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flashcards for test 1
yeah
55
English
Undergraduate 4
06/27/2012

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Term
Linguistics 
Definition
study of language, you can study language in 4 ways
Term
Synchronic (Descriptive) Linguistics
Definition

Things that are in a language together. A language as it exists.

  1. Pragmatics-applications of words in context
  2. Syntax-sentence structure
  3. Semantics-sound/meaning
  4. Morphology-how we form words
  5. phonology-sounds
Term
Diachronic (Historical) Linguistics
Definition
Looking at the changes throughout time.
Term
Comparative Linguistics
Definition

Comparing language, dialects, similarities and differences in syntax.

  • Interdisciplinary:
Term
Interdisciplinary Linguistics
Definition

When we take what linguists do and comapre it to other fields.

For example, neurolinguistics, anthopological linguistics, and Psycholinguistics.

Term
Prescriptive (Traditional) Grammar
Definition
Refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used.
Term
Descriptive Grammar
Definition
Refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers.
Term
Generative Grammar
Definition
Described what a language is plus what is in the brain that enables people to form sentences.
Term
Internal Grammar
Definition

internal grammar generates focus on language in brain=internal grammar

(study of performance is usage like what comes out of your mouth. Your

speech reflects rules. Study of performance will lead to your competence, rules we call internal grammar. 

Term
Teaching Grammars
Definition
are designed to teach second languages (ESL)
Term
Historical Grammar
Definition
Looks at how languages change over time (Ex. Nouns in old English)
Term
Usage Rules
Definition
Concept of levels, concept of hierarchy of cruciality and recognition of change
Term
Analysis
Definition

purpose of analysis is to use it in usage. 

Term
Linguistic Creativity
Definition
The ability we have to produce an infinite number of sentence combinations.
Term
Recursion
Definition

Built into the syntactic rules in our brain is recursion. conjunction –subordination- smacks of subordinate clauses (infinite,) ex.

 

John is very very very old. But “Very” really means “and”

Subordination: subordinate clauses in sentences and they are infinite too. Ex: the dog that ate the cat that ate the mouse….”

Term
Ambiguity 
Definition
 a word or phrase pertains to its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs.
Term
Syntax
Definition
is the combination of words you can create. Phrases, sentences and clauses.
Term
Morphology
Definition
how we form words
Term
Phonology
Definition
sound patterns.
Term
Semantics
Definition
 the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language.
Term
Plato
Definition
Considered The Father of Grammar by Greeks. Came up with the idea of the onoma/rhema (noun/verb or subject/predicate)
Term
Aristotle
Definition
A student of Plato. He is also considered the father of Grammar. He came up with Masculine, feminine, and neuter (Gender) and sydesmil (connected words).
Term
Stoics (Zeno)
Definition
Came up with case, case and numbers.
Term
Alexandrians
Definition
Literary critics who came up with the idea of usage. They wanted to stop change within Greek. They wanted to live in the golden age in which the past was better than the present. They wanted to freeze the language through standardization by making rules of usage.
Term
Dionysius Thrax (The Art of Grammar)
Definition

Put together The Art of Grammar in about 150 B.C. He combined the Stoics ideas of analysis with the Alexandrians usage rules. 

 

He didn't have interjections (Romans came up with it) and adjectives (he considered nouns and adjectives to be the same. In its place were participles.

Term
Naturalism/Conventionalism
Definition

Naturalism (Plato)-He said we call things what we do because that is what

 

it is and its unnatural to call it anything else. 

 

Conventionalism (Aristotle)- We call things anything as long as we agree 

on it 

Term
Golden Age
Definition

past is better than present, freeze the language and standardize it, stop change.

Term
Platonic Forms
Definition

analogy of cave, person can't see behind yet, sees shadows, leads to

Standardization of language.

Term
Donatus/Priscian
Definition
the two main grammarians in Rome. Stole the grammar from the Greeks and translated it to Latin.
Term
Speculative Grammar
Definition

God dictates connection with grammar and religion  (3 genders = trinity, and 8 parts of speech= 8 offices in the church.

Term
Scholarly Traditional Grammar
Definition

Renaissance rebirth of learning 1450-1500. The rise of vernacular languages due to nationalism, protestant reformation, and the rise of the middle class resulting in the fall of Latin.

