Lesson 1: Introduction

Question 1

What is linguistics?

Answer 1

the study of language

Question 2

What is form?

Answer 2

sounds

Question 3

What is meaning?

Answer 3

concept

Question 4

What is a conventional relationship?

Answer 4

relationship between form and meaning is comprehensible

ex: native language

Question 5

What is an arbitrary relationship?

Answer 5

relationship between form and meaning is incomprehensible

Question 6

linguistic competence

Answer 6

what you can do with language
ex: our knowledge of words and grammar

Question 7

linguistic performance

Answer 7

what actually comes out of your mouth
ex: how we use our knowledge in speech production

Question 8

What is language?

Answer 8

• a tool
• a kind of knowledge

Question 9

phonetics

Answer 9

the inventory of sounds in your language

Question 10

phonology

Answer 10

rules for combining sounds into words

Question 11

morphology

Answer 11

rules of word formation

Question 12

lexicon

Answer 12

mental dictionary of the words you know

Question 13

syntax

Answer 13

rules for combining words into phrases and sentences

Question 14

semantics

Answer 14

rules for assigning meanings to words in sentences

Question 15

arbitrariness

Answer 15

the relationship between a word and its meaning is arbitrary

the object is still the same even if the word isn’t

Question 16

creativity

Answer 16

speakers use a finite set of building blocks and rules to create and understand an infinite set of novel sentences

Question 17

universal grammar

Answer 17

the set of universal properties possessed by all languages

Question 18

True or False:
All children acquire language spontaneously.

Answer 18

True

Question 19

descriptive grammar

Answer 19

linguist’s description/model of the mental grammar
what speaker’s rules actually are

Question 20

prescriptive grammar

Answer 20

rules of grammar
what speaker’s rules should be

Question 21

We know that the relation between the sound of a word and its meaning is arbitrary because:
A. Different languages have different words that refer to the same objects/concepts.
B. All languages have similar words that refer to some of the same objects/concepts.
C. Onomatopoeic words are similar across languages.
D. Children acquire the language of their environment effortlessly.
E. Onomatopoeic words are in fact different across languages.

Answer 21

A. Different languages have different words that refer to the same objects/concepts.

Question 22

Consider the following sentence:
“I don’t need nothing from you.”

Would this sentence be correct according to a typical prescriptive grammar of English?

A. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because a sentence is not supposed to have double negatives in English.
B. Yes. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as correct because there are many examples of such sentences in the works of well-known writers like Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, and Twain.
C. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because double negatives only appeared in English in the early 20th century.
D. Yes. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because native speakers of English actually say things like this.
E. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because Classical Latin did not permit such double negatives.

Answer 22

A. No. A prescriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because a sentence is not supposed to have double negatives in English.

Question 23

Consider the following sentence:
“I don’t need nothing from you.”

Would this sentence be correct according to a descriptive grammarian?

A. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because English does not have double negatives.
B. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as correct because such sentences are grammatical in a number of other languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian.
C. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because double negatives only appeared in English in the early 20th century.
D. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because native speakers of English actually say things like this.
E. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because Universal Grammar permits this option.

Answer 23

D. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because native speakers of English actually say things like this.

Question 24

Consider the following quote:

“When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.”

Would this sentence be correct according to a descriptive grammar of English?

A. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because it displays lack of linguistic competence.
B. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as correct because the intended meaning is clear to native speakers of English.
C. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because native speakers of English reject such sentences.
D. Yes. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be correct because a native speaker’s performance sometimes yields such sentences.
E. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because Universal Grammar does not allow for such a word order in a natural language.
F. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence as incorrect because this word order is found in Old English, but not in modern English.

Answer 24

C. No. A descriptive grammarian would judge this sentence to be incorrect because native speakers of English reject such sentences.