Question 1

Which of the following is/are generally agreed upon as necessary criteria/criterion for claiming that a communication system is a language?

A. regularity

B. productivity

C. referentiality

D. interpersonal

E. both regularity and productivity

 Question 2

The study of the ways in which sounds can be combined in any given language is called:

A. phonology
B. morphology
C. syntax
D. grammar
E. pragmatics

Question 3

The branch of linguistics devoted to the study of meaning:

A. phonetics
B. semantics
C. morphology
D. pragmatics
E. syntax

Question 4

Which of the following is NOT a kind of syntactic rule proposed by Chomsky?

A. lexical insertion rule
B. phrase structure rule
C. illegal contraction rule
D. rewrite rule
E. transformational rule

Question 5

According to the study of semantics, understanding the meaning of a sentence requires which of the following conditions?

A. understanding of the meaning of each word in the sentence
B. understanding of the syntax of the sentence
C. understanding of the truth conditions of the sentence
D. understanding of the syntax and the truth conditions of the sentence
E. understanding of the meaning of the words, the syntax of the sentence, and the truth
conditions of the sentence

Question 6

"George is not tall enough to ride the roller coaster." "George is too short to ride the roller coaster." These sentences are related through:

A. ambiguity
B. entailment
C. synonymy
D. anomaly
E. self-contradictio

Question 7

According to Miller, a fundamental problem of speech perception is:

A. speech is continuous rather than discrete
B. perception of speech is noncategorical
C. we pay attention to certain acoustic properties of speech but ignore others
D. hearing is a less accurate sense than vision
E. missing phonemes can render words incomprehensible

Question 8

Warren and Warren showed that when presented with a sentence where a sound was replaced by a cough (represented by * here), such as "It was found that the *eel was on the axle,"

A. people could not interpret the sentence
B. people said that they understood the word to be wheel, but they were aware that they did not
actually hear the w sound
C. people said that they heard the entire word wheel without being aware of anything odd in the
sentence
D. people erroneously heard the word meal at first, but then realized by the end of the sentence
that the word must be wheel.
E. people erroneously heard the word heel and were confused when they heard the end of the
sentence.

Question 9

Studies of context and speech perception have shown all of the following phenomena EXCEPT:

A. Subjects use context to mentally restore missing phonemes
B. Subjects use context to understand mispronounced words
C. Subjects use visual context to discriminate similar phonemes such as ba and da when the
physical sound is ambiguous
D. Subjects notice a discrepancy when they hear the sound ba pronounced but the visual cue is
consistent with a different phoneme (da)
E. Listeners are often unaware of their use of context in perceiving speech

Question 10

Studies of speech errors suggest that:

A. native speakers of a language rarely make speech errors
B. most speech errors are caused by fatigue
C. word substitutions typically show both meaning and form relations
D. choosing a words meaning and a words form appear to be separate processes that operate at different times in speech production
E. most speech errors show both meaning and form relations, and are caused by fatigue

Question 11

Studies of sentence comprehension have shown all of the following EXCEPT:

A. Exact wording of a clause is preserved in memory while that clause is actively being processed
B. After a sentence has been processed, exact wording is discarded and only the general meaning is preserved in
memory
C. We typically do not consciously notice ambiguities in sentences
D. We do not process exact wording in memory; we only process meaning
E. Both meanings of an ambiguous word can prime performance in a lexical decision task, even when the ambiguous
word is presented in a context that makes its meaning clear

Question 12

"I'm going to meet him at the bank." At the First National Bank, or at the river bank? This type of ambiguity is referred to as:

Im going to meet him at the bank. At the First National Bank, or at the river bank? This type of ambiguity is referred to as:
A. phonetic
B. grammatical
C. lexical
D. syntactic
E. anomalous

Question 13

Swinney's research suggests that when we encounter a lexically ambiguous word,

A. we process only the most common meaning
B. we process the meaning that is primed by the context
C. we first process the most common meaning, and then (if necessary) the one that fits the context
D. we process both meanings
E. we process both meanings at first, then suppress the inappropriate meaning

Question 14

Which of the following does NOT make a passage of text easier to comprehend, according to research?

A. avoidance of syntactically anomalous words
B. less propositional complexity
C. a match between antecedent information and the given information
D. providing a relevant context after the passage has been read
E. all of these methods will aid a reader in comprehending a text passage
Question 15

Question 15

The average eye fixation lasts about:

A. 20 milliseconds
B. 100 milliseconds
C. 250 milliseconds
D. 1 second
E. 2 seconds

Question 16

Kintsch and Keenan found that we spend more time reading sentences that have:

A. more words
B. more function words
C. more content words
D. more propositions

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT true of story grammars?

A. They have variables that are filled in differently for different stories
B. They help identify units of a story
C. They specify how one unit of a story relates to other units
D. We typically have better recall of stories that do not conform to expected story grammars,
because they warrant more attention

E. They provide us with a framework with which we can predict certain sequences and
elements

Question 18

Fodor's modularity hypothesis proposes that:

A. language processing actually encompasses several subskills (modules)
B. in understanding language, we separate sentences and phrases into individual units
known as modules
C. language is dependent upon other thought processes such as expectation
D. thought processes are dependent upon the language we use to think
E. certain language processes operate independently of other cognitive processes such as
memory and attention

Question 19

Whorf's linguistic relativity hypothesis:

A. asserts that thought is dependent upon language
B. is supported by studies of color perception
C. is not supported by studies of color perception
D. asserts that thought is dependent upon language, and is supported by studies of color
perception
E. asserts that thought is dependent upon language, and is not supported by studies of
color perception

Question 20

Damage to Broca's area often leads to:

A. expressive aphasia
B. receptive aphasia
C. inability to comprehend written language
D. both expressive aphasia and inability to comprehend written language
E. both receptive aphasia and inability to comprehend written language

Question 21

The smallest meaningful units of language are called phonemes.

A. True
B. False

Question 22

Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning.

A. True
B. False

Question 23

The word "bat" is considered to be lexically ambiguous because it has two possible meanings.

A. True
B. False

Question 24

A bridging inference is a system of rules that allows us to comprehend large, integrated pieces of text.    

A. True
B. False

Question 25

Grice's maxim of quantity says that one should be truthful in a conversation.

A. True
B. False

Question 26

Whorf's hypothesis has been strongly supported by cross-cultural studies of color perception.

A. True
B. False

Question 27

"Turn in your exam" is an example of a directive.

A. True
B. False

Question 28

Speech errors often involve swapping words with similar meaning, or words with similar sounds, but rarely do they involve both meaning and sound.

A. True
B. False

Question 29

People tend to process both meanings of ambiguous words when they encounter them in sentences.

A. True
B. False

Question 30

Damage to Wernicke's area is associated with difficulties in speaking.

A. True
B. False