Ch 2-7

Question 1

What are the four types of fusion

Answer 1

Isolating
Concatenative
non-linear (markers that are not segmental and integrated with the host stem, relatively rare)
Reduplication

Question 2

What is Fusion

Answer 2

the degree to which morphological markers attach to a host stem

Question 3

What is exponence and it realizations

Answer 3

how many grammatical categories may be expressed by the same morpheme
seperative
cumulative/portmanteau

Question 4

What is flexibility and its realisations?

Answer 4

how much allomorphy does a language allow
flexive (multiple morphemes for the plural)
non-flexive (grammatical function is always marked the same way)

Question 5

what is synthesis and its realisations

Answer 5

how much accumulated information can a word take?
analytic (no affixation)
synthetic (allow affixation of one lexeme)
polysynthetic (allows affixation with > 1 lexemic root)

Question 6

Explain the difference between isolating fusion and analytic synthesis

Answer 6

Both refer to a morpheme/lexeme standing on its own and taking no affixation. However, isolating fusion looks at it from the perspective of how morphological markers attach (formal), whereas analytic synthesis looks at it from the amount of information that one word can bear (functional). the same goes for concatenative and synthetic.

Question 7

what is an agglutinative language

Answer 7

agglutinative languages are languages that are (poly)synthetic. They take many morphemes to their lexical stems. An example is Turkish or Polish.

Question 8

what is meant by ‘flexitivity is morphologically or phonologically determined?’

Answer 8

Depending on the phonological ending of a word, the morphological affixation can take on different forms. An example are Dutch diminutives.

Question 9

What is the relevance of typology?

Answer 9

identify the limits and possibilities of human language
Universals and Tendencies - X consonants and Y vowels, word order, word classes etc.
History of contact - are features of languages due to inheritance or contact?
interdisciplinarity

Question 10

What is Areal classification?

Answer 10

Languages change or inherit features due to areal contact with proximal languages. They do not share ancestors. Recognizable in areas that were formerly or are colonised. –> Creoles & Pidgins?

Question 11

What is the study of phonology?

Answer 11

Studies how sounds form a system: how are sounds used to form meaningful contrast within languages?

Question 12

what is the difference between segments and suprasegmentals?

Answer 12

Segments are phonemes that together can form larger units, such as syllables, feet or phonological words. Suprasegmentals are prosodic features, i.e. contrastive units that may carry over across segments. length distinction/unfixed stress/tonal languages. Tonal languages have suprasegmental elements change the meaning of a morphologically similar word.

Question 13

What are the five articulatory parameters of sound production?

Answer 13

1. place of articulation: front or back of mouth
2. Airstream mechanism and direction: pulmonic, glottal or velar (clicks)
3. degree or manner of blocking soundstream - totally open: vowels
4. state of the vocal cords - voiced (open) or unvoiced (closed)
5. velic closure (if lowered then no closure –> nasal sound) - nasal or non-nasal

Question 14

what are different degrees or manners of blocking

Answer 14

totally closed: stops
totally open: vowels
fricatives
lateral
trill

Question 15

Explain why dutch learners with L1 Chinese or Japanese confuse ‘rijst’ and ‘lijst’ as two similar words.

Answer 15

/l/ and /r/ are contrastive phonemes in Dutch, meaning that they are distinct sounds that distinguish different meaning. In Chinese and Japanese, /l/ and /r/ are not different phonemes, and therefore ‘rijst’ and ‘lijst’ do not hold different meanings in their processing of language. Their brains make them hear [r] and [l] as similar allophones of the same phonemic speech sound in the phonology of Japanese.

Question 16

What is the sonority principle?

Answer 16

languages prefer to have sonorants (little blocking of airstream, little friction, louder) as the nucleus of the syllable. When there are clusters of consonants in the syllable, the least sonorous consonant is the furthers away from the nucleus. eg. ‘dri’

Question 17

what are allophones?

Answer 17

allophones are the realisations of abstract phonemes/mental phonological units in actual audible speech behaviour. We do not utter phonemes, we utter allophones. Phonemes and allophones are distinctive in meaning. different environments in which phonemes are realized also create different allophones.

Question 18

What are minimal pairs?

Answer 18

when two phones create a difference in meaning of words, they are contrastive: they belong to two different phonemes, they realise two different abstract mental units of the sound system. This contrastiveness can be illustrated through minimal pairs, where difference in one phone creates a different word: pot –> rot

Question 19

what are the three main types of relationships between phones?

Answer 19

Free variation (different allophones can be used in the same phonetic environments)
Complementary distribution (allophones of the same phoneme may only occur in mutually excluding, different environments. eg. before a stressed vowel)
Contrast/minimal pairs

Question 20

which words belong to the open class and what to they do?

Answer 20

content words: verbs, nouns, adjectives. describe things, actions and qualifications. New words can form in this class

Question 21

which words belong to the closed class and what to they do?