Term
Influences for Grammar Models
Definition
  1. Latin (IT WAS HE. = this rule comes from Latin, b/c Latin does it, its good enough for us)

     

  2. Reason (The Age of reason)- People were trying to be logical and reasonable. Will for emphasis and shall for future. 
  3. Elimination of variation: (Will/Shall) 
  4. Stopping change through Language academies who decide on matters of change.
  5. Authority to reinforce rules (Grammarians and great writers)
Term
Vernacular Languages
Definition
language spoken by the common people such as English, French, Spanish, and German. 
Term
Ink Horn terms
Definition
is any foreign borrowing (or a word created from existing words by an English speaker) into English deemed to be unnecessary and overly pretentious.
Term
Neoclassicism
Definition

Neoclassicism –1850-1780 Romantic period, a cultural movement that embraces 

art, music, language. Neoclassical went back to Greeks and Latin,

-people became enamored with Greek and romans, they started writing in Greek and Latin models

Term
Age of Reason
Definition

People were trying to be logical, reasonable. In 1640, John Wallis 

wants a “grammar of English”. He is interested in reason. John Wallis writes a

book of English. 

Term
Academy
Definition
Language academies such as the French Academy in 1635 were a group of scholars who decided on matters of change in Language.
Term
Universal Grammar
Definition
is a theory in linguistics, usually credited to Noam Chomsky, proposing that the ability to learn grammar is hard-wired into the brain. The theory suggests that linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught, and that there are properties that all natural human languages share.
Term
William Bullokar (Bref English Grammar)
Definition
The first English Grammar to be written
Term
Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar
Definition

 Writes the most  important English book in 1762. He published English Grammar, came up with the idea of double negative. Were degating Latin here and going with

Reason!(Double negative Rule) . he was an angelican priest, scholarly, held at

high esteem, turned down to be arch bishop.

In double negative, countered latin and went with Reason. Math is not

language, but were using their rule- two negatives equal a positive but even

in adding, don’t equal a positive, just in multiplication. 

Term
Samual Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language
Definition

He was electrographer,  

He wrote a dictionary, author of great dictionary, but was a grammarian and lanaguge historic, he snuck in a dull form old English, ex: among- 3 or more, use wit with two, we- with three or more. 

Term
School Grammar
Definition
At the end oft he 18th century, public schools were created and teaching students standard English meant the opportunity for them to move up on the social ladder. 
Term
Parsing
Definition

analyzing sentence word by words by categories and tell us what it is, every word equally.

Benefits: Makes sentence structure visual and is organized by function.

Downside: You have to learn the language of the diagram and it wasn't organized by parts. 

Term
Sentence Analysis (diagramming)
Definition
Analyzing sentencse word by word by categories and tell us what it is and it's function. 
Term
Functional Grammar
Definition
A type of school grammar that was primitive to ESL.  It was sparked by immgiration from non-English speaking countries to the United States. 
Term
Pragmatism
Definition
If it works, keep it. It didn't really answer what errors were present, when should they be addresses and what exactly was an error. Lead to questions of usage.
Term
Usage Studies
Definition
  1. Jury:are panels to make determination, members of this are best people, but it goes down to one-man approach. 
  2. Corpus:a body of data- they collect objective data and analyze it and people have to be trained in gathering, it hasn’t gotten far. 
Term
Levels of Usage
Definition

Fred Walcott & Alber Marckwardt were the first to talk about the levels of usage

 

literary, American literary, colloquial, American colloquial, dialectal, archaic

Term
Hierachy of cruciality
Definition
show what is most important
Term
Lindley, Murray
Definition
Founder/Father of the school tradition, His book, "English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Class of learners" goes through 200 editions. Came up with the idea of parsing where you analyze a sentence and break it down word by word. 
Term
Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellog
Definition
creators of sentence diagramming
Term
Sterling Leonard (Current English Usage)
Definition
involved with jury studies
Term
Fred Walcott and Alber Marckwadt, Facts about Current English Usage
Definition
more recent jury studies, showed that unacceptables could be acceptable. They wee the first to talk about the levels of usage in 1935.
Term
Charles Fries (1940), American English Grammar
Definition
Hierarchy of cruciality;
1. Standard/College
2. Popular 
3. Vulgar
Term
Thomas Creswell, Usage in Dictionaries and Dictionaries of Usage
Definition
16.5% of 318 items receive the same treatment in all 9 works surveyed, 24% of 318 items show complete disagreement
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