《新编语言学教程》课后答案

Chapter 1Introduction1. Define the following terms briefly.(1) linguistics: the scientific or systematic study of language.(2) language: a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.(3) arbitrariness: the absence of similarity between the form of a linguistic sign and what itrelates to in reality, e.g. the word dog does not look like a dog.(4) duality: the way meaningless elements of language at one level (sounds and letters)combine to form meaningful units (words) at another level.(5) competence: knowledge of the grammar of a language as a formal abstraction anddistinct from the behavior of actual language use, i.e. performance.(6) performance: Chomsky‘s te rm for actual language behavior as distinct from theknowledge that underlies it, or competence.(7) stylistics: the study of how literary effects can be related to linguistic features.(8) phatic communion: Language is used to establish an atmosphere or maintainsocial contact between the speaker and the hearer.(9) functionalism: the study of the forms of language in reference to their social function incommunication.(10) formalism: the study of the abstract forms of language and their internal relations.(11) synchronic linguistics: the study of language and speech as they are used at a givenmoment and not in terms of how they have evolved over time.(12) diachronic linguistics: the study of linguistic change over time in contrast to looking atlanguage as it is used at a given moment.2. No, language is human-specific. Human language has seven design features, including arbitrariness, duality, productivity, interchangeability, displacement, specialization and cultural tra nsmission. These features are found utterly lacking in dogs‘ or pigs‘ noises and thus set human language apart from animal cry systems.3. Arbitrariness refers to the fact that there is no logical or intrinsic connection bet ween a particular sound and the meaning it is associated with. For example, for the same animal dog, in English we call it /d0g/, in Chinese as ―gou‖, but ―yilu‖ in Japanese; it barks wow wow in English but wang wang in Chinese. Of course, onomatopoetic words such as ―quack-quack‖ and―bang‖ are exceptions, but words like these are relatively few compared with the total number of words in a language.4. A human baby does not speak any language at birth. What language the baby is going to speak is determined by the culture he is born into. A Chinese baby born and brought up in London by an English family will speak English, while an English child brought up in Beijing by a Chinese aunt will speak Chinese. That is to say, language cannot be transmitted through heredity. It is culturally transmitted.5. Firstly, linguistics describes languages and does not lay down rules of correctness while traditional grammar emphasizes correctness. Secondly, linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, while traditional grammar emphasizes the priority of the written language. Thirdly, traditional grammar is based on Latin and it tries to impose the Latin categories and structures on other languages, while linguistics describes each language on its own merits.6. A descriptive approach attempts to tell what is in the language while the prescriptive approach tells people what should be in the language. Most modern linguistics is descriptive, whereas traditional grammars are prescriptive.7. Synchronic linguistics studies language at one particular time while diachronic linguistics studies language developments through time. Synchronic linguistics focuses on the state of language at any point in history while diachronic linguistics focuses on the differences in two or more than two states of language over decades or centuries.8. No, human language has the design feature of specialization. It refers to the fact that man does not have a total physical involvement in the act of communication. For example, a mother can tell a story to her child while slicing up a cake. However, wolves can only respond to a stimulus and is totally involved physically in the communication process. Thus, a wolf cannot have a language similar to man‘s, even though it could express a thousand different emotions. Besides, the aspect of productivity also distinguishes human language from wolf ‘s postures.Chapter 2The Sounds of Language1. Define each of the following terms briefly.(1) articulator: the tongue, lips, and velum, which change the shape of the vocal tract toproduce different speech sounds.