Linguistics 001     Homework 4    Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Language Acquisition

Sociolinguistics

1. "g-dropping"


a) Discuss 3 factors which have been reported to affect how frequently a person will use the "g-dropping" pronunciation. Make sure to discuss how these factors are related to one another, e.g. are there parallels between the affects of one factor and the affects of another?

b) Why is "g-dropping" actually a misnomer?

Historical Linguistics

2. In the lecture on language change we saw that there regular correspondances between certain initial consonants in English and German. Below is an expanded data set, again involving English [p] and [t], but this time in more than just initial position, revealing a more complicated - but still very regular - pattern of correspondence. On the basis of the data, formulate correspondence rules for these two sounds. I.e., what German sounds do they correspond to under what circumstances?

  white weiss   pan Pfanne   ten zehn
  hope hoffen   help helfen   grunt grunzen
  warp werfen   ape Affe   heart Herz
  path Pfad   to zu   tongue Zunge
  hate hassen   pepper Pfeffer   open offen
  vat Fass   smelt schmelzen   cramp Krampf

Remember that the letter z in German stands for [ts]. The digraphs ff and ss stand for the single sounds [f] and [s] respectively.

Animal Communication and Language Evolution

3. Give three reasons, either from Pinker or from the lecture notes, why we are generally skeptical of earlier claims that chimps and gorillas had successfully learned sign language.

Language Acquisition

4. In the notes from lecture 9, there is discussion of ways in which children tend to simplify the pronunciation of certain adult sounds at early stages of the language acquisition process. It is noted there that children are generally quite consistent in their replacements and substitutions at any given time, and that we can actually state phonological rules to derive their pronunciation from the adult one. For example, for the common child pronunciations [wUk] for look and [twk] for truck we could say something like "replace all liquids (l,r) with the glide [w]". Come up with rules to describe the replacements and deletions of sounds in the following examples. That is, for each word, state the changes that are made to convert an adult pronunciation into this child's form; then summarize the general changes based on all the words. Remember that phonological rules usually don't refer to specific sounds like [p], but to natural classes like "voiceless stops". Thus the general rules you give at the end should also be stated in terms of natural classes rather than specific sounds wherever possible.

 

a.

Smith [mIt]
 

b.

skin [kIn]
 

c.

play [pe]
  d. zoo [du]
  e. John [dan]
  f. bath [bęt]
  g. tent [tt]
  h. teddy [tdi]
 

i.

crush [kt]
 

j.

bump [bp]

Based on this pattern, what is the expected pronunciation of the following words? Give your answer in phonetic transcription, and identify the changes that you predict.

  k. stop  
  l. junk  
 

m.

thumb  
 

n.

zebra  

home

schedule

Lecture 7
Lecture 8
Lecture 9

    [Ling 001 Homepage]    [Class Schedule]    [Linguistics Department Home]
    Ling 001 Lecture 1 Introduction to Language and Linguistics
    Ling 001 Lecture 1 Introduction to Language and LinguisticsHW
    Ling 001 Lecture 2 Phonetics-Phonology
    Ling 001 Lecture 3 Morphology
    Ling 001 Lecture 4 Syntax
    Ling 001 Lecture 5 Semantics
    Ling 001 Lecture 5 SemanticsPragmatics
    Ling 001 Lecture 7 Historical Linguistics and Linguistic Typology
    Ling 001 Lecture 8 Sociolinguistics
    Ling 001 Lecture 9 Learning language_ animal communication and language evolution
    Ling 001 Lecture 10 Language processing and language in the brain
    Ling 001 Lecture 11 Writing language and sign language_ Language and thought
    LING 001 Homework 2
    Ling 001 - Homework 3
    Ling 001 - Homework 4
    LING 001 Midterm
    Ling 001 - Final Exam