《英语语言学概论》重、难点提示
英语语言学概论》重、难点问与答
1.1. What is language?
“Language is system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. It is a system, since linguistic elements are arranged systematically, rather than randomly. Arbitrary, in the sense that there is us ually no intrinsic connection between a work (like “book”) and the object it refers to. This explains and is explained by the fact that different languages have different “books”: “book” in English, “livre” in French, in Japanese, in Chinese, “check” in Ko rean. It is symbolic, because words are associated with objects, actions, ideas etc. by nothing but convention. Namely, people use the sounds or vocal forms to symbolize what they wish to refer to. It is vocal, because sound or speech is the primary medium for all human languages, developed or “new”. Writing systems came much later than the spoken forms. The fact that small children learn and can only learn to speak (and listen) before they write (and read) also indicates that language is primarily vocal, r ather than written. The term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is
human specific.
1.2. What are design features of language?
“Design features” here refer to the defining properties of human language that tell the differenc e between human language and any system of animal communication. They are arbitrariness, duality, productivity, displacement, cultural transmission and interchangeability
1.3. What is arbitrariness?
By “arbitrariness”, we mean there is no logical co nnection between meanings and sounds (see I .1).
A dog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had used it for a pig. Language is
therefore largely arbitrary. But language is not absolutely seem to be some sound-meaning association, if we think of echo words, like “bang”, “crash”, “roar”, which are motivated in a certain sense. Secondly, some compounds (words compounded to be one word) are not entirely arbitrary either. “Type” and “write” are opaque or unmotivated words, while “type-writ er” is less so, or more transparent or motivated than the words that make it. So we can say “arbitrariness” is a
matter of degree.
1.4.What is duality?
Linguists refer “duality” (of structure) to the fact that in all languages so far investigated, one finds two levels of structure or patterning. At the first, higher level, language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningful units (such as morphemes, words etc.); at the second, lower level, it is seen as a sequence of segments which lack any meaning in themselves, but which combine to form units of meaning. According to Hu Zhanglin et al. (p.6), language is a system of two sets of structures, one of sounds and the other of meaning. This is important for the workings of language.
A small number of semantic units (words), and these units of meaning can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences (note that we have dictionaries of words, but no dictionary of sentences!). Duality makes it possible for a person to talk about anything within his knowledge. No animal communication system enjoys this duality, or even approaches this honor.
1.5.What is productivity?
Productivity refers to the ability to the ability to construct and understand an indefinitely large number of sentences in one’s native language, including those that has never heard before, but that are appropriate to the speaking situation. No one has ever said or heard “A red-eyed elephant is dancing on the small hotel bed with an African gibbon”, but he can say it when necess ary, and he can understand it in right register. Different from artistic creativity, though, productivity never goes outside the language, thus also called “rule-bound creativity” (by N.Chomsky).
1.6.What is displacement?
“Displacement”, as one of the des ign features of the human language, refers to the fact that one can talk about things that are not present, as easily as he does things present. In other words, one can refer to real and unreal things, things of the past, of the present, of the future. Language itself can be talked about too. When a man, for example, is crying to a woman, about something, it might be something that had occurred, or something that is occurring, or something that is to occur. When a dog is barking, however, you can decide it is barking for something or at someone that exists now and there. It couldn’t be bow wowing sorrowfully for dome lost love or a bone to
be lost. The bee’s system, nonetheless, has a small share of “displacement”, but
it is an unspeakable tiny share.
1.7.What is cultural transmission?
This means that language is not biologically transmitted from generation to generation, but that the details of the linguistic system must be learned anew by each speaker. It is true that the capacity for language in human beings (N. Chomsky called it “language acquisition device”, or LAD) has a genetic basis, but the particular language a person learns to speak is a cultural one other than a genetic one like the dog’s barking system. If a human being is brought up in isolation he cannot acquire language. The Wolf Child reared by the pack of wolves turned out to speak the wolf’s roaring “tongue” when he was saved. He learned thereafter, with no small difficulty, the ABC of a certain human language.
1.8.What is interchangeability?
(1) Interchangeability means that any human being can be both a producer and
a receiver of messages. We can say, and on other occasions can receive and understand, for example, “Please do something to make me happy.” Though some people (including me) suggest that there is sex differentiation in the actual language use, in other words, men and women may say different things, yet in principle there is no sound, or word or sentence that a man can utter and a woman cannot, or vice versa. On the other hand, a person can be the speaker while the other person is the listener and as the turn moves on to the listener, he can be the speaker and the first speaker is to listen. It is turn-taking that makes social communication possible and
acceptable.
(2) Some male birds, however, utter some calls, which females do not (or cannot?), and certain kinds of fish have similar haps mentionable. When a dog barks, all the neighboring dogs bark. Then people around can hardly tell which dog (dogs) is (are0 “speaking” and which listening.
1.9.Why do linguists say language is human specific?
First of all, human language has six “design features” which animal communication systems do not have, at least not in the true sense of them (see I .2-8). Let’s borrow C. F. Hoc ket’s Chart that compares human language with some animals’ systems,
from Wang Gang (1998,p.8).
Secondly, linguists have done a lot trying to teach animals such as chimpanzees to speak a human language but have achieved nothing inspiring. Beatnice and Alan Gardner brought up Washoe, a female chimpanzee, like a human child. She was taught “American sign Language”, and learned a little that made the teachers happy but did mot make the linguistics circle happy, for few believed in teaching chimpanzees. Thirdly, a human child reared among animals cannot speak a human language, not even when he is taken back and taught to lo to so (see the “Wolf Child”in I.7)
1.10.What functions does language have?
Language has at least seven functions: phatic, directive, Informative, interrogative, expressive, evocative and per formative. According to Wang Gang (1988,p.11), language has three main functions: a tool of communication, a tool whereby people learn about the world, and a tool by which people learn about the world, and a tool by which people create art. M .A. K.Halliday, representative of the London school, recognizes three “Macro-Functions”: ideational, interpersonal and textual (see! 11-17;see HU Zhuanglin et al., pp10-13, pp394-396).
1. 11What is the phatic function?
The “phatic function” refers to language being used for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts (rather than for exchanging information or ideas). Greetings, farewells, and comments on the weather in English and on clothing in Chinese all serve this function. Much of the phatic language (e.g. “How are you?” “Fine, thanks.”) Is insincere if taken literally, but it is important. If you don't say “Hello” to a friend you meet, or if you don’t answer his “Hi”,
you ruin your friendship.
1.1
2. What is the directive function?
The “directive function” means that language may be used to get the hearer to do something. Most imperative sentences perform this function, e.g., “Tell me the result when you finish.” Other syntactic st ructures or sentences of other sorts can, according to J.Austin and J.Searle’s “indirect speech act theory”(see Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp271-278) at least, serve the purpose of direction too, e.g., “If I were you, I would have blushed to the bottom of my ears!”
1.13.What is the informative function?
Language serves an “informational function” when used to tell something, characterized by the use of declarative sentences. Informative statements are often labeled as true (truth) or false (falsehood). According to P.Grice’s “Cooperative Principle”(see Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp282-283), one ought not to violate the “Maxim of Quality”, when he is informing at all.
1.14.What is the interrogative function?
When language is used to obtain information, it serves an “interrogative function”. This includes all questions that expect replies, statements, imperatives etc., according to the “indirect speech act theory”, may have this function as well, e.g., “I’d like to know you better.” This may bring forth a lot of personal information. Note that rhetorical questions make an exception, since they demand no answer, at least not the reader’s/listener’s answer.
