LING 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Positron Emission Tomography, Phonotactics, Inflection
22 Jul 2013
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Document Summary
It is estimated that children of 6 know as many as 13,000 words. Word: a free sound-meaning lexical unit, which may be simple or complex. Lexicon: the component of the grammar containing speakers" knowledge about morphemes and words; a speaker"s mental dictionary. In a particular language the form (sounds or pronunciation) and the meaning of a word are inseparable; they are like two sides of coin. Homophones: different words with the same sounds but different meanings: ex: she can"t bear (tolerate) children. Synonyms: words with the same or nearly the same meaning. Information about the longest or shortest word in the language is not part of the linguistic knowledge of a language but general conceptual knowledge about a language. Since each word is a sound-meaning unit, each word stored in our mental dictionaries must be listed with its unique phonological representation, which determines its pronunciation, and with its meaning. Orthography: the written form of a language; spelling.
