ModernLinguistics

第一章Introduction
1.Linguistics定义It is generally defined as the scientific study of language. Nowadays, the generally accepted definition of language is that language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.
2.The scope of linguistics 语言学的主要分支是什么。

每个分支的研究对象是什么？
1.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
①Phonetics, which studies the sounds that are used in linguistic communication
② Phonology, which studies how sounds are put together and used in communication
③Morphology, which studies the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words
④Syntax, which studies how morphemes and words are combined to form sentences
⑤Semantics, which is the study of meaning in language.
⑥Pragmatics, which is the study of meaning not in isolation, but in context of use
⑦Sociolinguistics, which is the study of language with reference to society
⑧Psycholinguistics, which is the study of language with reference to the workings of mind.
⑨Applied 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.
3.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.
4.Some important distinction in linguistics 语言学五对基本概念
1、descriptive(描述性) :A linguistic study describes and analyzes the language people actually use.
2、prescriptive(规定性): It aims to lay down rules for ―correct‖ behaviors. i.e. what they should say and what they should not to say.
1、synchronic(共时语言学): It refers to the study of variation in language in different places and among different groups at a given point in time.
2、diachronic (历时语言学): Studies language change over various periods of time and at various historical stages.
什么叫共时研究Synchronic study;？什么叫历时研究diachronic study？
The description of a language at some point in time is a Synchronic study; the de-scription 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 rime, while
a diachronic study of language is a historical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time.
1、speech and writing are the two media of communication. Modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written.
1、langue(语言): refers to abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of the speech community. It is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to abide by. Such as: In English sentence must have subject and predica te.
2、parole(言语):refers to the realization of langue in actual use. It is concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules.
1、competence(语言能力):As the ideal user‘s knowledge of the rules of his language
2、performance(语言应用):the actual realization of his knowledge in linguistic communication.
5、What is language?
Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is a system i.e. elements of language are combined according to rules. Language is arbitrary .because the fact that different languages have different words for the some object.
Language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for all languages. Language is symbols.
The term ―human‖ in the definition is meant to specify that language is human specific.
6、人类语言的甄别性特征design features是什么？（五个）
Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication. The American Charles Hockett specified 12 design features, 5 of which will be discussed here.
Arbitrariness:任意性there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds .A good example is the fact that different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different language, but it is not entirely arbitrary.
Productivity:创造性language make possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by it users. Productivity is unique to human language.
Duality(二重性):Language is a system, which consists of two sets of structures, or two levels at the lower or the basic level there is a structure of sounds, which are meaningless. But the sounds of language can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning such as morphemes and words.
Displacement:移位性Language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in past, present or future. or in far-away place. In other words, language can be used to refer to context removed from the immediate situations of speakers.
Cultural transmission(文化传递性) 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 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 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.
7、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.第二章Phonology音系学
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？
The speech and writing are two media or substance used by natural language as vehicles for communication.
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.
Linguists are not interested in all sounds; they are concerned with only those sounds that are produced by the human speech organs.
2、What is Phonetics Phonetics is defined as the study of phonic medium of language. It‘s concerned with all sounds
3、语音学的三个分支?研究的对象各是什么？
Phonetics looks at speech sounds from 3distinct but related point of view. They are: Articulatory phonetics(发音语音学): It studies the human speech organs and the way in which thee speech sounds are produced.
Acoustic phonetics听觉语音学: 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.that occur in the world‘s language.
Articulation phonetics声学语音:How a speaker uses his speech organs articulate the sounds.
4、Organs of speech : pharyngeal cavity–the throat oral cavity—the mouth nasal cavity—the nose
5、什么叫浊音化？它是如何形成的？
V oicing 浊音化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.
6、清音化V oiceless: when the vocal cords are drawn wide apart, letting air go through without causing vibration,
7、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.
8、英语的语音的分类？
English sounds can be classified two categories: vowels and consonants Consonants: 辅音the sounds in the production of which there is an obstruction of the air steam at some point of the vocal tract.