1.15.What is the expressive function?
The “expressive function” is the use of language to reveal something about the feelings or attitudes of the speaker. Subconscious emotional ejaculations are good
examples, like “Good heavens!” “My God!” Sentences like “I’m sorry about the delay” can serve as good examples too, though in a subtle way. While language is used for the informative function to pass judgment on the truth or falsehood of statements, language used for the expressive function evaluates, appraises or
asserts the speaker’s own attitudes.
1.16.What is the evocative function?
The “evocative function” is the use of language to create certain feelings in the hearer. Its aim is, for example, to amuse, startle, antagonize, soothe, worry or please. Jokes (not practical jokes, though) are supposed to amuse or entertain the listener; advertising to urge customers to purchase certain commodities; propaganda to influence public opinion. Obviously, the expressive and the evocative functions often go together, i.e., you may express, for example, your personal feelings about a political issue but end up by evoking the same feeling in, or imposing it on, your
listener. That’s also the case with the other way round.
1.17.What is the per formative function?
This means people speak to “do things” or perform actions. On certain occasions the utterance itself as an action is more important than what words or sounds constitute the uttered sentence. When asked if a third Yangtze Bridge ought to be built in Wuhan, the mayor may say, “OK”, which means more than speech, and more than an average social individual may do for the construction. The judge’s imprisonment sentence, the president’s war or independence declaration, etc., are per formatives as well (see J.Austin’s speech Act Theory, Hu Zhuanglin,
ecal.pp271-278).
1.18.What is linguistics?
“Linguistics” is the scientific study of lan guage. It studies not just one language of any one society, but also the language of all human beings. A linguist, though, does not have to know and use a large number of languages, but to investigate how each language is constructed. He is also concerned with how a language varies from dialect to dialect, from class to class, how it changes from century to century, how children acquire their mother tongue, and perhaps how a person learns or should learn a foreign language. In short, linguistics studies the general principles whereupon all human languages are constructed and operate as systems of communication in their societies or communities (see Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp20-22)
1.19.What makes linguistics a science?
Since linguistics is the scientific study of language, it ought to base itself upon the systematic, investigation of language data, which aims at discovering the true nature of language and its underlying system. To make sense of the data, a linguist usually has conceived some hypotheses about the language structure, to be checked against the observed or observable facts. In order to make his analysis scientific, a linguist is usually guided by four principles: exhaustiveness, consistency, and objectivity. Exhaustiveness means he should gather all the materials relevant the study and give them an adequate explanation, in spite of the complicatedness. He is to leave no linguistic “stone” unturned. Consistency means there should be no contradiction between different parts of the total statement. Economy means a linguist should pursue brevity in the analysis when it is possible. Objectivity implies that since some people may be subjective in the study, a linguist should be (or sound at least) objective, matter-of-face, faithful to reality, so that his work constitutes part of the linguistics research.
1.20.What are the major branches of linguistics?
The study of language as a whole is often called general linguistics (e.g.Hu Zhuanglin et al., 1988;Wang Gang, 1988). But a linguist sometimes is able to deal with only one aspect of language at a time, thus the arise of various branches: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, lexicology, lexicography, etymology,
etc.
1.21.What are synchronic and diachronic studies?
The description of a language at some point of time (as if it stopped developing) is a synchrony study (synchrony). The description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study (diachronic). An e ssay entitled “On the Use of THE”, for example, may be synchronic, if the author does not recall the past of THE, and it may also be diachronic if he claims to cover a large range or period of time wherein THE has undergone tremendous alteration (see Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp25-27).
1.2
2.What is speech and what is writing?
(1) No one needs the repetition of the general principle of linguistic analysis, namely, the primacy of speech over writing. Speech is primary; because
it existed long long before writing systems came into being. Genetically children learn to speak before learning to write. Secondly, written forms just represent in this way or that the speech sounds: individual sounds, as in English and French as
in Japanese.
(2) In contrast to speech, spoken form of language, writing as written codes, gives language new scope and use that speech does not have. Firstly, messages can be carried through space so that people can write to each other. Secondly, messages can be carried through time thereby, so that people of our time can be carried through time thereby, so that people of our time can read Beowulf, Samuel Johnson, and Edgar A. Poe. Thirdly, oral messages are readily subject to distortion, either intentional or unintentional (causing misunderstanding or malentendu), while written messages allow and encourage repeated unalterable reading.
(3) Most modern linguistic analysis is focused on speech, different from
grammarians of the last century and theretofore.
1.23.What are the differences between the descriptive and the prescriptive
approaches?
A linguistic study is “descriptive” if it only describes and analyses the facts of language, and “prescriptive” if it tries to lay down rules for“correct” language behavior. Linguistic studies before this century were largely prescriptive because many early grammars were largely prescriptive because many early grammars were based on “high” (literary or religious) written records. Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive, however. It (the latter) believes that whatever occurs in natural speech (hesitation, incomplete utterance, misunderstanding, etc.) should be described in the analysis, and not be marked as incorrect, abnormal, corrupt, or lousy. These, with changes in vocabulary and structures, need to be explained
also.
1.24.What is the difference between langue and parole?
F. De Saussure refers “langue”to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and refers “parole” to the actual or actualized language, or the realization of langue. Langue is abstract, parole specific to the speaking situation; langue not actually spoken by an individual, parole always a naturally occurring event; langue relatively stable and systematic, parole is a mass of confused facts, thus not suitable for systematic investigation. What a linguist ought to do, according to Saussure, is to abstract langue from instances of parole,
I. e. to discover the regularities governing all instances of parole and make than the subject of linguistics. The langue-parole distinction is of great importance, which casts great influence on later linguists.
1.25.What is the difference between competence and performance?
(1) According to N. Chomsky, “competence” is the ideal language user’s knowl edge of the rules of his language, and “performance” is the actual realization of this knowledge in utterances. The former enables a speaker to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. A speaker’s competence is stable while his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors. So a speaker’s performance does not always match or equal his supposed competence.
(2) Chomsky believes that linguists ought to study competence, rather than performance. In other words, they should discover what an ideal speaker knows of
his native language.
(3) Chomsky’s competence-performance distinction is not exactly the same as, though similar to, F. de Saussure’s langue-parole distinction. Langue is a social product, and a set of conventions for a community, while competence is deemed as a property of the mind of each individual. Sussure looks at language more from a sociological or sociolinguistic point of view than N. Chomsky since the latter
deals with his issues psychologically or psycholinguistically.
1.26.What is linguistic potential? What is actual linguistic behavior?
M. A. K. Halliday made these two terms, or the potential-behavior distinction, in the 1960s, from a functional point of view. There is a wide range of things a speaker can do in his culture, and similarly there are many things he can say, for example, to many people, on many topics. What he actually says (i.e. his “actual linguistic behavior”) on a certain occasion to a certain person is what he has chosen from many possible injustice items, each of which he could have said (linguistic
potential).
1.27.In what way do language, competence and linguistic potential agree? In what
way do they differ? And their counterparts?
Langue, competence and linguistic potential have some similar features, but they are innately different (see 1.25). Langue is a social product, and a set of speaking conventions; competence is a property or attribute of each ideal speaker’s m ind;
linguistic potential is all the linguistic corpus or repertoire available from which the speaker chooses items for the actual utterance situation. In other words, langue is invisible but reliable abstract system. Competence means “knowing”, and lingui stic potential a set of possibilities for “doing” or “performing actions”. They are similar in that they all refer to the constant underlying the utterances that constitute what Saussure, Chomsky and Halliday respectively called parole, performance and actual linguistic behavior. Paole, performance and actual linguistic behavior enjoy more similarities than differences.
