英语语言学复习重点

1、英语语言学复习重点chapter i invitation to linguistics1. what is language and linguistics?l language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. to give the barest definition, language is a means of verbal communication. it is instrumental, social and conventional.l linguistics is usu

2、ally defined as the science of language or, alternatively, as the scientific study of language. it concerns with the systematic study of language or, a discipline that describes all aspects of language and formulates theories as to how language works.2. what are the design features of language? the

3、definition of these design features: arbitrariness, duality, creativity, and displacementl design features refers to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication. they are arbitrariness, duality, creativity, displacement, etc.l arbitrariness r

4、efers to forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning language is arbitrary. there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds, even with onomatopoeic wordsl duality refers to the property of having two levels of structure. the units of the primary level are compo

5、sed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization. l creativity refers to words can be used in new ways to mean new things, and can be instantly understood by people who have never come across that usage before. l displacement refers to the fact

6、 that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. it means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the

7、 moment of communication.3. jakobsons classification of functions of language. 1).referential function 所指功能 2).poetic function诗学功能 3).emotive function感情功能 4).conative function意动功能 5).phatic function交感功能 6).metalingual元语言功能 hu zhuanglin classification of functions of language and use some examples to

8、 illustrate them.1).informative function 信息功能 2).interpersonal function 人际功能 3).performative function 施为功能4).emotive function 感情功能 5).phatic communion 交感性谈话 6).recreational function 娱乐性功能 7).metalingual function 元语言功能 4. the definitions of important distinctions in lingustics: who distinguished them

9、?descriptive vs. presriptive; descriptive(描写式):a kind of linguistic study in which things are just described. eg: american dont say “ill give you some color see see.”prescriptive(规定式): a kind of linguistic study in which things are prescribed how ought to be, i.e. laying down rules for language use.

10、 eg: dont say “ill give you some color see see.”synchronic vs. diachronic; synchronic study(共时性) - description of a language at some point of timediachronic study(历时性) - description of a language through the course of its history (historical development of language over a period of time) langue &

11、; parole; langue: (说话者的语言能力.)the linguistic competence of the speaker. parole: (语言的实际现象或语料.) the actual phenomena or data of linguistics (utterances). competence and performance. competence:(一个语言使用者关于语言系统规则的基本理解.)a language users underlying knowledge about the system of rules.performance:(指在具体场景中语言的

12、真实使用.)the actual use of language in concrete situations. the distinction is discussed by the american linguist n. chomsky in the late 1950s. competence enables a speaker to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities.a speakers compe

13、tence is stable while his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors. so a speaker's performance does not always match or equal his supposed competence. 5. what is the major differences between saussures distinction between langue and parole and chomskys distinction betw

14、een competence and performance? saussure's language is social product, a set of conversations for a speech community.chomsky regards competence as property of the mind of each individual.saussure studies language more from a sociological point of view while chomsky studies it more from a psychol

15、ogical point of view.chapter 2 speech sounds phonetics4. basic information about the ipainternational phonetic alphabet (otto jesperson france)ipa:the abbreviation of international phonetic alphabet.it is a standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.it is a standardiz

16、ed and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.the first version of ipa was published in august 1888. the latest version was devised in 1993 and corrected in 1996 and 2005.5. three parameters to identify a consonant:place of articulation: place in the mouth where obstruction occurs

17、 manners of articulation: ways in which articulation can be accomplishedstate of vocal cords: voiced vs. voiceless6. the categories of consonants according to the manner of articulation and the place of aritucatio7. english vowels can be divided into two large categories:monophthongs or pure/single

18、vowels 单元音diphthongs or gliding vowels 双元音8. four criteria (parameters) of vowel description1. the height of tongue raising (high, mid, low);2. the position of the highest part of the tongue (front, central, back);3. the length or tenseness of the vowel (tense vs. lax or long vs. short), and 4. lip-

19、rounding (rounded vs. unrounded).phonology9. definition: 1) co-articulation: simultaneous/overlapping articulation because of the influence of the neighbor sound(s)2) broad /narrow transcription: when we use a simple set of symbols in our transcription, it is called a broad transcription; the use of

20、 more specific symbols to show more phonetic detail is referred to as a narrow transcription. 3)phone: the smallest perceptible discrete segment of sound in a stream of speech. (in the mouth)4) phoneme: a sound which is capable of distinguishing one word or one shape of a word from another in a give