V owels元音: the sounds in the production of which no articulators come very close together and the air stream passes through the vocal tract without obstruction.
9. 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],[ ]
d. alveolar such as [t],[d],[s],[z],[n],[l],[r]
e. palatal such as [∫], [ ],[ t∫ ], [d ], [ ]
f. velar such as [k], [g], [ ]
g. glottal such as [h]
2) by manner of articulation. 发音方式
a. Stops such as [p],[b],[t],[d],[k],[g]
b. Fricatives such as [f],[v],[s],[z],[ θ],[ ], [∫ ], [ ], [h]
c. Afficates such as [t∫], [d ]
d. Liquids such as [l], [r]
e. Nasals such as [n],[m],[ ]
f. Glides such as [w], [j]
10. 英语的元音是如何分类的？
1) V owels may be distinguished as front vowels such as [i:] [i] [e] [ ] [a], central vowels such as [ :], [ ],[ ]and back vowels such as[u:] [ ] [ :] and [ :] 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:],[ ], semi-close vowels such as[e], [ : ] , semi-open vowels such as [ ], [ : ] , 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:] [ :] [ : ] [u:] [ɑ:]，
while the rest are short vowels.
11、Phonology音系学: the study of sound system—the inventory of distinctive sounds that occur in a language and the patterns into which they fall.
12.语音学phonetics和音系学Phonology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.
13、音素、音位和音位变体有什么区别？
Phones(音素) 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 （音位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.
Allophone（音位变体）The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme.
14.什么叫音位对立Phonemic contrast？什么叫互补分布complementary distribution？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
Minimal pair（最小对立）:Two sound combinations identical in every way except in one sound element that occurs in the same position.
15、Some rules in phonology: 音系学的一些规则（三个）
1 Sequential rules The rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called sequential rules, which is language-specific.
2 A ssimilation rulesIt assimilates one sound to another by ―copying‖ a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar, caused by articulatory or physiological processes.
3. Deletion rules
It tells us when a sound is to be deleted although it is orthographically represented. 16.Suprasegmental features:超切分特征the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments .the main suprasegmental features are: stress, tone, intonation.
1 Stress Word stress and sentence stress. In English, word stress is free. The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning. Word stress may also be employed to distinguish meaning in the combinations of –ing forms and nouns; Sentence stress refers to the relative force, 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.
3 Intonation When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as intonation.
17、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 import. 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 ac hieve 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. Chapter 3 Morphology 形态学
1定义Morphology It is a branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words and the rules that form the words.
Morphology is two sub-branch: inflectional morphology and lexical or derivational morphology.
2.词素可以划分成哪些类别？
Morpheme定义: the smallest meaningful unit of language. (A phoneme is the basic unit in the study of phonology, so is a morpheme the basic unit in the study of morphology.)
Type of morphemes分类:（两类）free morphemes and bound morphemes (include root and affixes)
(1)Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used fre ely all by themselves, for example, ―book-‖ in the word ―bookish‖.
(2)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 分为两类can be subdivided into roots and affixes.词缀
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‖.
※Such roots are numerous in English for example: "geo-―bears the meaning of ―the earth‖. When it combines with another root ―-ology‖meaning ―a branch of learning‖,
we got the word ―geology‖ which means ―the study of the earth‘s structure.
※Affixes词缀are of two types: inflectional 曲折词缀and derivational派生词缀. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as ―-s‖ in the word ―books‖ to indicate plurality of nouns. -(e)s, indicating plurality of nouns.
-(e)s, indicating third person singular, present tense.
-(e)d, indicating past tense for all three persons.
-ing, indicating progressive aspect.
-er, indicating comparative degree of adjectives and adverbs.
-est, indicating superlative degree of adjectives and adverbs.
-‗s, indicating the possessive case of nouns..
Derivational affixes派生词缀are added to an existing form to create a word such as ―mis-‖ in the word ―misinform‖
※The existing form to which a derivational affix can be added is called a stem
※Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes.
Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word, modify the meaning of the stem, but usually do not change the part of speech of the original word.
