Words in English
Linguistics/English 215
Rice University
Prof S. Kemmer

STUDY GUIDE
MIDTERM #2 REVIEW


Midterm #2 will cover chapters 5, 6, 7, 9, and 11. By now you should know the broad outlines of the history of the language; but the MAIN focus of this exam will be Phonetics (including some sound terminology; for quick review see the Sound Terminology page) and some associated allomorphy; semantic change, etymology, classical morphology in English, and classical expressions in English.

Some abilities you should have by now:

  • Ability to recognize morphemes in words despite their occurrence in somewhat different forms (allomorphs)
  • Increased parsing ability
  • Increased understanding of word formation processes, particularly for new words
  • Increased ability to judge the likeliest source language for a given word, based on knowledge of characteristics of loanwords from different languages
  • Ability to judge relative position in the mouth of particular sounds
  • Ability to recognize and give examples of sounds of different classes (with more focus on ones we studied in class)
  • Ability to recognize and produce examples of words illustrating various sound processes like assimilation, deletion, etc.
  • ability to recognize and produce examples of various types of semantic change
  • knowledge of some specific word histories discussed in class
  • knowledge of some of the basic categories of Latin and Greek morphology
  • recognition of particular morphemes and parts of morphemes in English words that reflect categories of Latin and Greek morphology
  • knowledge of some classical expressions and abbreviations in English

    Phonetics 

    consonants                        fricative
voicing                           affricate
larynx (voice box), vocal chords  nasal
place of articulation             liquid
lips, bilabial                    approximant
labiodental                       lateral
interdental                       voicing assimilation
alveolar, alveolar ridge          place assimilation
palatal-alveolar                  manner assimilation
  ( = alveo-palatal)              partial, total assimilation
hard palate, palatal              vowels
soft palate (velum), velar        vowel frontness: front/central/back
glottis, glottal                  vowel height: high/mid/low
manner of articulation            diphthong
stop (plosive)
    Semantic change 
    etymology                         euphemism
polysemy                          taboo
widening (generalization)         amelioration
narrowing (specialization)        degeneration, pejoration
metaphor                          synechdoche
metonymy                          eponymy
    Latin and Greek morphology 
    inflection, inflectional          case
  categories                      nominative (subject case)
grammatical gender                accusative (direct object case)
masculine, feminine, neuter       genitive (possessive case)
noun declension                   dative (indirect object case)
grammatical number                singular, plural, [dual]
stem                              verb conjugation classes
stem vowel (= thematic vowel) (said of the distinguishing vowel in
  conjugation classes)
participle                        present participle
past passive participle

    © 2004 Suzanne Kemmer

    Last modified 31 Oct 04

    (unknown)