Chapter 2 & 3 - Typology & lexicon

Question 1

What is a strictly isolating language

Answer 1

one in which every word consists of one and only one morpheme

Question 2

What is fusion (language)

Answer 2

the degree to which units of meanings are “fused” into single morphemes. In a highly fusional language one morpheme can simultaneously express several meanings, e.g., the personal pronouns

Question 3

What are agglutinative languages

Answer 3

languages in which most morphemes express only one meaning

Question 4

What is a clause

Answer 4

one or more noun phrases combined with a predicating element, usually a verb phrase of some sort, to express a complete information unit

Question 5

What are constituents

Answer 5

the noun phrases and predicating element

Question 6

Adposition

Answer 6

cover term for words that are typically called prepositions and postpositions in particular languages

Question 7

Auxiliary

Answer 7

small word that combines with a verb to express the tense, aspect, and/or mode of a clause

Question 8

Comparative construction

Answer 8

a clause that compares some item, the Subject, to another item, the standard, according to some property, usually expressed in an adjective. Also contain a marker of comparison that marks the clause as comparative. E.g. than

Question 9

What is a lexical entry

Answer 9

(lexeme) a unit consisting of the smallest version of a word

Question 10

What is an assembly comprised of

Answer 10

two or more distinct units

Question 11

What is lexicalisation

Answer 11

an assembly of any number of distinct items combine to form a single unit (a “chunk”)

Question 12

Clipping

Answer 12

abbreviated versions of useful longer words, usually with a special new sense. E.g., fax (facsimile), zine (magazine), cords (corduroy trousers)

Question 13

Compound

Answer 13

two or more words combined into one lexical item to express a new, useful and specific idea. E.g., mallrat, road rage, snail mail, soccer mom

Question 14

Blend

Answer 14

like compounds, but the words are combined in such a way that one or more syllables are blended to result in one word. E.g., fantabulous (fantastic fabulous), brunch (breakfast lunch), emoticon (emotion icon)

Question 15

Acronym

Answer 15

words consisting of the initial letters of words in a useful phrase. E.g., dweeb (dim-witted eastern-educated bore), wasp (white, Anglo-Saxon protestant)

Question 16

What is a functor

Answer 16

a word that is useful for describing smaller categories of lexical items that include affixes, clitics and certain well-defined classes of free morphemes such as pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries, conjunctions, and particles

Question 17

Nouns

Answer 17

words that typically refer to entities that have clear boundaries and are easily distinguished from their environments, e.g., tree, king, mausoleum

Question 18

Verbs

Answer 18

the best examples of verbs are words that describe visible events that produce changes in the world, e.g., die, run, break, cook, explode

Question 19

Adjective

Answer 19

a word that refers to an attribute, such as colour, size, shape, temperament, or other property concepts

Question 20

Adverbs

Answer 20

any full lexical item that isn´t clearly a noun, a verb, or an adjective is often considered to be an adverb. Semantically, forms that have been called adverbs cover an extremely wide range of concepts, and they have correspondingly varied syntactic properties

Question 21

MANNER adverb

Answer 21

the way in which some activity is carried out

Question 22

TIME adverb

Answer 22

the time when some activity happens, or the frequency with which it happens

Question 23

EXTENT adverb

Answer 23

the degree to which some variable quality is asserted

Question 24

EPISTEMIC adverb

Answer 24

how likely or possible some situation may be, or how the speaker obtained the info

Question 25

LOCATION adverb

Answer 25

the place where a situation occurs

Question 26

Hedging adverb

Answer 26

disclaimers of responsibility

Question 27

Prepositions

Answer 27

grammatical functors that precede determined noun phrases (DPs) to specify a semantic role of the DP to the rest of the clause. They include words like above, at, in, with, around, on, under, beside, through, inside, before, and opposite.

Some prepositions are made up of more than one piece, including out of, by means of, in spite of, instead of, up to, up against, on top of, upon, etc.

Many prepositions also function as post-verbal particles, as in get in, pick up, switch off

Question 28

Pronouns

Answer 28

Pronouns are Anaphoric words, which means that they are tools that speakers use to refer to (or “mention”) paricipants and props on the discourse stage. They are sometimes treated as a subclass of nouns, because pronouns distribute like DPs in phrases, clauses, and discourses

Question 29

Coordinating conjunctions

Answer 29

conjoin two units that are “equal” in terms of their syntactic status, i.e., they must be of the same word class or phrasal category, and they must have the same syntactic function. There are six words that can function as coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or, for, then, and yet. There are also three or four complex coordinating conjunctions, either … or, neither … nor, and yet, and and then. Coordinating conjunctions always occur in between the two structures that are conjoined