BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2008
TOPIC 1: LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND WRITING.
The following points are recommended for discussion:
- Syntagmatic and paradigmatic.
- Distribution, variation, minimal pair.
- Spelling and pronunciation. Spoken and written language
Exercise 1.1. The indefinite article: a or an?
Write a or an in the spaces:
...... book
...... apple ...... union ...... honour...... history ...... uncle
...... hour
...... yell
...... onion ...... EU member ...... European
Discuss:
– What is the distribution of a/an? How is their appearance conditioned?
– Is the distribution sensitive to spelling or to pronunciation?
– How many indefinite articles appear in the data above? Distinguish between lexeme and
word-form.
Exercise 1.2. The definite article: the = /ðə/ or /ði/ ?
Write the appropriate pronunciation of the (/ðə/ or /ði/) in the spaces:
...... book
...... apple ...... union ...... honour...... history ...... uncle
...... hour
...... yell
...... onion ...... EU member ...... European
Fill in the table. Write spelling and pronunciation in each box:
__#C
__#V
indef. art.
def. art.
Discuss:
– Is the distribution of the two pronunciations of the the same as a/an?
– Judging from the above data, how many articles are there in English: 2, 3, or 4?
– What are the allomorphs of the two articles? Can they ever contrast with each other?
– The articles are in paradigmatic relationship, as they must take each other’s place in the
sentence. What is a paradigm?
Exercise 1.3. Minimal pairs
The following pairs differ in only one sound in pronunciation. Underline or circle the letters
which represent the difference. (Some examples are tricky because of the unphonetic spelling
of English!) The first two are solved for you:
send –sand
right – white
cold – called
verse – worse
son – sung
sex – sacks
reason – risen
niece – knees
cursed – coast
wash – watch
lead ‘vezet’ – lead ‘ólom’
wind ‘szél’ – wind ‘teker’
live ‘él’ – live ‘eleven’
tear ‘tép’ – tear ‘könny’
use
‘használ’
–
use
‘használat’
Discuss:
– Why are these called “minimal” pairs?
– Why is the right-hand column more problematic?
– What is your natural pronunciation of Hung. súly, súlyt, sújt, súlytalan, sújtalak? Is the ú long
or short? Is there any variation between speakers? Any minimal pairs here?
Exercise 1.4. Syntagmatic relations
Give the word class (= ‘part of speech’) of each word, using the labels Noun, Verb, Adjective,
Adverb, Preposition, Other.
1. This mushroom strikes me as dangerous.
2. Strikes mushroomed everywhere in Italy.
3. The cook made use of his excellent training.
4. This school is training cooks.
4. The Norwegians woke up the German.
5. Uggs woggled diggles. (!)
Discuss:
– Syntagmatic relations connect elements in the “syntagm” (phrase or clause). Where does the
word order show the word-class in the above examples?
– Where and how does the word itself show its word-class?
Exercise 1.5. HOME ASSIGNMENT. The regular Past Tense suffix.
Form the past tense of these verbs, and classify them in a table according to the spelling and
the pronunciation of the -(e)d suffix.
to press – to grin – to care – to occur – to note – to hike – to stir –
to enrage – to slap – to precede – to fire – to dance – to trim – to
allot – to engulf – to prefer – to embed – to happen – to vomit – to
sketch –
to control – to smear – to finish – to boo – to unearth – to marry –
to defy.
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
2
TOPIC 2: THE LINGUISTIC SIGN
The following points are recommended for discussion:
- arbitrariness
- codability
translation;
what
is
- linguistic relativism: does our mother tongue influence our thought?
equivalent?
Exercise 2.1. Arbitrariness
Decide whether Hungarian has alma or almák (or either?) in the blanks.
1. three apples — három ......5. many apples — sok ......
2. one apple — egy ......
rossz...
3. the apples — az ......
6. those apples are bad — az... az ......
7. we’ve bought apples — vettünk ......
4. all apples — minden ...... 8. every apple — mindegyik ......
Discuss:
– How does Hung. behave here? What is the rule?
– Where does English use the singular?
– Is there a reason for the difference between the two languages? Which system is more
logical?
Exercise 2.2. Codability
Consider E man, person, people vs. H ember, férfi, fiú.
