PS102 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Language Acquisition Device, Psychological Nativism, Steven Pinker
Document Summary
Cognition: refers to the mental process involved in acquiring knowledge. Phonemes: the smallest speech units in a language that can be distinguished perceptually. Humans are only capable of recognizing 100 basic sounds. A letter in the alphabet can represent more than phoneme if it has more than one pronunciation. Morphemes: are the smallest units of meaning in a language. Each morphemes contributes to the meaning of an entire world. Ex. fire, guard, friend consist of a single morpheme. Semantics: is the area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations. May include denotation: dictionary definition and connotation: which includes emotion overtones and secondary implications: the way someone says a word can change the meaning. Syntax: is a system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences. A sentence must have both a subject and a verb. The sound annoyed me vs. the sound - not a sentence.
