语言学概论作业Chapter 11.How do you interpret the following definition of linguistics: linguistics is thescientific study of language?To understand this definition, we should focus on three words in this sentence: scientific, study and language. First of all, scientific here means a study which is based on the systematic investigation of linguistic data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure. The linguist studies it to discover the nature and rules of the underlying language system. Secondly, the word study here refers to investigation or examination. Thirdly, Language here is general term. It refers to any human language, Chinese spoken by the Chinese, English by the English people, German by the Germans, or even Esperanto, an artificial language. Language here also means the dialects or variants of a common language such as Cantonese, a variant of Mandarin.Therefore, this whole sentence can be interpreted that linguistics is a language study through the systematic investigation of linguistic data and some general theory of language structure.2.What are the major branches of linguistics? What does each of them study?Phonetics:the study of sounds used in linguistic communication.It describes individual speech sounds and indicates their physical or phoneticproperties.Phonology:it studies the ways in which these sounds form patterns and systems and how they work to convey meaning in the system oflanguage.Morphology: a field of linguistics focused on the study of the forms and formation of words in a languageSyntax: A set of rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.Pragmatics: the study of the use of language in a social context.3.In what basic ways does modern linguistics differ from traditional grammar?①Linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive.②Modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written.③Modern linguistics differs from traditional grammar also in that it does notforce languages into a Latin-based framework.4.Is modern linguistics mainly synchronic or diachronic? Why?In modern linguistics, the linguists seem to give priority to synchronic studies other than diachronic ones. Because it is believed that unless the various states ofa language in different historical periods are successfully studied, it would bedifficult to describe the changes that have taken place in its historical development. That is to say, the diachronic studies should be based on synchronic ones. Synchronic descriptions are often thought of as being description of a language in its current existence. And most linguistic studies are of this type.5.For what reasons does modern linguistics give priority to speech rather than towriting?①The writing system is invented by its users when needed②Today there are languages which can only be spoken but not written③Speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of informationconveyed in daily communication④Each human being first acquires speech and then learns writing⑤Modern linguistics tends to pay more attention to authentic speech as spokenlanguage reveals more true features of human speech while written language is only the “revised” record of speech.6.How is Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole similar to Chomsky’sdistinction between competence and performance?They are similar in two aspects: the definition and the content of study.On one hand, Saussure defines langue as the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole as the realization of langue in actual use. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language, and performance the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. We can see that langue and competence both refer to the abstract issue, conventions and knowledge, and parole and performance both are their actual realization, the concrete use.On the other hand, in Saussure’s opinion, what linguists should do is to abstract langue from parole as parole is too varied and confusing. And this is the same as Chomsky. He thinks linguists should study the ideal speaker’s competence, not his performance, which is too haphazard to be studied.7.What characteristics of language do you think should be included in a good,comprehensive definition of language?The important characteristics which should be included in a good definition of language are separately: systematic, arbitrary and vocal.First of all, language is a system. It has its own set of rules for people to abide by, or people will use the language in a wrong way.Second, language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between a linguistic symbol and what the symbol stands for. The fact that different languages have different words for the same object is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of languge.Third, language is vocal because the primary medium for all languages is sound.8.What are the main features of human language that have been specified byC.Hockett to show that it is essentially different from animal communicationsystem?1)Arbitrariness: no natural/motivated/logical relationship between the sign andwhat the sign stands for.2)Productivity:provides opportunities for sending messages that have neverbeen sent before and for understanding