● Translate into Hungarian:
1. The soldiers were attacked by guerrillas. Two men were killed.
2. Man represents a danger to the environment.
3. Men represent a danger to the environment.
4. Half of my students are men.
5. I can only put two people in Room 5.
6. There was another person sitting in the bus.
7. Sue is more interested in men than in politics.
● Translate into English:
8. Kéne még egy ember a recepcióba.
9. Róbert észrevette, hogy ő az egyetlen fiú a bárban.
10. Az ember nagyon hasonlít a majomra.
Discuss:
– how can you characterize the use of these words, especially man and ember?
– do we find the same situation in the singular as in the plural?
– make diagrams (using circles) to show the inclusions and overlaps of these words.
Exercise 2.3. Gender
Consider these nouns, and supply the personal pronouns used to refer to them:
German
English
Hung.
der Mann / er
the man /......
a férfi /......
die Frau / sie
the woman /......
a nő /......
German
English
Hung.
der Lehrer / er
the teacher /......
a tanár /......
die Lehrerin / sie
the teacher /......
a tanárnő /......
German
English
Hung.
der Tisch / er
the table /......
az asztal /......
die Tür / sie
the door /......
az ajtó /......
das Haus /es
the house /......
a ház /......
das Fenster / es
the window /......
az ablak /......
Discuss:
– what are the names of the three genders?
– why do we say that, for example, German ‘door’ is feminine?
– does English have gender? and Hungarian? what is grammatical gender?
– do speakers of German think of a door as something female or woman-like?
– do speakers of Hungarian think that sok alma is really one huge apple?
Exercise 2.4. Translation
Each expression below is given in two translations. Which is better?
1. Jó étvágyat!
Good appetite!
Enjoy your meal!
2. I’m sorry, teacher!
Sajnálom, tanár!
Elnézést, tanár úr!
3. Nincs testvérem.
I have no brothers or sisters.
I have no siblings.
4. Ötlakásos ház.
A five-flat house.
A five-flat building.
5. I write short stories.
Novellákat írok.
Rövid történeteket írok.
6. Where do you live?
Hol él maga?
Maga hol lakik?
7. Azt hittem, belga. I thought she was Belgian.
I thought she is Belgian.
Discuss:
– Why are the “better” translations better? Is it the choice of words, or something else?
– Point out in each case what is wrong with the “bad” translations.
– Can you imagine situations in which the “bad” translations would be acceptable? Or are they
“bad” regardless of the situation?
Exercise 2.5. HOME ASSIGNMENT. Lexical coding: H üveg and pohár.
Find the English equivalents of these expressions, and make a diagram to show the meaning
relationships between üveg, pohár, and their English equivalents. Try to argue that English has
no word for ‘pohár’, and so speakers of English do not really know what this thing is.
borosüveg – műanyag üveg – lekváros üveg – üvegajtó – szemüveg –
pohár – műanyag pohár – üvegpohár – papírpohár – kávéspohár.
3
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 3: GRAMMAR AND GRAMMARS
The following points are recommended for discussion:
- Prescriptive and descriptive grammar.
- Notions of “correctness”.
- Levels of analysis and their hierarchy: phonology, morphology, syntax
Exercise 3.1. Prescriptive grammar.
The following sentences are all used naturally by native speakers, yet each contains something
that prescriptive grammarians would find objectionable. Can you point out these “incorrect”
features?
1. There’s five or six pubs in our neighbourhood.
2. My mother don’t like such stupid jokes.
3. The situation is much worser now than before.
4. The local council didn’t ought to have closed the hospital.
5. Say you don’t need no diamond ring, and I’ll be satisfied.
6. The government have decided to increase taxes.
7. This library has less readers than the one in the city centre.
8. The police will find out who done it.
Discuss:
– What can be the basis of the condemnation of these forms?
– Are there similar cases from Hungarian (forms used by many people, yet considered “incorrect” by other people)?
Exercise 3.2. Levels of analysis.
Write the forms of these verbs in the table according to what irregularity they show (if any):
play /ple /, plays /ple z/, played /ple d/
say /se /, says /sez/, said /sed/
sauté* /so te /, sautés /so te z/, sautéed /so te d/
pay /pe /, pays /pe z/, paid /pe d/
have /hæv/, has /hæz/, had /hæd/