(2) assimilation: a phonological process whereby a sound becomes phonetically similar (oridentical) to a neighboring sound, e.g. a vowel becomes [+nasal] when followed by a[+nasal] consonant.(3) consonant: a speech sound produced by partial or complete closure of part of the vocaltract, thus obstructing the airflow and creating audible friction. Consonants aredescribed in terms of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.(4) elision: the leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech.(5) intonation: the variation in pitch and stress which gives beat and rhythm to the tune thevoice plays in ordinary speech.(6) phoneme: the abstract element of a sound, identified as being distinctive in a particularlanguage.(7) phonetics: the study of linguistic speech sounds, how they are produced,how they are perceived, and their physical properties.(8) phonology: the study of the abstract systems underlying the sounds of language.(9) stress: the prominence given to certain sounds in speech.(10) voicing: the vibration in the larynx caused by air from the lungs passingthrough the vocal cords when they are partly closed; speech sounds are said to be eithervoiced or voiceless.(11) voiceless: When the vocal cords are spread apart, the airstream from thelungs is not obstructed at the space between vocal cords and passes freely.The sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless sounds.(12) vowel: a speech sound produced without significant constriction of the air flowingthrough the oral cavity.2. Minimal pair test or substitution test.Minimal pair test or substitution test is to see whether substituting one sound for 4another results in a different word. If it does, the two sounds represent different phonemes. For example, as to the English word bear, if we substitute p for b, we get the word pear, the two are different words. Then /b/ and /p/ represent different phonemes. Other examples are chunk/junk, ban/bin, bet/beat, fine/vine, side/site, etc.3. Take the word big for example, in the word big /big/, /b/ is the onset, /i/ is the nucleus and /g/ is the coda. The difference between open syllables and closed syllables is whether the words have codas. If there are codas, they are closed syllables, such as pig, hat and at; if not, they are open syllables, such as do, I, tea and key.4. (1) stop, consonant(2) back, rounded, vowel5. (1) voiceless / voiced(2) bilabial / labiodental(3) close / semi-open(4) stop / nasal(5) alveolar / palatal(6) alveolar / dental(1) kit/git, bucker/bugger, bag/back(2) mark/nark, smack/snack, sum/sun(3) best/vest, ober/over, lib/live(4) bore/more, abate/amate, mob/mom(5) pat/fat, apt/aft (AmE), harp (BrE)/half7. (1) The stresses are placed on the second syllable except fo r ―promise‖. We may easily conclude that the verbs usually are stressed on the second syllable.(2) Syllable representations of the words:collide [k2#laid] elect [i#lekt] consider [k2n#sid2]Chapter 3Morphology1. Define the following terms briefly.(1) morphology: the study of the structure of words.5(2) morpheme: the smallest unit of language that carries meaning or serves agrammatical function.(3) free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a word.(4) bound morpheme: a morpheme that can not stand alone as a word, e.g.ment (as in establishment), and -er (as in painter).(5) morph: the smallest meaningful phonetic segments of an utterance on the levelof parole.(6) allomorph: a phonetic form in which a morpheme is realized, e.g. -s, -es, and en are allallomorphs (in writing) of the plural morpheme.(7) derivation: the formation of new words by adding affixes to other words or morphe mes inmorphology and word formation.(8) clipping: the process by which parts of a word of more than one syllable have been cutoff, and reduced to a shorter form.(9) acronym: words which are composed of the first letter of a series of words an d arepronounced as single words. Examples: NATO, radar and yuppy.(10) initialism: Some new words are composed of the first letters of a series of wordsand pronounced by saying each letter in them. Such words are called initialism.(11) blending: A single new word can be formed by combining two separate forms.Typically, blending is finished by taking only the beginning of one word andjoining it to the end of another word. For example, brunch is formed by theshortened forms of breakfast and lunch.