Question 1

Which of the following belong to Hockett's linguistic universals?

Accepted Answer

Arbitrariness is one of Hockett's design features of language, indicating that there is no inherent connection between the linguistic signs and their meanings.

Question 2

Which of the following is associated with the concept of "arbitrariness"?

Accepted Answer

Arbitrariness in linguistics refers to the fact that the connection between a word's sound and its meaning is not inherent but rather learned. This means that the sounds of words do not have a direct relationship with their meanings, except in cases of onomatopoeia. This concept contrasts with iconic communication, where the form of the sign resembles its meaning.

Question 3

The language people know reflects how they think about the world around them:

Accepted Answer

The Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, suggests that the language a person speaks influences their perception and categorization of the world.

Question 4

Whorf's proposal that the language you know shapes the way you think about events in the world around you:

Accepted Answer

Whorf's proposal is known as the principle of linguistic relativity, which suggests that the language one speaks influences how one thinks about the world.

Question 5

Shift, exchange, and blend are examples of:

Accepted Answer

Shift, exchange, and blend are types of speech errors, where unintended changes occur in the speaker's output.

Question 6

"To pour a peer" is an illustration of what type of speech error:

Accepted Answer

The answer of "To pour a peer" is an illustration...

Question 7

Your basic knowledge of the rules of sound combinations in English refers to your:

Accepted Answer

Phonemic competence refers to the understanding of the sound system of a language and how sounds combine to form words, which aligns with the description of knowing the rules of sound combinations in English.

Question 8

The fact that spoken sounds change depending on what sound precedes and follows it:

Accepted Answer

The problem of invariance refers to the phenomenon where the acoustic properties of speech sounds vary depending on the context in which they occur, making it challenging to identify a sound based solely on its acoustic properties.

Question 9

Emilio's friend called him from his cell phone. There was a lot of interference on the line, and Emilio heard his friend say "I'm driving but can talk because the lights are ....". Even though Emilio did not hear the last word, he knew it was "red" because of:

Accepted Answer

Emilio inferred the word "red" because of context effects, which help us fill in missing information based on the situation described.

Question 10

Which of the following is associated with transformational grammar?

Accepted Answer

Transformational grammar, introduced by Noam Chomsky, includes phrase structure rules as a fundamental component. These rules help in generating the deep structure of sentences, which can then be transformed into their surface structures through various transformations.

Question 11

Convert the deep structure of a sentence into a sentence ready to be spoken:

Accepted Answer

Transformational rules are used to convert the deep structure of a sentence into a form that is ready to be spoken, which is known as its surface structure. These rules modify, rearrange, or delete components of the deep structure to generate the actual sentence as it is used in communication.

Question 12

Mental lexicon refers to:

Accepted Answer

Mental lexicon refers to the mental store of information about words, including their meaning, pronunciation, syntactic characteristics, and relationships to other words.

Question 13

A brain-damaged patient whose speech is nonfluent, but whose comprehension is relatively spared, probably suffers from:

Accepted Answer

Broca's aphasia is characterized by nonfluent speech and relatively preserved comprehension, typically resulting from damage to the frontal lobe of the brain.

Question 14

The phrase "The horse liked carrots" contains ________ morphenes.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The phrase "The horse liked carrots" contains...

Question 15

When the politician told the journalist "Don't print that or I won't sue you", he was uttering a:

Accepted Answer

This statement is a perverse threat because it uses reverse psychology or an unconventional approach to threaten. Instead of directly threatening harm, it implies a negative outcome (not suing) for not complying, which is unconventional and thus "perverse" in this context.

Question 16

A disruption of language in which a person is unable to repeat what he/she has just heard:

Accepted Answer

Conduction aphasia is characterized by the inability to repeat words or phrases that are heard, despite the individual having relatively preserved auditory comprehension, fluent speech production, and self-awareness of their errors. This condition often results from damage to the arcuate fasciculus, a bundle of nerve fibers that connects the language comprehension and speech production areas in the brain.

Question 17

This ability is impaired in Wernicke's aphasia:

Accepted Answer

Wernicke's aphasia primarily affects language comprehension, including the ability to understand spoken words and sentences.

Question 18

Chomsky proposed that:

Accepted Answer

Chomsky argued that language includes a hierarchical phrase structure, which is a part of his theory on the innate aspects of language acquisition. He disagreed with behaviorist views that language is learned solely through reinforcement or imitation.

Question 19

Garden path sentences:

Accepted Answer

Garden path sentences are designed to lead the reader or listener to interpret the sentence in a certain way initially, only to reveal a different meaning upon further reading or consideration, effectively leading them astray in their understanding.

Question 20

When people read garden path sentences, their eyes tend to:

Accepted Answer

Garden path sentences are structured in a way that leads the reader to initially interpret the sentence incorrectly, causing confusion. When readers realize their misunderstanding, they often have to reread or focus more on the later phrases to grasp the intended meaning, leading to longer fixation times on those parts.

Quiz 9: Language