Deck 9: Basic Issues in Languageand Speech Processing

Question 1

You are taking a test about language.Your ability to think about language in order to complete the test is an example of which design feature?

A)Productivity
B)Arbitrariness
C)Reflectiveness
D)Semanticity

Answer 1

Reflectiveness

Question 2

The design feature of language that allows us to communicate ideas that are remote in space and time is

A)discreteness.
B)specialization.
C)productivity.
D)displacement.

Answer 2

displacement.

Question 3

The term "mental lexicon" refers

A)primarily to the words of language.
B)primarily to the rules of language.
C)both to the words and to the rules of language.
D)to neither the words nor the rules of language.

Answer 3

primarily to the words of language.

Question 4

When children lie and deceive their parents to stay out of trouble,they are using which design feature of language?

A)Arbitrariness
B)Specialization
C)Displacement
D)Prevarication

Question 5

_______ represents a phonetic difference (but not a phonemic difference).

A)The "g" in dog and the "g" in log
B)The "d" in dog and the "l" in log
C)The "t" in pit and the "th" in with
D)The "p" in pit and the "s" in sit

Question 6

Pinker proposes that in order to "morph" words into different forms (i.e. ,past tense),we have

A)one system that is associative;we encode associations between the past and present tense and use them to retrieve one another.
B)one system that operates via rules;we use these rules (e.g. ,"add an -s to make a plural")to morph words.
C)two systems;we use the rule system for exceptions and the associative system for non-exceptions.
D)two systems;we use the rule system for non-exceptions and the associative system for exceptions.

Question 7

One model of spoken word recognition proposes that words are recognized by activating the entire set of possible words based on the words initial sound (/b/ activates bow,bowl,bug,bought,etc. ),with a subsequent narrowing of the candidate set as more of the word is perceived.This is called the ________ model.

A)cohort
B)neighbors
C)activation
D)motor

Question 8

About how many phonemes make up American English?

A)10
B)25
C)45
D)105

Question 9

"Bridget stayed up until 3:00 on Wednesday night watching news coverage of the election." You have never heard this sentence before.However,because of the language design feature of ________,you are able to understand the meaning of each of the words.

A)discreteness
B)reflectiveness
C)semanticity
D)productivity

Question 10

Which design feature of language could also be called creativity?

A)Productivity
B)Arbitrariness
C)Specialization
D)Semanticity

Question 11

American Sign Language,unlike spoken language,is not characterized by which design feature?

A)Productivity
B)Arbitrariness
C)Reflectiveness
D)Semanticity

Question 12

The phomemic restoration effect is often cited as evidence for the role of ______ in

A)top-down processing;speech perception.
B)top-down processing;speech production.
C)bottom-up processing;speech perception.
D)bottom-up processing;speech production.

Question 13

The word unhappiness has ____ bound morphemes and ____ free morphemes.

A)1;2
B)2;1
C)1;1
D)2;2

Question 14

A ______ is the smallest unit of language that carries meaning.

A)phone
B)phoneme
C)morpheme
D)word

Question 15

Our tendency to perceive phonemes in a relatively broad fashion,not discriminating between subtle shadings in the way particular phonemes sound,is called

A)coarticulation.
B)suprasegmentation.
C)categorical perception.
D)semantic parsing.

Question 16

Place of articulation is to manner of articulation as ________ is to

A)release;vibration.
B)vocal cords;airflow.
C)interrupt;stop.
D)where;how.

Question 17

The phoneme /p/ is termed bilabial;the phoneme /th/ is termed dental.The two italicized terms refer to

A)phones.
B)voicing.
C)manner of articulation.
D)place of articulation.

Question 18

Some African languages allow two consonants to appear together at the beginning of a word,as in "Nkomo";English does not allow this to occur unless the first consonant is an "s" as in skull.This example illustrates a difference in the ______ of the two languages.

