语言学概论作业习题.doc

语言学概论课外单元练习（1）Language1. State the nature of language briefly with examples.2. Why is it said that the language system is unique to human beings?3. What are the characteristics of human language? 4. What are the social functions of language?5. Do animals other than humans have their own languages?6. Exemplify how animals communicate with each other.7. Can language be viewed only as a system of communication? Why not?8. How did language come into being? What is the relationship between the origin of language and the origin of human beings?9. Rewrite each of the following lists of words into natural order.（1） Five /the /fresh /potatoes（2） Pretty /American /girls /the two（3） Airlines /brand /France-made /new /the two（4） Fashions /Chinese /the /latest /three（5） Beginning /hardworking /two /the /workers10. Fill in the blanks with the proper words. （1）_ function means language can be used to “do” things.（2）_ function means the use of language to reveal something about the feelings and attitudes of the speaker.（3）Most imperative sentences are associated with _ function.（4）The sentence “Whats it like?” shows _ function.（5）Greetings shows _ function.（6）“We are most grateful for this.” shows_ function.（7）Propaganda shows _ function.（8）_ refers to contexts removed from the immediate of the speaker.（9）For_, reference is not the only, not even the primary goal of communication.（10）Hallidays metafunctions include _, _, _.（11）Linguistics should include at least five parameters:_ _ _ _ _. 11.Say the following are true or false. If it is false correct it（1） Language distinguishes us from animals because it is far more sophisticated than any animals communication system.（2） There is not a certain degree of correspondence between the sequence of clauses and the actual happenings.（3） The theories discussed in the textbook about the origins of language are not at most a speculation.（4） The definition,“ Language is a tool for human communication.” has no problem.（5） The definition, “language is a set of rules”, tells nothing about its functions.（6） Hall, like Sapir, treats language as a purely human institution.（7） Chomskys definition about language is the same as Sapirs.语言学概论课外单元练习（2）Linguistics1.Explain the following definition of linguistics: Linguistics is the scientific study of language.2.What are the major branches of linguistics? What does each of them study? What makes modern linguistics different from traditional grammar? Point out three aspects .3.Is modern linguistics mainly synchronic or diachronic? Why?4.Which enjoys priority in modern linguistics, speech or writing? Why?5.How is Saussures distinction between langue and parole similar to Chomskys distinction between competence and performance?6.What characteristics of language do you think should be included in a good, comprehensive definition of language?7.What features of human language have been specified by C. Hockett to show that it is essentially different from any animal communication system?8.What is the main task for a linguist? State the importance of linguistics.9.Why is “duality” regarded as an important feature of human language?10.Fill in the right word according to the explanations.（1）_ the scientific study of language.（2）_ the study of the interlinguistic relationships among different linguistic elements of language.（3）_the study of universal features of language（4）_ the study of a particular language at the particular point of time.（5）_ the study of the structure and both the syntactic and semantic rules of a language（6）the study of the rules or principles prescribed for people to follow when they use a language.（7）_the study of language is relation to other sciences（8）the study of the nature of human language and the human mind through the study of the U.G.11.Say the following are true or false. If it is false correct it.（1）Sociolinguistics relates the study of language to Psychology.（2）In modern linguistics, synchronic study seems to enjoy priority over diachronic study.（3）In the past, traditional grammarians tended to over-emphasize the importance of the written word.（4）Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently.（5）Performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.（6）Saussures distinction took a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.（7）Early grammars were based on “high”（religious, literary）written language.（8）The study of language as a whole is often called applied linguistics.（9）Language is a complicated entity with multiple layers and facets.（10）To explain what language is seems to be a nave and simple question.（11）Language bears certain features distinguishing it from means of communication other forms of life may possess, such as bird songs and bee dances.语言学概论课外单元练习（3）Phonetics1. What are the two major media of communication? Of the two, which one is primary and why?2. What are the three branches of phonetics? How do they contribute to the study of speech sounds?3. Draw a picture for the speech organs of human beings.4. Where are the articulatory apparatus of a human being contained?5. What is voicing and how is it caused? 