宝宝吐血整理--语言学

State whether each of the following statements is True or False 第一，判断正误（全部来自课本） (1) There is universal agreement about the origin of language. F (2) Pet dogs can speak human languages. F (3) All human infants can speak some language. F Note: All normal human infants can learn to speak some language. (4) By creativity we mean the creative use of language as often practiced by poets. F Note: By creativity we mean that we can always create and understand new sentences never used before. (5) With different cultures there will be different languages. F Note: Some cultures can share the same language. (6) Not all uses of language are meant to convey new information. T Note: Example: language used for phatic communion is not meant to convey new information. II． 1. The same set of vowels is used in all languages. F 2. All syllables must contain at least one vowel. F Note: Some syllables may contain no vowels. They may, instead, employ some syllabic consonant, as in people and muscle. 3. English is a tone language. F Note: Chinese is a tone language. III. 1. All words in English have a hierarchical structure. F Note: Mon-morphemic words do not. 2. Clipping is one of the three most important devices of word-formation in English. F Note: The three most important devices are affixation, compounding (or composition) and conversion (or functional shift). 3. Idioms in English are modifiable in some grammatical ways. T 4. The presence of constructions is unique to English. F 5. Every English sentence has a subject. F Note: Imperative sentences do not have any subject. IV. 1. Word order plays an important role in the organization of English sentences. T 2. All ambiguous sentences result from our failure to use proper organization. F Note: We can consciously avoid ambiguity, though. 3. With transformations, we can organize a sentence the way we like. F Note: Transformations are rule governed and constrained. 4. Like English, modern Chinese is a SVO language. T Note: But Chinese also employs theme-theme organization a lot, e.g. 他的话我没听见。 V. 1. Every English paragraph contains a topic sentence, supporting details and a summary sentence. F 2. One may tell a story when arguing for a thesis. T 3. In order for two neighboring sentences to be cohesive, one must use some explicit device to conjoin them. F 4. Since people take turns speaking, overlaps are unlikely in conversation. F VI. 1. A grammatical sentence is also meaningful. F Note: Not necessarily so. 2. Some words are always superordinates while some others are always hyponyms. F Note: Words that are hyponyms to some superordinates can theoretically be the superordinates to some other words. 3. Synonyms are those words that can be used interchangeably in all contexts. F Note: theoretically so 4. Antonyms have opposite meanings. F Note: Some antonyms are complementary in meaning. 5. All English words have their referents. F VII. 1. Different languages represent the world in completely different ways. F 2. Metaphoric reasoning explains much of the extension of word meanings. T 3. Every sentence has its truth conditions. F Note: Interrogative sentences and imperative sentences may not have truth conditions. 4. “Theme” as a semantic role refers to the topic the sentence is about. F Note: “Theme” as a semantic role refers to the one or thing that undergoes an action. VIII 1. In pragmatics, context refers to the sentences preceding and following the current word or sentence. F Note: In pragmatics, “context” may refer to anything that bears on the production or comprehension of the current utterance. 2. Not all sentences we produce are meant to do things. F Note: In a strict sense, all sentences we produce are meant to do something. 3. A perlocutionary act is performed by the hearer. F Note: A perlocutionary act can also be done by the speaker, as in the case of a promise. 4. “I”, “now”, “here”, and “yesterday” are all deictic expressions. T 5. “John cooked Jane a cake” presupposes “John cooked something for Jane”. F Note: “John cooked Jane a cake” entails “John cooked something for Jane” IX 1. Maxim of quantity requires one to provide as much information as possible. F 2. In order to be polite, one needs to cooperate in all possible ways. F 3. Every normal speaker needs to mind his own and others’ face. T 4. Politeness is a matter of degree. T 5. Cultures vary as far as politeness issues are concerned. T X 1. A language often has some dialects. T 2. London Cockney is very prestigious in Britain. F Note: RP (Received Pronunciation) is very prestigious. 3. Different social classes often have their own dialects. T Note: They have what we call social dialects or sociolects. 4. Spoken English is informal in style. F Note: Spoken English can be very formal on some occasions involving prepared speech. 第二题，单项选择题重点练习：语言和语言学；形态学；语义学；语用学。