Mock exam Introduction to Linguistics 2017

N.B. The real exam contains 80 questions – 4 per chapter!

Chapter 1

1. “An animal language can only be used for a limited number of messages; a human
language has rules with which it is possible to form an unlimited number of
sentences.”
This statement is
1. true
2. untrue

2. Processes of word formation are studied in the area of

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

Chapter 2

3. When a person suffering from aphasia speaks in meaningless jargon, this is usually
the result of damage in the area of
1. Wernicke
2. Broca

4. Which of the following processes does NOT play a part in language comprehension?
1. establishing the communicative intention of the speaker
2. planning of the preverbal message
3. analysis of the continuous speech signal
4. use of world knowledge

Chapter 3

5. If a child says runned instead of ran then this is called

1. overgeneralization
2. substitution

6. Some researchers maintain that children have an innate language acquisition device.
What they mean by this is that
1. language acquisition starts at birth
2. the general principles applicable to all languages are present at birth
3. all grammatical rules are present at birth
4. imitation plays no part in language acquisition

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Chapter 4

7. An example of a linguistic means to create cohesion in text is

1. ellipsis
2. illocution

8. Consider the following dialogue:

A: Are you going to Alice’s party tonight?
B: I have nothing to wear and besides the baby-sitter is ill.
On the basis of the cooperation principle, A will interpret B's utterance using the
1. maxim of quantity
2. maxim of style
3. maxim of relevance
4. maxim of quantity

Chapter 5

9. The utterance I advise you to bring a set of spare clothes is an example of

1. a direct speech act
2. an indirect speech act

10. Imagine that person X says to person Y: I forbid you to enter this building again. This
is called a direct speech act because X …
1. uses the performative verb forbid
2. assumes that Y will observe the cooperation principle
3. is being impolite
4. conforms to the relevant felicity conditions

Chapter 6

11. In the sentence He greedily ate his stew the underlined word is
1. an adjective phrase
2. an adverbial phrase

12. In the sentence The very popular singer’s performance was disappointing, the
underlined part is
1. a head
2. a modifier
3. a noun phrase
4. a participle

Chapter 7

13. In the sentence Deborah is a lawyer the underlined part is

1. a predicate
2. an argument

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 14. How many arguments does put have in the following sentence?
Amanda put the magazines on the table.
1. one
2. two
3. three
4. four

Chapter 8

15. The sentence He forgot to lock the door contains an example of

1. equi-deletion
2. raising

16. The underlined embedded clause in the sentence I bought a bicycle that turned out
to have malfunctioning breaks.
1. a relative clause
2. a modifier
3. both 1 and 2
4. neither 1 nor 2

Chapter 9

17. The sentence The patient could only slowly walk contains a word order error in the
1. verb phrase
2. noun phrase

18. When determining the basic constituent order of a language, the researcher looks
primarily at the order in
1. interrogative clauses
2. imperative clauses
3. embedded clauses
4. declarative clauses

Chapter 10

19. The underlined phrase in the sentence The rhinoceros is almost extinct is an example
of
1. generic reference
2. definite reference

20. In the sentence Mister Jones lost one of his gloves the situation type is
1. dynamic, controlled
2. dynamic, non-controlled
3. static, controlled
4. static, non-controlled

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Chapter 11

21. With respect to phonology, does a clitic behave like an independent word?
1. yes
2. no

22. Which of the following words is a content word?

1. despite
2. when
3. pure
4. because

Chapter 12

23. In the underlined word in the sentence The baby sneezes often the inflection is
1. inherent
2. contextual

24. In Vietnamese most words consist of a single morpheme. This language is an example
of
1. an agglutinating language
2. a fusional language
3. an isolating language
4. a polysynthetic language

Chapter 13

25. Is laboratory assistant an exocentric compound?

1. yes
2. no

26. In British Sign Language (BSL) the sign for 'believe' consists of the sign THINK followed
by the sign TRUE. This example suggests that the head of compounds in BSL
1. occurs in initial position missing
2. occurs in final position
3. is exocentric
4. is missing

Chapter 14

27. The phonemes /b/ and /k/ are both

1. plosives
2. voiceless

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 28. A morpheme can have more than one form depending on the context in which it
occurs. In such cases, each of the alternative forms is called
1. an allophone
2. an allomorph
3. a minimal pair
4. a paradigm

Chapter 15

29. The initial consonants of the English words goal and coal are
1. allophones
2. different phonemes

30. The English phonemes /f/ and /s/ share the distinctive feature
1. fricative
2. lateral
3. plosive
4. nasal

Chapter 16

31. The word hamster consists of two

1. syllables
2. morphemes

32. Which syllable carries the main stress in the English word anatomy?
1. the first
2. the second
3. the third
4. the fourth

Chapter 17

33. In historical linguistics, proto-forms are derived from related words in different
languages, through a minimal number of sound changes. This method is called
1. comparative reconstruction
2. lexical variation
3. grammaticalization
4. phonological assimilation

34. The similarities between English and German are mostly the result of
1. coincidence
2. a Sprachbund
3. genetic relatedness
4. typological relatedness

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Chapter 18

35. What is an isoglos?

1. An area on a map marking social class variation
2. A boundary on a map marking an area that has a distinct linguistic feature

36. The use of the words hash, dope and pot to denote a specific kind of soft drug, are an
example of
1. semantic variation
2. lexical variation
3. hypercorrection
4. co-articulation

Chapter 19

37. The increase in the use of form innit? as a tag question (as opposed to isn't it?), is an
example of
1. top-down change
2. bottom-up change

38. The gradual spread of a new phonological variant through the lexicon is called
1. incorporation
2. language shift
3. lexical diffusion
4. lexical change

Chapter 20

39. Ki-Swahili is spoken by many inhabitants of East Africa as a common second

language, since they do not understand each other’s first languages. Ki-Swahili thus
functions as
1. a pidgin
2. a lingua franca
3. a koine
4. a creole language.

40. The Welsh expression maes rygbi (field rugby) ‘rugby ground’ is an example of
1. code switching
2. relexification
3. interference
4. a loan translation

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Answer key:
1-1 21-2
2-1 22-3
3-1 23-2
4-2 24-3
5-1 25-2
6-2 26-1
7-7 27-1
8-3 28-2
9-1 29-2
10-1 30-1
11-2 31-1
12-2 32-2
13-1 33-1
14-3 34-3
15-1 35-2
16-3 36-2
17-1 37-2
18-4 38-2
19-1 39-2
20-2 40-4