lie /la /, lies /la z/, lay /le /
* hirtelen kisütni
3rd person singular
Quite regular
spelling deviation
only
Phonologically
irregular
Morphologically
irregular
Discuss:
– has, had could go into either of two boxes: on what grounds?
– What is the rule for adding these suffixes in speech and in writing?
past tense
Exercise 3.3. Notions of correctness: the “Etymological Fallacy”.
Write next to the English words their Hungarian translation, and vice versa. (The original is
given when the word does not derive from English.)
Original
1
2
3
4
English
Hung. transl.
bar
Greek sympathikos
sympathetic
‘együttérző’
Fr. menu
menu
‘menü’
Latin realizare
to realize
‘megvalósítani’
Hungarian
bár
szimpatikus
menü
realizálni
5
farmer
farmer
6
smoking
szmoking
lexicon
lexikon
concert
koncert
9
dumper
dömper
10
hall
hall (noun)
7
8
Greek lexikon
‘szójegyzék’
Latin concertus
‘versengés’
Eng. transl.
Discuss:
– Which language preserves the original meaning in each case, English or Hungarian?
– Some people think that words should not change their meaning but should be used today as
they were used centuries ago.
– What is etymology? What is a fallacy?
Exercise 3.4. HOME ASSIGNMENT Verb forms
a). Give the grammatical name of each verb form, using the verb TAKE as an example:
(to) take — (I) take — takes — took — taken — taking
b). Now identify each italicized verb form below in the same way:
1. Joe works a lot. — 2. Liz has kept the keys. — 3. Tim cut the bread. — 4.
Rob must find his passport. — 5. The film was shown on TV. — 6. She saw
Ed kicking the ball. — 7. We interview famous people. — 7. Agnes had
phoned earlier. — 8. I helped Dan open the box. — 9. Ben hid in the cellar.
— 10. Dogs were barking everywhere. — 11. I write and translate novels.
— 12. Beauty impresses me. — 13. Let the others do as they like. — 14.
Nobody read anything.
4
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 4: PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
The following points are recommended for discussion:
- Phonetics and phonology: “etic” and “emic” approach. Sound and phoneme.
- Transcription: phonemic (“broad”) vs. phonetic (“narrow”).
- Rules of phonology and rules of spelling.
- Double Articulation of language: sounds have their separate rules, muchlkie “grammar”.
Exercise 4.1. The suffix -ity.
The list below contains words in their base form, and suffixed with -ity. Their pronunciation is
given too (BrE). Formulate the rules. To start, here is some help:
The Basic operation should say: “To form a .... from a ...., add the suffix -ity,
pronounced /..../”.
Rule 1 should say: “When you add -ity, the following change must happen: ....”
On the right-hand side, state if any of the previous rules apply to the word in question. (Some
have been filled in to help you.)
Basic operation
odd ‘fura’
Rule 1
false ‘hamis’
nude ‘meztelen’
immune ‘védett’
scarce ‘gyér’
Rule 2
complex ‘összetett’
personal ‘személyes’
valid ‘érvényes’
subjective ‘szubjektív’
Rule 3
secure ‘biztonságos’
popular ‘népszerű’
pure ‘tiszta’
minor ‘kisebb’
Rule 4
sane ‘épeszű’
senile ‘szenilis’
sincere ‘őszinte’
divine ‘isteni’
Rule 5
public ‘nyilvános’
toxic ‘mérgező’
electric ‘elektromos’
opaque ‘matt’
other
rules:
/ /
oddity
/
/ : /
/ : /
/
: /
/
/
falsity
nudity
immunity
scarcity
/
/
/
/
complexity
personality
validity
subjectivity
/
/
/
/
security
popularity
purity
minority
/
/
/
/
sanity
senility
sincerity
divinity
/
/
/
/
publicity
toxicity
electricity
opacity
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
:
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
:
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
:
—
—
—
—
—
/
/
/
/
:
:
/
/
:
/
/
/
......
......
......
1
/
/
1
2
......
......
/
/
/
......
......
......
......
/
/
/
/
/
/
......
......
......
......
Exercise 4.2. Homophones.
The following phoneme strings all correspond to (at least) two different words or word forms,
spelt differently. Find the words and write them in the table.
Pronunc.
/ : /
/
/
/
/
/ :/
/
/
Word 1
meet
Word 2
meat
/
/
/
/
/
Pronunc.
/
/
/
/
/
Word 1
Word 2
Discuss: – can these be called minimal pairs?
– are there any such examples in Hungarian?
Exercise 4.3. Word stress.
Below is a connected text in phonetic transcription. The teacher (or a student who knows the
symbols) will read it out. Then observe how stress is marked in the text.
/






