SPH101 Quiz Flashcards
A morpheme is:
A)The smallest meaningful unit in a language
B)The meaning of words in a language
C)The same as a word
The smallest meaningful unit in a language
Define ‘noun’.
What types of nouns are there?
A noun is a part of speech that names people, places, animals, things and concepts.
Proper vs common nouns
Count vs non-count nouns
What evidence could be used to identify a noun?
Meaning criteria:
Names of people, places, animals, things and concepts.
Inflectional suffixes:
- s (plural)
- ’s (possessive
Derivational suffixes:
- er
- ness
ment
Can have a determiner in front
Define ‘verb’.
What types of verbs are there?
A verb conveys an action, an occurrence, or a state of being.
Main verb
He is swimming.
Auxiliary verb (tense, aspect, mode)
He is swimming.
Define ‘vowels’.
- Vowels are one of two main classes of speech sounds (the other being consonants).
- Vowels have relatively open articulations compared to consonants, creating larger resonating cavities that amplify the sound during their production.
- Vowels are voiced and are louder (more sonorous), than consonants.
- Vowels form the centres of syllables.
Define ‘prosody’.
- Also called suprasegmantals.
- Includes stress, intonation, rhythm, and lexical and grammatical tones.
- Prosody can affect the meaning of a word or phrase, or add information.
Define ‘consonants’.
- Consonants are one of two main classes os speech sounds (the other being vowels).
- Consonants are created by relatively more vocal tract constriction than vowels.
- Consonants can be voiced or voicelss and are not as loud (sonorous) as vowels.
- Consonants form the margins of syllables.
What evidence could be used to identify a verb?
Meaning based criteria:
- actions and states
Distributional critera
- -derivational suffixes:
- -ate, -ify, -ize.
- Inflectional suffixes:
- -ed, -ing, -s(3s)
Define ‘adjectives’.
describes, identifies, or quantifies a noun or a pronoun.
What evidence could be used to identify an adjective (Adj)?
Meaning based criteria:
Describes the noun
Distributional criteria:
- Derivational suffixes:
- -able, -al, -ful.
- Gradable: very small, less playful.
- Comparative suffixes:
- -er, -est
- Can occur before or after the noun
Define ‘adverbs’ (Adv).
What types of adverbs are there?
An adverb is a part of speech used to modify a verb, adjective, clause, or another adverb. It simply tells how, where, when, or the degree at which something was done.
Types of adverbs:
- Manner: quickly, painfully, quitetly, again.
- Time: yesterday, soon
- Place: here, there
- Intensifiers: very large, rather large, really large
What evidence could be used to identify an ‘adverb’ (Adv)?
Meaning-based criteria
- Modify a verb adjective or adverb
Distributional criteria
- Derivational suffix:
- -ly
- Gradable: very, much
- Comparative suffixes: -er, -est
Do NOT modify nouns
Are flexible in their location in a sentence.
Define ‘pronouns’ (PrN).
What types of pronouns are there?
substitutes for a noun or noun phrase
Types:
Personal: he, she, it, I, me
Possesive: mine, my, your, his their
Reflexive: myself, themselves
Reciprocal: each other
Demonstrative: this, those
Interrogative: what, who
Indefinite: somebody, anyone, none
What evidence could be used to identify a pronoun (PrN)?
- Replaces a noun phrase
Define ‘determiners’ (Det).
What types of determiners are there?
Determiners introduce nouns.
Types:
- Indefinite artile: a, an
- Definite article: the
- Pronouns: my car, his book, those cars
- Numerals: one book, third prize, next week
Always come before nouns - don’t get confused with pronouns, which are more independent in a sentence.
Define ‘prepositions’ (Prep).
What type of eidence could be used to identify a preporistion?
The location, direction or manner of the noun in relation to the verb.
Distributional criteria
- Can’t take inflection
- Often before noun phrase
Define ‘conjunctions’ (Conj).
Join together two (or more) ideas/words of the same class.
I went swimming and I caught a fish.
I was tired because I watched the whole series.
What is morphology?
Grammatical units.
Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes
What is phonology?
The study of the rules or systems of speech sounds within languages.
What is phonetics?
The scientific study of speech sounds.
