当前位置：问答库＞考研试题

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． cohort model

【答案】 The cohort model is a supposed doctrine dealing with the spoken word recognition postulated by Marslen-Wilson and Welsh in 1990. It is suggested that the first few phonemes of a spoken word activate a set or cohort of word candidates that are consistent with the input. These candidates compete with one another for activation. As more acoustic input is analyzed , candidates that are no longer consistent with the input drop out of the set. This process continues until only one word candidate matches the input- the best fitting word may be chosen if no single candidate is a clear winner.

2． 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.

3． figure-ground alignment

【答案】 Figure-ground alignment seems to apply to space with the ground as the prepositional object and the preposition expressing the spatial relational configuration. It also applies to human perception of moving objects. Since the moving object is typically the most prominent one, because it is moving , it is typically the figure, while the remaining stimuli constitute the ground.

4． 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.

5． Construal and construal operations

【答案】Construal is the competence to conceive and portray the same situation in alternate ways through specificity, different mental scanning, directionality, vantage point, figure-ground segregation etc. Construal operations are conceptualizing processes applied in language process by human beings. That is, construal operations are the underlying psychological processes and resources employed in the interpretation of linguistic expressions.

6． 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”.

7． Denotation

【答案】 The core sense of a word or a phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world. In the case of linguistic signs, the denotative meaning is what the dictionary attempts to provide. It is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning, opposite to connotation.

8． CMC

【答案】 It is computer-mediated communication , distinguished by its focus on language and language use in computer networked environments, and by its use of methods of discourse analysis to address that focus.

9． 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.

10．Speech and thought presentation

【答案】 Speech and thought presentation: These two terms are used for the language in fiction, referring to the presenting forms for indicating the narrator‟s speech or thought. The speech presentation may have the following four possibilities : direct speech , indirect speech , narrator‟s representation of speech acts, and narrator‟s representation of speech. The Thought presentation can also be categorized into : narrator‟s representation of thought , narrator‟s representation of thought acts , indirect thought , free indirect thought, and direct thought.

二、Short-answer-questions

11．What is concord, and what is government?

【答案】 Concord , also known as agreement, may be defined as the requirement that the forms of two or more words in a syntactic relationship should agree with each other in terms of some categories. For example, in English, the determiner and the noun it precedes should concord in number as in this man , these men; a book, some books. And the form of a subject should agree with that of the verb in terms of number in the present tense as is shown by He speaks English，They speak English.

Government is another type of control over the form of some words by other words in certain syntactic constructions. It differs from concord in that this is a relationship in which a word of a certain class determines the form of others in terms of certain category. In English, for example, the pronoun after a verb or a preposition should be in the object form as in She gave him a book. She gave a book to him. In other words , the verb , or the preposition, determines , or governs , the form of the pronoun after it.

12．What is entailment? What are the sources of entailment?

Entailment is basically a semantic relation . If sentence A entails 【答案】（or logical implication）

sentence B, it must observe that, in terms of truth value, when sentence A is true, sentence B must be also true; when sentence B is false, sentence A must also be false, and that when sentence B is true, sentence A may be true or false.

The source of entailment may be lexical or syntactical. Lexical source of entailment can be shown

in the example like,

（a ）The anarchist assassinated the emperor.

（b ）The emperor died.

The relationship of entailment between and derives from the lexical relationship between （a ）（b ）

assassinate and die. In some sense the meaning of assassinate contains the meaning of die.

Other sources for entailment are syntactic: for example, active and passive versions of the same sentence will entail one another. Sentences below show this well:

（c ）The Etruscans built this tomb.

（d ）This tomb was built by Etruscans.

13．deeded 6. bagged 7. killed 8. nabbed

【答案】

14．Do you think there are true synonyms in English? Why?

Synonymy is the technical name for the sameness relation. It is used to mean sameness or 【答案】

close similarity of meaning. Total synonymy is rare. The so-called synonyms are all context dependent. They all differ in one way or another.

There are no real synonyms, because two or more words named synonyms are expected without exception to differ from one another in one of the following aspects:

① in shade of meaning （finish , complete, close, conclude）;

② in stylistic meaning （buy , purchase ）;

③ in emotive （ or affective） meaning （economical , stingy）;

④ in range of use or collocative meaning （accuse , charge）;

⑤ in British and American English usages （autumn , fall）.

For example, they may differ in style. In the context“Little Tom_____a toy bear”，here buy is more appropriate than purchase. Because purchase is more formal than buy.

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．What are the differences between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds in terms of articulation?

【答案】 When the vocal cords are spread apart , the air from the lungs passes between them unimpeded. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiceless, consonants [p, s, t] are produced in this way; but when the vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it passes through , creating a vibration effect. Sounds produced in this way are described as voiced [b, z, d] are voiced consonants.

三、Essay-question