A)morphology
B)syntax
C)phonology
D)semantics

Question 19

The /t/ sound in the word "tip" has different phonetic properties than the /t/ sound in "tap." This demonstrates _______.In spite of this phenomenon,we tend to hear these words as

A)categorical perception;invariant.
B)categorical perception;variable.
C)coarticulation;variable.
D)coarticulation;invariant.

Question 20

Aspects of the speech signal like rate,stress,and tone are called

A)categorical factors.
B)suprasegmental factors.
C)phones.
D)coarticulation factors.

Question 21

A person intended to say,"Do you want nuts on your sundae?" but instead said,"Do you want sundaes on your nut?" This is a slip of the tongue at the

A)word level.
B)morpheme level.
C)phoneme level.
D)syntax level.

Question 22

Constraint-based approach is to transformational grammar as _______ is to

A)modular;non-modular.
B)serial;parallel.
C)learned;innate.
D)sentence learning;word learning.

Question 23

All of the following statements are true about "motherese" except

A)it tends to be higher pitched than normal speech.
B)it is found across many different languages.
C)it features exaggerated ups and downs in pitch.
D)it tends to be faster than normal speech.

Question 24

The research by Motley and Baars that looked at the possibility of motivated Freudian slips

A)found no evidence for the Freudian interpretation of slips.
B)found evidence for motivated slips in the shock condition.
C)found evidence for motivated slips in the sex condition.
D)found evidence for motivated slips in both the shock and sex condition.

Question 25

Saffran,Aslin,and Newport (1996)presented infants with a continuous speech stream made up of four different three-syllable nonsense words,for a total of two minutes.Then,they tested whether infants had picked up on "word boundaries" by presenting these nonsense words and new sequences.The infants showed a preference for ______,demonstrating that they

A)neither sequence;had picked up on the word boundaries of the original nonsense words.
B)neither sequence;had failed to pick up on the word boundaries of the original nonsense words.
C)listening to the new sequences;had picked up on the word boundaries of the original nonsense words.
D)listening to the new sequences;had failed to pick up on the word boundaries of the original nonsense words.

Question 26

Chomsky's approach to how we engage in language is called

A)transformational grammar.
B)constraint-based grammar.
C)phonetic grammar.
D)syntactic based grammar.

Question 27

Nygaard and Queen (2008)found that the emotional prosody of word pronunciation

A)had no effect on word recognition.
B)facilitated word recognition,but only when the emotional prosody matched the tone of the word.
C)facilitated word recognition,but only when the emotional prosody mismatched the tone of the word.
D)facilitated word recognition in all cases.

Question 28

Gricean maxims in language indicate that our conversational partners should conform to all of the following except

A)avoidance of ambiguity.
B)relevance.
C)grammatical correctness.
D)truthfulness.

Question 29

Which of these is not one of the stages of speech production?

A)Planning
B)Assembly
C)Self-monitoring
D)Conceptualization

Question 30

The cohort model proposes that when we hear the word "basketball," the first step in word recognition is

A)activating all of the words that relate to the meaning of basketball.
B)activation of all of the words that look similar to the word basketball.
C)activation of no concepts at all except for the word basketball.
D)activation of all of the words that begin with the same sounds as basketball.

Question 31

Top-down factors in discerning spoken word boundaries include

A)previous knowledge of what the speaker is talking about.
B)metrical segmentation.
C)statistical regularities in the spoken word signal.
D)mondegreens.

Question 32

Which of the statements about the mental lexicon and lexical access is true?

A)Only one meaning of an ambiguous word (e.g. ,bank)is activated upon word presentation.
B)Low-frequency words are more quickly accessed than are high-frequency words.
C)For bilinguals,a given concept has only one entry in the mental lexicon.
D)The mental lexicon is part of semantic memory.

Question 33

Misheard word boundaries,which often make understanding song lyrics difficult on the first few times you hear a song (and sometimes longer!),have been dubbed

A)Singing Bees.
B)Mondegreens.
C)Lyrical Errors.
D)Earbugs.

