Flashcards

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1.	Human Dimorphism (vs. Primate)	- larynx is larger, and lower (in males) In apes, no change in larynx: only larger teeth and bigger size.
2.	Goals of early grammarians	1. Find patterns/codify language. 2. Settle disputes. 3. Point out common errors.
3.	Why picked up language?	1. Hunt better. 2. Think better. 3. For "gossip" purposes. 4. For marriage purposes. 5. Spandrel theory.
4.	target pair/bias pair	Used to try and induce language errors. Would use pairs of words being asked to be read aloud. The bias pair are "regular" and contain a common feature. The target pair is atypical and examiner tries to get the target pair to be read incorrectly to match the feature of the bias pairs.
5.	gender differences (2)	- larynx - brain
6.	most common speech error	Occurs in words, morphemes and phonemes.
7.	corpus callosum differences	At three months, music and speech for male on right and females on left. At six months, both on right still for males. In females, speech on left and music on right (adult pattern).
8.	most linguistic diversity	Asia + Africa
9.	why do slips occur?	Language is a hard thing to do! Runs at approximately 3 words/second, must do a lot of thinking.
10.	passive voice	Subject of a verb becomes the "object" in a passive sentence.
11.	semantics versus pragmatics	SEMANTICS: meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences (alone). Analysis of meaning would include PRAGMATICS.
12.	Disadvantages of adapations (3)	1. Can now choke (!!!) 2. Larger brain requires more energy. Brain tissue = 10x energy of other tissue. 3. Requires longer gestation, so humans now born prematurlely.
13.	least linguistic diversity	Europe
14.	things detracting from word recognition	- implausible/unlikely context (John buried the guitar) - impossible context (John drank the guitar) Cause about a 50ms delay. - Wrong syntax even slower - word salad. (The drank John guitar)
15.	Adaptions for language (3)	1. Shortened the muzzle, longer oral cavity. 2. Brain grew larger. 3. Increase size of pharynx by lowering larynx.
16.	g-dropping history	-inde/-ende to -ung to -ing Started with g's dropped, and the addition of G was the new pattern. Eventually became norm.
17.	idealistic communication, problems	Someone has idea. Puts into words, speaks them. Listener hears sound, recognizes words, grasps intent. Problem: most ideas can't be put to 1-1 correspondence with words.
18.	falsely made	falsely - refers to the manner of the making, or the entire document?
19.	variation due to register	- phone conversation vs. article vs. advertisement - Biber created chart mapping different categories
20.	gender: phonological tasks	In males, left region (more localized). In females, both side regions.
21.	power effect	People in charge use more affective tags (facilitative or softeners).
22.	gender: larynx	Males: - vocal folds 50% longer. - Lower pitch of voice. - more vocal cord matter - lower larynx, longer vocal tract causes formant frequencies to drop - higher risk of choking
23.	Types of Languages	1. Created by need 2. Spoken only. 3. With academies. 4. Without academies. 5. Codified
24.	language change like evolution	1. Certain grammar/constructions might be "easier" to learn, so it is the "fittest" to survive. Genetics mostly a tree form. Linguistics not really; languages can rejoin and come together again.
25.	Semantics versus communication	Formal semantics = words to be studied on their own. Meaning is something words sentences have innately. Communication-Intentionalists = words must be studied with conjuction to meaning. Brought up by Strawson's Logico Linguistic papers. People generally study both ways.
26.	Why speaking? (2)	1. Need an "open loop" system to provide constant feedback. 2. Chemical, touch, electrical, neural, visual aren't that effective.
27.	dying languages	About 50% (not being taught to children). Estimate: 1 century, half of languages gone, maybe less than 1000 left.
28.	categorize languages due to (3)	1. mutual intelligible 2. speaker attitudes 3. politics
29.	Speech versus Writing	Speech is primary, writing is secondary.
30.	Arabic vs. Spanish/Port	Both families developed in the same period of time. Spanish/Portuguese now distinguished as two separate languages. Arabic colloquials still share the same writing. Literally, both sets are different within. Attitudewise, Arabic feels part of same community - tied by Quran. S/P does not.
31.	why language changes (4)	1. language learning 2. cultures meet (language contact) 3. social differentiation 4. changes due to natural use
32.	flow of reference	- We often use pronouns instead of repeating old information. - Will swap a/the/them/it without notice. - Different forms of saying the same thing have different meaning in context.
33.	Linguistics: prescriptivist or descriptive?	Generally descriptive. Will not prescribe unless a medical condition. Local dialects are NOT a medical condition.
34.	types of taxology (4)	1. isolating 2. inflectional 3. agglutinative 4. polysynthetic
35.	Human vs. Primate Language	HUMAN - Big vocab 10,000 to 100,000 - Open vocabulary. - Open reference to time/space. - Structured messages. PRIMATE - small vocab ~10 - Closed vocabulary. - Same across geography, normally refers to things NOW. - single items, no complexity. BOTH - identify speaker - express emotion
36.	sentence orders	1. S V O (English, Romance) 2. S O V (most common, Japanese) 3. V S O (Welsh, Irish)
37.	things affecting word recognition	- CONTEXT! With context, recognize very early. - Common-ness. More common words are thought of first, until more of the word is heard.
38.	gender: aphasia	Determined relationship between brain damage and aphasia: left anterior (front) of frontal cortex = women's language processing left posterior (back) = men's.
39.	conversational implicative (4)	4 Maxims established by Grice that have to do with pragmatics. 1. Quality (truth) 2. Quantity (exactly as much info as expected) 3. Relevance 4. Manner (ambiguity)
40.	g-drop trends	As class status "rises", g-dropping "falls". Casual speech the most, reading the least. Men more informal in general.