语言学概论 语言学课后习题答案

P7 3. Discuss the relation of arbitrariness and rules?

Words are arbitrary in form, but they are not random in their use. Although the link between form and meaning is arbitrary, there existed certain relationship between them, which can be called rules. The individual does not have the power to change a sign in any way once it has become established in the linguistic community.

P12

3.Please explain the primacy of human language over animal

communication.

Human language is primary over animal communication in the following aspects:

1) Human has the ability to refer to things far remote in time and space. In contrast, it may be impossible for an animal to convey such ability.

2) Human has the ability to produce and understand an indefinite number of novel utterances, but no animal can communicate creatively with another animal.

3) Learning is much more important as a factor in human language than in animal communication.

4) Human language structure and language use are vastly more complex than any animal communication system.

5) Animal communication systems are closed-ended, whereas human languages are open-ended.

P18 1. Identify the functions of the following sentences.

a)I like your house very much. b)I now declare the meeting closed. c)Nice to meet you d)I met Mary in the library this morning.

a. Physiological function b. Performative function c. Phatic function d. Informative

function

P24 2.Please list five Chinese onomatopoetic words

轰隆、乒乓、叽叽嘎嘎、叽里咕噜、汪汪

3.What are the functions of onomatopoetic words?

Onomatopoetic words are imitations of the sounds of nature, and emotional ejaculations of pain, fear, surprise, pleasure, anger, etc. According to the invention theory, onomatopoetic words form the basis of language, or at least the core of the basic vocabulary.

P28 3.What is the real object of linguistics?

The real object of linguistics is to find out fundamental rules that underlie all the languages in the world. We need to look into the common features of all languages, the range of variations among languages, the difference of human languages from animal communication, the change and evolution of language, the relation of language to mind and society, and so on.

P58 1. What is a phoneme? And what is an allophone?

Phoneme is the minimum phonemic unit that is not further analyzable into smaller units susceptible of concomitant occurrence. In other words, a phoneme is a block that

cannot be broken down into smaller parts; it is the smallest element relevant to phonemic analysis. Allophone is the phonetic variant of a phoneme.

P62 1. What does the word 'distinctive' mean in the term 'distinctive features'?

Distinctive features can be used to distinguish one phoneme from another or one group of sounds from another group. Thus, \

P65 1. What does complementary distribution mean?

When two or more sounds never occur in an identical phonemic context or environment, they are said to be in complementary distribution. That is to say, complementary distribution refers to the case in which one of two or more sounds occur in a context to the exclusion of other sound(s), i.e. in a context in which the other sound(s) never occur(s).

P69 2. What is the importance of stress in English?

Stress in English is very important. English is a stress language. The rhythm of spoken English is to a very large extent determined by strong beats falling on the stressed syllables of words. Thus, a typical spoken utterance of English will consist of a number of rhythmic units. Each unit is dominated by the beat of the stressed syllable. In verse, the wording is characteristically and deliberately organized to yield a regular rhythm, and the units of this rhythm are commonly called 'feet'. This kind of rhythm puts a characteristic stamp on the nature of spoken English.

P75 3. How can you identify the meaning of a word?

Apart from the conceptual meaning (also called \\or \connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, and collocative meaning. We can turn to the dictionary for its conceptual meaning. As for its various associated meanings, however, we have to relate the word with its context, including the linguistic context as well as the context of situation and the context of culture.

P82 1. Divide the following words into morphemes by placing a \

each morpheme and the next.

1) unbearable 2) watchful 3) personification 4) unexceptionally 5) uneducated 6) inspiring 7) soft-hearted 8) horsemanship

1. 1) un- + bear + -able 2) watch + -ful 3) person+ -ify (i) + -cation

4) un- + except+tion + -al + -ly 5) un- +educate +-(e)d 6) inspir(e) + -ing 7) soft + heart + -ed 8) horse + man + -ship

3. How many allomorphs does the plural form s have?

The plural s has 3 phonologically-conditioned allomorphs... and 5 morphologically-conditioned allomorphs: (1) -(e)s, as in \\(2) -(r)en: as in \

and (5) zero, as in \

P93 2. What is the difference between lexeme and word?

A lexeme refers to the smallest unit in the meaning system of a language that can be distinguished from other smaller units whereas a word refers to the smallest form of a language that can occur by itself. A lexeme may be or may not be identical with a word. For example, the definite article \the lexeme \

P100 1. Is immediate constituent analysis effective to explain discontinuous

constituents?

No. Immediate constituent analysis is solely concerned with the surface structures of language, which only shows the physical manifestation of the language, for example, linear order of a sentence. One approach to explain sentences with discontinuous constituents is to represent them by two phrase markers, which will be structurally related. One phrase marker is derived from another. By transformational grammar, the discontinuous constituents can be accounted for effectively. Transformational rules are responsible for the generation of infinitely many phrase markers not generated directly by the phrase-structure rules.