6. What criteria are used to classify English vowels?7. What is the function of the nasal cavity ? How does it perform the function?8. Describe the various parts in the oral cavity which are involved in the production of speech sounds?9. Explain with examples how broad transcription and narrow transcription differ?10. How are the English consonants and vowels classified?11. Give the phonetic symbol for each of the following sound descriptions:（1） voiced palatal affricate （2） voiceless labiodental fricative （3） voiced alveolar stop（4） front close short （5） back semi-open long （6） voiceless bilabial stop（7） tense front mid vowel （8） lateral liquid （9） lax high back vowel （10） voiced bilabial oral stop（11） mid central lax vowel（12） low front vowel （13） palatal glide（14） voiced interdental fricative （15） voiced affricate （16） velar nasal consonant （17） low back vowel （18） high back tense vowel （19） mid back lax vowel （20）voiceless interdental fricative12.Give the phonetic features of each of the following sounds:d l t w u b v a: m r i: 13. Draw a tongue chart for the basic English vowels.语言学概论课外单元练习（4）Phonology1. How do phonetics and phonology differ in their focus of study? 2. What is a phone? How is it different from a phoneme ? How are allophones related to the phoneme? 3. What is a minimal pair and what is a minimal set ? Why is it important to identify the minimal set in a language?4. Explain with examples the sequential rule, the assimilation rule, and the deletion rule.5. State the functions of stress in a language with examples.6. What are suprasegmental features? How do the major suprasegmental features of English function in conveying meaning?7. A phonetic symbol is actually a “cover term” for a composite of distinct phonetic properties or features. Define each of the symbols below by marking a “+” or a “-” for each given feature: a “+”, if the property is present, a “-” , if it is absent:Sound segments: u a: i u: i: ou eiPhonetic features:HighLowBackTenseRoundSound segments: f n g z t lPhonetic features:StopNasalVoicedLabialAlveolarVelarLiquidfricative8.Distinguish and transcribe the following sounds in groups. （1）【p】in pit , tip and spit（2）【l】in lesson and people（3）【n】in ten and tenth（4）【k】in key and scheme（5）【t】in team and steam9.Fill in the proper word according to the explanations.（1）the frequency of vibration in the musical sound of the voice.（ ）.（2）a special emphasis on a sound or a sound group.（ ）.（3）the length of silence between parts of utterance.（ ）.（4）the smallest structured sound unit made up of a rule-governed sequence of phonemes.（ ）.（5）the phonetic process in which two phonemes ,adjacent to each other, become identical.（ ） .语言学概论课外单元练习（5）Morphology1. What does morphology study? How do we define morphology?2. Distinguish between phonologically and morphologically conditioned allomorphs, and between inflectional and derivational affixes, and between free and bound morphemes. Give examples.3. Dissect the following words into morphemes:Description/ underdevelopment/ photosynthetic /anatomy /radiation/ geography /philharmonic defrosted/ refreshment /demobilized /conducting/ suppression /circumspect/ dialogue deformed /combination4. Try to find out the meaning of the following roots in English and give two or three words that contain each of them:hydro chron demo dur agr kilo nym ped rupt gress poly syn5. State the morphological rules that govern the use of the given derivational affixesExample: -er This suffix is added to a verb to form a noun indicating the agent that carries out the action, e. g. writer-writer-ant -ment -sub -en -en -ee -ful -some -wise -un6. Explain the formation and meaning of the following compounds: Example: nightcap- noun formed by combining two nouns, meaning a drink one takes before going to bed. cats paw tablecloth green-eyed green born update jet lag bootleg built-in cockpit good-for-nothing7. Write out the proper word or words according to the explanations: （1）the smallest meaningful unit which can be used independently.（ ）（2）each of the phonetic forms or variants.（ ）（3）the different morphs of one morpheme.（ ）（4）the smallest linguistic unit that carries meaning.（ ）（5）words whose membership can be regularly expanded.（ ）（6）all the words of a given language.（ ）（7）the way how morphemes are combined to form new words.（ ）8. Point out the derivational and inflectional morphemes in the following words and give their meanings:teacher shorter breaks books girls careless usefulness irregular Marxist readers wanted loved houses buses studied business 9. divide the following words into separate morphemes by placing a “+” between each two morphemes:reconstruction sociolinguistics tourists readings morphophonemic predetermination endearment girls independent replacement grandparents generalization derivational television retroactive psycholinguistic befriended unpalatable10. Think of five English suffixes, give their meanings and explain what bases or stems they may be suffixed to.Example: -er meaning “doer of ”, making an agentive noun, is added to verbs, as shown in the following: reader, “one who reads”, speaker “one who speaks”语言学概论课外单元练习（6）Syntax1. Examine each of the following sentences and indicate if it is a simple, coordinate, complex or compound complex sentences:（1）Jane did it because she was asked to.（2）The soldiers were warned to remain hidden and not to expose themselves.（3）David was never there, but his brother was. （4）She leads a tranquil life in the country. （5）Unless I hear from her, I wont leave this town.2. Use the appropriate phrase structure rules to draw a labeled constituent structure tree diagram for each of the following sentences: （1）A clever magician fooled the audience. （2）The tower on the hill collapsed in the wind. （3）They knew that the senator would win the election.3. For each of the following two sentences , draw a tree diagram of its underlying structure that will reveal the difference in the relationship between John/Mary and the verb “see ”:（1） Mary advised John to see the dentist. （2）Mary promised John to see the doctor.4. The formation of many sentences involves the operation of syntactic movement. The following sentences are believed to have derived from their Dstructure representations. Show the Dstructure for each of these sentences.