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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． inflectional morpheme

【答案】 Inflectional morpheme: It is also called inflectional affixes, which attaches to the end of words. Inflectional affixes only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem. The plural suffix is a typical example of this kind.

2． functional morpheme

【答案】 This is a subtype of free morphemes, which one consists largely of the functional words in language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns, for example, “and, about when on , near, the” an so on.

3． Language acquisition

【答案】 It refers to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations.

4． Back-formation

【答案】 Back formation refers to an abnormal type of word formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the language. For example , the word “television” appeared before “televise”，and so does “editor” to “edit”.

二、Essay-question

5． In the history of modem linguistic study of language, various schools have been founded.What are they?

【答案】 （1） The traditional grammar school attempt to lay down universally valid rules to show how a language ought to be used. It is prescriptive rather than descriptive.

（1）An important outgrowth of descriptive linguistics was a theory known as structuralism developed by American Structuralist School. The influential figure in this school is American linguist Leonard Bloomfield （1887 〜 1949 ） , who was strongly influenced by behaviourism.

（2）The Transformational-Generative School is developed by Noam Chomsky in the middle of 1950s with the publication of his book Syntactic Structures. Chomsky was strongly against Bloomfield‟s behaviourist psychology and empiricism and adopted cognitive psychology and rationalism.

（3）The Prague School is well-known, for its contribution to phonology and its functional analysis to language. The approach that Prague School linguists use is based on a combined theory between structuralism and functionalism. The most influential scholar is Trubetzkoy , who distinguished the concepts between the phonetic and phonological analysis of sounds , the analysis of phonemes into

distinctive features.

（4）The London School was founded by John Firth （1890 〜1960） . Central to his work is his contextual theory of meaning.

（5）Influenced by Firth‟s ideas, M.A.K. Halliday distinguished linguistic behavior potential from actual linguistic behavior. Halliday developed Systemic Linguistics or Functional Grammar which is concerned with language as an instrument of social interaction rather than as a system that is viewed in isolation.

6． What is communicative competence?

【答案】 Communicative competence includes:

（1）Knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language;

（2）knowledge of rules of speaking （e.g. knowing how to begin and end conversations, knowing what topics may be talked about in different types of speech events , knowing which address forms should be used with different persons one speaks to and in different situations ）;

（3）knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts, such as requests, apologies, thanks , and invitations;

（4）knowing how to use language appropriately.

When someone wishes to communicate with others, they must recognize the social setting, their relationship to the other person （s ） , and the types of language that can be used for a particular occasion. They must also be able to interpret written or spoken sentences within the total context in which they are used, or marked expression without reason; on the hearer‟s side, if the speaker used a prolix or marked expression, he did not mean the same as he would have had he used the unmarked expression. That is to say, in the normal situation, in a bus stop as the example above has shown, the intention of that the speaker asks others whether they wear the watch or not is not merely to care about the recipient has a watch or not, but has some other reason, because it would be bizarre to ask a stranger in the bus stop about such a personal staff.

Therefore , the hearer has to assume that the expression is related to the situation , and this expression is not what it literally means. Following this, the hearer reaches a connection between the bus stop and the watch, which is the time. As a consequence, he knows what the speaker intends is the inquiring of the time.

7． Think of the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle proposed by P. Grice, and explain the violation of maxims in the cases below.

1）A : Have you seen my watch?

B : Look in the drawer.

2）A : Reno s the capital of Nevada.

B : Yeah, London s the capital of New Jersey.

3）A : I really liked that dinner.

B : Tm a vegetarian.

4）A : Let‟s dine out with the kids this weekend

B : Okay, but not M-c-D-o-n-a-l-d-s.

【答案】 The four maxims of the Cooperative Principle proposed by P. Grice are the maxim of

quantity , the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner.

In （1） , B violates the maxim of quantity, for his/her not giving enough information to A9s question. B does not answer “yes” or “no” to a yes-no question，so A doesn‟t know whether B is sure it is in the draw. But B says this way may imply he/she is unsure about it （look at the drawer, maybe it is there ）, or he/she is sure （just go get it, it is in the drawer）.

In （2）, B violates the maxim of quality. Apparently London is not the capital of New Jersey. What

B says is a false statement, and B knows it is false. But B says it to imply that A9s statement is also false, that is, Reno is not the capital of Nevada.

In （3） , B violates the maxim of relations. B does not talk about “that dinner” directly but with “I‟m a vegetarian instead. Although the two utterances are not relevant superficially, yet what B says may imply that "there is meat in that dinner, and I am a vegetarian, so I don‟t like it.” which makes the conversation coherent.

In （4） , B violates the maxim of manners. B may be deliberately obscure by saying in that way so that the children will not be able to understand what they are talking about.