LING 1010 UCONN FINAL PAPER 2025/2026 QUESTIONS
WITH ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔categorical perception - ✔✔the act of perceiving physically distinct stimuli as
identical for a specific purpose
✔✔Universal listeners - ✔✔Children appear to be born with the ability to discriminate
every sound difference found in human languages
✔✔6 months - ✔✔Babbling begins. Babbling at this age tends to be repetitive (ba ba ba
ba ba), and does not necessarily correspond to the language being spoken by adults!
✔✔6-10 months - ✔✔Over time, babbling starts to show variability (ba bi da di do), and
slowly starts to take on more and more
characteristics of the language being spoken by adults
✔✔10-12 months - ✔✔The sounds created during babbling only come from the adult
language. This is the last babbling stage before true words are spoken (around 12
months)
✔✔Domain-general knowledge - ✔✔knowledge that is used by multiple cognitive
abilities
✔✔Domain-specific knowledge - ✔✔knowledge that is used by one cognitive ability
✔✔word segmentation problem - ✔✔the fact that children must somehow decide where
the breaks are between words in the speech stream, despite the fact that there are no
physical breaks in the stream (i.e., they must segment the speech stream into words)
✔✔transitional probability - ✔✔the probability of transitioning from one specific sound
(e.g. s) to the letter that comes after it (e.g. j)
✔✔sequence of sounds inside a word - ✔✔will be spoken every time the word is spoken
(more likely)
✔✔Sequences of sounds outside of words - ✔✔will only be spoken when those two
words are randomly stuck next to each other (less likely)
✔✔noun bias - ✔✔(<18 mos) The first 50 or so words that they learn tend to be nouns
✔✔generalize - ✔✔kids see verbs ending in -ed, all meaning "past". they must
generalize this into a rule
, ✔✔overgeneralizing - ✔✔They are overapplying the rule (applying it to words that don't
use it). It takes time for them to learn the exceptions.
✔✔transformation - ✔✔a syntactic rule that takes the output of the phrase structure
rules, and rearranges (or transforms) that
output into a new output
✔✔head movement - ✔✔occurs in all yes or no questions "can john cook?" "john can
cook"
✔✔matrix IP - ✔✔primary IP of the sentence (forms the structure of the sentence)
HIGHEST IP/ main clause
✔✔embedded IP - ✔✔embedded in the matrix of the sentence (lower than the matrix
IP) embedded cause
✔✔relative clause - ✔✔"The woman that is happy" one long clause that forms the
subject of the sentence. So the IP that is inside of it is an embedded IP
✔✔structure dependent - ✔✔definition of a head movement, defined in terms of the
hierarchical structure of the sentence (e.g., matrix vs embedded IP)
✔✔vocabulary explosion - ✔✔For many children, word learning accelerates dramatically
around 18 mo
✔✔12 months - ✔✔language becomes variable and language specific (from ba da da
doop da -> da da)
✔✔milestones - ✔✔stages not ages
✔✔critical period - ✔✔if you don't learn the language past puberty, there is a problem
with learning it (after critical period, language acquisition changes)
✔✔The difference between Genie and Isabelle - ✔✔appears to be a difference in age of
first exposure to language: Genie was after the critical period began to end, and Isabelle
was in the middle of the critical period.
✔✔lexifier - ✔✔One dominate language contributed most of the words, although the
other languages also contributed some words
✔✔lexifier cont. - ✔✔grammar of the communication system was a compromise mix of
grammatical properties of the contributing languages. The result is a
system that is grammatically SIMPLER than any of the contributing languages
WITH ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔categorical perception - ✔✔the act of perceiving physically distinct stimuli as
identical for a specific purpose
✔✔Universal listeners - ✔✔Children appear to be born with the ability to discriminate
every sound difference found in human languages
✔✔6 months - ✔✔Babbling begins. Babbling at this age tends to be repetitive (ba ba ba
ba ba), and does not necessarily correspond to the language being spoken by adults!
✔✔6-10 months - ✔✔Over time, babbling starts to show variability (ba bi da di do), and
slowly starts to take on more and more
characteristics of the language being spoken by adults
✔✔10-12 months - ✔✔The sounds created during babbling only come from the adult
language. This is the last babbling stage before true words are spoken (around 12
months)
✔✔Domain-general knowledge - ✔✔knowledge that is used by multiple cognitive
abilities
✔✔Domain-specific knowledge - ✔✔knowledge that is used by one cognitive ability
✔✔word segmentation problem - ✔✔the fact that children must somehow decide where
the breaks are between words in the speech stream, despite the fact that there are no
physical breaks in the stream (i.e., they must segment the speech stream into words)
✔✔transitional probability - ✔✔the probability of transitioning from one specific sound
(e.g. s) to the letter that comes after it (e.g. j)
✔✔sequence of sounds inside a word - ✔✔will be spoken every time the word is spoken
(more likely)
✔✔Sequences of sounds outside of words - ✔✔will only be spoken when those two
words are randomly stuck next to each other (less likely)
✔✔noun bias - ✔✔(<18 mos) The first 50 or so words that they learn tend to be nouns
✔✔generalize - ✔✔kids see verbs ending in -ed, all meaning "past". they must
generalize this into a rule
, ✔✔overgeneralizing - ✔✔They are overapplying the rule (applying it to words that don't
use it). It takes time for them to learn the exceptions.
✔✔transformation - ✔✔a syntactic rule that takes the output of the phrase structure
rules, and rearranges (or transforms) that
output into a new output
✔✔head movement - ✔✔occurs in all yes or no questions "can john cook?" "john can
cook"
✔✔matrix IP - ✔✔primary IP of the sentence (forms the structure of the sentence)
HIGHEST IP/ main clause
✔✔embedded IP - ✔✔embedded in the matrix of the sentence (lower than the matrix
IP) embedded cause
✔✔relative clause - ✔✔"The woman that is happy" one long clause that forms the
subject of the sentence. So the IP that is inside of it is an embedded IP
✔✔structure dependent - ✔✔definition of a head movement, defined in terms of the
hierarchical structure of the sentence (e.g., matrix vs embedded IP)
✔✔vocabulary explosion - ✔✔For many children, word learning accelerates dramatically
around 18 mo
✔✔12 months - ✔✔language becomes variable and language specific (from ba da da
doop da -> da da)
✔✔milestones - ✔✔stages not ages
✔✔critical period - ✔✔if you don't learn the language past puberty, there is a problem
with learning it (after critical period, language acquisition changes)
✔✔The difference between Genie and Isabelle - ✔✔appears to be a difference in age of
first exposure to language: Genie was after the critical period began to end, and Isabelle
was in the middle of the critical period.
✔✔lexifier - ✔✔One dominate language contributed most of the words, although the
other languages also contributed some words
✔✔lexifier cont. - ✔✔grammar of the communication system was a compromise mix of
grammatical properties of the contributing languages. The result is a
system that is grammatically SIMPLER than any of the contributing languages