(12) root: the morpheme that remains when all affixes are stripped from a complex word, e.g.system from un- + system + atic + ally.(13) stem: the base to which one or more affixes are attached to create a more complexform that may be another stem or a word. For example, book is the stem of bookish. (14) prefix: Affixes can be joined to the beginning of the root or stem, in which casethey are called prefixes.(15) suffix: Affixes can be joined to the end of the root or s tem, in which case they are calledsuffixes.2. (3), (5), (7)3. (1) simple: fly tree suite(2) bound morpheme rootfly / flyreuse re- usespiteful -ful spitepreplan pre- plandesks -s desktriumphed -ed triumphsuite / suiteoptionality -ality optionuntie un- tiedelight de- lightfastest -est fastprettier -ier prettytree / treejustly -ly justdeform de- formmistreat mis- treatdislike dis- likepayment -ment paydisobey dis- obeypremature pre- mature4. (1) Column I: ablaut (vowel modification)Column II: suppletionColumn III: stress modification(2) The process in the Column I is finished by changing the vowel of each word, while inColumn II, the process is finished by changing vowel and consonant of each word. (3) Column I: awake/awoke bear/bore arise/aroseblow/blew bite/bit hide/hidlie/lay know/knew foot/feetgoose/geese tooth/teeth louse/liceColumn II: bad/worse are/were many/moreColumn III: ‗combine/com‘bine ‗compress/com‘press7‗conduct/con‘duct ‗insert/in‘sert‗insult/in‘sult ‗intern/in‘tern5. (1) Omitted.(2) Other examples:‗rerun (n.) –re‘run (v.) ‗cont rast (n.) –con‘trast (v.)‗convert (n.) –con‘vert (v.) ‗desert (n.) –de‘sert (v.)‗export (n.) –ex‘port (v.) ‗increase (n.) –in‘crease (v.)‗conduct (n.) –con‘duct (v.) ‗object (n.) –ob‘ject (v.)‗content (n.) –con‘tent (v.) ‗pro test (n.) –pro‘test (v.)‗insult (n.) –in‘sult (v.) ‗produce (n.) –pro‘duce (v.)When a word belongs to different word classes, the stress of the word will be sometimes placed on different syllables. When all the words above are stressed on the first syllables, they are nouns, but if they have the second syllables stressed, the words become verbs.6. (1) It means ―the inhabitant of ‖.(2) It means ―the person who does‖.(3) The morphological rule working here is ―n. + -er ––n.‖, and the lastphoneme of the noun, which the suffix -er is added to, should be a consonant. (4) The rule in (3) doesn‘t work in the word discoverer because the last phonemeof discoverer is a vowel /2/.7. (1) inflection (2) derivation (3) inflection (4) inflection (5) derivationChapter 4Syntax1. Define the following terms briefly.(1) syntax: the term used to refer to the structure of sentences and to the study of sentencestructure.(2) word class: a group of words which are similar in function; words which are grouped intoword classes according to how they combine with other words, how they change theirforms, etc.(3) prescriptive approach: This view regards grammar as a set of rules forthe 8“proper‖ use of a language, that‘s to say, it tries to lay down rules to tell people how to use a language.(4) descriptive approach: the approach of linguistic studies, with which linguists collectsamples of the language they are interested in and attempt to describe the regularstructures of the language as they are used, not according to some view of how theyshould be used.(5) IC analysis: the approach to divide the sentence up into its immediate constituentsby using binary cutting until obtaining its ultimate constituents. For example, theimmediate constituents of ―The man bought a car‖ are the man and bought a car. Theimmediate constituents of the man are the and man, and so on until no further cutscan be made. The ultimate constituents of ―The man bought a car‖ at the word level arethe, man, bought, a, and car.(6) structural analysis: a type of descriptive approach to study the distribution of linguisticforms in a language through such methods as the use of ―test frames‖.(7) immediate constituent: Linguistic units can be divided into small constituents, whichcan be further analyzed into smaller constituents. This process continues until no further divisions are possible. The first division or units are known as immediateconstituents.(8) ultimate constituent: Linguistic units can be divided into small constituents, which canbe further analyzed into smaller constituents. This process continues until nofurther d ivisions are possible. The final division or units are known as ultimateconstituents.