Phonology
Past Tense Allomorphs
[t]: Used when the verb root ends in a voiceless sound (e.g., "walked").
[d]: Used when the verb root ends in a voiced sound (e.g., "played").
[ɪd]: Used when the verb root ends in [t] or [d] (e.g., "added").
The choice of allomorph depends on the phonetic environment, specifically voicing and manner of articulation.
Sentence Types
Declarative: Makes a statement (e.g., "She is reading.").
Interrogative: Asks a question (e.g., "Is she reading?").
Imperative: Issues a command (e.g., "Read this book.").
Exclamatory: Expresses strong emotion (e.g., "What a great book!").
Encoding of Semantic Roles in Syntax
Semantic roles describe the relationship between participants and the action:
Agent: The doer of the action (e.g., "She").
Patient: The entity affected by the action (e.g., "the book").
Goal: The endpoint of the action (e.g., "him").
Example: She (Agent) gave him (Goal) the book (Patient).
Sister and Parent of English
Parent Language: Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
Sisters of English: Other Germanic languages, including German, Dutch, and Swedish.
Plural Allomorphs
[s]: Used when the noun ends in a voiceless consonant (e.g., "cats").
[z]: Used when the noun ends in a voiced consonant or vowel (e.g., "dogs").
[ɪz]: Used when the noun ends in a sibilant sound (e.g., "buses").
Constituent Structure and Phrase-Structure Rules
Constituents: Words grouped into meaningful units (e.g., NP, VP).
Phrase Structure Rules: Define how constituents are organized:
NP → (Det) (Adj) N (PP) (e.g., "The big dog in the yard").
VP → V (NP) (PP) (e.g., "is running").
Constituency Tests: Substitution, movement, and clefting can verify if a group of words forms a constituent.
Types of Antonyms
Gradable: Exist on a scale (e.g., hot/cold).
Complementary: Mutually exclusive (e.g., dead/alive).
Relational: Inherently linked opposites (e.g., parent/child).
Linguistic Changes
Syntax:
Old English allowed flexible word order; Modern English has fixed Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order.
Semantics: Word meanings have shifted over time (e.g., "meat" once meant "food in general").
Phonology: The Great Vowel Shift caused systematic changes in vowel pronunciation.
Morphology: Old English had complex inflectional endings, which have largely been simplified in Modern English.
Components of a Syllable
Onset: Consonant(s) before the nucleus (e.g., "c" in "cat").
Nucleus: Typically a vowel; the core of the syllable (e.g., "a" in "cat").
Coda: Consonant(s) following the nucleus (e.g., "t" in "cat").
Example: cat = Onset (C) + Nucleus (V) + Coda (C).
Tree Diagrams
Visual representation of sentence structure:
Example:
mathematica
Copy code
S
/ \
NP VP
/ \ |
Det N V
The cat sleeps
Synonyms and Homophones
Synonyms: Words with similar meanings (e.g., happy/joyful).
Homophones: Words that sound the same but differ in meaning or spelling (e.g., bare/bear).
Grimm's Law
A set of systematic sound changes in Proto-Germanic compared to PIE:
p → f (e.g., Latin pater → English father).
t → θ (e.g., Latin tres → English three).
k → h (e.g., Latin centum → English hundred).
Phonological Rules and Processes
Vowel Lengthening: A vowel becomes longer in certain contexts (e.g., in stressed syllables).
Assimilation: A sound becomes similar to a neighboring sound (e.g., "input" → "imput").
Metathesis: Reordering of sounds within a word (e.g., "ask" → "aks").
Deletion: A sound is omitted in rapid speech (e.g., "friendship" → "frienship")
Grammatical Relations
Subject: Performs the action (e.g., "The cat" in "The cat sleeps.").
Direct Object: Receives the action (e.g., "the ball" in "She threw the ball.").
Indirect Object: The recipient (e.g., "him" in "She gave him a book.").
Deixis
Deictic expressions depend on context:
Person Deixis: Refers to participants (e.g., "I," "you").
Time Deixis: Refers to time (e.g., "now," "then").
Place Deixis: Refers to location (e.g., "here," "there").
Verb Types
Transitive: Requires a direct object (e.g., "She reads books.").
Intransitive: Does not take an object (e.g., "She sleeps.").
Ditransitive: Takes both a direct and an indirect object (e.g., "She gave him a book.").