Ling

Q: Are some languages grammatically more complex than others?
A: Yes, some of the world’s languages are grammatically more complex than others.

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Q: Do parents and caregivers teach young children their language?
A: No, children acquire language naturally; parents and caregivers do not explicitly teach them.

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Q: Do some languages take longer for children to learn than others?
A: No, all human languages are acquired at a similar pace by children.

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Q: Do linguistic abilities steadily increase as a child grows older?
A: Yes, linguistic abilities develop steadily as a child grows older.

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Q: Is formal, careful speech grammatically more sophisticated than casual, everyday speech?
A: No, formal and casual speech are equally grammatically sophisticated.

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Q: Do cultures with greater technological sophistication tend to have grammatically richer languages?
A: No, technological sophistication does not correlate with grammatical complexity (e.g., Yimas language in Papua New Guinea).

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Q: What is an example of a "natural experiment" showing that language complexity is independent of technology?
A: The Highlanders of Papua New Guinea, who had stone-age technology but a highly complex language (Yimas).

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Q: How is language different from writing?
A: Language is part of human biology and universal, while writing is an invention and not universal.

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Q: What is prescriptive grammar?
A: Rules that prescribe how people should or ought to use language, often based on arbitrary standards.

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Q: What is an example of a prescriptive rule?
A: Double negation (e.g., "he doesn't know nothing") is considered inappropriate and illogical.

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Q: What are some justifications for prescriptive grammar rules?
A: Established conventions, the belief that the old way is better, Latin influence, perceived logic, or authority ("because I said so").

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Q: What are the advantages of prescriptive grammar?
A: Preservation of older language forms and clarity/standardization for communication.

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Q: What is descriptive grammar?
A: Rules that describe how language is actually used by native speakers, based on observed patterns.

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Q: What is a grammatical sentence in descriptive grammar?
A: A sentence that expresses an idea in a natural, well-formed way according to native speakers.

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Q: What is linguistic competence?
A: The knowledge a speaker has in their mind that allows them to generate grammatical expressions of their language.

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Q: What is linguistic performance?
A: The actual language behavior a speaker displays, which can be affected by factors like memory, fatigue, or false starts.

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Q: What is tacit knowledge in language?
A: Rules that govern linguistic behavior but are not consciously known or easily stated by speakers (e.g., "wanna" contraction rules).

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Q: What is conscious knowledge in language?
A: Knowledge that can be reflected on, slowed down, and explained to others.

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Q: What is a mental grammar?
A: A set of rules that generate the expressions of a speaker’s language.

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Q: What is a corpus in linguistics?
A: A large collection of texts, speeches, audio recordings, or videos used to study language performance.

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Q: What are grammaticality judgments?
A: Native speakers’ intuitions about the well-formedness of possible expressions in their language.

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Q: What is recursion in human language?
A: The ability to generate linguistic units that contain other linguistic units of the same kind (e.g., "winter sport practice").

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Q: What is structural ambiguity?
A: Sentences or words with two distinct structures and meanings (e.g., "old men and women").

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Q: What is the right-hand head rule in nominal compounds?
A: The head of a compound (which determines its basic meaning) is always the noun on the right (e.g., "winter sport practice" refers to practice, not winter).

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Q: What is Noam Chomsky’s contribution to linguistics?
A: He emphasized that human language is creative, innovative, and free from stimulus control.

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Q: What is the nativist view of language acquisition?
A: Some (or all) knowledge of language is innate and independent of sensory experience.

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Q: What is Universal Grammar?
A: The idea that language involves innate universal principles and ideas.

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Q: What is the empiricist view of language acquisition?
A: All knowledge of language derives from sensory experience, and the mind is a blank slate at birth.

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Q: What is behaviorism in language learning?
A: The idea that learning is based on modifying behavioral responses through reinforcement or punishment.

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Q: What is connectionism?
A: A modern form of empiricism that models human cognitive processes using artificial neural networks.

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Q: What evidence supports nativism?
A: Universality (all societies have language), uniformity (ease and success in acquisition), rapidity, and consistency of stages in language development.

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Q: What is Specific Language Impairment (SLI)?
A: A developmental disorder that affects language without additional cognitive deficits.

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Q: What is Williams syndrome?
A: A developmental disorder causing broad cognitive deficits but leaving language intact.

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Q: What is a chatbot?
A: A computer program that simulates human conversation using text responses to user prompts.

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Q: What are Large Language Models (LLMs)?
A: AI systems that predict the next word in a sequence, used in chatbots and NLP.

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Q: What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)?
A: The branch of AI that deals with understanding and generating human language.

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Q: What is neural network probing?
A: Investigating what happens inside artificial neural networks to understand their processes.