this feature and the other without, this feature is called a distinctive feature. V. 35.
Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds through the air. When a speech sound is produced it causes minor air disturbances (sound waves). Various instruments are used to measure the characteristics of these sound waves. 36.
When the vocal cords are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless; consonants [p, s, t] are produced in this way. But when the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through, creating a vibration effect. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced. [b, z, d] are voiced consonants. VI. 37. Omit.
Chapter 3 Lexicon
I. Choose the best answer. (20%)
1. Nouns, verbs and adjectives can be classified as __________. A. lexical words B. grammatical words C. function words D. form words
2. Morphemes that represent tense, number, gender and case are called __________ morpheme.
A. inflectional B. free C. bound D. derivational 3. There are __________ morphemes in the word denationalization. A. three B. four C. five D. six 4. In English –ise and –tion are called __________.
A. prefixes B. suffixes C. infixes D. stems 5. The three subtypes of affixes are: prefix, suffix and __________. A. derivational affix B. inflectional affix C. infix D. back-formation
6. __________ is a way in which new words may be formed from already existing words by subtracting an affix which is thought to be part of the old word. A. affixation B. back-formation C. insertion D. addition 7. The word TB is formed in the way of __________.
A. acronymy B. clipping C. initialism D. blending 8. The words like comsat and sitcom are formed by __________.
A. blending B. clipping C. back-formation D. acronymy 9. The stem of disagreements is __________.
A. agreement B. agree C. disagree D. disagreement 10. All of them are meaningful except for __________.
A. lexeme B. phoneme C. morpheme D. allomorph
II. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)
11. Phonetically, the stress of a compound always falls on the first element, while the second element receives secondary stress.
12. Fore as in foretell is both a prefix and a bound morpheme.
13. Base refers to the part of the word that remains when all inflectional affixes are removed.
14. In most cases, prefixes change the meaning of the base whereas suffixes change the word-class of the base.
15. Conversion from noun to verb is the most productive process of a word. 16. Reduplicative compound is formed by repeating the same morpheme of a word.
17. The words whimper, whisper and whistle are formed in the way of
onomatopoeia. 18. In most cases, the number of syllables of a word corresponds to the number of morphemes.
19. Back-formation is a productive way of word-formations. 20. Inflection is a particular way of word-formations.
III. Fill in the blanks. (20%)
21. An __________ is pronounced letter by letter, while an __________ is pronounced as a word.
22. Lexicon, in most cases, is synonymous with __________.
23. Orthographically, compounds are written in three ways: __________, __________ and __________.
24. All words may be said to contain a root __________.
25. A small set of conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns belong to
__________ class, while the largest part of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs belongs to __________ class. 26. __________ is a reverse process of derivation, and therefore is a process of shortening.
27. __________ is extremely productive, because English had lost most of its inflectional endings by the end of Middle English period, which facilitated the use of words interchangeably as verbs or nouns, verbs or adjectives, and vice versa. 28. Words are divided into simple, compound and derived words on the __________ level.
29. A word formed by derivation is called a __________, and a word formed by compounding is called a __________.
30. Bound morphemes are classified into two types: __________ and __________.
IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)
31. Blending 32. Allomorph
33. Closed-class word 34. Morphological rule
V. Answer the following questions. (20%)
35. How many types of morphemes are there in the English language? What are they? （厦门大学，2003）
36. What are the main features of the English compounds?
VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)
37. Match the terms under COLUMN I with the underlined forms from COLUMN II （武汉大学，2004）
I II (1) acronym a. foe (2) free morpheme b. subconscious (3) derivational morpheme c. UNESCO
(4) inflectional morpheme d. overwhelmed
(5) prefix e. calculation Key: I.
1~5 AACBB 6~10 BCADB II.
11~15 FTFTT 16~20 FTFFF III.
21. initialism, acronym 22. vocabulary 23. solid, hyphenated, open 24. morpheme
25. close, open 26. back-formation 27. conversion 28. morpheme 29. derivative, compound 30. affix, bound root IV.
31. Blending: It is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed by combining the meanings and sounds of two words, one of which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms, like newscast (news + broadcast), brunch (breakfast + lunch)
32. Allomorph: It is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds.
33. Close-class word: It is a word whose membership is fixed or limited. Pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. are all closed-class words. 34. Morphological rule: It is the rule that governs which affix can be added to what type of base to form a new word, e.g. –ly can be added to a noun to form an adjective. V. Omit. VI. 37.
(1) c (2) a (3) e (4) d (5) b
Chapter 4 Syntax
I. Choose the best answer. (20%)
1. The sentence structure is ________.
A. only linear B. only hierarchical
C. complex D. both linear and hierarchical 2. The syntactic rules of any language are ____ in number.
A. large B. small C. finite D. infinite 3. The ________ rules are the rules that group words and phrases to form grammatical sentences.