novel messages.3) Duality: language is a system, which consists of two sets of stuctures, or twolevels.4) Displacement: can be used to refer to things real or imagined, past, present orfuture5) Cultural transmission9.What are the major functions of language?1)descriptive function2)expressive function3)social functionChapter 31.Divide the following words into their separate morphemes by placing a “+”between each morpheme and the next:a.microfilm: micro+filmb.bedraggled: be+draggle+edc.announcement: announce+mentd.predigestion: pre+digest+ione.telecommunication: tele+communicate+ionf.forefather: fore+fatherg.psychophysic: psycho+physich.mechanist: mechan+ist2.Think of three morpheme suffixes, give their meaning and specify the types ofstem they may be suffixed to. Give at least two examples of each.1)suffix: -ingmeaning: denoting a verbal action, an instance of this, or its resultstem type: added to verbsexamples: fighting: denote the action of battlebuilding: denote the action of consruction2)suffix: -ablemeaning: able to bestem type: added to verbsexamples: avoidable: able to be prevented fromcalculable: able to be measured or assessed3)suffix: -istmeaning:denoting a member of a profession or business activitystem type: added to nounsexamples: dramatist : a person who writes playsdentist: a person who treats the teeth disease3.Think of three morpheme prefixes, give their meaning, and specify the types ofstem they may be prefixed to. Give at least two examples of each.1)prefix: un-meaning: denoting the absence of a quality or state; notstem type: added to nounsexamples: unacademic: not adopting or characteristic of a scholarlyapproach or languageunhappy: not happy2)prefix: anti-meaning: opposed to; againststem type: added to nounsexamples: anti-abortion: opposing or legislating against medicallyinduced abortionanti-art: against the traditional art3)prefix: re-meaning:once more; afresh; anewstem type: added to verbsexamples: restart: start once morereaccustom: accustom (someone) to something again4.The italicized part in each of the following sentences is an inflectional morpheme.Study each inflectional morpheme carefully and point out its grammatical meaning.1)Sue moves in high-society circles in London.The third person singular2)A traffic warden asked John to move his car.The past tense3)The club has moved to Friday, February 22nd.The present perfect4)The branches of the trees are moving back and forth.The present progressive5.Detemine whether the words in each of the following groups are related to oneanother by process of inflection or derivation.a)go, goes, going, goneprocess of inflectionb)discover, discovery, discoverer, discoverable, discoverabilityprocess of derivationc)inventor, inventor’s inventors, inventors’process of inflectiond)democracy, democrat, democratic, democratizeprocess of derivation6.The following sentences contain both derivational and inflectional affixes.Underline all of the derivational affixes and circle the inflectional affixes.a)The farmer’s cows escaped.Derivational affixes: -erInflectional affixes: ‘s, -s, -edb)It was raining.Derivational affixes:noneInflectional affixes: -ingc)Those socks are inexpensive.Derivational affixes: in-Inflectional affixes: -sd)Jim needs the newer copy.Derivational affixes: -erInflectional affixes: -se)The strongest rower continued.Derivational affixes: -est, -erInflectional affixes: -edf)She quickly closed the book.Derivational affixes: -lyInflectional affixes: -edg)The alphabetization went well.Derivational affixes:-ionInflectional affixes: wentChapter 51.What are the major views concerning the study of meaning?1)The naming theory was proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. Thelinguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words used in a language are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for; words are just names or labels for things. The semantic relationship holding between words and things is the relationship of naming.2)The conceptualist view: This view holds that there is no direct link betweena linguistic form and what it refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaningthey are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. This is best illustrated by the semantic triangle suggested by Ogden and Richards:3)Contextualism: Representatively proposed by the British linguist J. R. Firthwho had been influenced by the Polish anthropologist Malinowski and the German philosopher Wittgenstein.It holds that meaning should be studied in terms of situation, use, context –elements closely linked with language behavior. …the meaning of a word is its use in the language.4)Behaviourism: Based on contextualist view by Bloomfield who drew onbehaviorist psychology in defining “meaning”.Behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a language from as the “situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer.”This theory, somewhat close to contextualism, is linked with psychological interest.2.What are the major types of synonyms in English?1)dialectal synonyms-----synonyms used in different regional2)Stylistic synonyms: synonyms differing in style3)Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning4)Collocational synonyms: what words they go together with5)Semantically different synonyms: differ from the words themselves3.Explain with examples “homonymy”, “po lysemy”, and “hyponymy”.1)Homonymy: Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words havingdifferent meanings have the same form, i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones. When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. When tow words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are complete homonyms. The examples are as followed:Homophones: rain/reign night/knight piece/peaceHomographs: bow v./bow n. tear v./tear n.Complete homonyms: fast adj./fast v.2)Polysemy: while different words may have the same or similar meaning, thesame one word may have more than one meaning. This is what we call polysemy, and such a word is called a polysemic word. The more commonly used a word is, the more likely it has acquired more than one meaning. For example, the word table has at least six meanings when we look it up in the dictionary:1. a piece of furniture2.all the people seated at a table3.the food that is put on a table4. a thin flat piece of stone, mental, wood, etc5.orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc6.part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to beoperated on3)Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, moreinclusive word and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate, and the more specific words are calledits hyponyms. Hyponyms of the same superordinate are co-hyponyms to each other. For example,Superordiante: flowerHyponyms: rose, tulip, carnation, lily, morning golory4.How can words opposite in meaning be classified? To which category does eachof the following pairs of antonyms belong?①north/south ②vacant/occupied ③literate/illiterate ④above/below⑤doctor/patient ⑥wide/narrow ⑦poor/rich ⑧father/daughterGradable antonyms: literate/illiterate wide/ poor/richComplementary antonyms: vacant/occupiedRelational opposite: north/south dotor/patient father/daughter5.Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences:①Tom’s wife is pregnant. Tom has a wife.②My sister will soon be divorced. My sister is a married woman.③He likes seafood. He likes crabs.④They are going to have another baby. They have a child.X presupposes Y(Y is a prerequisite of X): ①②④X entails Y(Y is an entailment of X): ③6.In what way is componential analysis similar to the analysis of phonemes intodistinctive features?Componential analysis is a way proposed by the structural semanticists to analyze word meaning. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. And that is similar to the analysis of phonemes into distinctive features.7.What is grammaticality? What might make a grammatically meaningful sentencesemantically meaningless?The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, especially its grammatical well-formedness. Selectional restrictions, which means the constraints on what lexical items can go with what others, might make a grammatically meaningful sentence semantically meaningless.8.Try to analyze the following sentences in terms of predication analysis:①The man sells ice-cream. ②Is the baby sleeping?③It is snowing. ④The tree grows well.1.MAN, ICE-CREAM(SELL)2.BABY(SLEEP)3.(BE SNOW)4.TREE(GROW)Chapter 6 PRAGMATICS1. What does pragmatics study? How does it differ from traditional semantics?答：Generally speaking, pragmatics is the study of meaning in the context. It studies meaning in a dynamic way and as a process. In order to have a successful communication, the speaker and hearer must take the context into their consideration so as to effect the right meaning and intention. The development and establishment pragmatics in 1960s and 1970s resulted mainly from the expansion of the study semantics. However, it is different from the traditional semantics. The major difference between them lies in that pragmatics studies meaning in a dynamic way, while semantics studies meaning in a static way. Pragmatics takes context into consideration while semantics does not. Pragmatics takes care of the aspect of meaning that is not accounted for by semantics.2. Why is the notion of context essential in the pragmatic study of linguistic communication?答：The notion of context is essential to the pragmatic study of language. It is generally considered as constituted by the knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer. Various continents of shared knowledge have been identified, e.g. knowledge of the language they use, knowledge of what has been said before, knowledge about the world in general, knowledge about the specific situation in which linguistic communication is taking place, and knowledge about each other. Context determines the speaker's use of language and also the heater's interpretation of what is said to him. Without such knowledge, linguistic communication would not be possible, and without considering such knowledge, linguistic communication cannot be satisfactorily accounted for in a pragmatic sense. Look at the following sentences:(1) How did it go?(2) It is cold in hem.