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一、Essay-question

1． Words in our mental lexicon are known to be related to one another. Discuss the relationships between words, using examples from the English language.

【答案】 Words are in different sense relations with each other in our mental lexicon. There are generally three kinds of sense relationships recognized , namely , sameness relation , oppositeness relation and inclusiveness relation. Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning, and words that are close in meaning are called synonyms. Total synonymy is rare, generally synonyms can be divided into several groups: dialectal synonyms like British English autumn and American English fall ; stylistic synonyms like child and offspring ; synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning like collaborate and accomplices collocational synonyms like accuse and charge; semantically different synonyms like amaze and astound. Antonymy refers to oppositeness of meaning. There are three main sub-types: gradable antonymy in which the members of a pair differ in terms of degree，like long and short ; complementary antonymy which is a matter of either one or the other , like alive and dead ; converse antonymy which shows the reversal of a relationship between two entities，like teacher and student.Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word. The word that is more general in meaning is called the superordinate, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the same superordinate are co-hyponyms to each other. For example under the superordinate flower there are many hyponyms like rose, tulip, lily, etc. These members of the same flower class are co-hyponyms.

Another common relationship is homonymy which refers to the phenomenon that words having different meaning have the same form, i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones, like knight and night; when two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs, like lead v. and lead n.; when two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are complete homonyms, \ikt fast adj. mdfast v.

2． 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.

3． What are the major types of semantic Changes?

There are mainly three kinds of semantic changes, namely, broadening, narrowing, and 【答案】

meaning shift. Class shift and folk etymology also contribute to change in meaning.

（1）Broadening

Broadening is a process to extend or elevate the meaning from its originally specific sense to a relatively general one. For instance , the word holiday used to mean“holy day‟‟in religious English. Today it means“a day for rest‟‟regardless of its religious nature.

（2）Narrowing

Contrary to broadening, the original meaning of a word can be narrowed or restricted to a specific sense. A typical example is the word meat which originally meant “ food”. In the course of time, the range of meaning was narrowed to mean specifically “ the flesh of animals used as food”.

（3 ） Meaning shift

All semantic changes involve meaning shift. Yet, in its narrow sense, meaning shift refers to the change of meaning, which has nothing to do with generalization or restriction. What makes the meaning of a word different is its departure from its original domain as a result of its metaphorical usage. For instance , the word bead originally means “prayer”, but later it refers to “the prayer bead”, the visible manifestation of a prayer, finally “small, ball-shaped piece of glass, metal or wood”.

（4）Class shift

By shifting the word class one can change the meaning of a word from a concrete entity or notion to a process or attribution. This process of word formation is also known as zero-derivation, or conversion. The word engineer as a noun means “a person trained in a branch of engineering”，but it means “to act as an engineer” or “to plan, to maneuver” when used as a verb.

（5）Folk etymology

It refers to a change in form of a word or phrase resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term or from the influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous. As a result of this modification, the word sparrowgrass in English derived from asparagus; the Spanish cucaracha changed into English cockroach.

二、Short-answer-questions

4． How well, in your opinion, does the word “communication ” represent the function of human language?

【答案】 We use language for an almost infinite number of purposes , from writing letters to gossiping with our friends , making speeches and talking to ourselves in the mirror. But the primary function of language is to transmit information and to convey commands, feelings and emotions. That is,

language is a tool of communication. The term “communication” can be used to cover much of the function of language. This function can be further divided into more specific functions, such as phatic function/communion, directive function , informative function , interrogative function , expressive function , evocative function, performative function etc.

5． Why do we say language is primarily vocal?

【答案】 Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is primarily vocal, because sound or speech is the primary medium for all human languages, developed or “new”. Writing systems came much later than the spoken forms. The fact that small children learn and can only learn to speak （and listen ） before they write （and read） also indicates that language is primarily vocal , rather than written. The term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is human specific.

6． Produce surface structures from the following deep structures without going through the process of transformations.

（1）Neg she past work last week

（2）Tag you past meet him

（3）the students I pres be+ing help the students I

（4）policemen past be+en beat John

（5）Q the professor pres be angry SOME REASON

（6）SOMEONE past be+ing be+en beat Joseph hard

（7）Q he past do SOMETHING

（8）Imp you pres will wash you

（9）[ Neg Mary past go to the bookstore] [Neg Lisa past go to the bookstore]

（10）the girl [the girl pres be beautiful]pres be from China

【答案】（1） She didn't work last week.

（2）You met him, didn't you?

（3）The students are helping themselves.

（4）The policemen were beaten by John.

（5）Why is the professor angry?

（6）He / She was being beaten hard by Joseph.

（7 ） What did he do?

（8）Wash yourself.

（9）Mary didn‟t go to the bookstore. Lisa didn‟t go to the bookstore either.

（10）The girl who is beautiful is from China.

7． How do the three branches of phonetics contribute to the study of speech sounds?

【答案】 Phonetics looks at speech sounds from three distinct but related points of view. First, it studies the sounds from the speaker‟s point of view , i.e. ，how a speaker uses his speech organs to