什么事英文新编简明英语语言学教程第二版练习试题参考答案解析45332

2021年1月19日发(作者：冷水浴)
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《
新编简明英语语言学教程
》
第二版

练习题

参考答案

Chapter 1

Introduction
1. How do you interpret the following definition of linguistics: Linguistics is the scientific
study of language.
答
：


Linguistics is based on the systematic investigation of linguistic data, conducted
with reference to some general theory of language structure. In order to discover the
nature and rules of the underlying language system, the linguists has to collect and
observe
language
facts
first,
which
are
found
to
display
some
similarities,
and
generalizations are made about them; then he formulates some hypotheses about the
language structure. The hypotheses thus formed have to be checked repeatedly against
the observed facts to fully prove their validity. In linguistics, as in any other discipline,
data and theory stand in a dialectical complementation, that is, a theory without the
support of data can hardly claim validity, and data without being explained by some
theory remain a muddled mass of things.

2. What are the major branches of linguistics? What does each of them study?
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
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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.
3. In what basic ways does modern linguistics differ from traditional grammar?
答
：


The general approach thus traditionally formed to the study of language over the
years is roughly referred to as
“
traditional grammar.
”

Modern linguistics differs from
traditional grammar in several basic ways.
Firstly, linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive.
Second, modem linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written.
Traditional
grammarians,
on
the
other
hand,
tended
to
emphasize,
maybe
over-emphasize, the importance of the written word, partly because of its permanence.
Then, modem linguistics differs from traditional grammar also in that it does not force
languages into a Latin-based framework.

4. Is modern linguistics mainly synchronic or diachronic? Why?
答
：


In
modem
linguistics,
a
synchronic
approach
seems
to
enjoy
priority
over
a
diachronic one. Because people believed that unless the various states of a language in
different historical periods are successfully studied, it would be difficult to describe the
changes that have taken place in its historical development.
5.
For
what
reasons
does
modern
linguistics
give
priority
to
speech
rather
than
to
writing?
答
：


Speech and writing are the two major media of linguistic communication. Modem
linguistics regards the spoken language as the natural or the primary medium of human
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language
for
some
obvious
reasons.
From
the
point
of
view
of
linguistic
evolution,
speec
h is prior to writing. The writing system of any language is always “invented” by its
users to record speech when the need arises. Even in today's world there are still many
languages that can only be spoken but not written. Then in everyday communication,
speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.
And also, speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother
tongue, and writing is learned and taught later when he goes to school. For modern
linguists, spoken language reveals many true features of human speech while written
language is o
nly the “revised” record of speech. Thus their data for investigation and
analysis are mostly drawn from everyday speech, which they regard as authentic.
6.
How
is
Saussure's
distinction
between
langue
and
parole
similar
to
Chomsky's
distinction between competence and performance?
答
：


Saussure's distinction and Chomsky's are very similar, they differ at least in that
Saussure took a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of
social conventions, and Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view
and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.

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.
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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
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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
spe
aker. 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.

9. What are the major functions of language? Think of your own examples for illustration.
答
：

Three main functions are often recognized of language: the descriptive function,
the expressive function, and the social function.
The descriptive function is the function to convey factual information, which can be
asserted
or
denied, and in
some cases
even
verified. For
example:
“China
is
a
large
country with a long history.”

The
expressive
function
supplies
information
about
the
user’s
feelings,
preferences,
prejudices, and values. For example: “I will never go window
-
shopping with her.”

The social function serves to establish and maintain social relations between people. .
For example: “We are your firm supporters.”


Chapter 2

Speech Sounds
1. What are the two major media of linguistic communication? Of the two, which one is
primary and why?
答
：

Speech and writing are the two major media of linguistic communication.
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Of the two media of language, speech is more primary than writing, for reasons,
please refer to the answer to the fifth problem in the last chapter.
2. What is voicing and how is it caused?
答
：


Voicing
is
a
quality
of
speech
sounds
and
a
feature
of
all
vowels
and
some
consonants in English. It is caused by the vibration of the vocal cords.
3. Explain with examples how broad transcription and narrow transcription differ?
答
：


The transcription with letter-symbols only is called broad transcription. This is the
transcription normally used in dictionaries and teaching textbooks for general purposes.
The latter, i.e. the transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacritics is called
narrow transcription. This is the transcription needed and used by the phoneticians in
their study of speech sounds. With the help of the diacritics they can faithfully represent
as much of the fine details as it is necessary for their purpose.





