现代语言学要点

现代语言学学习笔记
第一章、绪论Introduction
1、语言学的主要分支是什么。

每个分支的研究对象是什么？
Linguistics mainly involves the following branches:
General linguistics, which is the study of language as a whole and which deals with the basic concepts, theories, descriptions, models and methods applicable in any linguistic study
Phonetics, which studies the sounds that are used in linguistic communication
Phonology, which studies how sounds are put together and used in communication
Morphology, which studies the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words
Syntax, which studies how morphemes and words are combined to form sentences
Semantics, which is the study of meaning in language. Pragmatics, which is the study of meaning not in isolation, but in context of use
Sociolinguistics, which is the study of language with reference to society
Psycholinguistics, which is the study of language with reference to the workings of mind.
Applied linguistics, which is concerned about the application of linguistic findings in linguistic studies; In a narrow sense, applied linguistics refers to the application of linguistic principles and theories to language teaching and learning, especially the teaching of foreign and second languages.
Other related branches are anthropological linguistics, neurological linguistics, mathematical linguistics, and computational linguistics.
2、现代语言学与传统语法有什么区别？
Traditional grammar is prescriptive; it is based on "high "(religious, literary) written language . It sets models for language users to follow. But Modern linguistics is descriptive; its investigations are based on authentic, and mainly spoken language data. It is supposed to be scientific and objective and the task of linguists is supposed to describe the language people actually use, whether it is "correct" or not.
3、什么叫共时研究？什么叫历时研究？
The description of a language at some point in time is a Synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A synchronic study of language describes a language as it is at some particular point in time, while a diachronic study of language is a historical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time.
4、人类语言的甄别性特征是什么？
1) Arbitrariness 。

It means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. For instance, there is no necessary relationship between the word dog and the animal it refers to. The fact that different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages and that the same sound may be used to refer to different objects is another good example. Although language is arbitrary by nature, it is not entirely arbitrary. Some words, such as the words created in the imitation of sounds by sounds are motivated in a certain degree. The arbitrary nature of language makes it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions.
2) Productivity。

Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of an infinitely large number of sentences, including those that they have never said or heard before.
3) Duality。

It means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structure, or two levels, one of sounds at the lower level and the other of meanings at the higher level. At the lower or the basic level, there is the structure of individual and meaningless sounds, which can be grouped into meaningful units at the higher level. This duality of structure or double articulation of language enables its users to talk about anything within their knowledge.
4) Displacement。

It means that language can be used to talk about what happened in the past, what is happening now, or what will happen in the future. Language can also be used to talk about our real word experiences or the experiences in our imaginary world. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker.
5) Cultural transmission。

While we are born with the ability to acquire language, the details of any language are not genetically transmitted, but instead have to be taught and learned anew.
5、Chomsky的语言能力和语言使用各指什么？
American linguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950’s proposed the distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his l anguage. This internalized set of rules enables the language user to produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ungrammatical and ambiguous. According to Chomsky, performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. Although the speaker’s knowledge of his mother tongue is perfect, his performances may have mistakes because of social and psychological factors such as stress, embarrassment, etc.. Chomsky believes that what linguists should study is the competence, which is systematic, not the performance,
which is too haphazard.
6、Saussure 是如何区分语言和言语的？
The distinction between langue, and parole was made by the famous Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early this century. Langue and parole are French words. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow while parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract;
It is not the language people actually use, but parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.
7、什么是语言学？
Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language. It studies not any particular language, but languages in general.
8、口头语与书面语
Speech enjoys priority over writing in modern linguistics study for the following reasons:
1) speech precedes writing in terms of evolution
2) a large amount of communication is carried out in speech tan in writing
3) speech is the form in which infants acquire their native language 9、语言与言语
Language refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community
Parole refers to the realization of language in actual use
10、能力与运用
Chomsky defines competence as the ideal users’ knowledge of the rules of his language
Performance: the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication
11、几个术语
Prescriptive:aims to lay down rules for "correct" behaviour. Descriptive:describe and analyzes the language people actually use. Synchronic:the description of a language at some point in time. Diachronic:the description of a language as it changes through time . Synchronic study seems to enjoy priority over diachronic study. langue: the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community.
Parole: the realization of langue in actual use.
Competence: the ideal user's knowledge of the rules of his language. Performance: the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic
communication.
12、Design features
American linguist Charles Hockett spedified 12 design features, five of which will be discussed here.
1) Arbitratiness。

