语言学主要知识点(很值得一看)

Phonology：Phonology studies the system of sounds of a particular language；it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.Phoneme：The basic unit in phonology is called phoneme；it is a unit of distinctive value. But it is an abstract unit. To be exact，a phoneme is nota sound；it is a collection of distinctive phonetic features. Allophone：The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme. International phonetic alphabet：It is a standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.Intonation：When pitch，stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation，they are collectively known as intonation.Phonetics：Phonetics is defined as the study of the phonic medium of language；it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world' s languagesAuditory phonetics：It studies the speech sounds from the hearer's point of view. It studies how the sounds are perceived by the hearer.Acoustic phonetics：It studies the speech sounds by looking at the sound waves. It studies the physical means by which speech sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another.Phone：Phones can be simply defined as the speech sounds we use when speaking a language. A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. It does not necessarily distinguish meaning.Phonemic contras t：Phonemic contrast refers to the relation between two phonemes. If two phonemes can occur in the same environment and distinguish meaning，they are in phonemic contrast.Tone：Tones are pitch variations，which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords.Minimal pair：When two different forms are identical in every way except forone sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings，the twowords are said to form a minimal pair.Morphology：Morphology is a branch of grammar which studies the internalstructure of words and the rules by which wordsInflectional morphology：The inflectional morphology studies the inflectionsDerivational morphology：Derivational morphology is the study of word-formation.Morpheme：It is the smallest meaningful unit of language.Free morpheme：Free morphemes are the morphemes which areindependent units of meaning and can be used freely all bythemselves or in combination with other morphemes.Bound morpheme：Bound morphemes are the morphemes which cannot beused independently but have to be combined with other morphemes，either free or bound，to form a word.Derivation：Derivation is a process of word formation by which derivativeaffixes are added to an existing form to create a word. Compounding：Compounding can be viewed as the combination of two orsometimes more than two words to create new words. Syntax：Syntax is a subfield of linguistics. It studies the sentence structure of language. It consists of a set of abstract rules that allow words to be combined with other words to form grammatical sentences. Semantics：Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language.Sense：Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form；it is abstract and de-contextualized.Reference：Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real，physical world；it deals with the relationship between the linguisticelement and the non-linguistic world of experienceSynonymy：Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning.Polysemy：Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have morethan one meaning.Homonymy：Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form，i.e. different words are identical in sound or spelling，or in both.Homophones：When two words are identical in sound，they are called homophones.Homographs：When two words are identical in spelling，they are homographs.Complete homonyms：When two words are identical in both sound and spelling，they are called complete homonyms.Hyponymy：Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general，more inclusive word and a more specific word.Antonymy：Antonymy refers to the relation of oppositeness of meaning. Componential analysis：Componential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was proposed by structural semanticists. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components，which are called semantic features.The grammatical meaning：The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality，i.e. its grammatical well-formedness. The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by the grammatical rules of the language.Predication：The predication is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. Argument：An argument is a logical participant in a predication. It is generally identical with the nominal element （s）in a sentence.Predicate：A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.Pragmatics：Pragmatics can be defined as the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successfulContext：Generally speaking，it consists of the knowledge that is shared by the speaker and the hearer. The shared knowledge is of two types：the knowledge of the language they use，and the knowledge aboutthe world，including the general knowledge about the world andthe specific knowledge about the situation in which linguisticcommunication is taking place.Utterance meaning：The meaning of an utterance is concrete，and context-dependent. Utterance is based on sentencemeaning；it is realization of the abstract meaning of asentence in a real situation of communication，or simply in acontext.Sentence meaning：The meaning of a sentence is often considered as the abstract，intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of apredication.Constative：Constatives were statements that either state or describe，and were verifiable.Performative：performatives，on the other hand，were sentences that did not state a fact or describe a state，and were not verifiable. Their functionis to perform a particular speech act.Locutionary 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.Illocutionary act：An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker's intention；it is the act performed in saying something. Perlocutionary act：A perlocutionary act is the act performed by or resulting from saying