语言学Lecture 2 the origins of language and some important linguistic terms

The Origins of LanguageWhat is the origin of language?How did humans invent this tool?Origin of LanguageThe origin of language is a topic that has been written about for centuries. We know that, at least once during human evolution, a system of verbal communication emerged from proto-linguistic or non-linguistic means of communication, but beyond that little can be said.Speculations on the Origin of Language⏹The divine source⏹The natural-sound source⏹The oral-gesture source⏹Glossogenetics（言语遗传学）The Divine SourceIn most religions, there appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language.The Biblical account in Genesis⏹The Book of Genesis2:19-20 God give Adam the task of assigning names to all the animals and plants he had in Eden.⏹The key Biblical narrative is a later Bible story that God punished human for building the Tower of Babel by confusing the tongues of the builders; the observed variety of human languages is a consequence of that divine judgment:Origin of LanguageGod descended to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built. God said, 'They are a single people, all having onelanguage, and this is the first thing they do! Now nothing they plan to do will be unattainable for them! Come, let us descend and confuse their speech, so that one person will notunderstand another's speech'.From that place, God scattered them all over the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. He named it Babel, because this was the place where God confused the world's language.It was from there that God dispersed humanity over all the face of the earth.ExperimentsA few experiments have been carried out on the basis of a hypothesis that if infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language.Psammetichus’ExperimentAn Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus tried the experiment with two newborn infants around 600 BC. After two years in the company of goats and a mute shepherd, the children were reported to have spontaneously uttered, not an Egyptian word, but something reported to be the Phrygian words bekos, meaning “bread”.The Experiment of James Ⅳof Scotland⏹He carried out a similar experiment around AD 1500 and the children were reported to have started speaking Hebrew.⏹All other cases of children who have been discovered living without access to human speech in their early years, grow up with no language at all.The natural-sound source⏹This view suggests that primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around them.⏹The “bow-wow”hypothesis: imitation of animal sounds⏹The “pooh-pooh”hypothesis: instinctive utterance of pain, anger and joy⏹The “yo-he-ho”hypothesis: rhythmic chants and vocalisms uttered in communal labor.The Oral-gesture Source⏹The oral-gesture theory proposes an extremely specific connection between physical and oral gesture.⏹Originally a set of physical gestures were developed as a means of communication. Then a set of oral gestures developed.Glossogentics⏹Glossogentics focuses mainly on the biological basis of the formation and development of human language.⏹In the evolutionary development there are certain physical features, best thought of as partial adaptations, that appear to be relevant for speech.Each of these speculations may account for certain aspects of human language; however,it remains a mystery!。

语言学教程复习题与答案(胡壮麟版第四章)I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: 1. Syntax is a subfied of linguistics that studies the sentence structure of language, including the combination of m orphemes into words. 2.Grammatical sentences are formed following a set of syntactic rules.3. Sentences are composed of sequence of words arranged in a simple linear order, with one adding onto another following a simple arithmetic logic.4.Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules that comprise the system of internalized linguistic kn owledge of a language speak-er are known as linguistic competence.5. 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.6. In a complex sentence, th e two clauses hold unequal status, one subordinating the other.7. Constituents that can be substituted for one another without loss of grammaticality belong to the same syntactic category.8. Minor lexical categories are open because these categories are not fixed and new members are allowed for.9. In English syntactic analysis, four phrasal categories are commonly recognized and discussed, namely, noun phrase, verb phrase, infinitiv e phrase, and auxiliary phrase. 10. In English the subject usually precedes the verb and the direct object usually follows the verb.11.What is actually internalized in the mind of a native speaker is a complete list of words and phrases rather than grammatical knowledge.12. A no un phrase must contain a noun, but other elements are optional.13. It is believed that phrase structure rules, with the insertion of the lexicon, generate sentences at the level of D-struct ure.14. WH-movement is obligatory in English which changes a sentence from affirmative to interrogative.II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the l etter given: 15. A s________ sentence consists of a single clause which contains a sub-ject a nd a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence. 16.A s______ is a structurally independ ent unit that usually comprises a number of words to form a complete statement, question o r command. 17.A s______ may be a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence that usually prec edes the predicate.18. The part of a sentence which comprises a finite verb or a verb phrase and which says something about the subject is grammatically called p_________.19. A c_________ sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other.20. In the complex sentence, the incorporated or subordinate clause is normally called an e_ ______ clause.21. Major lexical categories are o___ categories in the sense that new words a re constantly added.22. A _____ Condition on case assignment states that a case assignor an d a case recipient should stay adjacent to each other.23. P_______ are syntactic options of UG that allow general principles to operate in one way or another and contribute to signific ant linguistic variations between and among natural languages.24. The theory of C____ condit ion explains the fact that noun phrases appear only in subject and object positions.III. There are four given choices for each statement below. Mark the choice that can best complete t he statement: 25.A sentence is considered ____ when it does not conform to the grammatical-cal knowledge in the mind of native speakers.A. rightB. wrongC. grammaticalD. ungrammatical 26. A __________ in the embedd ed clause refers to the introductory word that introduces the embedded clause. A. coordinato r B. particle C. preposition D. subordinator 27. Phrase structure rules have ____ properti es. A. recursive B. grammatical C. social D. functional 28. Phrase structure rules allow us to better understand ____________A. how words and phrases form sentences.B. what constitutes the grammaticality of strings of wordsC. how people produce and recognize possible sentencesD. All of the above. 