当代语言学期末考试

《当代语言学》期末考试

试题

Please give your answers to the following questions in a separated answer sheet provided by the examiner.

1. Do you think the following words are permissible in English? Why? 5%

a) tpray b) btry c) tgharg

2. What is the difference between open-class words and closed-class words? 5%

3. What role can English inflection play in the expression of meaning? 5%

4. Draw the tree diagrams for the following sentences: 10%

(1) She found a book on Madison Street.

(2) Jack advised Henry to see the dentist.

(3) Jack promised Henry to see the doctor.

5. What is the difference between sentence meaning and utterance meaning? 5%

6. What is the use of metaphor in verbal communication? 5%

7. In each case below decide which maxim of the cooperative principle has been flouted and what implicature might be drawn. 15%

1) A: Where does Miss Rosebery live?

B: Somewhere in the suburbs of the city.

2) A: I'm out of petrol.

B: There is a garage round the corner.

3) A: How do you think of Cathy's singing?

B: Well, she has produced a series of sounds that correspond closely with the score of "Home sweet home".

4) Teacher: (towards the end of a lecture) What time is it now?

Student: It's 10:44 and 35.6 seconds.

5) A: Do you want some coffee?

B: Coffee would make me awake.

8. The New information in each of the following utterances is bold-typed. Please use a different sentence structure for each so that the New information can be highlighted. 10%

1) He owed the tailor twenty dollars.

2) The impossible has often proved possible.

3) We have oral practice every other day.

4) We didn't leave the flat until we could smell the smoke in the corridor.

5) The football match was cancelled because of the rain.

9. What is a regional dialect? And what is the relationship between a regional dialect and a standard dialect? 5%

10. Do you agree to the claim that all languages in the world derived from one common ancestor? 5%

11. Please explain the primacy of human language over animal communication. 10%

12. The following are some questions taken from some test papers. Decide which type of test they belong to: (a) the discrete point test, (b) integrative test, and (c) the communicative test. 10%

Directions: There are 30 incomplete sentences in this part. For each sentence there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Choose the ONE answer that best completes the sentence. Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

1). By the time he arrives in Beijing, we _________ here for two days.

A. have been staying

B. have stayed

C. shall stay

D. will have stayed

2) Directions: In this section, you will, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for the general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks numbered from S1 to S7 with the exact words you have just heard. For blanks numbered S8 to S10 you are required to fill in the missing information. You can either use the exact words you have just heard or write down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.

If you are a college student, most of your concerns about your health and happiness in life are probably (S1) __________ on the present. Basically, you want to feel good physically, mentally, and (S2) __________ now. You probably don't spend much time worrying about the (S3) __________, such as whether you will develop heart disease, or (S4) __________, how you will take care of yourself in your (S5) __________ years, or how you are going to live.

13. What do you think are the strong points and drawbacks of each of the following types of test:

(a) the achievement test, (b) the proficiency test, (c) the aptitude test, (d) the diagnosis test, (e) the subjective test, and (f) the objective test. 10%

参考答案

1. These words are not permissible in English. All languages have constraints on the permitted sequences of phonemes. *tpray, *btry, *tgharg do not sound like an English word because it does not conform to the restrictions on the sequencing of phonemes. When three consonants occur, the first must be [s].

2. Open-class words refer to those classes of words to which we can add new words. In English, nouns, notional verbs, adjectives and adverbs belong to this category. Such words normally convey certain semantic contents and thus are also called "content words". Closed-class words refer to those classes to which new words can hardly be added. In English, closed-class words include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, relatives, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and the linking verb "to be". Their roles in the linguistic system are partly or wholly grammatical and thus are also called "grammatical words".

3. Inflection refers to the process of adding an affix to a word or changing it in some other way according to the grammatical rules of the language. English inflections are used to express certain grammatical meanings: the plural morpheme {s} to change the noun into the plural-number form, the generative-case morpheme {'s} to indicate the relation of possession, the feminine-gender morpheme {ess} to change the masculine noun into its corresponding feminine-gender form, the third-person singular {s} to change the verb into the third-person singular form, the -ing participle {ing} to change the verb into the -ing participle, the past-form morpheme {ed} to change the verb into the past-tense form, the past-participle morpheme {ed} to change the verb into the -ing participle, the comparative {er} to change an adjective into the comparative-degree form, and