PS102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: American Sign Language, Metalinguistic Awareness, Kanzi
Document Summary
Consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Language systems have a number of properties: Symbolic: people use symbols, and written words to refer to objects, some that are in another place, ideas, or events that occurred at a different time. Semantic (or meaningful): each word represents a meaningful idea; grammar + structure enhances the meanings of words e. g. dog bites cat, cat bites dog. Generative: limited number of symbols used to generate an infinite number of messages; can comprehend sentences that you have never seen before. Structured: sentences must be structured in a certain way; some are acceptable and come are not. Phoneme > morpheme > word > phrase > sentence. The smallest speech units in a languages that can be distinguished perceptually. A letter in the alphabet can have more than one phoneme, if it has different pronunciations.
