AP Psychology Language

What is the smallest form of language that can carry meaning?

• Phoneme

• Morpheme

• Grammar

• Babbling

• Critical Periods Hypothesis

Which theory says that if a child does not learn a language of any kind by the age of 7, they will never be able to master a language?

• Insight

• Intuition

• Phoneme

• Morpheme

• Critical Periods

The rock musician was hit with a rotten egg while performing his latest hit song. The fact that you can recognize two different meanings for the word “hit” in the preceding sentence demonstrates the importance of

• syntax.

• semantics.

• morphemes.

• prototypes.

• linguistic determinism.

Children begin to demonstrate that they know how to put words in a sensible order during the ________ stage.

• babbling

• syntactic

• two-word

• three-word

• phonetic

In English, it is appropriate to refer to “a pretty bird,” but not to “a bird pretty.”  This best illustrates the importance of:

• syntax.
• semantics.
• morphemes.
• phonemes.

Which language theorist would have been most likely to emphasize that children master the rule for forming the past tense of regular verbs like "push" before they learn common past tense constructions of irregular verbs like "go"? 

• B. F. Skinner
• Benjamin Lee Whorf
• Noam Chomsky
• Hermann Ebbinghaus

When the word “oat” is changed to the word “boat,” the number of:

• Phonemes increases, but the number of morphemes stays the same 
• Phonemes and morphemes are both increased
• Phonemes and morphemes both stay the same
• Phonemes stays the same, but the number of morphemes increases

A, an and ill are all examples of:

• Phonemes
• Morphemes
• Syntax
• Grammar

The rules most directly involved in permitting a person to derive meaning from words and sentences are rules of:

• Syntax
• Grammar
• Phonemic structure
• Semantics

The child who says “milk gone” is engaging in ____________. This type of utterance demonstrates that children are actively experimenting with the rules of ____________.

• Babbling; syntax
• Telegraphic speech; syntax
• Babbling; semantics
• Telegraphic speech; semantics