Linguistics Final

Empirical

Involves using objective methods to collect data in a controlled and replicable way.

Objective

Refers to research that is conducted by eliminating personal biases, emotions, and false beliefs, and by focusing on proven facts and evidence.

Linguist

Refers to a person who examines the structures and principles underlying languages.

Polyglot

Refers to a person who speaks many languages.

Mutual Intel.

Can speakers of the two varieties under one language understand each other?

One-way Intelligibility

The problem when group A can easily understand group B, but not the other way around.

Dialect Continuum

The problem when there are multiple varieties of a given language and while speakers of adjacent varieties can understand each other, speakers of geographically separated varieties have a much harder time.

Linguistic creativity

Refers to the ability to use language to innovate new ways of expressions or add multiple meanings to words.

Language change

The process by which languages evolve over time, as seen in the transition from Old English to Modern English.

Descriptive Approach

Interested in observing, describing and explaining how actual linguistic behavior is used.

Prescriptive Approach

Interested in the 'proper' way to speak or write (grammar police).

Language functionality

Language is functional because it is a tool of human communication, allowing for effective interaction, meaningful participation in society, sharing complex ideas, and expressing emotions.

Language death

The endpoint of the language endangerment process is when the language ceases to have speakers and no longer serves as a symbolic marker of identity for the community.

Spoken language

Considered basic and primary as it existed much longer than written language and is learned naturally through social interaction.

Phoneme

Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound.

Places of Articulation

Articulators involved in the production of sounds.

Bilabial

Upper and lower lip sounds, e.g., [p], [b], [w], and [m].

Labiodental

Lower lip and teeth sounds, e.g., [f] and [v].

Alveolar

Tongue tip and alveolar ridge sounds, e.g., [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [ɹ], [r], and [l].

Nasal (stop)

Airflow is blocked by the mouth and travels through the nasal passage.

Fricative

Airflow travels through a small opening.

Affricate

Airflow is blocked and then becomes a fricative.

Tone

The use of pitch to distinguish meaning.

Stress

Emphasis on a particular syllable of a word.

Allophone

Specific pronunciations of sound that do not change meaning.

Minimal pairs

Two words with separate meanings that differ only by switching out one sound for another.

Near Minimal pairs

Two sounds with separate meanings that share the same environment.

Allophones in complementary distribution

Different phonetic realizations of a phoneme that occur in specific environments.

Ease of articulation

Motivates sounds to change in certain environments.

Perceptual discrimination

Motivates sounds to remain distinct from each other.

Assimilation

Neighboring sounds become more like each other.

Lenition

Weakening of a sound motivated by ease of articulation.

Fortition

Strengthening of a sound often at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable.

Insertion

The addition of a sound in speech.

Deletion

The removal of a sound in speech.

Metathesis

Switching the order of two sounds.

Nasalization

The process of making a sound nasal.

Palatalization

Articulating (alveolar or velar) sounds closer to the hard palate.

Phonological Process

If sounds are separate phonemes or in free variation.

Morpheme

The smallest unit of language that is assigned to a meaning.

Root

The main morpheme of a word.

Affix

A morpheme that is attached to a root.

Free morpheme

Can stand alone as a separate word.

Bound morpheme

Cannot stand alone as a separate word.

Ablaut

Change in vowel in root.

Transfix

Discontinuous affix and discontinuous root.

Reduplication

All or part of a root repeated as all or part of an affix.

Compounding

The combination of two roots.

Inflection

Marks common grammatical categories like number or tense.

Productive

Can be used with many different morphemes and can be predictable.

Tense

When an event happens.

Aspect

Internal temporal structure of an event.

Mood

Attitude of the speaker toward an event.

Evidentiality

Source of speaker's information.

Nominal Inflection

Grammatical classification of nouns into categories.

Derivation

Forms a new lexeme and changes a core meaning.

Periphrastic

A multi-word expression.

Function morphemes

Morphemes used to express grammatical function.

Isolating language

A low number of morphemes per word.

Analytic language

Low number of inflectional morphemes per word.

Synthetic language

High number of morphemes per word.

Polysynthetic language

Very high number of morphemes per word.

Allomorph

Variant of a morpheme in specific phonological contexts.

Underlying Morpheme

Base form of a morpheme before allomorphs.

Voiceless Consonants

Consonants produced without vocal cord vibration.

Voiced Consonants

Consonants produced with vocal cord vibration.

-t Allomorph

-t occurs after voiceless consonants.

-d Allomorph

-d occurs after voiced consonants and vowels.

-əd Allomorph

-əd occurs after alveolar stops.

Open Word Classes

Classes that can easily add new members.

Closed Word Classes

Classes that cannot easily add new members.

Conversion

Changing a word from one class to another.

Noun

Word class referring to entities or concepts.

Verb

Word class expressing actions or states.

Morphological Evidence

Indicators of a word's grammatical category.

Syntactic Evidence

Structural indicators of a word's grammatical role.

Agreement Marking

Morphological marking indicating grammatical agreement.

Noun Phrase

Phrase centered around a noun as head.

Agreement

with noun participants

Syntactic evidence

Often has fixed slot in a neutral sentence

English

is SVO

Korean & Japanese

are SOV

Arabic & Irish

are VSO

Adjective

Express properties of nouns (modify nouns)

Comparative

morphemes that will compare things -er -ier

Superlative

adding morphemes that rank -est

Morphological evidence

Comparative/superlative inflection

-ous

N > Adj (glamour > glamorous)

-y

N > Adj (slime, wind > slimy, windy)

Syntactic evidence for adjectives

Appear before a noun, after any determiners

Adverbs

can modify adjectives, verbs, whole clauses/sentences

Morphological evidence for adverbs

Derivational morphemes that create adverbs

-ly

Adj > Adv (happy > happily)

Syntactic evidence for adverbs

Freedom of positioning

Determiner

Larger class of function words that modify nouns (part of noun phrase)

Article

expresses definitiveness (part of a noun phrase)

Demonstrative

Express distance (concrete or abstract) and/or 'point' to something (part of noun phrase)

Possessive Pronouns

my, his, her, our, your, their

Numerals

express a specific number (precede the noun)

Quantifier

express a quantity