PSYC100 Study Guide - Final Guide: Myelin, Mental Age, Dyslexia

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC100
• Professor: Agnes R.Ly

Document Summary

Chapter 8: thinking, language, and intelligence: language sets us apart from other species. Language enables us to live in complex societies. Learning a language is not just taught formally but also learned through experience: language is a system of communication using sounds and symbols, language is a system of communication using sounds and symbols according to grammatical rules. This can be viewed as a hierarchical structure; sentences to phrases to words(morphemes) to sounds(phonemes). Morphemes are the smallest language units that have meaning, including suffixes and prefixes; frost from defrost or frost is a morpheme and de is also a morpheme that changes the meaning of frost. Phonemes the basic sounds of speech, the building blocks language. A language"s syntax is the system of rules that govern how words are combined into phrases and how phrases make sentences. Semantics is the study of the system of meanings and that underlie words, phrases, and sentences.