II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:
21.    H________ linguistics is the subfield of linguistics that studies language change.
22.    The historical study of language is a d________ study of language rather than a synchronic study.
23.    European R________ Movement separates the period of Middle English from that of modern English.
24.    An important set of extensive sound changes, which affected 7 long or tense vowels and which led to one of the major discrepancies between phonemic representations of words and morphemes at the end of the Middle English Period, is known as the Great V_______ Shift.
25.    A_______ involves the deletion of a word-final vowel segment.
26.    A change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word is known as  e__________.
27.    The three sets of consonant shifts that Grimm discovered became known collectively as Grimm s L ____.
28.    Sound change as a result of sound movement, known as m_______, involves a reversal in position of two adjoining sound segments.
29.    B________ is a process by which new words are formed by taking away the supposed suffixes of exiting words.
30.    Semantic b________ refers to the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its historically earlier denotation.
31.    The original form of a language family that has ceased to exist is called the p_________.
32.    Sound a________ refers to the physiological effect of one sound on another. In this process, successive sounds are made identical or similar to one another in terms of place or manner of articulation.
33.    In order to reduce the exceptional or irregular morphemes, speakers of a particular language may borrow a rule from one part of the grammar and apply it generally. This pheno广告网址n is called i_________ borrowing.
34.    By identifying and comparing similar linguistic forms with similar meanings across related languages, historical linguists reconstruct the proto form in the common ancestral language. This process is called c________ reconstruction.
35.    The m ____ rule of adjective agreement has been lost from English.
III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:
36.     Historical linguistics explores ________________.
     A.   the nature of language change
B.   the causes that lead to language change
   C.  the relationship between languages
   D. all of the above
37.    Language change is ______________.
A.   universal, continuous and ,to a large extent, regular and systematic
B.   continuous, regular, systematic, but not universal
C.   universal, continuous, but not regular and systematic
D.   always regular and systematic, but not universal and continuous
38.    Modern English period starts roughly _____________.
A.   from 449 to 1100
B.   from 1500 to the present
C.   from 1100 to the present
D.   from 1700 to the present
39.    Old English dates back to the mid-fifth century when _________.
A.  the Norman French invaders under William the Conqueror arrived in England
B.   the printing technology was invented
C.  Anglo-Saxons invaded the British Isles from northern Europe
D.  the Celtic people began to inhabit England
40.    Middle English was deeply influenced by ___________.
A.  Norman French in vocabulary and grammar
B.   Greek and Latin because of the European renaissance movement
C.  Danish languages because Denmark placed a king on the throne of England
D.  the Celtic people who were the first inhabitants of England
41.    Language change is essentially a matter of change ________.
A. in collocations                 B. in meaning
C. in grammar                   D. in usages
42.    In Old and Middle English, both /k/ and /n/ in the word “knight” were pronounced, but in modern English, /k/ in the sound /kn-/ clusters was not pronounced. This pheno广告网址n is known as ________.
A. sound addition              B. sound loss
C. sound shift                 D. sound movement
43.    A change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel sound to the middle of a word is known as _____.
A. apocope                    B. epenthesis
C. parenthesis                  D. antithesis
44.    Segmenttch of sound positions can be seen in the example of the modern word “ bird” which comes from the old English word “bridd”. The change of the word from “bridd” to “bird” is a case of _________.
  A. metathesis                   B. sound loss
  C. sound addition                D. apocope
45.    _________ is a process of combining two or more words into one lexical unit.
A. Derivation                     B. Blending
C. Compounding                  D. Abbreviation
46.    “Wife”, which used to refer to any woman, stands for “ a married woman” in modern English. This pheno广告网址n is known as ________.
A. semantic shift                   B. semantic broadening
C. semantic elevation               D. semantic narrowing
47.    English language belongs to _________.
A. Indo-European Family            B. Sino-Tibetan Family
C. Austronesian Family              D. Afroasiatic Family
48.    By analogy to the plural formation of the word “dog-s”, speakers started saying “cows” as the plural of “cow” instead of the earlier plural “kine”. This is the case of _________.
A. elaboration                       B. external borrowing
C. sound assimilation                 D. internal borrowing
49.    Morphologcial changes can involve __________.
A.  the loss of morphological rules
B.   the addition of morphological rules
C.  the alteration of morphological rules
D.  all of the above
50.    The most dramatic morphological loss concerns the loss of ________.
A.  comparative markers
B.   tense markers
C.  gender and case markers
D.  none of the above  
IV. Define the following terms:
51. Apocope               52. Metathesis             53. Derivation 
54. back-formation          55. semantic narrowing     56.protolanguage  
57. haplology              58. epenthesis            59. Compounding 
60. Blending             61. semantic broadening   62. semantic shift        
63. Great Vowel Shift         64. acronym         65. sound assimilation  
V. Answer the following questions:
66.  What is the purpose or significance of the historical study of language?
67.  What are the characteristics of the nature of language change?
68.  What are the major periods in the history of English?
69.  As language changes over time, the meaning of a word may deviate from its original denotation. Discuss the major types of semantic changes.