Words in English public website
Ling/Engl 215 course information
Rice University
Prof. S. Kemmer

STUDY GUIDE
FINAL EXAM REVIEW -

Fall 2007

Recognition of particular morphemes and parts of morphemes in English words that reflect categories of Latin and Greek morphology

ability to recognize and produce examples of various types of semantic change

understanding of the cognitive processes underlying semantic change, particularly metaphor and metonymy

knowledge of some specific word histories

Knowledge of classical expressions and abbreviations in English will not be tested.

Abilities developed since the second midterm

knowledge of how linguistic relationship is established (via the comparative method) and ability to recognize the major languages and language subfamilies of the large family containing English, namely the Indo-European language family

knowledge of which languages of Europe are NOT in the Indo-European family

ability to describe some of what we know about the Proto-Indo-Europeans based on evidence from linguistic reconstructions

some conception of the more distant linguistic relationships found in the world, and where the Indo-European family fits into the global linguistic picture

awareness of the ubiquity of language variation and the kinds and range of variation and language varieties found in English, including geographical varieties (dialects), writing vs. speech, standard vs. non-standard, slang, cant and jargon, etc.

an understanding of the uses of variation and linguistic variants in speech communities to build group solidarity and/or exclude others from the group

an appreciation of the creativity of speakers in producing new lexical units

ability to understand and describe the major types of word formation processes found not only in established words, but in neologisms

an understanding of the reasons speakers produce neologisms, and how the English language facilitates their creation

Terminology

Following is a list of keywords that can help you recall and study the course material in the last portion of the course.

Indo-European language family; language classification

Sir William Jones
genetic relationships
'family tree' model of linguistic relationships
stability of basic vocabulary
regularity of sound change
reconstruction (of lexical items)
cognates vs. loanwords
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Germanic
characteristics of Indo-Europeans
Indo-European language subgroups:
  Germanic
  Celtic
  Italic, Romance
  Hellenic, Greek
  Baltic and Slavic  (or Balto-Slavic)
  Albanian
  Armenian
  Anatolian, Hittite
  Tocharian
  Indic and Iranian (or Indo-Iranian)
non-Indo-European families in Europe
  Altaic  - Turkish
  Finno-Ugric (a Uralic family) - Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian
isolates - Basque 
Language families in the Americas:
  Eskimo-Aleut 
  Na Dene  - Navajo and other Athapaskan languages (Amer. SW and Brit. Columbia)
  Amerind - all others in N. and S. America

Language Variation and Language in Society

prescriptivism, prescriptive rules
descriptivism, descriptive rules or patterns
standard, nonstandard varieties
folk ideas about nonstandard varieties ("substandard")
standardization and education
written vs. spoken language varieties  (genres)
orthography; sound vs. spelling
shibboleths
kinds of variation: geographical, economic/social class; other
  group-based varieties
jargon, characteristics of
slang, characteristics of
surfer's slang; Cockney rhyming slang; rapper slang
thieves' argot (also called thieves' cant)
taboo language

Neologisms

derivation: 
  conventional derivation
  nonconventional derivation - application of existing derivational
    ending to a root it does not conventionally go on (e.g. dissage)
zero-derivation (e.g. google, v.)
compounding:
  phrasal compounds 
  rhyming compounds (chiller-killer)
blends 
clippings  (exam, bus)
acronyms  (scuba, snafu, fubar)
reanalysis/recutting - realignment of morpheme boundaries from their
  original position, by re-understanding the morphemes. (hamburger, glitterati)
folk etymology - often comes along with reanalysis (sparrowgrass); or 
  made up as 'just-so' stories (posh) 
analogy - derivation on the basis of a specific model word or pattern
  (Britpoperati)
novel creation, de novo creation - 'out of thin air' coinage (googol)
  (sometimes these can have some sound symbolism as well)
sound symbolism (ka-ching; bling; bada-bing; perhaps blimp)
reduplication (bling bling)
partial reduplication  
  reduplication with vowel change (hip-hop)
  rhyming reduplication (higgledy-piggledy)

Keywords from material prior to Midterms #1 and #2

The following material will not be focused on but I will assume you know what the things mentioned are, and who the people are.

History of English

Old English (Anglo-Saxon)         Normans
Middle English                    Norman conquest
Early Modern English              Battle of Hastings
Present Day English (PDE)         Edward the Confessor
Celts                             Harold Godwinson
Romans                            William of Normandy (William the Conqueror)
Anglo-Saxons                      Norman French   
Beowulf                           Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
King Alfred (Alfred the Great)    William Caxton, printing press
Vikings, Danes                    Great English Vowel Shift  
Ethelred the Unready              King James Bible       
Canute (Cnut)                     Shakespeare
Danelaw, Watling Street

Words in English

native                        
borrowed          
nativized, nativization	     
loanword, borrowing           
doublets

Morphology

morpheme                          parse, parsing
root                              allomorphs, allomorphy
affix                             assimilation
prefix                            ablaut                           
suffix                            metathesis
inflection                        weakening 
derivation                        insertion
compounds, compounding            rhotacism  
filler, linker morpheme           deletion
transparent, opaque morphemes     s-deletion

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)

Semantics

synonyms, synonymy
homonyms, homonymy
polysemy

Semantic change

etymology                         taboo
polysemy                          euphemism
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, theme vowel) (said of the distinguishing vowel in
  conjugation classes)
participle                        present participle
past passive participle

(unknown)