21、n language is a phoneme. (in the mind)5)allophone phonic: variants of a phoneme are called allophone of the same phoneme. 6)minimal pairs:three requirements for identifying minimal pairs: 1) different in meaning; 2) only one phoneme different; 3) the different phonemes occur in the same phonetic env

22、ironment. e.g. a minimal pair: pat-fat; lit-lip; phone-tone minimal set: pat, mat, bat, fat, cat, hat, etc7)suprasegmental features: features that involve more than single sound segment, such as stress（重音）， length（音程）, rhythm（节奏）， tone（音调），intonation（语调）juncture（音渡） 8) syllable:10.exemplify the rela

23、tionship between phone, phoneme and allophone.phone（音素): the smallest perceptible discrete segment of sound in a stream of speech. (in the mouth)i) phonetic unit ii) not necessarily distinctive of meaning iii) physical as heard or produced iv) marked with .phoneme （音位）：a sound which is capable of di

24、stinguishing one word or one shape of a word from another in a given language is a phoneme. (in the mind)i) phonological unit ii) distinctive of meaning iii) abstract, not physical iv) marked with / /.allophone (音位变体) : phonic variants of a phoneme are called allophone of the same phoneme. e.g.: pot

25、, spot, cup: ph vs. p vs. p¬ (unreleased)11. what are the differences between phonetics and phonology?phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted and received. it is concerned with the actual physical articulation, transmission and perception of speech sounds.phonology is esse

26、ntially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds. it is concerned with the abstract and mental aspect of the sounds in languagechapter 3 morphology12. three senses of “word”(1) a physically definable unit: a cluster of sound segments or letters between two pause or blank.(2) word

27、 both as a general term and as a specific term.(3) a grammatical unit. 13.the classification of word. using some examples to explain these classifications.words can be classified in terms of: (1) variable vs. invariable words (可变词/不可变词) (2) grammatical words vs. lexical words (语法词/词汇词)(3) closed-cla

28、ss words vs. open-class words(封闭词/开放词)(4) word class(词类)(1) variable vs. invariable words (可变词/不可变词)the former refers to words having inflective changes（屈折变化） while the latter refers to words having no such endings.variable words: follow; follows; following; followedinvariable words: since; when; se

29、ldom; through; hello(2) grammatical words vs. lexical words (function words and content words.语法词/词汇词).the former refers to those words expressing grammatical meanings, such as conjunctions(连词), prepositions（介词）, articles(冠词), and pronouns（代词）; .the latter refers to words having lexical meanings, th

30、ose which refer to substance, action etc. such as n., v., adj., and adv.(3) closed-class words vs. open-class words (封闭词/开放词).the former refers to words whose membership is fixed or limited; e.g. pron., prep., conj., article.the latter of which the membership is infinite or unlimited. e.g.: n., v.,

31、adj., adv.(4) word class (词类) 14. definition: 1) morphology: morphology is a branch of linguistics, which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.2) morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning, which can not be divided into further smaller units without destroying

32、or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical.free morphemes: morphemes which may constitute words by themselvesbound morphemes: morphemes which can not be used by themselves, but must be combined with other morphemes to form wordsinflectional morpheme: a kind of bound mo

33、rphemes which manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree and case. derivational morpheme: a kind of bound morphemes, added to existing forms to create new words. there are three kinds according to position: prefix, suffix and infix. 3) affix: is th

34、e term for the type of form that can be used to add to another morpheme (root or stem) to form word. it cant be used freely in sentence. prefix: change meaning eg: dis-; un-; mis-suffix: change part of speech eg: -ly; -ness; -tion infix: some languages also have infixes, affix morphemes that are ins

35、erted into root or stem morphemes to divide them into two parts.4) inflection: the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as tense, number, person, finiteness, aspect and case, which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they

36、 are attached. 5) word-formationcompound: referring to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a new word. derivation: the way to form words with a combination of roots and affixes. 15. examples of lexical change proper (1) inventi

37、on 新造词 nylon (2) blending 混合词 smoke + fog smog (3) abbreviation 缩合词 tv television (4) acronym 首字母缩略词 nato (north atlantic treaty organization) (5) back-formation 逆构词 editor edit (6) analogical creation 类比造词 p76 (7) borrowing 借词、外来词 kong fuchapter 4 syntax16. definition: syntax: is the study of the r

