36.    Distinguish the two possible meanings of “more beautiful flowers” by means of IC analysis. （北京第二外国语大学，2004）

VI.    Analyze the following situation. (20%)

37.    Draw a tree diagram according to the PS rules to show the deep structure of the sentence:

    The student wrote a letter yesterday.


Key:
I.
1~5 DCDDD                    6~10 ADDBA
II.
11~15 TTTTF                    16~20 FTFTT
III.
21. simple                    22. sentence
23. subject                      24. predicate
25. complex                      26. embedded 
27. open                      28. Adjacency
29. Parameters                  30. Case
IV.
31.    Syntax: Syntax refers to the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language, or simply, the study of the formation of sentences.
32.    IC analysis: Immediate constituent analysis, IC analysis for short, refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents – word groups (phrases), which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate sake of convenience.
33.    Hierarchical structure: It is the sentence structure that groups words into structural constituents and shows the syntactic category of each structural constituent, such as NP, VP and PP.
34.    Trace theory: After the movement of an element in a sentence there will be a trace left in the original position. This is the notion trace in T-G grammar. It’s suggested that if we have the notion trace, all the necessary information for semantic interpretation may come from the surface structure. E.g. The passive Dams are built by beavers. differs from the active Beavers built dams. in implying that all dams are built by beavers. If we add a trace element represented by the letter t after built in the passive as Dams are built t by beavers, then the deep structure information that the word dams was originally the object of built is also captured by the surface structure. Trace theory proves to be not only theoretically significant but also empirically valid.
V.
35.
An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent, or approaching equivalence, to one of its constituents, which serves as the center, or head, of the whole. A typical example is the three small children with children as its head. The exocentric construction, opposite to the first type, is defined negatively as a construction whose distribution is not functionally equivalent to any of its constituents. Prepositional phrasal like on the shelf are typical examples of this type.
36.
    (1) more | beautiful flowers
    (2) more beautiful | flowers
VI.
            S               
                           
    NP                VP       
                           
Det.        NP    V        NP        Adv.
                           
                Det.        N.   
                           
The        student    wrote    a        letter    yesterday.

 

Chapter 5 Meaning


[Mainly taken from lxm1000w’s exercises. – icywarmtea]

I.    Choose the best answer. (20%)

1.    The naming theory is advanced by ________.
A. Plato                B. Bloomfield         C. Geoffrey Leech        D. Firth
2.    “We shall know a word by the company it keeps.” This statement represents _______.
A. the conceptualist view                    B. contexutalism
C. the naming theory                        D. behaviorism
3.    Which of the following is NOT true?
A. Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.
B. Sense is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form.
C. Sense is abstract and decontextualized.
D. Sense is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are not interested in.  
4.    “Can I borrow your bike?”_______ “You have a bike.”
A. is synonymous with                        B. is inconsistent with
     C. entails                                    D. presupposes
5.    ___________ is a way in which the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features.
A. Predication analysis                        B. Componential analysis
     C. Phonemic analysis                        D. Grammatical analysis
6.    “Alive” and “dead” are ______________.
A. gradable antonyms                        B. relational antonyms
C. complementary antonyms                    D. None of the above
7.    _________ deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.
A. Reference            B. Concept             C. Semantics            D. Sense
8.    ___________ refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form.
A. Polysemy            B. Synonymy         C. Homonymy            D. Hyponymy
9.    Words that are close in meaning are called ______________.
A. homonyms            B. polysemies         C. hyponyms            D. synonyms
10.    The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by _______.
A. grammatical rules                         B. selectional restrictions
C. semantic rules                             D. semantic features

II.    Decide whether the following statements are true or false. (10%)

11.    Dialectal synonyms can often be found in different regional dialects such as British English and American English but cannot be found within the variety itself, for example, within British English or American English.  
12.    Sense is concerned with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience, while the reference deals with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.
13.    Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations.
14.    In semantics, meaning of language is considered as the intrinsic and inherent relation to the physical world of experience.
15.    Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts.  
16.    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. 
17.    The meaning of a sentence is the sum total of the meanings of all its components.  
18.    Most languages have sets of lexical items similar in meaning but ranked differently according to their degree of formality.
19.    “It is hot.” is a no-place predication because it contains no argument.  
20.    In grammatical analysis, the sentence is taken to be the basic unit, but in semantic analysis of a sentence, the basic unit is predication, which is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.

