PSYC 2650 Lecture Notes - Phoneme, Speech Perception, Categorical Perception
19 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Language is why we"re so successful as a species. Knowing language is a key part of being human; it is a human universal, and no other species has as complex a communicative system. Language is essential for a huge range of human achievements. Without it, cultural transmission of information and the acquisition of knowledge would be much more limited. At a basic level, language involves translating thoughts into series of sounds that can be spoken. The listener then converts these series of sounds back into thoughts. Language has a hierarchical organization that allows these translations between thought and sound. Sentence a coherent sequence of words that expresses meaning. Word the smallest free form in a language. Morpheme the smallest unit of sound that can carry meaning in a language. Phoneme the smallest unit of sound that can distinguish words in a language.