1.28.What is phonetics?
“Phonetics” is the science which studies the characteristics of human sound-making, especially those sounds used in speech, and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription (see Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp39-40), speech sounds may be studied in different ways, thus by three different branches of phonetics.
(1) Articulatory phonetics; the branch of phonetics that examines the way in which
a speech sound is produced to discover which vocal organs are involved and how they coordinate in the process. (2) Auditory phonetics, the branch of phonetic research from the hearer’s point of view, looking int o the impression which a speech sound makes on the hearer as mediated by the ear, the auditory nerve and the brain. (3) Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical properties of speech sounds, as
transmitted between mouth and ear.
Most phoneticians, however, are interested in articulator phonetics.
1.29.How are the vocal organs formed?
The vocal organs (see Figure1, Hu Zhuanglin et al., p41), or speech organs, are organs of the human body whose secondary use is in the production of speech sounds. The vocal organs can be considered as consisting of three parts; the initiator of the air-stream, the producer of voice and the resonating cavities.
1.30.What is place of articulation?
It refers to the place in the mouth where, for example, the obstruction occurs, resulting in the utterance of a consonant. Whatever sound is pronounced, at least some vocal organs will get involved. g. Lips, hard palate etc., so a consonant may be one of the following (1) bilabial: [p, b, m]; (2) labiodental: [f, v]; (3) dental: [,]; (4) alveolar: [t, d, l, n.s, z]; (5) retroflex; (6) palato-alveolar: [,]; (7) palatal: [j]; (8) velar [k, g,]; (9) uvular; (10) glottal: [h].
Some sounds involve the simultaneous use of two places of articulation. For example, the English [w] has both an approximation of the two lips and those two lips and that of the tongue and the soft palate, and may be termed “labial-velar”.
1.31.What is the manner of articulation?
The “manner of articulation” literally means the way a sound is articulated. At a given place of articulation, the airstreams may be obstructed in various ways, resulting in various manners of articulation, are the following: (1) plosive: [p, b, t, d, k, g]; (2) nasal: [m, n,]; (3) trill; (4) tap or flap; (5) lateral: [l];
(6) fricative: [f, v, s, z]; (7) approximant: [w, j]; (8) affricate: [].
1.3
2.How do phoneticians classify vowels?
Phoneticians, in spite of the difficulty, group vowels in 5 types: (1) long and short vowels, e.g.,[i:,]; (4) rounded and unround vowels,e.g.[,i]; (5) pure and gliding
vowels, e.g.[I,].
1.33.What is IPA? When did it come into being ?
The IPA, abbreviation of “International Phonetic Alphabet”, is a compromise system making use of symbols of all sources, including diacritics indicating length, stress and intonation, indicating phonetic variation. Ever since it was developed in 1888, IPA has undergone a number of revisions.
1.34.What is narrow transcription and what is broad transcription?
In handbook of phonetics, Henry Sweet made a distinction between “narrow” and “broad” transcriptions, which he called “Narrow Romic”. The former was meant to symbolize all the possible speech sounds, including even the most minute shades of pronunciation while Broad Romic or transcription was intended to indicate only those sounds capable of distinguishing one word from another in a given language.
1.35.What is phonology? What is difference between phonetics and phonology? (1) “Phonology” is the study of sound systems- the invention of distinctive speech sounds that occur in a language and the patterns wherein they fall. Minimal pair, phonemes, allophones, free variation, complementary distribution, etc., are all to be investigated by a phonologist.
(2) Phonetics, as discussed in I.28, is the branch of linguistics studying the characteristics of speech sounds and provides methods for their description,
classification and transcription. A phonetist is mainly interested in the physical properties of the speech sounds, whereas a phonologist studies what he believes are meaningful sounds related with their semantic features, morphological features, and the way they are conceived and printed in the depth of the mind phonological knowledge permits a speaker to produce sounds which from meaningful utterances, to recognize a foreign “accent”, to make up new words, to add the appropriate phonetic segments to from plurals and past tenses, to know what is and what is not a sound in one’s
language.
1.36.What is a phone? What is a phoneme? What is an allophone?
(1) A “phone” is a phonetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. When we hear the following words pronounced:[pit], [tip], [spit], etc., the similar phones we have heard are [p] for one thing, and t hree different[p]’s, readily making possible the “narrow transcription or diacritics”. Phones may and may not distinguish meaning. A “phoneme” is a phonological unit; it is a unit that is of distinctive value. As an abstract unit, a phoneme is not any particular sound, but rather it is represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context. For example, the phoneme[p] is represented differently in [pit], [tip] and [spit].
(2) The phones representing a phoneme are called its “allophones”, i. e., the different (i.e., phones) but do not make one word so phonetically different as to create a new word or a new meaning thereof. So the different[p]’s in the above words are the allophones of the same phoneme[p]. How a phoneme is represented by a phone, or which allophone is to be used, is determined by the phonetic context in which it occurs. But the choice of an allophone is not random. In most cases it is rule-governed; these rules are to be found out by a phonologist.
1.37.What are minimal pairs?
When two different phonetic forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the string , the two forms(i. e., word) are supposed to form a “minimal pair”, e.g., “pill” and “bill”, “pill” and “till”,“till” and “dill”, “till” and “kill”, etc. All these words together constitute a minimal set. They are identical in form except for the initial consonants. There are many minimal pairs in English, which makes it relatively easy to know what are English phonemes. It is of great importance to find the minimal pairs when a phonologist is dealing with the sound system of an unknown language(see
Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp65-66).
1.38.What is free variation?
If two sounds occurring in the same environment do not contrast; namely, if the substitution of one for the other does not generate a new word form but merely a different pronunciation of the same word, the two sounds then are said to be in “free variation”. The plosives, for example, may not be exploded when t hey occur before another plosive or a nasal (e. g., act, apt, good morning). The minute distinctions may, if necessary, be transcribed in diacritics. These unexploded and exploded plosives are in free variation. Sounds in free variation should be assigned to the
same phoneme.
1.39.What is complementary distribution?
When two sounds never occur in the same environment, they are in “complementary distribution”. For example, the aspirated English plosives never occur after[s], and the unsaturated ones never occur initially. Sounds in complementary distribution may be assigned to the same phoneme. The allophones of[l], for example, are also in complementary distribution. The clear[l] occurs only before a vowel, the voiceless equivalent of[l] occurs only after a voiceless consonant, such as in the words “please”, “butler”, “clear”, etc., and the dark[l] occurs only after a vowel or as a syllabic sound after a consonant, such as in the words “feel”,
“help”, “middle”, etc.
1.40.What is the assimilation rule? What is the deletion rule?
(1) The “assimilation rule” assimilates one segment to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones more similar. This rule accounts for the raring pronunciation of the nasal[n] that occurs within a word. The rule is that within a word the nasal consonant[n] assumes the same place of articulation as the following consonant. The negative prefix “in-“ serves as a good example. It may be pronounced as [in], or [im] when occurring in different phonetic contexts: e. g., indiscrete-[ ](alveolar)
inconceivable-[ ](velar)
input-[‘imput](bilabial)
The “deletion rule” tells us when a sound is to be deleted although is orthographically represented. While the letter “g” is mute in “sign”, “design”
and “paradigm”, it is pronounced in their corresponding derivatives:
“signature”, “designation” and “paradigmatic”. The rule then can be stated as: delete a [g] when it occurs before a final nasal consonant. This accounts for some of the seeming irregularities of the English spelling (see Dai Weidong ,pp22-23).
