What is a morpheme?

The minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.

Differentiate free and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes can stand alone; bound morphemes (e.g., un-, ‑ed) cannot.

Lexical vs. functional morphemes – what’s the distinction?

Lexical morphemes carry content (nouns, verbs); functional morphemes serve grammatical roles (and, the).

Derivational vs. inflectional morphemes – key difference?

Derivational morphemes create new words or categories; inflectional morphemes mark grammatical information without changing category.

What is an allomorph?

One of several phonetic realizations of the same morpheme, e.g., plural ‑s pronounced /s/, /z/, /ɪz/.

Define reduplication.

Forming a new word by repeating all or part of an existing form.

What does grammatical ‘agreement’ refer to?

The required match between sentence elements, e.g., subject-verb number agreement.

Prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar – explain briefly.

Prescriptive outlines how language ‘should’ be used; descriptive records how it is actually used.

In English sentences, how is the subject typically identified?

The first noun phrase that controls verb agreement and often performs the action.

What is the usual word order type in English?

SVO – Subject Verb Object.

Why is language typology useful?

It classifies languages by structural similarities, aiding understanding of L2 acquisition challenges.

Contrast deep structure and surface structure in syntax.

Deep structure is the underlying sentence organization; surface structure is the sentence after movement rules are applied.

What is structural ambiguity?

A single sentence has two or more possible underlying interpretations.

What are phrase structure rules?

Rules that specify allowable constituent order within phrases (e.g., NP → Art N).

Why are tree diagrams used in syntax?

To visually show the hierarchical constituent structure of sentences.

Define the semantic role ‘Agent’.

The entity that deliberately performs the action of the verb.

What are semantic features?

Basic meaning components such as +human, +animate that differentiate word meanings.

Give an example of synonymy.

Hide and conceal are synonyms.

Differentiate gradable and non-gradable antonyms.

Gradable opposites form a scale (big–small); non-gradable are absolute (dead–alive).

Define hyponymy.

Relationship where the meaning of one word is included in another, e.g., daffodil is a hyponym of flower.

What is a prototype in semantics?

The most typical example of a category, e.g., robin as the prototype of bird.

Homonyms vs. homophones – difference?

Homonyms share spelling/pronunciation but unrelated meanings; homophones sound alike but differ in form/meaning (two, too, to).

Define polysemy.

A single word with multiple related meanings, e.g., foot of a person, mountain, bed.

What is metonymy?

Using a closely associated term to stand for something, e.g., ‘The White House’ for the U.S. president.

Explain collocation.

Frequent pairing of words, such as ‘salt and pepper’, studied via corpus linguistics.

List the three main categories of deixis.

Person, spatial, temporal deixis.

Distinguish reference and inference.

Reference is the act of identifying entities; inference is the listener’s reasoning to bridge what is said and what is meant.

Define anaphora and antecedent.

Anaphora refers back to something previously mentioned; the antecedent is that earlier mention.

What is a presupposition in pragmatics?

Assumed knowledge the speaker believes the listener already holds (e.g., ‘your brother’ presupposes you have a brother).

Face-threatening vs. face-saving acts – what’s the difference?

A face-threatening act endangers another’s self-image; a face-saving act mitigates that threat.

Give an example of a direct vs. indirect speech act.

Direct: ‘Close the door.’ Indirect: ‘Could you close the door?’

What function does Broca’s area serve?

Speech production and grammatical processing.

What function does Wernicke’s area serve?

Language comprehension and lexical access.

What is the arcuate fasciculus?

The bundle of nerve fibers linking Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.

Describe Broca’s aphasia in one phrase.

Non-fluent, agrammatic, effortful speech with relatively good comprehension.

Describe Wernicke’s aphasia briefly.

Fluent but meaningless speech with poor comprehension; often includes anomia.

What characterizes conduction aphasia?

Difficulty repeating words despite good comprehension and fluent speech.

What does a dichotic listening test investigate?

Hemispheric dominance for language through simultaneous ear input.

Define the critical period in language acquisition.

Birth to puberty period during which full native-like language acquisition is biologically possible.

What is the cooing stage?

Early months when infants produce vowel-like sounds.

What is babbling?

Around 6–8 months, infants produce repetitive syllables like ba-ba.

At what stage do children typically produce single words (holophrases)?

The one-word stage, around 12 months.

What is overgeneralization in child morphology?

Applying rules too broadly, e.g., foots instead of feet.

Define caregiver speech.

Adjusted, simplified language adults use when talking to infants (a.k.a. ‘motherese’).

List the five classic stages of early speech development.

Cooing, babbling, one-word, two-word, telegraphic speech.

Distinguish acquisition from learning in an L2 context.

Acquisition is subconscious, natural development; learning is conscious study of rules.

Name the traditional method focused on grammar lists and translation.

The Grammar–Translation Method.

What is negotiated input?

L2 material made comprehensible through interaction and clarification requests.

Positive transfer vs. negative transfer – difference?

Positive uses L1 similarities beneficially; negative applies L1 patterns that clash with L2 norms.

Define interlanguage.

The evolving linguistic system a learner creates, blending L1 and L2 features.

What is fossilization in L2 development?

When interlanguage stops progressing toward native-like accuracy.

Contrast instrumental and integrative motivation.

Instrumental: learning for a practical goal; integrative: learning to join the L2 community.

List the three components of communicative competence.

Grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence.

What is task-based learning?

Language learning through completion of meaning-focused tasks (e.g., problem solving).

Give two examples of affective factors that may hinder L2 learning.

Self-consciousness, negative attitudes, anxiety, or low motivation.