QUESTIONS:

LESSON 1: INTRODUCING LINGUISTIC ANTHRPOLOGY

True or False
F 1. For the most part, the terms linguistic anthropology and anthropological linguistics
mean exactly the same thing, and neither is to be preferred over the other.
F 2. Natural language itself is not ambiguous; it is people’s misinterpreting things that
causes problems.
T 3. According to Boas, there is no intrinsic connection among race, language, and
culture.
F 4. Almost everywhere in the world, everyone is monolingual or monodialectal, just as
in America.

T 5. No language is really more complex or simpler or easier than any other; no lan-
guage is harder or easier to learn than any other.

T 6. Whereas linguists are primarily interested in the structure of languages, linguistic

anthropologists study the relationship between language, on the one hand, and cul-
ture and society, on the other.

Multiple-Choice Questions
C 1. The person who is said to be the “founding father” of American anthropology is (A)
Edward Sapir. (B) Dell Hymes. (C) Franz Boas. (D) Karl V. Teeter.

C 2. Anthropology as a recognized science began in the (A) seventeenth century. (B) eigh-
teenth century. (C) nineteenth century. (D) twentieth century. (E) twenty-first century.

B 3. According to Edward Sapir, it is the (A) syntax, (B) vocabulary, (C) grammar that
more or less faithfully reflects the culture whose purposes it serves.

A 4. During the last seventy years, the percentage of monolingual and bilingual Mexican
Indians has been steadily declining in favor of Spanish by about what percent? (A)
From 16 percent in 1930 to about 7 percent in 2005. (B) From 10 percent in 1930 to
1 percent in 2005. (C) There actually has been not much change. (D) Spanish has for
the most part replaced almost all indigenous languages.

E 5. Lexical specialization—that is, a large inventory of words pertaining to a particular domain—is found in
which of the following instances? (A) The Agta of the Philippines have more than thirty verbs referring to types
of fishing. (B) The natives of the German city of Munich are said to have more than seventy terms referring to
the local varieties of beer. (C) Americans have a hundred or so names for makes and types of automobiles. (D)
Only two of the preceding three choices are true. (E) All three choices, A–C, are true.

Completions
1. In the nineteenth century, one of the main intellectual and scientific tasks was to try to explain the great
diversity of race, language, and culture past and present (three words).

2. Sapir’s description of the morphology of the Takelma, language demonstrated that non-Western
languages can be as complex as any found in Europe (one word).

3. A very brief and simple definition of anthropology might be “the holistic study of humankind” (one word).
 LESSON 2: METHODS OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
True-False Test
F 1. The reason all anthropologists enjoy fieldwork is that living in the field places no
demands on them that they must adjust to.
F 2. The native speaker from whom the researcher collects linguistic (or cultural) data
is referred to as an informer.
T 3. One characteristic that sets anthropology apart from other social sciences is a
strong fieldwork component.
F 4. In the initial phases of fieldwork, the anthropologist prefers to use people who have
had extended experience in the anthropologist’s own society.

F 5. In the initial phases of linguistic fieldwork, anthropologists’ endeavor to use infor-

mants who speak different dialects of the language studied.
Resource Manual and Study Guide 33
F 6. Unwritten languages of small tribal societies are primitive because these languages
have little or no grammar.
T 7. Vocabularies of the languages of some small tribal societies may not be as extensive
as the vocabulary of, say, English, but are sufficient to serve the needs of the groups
using them.

Multiple-Choice Questions
E 1. There are still hundreds of languages about which linguists and anthropologists know
relatively little or nothing at all. For the most part such languages are found in (A)
Irian Jaya. (B) Papua New Guinea. (C) the Amazon basin in South America. (D) only two of the areas
mentioned. (E) all three of the areas mentioned.

D 2. For initial fieldwork in linguistic anthropology concerning, for example, Native Amer-
ican languages, experienced anthropologists tend to choose a native informant (con-
sultant) who (A) is of the opposite sex. (B) has had good exposure to the larger society surrounding
the tribal society being studied. (C) is young and easily approachable. (D)
None of the preceding three choices is fully satisfactory.

B 3. The immersion of anthropological fieldworkers for an extended period of time in the day-to-day life
of the people whom they study is referred to as (A) going native. (B)participant observation.
(C)giving up one’s ethnic identity.

B 4. Which of the following statements having to do with obtaining data for a little-known language is
least acceptable? (A) The informant should be an older person who is an active participant in his or her
culture. (B) Recording a spontaneous conversation between two native speakers yields good
material during the initial stages of fieldwork. (C) Tape recordings of linguistic data (with the
permission of the informant) are extremely helpful. (D) In the advanced stages of fieldwork, using
informants of several age groups and both genders is highly advisable.