2. Diagram the constituent structure of each of the following.

(a) a very old wooden house down the lane (b) His old friend arrived yesterday.

P103 2. Use the appropriate phrase structure rules to draw a tree diagram

of constituent structure for each of the following sentences: (a) A smart boy fooled the class.

(b) The pavilion on the hill collapsed in the wind.

(c) Everybody knew that the president would win the election.

P110 1. Draw the tree diagrams for the following sentences:

(1) She found a book on Madison Street. (2) Jack advised Henry to see the dentist. (3) Jack promised Henry to see the doctor.

P115 Exercises:

What is the relationship between surface structure and deep structure?

Surface structure can be derived from deep structure. A surface structure may be represented by more than one phrase marker, which in sense is the same to a single phrase marker. This one single phrase marker is said to be the deep structure. In the operation from deep structure to surface structure, phrase structure rules and modifications are needed to add, delete, or permute constituents. The relations between deep and surface structures are to be revealed through transformational rules. In this process, the order or hierarchic relationship of the constituents is to be changed. The actual pronunciation is based on the surface structure

P120 1. The formation of many sentences involves the operation of syntactic

movement. Show the deep structures for each of following sentences. (a) The boss of the bus company was severely criticized by the public. (b) The woman threw the rake away in the yard. (c) Will the new school master hire her?

(a) The relevant parts for the passive transformational rule of the above sentence are the subject NP (here the public), the object NP (here the boss, which will change positions with the public), the V (criticize) and AUX, and then a be + en auxiliary will be inserted. The deep structure should be its corresponding active variant, which is The public criticized the boss of the bus company severely.

(b) In the derivation of The woman threw the rake away in the yard., the underlying structure, The woman threw away the rake in the yard. is also the deep structure. It is generated by the phrase-structure rules, including the rule which states that a V (verb) consists of a Vprt (verbs

that can combine with verbal particles) and a Prt (verbal particles). In the surface structure, a new phrase marker is produced in which the particle is moved to the right of the NP.

(c) The question rule formulates that in order to form a yes-no question from the declarative sentence, move the first auxiliary verb of the main sentence (in this case, will) immediately before the first NP of that sentence (here, the new school master). So, the deep structure of the question should be its declarative variant, which is The new school master will hire her.

2. Please display the transformational rules involved in the following sentences.

(a) What can the computer program do for us?

A wh interrogative sentence is derived by a movement rule from a deep structure similar to that of the declarative counterpart. So, the sentence like What can the computer program do for us? would derive from a deep structure in the form of The computer program can do \this sentence, the object is fronted. First, the interrogative transformation which switches round the auxiliary verb can and the subject the computer program - known as 'I' (inflexion) movement, and in the second step, a 'wh' transformation - known as 'wh' movement - that moves the noun phrase what- \content\to the front of the sentence, see the following diagram.

(b) The window was broken by Jack.

This sentence is traditionally called the \sentence, and its variant is \This pair is broadly speaking the same in meaning. The formulations of the passive rules must capture the fact that the active sentence and the passive sentence have their NP's (here the window and Jack) in reverse order, and that both a be + en auxiliary and the preposition by occur in the passive sentences and not in the active ones. AUX refers to past tense in this sentence.

(c) They gave the door a gentle push.

A corresponding sentence to the sentence is They gave a gentle push to the door. Both of which have the same basic meaning, and differ in the order of NP's in the VP. In the corresponding sentence we find NP1 + to + NP2, in the above given sentence. Yet, in the sentence They gave the door a gentle push., we have reversed NP's. Transformational rules capture these facts by viewing the sentence, They gave the door a gentle push. as derived from the sentence, They gave a gentle push to the door., by deleting to and reverses the order of (i.e., permutes) the two NP's. A phrase marker is changed into a new one.

P133 Exercise 2:

2. What is the difference between sentence meaning and utterance meaning? Sentence meaning refers to the conventional content or literal meaning of a sentence. It is the context-independent meaning. Utterance meaning refers to the meaning of an utterance in the context. In other words, it is the meaning dependent on the context. In some cases, the sentence meaning coincides with the utterance meaning. But in many situations, the utterance meaning differs from the sentence meaning.

P140 Exercise 1&3：

1、Please explain why there are not true synonyms.

True synonyms are rare. The so-called \their origin, in the shade of meaning, in the affective or stylistic meaning, or in collocation and distribution.

3、 What category of antonym does each of the following pair of words belong to?

a. black, white b. buy, sell c. big, small d. parent, child e. upstairs, downstairs f. polite, rude

? a)black, white: complementary antonyms; b)buy, sell: relational antonyms;

c）big, small: gradable antonyms; d)parent,child:relational antonyms; f)polite,rude: complementary antonyms.

