978-1337559577 Chapter 10

Chapter 10

1. Speech errors.

(1) brake fluid → blake fruid

(2) drink is the curse of the working classes → work is the curse of the drinking classes

(3) I have to smoke a cigarette with my coffee → . . . smoke my coffee with a cigarette

(4) untactful → distactful

(5) an eating marathon → a meeting arathon

(6) executive committee → executor committee

(7) lady with the dachshund → lady with the Volkswagen

(8) Are we taking a bus back → are we taking the buck bass

(9) he broke the crystal on my watch → he broke the whistle on my crotch

(10) a phonological rule → a phonological fool

(11) pitch and stress → piss and stretch

(12) Lebanon → lemadon

(13) speech production → preach seduction

(14) he’s a New Yorker → he’s a New Yorkan

(15) I’d forgotten about that → I’d forgot abouten that

(16) It can deliver a large payload → It can deliver a large payroll

a. lexical

(17) He made headlines → He made hairlines

(18) I never heard of classes on Good Friday → I never heard of classes on April 9

2. Understanding and resolving ambiguity.

(2) The police were asked to stop drinking in public places.

(3) Our bikinis are exciting; they are simply the tops.

(4) It’s time we made smoking history.

(5) Do you know the time?

(6) Concerned with spreading violence, the president called a press conference.

(7) The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind and they may be seen in the church

basement Friday.

(8) She earned little as a whiskey maker but he loved her still.

(9) The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

(10) A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

sense here because the dog didn’t leave trash anywhere; she had puppies.

(11) A hole was found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

(12) A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said, “Keep off the Grass.”

(13) Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge

(14) Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

(15) Sex Education Delayed, Teachers Request Training

3. Temporal ambiguities. Answers will vary. Here are three sample answers:

i. Mary believed the boy was lying. There are several layers of ambiguity here, both of which have to do

ii. I decided to go to the party yesterday. The ambiguity lies in what yesterday applies to—the decision or the

iii. I’m going to buy my tickets for my trip to Mexico next week. This is similar to the example above: the

4. Headlines.

5. Garden Path Sentences. The principle of minimal attachment can explain the asymmetry in the pro-

cessing of these sentences.

6. Priming.

(1) Answers will vary, but most people will probably “fall for it”. Priming is effective here for two rea-

(2) Answers will vary, but many people will likely not point out that survivors are not buried. Here the

7. The mind and lateralization. Answers will vary. A student’s essay might include some of the following:

Possible arguments for Sperry’s position:

There is, however, growing evidence that the physical brain and the mind that results from its neural ar-

chitecture and functions is highly complex on both sides, that distinct cognitive systems are represented

8. How words are stored in the brain.

a. The substituted words in group (i) are in the same syntactic category as the stimulus words and are

9. Aphasic language. Answers will vary.

b. In girls we see many happy days.

c. I’ll challenge a new bike.

d. I surprise no new glamour.

e. Is there three chairs in this room?

f. Mike and Peter is happy.

g. Bill and John likes hot dogs.

h. Proliferate is a complete time about a word that is correct.

i. Went came in better than it did before.

10. Brain damage and neural basis of language. It is possible to investigate different functions of a complex

automobile engine by systematically damaging individual parts to see what the effect might be. This is

11. Evidence for lateralization. Sample answers:

• Brain damage research provides strong evidence for lateralization of brain functions. Right and left

hemispheric damage affect functioning of different cognitive systems.

site, in whole or in part.

• MRI and PET studies demonstrate that the two hemispheres perform different cognitive functions.

12. Discussion of Wigan’s comment. Answers will vary. The answers may include discussions of the differ-

13. Dichotic listening. Some possible visual stimuli for dichotic listening experiments:

• Printed words to read. (We would expect to get fewer errors when reporting stimuli presented in the

14. Utterances of Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasics.

a. W

15. Hamlet. Possible arguments that Hamlet was a Wernicke’s aphasic:

• His speech here makes little sense.

16. Research projects.

a. Perfect pitch. Answers will vary. A student’s answer should include a definition of “perfect pitch” and

an explanation of how this relates to the critical-age hypothesis. An answer might include some of the

b. Brain Imaging Technologies. Answers will vary. The sample answer below is based on information

found at www.radiologyinfo.org, www.mayfieldclinic.com and www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos

PET (positron emission tomography) scan

Upsides: the information provided is unique and often unattainable using other imaging procedures;

cost effective and precise; identifies changes in the body at the cellular level

which is a rare complication, may be caused by the injection of high doses of MRI contrast material

in patients with very poor kidney function

SPECT (Single Photon Emission CT) scans

Upsides: can view blood flow through arteries and veins in the brain; different from either MRI or

cal anatomy of single-word processing” in Nature (Vol. 331, No. 6157, pp. 585–589, 18 February

1988) that different areas of the brain are involved in reading out loud (passive auditory presentation)

17. Article review project. Answers will vary. Students’ answers should include:

Summary of the article. In this article, the authors argue that understanding the faculty of language in-

18. Agrammatic aphasics.

19. Traditional Chinese orthography vs. pinyin. The location of neural activity is different when Chinese

speakers read in these two systems. Evidence for this statement comes from Japanese, which also has

20. Research project: Commenting on Thatcher’s quote. Answers will vary. Students can take either side, as

this issue is controversial. A sample answer could include some of the following:

There are gender differences in the brain having to do with how men and women process and use lan-

guage.

21. Research project: Emergence. Answers will vary. The information for the following sample answer was

taken from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence):

2000. “Mistä on pienet säännöt tehty?”, Virittäjä 2: 203–221).