2011-12 CUHK Recruitment Test
MA in Linguistics
MA in Chinese Linguistics and Language Acquisition
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Part One
1. Consider the following verbs from Tohono O’odham, a Native American Language
belonging to the Uto-Aztecan family, and answer questions A and B.
Tohono O’odham English translation
Singular
1.ñeok speaks
2.him walks
3.dagkon wipes
4.helwuin is sliding
5.’ul sticks out
Plural
1.ñeñeok we/you/they speak
2.hihim we/you/they walk
3.dadagkon we/you/they wipe
4.hehelwuin we/you/they are sliding
5.’u’ul we/you/they stick out
Questions
A.Describe, as precisely as you can, how the plural verbs are formed from the
singular verbs. (What must be done to a singular form in order to convert it into a plural form?)
B.What is the name of the morphological process illustrated in the data?
2. Examine the following data from French and answer questions A-D. (Assume that
/e/~/ɛ/, /ö/~/ɔ/, and /o/~/ɔ/ form three pairs of allophones, i.e., 音位变体).
French words English translation
1./bote/ beauté beauty
2./bɛl/ belle beautiful
3./pö/ peu small amount
4./pɔr/ peur fear
5./mo/ mot word
6./mɔr/ mort death
Questions
A.In what environment do /e/, /ö/, and /o/ occur?
B.In what environment do /ɛ/, /ɔ/, and /ɔ/ occur?
C.According to the following chart, what single feature distinguishes /e/, /ö/, and /o/
from /ɛ/, /ɔ/, and /ɔ/?
________________________________________________
e ɛö ɔo ɔ
Back – – – – + +
Round – – + + + +
Tense + – + – + –
D.The word bête ‘beast’ is pronounced [bɛt]. What role do you think the symbols ^
is playing here? (Hint: Note that the final orthographic e is not pronounced. Also, an alternative spelling in an earlier stage of French was bette.)
3. Show the internal structure of each of the phrases below by means of labeled
bracketing or a tree diagram:
A. the student with blue eyes
B. that girl at the dance party last week
C. a student of English
Part Two
Answer one of the questions below in either English or Chinese:
1. Question 1
(a)In the English sentence ‘Mary said Kitty liked herself’, what does ‘herself’ refer
to? What syntactic category does ‘herself’ belong to?
(b)Think about your own native language. Does it also contain words such as
‘herself’? If yes, what are they? In what ways are they similar to or different
from English in terms of what they actually refer to in a sentence? Provide
examples to justify your answers.
2. Question 2
Compare and contrast the following types of SLA analysis. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of them? Illustrate your answers with examples.
a)Contrastive analysis
b)Error analysis
c)Interlanguage analysis
Part Three
Choose one of the following questions and write a one-page essay in response to the questions. Please use English, as much as you can, to answer the question. Please quote the name of the author(s) whose work(s) you refer to in your answer to observe academic honesty.
(1)What are the differences between children's first language acquisition and adult's
second language acquisition? Please identify and elaborate three major differences from cognitive, environmental, and affective points of view.
(2)Reflect on language reform in China since 1949. Discuss the achievements and
shortcomings in one aspect of the reform (such as the popularization of Putonghua, the promotion of Pinyin, or the simplification of the Chinese characters).
(3)Discuss examples of reciprocal and non-reciprocal use of address terms and
discuss their significance in the particular culture involved.
(4)Discuss the importance of phonological awareness in vocabulary acquisition with
reference to the structure of the human memory. What are the components of the working memory? How does each of these components function in vocabulary acquisition, and how does the working memory interact with the long-term memory?。