当代语言学的第一题英文及答案

Chapter1

1. Language touches every part of our lives; it gives words to our thoughts, voice to our ideals,

and expression to our feelings. It is a rich and varied human ability-one that we can use without even a thought, that children seem to acquire automatically, and that linguists have found to be complex yet describable.

2. Linguistics is the study of the nature, structure, and variation of language, including

phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Chapter2

1. Linguistic knowledge as represented I n the speaker’s mind is called a grammar. Linguistic

theory is concerned with revealing the nature of the mental grammar which represents speakerknowledge of their language.

Grammar as viewed here is different from the usual notion of grammar.

2. Grammar is the ability to use structures accurately, meaningfully, and appropriately.

Chapter 3

1. Phonetics provides the means for describing speech sound; phonology studies the way In

which speech sounds from systems and patterns in human language. The phonology of a language is then the system and pattern of the speech sounds. We see that the word phonology is thus used in two ways, either as the study sound patterns in language or as the sound pattern of a language.

Chapter4

1. Morphology is the study of word-making and word-making. On the one hand, morphology

examines meaning relationships between words and the ways in which these connections are indicated. On the other, morphology looks sat how grammatical relationships between words are marked. Different language focus on different word relationship, and they make use of different patterns of making.

2. The study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed, is

called morphology.

Chapter 5

1. Syntax is the subfield of linguistics that studies the internal structure of sentences and the

relationship among their component part.

Chapter 6

More interest is the fact that languages differ in inflectional systems: case systems, for example. We find that these are fairly rich in Lain, even more so in Sanskrit or Finnish, but minimal in English and invisible in Chinese.

Chinese and English, for example, may have the same case system as Latin, but the phonetic realization is different. Furthermore, it seems that much of the variety of language can be reduced to properties of inflectional system.

Chapter7

1. Normally human beings do not produce utterances for the sake of the phonetic,

phonological and grammatical features. Utterances are produced because they convey meaning.

2. Semantics as a subfield of linguistics is the study of meaning in language. Semantics deals

with the meaning words, and how the meanings of sentences are derived from them.

Chapter8 ,

Functional grammar is an approach to linguistics which is concerned with language as an instrument of social interaction rather than as a system that is viewed in isolation. It considers the individual as a social being and investigates the way in which he acquires language and uses it in order to communicate with others in his social environment.

Chapter 9

Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics which studies how utterances communicate meaning in context.

Chpter10

Psycholinguistics is the study of the interrelationship of language and the mind which encompasses the acquisition of language.

Neurolinguistics is the study of the brain and how it functions in the production, perception, and acquisition of language.

I．译文（已批改）：语言贯穿我们的全部的生活, 予我们的思维以言辞, 予我们理念以话音, 予我们的感受以表述。它是一种人类所拥有的丰富而多样的能力 – 想用就用，无须思索，天下儿童，自能习得。语言学家知其固然复杂，却可描述。

语言学是研究语言的本质、结构和变化的科学, 分为语音学,音位学,形态学,句法学,语义学和语用学.

II．1)Plato 2)Aristotle 3)Xunzi 4) Chomsky 5) Saussure

III．A Summary of Language and Human Beings (未经批改)

Language had the systematic internal structure of a sentence and the relationship between sounds meaning and the complex actual hierarchy. In order to understand a single sentence, a newborn human baby needs to break the string of sounds which he hears into syntactic constituents and associate a sound combination with a definite meaning.

There are three stages during which he perceives the existence of language around him spontaneously.

a. producing single—word sentence (12—18 months)

b. forming elementary phrases and two—word sentences

c. making adult—like sentences (by the age of two and a half)

In a word, as to human being, the knowledge of language just grow naturally from the mind during a certain period in childhood and not need to be deliberately taught.

IV．(未经批改)

1．Human language.

Human beings have an inborn knowledge of language which must be universally correct and acceptable. The location of such innate knowledge is in our genes. There is a biological, physical entity inside our brain which decides what we speak. This entity is UG – universal grammar. According to UG theory, every speaker is endowed with a set of principles. Animals don’t have an area in their brain that controls language. Nor do they have genes that carry the knowledge of language.