In broad transcription, the symbol [l] is used for the sounds [l] in the four words leaf
[li:f], feel [fi:l], build [bild], and health [helθ]. As a matter of fact, the sound [l] in all these
four sound combinations differs slightly. The [l] in [li:f], occurring before a vowel, is called
a dear [l], and no diacritic is needed to indicate it; the [1] in [fi:l] and [bild], occurring at
the end of a word or before another consonant, is pronounced differently from the clear
[1] as in “leaf”. It is called dark
[?] and in narrow transcription the diacritic [?] is used to
indicate it. Then in the sound combination [helθ], the sound [l] is followed by the English
dental
sound
[θ],
its
pronunciation
is
somewhat
affected
by
the
dental
sound
that
follows it. It is thus called a dental [l], and in narrow transcription the diacritic [
、
] is used
to indicate it. It is transcribed as [hel
θ
].
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Another
example
is
the
consonant
[p].
We
all
know
that
[p]
is
pronounced
differently in the two words pit and spit. In the word pit, the sound [p] is pronounced
with a strong puff of air, but in spit the puff of air is withheld to some extent. In the case
of pit, the [p] sound is said to be aspirated and in the case of spit, the [p] sound is
unaspirated.
This
difference
is
not
shown
in
broad
transcription,
but
in
narrow
transcription, a small raised “h” is used to show aspiration, thus pit is transcribed as [ph?t]
and spit is transcribed as [sp?t].
4. How are the English consonants classified?

答
：


English consonants can be classified in two ways: one is in terms of manner of
articulation and the other is in terms of place of articulation. In terms of manner of
articulation
the English consonants can
be
classified into
the
following
types:
stops,
fricatives, affricates, liquids, nasals and glides. In terms of place of articulation, it can be
classified into following types: bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatal, velar and
glottal.
5. What criteria are used to classify the English vowels?
答
：


Vowels may be distinguished as front, central, and back according to which part
of the tongue is held highest. To further distinguish members of each group, we need to
apply
another criterion, i.e.
the
openness
of
the mouth. Accordingly,
we classify
the
vowels into four groups: close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels, and open
vowels. A third criterion that is often used in the classification of vowels is the shape of
the lips. In English, all the front vowels and the central vowels are unfounded vowels, i.
e., without rounding the lips, and all the back vowels, with the exception of [a:], are
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rounded. It should be noted that some front vowels can be pronounced with rounded
lips.
6. A. Give the phonetic symbol for each of the following sound descriptions:




1) voiced palatal affricate




2) voiceless labiodental fricative




3) voiced alveolar stop




4) front, close, short




5) back, semi-open, long




6) voiceless bilabial stop


B. Give the phonetic features of each of the following sounds:




1) [ t ]



2) [ l ]




3) [?]



4) [w]


5) [?]



6) [?]
答
：
A. (1) [?]


(2) [ f ]


(3) [d ]


(4) [ ? ]

(5) [ ?:]

(6) [p]




B. (1) voiceless alveolar stop










(2) voiced alveolar liquid






(3) voiceless palatal affricate








(4) voiced bilabial glide






(5) back, close, short














(6) front, open
7. How do phonetics and phonology differ in their focus of study? Who do you think will
be more interested in the difference between, say, [l] and [?], [ph] and [p], a phonetician
or a phonologist? Why?
答
：

(1)
Both
phonology
and
phonetics
are
concerned
with
the
same
aspect
of
language
––

the speech sounds. But while both are related to the study of sounds,, they
differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature; it is interested in all
the speech sounds used in all human languages: how they are produced, how they differ
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from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified, etc.
Phonology, on the other hand, aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form
patterns
and
how
these
sounds
are
used
to
convey
meaning
in
linguistic
communication.




