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1、 Why is productivity unique to language?The productivity of language is the property which enables its users to construct and understand an indefinitely large number of utterances, including the novel utterances that they have never said nor heard before. This feature is unique to human language bec
2、ause most animal communication systems appear to be highly restricted with respect to the number of different signals that their users can send and receive. For example, a gibbon call system lacks productivity, for gibbons draw all their calls from a limited repertoire, which is rapidly exhausted, m
3、aking any novelty impossible; and bee dancing is used only to indicate nectar sources, which is the only kind of message that can be sent through the dancing. How is Saussures distinction between langue and parole similar to Chomskys distinstion between competence and performance?According to F de S
4、aussure, langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal users knowledge of the rules of his language, and performance the actual realization of this
5、knowledge in linguistic communication. From these definitions we find that both Saussure and Chomsky make the distinction between the abstract language system and the actual use of language. Their purpose is to single out the language system for serious study. What are the major branches of linguist
6、ics? What does each of them study?The major branches of linguistics include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and applied linguistics.Phonetics studies how speech sounds are produced and classified. Phonology studies how sounds form
7、systems and function to convey meaning. Morphology studies how morphemes are combined to form words. Syntax studies how morphemes and words are combined to form sentences. Semantics studies meaning (in abstraction). Pragmatics studies meaning in context of use. Sociolinguistics studies language with
8、 reference to society. Psycholinguistics studies language with reference to the workings of the mind. Applied linguistics studies the application of linguistic principles and theories to language teaching and learning. Why is syntax regarded as a system of rules?As a major component of grammar, synt
9、ax consists of a set of abstract rules that allow words to be combined with other words to form grammatical sentences. A sentence is considered grammatical when it conforms to the grammatical knowledge in the mind of native speakers. If, on the other hand, a sentence violates a rule according to whi
10、ch words are organized, then native speakers will judge it to be an impossible sentence of that language. Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules comprise the system of internalized linguistic knowledge of a language speaker. For any natural language, it is the set
11、of rules that makes it possible for the speakers to produce, comprehend and memorize the vast number of sentences of their native language. What makes modern linguistics different from traditional grammer?Traditional grammar is based on “high” (religious, literary) written language. It is prescripti
12、ve. It sets models for language users to follow. It tells the learner what he should say, or what is supposed to be correct usage. On the other hand, modern linguistics is mostly descriptive. Modern linguistics is supposed to be scientific and objective and the task of linguists is supposed to descr
13、ibe the language people actually use, be it correct or not. Its investigations and analysis are based on authentic, and mainly spoken language data. What is a free morpheme? What is a bound morpheme? And how are they different from each other?Free morphemes are morphemes which are independent units
14、of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, such as help, table, able, etc. Bound morphemes are morphemes that cannot be used by themselves, but must be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word, such as “-en” in “enlarge”，“dis-” in “disable”，“im-” in “impossible”.
15、 What do langue and parole mean respectively?According to F de Saussure, langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all
16、have to abide by; it is abstract. Parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules; it is concrete. Why is the word order in Modern English more rigid than that in Old English?The word order in Modern English is more rigid than that in Old English. This is because in Modern English there are no longer the elaborate morphological system used in Old English, such as the case marking system, to help to indicate grammatic
