Quiz  (Week 3)

 

1.      Formulate a ‘phonological rule’ that describes the variation in American pronunciation of a morpheme /in/ as [In], [Im], and [Ir] in words like ‘invalid,’ ‘indecipherable,’ ‘intemperate,’ ‘irrational,’ ‘infrequent,’ ‘imbibe,’ and ‘impatient.’  Now, consider some apparently ‘irregular’ words like ‘inbreed,’ ‘input,’ and ‘inpatient’? How would you begin to explain their divergence from the ‘rule.’  Does your pronunciation diverge from the rule you’ve formulated, or is it only the standard spelling that diverges?  (40%)

 

The basic rule is assimilation to the following consonant:

            /In/ à [Im] | ___ consonant (bilabial);

            /In/ à [Iŋ] | ___ consonant (velar);

            /In/ à [Ir] | ___ [r];

            /In/ à [In] elsewhere.

The irregular words are more recent additions to the language, compounds made with the English preposition ‘in.’  They maintain the <in-> spelling as a result of their recent construction, even when (in some cases at least) they are pronounced in accordance with the above assimilation rule: e.g. [Imbrid] and [Imp¬t].   (NOTE: the <im> in ‘imbibe’ is NOT a negative prefix.)

 

 

2.      Among the inflections, what does the term ‘Dative’ refer to?  ‘Subjunctive’?  ‘Neuter’? (10%)

 

Dative is a case of nouns/pronouns/adjectives indicating that they are the indirect object of a verb/action (or of certain prepostions).

Subjunctive is a mood of verbs, indicating a state or action marked as not being factual: i.e., doubtful, uncertain, conditional, contrary to fact; or expressing a wish, hope, regret, demand, etc.

 Neuter is a term describing the gender of nouns/pronouns/adjectives, and indicates distinctive classes of declension.  It is not related to biological (or natural) gender in pre-modern stages of English (or in other languages).

 

 

3.      What is Indo-European?  What are its major branches?  Where does Vulgar Latin fit?  Where does English? (30%)

 

Indo-European is a large family of languages, spoken from Western Europe (and its later colonies) to the Indian subcontinent.  Probably originating in a homeland somewhere in Eastern Europe, Turkey, or southern Russia, its spread in various directions and divided into a number of distinct sub-families: Celtic, Germanic (E, N, and W—the latter including Anglo-Saxon à English), Italic (Latin, including the spoken dialects collectively called ‘Vulgar Latin,’ from which the various modern Romance Languages descend: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Romansch), Slavonic, Hellenic, Albanian, Armenian, and an Indo-Iranian group (containing Sanskrit and its descendants—e.g., Hindi, Urdu—as well as Persian)

 

 

4.      What is Grimm’s Law and what does it describe? (20%)

 

An observation by Jakob Grimm (1822) that describes the regular divergence of certain consonants in the Germanic languages from those found in cognate words in other branches of Indo-European:  bh à b à p à f; dh à d à t à θ; and gh à g à k à h.  Aspirated voiced stops become unaspirated; voiced stops become voiceless; voiceless stops become voiceless fricatives.

 

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 Quiz  (Week 2)

 

Part One:  Transcribe from IPA

 

[ mΛŋki ]:                   monkey                       [ gu:l ]:                        ghoul

[ prajs ]:                      price                            [ ræ:zbŗi ]:                   raspberry

[ klIŋ ]:                        cling                            [ tòIld ]:                       chilled

[ qi:f ]:             thief                             [ òe:kspi:r ]:                Shakespeare

[ klo:ð ]:                      clothe              [ æskt ]:                      asked

[ əmju:zIŋ ]:    amusing                      [ stri:k ]:                     streak

 

 

Part Two:  Transcribe into IPA

 

housecoat         [ hawsko:t ]                                          ketchup            [ k«t§\p; k¾tsÃp ]

corporate         [ k¿rpr«t; k¿rp\ræt       ]                      quarter [ kwŒrär; kwŒrt\r]

business            [ bIzn\s; bIzin«s; bIznIs ]          cute                  [ kju:t   ]

flight                 [ flajt ]                                      jungle               [ d½Ãŋgl; d½Ãŋg\l]

 

Part Three:  Identify

 

[ θ ]  unvoiced interdental fricative                     [ d ]  voiced alveolar stop

 

[ p ]  unvoiced bilabial stop                               [ g ]  voiced velar stop

 

[ i ]   high front tense (or long) vowel                 [ æ ]  low front vowel

 

Part Four:  Identify

 

[ m ]                 bilabial nasal (voiced)

 

[ \ ]                  upper mid-central (lax) vowel

 

[ d½ ]                voiced alveo-palatal affricate

 

[ j ]                   voiced palatal approximant; glide

 

[ ð ]                  voiced interdental fricative

 

[ ε ]                  lower mid-front (lax) vowel

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Quiz  (Week I)

 

 

Part One: Lexical Categories.

 

1.  worse          _____adj.__________                                    2.  from            __prep.___________

 

3.  brought        _____verb_________                         4.  this              (demon.) pron. & det.

 

5.  her              __(per.)pron. & det.__             6.  erased         _verb (& adj.)______

 

7.  spider          ___noun___________             8.  often            _adv._____________

 

9.  manly          __adj. (& adv.)______                      10.  model          _noun, verb, & adj.__

 

 

 

Part Two: Morphology. 

 

1.      were:  ‘be’ (verb) + past + plural

       1                   2          3

                                   

2.      teeth: ‘tooth’ (noun) + plural

         1                         2

 

3.      misreads: ‘mis-’ + ‘read’ (verb) + ‘s’ (third person singular, present indicative)

  2             1                   3

 

4.      worse:  ‘bad’ (adj) + comparative degree

1                      2

 

5.      oversimplifications: adj à verb (2) à noun (4)

‘over-‘ + ‘simple’ (adj) + ‘-fy’ (verb) + ‘-cation’ (noun) + ‘s’ (plural)

    3              1                      2                      4                      5 

 

6.      indivisible:  verb à adj (2) à neg. adj. (3)

‘in-‘ + ‘divide’ + ‘-able’           (‘-d(e) + able’ often resolves as ‘sible’)

   3             1             2

 

7.      bookmark:  compound (noun + noun à noun  OR noun + verb à verb)

‘book’ + ‘mark’

 

8.      engineers’:  noun throughout

    [with poss. functional shift of ‘engine’ (noun) to ‘engine’ (verb)]

engine + er + plural + possessive

     1         2        3               4

 

9.      incomprehensibility: verb à adj à neg adj à noun

‘in-’ + ‘comprehend’ + ‘-able’ +  ‘-ity’

   3                   1                 2           4

 

10.  uncontroversially:  noun à adj à neg adj à adv

‘un- + ‘controversy’ + ‘-al’ + ‘-ly’

   3                   1              2         4

 

11.  unambiguousness:  adj à neg adj à noun

 

‘un-’ + ‘ambiguous’ + ‘-ness’

  2                    1                 3

 

            OR      ‘un’ + ‘ambigu-’ + ‘-ous’ + ‘-ness’

                          3              1                2          4

 

 

 

Part Three: General 

 

            Issues:

Relations of written to spoken language

            Differing oral and written standards of ‘correctness’

Dialect 

 

Specifics:

Double negative

                        Dropped g

            Ain’t