(2) A phonologist will be more interested in it. Because one of the tasks of the
phonologists is to find out rule that governs the distribution of [l] and [?], [ph] and [p].
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/.
9. Explain with examples the sequential rule, the assimilation rule, and the deletion rule.
答
：

Rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called
sequential rules.





There are many such sequential rules in English. For example, if a word begins with
a [l] or a [r], then the next sound must be a vowel. That is why [lbik] [lkbi] are impossible
combinations
in
English.
They
have
violated
the
restrictions
on
the
sequencing
of
phonemes.




The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a
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sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar. Assimilation of neighbouring
sounds is, for the most part, caused by articulatory or physiological processes. When we
speak, we tend to increase the ease of articulation. This “sloppy” tendency may become
regularized as rules of language.




We all know that nasalization is not a phonological feature in English, i.e., it does not
distinguish meaning. But this does not mean that vowels in English are never nasalized
in
actual
pronunciation;
in
fact
they
are
nasalized
in
certain
phonetic
contexts.
For
example, the [i:] sound is nasalized in words like bean, green, team, and scream. This is
because in all these sound combinations the [i:] sound is followed by a nasal [n] or [m].





The assimilation rule also accounts for the varying pronunciation of the alveolar
nasal
[n] in
some
sound
combinations.
The
rule is
that within
a word,
the
nasal [n]
assumes the same place of articulation as the consonant that follows it. We know that in
English the prefix in- can be added to ma adjective to make the meaning of the word
negative, e.g. discreet
–
indiscreet, correct
–
incorrect. But the [n] sound in the prefix in-
is not always pronounced as an alveolar nasal. It is so in the word indiscreet because the
consonant that follows it, i.e. [d], is an alveolar stop, but the [n] sound in the word
incorrect is actually pronounced as a velar nasal, i.e. [?]; this is because the consonant
that follows it is [k], which is a velar stop. So we can see that while pronouncing the
sound [n], we are “copying” a feature of the c
onsonant that follows it.
Deletion
rule
tells
us
when a
sound is
to
be
deleted
although
it
is
orthographically
represented. We have noticed that in the pronunciation of such words as sign, design,
and paradigm, there is no [g] sound although it is represented in spelling by the letter
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g. But in their corresponding forms signature, designation, and paradigmatic, the [g]
represented by the letter g is pronounced. The rule can be stated as: Delete a [g] when
it occurs before a final nasal consonant. Given the rule, the phonemic representation of
the stems in sign
–
signature, resign
–
resignation, phlegm
–
phlegmatic, paradigm
–

paradigmatic
will
include
the
phoneme
/g/,
which
will
be
deleted
according
to
the
regular rule if no suffix is added.
10. What are suprasegmental features? How do the major suprasegmental features of
English function in conveying meaning?
答
：



The phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments are called
suprasegmental features. The main suprasegmental features include stress, intonation,
and tone. The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning. There are two kinds of
stress: word stress and sentence stress. For example, a shift of stress may change the part
of speech of a word from a noun, to a verb although its spelling remains unchanged.
Tones are pitch variations which can distinguish meaning just like phonemes.





Intonation plays an important role in the conveyance of meaning in almost every
language, especially in a language like English. When spoken in different tones, the same
sequence of words may have different meanings.

Chapter 3

Morphology
1. Divide the following words into their separate morphemes by placing a “+” between
each morpheme and the next:







a. microfile












e. telecommunication
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b. bedraggled










f. forefather







c. announcement







g. psychophysics
d. predigestion









h. mechanist
答
：
a. micro + file





















b. be + draggle + ed




c. announce + ment

















d. pre + digest + ion




e. tele + communicate + ion










f. fore + father




g. psycho + physics

















h. mechan + ist
2. Think of three morpheme suffixes, give their meaning, and specify the types of stem
they may be suffixed to. Give at least two examples of each.










Model: -or










suffix: -or










meaning: the person or thing performing the action










stem type: added to verbs










examples: actor, “one who acts in stage plays, motion pictures, etc.” translator,
“one who translates”

答
：
(1) suffix:





-able





meaning:



something can be done or is possible





stem
added to verbs





examples:


acceptable, “can be accepted”

















respectable, “can be respected”




(2) suffix:





-ly
type:

















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meaning:



functional





stem type:


added to adjectives





examples:


freely. “adverbial form of ‘free’ ”

















quickly, “adverbial form of 'quick' ”.





