In terms of the readings, Midterm #3 will cover Chapters 9 and 11 on Latin and Greek word structure; Chapter 10 on Indo-European; and Chapter 8 on Language in Sociey. There will be a bit on the part of Ch. 3 on neologisms that formed part of the basis for doing your Word Journal assignment (the word formation types). You should now recognize these types easily when given clear examples of them.
Besides the book material, the exam will cover class discussions and web pages linked on the grid on the home page and on the Course Schedule. Finally, there will be a few parsing problems. parsing of words introduced or discussed in class and quizzes.
In terms of topics, the exam focuses on:
1. Latin and Greek word structure
2. genetic relationships of languages, the Indo-European language family,
Proto-Indo-European vocabulary and what it reveals about
Indo-European culture; a little on languages that are NOT
Indo-European
3. Language variation and varieties of
English, including slang, jargon, and varieties associated with
particular groups like gamers and college students (to the extent
covered in book--we did not get to this in class).
Questions in the midterm will assume knowledge of concepts introduced in the previous chapters, and will include a few questions on loanwords discussed in the last third of the class.
Latin and Greek morphology
inflection verbs base or stem person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd inflectional categories verb conjugation classes nouns infinitive grammatical gender voice: active, passive masculine, feminine, neuter principal parts noun declension participles (= noun class defined by set of endings) grammatical number past participle singular, plural (or perfect participle in book) morpheme case present participle morpheme (stem vowel + nt) future participle morpheme (or gerundive in book) (stem vowel + nd)
Changes in late Latin; Latin vs. French
learned vocabulary spelling (spelling is the most conservative aspect of English words) classical diphthongs ae, oe pronunciation changes in late Latin approximimants /i/, /u/ --> affricates /d3/ as in justice, /v/ as in civil (L. iusticia --> O. Fr. d3ustice --> Engl. d3ustice) (L. civis 'citizen' /kiwis/--> O. Fr. sivi ) velar stops /k/, /g/ --> /s/, /d3/ as in judge. Great Vowel Shift affecting Latinate words Latin -ula --> O. Fr. -le (L. tabula --> O. Fr. table) Latin -fic- 'make' --> O. Fr. -fy Latin/French doublets Latin --> French syllable deletions Latin --> French coronalizations (usually called palatalizations): gaudiam --> joy, legalem -->loyal etc. diphthongizations (Lat. pictum --> Old Frn. paint, L. punctum --> O. Fr. point)
Genetic relationship, Indo-European language family, the Indo-Europeans
genetic relationship related languages vs. languages affected by culture contact (and therefore borrowing) language family family tree metaphor parent language, mother language, ancestor language sister language daughter language dialects language breakup (due to loss of contact + different changes in different places) Grimm's law sound change reasons for persistence of evidence of relationship: regularity of sound change resistance to change of basic vocabulary Indo-European Proto-Indo-European Germanic North Germanic East Germanic West Germanic Celtic Welsh Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic Italic / Romance Hellenic (Greek) Baltic Slavic Armenian Albanian Indo-Iranian Tocharian Hittite language (Anatolian family) Sanskrit Hindi Finnish Hungarian Estonian Basque 4 language families of Africa 3 language families of the Americas The Indo-Europeans reconstruction of words reconstruction of aspects of culture
Language Variation and Language in Society
prescriptivism descriptivism standardization and education standard, nonstandard formality formal, informal varieties contractions orthography; sound vs. spelling spoken vs. written language taboo euphemism jargon (words used by a professional or interest group) slang, characteristics of slang in-group vs. outgroup language as a marker of a group shibboleths
Neologisms
neologism derivation zero-derivation affixation compounds, compounding: phrasal compounds, rhyming compounds blends, blending acronyms clipping, clippings folk etymology reanalysis analogy novel creation sound symbolism/onomotopeia
Parsing
Review the Parsing page.
gloss transparent opaque
© 2009
Suzanne Kemmer
Last modified 2 Dec 09