29. Syntactic movement is dictated by rules traditionally called ________. A. transformational rul esB. generative rules C. phrase structure rules D. x-bar theory 30. The theory of case conditio n accounts for the fact that __________. A. noun phrases appear only in subject and object positions. B. noun phrases can be used to modify another noun phrase C. noun phrase can be used in adverbial positions D. noun phrase can be moved to any place if necessary. 31. The sentence structure is ________. A. only linear B. Only hierarchical C. complex D. both linear and hierarchical 32. The syntactic rules of any language are ____ in number.A. largeB. smallC. finiteD. infinite 33. The ________ rules are the rules that g roup words and phrases to form grammatical sentencesA. lexicalB. morphologicalC. linguisticD. combinational 34._______ rules may change the syntactic representation of a sentence. A. Generative B. Transformational C. X-bar D. Phrase structureIV. Define the following terms: 35. syntax 36. Sentence 37. coordinate sentence 38. synta ctic categories 39. grammatical relations 40. linguistic competence 41. transformational rules42. D-structure V. Answer the following questions:43. What are the basic components of a sentence? 44. What are the major types of sentence s? Illustrate them with examples. 45. Are the elements in a sentence linearly structured? Why?46. What are the advantages of using tree diagrams in the analysis of sentence structures? 4 7. What is NP movement. Illustrate it with examples.I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: l.F 2.T 3.F 4.T 5. T 6.T 7.T 8.F 9.F 10.T 11.F 12.T 13.T 14.T II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given: 15. simple, 16. sentence 17. subject 18. predicate 19. complex 20.embedded 21. open 22.adjacency 23.Parameters 24.Case III. There ar e four given choices for each statement below. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 25. D 26. D 27. A 28. D 29. A 30. A 31. D 32. C 33. D 34. BIV. Define the following terms: 35. syntax: Syntax is a subfield of linguistics. It studies the sentence structur e of language. It consists of a set of abstract rules that allow words to be combined with o ther words to form grammatical sentences. 36. Sentence: A sentence is a structurally indepen dent unit that usually comprises a number of words to form a complete statement, question or command. Normally, a sentence consists of at least a subject and a predicate which conta ins a finite verb or a verb phrase. 37. coordinate sentence: A coordinate sentence contains t wo clauses joined by a linking word called coordinating conjunction, such as "and", "but", "o r". 38. syntactic categories: Apart from sentences and clauses, a syntactic category usually refe rs to a word (called a lexical category) or a phrase ( called a phrasal category) that performs a particular grammatical function. 39. grammatical relations: The structural and logical functi onal relations of constituents are called grammatical relations. The grammatical relations of a sentence concern the way each noun phrase in the sentence relates to the verb. In many cas es, grammatical relations in fact refer to who does what to whom .40. linguistic competence: Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules comprise the syst em of internalized linguistic knowledge of a language speaker known as linguistic competence.41. Transformational rules: Transformational rules are the rules that transform one sentence type into another type.42. D-structure: D- structure is the level of syntactic representation that exists before movement takes place. Phrase structure rules, with the insertion of the lexicon, generate sentences at the level of D-structure.V. Answer the following questions: 43.What are the basic components of a sentence? Normally, a sentence consists of at least a s ubject and its predicate which contains a finite verb or a verb phrase. 44. What are the maj or types of sentences? Illustrate them with examples. Traditionally, there are three major ty pes of sentences. They are simple sentence, coordinate( compound) sentence, and complex se ntence. A simple sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicat e and stands alone as its own sentence, for example: John reads extensively. A coo rdinate sentence contains two clauses joined by a linking word that is called coordinating con junction, such as "and", "but", "or". For example: John is reading a linguistic book, and Mary is preparing for her history exam. A complex sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other. The two clauses in a complex sentenc e do not have equal status, one is subordinate to the other. For exam-ple: Before John gave her a lecture, Mary showed no interest in lin-guistics. 45. Are the elements in a sentence li nearly structured? Why? No. Language is both linearly and hierarchically structured. When a sentence is uttered or written down, the words of the sentence are produced one after an other in a sequence. A closer examination of a sentence shows that a sentence is not comp osed of sequence of words arranged in a simple linear order with one adding onto another f ollowing a simple arithmetic logic. In fact, sen-tences are also hierarchically structured. They are orga-nized by grouping together words of the same syntactic category, such as noun phra se (NP) or verb phrase (VP), as can be seen from the following tree diagram:S NP VP Det N Vt NPDet N The boy likes the music. 46. Wh at are the advantages of using tree diagrams in the analysis of sentence structures? The tre e diagram can not only reveal a linear order, but also a hierarchical structure that groups wo rds into structural constituents. It can, in addition, show the syntactic category of each struct ural constituent, thus it is believed to most truthfully illustrate the constituent relationship am ong linguistic elements. 47. What is NP movement. Illustrate it with examples. NP movemen t in-volves the movement of a noun phrase. NP-movement occurs when, for example, a sent ence changes from the active voice to the passive voice: (A)The man beat the child. (B). The child was beaten by the man. B is the result of the m ovement of the noun phrases "the man" and "the child" from their original positions in (A) to new positions. That is, "the man" is postposed to the right and "the child" is preposed to the left. Not all instances of NP-movement, however, are related to changing a sentenc e from the active voice to the passive voice. For example: (C) It seems they are quite fit for the job. (D) They seem quite fit for the job. These sentences are identical in meanin g, but different in their superfi-cial syntactic representations. It is believed that they have the same underly-ing structure, but (27b) is the result of an NP movement.