语言学概论试卷（一）
I.Fill in the following blanks with appropriate words and expressions. (10%, one
point for each blank)
1.The __________ study of a language is concerned with a “state” of a language at a particular
point of time.
2.__________ knowledge is a native sp eaker’s intuition about the sounds and sound patterns of
his language.
3.When the vocal cords are nearly touching each other but not completely closed, the
air-stream passing through the glottis has to cause vibration. The sounds made in this way are called ______________.
4.The lowering of the soft palate brings about the production of ________ consonants.
5.We can define a phoneme as a minimal ________ unit in the sound system of a language.
6.__________, one of the suprasegmental features in English, refers to the phonetic boundary
features that may mark grammatical units such as word and clause.
7.___________ are the realizations of a specific morpheme.
8.The linguistic forms that have substitutional relations belong to the same
__________________.
9.The linguists who intend to find out how a sentence is generated by rules follow the theory of
______________.
10. A deep structure corresponds most closely to the ________________ of words.
II.Choose the right answer that fits each blank in the sentences from the four choices given. (25%, one point for each)
1.The sound [v] is a(n) ________.
A.oral voiced alveolar affricate C. oral voiced labiodental fricative
B.oral voiceless dental liquid D. nasal voiced postalveolar fricative
2.Dentals are different from velars in terms of ________.
A.the position of the soft velum
B.the presence or the absence of vocal-cord vibration
C.the place of articulation
D.the manner of articulation
3.Which of the following is a minimal pair? ________.
A.beat and bought C. /mi:t/ and /ti:m/
B./li:v/ and /fi:l/ D. /sit/ and /su:p/
4.The sound [j] can be described as ________ in terms of feature specifications.
A.[+continuant], [-vocalic], [+consonantal], [-anterior]
B.[-consonantal], [+vocalic], [+continuant], [+coronal]
C.[-consonantal], [-vocalic], [-anterior], [-nasal]
D.[-consonantal], [-vocalic], [-voiced], [+coronal]
5.The environment of the sound [m] in the word [‘medisin] can be described as ________.
A.[‘ - edisin] C. [# - edisin]
B.[# - e] D. [- e]
6.The sound ______ is an oral voiceless palatal plosive.
A.[p] C. [k]
B.[c] D. [t]
7.Which of the following is not a minimal pair? ________.
A./æsk/ and /ɑ:sk/ C. bate and bat
B./sit/ and /sæt/ D. fit and knit
8.The word difficult from difficulty involves the word formation process of ________.
A.blending C. clipping
pounding D. back-formation
9.By saying language is ________, we mean that there is no logical reason why a certain
linguistic form should represent a certain linguistic meaning and there is no reason why a certain linguistic meaning should be represented by a certain linguistic form either.
A.creative C. symbolic
B.arbitrary D. changeable
10.The purpose of __________ linguistics is to establish a model that describes the rules of one
particular language.
A.applied C. general
B.structural D. descriptive
11.The sound [i] can be described as a(n) ________ vowel.
A.oral central high unrounded lax
B.nasal front mid rounded tense
C.oral front high unrounded lax
D.oral back low rounded tense
12.Which of the following words involves the process of blending? ________.
A.agreement from agree + ment
B.heliport from helicopter + airport
C.blackboard from black + board
D.VOA from V oice of America
13.According to Chomsky, ________ is “the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language”.
petence C. parole
ngue D. performance
14.________ phonetics studies how a speech sound is produces by the vocal organs.
A.visual C. acoustic
B.auditory D. articulatory
15.________ refer to the sounds produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate.
A.velars C. alveopalatals
B.palatals D. glottals
16.In terms of feature specifications, bilabials, labiodentals, dentals and alveolars are all marked
with ________.
A.[+coronal] C. [+anterior]
B.[-aspirated] D. [-nasal]
17.If two or more sounds ____________, they are in contrastive distribution.
A.can occur in the same environment and the substitution of one sound for another does
not cause a change of meaning
