LIN 306: Study Guide for Test 1

LIN 306: Study Guide for Test 1

Generalities

• Exam Format: Expect mainly short-answer questions, including:

  • Multiple choice

  • Fill-in-the-blanks

  • True-false

  • Matching

  • Tree-drawing exercises

• Focus Areas: Concepts, terminology, and data analysis.

• Study Strategies:

  • Reread relevant readings from Language Files and any Canvas articles.

  • Review class notes, which contain material not covered in the textbook.

  • Consult the study guide and practice problems posted in Canvas about one week before the exam.

  • Review graded homework feedback in Canvas; view both general and specific comments for improvement.

  • Collaborate with classmates to enhance understanding.

  • Seek help during office hours from instructors or fellow class members.

Week 1: Introduction (15% of Test)

• Linguistics Fundamentals:

  • Focus on mental grammar and mental lexicon: the unconscious knowledge native speakers have to produce and understand language.

  • Understand the argument that native speakers have an internal grammar by recognizing “grammatical” vs. “ungrammatical” instances.

• Grammar Types:

  • Prescriptive Grammar: Rules dictate how language should be used.

  • Descriptive Grammar: Rules describe how language is actually used.

  • Be able to identify prescriptive rules, as illustrated in Week 1 homework.

• Grammaticality:

  • Utilize intuitions to judge the grammaticality of sentences (noting considerations for non-native speakers).

  • Distinguish between linguistic competence (knowledge of grammar) and linguistic performance (actual use, which may contain errors).

• Universal Grammar:

  • Refers to underlying similarities across languages, suggesting innate biological components for language.

• Linguistic Relativity:

  • Familiarize with the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which posits that language influences thought processes.

  • Review examples from fire insurance inspections relating to language patterns.

• Linguistic Knowledge Types:

  • Phonology: Sound systems

  • Morphology: Word structure

  • Syntax: Phrase and sentence structure

  • Semantics: Meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences

  • Pragmatics: Contextual meaning of language usage

  • Lexicon: Mental dictionary, containing information about words.

Week 2: Biology of Language (1/6 of Test)

• Brain Localization Theory:

  • Identify Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area and be able to locate them on a brain diagram.

  • Understand lateralization (distinct functions of brain hemispheres) and contralateral brain function (each hemisphere controls opposite body sides).

  • Be aware of neural plasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize functions.

• Aphasia:

  • Learn about Broca’s Aphasia (speech production issues) and Wernicke’s Aphasia (language comprehension issues).

  • Know additional terms like anosognosia (lack of awareness of disability), jargon aphasia, and conduction aphasia.

• Language Impairments:

  • Recognize specific language impairment and Williams syndrome.

• Critical Period for Language Acquisition:

  • Cases of Isabelle (exposed to language after isolation) and Genie (severe environmental deprivation); note Isabelle acquired normal speaking abilities while Genie struggled with limited vocabulary and syntax.

  • Review related findings on deaf children lacking early language exposure.

• Arguments for Localization:

  • Prepare to support the idea that language function is localized in the brain using various arguments and evidences.

• Human Language Characteristics:

  • Review key characteristics, including semanticity, interchangeability, innateness, etc.

  • Explore American Sign Language and its relation to these characteristics.

• Sign Language Study:

  • Familiarize with Al Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and Nicaraguan Sign Language as per discussed articles to understand debates on language emergence (monogenesis vs. polygenesis).

• Linguistic Universals:

  • Review the list of linguistic universals provided in the handout (Lin306-HO-BiologyofLg4-UniversalsofLg.pdf).

Week 3: Syntax (1/4 of Test)

• Syntactic Categories:

  • Understand key categories such as Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Pronoun, and Determiner.

  • Verbs are categorized into Intransitive, Transitive, Ditransitive, and Sentential Complement verbs.

  • Consult the handouts on parts of speech for identification diagnostics.

• Phrase Structure Rules:

  • Understand what they are and familiarize with the specific rules for English (refer to handout Lin306-HO-PSRules-Forusebyclass.pdf).

