If language has no such design feature, then it will be like animal
communicational system which will be highly limited. It cannot produce a very large number of sound combinations, e.g. words, which are distinct in meaning.
36. It is difficult to define language, as it is such a general term that covers too many things. Thus, definitions for it all have their own special emphasis, and are not totally free from limitations. VI.
37. It should be guided by the four principles of science: exhaustiveness, consistency, economy and objectivity and follow the scientific procedure: form hypothesis – collect data – check against the observable facts – come to a conclusion.
第二章：语音 参考答案
I. 1~5 A C D A A 6~10 D B A B B
II.11~15 T T T F F 16~20 T T T F F III.
21. voiced, voiceless, voiced 22. friction 23. tongue 24. height
25. obstruction 26. minimal pairs 27. diphthongs 28. Co-articulation
29. Phonemes 30. air stream IV.
31. Sound assimilation: Speech sounds seldom occur in isolation. In connected speech, under the influence of their neighbors, are replaced by other sounds.
Sometimes two neighboring sounds influence each other and are replaced by a third sound which is different from both original sounds. This process is called sound assimilation.
32. Suprasegmental feature: The phonetic features that occur above the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features; these are the phonological properties of such units as the syllable, the word, and the sentence. The main suprasegmental ones includes stress, intonation, and tone.
33. Complementary distribution: The different allophones of the same phoneme never
34
occur in the same phonetic context. When two or more allophones of one phoneme never occur in the same linguistic environment they are said to be in complementary distribution.
34. Distinctive features: It refers to the features that can distinguish one phoneme from another. If we can group the phonemes into two categories: one with 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.
第三章：词汇 参考答案
I. 1~5 A A C B B 6~10 B C A D B
II. 11~15 F T F T T 16~20 F T F F F 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)
34
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. VI .
37.
(1) c (2) a (3) e (4) d (5) b
第四章：句法 参考答案
I. 1~5 D C D D D 6~10 A D D B A
II. 11~15 T T T T F 16~20 F T F T T 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,
34
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
第五章：意义 参考答案
I. 1~5 A B D D B 6~10 C A C D A
II. 11~15 F F T F T 16~20 T F T T T
III.
21. Semantics 22. direct
23. Reference 24. synonyms
25.homophones 26. Relational
27. Componential 28. selectional 29. argument 30. naming IV.
31. Entailment: It is basically a semantic relation (or logical implication), and it can be clarified with the following sentences: a. Tom divorced Jane.
34
b. Jane was Tom’s wife.
In terms of truth value, the following relationships exist between these two sentences: when A is true, B must be also true; when B is false, A must also be false. When B is true, A may be true or false. Therefore we can say A entails B.
32. Proposition: It is the result of the abstraction of sentences, which are descriptions of states of affairs and which some writers see as a basic element of sentence meaning. For example, the two sentences ―Caesar invaded Gaul‖ and ―Gaul was invaded by Caesar‖ hold the same proposition.
33. Compositional analysis: It defines the meaning of a lexical element in terms of semantic components, or semantic features. For example, the meaning of the word boy may be analyzed into three components:
HUMAN, YOUNG and MALE. Similarly girl may be analyzed into HUMAN, YOUNG and FEMALE.
34. Reference: It is what a linguistic form refers to in the real world; it is a matter of the relationship between the form and the reality. V.
35. Hyponymy, metonymy or part-whole relationship
36. (Omit.) VI.
37. (1) The (a) words and (b) words are male.
The (a) words are human, while the (b) words are non-human. (2) The (a) words and (b) words are inanimate.
The (a) words are instrumental, while the (b) words are edible. (3) The (a) words and (b) words are worldly or conceptual.
The (a) words are material, while the (b) words are spiritual.
第七章：语言、文化和社会 参考答案
I. 1~5 B C A A C 6~10 D A C A D
II. 11~15 F T F F F 16~20 T F T F F
III.
21. community 22. variety 23. dialectal 24.planning
34