Deck 10: Language

Question 1

Languages are generative. This means that

A)they evolve gradually through the generations but retain their original morphological structure.
B)a limited number of words can be recombined according to certain rules in order to create an infinite number of sentences.
C)they evolve gradually through the generations but retain their original semantic structure.
D)they evolve gradually through the generations but retain their original syntactic structure.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Saying "walked fatser" instead of "walked faster" is an example of a

A)phoneme exchange.
C)word exchange.
B)morpheme exchange.
D)phrase exchange.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following changes does not require a transformation rule?

A)rewriting a sentence as noun phrase and a verb phrase
B)rewriting an active sentence as a passive sentence
C)rewriting a positive statement as a negative statement
D)rewriting an assertion as a question

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Un, ly, and s are all examples of

A)prefixes.
C)phonemes.
B)suffixes.
D)morphemes.

Question 5

Chomsky argued that there are several flaws with the association theory of language learning. Which of the following is not one of his arguments?

A)One could never learn all the possible associations.
B)The hierarchical structure of the association theory is incorrect because language is learned in a linear fashion.
C)It does not account for relations among nonadjacent words.
D)It ignores the hierarchical structure of sentences.

Question 6

Wernicke's aphasia

A)involves damage to the left frontal lobe.
B)involves speech that is less fluent than Broca's aphasia.
C)involves speech that is less grammatically correct than Broca's aphasia.
D)causes difficulty with tests that involve the semantic content of words.

Question 7

Chomsky's formulation of language learning does not utilize

A)stimulus-response associations.
C)phrase-structure rules.
B)grammatical rules.
D)transformation rules.

Question 8

The inability to express grammatical relationships following frontal lobe damage is called

A)alexia.
C)Broca's aphasia.
B)agraphia.
D)Wernicke's aphasia.

Question 9

As infants grow older, they become better at discriminating sounds

A)within the same phoneme category.
B)within a familiar than an unfamiliar phoneme category.
C)Both of these
D)Neither of these

Question 10

Which of the following correctly describes the paired-associate theory of language learning?

A)It is a good model because it is an easy way for people to learn a language.
B)The model effectively accounts for relations among nonadjacent words.
C)The model uses the hierarchical structure of a sentence to account for how people learn a grammar.
D)Each word in a sentence serves as a stimulus for the next word.

Question 11

Exchange errors, in which two linguistic units are substituted, occur

A)in feature comparison theories, but are not consistent with hierarchical networks theories.
B)so infrequently that their absence is strong evidence for a deep structure of language.
C)at the same level in the hierarchy, indicating that language is hierarchically organized.
D)at different levels in the hierarchy indicating that language is sequentially organized.

Question 12

According to Chomsky, which of the following is true of the deep structure of a sentence?

A)It refers directly to the sentence as it is heard.
B)It must be taken into account to resolve some ambiguous sentences.
C)It is the most basic aspect of phrase structure grammar.
D)It is an unnecessary element of transformational grammar.

Question 13

Which of the following was not included in the definition of language? Language is

A)symbolic.
C)associative.
B)structured.
D)generative.

Question 14

Which of the following is supported by Kuhl's research on the development of speech recognition?

A)Infants can better discriminate among familiar sounds in their own language than among unfamiliar sounds from a different language.
B)If the sounds belong to the same phonemic category, infants become better at discriminating sounds as they grow older.
C)As early as 6 months, infants form prototypes to represent the phonemes in their language.
D)The ability of newborns to discriminate among the phonemes of various languages of the world is poor.

Question 15

Surface ambiguity refers to

A)the underlying meaning of a sentence.
C)double meaning of a single word.
B)different grammatical grouping of words.
D)an adjective-noun mismatch.

Question 16

The major difference between patients who suffer from Broca's aphasia and those who suffer from Wernicke's aphasia is that

A)Broca's aphasia affects the ability to express grammatical relationships; Wernicke's affects ability to express meaning.
B)Broca's aphasia affects the ability to express meaning; Wernicke's affects ability to express grammatical relationships.
C)Broca's aphasia affects the ability to express morphemes; Wernicke's affects ability to express meaning.
D)Broca's aphasia affects the ability to express grammatical relationships; Wernicke's affects ability to express morphemes.

Question 17

Which of the following changes requires a transformation rule?

A)rewriting a sentence as a noun phrase and a verb phrase
B)rewriting an active sentence as a passive sentence
C)rewriting a noun phrase as an adjective and a noun
D)rewriting a verb phrase as a verb and a noun phrase

Question 18

In order to distinguish the possible meanings of ambiguous sentences, Chomsky found it necessary to change his original transformational grammar so it included

A)hierarchical networks.
B)a feature comparison stage.
C)a distinction between surface structure and deep structure.
D)associative feedback mechanisms.

Question 19

Phrase-structure rules can account for the two interpretations of which of the following?

A)Although he was continually bothered by the cold
B)They are flying planes
C)Knowing that visiting relatives could be bothersome
D)Flying planes can be dangerous

Question 20

Saying "slicely thinned" instead of "thinly sliced" is an example of a

A)phoneme exchange.
C)word exchange.
B)morpheme exchange.
D)phrase exchange.

Question 21

Using gestures to explain a solution to a quadratic equation

A)resulted in more errors.
B)resulted in fewer errors.
C)increased the demands on working memory.
D)reduced the demands on working memory.

Question 22

In embodied theories of cognition, the link between perception and _____ is central.