(3) It was a hot Christmas day so we went down to the beach in the afternoon and had a good time swimming and surfing.Sentence (1) might be used in a conversation between two students talking about an examination, or two surgeons talking about an operation, or in some other contexts; (2) might be said by the speaker to ask the hearer to turn on the heater, or leave the place, or to put on more clothes, or to apologize for the poor condition of the room, depending on the situation of context; (3) makes sense only ii the hearer has the knowledge that Christmas falls in summer in the southern hemisphere.3. How are sentence meaning and utterance meaning related, and how do they differ?答： A sentence is a grammatical concept, and the meaning of a sentence is often studied as the abstract, intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of predication. But if we think of a sentence as what people actuallyutter in the course of communication, it becomes an utterance, and it should be considered in the situation in which it is actually uttered (or used). So it is impossible to tell if “The dog is barking” is a sentence or an utterance. It can be either. It all depends on how we look at it and how we are going to analyze it. If we take it as a grammatical unit and consider it as a self-contained unit in isolation from context, then we are treating it as a sentence. If we take it as something a speaker utters in a certain situation with a certain purpose, then we are treating it as an utterance.Therefore, while the meaning of a sentence is abstract, and decontextualized, that of an utterance is concrete, and context-dependent. The meaning of an utterance is based on sentence meaning; it is the realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context. Now, take the sentence "My bag is heavy" as an example. Semantic analysis of the meaning of the sentence results in the one-place predication BAG (BEING HEA VY). Then a pragmatic analysis of the utterance meaning of the .sentence varies with the context in which it is uttered. For example, it could be uttered by a speaker as a straightforward statement, telling the hearer that his bag is heavy. It could also be intended by the speaker as an indirect, polite request, asking the hearer to help him carry the bag. Another possibility is that the speaker is declining someone's request for help. All these are possible interpretations of the same utte rance “My bag is heavy”. How it is to be understood depends on the context in which it is uttered and the purpose for which the speaker utters it.While most utterances take the form of grammatically complete sentences, some utterances do not, and some cannot even be restored to complete sentences.4. Try to think of contexts in which the following sentences can be used for other purposes than just stating facts:a) The room is messy.b) Oh, it is raining!c) The music of the movie is good.d) You have been keeping my notes for a whole week now.答：a) A father entered his son’s room and found it is very messy. Then when he said, “The room is messy,”he was blaming his son for not tidying it up.b) A son asked his father to play with him outside. So when the father said, “Oh, it’s raining”, he meant they couldn’t play outside.c) Two persons just watched a movie and had a discussion of it. One person said, “The story of the movie is very moving”, so when the other person said, “The music of the movie is good”, he meant he didn't think the story of the movie was good.d) A person wanted his notes back, so when he said, “you have been keeping my notes for a whole week now”, he was demanding the return of his notes.5. According to Austin, what are the three acts a person is possiblyperforming while making an utterance. Give an example.答：According to Austin's new model, a speaker might be performing three acts simultaneously when speaking: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.A locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology. An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention; it is the act performed in saying something. A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance; it is the act performed by saying something. Let's look at an example:You have left the door wide open.The locutionary act performed by the speaker is his utterance of the words “you”, “have”, “door”, “open”, etc. thus expressing what the words literally mean.The illocutionary act performed by the speaker is that by making such an utterance he has expressed his intention of speaking, i.e. asking someone to close the door, or making a complaint, depending on the context.The perlocutionary act refers to the effect of the utterance. If the hearer gets the speaker's message and sees that the speaker means to tell him to close the door, the speaker has successfully brought about the change in the real world he has intended to; then the perlocutionary act is successfully performed.6. What are the five types of illocutionary speech acts Searle has specified? What is the illocutionary point of each type?