Chomskian Linguistics Jeopardy Template

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100

In 1957, Chomsky revolutionized the study of language with his book titled

What is Syntactic Structures?

100

Chromsky's assertion that language is innate and not a learned behavior refuted the theories of these two prominent social learning theorists.

Who are B.F. Skinner and Jean Piaget?

100

Refers to an actual utterance that can be broken down by conventional methods of syntactic analysis (Rowe and Levine 137).

What is Surface Structure?

100

This is a theory of knowledge, not one of behavior and it mainly has to do with the internal structure of the human mind. This theory is one that holds the belief that the speaker knows a set of principals that apply to all languages, and parameters that vary from one language to another. This theory concentrates on making only precise statements with specific evidence ("Universal Grammar").

What is universal grammar?

100

This is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars ("Chomsky Hierarchy | Encyclopedia Article by TheFreeDictionary").

What is Chromsky heirarchy?

200

Upon receiving his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, he begun teaching at which university?

What is Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

200

Linguistics, philosophy, and social/political theory.

What are the fields in which Noam Chomsky has received international acclaim?

200

Refers to a highly abstract level of language that represents the basic meaning of a sentence (Rowe and Levine 137).

What is Deep Structure?

200

A system of language analysis that recognizes the the relationship among the various elements of a sentence and among the possible sentences of a language and uses processes or rules(some of which are called transformations) to express these relationships ("Transformational Grammar | Britannica.com").

What is transformational generative grammar?

200

"Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principals are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generalization are used and is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words is involves a process of free creation."

Who is Noam Chomksy?

300

In 1955, Chromsky introduced this modification to his concepts, concluding that there is only one single grammar system to all languages?

What is minimalism? https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minimalist-program

300

Syntactic Structures (1975) and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965).

What are two of Chomsky's earlier books on linguistic theory?

300

This is a finite set of rules that could hypothetically produce (generate) an infinite number of utterances (Rowe and Levine 136).

What is Generative Grammar?

300

This is a hypothetical brain mechanism that Noam Chomsky postulated to explain human aquistion of the syntactic structure of language. This mechanism endows children with the capacity to derive the syntactic structure and rules of their native language rapidly and accurately from the impoverished input provided by adult language users ("Language Acquisition Device - Chomsky, Languages, Syntactic, and Universal - JRank Articles").

What is Language Acquisition Device (LAD)?

300

The name of a member of the ape-language studies, which Chomsky believed to be pointless due to language acquisition to be a "wired" human trait that cannot be taught or learned by an animal (Chomsky).

Who is Nim Chimpsky?

400

This is a framework within generative linguistics in which the syntax of a natural language is described in accordance with general principals (i.e. abstract rules or grammars) and specific parameters (i.e. markers, switches) that for particular languages are either turned on or off ("Principles and Parameters - Wikipedia").

What is Principals and Parameters?

400

"Chomsky Hierarchy | Encyclopedia Article by TheFreeDictionary." TheFreeDictionary.com, encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Chomsky+hierarchy. Chomsky, Noam. "On the Myth of the Ape Language." Interview by Matt A. Cucchiaro. 2007, chomsky.info/2007____/. "Language Acquisition Device - Chomsky, Languages, Syntactic, and Universal - JRank Articles." Social Issues Reference - JRank Articles, social.jrank.org/pages/353/Language-Acquisition- Device.html. "Mentalism." Noam Chomsky's Mentalism, chomskymentalism.weebly.com/mentalism.html. Meyers. "consciousness and the two-track mind." PDF. "Principles and Parameters - Wikipedia." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_parameters. Accessed 17 May 2017. Robin. "Universal Grammar." Natural Language Processing, 17 Oct. 2010, language.worldofcomputing.net/grammar/universal-grammar.html. Rowe, Bruce M, and Diane P. Levine. "Syntax." A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, 2nd ed., Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2009, pp. 112-148. "Transformational Grammar | Britannica.com." Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/transformational-grammar.

400

This is a property of language that allows for productivity by permitting the repeated application of a rule so that people can embed one syntactic category endlessly within another, such as noun phrases or sentences within sentences (Rowe and Levine 136).

What is Recursion?

400

"Chomsky's approach is often called the Mentalist approach. This deals with how the deep structure of an utterance becomes the surface structure. This approach offers an explanation for the infinite number of phrases that can be expressed with a limited number of words and grammatical rules. Mentalism also explains productivity in a language." ("Mentalism").

What is mentalism?

400

A study preformed where chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are taught to communicate through ASL, physical tokens, and lexigrams in order to communicate with other primates or with humans. Chomsky believed that only humans are capable of learning language as it is a "wired" human trait that cannot be taught or learned by an animal.

What are the Ape Language studies?