‫ فاطمة عبد الصمد محمد الشافعي‬:‫اسم الدكتور‬
‫ دراسات لغوية‬:‫اسم المادة‬
‫ الثانية‬: ‫الفرقة‬
‫ اآلدا‬:‫اسم الكلية‬
2011/6/16 :‫تاريخ االمتحان‬
‫ اللغة اإلنجليزية‬:‫التخصص‬
Faculty of Arts
Department of English Language and Literature
Second Year Linguistics Exam
June 2011
Answer the following question:
Write to distinguish between:
1. Bound and free morphemes: Morphemes are composed of free and bound
morphemes. Free morphemes are the morphemes that can "stand by themselves as
single words", while bound morphemes are those that "cannot normally stand
alone", but that can be attached to affixes (Yule, 2000, p. 75). Free morphemes
contain lexical and functional morphemes. The first category, free morphemes, is
the set of ordinary nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs which carry the content of
the conveyed messages (Yule, 2000, p.76), and most English words refer to this
category. The functional morphemes consist largely of the functional words,
including conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns (Yule, 2000). Bound
morphemes can also be divided into two categories. They are derivational and
inflectional morphemes. Derivational morphemes are those which "make new
words in the language and make words of a different grammatical category from
the stem" (Yule, 2000, p.76), which means that it can change the meaning or the
word class, whereas the inflectional morphemes are used to "indicate aspects of
the grammatical function of a word" (Yule, 2000, p.77).
An example of a free morpheme is "bad", and an example of a bound morpheme
is "ly." It is bound because although it has meaning, it cannot stand alone. It
must be attached to another morpheme to produce a word.
Free morpheme: bad
Bound morpheme: ly
Word: badly
When we talk about words, there are two groups: lexical (or content) and function
(or grammatical) words. Lexical words are called open class words and include
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. New words can regularly be added to this
group. Function words, or closed class words, are conjunctions, prepositions,
articles and pronouns; and new words cannot be (or are very rarely) added to this
class.
Affixes are often the bound morpheme. This group includes prefixes, suffixes,
infixes, and circumfixes. Prefixes are added to the beginning of another morpheme,
suffixes are added to the end, infixes are inserted into other morphemes, and
circumfixes are attached to another morpheme at the beginning and end.
Following are examples of each of these:
Prefix: re- added to do produces redo
Suffix: -or added to edit produces editor
Infix: -um- added to fikas (strong) produces fumikas (to be strong) in Bontoc
Circumfix: ge- and -t to lieb (love) produces geliebt (loved) in German
There are two categories of affixes: derivational and inflectional. The main
difference between the two is that derivational affixes are added to morphemes to
form new words that may or may not be the same part of speech and inflectional
affixes are added to the end of an existing word for purely grammatical reasons. In
English there are only eight total inflectional affixes:
-s
3rd person sing. Pr.
she waits
-ed
past tense
she waited
-ing
Progressive
she's eating
-en
past participle
she has eaten
-s
Plural
three apples
-'s
Possessive
Lori's son
-er
Comparative
you are taller
-est
Superlative
you are the shortest
The other type of bound morphemes are called bound roots. These are
morphemes (and not affixes) that must be attached to another morpheme and
do not have a meaning of their own. Some examples are ceive in perceive and
mit in submit.
2. Synonym, antonym and hyponym
Synonym and antonym are forms of Greek nouns which mean, respectively,
“same name” and “opposed (or different) name”. We may find synonyms
which have an identical reference meaning, but since they have differing
connotations, they can never be truly synonymous. This is particularly the case
when words acquire strong connotations of approval (amelioration) or
disapproval (pejoration). We can see this by comparing terrorist with freedom
fighter or agnostic (Greek) with ignoramus (Latin). Both of the latter terms
express the meaning of a person who does not know (something). A pair which
remains more truly synonymous (but might alter) would be sympathy (Greek)
and compassion (Latin). Both mean “with [= having or showing] feeling”, as in
the English equivalent, fellow feeling.
Some speakers will not be aware of synonyms, so cannot make a choice. But
those with a wide lexicon will often choose between two, or among many,
possible synonyms. This is an area of interest to semanticists. What are the
differences of meaning in toilet, lavatory, WC, closet, privy, bog, dunny and so
on?