语言学教程复习题与答案(胡壮麟版第五章)I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: 1. Dialectal synonyms can often be found in different regional dialects such as British English and American Engl ish but cannot be found within the variety itself, for example, within British English or Ame rican English. 2. Sense is concerned with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience, while the reference deals with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. 3. Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different refere nces in different situations. 4. In semantics, meaning of language is considered as the intrinsi c and inherent relation to the physical world of experience. 5. Contextualism is based on t he presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable context s. 6. Behaviourists 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. 7. The meaning of a sentence is the sum total of the meanings of all its components. 8. Most languages have sets of lexical items similar in meaning but ranked differently according to their degree of formality. 9. “it is hot.”is a no-place predication because it contains no argument.10. In grammatical analysis, the sentence is taken to be the basic unit, but in semantic analy sis of a sentence, the basic unit is predication, which is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the let ter given: 11. S________ can be defined as the study of meaning. 12. The conceptualist vie w holds that there is no d______ link between a linguistic form and what it refers to. 13.R______ means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. 14. W ords that are close in meaning are called s________. 15. When two words are identical in s ound, but different in spelling and meaning, they are called h__________. 16.R_________ o pposites are pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items.17. C ____ analysis is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided i nto meaning components. 18. Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called s________ restrictions, which are constraints on what lexical items can go with what others. 19. An a________ is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal element(s) in a sentence. 20. According to the n ____ theory of meaning, the words in a lan-guage are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for. III. There are fou r choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 21. The naming theory is advanced by ________.A. PlatoB. BloomfieldC. Geoffrey LeechD. Firth 22. “We shall k now a word by the company it keeps.”This statement represents _______. A. the conce ptualist view B. contexutalism C. the naming theory D.behaviourism 23. Whic h of the following is not true? A. Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the lin guistic form. B. Sense is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form. C. Sense is abstract and de-contextualized. D. Sense is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are not interested in. 24. “Can I borrow your bike?”_______ “You have a bike.”A. is synonymous withB. is inconsistent withC. entailsD. presupposes 25. ____ _______ is a way in which the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning compone nts, called semantic features. A. Predication analysis B. Componential analysis C. Phonemic analysis D. Grammatical analysis 26. “alive”and “dead”are ______ ________. A. gradable antonyms B. relational opposites C. complementary antony ms D. None of the above 27. _________ deals with the relationship between the ling uistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. A. Reference B. C oncept C. Semantics D. Sense 28. ___________ refers to the pheno广告网址n that words having different meanings have the same form. A. PolysemyB. SynonymyC. HomonymyD. Hyponymy 29. Words that are close in meaning are called ______________. A. homonyms B. polysemy C. hyponyms D. synonyms 30. The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by _ ______. A. grammatical rules B. selectional restrictions C. semantic rules D. semantic fea tures IV. Define the following terms: 31. semantics 32. sense 33 . reference 34. synonymy 35. polysemy 36. homonymy 37. homophones 38. Homographs 39. complete homonyms 40. hyponymy 41.antonymy 42 componential analysis 43.grammatical meaning 44. predication 45. Ar gument 46. predicate 47. Two-place predication V. Answer the following questions: 48. Why do we say that a meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components? 49. What is componential analysis? Illustrate it with exampl es. 50. How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth val ues? 51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous re lation, inconsistent relation in terms of truth values? 52. According to the way synonyms di ffer, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples. 53. W hat are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How they differ?I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: l.F 2.F 3.T 4.F 5. T 6.T 7.F 8.T 9.T 10.T II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given: 11. Semantics 12. direct 13.Reference 14. synonyms 15.homopho nes 16.Relational 17. Componential 18. selectional 19. argument 20. naming III. There are fo ur choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 2l.A 22.B 23.D 24.D 25.B 26.C 27.A 28.C 29.D 30.A IV. Define the following terms: 31. Se mantics: Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language. 32. Sense: Se nse 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 -contextualised. 33. Reference: Refere nce means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relati onship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience 34. Synonym y :Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. 35. Polysemy :Polysemy r efers to the fact that the same one word may have more than one meaning. 36. Homonymy:Homonymy refers to the pheno广告网址n that words having different mean-ings have the same form, i.e. , different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. 37. homoph ones :When two words are identical in sound, they are called homophones 38. homographs : When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. 39. complete homonyms.:Wh en two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are called complete homonyms.40.Hyponymy :Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word. 41. Antonymy :Antonymy refers to the relation of opposite ness of meaning. 