英语语言学复习题

1.What are the major types of sentences? Illustrate them with examples.

Traditionally, there are three major types of sentences. They are simple sentence, coordinate( compound) sentence, and complex sentence. A simple sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence, for example: John reads extensively. A coordinate sentence contains two clauses joined by a linking word that is called coordinating conjunction, such as "and", "but", "or". For example: John is reading a linguistic book, and Mary is preparing for her history exam. A complex sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other. The two clauses in a complex sentence do not have equal status, one is subordinate to the other. For exam­ple: Before John gave her a lecture, Mary showed no interest in lin­guistics.

2. What is language?

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

Design features of language:

Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the difference between human language and any system of animal communication.

(1)Arbitrariness is the core feature of language, which means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. Arbitrariness is a matter of degree.

(2)Duelity of structure refers to the fact that in all languages so far investigated, one finds two levels of structure or patterning.At the first level, language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningfulunits(such as morphemes, words etc.); at the second , lower level, it is seen as sequence of segments which lack any meaning in themselves, but which combine to form units of meaning.

(3)Productivity refers to the ability to construct and understand an difinitely large number of sentences in one's language, including those that one has never heard before.

(4)Displacement refers to the fact that one can talk about things that are not present, as easily as he does things present.

(5)Cultural transmission shows that language is not biologically transmitted from generation to generation, but have to be learned and taught.

(6)Interchangeability means that any human being can be both a producer and a receiver of messages.

3. The orgin of language

(1)The bow-bow theory: in primitive times people imitated the sounds of animal calls in the wild enironment they lived and speech developed from that. Onomatopoetic words seem to be a convenient evidence for this theory.

(2)The pooh-pooch theory: in the hard life of our primitive ancestors, they utter instinctive sounds of pain, anger, and joy.

(3)The "yo-he-yo" theory: as primitive people worked together, they produced some rhythmic grunts which gradually developed into chants and then into language.

4. Functions of language

(1)The informative function is regarded as the most important function of language

(2)The interpersonal function is the most important sociological use of language by which people establish and maintain their status in a society.

(3)The performative function is primarily to change the social status of persons, as in marriage ceremonies. the language used is quite formal and even ritualized.

(4)The emotive function changes the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or something. It is similar to expressive function but the latter can be totally without any implication of communication to others.

(5)the phatic communion enables people to maintain a comfortable relationship without involving any factual content.

(6)the recreational function refers to the use of language for the sheer joy of using it, such as a baby's babbling or a chanter's chanting.

(7)The metlingual function means that we can use language to talk about language.

5. What is linguistics?

Linguistics is the study scientific study of language. It studies not any particular language , but is based on the systematic investigation of linguistic data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure. The four principles that make linguistics a science are exhausiveness, consistency, economy and objectivity.

6. Some basic distinctions in linguistics

(1)Speech and Writing

One general principle of linguistic analysis is the primacy of speech over writing. Writing gives language new scope and uses that speech doesnot have

(2)Descriptive(描述性) or Prescriptive(说明性)

A linguistic study is descriptive if it describes and analyzes facts observed; it is prescriptive if it tries to lay down rules for "correct" behavour.

(3)Synchronic(共时) and Diachronic(历时)

The description of a language at some point of in time is a sychronic study and the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study.

(4)Langue(语言) and Parole(言语)

This is the distinction made by the Swiss linguistist F. De Saussure early last century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and parole refers to the actualized language, or the realization of langue.

(5) Competence(能力) and Performance(行为)

Competence is the ideal language user's knowledge of the rules of his language. Performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in utterances(发声).

(6)linguistic potential/linguistic behavior

7. The scope of linguistics

(1) General linguistics is the study of language as a whole.

(2) Phonetics is the branch of linguistics which studies the characteristics of speech sounds and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription.

(3) Phonology is the branch of linguistics which studies the sound patterns of languages.

(4) Morphology is the branch of linguistics which studies the form of words.

(5) Syntax is the branch of linhguistics which studies the rules of governing the combination of words into sentences.

(6) Semantics is the branch of linguistics which studies the meaning of language.

(7) Applied linguistics is the study of the teaching of foreign and second languages.

(8) Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society.

(9) Psycholinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and the mind.

(10)Historical linguistics is the study of language changes.

(11)Anthropological linguistics uses the thoeries and mathods of anthropology to study language variation and language use in relation to the cultural patterns and beliefs of mman.

(12)Neurolinguistics studies the neurological basis of language development and use in human beings.

(13)Mathematical linguistics studies the mathematicaol features of language, often employing models and concepts of mathematics.

(14)Computational linguistics is an approach to linguistics in which mathematical techniques and concepts are

applied, often with the aid of a computer.

