语言学 作业

答： The major branches of linguistics are:

(1) phonetics: it studies the sounds used in linguistic communication;

(2) phonology: it studies how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning in communication;

(3) morphology: it studies the way in which linguistic symbols representing sounds are arranged and combined to form words;

(4) syntax: it studies the rules which govern how words are combined to form grammatically permissible sentences in languages;

(5) semantics: it studies meaning conveyed by language;

(6) pragmatics: it studies the meaning in the context of language use.

7. What characteristics of language do you think should be included in a good, comprehensive definition of language?

答： First of all, language is a system, i.e., elements of language are combined according to rules.

Second, language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection

between a linguistic symbol and what the symbol stands for.

Third, language is vocal because the primary medium for all languages is sound.

Fourth, language is human-specific, i. e., it is very different from the communication systems other forms of life possess.

8. What are the main features of human language that have been specified by C. Hockett to show that it is essentially different from animal communication system?

答：The main features of human language are termed design features. They include:

1) Arbitrariness

Language is arbitrary. This means that there is no logical 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.

2) Productivity

Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. This is why they can produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences, including sentences they have

never heard before.

3) Duality

Language consists of two sets of structures, or two levels. At the lower or the basic level there is a structure of sounds, which are meaningless by themselves. But the sounds of language can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning, which are found at the higher level of the system.

4) 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. This is what “displacement” means.

5) Cultural transmission

While human capacity for language has a genetic basis, i.e., we were all born with the ability to acquire language, the details of any language system are not genetically transmitted, but instead have to be taught and learned.

8. What is a phone? How is it different from a phoneme? How are allophones related to a phoneme?

答： A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear and

produce during linguistic communication are all phones. A phoneme is not any particular sound, but rather it is represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context. The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme. For example, the phoneme /l/ in English can be realized as dark [?], clear [l], etc. which are allophones of the phoneme /l/.

4. The italicized part in each of the following sentences is an inflectional morpheme. Study each inflectional morpheme carefully and point out its grammatical meaning.

Sue moves in high-society circles in London.

A traffic warden asked John to move his car.

The club has moved to Friday, February 22nd.

The branches of the trees are moving back and forth.

答：(1) the third person singular

(2) the past tense

(3) the present perfect

(4) the present progressive

4. How can words opposite in meaning be classified? To which category does each of the following pairs of antonyms belong?

north/south vacant/occupied literate/illiterate above/below

doctor/patient wide/narrow poor/rich father/daughter

答：They can be gradable antonyms, complementary antonyms and relational opposite

Gradable antonyms: literate/illiterate wide /narrow poor/rich

Complementary antonyms: vacant/occupied

Relational above/below

opposite: north/south, doctor/patient, father/daughter,

5. Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences:

Tom's wife is pregnant. My sister will soon be divorced'

Tom has a wife. My sister is a married woman.

He likes seafood, They are going to have another baby.

He likes crabs. They have a child.

答： “Tom's wife is pregnant” presupposes “Tom has a wife.”

“My sister will soon be divorced” presupposes “My sister is a married woman.”

“He likes seafood” is entailed by “He likes crabs.”

“They are going to have another baby” presupposes “They have a child.”

8. Try to analyze the following sentences in terms of predication analysis:

The man sells ice-cream. Is the baby sleeping?

It is snowing. The tree grows well.

答：The man sells ice-cream.

MAN, ICE-CREAM (SELL)

Is the baby sleeping?

BABY (SLEEP)

It is snowing.

(SNOW)

The tree grows well.

TREE (GROW)

4. Try to think of contexts in which the following sentences can be used for other purposes than just stating facts:

a) The room is messy.

b) Oh, it is raining!

c) The music of the movie is good.

d) You have been keeping my notes for a whole week now.

答：a) A father entered his son’s room and found it is very messy. Then when he said, “The room is messy,” he was blaming his son for not tidying it up.

b) A son asked his father to play with him outside. So when the father said, “Oh, it’s raining”, he meant they couldn’t play outside.

c) Two persons just watched a movie and had a discussion of it. One person said, “The story of the movie is very moving”, so when the other person said, “The music of the movie is good”, he meant he didn't think the story of the movie was good.

d) A person wanted his notes back, so when he said, “you have been keeping my notes for a whole week now”, he was demanding the return of his notes.

8. What are the four maxims of the CP? Try to give your own examples to show how flouting these maxims gives rise to conversational implicature?

答： Cooperative Principle, abbreviated as CP. It goes as follows:

Make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

To be more specific, there are four maxims under this general principle:

(1) The maxim of quantity

① Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current purpose of the exchange).

② Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

(2) The maxim of quality

① Do not say what you believe to be false.

② Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

(3) The maxim of relation

Be relevant.

(4) The maxim of manner

① Avoid obscurity of expression.

② Avoid ambiguity.

③ Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

④ Be orderly.

5. What is register as used by Halliday? Illustrate it with an example of your own.

答： According to Halliday, “Language varies as its function varies; it differs in different situations.” The type of language which is selected as appropriate to the type of situation is a register. Halliday further distinguishes three social variables that determine the register: field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse.

For example, a lecture on linguistics could be identified as

Field: scientific (linguistic)

Tenor: teacher — students (formal, polite)

Mode: oral (academic lecturing)

2. What do you think of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Give examples or proof to support your point of view.

答： The studies have shed new light on our understanding of the hypothesis: people tend to sort out and distinguish experiences differently according to the semantic categories provided by their different codes.

Here is an example. English-speaking culture teaches its people to name what is practical, useful and important. In a general sense, the important things take on specific names while the less important things have general names that must be modified through additional words to become specific. A good illustration of this point is the word snow in Eskimo and English.

2. Explain with an example that the evaluation of language is social rather than linguistic.

答： The evaluation of language is social rather than linguistic. This is because every language or language variety can express all ideas that its native speakers want to express. That is to say, language and language variety are equal in expressing meaning. For example, the much-prejudiced Black English can be used by the black people to communicate with each other without feeling any

hindrance. But many other people think Black English is not pure English because it does not conform to their grammar and not adopted by educated people. As a result, many people feel shameful to use Black English. From this example we can know that the evaluation of language is social, not linguistic.

2. Among the language acquisition theories mentioned in this chapter, which one do you think is more reasonable and convincing? Explain why.

答： The language acquisition theories mentioned in this chapter have different emphasis on different aspects. Behaviorists view sounds reasonable in explaining the routine aspects, the innatist accounts most plausible in explaining children's acquiring complex system, and the interactive description convincing in understanding how children learn and use the language appropriately from their environment. In my opinion, behaviorists view is more reasonable and convincing because language acquisition is a process of enforcing and reinforcing. Only through this process can a person learn a language well.