东北师范大学 语言学考试题库

I. Brief Introduction of Linguistics1. Why is linguistics a vast field of study?Linguistics is a broad field of study, because language is a complicated entity with many layers and facets. It is hardly possible for a linguist to deal with all aspects of language at once. There are a number of divisions of linguistics, which can be put into two categories.1) Intra-disciplinary divisions: the study of language in general is often termed general linguistics. It is based on the view that language as a system is composed of three aspects: sound, structure and meaning.2) Inter-disciplinary divisions:a) Sociology deals with language and culture.b) Psycholinguistics deals with the relation between language and mindc) Applied linguistics is concerned with the application of linguistic theories and descriptions in other fields.All above three belong to sociolinguistics.2. How is linguistics different from traditional grammar?1) Traditional grammar is prescriptive, while modern linguistics is descriptive.2) Traditional grammatical categories are merely based on European language, while modern linguisticsstudies all languages.3) Traditional grammar lacks a theoretical framework, while modern linguistics is theoretically rather thanpedagogically oriented.3. What are the two main schools of contemporary western linguistics? What are the fundamental differences between them?TG grammar v.s systematic-functional grammarTG based on UG, studies the general principles while systematic-functional grammar studies language functions.4. On what basis do linguists regard human language as species-specific (unique to humans)? Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Many philosophers and linguists believe that language is unique to man. Language is a human trait that sets us apart from other living creatures. They spell out a number of features of language which are not found in animal communication systems. These features: creativity, duality, arbitrariness, displacement, cultural transmission, interchangeability and reflexivity. These are universal features possessed by all human languages. Although some animal communication systems possess, to a very limited degree, one or another of these features except creativity and duality, none is found to have all the features. On this basis linguists tend to conclude that human languages are qualitatively different form animal communication systems.5. What is the difference between linguistic competence and communicative competence?The term linguistic competence is applied to account for a speaker’s knowledge of his language. While communicative competence is proposed to account for both the tacit knowledge of language and the ability to use it. There are four parameters that underlie a speaker’s communicative competence, namely the ability to judge: Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible/appropriate/formally possible/in fact done.II. Phonetics 语音学1. How are speech sounds described?The study of speech sounds is phonetics which includes 3 parts: 1) articulatory phonetics 2) acoustic phonetics 3) auditory phonetics.Articulatory phonetics is the primary concern in linguistics, in which speech sound is described within 3 sides: The description of consonants: a) place of articulation b) manners of articulation c) voicing d) aspirationThe description of vowels: a) monophthongs b) diphthongs c) lip rounding d) tensityIn more detailed transcription (sometimes referred to as narrow transcription), a sound may be transcribed with a symbol to which a smaller symbol is added in order to mark the finer distinctions. The smaller one is called diacritic.2. What are the two classes of phonetic features? What is the fundamental difference?The two classes of phonetic features are distinctive features and non-distinctive features. Features that distinguish meaning are called distinctive features, in other words, those distinguishing phonemes. Non-distinctive features do not distinguish meanings, i.e. the features belong to allophones. However, whether a phonetic feature is distinctive or non-distinctive varies from one language to another language.III. Phonology 音位学1.Analyze the two English sound segments [t] and [t h], [k] and [k h], [p] and[p h] in terms of distribution and the phonetic feature that distinguishes them.[t] and [t h], [k] and [k h], [p] and [p h] are the allophones of the same phoneme /t/, /k/, /p/. They are in complementary distribution and share phonetic features.[t] is an unaspirated voiceless alveolar stop; [t h] is an aspirated voiceless alveolar stop[k] is an unaspirated voiceless velar stop; [k h] is an aspirated voiceless velar stop[p] is an unaspirated voiceless bilabial stop;[p h] is an aspirated voiceless bilabial stop/t/→ [t] / [voiceless, fricative, alveolar]_______[t h]/ elsewhere[k] and [k h], [p] and [p h] is the same as above.2.Analyze the change of feature concerning the vowels in "bean, time, farm" and generalize the rule. This rule is called nasalization, that is a vowel becomes nasalized before a nasal segment, possible followed by one or two consonants within a syllable.V →[+nasal] / ____ [+nasal]3.Analyze the relation of {im-}, {in-}, {ir-}, {il-} in English and generalize of their distribution.