I.
Multiple-choice Questions. Select the ONE best response to each of the following questions.
(20%)
1. Which of the following suggests that human beings can talk about things that are remote in time
andlor space?
(a) Discreteness.
(b) Productivity.
(c). Displacement.
(d) Arbitrariness.
2.
Unmarked sounds can be described as all of the following EXCEPT
(a) more frequently used in a language
(b) more unusual sounding
(c) acquired earlier in life
(d) simpler to articulate
3. The fact that we could say economics as [ i ka'namiks] or
(a) prevarication
(b) free variation
(c) openness
(d) discreteness
[ E ka'nami ks]
is an example of
4. Which of the following phonological rules is totally insensitive to morphological and syntactic
structure?
(a) Palatalization
(b) Nasal assimilation
(c) Consonant elision
(d) R-dropping
5. If said out of context, the sentence "Jan saw the people with binoculars" could serve as an
example of
(a) structural ambiguity
(b) lexical ambiguity
(c) part-of-speech ambiguity
(d) deep structure
6. Which of the following statements about semantics is NOT correct?
(a) Meaning of a word involves more than just the actual thing the word refers to.
(b) The meaning of an expression is a mental image.
(c) Knowing the meaning of a sentence involves knowing the conditions under which it is
would be true.
(d) Meaning is provided by a community of native speakers.
7. The two-word utterances of a child express a complete thought. In other words, the words have
a grammatical relationship to each other. Which of the following is NOT a common two-word
utterance?
(a) Agent-action
(b) Action-object
(c) Adverb-verb
(d) Action-location
8. Joe: "Would you like to hold my pet tarantula?" Jess: "Do you think I'm crazy?" If Joe infers
that Jess is saying no, it is because he assumes Jess is NOT violating which of the following
conversational maxims?
(a) Quality
(b) Relevance
(c) Quantity
(d) Manner
9. Which of the following pairs is an example of gradable antonyms?
(a) freshman, sophomore
(b) new, used (to describe a car)
(c) fast, slow
(d) doctor, patient
10. Which of the following statements is correct based on the sentence "Henry says, 'My sister
Mary never eats any green vegetables. "'?
(a) The sentence presupposes that Henry eats spinach.
(b) The sentence entails that Henry has a sister.
(c) The sentence presupposes that Mary would not eat string beans if they were offered to
her.
(d) The sentence entails that Mary never eats broccoli.
11. Essay Questions (80%)
11. The following two sentences are similar in their wording, yet they have different structures.
Explain how and why sentence (a) differs in structure from sentence (b). (10%)
(a) Tom took in the stray cat.
(b) Tom looked in the closet.
12. What are the four conditions that are necessary for a sentence to be perfonnative? For each of
the following sentences, state whether or not it is performative, and state reasons. (15%)
(a) King: "I'll proclaim my birthday a national holiday."
(b) Teacher: "I often dismiss my class early."
(c) Judge: "I sentence you to six years in the penitentiary."
13. Which English should you teach? Present your arguments from sociolinguistics perspective. Use
concepts such as register, code-switching, regional dialects, social dialects, prestige dialect, and
language planning to support your argument. (15%)
1
14. Transcribe the following nursery rhyme into IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). (10 %)
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!
I
I
15. New words are coined and added to a language's vernacular every day. What are the major ways
in which new words can be coined? Provide at least four ways and also give examples (either
Chinese or English) for each. (15%)
16. Discourse analysis is defined as the study of discourse which involves many aspects of
linguistic performance, of sociolinguistics, and linguistic competence (Fromkin, Rodman, &
Hyarns, 2007). The following story is obtained from CHILDES database (Rg$%Hg@%$fr;).
This story was told by a 3-year-old child who is a native speaker of English. The story is about
the adventure of a boy and a dog during their search for a missing pet frog. Use your knowledge
of linguistics to analyze this story from any aspects (e.g., the child's linguistic competence or
performance, the child's language development, or storytelling ability etc.). Limit your analysis
to only one or two aspects of discourse analysis and provide substantial discussion to support
your analysis. (15%)
And urn he this dog is looking into the bowl. And then the frog is still
in there. And now he got away. The dog got away. And then, he tried
to go in, but he didn't couldn't go in! And then he licked the boy. And
he was mad. And then some bees came out of the tree. And then he
tried to get the bees. But he couldn't! And then he looked into the hole.
There's a mouse coming. And then he climbed a tree. And then he
tried to climb the tree. But, see owl came out. He waked up the other
bees. And then they chased after the dog. And then he got on top of
here. But a reindeer splash into the water! And then he got out ofthe
water. And he looked over it. And then there was fiogs. Just like the
thing xxx frog have his friend and his friend and then the fiog. And
then the otherfiog. While say, yah. And then the end (Child: 3;9).