语言学实用教程课后答案.docx

1、语言学实用教程课后答案英语语言学实用教程课后答案 Unit 1 Some Preliminaries about LanguageCheck your understandingState whether each of the following statements is True or False.(1) There is universal agreement about the origin of language. F(2) Pet dogs can speak human languages. F(3) All human infants can speak some langu

2、age. FNote: All normal human infants can learn to speak some language.(4) By creativity we mean the creative use of language as often practiced by poets. F Note: By creativity we mean that we can always create and understand new sentences never used before.(5) With different cultures there will be d

3、ifferent languages. F Note: Some cultures can share the same language.(6) Not all uses of language are meant to convey new information. T Note: Example: language used for phatic communion is not meant to convey new information. In-Class Activities1. ASK: (1) What does “language” mean in each of the

4、contexts?a. a natural language; language in particular.b. a human-specific tool for communication; language in general.c. individual style of language use.d. a metaphorical way of referring to bees system of communication.(2) Is there any other context in which the use of the word means something el

5、se? Yes. Example: language for the computer like C+2. ASK:(1) What if there were no language? Omit.(2) What if there were only one language the world over? Omit.(3) What can we learn from this Bible story? Language is powerful as a tool of human communication.3. ASK:(1) Do you think the two statemen

6、ts are equally probable, and if not, why not? (a) is more likely than (b), because the word as the basic unit of meaning that can occur independently in language is finite in number, whereas the sentence as composed of words, though almost infinite in number, is made possible by our knowledge of voc

7、abulary and grammar. We can always produce and understand sentences that we never come across before. In that sense, no sentence is really new.(2) In what context do we make the second statement? When we focus our attention on the meaning of a sentence or when we are concerned with the form of a sen

8、tence as found in a language class.4. ASK:(1) Are there onomatopoeic words in Chinese? Yes. e.g. “哗啦”、“扑通”、“喀嚓”.(2) Does the existence of onomatopoeic words overthrow the claim that language is arbitrary? No. Onomatopoeic words account for a very limited percentage in the vocabulary of a language.5.

9、 ASK:(1) Can one really invent a language of ones own? No. (2) If not, why?A language comes into being and use by convention or agreement among its speakers.6. ASK:(1) Is there any basic flaw in this experiment? The process is not strictly controlled. There may have been some coincidence. The sample

10、 size is too small for the experiment to be valid. (2) Do you think we really can answer the question about the beginning of language? No, at least in the present condition where/when we cannot perform experiments on the human brain, the key organ of speech.7. ASK:(1) Can you identify the most likel

11、y order (from least to most advanced) of these samples? CBA(2) What features in each childs utterances can you use as evidence to support your ordering? Child A: good syntax except for improper question form. Child B: visible development of syntax; overgeneralization Child C: Not much syntax; two-wo

12、rd utterances; telegraphic sentences (sentences that contain only content words but lack function words)8. ASK:(1) It is often assumed that children imitate adults in the course of language acquisition. Can imitation account for the above production on the part of the child? Not wholly. There is cou

13、nter evidence against the assumption, like the overgeneralization “go-ed” for “went”.(2) What distinguishes the childs production from that of the adult? Overgeneralization of “-ed” for the past tense as shown by “holded”. 9. ASK:(1) How do adults reinforce the process of childrens acquisition as ex

14、emplified here? They use explicit correction.(2) Do children know what they are doing wrongly? Not exactly. (3) Do the adults succeed in their reinforcement? Not always, at least.(4) How should we treat the “mistakes” that children make while acquiring their mother tongue? We may ignore them sometim

15、es, although some amount of reinforcement may turn out to be helpful. 10. ASK:(1) Do children learn through structured or simplified input, as suggested? Not always. There is evidence for both sides. (2) Can you offer some examples illustrating, representing the way adults talk to infants?Omit.Note:

16、 Motherese is characterized by shorter sentences, higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, higher proportion of content words to function words, simple syntax, more interrogatives and imperatives, more repetitions. Yet it is not syntactically simpler. Rather, it may include syntactically complex senten

