Introduction to Linguistics Spring 2004

Fujiwara/Gregory

Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct

Chapter 5 - Words, Words, Words

1. Distinguish between inflectional and derivational morphology.

2. Why is a rule that adds an inflection to a stem a simple, yet powerful computational operation?

3. Describe how words are structured in ways similar to phrases?

4. Describe the relationship between roots, affixes, stems and inflections. How do rules govern their combination?

5. What is the origin of irregular words in English?

6. Why do some irregular words have a seemingly illogical use (e.g. Maple Leafs, Walkmans and flied out)?

7. What evidence suggests that the logic of word structure is built into the minds of children?

8. What are the two meanings of the word "word?"

9. What is involved in the process of memorizing listemes?

10. How does the "gavagai" problem help explain how children acquiring their first language are able to make correct generalizations about word meaning from observing a finite set of events?