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1. What are the categories of lexical
meaning?
Lexical meaning includes: a)
referential meaning (also denotative meaning). b)
Associative
meanings. Referential
meaning is the central meaning and it is
more stable and universal.
Associative meanings are meanings are
meanings that hinge on referential meaning, which
are less stable and more culture-
specific.
Types
of
associative
meanings:
connotative
meaning,
social
meaning,
affective
meaning,
reflected meaning,
collective meaning
2. What are the
components of metaphor?
There are two
positions on the function of metaphors: a) the
classical view sees metaphor a
rhetorical
device;
b)
another
view
holds
metaphor
a
cognitive
device.
Metaphors
一
s
possible precisely because there are
metaphors in a person’s concept
ual
systems.
All metaphors are composed of
two domains: target domain (also tenor) and source
domain
(vehicle).
3. How
does transformational grammar account for
sentence- relatedness?
1)
According
to
Chomsky,
a
grammar
as
the
tacit
shared
knowledge
of
all
speakers
is
a
system
of
finite
rules
by
which
an
infinite
number
of
sentences
can
be
generated.
He
attempts
to
account
for
this
aspect
of
syntax
by
postulating
that
deep
structures
and
surface structures.
2) Deep
structures are the basic structures generated by
phrase structure rules.
3) Surface
structures are derived structures, the structures
of sentences that we actually
speak.
Surface
structures
are
derived
from
deep
structures
through
transformational
rules which include replacement,
insertion, deletion and coping, etc.
4.
On
what
basis
do
linguists
regard
human
language
as
species-specific
(unique
to
1
humans)?
Language
is
a
system
of
arbitrary
vocal
symbols
used
for
human
communication.
Many
philosophers and linguists believe that
language is unique to man. Language is a human
trait
that
sets
us
apart
from
other
living
creatures.
They
spell
out
a
number
of
features
of
language which are not found in animal
communication systems. These features: creativity,
duality,
arbitrariness,
displacement,
cultural
transmission,
interchangeability
and
reflexivity. These are universal
features possessed by all human languages.
Although some
animal communication
systems possess, to a very limited degree, one or
another of these
features except
creativity and duality, none is found to have all
the features. On this basis
linguists
tend
to
conclude
that
human
languages
are
qualitatively
different
form
animal
communication systems.
5.
What part of syntax can phrase structure rules
account for and what they cannot?
Phrase
structure
rules
are
rules
that
specify
the
constituents
of
syntactic
categories.
These rules are part of speakers’
syntactic knowledge, which govern the construction
of
sentences.
There are a
lot of part of syntactic knowledge, including
structural ambiguity (which strings
of
words have more than one meaning), words order
(different arrangements of the same
words have different meanings),
grammatical relations (what element relates to
what other
element
directly
or
indirectly), recursion
(the
repeated
use
of
the
same
rules
to
create
infinite
sentences),
sentence
relatedness
(sentences
may
be
structurally
variant
but
semantically
related),
and
syntactic
categories
(a
class
of
words
or
phrases
that
can
substitute for one another without loss
of grammaticality) etc. Phrase structure rules can
account
for
structural
ambiguity,
word
order,
grammatical
relations,
recursion,
and
2
syntactic categories; but
they cannot account for sentence relatedness.
6. How do sociolinguists classify the
varieties of English?
The term variety
is the label given to the form of a language used
by any group of speakers
or
used
in
a
particular
field.
A
variety
is
characterized
by
the
basic
lexicon,
phonology,
syntax
shared
by
members
of
the
group.
Varieties
of
a
language
are
of
four
types:
the
standard variety, regional dialects,
sociolects and registers.
A regional
dialect is a variety of a language spoken by
people living in an area. The English
language has many regional dialects.
British English, American English, Australian
English.
Indian English, South African
English, etc. are all regional varieties of the
language. One
dialect is distinctive
from another phonologically, lexically and
grammatically.
7. What are the
functions of supra-segmental features?
The phonetic features, distinctive or
non-distinctive, that we have discussed so far may
be
properties of single segments. In
this section we will look at features that are
found over a
segment or sequence of two
or more segments, which are called suprasegmental
features.
These
features
are
also
distinctive
features.
They
are
found
in
such
units
of
syllables,
words, phrases and sentences. The most
widely found suprasegmental features are stress,
intonation and tone.
Stress
is
defined
as
the
perceived
prominence
(comparative
loudness)
of
one
or
more
syllable
elements
over
others
in
a
word.
This
definition
implies
that
stress
is
a
relative
notion. Intonation: when we speak, we
change the pitch of our voice to express ideas.
The
same
sentence
uttered
with
different
intonation
may
express
different
attitude
of
the
speaker.
In English, there are three basic intonation
patterns: fall, rise and fall-rise. Tone is
the
variation
of
pitch
at
the
word
level
to
distinguish
words.
The
same
sequence
of
3
segments
can
be
different
words
if
uttered
with
different
tones.