- articulatory phonetics (how we use vocal tract) This is what we are doing in this subject.
- instrumental phonetis
- perceptual phonetics
What is syntax?
Syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, specifically word order and punctuation.
- word classes/parts of speech
- agreement
- phrase structure
- clause structure
- sentence structure
What is pragmatics?
Language in use, focusing on the social exchange of language.
What is a phrase?
Syntactic unit of one or more words, containing a ‘head’ which functions as its most prominent word.
Noun Phrase (NP)
Verb Phrase (VP)
Adjective Phrase (AdjP)
Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
Preposition Phrase (PP)
Define ‘clause’
Contains a VP (verb phrase) with accompanying NPs (noun phrases) and PPs (prepositional phrases).
Define ‘sentence’
May contain one or more clauses (count the number of verbs).
What is the phonological process ‘weak form’?
In connected speech, function words are often reduced.
The label function word is often used to describe a class of words which serves a purely grammatical role. Since their presence is usually predictable from context, their vowels can reduce to [ə] and some of their consonants may also be deleted.
am /æm/ —-> /əm/
an /æn/—> /ən/—-> /n/
and /ænd/—> /ənd/—> /ən/—> /n/
are /ɐː/—> /ə/
as /æz/—> /əz/
What is the phonological process ‘epenthesis’?
Adding sounds in connected speech.
Linking /ɹ/- pronounced between vowels when there is ‘r’ in the spelling
Intrusive /ɹ/- prounounced between vowels when there is no ‘r’ in the spelling
The word epenthesis comes from epi “in addition to” and en “in” and thesis “putting” to help remember what it is!
What is the phonological process ‘assimilation’?
In continous speech, alveolar stops can take the place of articulation of the next consonant.
eg- /t/ /d/ /n/ become:
/p/ /b/ /m/ before a bilabial stop (or nasal)
/k/ /g/ /ŋ/ before a velar stop (or nasal).
NOTE: Assimilation of place, not manner or voicing.
What is the phonological process ‘elision’?
Deletion of sounds in connected speech. This can take the form of:
- deletion of unstressed syllables and function words
- reduction of cononant clusters: medial d/t most susceptible.
Define phonotactics:
Define ‘syllable’ and give an example:
Define ‘minimal pairs’ and give example:
What is speech?
Motor speech:
- respiration
- phonation
- articulation
- intonation
- resonance
- R-Pair!*
Define ‘language’
Bloom and Lahey model (form, use, content) all surrounded by context.
Form: Structure
Use: How we use it
Content: vocabulary
Culture: All ideas and assumptions that are learned as a member of a group, initially
acquired without conscious awareness.
How are sounds‘shaped’ in the vocal tract?
(Articulatory phonetics)
Respiration
Phonation
Articulation
Resonance
- intonation is not listed, because it is made through respiraton.
Label this diagram of the vocal tract:
What are ‘stops’ ?
Stops are consonants created through a sequence of articulatory events beginning with total occlusion, which traps the air behind a blockage:
[p] [b] [m] [t] [d] [n] [k] [ɡ] [ŋ]
What are nasals (or nasal stops)?
Nasals have occlusion of airway as for oral stops, except the soft palate is lowered, allowing the air to flow both into the oral cavity and out of the nose. The important nasal stop sounds in English are
[m] [n] [ŋ]
Fricatives are created by placing the articulators in a position that restricts the flow of air but does not totally block its path. When air is forced through the constriction, the turbulent airflow generates the hissing sound associated with fricatives. In fricativeproduction, the soft palate is raised so the air cannot escape through the nose.
[f] [v] [θ] [ð] [s] [z] [ʃ] [ʒ] [h]
What are affricates?
Affricates are a combination of a stop and a fricative united to form a single consonant. The stop is immediately followed by relaxing the occlusion sothat a fricative release occurs.
[ʧ] [ʤ]
What is an approximant?
Approximants are sounds produced with relatively little obstruction to the airstream and are therefore the most vowel-like of all the consonants. They are created by moving the tongue towards a vocal tract landmark, rather than any single major obstruction orconstriction.
[j], [w], [ɹ] [l]
What are monophthongs:
Simple vowels that can be prolonged without having to change the position of the tongue during their productions eg: heat, hit, head.