Suffixes at the end of a word, are added to the end of stems. They modify the meaning of the original word and in many cases change its part of speech.
3. Morphological rules
We must guard against overgeneralization. Different words may require different affixes to create the same meaning change.
pounding 的地位is popular and important way of forming new words in English. In terms of morphemic analysis, derivation can be viewed ad the addition of affixes to stems to form new words, and compounding the combination of two or sometimes more than two words to create new words.
5.Features of compounds 复合词有什么特点？
1.orthographically(拼写特征): a compound can be written as one with or without a hyphen, or as two separate words. For example: armchair, follow-up, thunder bird.
2.syntactically(句法特征): the part of speech of the compound is generally determined by the part of speech of the second element. For example: ice-cold (adj.) greenhouse (noun).
3.sematically（语意特征）: the meaning of a compound is often idiomatic, not always being the sum total of the meanings of the meanings of its components. For example:
a blackleg is not a leg that is black, it means cheater
4.phonetically（语音特征）: the stress of a compound always falls on the first element, while the second element receives secondary stress.
第四章Syntax 句法学
1.Syntax 定义is a subfield of linguistics that studies the sentence structure of language. Sentences are structured according to particular arrangement of words.
2、Syntax as a system of rules. as a major component of grammar, syntax consists of a set of abstract rules that allow words to be combined with other words to form
grammatical sentences
3、Sentence structure
Subject all language have ways of referring to some entity, such as a person , a place, a thing, an idea, or an event, this referring expression is grammatically called subject.
A subject may be a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence that usually precedes the predicate.
2.Type of sentence英语的句子中的三种基本类型是什么？
Traditionally, three major types of sentences are distinguished. They are simple sentence, coordinate or compound sentence and complex sentence.
A simple sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own sentence. For example, ①John reads extensively. the sentences contains a single clause and can stand structurally independent.
A coordinate sentence并列句contains two clauses joined by a linking word called coordinating conjunction, such as ―and‖, ―but‖, ―or‖. The two clauses in a coordinate sentence are structurally equal parts of the sentence; neither is subordinate to the other. For example, ③John is reading a linguistic book, and Mary is preparing for her history exam.
A complex sentence contains two or more clauses, one of which is incorporated into the other. The two clauses in a complex sentence have unequal status, one subordinating the other. The incorporated, or subordinate, clause is normally called an embedded clause子句, and the clause into which it is embedded is called a matrix sentence主句. For example, ⑤Mary told Jane [that John liked linguistics]. In the above examples, the clauses in the square brackets are embedded clauses. They are subordinate to the clauses outside the brackets which are called matrix clauses.
A complex sentence 的特征：Some conclusions can be drawn from the complex sentence.
1、an embedded clause functions as a grammatical unit in its matrix clause.
2.most embedded clauses require an introductory word called a subordinator, such as ―that‖,‖ if ‖.
3.an embedded clause may not function as a grammatically well-formed sentence if it stands independently as a simple sentence unless it form changes.
3、linearly- and hierarchically-structured.(线形结构和层次结构
Language is a highly structured system of communication. Sentences are not formed by randomly(随意)combining lexical items, but by following a set of syntactic rules that arrange linguistic elements in a particular order to make a string of words not only meaningful but also linearly- and hierarchically-structured.(线形结构和层次结构)
Hierarchical structure: the sentence structure that gro ups words into structural constituents and shows the syntactic categories of each structural constituent, such as NP and VP.
5、Syntactic categories: 句法类型
1.lexical categories词类(four major lexical categories and six minor lexical categories)
2. Phrasal categories 短语类(lexical items have certain combinational properties that
allow them to combine with words of different categories to form phrase. NP VP PP AP)
6、Grammatical relations(语法关系) The structural and logical relations of constituents are called grammatical relations. It concerns the way each noun phrase in the sentence relates to the verb. (who does what do whom). Structural vs. logical subject, object. (**)
7、Combinational rules组合规则
1、Phrase structural rules The combinational pattern in a linear formula may be called a phrase structural rule, or rewrite rule. It allows us to better understand how words and phrases form sentences, and so on.