2 It is hard to say. Nothing is impossible. The first prerequisite that they should have is a biological organ, like genes or certain areas of the brain that can develop into language skills or control the language we use. The second is that they should have UG, which helps them both to produce and understand meaningful utterance and so forth.

3 Communication is one of the most basic functions of human language. However, communication is not the only use. We use language sometimes to express ourselves and

sometimes to record something. In this kind of situation, language is not necessarily for communication. We not necessarily present our diary or writings that record our personal emotions. Other than that, we think with language. That is not communication either.

4 Linguistics can play a very important role in the information age. For example, in the development of artificial intelligence, linguistics is the basis. The achievements in Generative Grammar gained by Noam Chomsky have been used in computer programming, US Navy intelligence technologies and so forth. Computer translation, particularly, is based on linguistic knowledge. Therefore, in the information age, linguistics can play a role that is as important as what physics and chemistry played in the industrial revolution.

5 Canada Austria India

V．1) A one-year-old child, to a certain extent, can understand many words people talk around him. But he still can not manage to express himself with vocal language. By this time, except for articulating some simple words, such as "dad", "mom". He would resort to crying if he wants something badly.

The child, reaching the age of 14 months, is trying to "talk", "babble" to be more exact. He would keep producing meaningless sounds; especially he likes to reduplicate single-syllable sounds, e.g. Ah-ah, Oh-oh.

At the 16th month, despite the parents tried all the possible means to teach the child correct pronunciation, the child would refer to his own system when he is trying to say something. For example, the parents keep teaching the child to say “pi qiu” but the child can only catch the last syllable “qiu”, then, more interesting he prefers to say “qiu-qiu” instead of “qiu”.

After about 2 months, he could successfully articulate “ pa” and “ma” if he is required to do it., which give the parents lots of happiness. But another problem pops up. The child extends the meaning of “pa” or “ma” to everything. E.g. when the child wants to get a toy car, he would point to the car, saying” pa, pa, pa…”. this stage is trying to develop his own lexicon. He often overextends a word’s meaning.

Another thing that worth mentioning is that, the child has learned some body gestures to express his own idea. For example, when he is happy, he will clap his hands, swaying the arms to demonstrate a flying bird, stretching out one finger to denote “I am one year old”.

2) Does language need a norm? (未经批改)

With the help of a common language, people can try to get rid of the demanding God by building the tower of Babel. Nowadays, English, as a most popular and international language seemingly has a trend of becoming another language norm of mankind. But to my point of view, people would rather preserve their own unique through the unique language.

The derivation of language forms a colorful and shining language net which is a rich culture resource for all human beings. With hundreds of thousands of years’ development, each individual language is deeply rooted in a specific culture; some languages have been extinct without being recorded, which cause a great loss in our culture. Instead of choosing a language norm, people try to keep the present situation of language derivation.

Also different groups of people are blocked off due to the geographical reasons, those people develop a new kind of language that can fully satisfies they need. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, the derivation of language is the result of the social development.

To sum up, with the development, there are different languages which are strongly imprinted

with different culture characteristics. To find a language norm is a unrealistic and impractical way.

翻译(已批阅)：费迪南·德·索绪尔是20世纪之交伟大的瑞士语言学家。从1881到1891他在巴黎的法国高等学院任教。随后在日内瓦大学任印欧语言学和梵语教授（1901-1913）。1907到1913任生成语言学教授。作为一名教师，他影响巨大，但因为他不断研究以求精益求精，所以他的思想观点在他生前并未发表。他死后三年，他的两名学生巴利和薛施埃把在他课上摘录的笔记编汇成书出版，题目为《生成语言学课程》。该书一出版就成为了当时最具影响力的语言学著作。

索绪尔建立了语言结构研究的体系，强调语言符号与其所表示的意义之间的随意关系。他还主张语言应该被认为是一种社会现象，一种可以从历时和共时两方面来认识的结构体系，并且坚持认为，这两种研究方法显著不同，在方法论上相互排斥。他还起用了两个现已获得广泛运用的术语——“parole”，即每个人所说的言话，和“langue”， 即存在于特定社会特定时期的系统化结构化的语言。索绪尔提倡赋予“语言”更多的重要性而不是“言语”，并且建议当时的语言学家多搞共识研究, 而非历史研究。他在理论上和方法论上的创新思维得到广泛的认同。人们称他为现代语言学之父。

