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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Inflection

【答案】 Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationship through the addition of inflectional affixes , such as number , person , finiteness , aspect and case , which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached. For example, the past form of the verb work is realized by the addition of the inflectional suffix: „„-ed‟‟； the plural form of the noun child is realized by the inflectional suffix: „„-ren‟‟.

2． subordination

【答案】 Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. Thus the subordinate constituents are words which modify the Head. Consequently, they can be called modifiers. In the phrase swimming in the lake , swimming is the head and in the lake are the words modifying the head.

3． Subordinate construction

【答案】 Subordinate constructions are one of the two subtypes of endocentric constructions. Those in which there is only one head , with the head being dominant and the other constituents dependent , are subordinate constructions.

4． Ferdinand de Saussure

【答案】 Ferdinand de Saussure is a Swiss linguist who is often described as “father of modem linguistics”. The great work , Course in General Linguistics , which was based on his lecture notes , marked the beginning of modem linguistics. Saussure^ idea on the arbitrary nature of sign , one the relational nature of linguistic units , on the distinction of langue and parole and of synchronic and diachronic linguistics, etc. pushed linguistics into a brand new stage.

5． Phatic function （ communion ）

【答案】 Phatic function: The phatic function of language refers to the use of the language which often consists of small , seemingly meaningless expression for setting up a certain atmosphere or maintaining social contacts rather than for exchanging information or ideas. For example , greetings , farewells , and comments on the weather in English could serve this function.

6． Lexical word

【答案】 Lexical word, lexical words are also called content words, referring to those which have lexical meanings , that is, those which refer to substance, action and quality, such as nouns, verbs , adjectives , and adverbs.

7． Lingua franca

【答案】 It is language that is used for communication between different groups of people, each speaking a different language , lhe lingua franca could be an internationally used language of communication （e. g. English） , it could be the native language of one of the groups, or it could a language which is not spoken natively by any of the groups but has a simplified sentence structure and vocabulary and is often a mixture of two or more languages.

8． Prefix

【答案】 In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. Prefixes are bound morphemes （they cannot occur as independent words ） . While most languages employ both prefixes and suffixes, prefixes are less common. Some languages employ mostly suffixes and almost no prefixes at all. The use of prefixes has been found to correlate statistically with other linguistic features, such as a verb-object word order and the use of prepositions.

二、Essay-question

9． Disambiguate the following sentences, using the tree diagram with labels or analyzing their syntactic structures.

（1）Times flies like an arrow.

（2）We got down from the duck.

（3）Old men and women will be served first.

（4）John passed the hammer and saw through the window.

（5）Who would you like to visit?

【答案】（1）

（2）

（a ）The word “down” could be seen as an adverbial, which means “from the higher position to a lower one”.

（b ）The word “down” could be also seen as a noun, which means “the fluffy feathers forming the first plumage of a young bird”.

（3）

（4）

（5）

（a ）“Who” could be interpreted as the direct object of the verbal group “would like”. Therefore, the answer to this question could be “I would like John to visit”.

（b ）“Who” could also be interpreted as the direct object of the verb “visit”. Thus, the answer to this question could be “I would like to visit John”.

10．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.

【答案】 A speech act consists of three related acts according to J. L. Austin‟s Speech Act theory, namely , locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is the ordinary act we perform when we speak. It is the act of saying. The illocutionary act is the act performed in the performing of a locutionary act , that may said to be the extra meaning of the utterance ; while perlocutionary act concerns the consequential effects of a locution upon the hearer , depending on specific circumstances. Austin suggests that the three kinds of acts are performed simultaneously when a speaker saying something.

In this conversation , by saying “Waiter! There‟s a fly in my soup”，the locutionary act of this utterance is that the customer produces a number of sounds with its literal meaning that there is a fly in his/her soup. The illocutionary act is that the customer intends not to just review the information to the waiter , but might express his feelings and expect the waiter to do something. It might be a complaint, a warn , a criticism, or a threaten, but whatever it might be, it is no doubt a force, making the waiter to change soup or give some compensation. The perlocutionary act of the utterance here is the waiter‟s doing nothing but giving a strange respond.

As to the waiter^ responding, by saying that he not only produces a number of sounds to state that there is no extra charge , but also shows his possible misinterpretation or his sense of humor or his indirect refusal.