Difference sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages. The language that imitate natural sounds and compound words are non-arbitrary words.It make up only
a small ercentage of the total number of words used in a language.
2) Productivity.It makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users.
3) nguage is a system, which consists of two sets of structures, or two levels. The lower or the basic level is a structure of meaningless sounds. But the sounds of language can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning such as morphimes and words.
4) nguages can be used to refer to context removed from the immediate situations of the speaker.
5) Cultural nguage is passed on from one generation to the next through teaching and learning, rather than by instinct.
13、名词解释
1 Linguisitics :Linguistics is generally defined as the scientic study of language
2 Phonetics : The study of sounds which are used in linguistics communication is called phonetics.For example,vowels and consonants
3 Phonology” : The s tudy of how sounds are put together and used in communication is called phonology.For example,phone,phoneme,and allophone.
4 Morphology :The study of the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words is called morphology.For example,boy and “ish”---boyish,teach---teacher.
5 Syntax : The study of how morphemes and words are combined to form sentences is called syntax.For esample,”John like linguistics.”
6 Semantics: The study of meaning in language is called semantics. For example,:The seal could not be found.The zoo keeper became worried.” The seal could not be found,The king became worried.” Here the word seal means different things.
7 Pragmatics: The study of meaning in context of use is called pragmatics.For example, “I do” The word do mean s different context.
8 Sociolinguistics: The study of language with reference to society is called sociolinguistics.For example,regional dialects,social variation in language.
9、Psycholinguistics: The study of language with reference to workings of mind is called psycholinguistics.
14.How is modern linguistics different from traditional grammar? Traditional gram­mar is prescriptive; it is based on "high "(religious, literary) written lan­guage . It sets grammatical rules and imposes the rules on language users. But Modern linguistics is descriptive; It collects authentic, and mainly spoken language data and then it studies and describes the data in an objective and scientific way.
15.How do you understand the distinction between a synchronic study and a diachronic study?
The description of a language at some point in time is a Synchronic study; the de­scription of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A synchronic study of language describes a language as it is at some particular point in time, while a diachronic study of language is the study of the historical development of language over a period of time.
16.Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written?
First, the spoken form is prior to the writ­ten form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of lan­guage.Second, the spoken form plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed and it serves a wider range of purposes Finally, the spoken form is the medium through which we acquire our mother tongue.
17. What are the major distinctions between langue and parole?
The distinction between langue, and parole was made by the famous Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early this century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow while parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use, but parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.
18. How do you understand competence and performance ? American linguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950’s proposed the distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language. This internalized set of rules enables the language user to produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ugrammatical and ambiguous. According to Chomsky,performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguist ic communication. Although the speaker’s knowledge of his
mother tongue is perfect, his performances may have mistakes because of social and psychological factors such as stress, embarrassment, etc.. Chomsky believes that what linguists should study is the competence, which is systematic, not the performance, which is too haphazard.
19. Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole seems similar to Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance. What do you think are their major differences?
A lthough Saussure’s distinction and Chomsky’s are very similar, they differ at least in that Saussure took a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a mater of social conventions, and Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of vies and to him, competence is a property of the mind of each individual.
69.Do you think human language is entirely arbitrary? Why?Language is arbitrary in nature, it is not entirely arbitrary, because there are a limited number of words whose connections between forms and meanings can be logically explained to a certain extent, for example, the onomatopoeia, words which are coined on the basis of imitation of sounds by sounds such as bang, crash,etc.. Take compounds for another example. The two elements
“photo” and “copy” in “photocopy” are non-motivated, but the compound is not arbitrary
第二章、语音学Phonetics
1、语言交际的两大媒介是什么？哪一个是基本的交际媒介？为什么？Modern linguistics regards the spoken form of language as primary, but not the written form, because the spoken form is prior to the written form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of language.
2、语音学的三个分支是什么。