复印的材料 ⑴瑞士语言学家F.de Saussure F.de Saussure:Langue和parole的区别 ⑵U.S.A linguist N.Chomsky美国语言学家N.Chomsky in1950针对Saussure’s langue&parole提出Competence和performance 第三题，讲出词缀的意义并举实例（Tell the meaning of the following affixes and give each affix two examples） 如：re- re-again, e.g. return, rewrite 托福 第四题，Explain the following terms. (根据时间安排，尽量详细一点解释，不要一句话就结束，最好举例说明。) arbitrariness； There is no logical or natural connection between a linguistic form (either sound or word) and its meaning.While language is arbitrary by nature, it is not entirely arbitrary. a) echo of the sounds of objects or activities: onomatopoeic words b) some compound words Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between the sounds that people use and the objects to which these sounds refer. The fact that different languages have different words for the same object is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language, it’s only our tacit agreement of utterance and concept at work and not any innate relationship bound up in the utterance. A typical example to illustrate the ‘arbitrariness’ of language is ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. morphology；Morphology: the study of the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words (how morphemes are combined to form words) morpheme；morpheme: is the smallest unit of language that carries meaning or serves as grammatical function. Free morphemes: can stand by themselves as single words Lexical morphemes [n.a.v] & functional morphemes [conj.prep.art.pron.] Bound morphemes: can not normally stand alone, but which are typically attached to another form Inflexional and derivational morphemes  Inflexional morphemes in modern English indicate case and number of nouns, tense and aspect of verbs, and degree of adjectives and adverbs.  Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes added to existing forms to construct new words.  English affixes are divided into prefixes and suffixes.  Some languages have infixes, bound morphemes which are inserted into other morphemes.  The process of putting affixes to existing forms to create new words is called derivation. Words thus formed are called derivatives. Derivational morphemes----affix (suffix, infix, prefix) + root Inflectional morphemes 8 8 types of inflectional morphemes in English Noun+ -’s, -s [possessive; plural] Verb+ -s, -ing, -ed, -en [3rd person present singular; present participle; past tense, past participle] Adj+ -er, -est [comparative; superlative] morph: is the smallest meaningful phonetic segments of an utterance on the level of parole. allomorph: is a phonetic form in which a morpheme is realiaed. derivation: the new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots, stems, or words clipping: a word of more than one syllable reduced to a shorter form acronym: new words are formed from the first letter of a series of words. They are pronounced as single words. initialism: new words are composed of the first letter of a series of words. They are pronounced by saying each letter in them. root: is the morpheme that remains when all affixes are stripped from a complex word. stem: is the base to which one or more affixes ae attached to create a more complex from that may be another stem or a word. prefix: is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. suffix: is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. sense: is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form, abstract and de-contextualized. reference: means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. pragmatics: The study of how speakers uses sentences to effect successful communication. context: It is generally considered as constitued by the knowledge shared by the speakers and the hearers. Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form. i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. homophones: When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones. homographs: When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. syntax: is the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language, or simply, the study of the formation of sentences. semantics: the branch of linguistics which studies meaning in language. Phonetics: the study of the phonic medium of language: it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world’s languages. Articulatory phonetics: the study of how speech sounds are made, or articulated. Acoustic phonetics: deals with the physical properties of speech as sound waves in the air. Auditory (or perceptual) phonetics: deals with the perception, via the ear, of speech sounds. Forensic phonetics: has an application in legal cases involving speaker identification and the analysis of recorded utterances. Linguistics: It is generally defined as the scientific study of language. (对语言的科学研究) study – investigation,research. It studies not any particular language, but languages in general. Productivity（能产性，创造性） Language is productive in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. (Creativity or open-endedness) Phatic function of language (寒暄功能): lge (shortened form of language)is used to maintain or establish a comfortable social relationship between people without covering any factual contents. Different cultures have different phatic topics Performative function of language（施为功能）: lge is used to do things or perform actions besides other functions. Eg.1.It is cool today.