  • Memorization not necessary; handouts permitted during tests.

• Phrase Structure Trees:

  • Ability to construct phrase structure trees from given sentences according to established rules.

• Arguments vs. Adjuncts:

  • Distinction: Adjunct modifies a head but is optional; Argument completes the phrase and is essential.

  • Understand specific terms like SPECIFIER and COMPLEMENT in relevant phrases.

• Recursion:

  • Define recursion and create examples.

  • Understand how it relates to phrase structure rules and children's language acquisition.

• Information in Phrase Structure Trees:

  • Identify encoded information: constituency, order, category, and co-occurrence.

  • Justify structures using constituency tests like ANSWER TO QUESTIONS TEST, CLEFTING TEST, and PRO-FORM SUBSTITUTION TEST.

• Ambiguity:

  • Spot and analyze ambiguous sentences with distinct interpretations, supported by different trees.

• Syntactic and Semantic Selection:

  • Understand how syntactic selection applies across verb categories.

• Generative Grammar:

  • Familiarity with Noam Chomsky's contributed approach to linguistics.

Week 4: Morphology (1/4 of Test)

• Morphological Analysis:

  • Practice analyzing unfamiliar languages using specified exercises.

• Morphological Form and Function:

  • Understand the significance and content of the handouts on both topics.

• Mental Lexicon:

  • Recognize the multi-faceted nature of a mental lexicon entry (phonological shape, meaning, syntax, morphology).

  • Example of entries:

  • friendly: Phonological shape /friendly/, Meaning ‘amiable’, Syntax Adjective

  • railroad: Phonological shape /railroad/, Meaning ‘path for trains’, Syntax Noun

• Productivity in Morphology:

  • Define productivity in noun-noun compounding and derivational morphology.

• Less-than-Productive Processes:

  • Awareness of folk etymology, taboo deformation, and back formation as word formation processes.

• Inflectional vs. Derivational Morphology:

  • Understand inflectional morphology as expressing obligatory grammatical functions and distinguish it from derivational morphology processes.

• Morphological-Syntactic Trade-off:

  • Examine English and Spanish versus Bahasa Indonesia regarding morphological inflection.

Week 5: Semantics (1/4 of Test)

• Pragmatics vs. Semantics:

  • Contrast semantics (linguistic meanings) with pragmatics (contextual meanings).

• Lexical vs. Sentence Semantics:

  • Distinction between word meanings and meanings derived from phrases and sentences through compositional semantics.

• Learning Lexical Meaning:

  • Methods of acquiring meanings: ostension, paraphrase, use context, etc.

• Sense vs. Reference:

  • Definitions and examples of sense (strategy for identifying referents) and reference (real-world entity).

• Feature-based Meaning Relationships:

  • Identify synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, hypernyms, and componential relationships.

• Deictics:

  • Examples of personal, time, and place deictics.

• Truth Conditions vs. Appropriateness Conditions:

  • Some utterances are evaluated by truth values, others by contextual appropriateness (e.g., questions).

• Entailment and Presupposition:

  • How to identify entailments, using negation tests for presuppositions.

• Tautologies, Contradictions, and Ambiguity:

  • Definitions and examples for distinguishing these categories.

• Compositional Semantics Issues:

  • Recognize sources of anomaly and ambiguity from compositional semantics and idioms.

• Metaphor and Interpretation:

  • Definitions and examples of metaphorical language and cultural phrases.

• Color Terms in Language:

  • Explore how color terms show language universals and diversity in language.

• Contextual Language Use:

  • Understand how context impacts interpretation and the effectiveness of utterances.

• Speech Acts:

  • Basic types of speech acts and the concept of performative verbs.

• Conversational Principles and Grice’s Maxims:

  • Overview of maxims guiding implicature interpretation, including universality questions.

• Differentiating Implicatures from Entailments:

  • Distinctions between implicature (contextually inferred) versus entailments (logically required).

• Big Questions:

  • Queries regarding universal aspects of semantics and pragmatics versus culturally specific practices.