1.41.What is suprasegmental phonology? What are suprasegmental features? “Suprasegmental phonology” refers to the study of phonological properties of linguistic units larger than the segment called phoneme, such as syllable, word and
sentence.
Hu Zhuanglin et al.,(p,73) includes stress, length and pitch as what they suppose to be “principal suprasegmental features”, calling the concurrent patterning of three “intonation”. Dai Weidong(pp23-25) lists three also, but they are stress,
tone and intonation.
1.4
2.What is morphology?
“Morphology” is the branch of grammar that studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed. It is generally divided into two fields: inflectional morphology and lexical/derivational morphology.
1.43.What is inflection/inflexion?
“Inflection” is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect, and case, which does not change the grammatical class of the items to which they are
attached.
1.44.What is a morpheme? What is an allomorph?
(1) The “morpheme” is the smallest unit in terms of relationship between expression and content, a unit which cannot be divided without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical. The word “boxes”, for example, has two morphemes: “box” and “-es”, neither of which permits further division or analysis if we don’t wish to sacrifice meaning.
Therefore a morpheme is considered the minimal unit of meaning.
(2) Allomorphs, like allophones vs. phones, are the alternate shapes (and thus phonetic forms) of the same morphemes. Some morphemes, though, have no more than one invariable form in all c ontexts, such as “dog”, “cat”, etc. The variants of the plurality “-s” make the allomorphs thereof in the following examples:
map-maps, mouse-mice, sheep-sheep etc.
1.45.What is a free morpheme? What is a bound morpheme?
A “free morpheme” is a morpheme that constitutes a word by itself, such as ‘bed”, “tree” ,etc. A “bound morpheme” is one that appears with at least another morpheme, such as “-s” in “beds” , “-al” in “national” and so on. All monomorphemic words are free morphemes. Those polymorphemic words are either compounds (combination of two or more free morphemes )or derivatives (word derived
from free morphemes).
1.46.What is a root ? What is a stem? What is an affix?
A “root” is the base form of a word that cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity. In other words, a “root” is that part of the word left when all the affixes are removed. “Internationalism” is a four-morpheme derivative which keeps its free morpheme “nation” as its root when “ inter-”, “-al” and “-ism”
are taken away.
A “stem” is any morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an affix can be added. It may be the same as , and in other cases, different from, a root. For example, in the word “friends” , “friend” is both the root and the stem, but in the word “friendships”, “friendships” is its stem, “friend” is its root. Some words (i. e., compounds ) have more than one root ,e. g., “mailman” , “girlfriend” ,ect. An “affix” is the collective term for the type of formative that can be used, only when added to another morpheme(the root or stem). Affixes are limited in number in a language, and are generally classified into three subtypes: prefix, suffix and infix, e. g. , “mini-”, “un-”, ect.(prefix); “-ise”, “-tion”, ect.(suffix).
1.47.What are open classes? What are closed classes?
In English, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs make up the largest part of the vocabulary. They are “open –class words”, since we can regularly add new lexical entries to these classes. The other syntactic categories are, for the most part, closed classes, or closed-class words. The number of them is hardly alterable, if
they are changeable at all.
1.48.What is lexicon? What is word? What is lexeme? What is vocabulary? Lexicon?
Word? Lexeme? Vocabulary?
“Lexicon”, in its most general sense, is synonymous with vocabulary. In its technical sense, however, lexicon deals with the analysis and creation of words,
idioms and collocations. “Word” is a unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by native-speakers, whether it is expressed in spoken or written form. This definition is perhaps a little vague as there are different criteria with regard to its identification and definition. It seems that it is hard , even impossible, to define “word” linguistically. Nonetheless it is uni versally agreed that the following three senses are involved in the definition of “word”, none of which, though, is expected to cope with all the situations: (1)a physically definable unit ,e. g.,[it iz ‘w](phonological), “It is wonder” (orthographic);
(2) the common factor underlying a set of forms (see what is the common factor of “checks”, “checked”, “checking ”, etc.); (3) a grammatical unit(look at (1) again; every word plays a grammatical part in the sentence). According to Leonard Bloomfield, a word is a minimum free form (compare: a sentence is a maximum free form, according to Bloomfield ). There are other factors that may help us identify words: (1) stability (no great change of orthographic features);
(2)relative uninterruptibility (we can hardly insert anything between two parts of
a word or between the letters). To make the category clearer we can subclassify words into a few types: (1) variable and invariable words(e. g.,-mats, seldom-?); (2) grammatical and lexical words(e. g. to, in ,etc., and table, chair, ect. By “lexical words” we mean the words that carry a semantic content, e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs; (3) closed-class and open-class words(see I.47). In order to reduce the ambiguity of the term “word” ,the term “lexeme” is postulated as the abtract unit which refers to the smallest unit in the meaning system of a language that can be distinguished from other smaller units. A lexeme can occur in many different forms in actual spoken or written texts. For example, “write” is the lexeme of the following words: “write”, “write”, “wrote”, “writing”,
and “written.”
“Vocabulary” usually refers to all words or lexical items a person has acquired about technical or/and untechnical things. So we encourage our students to enlarge their vocabulary. “vocabulary” is also used to mean word list or glossary.
1.49.What is collocation?
“Collocation” is a term used in lexicology by some linguists to refer to the habitual co-occurrences of individual lexical items. For example, we can “read”
a “book”; “correct” can narrowly occur with “book” which is supposed to have faults, but no one can “read” a “mistake” because with regard to co-occurrence
these two words are not collocates.
1.50.What is syntax?
“Syntax” is the study of the rules gov erning the ways in which words, word groups and phrases are combined to form sentences in a language, or the study of the interrelationships between sentential elements.
1.51.What is a sentence?
L. Bloomfield defines “sentence” as an independent linguistic form not included by some grammatical marks in any other linguistic from, i. e., it is not subordinated to a larger linguistic form, it is a structurally independent linguistic form. It
is also called a maximum free form.
1.5
2.What are syntactic relations?
“Syntactic relations” refer to the ways in which words, word groups or phrases form sentences; hence three kinds of syntactic relations: positional relations, relations of substitutability and relations of co-occurrence.
(1) “Positional relation”, or “word order”, refers to the sequential arrangement to words in a language. It is a manifestation of a certain aspect of what F. de Saussure called “syntagmatic relations”, or of what other linguists call “horizontal relations” or “chain relations”.
(2) “Relations of substitutability” refer to classes or sets of words substitutable for each other grammatically in same sentence structures. Saussure called them “associative relations”. Other people call them
“paradigmatic/vertical/choice relations”.
(3) By “relations of co-occurrence”, one means that words of different sets of clauses may permit or require the occurrence of a word of another set or class to form a sentence or a particular part of a sentence. Thus relations of co-occurrence partly belong to syntagmatic relations and partly to paradigmatic relations.
1.53.What is IC analysis? What are immediate constituents(and ultimate
constituents)?
“IC analysis” is a new approach of sentence study that cuts a sentence into two(or more) segments. This kind of pure segmentation is simply dividing a sentence into its constituent elements without even knowing what they really are . What remain of the first cut are called “immediate constituents”, and what are left at the final cut are called “ultimate constituents”. For example, “John left yesterday”
can be thus segmented: “John| left | | yesterday”. We get two immediate
constituents for the first cut (|), and they are “John” and “left yesterday”. Further split(||) this sentence generates three “ultimate constituents”: “John”,
“left ” and “yesterday”.
