GRE Subject Test: Psychology : Phonemes, Morphemes, & Phrases

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Psychology

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Example Question #11 : Phonemes, Morphemes, & Phrases

Telegraphic speech, where morphemic usage is limited to very short usage, is commonly seen in adults as a symptom of which of the following?

Possible Answers:

Word salad

Nominal aphasia

All of these

Non-fluent aphasia

Dysarthria

Correct answer:

Non-fluent aphasia

Explanation:

Non-fluent aphasia, such as Broca's aphasia, is often triggered by damage due to stroke or other cardiovascular problem, and often produces the short, morpheme-absent language typical of telegraphic speech.

Example Question #12 : Phonemes, Morphemes, & Phrases

Which of the following correctly mirrors the types of inflectional morphemes below:

Possessive. . . Superlative. . . Past Tense. . . Past Participle

Possible Answers:

Cars. . . Grandest. . . Ran. . . Jumps

None of these

Zach's. . . Strongest. . . Proven. . . Joined

Its. . . Highest. . . Waited. . . Waited

Mine. . . Greater. . . Held. . . Swinging

Correct answer:

Its. . . Highest. . . Waited. . . Waited

Explanation:

The answer makes more sense when you realize that the past tense and past participle of the verb wait are both waited. Consider the sentences "I waited for John for half an hour" and "I had waited for John for half an hour" -- both grammatically correct, but implying different things about the present.

Example Question #351 : Gre Subject Test: Psychology

One generally agreed-upon difference between phonemes and morphemes is best described by which of the following?

Possible Answers:

None of these

Morphemes are generally necessary to express complex ideas, whereas phonemes are sufficient for simplistic communication

Everyone across the world uses the same set of phonemes, but morphemes vary wildly

Morphemes cannot be learned until phonemes are mastered

Phonemes are more limited in number than morphemes

Correct answer:

Phonemes are more limited in number than morphemes

Explanation:

Phonemes are the basic units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a particular language. The number of phonemes the human mouth and vocal cords can produce is limited by physiology. Within this limit, an extremely high number of morphemes can be produced.

Example Question #352 : Gre Subject Test: Psychology

One known phoneme-based difficulty in learning English is best identified by which of the following?

Possible Answers:

The relative lack of vowel phonemes compared to other languages

All of these

The fact that English phonemes rarely correspond to the alphabet that produces them

The very large amount of consonant phonemes compared to other languages

The fact that there are many phonemes to learn for only a few morphemes

Correct answer:

The fact that English phonemes rarely correspond to the alphabet that produces them

Explanation:

Some languages, such as Arabic, benefit from having their phonemes developed at nearly the same time as their alphabet, so that each letter directly or almost directly corresponds to the sound it makes in the language. English uses a slightly modified form of the Latin alphabet, originally designed with Latin phonemes in mind, and thus poorly represents its 26 letters phonemically. This causes great difficulty for speakers of more phonetically aligned languages.

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