(完整word版)语言学问答题

4. Do you think that onomatopoeia indicates a non-arbitrary relationship between form and meaning?

Answer：No matter you say \"Yes\" or \"No\a word is onomatopoeic we should first know which sound the word imitates. Just as what is said in Chapter One, in order to imitate the noise of flying mosquitoes, there are many choices like \"murmurous\" and \"murderous\". They both bear more or less resemblance to the genuine natural sound, but \"murmurous\" is fortunately chosen to mean the noise while \"murderous\" is chosen to mean something quite different. They are arbitrary as signifiers.

6. Does the traffic light system have duality? Can you explain by drawing a simple graph?

Answer：Traffic light does not have duality. Obviously, it is not a double-level system. There is only one-to-one relationship between signs and meaning but the meaning units cannot be divided into smaller meaningless elements further. So the traffic light only has the primary level and lacks the secondary level like animals’ calls. Red→stop Green→go Yellow→get ready to go or stop

10. What do you think of Bertrand Russell’s observation of the dog language: “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest”? Are you familiar with any type of ways animals communicate among themselves and with human beings?

Answer：When gazelles sense potential danger, for example, they flee and thereby signal to other gazelles in the vicinity that danger is lurking. A dog signals its wish to be let inside the house by barking and signals the possibility that it might bite momentarily by displaying its fangs.

13. Comment on the following prescriptive rules. Do you think they are acceptable? (A) It is I. (B) It is me.

You should say A instead of B because “be” should be followed by the nominative case, not the accusative according to the rules in Latin. Answer：

(1) the Latin rule is not universal. In English, me is informal and I is felt to be very formal. (2) Whom is used in formal speech and in writing; who is more acceptable in informal speech.

(3) Language does not have to follow logic reasoning. Here two negative only make a more emphatic negative. This sentence is not acceptable in Standard English not because it is illogical, but because language changes and rejects this usage now.

17. The following are some well-known ambiguous sentences in syntactic studies of language. Can you disambiguate them? The chicken is too hot to eat. Flying planes can be dangerous. Answer：

The chicken is too hot to eat.

The chicken meat is too hot, so it cannot be eaten at the moment.

The chicken feels so hot (maybe after some intense aerobic exercises) that it cannot start eating and needs to calm down first.

Flying planes can be dangerous.

The ambiguity comes from \"flying planes\". It can be deciphered as \"the planes that is flying\" or \"to fly planes\". 21. Give examples of situations in which a usage generally considered non-standard (e.g. ain’t) would be acceptable, even appropriate.

Answer：In the talks between intimate friends, one may say “gimme that!” instead of “give me that!” and “wachya doin’?” instead of “what are you doing?” and this list may go on.

Chapter 2

2、Give the description of the following sound segments in English. Answer：

ʃ——voiceless postalveolar fricative ð——voiced dental fricative ŋ——velar nasal

d——voiced alveolar stop/plosive p——voiceless bilabial stop/plosive k——voiceless velar stop/plosive l——lateral

i——high front unrounded lax vowel u: p—— high back rounded tense vowel ɔ——low back rounded lax vowel

3、Give the IPA symbols for the sounds that correspond to the descriptions below. Answer：

Voiceless labiodental fricative——f Voiced postalveolar fricative——ʒ Palatal approximant ——j Voiceless glottal fricative——h Voiceless alveolar stop——t

High-mid front unrounded vowel——e High central rounded vowel——u Low front rounded vowel——ð Low-mid back rounded vowel——ɔ High back rounded tense vowel——u:

5、Discuss the following questions.To what extent is phonology related too phonetics and how do they differ? Answer：Both phonetics and phonology study human sounds but they differ in the levels of analysis.Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced,transmitted,and perceived.

Chapter 3

10、Classfy the following words as loanwords(LW),loanblends(LB),loanshifts(LS)or loan translation(LT). Answer：LW:monk,loan-word,tea LB:booby trap,coconut,Chinatown LS:yankee,artificial,satellite LT:firewater,free verse,warpaint

11、If there are two affixes-ly,one producing adjectives and the other attaching to adjectives to produce adverbs,can we find words with both of these affixes?

Answer：No.Words with both of these affixes-ly are not allocated in English.See below: Friendlily(friend-friendly-friendlily) Oilily(oil-oily-oilily) Chillily(chill-chilly-chillily)

12、Make a list of nouns from the following words that-s can attch to.Epiphany foot hat house Kitchen ox phenomenon region sheep tomato Answer: hat house kitchen region

Chapter 4

2、Indicate the category of each word in the following sentences. Answer：

——The instructor told the students to study. [NP(det.+n)+V+NP(det.+n)+inf.] ——The customer requested for a cold beer.[ NP(det.+n)+V+PP(prep.+det.+adj.+n.)] ——The pilot landed the jet.[ NP(det.+n)+V+NP(det.+n)]

——These dead trees must be removed.[ NP(det.+adj+n)+mv+be+past participle) ] ——That glass suddenly broke.[ NP(det.+n)+adv.+V]

3、Put brackets around the immediate constituents in each sentence. Answer：

——((The)( boy))(( was)) crying)). ——(Shiu)(( the)( door)).

——((Open)(( the)( door)))( quickly).

——((The)((( happy)( teacher))(( in)(( that)( class)))))(( was)(( beaming)( away))). ——(He)((( bought)(( an)(( old)( car))))(( with)(( his)(( first)(( pay)( cheque)))))). 4、For each of the underlinged constructions or word groups,do the following. Answer：

——Duceks quack..(non-headed;independent clause) ——The ladder in the shed is long enough.( non-head;prepositional phrase) ——I saw a bridge damaged beyond repair.(headed;headword—damaged;adjectival group) ——Singing hymns is forbidden in some countries.(headed;headword—singing;gerundial phrase) ——His handsome face appeared in the magazine.( headed; headword—face;nominal group) A lady of great beauty came out.( (non-headed; prepositional phrase) ——He enjoys climbing high mountains.(headed;headword—climbing;gerundial phrase) ——The man nodded patiently.(non—headed;independent clause)

——A man roused by the insult drew his sword.(headed;headword—roused;adjectveal phrase)

8、Mark the underlined parts of the sentences in Ex.4-37 with the terms such as participial phrase,gerundial,and so on. Answer：

The best thing would be to leave early. It’s great for a man to be free.

Having finished their task,they came to help ue. Xiao Li being away,Xiao Wang had to do the work. Filled with shame,he left the house. All our savings gone,we started looking for jobs. It’s no use crying over spilt milk. Do you mind my opening the window.

Chapter 5

[ Dear White Fella. You White Fella ]

Answer: This poem is about the use of the word“coloured”.The author cleverly makes use of “coloured”in sense of “different colours”to qppose the practive to refer to black people as “coloured”. This shows form another point of view that “coloured” is not a superordinate to “red”, “green”, “yellow”.

[ Write out the synonyms of the following words: youth; automobile; remember; purchase; vacation; big.] Answer:

(a)youth(adolescent);automobile(car);remember(recall);purchase(buy);vacation(holidays);big(large) (b)dark(lignt: with respect to brightness) boy(girl: with respect to sex) hot(cold: with respect to temperature) go(come:with respect to direction) (c)bright(a,shining;b.intelligent)

To glare(a. to shine intensely; b.money in the bank) A deposit(a.minerals in the earth; b.money in the bank) Plane(a. aflying vehicle; b. a flat surface)

[ The British linguist F.R Palmer argues in his Semantics that “there”is no absolute distinction between (gradable antonyms and complementary sntonyms).]

Answer: It is not advisable to tell beginners of linguistics thar the distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms is relative. The expression “more dead than alive” is not a true comparative.

[ 姜望琪（1991:79）claims that“to some extent, we can say that any two words of the same part of speech may become antonyms.. what do you think of the claim?]

Answer: this is a reasonable claim. As the author said in the paper.“man” can be the antonym of “woman”, but it can also be the antonym of“boy” in a situation when the age difference is important. When the difference between a man and an animal is important,“man” can also be the antonym of“dog”. And when the difference between something animate and something inanimate is important, then“man” can even be the antonym of “stone”. In the extreme cases, so-called synonyms may also become antonyms, for example,“ You have to peel a raw potato but you can skin a boiled one”,“He’s no statesman, but a mere politician. Chapter 8

[ The daughter walks into the kitchen and takes some popcorn. ] Answer：

The illocutionary force of“I thought you were practicing your violin”is a criticism of the daughter for her not practicing the violin .That of the daughter’s answer is a defence for herslf-I’m going to do that. And that of the father’s retort is a denial of the daughter’s excuse.

[ If you ask somebody“Can you open the door？”he answers“Yes”…] Answer：

I would be angry with him.“Can you open the door”is normally a request of the hearer to do it rather than a question about his ability. The fact that he answers“Yes”but does not actually do it shows that he declines my request.

[ On 14 January,1993,US President-elect Bill Clinton spoke to…] Answer：

Yes, this is an occasion on which the CP and its maxims are suspended.When he formulated his CP, Grice qualified it with expressions like “normally”，“characteristically”and“ceteris paribus”.In

Other words ,the CP and its maxims are not meant to be observed in all situations. Alternatively, we may say that assumptions like“The speaker believes in what he says”are implicatures, which will be cancelled in situations where there are indications to the contrary. Similar occasions include funeral orations, poetry writing, and joking.

[ A：Have you seen Peter today？ B：Well, if I didn’t deny seeing him I wouldn’t be telling a lie.] Answer：

Without a proper context, these conversations can all be regarded as jokes resulting form the exploitation of Grice’s CP and maxims.

In(1) Speaker B uses a long and prolix way to express the meaning of“Yes, I have”, thus violating the Manner maxim of “Be brief(avoid prolixity)”.

(2B) results from the exploiting of Quality maxims in that the speaker seems to be telling the truth while deliberately misinterpreting Speaker A’s “there”.

(3B) is another instance of exploiting the Quality maxims. Though logically speaking it may be true that Speaker B has been helpful to A， we don’t usually respond to others’ thanks in this way.

On one hand,(4B) is still another instance of exploiting the Quality maxims in that Mr Smith’s office is really“not here”.On the other hand, Speaker B as violated the Quantity maxim of being as informative as is required since A needs more specific information than“not here”.

(5B) is an indirect way of declining the offer. In terms of Grice’s maxims, this is a case of not being relevant. In the last conversation, Speaker B uses a long prolix way for the simple answer“Yes, he has”,and has thus violated the Manner maxim of “Be brief(avoid prolixity)”