Questions – Linguistics Vorlesung – Klotz

1. Right or wrong: (4 p.)

- English is the language with most native speakers in the world. (Mandarin)

- English is the global language because speakers from different languages use it to
communicate.

- English is the global language because it is easy to learn.

- Most people in India are English native speakers.

2. Name four dimensions of variation in English! (4 p.)

- Regional, social, gender, field, historical?

3. Variation in English can be user-related or use-related. Explain and give an example each! (4 p.)

- User-related: means that the variation depends on the individual language use of each
speaker. For example, depending on their gender, social status or region.
- Use-related: means that the variation depends on the context and the situation in which
the speaker finds himself. For example, his field, attitude or medium.

4. Name four features that define a standard language! (4 P.)

- Non-regional
- High-prestige
- Codified in dictionaries and grammars
- Used in foreign-language teaching
- (Exist in written form)

5. Explain the difference between dialect and accent in linguistics! (2 P.)

A dialect has its own grammar, its own vocabulary and a different pronunciation. An accent, on
the other hand, only has a different pronunciation.

6. Explain the correlation between regional variation and social status of speaker! (2 P.)

This means that people who speak the standard variety, in other words have little regional dialect
or accent, often also have a higher social status. On the other hand, people with a lower social
status usually have a more prominent regional dialect and speak less standard language.

7. Give the beginning dates of the following historical periods of English: (4 P.)

- Old English: 450

- Middle English: 1100
- Early Modern English: 1500
- Late Modern English: 1700
8. Which historical periods do the following authors belong to? (3 P.)

- Shakespeare: Early Modern English (Elizabethan Era)

- Ælfric: Old English

- Chaucer: Middle English

9. Which Indo-European language group do English and German belong to? Name three more
modern languages which belong to this group (4 p.)

English and German both belong to the Germanic group within the Indo-European language
family. Additionally, three more modern languages in this group are Dutch, Swedish, and Danish.

10. What are the donor languages of the following words? (4 p.)

- fight: west germanic origin

- parliament: french
- husband: viking origin
- notorious: latin

11. What is the name of the construction illustrated by I don't want none of it? Discuss the claim that
this construction is ungrammatical! (4 p.)

Double negation: On the one hand it can be said that two negatives might cancel each other out.
On the other hand, two negatives could also emphasize negation. → negative concord occurs in
French, Old English …

12. Traditional grammar incorporates the notion of the gerund. Explain what a gerund is! Why
doesn't it make sense to apply this notion to English? (4 p.)

There are many different explanations of a gerund. Many distinguish it from the two other so
called non-finite forms: the participle and the infinitive. For them the gerund is a noun.
But actually, the participle and gerund are morphologically not distinct in English (unlike Latin).
Thus, it doen´t make sense to distinguish them terminologically (in English there´s just an -ing
form).

13. Traditional grammar incorporates the notion of future tense. Use the sentences below to argue
that that notion cannot usefully be applied to English! (6 p.)

I will meet up with Ben tonight. (“normal” future = prototype)

I might meet up with Ben tonight. (future, modal verb)

I am meeting up with Ben tonight. (future, modal verb)

Ben will be home by now. (present time)

Ben will not talk to me since I dropped his iPhone into the pool. (volition)

➔ Neither is will-Inf the only way to mark future time (ex. 2-3) nor does it always express future
time reference (ex. 4-5)! Will only marks a prediction!

14. Explain the notion of the linguistic sign in Structuralism! (4 p.)

A linguistic sign consists of a signifiant (form) and a signifie (concept). Any linguistic entity exists
only in virtue of the association between signal and signification. The link between signal and
signification is arbitrary.
15. Name the two types of relation that hold between linguistic signs in Structuralism and provide an
example each.
“Three grey mice” → Mice is in a …
- Syntagmatic relationship: with three and grey
- Paradigmatic relationship with other members of the same category: with days, cars, …
16. Saussure compared language to a game of chess. Explain what he meant by this! (4 p.)
A language is a system in which all the elements fit together, and in which the value of any one
element depends on the simultaneous coexistence of all the others.
17. Give an English-German example of the arbitrariness of conceptualisation as claimed by
Saussure! (2 P.)
/tri:/ vs. /baʊm/
18. Saussure suggests that the synchronic study of language takes precedent over the diachronic!
Explain the terms and give reasons for Saussure's view! (4 p.)
- Synchronic study: analysis the state of the language at a given point in time
- Diachronic study: analysis the development of the language through time
- A language is a system of which all the parts can and must be considered as
synchronically interdependent. Since changes are never made to the system as a whole,
but only to its individual elements, they must be studied independently of the system.
- If a linguist takes a diachronic point of view, he is no longer examining the language, but a
series of events with modify it.
19. What did Franz Boas study linguistically? In which way did that shape his perception of language?
(2 p.)
- He studied the Linguistic relativity in which he compares English to other foreign
languages.
- He saw Language as the Reflection of Culture, so each culture should be studied on its
own terms.
- Gender: gender of noun is classified differently in all languages
Number: singular and plural forms don´t always differ in all languages
Sounds: there´s a different number of sounds in all languages
20. What is linguistically interesting in the sentence “The president is the man I want to succeed?”
Give the relevant technical term! Which point does Chomsky argue based on examples like this?
(4 p.)
Here occurs constructional homonymity where a single linguistic construction has multiple
distinct meanings or interpretations → Knowledge about language can´t be observed
- 'I want the president to succeed'
- 'I want to succeed the president!'
- He argues that there is a surface (observable) structure and underlying deep (not
observable) structures. Through the process of transformation those deep structures
transform into a surface structure.
21. Which fundamental view do Plato and Chomsky have in common? (4 p.)
The core of linguistic knowledge is innate. We already have that knowledge at birth.
Generative Grammar: Universal grammar + Parameters (core) + idiosyncratic facts (periphery)

22. Give examples for verbs of the following kind! (3 p.)

- monovalent: to sleep
- divalent: to abandon (someone abandons sth)
- trivalent: to put (someone puts something preposition)
23. Give the quantitative valency of the following verbs!