:
 

 
: 

:





:
: 
 

 







:




/
Discuss: – does every word have a stress-mark? does this depend on the number of syllables?
– which words have no stress in the text?
– on which syllable of the word does the stress mark fall?
– are there words with two stress marks? how are the two stresses positioned?
– compare the stress marking here with that of the isolated words in Exercise
4.1.
Exercise 4.4. HOME ASSIGNMENT Transcription.
Transcribe the following phrases, using a dictionary with IPA symbols to check your work. You
may follow either a British or an American model, but try not to mix the accents.
1. James returned from Finland. — 2. The pasta was nice but the meat was
raw. — 3. The policeman checked everyone’s luggage. — 4. The food is
good, though the beds are bad.
5
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 5: MORPHOLOGY
The following points are recommended for discussion:
- Inflexion and derivation.
- Word formation.
- Tree diagrams and bracketing. Constituents, branching, nodes, labels.
Exercise 5.1 Morphological analysis
(a) Cut these words up into morphemes: unkindnesses, distasteful,
activate, membership, downloading, piglet, arrangement,
teachers, outnumbered, desirability, hospitalization
(b) draw a tree diagram for each word, as shown in the examples:
unkindnesses
distasteful
N
N
Adj
Aff
Adj
Aff
Aff
Adj
un
kind
Aff
Adj
N
ness
es
dis
taste
Aff
ful
Discuss: the equivalence of trees and bracketing: [ [ [ un [kind] ] ness ] es ]
– nodes, branching, sister nodes, constituents, labels
– why do we choose the analysis [[unkind]ness] rather than [un[kindness]] ?
– compare the alternants desire ~ desir- and -able ~ -abil-.
– the rightmost affix in unkindnesses is different from the other elements in this
word. What is this difference, and does the diagram show this in any way?
Exercise 5.2 Allomorphy: the plural suffix of nouns
Observe these plural nouns. Group the allomorphs of the {PLURAL} morpheme in some logical
fashion. (In English, the allomorphs are often „invisible”, not shown by the spelling. It is
advisable to use phonetic symbols, especially in the words marked „!”.)
two books
two plays
two boxes
two bridges
two places
two cliffs
two potatoes (!)
two
phenomena
two oxen
two analyses (!) two sheep
two ballets (!)
Discuss:
– which allomorphs are phonologically conditioned?
– which forms of the {PLURAL} morpheme may be regarded regular and why?
– which words show a deviation in spelling only, but not in pronunciation?
Exercise 5.3 Derivational morphology
The words below are all derived with the help of some affix (pre- or suffix). Decide whether
the word class changes or remains the same in the derived form. Fill in the table. Show the
derivational affix with a hyphen, and underline it.
boyhood, motorize, gentlemanlike, swimmer, darken, dramatic, violinist, happiness, re-write,
modernism, mountaineer, solidify, yellowish, debatable, actress, insurance, unbutton, signify,
accessible, de-ice, possibility, Turkish, unkind, original, sublet, agreement, prepay, finalize,
choosy
Base word
Noun
Noun
boy-hood
Derived word
Verb
motor-ize
Adjective
gentleman-like
Verb
Adjective
Discuss: which is the more frequent affix type in English: prefixes or suffixes?
Exercise 5.4 HOME ASSIGNMENT Morphological analysis
Analyse the following words in the same way as in Exercise 5.1. When you feel that something is doubtful or
ambiguous, write down your doubts and point out the ambiguity. Mark also interesting allomorphs.
1. reelection
6. princely
2. opponents
7. discouragingly
3. opposing
8. nervosity
4. beggar
9. unbuttoned (= ’with its buttons open’)
5. unmarried
10. unbuttoned (= ’having no buttons’)
6
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 6: SYNTAX
The following points are recommended for discussion:
Phrases (= structures) vs. sentence constituents (= functions)
Tree diagrams.
Word-classes. Sentence structure is built of phrases, not words.
Subject, predicate, object. Adverb and Adverbial. Prepositional Phrase. Determiner.
Exercise 6.1 Syntactic analysis: finding the Subject and Object
Bracket the subject and (if there is one) the object, following the models provided.
S
O
O
1. [George] invited [Jane].
2. [Each guest] slept well.
S
O
3. [The angry officer] questioned [us] immediately.
S
4. [That girl with long hair] plays in our orchestra.
5. We remembered his wise words quite often.
6. The furiously barking little dog chased him along the fence.
7. Everybody believed the strange story about the ghost.
8. These photos appeared in a magazine for women.
9. With some help you can make your own website.
Discuss: - the subject and the object are always Noun Phrases (NPs)
- one method to test what is the subject and the object is passivization. Try it where appropriate, and show how it helps our analysis.
- another useful test is replacement by a personal pronoun, which often shows case. Try it.
- the subject requires person and number concord with the verb. Show where this is useful in
our analysis.
Exercise 6.2 Syntactic analysis: drawing tree diagrams
Draw a tree diagram for the above sentences, using the models provided:
S
S
NP
N
VP
V
NP
NP
N
George invited Jane.
Det
Adj
VP
N
V
NP
Adv
Pro
The angry officer questioned us immediately.
S
NP
Det
N
VP
PP
P
V
NP
Adj N
PP
P
S
NP
Det
NP
N
That girl with long hair plays in our orchestra.
well.
Det
VP
N
Each
V
Adv
guest
slept
Discuss: - check if your diagrams show the following relations correctly. Find the examples:
- the subject and object are always NPs (even if they consist of one word)
- the subject NP is dominated by S, the object NP by V
- a PP can act as attribute (or modifier), or as adverbial.
- a PP is always made up of a P(reposition) plus an NP
- the function of adverbials can be performed by PPs or Adv(erb)s
Exercise 6.3 Structural ambiguity: PPs in two roles
The following sentences all have two „readings” (= meanings), as shown in the example.
Analyse the sentences, drawing tree diagrams for each reading (10 diagrams altogether):
