ucla ling 1 final

why is there an arbitrary relation between form (sounds) and meaning (concepts)

- different sounds in different languages can represent the same meaning (ex. house vs casa)

- same sounds in different languages can represent different meanings (taka can mean hawk in japanese or money in bengali)

sound symbolism

words whose pronunciation suggests their meaning

what is onomatopoeia and why are they different in different languages despite association with the same objects/actions

- a word that imitates the sound it represents

- sounds differ from language to language to reflect the sound system of the language (gobble gobble vs glu-glu in Turkey)

creative aspect of language

being able to produce an infinite number of sentences never spoken before and to understand sentences never heard before

grammar

- set of unconcious rules that are responsible for our linguistic creativity

- allows us to recognize which sentences are acceptable vs unacceptable

lingustic competence

our knowledge of words and grammar (what we know)

linguistic performance

how we use knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension

why does linguistic performance not reflect linguistic competence?

we may stammer, pause, or produce slips of the tongue unintentionally and are able to correct ourselves

phonology

the rules for combining sounds to make words

morphology

rules of word formation

syntax

rules for combining words into sentences

semantics

rules for assigning meaning

lexicon

mental dictionary

descriptive grammar

type of grammar that is more concerned with how language is ACTUALLY USED rather than the rules of grammar that might be taught in school

prescriptive grammar

type of grammar that is more concerned with how language SHOULD be used rather than what is actually used

prestige dialect

variety of the language spoken by people in positions of power

teaching grammar

a set of language rules written to help speakers learn a foreign language or a different dialect of their language.

why are sign languages the best evidence for language universals

- components of sign language are similar to spoken languages

- system of gestures = system of sounds

- slips of the hand = slips of the tongue

dialect

a variety of language whose grammar differs in systematic ways from other varieties

- differences can be lexical, phonological, syntactic, and semantic

dialect continuum

- there is no sudden major break between dialects

- dialects merge into one another

dialectal leveling

movement toward greater uniformity and less variation among dialects

regional dialects

dialect that forms when various linguistic difference accumulate in a geographic region

accents

regional phonological or phonetic distinctions

example of phonological differences between dialects

- british english vs american english

- chewsday vs tuesday

example of lexical differences between dialects

- soda vs pop

- shades vs curtains

example of syntactic differences between dialects

"John and Mary will eat" vs "John will eat and Mary"

dialect areas

concentrations defined by different word usages and varying pronunciations

isogloss

a boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate

social dialects

dialect differences that seem to come about because of social factors

standard dialect

dominant or prestige dialect

- ex. SAE

arbitrariness of standard usage (aka why is there nothing inherently better or worse about one pronunciation to another?)

r-less pronunciation is more prestigious in British English vs r-drop is considered substandard in American English

genderlects

different ways of talking for males and females

- women tend to use more formal/polite forms more frequently than men

labov study

- sociolinguistic analysis in NYC that focused on the rule of r-dropping and its use by upper, middle, and lower class speakers

- r pronunciation was most prominent in high-end department store and least prominent is lower-end retailer

neurolinguistics

the study of the relationship between language and the brain

corpus callosum

joins the left and right hemispheres of the brain

aphasia

impairment of language that results from brain damage

lateralization

localization of function on either the right or left sides of the brain

broca's aphasia

inability to produce speech (typically has telegraphic speech)

- semantics OK

- syntax NOT OK

- comprehension is MOSTLY OK

- in writing: less words but can make some sense

wernicke's aphasia

inability to comprehend speech

- semantics NOT OK

- syntax OK

- comprehension NOT OK

- in writing: doesn't make sense but can make sentences

anomia

inability to name objects

acquired dyslexia

a disorder in which reading ability is disrupted due to brain damage to left hemisphere

deep dyslexia

acquired dyslexia in which the patient reads a word as another word that is semantically related

surface dyslexia

acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems to attend only to the fine details of reading

split brain experiments

- anything shown in right hemisphere can be named

- anything shown in left hemisphere cannot be named

- object in left hand cannot be named but can be used appropriately

- object in right hand can be named

critical age hypothesis

language is biologically based and that the ability to learn a native language develops within a fixed period

critical period

a specific time in development when certain skills or abilities are most easily learned (birth to middle childhood)

linguistic sevants

low IQ but can produce complex sentences

specific language impairment (SLI)

difficulties acquiring language in the absence of any other mental, sensory, motoric, emotional, or experiential deficits

- shows language ability is not tied to IQ

evidence that language faculty is modular (specialized to certain parts of the brain)

- linguistic sevants

- SLI

- william's syndrome

phonetics

inventory of speech sounds

schwa /ə/

represents vowels in syllables that are not emphasized in speaking and whose duration is very short

ex. sof/a/, gen/e/ral, /a/bout, read/e/r

three major features of sign language

configuration (handshape)

movement

location

phonology

the study of how speech sounds form patterns

minimal pairs

two words with different meanings that are identical except for one sound segment that occurs in the same place in each word

lexicon vs printed dictionary

- printed dictionary has many words speakers don't know

- printed dictionary does not include words speakers use regularly

morpheme

- smallest unit that carries meaning

- NOT equivalent to a word

- all words at least have one morpheme

- can be combined to form new words/ a word can be decomposed to its morphemes

types of morphemes

free and bound

free morphemes

- can stand alone as a complete word

- two types: functional and context/lexical

functional morphemes

- free morphemes that serve a grammatical purpose

- could be a little difficult to determine meaning

- CLOSED class (cannot create more)

- example: articles (the, a , an), prepositions (about, above, across), pronouns, conjunctions (and, or, but)

context/lexical morpheme

- free morphemes that have a lexical meaning

- OPEN class (can create more)

- example: nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives

bound morphemes

- must be attached for free morphemes/affixed to a root

- typically affixes in English (prefix, suffix)

