Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Deep Structure And Surface Structure, Hominidae, Knowledge Acquisition

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Chapter 9 questions: adaptive functions of language. Passing on wisdom: language has 5 key properties. Symbols of language can be combined to generate an infinite number of messages that have novel meaning. Can describe events and objects that are not physically present: surface/deep structure and hierarchy of language. The symbols that are used and their structure. Note: one surface structure can have multiple meanings, or different deep structures. The smallest unit of speech sound in a language that can signal a difference in meaning. Have no inherent meaning, but they alter meaning when combined with other elements: morphemes. The smallest units of meaning in a language. Note: although s is not a syllable, the final s on a noun is a morpheme that means plural: words. The use of sentences in a greater form. Sentences are combined into paragraphs, articles, books, converstations, etc: bottom-up/top-down processing.