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 examples.
50. How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth values?
51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous relation, inconsistent relation in terms of truth values? 52. According to the way synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples.
53. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How they differ?
Chapter 6 Pragmatics
Ⅰ. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: 1. Both semantics and pragmatics study how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication
2. Pragmatics treats the meaning of language as something intrinsic and inherent.
3. It would be impossible to give an adequate description of meaning if the context of language use was left unconsidered.
4. What essentially distinguishes semantics and pragmatics is whether in the study of meaning the context of use is considered.
5. The major difference between a sentence and an utterance is that a sentence is not uttered while an utterance is.
6. The meaning of a sentence is abstract, but context-dependent. 7. The meaning of an utterance is decontexualized, therefore stable. 8. Utterances always take the form of complete sentences
9. Speech act theory was originated with the British philosopher John Searle.
10. Speech act theory started in the late 50’s of the 20th century.
11. Austin made the distinction between a constative and a performative.
12. Perlocutionary act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention. Ⅱ. Fill in each blank below with one word which begins with the letter given:
13. P_________ is the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication.
14. What essentially distinguishes s_______ and pragmatics is whether
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in the study of meaning the context of use is considered.
15. The notion of c_________ is essential to the pragmatic study of language.
16. If we think of a sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication, it becomes an u___________.
17. The meaning of a sentence is a_______, and decontexualized. 18. C________ were statements that either state or describe, and were thus verifiable.
19. P________ were sentences that did not state a fact or describe a state, and were not verifiable.
20. A l_________ act is the act of uttering words, phrases, clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology.
21. An i__________ act is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention; it is the act performed in saying something.
22. A c_________ is commit the speaker himself to some future course of action.
23. An e________ is to express feelings or attitude towards an existing state.
24. There are four maxims under the cooperative principle: the maxim of q_______, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner.
Ⅲ. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:
25. _________ does not study meaning in isolation, but in context. A. B. C. Sense D. Concept Pragmatics Semantics relation
26. The meaning of language was considered as something _______ in traditional semantics. A. B. C. intrinsic contextual behaviouristic D. logical
27. What essentially distinguishes semantics and pragmatics is whether in the study of meaning _________ is considered. A. reference act usage B. speech C. practical D. context
28. A sentence is a _________ concept, and the meaning of a sentence is often studied in isolation. A. B. C. mental conceptual pragmatic grammatical D.
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29. If we think of a sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication, it becomes a(n) _________. A. B. directive D. constative C. utterance expressive 30. Which of the following is true?
A. Utterances usually do not take the form of sentences.
B. Some utterances cannot be restored to complete sentences. C. No utterances can take the form of sentences.
D. All utterances can be restored to complete sentences.
31. Speech act theory did not come into being until __________. A. in the late 50’s of the 20the B. in the early 1950’s century
C. in the late 1960’s D. in the early 21st century 32. __________ is the act performed by or resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance. A. A locutionary act B. An illocutionary act C. A perlocutionary act D. A performative act
33. According to Searle, the illocutionary point of the representative is ______.
A. to get the hearer to do something
B. to commit the speaker to something’s being the case C. to commit the speaker to some future course of action
D. to express the feelings or attitude towards an existing state of affairs
34. All the acts that belong to the same category share the same purpose, but they differ __________. A. in their illocutionary acts. B. in their intentions expressed C. in their strength or force D. in their effect brought about 35. __________ is advanced by Paul Grice A. Cooperative Principle B. Politeness Principle
C. The General Principle of Universal Grammar D. Adjacency Principle
36. When any of the maxims under the cooperative principle is flouted, _______ might arise. A. impoliteness B. contradictions C. mutual understanding D. conversational implicatures Ⅳ. Define the terms below:
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37. pragmatics 39. utterance 38. context meaning 40. sentence 41. constative meaning 42. performative 43. locutionary act 45. perlocutionary 44. illocutionary act act 46. Cooperative Principle
Ⅴ. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary:
47. How are semantics and pragmatics different from each other? 48. How does a sentence differ from an utterance?
49. How does a sentence meaning differ from an utterance meaning? 50. Discuss in detail the locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.
51. Searle classified illocutionary act into five categories. Discuss each of them in detail with examples.
52. What are the four maxims under the cooperative principle?
53. How does the flouting of the maxims give rise to conversational implicatures?
Chapter 7 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
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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.
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