《语言学导论》复习提纲

《语言学导论》复习提纲

1、Terms

recursiveness：It mainly means that a constituent can be embedded within（i.e.，be dominated by）another constituent having the same category，but it can be used to any means to extend any constituent. Together with openness，recursiveness is the core of creativity of language. For example，“I met a man who had a son whose wife sold cookies that she had baked in her kitchen that was fully equipped with electrical appliances that were new”.

duality：the structural organization of language into two abstract levels：meaningful units（e.g. words）and meaningless segments（e.g. sounds，letters）.

compositionality：Compositionality refers to the principle that the meaning of a sentence depends on the meanings of the constituent words and the way they are combined. Take，for example，the sentence“Socrates was a man”. Once the meaningful lexical items are taken away－“Socrates”and“man”－what is left is the pseudo-sentence，“S was a M”.

ontological metaphors：Ontological metaphors mean that human experiences with physical objects provide the basis for ways of viewing events，activities，emotions，ideas，etc.，as entities and substances. Take the experience of rising prices as an example，which can be metaphorically viewed as an entity via the noun inflation. This gives us a way to refer to experiences：INFLATION IS AN ENTITY

morpheme：Morpheme is the smallest unit of language in regard to the relationship between sounding and meaning，a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning，such as boy and –s in boys，check and –ing in checking，dis-，appoint，and –ment in disappointment. Morphemes cannot be further analyzed. For instance，chair cannot be analyzed into ch and air because there is no relationship between the parts ch，air，and the whole chair.

displacement：the ability of language to refer to contexts removed from the speaker’s immediate situation. When a man，for example，is crying to a woman，about something，it might be something that had occurred，or something that is occurring，or something that is to occur.

2、Short questions

Chapter 1

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

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

expression. Do body language and facial expression share or lack the distinctive properties of human language？

On a whole，body language and facial expression lack most of the distinctive properties of human language such as duality，displacement，creativity and so on. Body language exhibits

arbitrariness a little bit. For instance，nod means“OK/YES”for us but in Arabian world it is equal to saying“NO”. Some facial expressions have non-arbitrariness because they are instinctive such as the cry and laugh of a newborn infant.

15、Why is the distinction between competence and performance important in linguistics？Do you think the line can be neatly drawn between them？How do you like the concept communicative competence？

This is proposed by Chomsky in his formalist linguistic theories. It is sometimes hard to draw a strict line. Some researchers in applied linguistics think communicative competence may be a more revealing concept in language teaching than the purely theoretical pair－competence and performance.

Chapter 3

3、MORPHEME is defined as the smallest unit in terms of relationship between expression and content. Then is morpheme a grammatical concept or a semantic one？What is its relation to phoneme？Can a morpheme and a phoneme form an organic whole？

As a matter of fact，morpheme is both a grammatical concept and a semantic one. For instance，we can recognize that English word-forms such as talks，talker，talked and talking must consist of one element talk，and a number of other elements such as -s，-er，-ed，-ing. All these elements are described as morphemes. The definition of morpheme is“the smallest unit of language in terms of the relationship between expression and content”. We would say that the word reopened in the sentence The police reopened the investigation consists of three morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is open，another minimal unit of meaning is re-（meaning again），and a minimal unit of grammatical function is -ed（indicating past tense）. Therefore，we are in a position to conclude that those which can stand by themselves as single words，e.g. open，are semantic concepts，and those which cannot normally stand alone，but which are typically attached to another form，e.g. re-，-ist，-ed，-s，are grammatical concepts.

As we know，each one of the meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language is described as a phoneme. An essential property of a phoneme is that it functions contrastively. If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning，then the two sounds represent different phonemes.

The relation between morpheme and phoneme is also of twofold feature，viz. one-to-one，one-to-more. As with the former type，one-to-one，re-is the kind of morpheme that always consists of two phonemes /ri:/；as for the latter type，one-to-more relation，a typical example would be the plural morpheme that follows a noun or a verb. {s} after a noun can be pronounced in three ways，viz. /s/，/z/，and /iz/，as in locks，bags，and watches；{z} after a verb can also be pronounced in three ways，viz. /s/，/z/，and /iz/，as in stops，drags，and catches.

Seem from an integrative perspective，a morpheme and a phoneme，indeed，can form an organic whole，as the number of the sound of each morpheme cannot be unlimited.

Chapter 4

7、Use examples to illustrate different ways to extend syntactic constituents.

In this chapter，several ways to extend syntactic constituents are brought under the category of recursiveness，including coordination and subordination，conjoining and embedding，hypotactic and paratactic and so on. Coordination and conjoining are the different names for the same linguistic phenomenon，that is，to use and，but or or to join together syntactic constituents with the same function. For instance，the sentence A man got into the car could be extended into a sentence

like this“[NP A man，a woman，a boy，a car and a dog] got into the car”. While subordination and embedding can be understood as the extension of any syntactic constituent by inserting one or more syntactic elements with different functions，into another. I saw the man who had visited you last year is an extended sentence by changing the independent clause The man had visited you last year into a dependent element（here a relative clause）.

However，hypotaxis and parataxis are the two traditional terms for the description of syntactic relations between sentences. In the examples below，the former is hypotactic，while the latter is paratactic：

We live near the sea. So we enjoy a healthy climate.

He dictated the letter. She wrote it.

Chapter 5

7、The British linguist F. R. Palmer argues in his Semantics（p. 97）that“there is no absolute distinction between [gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms]. We can treat male/female，married/single，alive/dead as gradable antonyms on occasions. Someone can be very male or more married and certainly more dead than alive.”Comment on it.

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

8、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，as long as the meaning difference between them is what needs to be emphasized in the particular context.”He uses the two sentences below as examples. What do you think of the claim？

You have to peel a raw potato but you can skin a boiled one.

He’s no statesman，but a mere politician.

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”.

Supplement：

Give your comment on the distinction between word group and phrase.

A“phrase”is a single element of structure containing more than one word，and lacking the subject-predicate structure typical of“clauses”. Traditionally，it is seen as part of a structural hierarchy，falling between a clause and word，e.g. “the three tallest girls”（nominal phrase）. There is now a tendency to make a distinction between word groups and phrases. A“word group”is an extension of a word of a particular class by way of modification with its main features of the class unchanged，e.g. right behind，all along. Thus we have nominal group，verbal group，adverbial group，conjunction group and preposition group.

In general，word group can be a phrase，but phrase not always a word group.