英语词汇学试题2

Chapter 2 The Development of the English Vocabulary and Chapter 3 Word Formation I(练习2)
I. Each of the statements below is followed by four alternative answers. Choose the one that would best complete the statement.
1.It is assumed that the world has approximately 3,000( some put it 5,000)languages, which can
be grouped into the basis of similarities in their basic word stock and grammar.
A. 500
B. 4000
C. 300
D. 2000
2.The prehistoric Indo-European parent language is thought to be a highly __A____language.
A. inflected
B. derived
C. developed
D. analyzed
3.After the ____C_____, the Germanic tribes called Angles ,Saxons, and Jutes came in great
numbers.
A. Greeks
B. Indians
C. Romans
D. French
4.The introduction of ____B____had a great impact on the English vocabulary.
A. Hinduism
B. Christianity
C. Buddhism
D. Islamism
5.In the 9th century the land was invaded again by Norwegian and Danish Vikings. With the
invaders, many _____D___words came into the English language.
A. Greek
B. Roman
C. Celtic
D. Scandinavian
6.It is estimated that at least ___D___ words of Scandinavian origin have survived in modern
English.
A. 500
B. 800
C. 1000 .
D. 900
7.The Normans invaded England from France in 1066. The Norman Conquest started a
continual flow of ___A___ words into English.
A. French
B. Greek
C. Roman
D. Latin
8.By the end of the ____B___century , English gradually came back into the schools, the law
courts, and government and regained social status.
A. 12th
B. 13th
C. 14th
D.15th
9.As a result , Celtic made only a ____A____contribution to the English vocabulary.
A. small
B. big
C. great
D. smaller
10. The Balto-Slavic comprises such modern languages as Prussian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Slovenian and ___D____.
A. Greek
B. Roman
C. Indian
D. Russian
11.In the Indo-Iranian we have Persian , Bengali, Hindi, Romany, the last three of which are
derived from the dead language.A
A. Sanskrit
B. Latin
C. Roman
D. Greek
12.Greek is the modern language derived from __B____.
A. Latin
B. Hellenic
C. Indian D . Germanic
13.The five Roamance languages , namely, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian all
belong to the Italic through an intermediate language called _B_____.
A. Sanskrit
B. Latin
C. Celtic
D. Anglo-Saxon
14.The ____A____family consists of the four Northern European Languages: Norwegian,
Icelandic, Danish and Swedish, which are generally known as Scandinavian languages.
A. Germanic
B. Indo-European
C. Albanian
D. Hellenic
15.By the end of the ____B___century , virtually all of the people who held political or social
power and many of those in powerful Church positions were of Norman French origin.
A. 10th
B.11th
C.12th
D. 13th
II. Complete the following statements with proper words or expressions according to the course book.
16.Now people generally refer to Anglo-Saxon as ___old english____.
17.. If we say that Old English was a language of full endings , Middle English was one of __
leveled endings ___.
18.It can be concluded that English has evoked from a synthetic language (Old English) to the
present _ _ analytic ___ language.
19.The surviving languages accordingly fall into eight principal groups , which can be grouped
into an Eastern set: Balto-Slavic , Indo-Iranian ,Armenian and Albanian; a Western set :Celtic, Italic, Hellenic, _____ Germanic __.
20.It is necessary to subdivide Modern English into Early (1500-1700)and __ Late(1700-up to
the present )
21.___ Modern English.
III. Match the words or expressions in Column A with those in Column B according to 1) origin of the words 2)history off English development 3) language family.
A B
21. Celtic ( D ) A.politics
22. religious ( E ) B.moon
23.Scandinavian ( F ) C. Persian
24. French ( A ) D.London
25. Old English ( G ) E. abbot
26.Dutch ( I ) F. skirt
27.Middle English ( H ) G. sunu
28. Modern English ( B ) H. lernen
29. Germanic family ( J ) I. freight
30.Sanskrit ( C ) J. Norwegian
IV.Study the following words or expressions and identify types of morphemes underlined.
31. earth ( free root ) 32.contradict ( Bound
root )
33. predictor ( suffix ) 34. radios ( inflectional
affix )
35. prewar ( prefix ) 36. happiest ( inflectionla
affix )
37. antecedent ( prefix ) 38. northward (suffix )
38. sun ( free root ) 40. diction ( bound root ) V. Define the following terms.
41. free morphemes 42. bound morphemes 43. root 44. stem 45.affixes
VI. Answer the following questions. Your answers should be clear and short.
46. Describe the characteristics of Old English .
47. Describe the characteristics of Middle English.
48. Describe the characteristics of Modern English.
VII. Answer the following questions with examples.
49. What are the three main sources of new words ?
50. How does the modern English vocabulary develop ?
Key to exercises:
I. 1.C 2.A 3.C 4.B 5.D 6.D 7.A 8.B 9.A 10.D 11.A 12.B 13.B
14.A 15.B
II.16.Old English 17. Leveled endings 18. analytic 19. Germanic
te(1700-up to the present )
III.21. D 22. E 23. F 24. A 25. G 26. I 27. H 28. B 29. J 30. C
IV.31. free morpheme/ free root 32. bound root 33. suffix 34. inflectional affix
35. prefix 36. Inflectional affix 37. prefix 38. suffix 39. free morpheme/free root
40.bound root
V.-VI ( See the course book )
VII. 49. The three main sources of new words are :
(1)The rapid development of modern science and technology ,e.g. astrobiology, green
revolution ;
(2)Social , economic and political changes; e.g. Watergate, soy milk;
(3)The influence of other cultures and language; e.g. felafel, Nehru Jackets.
50. Modern English vocabulary develops through three channels: (1) creation, e.g. consideration, carefulness; (2) semantic change, e.g. Polysemy, homonymy ; (3) borrowing ;e.g. tofu, gongful.。