PSYA02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Function Word, Language Acquisition Device, Noam Chomsky
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PSYA02H3 Full Course Notes
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Words that could not have originated as simple alarm calls: we use language to name, categorize, and describe things to ourselves when we think influences how knowledge is organized in our brains. The complex structure of human language all languages share a basic structure involving a set of sounds and rules for combining these sounds to produce meanings approximately 4000 human languages. Basic characteristics phonemes: the smallest units of sound that are recognizable as speech rather than as random noise phonological rules: indicate how phonemes can be produced to produce speech sounds. Morphemes: the smallest meaningful units of language pe = phoneme, pat = morpheme. Distinguishes speech sounds infants can distinguish among all of the contrasting sounds that occur in all human languages. Within the first 6 months of life, they lose this ability and can only distinguish among the sounds in their language at about 4-6, infants begin to babble speech sounds.
