双学位语言学试卷A

双学位语言学试题（A卷）

I. Directions: Read each of the following statements carefully. Decide which one of the four choices best completes the statement and put the letter A, B, C, or D in the brackets. (2%×10=20%)

1. The famous quotation from Shakespeare's play \"Romeo and Juliet\" 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet' well illustrates _______. ( )

A. the conventional nature of language B. the creative nature of language C. the universality of language

D. the big difference between human language and animal communication

2. The term _______ linguistics may be defined as a way of referring to the approach which studies language change over various periods of time and at various historical stages.

A. synchronic B. diachronic C. comparative

D. historical comparative

3. The words that contain only one morpheme are called . ( ) A. bound morphemes B. affixes

C. free morphemes D. roots

4．V oicing as a quality of speech sounds is caused by the vibration of .

( )

A. the velum B. the vocal cords C. the glottis D. the uvula

5. The words stationary and stationery are identical in sound, but different in spelling and meaning. They are _______. ( )

A. complete homonyms B. homographs C. hyponyms D. homophones

6. The distinction between langue and parole was made by _______ early last century. ( )

A. American linguist N. Chomsky B. Swiss linguist F. de Saussure C. American linguist Edward Sapir D. British linguist J. R. Firth

7. is the study of language in relation to the mind. ( ) A. Psycholinguistics B. Sociolinguistics C. Linguistics D. Semantics

8. The utterance \"We're already working 25 hours a day, eight days a week.\" obviously violates the maxim of ______.

A. quality B. quantity C. relation D. manner

9. Linguistics is the scientific study of __________. A. a particular language B. the English language

C. human languages in general D. the system of a particular language

10. Chomsky uses the term _______ to refer to the actual realization of a language

user’s knowledge of the rules of his language in linguistic communication.

A. langue B. competence C. parole D. performance

II. Directions: Fill in the blank in each of the following statements with one word, the first letter of which is already given as a clue. Note that you are to fill in ONE word only, and you are not allowed to change the letter given. (2% ×10=10%)

11. In the historical development of language, sound change is inevitable, such as sound loss, sound a________________ and sound movement.

12. If a linguistic study describes and analyzes the language people actually use, it is said to be d .

13. The word snowfall is a word formed by joining two separate words, i.e. “snow” and “fall.” This newly formed word is generally regarded as a c_______.

14. S________ is the technical name for the sameness relation. 15. Pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items are called r_______ opposites.

16. Hyponymy is the relationship which obtains between specific and general lexical items. The word that is more general in meaning is called s________.

17. According to its position in the new word, a________ are divided into two kinds: prefixes and suffixes.

18. To satisfy the needs of the phoneticians in the study of speech sounds, a set of symbols called d are added to broad transcription to show the more subtle differences between similar sounds.

19. For antonyms like alive: dead, male: female, present: absent, the members of a pair are c_______ to each other.

20. The intellectual benefits of d_________ to us is that it makes it possible for us to talk and think in abstract terms.

III. Directions: Judge whether each of the following statements is true or false. Put a T for true or F for false in the brackets in front of each statement. If you think a statement is false, you must explain why you think so and then give the correct version. (2%×10=20%)

21. ( ) Language can be studied both synchronically and diachronically. The two approaches are equally favored by modern linguists.

22. ( ) Stress is a suprasegmental feature that is exclusively used with words, not with sentences.

23. ( ) Major lexical categories are closed categories because the number of lexical items in these categories is fixed and no new members are allowed for.

24. ( ) The important criteria to distinguish polysemy from homonymy are the etymology of the words in question and the closeness of the relationship between the meanings in question.

25. ( ) The significance of Grice’s Cooperative Principle lies in that it explains how it is possible for the speaker to convey more than is literally said.

26. ( ) The arbitrary nature of language makes it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions.

27. ( ) The meaning of a compound is the combination of the

meanings of the words in the compound.

28. ( ) Speech act theory was proposed by the British philosopher John Austin.

29. ( ) Sociolinguistics is one of the main branches of linguistics.

30. ( ) The writing system of a language is always a later invention used to

record speech; thus there are still many languages in today’s world that can only be spoken, but not written.

IV. Directions: Explain the following terms, using one or two examples for illustration. (3% ×10=30%)

31. derivational affix 32. cooperative principle 33. arbitrariness 34. bound morphemes 35. morphology 36. pragmatics

37. linguistic competence 38. metathesis

39. gradable antonymy 40. illocutionary act

V. Directions: Answer the following questions. (10%×2=20%) 41. New words can be formed in many ways. Please illustrate borrowing, compounding, blending and back-formation, each with two examples.

42. Discuss any FOUR of the features of human language that distinguish it from animal communication system.