1. (a) Betty [[hit] [the boy] [with the saxophone.]] = „she used a sax to hit the boy”
(b) Betty [[hit] [the boy with the saxophone.]] = „the boy she hit had a sax with
him”
2. The organizers invited a violinist from Japan.
3. My uncle washed the car in the garage.
4. Leo was watching the girl from the café.
5. Everybody preferred the book without illustrations.
Discuss: - does the passivization test help to shwo the different readings?
- another good test is the Question Test: What did Betty hit the boy with? - (a) or (b)?
Exercise 6.4. HOME ASSIGNMENT Preposition vs. Adverbial Particle
Analyse the following sentences by drawing tree diagrams:
1. Jeremy let down his friends. — 2. Jeremy climbed down the ladder.
3. The tourists used up the petrol. — 4. The tourists ran up the hill.
5. Dr Brown sat on my hat. — 6. Dr Brown put on my hat.
7. Eric believed in his younger brother. — 8. Eric called in his younger
brother.
7
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 7: SEMANTICS
The following points are recommended for discussion:
Word meaning. Synonyms, antonyms.
Homonymy, polisemy.
Nonsense, anomaly
Exercise 7.1 Referential identity
The following sentences contain two underlined words or NPs. Decide if they have a “reading”
(= sentence meaning) according to which the two words are referentially identical (= coreferential), i.e., they can refer to the same entity. If so, mark both with a subscript “i”.
1. Margareti translated heri article.
This can mean that Margaret translated her own article (of course, it can also mean that
Margaret translated another woman’s article.)
2. She translated Margaret’s article.
This can only mean that she and Margaret are two different people.
3. George couldn’t go in because the idiot had forgotten the keys.
4. The idiot couldn’t go in because George had forgotten the keys.
5. Tom had a shower when he got up.
got up.
6. He had a shower when Tom
7. When Tom got up, he had a shower.
shower.
8. When he got up, Tom had a
Discuss:
– Reference (Hung. jelölet, Latin denotatum) is not the same as meaning: can we say that
George and idiot mean the same in 3 above?
– In these sentences he, she, idiot are used as substitute words. Sentences 1 to 7 show a
regularity as to when co-reference is possible and when it is not. What is this regularity?
– Sentence 8 shows that it is not just the order that counts. How should we modify our rule?
Exercise 7.2 Semantic opposites
Here is a list of word pairs with opposite meanings. They represent two different types of opposition. Group them accordingly:
tall – short
alive – dead
corrupt
open – closed
deep – shallow
good – bad
male – female
married – single
honest –
Discuss:
– complementaries are word pairs that satisfy both of these statements:
(a) “ ‘being X’ automatically means ‘not being Y’ ”; and
(b) “ ‘not being Y’ automatically means ‘being X’ ”.
– the other group, antonyms only satisfy one statement: which one?
– which type can be “compared” grammatically (“A is Xer than B”, “A is the Xest”) ?
– which type can be used in the question form: “How X is A?” Is there a preference for one
member of these pairs when forming a question (how tall? how short?)?
– metaphorically or humorously, even complementaries can be “compared”. Give examples.
Exercise 7.3 Semantic Features.
Fill in the table by writing “+” if the feature is a necessary part of the meaning of the word:
Features
(semantic components)
cause not to exist further
cause to die
human agent
unlawfully
as lawful punishment
patient is living
patient is politician, political motive
kill
+
destro execut assass murde
y
e
i-nate
r
+
+
+
+
Discuss:
– which word has fewest pluses, i.e. is the most general in meaning?
– which word has most pluses, i.e. is the most specialized (the most restricted!) in meaning?
– the table ignores metaphoric uses, which however are quite frequent. Comment on these:
(a) Some people think that to execute is to murder.
(b) Our hopes have been killed.
(c) The neighbours have assassinated our dog.
Exercise 7.4 Dictionaries and prototypes
What is the meaning of a simple noun like leg? Here is the definition of leg from three dictionaries (we only quote the beginnings ot the articles):
● leg “organ of support and locomotion in animal, especially human, body; part of this from
hip to ankle” (COD, Concise Oxford Dictionary 1964)
● leg “(1) a limb on which an animal walks and which supports its body; (2) that part of this
limb above the foot” (LDCE, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 1978)
● leg “(1) your legs are the long parts of your body that are attached to your hips and have
your feet at the end of them; (2) the legs of an animal, bird, or insect are the thin parts of its
body that it uses to stand on or to move across the ground.” (Collins CoBuild Eng Dict 1987)
Discuss:
– compare the three dictionaries: is there a difference in their style or level of difficulty? Who
can be their target audience?
– do they agree in what are the two (most important) meanings of leg?
– what further meanings of leg can be added?
– compare leg with its with Hungarian equivalent(s). You may check in a couple of EnglishHungarian dictionaries.
Exercise 7.5 HOME ASSIGNMENT Semantic Features
Taking Exercise 7.3 as a model, analyse the nouns poem, writing, work, sonnet, fiction by
making a similar table and finding appropriate distinctive features.
8
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 8: VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
The following points are recommended for discussion:
Standard, substandard, accent, dialect, traditional-dialect.
Geographical (“horizontal”) and social (“vertical”) variation.
“Received Pron.” (RP), the Pygmalion story; Queen’s E., Oxford E., BBC E.
BrE – AmE, GA (=General American). Regional standard (vernacular), Southern Hemisphere English.
Pidgins and creoles.
(Style, slang and taboo, if not discussed in Topic 1, may be mentioned here.)
Exercise 8.1 Accent: BrE (RP) and AmE (GA)
Below is a GA version of the text given in Exercise 4.3.

