PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Language Acquisition Device, Metalinguistic Awareness, American Sign Language

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Doug Mc Cann

Document Summary

Psyc 1010 chapter 8: language and thought. Language consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Language is : symbolic used to represent objects, actions, events, ideas, semantic/meaningful, generative. An analysis of a simple english sentence : hierarchical structure: Phoneme morpheme word phrase sentence. Morphemes smallest units of meaning in a language (each morpheme contributes to meaning of word) Include root words, prefixes and suffixes: some words consist of a single morpheme. E. g. fire, guard, friend: other words consist of combinations of morphemes. Semantics meaning of words and word combinations: word"s meaning may consist of both: denotations (dictionary) and connotations (secondary implication). Syntax a system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences: rule of syntax: sentence must have both subject and verb, rules of syntax underlie all language use.