What is Language?
The main area(s) of the brain responsible for language production and comprehension is/are:
(A) Broca's area
(B) Wernicke's area
(C) Corpus collosum
(D) A&B
(E) B&C
(D) A&B
Who are the linguists responsible for making dictionaries?
(A) morphologists
(B) semanticians
(C) lexicographers
(D) syntacticians
(E) none of the above
(C) lexicographers
Which of the following is NOT an example of a determiner?
(A) a
(B) an
(C) the
(D) which
(E) A&B
(D) which
TRUE or FALSE? Morphology is the study of how words change over time.
FALSE
Give an example of an onomatopoeic word in English.
Buzz, zoom, murmur, crash, zip, boom...
How can we study language and the brain if we cannot dissect a living person's brain to see what happens?
MRIs, studying people with lesions to the brain, designing experiments to elicit language production...
How many morphemes does the world INIMAGINABLE have?
Three: IN-IMAGIN-ABLE
What are three syntactic categories?
Det, Aux, Noun, Verb, Proposition, Adjective, Adverb
What does is mean to say that a sentence is "grammatical"?
It conforms to the rules of mental grammar; a native speaker accepts it as well-formed and "sayable".
What is the difference between linguistic competence and linguistic performance?
Linguistic competence is what we know about a language, while linguistic performance is how we use what we know in speech production and comprehension.
What is the critical age hypothesis?
Assumes that language is biologically-based and the ability to learn a native language develops within a fixed period from birth to middle childhood. After this, grammar acquisition is difficult and for most people never fully achieved.
What's the difference between a content word and a function word? Give an example of each.
Content: concepts such as objects, actions, attributes and ideas. Open class. Ex: space, jump, fancy, harmony...
Function: specify grammatical relations and have little or no semantic content. Closed class. Ex: of, an, it...
The word "that" in the following sentence is called what?
Trump said that he will deport millions of immigrants.
Complementizer
What is the difference between Broca and Wernicke's aphasia?
Broca's: labored speech, trouble finding words, but primarily issues of syntax.
Wernicke's: good syntax and fluency but semantically unsound.
What is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammars? Which one seems to be more along the lines of the job of a "true" linguist?
Prescriptive: make rules governing how people "should" talk
Descriptive: describe how native speakers actually use the language
Descriptive because our job is to observe as scientists and not mandate as police.
What is anomia?
Severe version of tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon, inability to find the word you need.
What is the difference between a bound and free morpheme? Give a word with three or more morphemes and say which is/ are free and which is/are bound.
Bound morpheme: cannot exist as a word itself. Ex: un, in, pre, ish, ...
Free morpheme: can stand as a word on its own. Ex: able, under, free...
re-assess-ment
What are complements and heads in regards to syntax? Explain and give an example.
Head: word whose lexical category determines the type of phrase it is. "the HOUSE down the street"
Complement: complete the meaning of the phrase. "THE house DOWN THE STREET"
What is linguistic determinism?
Form of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that says that the language we speak determines how we perceive and think about the world. Language is a filter of reality.
Talk about Universal Grammar (UG). Who came up with the idea? What is it? How is it molded during a person's life?
**You must answer all parts of the question correctly in order to get the points!
Noam Chomsky - biologically-endowed part of language faculty, basic blueprint all languages follow - at birth, because of UG, a child can learn any language in the world. As they are exposed to input, UG is reduced to the features present in their native tongue, others are suppressed.
What is lateralization? Give some evidence in favor of it as it regards to language. Be sure to include "hemispherectomy" in your answer.
Lateralization is the localization of a certain cognative function (language) to one hemisphere of the brain. Children who have a left hemispherectomy (whose left side of the brain is removed) show specific language deficits. If the right brain is damaged after the first two or three years, language is unimpaired.
What's the difference between derivational and inflectional morphology? Explain them and create a word that would be an example for each.
Derivational: adding bound morphemes to free morphemes to create new words. Ex: smart+ify = smartify
Inflectional: adding morphemes of tense, number, person, plural...without changing the grammatical category of the word. Ex: study+ed = studied (indicates past)
Explain the syntactic ambiguity of this sentence: The burglar threatened the student with the knife.
Who has the knife? Does the prepositional phrase "with the knife" modify the burglar or the student?
Give a simple sentence and run two of the three constituency tests on it.
I HAD CEREAL THIS MORNING.
(1) Stand alone: When did you have cereal? -This morning.
(2) Replacement by a pronoun: I had IT this morning.
(3) Move as a unit: This morning I had cereal.