语言学习题.doc

Chapter 1Introduction1. If a study describes and analyzes the language people actually use, it is said to be _. A. prescriptiveB. analytic C. descriptiveD. linguistic2. Which of the following is not a design feature of human language? A. Arbitrariness B. Displacement C. Duality D. Meaningfulness3. Modern linguistics regards the written language as _. A. primary B. correct C. secondary D. stable4. In modern linguistics, speech is regarded as more basic than writing, because _. A.in linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writingB.speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.C.speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongue.D.All of the above5. A historical study of language is a _ study of language. A. synchronicB. diachronic C. prescriptiveD. comparative6. Saussure took a(n) _ view of language, while Chomsky looks at language from a _ point of view. A. sociological, psychological B. Psychological, sociologicalC. applied, pragmatic D. semantic, linguistic7. According to F. de Saussure, _ refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community.A. parole B. performance C. Langue D. language8. Language is said to be arbitrary because there is no logical connection between _ and meanings. A. sense B. Sounds C. objects D. ideas9. Language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker. This feature is called_. A. displacement B. duality C. flexibility D. cultural transmission 10. The details of any language system is passed on from one generation to the next through _ , rather than by instinct. A. learning B. teaching C. books D. both A and B1. D_ is one of the design features of human language which refers to the phenomenon that language consists of two levels: a lower level of meaningless individual sounds and a higher level of meaningful units. 2. Language is a system of a_ vocal symbols used for human communication. 3. The discipline that studies the rules governing the formation of words into permissible sentences in languages is called s_. 4. Human capacity for language has a g _ basis, but the details of language have to be taught and learned. 5. P _ refers to the realization of langue in actual use.6. Findings in linguistic studies can often be applied to the settlement of some practical problems. The study of such applications is generally known as a_ linguistics.7. Language is p_ in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. In other words, they can produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences which they have never heard before.1. Syntax 2. Applied linguistics 3. Arbitrariness 4. Displacement 5. Duality 6. Design features1. A wolf is able to express subtle gradations of emotion by different positions of the ears, the lips, and the tail. There are eleven postures of the tail that express such emotions as self-confidence, confident threat, lack of tension, uncertain threat, depression, defensiveness, active submission, and complete submission. This system seems to be complex. Suppose there were a thousand different emotions that the wolf could express in this way. Would you then say a wolf had a language similar to mans? If not, Why not?2. Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written? 3. How is modern linguistics different from traditional grammar?4. Saussures distinction between langue and parole seems similar to Chomskys distinction between competence and performance. What do you think are their major differences? Chapter 2 The Sounds of Language1. If two phonetically similar sounds occur in the same environments and they distinguish meaning, they are said to be in complementary distribution. 2. A phone is a phonetic unit that distinguishes meaning. 3. English is a tone language while Chinese is not. 4. In linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing. 5. In everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed. 6. Vibration of the vocal cords results in a quality of speech sounds called voicing. 7. English consonants can be classified in terms of place of articulation and the part of the tongue that is raised the highest. 8. According to the manner of articulation, some of the types into which the consonants can be classified are stops, fricatives, bilabial and alveolar. 9. Vowel sounds can be differentiated by a number of factors: the position of tongue in the mouth, the openness of the mouth, the shape of the lips, and the length of the vowels. 10. According to the shape of the lips, vowels can be classified into close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels and open vowels. 1. Of all the speech organs, the t _ is the most flexible, and is responsible for varieties of articulation than any other. 2. English consonants can be classified in terms of manner of articulation or in terms of p_ of articulation. 3. When the obstruction created by the speech organs is total or complete, the speech sound produced with the obstruction audibly released and the air passing out again is called a s_. 4. S_ features are the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments. They include stress, tone, intonation, etc. 5. The rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called s_ rules. 6. The transcription of speech sounds with letter-symbols only is called broad transcription while the transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacritics is called n_ transcription. 7. When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as i_. 8. P_ is a discipline which studies the system of sounds of a particular language and how sounds are combined into meaningful units to effect linguistic communication. 9. T_ are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords and which can distinguish meaning just like phonemes. 10. Depending on the context in which stress is considered, there are two kinds of stress: word stress and s_ stress. 1. phoneme 2.allophone 3. International Phonetic Alphabet4. intonation 5. auditory phonetics 6. acoustic phonetics 7. minimal pair1. What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics? 2. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning. 3. In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not? Chapter 3 Morphology1. The morpheme “vision” in the common word “television” is a(n) _. A. bound morphemeB. bound formC. inflectional morphemeD. free morpheme2. The compound word “bookstore” is the place where books are sold. This indicates that the meaning of a compound _.A.is the sum total of the meaning of its componentsB.can always be worked out by looking at the meanings of morphemesC.is the same as the meaning of a free phraseD.None of the above3. The part of speech of the compounds is generally determined by the part of speech of _.A.the first elementB.the second elementC.either the first or the second elementD.both the first and the second elements4. _ are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word.A. Free morphemesB. Bound morphemesC. Bound wordsD. Words 5. The meaning carried by the inflectional morpheme is _. A. lexical B. morphemicC. grammatical D. semantic6. Bound morphemes are those that _. A.have to be used independentlyB.cannot be combined with other morphemesC.can either be free or boundD.have to be combined with other morphemes7. _ modify the meaning of the stem, but usually do not change the part of speech of the original word. A. PrefixesB. SuffixesC. Roots D. Affixes8. “-s” in the word “books” is _. A. a derivative affixB. a stemC. an inflectional affixD. a root1. Although the vast majority of prefixes do not change the original word class, there are prefixes that are class-changing: a-, be-, em-, en-. 2. Inflectional ending can be added to derivational ones, but not vice-versa. 3. The syllabic structure of a word and its morphemic structure must correspond. 