/


















 
 
 











/
Discuss: – is this narrow or broad transcription?
– collect the differences between RP and GA in the text
– there are no length marks in the above transcription. Does this mean that GA has
merged long and short vowels?
– can you mention some features in which GA differs from RP but which are not
apparent in the transcription above?
– give the transcription of the words best and based in RP and GA.
Exercise 8.2 Vocabulary diferences BrE–AmE
Find the British or American equivalent of the following words and fill in the table.
BrE
railway
luggage
=
AmE
BrE
dormitory
=
AmE
BrE
presently
dormitory
downtown
lumber
MP
drugstore
Exercise 8.2 Cockney
bloke
AmE
zip code
elevator
subway
subway
sales clerk
=
flyover
martini
first floor
These sentences are from G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion, and represent Liza Doolittle’s words when
she comes to visit the professor, asking to be taught “genteel” speech (that is, the RP accent).
Each line is given here in three types of notation. (Notation “B” is basically Shaw’s own.)
1. A:
 




B: weo, if ya was a gen’leman,
C: Well, if you was a gentleman,

 
:  

ya moy’ ask me
you might ask me
 
to si’ dahn.
to sit down.
2. A: 
 


B: Oy wan’ to be
C: I want to be
a lidy

:
in a flah-shop
a lady
in a flower-shop



3. A:


 
 

