语言学作业 第一章

语言学作业
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Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics
I. Please illustrate the following terms.
1. Arbitrariness:
The forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.
The different levels of arbitrariness:
(1) Arbitrary relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning, even with onomatopoeic words
(2) Arbitrariness at the syntactic level: language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level.
(3) The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention. 2. Duality
The property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization.
3. Phatic communion
Phatic communion refers to the social interaction of language.
4. Synchronic linguistics:
A synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its point of observation. Most grammars are of this kind.
II. Please distinguish the following terms:
1. Langue vs. Parole
Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, that is, the lexicon, grammar, and phonology implanted in each individual, and it is the linguist’s proper object;
Parole refers to the realization of langue, the immediately accessible data. While parole constitutes the immediately accessible data, and it is a mass of confused facts, so it is not suitable for systematic investigation.
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(1) Langue is abstract, while parole is specific to the situation in which it occurs.
(2) Langue is not actually spoken by anyone, while parole is always a naturally occurring event.
(3) Langue is relatively stable, systematic and social, while parole is subject to personal, individual and situational constraints.
(4) Langue is essential while parole is accessory and accidental.
2. Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
The distinction lies in prescribing how things ought to be and describing how things are.
Traditional grammar was very strongly normative in character.The grammarians tried to lay down rules for the correct use of language and settle the disputes over usage once and for all. That is prescriptive.
These attitudes are still with us, though people realize nowadays the facts of usage count more than the authority-made “standards”. The nature of linguistics as a science determines its preoccupation with description instead of prescription.
3. Synchronic vs. Diachronic
Synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its point of observation. Most grammars are of this kind.Actually synchrony is a fiction since any language is changing as the minutes pass.
Diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through the course of its history.
4. Competence vs. Performance
According to Chomsky:
A language user’s underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called his linguistic competence.
Performance refers to the actual use of language or the actual realization of this knowledge in utterances in concrete situations.
A speaker’s competence is stable while his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors, so a speaker’s performance does not always or equal his supposed competence.
He believes that linguists ought to study competence rather than performance.
5. Langue vs. Competence
According to Chomsky:
Langue is a social product, a systematic inventory of rules of the language, a set of conventions for a speech community.
Competence is defined from the psychological point of view, is deemed as a property of the mind of each individuals, or underlying competence as a system of generative processes.
According to Hymes:
He approaches language from a socio-cultural viewpoint with the aim of studying the varieties of ways of speaking on the part of individual and the community.
He extended notion of competence, restricted by Chomsky to a knowledge of grammar, to incorporate the pragmatic ability for language use. This extended idea of competence can be called communicative competence.
III. Answer the following questions in brief:
1. The following are some book titles of linguistics. Can you judge the synchronic or
diachronic orientation just from the titles?
1) English Examined: Two Centuries of Comment on the Mother Tongue
2) Protean Shape: A Study in Eighteenth-century Vocabulary and Usage
3) Pejorative Sense Development in English
4) The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation
5) Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular
1) diachronic 2）synchronic 3）diachronic 4）synchronic
5）We can’t judge whether it is synchronic or diachronic orientation just from the titles.
2. What is language? What is linguistics?
Language can be defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication and interaction.
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. The aims of linguistic theory: 1) what is knowledge of language? (Competence) 2) how is knowledge of language acquired? (Acquisition) 3) how is knowledge of language put to use? (Performance/language processing). Main branches of linguistics:Phonetics, Phonology Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics.
3. How do you understand performative function of language?
The performative function of language is primarily to change the social status of persons or the situations of events, as in marriage ceremonies, the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children, the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, and the cursing of enemies.
The kind of language employed in performative verbal acts is usually quite formal and even ritualized.
The performative function can extend to the control of reality as on some magical or religious occasions.For example, in Chinese when someone breaks a bowl or a plate the host or the people present are likely to say sui sui ping an as a means of controlling the invisible forces which the believers feel might affect their lives adversely.
IV. Discuss the following question in detail.
How do you interpret the viewpoint that “arbitrariness is a matter of degree”?
1)Arbitrary relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning, even with onomatopoeic words:The dog barks bow wow in English but “汪汪汪” in Chinese.
2) Arbitrariness at the syntactic level: language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level.
⏹He came in and sat down.
⏹He sat down and came in.
⏹He sat down after he came in.
3) The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention.
⏹Arbitrariness of language makes it potentially creative.
⏹Conventionality of language makes learning a language
laborious.
Chapter 2 Speech Sounds I. Complete the following statements.
1. Human language enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts
which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication. This quality is labeled as __________.
2. The sound [p] can be described with “voiced, __________, stop.”
3. The different members of a phoneme, sounds which are phonetically different
but do not make one word different from another in meaning,, are_________. 4. Both semantics and ________ investigate linguistic meaning, but they focus on
different aspects.
5. If certain linguistics tries to lay down rules for the correct use of language and
settle the disputes over usage once and for all, it is ___________ linguistics.
6. Phones that fall into allophones of a phoneme have to satisfy two conditions, one
is they are ___________________, and another is that they should be in _____________________.
7. The vowel ________ is high front tense unrounded.
8. A dog cannot tell people that its master will be home in a few days, because its
language does not have the feature of ___________.
9. Computational linguistics often refers to the problems of ________________,
information retrieval, and ______________.
10. Halliday proposed a theory of metafunctions of language, that is, language has
___________, ____________ and _____________ functions.
II. Define the following terms.
1. Manner of articulation:
2. Distinctive features:
3. Intonation:
4. Assimilation:
III. Answer the following questions briefly.
1. Specify the difference between each pair of sounds using distinctive features.
1) [l] [ł ] 2) [p h] [p] 3) [b] [d] 4) [k] [g] 5) [I] [u]
2. Work out the features of the following sounds.
1) [t h] ________________________________________
2) [w] ________________________________________
3) [v] ________________________________________
4) [ð] _________________________________________
5) [l] __________________________________________
3. In some dialects of English the following words have different vowels, as shown
by the phonetic transcription. Based on these data, answer the questions that follow.
A B. C
bite [bʌi t]bide [ba i d]tie [ta i]
rice [rʌi s]rise [ra i z]by [ba i]
type [tʌi p]bribe [b r aib] sigh [s a i]
wife [wʌi f]wives [wa i vz]die [d a i]
tyke [tʌi k]time [ta i m]why [wa i]
1) What is the difference of the sounds that end the words in columns A and B?
2) How do the words in column C differ from those in column A and B?
3) Are [ʌi] and [a i] in complementary distribution? Give your reasons.
4) What are the phonetic transcriptions of (a) life and (b) lives?
5) What would the phonetic transcriptions of the following words be in the dialects
of English shown in the data?
(a) trial (b) bike (c) lice
(d) fly (e) mine
6) State the rule that will relate the phonemic representations to be phonetic
transcriptions of the words given above.
IV. Discuss the questions in details.
1. Illustrate phoneme, phone and allophone.
2. To what extent is phonology related ot phonetics and how do they differ?。