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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． 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.

2． Homonymy

【答案】 In any language there are words which have the same linguistic form but are different in meaning. These words are called homonyms. For example, bank （of a river） , and bank （financial institution ）.

3． MT

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

4． 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.

5． Embedding

【答案】 It refers to the inclusion of a clause within a phrase or another clause, or of a phrase into another phrase. An example of embedded clauses is: What I do is none of your business. （Nominal clause embedded as subject of another clause）

6． Government

【答案】 Government is another type of control over the forms 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 forms 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.

7． 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”.

8． 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.

二、Essay-question

9． Research has found that two-year-old English children produce negative sentences such as a） tod ） , but note）:

a ）He doesn‟t like cabbage.

b ）Doesn‟t like cabbage.

c ）Him no like cabbage.

d ）No like cabbage.

e ）*Him doesn‟t like cabbage.

How can you account for this?

【答案】 This founding firstly demonstrates one point that the acquisition of auxiliary verbs comes later than that of comparatively “simpler” morphemes such as pronouns. Therefore, it is unUkely for children to make mistakes as shown in e） . The reason for this phenomenon could be explained by the fact that in the early stage of children^ language acquisition, the speech at first only contains content words and lacks the function elements.

This founding also shows that children have a certain process of learning the negative form. There are generally three stages.

1） At first, the negative element is not part of the structure of the sentences. It is simply attached to the beginning, as shown in d）.

2 ） The negative element is inserted into the sentence. The additional negative forms don't and can't are used, and with no and not, begin to be placed in front of the verb rather than at the beginning, as shown in c ）.

3） Children begin to produce the appropriate part of do, be or the model verbs, to suit the person or tense, as shown in b） and a）.

10．Read the following sentence and illustrate the ideas behind this statement: "'Register is the term used in linguistics to describe the relationship between a particular style of language and its context of use.99

【答案】 The register is what you are speaking at the time, depending on what you are doing and the nature of the activity in which the language is functioning. A register can be defined as a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode , and tenor. Therefore, a register must also include the expressions, the lexico-grammatical and phonological features , which typically accompany or realize these meanings. Text can be seen as an

instance of a register.

Register is seen as the linguistic consequence of interacting aspects of context , which Halliday calls “field, tenor, and mode.” Field refers to the topics and actions which language is used to express. Tenor denotes the language users, their relationships to each other, and their purposes. Mode refers to the channel through which communication is carried out. These three contextual variables are intended to help the linguist tie linguistic analysis to the relevant contextual variables. By understanding the semiotic properties of a situation （i.e. , the values for field, tenor, and mode） , language users can predict the meanings that are likely to be exchanged and the language likely to be used. And while people are communicating they make predictions by using the values of field , tenor and mode to understand register and that their assessment facilitates their own participation.

11．What is the main difference between literal language and figurative language?

【答案】 The first meaning for a word that a dictionary definition gives is usually its literal meaning , while figurative language is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense.

Appealing to the imagination, figurative language provides new ways of looking at the world. It always makes use of a comparison between different things. Figurative language compares two things that are different in enough ways so that their similarities, when pointed out, are interesting, unique and/or surprising. Figurative language uses “figures of speech” to express something other than the literal meaning of the words, in other words, figurative language cannot be taken literally （or should not be taken literally only） . Simile, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, apostrophe, are all forms of figurative language.

For example, the literal meaning of the word “tree ” is “a large plant”. However, once we start talking about a tree in the context of “a family tree” for example, it is no longer a literal tree we are talking about, but a figurative 〇此^ literal use of the word “tree” refers to an organism which has bark, branches and leaves. A “family tree” shares some of these qualities—graphically , a plan of a family and a representation of a tree can look similar, and in a way they are both a process of organic growth, so we use the same term for both. But when we use the term for a plant it is a literal usage and when we use the term to describe our ancestry, it is a figurative usage.

12．Which of the following sentences are ambiguous? If you know how, use tree diagrams to show how these sentences are ambiguous.

（1）The children put the toy in tile box.

（2）The professor‟s appointment was shocking.

（3）No smoking section is available.

（4）Jack refused to change his decision. 【答案】