B: but they wown’ tike me



: 
unless Oy can talk
C: but they won’t take me
unless I can talk
:
more genteeo.
more genteel.
Discuss:
– Compare the three types of notation. What are they? What is their purpose?
– Where does the grammar of the passage deviate from Standard English?
– Where does Notation B deviate from Standard English?
– Notation A is just a broad approximation of Cockney pronunciation. Find the words which
are pronounced (and therefore transcribed) as in RP.
– Where do we find / / and / / respectively? How does Notation B show them?
– How would Liza pronounce the words bee, bay, by, boy?
– Observe the Cockney treament of the phoneme /l/.
– Observe the occurrence of the sound // (called “glottal stop”).
Exercise 8.4 HOME ASSIGNMENT Words/expressions meaning ‘to die’.
Collect English words or expressions meaning ‘to die’ and group them according to some
criteria that you find interesting. Comment on your findings. For example,
– stylistic diffferences (official, familiar, literary, slang...);
– regional differences (Scottish, Australian, USA West Coast...);
– temporal differences (Shakespearean, current, old-fashioned, archaic...).
– syntactic differences (one word or phrase? transitive or intransitive?)
Use at least five dictionaries, including:
– a Hungarian-English dict.
– a dict. of English or American Slang
– a learner’s English-English dictionary (e.g. Longman, Hornby, Collins...)
– a very big English-English dictionary (Oxford, Webster, Random House)
Write up your findings in a mini-essay of about 2 pages, and hand it in to your instructor for
correction. Please type your text, or write in very clean handwriting!
9
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
TOPIC 9: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
The following points are recommended for discussion:
Regular/patterned nature of sound change.
Change in syntax and meaning.
Etymology. Borrowed vs. inherited words.
Relatedness of languages.
Exercise 9.1 The regularity of sound change
This list contains words in English, Dutch, and German, which belong to the West Germanic
branch of the Indo-European language family. Observe the initial consonants.
(The Dutch and German forms are given in spelling and in pronunciation.)
English
sea
smear
soap
sleep
stone
silver
so
spare
snow
-self
stand
sing
Dutch
spelling
pronun.
zee
:
smeren
:
zeep
:
slapen
:
steen
:
zilver
zo
:
sparen
:
sneeuw
:
zelf
staan
:
zingen
German
spelling
pronun.
See
:
schmieren
:
Seife
schlafen
:
Stein
Silber
so
:
sparen
:
Schnee
:
selber
stehen
:
singen
Find the answer to the following questions:
Q1. Why are some of these German words spelt with a capital letter? Does this have to do with
the phonology?
Q2. Now look at the pronunciation. What initial consonants can we see in English, in Dutch,
and in German, respectively? Write them in the table below:
E
Initial C
(in pronun.)
Du
G
Q3. English shows the original Germanic word-initial */s-/ without change. Dutch and German
have split this sound into two. Write the conditioning factors in the boxes marked “?”.
(Technically speaking: what is the distribution of these sounds?)
?
?
Germanic word-initial */s-/
becomes Dutch...
Germanic word-initial */s-/
becomes German...
Q4. Look at the spelling of the initial consonant in Dutch. Does Dutch indicate the phonological developments?
Q5. Look at the spelling in German. What is the situation there?
Q6. Compare the spelling of initial sibilant consonants (if they occur) in the data above:
E
Du
G
Initial / -/
Initial / -/
Initial / -/
Q7. Does English have word-initial /z-/ at all? Think of a few examples. In what kind of words
does /z-/ occur, in your opinion?
Exercise 9.2 Grammatical change
These sentences are in Early Modern English, taken from the King James Bible (1611).
1. When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do.
2. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
3. Judas said, “Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he.”
4. The high priest said unto Jesus: “Answerest thou nothing?”
5. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet.
1. Explain their meaning (possibly with an exact Hungarian translation).
2. See if there are vocabulary items that are no longer used. Do they represent grammatical
change?
3. Point out where the sentences would violate some grammatical rule if someone said them
today. Try to use grammatical terms to capture the differences between EMoE and PdE.
Exercise 9.3 HOME ASSIGNMENT Lexical change