42. Componential analysis : Componential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was pro-posed by structural semanticists. The approach is based on the belief t hat the meaning of a -word can be divided into meaning components, which are called sema ntic features. 43.The grammatical meaning : The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, i.e. , its grammatical well-formedness . The grammaticality of a sentence i s governed by the grammatical rules of the language. 44. predica-tion :The predica-tion is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. 45. ar-gument : An ar-gument is a logical particip ant in a predication. It is generally identical with the nominal element (s) in a sentence. 46. predicate : A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it states the logical re lation linking the arguments in a sentence. 47. two-place predication :A two-place predication is one which con-tains two arguments. V. Answer the following qu estions: 48. Why do we say that a meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the mea nings of all its components? The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the mean ings 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 co mponents, then the above two sentences would have the same meaning. In fact they are diff erent in meanings. As we know, there are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical mea n-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). T he 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 r elate one word syntagmatically to another. 49.What is componential analysis? Illustrate it with examples. Componential analysis, pro-pos ed by structural semanticists, is a way to analyze word meaning. The approach is based on t he belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components, which are c alled semantic features. Plus and minus signs are used to indicate whether a certain semantic feature is present or absent in the meaning of a word, and these feature symbols are usuall y written in capitalized letters. For example, the word “man”is ana-lyzed as consisting of the semantic features of [+ HUMAN, + ADULT, + ANIMATE, +MALE] 50. How do yo u distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth values? Entailment is a relation of inclusion. Suppose there are two sentences X and Y: X: He has been to Fran ce. Y: He has been to Europe. In terms of truth values, if X is true, Y is necessarily tru e, e.g. If he has been to France, he must have been to Europe. If X is false, Y may be t rue or false, e. g. If he has not been to France, he may still have been to Europe or he h as not been to Europe. If Y is true, X may be true or false, e.g. If he has been to Europe, he may or may not have been to France. If Y is false, X is false, e.g. If he has not been to Europe, he cannot have been to France. Therefore we conclude that X entails Y or Y i s an entailment of X. The truth conditions that we use to judge presupposition is as follows: Suppose there are two sentences X and Y X: John' s bike needs repairing. Y: J ohn has a bike. If X is true, Y must be true, e.g. If John' s bike needs repairing, John mus t have a bike. If X is false, Y is still true, e. g. If John' s bike does not need repairing, Jo hn still has a bike. If Y is true, X is either true or false, e.g. If John has a bike, it may or may not need repairing. If Y is false, no truth value can be said about X, e.g. If John doe s not have a bike, nothing can be said about whether his bike needs repairing or not. There fore, X presupposes Y, or Y is a presupposition of X. 51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous relation, inconsistent relation in terms of tr uth values? In terms of truth condition, of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false, therefore X is synonymous with Y e.g. X; He was a bachelor all his life. Y: He never married all his life. Of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true, then we can say A is inconsistent with Y e.g. X: John ismarried. Y: John is a bachelor.52. According to the ways synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples.According to the ways synonyms differ, synonyms can be divided into the following group s. i. Dialectal synonyms They are synonyms which are used in different regional dialects. Bri tish English and American English are the two major geographical varieties of the English la nguage. For examples: British English American English autumn fall lift elevator Then dialectal synonyms can also be foun d 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 synonyms They a re synonyms which differ in style or degree of formality. Some of the stylistic synonyms ten d to be more formal, others tend to be casual, and still oth-ers are neutral in style. For exa mple: old man, daddy, dad, father, male parent chap, pal, friend, companion iii. Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning They are the words that have the same meaning but express different emotions of the user. The emotions of the user indi cate the attitude or bias of the user toward what he is talking about . For exam-ple, “colla borator” 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 do-ing something good, while the latter refers to a person who helps another in a criminal act. iv. Collocational synonyms They are synonyms which differ in the ir 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 preposi-tions accuse. . . of, charge. . . with, rebuke. . .for. v. V. Semantically different synonyms Semantically differe nt synonyms refer to the synonyms that differ slight-ly in what they mean. For example, "a maze" and "astound" are very close in meaning to the word "surprise," but they have very s ubtle differences in meaning. While amaze suggests confusion andbewilderment, " astound" implies difficulty in believing. " 53. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How do they differ? One of the oldest w as the naming theory, proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato, who believed that the w ords used in a language are taken to be la-bels of the objects they stand for. The conceptua list view holds that there is no direct link between a lin-guistic form and what it refers to.The form and the meaning are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. Conte xtualism 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 co uld not be found" can only be determined ac-cording to the context in which the sentence occurs: The seal could not be found. The zoo keeper became worried. (seal meaning an aqu atic mammal) The seal could not be found. The king became worried. (seal meaning the kin g's stamp)Behaviorism drew on behaviorist psychology when he tried to define the meaning of lingui stic forms. Behaviorists attempted to de-fine the meaning of a language form as " the situati on in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer".语言学教程复习题与答案(胡壮麟版第六章)Historical Linguistics I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: 1. One of the tasks of the historical linguists is to explore methods to reconstruct linguistic history and establish the relationship between languages. 2. Language change is a gradual and constant process, therefore often indiscernible to speakers of the same generation. 3. The hi story of the English language is divided into the periods of Old English, Middle English and Modern English. 4. Middle English began with the arrival of Anglo-Saxons, who invaded th e British Isles from northern Europe. 5. In Old English, all the nouns are inflected to mark nominative, genitive, dative and accusative cases. 6. In Old English, the verb of a sentence often precedes the subject rather than follows it. 7. A direct consequence of the Renaissance Movement was the revival of French as a literary language. 8. In general, linguistic change i n grammar is more noticeable than that in the sound system and the vocabulary of a langua ge. 9. The sound changes include changes in vowel sounds, and in the loss, gain and move ment of sounds. 10. The least widely-spread morphological changes in the historical develop ment of English are the loss and addition of affixes. 11. In Old English, the morphosyntac tic rule of adjective agreement stipulated that the endings of adjective must agree with the h ead noun in case, number and gender. 12.。

Lecture 11. Why do linguists tend to be so critical to traditional grammar?Traditional Grammar---broadly refers to the study of language covering the period from ancient times to the end of the 18th century .Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Linguistics regarded the spoken language as primary, not the written. It lacked autonomy. It was modeled on ancient Greek, Latin grammar. It was based on logical concepts from meaning to form, not from form to meaning. Emphasis was laid on written language. The attitude was prescriptive not descriptive.2. What is the difference between the descriptive and the prescriptive approach to the investigation of language? Which is to be preferred and why?Descriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. Prescriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used. Both kinds of grammar are concerned with rules--but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar study the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. On the other hand, prescriptive grammarians lay out rules about what they believe to be the “correct” or “incorrect” use of language. Descriptive grammarians generally advise us not to be overly concerned with matters of correctness: language, they say, isn't good or bad; it simply is. As the history of the glamorous word grammar demonstrates, the English language is a living system of communication, a continually evolving affair. Within a generation or two, words and phrases come into fashion and fall out again. Over centuries, word endings and entire sentence structures can change or disappear.3. What are features of modern linguistics?Linguistics is descriptive not prescriptive. Priority of spoken language. Priority of synchronic description. The linguist is interested in all languages.Lecture 21. What branches does general linguistics include? What these branches study?Phonetics: it studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and received, the sound of speech, the description and classification of speech sounds, words and connected speech.Phonology: it studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables.Morphology: it is concerned with the internal organization of words it studies the minimal units of meaning—morphemes and word-formation processed. Syntax: it is about principles of forming and understanding correct English sentences.Semitics: it examines how meaning is encoded in a language.Pragmatic s: it is the study of meaning in context. it deals with particular utterance in particular situation and is especially concerned with the various ways in which the many social contexts of language performance can influence interpretation.3. (1)Langue vs. parole Langue was considered to be the totality of a language. It was a “storehouse”, the sum of word-images stored in the minds of individuals. We may put it loosely in a formula like:In Saussure's theory, parole refers to the individual side of speech, i.e. speaking is psychophysical, it being the actual, concrete act of speaking on the part of an individual. Parole is thus not a collective instrument; its manifestations are individual and momentary. Langue is code, parole is messag e Langue and parole are closely connected, each dependent on the other: the langue of a community can be arrived at only by a consideration of a large number of paroles, whereas parole can only be intelligible with langue in the minds of all the community members. To a linguist, langue is of primary importance as he wants to make statements which apply, not just to the speech of individuals but to the language as a whole.(2)Synchronic vs. Diachronic linguistics.Synchronic study of language---- refers to the study of language as a whole and the description of a particular state of a language at a given point of time in the development of language without considering its evolution and change in history.Diachronic study of language ---- refers to the study of the process of evolution of language at various histories (historical). A diachronic description of a language traces the historical development of the language and records the changes that have taken place in it between successive points in time.(3)Microlinguistics vs. MacrolinguisticsMicrolinguistics ---- refers to the study of the structure and systems of language, including the various subjects of study of the internal structures of language, such fields as phonology, morphology, syntax.Macrolinguistics ---- refers to the study of language from a broad angle in variou s interdisciplinary subjects, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, mathematical linguistics, and computational linguisticsLecture 31. Define language. How can you understand it?To give the definition, language is a means of verbal communication .it is instrumental in that communicating by speaking or writing is a purposeful act. It is social and conventional in that language is a social semiotic and communication can only take effectively if all the users share a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and socio-cultural roles. Language learning and use are determined by the intervention of biological, cognitive, psychosocial and environmental factors .in short ,language distinguishes us from animals because it is far more sophisticated than any animal communication system.2. Illustrate the differences between human language and animal communication system in terms of displacement and cultural transmission.Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication. With language, we can recall the past or anticipate the future. For example, we can refer to the first has been dead for over 2500 years .Most animals respond communicatively as soon as they are stimulated by some occurrence of communal interest. For instance, a warning cry of a bird instantly announces danger. Such animals are under “immediate stimulus control”. Human language is, unlike animal communication systems, stimulus free. What we talk about need not be triggered by any external stimulus in the world or any internal state.Cultural transmission ---- refers to the fact that the details of the linguistic system must be learned anew by each speaker. They are not biologically transmitted from generation to generation. Though the capacity for language in human being has a genetic basis, the particular language a human being learns is a cultural fact, not a genetic one. Simply, while you may inherit brown eyes and dark hair from your parents, you do not inherit their language. You acquire a language in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes. e.g. An infant born to Korean parents, who is adopted and brought up from birth by English speakers in the U.S, may have physical characteristics inherited from its natural parents, but it will inevitably speak English. And if the child is isolated from the society, he can’t acquire the language successfully. So language is acquired in a socio-cultural context.3. Why is language human specific?Firstly, human language has “design features” which animal communication system do not have, at least not in the true sense of them. Secondly, linguistshave done a lot trying to teach animals such as chimpanzees to speak a human language but have achieved nothing inspiring. Washoe, a female chimpanzee, was brought up like a human child by Beatnice and Alan Gardner. She was taught “American sign Language”, and learned a little that made the teachers happy but did mot make the linguistics circle happy, for few believed in teaching chimpanzees. Thirdly, a human child reared among animals cannot speak a human language, not even when he is taken back and taught to do so4. List basic functions of language and define each of them by their aimsReferential Function whenever we ask people for information or tell others about our circumstances and things alike, we are using language in an attempt to share what we know and exchange what we have in our minds. This is often called "referential", or "ideational".Interpersonal Function is concerned with interaction between the addresser and addressee in a discourse situation and the addresser's attitude toward what he speaks or writes about.Textual Function relates our abilities to construct texts out of our utterances and writings.The performative function is primarily to change the social status of persons; the performative function can extend to the control of reality as on some magical or religious occasions.Emotive function is a means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we are under stress.For example, swear words, obscenities are probably the commonest signals to be used in this way, especially when we are in an angry or frustrated state.Phatic Communion language can serve the function of creating or maintaining social relationship between speakers.Identifying function Our use of language can tell our listener or reader a great deal about ourselves, in particular, about our regional origins, social background, and level of education, occupation, age, sex, and personality.The recreational function of a language is often overlooked because it seems restrictive in purpose and supposedly limited in usefulness. However, no one will deny the use of language for the sheer joy of using it.5. Arbitrariness, Duality of structure, Displacement,Discreteness, Cultural transmission.Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning. Take the case of the English word “man”. In Chinese “rén”Duality refers to the property of having two levels of structures, units of the primary level being composed of elements of the secondary level and each level having its own principles of organization.For instance, tens of thousands of words out of a small set of sounds, around 48 in the case of the English language.Creativity----the speaker is able to combine the basic linguistic units to form an infinite set of sentences, most of which are never produced or heard before. Creativity is a universal property of human language. For example, we can write a sentence like the following and go on endlessly:This is the dog that chased the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Tom built.Lecture 41. How do phonetics and phonology differ from each other? And how are they related to each other?Phonetics-- general, descriptive, and classificatory. It studies speech sounds as they are.Phonology-- concerned with the sound system of language, studies the functioning of the speech sounds. Phonetics provides the means for describing speech sounds; phonology studies the ways in which speech sounds form system and patterns. Phonetics is of general nature; it is the branch of linguistics ,studying the characteristics of speech sounds and provides methods for their description ,classification , and transcription without reference to the function of speech sounds in a particular language ,while phonology is language specific . It deals with speech sounds within the context of a particular language; it is concerned with the working and functioning of speech sounds in a language. Phonologist studies what he believes are meaningful sounds related with their semantic features, morphological features, and the way they are conceived and printed in the depth of the mind. Phonological knowledge permits a speaker to produce sounds which form meaningful utterances, to recognize a foreign “accent”, to make up new words, to add the appropriate phonetic segments to form plurals and past tenses, to know what is and what is not a sound in one’s language.2 Illustrate phone, phoneme and allophone by examples. How is a phone different from a phoneme?A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. But phones do not necessarily distinguish meaning.When we hear the following words produced: pit, spit, tip, feel, leaf, the phones we have heard are [ph] (as in pit), [p] (as in spit), [p¬] (as in tip), [s], [t], [f], [i:], [i], [l].A phoneme is a phonological unit; it is a unit that is of distinctive value. So a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two words. It is an abstract unit. It is not any particular sound but rather it is represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context. We