{im-}, {in-}, {ir-}, {il-} are the allomorphs of the same morpheme {in-},which represents the negative meaning as a prefix.{in-}→ {im-} / ________ [m,p, b] [bilabial stop, or nasal]{ir-} / _________ [r] [retroflex, alveolar]{il-} / _________ [l] [lateral, alveolar]{in-} / elsewhere4. How do you account for the relation between phonetics and phonology?1) Phonology and phonetics are both concerned with the study of speech sounds, but the two differ in perspectives.2) Phonetics, particularly articulatory phonetics, focuses on how speech sounds are produced, what phonetic features they have, and how to transcribe them. In phonetics, sound segments are assumed to be invariable; variations are overlooked.3) Phonology focuses on three fundamental questions. What sounds make up the list of sounds that can distinguish meaning in a particular language? What sounds vary in what ways in what context? What sounds can appear together in a sequence in a particular language?5. What are the functions of supra-segmental features?Supra-segmental features are distinctive features that can be found in units of syllables, words, phrases and sentences. They are stress, intonation and tone. Intonation and stress generally occur simultaneously in utterance. The simultaneous functioning of the features serves to highlight the information focus, or to eliminate ambiguity of the phrases and sentences. "a greenhouse" and "a green house", "Jack hit the ball under the desk".Tone is the variation of pitch to distinguish words. English is not a tone language, but Chinese is a typical tone language in which each of the four tones means four different words.6. Analyze the change of feature concerning the liquids and nasals in flight, snow, smart, pray and generalize the rule.Liquids /l/ /r/ appear after a voiceless consonant /f/ and /p/ respectively, they are devoiced.Nasals /n//m/ appear after a voiceless consonant /s/, they are devoiced.Rule: Devoice a voiced consonant after a voiceless consonant.Or:When the English liquids, glides and the two anterior nasals appear after a voiceless consonant, it is devoiced. This rule can be expressed as follows: devoice a voiced consonant after a voiceless consonant，that is, [+voiced+consonantal] [-voiced] / [-voiced+consonantal]-. The phonology /l/ /r/ belongs to liquids, and /m/ /n/ belong to anterior nasals. All these four are voiced consonant, but in these words, they change to the voiceless, for they appear after voiceless consonants.7. What is distinctive feature?Features that distinguish meaning are called distinctive features, in other words, just those distinguishing phonemes, such as [b] and [p] in the words between "big" and "pig".8. Analyze the relation of -er, -est and more, most in Englsih and generalize their distribution.They are in complementary distribution. -er and more, -est and most are allomorphs. More and most are put before adjectives and adverbs composed of two or more syllables.IV. Morphology 形态学1. What are the categories of lexical meaning?Lexical meaning includes:a) Referential meaning (also denotative meaning) is the central meaning and it is more stable and universal.b) Associative meanings. Associative meanings are meanings are meanings that hinge on referential meaning, which are less stable and more culture-specific.Types of associative meanings: connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning,collective meaning2. How are words decomposed into their constituents?1) Words are composed of one or more than one morphemes.2) Morphemes are the smallest meaningful unit of language.3) A morpheme may be represented by different forms, called allomorphs.4) Morphemes can be categorized into 2 kinds. a) Free morphemes (they constitute words by themselves)b) bound morphemes (they are never used independently)5) Bound morphemes include inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes.6) The distinction between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme is whether it can be used independently in speech or writing.V. Syntax 句法1.What are the aspects of syntactic knowledge?Knowing which strings of words are grammatical and which are not is part of syntactic knowledge. In addition, native speakers know at least the following:1) structural ambiguity---which strings of words have more than one meaning.2) word order---different arrangements of the same words have different meanings.3) grammatical relations---what element relates to what other element directly or indirectly4) recursion---the repeated use of the same rules to create infinite sentences5) sentence relatedness---sentences may be structurally variant but semantically related6) syntactic categories---a class of words or phrases that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality.2. How does transformational grammar (转换生成语法)account for sentence- relatedness?1) Sentence- relatedness: sentences may be structurally variant but semantically related.2) According to Chomsky, a grammar as the tacit shared knowledge of all speakers is a system of finite rules by which an infinite number of sentences can be generated. He attempts to account for this aspect of syntax by postulating that deep structures and surface structures.3) Deep structures are the basic structures generated by phrase structure rules.4) Surface structures are derived