语言学概论课后练习答案.doc

Reference Anwers to the ExercisesChapter 1 Language and Linguistics 1.1 The Nature of Language， pg3.1.1 Language Is SystematicEx3. a. This sentence is grammatical, but is nonsensical.b. This sentence is ungrammatical and nonsensical.c. This is a good sentence.d. This is a good sentence. 1.1.2 Language Is Symbolic略1.1.3 Arbitrariness， pg7Ex1. According to the concept of arbitrariness, the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural resemblance to their meaning. The link between them is a matter of convention. Thus, the name Xiao Long is just a label for the son. However, in Chinese culture dragon was the symbol for the emperor. Thus, the name may have certain associative meanings.Ex2. No. The speaker of a language, based upon the convention established in the speech community, associates linguistic signs with things and concepts. In peoples mind, “pig” stands for stupidity and laziness. If I name it Pig Hair Shampoo, no one will buy it.Ex3. Words are arbitrary in form, but they are not random in their use. Although the link between form and meaning is arbitrary, there has existed certain relationship between them in the years of use, which can be called rules. The individual does not have the power to change a sign in any way once it has become established in the linguistic community.1.1.4 Language Is Primarily Vocal， pg10Ex1. I prefer to use the spoken language. In a supermarket, the spoken language is much more convenient for people to communicate with each other. People do not have the time and necessity to use written language in communication.Ex2. I think listening and speaking should come first. The primary medium of language is sound, and language is primarily vocal. Whats more, children can learn to listen and speak a foreign language more quickly than they can read and write in a foreign language. However, we should not neglect reading and writing, as time goes on.1.1.5 Language Is Human Specific， pg12Ex1. No, I dont agree to this point of view. Language is human specific. Although dogs can learn the meaning of certain sounds, the number of sounds they can understand is very limited. If we look at the kind of communication among humans, we can not say humans and dogs can not communicate with each other.Ex2. That is only the result of the stimulus-response training. Through this kind of training, a cat may understand the meaning of a few simple sounds, but the number is very limited. Ex3. Human language is primary over animal communication in the following aspects:Humans have the ability to refer to things far remote in time and space. In contrast, it may be impossible for an animal to convey such ability.Humans have the ability to produce and understand an indefinite number of novel utterances, but no animal can communicate creatively with another animal. Learning is much more important as a factor in human language than in animal communication.Human language structure and language use are vastly more complex than any animal communication system.Animal communication systems are closed-ended, but human languages are open-ended.1.1.6 Language Is Used for Communication， pg13Ex1. With advanced technology, humans can use the products of advanced technology like telephones and the Internet to communication much more easily and freely. Distance is no longer a barrier. Ex2. There may be several causes:The speaker can not express himself or herself clearly.The listener can not understand what the speaker has said.The listener is unwilling to communicate with the speaker.There are misunderstandings because of the different cultural background of the speaker and the listener.Ex3. In intercultural communication, we must pay special attention to the different ways of thinking, acting and speaking between speakers with different cultural backgrounds, for differences in this kind of knowledge may cause trouble in intercultural communication.1.2.1 General Functions of Language略1.2.2 Metafunctions of Language， pg20Ex1. General functions refer to the particular individual uses of language whilst metafunctions refer to the larger, more general purposes underlying language use. A metafunction is capable of describing one or more other functions. Ex2. No. According to Halliday, every sentence in a text is multifunctional and has three metafunctions simultaneously: ideational, interpersonal and textual functions.1.3 The Origin and Classification of Language，略1.4 What Is Linguistics?1.4.1 Definition of Linguistics， pg28Ex2. As a science, linguistics demands a scientific outlook upon language. To conduct a study of language scientifically, we must take an objective view of language and all linguistic phenomena and reflect on it in a detached and unbiased way. Even a local variety with few native speakers may also fall within our investigations. Moreover, we should adopt the general principles of empirical research procedures to observe and analyze data found in natural languages. Ex3. The real object of linguistics is to find out the fundamental rules that underlie all the languages in the world. We need to look into the common features of all languages, the range of variations among languages, the difference between human languages and animal communication, the change and evolution of language, the relation of language to mind and society, and so on. 1.4.2 Some Important Distinctions in Linguistics, pg35Ex1. It is very important to study speech in linguistics, because language is primarily vocal. As we know, no community has a written form only, though many have a spoken language only. Children learn spoken language first and most easily. Earlier in the 20th century certain linguists began to doubt the priority of writing. Bloomfield argued that writing was not language but merely a way of recording language. The contemporary