(9) constituent structural grammar: It refers to a grammar which analyzes sentences usingonly the idea of constituency, which reveals a hierarchy of structural levels.(10) transformational grammar: a type of grammar which attempts to define and describe by aset of rules or principles all the grammatical sentences (without ungrammatical ones) of a language.(11) ideational function: the use of language as a means of giving structure to our experience ofthe real or imaginary world.(12) interpersonal function: the use of language for maintaining social roles and interactingwith others.(13) textual function: to create written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves andwhich fit the particular situation in which they are used.2. Yes. As we know, morphology is the study of the internal structure, forms and 9classes of words, while syntax focuses on the structure and ordering of components within a sentence. The major distinction between morphology and syntax is that the former is concerned with the internal composition of a word, while the latter is concerned with the combination of words.3. (2) Instead of using the form ―suggest somebody to do something‖, we usuallyuse ―suggest + that-clause‖ or ―suggest doing‖, here we‘d better substitute “advise‖for ―suggest‖(4) The word ―request‖ is a transitive verb which should take an object directly, so the word―for‖ should be omitt ed.(6) The word ―donate‖ cannot be followed by double objects as ―donate somebodysomething‖. Instead we always use ―donate something to somebody‖.(10) The subject of the verb ―write‖ is usually a human; an ―article‖ cannot write itself. In thiscase the passive construction is normally used: The article was very well writen.(11) Usually we don‘t use ―be bored of something/somebody‖, but ―be bored withsomething/somebody‖ which means losing interest in somebody/something.(13) Here ―myself ‖is a reflexive pronoun, which can‘t be used as subject, and it shouldbe replaced by ―I‖.(14) The word ―surprise‖ is usually used as a transitive verb, so the expression“…surprise for you‖ is ungrammatical, and it can be replaced by ―s urprisesomebody (with something)‖ or ―I was surprised by your getting married.‖(15) The word ―sleep‖ is usually used as an intransitive verb, which can‘t take an object.The cases of ―sleep‖ being used as a transitive verb are semantically limited,as in ―to sleep a good sleep‖ or ―the room can sleep 3 people‖.4. It‘s ungrammatical, because ―us‖ is the objective case which can‘t serve as the subject, while―she‖ is the subjective case which can‘t serve as the object. The sentence should be ―Wevi sit her on Sundays‖. The personal pronouns ―you‖ and ―it‖ have the same form whetherused as the subject or object.5. (1) NP: A Guns ―N‖ Roses concert, an arena, some 2500 fans, a full-fledged riot, A Guns ―N‖ Roses concert at an arena , A Guns ―N‖ Rose s concert at an arena near ST. Louis ,The trouble, venue security, a camera, the front, the stage, the front of the stage. PP: at an arena, at an arena near ST. Louis, near ST. Louis, in disaster, near the front, of the stage, near the front of the stage. VP: staged a full-fledged riot, asked venue security, confiscate a camera.(2) N: Guns, Roses, concert, arena, ST. Louis, disaster, fans, riot, trouble, Axl10Rose, venue, security, camera, front, stage. Prep: at, near, in, of. V: end, stage, start, ask,confiscate, see.6. (1) You mustn‘t end a sentence with a preposition.You mustn‘t split infinitives7. (i)(ii)8. (1) a. Terry loves his wife and I love his wife, too. b. I love my wife as well as Terry loveshis wife.(2) a. It‘s yesterday that they said she would go. b. She would go yesterday as they said.(3) a. The governor is a street fighter who is dirty.b. The governor is a fighter in a dirtystreet.(4) a. The design has squares and circles, both of which are big. b. The design has bigsquares, and it also has some circles. (The sizes of the circles are not mentioned.)Chapter 5Semantics1. Define the following terms briefly.(1) semantics: the study of linguistic meaning.(2) truth-conditional semantics: an approach that knowing the meaning of the sentenceis the same as knowing the conditions under which the sentence is true or false, andknowing the meaning of a word or expression is knowing the part that it plays in thetruth or falsehood of the sentence containing it.(3) naming theory: the view that the meaning of an expression is what it refers to, or names.