香港中文大学语言学部MA笔试题2013-2014.pdf

1 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG 2013 14 CUHK Recruitment Test MA in Linguistics MA in Chinese Linguistics and Language Acquisition Name Email Phone University City Province 2 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Section One Answer all the questions in this section Question 1 Focus on s and t in the following set of data from Daga I am licking jamosivin they will lick jamotain grunt asi we should go anet shout senao hole urase drum sinao holiday wagat whisper simura little otu hit topen there use old tave salt siuran I kill tuian 1 Describe the distribution of s and t 2 What type of distribution do they represent 3 Determine their phonemic status i If they belong to different phonemes justify your answer ii If they belong to the same phoneme give the name of the phonological process involved 3 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Question 2 Compare these Italian and Spanish cognates Italian Spanish Spagna spa a Espa a s pa a Spain stato sta to estado s ta do state scuola sk la escuela s k e la school signore si o re se or se or mister schiavo sk a vo esclavo s kla vo slave blasfema blas fe ma blasfemia blas fe m a blasphemy tragico tra i ko tragico tra hi ko tragic How do you account for the organization of the syllable structure in these two languages 4 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Question 3 Consider the following data from Samoan manao he wishes mananao they wish matua he is old matutua they are old malosi he is strong malolosi they are strong punou he bends punonou they bend atamaki he is wise atamamaki they are wise savali he travels pepese they sing laga he weaves 1 What is the Samoan word for a they weave b they travel c he sings 2 Formulate a morphological rule that states how to form the plural verb form from the singular verb form Question 4 In the English sentences a c all the relative pronouns are preceded by a preposition underlined However relative pronouns in d and e are not preceded by a preposition Explain why prepositions are inserted before the relative pronoun in a c but not in d and e a That is the officer to who John was talking yesterday b The police have surrounded the house in which the robbers are hiding c John has been working on a secret project about which I know nothing d That is the singer who John hates e John used to work for a company which sold computer accessories 5 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Section Two Answer one of the questions in either English or Chinese Question 1 以下每對句子的語義相同嗎 他們的句法結構相同嗎 用擴展法分析比較 每對句子在句法結構上的異同 A 1 他耳朵軟 2 他的耳朵軟 B 1 今兒他來 2 他今兒來 C 1 這人脾氣急 2 這人急脾氣 Question 2 Compare and contrast the English oral expression his book and its Chinese equivalent ta de shu and discuss the similarities and differences between the two expressions in terms of syntactic constructions and grammatical meanings 6 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Section Three Choose one of the following questions and write a one page essay in response to the question Please follow the style of academic discourse and conventions for citation and reference if any Please use English only Question 1 How would you define formal instruction in second language acquisition How might formal second language teaching differentially benefit child and adult second language learners Please focus on a language property of your choice e g the learning of syntax or phonology and elaborate the effects of formal language instruction on children and adults respectively Question 2 In recent days a debate on whether Cantonese should be considered an official language of Hong Kong has flared up The commentary below which appeared in a local English newspaper will give you some idea about the context of the debate Despite an apology from the Education Bureau I don t think it was a gaffe when it said in its website s section on language learning support that Cantonese is not an official language And lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk yee what did you write in my newspaper the other day Cantonese is a mere dialect Go back to school Ip The ancient canonical Chinese texts predated Putonghua but not necessarily Cantonese Strictly speaking the bureau is not wrong Chinese is one of the two official languages of Hong Kong but there is no mention of Cantonese or Putonghua as an official language in the Basic Law But local officials increasingly operate under the assumption of the central government which gives official status to Putonghua with other Chinese languages relegated to being dialects The denigration of Cantonese in Hong Kong began with the colonial Brits The usual argument is that a dialect has no written script Well our current written Chinese script called baihua or vernacular system emerged from the May 4th Movement s modernisation of the language The script is neither Putonghua a northern spoken language nor Cantonese a southern one This written script works equally well for Putonghua Cantonese or other Chinese speakers 7 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG If you are familiar with the sociolinguistic situation in Hong Kong please comment on the views expressed by the commentary above If you are not familiar with the sociolinguistic situation in Hong Kong please evaluate statements such as the following in which X represents your own native dialect X is a mere dialect X is not an official language of Ch