Quiz 7

Which area of linguistic knowledge covers the study of the structure of phrases and sentences?

syntax

Which of these events led to the adoption of many words from Old Norse (Scandinavian) during the Old English period?

the Vikings invasions of England

Which of the following sentences is ungrammatical, showing a violation of the syntactic requirements of one or more of the words in the sentence?

the dog barked the child

Which of the following was NOT a consequence of the Norman Conquest?

the loss o the English language in England

Which of the following sentences is anomalous, showing a violation of semantic requirements?

the married bachelor drank the time

According to Preston in "They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City," among American respondents, which of the following is the most salient dialect area in the U.S.?

the south

Which of these words has 4 morphemes?

unknowingly

Which of the following best represents the dates of the Middle English period?

1066-1509 CE

Of the 100 most commonly used words of English, approximately what percentage are native English words?

90%

Which of these grammars is made up of language/linguistic rules?

All of these grammars are made up of language/linguistic rules.

The end of the Old English period is marked by fierce battle and the ultimate ascendancy of this man to the English throne.

Duke William of Normandy

During which period in the history of the English language did English-English dictionaries and English grammars first appear?

Early Modern English

Between the years 1066-1348, which of the following languages was spoken by the majority of the population in England?

English

Throughout most of the Middle English period, which language directly contributed the greatest number of borrowed words to English?

French

Which king established the first English Navy, made peace with the Danes, had important Latin texts translated into English, founded schools, and instituted the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle during the Old English period?

King Alfred

Linguists tend to focus on spoken language more than written language for all of the following reasons EXCEPT which of these?

Spoken language is considered more prestigious or elegant than written language.

Which of the following is true about standard and nonstandard dialects?

The distinction between standard and nonstandard dialects has more to do with social evaluation than linguistic structure.

Which of these events led to the advent of the English language?

The migration of Germanic tribes to England

What happened in 1362 that allowed English to become the official language of legal proceedings?

The statue of pleading

Based on what we've done in this class, which of these is NOT a true statement about living human languages/dialects (i.e., languages/dialects that are used by a community of native speakers)?

They have spoken and written forms

Which of these phrase structure rules best identifies the constituent structure of the underlined verb phrase in this sentence: Our neighbors host the best parties in the world.

VP-->V NP

The relationship between signifiers (words) and signified (their meanings) can best be described as which of the following?

arbitrary

Which word creation process best accounts for the word app (from application)?

clipping

Which of the following best describes the -ize in centralize?

derivational suffix

Which event in 597 gave England access to the only living intellectual community in Europe and led to the adoption of Latin alphabet?

introduction of christianity

For native speakers of English, the transformational rules for forming yes/no questions (which we deduced in class) are a part of which of the following grammars?

mental grammar

Which of these is the unconscious knowledge that allows native speakers to produce their language and judge sentences as grammatical or ungrammatical?

mental grammar (or competence)

If the underlined group of words is a major constituent of the sentence, identify the phrasal category and head; however, if it is not a major constituent, choose E: "The November windstorm uprooted" our old tree with the tire swing.

not a constituent

Which of the following is NOT an open-class (or content) word?

prepositions

In Middle English and Early Modern English, hardly as an adverb could mean 'with energy, force, or strenuous exertion; vigorously, forcibly, violently' (OED def. 1). Later in Early Modern English through to the present-day, hardly could refer to 'barely, only just; almost not; not quite; scarcely." Which of these best identifies this semantic change?

shift in denotation/meaning shift