These words were used in older English in a different meaning than today. Find out the original
(archaic, old-use) meaning. Try to explain how the new meaning developed.
Use a dictionary with etymology (e.g. Concise Oxford Dict.; OED; Online Etymological Dict;
Webster’s International Dict., etc.)
meat, starve, corn, engineer, car, silly, minister, lavatory, very,
liquor
BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006
10
TOPIC 10: PRAGMATICS
The following points are recommended for discussion:
Sentence types vs. language functions.
Time and tense. Deixis.
Sex and gender.
Speech acts.
Presuppositions.
Exercise 10.1 Indirect Speech
Note. Indirect Speech is also called Reported Speech.
(1) Observe and compare these examples. Make sure you understand the terminology:
Reporting Clause
Reported Clause
1. Timothy said,
“I know the music scene here.”
direct speech
2. Timothy said
(that) he knew the music scene there.
indirect speech
– What changes happen in reporting, and what makes them necessary?
(2) Hungarian.
Draw a similar table with the following Hung. sentence, both in direct and indirect form:
Géza kijelentette: “Én ismerem az itteni zenei életet.”
– Compare the data of the two languages. Are all changes parallel?
– If we wrote Hung. “... hogy ő ismerte...”, what English tense would this correspond to?
(3) Deixis.
What is the actual meaning of the words I, you; here, there; now, then; this, that? Discuss why
they are called deictic (pron. /da kt k/) elements. (The phenomenon is called deixis
/da ks s/).
– Does the Past Perfect tense express that something happened a long time ago? Consider:
(a) The guide said that dinosaurs ate only plants.
(b) The guide said that he had received the tickets.
– What is the meaning of ‘Present Tense’? Does it mean a particular day, hour, and minute?
Why can we say that “tense is a deictic category”?
– Now you can answer the question: What elements must be changed in indirect speech?
(4) Backshift.
– Re-write these sentences in two versions: once with Joe says... and once with Joe said...
Consider which changes are obligatory, and which optional, in the reported clauses.
(a) I’m answering these letters this afternoon.
(b) My uncle will arrive next Tuesday.
(c) I was sick yesterday.
(d) I was upset last week because I hadn’t received my salary.
(e) People fall into five psychological types.
Exercise 10.2 Pragmatic Functions vs. Sentence Types
There are 3 basic pragmatic (= communicative) functions, and 5 traditional sentence types.
Their standard matching is shown in the table:
Language Functions
(= Pragmatic/Communicative
Functions)
Subtypes for Polarity
Positive
Negative
(=affirmative
)
Sentence Types
statement
A. referential (= cognitive) question
(H. utaló/megismerő)
B. directive
command
(H. irányító/akciókérő)
exclamation
C. expressive
wish
(H. kifejező)
= declarative sentence
= interrogative sent.
1
3
2
4
= imperative sent.
5
6
= exclamative sent.
= optative sent.
7
8
– Write under each term in the “Sentence Types” column its traditional Hung. name.
– The sentences fitting into boxes 1, 3, 5 are called Affirmative (or Positive), those in 2, 4, 6 are
called Negative. What is the Hung. equivalent of these two terms?
– Write a simple English sentence for each box 1 to 8. For example: 1 – John is a doctor.
– The pragmatic functions can actually be expressed by practically any sentence type. For
example, an interrogative sentence with directive function could be:
B3 – Can you tell me the time? (= Please tell me the time!)
Write five such cross-matched examples (e.g. C2, B4, etc.)
Exericse 10.3 Mood
Observe the underlined verbs and verb-groups, and comment on their mood.
1. Everybody knows that Thea is working on her novel.
2. I would go anywhere to be with my love.
3. If Michael was/were American, he would need no visa.
4. The manager insisted that Albert leave at once.
5. I wish I knew the answer.
6. God bless Ireland!
Discuss the relation (and difference!) between mood, pragmatic function and sentence type.
Exercise 10.3 HOME ASSIGNMENT Tag Questions: Positive or Negative?
Tag Questions (also called Question Tags) show interesting polarity relations, that is, they can
be positive or negative, as shown below. Use three different English grammars or usage
handbooks or dictionaries to clarify what rules govern polarity choice in Tag Questions.
(1) Eve sings quite well, doesn’t she?
(2) Jane finds Tim attractive,
does she?
(3) James doesn’t know this, does he?
success, won’t it?
(4) The book won’t be a