A)imagery
C)Both imagery and action
B)action
D)Neither imagery nor action

Question 23

Two important factors that help readers resolve syntactic ambiguities are

A)frequency and context.
B)phonemic and morphemic hierarchies.
C)transformational and contextual contiguities.
D)frequency and intensity

Question 24

What is the first step in sentence comprehension according to Carpenter and Daneman's (1981) model?

A)error recovery heuristics
C)integration
B)retrieving the meaning of the word
D)encode the word

Question 25

According to the Carpenter and Daneman model, the encoding of a word will result in retrieving one or more concepts into

A)sensory memory.
C)short-term memory.
B)pattern recognition.
D)long-term memory.

Question 26

What is the first stage in Carpenter and Daneman's model of the stages involved in sentence comprehension?

A)fixate and encode the next word
C)integrate the word into context
B)retrieve the meaning of the word
D)error recovery heuristics

Question 27

Which of the following is an example of underlying ambiguity?

A)Flying planes is dangerous.
C)Flying planes can be dangerous.
B)Flying planes are dangerous.
D)They are flying planes.

Question 28

Which of the following contribute to the resolution of ambiguous sentences?

A)error recovery heuristics
B)working memory capacity
C)the ability to quickly suppress inappropriate meanings
D)all these

Question 29

Ambiguous newspaper headlines are particularly troublesome because

A)of the possibility of legal action.
B)semantic context cannot help resolve the ambiguity.
C)people ignore the ambiguity.
D)none of the above

Question 30

What is true about the following sentence? "The defendant examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable."

A)Eye movements show that readers speed up on the first part of this sentence.
B)This is an example of how readers' knowledge of frequency differences can enhance sentence recognition.
C)Readers' knowledge of inanimate and animate nouns influences comprehension of this sentence.
D)This is an example of an ambiguous sentence.

Question 31

The sentence "John put the ice cream in the _____" creates an expectation for a particular word. This is an example of

A)an ambiguous sentence.
C)a low-constraint sentence.
B)a transformational sentence.
D)a high-constraint sentence.

Question 32

Swinney's research on lexical priming revealed that a clarifying context influences

A)which meaning of an ambiguous word is activated.
B)which meaning of an ambiguous word is selected following activation.
C)Both a and b
D)Neither a nor b

Question 33

In the gestures-as simulated-actions framework, which is not a factor that determines whether a gesture occurs?

A)the strength of the simulated action
C)memory
B)the gesture threshold
D)speech

Question 34

Current research on language is more concerned with

A)phrase structure than with transformational structure.
B)transformational structure than with phrase structure.
C)meaning than with grammar.
D)grammar than with meaning.

Question 35

Grammar is a set of rules for producing sentences.

Question 36

Context is more effective for readers with good comprehension skills because these readers are better at

A)preventing activation of multiple meanings of an ambiguous word.
B)quickly selecting the appropriate meaning.
C)Both a and b
D)Neither a nor b

Question 37

Which of the following conditions interferes with word recognition?

A)an expected word in a low-constraint sentence
B)an unexpected word in a high-constraint sentence
C)an expected word in a high-constraint sentence
D)an unexpected word in a low-constraint sentence

Question 38

Research by Stanfield and Zwaan supports the hypothesis that simulations help people comprehend the meaning of

A)verbally described events.
C)multiple meanings of words.
B)abstract concepts.
D)ambiguous words.

Question 39

Which proposes that perception and action are central to cognition?

A)interpretation-based processing theory
C)working memory capacity
B)spreading activation
D)embodied cognition

Question 40

Carpenter and Daneman's model of sentence comprehension involves

A)pattern recognition, then retrieving meaning from LTM, then transformational grammar.
B)sensory store, filter, pattern recognition, STM, LTM.
C)pattern recognition, then transformational grammar, then retrieving meaning from LTM.
D)pattern recognition, then retrieving meaning from LTM, then integration with the meaning of the prior context.

Question 41

A phoneme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language.

Question 42

Design the ultimate second-language learning program. Hints: (a) recall the language abilities of newborns; (b) recall how the brain processes language.

Question 43

What were Noam Chomsky's arguments against the association view of language?

Question 44

Generative refers to the capability to produce many different messages by combining symbols in different ways.

Question 45

The only way to resolve some ambiguous sentences is to take into account their deep structure.

Question 46

The brain learns a virtually infinite number of associations between words in order to form sentences.

Question 47

Would mentally simulating actions help you with comprehension? Why or why not?

Question 48

Using a sentence as an example, detail the hierarchical structure of language.

Question 49

If the sounds belong to the same phonemic category, infants become better at discriminating them as they grow older.

Question 50

Psychologists have demonstrated that people are influenced by the implications of sentences; that is, people draw inferences from the limited information provided. Discuss how this can be used by the media and by politicians.

Question 51

Interference effects with high- and low-constraint sentences are more likely to be found with lexical decisions than with naming tasks.

Question 52

Explain how you resolve ambiguities when reading. Include in your explanation whether or not you suppress inappropriate meanings.

Question 53

Discuss prototype theory and the development of speech recognition.

Question 54

Both meaning and grammar provide cues for processing language. Discuss.

Question 55

Discuss key features that contribute to the power of language.

Question 56

Broca's aphasia involves damage to the frontal lobe.

Question 57

'Saple myrup' is an example of a phoneme exchange.

Question 58

Discuss how gestures are used in communication and learning.

Question 59

Grammatical rules partition sentences into noun and verb phrases.