2、Syntactic movement and movement rules Syntactic movement occurs when a constituent in a sentence moves out of its original place to a new position, the sentence involving which cannot be described by phrase structure rules. It was governed by transformational rules, the operation of which may change the syntactic representation of a sentence (句法的表达方式).
3、什么是X-标杆理论?
X-bar theory is a general and highly abstract schema that collapses all phrasal structure rules into a single format: X″→ (Spec) X (Compl). In this format, Spec stands for specifier while Compl stands for complement. This theory is capable of reducing the redundancies of individual phrasal structure rules and may well capture certain basic properties shared by all phrasal categories, i.e. NP, VP, AP, PP, across the languages of the world.
4、Syntactic movement and movement rules
Syntactic movement occurs when a constituent in a sentence moves out of its original place to a new position, the sentence involving which cannot be described by phrase structure rules. It was governed by transformational rules, the operation of which may change the syntactic representation of a sentence (句法的表达方式).
1 NP-movement and WH-movement
NP-movement occurs when, for example, a sentence changes from the active voice to the passive voice (postpose, prepose).
WH-movement is obligatory in English. It changes a sentence from affirmative to interrogative.
2 Other types of movement
AUX-movement (auxiliary)
3 D-structure and S-structure
The syntactic component of the grammar:
Phrase Structure Rules + the Lexicon (词汇)（generate）―――D-structure (deep structure)―――
Movement Rules（transform）―――― S-structure (Surface structure)
A sentence may not look different when it is at different syntactic levels. Since syntactic movement does not occur to all sentences, the D-structure and S-structure of some sentences look exactly the same at different levels of representation.
4 More α-a general movement rule
There is a general movement rule accounting for the syntactic behavior of any
constituent movement, called Moveα(or Move Alpha), which means ―move any constituent to any place‖. The problem is Moveαis too powerful and the grammar should include some conditions which will restrain this power and stimulate that only ―certain constituents‖ move to ―certain positions‖.
7、Toward a theory of universal grammar
Since early 1980s, Noam Chomsky and other generative linguists proposed and developed a theory of universal grammar (UG) known as the principles and parameters theory. According to Chomsky, UG is a system of linguistic knowledge and a human species-specific gift, which exists in the mind or brain of a normal human being. According to principles-and-parameters framework, UG consists of a set of general conditions, or general principles, that generate phrases and at the same time restrain the power of Moveα, thus preventing this rule from applying in certain cases. UG also contains a set of parameters that allow general principles to operate in certain ways, according to which particular grammar of natural languages vary.
8、画出―Flying planes can be dangerous.‖ 的树型图。

‖
This sentence is ambiguous because it has two readings:
a. Planes which are flying can be dangerous.
b. To fly planes can be dangerous.
The tree diagrams are as follows:
Chapter Five第五章语义学
1、Semantics定义can be simply defined as the study of meaning.
Some views concerning the study of meaning:
2、语义研究的主要流派有哪些？（四种）
1) The naming theory: 命名论. One of the oldest notions concerning meaning, and also a very primitive one, It was proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to this theory, the linguistic forms or symbols used in a language are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for. So words are just names or labels for things.
2) The conceptualist view: 意念论It holds that there is no direct link between a lin-guistic form and what it refers to. In the interpretation of meaning, they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.
3) Contextualism: (语境论) It is based on the presumption(假定) that one can derive 推导) meaning from or reduce meaning to observable可观测的) contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized:the situational context and the linguistic context .For example, the meaning of the word "seal" in the sentence "The seal could not be found" can only be determined according to the context in which the sentence occurs: 4) Behaviorism行为主义论
The contextualist view was further strengthened by Bloomfield . He drew on behaviorist psychology when he tried to define the meaning of linguistic forms. Behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a language form as " the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer". (Bloomfield, This behaviorist theory is somewhat close to contextualism. It is linked with psychological interest.。