linguistics maintains that the spoken language is primary and that writing is essentially a means of representing speech in another medium. Linguistics has stressed the priority of speech because it is the natural, or primary, medium in which language is manifest, and written language derives from the transference of speech to a secondary, visual medium.Ex2. There is no absolute standard of correctness because linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Different groups of people may use different varieties of language. The correctness in language use should not be prescribed grammatically.1.5 The Scope of Linguistics1.5.1 Use of Linguistics, Omitted1.5.2 Recent Developments OmittedChapter 2 Phonetics and Phonology2.1 Production of sounds2.1.1 Scope of Phonetics, Omitted2.1.2 Articulation of Sounds, pg51.Ex2. When describing individual sound segments, phoneticians and linguists often employ two parameters to examine how sounds are articulated: manner of articulation and place of articulation. In terms of manner, sounds are classified into plosives, nasals, fricatives, affricates, approximants, trills and taps. When examined from view of place of articulation, sounds are divided into groups like bilabials, dentals, post-alveolar, retroflex, uvular, glottal, labiodentals, alveolar, palatal, velar and pharyngeal sounds.2.1.3 Characteristics of English Speech SoundsOmitted2.1.4 The Transcription of Sounds, pg56.Ex1. Narrow transcription captures the exact articulatory details of each sound. It records as many features of an utterance as can be ascertained by the person doing the recording. On the contrary, broad transcription is a less subtle transcription. It omits many of the irrelevant and predictable details of pronunciation and is perfectly suitable for many users.2. 2 Phonemes2.2.1 Definition of Phonemes, pg58Ex1. Phoneme is the minimum phonemic unit that is not further analyzable into smaller units. In other words, a phoneme is a block that cannot be broken down into smaller parts; it is the smallest element relevant to phonemic analysis. Allophone is the phonetic variant of a phoneme.Ex3. p and b are different phonemes because they represent distinctive sounds. In addition, if we substitute one sound for the other, it results in a change of meaning.2.2.2 Minimal Pairs, pg59Ex1. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment that occurs in the same place in the string, the two words are called minimal pairs. For instance, deed and seed are minimal pairs, but deed and dog are not because the vowel and final consonant in these two sounds are different. 2.3 Sound Patterns2.3.1 Sequential Constraints, pg63Ex2. These words are not permissible in English. All languages have constraints on the permitted sequences of phonemes. *tpray, *btry, *tgharg do not sound like an English word because it does not conform to the restrictions on the sequencing of phonemes. When three consonants occur, the first must be s.2.3.2 Complementary Distribution, pg 65Ex1. When two or more sounds never occur in an identical phonemic context or environment, they are said to be in complementary distribution. That is to say, complementary distribution refers to the case in which one of two or more sounds occur in a context to the exclusion of other sound(s), i.e. in a context in which the other sound(s) never occur(s).Ex2. These two sounds are not pronounced in the same way, because of they are in complementary distribution. Chapter 3. Morphology and Lexicon3.1 Words and Word Classes, pg753.1.1 WordEx2. The relation between the sound or sound combination of a word and its meaning is almost always arbitrary. There is no logical relationship between the sound or the combination of sounds which stands for an entity (including a thing, a happening or an idea) and the entity itself. On the one hand, the same sound may stand for different entities in different languages. On the other hand, the same meaning can be represented by different sound of combination of sounds. Ex3. Apart from the conceptual meaning (also called “denotative”, “logical” or “cognitive” meaning), a word normally has various kinds of meanings, including its connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, and collocative meaning. We can turn to the dictionary for its conceptual meaning. As for its various associated meanings, however, we have to relate the word with its context, including the linguistic context, the context of situation and the context of culture.3.1.2 Word Classes, pg81Ex3. Open-class words refer to those classes of words to which we can add new words. In English, nouns, notional verbs, adjectives and adverbs belong to this category. Such words normally convey certain semantic contents and thus are also called “content words”. Closed-class words refer to those classes to which new words can hardly be added. In English, closed-class words include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, relatives, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and the linking verb “to be”. Their roles in the linguistic system are partly or wholly grammatical and thus are also called “grammatical words”.3.2 Morpheme3.2.1 What Is A Morpheme?, pg82Ex1. 1) un- + bear + -able2) watch + -ful3) person+ -ify (i) + -cation4) un- + exception + -al + -ly 5) un- +educate +-(e)d 6) inspir(e) + -ing7) soft + heart + -ed8) horse + man + -shipEx2. 1) 3: geo- + -graph + -y2) 4: inter- +nation + -al + -ly3) 2: forget + -(t)en4) 1: Washington5) 2: inform + -ation6) 4: industry (i) + -al +-iz(e) + -ation7) 3: pre- + dominat(e) + -ant 8) 2: pre- + consciousEx3. The plural s has many morphologically-conditioned allomorphs. For example, (1) (e)s, as in “cats”, “matches”; (2) (r)en: as in “oxen”, “children”; (3) e-: as in “men”, “women”; (4) ee-, as in “feet”, “teeth”; and (5) zero, as in “sheep”, “deer”. 