大学语言学基础 英语复习资料.pdf

Chapter1:

1.Whatarethedesignfeaturesoflanguage?
ThefeaturesthatdefineourhumanlanguagecanbecalledDesignFeatures.
2.WhatisArbitrariness?
Saussurefirstreferstothefactthattheformsoflinguisticsigns(symbolforms)bearnonatural
relationshiptotheirmeaning.
3.Whatareonomatopoeiawords?
Wordsthatsoundlikethesoundstheydescribe.
4.Howdoyouunderstandofclauseslanguageisnotarbitraryatthesyntacticlevel?
Theorderofelementsinasentencefollowscertainrules,andthereisacertaindegreeof
correspondencebetweenthesequenceofclausesandtherealhappenings.
5.Whatisduality?
Bydualityismeantthepropertyofhavingtwolevelsofstructures,suchthatunitsoftheprimary
levelarecomposedofelementsofthesecondarylevelandeachofthetwolevelshasitsown
principlesoforganization.(Lyons)
6.Whatistheadvantageofduality?
Itliesinthegreatproductivepowerourlanguageisendowedwith.Alargenumberofdifferent
unitscanbeformedoutofasmallnumberofelements.Andoutofthehugenumberofwords,there
canbeendlessnumberofsentences,whichinturncanformunlimitednumberoftexts.
7.Howdoyouunderstandlanguageisasystem?
Intermsofinternalstructure,languageishierarchical.Thereare6level.Speech
sounds,morpheme,word,phrase,sentence,text.
8.Whatiscreativity?
Bycreativitywemeanlanguageisresourcefulbecauseofitsdualityandrecursiveness.(Chomsky
Noam).Therecursivenessreferstothepotentialoflanguagetocreateendlesssentences.
9.Whatisdisplacement?
Displacementmeansthathumanlanguageenabletheiruserstosymbolizeobjects,eventsand
conceptswhicharenotpresentatthemomentofcommunication.
10.Whatisthebenefitofdisplacement?
Displacementbenefitshumanbeingsbygivingthemthepowertohandlegeneralizationand
abstractions.
11.Whatarethe3theoryconcerningtotheoriginoflanguage?
First,thedivineorigintheory:LanguageiscreatedbyGod.
Second,theinventiontheory:Languageiscreatedbyman.(Thebow-wowtheory拟声说the
evidenceisonomatopoeicwords.Thepooh-poohtheory感叹说theevidenceis
interjectionsTheyo-ho-yotheory劳动喊声说somerhythmicgrunt.)
Third,theevolutionarytheory:whenmeninvolvedinacertaindegree,theyhavethecognitive
abil