A. lexical B. morphological C. linguistic D. combinational 4. A sentence is considered ____ when it does not conform to the grammati¬cal knowledge in the mind of native speakers.
A. right B. wrong C. grammatical D. ungrammatical 5. A __________ in the embedded clause refers to the introductory word that introduces the embedded clause.
A. coordinator B. particle C. preposition D. subordinator 6. Phrase structure rules have ____ properties.
A. recursive B. grammatical C. social D. functional 7. Phrase structure rules allow us to better understand _____________. A. how words and phrases form sentences.
B. what constitutes the grammaticality of strings of words C. how people produce and recognize possible sentences D. all of the above.
8. The head of the phrase “the city Rome” is __________.
A. the city B. Rome C. city D. the city Rome 9. The phrase “on the shelf” belongs to __________ construction.
A. endocentric B. exocentric C. subordinate D. coordinate 10. The sentence “They were wanted to remain quiet and not to expose themselves.” is a __________ sentence.
A. simple B. coordinate C. compound D. complex
II. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)
11. Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules that
comprise the system of internalized linguistic knowledge of a language speaker are known as linguistic competence. 12. 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.
13. In a complex sentence, the two clauses hold unequal status, one subordinating the other.
14. Constituents that can be substituted for one another without loss of grammaticality belong to the same syntactic category.
15. Minor lexical categories are open because these categories are not fixed and new members are allowed for.
16. In English syntactic analysis, four phrasal categories are commonly
recognized and discussed, namely, noun phrase, verb phrase, infinitive phrase, and auxiliary phrase. 17. In English the subject usually precedes the verb and the direct object usually follows the verb.
18. What is actually internalized in the mind of a native speaker is a complete list of words and phrases rather than grammatical knowledge.
19. A noun phrase must contain a noun, but other elements are optional. 20. It is believed that phrase structure rules, with the insertion of the lexicon, generate sentences at the level of D-structure.
III. Fill in the blanks. (20%)
21. A __________ sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence.
22. A __________ is a structurally independent unit that usually comprises a number of words to form a complete statement, question or command. 23. A __________ may be a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence that usually precedes the predicate.
24. The part of a sentence which comprises a finite verb or a verb phrase and which says something about the subject is grammatically called __________.
25. A __________ sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other.
26. In the complex sentence, the incorporated or subordinate clause is normally called an __________ clause. 27. Major lexical categories are __________ categories in the sense that new words are constantly added. 28. __________ condition on case assignment states that a case assignor and a case recipient should stay adjacent to each other.
29. __________ are syntactic options of UG that allow general principles to operate in one way or another and contribute to significant linguistic variations between and among natural languages.
30. The theory of __________ condition explains the fact that noun phrases appear only in subject and object positions.
IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)
31. Syntax
32. IC analysis
33. Hierarchical structure 34. Trace theory
V. Answer the following questions. (20%)
35. What are endocentric construction and exocentric construction? （武汉大学，2004）
36. Distinguish the two possible meanings of “more beautiful flowers” by means
of IC analysis. （北京第二外国语大学，2004）
VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)
37. Draw a tree diagram according to the PS rules to show the deep structure of the sentence:
The student wrote a letter yesterday. Key: I.
1~5 DCDDD 6~10 ADDBA II.
11~15 TTTTF 16~20 FTFTT III.
21. simple 22. sentence 23. subject 24. predicate
25. complex 26. embedded 27. open 28. Adjacency 29. Parameters 30. Case IV.
31. Syntax: Syntax refers to the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language, or simply, the study of the formation of sentences. 32. IC analysis: Immediate constituent analysis, IC analysis for short, refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents – word groups (phrases), which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate sake of convenience.
33. Hierarchical structure: It is the sentence structure that groups words into structural constituents and shows the syntactic category of each structural constituent, such as NP, VP and PP.
34. Trace theory: After the movement of an element in a sentence there will be a trace left in the original position. This is the notion trace in T-G grammar. It’s suggested that if we have the notion trace, all the necessary information for semantic interpretation may come from the surface structure. E.g. The passive Dams are built by beavers. differs from the active Beavers built dams. in implying that all dams are built by beavers. If we add a trace element represented by the letter t after built in the passive as Dams are built t by beavers, then the deep structure information that the word dams was originally the object of built is also captured by the surface structure. Trace theory proves to be not only theoretically significant but also empirically valid. V. 35.
An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent, or approaching equivalence, to one of its constituents, which serves as the center, or head, of the whole. A typical example is the three small children with children as its head. The exocentric construction, opposite to the first type, is defined negatively as a construction whose distribution is not functionally equivalent to any of its constituents. Prepositional phrasal like on the shelf are typical examples of this type. 36.
(1) more | beautiful flowers (2) more beautiful | flowers
Chapter 5 Meaning
[Mainly taken from lxm1000w’s exercises. – icywarmtea]
I. Choose the best answer. (20%)
1. The naming theory is advanced by ________.