它们研究的对象各是什么？
Articulatory phonetics: It studies the human speech organs and the way in which thee speech sounds are produced.
Acoustic phonetics: It studies the physical properties of the speech sounds; it deals with the sound waves through the use of such machines as a spectrograph.
Auditory phonetics is the study of the perception of sounds by the human ear.
3、什么叫浊音化？它是如何形成的？
Voicing is the result of the vibration of the vocal cords. When the vocal cords are drawn wide apart, letting air go through without causing vibration, the sounds produced in such a way are voiceless. When vocal cords are held together tautly so that the air stream vibrates them, the sounds produced in this way are voiced.
4、宽式标音和严式标音有什么区别？
The broad transcription is the transcription of sounds by using one
letter to represent one sound. The narrow transcription is the transcription with diacritics to show detailed articulatory features of sounds.
5、英语的辅音是如何分类的？
1) by place of articulation :
a. bilabial such as [p],[b],[m],[w]
b. labiodental such as [f],[v]
c. dental such as [θ],[T ]
d. alveolar such as [t],[d],[s],[z],[n],[l],[r]
e. palatal such as [∫], [V ],[ t∫ ], [dV ], [j]
f. velar such as [k], [g], [ N ]
g. glottal such as [h]
2) by manner of articulation.
a. Stops such as [p],[b],[t],[d],[k],[g]
b. Fricatives such as [f],[v],[s],[z],[ θ],[ T ], [∫ ], [ V], [h]
c. Afficates such as [t∫], [dV ]
d. Liquids such as [l], [r]
e. Nasals such as [n],[m],[N]
f. Glides such as [w], [j]
6、英语的元音是如何分类的？
1) Vowels may be distinguished as front vowels such as [i:] [i] [e] [A]
[a], central vowels such as [\:], [[],[Q]and back vowels such as[u:] [J] [ C:] and [B:] in terms of the position of the tongue in the mouth. 2) According to how wide our mouth is opened, we classify the vowels into four groups: close vowels such as [i:],[ i],[u:],[J], semi-close vowels such as[e], [з: ] , semi-open vowels such as [ [ ], [ C: ] , and open vowels such as [?], [a], [Λ] and [ɑ:].
3) According to the shape of the lips, vowels are divided into rounded vowels and unrounded vowels.
4) The English vowels can also be classified into long vowels and short vowels according to the length of the sound. The long vowels include [i:] [\:] [ C: ] [u:] [ɑ:]，while the rest are short vowels.
7、语音学和音系学有什么区别？
They differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified. Phonology, on the other hand, is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.
8、音素、音位和音位变体有什么区别？
Phones are the speech sounds we use when speaking a language. A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. It does not necessarily
distinguish meaning.; some do, some don’t. A phoneme is a basic unit in phonology; it is a unit that is of distinctive value. It is an abstract unit. It is not a sound, but a collection of distinctive phonetic features. In actual speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone. The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme.
9、什么是超音位特征？它是如何影响语义的？
1) The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, such as `import and im`port. The similar alternation of stress also occurs between a compund noun a a phrase consisting of the same elements.
A phonological feature of the English compounds, is that the stress of the word always falls on the first element and the second element receives secondary stress, for example: `blackbird is a particular kind of bird, which is not necessarily black, but a black `bird is a bird that is black.
2) The more important words such as nouns, verbs adjectives , adverbs,etc are pronounced with greater force and made more prominent. But to give special emphasis to a certain notion,
a word in sentence that is usually unstressed can be stressed to achieve different effect. Take
the sentence “He is driving my car.”for example. To emphasize the fact that the car he is driving is not his, or yours, but mine, the speaker can stress the possessive pronoun my, which under normal circumstances is not stressed.
3) English has four basic types of intonation, known as the four tones: When spoken in different tones, the same sequence of words may have different meanings. Generally speaking, the falling tone indicates that what is said is a straight-forward, matter-of-fact statement, the rising tone often makes a question of what is said, and the fall-rise tone often indicates that there is an implied message in what is said.
10、什么叫音位对立？什么叫互补分布？什么是最小对立对？
If two phonetically similar sounds can occur in the same environments and they distinguish meaning, they are in phonemic contrast. If two phonetically similar sounds are two allophones of the same phoneme and they occur in different environments, they are said to be in complementary distribution.
11、复合词有什么特点？
Orthographically a compound can be written as one word, two separate words with or without a hyphen in between. Syntactically, the part of speech of a compound is determined by the last element. Semantically, the meaning of a compound is idiomatic, not calculable from the meanings of all its components. Phonetically, the word stress
of a compound usually falls on the first element.
12、What is Phonitics
the study of the phonic medium of language. It is concernt with all the sounds that occur in the world's language.The three branchs of phonetics: articulatory phonetics, auditory phonetics, and acoustic phonetics. Articulatory phonetics is the longest established, and until recently the most highly developed. Acoustic phoneticians discovered that the repetitions of what might be heard as the same utterance are physically identically only by coincidence, and they also confirmed that the speech is made up of continuous bursts of sounds.
Three important cavities: pharyngeal cavity - throat, the oral cavity - the mouth, the nasal cavity - the nose.
13、Phonology and phonetics
The difference between phonology and phonetics: phonetics is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human language. phonology is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language.
14、Phone, phoneme, and allophone
Definition of phone[音素]: can be simply defined as the speech sounds we use when speaking a language. A phone is a phonetic unit or segment.
Phoneme[音位]: it is the basic unit in phonology and is of distinctive value. But it is an abstract unit.To be exact, a phoneme is not a sount, it is a collection of distinctive phonetic features.
Allophone[音位变体]: in actual speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone. The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic enviorments are called the allophone of that phoneme.
15、Phonemic contrast, complemently distribution, and minimal pair 音位对立，互补分布和最小对立对
Phonemic contrast: two phonemes can occur in the same enviorments and they distinguish meaning.
Complemently distribution:two allophones of the same phoneme are said to be in complementary distribution.
Minimal pairs: when two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.
16、Some rules in phonology
1、Sequential rules[序列规则]。