(The tempreture is comfortable. Please turn off the electric fan. So “It is cool today” is used as a request[请求]). 2. I pronounce you husband and wife. (After the minister’s declaration,Bob and Gillian are lawfully wedded husband and wife. I pronounce you husband and wife is used to do things,making Bob and Gillian lawfully accepted couples) derivational morpheme: Bound morpheme, which can be added to a stem to form a new word. inflectional morpheme: A kind of morpheme, which are used to make grammatical categories, such as number, tense and case.(but never change their syntactic category).(08F) homonymy: Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form. i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. antonymy: The term antonymy is used for oppositeness of meaning. collocational synonyms: Synonyms that differ in their colllocation, i.e., in the words they go together with. 第五题，Answer the following questions. 应该详细解答，应该举例。 1.​ What are defining features of language (or design features or distinctive features of language)? Design features (unique properties): the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication ① Displacement（跨时空性，移位性） Language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker (refer to past and future time and to other locations) ② Arbitrariness（任意性） There is no logical or natural connection between a linguistic form (either sound or word) and its meaning. While language is arbitrary by nature, it is not entirely arbitrary. a) echo of the sounds of objects or activities: onomatopoeic words b) some compound words ③ Productivity（能产性，创造性） Language is productive in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. (Creativity or open-endedness) ④ Cultural transition（文化传递性） While human capacity for language has a genetic basis (everyone was born with the ability to acquire a language), the details of any language system are not genetically transmitted, but instead have to be taught and learnt. ⑤ Discreteness（可分离性） Each sound in the language is treated as discrete. ⑥ Duality（双重结构性，两重性或二元性） Language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. The lower or basic level is a structure of sounds which are meaningless. The higher level is morpheme or word (double articulation) The above six properties may be taken as the core features of human language. Vocal-auditory channel, reciprocity, specialization, non-directionality, or rapid fade, these properties are best treated as ways of describing human language, but not as a means of distinguishing it from other systems of communication. Explain Speech Act Theory with examples 言语行为理论Speech act theory It’s an important theory in the pragmatic study of language. it’s a philosophical explanation of the nature of linguistic communication. it aims to answer the question ”what do we do when using language?” The concept of causatives performatives, the locutionary act, the illocutionary act, the perlocutionary act and the5categories of illocutionary act suggested and formulated by J.R.Searle constitute the speech act theory. Speech act theory(言语行为理论):proposed by J.Austin and his student J.Searle, is a theory about how language is used to “do things”. According to Austin, a speaker, when uttering,may also perform three kinds of actions.They are； 1)Locutionary act(言内行为): is the act of uttering words, phrase, clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning with determinate sense and reference in a particular context. 2)Illocutionary act(言外行为): is the act of expressing the speaker’s intention. It is speaker’meaning or contextual meaning. 3)Perlocutionary act(言后行为): is the effect of the utterance upon hearer. Example: The door is wide open. •​ The locutionary act performed by the speaker is the uttering (saying) of the English sentence itself with determinate senseand reference.（发出“The door is wide open.”行为本身。） •​ The illocutionary act performed by the speaker is an implicit request for the hearer to close the door. （言外行为就是请听者关门的要求） •​ The perlocutionary act performed via the uttering of the sentence is the effect or outcome of the utterance upon the hearer. If the hearer understands the speaker’s meaning that the speaker intends the hearer to close the door,what is the hearer’s action(what is he/she going to do?) （言后行为是话语“The door is wide open.”对听者所产生的效果或者影响。） Two cases（通常有两种情况）： 1)Hearer agrees to close the door as the speaker wishes.听者同意关门 2) Hearer refuses to close the door against the speaker’s willing.