（1） The leader of the majority party was severely criticized by the media. （2） The man threw the rake away in the yard.（3） What can robot do for us? （4）Will the new shop owner hire her? 5. Draw on your linguistic knowledge of English and paraphrase each of the following sentences in two different ways to show how syntactic rules account for the ambiguity of sentences:（1） Smoking cigarettes can be nauseating. （2） Tony is a dirty street fighter.（3） After a two-day debate, they finally decided on the helicopter.（4） The man is too heavy to move.（5）The little girl saw the big man with the telescope.6. Because languages have recursive properties, there is no limit to the potential length of sentences, and the set of sentences of any language is infinite. Give two examples to show the recursive properties of sentences.7. Write down the embedded sentences below:（1） The girls pleaded for Mary to leave them alone.（2） I found my wife writing a letter to her friend.（3） Who told the teacher that I wouldnt attend his lecture?（4） I know the man who is standing there.（5） For us to master a foreign language is very useful.（6） Give this book to the students whom we were just talking about.8.Explain the deep structure and surface structure, and account for the relations between the two kinds of structures语言学概论课外单元练习（7）Semantics1. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? 2. What is sense and what is reference? How are they related?3. How can words opposite in meaning be classified? To which category does each of the following pairs of antonyms belong?Left/right far/near vacant/occupied father/daughter north /south doctor/patient dark/bright ugly/beautiful 4. Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences:（1） Toms wife is pregnant. / Tom has a wife.（2） He likes swimming. / He likes sports.（3） My sister will soon be divorced. / My sister is a married woman.（4）He speaks English. / He speaks a foreign language.5. Try to analyze the following sentences in terms of predication analysis:（1） The man sells ice-cream. （2） Is the baby sleeping?（3） It is snowing （4） The tree grows well.6.Write out the proper word or words according to the explanations:（1）a sense relation between a pair of words, in which the meaning of a word is included in the meaning of the other.（ ）（2）the symbol refers to the linguistic elements.（ ）（3）an approach adopted by structural semantists in describing the meaning of words and phrases（4）the kind of analysis which involves the breaking down of predications into their constituentsarguments and predication.（ ）8. Pick out from the following pairs the homonyms and the homophones:Style/stile hear/here bank/bank know/no hare/hair ear/ear tale/tail bear/bear soul/sole one/won tear/tare dear/deer 9. Indicate which among the following are complementary pairs, which are gradable pairs, and which are relational pairs:Larger/smaller asleep/awake parents/children legal/illegal false/true start/end fail/pass strong/weak beautiful /ugly trainer/trainee pregnant/sterile rude/polite ask/answer for/against.10. Which of the following sentences belong to illustrative language and which to metalanguage?（1） Yellow is the color of my true lovers hair.（2） “Yellow” is a color word.（3） A horse is an animal.（4） “Horse” contains the semantic property of “animal”.（5） Everybody likes flowers.（6） “Flowers” is spelled f-l-o-w-e-r-s.语言学概论课外单元练习（8）Pragmatics1. What does pragmatics study? How dose it differ from traditional semantics?2. How is the notion of context interpreted? 3. How are sentence meaning and utterance meaning related, and how do they differ?4. Try to think of contexts in which the following sentences can be used for other purposes than just stating facts:（1）the room is messy.（2）I cant work under untidy circumstances.（3）It would be good if she had a green skirt on.5. What are the five types of illocutionary speech acts Searle has specified? What is the illocutionary point of each type?6. What are the four maxims of the CP? 7. How does the violation of these maxims give rise to conversational implicatures?8. Write out the proper word or words according to the explanations （1）utterances used to “do” things or perform acts.（ ）（2）the act of saying something.（ ）（3）the act performed in saying something; its force is identical with the speakers intention.（4）the act performed or resulting from saying something; its the consequence of , or the change brought about by the utterance.（ ）9. Imagine contexts in which the following sentences can be used for other purposes than just stating facts:（1） The room needs cleaning.（2） It is cold here.（3） It is Sunday today.（4） My watch has stopped again.10. How do the following exchanges of conversation illustrate the politeness principle?（1） A: The dress she is wearing is beautiful, isnt it?B: The pattern is nice（2） A: Are you going to use your car this evening?B: It has got a flat tyre, Im afraid11. Explain the following terms:（1） Speech act theory（2） The CP （3） The PP 12. According to Austin, what are the three acts a person is possibly performing while making an utterance? Give an example.语言学课外单元补充习题答案Language（Exercise 1）1. State the nature of language briefly with examples.Answer: modern linguists have proposed various definitions of language such as: Language is “a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” (Sapir,