III.    Fill in the blanks. (20%)

21.    __________ can be defined as the study of meaning.
22.    The conceptualist view holds that there is no __________ link between a linguistic form and what it refers to.
23.    __________ 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.
24.    Words that are close in meaning are called __________.
25.    When two words are identical in sound, but different in spelling and meaning, they are called __________.
26.    __________ opposites are pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items.
27.    __________ analysis is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components.
28.    Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called __________ restrictions, which are constraints on what lexical items can go with what others.
29.    A(n) __________ is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal element(s) in a sentence.
30.    According to the __________ theory of meaning, the words in a lan­guage are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for.

IV.    Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)

31.    Entailment
32.    Proposition
33.    Componential analysis
34.    Reference

V.    Answer the following questions. (20%)

35.    What are the sense relations between the following groups of words?
    Dogs, cats, pets, parrots; trunk, branches, tree, roots （青岛海洋大学，1999）
36.    What are the three kinds of antonymy? （武汉大学，2004）

VI.    Analyze the following situation. (20%)

37.    For each group of words given below, state what semantic property or properties are shared by the (a) words and the (b) words, and what semantic property or properties distinguish between the classes of (a) words and (b) words.
    (1)    a.    bachelor, man, son, paperboy, pope, chief
        b.    bull, rooster, drake, ram
    (2)    a.    table, stone, pencil, cup, house, ship, car
        b.    milk, alcohol, rice, soup
    (3)    a.    book, temple, mountain, road, tractor
        b.    idea, love, charity, sincerity, bravery, fear （青岛海洋大学，1999）

Key:
I.
1~5 ABDDB                    6~10 CACDA
II.
11~15 FFTFT                    16~20 TFTTT
III.
21. Semantics                    22. direct
23. Reference                    24. synonyms
25. homophones                26. Relational
27. Componential                28. selectional
29. argument                    30. naming
IV.
31.    Entailment: It is basically a semantic relation (or logical implication), and it can be clarified with the following sentences:
    a.    Tom divorced Jane.
    b.    Jane was Tom’s wife.
    In terms of truth value, the following relationships exist between these two sentences: when A is true, B must be also true; when B is false, A must also be false. When B is true, A may be true or false. Therefore we can say A entails B.
32.    Proposition: It is the result of the abstraction of sentences, which are descriptions of states of affairs and which some writers see as a basic element of sentence meaning. For example, the two sentences “Caesar invaded Gaul” and “Gaul was invaded by Caesar” hold the same proposition.
33.    Compositional analysis: It defines the meaning of a lexical element in terms of semantic components, or semantic features. For example, the meaning of the word boy may be analyzed into three components: HUMAN, YOUNG and MALE. Similarly girl may be analyzed into HUMAN, YOUNG and FEMALE.
34.    Reference: It is what a linguistic form refers to in the real world; it is a matter of the relationship between the form and the reality.
V.
35.
    Hyponymy, metonymy or part-whole relationship
36.
    (Omit.)
VI.
37.
    (1)    The (a) words and (b) words are male.
        The (a) words are human, while the (b) words are non-human.
    (2)    The (a) words and (b) words are inanimate.
        The (a) words are instrumental, while the (b) words are edible.
    (3)    The (a) words and (b) words are worldly or conceptual.
        The (a) words are material, while the (b) words are spiritual.
 

Chapter 7 Language, Culture and Society


[注：第六章无测试题]

I.    Choose the best answer. (20%)

1.    _______ is concerned with the social significance of language variation and language use in different speech communities.
A. Psycholinguistics                        B. Sociolinguistics
C. Applied linguistics                        D. General linguistics
2.    The most distinguishable linguistic feature of a regional dialect is its __________.
A. use of words                            B. use of structures
C. accent                                    D. morphemes
3.    __________ is speech variation according to the particular area where a speaker comes from.
A. Regional variation                        B. Language variation
C. Social variation                            D. Register variation
4.    _______ are the major source of regional variation of language.
A. Geographical barriers
B. Loyalty to and confidence in one’s native speech
C. Physical discomfort and psychological resistance to change
D. Social barriers
5.    _________ means that certain authorities, such as the government choose, a particular speech variety, standardize it and spread the use of it across regional boundaries.
A. Language interference                    B. Language changes
     C. Language planning                        D. Language transfer
6.    _________ in a person’s speech or writing usually ranges on a continuum from casual or colloquial to formal or polite according to the type of communicative situation.
A. Regional variation                        B. Changes in emotions
C. Variation in connotations                    D. Stylistic variation