(4) behaviorist theory: the view that the meaning of a linguistic form is defined as observablebehaviors which is an approach drawing on psychology.(5) use theory: the semantic theory according to which the meaning of anexpression is determined by its use in communication and more generally, insocial interaction.(6) sense: the inherent part of an expression‘s meaning, together with the context,determines its referent. For example, knowing the sense of a noun phrasesuch as the president of the United States in 2004 allows one to determine that GeorgeW. Bush is the referent.(7) reference: (in semantics) the relationship between words and the things,actions, events and qualities they stand for. An example in English is the relationshipbetween the word tree and the object ―tree‖ (referent) in the real world.(8) conceptual meaning: It means the meaning of words may be discussed in terms ofwhat they denote or refer to, also called denotative or cognitive meaning. It is theessential and inextricable part of what language is and is widely regarded as thecentral factor in verbal communication. For instance, the conceptual meaning of ―he‖ inEnglish is any male person or male animal.(9) connotative meaning: It is the communicative meaning that a word or acombination of words has by virtue of what it refers to, over its purely conceptualmeaning. For example, the connotative meaning of ―woman‖ is emotional, frail,inconstant, irrational, etc.(10) semantic field: the organization of related words and expressions into asystem which shows their relationship to one another. For example, kinship terms suchas father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt belong to a semantic field whose relevantfeatures include generation, sex, membership of the father‘s or mother‘s side of family.(11) lexical gap: the absence of a word in a particular place in a semantic field of a language.For instance, in English we have brother versus sister, son versus daughter, but noseparate lexemes for ―male‖ and ―female‖ cousin.(12) componential analysis: (in semantics) an approach to the study of meaning which analyzesa word into a set of meaning components or semantic features. For example,the meaning of the English word boy may be shown as [+human][+male][-adult]. (13) semantic feature: the smallest units of meaning in a word. The meaning of wordmay be described as a combination of semantic components or features. Forexample, the feature [+male] is part of the meaning of father, and so is thefeature [+adult], but other features are needed to make up the whole meaning of father.Often, semantic features are established by contrast and can be stated in terms of [+] and[-], e.g. woman has the semantic features [+human], [-male] and [+adult].(14) synonym: the sense relations of equivalence of meaning between lexical items,e.g. small/little and dead/deceased.(15) antonym: the sense relation of various kinds of opposing meaning between lexical items,e.g. big/small, alive/dead and good/bad.(16) hyponymy: the sense relation between terms in a hierarchy, where a moreparticular term (the hyponym) is included in the more general one (the superordinate): Xis a Y, e.g. a beech is a tree, a tree is a plant.(17) meronym: the sense relation between body and its parts which are not only sections ofthe body but defined in terms of specific functions. For example, the head is the part ofthe body which carries the most important sense organs, i.e. eyes, ears, nose and tongue.(18) semantic role: the way in which the referent of a noun phrase is involved in the situationdescribed or represented by the clause, for example as agent, patient, orcause.(19) entailment: the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (thesecond) is inferred from the truth of the other, e.g. Corday assassinated Marat and Maratis dead; if the first is true, the second must be true.(20) presupposition: implicit assumptions about the world required to make an utterancemeaning ful or appropriate, e.g. ―some tea has already been taken‖ is a presupposition of―Take some more tea!‖2. (1) He waited by the bank.a. He waited by the financial institution which people can keep their money in or borrowfrom.b. He waited by the bank of the river.(2) Is he really that kind?a. Is he really that type of person?b. Is he really that kind-hearted?(3) We bought her dog biscuits.a. We bought dog biscuits for her.b. We bought biscuits for her dog.(4) He saw that gasoline can explode.a. He saw that gasoline container explode.b. He saw that gasoline may explode.