English
is
not
a
tone
language.
Chinese is a typical tone language.
Intonation and stress generally occur
simultaneously in utterance. When intonation
contour
falls on a syllable, the
nucleus is stressed and the vowel is naturally
lengthened a bit. In the
meantime,
there is a little
pause after the
syllable. This simultaneous functioning of the
features
serves
to
highlight
the
information
focus,
or
to
eliminate
ambiguity
(double
interpretations of the same phrase or
sentence).
8. What are aspects of
syntactic knowledge?
Syntactic
knowledge is the knowing of which strings of words
are grammatical and which are
not. In
addition, it includes: 1) structural ambiguity 2)
word order 3) grammatical relations 4)
recursion 5) sentence relatedness 6)
syntactic categories.
9. The advantages
and disadvantages of componential analysis?
1st,
it
is
a
breakthrough
in
the
formal
representation
of
meaning.
Once
formally
represented,
meaning
components
can
be
seen.
2nd,
it
reveals
the
impreciseness
of
the
terminology in the traditional approach
to meaning analysis. Looking at the semantic
formula
of man and woman again you can
see that it is not true that the total meaning of
one word
contrasts with that of the
other. It is merely in one semantic feature that
the two words
contrast. When we look at
the semantic formulae of man and father, we find
that all the
semantic features of man
are included in the semantic formula of father.
Then we reach a
different conclusion
from common sense in regard to the relation
between man and father.
Is
this
contradictory?
The
answer
is
No.
The
obvious
fact
that
man
includes
father
is
derived from the
perspective of reference. Componential analysis
examines the components
of sense. The
more semantic features a word has, the narrower
its reference it is.
4
The
limitations
of
componential
analysis
are
also
apparent.
It
cannot
be
applied
to
the
analysis
of all lexicon, merely to words within the same
semantic field. It is controversial
whether
semantic
features
are
universal
primes
of
word
meanings
in
all
language.
Nevertheless, CA is so far a most
influential approach in the structural analysis of
lexical
meaning.
11. Why is linguistics a
vast field of study?
Linguistics is a broad field
of
study,
because
language
is
a
complicated
entity
with
many
layers and facets.
There are a number of divisions of linguistics,
which can be put into two
categories.
1) Intra-disciplinary divisions: the study of
language in general is often termed
general linguistics. It is based on the
view that language as a system is composed of
three
aspects:
sound,
structure
and
meaning.
2)
Inter-disciplinary
divisions.
a)
Sociology
deals
with language and culture. b)
Psycholinguistics deals with the relation between
language and
mind
c)
applied
linguistics
is
concerned
with
the
application
of
linguistic
theories
and
descriptions in other fields. All above
three belong to sociolinguistics.
12.
How is linguistics different from traditional
grammar?
1)
Traditional
grammar is prescriptive and modern linguistics is
descriptive.
2)
Traditional
grammatical categories are merely based on
European language but linguistic
studies all languages.
3)
Traditional
grammar
lacks
a
theoretical
framework,
while
modern
linguistics
is
theoretically rather than pedagogically
oriented.
13.
How are speech
sounds described?
The study of speech
sounds is phonetics which includes 3 parts: 1)
articulatory phonetics 2)
acoustic
phonetics 3) auditory phonetics. Articulatory
phonetics is the primary concern in
5
linguistics, in which
speech sound is described within 3 sides:
The description of
consonants: a) place of articulation b) manners of
articulation c) voicing d)
aspiration
The description of vowels:
a) monophthongs b) diphthongs c) lip rounding d)
tensity
14. Difference between
linguistic competence and communicative competence
1)
Linguists
like
Chomsky
who
are
not
concerned
with
language
use
propose
the
term
linguistic competence to account for a
speaker’s knowledge of his or her
language.
2) Sociolinguists
like Dell Hymes propose communicative competence
as the most general
term to account for
both the tacit knowledge of language and the
ability to use it. According
to
Hymes,
there
are
4
parameters
that
underlie
a
speaker’s
communicative
competence,
namely the
ability to judge: a) whether sth is possible. b)
feasible c) appropriate 4) done.
15.
How are words decomposed into their constituents
1) Words are composed of one or more
than one morphemes.
2) Morphemes are
the smallest meaningful unit of language.
3) Morphemes can be categorized into 2
kinds. a) free morphemes( they constitute words
by themselves) b) bound morphemes( they
are never used independently)
4)
Bound morphemes include
inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes.
16. What are aspects of syntactic
knowledge?
Syntactic knowledge is the
knowing of which strings of words are grammatical
and which are
not. In addition, it
includes: 1) structural ambiguity 2) word order 3)
grammatical relations 4)
recursion 5)
sentence relatedness 6) syntactic categories.
17.
What
are
the
two
classes
of
phonetic
features?
What
is
the
fundamental
difference?
The two classes
of phonetic features are distinctive features and
non-distinctive features.
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