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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． inflectional morpheme

【答案】 Inflectional morpheme: It is also called inflectional affixes, which attaches to the end of words. Inflectional affixes only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem. The plural suffix is a typical example of this kind.

2． Category

Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in 【答案】

a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb.

二、Short-answer-questions

3． What is the relationship between tree diagrams and structural ambiguity?

【答案】 In a theory of syntax using tree diagrams （phrase markers ） to represent syntactic structure , the explanation of the phenomenon of structural ambiguity is straightforward : whereas an unambiguous sentence is associated with just one basic tree diagram, a structurally ambiguous sentence is associated with more than one basic tree diagram.

4． Why do people take duality as one of the important design features of human language? Can you tell us what language will be if it has no such design feature?

【答案】 Duality makes our language productive. A large number of different units can be formed out of a small number of elements——for instance, tens of thousands of words out of a small set of sounds. And out of the huge number of words, there can be astronomical number of possible sentences and phrases, which in turn can combine to form unlimited number of texts. Most animal communication systems do not have this design feature of human language.

If language had no such design feature , then it would be like animal communicational system which consists of only a number of basic sounds and this would be highly limited. Then we would not be able to produce a very large number of sound combinations （e.g. words ） , which are distinct in meaning. In other words, the number of messages one can send would be restricted to the number of basic sounds.

三、Synthesis

5． Which branch of linguistics do you think will develop rapidly in China and why?

【答案】 It is up to you to decide after you have gone through the whole book. At this stage, we suggest all branches of linguistics have the potential to flourish.

6． Analyse the poem below from the semantic point of view, taking a special account of sense relations.

Coloured

Dear White Fells You White Fella

Couple things you should know When you bom, you pink

When I bom, I black Whenyou grow up, you white

When I grow up, I black Whenyou go in sun, you red

When I go in sun, I black Whenyou cold, you blue

When I cold, I black Whenyou seared, you yellow

When I scared, I black When you sick, you green

When I sick, I black And when you die you grey

And when I die-I still black And you have the cheek

To call me coloured?

【答案】 This poem is about the use of the word “coloured”. The author cleverly makes use of “coloured” in the sense of “different colours” to oppose the practive to refer to black people as “coloured”. This shows from another point of view that “coloured” is not a superordinate to “red”, “green”, “yellow”，etc.

一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Subordinate construction

【答案】 Subordinate constructions are one of the two subtypes of endocentric constructions. Those in which there is only one head , with the head being dominant and the other constituents dependent , are subordinate constructions.

2． 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 wo rd “television” appeared before “televise”，and so does “editor” to “edit”.

二、Short-answer-questions

3． 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 articulate the sounds. Then, it looks at the sounds from the hearer s point of view, i.e., how the sounds are perceived by the hearer. Lastly, it studies the way sounds travel by looking at the sound waves, the physical means by which sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another. These three branches of phonetics are labeled articulatory phonetics , auditory phonetics , and acoustic phonetics respectively.

4． What is the purpose of studying language and mind?

【答案】 The study of language and mind aims to model the workings of the mind in relation to language ; for example, it helps explain how the language production and perception is achieved. Since structures and connections in the mind are inevitably unobservable, researchers put forward hypotheses based on fragmentary clues. The label most usually given to the study of “language and mind” is psycholinguistics ，a term which is often perceived as being trendy. Psycholinguistics is concerned primarily with investigating the psychological reality of linguistic structures.

三、Synthesis

5． Why should language teachers learn some knowledge of linguistics?

【答案】 Some knowledge of linguistics will not only help language teachers to better understand the nature of language, but also helps them better understand how to teach language. Theoretical views of language explicitly or implicitly inform the approaches and methods adopted in language teaching. Language teachers do need a theory （maybe theories ） of language in order to teach language