something；it is the consequence of，or the changebrought about by the utterance；it is the act performed by sayingsomething.Cooperative Principle：It is principle advanced by Paul Grice. It is a principle that guides our conversational behaviours. The content is：Make your conversational contribution such as is required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or the talk exchange in which you are engaged. Sociolinguistics：Sociolinguistics is the study of language in social contexts. Speech community：The social group isolated for any given study is called the speech community or a speech community is a group of people who forma community and share the same language or a particular variety oflanguage. The important characteristic of a speech community is that the members of the group must，in some reasonable way，interact lin-guistically with other members of the community. They may share closely related language varieties，as well as attitudes toward linguistic norms.Speech variety：Speech variety，also known as language variety，refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or group ofspeakers. The distinctive characteristics of a speech variety may be lexical，phonological，morphological，syntactic，or a combination of linguistic features.Idiolect：An idiolect is a personal dialect of an individual speaker that com-bines aspects of all the elements regarding regional，social，and stylistic variation，in one form or another. In a narrower sense，what makes up one’s idiolect includes also such factors as voice quality，pitch and speech rhythm，which all contribute to the identifying features in an individual's speech.Standard language：The standard language is a superposed，socially prestigious dialect of language. It is the language employed by the government and the judiciary system，used by the mass media，and taught in educational institutions，including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language.Pidgin：A pidgin is a variety of language that is generally used by native speak-ers of other languages as a medium of communication.Creole：A Creole language is originally a pidgin that has become established asa native language in some speech community.Diglossia：Diglossia usually describes a situation in which two very different varieties of language co-exist in a speech community，each with a distinct range of purely social function and appropriate for certain situations.Bilingualism：Bilingualism refers to a linguistic situation in which two standard languages are used either by an individual or by a group of speakers，such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation.Ethnic dialect：Within a society，speech variation may come about because of different ethnic backgrounds. An ethnic language variety is a social dialect of a language，often cutting across regional differences. An ethnic dialect is spoken mainly by a less privileged population that has experi-enced some form of social isolation，such as racial discrimination or segregation.Sociolect：Social dialects，or sociolects，are varieties of language used by people belonging to particular social classes.Register：Registers are language varieties which are appropriate for use in particular speech situations，in contrast to language varieties that areassociated with the social or regional grouping of their customary users.Format reason，registers are also known as situational dialects. Discuss with examples that the speech of women may differ from the speech of men.In normal situations，female speakers tend to use more prestigious forms than their male counterparts with the same general social background. For example，standard English forms such as "I did it" and "he isn't" can be found more often in the speech of females，while the more colloquial "I done it" and "he ain't" occur more frequently in the speech of males. Another feature often associated with so-called women's language is politeness.Usually，tough and rough speeches have connotations of masculinity and are not considered to be desirable feminine qualities. In general，men's language is more straightforward，less polite，and more direct，and women's language is more indirect，less blunt，and more circumlocutory.This phenomenon of sex-preferential differentiation is also reflected in the relative frequency with which males and females use the same lexical items. For example，certain words that are closely associated with women may sound typically feminine as a result of that association. For example，some English adjectives like "lovely"，"nice"，"darling" and "cute" occur more often in female speeches and therefore cause feminine association. Females have also been shown to possess a greater variety of specific color terms than males，in spite of the fact that men do not necessarily possess less acute color perception than women. On the other hand，males have the reputation of possessing a larger vocabulary in traditionally male-dominated domains such as sports，hunting and the military.A request in English such as "Close the door when you leave" can be phrased ina number of ways ranging from a harsh command to a very politerequest：a. Close the door when you leave.b. Please close the door when you leave.c. Would you please close the door when you leave？d. Could you close the door when you leave？Although the above options are all available to both men and women，it is usually the more polite forms that are selected by female speakers. In general，females are found to use more questions than declarative statements in comparison with males.Discuss with examples some of the linguistic differences between Standard English and Black English.One of the most prominent phonological characteristics of Black English is the frequent simplification of consonant clusters at the end of words when one of the two consonants is an alveolar /t/，/d/，/s/，or /z/. The application of this simplification rule may delete the past-tense morpheme，so "past "and "passed "are both pronounced like "pass."Another salient characteristic of Black English phonological system concerns the deletion of some word-final stop consonants in words like "side" and "borrowed." Speakers of Black English frequently delete these word-final stops，pronouncing “side” like “sigh” and “borrowed” like “borrow.”One prominent syntactic feature is the frequent absence of various forms of the copula "be" in Black English，which are required of Standard English.Compare the following expressions in Black English and Standard English：（1）Black English Standard EnglishThey mine.They' re mine.You crazy.You re crazy.Another distinctive syntactic feature of Black English is the systematic use of die expression "it is" where Standard English uses "there is" in the sense of “there exists”：Is it a Mr. Johnson in this office？