38、ules governing the ways different constituents are combined to form sentences in a language, or the study of the interrelationships between elements in sentence structures.paradigmatic relations: syntagmatic relations:endocentric constructions: is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to

39、 that of one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word or a group of words, which serves as a definable centre or head.exocentric constructions: refers to a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, that is, there is no definable

40、 “centre” or “head” inside the groupcategory: refers to the defining properties of these general units: categories of the noun: number, gender, case and countability categories of the verb: tense, aspect, voice17. three kinds of syntactic relations:relations of position 位置关系positional relation, or w

41、ord order, refers to the sequential arrangement of words in a language. relations of substitutability 可替代性关系the relation of substitutability refers to classes or sets of words substitutable for each other grammatically in sentences with the same structure. relations of co-occurrence 同现关系it means tha

42、t words of different sets of clauses may permit, or require, the occurrence of a word of another set or class to form a sentence or a particular part of a sentence. 18. immediate constituent analysis (ic analysis)immediate constituent analysis is a form of linguistic review that breaks down longer p

43、hrases or sentences into their constituent parts, usually into single words. this kind of analysis is sometimes abbreviated as ic analysis, and gets used extensively by a wide range of language experts. 19. endocentric constructions fall into two main types, depending on the relation between constit

44、uents: coordination and subordination coordination is a common syntactic pattern in english and other languages formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, but and or . subordination refers to the process or result of linking lingui

45、stic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. 20. characteristics of subjectsa) word order: subject ordinarily precedes the verb in the statementb) pro-forms(代词形式) : the first and third person pronouns in english

46、appear in a special form when the pronoun is a subjectc) agreement with the verb: in the simple present tense, an -s is added to the verb when a third person subject is singular, but the number and person of the object or any other element in the sentence have no effect at all on the form of the ver

47、bd) content questions (实意问句): if the subject is replaced by a question word (who or what), the rest of the sentence remains unchangede) tag question (反意问句): a tag question is used to seek confirmation of a statement. it always contains a pronoun which refers back to the subject, and never to any oth

48、er element in the sentence. chapter 5 semantics21. geoffrey leech (1974, 1981). semantics: the study of meaning. seven types of meaning:conceptual meaning: also called denotative or cognitive meaning.refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content.concerned with the relationship between a word an

49、d the thing it denotes, or refers to. english word“river” “江”and“河”connotative meaning: the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content. it is the intensional meaning which a word suggests or implies. home: family, friends, warmt

50、h, cozy, comfortable, safety, love, free, convenience social meaning:what a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use.affective meaning: -reflecting the personal feelings of the speaker, including his attitude to the listener, or his attitude to something he is talking abou

51、t. reflected and meaning:-arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense.collocative meaning: -the associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment.thematic meaning:-what is c

52、ommunicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis.22. explain the semantic triangle by using some examples.23. use some examples to explain three sense relations: synonymy; antonymy; hyponymysynonymy 同义buy/purchase thrifty/economical

53、/stingy autumn/fall flat/apartment tube/undergroundantonymy 反义gradable antonymy渐次对立关系good - bad long - short big - smallcomplementary antonymy 互补反义关系alive : deadmale : femalepresent : absentinnocent : guiltyodd : evenpass : failboy : girlhit : missconverse antonymy 逆向反义关系buy : selllend : borrowgive

54、: receiveparent : childhusband : wifeteacher : studentabove : belowbefore : afterhost : guestemployer : employeehyponymy 上下义superordinate（上义词）: the more general termhyponym（下义词）: the more specific termco-hyponyms（同义词）: members of the same class24. componential relations（成分分析）“componential analysis”-

55、 defines the meaning of a lexical element in terms of semantic components.componential analysis refers to an approach adopted by structural semanticists in describing the meaning of words or phrases. this approach is based on the belief that the total meaning of a word can be analyzed in terms of a number of distinct elements or meaning components 25. sense relations between sentences1 a entails b ( a is an entailment of b ) 蕴含2 a presupposes b (a presupposes b) 预设3 a is inconsistent with b 不一致4 a is synonymous with b 同义5 a is a contradiction 自相矛盾6 a is semantically ano