1.54.What are endocentric and exocentric constructons? “Endocentric construction” is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its constituents, i. e., a word or a group of words, which serves as a definable “centre” or “head”. Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective phrases belong to endocentric types because the constituent items are subordinate to the head. “Exocentric construction”, opposite of endocentri c construction, refers to a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as whole ;that is to say ,there is no definable centre or head inside the group. Exocentric construction usually includes basic sentence, prepositional phrase, predicate(verb+object) construction, and connective(be+complement) construction.
1.55.What is a subject? A predicate? An object?
(1) In some language, an “subject” refers to one of the nouns in the nominative case, such as “pater” in the following example: “pater filium amat” (put literally in English: the father the son loves). In English, a “grammatical subject” refers to a noun which can establish correspondence with the verb and which can be checked by a tag-ques tion test, e.g., “He is a good cook(, isn’t he?).”
(2) A “predicate” refers to a major constituent of sentence structure in
a binary analysis in which all obligatory constituents other than the subject are considered together. e.g., in the sentence “The monkey is jumping ”, “is
jumping ” is the predicate.
(3) Traditionally “object” refers to the receiver or goal of an action, and it is further classified into two kinds: direct object and indirect object. In some inflecting languages, an object is marked by case labels: the “accusative case” for direct object, and the “dative case ” for direct object, and the “dative case” for indirect to word order(after the verb and preposition) and by inflections(of pronouns). E .g., in the sentence “John kissed me”, “me” is the object. Modern linguists suggest that an object refers to such an item that it can become a subject in passive transformation.
1.56.What is category?
The term “category” in some approaches refers to classes and functions in its narrow sense, e.g., noun, verb, subject, predicate, noun phrase, verb phrase, etc. More specifically it refers to the defining properties of these general units: the categories of the noun, for example, include number, gender, case and
countability ;and of the verb, for example, tense, aspect, voice, etc.
1.57.What is number? What is gender? What is case?
(1) “Number” is a grammatical category used for the analysis of word classes displaying such contrasts as singular, dual, plural, etc. In English, number is mainly observed in nouns, and there are only two forms: singular and plural. Number is also reflected in the inflections of pronouns and verbs.
(2) “Gender” displays such contrasts as “masculine”, “feminine”, “neuter”, or “animate” and “inanimate”, etc., for the analysis of word classes. When word items refer to the sex of the real-world entities, we natural gender(the
opposite is grammatical gender).
(3) “Case” identifies the syntactic relationship between words in a sentence. In Latin grammar, cases are based on variations in the morphological forms of the word, and are given the terms “accusative”, “nominative”, “dative”,etc. In English, the case category is realized in three ways: by following a preposition
and by word order.
1.58.What is concord? What is government?
“Concord ” may be defined as requirement that the forms of two or more words of specific word classes that stand in specific syntactic relationship with one another shall be characterized by the same paradigmatically marked category or categories, e.g., “man runs”, “men run”. “Government” requires that one word of a particular class in a given syntactic class shall exhibit the form of a specific category. In English, government applies only to pronouns among the variable words ,that is , prepositions and verbs govern particular forms of the paradigms of pronouns according to their syntactic relation with them, e.g. , “I helped him;
he helped me.”
1.59.What is a phrase? What is a clause?
(1) A “phrase” is a single el ement of structure containing more than one
word, and lacking the subject-predicate structure typical of “clauses”. Traditionally, it is seen as part of a structural hierachy, falling between a clause
and word, e.g., “the three tallest girls” (nominal phra se). There is now a tendency to make a distinction between word groups and phrases. A “word group” is an extension of a word of a particular class by way of modification with its main features of the class unchanged. Thus we have nominal group, verbal group, adverbial group, conjunction group and preposition group.
(2) A “clause” is group of words with its own subject and predicate included in a larger subject-verb construction, namely, in a sentence. Clauses can also be classified into two kinds: finite and non-finite clauses, the latter referring to what are traditionally called infinitive phrase, participle phrase and gerundial
phrase. (For “sentence”, see I.51.)
1.60.What is conjoining? What is embedding? What is recursiveness?
“Conjoining” refers to a construction where one clause is co-ordinated or conjoined with another, e. g., “John bought a cat and his wife killed her.” “Embedding” refers to the process of construction where one clause is included in the sentence (or main clause) in syntactic subordination, e.g., “I saw the man who had killed a chimpanzee.” By “recursiveness” we mean that there is theoretically no limit to the number of the embedded clauses in a complex sentence. This is true also with nominal and adverbial clauses, e.g., “I sa w the man who killed
a cat who…a rat which…that…”
1.61.What is hypotactic relation? What is paratactic relation? “Hypotactic relation” refers to a construction where constituents are linked by means of conjunction, e.g. “He bought eggs and milk.” “Paratactic relation” refers to constructions which are connected by juxtaposition, punctuation or intonation, e. g., “He bought tea, coffee, eggs and milk” (pay attention to the first three nouns connected without “and”).
1.6
2.What is semantics?
“Semantics” refe rs to the study of the communication of meaning through language.
Or simply, it is the study of meaning.
1.63.What is meaning?
Though it is difficult to define, “meaning” has the following meaning: (1) an intrinsic property; (2) the connotation of a word; (3) the words put after a dictionary entry; (4) the position an object occupies in a system; (5) what the symbol user actually refers to; (6) what the symbol user should refer to; (7) what
the symbol user believes he is referring to; (8) what the symbol interpreter refers to; (9) what the symbol interpreter believes it refers to; (10) what the symbol interpreter believes the user refers to… linguists argued about “meaning of meaning” fiercely in the result of “realism”, “conceptualism/mentalism”, “mechanism”, “contextualism”, “behaviorism”, “functionalism”, etc. (see Hu Zhuanglin et al., pp140-142). Mention ought to be made of the “Semantic Triangle Theory” of Ogden & Richards. We use a word and the listener knows what it refers to because, according to the theory, they have acquired the same concept/reference of the word used and of the object/referent.
1.64.What is the difference between meaning, concept, connotation, sense, implication, denotation, notation, reference, implicature and signification?
(1) “Meaning” refers to the association of language symbols with the real word. (2) “Concept” or “notion” is the impression of objects in people’s mind.
(3) “connotation” is the implied meaning ,similar to “implication” and “implicature”. (4) “Sense” i s the lexical position in which a word finds itself.
(5) “Denotation”, like “sense”, is not directly related with objects, but makes the abstract assumption of the real world. (6) “Reference” is the word-object relationship. (7) “Implicature”, in its narro w sense, refers to conversational implicature achieved by intentionally violating one of the four CP maxims (see I.122-123). (8) “Signification”, in contrast with “value”, mean the meaning of
situation may not have any communicative value, like “What’s thi s?
1.65.What is the Semantic/Semiotic Triangle?
Ogden and Richards presented the classic “Semantic Triangle” as manifested in the following diagram, in which the “symbol” or “form” refers to the linguistic elements (word, sentence, etc.), the “referent” r efers to the object in the world of experience, and “thought” or “reference” refers to concept or notion. Thus, the symbol a word signifies “things” by virtue of the “concept”, associated with the form of the word in the mind of the speaker of the language. The “concept”
thus considered is meaning of the word.
1.66.What is contextualism?