Another aspect of Black English is the use of double negation constructions.Whenever the verb is negated，the indefinite pronouns "something"，"somebody"，and "some" become the negative indefinites "nothing"，"nobody"，and "none"，for example：He don't know nothing. （He doesn't know anything.）How are semantics and pragmatics different from each other？Traditional semantics studied meaning，but the meaning of language was considered as something intrinsic，and inherent，i.e. a property attached to language itself. Therefore，meanings of words，meanings of sentenceswere all studied in an isolated manner，detached from the context in which they were used. Pragmatics studies meaning not in isolation，but in context.The essential distinction between semantics and pragmatics is whether the context of use is considered in the study of meaning. If it is not considered，the study is restricted to the area of traditional semantics；if it is considered，the study is being carried out in the area of pragmatics. Searle classified illocutionary act into five categories. Discuss each of them in detail with examples.1）representatives：representatives are used to state，to describe，to report，etc.. The illocutionary point of the representatives is to commit the speaker to something's being the case，to the truth of what has been said. For example：（I swear）I have never seen the man before.（I state）the earth is a globe.2）directives：Directives are attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something. Inviting，suggesting，requesting，advising，warning，threatening，ordering are all specific instances of this class. For example：Open the window！3）commissives：Commissives are those illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action. When the speaker is speaking，he puts himself under obligation. For example：I promise to come.I will bring you the book tomorrow without fail.4）expressives：The illocutionary point of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the utterance. The speaker is expressing his feelings or attitude towards an existing state of affairs，e.g. apologizing，thanking，congratulating. For example：I'm sorry for the mess I have made.5）declarations：Declarations have the characteristic that the successful performance of such an act brings about the correspondence between what is said and reality. For example：I now declare the meeting open.How does the flouting of the maxims give rise to conversational implicatures？A：Do you know where Mr. Smith lives？B：Somewhere in the southern suburbs of the city.This is said when both A and B know that B does know Mr. Smith' s address. Thus B does not give enough information that is required，and he has flouted the maxim of quantity. Therefore，such conversational implicature as "I do not wish to tell you where Mr. Smith lives" is produced.A：Would you like to come to our party tonight？B：I'm afraid I' m not feeling so well today.This is said when both A and B know that B is not having any health problem that will prevent him from going to a party. Thus B is saying something that he himself knows to be false and he is violating the maxim of quality. The conversational implicature "I do not want to go to your party tonight" is then produced.A：The hostess is an awful bore. Don't you think？B：The roses in the garden are beautiful，aren't they？This is said when both A and B know that it is entirely possible for B to make a comment on the hostess. Thus B is saying something irrelevant to what A has just said，and he has flouted the maxim of relation. The conversational implicature "I don't wish to talk about the hostess in such a rude manner" is produced.A：Shall we get something for the kids？B：Yes. But I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M.This is said when both A and B know that B has no difficulty in pronouncing the word "ice-cream." Thus B has flouted the maxim of manner. The conversational implicature "I don’t want the kids to know we are talking about ice-cream" is then produced.Why do we say that a meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components？The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components because it cannot be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its constituent words. For example：（A）The dog bit the man.（B）The man bit the dog.If the meaning of a sentence were the sum total of the meanings of all its components，then the above two sentences would have the same meaning.In fact they are different in meanings.As we know，there are two aspects to sentence meaning：grammatical mean-ing and semantic meaning. The grammatical meanings of “the dog” and “the man” in （A）are different from the grammatical meanings of “the dog”and “the man” in （B）. The meaning of a sentence is the product of both lexical and grammatical meaning. It is the product of the meaning of the constituent words and of the grammatical constructions that relate one word syntagmatically to another.What is componential analysis？Illustrate it with examples. Componential analysis，proposed by structural semanticists，is a way to analyze word meaning. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components，which are called semantic features. Plus and minus signs are used to indicate whethera certain semantic feature is present or absent in the meaning of a word，and these feature symbols are usually written in capitalized letters. For example，the word “man” is ana lyzed as consisting of the semantic features of [+ HUMAN，+ ADULT，+ ANIMATE，+MALE]What are the main features of the English compounds？