Answer 21

function words: and , or , it, this. have a grammatical function and new words cannot easily form in this class.

Question 22

Explain grammaticalization

Answer 22

when a content word assumes the grammatical characteristics of a function word. Can be both formal (reduction, cliticisation, affixation) and functional.

Question 23

what is the Jespersen Cycle

Answer 23

An example of (formal & functional) grammaticalisation. At first a word is added for strengthening purposes of the negation (for example). Then comes a formal reduction of the original negation. this can then be followed by another strengthening addition. –> example of French: Je ne dis –> Je ne dis pas –> Je dis pas

Question 24

what is derivation and how does it differ form inflection?

Answer 24

Derivation is a process for languages to form new lexemes. Affixing, reduplication and prosodic modification are examples of derivation. Inflection carries grammatical information such as number, case, and gender, while derivation does not. Derivation only serves to create new words, and those words can then take on inflectional morphology.

Question 25

What is compounding?

Answer 25

Compounding is another way for languages to form new words. A new compound is not just two separate words, but actually forms its own phonological unit.w

Question 26

what are the four most common lexical classes in PoS

Answer 26

nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Question 27

what are the 7 most common functional/grammatical classes in PoS

Answer 27

pronouns, adpositions (pre/post), numerals, articles, auxiliaries, conjunctions, interjections.

Question 28

How can you define whether a word belongs to a certain wordclass?

Answer 28

by establishing the distributional/syntactic properties of a word, and if it behaves in the expected manner. As well as establishing its structural or 'syntagmatic' (morphological) properties. Referring to semantic meaning alone is not enough (nouns referring to things, persons, places and abstract notions & verbs referring to actions and processes, and states)

Question 29

what are distributional properties?

Answer 29

The syntactic behaviour of a word, where a N can function as both S or O of a verb, V can be inflected for number and person of the subject and word order, where in Greek A follows the adjective and precedes the noun.

Question 30

what are structural or 'syntagmatic' properties?

Answer 30

Properties that are word internally. what is the morphological behaviour of a word?

Question 31

What is noun incorporation?

Answer 31

A noun incorporated into a verb. this can change the action performed into a general action, rather than referring to a specific entity undergoing the action. can also lead to a decrease in valency

Question 32

what are the parameters of ordering in any language?

Answer 32

1. order of words in phrases 2. order of phrases in clause 3. order of words in clauses = non-configurational

Question 33

How can you recognise syntactic units?

Answer 33

1. they stick together in movement 2. intonational contours tend to coincide with syntactic units 3. their own syntactic structure -> glue of order 4. glue of agreement

Question 34

How does the glue of agreement work (concord)?

Answer 34

Agreement is based on shared semantics (grammatical meaning) of controller and target. in agreement you have a controller and a target. In 'het meisje' 'meisje' is the controller that asks for agreement of the target 'het'.

Question 35

How does the glue of government work?

Answer 35

Government is not based on shared semantics of controller and target. with government, the feature specification of the governee is determined merely by the presence of the governor. The governor thus imposes specific restrictions on the morphosyntactic properties of the governed member, but does so without necessarily sharing any of its properties. They therefore do not share their semantics, as the governor does not have to have the inherent semantic content that the shape of the governee indicates. Opposite to agreement, the governee is typically a nominal and the governor can be of various kinds.

Question 36

what is the animacy hierarchy

Answer 36

a language dependent hierarchy that shows which entities are higher up the hierarchy in terms of definiteness. Where a NP is placed in the hierarchy can prescribe their morphosyntactic behaviour.

Question 37

Why is animacy in the animacy hierarchy a misleading term?

Answer 37

Because terms of kinship are not necessarily more animate than descriptive terms of gender (mother - woman). The hierarchy becomes more transparent when viewed as a sociocentric orientation or that it is arranged to a principle of empathy.

Question 38

What are the categories associated with the NP?

Answer 38

1. internal properties: gender, animacy, noun classes: animate, feminine, masculine 2. Number of referents of a NP: singular, dual, trial, paucal, (global) plural. 3. Pragmatic information status of NP in context: (in)definiteness, (in)specificity, identifiability 4. Case: external relation of NP as argument of the verb (subject, object, adjunct)

Question 39

what are noun classes (gender) ?

Answer 39

Noun classes refer to the categorisation of nouns into different classes (gender derives from latin genus 'kind,sort'), and gender or noun classes are identified through agreement and are realised through fusional processes such as affixation. In gender systems, nouns obligatorily belong to one noun class or another in a closed grammatical system.

Question 40

What are classifiers?

Answer 40

Classifiers are free and invariant forms that assign nouns to a given category/noun class, usually semantically based. classifiers may function as nouns themselves, and constitute a more open class of markers than gender markers.

Question 41

what is the ergative case

Answer 41

The ergative is typically used to mark the semantic role of agent. it is also used to mark the subject of a transitive clause.