Definition: the rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language.
2、Assimilation rules[同化规则].The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by "copying" a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar.
3、Deletion rule[省略规则]。

17、uprasegmental features - stress, tone, intonation 超切分特征-重音，声调，语调
Definition of suprasegment featrues: distinctive features can be found running over a sequence of two or more phonemic segments. the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features.
1、Stress.Word stress: the syllable is pronounced with greated force that the other or others.
sentence stress: refers to the relative foce which is given to the words in a sentence.
2、Tone.Tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. pitch variations can distinguish meaning just like phonemes.
3、Intonation.It plays a important role in the conveyance of meaning in amlost every language. English has four basic types of intonation: the falling tone, the rising tone, the fall-rise tone, and the rise-fall tone.
Different ways to divide the same sentence into intonation units give rise to different meanings.
18、Phonetics: The study of sounds that are used in linguistic communication is called phonetics.
19、Phonology: The study of how sounds are put together and used in communication is called phonology.
20、Phone: Phone can be simply defined as the speech sounds we use when speaking a language. A phone is a phonetic unit or segement. It does not necessarily distinguish meaning; some do,some don’t. 21、Phoneme: Phonology is concerned with the speech sounds which distinguish meaning. The basic unit in phonology is called phoneme;it is a unit that is of distinctive value.
22、allophone: The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environment are called the allophones of that phoneme.
23、Complementary distribution: These two allophones of the same phoneme are said to be in compkenebtary distribution.
24、Minimal pair: When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segement which occurs in the same place in the stings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.
25、Stress: When a certain syllable of a word is stressed, it means that the syllable is prounced with great force than the other or others. 26、tones: Tones are pitch variation, which are caused by the different rates of vibration of the vocal cords. Pitch variations can distinguish meaning just like phoneme; therefore, the tone is a suprasegemental feature.
27、intonation: When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the
sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as intonation. Intonation plays an important role in conveying meaning in almost every language,especially in a language like English
第三章、形态学Morphology
1、词素可以划分成哪些类别？
Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, for example, “book-” in the word “bookish”.
Bound morphemes: They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word such as “-ish” in “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning, such as “gene-” in the word “generate”. Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as “-s” in the word “books” to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word such as “mis-” in the word “misinform”. Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word such as “dis- ” in the word “dislike”, while suffixes occur at the end of a word such as “-less” in the word “friendless”.
2、Definition.
Morphology[词态学]: study the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.
It has two sub-branches: Inflectional morphology[曲折词态学]：study the inflection；
Lexical[词汇] or derivational[派生] morphology: study of word-formation
Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit of language
Roots: is seen as part of word; it can never stand by itself although it bears clear,definite meaning; it must be combine with another root or an affix to form a word.
Affixes are of two types: inflectional[曲折词缀] and derivational[派生词缀].Inflectional affixes or inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree, and case.
Derivational affixes: are added to an existing form to creat a word. such a way of word-formation is called derivation[派生法] and the new word formd by derivation is called a derivative[派生词]. The existing form to which a derivational affix can be added is called a stem[词干]. Affixes are divied into two kinds: prefixes[前缀] and suffixes[后
缀]. Prefixes modify the meaning of the stem, but usually do not change the part of speech of the original word, except the prefixes "be-",and "en-". Suffixes modify the meaning of the original word and in many cases change its part of speech.
3、Features of compounds
1) Orthographically, a compound can be written as one word with or without a hyphen in between, or as two separate words.
2) Syntactically, the part of speech of the compound is generally determined by the part of speech of the second element.
3) Semantically, the meaning of a compound is often idiomatic, not always being the sum total of the meaning of its components.
4) phonetically, the stess of a compound always falls on the first element, while the second element receives secondary stress.
4、morphology: Morphology is a branch of grammer which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.
5、inflectional morphology: Inflectional morphology studies the inflections of word-formation.
6、derivational morphology: Derivational morphology is the study of word-formation.
7、morpheme: Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language.
8、free morpheme: Free morpheme are the morphemes which are independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselces or in combination with other morphemes.
9、bound morpheme: Bound morphemes are the morphemes which cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word.
10、root: A root is often seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it bears clear,definite meaning; it must be combined with another root or an affix to form a word.
11、affix: Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational.
12、prefix: Prefix occur at the beginning of a word.
13、suffix: Suffixes are added to the end of the stems; they modify the meaning of the original word and in many cases change its part of speech.
14、derivation: Derivation affixes are added to an existing form to creat a word.Derivation can be viewed as the adding of affixes to stem to form nes words.
15、compounding: Like derivation, compounding is another popular and important way of forming new words in English. Compounding can be viewed as the combination of two or sometimes more than two words to creat new words.
16、Discuss the types of morphemes with examples.Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all。