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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Surface structure

【答案】 It is a term used in generative grammar to refer to the final stage in the syntactic representation of a sentence, which provides the input to the phonological component of the grammar, and which thus most closely corresponds to the structure we articulate and hear. For instance, “John is easy to please.” and “John is eager to please.” are two sentences with the same surface structure.

2． Concord （or : Agreement）

【答案】 It may be defined as the requirement that the forms of two or more words of specific word classes that stand in specific syntactic relationship with one another shall also be characterized by the same paradigmatically marked category （or categories ） . For example, the syntactic relationship between that girl and she in the following dialogue: A: Who is that girl? B: Oh, she is my sister.

3． Speech Act Theory

【答案】 Speech act theory was proposed by J. L. Austin and has been developed by J. R. Searle. Basically , they believe that language is not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to “do things”，and to perform acts.

4． MT

【答案】 It refers to machine translation, the use of machine （usually computers） to translate texts from one natural language to another

5． grammatical word

【答案】 It refers to those which mainly work for constructing group , phrase , clause , clause complex , or even text , such as , conjunctions , prepositions , articles , and pronouns. Grammatical words serve to link together different content parts. So they are also known as Function Words.

6． Transformational-Generative grammar

【答案】 Transformational-generative grammar is proposed by Noam Chomsky. He postulated a syntactic base of language （called deep structure ） , which consists of a series of phrase-structure rewrite rules, i.e., a series of （possibly universal） rules that generates the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence. The end result of a transformational-generative grammar is a surface structure that is identical to an actual sentence of a language , after the mediating of a series of rules （called transformations ） that act upon the deep structures.

7． division of pragmatic labor

【答案】 Horn observes that the Q-based and R-based principles often directly collide and suggests the resolution comes from a division of pragmatic labor，which reads “The use of a marked （relatively complex and/or prolix） expression when a corresponding unmarked （simpler ，less “effortful”）alternate expression is available tends to be interpreted as conveying a marked message （one which the unmarked alternative would not or could not have conveyed） .

8． Conversational implicature

【答案】 Conversational implicature refers to a type of implied meaning, which is deduced on the basis of the conventional meaning of words together with the context, under the guidance of the CP and its maxims. For example, the implicature of He is a tiger could probably be he has some characteristics of a tiger.

9． computational linguistics

【答案】 Computational linguistics is a branch of applied linguistics , dealing with computer processing of human language, h includes programmed instruction, speech synthesis and recognition, automatic translation, and computer mediated communication.

10．Hyponymy

Hyponymy. It refers to the sense relationship between a more general, more inclusive and 【答案】

a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordiante, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms. For example , the hyponymy relationship could be established between “animal” and “rabbit”.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．What is the cognitive interpretation of image schema?

【答案】 Image schema is a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions and motor programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience.

Image schema exists at a level of abstraction, operates at a level of mental organization between propositional structures and concrete image , and it can be subdivided into the following items : a center-periphery schema , a continent schema ，a cycle schema ，a force schema ，a link schema ，a part-whole schema，a path schema，a scale schema and a vertical schema.

12．What is sense and what is reference? How are they related?

Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of 【答案】

all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. For example the sense of the word “dog” is “a domesticated canine mammal , occurring in many breeds that show a great domesticated canine mammal, occurring in many breeds that show a great variety in size and form”. It does not refer to any particular dog that exists in the real world, but applies to any animal that meets the features described in the definition.

Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real , physical world ; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic unit and the non-linguistic world of experience. If we say “The dog is

barking”，we must be talking about a certain dog existent in the situation. The word ^dog^ refers to a dog known to both the speaker and the hearer. This is the refe rence of the word “dog” in this particular situation.

It is a matter of the relationship between the form and the reality.

13．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.

14．What is behaviourism?

【答案】 Behaviourism is a principle of scientific method, based on the belief that human beings cannot know anything they have not experienced. Behaviourism in linguistics holds that children learn language through a chain of “stimulus-response reinforcement”，and the adult‟s use of language is also a process of “stimulus-response”.

15．What are the four maxims of the co-operative principle? Which maxim does this speaker seem to be particularly careful about: "'Well, to be quite honest, I do not think she is ill today.

【答案】 The four maxims of the co-operative principle are as follows:

Quantity. （1） Make your contribution as informative as is required （for the current purposes of the exchange）. （2） Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Quality. Try to make your contribution one that is true. （1） Do not say what you believe to be false. （2） Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Relation. Be relevant.

Manner. Be perspicuous. （1） Avoid obscurity of expression. （2） Avoid ambiguity. （3） Be brief. （4） Be orderly.

In the utterance given , it is probable that the speaker is particularly careful about the maxim of Quality , which rules that do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

16．What are the criteria used in phonetic description of vowels?

【答案】 As the vowels can not be described in the same way as the consonants , a system of cardinal vowels has been suggested to get out of this problem. The cardinal vowels are a set of vowel qualities arbitrarily defined , fixed and unchanging , intended to provide a frame of reference for the description of the actual vowels of existing languages. The cardinal vowels are abstract concept. The cardinal vowel diagram is a set of hypothetical positions for vowels used as reference points.