ENG502 Midterm Solved Papers Set 3

Interchangeability write examples

Interchangeability refers to the idea that humans can give and receive identical linguistic signals; humans are not limited in the types of messages they can say/hear. One can say "I am a boy" even if one is a girl. This is not to be confused with lying (prevarication). The importance is that a speaker can physically create any and all messages regardless of their truth or relation to the speaker. In other words, anything that one can hear, one can also say. Interchangeability refers to the speaker’s ability to both receive and broadcast the same signal. This is different to some communication systems where, for example, males produce one set of behaviours and females another and they are unable to interchange these messages so that males use the female signal and vice versa.

IMP: WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

The word grammar is from Greek word which means "art of letters", (gramma), "letter". Grammar is the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes phonology, morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics.

Grammar refers to cognitive information underlying language use. Speakers of a language have a set of internalized rules for using that language. These rules constitute grammar, and the vast majority of the information in the grammar is—at least in the case of one's native language—acquired not by conscious study or instruction, but by observing other speakers. Much of this work is done during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves a greater degree of explicit instruction English has strict rules for combining words into phrases.

• Noun Phrase

The good boy Art + adj. + noun

• Verb Phrase

Is playing Aux + verb

IMP: Zero Onset:

If the first syllable of a word begins with a vowel, it can be any vowel except /ʊ/ which is rare. Initial consonant of a word may be any except /ŋ/.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS and DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS

Prescriptive grammar describes when people focus on talking about how a language should or ought to be used. One way to remember this association is to think of going to a doctor’s office. When a doctor gives you a prescription for medication, it often includes directions about how you should take your medication as well as what you should not do when taking your medication. In a similar way, a prescriptive grammar tells you how you should speak, and what type of language to avoid. This is commonly found in English classes as well as other language classes, where the aim is to teach people how to use language in a very particular (typically described as ‘proper’ or ‘correct’) way. Descriptive grammar, on the other hand, focuses on describing the language as it is used, not saying how it should be used. For example, think about a prescriptive rule like Don’t split infinitives. A descriptive grammarian would see a sentence like “To boldly go where no man has gone before” and would try to describe how the mental grammar can cause that ordering of words, rather than saying that the surface form is faulty due to prescriptive rules (which would require the sentence “To go boldly where no man has gone before”). Linguistics takes this approach to language.

IMP: GENERAL RULES OF STRESS

1. When nouns and adjectives possess two syllables the stress is on the first syllable. Examples: PRO-gress
2. Verbs possess two syllables the stress is on the last syllable. Examples: pre-SENT
3. Words ending in ‘Shen’ sound like –TION, -SION, -CIAN are usually stressed on the second last syllable. Example: e-du-CA-tion
4. Words ending on –IC are usually stressed on second last syllable. Examples: e-co-NO-mic
5. Words ending in –EE and –OO are usually stressed on last syllable. Example: em-poly-EE

Q. Derivational Morphemes

The set of affixes that make up the category of bound morphemes can also be divided into two types.

• Derivational Morpheme • Inflectional Morpheme

Derivational morphemes change the grammatical categories of words.

Word Part of speech Affix New word Changed class Bake Verb -er Baker Noun Quick Adjective -ly Quickly Adverb Happy Adjective -ness Happiness Noun Derivational morphemes can be added to free morphemes or to other derivational morphemes.

• Transform (v) • Form (root word) • Prefix trans-, a derivational morpheme. • -ation. • Transformation (N) • -al to -ation, the transformational (adj.)

Linguistics:

Non-Speculative Nature Linguistics is non-speculative. So the main difference between scientific and non-scientific study of language is that linguistics is empirical rather than speculative or intuitive. It operates with publically verifiable data obtained by means of observation and experiment. Speculative mood (abbreviated spec) is an epistemic grammatical mood found in some languages, which indicates that the utterance is based on speculation of the speaker, and not necessarily known to be the case. For example, " The butler could have been the killer."

IMP: SAPIR’S DEIFINITION OF LANGUAGE:

According to Sapir (1921: 8), "language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols." This definition suffers from several defects. However, broadly, we interpret the terms 'idea', 'emotion' and 'desire , it seems clear that there is much that is communicated by language which is not covered by any of them and 'idea' in particular is inherently imprecise. On the other hand, there are many systems of voluntarily produced symbols that we only count as languages in what we feel to be an extended or metaphoric sense of the word ‘language’. For example, what is now popularly referred to by means of expression ‘body language’ which make use of gestures, postures, eye-gaze etc. would seem to satisfy this part of Sapir’s definition. Whether it is purely human or non-instinctive is open to doubt. This is the main point to be noted in Sapir's definition.

Language: A Symbol System

A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates. Language is a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate. The symbols used in language can include speech sounds as well as writing; while the rules include grammar (e.g. pronouns, tense, etc.), parsing, and pragmatics. There is an arbitrary relationship between a linguistic symbol and its referent. Language provides context for symbolic understanding. Every language has its own way of encoding and expressing human experience, and an entire way of thinking is lost each time a language becomes extinct. It is important to differentiate between language and communication. Communication is a process whereby there is exchange of information between the sender and the receiver. This information can be transmitted via any of the methods including scent, song, gesture, tone, writing, painting, or language. Language is a symbolic form of communication.

Q1. What is amplitude?

Answer: Amplitude refers to the magnitude of vibrations, with larger vibrations resulting in greater peaks of

pressure (greater amplitude), which usually result in an increase in perceived loudness. Unlike pure tones, which rarely occur in the environment, speech sounds are complex waves with combinations of different frequencies and amplitudes Italian word for language.

Q2. Scope of branches of linguistics

Answer: Phonetics has been derived from the Greek word phone meaning sound/voice. It is one of the important

branches of linguistics, which deals with the study of speech sounds. It covers the domain of speech production and its transmission. It also covers the reception aspect of speech. The sounds made by us when we talk are studied through different branches of phonetics like acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics, and articulatory phonetics. On the other hand, phonology focuses on the organization of sounds by studying speech patterns. The key words for describing phonology are distribution and patterning related to speech. It is aimed to determine the sound patterns of all the languages.

Q3. Complex morphological analysis

Answer: Analysis of morphology (linguistics), the internal structure of words.

Morphological analysis is a method quite used when you have to analyze or decompose the structure or general form of a product into their different constituting shapes.

Problems in Morphological Description

Apparent description of morphological analysis is simple as it can be seen in the following example: Cat + -s = cats But what is the plural of these words: Sheep + ? Man + ? If institution +-al = institutional and –al is an adjective suffix, but in legal –al is not used to make leg adjective as leg alone has no meaning of the word legal in it.

Other Problematic Cases

The relationship between law and legal is also of the same problem. At best we can say that law (Old English (lagu) from a Scandinavian source) and legal (Latin form legalis (‘of the law’) have come into English from different languages and different periods. We do not find any derivational relationship between the following: noun adjective law legal mouth oral

Q4. Define Grammar Agreement

Answer: The word agreement when referring to a grammatical rule means that the words a writer uses need to align in number and in gender (when applicable). View more details on the two main types of agreement below: Subjectverb agreement and noun-pronoun agreement.