(3) suffix:




-ee






meaning:


the person receiving the action






stem type:

added to verbs






examples:

employee, “one who works in a company”

















interviewee, “one who is interviewed”

3. Think of three morpheme prefixes, give their meaning, and specify the types of stem
they may be prefixed to. Give at least two examples of each.











Model: a-











prefix: a-











meaning: “without; not”












stem type: added to adjectives








examples: asymmetric, “lacking symmetry” asexual, “without sex or sex organs”

答
：
(1) prefix:





dis-






meaning:



showing an opposite






stem type:


added to verbs or nouns






examples :

disapprove, “do not approve”


















dishonesty, “lack of honesty”.




(2) prefix:





anti-
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meaning:



against, opposed to






stem type:


added to nouns or adjectives






examples :


antinuclear, “opposing the use of atomic weapons and power”


















antisocial,
“opposed
or
harmful
to
the
laws
and
customs
of
an
organized community. ”




(3) prefix:





counter-






meaning:



the opposite of






stem type:


added to nouns or adjectives.






examples:


counterproductive, “producing results opposite to those intended”


















counteract, “act against and reduce the force or effect of (sth.) ”

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
5. Determine whether the words in each of the following groups are related to one
another by processes of inflection or derivation.
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a) go, goes, going, gone
b) discover, discovery, discoverer, discoverable, discoverability
c) inventor, inventor’s, inventors, inventors’

d) democracy, democrat, democratic, democratize
答
：
(
略
)

6. The following sentences contain both derivational and inflectional affixes. Underline
all of the derivational affixes and circle the inflectional affixes.
a) The farmer’s cows escaped.

b) It was raining.
c) Those socks are inexpensive.
d) Jim needs the newer copy.
e) The strongest rower continued.
f) She quickly closed the book.
g) The alphabetization went well.
答
：
(
略
)

Chapter 4

Syntax
1. What is syntax?
Syntax is a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences
and the rules that govern the formation of sentences.
2. What is phrase structure rule?
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The grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements (i.e. specifiers,
heads, and complements) that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule.

The phrase structural rule for NP
, VP
, AP
, and PP can be written as follows:








NP
→

(Det) N (PP) ...








VP
→

(Qual) V (NP) ...








AP
→

(Deg) A (PP) ...








PP
→

(Deg) P (NP) ...
The general phrasal structural rule ( X stands for the head N, V, A or P):
The XP rule:

XP
→

(specifier) X (complement)
3. What is category? How to determine a word's category?
Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions
in a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb.





T
o
determine
a
word's
category,
three
criteria
are
usually
employed,
namely
meaning,
inflection
and
distribution.
A
word's
distributional
facts
together
with
information
about
its
meaning and
inflectional capabilities help
identify
its
syntactic
category.
4. What is coordinate structure and what properties does it have?
The structure formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of
a conjunction is called coordinate structures.

Conjunction exhibits four important properties:
1) There is no limit on the number of coordinated categories that can appear prior to the
conjunction.

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2) A category at any level (a head or an entire XP) can be coordinated.
3) Coordinated categories must be of the same type.
4) The category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the
elements being conjoined.
5. What elements does a phrase contain and what role does each element play?
A
phrase
usually
contains
the
following
elements:
head,
specifier
and
complement.
Sometimes it also contains another kind of element termed modifier.
The role of each element
Head:

Head is the word around which a phrase is formed.
Specifier:

Specifier has both special semantic and syntactic roles. Semantically, it helps to make
more
precise
the
meaning
of
the
head.
Syntactically,
it
typically
marks
a
phrase
boundary.
Complement:

Complements
are
themselves
phrases
and
provide
information
about
entities
and
locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head.
Modifier:

Modifiers specify optionally expressible properties of the heads.
6. What is deep structure and what is surface structure?
There are two levels of syntactic structure. The first, formed by the XP rule in accordance
with the head's subcategorization properties, is called deep structure (or D-structure).
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The second, corresponding to the final syntactic form of the sentence which results from
appropriate transformations, is called surface structure (or S-structure).
7.
Indicate
the
category
of
each
word
in
the
following
sentences.




a)
The


old

lady

got


off

the

bus

carefully.