Key to the multiple-choice and judgment exercises

Chapter 1

II. 1) Plato 2) Aristotle 3) Xun Zi 4) (Noam) Chomsky

5) (Ferdinand de) Saussure

Chapter 2

II. 1) Plato 2) Herder 3) Galileo 4) William Johns

5) the Linguistic Society of Paris

III. 1) syntax 2) pragmatics 3)morphology 4) phonetics

5) phonology 6) semantics 7) semantics

IV. 1) psycholinguistics 2) historical linguistics

3) sociolinguistics 4) psycholinguistics

5) sociolinguistics 6) applied linguistics (in the broad sense)

7) applied linguistics 8) psycholinguistics

Chapter 3

II. Order of the speech organs on the left corresponding to their proper definitions on the right: soft palate; alveolar ridge; pharynx; hard palate; vocal cords; trachea; larynx

III. 1) b 2) t 3) Ѳ 4) m 5) f 6)l 7) dʒ 8) j 9) ŋ 10) s

IV. (The correct feature is given after the arrow)

1) b) front → central

2) a) semi-open → open

3) c) low → high

4) c) high → mid

5) d) rounded → unrounded

V. 1) incorrect. inside the chest → inside the head

2) correct.

3) incorrect. auditory phonetics → acoustic phonetics

4) correct.

5) incorrect. A syllable cannot contain more than one vowels. Even if a diphthong or thiphthong is contained, it is still a single vowel, pronounced within one chest pulse.

6) incorrect. The location of the words “Chinese” and “English” in the statements should be exchanged.

7) correct

8) correct

Chapter 4

II. 1) morphemes 2) Bound 3) Compounds 4) idiomatic

5) agglutinating

III. 1) The older gentleman voted wisely .

a a c a a a c a b

2) The children skipped rope and played games joyfully

a a c a c a a a c a c a b b

3) 他们赛跑拿了第一。

a c a a a c b a

Chapter 5

II. 1) head, complement

2) projection, maximal, intermediate, minimal

3) lexical, functional

4) specifier, sisters

5) inflectional phrase, inflectional morphemes, infinitival particle

6) complementizer phrase, wh-questions

Chapter 6

II. 1) propositions; arguments; adjunct 2) internal; external:

3) none or one; none, one or more 4) theta/thematic; argument

III. 1) rain ( 0 ) 2) old (table)

3) sleep (baby) 4) like (John, teacher)

IV. 1) agent 2) experiencer

3) instrument, theme/patient 4) agent, theme, benefactive

5) agent, theme, instrument 6) theme

Chapter 7

II. 1) synonyms 2) antonyms 3) polysemy

4) homophones 5) denotative; denotative 6) Connotative; Connotative

7) entailment

III. 1) paraphrase 2) entailment 3) contradiction

4) presupposition

V. 4) a. The window is material.

b. The window is abstract.

c. The window can either be material or abstract.

Chapter 8

II. 1) given; new; Theme, Rheme 2) Theme; Rheme 3) unmarked; markd

4) topical; interpersonal; textual 5) topic; comment

III. (keys are boldfaced)

1)

2)

3)

4）

5)

6)

7)

8)

IV. 主位分析：

1) 哎呀(textual Theme)，孙悟空(interpersonal Theme)，月光宝石(topical Theme)怎么能乱扔呢(Rheme)？

2) 好大一会儿(Theme)，这伙人谁也没说话(Rheme)。

3) And (textual Theme) no doubt (interpersonal Theme) he(topical Theme)’ll deny everything (Rheme).

4) Well (textual Theme), perhaps (interpersonal Theme) he (topical Theme)simply isn’t interested in the same kind of things (Rheme).

5) The first three letters(topical Theme), of course(interpersonal Theme), were his mother’s initials (Rheme).

6) Oh (textual Theme), Alice(interpersonal Theme), you (topical Theme) are all right, aren’t you (Rheme)?

Chapter 9

II. 1) Locutionary 2) Searle 3) promise 4) cooperative

5) manner; implicature

III. 1) By saying Where are my glasses? A requests B to help look for his glasses;

By saying I am too busy A declines to help.

2) I’ve hidden it because you are on diet.