structures, the structures of sentences that we actually speak. Surface structures are derived from deep structures through transformational rules which include replacement, insertion, deletion and coping, etc.5) There are five transformations: particle movement transformation, replacement, insertion, deletion and copying.3. What is the advantage of immediate constituent analysis compared with traditional grammar?1) The concept of immediate constituent is an important concept of structural grammar, which is characterized by a top-down analysis. A sentence is seen as a constituent structure, i.e. all the components of the sentence are constituent. A sentence can be cut into sections. Each section is its immediate constituent. Then each section can be further cut into constituents. This on-going cutting is termed immediate constituent analysis.2) Traditional grammar mainly analyzes a sentence horizontally with a synthetic (bottom-up) approach. It focuses on the product of a sentence rather than the procedure. It is prescriptive in nature.3) Therefore, immediate constituent analysis adds a new dimension to the analysis of sentence structure. In this way, sentence structure is analyzed not only horizontally but also vertically. In other words, this way of syntactic analysis can account for the linearity and the hierarchy of sentence structure, and, therefore, structural ambiguity.4.What part of syntax can phrase structure rules account for and what they cannot?1) Phrase structure rules are rules that specify the constituents of syntactic categories.2) Deep structures are the basic structures generated by phrase structure rules, but the surface structures are derived from the deep structures, and is generated by transformational rules.3) All in all, phrase structure rules can account for structural ambiguity, word order, grammatical relations, recursion, and syntactic categories; but they cannot account for sentence relatedness.5. Analyze the sentence in terms of type of process, mood structure, and theme and rheme:The academician will address the issue of the legitimacy of cloning at the conference.1) It is the verbal process. In this sentence, the sayer is the academician, the receivers are the people at the conference though it is not mentioned but we can infer it from the sentence. The verbiage is the issue of the legitimacy of cloning.2) This sentence is the realization of linguistic interaction; it is the giving of information. Its syntactic form is statement. The subject is the academician; the finite is the verbal operator “will”.3) The constituent that stands for the starting-point for the message is termed theme; all the rest of the sentence is labeled rheme. In this sentence, the theme is the academician and “the issue of the legitimacy of cloning at the conference” is the rheme.VI. Semantics语义学1. What are the components of metaphor?Target domain and source domain are the components of metaphors. That is to say all metaphors are composed of two components. This allows us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another. The domain to be conceptualized is called target domain, while the conceptualizing domain is termed the source domain. The transference of properties of the source domain to the target domain is referred to by some cognitive linguistics as mapping. The source domain is concrete and familiar. The target domain is abstract and novel.2. Why is metaphor essential in cognition?Our linguistic knowledge is part of general cognition and linguistic categorization is a product of the human mind. According to this view, meaning is based on conventionalized conceptual structures. Semantic structure reflcects the mental categories which are formed on the basis of experiences. Metaphor is an essential element in our categorization of the world and our thinking process. Cognitive linguistics has shown that metaphor is not an unusual or deviant way of using language. The use of metaphor is not confined to literature, rhetoric and art. It is actually ubiquitous in everyday communication. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person's conceptual systems.3. How is word meaning analyzed? And what are the limitations of the method of analysis?1) In modern linguistics, semanticists manifest that the sense of a word can be analyzed in terms of a set of more general sense components (or semantic properties/features). The approach that analyzes word meaning by decomposing it into its atomic features is called componential analysis (CA).2) The limitations of componential analysis are apparent. It cannot be applied to the analysis of all lexicons, merely to words within the same semantic field. It is controversial whether semantic features are universal prime of word meanings in all languages.3) Advantages: a. It is a breakthrough in the formal representation of meaning. Once formally represented, meaning components can be seen. b. It reveals the impreciseness of the terminology in the traditional approach to meaning analysis. CA examines the components of sense. The more semantic features a word has, the narrower its reference is.4. Analyze the semantic properties of the given cooking terms, using the features [+/- WATER], [+/-FAT], [+/- PAN], [+/- POT], [+/- OVEN], [+/- SIEVE], etc.boil: [+WATER] [-FAT] [- PAN] [+ POT] [- OVEN] [- SIEVE]fry: [- WATER] [+FAT] [+ PAN] [- POT], [- OVEN] [+SIEVE]steam: [+WATER] [-FAT] [- PAN] [+POT] [-OVEN] [- SIEVE]stew: [+WATER] [+FAT] [- PAN] [+ POT] [- OVEN] [- SIEVE]bake: [- WATER] [+FAT] [- PAN] [- POT] [+ OVEN] [- SIEVE]5. Analyze the semantic differences of father and daddy in the given sentences, using Leech's classification of lexical meanings.It is easy for every man to be a father, but not to be a daddy.They differ in affective meaning. Affective meaning is what is communicated of the feeling or attitude of the speaker or writer toward what is referred to. "Father" is commending in sense while "daddy" is rich in passion.6. Analyze the difference between summon and call in terms of register.Register refers to varieties according to use. Summon is a formal word, used in court of law to order sb to appear, while call is widely used in daily life.7. Point out the sem antic problem of the sentence “The orphan is staying with his parents.”There are some sentences which sound grammatical but meaningless. The sentence "the orphan is staying with his parents” is just one example. This sentence is always false which is called contradiction. An orphan is a child whose parents are dead, or a child who has been deprived of parental care. The theme (the orphan) and the rheme (is staying with his parents) are incompatible.VII. Pragmatics 语用学1.Write 3 sentences, each of which contains it in either euphoric reference or endothermic reference(anaphoric or cataphoric)1) It is rather foggy these days."It" here refers to the weather. It is an euphoric reference, referring to the word outside linguistic forms.2) It is so far hard to tell how many lives are claimed in the catastrophe."It" refers to the following expression "how many lives are claimed in the catastrophe", which is a linguistic form. Thus, it is an endothermic reference, specifically, cataphoric reference.3) The most powerful earthquakes triggered massive tidal waves that slammed into coastlines across Asia yesterday. It killed over 30,000 people in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladeshand Maldives."It" refers to the preceding expression that "massive tidal waves slammed into coastlines across Asia yesterday". Therefore, it is an endothermic reference, specifically, anaphoric reference..2. Point out the maxim flouted and the implicature of B `s utterance:A: Did you notice something odd between the host and hostess?B: Have another glass of beer?The maxim of relation is violated. The implicature of B’s utterance: the hearer doesn’t want to gossip about those people.3. Point out the degree of formality of:It is gratifying that cooperative program has been proceeding smoothly. Degree of formal4. Analyze the ambiguity of the two sentences, telling the difference:1) Flying planes can be dangerous.2) She cannot bear children.1) a. The behavior of flying planes can be dangerous.b. Planes which are flying can be dangerous.2) a. She cannot tolerate children.b. She cannot give birth to a baby..c. she can not carry a child.★How do you account for the relation between semantics and pragmatics.They are two separate fields. Both study meaning, but semantics studies the conventional meaning of a word while pragmatics studies the international meaning, the meaning in use. Semantics is bilateral while pragmatics is trilateral. Semantics studies the relationship between sign and meaning, but pragmatics studies the sign, meaning and user.VIII. Sociolinguistics 社会语言学1. How do sociolinguists classify the varieties of English?1) The term variety is the label given to the form of a language used by any group of speakers or used in a particular field. A variety is characterized by the basic lexicon, phonology, syntax shared by members of the group. Varieties of a language are of four types: the standard variety, regional dialects, sociolects and registers.2) The standard variety is the form of a language used by the government and communication media, taught in schools and universities and is the main or only written form.3) A regional dialect is a variety of a language spoken by people living in an area. For example, the English language has many regional dialects. British English, American English, Australian English. Indian English, South African English, etc. are all regional varieties of the language. One dialect is distinctive from another phonologically, lexically and grammatically.2. Analyze the cause of the error that some Chinese speakers of English use although and but within one sentence.In the process of analyzing learners' language, error analysis is a milestone. Explaining errors is the final but very important step in error analysis. In terms of sources, errors are divided into interlingual errors and intralingual errors. Interlingual errors are caused by mother tongue interference which means the negative role one's knowledge of L1 to L2 learning. In Chinese, we can use “不但”，“而且”in the same sentence, so some Chinese speakers transfer this expression directly to English. But according t o English grammar, “although” and “but” can not appear in the same sentence. This phenomenon is a kind of negative transfer of lear ners' syntactic knowledge. This is a typical phenomenon of interference in learning.。