8. How are semantics and pragmatics different from each other?

Traditional semantics studied meaning, butte meaning of language was considered as something intrinsic, and inherent, i.e. a property attached to language itself. Therefore, meanings of words, meanings of sentences were all studied in an isolated manner, detached from the context in which they were used. Pragmatics studies meaning not in isolation, but in context. The essential distinction between semantics and pragmatics is whether the context of use is considered in the study of mean­ ing. If it is not considered, the study is restricted to the area of traditional semantics; if it is considered, the study is being carried out in the area of pragmatics

9. How does a sentence differ from an utterance?

A sentence is a grammatical concept. It usually consists of a subject and predicate. An utterance is the unit of communication. It is the smallest linguistic unit that has a communicative value. If we regard a sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication, it becomes an utterance. Whether “Mary is beautiful.” is a sentence or an utterance de­ pends on how we look at it. If we regard it as a grammatical unit or a self-contained unit in isolation, then it is a sentence. If we look at it as something uttered in a certain situation with a certain purpose, then it is an utterance. Most utter­ ances take the form of complete sentences, but some utterances are not, and some cannot even be restored to complete sentences.

10. speech organs

Speech organs are the human body involved in the production of speech, including the lungs, the trachea, the throat, the nose, and the mouth.

When the vocal folds are apart , the air can pass through easily and the sound produced is said to be VOICELESS. When they are close together, the airstream causes them to vibrate against each other and the resultant sound is said to be VOICED.

When they are totally closed, no air can pass between them. THe result of this gesture is the glottal stop[?].

11. Morpheme and Morphology

(1) Morpheme is the smallest unit of language, a unit that cannot be divided into futher smaller units without detroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical.

(2) Morphology studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed, including inflection and word formation.

12. Major branches of phonetics

Phonetics----it’s defined as the study of the phonic medium of language, it’s concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world’s languages. Phonetics is the study of all speech sounds used in human languages whereas phonology is the study of a subset of those sounds that constitute a language and express meanings.There are three branches of phonetics, articulatory phonetics, auditory phonetics and acoustic phonetics.

13. Allophone : the different members of a phoneme, sounds that are phonetically different but do not make one word different from another in meaning, are allophone. For example, the phoneme /l/ in English can be realized as dark〖l〗,clear〖l〗, which are allophones of the phoneme /l/.

Phone: a phonetic unit or segment which occurs in the language is called a phone.

Compare: Morpheme-morph-allomorph and phoneme-phone-allophone

The relationship between a morpheme and its morphs and allomorphs is parallel to the relationship between

a phoneme and its phones and allophones.

A morpheme is manifested as one or more morphs (surface forms) in different environments. These morphs

are called allomorphs.

A phoneme is manifested as one or more phones (phonetic sounds) in different environments. These phones

are called allophones.

14.what is miminal pair and what is minimal set? Why is it important to identify them in a language? Minimal pairs are two words which are identical in every way except for one sound segments that occurs in the same position in the string. So in english ,Pill and Bill are a minimal pair, and so are pill and till, till and kill, kill and dill. Accordingly, we can conclude that /p/ ,/b/,/t/,/d/ are phonemes in english. Then all these sound combinations together constitute a minimal set; they are identical in form except for the initial consonant. By identifying the minimal pair or the minimal set of a language, a linguists can identify its phonemes.

15. How do phonetics and phonology differ in their focus of study?

Phonetics and phonology both study the same aspect of language---- speech sounds, there is a fair degree of overlap in what concerns the two subjects. Without the knowledge of speech sounds provided by phonetic studies, any study of the sound system of a particular language would have been almost impossible.

However, the two subjects approach speech sounds from different points of view.

A) Phonetics provides methods for the description, transcription of sounds for all languages; phonology studies the sound system of a particular language. Therefore, phonetics is general, descriptive, and classificatory; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how they are produced, how they differ from each other, etc. phonological study is particular and functional. It is particular to one language and the conclusion we reach about the phonology of one language should not be generalized into the study of another language. Phonology deals with how human being use speech sounds to express meaning.

B) The basis unit of phonetic study is phone, while that of phonological study is phoneme.

C) A phonetic study is a static one, since it tells us how a sound of a language is made, transmitted and received, whereas a phonological study is a dynamic one, telling how sounds are used to convey meaning.

16. What is a phone? How is it different from a phoneme? How are allophones related to the phoneme? Phone refers to the speech sound we use when speaking a language. Phoneme is the smallest sound unit that can distinguish meaning. However, phoneme is an abstract unit, i.e. it is not a sound, it is a collection of distinctive phonetic features. In actually speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone.

A phoneme can be realized by one or more than one phone. The different phones which represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme. Allophones are actualizations of a phoneme in a particular language that never affect the meaning.

17. What is a minimal pair and what is a minimal set? Why is it important to identify the minimal set in a language?

Minimal pair refers to two expressions (words or morphemes) of a language with different meanings that are distinguished by only one phoneme, e.g. {pig: big}; {tip: dip}; {ship, sheep}.

Minimal set refers to more than two expressions of a language with different meanings that are distinguished by only one phoneme, such as {said: says: set: sell}; {pat: bat: mat}.

Contrasting minimal pairs is a basic procedure in establishing the phonemic inventory of a language.

18. What is the main task for a linguist? State the importance of linguistics.

The main task of a linguist is to discover the nature of the underlying language system, such as how each language is conducted, how it is used by its speakers, and how it is related to other languages, etc.