语言学问答题.doc

现代语言学问答题1. What are the main features of human language that have been specified by C. Hockett to show that it is essentially different from animal communication system?Arbitrariness It means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. A good example is the fact that different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages.ProductivityLanguage is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. This is why they can produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences.DualityLanguage is a system, which consists of two sets of structures. At the lower level there is a structure of sounds, which are meaningless by themselves. But the sounds of language can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning, which are found at the higher level of the system. Then the units at the higher level can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences.DisplacementLanguage can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker. This property provides speakers with an opportunity to talk about a wide range of things, free from barriers caused by separation in time or place.Cultural transmissionLanguage is culturally transmitted. It is passed on from one generation to the next through teaching and learning rather than by instinct. In contrast, animal call systems are genetically transmitted.2. How are the English consonants classified? 1)by manner of articulation. a.stops（plosive爆破音）: p,b,t,d,k,g b.fricatives（磨擦音）: f,v,s,z, , , , , h c.affricates（破擦音）: t, d d.liquids（lateral边音，流音）: l, r e.nasals（鼻音）: m, n, f.glides （semivowels半元音）: w, j 2)by place of articulation : a.bilabial（双唇音）: p,b,m,w b.labiodental（唇齿音）: f,v c.dental（舌齿音）: , d.alveolar（齿龈音）: t,d,s,z,n,l,r e.palatal（腭音）: , , t , d, j f.velar（软腭音）: k, g, g.glottal（喉音，声门单）: h 3. What criteria are used to classify the English vowels? 英语的元音是如何分类的？ 1) According to the position of the tongue, vowels may be distinguished as front vowels such as i: i e a, central vowels such as : , and back vowels such as u: : :2) According to the openness of the mouth, we classify the vowels into four groups: close vowels such as i: i u: , semi-close vowels such as e :, semi-open vowels such as :, and open vowels such as a and :. 3) According to the shape of the lips, vowels are divided into rounded vowels and unrounded vowels. In English all the front and central vowels are unrounded vowels, all the back vowels, with exception of :, are rounded.4) According to the length of the vowels, the English vowels can also be classified into long vowels and short vowels. The long vowels include i: : : u: :，while the rest are short vowels. 4. What are phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, and minimal pair? If two phonetically similar sounds can occur in the same environments and they distinguish meaning, they are in phonemic contrast. p, bIf two phonetically similar sounds are two allophones of the same phoneme and they occur in different environments, they are said to be in complementary distribution. p, ph. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair. For example, kill and bill.5. Explain with examples the sequential rule, the assimilation rule, and the deletion rule.Sequential rule refers to the rule that governs the combination of sounds in a particular language. For example, if a word begins with a l or a r , then the next sound must be a vowel.If three consonants should cluster together at the beginning of a word, the combination should obey the following three rules:the first phoneme must be /s/the second phoneme must be /p/ or /t/ or /k/the third phoneme must be /l/ or /r/ or /w/Assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar. For example, the i: sound in words like bean, green, team, and scream. This is because in all these sound combinations the i: sound is followed by a nasal n or m.Deletion rule tells us when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented. For example, in the pronunciation of the word sign or design, there is no g sound although it is represented in spelling by the letter g. But in their corresponding forms signature, designation, the g represented by the letter g is pronounced. The rule: delete a g when it occurs before a final nasal consonant.6. What are suprasegmental features? How do the major suprasegmental features of English function in conveying meaning?Suprasegmental features are phonological features above the sound segment level.The major suprasegmental features in English are word stress, sentence stress and intonation.1)The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, such as import and import. The similar alternation of stress also occurs between a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same elements. A phonological feature of the English compounds is that the stress of the word always falls on the first element and the second element receives secondary stress, for example: blackbird is a particular kind of bird, which is not necessarily black, but a black bird is a bird that is black. 2) Sentence stress refers to the relative force which is given to the words in a sentence. The more important words such as nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and demonstrative pronouns, are pronounced with greater force and made more prominent. And the other categories of words (articles, personal pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions) are usually not stressed. But to give special emphasis to a certain notion, a word in sentence that is usually unstressed can be stressed to achieve different effect. Take the sentence “He is driving my car.” For example, to emphasize the fact that the car he is driving is not his, or yours, but mine, the speaker can stress the possessive pronoun my, which under normal circumstances is not stressed. 