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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Predication analysis

【答案】 Predication analysis is an important step in the analysis of sentential meaning. The predication is the common category shared by propositions, questions, commands, etc. Such analysis is to break down the sentence into its smaller constituents: argument and predicate. The predicate is the major or pivotal element governing the argument. The argument is the logical participant.

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）

3． Conceptualism

It is the view which holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it 【答案】

refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.

4． Componential analysis

【答案】 It refers to a semantic approach which defines the meaning of a lexical element in terms of semantic components , or semantic features. For example , the meaning of the word boy may be analyzed into three components: HUMAN, YOUNG and MALE.

5． Homonymy

【答案】 In any language there are words which have the same linguistic form but are different in meaning. These words are called homonyms. For example, bank （of a river） , and bank （financial institution ）.

6． Duality

【答案】Duality refers to the fact that in all languages so far investigated there are two levels of structure or patterning. At the first , higher level , language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningful units ; at the second, lower level, it is seen as a sequence （such as morphemes, words etc.）

of segments which lack any meaning in themselves, but which combine to form units of meaning. For example , a syllable is the smallest unit that is normally spoken by itself, and scores of syllables become the carriers of hundreds of meaningful segments of words that are called morphemes.

7． Broad and narrow transcription

【答案】 Broad and narrow transcription: In broad transcription, one letter symbol is used for one sound. In narrow transcription , there are diacritics added to the one letter symbols to show the finer differences between sounds.

8． Concordance

【答案】 The computer has the ability to search for a particular word , sequence of words , or perhaps even a part of speech in a text. The computer can also retrieve all examples of a particular word. It can also calculate the number of occurrences of a certain word so that information on the frequency of the word may be gathered. We may also be interested in sorting the data in some way—for example, alphabetically on words occurring in the immediate context of the word. This is usually referred to as concordance.

9． Interlanguage

【答案】 It refers to the type of language constructed by second or foreign language learners who are still in the process of learning a language. It‟s a language system between the target language and the learner‟s native language, and imperfect compared with the target language, but not mere translation from the learner^ native language. For example, when the Chinese student is learning English, he may make errors like “to touch the society”.

10．Cross-cultural communication

【答案】 Cross-cultural communication is an exchange of ideas , information , etc , between persons from different cultural backgrounds. The cultural conventions of the participants may widely different , and misinterpretation and misunderstanding can easily arise , even leading to a total communication breakdown.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．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.

12．What does the concept morphophoneme mean? What is the relationship between phoneme and morphophoneme?

【答案】 Morphophoneme refers to the phoneme （or string of phonemes ） that constitutes the

various allomorphs of a morpheme.

Relationship between phoneme and morphophoneme : Generally speaking , the concept of morphophoneme adds a grammatical meaning to the concept of phoneme. For example , as to the phoneme /s/, it is in fact a configuration of allomorphs of different morphemes , such as the plural morpheme and the 3rd person present simple morpheme. Therefore, we would regard this phoneme as a morphophoneme , represented as /s/.

13．What is the relationship between tree diagrams and structural ambiguity?

【答案】 In a theory of syntax using tree diagrams （phrase markers ） to represent syntactic structure , the explanation of the phenomenon of structural ambiguity is straightforward : whereas an unambiguous sentence is associated with just one basic tree diagram, a structurally ambiguous sentence is associated with more than one basic tree diagram.

14．Identify the type of trope employed in the following examples.

1）The boy was as cunning as a fox.

2）…the innocent sleep the death of each day‟s life, …（Shakespeare ）

3）Buckingham Palace has already been told the train may be axed when the rail network has been privatised. （Daily Mirror, 2 February 1993）

4）Ted Dexter confessed last night that England are in a right old spin as to how they can beat India this winter. （Daily Mirror, 2 February 1993）

【答案】 1） simile 2 ） metaphor 3 ） metonymy 4 ） synecdoche

15．For the following words, state the conditions under which the different forms of the past tense appear. What determines

whether

or is used? What distinctive features define conditioning environment?

【答案】

16．Explain three levels of categorization.

【答案】 Three levels of categorization

（1） Superordinate levels mean higher levels or more general levels. Furniture and animal are examples of superordinate category levels.

（2）Basic-level categories are more specific , but not too specific. Chair is an example of basic-level categories.

（3）Subordinate levels mean lower levels or more specific categories. Desk chair is an example of subordinate categories.

三、Essay-question

17．A speech act consists of three related acts according to J. L. Austin’s Speech Act theory. What are they? Analyze the following conversation in the light of Speech Act theory.

Customer : Waiter! There's a fly in my soup.

Waiter : Don‟s worry, there's no extra charge.