(5) Fifty soldiers shot three wild foxes.a. Fifty soldiers shot three wild foxes in total.b. Each of the fifty soldiers shot three wild foxes.(6) He saw her drawing pencils.a. He saw her pencils for drawing.b. He saw her drawing the picture of pencils.3. (2) (4) (5) (8) are antonyms; (1) (3) (6) (7) are synonyms.4. charity: kindness, sympathy, church, helpfuliron: strong, brave, hard, determinedmole: traitor, betrayal, spysnow: pure, virgin, cleanstreet: homeless, living hard, pitiable5. (1) a. hoard b. scribble c. barn, method d. olfactory(2) a. acquire b. tell c. way d. smell(3) a. buy, win, steal. b. talk, tell c. road, way, path d. smellThese words are less marked in their sets because they are more usual and tendto be used more frequently. They consist of only one morpheme and are easier tolearn and remember than others. They are also often broader in meaning and cannot bedescribed by using the name of another member ofthe same field.6. homophones: sea-see, break-brake; polysemies: sea, break, prayer, mature, trace, househomonyms: ear.7. In a semantic field, not all lexical items necessarily have the same status. The less markedmembers of the same semantic field (1) are usually easier to learn andremember than more marked members; (2) consist of only one morpheme incontrast to more marked members; (3) cannot be described by using the name of anothermember of the same field; (4) tend to be used more frequently than more marked terms;(5) broader in meaning than more marked members; (6) are not the result of themetaphorical usage of the name of another object or concept, but more marked are.8. (1) a. bachelor, man, son, paperboy, pope, chiefb. bull, rooster, drake, ram.The (a) and (b) words are male.The (a) words are human.The (b) words are animals.(2) a. ask, tell, say, talk, converseb. shout, whisper, mutter, drawl, hollerThe (a) and (b) words are realized by sounds.The (a) words are normal voice quality.The (b) words are produced by modifying one‘s normal voice quality.(3) a. walk, run, skip, jump, hop, swimb. fly, skate, ski, ride, cycle, canoe, hang-glideThe (a) and (b) words are sports (movement).The (a) words are sports without instruments.The (b) words are sports with instruments.Chapter 6Pragmatics1.Define the following terms briefly.(1) pragmatics: a branch of linguistics that studies language in use.(2) deixis: the marking of the orientation or position of entities and situations withrespect to certain points of reference such as the place (here/there) and time (now/then) of utterance.(3) reference: (in semantics) the relationship between words and the things, actions, events,and qualities they stand for.(4) anaphora: a process where a word or phrase (anaphor) refers back to another word orphrase which was used earlier in a text or conversation.(5) presupposition: implicit assumptions about the world required to make anutterance meaningful or appropriate, e.g. ―some tea has already been taken‖ is apresupposition of ―Take some more tea!‖(6) Speech Act Theory: The theory was proposed by J. L. Austin and has been developedby J. R. Searle. Basically, they believe that language is not only used to inform or todescribe things, it is often used to ―do things‖, to perform acts. In saying―Sorry‖, you are performing an act of apology.(7) indirect speech act: an utterance whose literal meaning (location) andintended meaning (illocution) are different. For example, Can you pass the salt?is literally a yes/no question but is usually uttered as a request or polite directive foraction.(8) the Cooperative Principle: a principle proposed by the philosopher Paul Gricewhereby those involved in communication assume that both parties willnormally seek to cooperate with each other to establish agreed meaning. It is composed of4 maxims: quality, quantity, relation and manner.(9) the Politeness Principle: politeness is regarded by most interlocutors as a meansor strategy which is used by a speaker to achieve various purposes, such assaving face, establishing and maintaining harmonious social relations in conversation.This principle requires speakers to ―minimize the expression of impolite beliefs‖. It iscomposed of 6 maxims: Maxims of Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreementand Sympathy.(10) conversational implicature: the use of conversational maxims in the CooperativePrinciple to produce extra meaning during conversation.。