17、ces such as questions: Do you want your juice now? Embedded sentences: Mommy thinks you should sleep now. Imperatives: Pat the dog gently! Negatives with tag questions: We dont want to hurt him, do we? Indeed, it is fortunate that motherese is not syntactically restricted. If it were, children might

18、 not have sufficient information to extract the rules of their language.11. ASK(1) What measures do you suggest for protecting dialects as well as languages? Omit.(2) Do you think that someday people all over the world will speak only one language, or someday no dialect will exist? Omit. 12. ASK:Are

19、 there any universals that you think all languages share but are not mentioned here?E.g. All languages have internal structures. All languages have numericals. ExercisesTask 3: Study Questions1. What do you think is essential to the emergence of language? The existence of social activities; the need

20、 to express diverse ideas, emotions, etc.; the need to communicate ideas to distant places; etc.2. Can our pets learn human languages? Why or why not?No. They are genetically not endowed with the capacity.3. What role does body language play in language communication? Omit.4. Naturally occurring “ex

21、periments” with so-called “wolf-children”, “bear-children”, “Mowgli” or “monkey-children” and other such feral youngsters have been widely reported for hundreds of years. None of these children could speak or understand speech and, indeed, most efforts to teach them language ended in failure. How wo

22、uld you account for the failure?The language acquisition device has to be triggered before a certain age (that of puberty). Sufficient expose to a language environment at the right time is essential to language acquisition.5. The following are some instances of using English for communication. What

23、specific function does each use of English serve in the following pictures? Informative (in the form of commanding) Directive (Advertising in the form of requesting)Directive (Persuading in the form of threatening) Directive (Recruiting)6Iconicity of language is an aspect of language where form echo

24、es meaning. Onomatopoeia, also known as “sound symbolism”, is one type of iconicity. Some researchers have found other evidence of iconicity. For example, words beginning with the sound combination sl- in English often have an unpleasant sense, as in slithering, slimy, slugs. Here are some questions

25、:a. Is the “unpleasant” sense actually true of all, or even most, words beginning with sl- in English? No. e.g. slight.b. Are there any other sounds or sound combinations that you associate with particular meanings? Gliding: slide, slip, slippery; Rolling: tumble, crumble, stumblec. How about the vo

26、wel sounds in words that identify near-to-speaker concepts (this, near, here) versus far-from-speaker concepts (that, far, there)? What is the difference? Is it a general pattern distinguishing terms for things that are near versus far in English? What about the case in Chinese?Front vowels for near

27、-speaker concepts; central or back vowels for far-from-speaker concepts. There seems to be a similar kind of pattern in Chinese. C.f. 近 jin /远 yuan；这 zhe /那 na7. In many of the worlds languages there are so-called nursery names for parents. In English, for example, corresponding to the word mother i

28、s the nursery name mama, and for father one finds dada and papa. There is remarkable similarity across different languages in the form of these nursery names for parents. For example, in Chinese and Navajo ma corresponds to English mama. Why do you think that this is the case?Bilabials are learned a

29、nd produced first because they are the easiest.8. a. What are some of the changes which appear to have taken place in the childs ability to use English during that period? Like the basically proper use of interrogatives and the correct use of inflection. b. What do these changes suggest about the or

30、der of language acquisition?Complete sentences are acquired later than elliptical ones. Inflection is acquired at a late stage. Unit 2 The Sounds of EnglishCheck your understandingState whether each of the following statements is True or False.1. i: and i are allophones of the same phoneme. F2. Not

31、all English phonemes have allophones. T Note: / and /j/ occur in one single position and therefore do not have allophones.3. The same set of vowels is used in all languages. F4. All syllables must contain at least one vowel. F Note: Some syllables may contain no vowels. They may, instead, employ som

32、e syllabic consonant, as in people and muscle.5. The marking of word stress is arbitrary for the most part in English. F6. English is a tone language. F Note: Chinese is a tone language. In-Class Activities1. ASK: (1) What is the phonetic environment of t in pit? i_#(2) Are the following pairs of words minimal pairs? (a) desk vs. task No. (b) leave vs. Leak Yes. ( li:v vs. li:k ) 2. ASK