3)English has four basic types of intonation: When spoken in different tones, the same sequence of words may have different meanings. Generally speaking, the falling tone indicates that what is said is a straight-forward, matter-of-fact statement, the rising tone often makes a question of what is said, and the fall-rise tone often indicates that there is an implied message in what is said. 7. 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”.8. What is the relation between sense and reference?Sense and reference are two terms in the study of meaning. (1) Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning that dictionary compilers are interested in. Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. (2) Obviously, linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations. On the other hand, there are less frequent occasions when linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense, e.g. “morning star” and “evening star”. 9. What are the major lexical sense relations?1) Synonymy a) Dialectal synonyms - regional dialectse.g. British English: autumn/lift American English: fall/elevatorb) Stylistic synonymse.g. old man, daddy, dad, father, male parentc) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaninge.g. collaborator & accompliced) collocational synonymse.g. accuseof/ chargewith/ rebukefore) semantically different synonymse.g. amaze: confusion and bewilderment astound: difficulty in believing2) Polysemye.g. “table” has many meanings such as 1.a piece of furniture 2. a level area, a plateau and etc.3) HomonymyHomophones: identical in sound e.g. night/ knightHomographs: identical in spelling e.g. bow v./ bow n.4) Hyponymye.g. superordinate: furniturehyponyms: bed, table5) Antonymya) Gradable antonymse.g. old and young are immediately recognized as antomyms, between which there exist intermediate forms such as “mature”, “middle-aged”b) complementary antonymse.g. a person can be either alive or dead; there is no third possibilityc) Relational oppositese.g. husband and wife are a paior of relational opposites.10. Illustrate Searles classification of speech acts with examples.According to Searle, speech acts fall in five general categories. Specific acts that fall into each type share the same illocutionary point, but differ in their strength.1) Representatives/assertives: stating or describing, saying what the speaker believes to be trueTypical cases: stating, believing, swearinge.g. (I swear)I have never seen the man before.(I state)The earth is a globe.2) Directives: trying to get the hearer to do somethingTypical cases: Inviting, suggesting, requesting, advising, warning, threatening, orderinge.g. Open the window, please.Youd better go to the clinic.3) Commissives: committing the speaker himself to some future course of actionTypical cases: Promising, undertaking, vowinge.g. I promise to come.4) Expressives: expressing feelings of attitude towards an existing stateTypical cases: apologizing, thanking, congratulatinge.g. Im sorry for the mess I have made.Its really kind of you to have thought of me.5) Declarations: bringing about immediate changes by saying somethingThe successful performance of an act of this type brings about the correspondence between what is said and reality.e.g. I now declare the meeting open.I fire you!11. Illustrate Grices Cooperative Principle with examples.Grices Cooperative Principle consists of four maxims: QUANTITY, QUALITY, RELATION, and MANNER.1)A: What are you reading?B: A book.A knows B is reading a book, and is asking about the content of the book. Simply by saying a book, B is not offering enough information. The implicature here is: I do not want to talk to you right now. In this case, the maxim of QUANTITY is violated.2)He is made of iron.Our common sense tells us no human being is made of iron. Obviously this is a false statement and has violated the maxim of QUALITY. The implicature here is: he is as strong as iron.3)A: Mrs. Smith was such a bore at the party last night.B: Its really chilly here. I want to go out to warm up.When A is talking about Mrs. Smith, B turns to talk about something totally irrelevant. Therefore the maxim of RELATION is violated. The implicature here is: It is impolite to say that.4)a. Miss Smith sang Home sweet home.b. Miss Smith produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the song of Home sweet home.The two sentences actually are basically talking about the same thing. But sentence b is stated in such a way that makes it more obscure for the audience and therefore violates the maxim of MANNER. The implicature here is: Miss Smith does not sing well and I do not like her singing.12. With examples, give some plausible explanations for linguistic change.The rapid development of science and technology e.g. fax, laser printer, hi-tech, CD-ROM, laptop computer and etc.Social and political changes and political needs e.g. mini-summit, jungle war, Euro and etc.more and more women have taken up activities formerly reserved for mene.g. chairman-chairpersonfireman-fire fighterpoliceman-police officerThe way children acquire a languagee.g. “Its I.”-“Its me”.Economy of memory(results in grammar simplification)e.g. By analogy to foe/foes, dog/dogs, speaker started saying cows as the plural of cow instead of kine.Theory of least efforte.g. Cheap is always used in the place of cheaplySimplification of grammar occurs, so does elaboration and complication.13. Is standard language better than non-standard language? Explain your answer. The standard language is a superposed, socially prestigious dialect of language. It is the language employed by the government and the judiciary system, used by the mass media, and taught in educational institutions, including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language. Nonstandard, or vernacular, languages are language varieties other than the standard language. Standard language is not superior to nonstandard language at all. The designation of the standard language variet