P142 Exercise 2:

2. What is the semantic relation between the words in the following pairs. 1) hand, foot 2) rose, narcissus 3) tree, willow 4) bottle, cork 1) hand, foot: These two words are hyponyms (or \part of the human body.

2) rose, narcissus: These two words are in the semantic relation of hyponymy; they are both the subordinates of the word flower.

3) tree, willow: These two words are in the semantic relation of hyponymy: tree is the hypernym (or \In other words, a willow is a kind of tree.

4) bottle, cork: These two words are in the semantic relation of myronymy. \is part of a bottle.

P146 Exercise 3:

3. What is the difference between polysemy and homonymy?

When a lexeme has a multiplicity of meanings, it is polysemic. Polysemy is the result from the change of meaning and therefore semantic relations of one kind or another can be identified between the various meanings of the lexeme. In contrast, although homonyms share the same phonological form, they have no common semantic features and in many cases have different written forms. They are normally of different etymological origin and are treated in dictionaries as different entries.

P150 Exercise 1&2：

1. Try to identify the presuppositions that lie behind each of the following utterances:

a) John has stopped smoking. b) She regretted having told him the secret. c) The boy opened the door himself. d) The paper turned red when it was dipped into the liquid.

a) John has stopped smoking. → John had been smoking.

b) She regretted having told him the secret. → She had told him the secret. c) The boy opened the door himself. → The door had been closed.

d) The paper turned red when it was dipped into the liquid. → The paper was dipped into the liquid

2. What does each of the following utterances entail?

a) He lost his bike yesterday. b) They went to the Great Wall.

c) Mary's computer is terrific. d) We met two of our friends at the party. a) He lost his bike yesterday. → His bike is missing now.

b) They went to the Great Wall. → They are not here at present. c) Mary's computer is terrific. → Mary's computer is good.

d) We met two of our friends at the party. → Two of our friends were at the party.

P154 Exercise 2:

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of componential analysis?

Componential analysis has a number of advantages over traditional approaches to lexical meanings. Firstly, it throws new light on semantic relations such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and metaphor. Secondly, componential analysis can better explain the validity of syntagmatic combination of words and phrases than the purely syntactic approach. Thirdly, componential analysis gives a better account for the formation of the meaning of a phrase or a sentence. The componential analysis has three disadvantages. Firstly, it is often difficult to determine what semantic features are essential to define a word, and how many are sufficient for the specification. Secondly, when faced with two equally plausible features, it is often difficult to determine which one we should specify. Thirdly, componential analysis seems to be difficult to be apply to function words, such as the, of, and, and ah, for they seem to have no semantic features.

P156 Exercise 1:

1. Please identify the types of predicate in each of the verbs in the following sentences.

a) He gave me the book. b) It was snowing hard.

c) The computer is working properly. d) Someone invented the story. a) This sentence has a three-place predicate gave, which governs three arguments, the subject He, the indirect object me and the direct object (the) book.

b) This sentence has a no-place predicate (was) snowing, which governs no argument. Note that the subject It here is an empty word and so does not play the role of an argument in the sentence.

c) This sentence has a one-place predicate (is) working, which governs one argument (the) computer.

d) This sentence has a two-place predicate invented, which governs two arguments, the subject Someone and the object (the) story.

P159 Exercise 2:

2. Please comment on the role of tautology in the following:

看看人家，冰箱是冰箱，彩电是彩电。

This utterance involves tow tautological expressions (\冰箱是冰箱\\彩电是彩电\her desire to keep up with the Joneses on the one hand and on the other hand to urge her husband to make more money so that they can also afford those household appliances.

P166 Exercise 1&2:

1. What are the differences between the utterances in each pair? 1) —I admit that I was wrong. —I was wrong.

While (a) is an explicit performative containing the performative verb

\confess, etc.) that I was wrong.

2) — I order you to leave the room right now. — You must leave the room right now.

While (a) is an explicit performative containing the performative verb

\(b) is an implicit performative, meaning \order (or command, demand, request, etc.) you to leave the room right now.\3)— I warn you, the dog is vicious. — The dog is vicious.

While (a) is an explicit performative containing the perfromative verb \you that the dog is vicious.

4) — I apologize. —I'm sorry.

While (a) is an explicit perfromative containing the performative verb \2. Decide whether each of the following utterances is performative. If not, please explain why not.

1) He asserts that this is feasible.

2) I convince everyone with my arguments.

3) I was required to get everything ready for the parade. 4) I will fire you. 5) Do it again, please!

1) This is not a performative, because the subject of the main clause is not in the first-person singular number. 2) This is a performative utterance.

3) This is not a performative, because the verb \is not in the active voice.

4) This is not a performative, because the verb \present tense.

5) This is not a performative, because this utterance is lacking in any performative.

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