PSY100Y5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Steven Pinker, David Premack, Metalinguistic Awareness
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PSY100Y5 Full Course Notes
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Language: symbols that convey meaning + rules for combining the symbols. Language is symbolic, semantic, generative, and structured. Smallest units of speech in language that can be distinguished perceptually. Different languages use different groups of about 20 to 80 phonemes. A letter in the alphabet can represent more than one phoneme if it has more than one pronunciation; different combinations of letters represent some phonemes (ch, th). Morphemes: smallest units of meaning in a language. Each morpheme contributes to the meaning of the entire word. Semantics: understanding the meaning of words and word combinations. A word"s meaning consists of its denotation (dictionary meaning) and connotation (what it means). System of rules that specifies how words can be arranged into sentences. Simple rule of syntax: sentence consists of subject and verb. Rules of syntax underlie all language use. Three-month old infants can distinguish phonemes from every single language. Recognize whole words in their first year.