Completions
1. A collection of language data used as a basis for an analysis or description is referred to as a
CORPUS (one word).
2. elicitation (one word) is the drawing out of information or response from informants.
3. To emphasize the interconnection between culture and society, anthropologists use the compound
adjective sociocultural (one word).
4. Alessandro Duranti argues that there have been three “paradigms” in linguistic anthropology. These
are anthropological linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and social constructivism (three sets of
two words each).
 LESSON 3: The “Nuts and Bolts” of Linguistic Anthropology I:
Language Is Sound
True-False Test
F 1. American English has more vowel phonemes than consonant phonemes.
F 2. English spelling and spoken English are well correlated; the writing system of En-
glish is therefore particularly suitable for careful linguistic work with unwritten
languages.
T 3. In the production of vowels, the air that escapes through the mouth (and the nose
in the case of nasalized vowels) is relatively unimpeded.
T 4. Pitch in a variety of intonational patterns is used in English—for example, in
questions.
T 5. The syllable written as ma has four different meanings in Mandarin Chinese, de-
pending on the type of pitch contour the speaker employs.
T 6. The English words guy and thigh represent a minimal pair; that is, they vary from
each other in one sound only.
Resource Manual and Study Guide 59
F 7. Acoustic phonetics refers to the study of the production of speech sounds by the
vocal organs.
T 8. English as spoken in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada differs somewhat
from one dialect to the next with regard to vowel pronunciation.
T 9. Articulation of all the sounds in the languages of the world takes place between the
glottis (the elongated space between the vocal cords) and the lips.
F 10. In an analysis of an unwritten language, phonemic transcription precedes phonetic
transcription.

Multiple-Choice Questions
A 1. When the vocal cords are drawn together and made to vibrate, they produce (A)
voiced sounds. (B) voiceless sounds. (C) the glottal stop [ʔ].
D 2. The p-sounds in the English words peak and speak are (A) two allophones of one
phoneme. (B) two different phonemes. (C) in complementary distribution. (D) Of the
three choices above only two are acceptable.
C 3. Prosodic features can include all the following except (A) pitch. (B) vowel length. (C)
voicing. (D) stress.
C 4. The sound written as [b] is (A) uvular. (B) dental. (C) bilabial. (D) None of these three
choices applies.
B 5. Which among the following statements is indefensible? (A) Each language has a
characteristic phonemic system. (B) The grammars of unwritten languages of small tribal societies are
invariably simpler than grammars of languages of large established societies. (C) The production of
speech sounds is an exceedingly complex process involving some one hundred muscles as well as
other tissues. (D) Native speakers of a language use it efficiently even though they may know nothing
about its structure.

Completions
1. Languages that make use of distinctive pitch levels (Mandarin Chinese, for example) are
referred to as TONE languages (one word).
2. The smallest perceptible discrete segment of speech is a PHONE (one word);
the contrastive sound units of a language are PHONEME (plural of one word); and
the varieties of a contrastive sound are its ALLOPHONES (plural of one word).
 LESSON 4: The “Nuts and Bolts” of Linguistic Anthropology II:
Structure of Words and Sentences

True-False Test
F 1. Native speakers who do not observe the proper grammatical rules (they may say, for example, “I
ain’t” or “he don’t know nothing”) are not used as informants by linguists and linguistic anthropologists.
T 2. The study of phonemic differences between various forms of a morpheme is termed
morphophonemics.
F 3. Morphology is the study of the origin of words.
T 4. Linguistic units that have a meaning but contain no smaller meaningful parts are called
morphemes.
T 5. One major advantage that transformational/generative grammar has over a purely
descriptive grammar is that it can show how new sentences can be derived from basic ones.

Multiple-Choice Questions
C 1. How many different morphemes (not how many morphemes) are there in the follow-
ing sentence: “She cooks tasty soups and stews.”? (A) 7 (B) 8 (C) 9 (D) 10.
D 2. What is the total number of morphemes in the preceding sentence? (A) 7 (B) 8 (C) 9
(D) 10.
F 3. The English word undesirable contains (A) one prefix. (B) one suffix. (C) two affixes.
(D) three affixes. (E) Two of the above choices apply. (F) Three of the above choices, A–D, apply.
D 4. Which of the English words listed below has a zero allomorph of the plural morpheme? (A)
syllabus. (B) mouse. (C) ox. (D) sheep. (E) zero.
E 5. The sentence “Dogs bite thieves” contains (A) three free morphemes. (B) one bound
morpheme. (C) two bound morphemes. (D) Only one of the three choices above applies. (E) Two of
the three choices above, A–C, apply.

Chapter 4: The “Nuts and Bolts” of Linguistic Anthropology II

Completions
1. What kind of morpheme (allomorph) is exemplified by a change rather than an addition,
as in the pluralization of mouse to mice? It is a PROCESS morpheme (one word).
2. In Latin, the arrangement of words in a sentence does not indicate which noun is the
subject and which is the object, but rather is used to show EMPHASIS (one word).