use slant lines “/ /” pan and ban differ only in their initial sounds /p/ and /b/.Allophone: the different phones that represent or are derived from one phoneme are called the allophones of that phoneme. For example: /p/ is a phoneme, but it may be pronounced as phones [ph], [p], [p¬] .So [ph], [p], [p¬] are the allophones of the same phoneme /p/.3. Explain the sequential rules, assimilation rules and deletion rule by examples.Assimilation rule It assimilates one segment to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones more similar. When a phoneme is realized differently in actual connected speech from what it usually is, as a result of being near some other phonemes belonging to a neighboring word, assimilation takes place “in” may be pronounced differently as [in], or [i?] or [im], when occurring in different phonetic contexts: indiscrete alveolar [in], inconceivable velar [i?] ,input bilabial [im]The deletion rule It tells us when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented. e.g. “g” is mute in “sign”, “design”. It is pronounced in their corresponding derivat ives “signature”, “designation”. The rule is: delete a [g] when it occurs before a final nasal consonant.4 Minimal pairsWhen two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string, the two words are said to have formed a minimal pair.Lecture 51 What does morphology study?It studies morphemes and their different forms and the way they combine in word formation (the study of the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed).2 What are the main features of morpheme?(1) Morphemes cannot be broken down any further into recognizable or meaningful parts. In other words, a morpheme can’t be divided without altering or destroying its meaning.(2) A word may consist of one morpheme or more than one morpheme, while a morpheme may not necessarily represent a word.(3) Morpheme is also a two-fact language unit, which possesses both sound and meaning.(4) Morpheme is not identical with a syllable for syllable has nothing to do with meaning.3 Free morpheme, Bound morphemeFree morpheme, if a morpheme can constitute a word (free form) by itself, it is called a free morpheme.Bound morpheme, If a morpheme has meaning only when connected with at least another morpheme, it is bound. Traditionally, these prefix and suffix morphemes have been called bound morphemes.Lecture 61 Do you think that morphology and syntax should be treated as separate areas of study? Give your views and support them with reasons.Morphology & Syntax(1) A principle distinction between morphology and syntax, is that the former is concerned with the internal composition of a word, whereas the latter is concerned with combinations of words(2) From a nineteen-century linguistic perspective,morphology is the science of the forms of language and more abstractly, of the formatives(构形成分) that give form to words.Syntax, by contrast, is concerned not with formation or forms or formatives but with comparatively insubstantial notions of order or arrangement, in keeping with the etymology of the term. Syntax is thus outside the scope of linguistic morphology, because of the abstract nature of the elements whose arrangement it deals with.(3) Morphology is considered to be part of syntax, both may be grouped together as grammar.(4) Since sentence is usually regarded as the largest grammatical unit of a language, syntax has long been the center of grammatical study.(5) Different linguistics theories differ in their treatment of sentence structure. Conclusion: There are arguments in favor of morpheme-based grammar and there are arguments against it. The same is true of the more traditionalword-based grammar.2. Explain and exemplify IC analysis.IC analysis is one of the structuralist grammars. It is a major feature of Bloomfieldian descriptivism.This approach works through the different levels of structure within a sentence in a series of steps.At each level, a construction is divided into its major constituents, which are termed immediate constituents, and the process continues until no further divisions can be made. The constituents in the last step are called ultimate constituents. In general, the division is binary. IC analysis can be represented in different ways.3. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationsSyntagmatic: a linear relationship between the signs present in the sentence. (the relation between one item and others in a sequence) .Paradigmatic is a particular one in that it denotes a relationship between a sign in a sentence and a sign not in a sentence. (A word may be said to have paradigmatic relations with words that could be substituted for it in the sentence.)4. Rheme vs. ThemeRheme refers to information that is new. The nucleus, or the core of the utterance ---- what the speaker states about, or in regard to the starting point of the utteranceTheme the known (or given) information --- information that is not new to the reader or listener.5. TG-grammar in1957 in Syntactic Structures, which has transformed linguistics from a relatively obscure discipline of interest mainly to language teachers and future missionaries into a major social science of direct relevance to psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and others.Lecture 71. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? (1). Referential theory of meaning (the naming theory) .The meaning of an expression is what it refers to, or stands for. Expressions or words are "names" or "labels" for things. E.g. man, furniture, fish, China --- whose main function is precisely that of naming or labeling. They are meaningful in that they each refer to an individual or a collection of living beings or objects existing in the reality. There is a one-to-one correspondence between name and object.(2). Mentalist theory of meaning, There has been a tendency to adopt a mentalist approach in their treatment of meaning by a group of modern linguists headed by Chomsky since 1960's. They view the primary function of language as the communication of ideas and have adopted the assumption, as a working basis for linguistic inquiry, that the data needed about language can be supplied by direct resort to intuition. It states that the meaning of an expression is the idea, or concept associated with it in the mind of anyone who knows it. It attempts to explain the meaning of words in terms of the image in the speaker's / hearer's mind. Two of the best-known theories of it are the “sign " theory of Saussure and the semiotic triangle of Ogden and Richards. According to Saussure's sign theory, a linguistic sign consists of a signifier and a signified. They can be more strictly regarded as a sound image (signifier) and a concept (signified) , which are linked by a psychological associative bond, that is, both the noise we make and