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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Performatives

【答案】 Performatives are sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state. They cannot be said to be true or false. The uttering of these sentences is, or is part of, the doing an action. The judge‟s imprisonment sentence, the president‟s war or independence declaration, etc., are performatives.

2． Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

【答案】 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis consists of two parts : linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. Linguistic determinism refers to the notion that a language determines certain nonlinguistic cognitive processes. Different languages offer people different ways of expressing around , they think and speak differently. Linguistic relativity refers to the claim that the cognitive processes that are determined are different for different languages. Thus, speakers of different languages are said to think in different ways. The hypothesis is now interpreted mainly in two different ways: a strong version and a weak one. The strong version believes that the language patterns determine peopled thinking and behavior ; the weak one holds that the former influence the later. So far , many researches and experiments conducted provide support to the weak version.

3． 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”.

4． Linguistic relativity

【答案】 This is one of two points in Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It states that similarity between languages is relative , the greater their structural differentiation is , the more diverse their conceptualization of the world is. For example, not every language has the same set of words for the colors ; in Spanish there is no word that corresponds to the English meaning of “blue”.

5． basic level category

【答案】 Basic level category is the most economical level at which you can find the most relevant information. The information on our interactions with objects in the real world are stored at this level. It is at this level that we conjure up the general gestalt of the category.

二、Short-answer-questions

6． 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.

7． Write the international phonetic alphabet for the following words.

（1） hypothesis （2） academician （3）verbatim （4） technique

（5） capacity （6） standardize （7）guarantee （8） paradigm

（9） primarily （10） rhetoric （11）procedure （12） originate

【答案】（1）

（5）

（9） （6） （10） （2） （7） （11

） （3） （8） （12） （4）

8． 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.

9． What are phonologically conditioned and morphologically conditioned form of morphemes?

Some phonological factors can affect the appearance of morphemes, namely, the form of 【答案】

a morpheme; and there could be assimilation, and dissmilation. For example, the negative morpheme could be realized as “in-” or “im-” followed by different phonological environments, as in “inefficient” and “imperfect”，as a result of assimilation.

Morphemes can also be conditioned by morphological factors; for example, the allomorphs of the plural morpheme, as could be seen in “oxen”，“cows”，and “feet”.

三、Essay-question

10．Describe the process of language perception, comprehension and production.

【答案】 From the perspective of psycholinguistic analysis, language use in terms of perception, comprehension and production follows a certain pattern which involves the coordination of various language centers.

When we speak , words are drawn from Wernicke's area and transferred to Broca's area , which determines the details of their forms and pronunciation. The appropriate instructions are then sent to the motor area which controls the vocal tract to physically articulate the words.

When we hear something and try to comprehend it , the stimulus from the auditory cortex is transmitted to Wernicke's area, where it is then interpreted.

When we perceive a visual image, a message is sent to the angular gyrus, where it is converted into a visual pattern.

11．For each of the following pairs of sentences, discuss how the two sentences are different from each other.

（1）A. His carelessness I can‟t bear.

B. I can‟t bear his carelessness.

（2）A. A dagger killed the tourist.

B. The tourist was killed with a dagger.

（3）A. A hurricane killed eight people.

B. Eight people died in a hurricane.

These two sentences are different in the sense that the thematic structures are different. 【答案】（1）

The theme of a sentence is often the known information, which the sentence is mainly about. Sentence A provides some information about “his carelessness”, since “his carelessness” serves as the theme. Whereas , Sentence B is a statement about “I ” and from the remainder of the sentence the recipient could know some information about me.

（2）In sentence A，“A dagger” serves as the theme, with which the sentence could be seen as an answer of “What did the dagger do?” In sentence B, “The touris” is treated as the given information, around which the sentence develops ; thus , the corresponding question of this sentence as an answer could be “What happened to the tourist?”

（3）There are still differences of thematic structures between these two sentences, with the first one about “A hurr icane” and the second one about “eight people”. What‟s more, in sentence A, the verb „„kill” emphasizes a direct relationship between the hurricane and the eight people , that is , it is the hurricane that caused the people to die. Whereas, in sentence B, a meaning like above is not entailed.

12．What is characteristic of TG grammar?

【答案】 Chomsky‟s TG grammar has the following features.

First , Chomsky defines language as a set of rules or principles.

Secondly , Chomsky believes that the aim of linguistics is to produce a generative grammar which captures the tacit knowledge of the native speaker of his language. This concerns the question of learning theory and the question of linguistic universals.

Thirdly , Chomsky and his followers are interested in any data that can reveal the native speaker^ tacit knowledge. They seldom use what native speakers say; they rely on their own intuition.

Fourthly , Chomsky‟s methodology is hypothesis-deductive , which operates at two levels:（1） The linguist

formulates a hypothesis about language structure —a general linguistic theory ; this is tested by grammars for particular languages. （2） Each such grammar is a hypothesis on the general linguistic theory.

Finally , Chomsky follows rationalism in philosophy and mentalism in psychology.