Det

A



N



V



P

Det

N



Adv
b) The

car

suddenly

crashed onto

the

river bank.







Det

N



Adv





V




P


Det



N
c) The

blinding

snowstorm

might

delay

the

opening

of

the

schools.







Det


A






N







Aux



V



Det


N





P

Det


N
d) This

cloth

feels

quite

soft.


Det



N



V



Deg


A
（
以下
8-12
题只作初步的的成分划分
，
未画树形图
,
仅供参考
）

8.
The
following
phrases
include
a
head,
a
complement,
and
a
specifier.
Draw
the
appropriate tree structure for each.
a) rich in minerals
XP(AP)
→

head (rich) A + complement (in minerals) PP

b) often read detective stories




XP(VP)
→

specifier (often) Qual + head (read) V + complement (detective stories)
NP
c) the argument against the proposals
XP(NP)
→

specifier
(the)
Det
+
head
(argument)
N
+
complement
(against
the
proposals) PP
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d) already above the window
XP(VP)
→

specifier (already) Deg + head (above) P + complement (the window) NP
9. The following sentences contain modifiers of various types. For each sentence, first
identify the modifier(s), then draw the tree structures.
（划底线的为动词的修饰语
，
斜体
的为名词的修饰语
）





a) A crippled passenger landed the airplane with extreme caution.




b) A huge moon hung in the black sky.




c) The man examined his car carefully yesterday.
d) A wooden hut near the lake collapsed in the storm.
10. The following sentences all contain conjoined categories. Draw a tree structure for
each of the sentences.
（
划底线的为并列的范畴
）





a) Jim has washed the dirty shirts and pants.




b) Helen put on her clothes and went out.




c) Mary is fond of literature but tired of statistics.
11. The following sentences all contain embedded clauses that function as complements
of a verb, an adjective, a preposition or a noun. Draw a tree structure for each sentence.
（
划底线的为补语从句
）




a) You know that I hate war.



b) Gerry believes the fact that Anna flunked the English exam.



c) Chris was happy that his father bought him a Rolls-Royce.



d) The children argued over whether bats had wings.
12. Each of the following sentences contains a relative clause. Draw the deep structure
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and the surface structure trees for each of these sentences.
（
划底线的为关系从句
）




a) The essay that he wrote was excellent.




b) Herbert bought a house that she loved
c) The girl whom he adores majors in linguistics.
13. The derivations of the following sentences involve the inversion transformation. Give
the deep structure and the surface structure of each of these sentences.




a) Would you come tomorrow? (surface structure)
you would come tomorrow

(deep structure)



b) What did Helen bring to the party? (surface structure)
Helen brought what to the party

(deep structure)



c) Who broke the window? (surface structure)
who broke the window

(deep structure)

Chapter 5

Semantics
1. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning?
答
：
(1) The naming theory proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to
this theory, the linguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words used in a language
are simply labels of the objects they stand for. So words are just names or labels for
things.




(2) The conceptualist view has been held by some philosophers and linguists from
ancient times. This view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and
what it refers to (i. e., between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation
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of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.





(3) The contextualist view held that meaning should be studied in terms of situation,
use, context
––
elements closely linked with language behaviour. The representative of
this approach was J.R. Firth, famous British linguist.




(4)
Behaviorists
attempted
to
define
the
meaning
of
a
language
form
as
the
“situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer.” This
theory, somewhat close to contextualism, is linked with psychological interest.
2. What are the major types of synonyms in English?
答
：



The major types of synonyms are dialectal synonyms, stylistic synonyms, emotive
or evaluative synonyms, collocational synonyms, and semantically different synonyms.






Examples
（
略
）

3. Explain with examples “homonymy”, “polysemy”, and “hyponymy”.

答
：
(1) 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.






When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones.






