Review sheet for Linguistics 201 Test III

NOTE: This short review sheet does NOT specifically list every piece of information that will be on the test because it refers you to other study sheets in your packet of supplementary materials.  Also, don't forget to study your class notes for all the lectures. 

1) Study the semantics sheet in your packet. Know in particular the definitions of:  semantics, thesaurus, denotative meaning, connotative meaning, deictic elements, oxymoron, simple collocation, idiom (or idiomatic collocation), complementary antonyms, gradable antonyms, relational antonyms; synonyms; redundant phrase, true homonyms, polysemous homonyms, paronyms, metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche.  From our discussion of pragmatics/discourse analysis, know: empirically true/false, analytically true/false, nonsense, no sense, vague, ambiguous.

2) Study the history of English sheet in your packet.  Know the four main periods in the development of English (1. Common Germanic/West Germanic; 2. Anglo-Saxon/Old English;  3. Middle English;  4. Modern English).

3) Know the three factors that help determine whether two language forms are dialects of the same language or two separate languages (mutual intelligibility, speaker attitude and the presence or absence of a single standard form, political considerations).

4) Study the American dialects sheet from your packet.  Know in particular the origin of each American dialect mentioned and some of the specific features of each dialect.  Also know who speaks Yiddish, Gullah, Cajun. And know the definitions of isogloss and idiolect (as defined in your textbook).

5) Study the sheet on Language Contact from your packet. Know in particular:  pidgin, creole, convergence, divergence, lingua franca.

6) Look at your packet materials on language families.  You won't have to identify languages on a map or name the language families.  But you should know which languages are Germanic, which languages are Romance (those descended from Latin), which are Celtic, and which languages in Europe are NOT Indo-European (Basque, and the Finno-Ugric languages Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian).

7) Review your notes on ecological history and language distribution.  Know the basic arguments regarding how ecological factors may have influenced language spread and language death. 

8) Know what the Mother Tongue Theory is (from the film).