Chapter 4 Words and Sentences – Flashcards

Analysis of words and how they are structured.

smallest unit of meaning in a language respect+ful; dis+respect+ful room+mate; stir+fry fire+fight+er Manhattan

identifying (and describing) morphemes and analyzing the way morphemes are arranged in words.

form the foundation of words and Establish basic meanings English: fish; talk Shinzwani: -lo- (fish); -lagu- (talk) Czech: piv- (beer)

attach to bases.

A morpheme (or word) that serves as the underlying foundation for other words. Can't be broken down any further English: fish Shinzwani: -lo- (fish)

word (or collection of morphemes) that is derived from a root and to which additional affixes can be attached. By means of affixes (see 'affix' slides) English: fish+ing = fishing; talk+er = talker Shinzwani: lo+a = -loa (fishing) Can have additional affixes attached English: talker+s = talkers Shinzwani: ni+ku+loa = nikuloa (I am fishing).

morphemes that can stand alone

morphemes that must be attached to other morphemes

bound morphemes that attach at the beginnings of base forms

bound morphemes that attach at the end of base forms

bound morphemes that are inserted into the middle of base forms

bound morphemes that attach simultaneously to both the beginning and the end of base forms

process that creates an affix from part of an existing base form and then attaches the affix to the base form.

process in which morphemes are interspersed within base forms

process in which morphemes blend into one another

every language has a specific order in which affixes can be attached

process of creating new words

process of modifying existing words

variant form of morphene

area of linguistic anthropology that examines and describes the way that words are arranged into phrases and sentences.

grammatical frames into which you can place related words

categories into which words (usually nouns) are classified in a language

grammatical categories that must be expressed in speaking

designed to serve as models of proper speech

describe the structure and patterning of languages on their own terms

designed to provide rules that could "generate" (or create) all of possible sentences of a language (Chomsky 1957).

in a generative grammar, refers to the underlying that allows people to produce sentences

refers to the actual sentences that are produced in a language.

rules that generate the deep structure of a sentence

could be utilized to change simple, declarative sentences into interrogative or negative or other kinds of sentences. For example, "the dog chases the cat" might be transformed into "does the dog chase the cat? or the dog does not chase the cat"

assign specific sounds and produce a pronounceable surface-level sentence.

A morpheme means something, whereas syllables need not mean anything. A morpheme can be a single syllable, but it could also be several. Examples of single (free!) morphemes are: carpet, pug, rude. Free morphemes are complete words. And these are SINGLE morphemes because the unit doesn't make sense if you break it up any further (carpet is not a combination of car + pet - it has nothing to do with your car or your pet). So, definition: a morpheme is a word or word-part that has a specific meaning. Now, to make these into 2-morpheme words, we add another morpheme - this time a "bound morpheme". Bound morphemes mean something, too (like, "this is now and adverb!" or "pluralize this"), but you don't ever see them by themselves. They need another morpheme to latch onto. Examples of 2-morpheme words include: Carpet+ed, Rude+ly, or Pug+s. So, -s, -ed and -ly are morphemes - they're word parts that mean something. Not every syllable means something, though. If you pull out part of a word, and the parts no longer mean what they used to, you have gone too far. Moreover, as a native speaker you have some say over whether certain things should be treated as morphemes. Obviously plurals count, as does any prefix or suffix you're sure you know the meaning of. But there are some things that can be analyzed in more than one way. You would probably break up "pitifully" like so: Piti-ful-ly Pity-full-adverb - in a way that is full of pity (or that fills one with pity).

modify the grammatical class of words by signaling a change in number, person, gender, tense, and so on, but they do not shift the base form into another word class. When 'house' becomes 'houses,' it is still a noun even though you have added the plural morpheme 's.' . . .

modify a word according to its lexical and grammatical class. They result in more profound changes on base words. The word 'style' is a noun, but if I make it 'stylish,' then it is an adjective. In English, derivational morphemes include suffixes (e.g., 'ish,' 'ous,' 'er,' 'y,' 'ate,' and 'able') and prefixes (e.g., 'un,' 'im,' 're,' and 'ex')."

False They continued to evolve.

b. transformational rules

False

d. an infix.

e. how sentences are structured.

e. morpheme

a. identifying morphemes and analyzing the way they are arranged in words

True

False

c. descriptive grammars.

a. generative grammars.

c. syntax.

FALSE (It is an SVO language)

c. hierarchy.

c. an affix.

b. morphology.

b. whether they function as bases or affixes.

Descriptive Grammar

False

True

c. firefighter

c. 3

c. hierarchy.

True

d. derivation.

False

Analyzing how words are structured in a language is very useful in learning that language.

Analyzing the morphology of a language can be accomplished by finding the minimal units of meaning particular to that language.

Bases can be further categorized into roots and stems.

It is important to note the order (or hierarchy) affixes attach to bases.

Variations of morphemes are called allomorphs.

Syntax is the study of how phrase and sentences are organized.

In learning a new language, it is important to identify the substitution frames and the categories that each one signals and to learn which kinds of words can be used in which kinds of substitution frames.

Different languages may have very different substitution frames, and these may be arranged in ways that new learners don't expect.

Ambiguous sentences represent situations in which alternative substitution frames can be used to produce the same set of words.

Descriptive grammars describe the structure and patterning of language as it is spoken

Descriptive grammars make extensive use of the concept of substitution frames.

In a generative grammar, the underlying structure of a language is called its deep structure and the actual sentences produced are called its surface structure.

Producing a generative grammar for a language appears to require fluent knowledge of that language.