Phonetics & Sounds
What is this the definition of: "This is the study of speech sounds."
Phonetics
According to Pinker, acquiring a language has a significant ______ component.
Innate
A mental grammar is a set of rules that combine words to convey relationships among concepts.
True or False?
True
Words in spoken language acoustically do this rather than having obvious pauses between each word.
Run into/flow into the next word
What is phonology?
Formal: The study of the structure and patterns of sound in language
Informal: The unconscious knowledge a speaker has about the sound system of his/her language
Speech-sound perception is generally this: automatic and effortless, or labored and slow?
Automatic and effortless
According to Pinker, language is a biological adaptation for this purpose.
Communication
The syntax of a language is best described as:
A set of rules that creates a hierarchical, tree-like structure
Language can best be described as a word-chain device.
True or False?
False
What is syntax?
The study of phrases and sentences
Name the three major phonological features listed in the module.
Place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing
Which statement is NOT true according to Pinker?
A. All languages can communicate about things not present.
B. All languages have dialects that are sub-standard and non-expressive.
C. All languages allow expression of complex thought.
D. All languages can express abstract concepts.
B
This poem demonstrates that meaning and grammatical structure can operate independently of one another.
Jabberwocky
A linguist is describing a speech sound based on where it is produced, how airflow is obstructed, and whether the vocal folds vibrate. Which category of information is not part of this traditional description?
A. Place of articulation
B. Manner of articulation
C. Time of articulation
D. Voicing
c
This speech sound makes the words writer and rider sound
nearly identical.
What is a alveolar flap?
The tense -ed on a verb is pronounced as [t] after a voiceless consonant.
True or False?
True
The hypothesis that language is an instinct is opposed to this theory, which says language is learned through stimulus-response learning.
Behaviorist theory
What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar
Prescriptive grammatical rules are ones that are artificially created to impose a “standard” on speakers of a language. Descriptive grammatical rules are the rules of grammar that describe how
speakers of a language naturally talk/write
A word-chain device is a discrete combinational system capable of creating what?
An unlimited number of distinct combinations from a finite set of elements
What is IPA and why do we use it?
International Phonetic Alphabet; we use it because it provides universal, exact system to represent every distinct sound in human speech fixing the confusion standard spelling
This is the smallest segment of speech that can create a meaningful difference between words.
Phoneme
According to Pinker, language is not simply a general capacity to use symbols. Instead, it is considered a specific kind of biological ______.
Adaptation
Explain what mental grammar does when constructing a sentence.
It combines words according to rules to express relationships among concepts.
Cognitive science uses tools and principles from several fields to understand human intelligence. Name the fields represented in the module.
Philosophy, neurobiology, psychology, computer science, and linguistics.
Noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or preposition
What is syntactic category?