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第 4 页，共 25 页 performed through the performance of the former one. Thus , by stating that his car needs new exhaust system , the motorist has in fact asked the mechanic to equip a new exhaust system for him.
Similarly ，in the mechanic?s utterance , there are two types of speech acts performed ; one is representative , the other commissive. The commissive speech act in fact is an indirect one since it is recognized through the performance of representative action. That is to say , by stating that he will be busy with another car all day , the mechanic has in fact told the motorist that he could not repair his car right away.
14．How is language related to society?
【答案】 （1） While language is principally used to communicate meaning , it is also used to establish and maintain social relationships. This social function of language is embodied in the use of such utterances as “Good morning!”，“How is your family?' “Nice day today , isn?t it?”
（2）Users of the same language in a sense all speak differently. The kind of language each of them chooses to use is in part determined by his social background. And language , in its turn , reveals information about its speaker.
（3）Language , especially the structure of its lexicon , reflects both the physical and social environment of a society. For example , while there is only one word in English for usnow ,9, there are several in Eskimo. This is a reflection of the need for the Eskimos to make distinctions between various kinds of snow in their snowy living environment.
15．In English, the phoneme is pronounced differently in pat, spat, and tap, can you form a rule that can generalize this linguistic phenomenon?
【答案】 In English , there is a rule that a is unaspirated
after but aspirated in other places. So in pat , tap
is aspirated but unaspirated in spat since it is
after To bring out the phonetic difference , an aspirated sound is transcribed with a ra ised “h” after the symbol of the sound. So a
phonetic transcription for peak is and that for speak is So are two different phones and are variants of the phoneme Such variants of a phoneme are called allophones of the same phoneme. The allophones are said to be in complementary distribution because they never occur in the same context :
occurs after
while occurs in other places. We can present this rule as :
elsewhere
（note :
is the position in which appears.）
In addition , sometimes a phoneme may also have free variants. The final consonant of tap may not be released by some speakers so there is no audible sound at the end of this word. Such phenomenon is called free variation.
四、论述题
16．Disambiguate the following sentences, using the tree diagram with labels or analyzing their syntactic structures.
（1）Times flies like an arrow.
（2）We got down from the duck.
（3）Old men and women will be served first.
（4）John passed the hammer and saw through the window.
（5）Who would you like to visit?