emantic 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 usually 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 you 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 France. Y: He has been to Europe. In terms of truth values, if X is true, Y is necessarily true, e.g. If he has been to France, he must have been to Europe. If X is false, Y may be true or false, e. g. If he has not been to France, he may still have been to Europe or he has 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 is 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: John has a bike. If X is true, Y must be true, e.g. If John' s bike needs repairing, John must have a bike. If X is false, Y is still true, e. g. If John' s bike does not need repairing, John 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 does not have a bike, nothing can be said about whether his bike needs repairing or not. Therefore, 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 truth 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 is married. Y: John is a bachelor.52. According t
o 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 groups. i. Dialectal synonyms They are synonyms which are used in different regional dialects. British English and American English are the two major geographical varieties of the English language. For examples: British English American English autumn fall lift elevator Then dialectal synonyms can also be found within British, or American English itself. For example, \is called \or \in Scottish dialect, and \is called \in Irish dialect. ii. Stylistic synonyms They 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 oth-ers are neutral in style. For example: 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 indicate the attitude or bias of the user toward what he is talking about . For exam-ple, “collaborator” and “accomplice” are synonymous, sharing the meaning of \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 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 preposi-tions accuse. . . of, charge. . . with, rebuke. . .for. v. V. Semantically different synonyms Semantically different synonyms refer to the synonyms that differ slight-ly in what they mean. For example, \and \are very close in meaning to the word \but they have very subtle differences in meaning. While amaze suggests confusion and
bewilderment, \astound\implies difficulty in believing. \5
3. 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 la-bels of the objects they stand for. The conceptualist 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. 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 \in the sentence \seal could 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 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 de-fine the meaning of a language form as \the situation 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 history 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 the 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 in grammar is more noticeable than that in the sound system and the vocabulary of a language. 9. The sound changes include changes in vowel sounds, and in the loss, gain and movement of sounds. 10. The least widely-spread morphological changes in the historical development of English are the loss and addition of affixes. 11. In Old English, the morphosyntactic rule of adjective agreement stipulated that the endings of adjective must agree with the head noun in case, number and gender. 12. The word order of Modern English is more variable than that of Old English. 13. Derivation refers to the process by which new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots, stems, or words. 14. “Smog” is a word formed by the word-forming process called acronymy. 15. “fridge” is a word formed by abbreviation. 16. Modern linguists are able to provide a consistent account for the exact causes of all types of language change. 17. Sound assimilation may bring about the loss of one of two phonetically similar syllables in sequence, as in the case of change of “Engla-land” to “England”. 18. Rule elaboration occurs when there is a need to reduce ambiguity and increase communicative clarity or expressiveness. 19. Language change is always a change towards the simplification of language rules 20. The way children acquire the language is one of the causes for language change. II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given: 21. H________ linguistics is the subfield of linguistics that studies language change.
22. The historical study of language is a d________ study of language rather than a synchronic study. 23. European R________ Movement separates the period of Middle English from that of modern English. 24. An important set of extensive sound changes, which affected 7 long or tense vowels and which led to one of the
major discrepancies between phonemic representations of words and morphemes at the end of the Middle English Period, is known as the Great V_______ Shift. 25. A_______ involves the deletion of a word-final vowel segment. 26. A change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word is known as e__________. 27. The three sets of consonant shifts that Grimm discovered became known collectively as Grimm s L ____. 28. Sound change as a result of sound movement, known as m_______, involves a reversal in position of two adjoining sound segments. 29. B________ is a process by which new words are formed by taking away the supposed suffixes of exiting words. 30. Semantic b________ refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation. 31. The original form of a language family that has ceased to exist is called the p_________. 32. Sound a________ refers to the physiological effect of one sound on another. In this process, successive sounds are made identical or similar to one another in terms of place or manner of articulation. 33. In order to reduce the exceptional or irregular morphemes, speakers of a particular language may borrow a rule from one part of the grammar and apply it generally. This pheno广告网址n is called i_________ borrowing. 34. By identifying and comparing similar linguistic forms with similar meanings across related languages, historical linguists reconstruct the proto form in the common ancestral language. This process is called c________ reconstruction. 35. The m ____ rule of adjective agreement has been lost from English. III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 36. Historical linguistics explores
________________. A. the nature of language changeB. the causes that lead to language change C. the relationship between languages D. all of the above37. Language change is ______________. A. universal, continuous and ,to a large extent, regular and systematic B. continuous, regular, systematic, but not universal C. universal, continuous, but not regular and systematic D. always regular and systematic, but not universal and continuous 38. Modern English period starts roughly _____________. A. from 449 to 1100 B. from 1500 to the