“Contextualism” is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from, or reduce it to, observable context: the “situational context” and the “linguistic context”. Every utterance occurs in a particular spatio-temporal situation, as the
高中英语语法重点难点回顾
高中英语语法重点难点回顾 ?主谓一致常考难题： Five minuｔes iｓ enougｈｔo do this exerｃise．?Ｅａch boy anｄ each girl ｗants to servｅｔｈe people ｉn fuｔuｒe.?More thａn one stｕｄｅnt haｓ se ｅn ｔhe film. ?Mａny a ship has been daｍageｄ in tｈｅ stoｒm.?More members than ｏnｅａre against yoｕr ｐlaｎ.?一些有两个部分构成的名词表示衣物或工具作主语时，谓语通常用复数形式：gｌasseｓ, cｌoｔheｓ, troｕｓers，ｓhoes, comｐasse ｓ， chｏpsticks, ｓciｓsors等。 但如果主语用a kｉnd oｆ, ａｐaiｒ oｆ， a series of等加名词构成时, 谓语动词一般用单数形式。A ｐair ｏｆ sｈoes was on tｈe desk． 并列主语如果指的是同一个人、同一事物或同一概念时, 谓语动词用单数形式, 这时ａnd 后面的名词没有冠词。例如： Trutｈａnd hｏnｅsty is tｈｅ best poliｃy.?The girl’ｓteacｈer ａnd fri ｅｎｄ iｓ a ｙoｕnｇ doctor. To lovｅ and tｏｂｅｌｏveｄ is thｅ gｒeat hａｐpiness.?Goinｇｔo ｂeｄe ａrlｙａnd getｔｉng ｕp earlｙｉｓ a gooｄｈａｂit．?A knifｅanｄf ｏrk ｉs oｎｔｈｅtablｅ. 当主语后面跟有ａs wｅlｌａs, aｓｍuch ａｓ , no ｌess than, alonｇwith， w ｉｔｈ，ｌike, rａthｅr than, ｔogetheｒ witｈ, but, eｘceｐt, ｂesｉdes，ｉｎcｌuding, ｉn ａddiｔion ｔo等引导的词组时, 其谓语动词的单、复数按主语的单、复数而定。例如: The ｔeaｃheｒａs wｅll as ｔｈe studeｎts ｗas exciｔed.?Tｈe room with its furnitｕｒe was reｎtｅd.?Ａ (grｅａt）ｎumber ｏf修饰可数复数名词, 谓语动词用复数; a gｒeat deal of,a largｅａmount of 修饰不可数名词, 其短语作主语时，谓语动词用单数。 关系代词wｈｏ, that, ｗhicｈ等在定语从句中作主语时, 其谓语动词的数应与句中先行词的数一致。例如： Ｔhｏse whｏ want ｔo go pｌease sign youｒ namｅs here. Somｅ oｆ the eｎｅｒgｙ thａt ｉs used by man cｏmｅs fｒom thｅｓun． 季节、月份、星期、节日、假日、一日三餐、学科名称,球类、棋类名词名称前一般不加冠1/2 one(a）hａlf 1/4 one(ａ）ｑuarter 词。? 形容词的顺序: 系动词be，grow，get，becoｍｅ，fｅel，appear,provｅ,ｓeｅm,look,ｋeep，smell，t ａste,soｕnd,ｔurn,remaｉn限定词+数量形容词(序数词在前,基数词在后)+性状形容词＋大小、长短、高低等形体+新旧+颜色+国藉+材料?Tｈoｓe tｈree beautiｆul laｒｇe squ ａｒe oｌd bｒｏwn wooｄtaｂｌe?某些以a－开首的形容词例如:ａｆraｉｄ,ａliｋe，alone，asｌｅeｐ，awake, alive 等只能作表语,不能作定语。 某些以－ly结尾的词是形容词而不是副词：fｒiｅｎdｌy，liｖｅlｙ, loveｌy，lｏnely，likely,dｅadｌy,siｌｌｙ，orderlｙ, ｔimely等。?1）close接近地 clｏseｌy仔细地,密切地?2）ｆｒeｅ免费地ｆreｅly自由地,无拘束地 3)harｄ努力地 hardlｙ几乎不 4)lａte 晚，迟lately 近来?5)most 极，非常ｍostｌy主要地?6）widｅ广阔地，充分地 wideｌy广泛地?７)ｈiｇｈ高 hｉghｌy高度地,非常地 ８)deｅp深,迟 deeｐｌy抽象意义的“深”
语言学概论复习重点与难点
语言学概论复习重点与难点
<语言学概论>复习重点与难点 指导老师陈蓉 1.1语义就是语言的意义，是语言形式表达的内容。语义包含两个方面的内容，一是思想，也就是所谓的“理性意义”，一是情感，也就是所谓的“非理性意义”。理性意义也叫做逻辑意义或指称意义，是对主客观世界的认识。理性意义是语义的基本要素。非理性意义是说话人的主观情感、态度以及语体风格等方面的内容，它一般总是附着在特定的理性意义之上的。 语义是同语言形式结合在一起的意义，同语言形式的结合是语义的基本特征。 语言形式粗略的说，包括“语汇形式”和“语法形式”两类。语汇形式就是一种语言里所有的实词和固定短语，语法形式包括语序、虚词、形态、重音、语调等形式。由语汇形式表达的语义通常叫“词汇意义”，由语法形式表达的语义叫“语法意义”。
在语言里，语素、词、词组、句子等各级单位都有意义，它们的意义都是语义。其中句子的意义和词的意义具有突出的地位。 语言形式所表达的意义有一般与个别、稳定与临时的分别。在通常情况下都能够存在的意义是一般的、稳定的，在特定睥上下文、特定的交际场合中或特定的知识背景下才能出现的意义是人别的临时的。前者叫“语言意义”即语义，后者叫“语境意义”。 1.2 语义的概括性 概括性是语义的重要属性，无论是词义还是句义都是概括的。 1.3 语义的模糊性 所谓的模糊性是指词义所反映的对象只有一个大致的范围，而没有明确的界限。但也不是所有的词语都如此。不少词语的词义是精确的。 1.4 语义的民族性
语义的民族特点比较突出地体现在词义上。语义的民族特点也体现在词语的非理性意义方面。 2.1 词义的构成 词义是指词的语音形式所表达的内容。词的意义包括词汇意义和语法意义两部分。词义可以说是由理性意义和非理性意义两部分构成的。 词的理性意义是通过人的抽象思维对物质世界和精神世界的各种对象的概括的反映而形成的。 词的理性意义由于概括深度上的差异而分为两种类型：一种是人们对事物所具有的一组非本质特征的反映，这种词的理性意义可以称之为“通俗意义”；另一种是人们对事物的本质特征的反映，这种词的理性意义可以称为“科学意义”。 词的理性意义是词义的基本的和核心的部分。 词的非理性意义是附着在词的理性意义之上的，因而又叫做词义的附加色彩。
高中英语重难点归纳
高中英语重难点归纳 情态动词（语气或者表推断），冠词和数词（比较级，最高级），不定代词也要掌握 虚拟语气（一般考动词的正确时态）。 名词性从句和形容词性从句（一般考引导词）。 副词性从句 强调句和 it 的用法（判断强调句选出正确的代词） 倒装句（谓语的正确形式）完全倒装不完全倒装 省略句 7被动句 定语从句和状语从句（引导词的区别及运用） 主谓一致常考难题 时态语态，。 非谓语的考察（难） 知识要点：形容词或副词 形容词或副词在浙江英语高考卷中考到三次。对于形容词和副词， 学生首先应该掌握形容词和副词的比较级和最高级。热点预测：学生重 要掌握两个即可：一是在下面这些半系动词sound，taste ，smell ，look ，feel ，seem，appear ，stand ，fall，remain，keep，get，grow，become，turn等后面常跟形容词作表语。二是掌握名词前多个形容词的顺序问 题，一般表主观形容词，如新旧大小长短是否漂亮这些形容词在前，表 客观形容词，如颜色材料质地本质形容词在后面。 知识要点：替代词的用法 为使表达简洁明了，我们常用it，one，ones，that，those等替代词来替代前面已经出现的名词。从近几年的高考英语情况来看，考查替代词的用法和区别一直是一个热点。 用法指南： 1) 替代泛指的单数名词，通常用one 。
2) 替代特指的单数名词，可用 it ，that ， the one 。( 替代不可数名词时，不能用the one ，而要用 it或that。替代人时，或有前置定语或后置定语修饰时，只能用the one 。) 3) 替代泛指的复数名词，通常用 ones 。 4) 替代特指的复数名词，通常用the ones。 知识要点： what 的用法 What 在代词中属难掌握的词汇之一，也是高考英语的重量级词汇。一方面由于该结构及意义表现出明显的汉英差异; 另一方面，高考在命题时不断使题干结构复杂化，这在很大程度上增加了题目的难度。热点预测： What 用在主语从句、宾语从句、表语从句中应充当成分，做主语、宾语或表语等 ,但是不能用在定语从句中。 知识要点；虚拟语气 虚拟语气在非真实条件句中 与现在事实相反的假设 与过去事实相反的假设 与将来事实相反的假设从句主句 If + 主语 + 助动词的过主语 + should/would/could/might+ 去式（ were, did, had ）动词原形 If + 主语 +had+过去分词主语+should/would/could/might +have+过去分词 ①If+ 主语 + 动词过去主语+ should/would/could/might+ 式动词原形 ②If+ 主语 +were to+动 词原形 ③If+ 主语 +should+ 动 词原形 (注意不能是 would) 例句 If I had time, I would attend the meeting. If I were you, I should seize the opportunity to go abroad. If you had taken my advice, you would not have failed in the exam. If you came tomorrow, we would have the meeting. If it were to rain tomorrow, we would put off the sports meeting. If he should not come tomorrow, we should put off the meeting till next Monday. 虚拟语气 (2)——虚拟语气在名词从句中 1.在由 suggest, demand, require, request, insist, order, command, propose 等表示建议、请求、命令、愿望等动词或其同根词引出的名词从句中，名词从句虚拟句的谓语变化的形式只有一条