Orthographically a compound can be written as one word，two separate words with or without a hyphen in between. Syntactically，the part of speechof a compound is determined by the last element. Semantically，themeaning of a compound is idiomatic，not calculable from the meaningsof all its components. Phonetically，the word stress of a compoundusually falls on the first element.Discuss the types of morphemes with examples.Free morphemes：They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves，for example，“book-” in the word “bookish”.Bound morphemes：They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes，either free or bound，to for m a word such as “-ish” in “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word；it cannever stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning，such as “gene-” in the word “generate”. Affixes are of two types：inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as “-s” in the word “books” to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to cre ate a word such as “mis-” in the word “misinform”.Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes.Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word such as “dis- ” in the word “dislike”，while suffixes occur at the end of a word such as “-les s” in the word “friendless”.What are the criteria that a linguist uses in classifying vowels？Vowels may be distinguished as front，central and back in terms of the position of the tongue in the mouth.According to how wide our mouth is opened，we classify the vowels into four groups：close vowels，semi-close vowels，semi-open vowels，andopen vowels.According to the shape of the lips，vowels are divided into rounded vowels and unrounded vowels.The English vowels can also be classified into long vowels and short vowels according to the length of the sound.What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics？They differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature；it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages：how they are produced，how they differ from each other，what phonetic features they possess，how they can be classified. Phonology，on the other hand，is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language；it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning.Then dialectal synonyms can also be found within British，or American English itself. For example，"girl" is called "lass" or "lassie" in Scottish dialect，and "liquor" is called "whisky" in Irish dialect.ii. Stylistic synonymsThey are synonyms which differ in style or degree of formality. Some of the stylistic synonyms tend to be more formal，others tend to be casual，and still others are neutral in style. For example：old man，daddy，dad，father，male parentchap，pal，friend，companioniii. Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaningThey are the words that have the same meaning but express different emotions of the user. The emotions of the user indicate the attitude or bias of the user toward what he is talking about. For example，“collaborator” and “accomplice” are synonymous，sharing the meaning of "a person who helps another"，but they are different in their evaluative meaning. The former means that a person who helps another in doing something good，while the latter refers to a person who helps another in a criminal act.iv. Collocational synonymsThey are synonyms which differ in their collocation. For example，we can use accuse，charge，rebuke to say that someone has done something wrong or even criminal，but they are used with different prepositions accuse. . . of，charge. . . with，rebuke. . .for.v. Semantically different synonymsSemantically different synonyms refer to the synonyms that differ slightly in what they mean. For example，"amaze" and "astound" are very close in meaning to the word "surprise，" but they have very subtle differences in meaning. While amaze suggests confusion and bewilderment，"astound" implies difficulty in believing.What are the major views concerning the study of meaning？How do they differ？One of the oldest was the naming theory，proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato，who believed that the words used in a language are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for. The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to. The form and the meaning are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized：the situational context and the linguistic context.For example，the meaning of the word "seal" in the sentence "The seal could not be found" can only be determined according to the context in which the sentence occurs：The seal could not be found. The zoo keeper became worried.（‘seal’ meaning an aquatic mammal）The seal could not be found. The king became worried.（‘seal’ meaning the king's stamp）Behaviorism drew on behaviorist psychology when he tried to define the meaning of linguistic forms. Behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a language form as "the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer".What are the differences between phonology and phonetics? Phonology is the study of the sound systems of a language - which sounds may occur in which positions in a word, syllable, mora, etc. It also examines transformations that occur in words from case inflection, tense, and other linguistic factors.Phonetics is the study of the nature of sound itself, in relation to human language. Articulatory phonetics studies the the physical aspects of the airflow and vocal tract in producing sounds. Acoustic phonetics studies the properties of the waveforms produced in human speech.Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written?First, the spoken form (speech) is prior to the written form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of language.Second, the spoken form plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed and it serves a wider range of purposes Finally, the spoken form is the medium through which we acquire our mother tongue.。