When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs.
When two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are complete homonyms

(2) While different words may have the same or similar meaning, the same one word
may have more than one meaning. This is what we call polysemy, and such a word is
called a polysemic word. There are many polysemic words in English, The fact is the more
commonly used a word is, the more likely it has acquired more than one meaning.

(3) Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word
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and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the
superordinate, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the
same superordinate are co-hyponyms to each other. Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion;
in terms of meaning, the superordinate includes all its hyponyms.
Examples
（
略
）

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 opposite: north/south, doctor/patient, father/daughter, above/below
5. Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences:




T
om's wife is pregnant.







My sister will soon be divorced'




T
om 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
：

“
T
om's wife is pregnant
”

presupposes
“
T
om 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.”

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6.
In
what
way
is
componential
analysis
similar
to
the
analysis
of
phonemes
into
distinctive features?
答
：


They both base on the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into
meaning components.
7.
What
is
grammaticality?
What
might
make
a
grammatically
meaningful
sentence
semantically meaningless?
答
：


Grammaticality
refers
to
the
grammatical
well-formedness
of
a
sentence.
The
violation of the selectional restrictions, i.e., constrains on what lexical items can go with
what others, might make a grammatically meaningless.
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)

Chapter 6

PRAGMATICS
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1. What does pragmatics study? How does it differ from traditional semantics?
答
：



Generally speaking, pragmatics is the study of meaning in the context. It studies
meaning
in
a
dynamic
way
and
as
a
process.
In
order
to
have
a
successful
communication, the speaker and hearer must take the context into their consideration
so as to effect the right meaning and intention. The development and establishment
pragmatics
in
1960s
and
1970s
resulted
mainly
from
the
expansion
of
the
study
semantics. However, it is different from the traditional semantics. The major difference
between them lies in that pragmatics studies meaning in a dynamic way, while semantics
studies
meaning
in
a
static
way.
Pragmatics
takes
context
into
consideration
while
semantics
does
not.
Pragmatics
takes
care
of
the
aspect
of
meaning
that
is
not
accounted for by semantics.
2.
Why
is
the
notion
of
context
essential
in
the
pragmatic
study
of
linguistic
communication?
答
：


The
notion
of
context
is
essential
to
the
pragmatic
study
of
language.
It
is
generally considered as constituted by the knowledge shared by the speaker and the
hearer. Various continents of shared knowledge have been identified, e.g. knowledge of
the language they use, knowledge of what has been said before, knowledge about the
world
in
general,
knowledge
about
the
specific
situation
in
which
linguistic
communication is taking place, and knowledge about each other. Context determines
the speaker's use of language and also the heater's interpretation of what is said to him.
Without such knowledge, linguistic communication would not be possible, and without
considering
such
knowledge,
linguistic
communication
cannot
be
satisfactorily
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accounted for in a pragmatic sense. Look at the following sentences:






(1) How did it go?
(2) It is cold in hem.

(3) It was a hot Christmas day so we went down to the beach in the afternoon and had
a good time swimming and surfing.

Sentence (1) might be used in a conversation between two students talking about an
examination, or two surgeons talking about an operation, or in some other contexts; (2)
might be said by the speaker to ask the hearer to turn on the heater, or leave the place,
or
to
put
on
more
clothes,
or
to
apologize
for
the
poor
condition
of
the
room,
depending
on
the
situation
of
context;
(3)
makes
sense
only
ii
the
hearer
has
the
knowledge that Christmas falls in summer in the southern hemisphere.
3. How are sentence meaning and utterance meaning related, and how do they differ?
答
：


A sentence is a grammatical concept, and the meaning of a sentence is often
studied as the abstract, intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of predication.
But
if
we
think
of
a
sentence
as
what
people
actually
utter
in
the
course
of
communication, it becomes an utterance, and it should be considered in the situation in
which it is actually uttered (or used). So it is impossible to tell if “The dog is barking” is
a sentence or an utterance. It can be either. It all depends on how we look at it and how
we are going to analyze it. If we take it as a grammatical unit and consider it as a
self-contained unit in isolation from context, then we are treating it as a sentence. If we
take it as something a speaker utters in a certain situation with a certain purpose, then
we are treating it as an utterance.

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