3) Steve is messy.

4) two interpretations:

a) No, I don’t, because I hate pink. b) Yes, I do, because I like pink.

5) The restaurant serves guests by serving food to them.

Chapter 10

II. 1) Reconstitution 2) Wernicke's area 3) parameters 4) Displacement 5) Broca's area 6) Pinker 7) billion

III.

1) bed had toil

2) t, m, n, p, l may appear in spoken Chinese (putonghua)

m and p may not appear in the same position within the syllable as in come and jeep.

3) a. b. d. e. may possbly made by a non-native speaker of Chinese.

Chapter 11

II. 1) Spelling bees 2) diglossia 3）sociolect 4) positive; negative

5) Bolinger

Chapter 12

II. 1) UG 2) Von Humbolt 3) structural dependency 4) babbling

5) bootstrapping 6) triggering; choosing

Chapter 13

II. 1) negative 2) affective 3) interlingual; intralingual 4) interlanguage 5) fossilization

Chapter 14

II. 1) diversities 2) tendencies 3) implicational 4) unmarked

5) relativity

III.

1) 参考译文：

In front of my house are quite a few stalls, whose owners, like tradesmen elsewhere, all know the saying “Locations make a difference in prosperity”. That is to say, even if your stall stands side by side with someone else’s, your neighbor may enjoy a constant stream of shoppers, but yours may be patronized by few.

2）参考译文：

纽约的粗犷、紧张，那种急迫感和催人奋发的竞争性；它的是非观念之严酷无情；纽约市的那种各色人等熙熙攘攘，兼容并蓄于各自的天地之中的格局；这一切都使那些非纽约人感到厌恶和窒息；而这一切，又正是纽约人所眷念的。

（原文WH-词导致外位成分后移，译文恢复外位结构）

Chapter 15

II. 1) mediate 2) micro 3) Pidgin 4) communicate 5) competence

试谈英语词汇的源流及现状

在跨入新世纪之际，一种以现代信息技术为显著特征的崭新经济形态——知识经济，正以强劲势头风行世界，成为当今时代的特色。知识经济的基础是知识的传播和应用大多是靠英语这个工具通过书刊、网络和多媒体电脑等高新技术在全世界大行其道的。从某种意义上讲信息化几乎等同于英语化，因此，为了更好地掌握这种语言工具，了解一下英语的历史似有必要的，而了解这一语言的历史首先要从分析它的词汇开始。

一、英语词汇的源流

作为世界语言中最具影响的英语，自身在不断的发展变化，其中最明显的变化表现在词汇方面。可以说，词汇和词汇能力已成了当今语言理论乃至应用研究的一个主要方面。越来越多的学者，开始把词汇问题看作是语言的核心问题。在应用语言领域中，有研究者发现词汇问题是制约外语学习的瓶劲问题。

（一）、英语词汇来自不同语种的外来词汇

英语词汇是由来自不同语种的外来词汇混合而成的，这种情形缘于历史上外来民族的不断入侵。

1、英语词汇来自拉丁语

约公元前7世纪时，欧洲的凯尔特人迁移到不列颠岛定居，他们的语言属印欧语系。从公元前1世纪到公元4世纪，罗马军团入侵该岛。因罗马人数量不多，虽作为占领者，但他们的拉丁文并未能广泛影响到凯尔特人的生活与文化，仅留下一些拉丁文地名。但公元6世纪时，罗马传教士奥古斯丁（Augustine）到不列颠岛传布基督教，后成为坎特伯雷首任大主教，这时拉丁词语伴随着宗教文化大量进入英语。例如，我们现在还使用的活词：关于道路的修筑的有拉丁strata，英street关于房屋的有拉丁calx,英chalk,白垩；拉丁tegula，英tile，瓦；关于水果名称的有拉丁cerasea,英cherries；拉丁prunum,英plum;

拉丁castanea英chest-nut，栗子；有关于蔬菜名称的如拉丁pisum,英peas;还有厨房一词：拉丁coquina,英kitche，以及关于厨房用具的词：拉丁discus,英dish；拉丁cuppa,英cup;拉丁molina,英mill，碾碎器，等等。