the objects of world we talk about are mirrored in some way by conceptual entities. Two of the best-known theories of it are the “sign " theory of de Saussure and the semiotic triangle of Ogden and Richards.When we hear a sound, e. g. dog, the image or concept of the dog will be mirrored in our mind, and the image will be the meaning of the expression(3)Behaviorist theory of meaning. This theory was very popular during the 1920's to 1960's. It has great influence in the fields of psychology, philosophy and linguistics. Its representat ive is L. Bloomfield of America. This theory states that the meaning of an expression is either the stimulus that evokes it or the response that it evokes, or a combination of both, on particular occasions of utterance. He illustrated his views with a famous account of Jack and Jill, trying to define meaning in terms of the behaviorist point of view ---stimulus-and-response point of view. E.g. Jill is hungry. She sees an apple and gets Jack to fetch it for her by speaking to him. He interpreted this in terms of stimulus and response with the diagram.Jill JackS------------r~~~~~s----------RHere S means practical events (physical) which precede the act of speech, i.e. Jill's hunger. It is termed as a stimulus. And r refers to a linguistic response of Jill to this stimulus. Jill expresses this response by speaking to Jack. The sound waves reaching Jack result in creating a linguistic stimulus in him, which is indicated by a small letter s. R refers to the eventual physical response Jack makes in getting the apple for Jill. Thus, Bloomfield argued that meaning consists in the relation between speech (which is shown by r----- s) and the practical events S and R that precede and follow it. In this way, he wanted to contrast his theory with the mentalistic theories which involve thoughts, concepts, images, etc.But to interpret meaning in terms of the relation between speech and physical entities and events needs to know other 'predisposing factors' concerning thespeaker and hearer. This is a task Bloomfield found too difficult to accomplish and thus he did not pursue.(4)Contextual theory of meaning. The Operational theory or Meaning-is-use Theory of meaning. Representatives--- L. Wittgenstein, S. Chase and J. R. Firth. Explains that the meaning of an expression is determined by, if not identical with, its use in language. The famous English linguists Chase and Firth advocated that the true meaning of a word is to be found by observing what a man does with it, not what he says about it. The German philosopher Wittgenstein goes a step further. He boldly asserted that the meaning of a word is its use.2. How do you understand ambiguity?Ambiguity refers to the linguistic phenomenon in which one linguistic expression allows more than one understandings or interpretations. E.g. the office of the president is vacant.Basically, ambiguity can be classified into two types: A. Lexical ambiguity:1) words with more than one sense. She can’t bear children. 2) Some words are ambiguous. He put it in the boot.3) A single word, with several different meanings which are not closed related. Mug-- He had a mug./ He had an ugly mug. 4) A word with several very closely related senses is ambiguous.B. Syntactic ambiguity. Structural ambiguity is concerned with the syntactic representation of sentences. It occurs when more than one syntactic structure can be associated with a sequence of words. E.g. 1) American history teacher 3. How would you describe the oddness of the following sentences, using semantic feature?A. The television drank my water.B. His dog writes poetry.4. synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homonymy, hyponymy Polysemy: The same word may have two or more different meanings. This is known as polysemy; such a word is polysemic.Homonymy: Lexical items which have the phonological or spelling norm, but differ in meaning are called homonyms. Such a linguistic phenomenon, i.e. identity of form and diversity of meaning is referred to as homonymy.Hyponymy: It refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a specific word. The word is more general in meaning is called the superordinate and the more specific words are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the same superordinate are co-hyponyms to each other. E.g flower-----rose, tulip, carnation, lily. Animal----dog, cat, tiger, lionAntonymy: The term antonymy is used for oppositeness of meaning. Words that are opposite in meaning are antonyms. Oppositeness can be found on different dimensions. Root contrast derivative contrast semantic contrast (1) gradable (2) complementary (3) converses~Synonymy---sameness of meaningStyle: the same cognitive meaning but different stylistic meaning.(1) cast (literary, biblical) .throw (general). Chuck (slang)Dialect---geographical variationRegister—varieties of a language according to their topic and context of use.E.g. you can’t cancel your room reservation. No cancellations can be accepted.Lecture 81. What does pragmatics study?P20How does pragmatics differ from semantics, and utterance meaning from sentence meaning? 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 sentences were 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.How does a sentence meaning differ from an utterance meaning? A sentence meaning is often considered as the intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of a predication. It is abstract and independent of context. The meaning of an utterance is concrete, and context-dependent. The utterance meaning is based on sentence meaning; it is realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context. For example, “There is a dog at the door”. The speaker could utter it as a matter- of- fact statement, telling the hearer that the dog is at the door. The speaker could use it as a warning, asking the hearer not to approach the door. There are other possibilities, too. So, t he understanding of the utterance meaning of “There is adog at the door” de pends on the context in which it is uttered and the purpose for which the speaker utters it.2. What are the five illocutionary speech acts Searle specifies? (1) Representatives(阐述类)---- stating or describing ,saying what the speaker believes to be true.The earth is flat.（2）directives (指令类)----trying to get the hearer to do somethingDon’t touch that.(3) commissives (承诺类) -----committing the speaker himself to some future course of actionE.g: I promise to come.(4) expressives ( 表达类) ----expressing feelings or attitude towards an existing state.e.g : I’m sorry for the mess I have made.(5) declaration ( 宣布类)---- bringing about immediate changes by saying somethingPriest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.Referee: you are out!Lecture 91. what contributions has sociolinguistics provided to the field of language teaching?。