4. Derivations can make the word class of the original word either changed or unchanged. 5. Words are the smallest meaningful units of language. 6. The smallest meaningful units that can be used freely all by themselves are free morphemes.7. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree, and case.8. The existing form to which a derivational affix can be added is called a stem, which can be a bound root, a free morpheme, or a derived form itself.9. Prefixes usually modify the part of speech of the original word, not the meaning of it.10. There are rules that govern which affix can be added to what type of stem to form a new word. Therefore, words formed according to the morphological rules are acceptable words.1. morphologymorpheme free morpheme bound morpheme allomorph rootaffix inflection derivation compounding 1. What are the main features of the English compounds? 2. Distinguish between phonologically and morphologically conditioned allomorphs. Give examples.3. Discuss the types of morphemes with examples. 4. What have you learned about the topic of morphology, can you put them into practice in you English learning?Suggested answersI. In each question there are four choices. Decide which one will be the best answer to the question, or will best complete the sentence.1. D2. D3. B4. B5. C6. D7. A8. CII. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False.1. T2. T3. F4. T5. F6. T7. T8. T9. F10. F1. Morphology: Morphology is a branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed. 2. Morpheme: It is the smallest meaningful unit of language. 3. Free morpheme: Free morphemes are the morphemes which are independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves or in combination with other morphemes. 4. Bound morpheme: Bound morphemes are the morphemes which cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word. 5. Root: A root is often seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it bears clear, definite meaning; it must be combined with another root or an affix to form a word. 6. Affix: Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional affixes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories, while derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word. 7. Prefix: Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word. Prefixes modify the meaning of the stem, but they usually do not change the part of speech of the original word. 8. Suffix: Suffixes are added to the end of the stems; they modify the meaning of the original word and in many cases change its part of speech. 9. Derivation: Derivation is a process of word formation by which derivative affixes are added to an existing form to create a word. 10. Compounding: Compounding can be viewed as the combination of two or sometimes more than two words to create new words. V. Answer the following questions. 1. What are the main features of the English compounds? Orthographically a compound can be written as one word, two separate words with or without a hyphen in between. Syntactically, the part of speech of a compound is determined by the last element. Semantically, the meaning of a compound is idiomatic, not calculable from the meanings of all its components. Phonetically, the word stress of a compound usually falls on the first element.2. Distinguish between phonologically and morphologically conditioned allomorphs. Give examples.Morphophonemics is an intermediary level of analysis between phonology and morphology in which the phonological regularities in the framework of morphology, especially the systematic phonological variants of morphemes and the conditions of their occurrence are described. 1) Phonological conditioning of allomorphs. The distribution of the allomorphs of a morpheme is stated in terms of their phonetic environment, e.g. the phonetic variations of the past tense morphemes, -ed, as /d/ in stayed, /t/ in heaped, and /id/ in needed. 2) Morphological conditioning of allomorphs. The morphologically conditioned allomorphs of a morpheme are regarded as irregular in contrast to the phonologically conditioned allomorphs which are regarded as regular. For instance, it is the particular morphemes rather than the sounds of the words that determine the plural forms of nouns. E.g. child: children, foot: feet.3. Discuss the types of morphemes with examples. Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, for example, “book-” in the word “bookish”. Bound morphemes: They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word such as “-ish” in “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning, such as “gene-” in the word “generate”. Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as “-s” in the word “books” to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word such as “mis-” in the word “misinform”. Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word such as “dis- ” in the word “dislike”, while suffixes occur at the end of a word such as “-less” in the word “friendless”. 4. What have you learned about the topic of morphology, can you put them into practice in you English learning?(This is an open question. No answer is provided there.) Chapter 4 Syntax1. Syntax is a subfield of linguistics that studies the sentence structure of language, including the combination of morphemes into words. 2. Grammatical sentences are formed following a set of syntactic rules. 3. Sentences are composed of sequence of words arranged in a simple linear order, with one adding onto another following a simple arithmetic logic.4. Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules that comprise the system of internalized linguistic knowledge of a language speaker are known as linguistic competence. 5. The syntactic rules of any language are finite in number, but there is no limit to the number of sentences native speakers of that language are able to produce and comprehend. 6. In a complex sentence, the two clauses hold unequal status, one subordinating the other. 7. Constituents that can be substituted for one another without loss of grammaticality belong to the same syntactic category.8. Minor lexical categories are open because these categories are not fixed and new members are allowed for.9. In English syntactic analysis, four phrasal categories are commonly recognized and discussed, namely, noun phrase, verb phrase, infinitive phrase, and auxiliary phrase. 10. In English the subject usually precedes the verb and the direct object usually follows the verb.11. What is actually internalized in the mind of a native speaker is a complete list of words and phrases rather than grammatical knowledge.12. A noun phrase must contain a noun, but other elements are optional.13. It is believed that phrase structure rules, with the insertion of the lexicon, generate sentences at the level of D-structure.14. WH-movement is obligatory in English which changes a sentence from affirmative to interrogative.A s_ sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence. 15. A s_ is a structurally independent unit that usually comprises a number of words to form a complete statement, question or command. 16. A s_ may be a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence that usually precedes the predicate.17. The part of a sentence which comprises a finite verb or a verb phrase and which says something about the subject is grammatically called p_.18. A c_ sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other.19. In the complex sentence, the incorporated or subordinate clause is normally called an e_ clause.20. Major lexical categories are o_ categories in the sense that new words are constantly added.21. A _ Condition on case assignment states that a case assignor and a case recipient should stay adjacent to each other.22. P_ are syntactic options of UG that allow general p