Ling-1 Final Exam Study Guide

Part 1: (Weeks 1-4)

**Note that this is not an extensive guide, and you are still responsible for
all the required material including readings for the final.

Basic information about Languages:

Building blocks of language:

What are they, and what do you know when you know a particular building
block of language?

e.g., what does knowing phonetics entail? What about syntax?

Arbitrariness of the sign and its relation to evaluations of languages.

How does Chomsky fit into the picture of linguistic creativity and what
does this linguistic creativity entail?

What is the difference between linguistic performance and competence?

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar? Be

ready to identify instances of prescriptivism and descriptivism!

What are the universal properties of language, and what properties of human
language are not observed in animals? (e.g., displacement etc.)

Language and Dialect:

What are some of the popular notions of a dialect, and how do we know that
these do not hold water?

How do dialects differ from each other in their usage and perception?

What are some of the differences between AAVE and SNAE? What about Singlish
and SNAE?

Be ready to identify discourse particles and their different pragmatic

functions!

Be ready to identify the different pragmatic functions of English

colloquial like.

Brain and Language:

Where is language localized in the brain, and what are the different sorts
of evidence that we have for the localization hypotheses? (e.g., the WADA
test, dichotic listening etc.) Be ready to explain in detail what is
entailed in these experiments, and what do the experiment results tell us
about the localization of language in the brain.

What is the principle of contralaterality?

What do aphasias tell us about linguistic faculties?

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 What are the different types of aphasias we have covered, where are they
located, and how do the patients with these different aphasias differ in
their speech production and writing?

What does research on deaf patients with aphasia tell us about sign
language?

Does sign language use exhibit the same processing cues in the brain as
spoken language? In other words, does an fMRI reveal brain activity in the
same places for sign languages as for spoken languages?

What is the relationship between linguistic ability and other cognitive

abilities, and what tests do we have to gauge hypotheses about this
relationship?

What evidence do people with SLIs, Williams Syndrome, and those who are
linguistic savants contribute to this investigation?

Be ready to answer questions about the specific tasks involved in the

testing of people with SLIs, Williams Syndrome, and those who are
linguistic savants!

Phonetics:

Phonetic transcription:

Be able to transcribe English words using IPA symbols.

Know the IPA symbols for English consonants and vowels.

Consonant classification:

Be able to classify consonants based on place of articulation, manner of

articulation, and voicing.

Know how to describe consonants using these features (e.g., "voiceless

interdental fricative").

Vowel classification:

Be able to classify vowels based on tongue position, tenseness, tongue

height, and lip rounding.

Know how to describe vowels using these features.

Morphology:

What is the difference between bound and free morphemes?

Be ready to identify and distinguish between bound and free morphemes in

examples.

What are the differences between lexical and functional morphemes?

Be ready to identify that lexical morphemes form an open class, while

functional morphemes form a closed class.

Be ready to provide examples of each type.

What are the differences between inflectional and derivational morphemes?

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 Understand that inflectional morphemes do not change the syntactic
category of a word, while derivational morphemes can.

Be able to identify and classify morphemes as inflectional or

derivational in given examples.

Morphological trees:

Know how to decompose words into their constituent morphemes.

Understand the principles for determining the correct order of morpheme

combination.

Be able to draw and interpret morphological trees for complex words.

Be familiar with common affixes and their properties:

Know what categories (e.g., verb, noun, adjective) certain affixes

typically attach to.

Language data analysis:

Be prepared to analyze unfamiliar language data to identify morphemes

and their meanings.

Understand how to revise initial analyses based on new information.

Be able to determine morpheme order and construct new words based on

discovered patterns.

Syntax (sentence trees):

Understand the concept of constituents in sentences.

Be familiar with different constituency tests:

Pronoun replacement

Did too/did so replacement

Standalone

Fronting

Clefting

Know how to apply these tests to identify constituents.

Phrase structure rules:

Be familiar with basic English phrase structure rules, such as:

S → NP VP

NP → (Det) (Adj) N (PP)

VP → VP PP

VP → V (NP) (PP) (Adv)

PP → P NP

Understand how to use these rules to construct and analyze sentence

trees.

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 Drawing syntactic trees:

Know how to draw syntactic trees for simple sentences.

Be able to label nodes with appropriate syntactic categories (S, NP, VP,
etc.).

Structural ambiguity:

Understand the concept of structural ambiguity in sentences.

Be able to draw different tree structures to represent ambiguous

sentences.

Cross-linguistic syntax:

Be aware that different languages may have different phrase structure

rules.

Understand how to modify phrase structure rules for languages with

different word orders.

Language acquisition:

Know the general timeline of language acquisition by age:

Age 1: sound experimentation, no real words/phrases

Age 2: words and simple phrases

Age 3: full sentences

Age 4: complex sentences

Be familiar with the fundamental question of language acquisition: how

children acquire rich linguistic knowledge.

Theories of language acquisition:

Be able to discuss and compare three main theories:

Imitation

Correction/reinforcement

Innateness

Know arguments for and against each theory.

The logical problem of language acquisition:

Understand the concept of Poverty of the Stimulus.

Know the key points:

No instruction is involved

No negative evidence is available

Finite input, infinite productivity

Non-adult-like errors, but in a selective, limited way

Morphological knowledge in children:

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 Be familiar with the "wug test" and its implications for children's
knowledge of morphological rules.

Understand the concept of overgeneralization and what it reveals about

children's language acquisition.

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