3.2.2 Types of MorphemesOmitted3.3 Inflection and Word-Formation3.3.1 Inflection Omitted3.3.2 Word-formation Omitted3.4 Lexicon3.4.1 Lexeme, pg93Ex3. Collocation refers to the habitual co-occurrence of individual lexical items. In a word, collocation is the linguistic reflection of certain conventional relations conceived by native speakers between the lexical items and/or between the realities represented by these lexical items. Collocated lexical items fall into four categories: (1) Logical collocations: Some lexical items are allowable to co-occur because the objects, happenings, ideas and/or their properties they denote normally co-occur in the context of situation or culture. (2) Semantic collocations: Some lexical items are collocations because the contents they denote are normally related with each other. (3) Lexical collocations: Such collocations involve the habitual co-occurrence of lexical items of different categories because of certain expressional conventions. (4) Grammatical collocations: Some lexical items co-occur because of certain grammatical restrictions.3.4.2 Features of Lexicon, pg96Ex3. Proverbs are always succinct in language and pregnant in meaning. In other words, they are the condensed summary of the experiences and wisdom of a culture. They not only help the members of a culture to express themselves wittily and tersely but also enable the community to pass their experiences and wisdom from one generation to another. Some proverbs are instructive. Chapter 4 Syntax4.1 Sentence Structure4.1.1 Constituents, pg100Ex2. 2) 4.1.2 Sentence TypesOmitted4.2 Syntactic Function and CategoryOmitted4.2.2 CategoryEx1.1) (a) (b)(c)4.3 Transformational RulesOmitted4.3.2 Sentence Transformations，Omitted3. pg121Ex3.a) The cigars that are giving off the smoke can be nauseating.b) The inhaling of the smoke of the cigars can be nauseating.a) The woman is so heavy that she cannot be moved. b) The woman cannot move it, because it is so heavy.(c) a) After a three-day debate, they reached a final decision while they were on the plane. b) After a three-day debate, they finally decided to use the plane.(d) a) The little boy saw the old man through his telescope. b) The little boy saw the old man who carried his telescope.Chapter 5 Semantics5.1 Approaches to Meaning5.1.1 MeaningOmitted5.1.2 Three Approaches to Meaning, pg133Ex2. Sentence meaning refers to the conventional content or literal meaning of a sentence. It is the context-independent meaning. Utterance meaning refers to the meaning of an utterance in the context. In other words, it is the meaning dependent on the context. In some cases, the sentence meaning coincides with the utterance meaning. But in many situations, the utterance meaning differs from the sentence meaning. 5.2 Semantic Field and Semantic Relations5.2.1 Semantic Field, pg134 (definition and example)5.2.2 Synonymy and Antonymy, pg136,138 (definition and example)5.2.3 Meronymy and Hyponymy, pg 140, (definition and example)5.2.4 Polysemy and Homonymy, pg142, (definition and example)5.2.5 Intersentential Semantic RelationsOmitted5.3 Semantic Analysis5.3.1 Componential Analysis, pg 151(Definition)Ex2. Componential analysis has a number of advantages over traditional approaches to lexical meanings. Firstly, it throws new light on semantic relations such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and metaphor. Secondly, componential analysis can better explain the validity of syntagmatic combination of words and phrases than the purely syntactic approach. Thirdly, componential analysis gives a better account for the formation of the meaning of a phrase or a sentence. The componential analysis has three disadvantages. Firstly, it is often difficult to determine what semantic features are essential to define a word, and how many are sufficient for the specification. Secondly, when faced with two equally plausible features, it is often difficult to determine which one we should specify. Thirdly, componential analysis seems to be difficult to be apply to function words, such as the, of, and, and ah, for they seem to have no semantic features.5.3.2 Predication Analysis, pg.154, (Definition)Omitted5.3.3 Tautology and Metaphor, pg 157, (Definition and example)OmittedChapter 6 Pragmatics and Text Analysis6.1 Speech Act Theory, pg162, 164(Definition and Example)Omitted6.1.2 Indirect Speech ActOmitted6.2 The Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle6.2.1 The Cooperative Principle, pg 169,170, 172, (Definition and the following examples)Ex. of pg1721) In this dialogue, B has flouted the maxim of Manner. Here B uses an obscure expression and fails to give a brief and direct answer to As question. The implicature of Bs utterance is probably “I dont know the exact place. What I can tell you is that Miss Rosebery lives somewhere in the suburbs of the city.”2) In this dialogue, B has flouted the maxim of Relevance. Bs answer is not relevant to As statement. The implicature of Bs utterance is probably “There is a garage round the corner, so you can have your car refilled there.”3) In this dialogue, B has flouted the maxim of Quantity. Bs reply is more informative than is required for the current purposes of the exchange. The conversational implicature of Bs utterance is that “I dont think too much of Cathys singing.”4) In this dialogue, the student is more informative than is required for the current purposes of the exchange and has thus flouted the maxim of Quantity. The implicature of the students utterance is probably “Its high time you finished the lecture.”5) In this dialogue, B fails to give a direct answer to As question and has flouted the maxim of Relevance. The conversational implicature of Bs utterance is probably “I dont want any coffee because coffee would make me awake.”6.2.2 The Politene