Linguistic Development Research Paper Page 33
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3712 GLOSSARY
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Grammar A generative grammar is a set of rules that determines the form and meaning of
words and sentences in a particular language. A mental grammar is the hypothetical gen-
erative grammar stored unconsciously in a person’s brain. Neither should be confused with a
prescriptive or stylistic grammar taught in schools, which attempt to give guidelines on
how we ‘ought’ to speak.
Gyrus plural of gyri. the visible part of a wrinkle on the surface of the cortex.
Handedness The situation where one hand (or foot or eye etc) has better control then the other.
Handedness is thought to be due to the contralateral control of limbs, and the consequent
control by brain hemispheres that have different functionality. For example most humans are
right handed, with their right hand being controlled by the left hemisphere, the language
dominant hemisphere.
Larynx a valve at the top of the windpipe that is used to seal the lungs during exertion and in the
production of voiced sounds. It contains the vocal chords.
lexicon a dictionary, especially a mental dictionary that would contain all of a person’s intuitive
knowledge of words and their meanings.
Listeme A kind of “word” that refers to an element of language that must be memorized because
its sound or meaning does not conform to some general rule of structure. All word roots,
irregular verbs and idioms are listemes.
Mentalese The hypothetical “Language Of Thought” or representation of concepts and proposi-
tions in the brain in which ideas including the meanings of words and sentences are couched.
Morpheme the smallest meaningful pieces into which words can be cut. e.g.un-micro-wave-abil-ity
Morphology the component of a grammar that builds words out of morphemes.
Neurons the information processing cells of the brain.
Perisylvian the regions of the brain lining both sides and the end of the Sylvian fissure, the cleft
between the temporal lobe and the rest of the brain. Language functionality is thought to be
concentrated on the left Perisylvian fissure.
Phoneme One of the units of sound that are strung together to form a morpheme. See International
Phonetic Alphabet.
Phonetics How the sounds of language are produced and perceived.
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