Question 34

If someone says they have to "twitch on the television" (instead of "switch on the television")they have committed:

A)a blend.
B)a perseveration error.
C)a substitution error.
D)an anticipation error.

Question 35

Which of these is not a common feature of conversational structure?

A)An ABBABBA structure between speakers
B)People's turns vary widely in length
C)People have "stock openers" (e.g. ,"How's it going?")to start conversation.
D)Observance of pragmatic principles

Question 36

The sentences "John is easy to please" and "It is easy to please John" are

A)identical in both surface and deep structure.
B)identical in deep structure,but differ in surface structure.
C)identical in surface structure,but differ in deep structure.
D)different in both deep and surface structure.

Question 37

The constraint-based approach to grammar

A)contends that language ability is innate.
B)proposes that environmental input may offer enough data to pick up on syntactic structures.
C)is inconsistent with research demonstrating infants' abilities to pick up on word boundaries.
D)is a serial/information-processing approach to explaining language acquisition.

Question 38

Kempe,Shaeffler,and Thoresen (2010)investigated the relationship between emotional and linguistic prosodic inherent in child-directed speech (CDS)by having mothers and nonmothers interact with children.They found that

A)children were aided more in disambiguating a spoken instruction if it did not come from their mother.
B)children were aided more in disambiguating a spoken instruction if it came from their mother.
C)linguistic prosodic cues disrupted emotional prosodic cues.
D)extremely exaggerated pauses were helpful to syntactic disambiguation.

Question 39

The sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" violates

A)the rules of both syntax and semantics.
B)the rules of syntax but not semantics.
C)neither the rules of syntax nor semantics.
D)the rules of semantics,but not syntax.

Question 40

Recent research comparing the number of words used by male and female speakers

A)reveals that males use over three times as many words in their speech as females.
B)reveals that females use over three times as many words in their speech as males.
C)reveals little difference in the number of words used by males and females.
D)reveals that the number of words in natural conversation has never been measured.

Question 41

The modular view of language

A)states that language ability operates via the same mechanisms devoted to other cognitive processes.
B)states that language ability is special,and operates via mechanisms distinct from those devoted to other cognitive processes.
C)would propose that speech perception is an ability shared by many species,not just humans.
D)is inconsistent with evidence indicating that lyrics and tunes are processed separately in the brain.

Question 42

Which design feature of human language refers to the complete understanding of what was said?

A)Total feedback
B)Rapid fading
C)Traditional transmission
D)Semanticity

Question 43

The word "unhappiness" consists of how many bound and free morphemes?

A)Two bound,one free
B)Two free,one bound
C)Three free,no bound
D)Three bound,no free

Question 44

Vowel phonemes are the result of differences of position of the

A)tongue.
B)teeth.
C)vocal cords.
D)epiglottis.

Question 45

Research indicates that the internal speech monitoring process is especially sensitive to _____ factors.

A)semantic,rather than phonological
B)phonological,rather than semantic
C)syntactic,rather than semantic
D)semantic,rather than syntactic

Question 46

How many phonemes are in the word "cat?"

A)3
B)2
C)1
D)0

Question 47

Which of these serves as evidence for the motor theory of speech perception?

A)Coarticulation
B)Speech seems too quick for regular perceptual mechanisms to take care of it.
C)The phonemic restoration effect
D)The finding that nonhumans do seem capable of perceiving speech

Question 48

The term ________ refers to the rules for combing any unit of language.

A)"grammar"
B)"lexicon"
C)"semantics"
D)"syntax"

Question 49

The motor theory of speech perception

A)would predict that only humans can comprehend speech.
B)proposes that speech perception operates via regular auditory perceptual mechanisms.
C)is inconsistent with the incredible speed of speech perception.
D)is inconsistent with the phenomenon of categorical perception.

Question 50

The evidence for speech being "special"

A)is quite strong.
B)is quite weak.
C)is mixed.
D)is so weak that the "special" status of speech isn't even a question that's pursued by researchers.