- put: trivalent
- snore: monovalent
- listen: divalent

24. Explain the difference between complements and adjuncts in Valency Theory and illustrate these
with an example? (4 p.)
The dependants of a verb can either be complements or adjuncts. Adjuncts are freely addable and
not part of the valency of the verb (Finally researchers abandoned the theory)

25. Is the bold part of the following sentence a complement or an adjunct? Give reasons! (3 p.)
The students arrived at the library. → Complement because it is part of the divalent verb to arrive at
something

26. Explain the notion of qualitative valency and give an example! (2 p.)

- They want ice cream (NP)

- They want to have ice cream (to-INF)
- They want that I buy them ice cream (that-clause)

Quantitative valency refers to the number of complements a predicator can take and qualitative
valency refers to the formal character of these complements. → want + to-INF or NP

27. Explain the notion of semantic valency with the help of the following sentences! (3 p.)

- He called her a taxi. → Agent + Beneficiary + Affected

- He called her a genius. → Agent + Affected + Predicative

Semantic Valency: Complements which are identical in form can have different semantic roles.

28. Explain why a standard syntactic analysis of the following sentence is unsatisfactory! (4 p.)

- She elbowed her way to the door. → She used her elbows to get to the door.
- She carried the plates to the sink. → She caused the plated to be moved to the sink.
→ Same syntactic structure, BUT different meaning!
→ Doesn´t make sense to consider verb and NP (elbow her way) as separate constituents,
because they express one holistic idea.

29. Define the notion of construction in Construction Grammar and give three examples of
constructions at various levels of complexity and schematicity! (6 p.)
Constructions are a form-meaning pair which is highly idiomatic (no idiom with lexically filled slots):

- Morpheme -ing
- Idiom going great guns
- Collocation clear conscience

30. Discuss the following sentence from the perspective of Valency Theory and Construction
Grammar! (4 p.)

- Pat sneezed the napkin off the table.

- Valency: Valency coercion → sneeze normally doesn´t take direct object. However, this
construction coerces the verb into accepting an object (the napkin).
- Construction Grammar: Caused-motion Construction → the non-motion verb “sneeze”
combines with a caused-motion frame “off the table”, resulting in a coerced meaning.
31. Name two Argument Structure Constructions and give one example each! (4 p.)

- Diatransitive Construction: Bob told Sally a story

- Caused-Motion Construction: Heather took the car to the garage

- Benefactive Alternation:
John made his daughter a salad. (Beneficiary: his daughter)
- Implied Reflexive Object Alternation:
Lisa dressed the child. (Implied reflexive: herself)
32. Name and briefly explain three ways to retrieve linguistic data! (6 p.)
- Introspection: native linguists acts as their own source of data
- Elicitation: empirical approach based on tests
- Corpora: collection of authentic text for language study
33. Where do you see the advantages and disadvantages of different ways to retrieve linguistic data?
(6 p.)
Introspection delivers data exactly as needed, but the language is never complete
in any single individual. Elicitation is marked by validity and authenticity, but the participants of
the tests can have different opinions, or some opinions are neglected or ignored. The corpora
enables quick searches, but the knowledge of a language can´t be extracted from data.

34. Noam Chomsky argues that corpora are not a helpful source of data in linguistic research.
Discuss! (4 p.)
On the one hand it enables quick searches and is marked by validity and authenticity, but
Chomsky argues that information about the speaker-hearer’s competence, about his knowledge
of the language is neither presented for direct observation nor extractable from data by
inductive procedures of any known sort.

35. Name two linguistic corpora of English and give their approximate size! (4 p.)
- Brown Corpus: 1 mio word tokens
- British National Corpus: 100 mio word tokens

36. Explain the notions of corpus and KWIC-concordance in linguistics! (4 p.)

The corpus is a collection of authentic text for language study.
KWI stands for KeyWordInContext and it generates a list of all instances of a specific search term
(e.g., a word or phrase) within a corpus, which means that the word that was searched is given in
different contexts and sentences.

37. Explain the differences in use between good conscience and clear conscience.
Good conscience is used after “can + NEG INTERROG + in” (I can´t in good conscience)
Clear conscience used after “can + AFFIRM + VERB + with a” (I can leave with a clear conscience)

38. Explain John Sinclair's distinction between the open-choice principle and the idiom principle!
(4 p.) → Both principles describe how sentences are produced.
- Open-choice principle (= Slot-and-Filler Grammar): At each point where a unit is completed (a
word or a phrase or a clause), a large range of choices opens up and the only restraint is
grammaticalness.
- Idiom Principle (= Chunks): a language user has available to him or her a large number of
semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices