语言学中期测试(p2) (1)

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满分(Full mark)： 100 考试时间 (Duration ) ： 90 分钟 (Minutes)

Decide whether each of the following statements is True or

False

( ) 1. Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language. ( ) 2. Linguistics studies particular language, not languages in general.

( ) 3. A diachronic study of language is the description of language at some point in time. ( ) 4. Modern linguistics regards the written language as primary, not the written language. ( ) 5. The distinction between competence and performance was proposed by F. de Saussure. ( ) 6. If two phonetically similar sounds occur in the same environments and they distinguish

meaning, they are said to be in complementary distribution. ( ) 7. A phone is a phonetic unit that distinguishes meaning. ( ) 8. English is a tone language while Chinese is not. ( ) 9. Words are the smallest meaningful units of language.

( ) 10. Just as a phoneme is the basic unit in the study of phonology, so is a morpheme the basic

unit in the study of morphology.

( ) 11. The syntactic rules of any language are finite in number, but there is no limit to the number

of sentences native speakers of that language are able to produce and comprehend.

( ) 12. In a complex sentence, the two clauses hold unequal status, one subordinating the other. ( ) 13. What is actually internalized in the mind of a native speaker is a complete list of words and

phrases rather than grammatical knowledge.

( ) 14. Dialectal synonyms can often be found in different regional dialects such as British English

and American English but cannot be found within the variety itself, for example, within British English or American English.

( ) 15. The meaning of a sentence is the sum total of the meanings of all its components. ( ) 16. Most languages have sets of lexical items similar in meaning but ranked differently

according to their degree of formality.

( ) 17. Both semantics and pragmatics study how speakers of a language use sentences to effect

successful communication.

( ) 18. It would be impossible to give an adequate description of meaning if the context of

language use was left unconsidered.

( ) 19. The meaning of a sentence is abstract, but context-dependent. ( ) 20. Both semantics and pragmatics study meanings.

Part 2 Multiple Choice (1’*20=20’)

There are four choices following each statement. Mark the

choice that can best complete the statement.

( ) 1. If a linguistic study describes and analyzes the language people actually use, it is said to be

____.

A. prescriptive

B. analytic

C. descriptive

D. linguistic

( ) 2. According to F. de Saussure, ____ refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the

members of a speech community.

A. parole

B. performance

C. langue

D. Language

( ) 3. Language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the

speaker. This feature is called____.

A. displacement

B. duality

C. flexibility

D. cultural transmission ( ) 4. Which of the following is not a design feature of human language?

A. Arbitrariness

B. Displacement

C. Duality

D. Meaningfulness ( ) 5. The sounds produced without the vocal cords vibrating are ____ sounds.

A. voiceless

B. voiced

C. vowel

D. consonantal ( ) 6. ____ is a voiced alveolar stop.

A. /z/

B. /d/

C. /k/

D./b/

( ) 7. The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a

sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones ____.

A. identical

B. same

C. exactly alike

D. similar ( ) 8. A(n) ____ is a unit that is of distinctive value. It is an abstract unit, a collection of

distinctive phonetic features.

A. phone

B. sound

C. allophone

D. phoneme ( ) 9. The morpheme “vision” in the common word “television” is a(n) ____.

A. bound morpheme

B. bound form

C. inflectional morpheme

D. free morpheme ( ) 10. ____ are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other

morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word.

A. Free morphemes

B. Bound morphemes

C. Bound words

D. Words ( ) 11. ____ are often thought to be the smallest meaningful units of language by the linguists.

A. Words

B. Morphemes

C. Phonemes

D. Sentences

( ) 12. A sentence is considered ____ when it does not conform to the grammatical knowledge in

the mind of native speakers.

A. right

B. wrong

C. grammatical

D. ungrammatical ( ) 13. “Alive” and “dead” are ____.

A. gradable antonyms

B. relational opposites

C. complementary antonyms

D. None of the above

( ) 14. ____ deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic

world of experience.

A. Reference

B. Concept

C. Semantics

D. Sense

( ) 15. ____ refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form.

A. Polysemy

B. Synonymy

C. Homonymy

D. Hyponymy ( ) 16. Words that are close in meaning are called ____.

A. homonyms

B. polysemy

C. hyponyms

D. synonyms ( ) 17. ____ does not study meaning in isolation, but in context.

A. Pragmatics

B. Semantics

C. Sense relation

D. Concept

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( ) 18. What essentially distinguishes semantics and pragmatics is whether in the study of

meaning ____ is considered.

A. reference

B. speech act

C. practical usage

D. context ( ) 19. Speech act theory did not come into being until ____.

A. in the late 50’s of the 20the century

B. in the early 1950’s

C. in the late 1960’s

D. in the early 21st century. ( ) 20. ____ is advanced by Paul Grice

A. Cooperative Principle

B. Politeness Principle

C. The General Principle of Universal Grammar

D. Adjacency Principle Part 3 Definition (5’*5=25’) Define the following terms. Classify the consonants in each word. Example: [z] voiced alveolar fricative 1. [t] ________________________________________________ 2. [n] ________________________________________________ 3. [k] ________________________________________________ 4. [θ] ________________________________________________ 5. [l] ________________________________________________

Part 5 Morphology: Word Formation Processes (1’*10=10’)

Insert the words in the table according to the word formation processes.

and categories.

Example: He missed the early bus.

He – subject NP / missed – predicate VP / the early bus – object NP 1. I am writing an essay on Milton. 2. Your teaching style has impressed the new Principal.

Part 7 Semantics: Sense relations (0.5’*5=2.5’)

Insert the following pairs of words in the table according to

their sense relations.

a. pass away/ die

b. stem/ flower

c. sweets/ candies Which of the Conversational Maxims is being violated in the following conversation?

A: Tom is an excellent linguist. Don ’t you think? B: He is a good cook

It may be regarded as a violation of the maxim of ____________________.

a. to mother

b. telephone

c. motel

d. VOA

e. UFO

f. televise

g. talking

h. boyish

i. greenhouse

j. quake