LING 1P95 Midterm Exam PDF

Several questions relating to sound changes, asking you to correctly identify one or more sound changes which have occurred between a proto-form and its reflex (descendant). Note that in cases where there are multiple changes or possible analyses, the important thing is for you to provide a plausibl...

Several questions relating to sound changes, asking you to correctly identify one or more sound changes which have occurred between a proto-form and its reflex (descendant). Note that in cases where there are multiple changes or possible analyses, the important thing is for you to provide a plausible and defensible analysis, rather than an arbitrarily selected 'correct' one. You will need to know the types of sound change and have a sense of the contexts in which they are likely to occur. Assimilation: when one sound becomes more like a neighboring sound/ replacing a segment Dissimilation: make words easier to identify rather than produce Epenthesis: adding something Deletion: deleting something Umlaut: vowel changes Metathesis: moving segments around Voicing: segments changes from voiced to voiceless Apocope: deletion at end of word Syncope: deletion from middle of word Degemination: two same letters become one (tt → t) Rhotacism: process of /z/ becoming some form of /r/ Deaffrication: stops become fricatives Vowel ones Palatalization You will want to be familiar with the progression of child language acquisition, including any famous tests we've discussed (such as the Wug Test) and the implications they have for child language acquisition. Naturalistic approach: record what children say spontaneously Experimental approach: typically cross-sectional and compares the linguistic knowledge of different children at a particular point in time Phonological development: -​ Newborns: recognize moms voice within weeks -​ 1 month old: show ability to distinguish certain speech sounds -​ 6 months: babbling begins/child has acquired linguistic production capabilities -​ 6-12 months: babbling → gives way to real words -​ 18 months: children have about 50 words -​ 3 years old: vowels precede consonants, stops precede other consonants, labial first→ alveolar→ velars→ alveopalatal→ interdentals Babbling: repetitive consonant-vowel sequences (ba-ba-ba, da-da-da) Early phonetic processes: children acquire perception of phonemic contrasts before they can produce them Syllable deletion: ‘repairing’ words to make them pronounceable/ often delete unstressed syllables (elephant→ elfan) Substitution: replace more difficult sounds with easier ones (turn a fricative into a stop→ sing → ting) Assimilation: tell → del Be familiar with the types of semantic change we discussed. Broadening: word becomes more general than it used to (aunt → father sister → any parents sister) /expanding Narrowing: becoming more specific (meat→ food→ animal flesh) Amelioration: word becomes more positive (pretty → attractive) Pejoration: word becomes more negative (silly → foolish) Shift: loses old meaning, gets new meaning (immoral → unethical) Metaphor: word used metaphorically, then adopts metaphor as new meaning (high→ on drug) There are two questions that deal with different aspects of child morphological and syntactic development. Morphological development: acquisition of word forms (tense, plural, gender) -​ Free morpheme (book, run) → bound morphemes (cat-s, walk-ed) -​ ‘Goes’ instead of ‘went’ Syntactic development: how children learn c combine words into complex structures -​ One word stage: juice -​ Two word stage: big dog -​ Three word stage: go park today -​ More complex sentences, including questions -​ Word order: SVO ​ 0-12 months: babbling, sound work ​ 12-18 months: first words, single-words ​ 18-24 months: combining two words (want juice) ​ 2-3 year: simple sentences, questions ​ 3-5 years: increased complexity, conjunctions, etc. Lastly, there is a bonus question concerning the decline and revitalization of Indigenous languages. You do NOT need to know any numbers for this: it is about historical and social factors and how they've affected Indigenous language use. Decline: epidemics (smallpox), famines, wars, residential schools (language suppressions) devastated the Indigenous population/languages -​ English and French are used more socially, economically etc. -​ Mass media wiping out linguistic diversity for Indigenous languages -​ near-extinction/language death -​ Isolates (no known relatives) -​ Reclation: spoken at home, strong sense of cultural duty and heritage helps motivate young speakers to keep their language alive -​ Certain remain healthy: Inuktiut, Innuaimun