2、英语词汇来自法语

“法国是欧洲大国，产生过灿烂的封建文化，故对英语影响很大。”[1]进入英语的法语不仅数量多，而且涉及面广，成为英语中最主要的外来语。中古英语时期，约有一万多个法语词汇进入英语，其中70%沿用至今。除了一般的日常用语，如beast,country,cup,fruit,lamp,letter,oil,

rose,table,war,service,prison,castle,market之外，还可以遇到一些宗教用语abbot,clerk,hermit,pilgrim,prior,miracle,religion,sermon，一些文化方面的词语justice,peace,rich,poor，还有一些关于文明生活及服装的词，如fashion,dress,habit,button,fur,robe,collar,chemise等等。

诺曼人征服英国后，法语成了当时英国上层社会的语言。但是，“外来语和土著英语难免发生碰撞，最终的结果是入侵者使用的法语并未将英语同化，相反，作为占领者的诺曼人后来都逐渐放弃了贵族化的法语，改操英语，同时也将大量法语词汇和语言融入了英语，在英语的语汇构成方面留下了雪泥鸿爪。”[2]如英国农民传统养牛，称牛为cattle,法国人坐享其成，吃牛肉，称之为beef；英国人称猪为pig，而法国人把猪肉叫pork，故现在英语中关于“猪”，“牛”的两种名称并存。

由于上述特定的历史因素，英语中来自法语的词俯拾皆是，诸如copy(拷贝)、cologne spirit（科隆香水）、cent(分币)、modern（摩登）、disco（迪斯科）、model（模特）、mushroom（蘑菇）等等，无法尽述。有人估计约占英语原有语汇的一半以上。

3、英语词汇来自其他外语

英语从各语种广泛地吸收外来词以丰富自身，这从某些典型例句中可明显看出，例如“The skipper took a cargo of tea, molasses, carry, oranges, and cinnamon from the toboggan and placed it on the matters in the bamboo kiosk.”, 此句中含有从10多种其他语言中借来的词语。”[3]英语由于广泛采纳外来词汇，不断丰富自身，这是它不断扩大影响且成为世界语言的一个重要因素。

（二）、英语词汇的变更

随着时代的更新，社会的不断进步与发展，英语中的许多词汇也随之有所变化。这些词，或者是关于宇宙的，如wourld—world,sune—sun,

mona—moon,heofon—heaven,steorra—star;或者是关于人体的，如heafod --head,fot—foot,eage—eye,nosu—nose;或者是关于亲属的，如moder— mother,sunu—son,dohtor—daughter;或者是关于房屋的，如hus—house, flor—floor,duru—door,hrof—roof;或者是关于基本动作的如libban—

live,etan—eat,drincan—drink,cuman—come,slepan—sleep,还有一些形容词，如eald –-old,lang—long,brad—broad,geong—young等等，这类的词是数以百计的。作为拼音文字的英语，语音若发生变化，词语的拼写也必得随之变化，所以尽管英文才1000多年历史，但古英语对现代人来讲已成“天书”，即使莎士比亚当年的作品，现代英国人看来也犹如外文，须借助专门工具书才能读懂。”[4]可见，随着社会的不断发展进步，英语的词汇也将不断更新，不断增长，也许几十个世纪后，我们现在的英语在他们后人看来却成了古英，这是很有可能成为现实的。

二、英语词汇的现状分析

1、技术词汇的建立

工业、科学、商业和国际和国际关系的发展导致专门术语词汇的建立，这类词汇开始是由专业技术人员使用的，后来就逐渐进入一般通用语了。譬如，铁路方面的术语有rail,tunnel,tender,bogie;有关外贸函电方面的用语，如eclosure(附件)、cable(电报)、quotation（报价）、negotiation(谈判、磋商)、T/T(电汇)、M/T（信汇）、D/D(票汇)等；还有一些商业、贸易方面的术语，如FOB,CIF,Draft,Drawee(受票人)、Commercial Draft(商业汇票)、Clean Bill（光票）、Documentary Bill（跟单汇票）、Acceptance(承兑),Endorsement(背书)等等。我国商业及对外贸易关系在不断扩展，尤其是在加入WTO组织后这一点会更为明显，因此，这类术语在当今社会中会越来越广泛地被使用。作为英语专业的我们，为了使自己以后在社会中得到更好的发展，掌握这些词是有必要的。