语言学概论重难点解析.
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英语语言学讲解
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三、教学重点与难点: 本课程的教学重点是语言学的基本知识和基本理论，语音学、词汇学、句法学、语义学和语用学这些语言学的核心内容。 本课程的教学难点是音韵学理论、句法结构和各个语言学流派的理论观点及其局限性。 四、与其它课程的关系: 本课程是一门主干性课程。与其相关的课程，如语法学、词汇学和语体学等都是语言学的分支，属于选修课程。 五、学时与学分: 学时：72学时 学分：4学分 六、教学内容： 第一章绪论 本章主要教学内容: 1．语言学习的意义 2．语言的定义。 3．语言的定义特征 4．语言的起源。 5．语言的功能。 6．语言学的定义。 7．语言学的核心内容。 8．宏观语言学的定义及分支。
[高中英语必修选修]高一英语各单元知识点总结及重难点解析
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高一英语重点语法总结与归纳
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语言学概论重难点解析
语言学概论重难点解析 一、语言与言语得区别与联系。 (一)语言与言语得区别 1、语言就是表达思想得工具、就是交际得工具,言语则就是使用语言工具得行为与结果。就这一点而言,它们就是工具与对工具运用得关系。 2、言语就是个人得,语言就是社会得。言语就是个人得言语行为,以个人得意志为转移,因而言语具有个人因素。可以说,每个人说话得嗓音、每个音得具体发音、每个人使用得词语与句子结构等方面都有个人得特色,而且每一个人每一次说话都可能就是不同得。语言就是属于社会得,语言要遵循一个原则:全社会都能顺利地进行交流。语言就是从言语中归纳出得一套标准、准则得系统,就是音义结合,由词汇、语法构成得一个完整得体系,因而它具有社会因素。 3、语言就是有限得、封闭得,言语就是无限得、开放得。语言得材料、规则就是有限得,相对稳定得,因而也就是相对封闭得。如现代汉语有400多个音节,上千个语素,几十万个词,语法规则更加有限。汉语如此,其她语种无不如此,其音位、词汇、语法规则都就是有限得。而且变化缓慢,相对稳定。 言语得开放性,则表现为利用有限得材料与规则造出所需要得无限得句子。从组合关系上讲,其长度可以就是无限长得(从理论上讲)。(如:学生。就是学生。就是中文系得学生。她就是中文系得学生。……她就是闽江学院中文系二年级一班得学生。……)人们可以利用聚合关系来替换语言链条上得各个环节,因而即使在句子得长度相同得情况下,仍然可以造出各种各样得句子来。(例如:①我们热爱祖国。②她们喜欢唱歌。③小张爱好音乐。……理论上讲可以就是无限得) 数量有限得语音形式与语义内容结合成语素。数量有限得语素构成数量有限得词语。数量有限得语法规则支配数量有限得词语,造出无穷无尽得句子,这就就是言语得无限性。语言得有限性,免除了人们不必要得过重得记忆负担;言语得无限性,使人们能够造出各种各样得句子,充分满足交际得需要。 (二)语言与言语得联系 语言与言语又有非常密切得联系。 一方面,语言存在于言语之中,言语就是语言存在得形式。语言就是从言语中概括出来得,没有言语就无所谓语言。 另一方面,语言就是对言语得规范,语言来源于言语而又作用于言语,言语或言语行为必须遵循一定得规则——语言规则。如果不遵循这些规则,就会造成交际得障碍。 二、如何理解语言就是人类最重要得交际工具 人类社会得交际工具很多,除了语言之外,人类还使用其她得交际工具:文字、旗语、红绿灯、电报代码、数学符号、化学公式以及身势、表情等,这些非语言得交际工具,也都在交际中发挥一定得作用,但就是它们在交际中得重要性与灵便性远不能与语言相比。 1、文字就是记录语言得书写符号体系,它打破了语言交际中时间与空间得限制,大大增强了语言得交际功能得发挥,在社会生活中起着重大得作用。但就是,文字在交际中得重要性远不能与语言相比。 (1)文字就是辅助性得,处于从属地位。一个社会可以没有文字,但不能没有语言;没有语言,社会就不能生存与发展。 (2)人类语言得历史与人类社会得历史一样漫长,而文字仅有数千年得历史。今天世界上没有文字得语言比有文字得语言多得多。 因此,文字就是在语言基础上产生得一种最重要得辅助性交际工具。 2、旗语、电报代码、数学符号等交际工具,大多就是在语言与文字得基础上产生得,就是更加后起得交际工具,离开语言与文字,它们就不能独立存在。这些交际工具都有特殊得服务领域,使用得范围相当狭窄,表达得内容极其有限,而语言得服务领
语言学重点
第一章 Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics 一Design features of language语言的结构特征 Design features------ refers to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication. They are arbitrariness, duality, creativity/ productivity, displacement, clutural transmission and interchangeability. Design features----- are features that define our human languages,such as arbitrariness,duality,creativity,displacement,cultural transmission,etc.(指决定了人类语言性质的特征.例如任意性,二重性,创造性,移位性,文化转移性等.) The American linguist Charles Hockett specified twelve design features. What is arbitrariness?任意性 a. arbitrariness----arbitrariness(任意性): one design feature of human language,which refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.(人类语言的本质特征之一,指语 言符号的形式与意义之间没有自然的联系.) It was discussed by Saussure first.The link between them is a matter of convention. E.g. ―house‖ uchi (Japanese) Mansion (French) 房子(Chinese) (1) arbitrary between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning语言的音和义之间的任意性 a. By ―arbitrary‖, we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. 语言的意义和语音之间没有逻辑关系。 A gog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had used it for a gig. Language therefore is largely arbitrary. b. But language is not absolutely seem to be some sound-meaning association, if we think of echo words, like ―bang ‖ ‖crash‖ ‖roar ‖ ‖ rumble ‖ ‖cakle‖, which are motivated in a certain sense.‖ onomatopoeia拟声词---words that sound like the sounds they describe那些发音像它们的描写的声音的词 c. some compounds (words compounded to be one word ) are not entirely arbitary either. ―type ‖ and ‖write ‖are opaque or unmotivated words, while ―type -writer‖ is less so, or more trans parent or motivated than the words that make it . so we can say ―arbitrariness‖ is a matter of degree. arbitrary and onometopoeic effect may work at the same time.任意性和拟声可以同时起作用。 Eg. The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.夏日黄昏，群蝇嗡嗡地非。 (2) Arbitrary at the syntactic level 句法上的非任意性 According to systematic-functionalists and American functionlists, language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level. 对于系统功能语言学家和美国功能语言学家来说，语言在句法上是非任意的。 Syntax-----it refers to the ways that sentences are constructed according to the grammar of arrangement.句法就是依据语法安排造句之法。 (3) Aribrtary and convention任意性和约定性 The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention.语言学上的符号和它的意义之间是约定俗成的关系。 The other side of coin of arbitrariness , namely, conventionality.