1. Communication can take many forms, such as sign, speech, body language and facial expression. Do nobody language and facial expression share or lack the distinctive properties of human language?
答：On the whole, body language and facial expression lack most of the distinctive properties of human language such as duality, displacement, creativity and so on. Body language exhibits arbitrariness a little bit. For instance, nod means OK/YES for us but in Arabian world it is equal to saying NO. Some facial expressions have non-arbitrariness because they are instinctive such as the cry and laugh of a newborn infant.
2. Do you think they are descriptive and prescriptive? What’s your comment on them?
(1)Do not use man to mean humanity in general. Use person, people, human beings, men and women, humanity and humankind.
(2)colored: This term is regarded as outdated in the UK and should be avoided as it is generally viewed as offensive to many black people.
(3)civilized : This term can still carry racist overtones which derive from a colonialist perception of the world. It is often associated with social Darwinist thought and is full of implicit value judgments and ignorance of the history of the non-industrialized world.
答：They are undoubtedly descriptive, Guidelines are not rules that can determine whether a sentence is right or not. The guidelines advise you to avoid the use of particular words that are grammatically correct but offensive to some certain groups. Actually, they describe the way antisexist advocators speak and write.
3.(1)What organs are involved in speech production?
答：Quite a few human organs are involved in the production of speech: the luns, the trachea, the throat, the nose, and the mouth.
(2)Why did George Bernard Shaw say he could spell the word ‘fish’ as ‘ghoti’?
答：This is because gh is pronounced as [f] in ‘enough’, o as [I] in women, and ti as [ʃ] in nation.
(3)How is the description of consonants different from that of vowels?
答：Consonants are produced by a closure in the vocal tract, or by a narrowing which is so marked that air cannot escape without producing audible friction. By contrast, a vowel is produced without such stricture so that air escapes in a relatively unimpeded way through the mouth or nose. The distinction between vowels and consonants lies in the obstruction of airstream.
(4)To what extent is phonology related to phonetics and how do they differ?
答：Both phonetics and phonology study human speech sounds but they differ in the levels of analysis. Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted, and perceived. Phonology is the study of the sound patterns and sound systems of languages. It aims to discover the principles that govern the way sounds are organized in languages, and to explain the variations that occur.
(5)’Assimilation is often used synonymously with coarticulation’. Discuss.
答：Assimilation is a phonological term, often used synonymously with coarticulation, which is more of a phonetic term. Similarly, there are two possibilities of assimilation: if a following sound is influencing a preceding sound, we call it regressive assimilation; the converse process, in which a preceding sound is influencing a following sound, is known as progressive assimilation.
(6)The pronunciation of tell is [tɛ], but that of teller is [tɛlɚ]. Discuss why the phoneme/l/ is realized as [ɛ] and [l] respectively in this situation.
答：The world teller is formed by adding a suffix –er to the base word tell to form a new word. We are all familiar with the rule that governs the allophones of the phoneme /l/: when preceding a vowel, it is [l] and when following a vowel it is [ɛ]. We notice that tell is a monosyllabic word while teller is disyllabic. In a polysyllabic word, we follow the Maximal Onset Principle for division of syllable. By MOP, the [l] must be placed in the onset position of the second syllable instead of the coda position of the first syllable. Thus, the phoneme [l] is realized as it should be before the vowel in the second syllable. The same is true with telling, falling, and many others.
4.The following words contain different forms of the negative prefix in-. Group the data according to the variants and try to determine which kinds of base word take which kinds of prefix variant and what kind of mechanism is word responsible for the variation. Formulate a rule and then test it against words that are formed in this way but are not mentioned here.
答：There are five groups of words according to their variation on pronunciation: [In]: inharmonic, ingenious, inoffensive, indifferent, inevitable, innumerable; [In] or [Iŋ]: incomprehensible, incompetent, inconsistent; [Im]: impenetrable, impossible, immobile; [Il]: illiterate, illegal, illogical; [Ir]: irresponsible, irresistible, irregular. It is clear that the first sound of the base word governs the distribution of the variants, because the final consonant of the prefix in- must assimilate to the first segment of the base word. As a result of this, we find [Im]before labial consonants like [m] or [p], [Il] before the lateral [I], [Ir] before [r]. When the first consonant of the base word is the velar consonant [k], it is [Iŋ] in rapid speech and [In] in careful speech. In all other cases [In] is always the case.
5.For each of the underlined constructions or word groups, do the following. State whether it is headed or non-headed. If headed, state its headword. Name the type of constructions.
(a)Ducks quack.答：non-headed, independent clause
(b)The ladder in the shed is long enough.答：non-head, prepositional phrase.
(c)I saw a bridge damaged beyond repair.答：headed; headword-damaged; adjectival group
(d)Singing hymns is forbidden in some countries.答：headed; headword-singing; gerundial phrase.
(e)His handsome face appeared in the magazine. A lady of great beauty came out.答：headed; headword-face; nominal group.
(f)He enjoys climbing high mountains.答：non-headed; prepositional phrase.
(h)The man nodded patiently.答：non-headed; independent clause.
(i)A man roused by the insult drew his sword.答：headed; headword-roused. Adjectival phrase.
6. Analyse the poem below from the semantic point of view, taking a special account of sense relations.
答：This poem is about the use of the word ‘colored’. The author cleverly makes use of ‘colored’ in the sense of ‘different colors’ to oppose the proactive to refer to black people as ‘colored’. This shows from another point of view that ‘colored’ is not a superordinate to ‘red’, ‘green’, ‘yellow’, etc.
7. Some people maintain that there are no true synonyms. If two words mean really the same, one of them will definitely die out. An example often quoted is the disuse of the word ‘wireless’, which has been replaced by ‘radio’. Do you agree? In general what type of meaning we are talking about when we say two words are synonymous with each other?
答: It is true that there are no absolute synonyms. When we say two words are synonymous with each other, we usually mean they have the same conceptual meaning.
8.The British linguist ……We can treat male/female, married/single, alive/dead as gradable antonyms on occasions. Someone can be very male or more married and certainly more dead than alive. Comment on it.
答：It is not advisable to tell beginners of linguistics that the distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms is relative. The expression ‘more dead that alive’ is not a true comparative.
9.If you ask somebody ‘Can you open the door?’ he answers ‘Yes’ but does not actually do it, what would be your action? Why? Try to see it in the light of speech act theory.
答：I would be angry with him. ‘Can you open the door’ is normally a request of the hearer to do it rather than a question about his ability. The fact that he answers ‘Yes’ but does not actually do it shows that he declines my request.
10. A is reading the newspaper. When B asks ‘What’s on TV tonight?’ he answers ‘Nothing.’ What does A mean in normal situations? Think of two situations in which this interpretation of ‘Nothing’ will be cancelled.
答：Normally ‘Nothing’ here means ‘Nothing interesting,’ If A adds after ‘Nothing’ ‘The workers are on strike’ or ‘There’s going to be a blackout tonight’, then the interpretation of ‘Nothing interesting’ will be cancelled.
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