SOAS, University of London

Examination for Undergraduate students – May/June 2016

GENERAL LINGUISTICS
152900069

This paper is suitable for current students only.

Time Allowed: 3 hours

The marks for this paper constitute 80% of the total marks for this course.

Permitted materials/equipment
None

Special stationery/equipment required

None

Instructions:

Answer THREE questions. You must answer ONE question from Section A and ONE question
from Section B. You can choose to answer your THIRD question from either Section A or B

Please write in BLACK ink only and write as clearly as possible. Candidates are advised that
the marking of illegible scripts is at the discretion of the examiner.

Turn over when instructed

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Section A

1. Consider the past tense of regular verbs in English, formed through the addition of the
suffix spelled -ed in the orthography. Phonetically, the -ed suffix has three realizations,
as illustrated in the following examples:

A B C
walked [wɔ:kt] judged [dʒʌdʒd] padded [pædɪd]
trapped [træpt] rhymed [ɹaɪmd] needed [ni:dɪd]
washed [wɒʃt] planned [plænd] rented [rentɪd]
laughed [lɑ:ft] rubbed [rʌbd] seated [si:tɪd]
poached [pəʊtʃt] wagged [wægd] landed [lændɪd]

i. Describe the three realizations (alternations) of the suffix -ed, using appropriate
terminology from phonetics.
ii. The choice of how to pronounce the past-tense suffix when associated with a
particular word is predictable. Describe the pattern that governs the selection of
realization (alternation).
iii. Write a rule accounting for this pattern.
iv. State what the phonological process at play is, and define it.

2. Daga is spoken in the Owen Stanley Mountains of the Central District of Papua New
Guinea. (Data for this problem were drawn from Murane 1974; the orthographic y
indicates the palatal glide [j].). Consider its morphology.

a. mamana ‘my father’ n. goanana ‘my liver’

b. inaga ‘your mother’ o. nonu ‘our mouths’
c. yame ‘his eye(s)’ p. yamu ‘their eyes’
d. nanimu ‘their hands’ q. noya ‘your mouths’
e. goanaya ‘your livers’ r. naniga ‘your hand(s)’
f. pusinu ‘our feet’ s. yame ‘her eye(s)’
g. noga ‘your mouth’ t. inanu ‘our mother’
h. inana ‘my mother’ u. mamamu ‘their father’
i. done ‘its horn’ v. inaya ‘your mother’
j. pusina ‘my foot, my feet’ w. goaninu ‘our younger sibling’
k. yamga ‘your eye(s)’ x. tase ‘her older sibling’
l. evene ‘his friend’ y. mamanu ‘our father’
m. inase ‘its tracks’ z. yamya ‘your eyes’

i. Provide a list of all the roots you can identify, indicate their part of speech (noun,
verb, etc.), and their glosses (meaning).
ii. Provide a list of all affixes with their meaning (lexical or grammatical).
iii. Give a definition of ‘morpheme’, ‘root’, ‘affix’.
iv. Discuss whether the roots here are bound or free.

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3. Each of the following English sentences is followed by the label of a particular
constituent.

a. Ken put the ice-cream maker in the car. Verb phrase

b. The family across the street keeps their car in the driveway. Subject
c. My dog never brings the stick to me. Object

i. Identify that constituent in the sentence (there may be more than one).
ii. Draw a labelled tree diagram for each sentence.
iii. Use at least one constituency test to justify each constituent you posit.

4. As women’s rights became a central social issue in the 1970s, many linguists began to
examine the relationship between language and gender. A much-discussed book by
Robin Lakoff originally published in 1975 proposed that women’s language is
characterized by specific features. List these features, provide examples and discuss
their relevance today.

5. Consider the data in the table below.

i. Describe what is the ‘Great Vowel Shift’ in English.
ii. Discuss how it explains some seemingly senseless allomorphy, and provide
illustrative examples.

The Great Vowel Shift (Anttila 1972: 65)

Chaucer Shakespeare Wordsworth Modern English

1340-1400 (1564- (1770-1850) (present)
1616)
bite ī bite ǝi ai ai
bete ē beet ī ī ī
bete ǣ beat ē ī ī
name ā name ǣ ē ē
foal ᴐ̄ foal ō ō ou
fol ō fool ū ū ū
foul ū foul ǝu au au

6. First language acquisition theories can be viewed as falling into two basic types: formal,
nativist theories and functional, discourse-based theories. Discuss the major
characteristics of these two types of theories, providing relevant examples.

7. Provide and illustrate with examples from languages of your choice a typological
universal for each the following areas:
i. phonology
ii. morphology
iii. syntax
iv. semantics

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Section B

8. a) What is the difference between “reference” and “denotation”? If meaning is studied

from an external, referential point of view, how do we characterize the denotational
properties of the following categories?

i) intransitive verbs

ii) transitive verbs

iii) di-transitive verbs

iv) adjectives

v) statement sentences

b) What are the considerations that lead to the claim that the study of meaning is the
study of truth-conditions and the contributions words and phrases make to truth-
conditions?

9. What is “semantic markedness”? Analyze one semantic case to illustrate how

markedness theory can help reveal the underlying sense system of a language.

10. If we take propositional calculus and predicate calculus to be two systems of semantic
description,

i) What are their differences and what are their similarities?

ii) What are the insufficiencies of each in characterizing natural language meaning?

11. Explain how verbs and verb phrases are classified into four types of situation types
(Akionsarten) and illustrate your answer with examples from English.

12. What is the S-E-R system? How does it help represent “tense” and “aspect”?

13. a) How is metaphor comprehended according to Grice’s theory of conversation?

b) How is metaphor comprehension explained in relevance theory?

c) What are the key differences?

© SOAS, University of London, 2016

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