Intelligent reflection on the lexicon will show that most words do not have
antonyms. When Baldric, in BBC TV's Blackadder, attempts to write a
dictionary he defines cat as “not a dog” - but the two are not antonyms. A cat is
not a fish, banana, rainbow or planet, either - it is not anything, but a cat! We
can contrast simple pairs like fat/thin but realize that both are relative to an
assumed norm. Such lexeme pairs (for example: big/little, clever/stupid,
brave/cowardly, hot/cold and beautiful/ugly) are gradable antonyms . True and
false may show a clearer contrast. Clear either/or conditions are expressed by
complementary antonyms: open/closed, dead/alive, on/off. Another kind (not
really opposites at all) are pairs which go together, and represent two sides of a
relation: these are converses or relational antonyms. Examples would be
husband/wife, borrow/lend, murderer/victim, plaintiff/defendant.
Hyponymy is an inclusive relationship where some lexemes are co-hyponyms
of another that includes them. As cutlery includes knife, fork, spoon (but not
teacup) these are co-hyponyms of the parent or superordinating term. This
traditional term denotes a grouping similar to a semantic field. So cod, guppy,
salmon and trout are hyponyms for fish, while fleet has the hyponyms
battleship, aircraft carrier, cruiser, destroyer and frigate.
David Crystal points out (Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language; page 105)
that this is a linguistic, not a real-world, relationship - so it varies from one
language to another. In English potato is a hyponym of vegetable but in
German the lexeme Gemüse does not include Kartoffel (=potato).
3. Collocation, fixed expression and idiom
Some words are most commonly found paired with other words, to create a
semantic unit or lexeme. Thus false is often found together with passport, teeth
or promise. These pairs are known as collocations. They are very helpful in
establishing the meanings of the words in the pair. Porn is likely to be followed
by film, mag, star or video. It may be collocated with actor, director or merchant
but is less likely to be followed by customer, operative or minister. After estate
you expect agent. How often have you seen whole new (whole new ball-game)
as a collocation (here whole is redundant)? Think of collocations including these
words: American, British, coffee, dirty, first, mad, millennium, native, Ninja,
prime, police, rotten, speed, surf. When words become grouped in almost
predictable ways these are fixed expressions. Examples include jewel in the
crown, desirable residence, criminal mastermind, world of work, address the
issues, I put it to you.
Sometimes the group is so well rooted in the language that the meanings of the
component words are ignored, or metaphorical meanings (in dead metaphors)
are never visualised. Such a group has a meaning that is not to be found in
analysis of its parts, and is an idiom. Examples include: keep your nose clean,
stick your nose/oar in, beneath your station, bed of roses, load of crap, not my
cup of tea, a piece of cake, get on your high horse, off your own bat (frequent
substitution of back shows the speaker is unaware of the original meaning) or
skin of your teeth, get stuffed (what did this originally mean?).
4. Directive and commissive speech acts
Directive and commissive are two types of speech acts. Pretheoretically,
we think of an act of communication, linguistic or otherwise, as an act of
expressing oneself. This rather vague idea can be made more precise if we get
more specific about what is being expressed. In general, an act of communication
succeeds if it is taken as intended. That is, it must be understood or, in Austin's
words, 'produce uptake'. Communicative success is, however, achieved if the
speaker chooses his words in such a way that the hearer will, In saying something
one generally intends more than just to communicate—getting oneself
understood is intended to produce some effect on the listener. However, our
speech act vocabulary can obscure this fact.
Speech acts, being perlocutionary as well as illocutionary, generally have some
ulterior purpose, but they are distinguished primarily by their illocutionary type,
such as asserting, requesting, promising and apologizing, which in turn are
distinguished by the type of attitude expressed. The perlocutionary act is a matter
of trying to get the hearer to form some correlative attitude and in some cases to
act in a certain way. For example, a statement expresses a belief and normally has
the further purpose of getting the addressee form the same belief. A request (a
directive act) expresses a desire for the addressee to do a certain thing and
normally aims for the addressee to intend to and, indeed, actually do that thing. A
promise (a commissive act)expresses the speaker's firm intention to do
something, together with the belief that by his utterance he is obligated to do it,
and normally aims further for the addressee to expect, and to feel entitled to
expect, the speaker to do it.
Statements, requests, promises and apologies are examples of the four
major categories of communicative illocutionary acts: constatives,
directives, commissives and acknowledgments. This is the nomenclature
used by Kent Bach and Michael Harnish, who develop a detailed
taxonomy in which each type of illocutionary act is individuated by the
type of attitude expressed (in some cases there are constraints on the
content as well). There is no generally accepted terminology here, and
Bach and Harnish borrow the term 'commissive' from Austin and
'directive' from Searle.
Bach and Harnish spell out the correlation between type of illocutionary act and
type of expressed attitude. In many cases, such as answering, disputing, excusing
and agreeing, as well as all types of under the circumstances of utterance,
recognize his communicative intention.
Directives: advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing, excusing,
forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring,
suggesting, urging, warning
Commissives: agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising,
swearing, volunteering