language development -Week 7

Question 1

What is a pidgin

Answer 1

simple language for communication between groups without a common language

Question 2

what is a creole

Answer 2

: pidgin that becomes a native language for the next generation

Question 3

what is phonology

Answer 3

Phonology refers to the speech sounds of a language

Question 4

What are phonemes

Answer 4

Phonemes are sounds that signal differences in meaning

Question 5

What are minimal pairs

Answer 5

(two words with different meanings that differ only in one phoneme)
Bat Pat /b//p/
Pick Pill /k/ /l/
Pin Chin /p//ch/
Zoo Sue /z//s/

Question 6

What is morphology

Answer 6

Morphology refers to the meaningful forms of a language

Question 7

What are morphemes

Answer 7

Morphemes are forms associated with units of meaning

Question 8

What is un-prefixation

Answer 8

adding ‘un’ to words changes the meaning

Question 9

What is syntax

Answer 9

Syntax refers to the rules that control how words are ordered
Rules of syntax operate on constituents (e.g., Noun Phrase) not words
Passive syntactic rule
NP VERB NP -> NP IS VERB BY NP

Question 10

What are semantics

Answer 10

Semantics refers to the meaning of words (concepts) and sentences

Quine (1960): “gavagai”

Children need to understand others mental states ( the context) to understand the meaning of these words

Question 11

What are pragmatics

Answer 11

how language is used in context to convey meaning

Question 12

What do studies of animals like dogs, Alex the parrot, and Kanzi show about animal language abilities?

Answer 12

Arbitrary associations:
Animals like dogs can learn word–meaning pairs quickly.

Compositionality:
Some animals combine meanings—Alex the parrot understood “red ball,” and Kanzi the bonobo followed new sentence structures.

Limitations:
Their communication isn’t fully symbolic; they mostly use signs to get things, not to share ideas, and they don’t use social language.

Question 13

describe variations in speech sounds - free variation

Answer 13

When two sounds (like the /t/ in hot) can be pronounced differently — aspirated or not — without changing meaning.
but in other languages-
In Zulu, aspirated [tʰ] and unaspirated [t] are different phonemes, meaning they change word meaning.

Question 14

What is contextual variation, and how does it differ across languages?

Answer 14

Contextual variation: When the pronunciation of a sound changes depending on nearby sounds.

In English, /k/ varies by context:

keel → fronted /k/ (toward the front of the mouth)

cool → backed /k/ (toward the back of the mouth)

These are allophones of the same /k/ phoneme.

In Arabic, the front /k/ and back /k/ are distinct phonemes — changing them changes the meaning of words.

Question 15

What are phonemes different to

Answer 15

not the same as letters as writing systems use different letters to express same phonmes.

Question 16

what is inflectional morphology

Answer 16

does not change the syntactic category or meaning of the word
Dog + s DOG + PLURAL
Jump + ed JUMP + PAST

Question 17

what is deprivational morphology

Answer 17

Derivational morphology can change its syntactic category or meaning
Un + cover REVERSE + COVER
Sad + ness SAD + STATE -> noun

Question 18

What does the replacement rule test show? for syntax

Answer 18

What does the replacement rule test show?
A: If one group of words can replace another, they’re the same constituent.
Example:

Some boys are bigger than others → They are bigger than them
Shows some boys and they are both noun phrases (NPs).

Question 19

What do syntax rules specify?

Answer 19

What forms constituents (like NPs) can take.

How they combine to form sentences.
Examples:

NP → Proper Noun → Fido

NP → Det + N → The dog

NP → Det + N + PP → The dog with the huge teeth

S → NP + V + NP → [The dog] bit [the postman]

Question 20

What is recursion in syntax, and why is it important?

Answer 20

Recursion in syntax is when a grammatical rule can apply to its own output — meaning the rule can call itself to create larger and more complex sentence structures.

Key idea: A finite set of words and rules can generate an infinite number of sentences.