2、英语词汇的词义变化

英语自身在不断发展变化，其变化在语汇方面表现得尤其明显。Love在莎士比亚时代仅是“亲密”或“友谊”的代名词，是文人表钦佩时广泛使用的字眼，如今却有“爱”、“爱好”、“爱人”以及（招呼语）“嗨”

等义。“那时，英语正处于一种纷乱的变化这中，意大利文艺复兴的风暴正横扫不列颠，这给莎士比亚提供了遣词、创新及运用修辞的一个难得的自由空间，许多异彩纷呈的词语就从这位奇才的笔尖下源源不断地流淌出来。”[5]如300多年前英语里“秋天”一词是fall,而现代英语里变为autumn，fall的意思变成了“降落”，其复数形式又为“瀑布”

词义有了明显的转移。Earth原义为“土地”，哥白尼的“日心说”确立之后，earth又增加了“地球”一义；cool一词约半个世纪前在美国出现并流行至今，这个词本义是“凉爽”、“处事冷静、镇定”，后转义形容人“较有个性”、“与众不同”、“漂亮、棒”等。诸如此类的例子不胜枚举，在我们的日常生活英语中就有许多这样的句子。通常一个单词都有好几个词义，在不同的句子中它所表达的意思就不同，而在不同的运用范围内它们所表达的意思也会不同，因此，随着科学技术的不断进步及社会发展的需要，英语词汇的词义也会在某一范围内有所扩大。

3、词汇量大、有简化倾向

英语在词汇方面有“来者不拒”的倾向，因此英语的新词不断的增长，词汇量也随之扩大。随着科技的飞速发展，英语中涌现出的新词语如雨后春笋，诸如a

ir conditioner,electronic,laser,computer等等。据统计，现代英语每年出现新词数以千计。“Johnson博士编辑A Dictionary of the English Language时收录约40，000个词条；20世纪30年代的一项调查显示，当时英语词汇一共有374，720个；”[6]而目前英语词汇总量估计已经突破百万。从殖民时代开始在量的外来词汇就不断涌入英语中，当今全球科技的进步又成为了英语词汇增长的新源泉。现代英语中80%的词汇属于外来词。

虽然拥有巨大的语汇量，英语在一些篇幅之中却体现出简化的倾向。“伊丽莎白时代的文句，长度平均是四十五字，维多利亚时代平均是二十几字，到现在便只有十几、二十字了。”[7]这与现代社会的快节奏高效率是相适应的。此外，随着科技进步，新词大量涌现，其中很多是以缩略、混成、复合简单的方式构成的；而网络技术的发展也使得诸如R/r代替are,U/u代替you,M/m代替am或以C/c代替see等快捷的键盘交流方式成为了现实，就如同我们有“886”代替“拜拜罗”这种以数字代替汉语文字的快捷键盘交流方式一样普遍被使用，这些简化词在OICQ聊天网中是最为常见的。

三、结论

由于多种因素的作用，现代英语已成为一种国际性语言，正为越来越多的人所接受。据联合国统计，其日常文件有80%是用英语来撰写的。全球1/5的人能用英语进行不同程度的交流；2/3的科学家用英语阅读；

3/4的邮件用英语书写；4/5的电子信息用英语存储。它是大多数人类活动的主要语言。目前全世界使用英语的人数已达16亿之多，其中近1/4的人把它作为

第一语言。国际上70%的传播媒体使用的是英语，Internet内容绝大部分也是用英语存储的。英语从各种语言在量吸收外来词，现在它已成为词汇最为丰富的语言之一。有资料显示，英语词汇已达40万之多。

当前的趋势是最新的科技发展与英语关系越来越密切。据报道，到21世纪Internet将进入千家万户，英语将成为世界通用语。源于多媒体电脑和国际互联网的广泛使用，不断造出以英语为基础的有关于网络方面的新词语，如lol、soho等，“不过有的语言学家认为，网络上出现的新词汇不太可能成为一种新语言，因为它们太容易变化，很可能昙花一现。”[8]此外，社会科学技术的不断更新发展，商业界以及对外贸易关系的进一步扩展，医学技术的不断进步，也有可能导致英语词汇的不断更新且创造出更多的技术术语。