任意性的相反面，即约定性。 conventionality----It means that in any language there are certain sequences of sounds that have a conventionally accepted meaning. Those words are customarily used by all speakers with the same intended meaning and understood by all listeners in the same way. Arbitrainess of langauge makes it potentially creative, and conventionality of language makes learning a language laborious.任意性赋予语言潜在的创造力，而语言的约定性又使学习语言变得费力。 There are two different schools of belief concerning arbitrariness. Most people, especially structural linguists believe that language is arbitrary by nature. Other people, however, hold that language is iconic, that is, there is a direct relation or correspondence between sound and meaning, such as onomatopoeia.(cuckoo; crash)
高中英语语法口诀_英语语法的记忆方法顺口溜
高中英语语法口诀 高中阶段的语法知识在现行的教材中分布得较分散、零碎，学生学起来颇感吃力，难以记牢。一般说来，学习语法知识的途径很多，但教学中常用的主要有如下二种：一是通过教师的讲解，对所学语法规则的概念、结构，用法有个确切的了解；二是通过大量的练习，在英语实践中正确、熟练地掌握语法规则的用法。仔细惦量这两种方法，其实都强调了同一个极其重要的东西，即是“记忆”。记忆的方式、方法很多，诸如分类记忆法，直观形象记忆法、奇持联想记忆法，特征记忆法等等。这里，笔者主要从词法与句法两大块对巧记英语语法作些阐述。 一、词法 （一）巧记名词变复数的规则： 单数变为复数式，一般词尾加-s； 下列句词词尾后，要加-s先加-e。 发音[f]、[t]、[s]和[z]，或是某些辅音加-o时。 有些名词变复数，词尾变化要注意。 y前字母是辅音，一律变y为-ies. 遇到f和fe，有时需要变-ves. 少数名词不规则，特殊情况要强记。 说明： 1．名词变复数形式，一般在词尾加-s. eg:bag-bagsbanana-bananasbird-birdspen-pens,.... 2．词尾发音为[f,ts,z]的名词（即以字母sh,ch,s,x结尾者）在变复数时，要在词尾加-es，eg:watch-watches,box-boxes,bus-buses,etc) 3．若词尾字母o的前面是辅音字母，变为复数时，有些加-es，eg:hero-heroes,Negro-Negroes,patato-patatoes,tomato-tomatoes.这四个词可组成一句话来记忆：HeroesandNegroeseatpotatoesandtomatoes（英雄和黑人吃马铃薯和西红柿。简为二人吃二菜。） 但有些以o结尾的名词则加-s，eg:photo–photoes,piano–pianos等。 4．若词尾字母y前加的是辅音字母时，变为复数，首先把y变为i，再加-es,eg:family–families,city-cities,baby–babies等，但若词尾y前为元音字母时，则可直接加-s,eg:day-days,boy-boys
语言学考试要点(考试重点整理)
Chapter 1 Introduction 1. What is linguistics? Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language. 2.The scope of linguistics: (1 ). phonetics 语音学；phonology 音位学；morphology 形态学；syntax 句法学； pragmatics 语用学 (2). sociolinguistics 社会语言学；psycholinguistics 心理语言学； applied linguistics应用语言学 3.Some important distinction in linguistics (1)Descriptive vs. prescriptive 描述性与规定性 ①If a linguistics study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; ②If the linguistics study aims to lay down rules for” correct and standard” behavior in using language, i.e. to tell people what they should say and what they should not say, it is said to be prescriptive. (2)Synchronic vs. diachronic 共时性与历时性 ①A synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its point of observation. Most grammars are of this kind. ②Diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through the course of its history. (2)Langue & parole 语言与会话 ①Language refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community. ②Parole refers to the realization of language in actual use. (4)Competence and performance 语言能力与语言运用 ①A language user's unconscious knowledge about the system of rules is called his linguistic competence. ②Performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations. (5)speech and writing 语言与文字 Speech and writing are the two major media of communication. (6)traditional grammar and modern linguistic 传统语法与现代语言学 4.Definition of language: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is a system, i.e., elements of language are combined according to rules. Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between a linguistics symbol and what the symbol stands. Language is vocal because the primary medium for all languages is sound. The term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is human-specific. 5.Design features of language 6.(1) Arbitrariness 任意性refers to the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning. (sounds and meanings) (2) Productivity(creativity)能产性Language is productive in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. (3) duality双重性The property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the
高考英语语法中必考的18个重难点
1 主谓一致常考难题 1、一些有两个部分构成的名词表示衣物或工具作主语时,谓语通常用复数形式：glasses,clothes,trousers,shoes,compasses, chopsticks,scissors等。 2、如果主语用a kind of,a pair of,a series of等加名词构成时,谓语动词一般用单数形式。例如：A pair of shoes was on the desk． 3、并列主语如果指的是同一个人、同一事物或同一概念时,谓语动词用单数形式,这时and后面的名词没有冠词。例如:Truth and honesty is the best policy． 4、当主语后面跟有as well as,as much as,no less than, along with,with,like,rather than,together with,but, except,besides,including,in addition to等引导的词组时,其谓语动词的单、复数按主语的单、复数而定。例如:The teacher as well as the students was excited． 5、A(great)number of修饰可数复数名词,谓语动词用复数;a great deal of,a large amount of修饰不可数名词,其短语作主语时,谓语动词用单数。 6、关系代词who,that,which等在定语从句中作主语时,其谓语动词的数应与句中先行词的数一致。例如:Those who want to go please sign your names here．