Introduction to English Studies Midterm Test Revision November 16, 2018
1
1
I History of the English language/British and American English 1.
Why do languages change?
2.
How do languages change? Provide examples for your answer.
3.
What does it mean to say that languages have genetic origin?
4.
Which language family does English belong to? 2
I History of the English language/British and American English 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
What are the periods of development in the history of English? What are the most important systemic differences between Old and Modern English period? Define and provide one example of the Great Vowel Shift. Provide three examples of words in English that changed their meaning over time. Provide three examples of words of Latin origin which survived into ME. What is the significance of the Norman Conquest in the context of the development of the English language? 33
II Phonetics/Phonology 1. 2.
3.
4.
5. 6.
Define phonetics. What does it study? Which levels of analysis of sounds are studied in phonetics? What is the difference between spelling and ortography? What does it mean when we say that sounds have manner or articulation? How would you define a phoneme? What is an allophone? Provide one example of English allophones. 4
II Phonetics/Phonology
1.
Write a phonetic symbol which corresponds to the phonetic descriptions of the following phonemes in English: 1. labio-dental voiceless fricative 2. bilabial voiced plosive 3. bilabial glide 4. alveolar voiced stop 5. palatal voiceless affricate
2. For each group of sounds listed below, state one articulatory feature which they all share: a) /k,g/ b) /n, m / c) /p,b / 55
II Phonetics/Phonology
1. Which of the following words end in a voiceless (-v) and which in a voiced (+v ) phoneme? a. house ________ b. brick ________ c. label _________ d. church __________
2. Human palate is divided into the hard palate and the soft palate or __________.
66
II Phonetics/Phonology 1.
How would you define the concept of a distinctive feature in phonology?
2. What does it mean to say that two phonemes are in complementary distribution? Provide one English example.
7
II Phonetics/Phonology
1.
Match the words fan, faith, reap, fun, mouse, bid, with their minimal pairs below ( some of these words do not have a minimal pair here! ): a. kid _____ b. keep ________ c. son _____ d. house ________ e. fake ______ 88
II Phonetics/Phonology
1. Choose the odd one out: a) put shut cut bud trouble b) black blank blew apple bad c) sea leave heat intend sweet
99
III Grammar
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
How do we explain the concept of creativity in natural languages? What are some different meanings of the word grammar? Which two basic grammatical relations are there within a syntactic structure? What is the difference between language competence and language performance? What is the basic difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar? Provide some examples in English. 10 10
III Grammar
1.
2.
3.
4.
In a clause, adjectives could have the ________and the ______ function. Explain the difference between finite and nonfinite verb forms in English. What is the difference between natural and grammatical gender? What is the difference between teaching grammar and Universal grammar? 11 11