答：(1) representatives: stating or describing, saying what the speaker believes to be true(2) directives: trying to get the hearer to do something(3) commissives: committing the speaker himself to some future course of action(4) expressives: expressing feelings or attitude towards an existing(5) declarations: bringing about immediate changes by saying somethingThe illocutionary point of the representatives is to commit the speaker to something's being the case, to the truth of what has been said, in other words, when performing an illocutionary act of representative, the speaker is making a statement or giving a description which he himself believes to be true. Stating, believing, sweating, hypothesizing are among the most typical of the representatives.Directives ate attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do some- thing. Inviting, suggesting, requesting, advising, wanting, threatening and ordering are all specific instances of this class.Commissives are those illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action, i.e. when speaking the speakerputs himself under a certain obligation. Promising, undertaking, vowing are the most typical ones.The illocutionary point of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the utterance. The speaker is expressing his feelings or attitudes towards an existing state of affairs, e.g. apologizing, thanking, congratulating.The last class “declarations” has the characteristic that the successful performance of an act of this type brings about the correspondence between what is said and reality.7. What is indirect language use? How is it explained in the light of speech act theory?答：When someone is not saying I an explicit and straightforward manner what he means to say, rather he is trying to put across his message in an implicit, roundabout way, we can say he is using indirect language. Explanation (略) (见教材p.84-85)8. What are the four maxims of the CP? Try to give your own examples to show how flouting these maxims gives rise to conversational implicature? 答：Cooperative Principle, abbreviated as CP. It goes as follows: Make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.To be more specific, there are four maxims under this general principle:(1) The maxim of quantity①Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purpose of the exchange).②Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.(2) The maxim of quality①Do not say what you believe to be false.②Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.(3) The maxim of relationBe relevant.(4) The maxim of manner①Avoid obscurity of expression.②Avoid ambiguity.③Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).④Be orderly.9. What is pragmatic failure? Try to find instances of pragmatic failure in the English used by Chinese learners of English.答：The technical term for breakdowns in the course of communication is pragmatic failure. Pragmatic failure occurs when the speaker fails to use language effectively to achieve a specific communication purpose, or when the hearer fails to recognize the intention or the illocutionary force of the speaker’s utterance in the context of communication.Instances (略) (见教材p.89)syntax1. Indicate the category of each word in the following sentences.a) The old lady suddenly left.Det A N Qual Vb) The car stopped at the end of the road.Det N V P Det N P Det Nc) The snow might have blocked the road.Det N Aux Aux V Det Nd) He never appears quite mature.N Qual V Deg A2. The following phrases include a head, a complement, and a specifier. Draw the appropriate tree structure for each.a) full of peopleAPA P Nfull of peopleb) a story about a sentimental girlNPNP PPDet N P NPDet A Na story about a sentimental girlc) often read detective storiesVPQual V NPA Noften read detective storiesd) the argument against the proposalsNPNP PPDet N P NPDet Nthe argument against the proposalse) move towards the windowVPV PPP Det Nmove towards the window3. Draw phrase structure trees for each of the following sentences.a) The jet landed.InflP(=S)NP Infl VPDet N Pst VThe jet landedb) Mary became very ill.InflP(=S)NP Infl VPN Pst V APDeg AMary became very illc) What will you talk about?CPNP C SN Infl NP Infl VPVP NPV P NSNP VPDet N Aux V NPDet N The apple might hit the manORInflP(=S)NP Infl VPDet N V NPDet N The apple might hit the mane) He often reads detective stories.SNP VPN Qual V NPA NHe often reads etective storiesORInflP(=S)NP Infl VPPresN Qual V NPA NHe often reads etective stories4. The following sentences contain modifiers of various types. For each sentence, first identify the modifier(s), then draw the tree structures.a) A frightened passenger landed the crippled airplane.InflP(=S)NP Infl VPDet A N Pst V NPDet A NA frightened passenger landed the crippled airplaneb) A huge moon hung in the black sky.InflP(=S)NP Infl VPDet A N Pst V PPP NPDet A NA huge moon hung in the black skyc) An unusual event occurred before the meeting.InflP(=S)NP Infl VPDet A N Pst V PPP NPDet NAn unusual event occurred before the meetingd) A quaint old house appeared on the grassy hill.InflP(=S)NP Infl VPDet A NP Pst V PPA N P NPDet A NA quaint old house appeared on the grassy hill5. The following sentences all contain conjoined categories. Draw a tree structure for each of the sentences.a) Jim has washed the dirty shirts and pants.InflP(=S)NP VPN Aux V NPDet A NPN CON NJim has washed the dirty shirts and pantsORInflP(=S)NP VPN Infl V NPDet A NPN CON NJim has washed the dirty shirts and pantsb) Helen put on her clothes and went out.SNP VPN VP CON VP。