- two types: inflectional and derivational

inflectional morphemes

- bound morphemes that affects grammar of the word they attach to but not the category of the word

- remember these eight:

-s (3rd person singular present): attaches to nouns

-s (plural)

-s (possessive)

-ed (past tense)

-ing (progressive): attached to regular verbs

-en/-ed (past participle)

-er (comparative)

-est (superlative)

derivational morphemes

- bound morphemes that change word's meanings and the part of speech

- less productive than inflectional morphemes

- examples: -able, re-, -ly, -ish, pre-

word trees

represent the order in which affixes attach to words

difference between un-lockable vs unlock-able

un-lockable = incapable of being locked

unlock-able = capable of being unlocked

prefix

affixes that attach before the root

Suffix

affixes that attach after the root

infix

affix that attaches inside the root

circumfix

affixes that surround the root both initially and finally

infixation

putting a morpheme within a root

- ex. expletive infixation (un-freaking-believeable)

allomorphy

a single morpheme has different pronunciations

allomorphs of -s or -es

[z] follows voiced sounds

[s] follows voiceless sounds

[iz] follow sibilants (hissing quality; sibilants: s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ)

inflection

inflectional morphemes typically occur after derivational moprhemes in a word

- commit + ment + s (RIGHT)

- commit + s + ment (WRONG)

case marking

words must appear in particular forms depending on what grammatical functions they fulfill

ex. I love them vs They love me (If its me doing the loving then I say "I," but its i'm the one being loved, then I say "me")

reduplication

- forming new words by duplicating part of all of an existing word

- in English, we use Constrastive Focus Reduplication

Constrastive Focus Reduplication

- puts focus on the most prototypical, stereotypical example of something

- Ex. Do you like him or do you like-like him

singlish's use of reduplication

noun reduplication: adds closeness, endearment (ex. Where is your boy-boy? (Boyfriend, son))

adjectival reduplication: intensification of meaning of the adjective (ex. Don't always sweet-sweet things)

verb reduplication: once = to do something a little bit (She cry-cry); twice= to do something continuously (She cry-cry-cry)

be deletion

'is' and 'are' are deleted in AAVE where SAE does contractions

ex. He's nice vs He nice

geographic variation example

- American English vs British English

- bathroom vs loo

variation based on race or ethnicity example

- AAVE vs SAE

- AAVE has be-deletion

Eckert Study 1989

- exemplifies variation based on social status

- looked at Jocks (middle class) vs Burnouts (working class)

- negative concords mainly in burnouts

class based variation example

- class based variation in Norwich: h-deletion considered non-standard

- class based variation in Norwich and Detroit speakers: s-drop mainly in working class (She like him vs She likes him)

discourse particles

short expressions or words that have an important function in speech, such as packaging information, structuring turn-taking, expressing attitudes/opinions and orienting topics

- ex. 'anyway', 'well', 'you know', 'like'

- singlish makes use of many of these (lah, what, meh)

structures of the vocal tract (in order from front to back)

1. alveolar ridge

2. hard palate

3. soft palate/velum

4. uvula

5. pharynx

6. glottal

dichotic listening test

only hears sound from the right ear, suggests sound processing is in the left hemisphere

wada test

- anesthetized left hemisphere

- cannot give linguistic response with object in left hand, but can correct identify a picture of object

liquids

- r/l

- sounds made with some minor obstruction of the vocal tract with the tongue but air still passes through

bilingual aphasia case study

- when people have been previously exposed to other languages and have brain traumas, they can wake up only able to communicate in their non-native language, but lose their native language

- different levels of recovery based on which languages are recovered:

- Parallel recovery = both languages are imparied and restored at the same rate (frequent)

- Differential recovery = both languages are recovered but at diff rates

- Selective recovery = when one (or more) of the languages is not recovered (NOT rare)

- Successive recovery = when two languages are recovered, but recovery of the second language begins only after restoration of the first one (uncommon)

- Pitre's rule: recovery comes first and most completely in the language last used

- Ribot's rule: recovery comes first in the native language

william's syndrome

- Good language ability, but low IQ

- poor spatial cognition and IQ but superior linguistic abilities

- Symptoms: limited motor skills, extremely social and friendly, love music and have perfect pitch, elfin appearance

experiments that provide evidence that language is lateralized to the left hemisphere of the brain

- Dichotic listening tests

- Split Brain Experiments

- Wada Tests

Pure Word Deafness/Auditory Verbal Agnosia (case study)

- Auditory verbal agnosia: damage to auditory cortex of the brain

- Vocal language is categorized differently by the brain than any other auditory sound

- People can hear, but not hear words

- Evidence that our brains distinguish word sounds from non-word sounds

- Hearing is completely fine, but cannot comprehend spoken language

aspiration

the brief puff of air released after a voiceless oral stop in word-initial position

- signified with a little h

"like" can serve as...

- a quotative complementizer

- an approximative adverb

- a discourse marker (exemplification, illustration, explanation)

- a discourse particle/focus marker (what follows is important)

"like" as a quotative complementizer

"He was like, "You need to chill out."

"like" as an approximative adverb

"She wrote like 20 poems over the weekend."

"like" as a discourse marker

• "I couldn't speak. Like I had never imagined that guinea pigs could taste so good."

"like" as a discourse particle

"The clown got like right up in my face. I almost lost it."

wug test

Created by Jean Gleason to determine whether children can apply rules of grammar to unknown words (they can)

nouns

a word that can follow a definite article, indefinite article, numeral, which phrase, or a possessor

example:

The book = definite determiner

A book = indefinite determiner

Six books = numbers

Which book = which phrase

Mary's books = possesor/genitive

verbs

word that can follow with the tense suffixes (-s, -ing, -ed, etc)