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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． The Innateness Hypothesis

【答案】 The innateness hypothesis was proposed by Chomsky. It says that the ability to acquire a human language is part of the biologically innate equipment of the human being, and that an infant is bom with this knowledge of basic grammatical relations and categories, and this knowledge is universal.

2． Textual function

【答案】 Textual function : The textual function is one of the three meta-functions language is composed of. It refers to the fact that language has mechanisms to make any stretch of spoken or written discourse into a coherent and unified text and make a living message different from a random list of sentences.

二、Short-answer-questions

3． What are the three important points of the Prague School?

【答案】 The Prague School has three points of special importance , First , it stressed that the synchronic study of language is fully justified as it can draw on complete and controllable material for investigation. Second, it emphasised the systemic character of language, arguing that no element of any language can be satisfactorily analysed or evaluated if viewed in isolation. In other words, elements are held to be in functional contrast or opposition. Third , it looked on language as a tool performing a number of essential functions or tasks for the community using it.

4． How would you describe the oddness of the following sentences, using semantic features?

（a ）The television drank my water.

（b ）His dog writes poetry.

【答案】（a ） The verb drink represents a behavior of the animate beings, therefore, it is required that the subject of this verb should have a semantic feature as （+ANIMATE） , however, the word television , which is in position of subject, has an opposite feature:（-ANIMATE ） . That‟s why such a collocation results in oddness.

（b ） The action of writing poetry is normally one which only human beings could do, therefore, the subject is required to have a semantic feature as （+HUMAN） ; however, the word dog in the subject position is featured as （-HUMAN ） . Therefore, the sentence is odd.

三、Synthesis

5． Can you guess the meaning of the following Emoticons or Smiley?

【答案

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6． Analyze the following sentences on two levels. First, identify the Subject, Finite, Predicator, and Adjunct. Second, identify Mood and Residue. Explain the difference, if any, between the two levels of analysis.

（1）Mr. Hu made a speech at a conference yesterday.

（2）The university president has been awarded an international prize.

（3）Three days ago, an honorary title was given to a professor from Yale.

【答案】

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Glottal Stop

【答案】 V ocal tract is composed of oral cavity, nasal cavity and pharynx. When the vocal folds are totally closed, no air can pass between them. The result of this gesture is the glottal stop.

2． Embedding

【答案】 It refers to the inclusion of a clause within a phrase or another clause, or of a phrase into another phrase. An example of embedded clauses is: What I do is none of your business. （Nominal clause embedded as subject of another clause）

二、Short-answer-questions

3． What is the distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes?

【答案】 The distinction between inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes could be illustrated in the following four aspects.

Inflectional affixes very often only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem, for instance , those inflectional affixes in words such as toys, walks, John's, etc. Therefore, they serve to produce different forms of a single word. In contrast , derivational affixes often change the lexical meaning , e.g. cite, citation; generate, generation.

Inflectional affixes do not change the word class of the word they attach to，such as flower, flowers ; whereas derivational affixes might or might not, such as the relation between small and smallness for the former, and that between brother and brotherhood for the latter.

Very often inflectional affixes are conditioned by non-semantic linguistic factors outside the word they attach to but within the phrase or sentence. Whereas, derivational affixes are more often based on simple meaning distinctions.

In English, inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes, which are always word final. But derivational affixes can be prefixes or suffixes.

4． What is your understanding of Systemic Functional Grammar?

【答案】 Systemic functional grammar , developed by M.A.K. Halliday , is a socially oriented functional linguistic approach and one of the most influential linguistic theories in the twentieth century. Systemic functional grammar is based on two facts:

Language users are actually making choices in a set of systems and trying to realize different semantic functions in social interaction.

Language is inseparable from social activities of man. Thus, it takes actual uses of language as the object of study. One point to notice is that it takes clause as the basic unit. It consist of two inseparable parts : systemic grammar and functional grammar.