Linguistics 101: Review

Gareth Price

New Site for Powerpoints

• www.duke.edu/~gop/teaching.html

Final Paper

• Friday, April 30 2010• E-mailed submissions by midnight … • AND bring me a hard copy on Monday to the

exam.

Exam

• Monday May 3rd• 10.30am – 12pm• Carr 136

Exam Content

• Linguistically analyse three data sets• Aphasia / language impairment• Child language acquisition• Conversation• Use frameworks• Phonological• Morphological• Syntax / grammar• Semantics• Pragmatics

Phonology

• Use the IPA chart to adequately describe phonological features

• So … the ‘b’ sound • … voiced bilabial stop /b/ • Look for REGULARITIES as well as IRREGULARITIES• E.g. where voiced interdental fricative /ð/ becomes voiced

alveolar stop /d/• unvoiced interdental fricative /θ/• becomes unvoiced alveolar stop /t/• Try not to see these as ‘errors’ – linguistic description, not

value judgement

Morphology

• Be clear on what morphemes are• Be able to identify features of inflectional vs.

derivational morphology• And be able to identify what the morphemes do• Plural marking –s• Third person verb marking –s• = both –s, but different functions/morphemes• Again … REGULARITIES and IRREGULARITIES

Syntax and Grammar

• Be careful to distinguish what is syntactically incorrect• The the cat on sat mat• From what is ‘grammatically’ non-standard• He ain’t got none• You won’t have to draw trees in the exam• But do look for NPs and VPs in the data• E.g. in the aphasiac patient we looked at, the possessive

determiner ‘my’ was 3 out 4 times attached to a adjective, but was missing a noun.

• Again, REGULARITIES and IRREGULARITIES

Semantics

• Semantics• … red sock in the washing machine!• It goes all the way through!• So … always pay attention to meaning and

meaning-making• Whether things ‘make sense’ or are somehow

ambiguous

Pragmatics

• Grice’s Maxims• Pauses• Latching on / Overlapping• Adjacency pairs• ‘Known answer’ questions• Make sure you study the data carefully – there

is ALWAYS something to be said that is linguistically interesting about ANY conversation (no matter how banal)

General Points

• Be bold!• Make an attempt to use technical terms

correctly, rather than avoiding them in case they are incorrect

• Say what you see …• … even if it sounds ‘obvious’• … and especially if you think it sounds

‘outlandish’• Your interpretation counts!

Exam Revision• Overview:• 1.0 – 1.5• Phonetics / Phonology:• 2.1 – 2.3, 3.1 – 3.3• Morphology• 4.0 – 4.2, 4.4 – 4.5• Syntax• 5.0 – 5.3• * Language Files doesn’t do X-Bar Syntax• Semantics• 6.0 – 6.5• Pragmatics• 7.0 – 7.2• AND … Chapter 8 (Language Acquisition) and Chapter 9 (Language Storage and

Processing)

FIN