听者拒绝关门 Whether the hearer agrees or refuses to close the door,the two actions are both perlocutionary act（不管同意还是拒绝关门，都是言后行为） 3．Compare semantics and pragmatics Pragmatics is the study of language in use or in context or the study of user’s meaning // or the study of speaker’s meaning or the study of contextual meaning// or the study of language in dynamic or the study of meaning in context,treating meaning as something dynamic,specific and contextual. Semantics is the study of language out of context or the study of language in dictionaries or the study of language in static,treating meaning as something intrinsic, abstract and de-contextualized.Pragmatics is the study of meaning in the context of use, while traditional semantics treats meaning as something intrinsic, abstract and de-contextualized. ​ What are the differences between the two linguistic studies of meaning – semantics and pragmatics? ​ Semantics studies literal, structural or lexical meaning, while pragmatics studies non-literal, implicit, intended meaning, or speaker meaning. ​ Semantics is context independent, decontextualized, while pragmatics is context dependent, contextualized. ​ Semantics deals with what is said, while pragmatics deals with what is implicated or inferred. The definition of pragmatics Definition: the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication What essentially distinguish semantics and pragmatics is whether in the study of meaning the context of use is considered. If it is not, it is semantics. If it is, it is pragmatics. Distinguishing Pragmatics from Semantics Question: What principles or definitions have been offered in the literature for distinguishing pragmatics from semantics? The question of how semantics relates to pragmatically oriented theories is, Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet (1990) say, "wide open." For them, semantics deals with those aspects of meaning that remain constant whenever a given expression is uttered: Semantics covers what expressions mean, while pragmatics covers what speakers mean in using the expressions. Along these lines, it is standard, Green (1989) says, to distinguish between what a sentence means and what a speaker intends to convey by the utterance of the sentence, and to restrict the role of semantics to explicating the meaning of sentences in terms of conditions that must be fulfilled for the sentence to be used to truthfully describe a situation. Thus: Aspects of the interpretation of utterances that do not involve truth conditions are commonly considered outside the domain of semantics, Green (1989) says. Whether an utterance is a promise, a prediction, or a question and how metaphorical expressions are understood are matters of pragmatics, not semantics. More: Semantics is compositional: The meaning of a complex expression relates in a predictable way to the meanings of the parts from which it is constructed. The meaning of the whole is a function of the meaning of the parts. Pragmatics, on the other hand, is the study of situated uses of language, Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet (1990) say, adding this caveat: "Since direct experience with interpretation of language is experience with interpreting uses, however, we cannot always be sure in advance which phenomena will fall exclusively in the domain of semantics and which will turn out to require attention to pragmatic factors as well," a fact that makes it difficult to free semantics from pragmatic considerations. (Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, 1990:5) Pragmatics, Fasold (1990: 119) writes, "is the study of the use of context to make inferences about meaning." Fasold asks whether pragmatics can be viewed in a principled way as the study of the meaning of what people utter in context. What a piece of language structure means whether used to communicate or not would be semantics. Fasold concludes that the research program initiated by Grice gives reasonable promise to this dividing line between pragmatics and semantics if deixis can be handled in some other way. To summarize: Pragmatics involves how speakers use language in contextualized social interactions -- how they do things with words, as Austin would say. Semantics invites a focus on meaning and truth conditions without regard to communication and context. 2.​ What’s the Cooperative Principle? Why do people often violate the Cooperative Principle in communication? It is necessary for you to describe the CP first. Then say sth. about conversational implicature. Principle of conversation(会话原则) or Co-operative principle(CP)(合作原则): proposed and formulated by P. Grice, a pragmatic hypothesis, is about that the participants must first of all be willing to cooperate; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. 1)The maxim of quality（质量准则）: try to make your contribution one that is true, specifica