英语语言学练习题(2)

Key to questions:

Chp 1

Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system communication. A framework was proposed by the American linguist Charles Hockett. He specified twelve design features, five of which will be discussed here.

a) Arbitrariness. This means that there is no logic connection between meanings and sounds. A good example is the fact that different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages. b) Productivity. Language is productive in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. c) Duality. Language is a system, which consists of two sets of structures, or two levels. d) Displacement. Language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker. e) Cultural transmission. It refers to, on the one hand, human language has a genetic basis, in other words, we are born with the capacity to acquire human language; on the other hand, the details of any human language are passed on from one generation to the next by teaching and learning, rather than by gene.

Chp 2

The reason why a phoneme can distinguish meaning is that a phoneme is a collection of distinctive phonetic features. The sound in any human language has a few features, some of which are distinctive, some of which are not. These features include voicing, nasality, labiality, coronality (teeth range), dorsality(soft palate), aspiration and the others. Among them voicing, for instance, is distinctive, whereas aspiration is not. Because voicing as in the minimal pair “peer” and “beer” can distinguish meaning; while aspiration can only lead to different pronunciations rather than a new word, say, [thip] and [t=ip]. As a result of distinctive features, a phoneme is also distinctive. In a word, the features from which a phoneme is abstracted determine the distinctive quality of the phoneme.

Chp 3 2.

It is true that there is an interface / interdependent and interactional relationship between morphology and phonology. The study on the interface is called morphophonology or morphophonemics, which is a branch of linguistics referring to the analysis and classification of the phonological factors that affect the appearance of morphemes, and the grammatical factors that affect the appearance of phonemes. On the one hand, some allomorphs appear in a particular way which is determined by phonological factors, for instance, the allomorphs [-s] [-iz] of the morpheme {plural}. They are described as the derived forms from [-z] by the application of the assimilation rule and the epenthesis rule. On the other hand, occurrence of the following allomorphs --- [-ai] in mice, [-n] in oxen, [-i:] in geese, sheep is decided mainly by morphological factors.

Chp 4

III. 1.

1a. The cat ran up the tree.

S

NP VP

Det. N V PP

Prep. NP

Det. N The cat ran up the tree. 1b. The cat ate up the fish.

S

NP VP

Det. N V NP

V Prt.Det. N

The cat ate up the fish.

2. linear and hierarchical structures of sentence:

Language is a highly structured system of communication. Sentences are formed by following a set of syntactic rules. When a sentence is uttered or written down, the words of the sentence are produced one after another in a sequence. Meanwhile they are heard or read as arranged one after another in a sequence. Therefore the structure of a sentence is firstly linear, for example, Susan is practising dancing in the hall. However, the superficial arrangement of words in a linear sequence doesn’t entail that sentences are only linearly structured. In fact, sentences are also organized by grouping together words of the same syntactic category, such as NP or VP which can be replaced by another element of the same category. The various syntactic categories in a sequence determine that sentences are also hierarchically structured.

In a word, the two structures which a sentence has are, in nature, decided by the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of language system.

Chp 6 V.

Pragmatics studies how meaning is conveyed in the process of communication. The basic difference between pragmatics and traditional semantics is that pragmatics considers meaning in context and traditionally semantics studies meaning in isolation from the context of use.

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