Linguistics 503: Examination 2

Dec. 11, 1998

The main reason that this is a take-home exam is to avoid the time pressure that goes with in-class exams. The exam is meant to be completed in about 3 hours. Please do not consult with others. I would also prefer that you do not consult written sources other than your textbook, the lecture notes, and any notes you took in class. If you do refer to other sources, however, please cite them. If you have questions, feel free to ask me.

A. Morphology (25%)

All of the forms of a verb in Okinawan (Shuri dialect) can be related to three basic forms. I will translate them as 'to ___', '___-ing', and 'let's ___', though the translations are only approximate. Below are these three forms for a number of a verbs.

Each phonetic symbol is like the ones we used in class, except the following:

F: voiceless bilabial fricative
S: voiceless palatal fricative
c: voiceless palatal affricate
j: voiced palatal affricate
N: syllabic [n]
': glottal stop

The language has five vowels: [i, e, a, u, o]. All of the sounds in the surface forms represent phonemes in the language.

                to ___        ___-ing         let's ___

'rest'          yukui         yukuti          yukura
'look for'      tumeei        tumeeti         tumeera
'fight'         'ooi          'ooti           'oora
'go out'        'Njii         'Njiti          'Njira
'sit'           ii            iti             ira
'cry'           'abii         'abiti          'abira

'eat'           kami          kadi            kama
'count'         yumi          yudi            yuma
'finish'        Simi          Sidi            Sima

'move'          'wiici        'wiici          'wiika
'get angry'     kusamici      kusamici        kusamika
'arrive'        cici          cici            cika

'trick'         nuji          nuji            nuga
'swim'          'wiiji        'wiiji          'wiiga
'prevent'       FuSiji        FuSiji          FuSiga

'give birth'    naSi          naci            nasa
'continue'      mutuuSi       mutuuci         mutuusa
'take out'      'NjaSi        'Njaci          'Njasa

Give the underlying representation of each of the following morphemes. (There may be more than one right way to do this.)

1. rest
2. fight
3. sit
4. eat
5. move
6. trick
7. give birth
8. to (V)
9. (V)-ing
10. let's (V)

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B. Syntax (20%)

Below are some examples of sentences in Welsh (in the standard orthography). Write a set of phrase structure rules that accounts for the ordering and constituent structure of the sentences. Your rules should include the phrasal categories S, NP, and PP, and the lexical categories TV, IV, N, Det, P, Adj, and Dem. "PP" is either post- or prepositional phrase (you decide which), "Dem" is demonstrative modifier (such as this or that in English), and "P" is either post- or preposition. You may ignore morphemes which have no gloss (indicated by "#"). "-3p" means "3rd person singular". Welsh has auxiliaries, but there are none in these sentences, so don't worry about them. Note: do not attempt to find a VP in the sentences.

Gwelodd  y    plentyn  geffyl  mawr.
saw-3p   the  child    horse   big
'The child saw a big horse.'

Gwelodd  geffyl.
saw-3p   horse
'He saw a horse.'

Mi  olchodd   Mair  y    diladd.
#   washed-3p Mair  the  clothes
'Mair washed the clothes.'

Mi  agorodd   y   drws.
#   opened-3p the door
'The door opened.'

am    gar  yr   athro
about car  the  teacher
'about the teacher's car'

yr  llyfrau  melyn  ar  y    bwrdd
the books    yellow on  the  table
'the yellow books on the table'

yr  ferch  hon  bechan
the  girl  this little
'this little girl'

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C. Semantics (15%)

For each of the following words, discuss its meaning in terms of the approaches to lexical semantics covered in class and in the textbook. Wherever possible, bring out the inadequacies of the approaches.

1. milk
2. tall
3. remember

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D. Pragmatics (15%)

For each of the following illocutionary acts, write three felicity conditions.

1. MARRY, for example, I now pronounce you man and wife.
2. PERMIT, for example, you may kiss my hand.

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E. General (25%)

Answer one of the following two questions. (I just couldn't decide.)

• Functions of grammar

  Here is your chance to invent your own language. The words look just like English, but the grammar must be different.

  1. Starting with the basic words Mary, fish, eat, and catch, you need to figure out a way to arrange the words in sentences to refer to events such as Mary's eating a fish. In particular, you need a mechanism for distinguishing who does the eating (or catching) from who gets eaten (caught). This mechanism should not be the one that English uses. Explain your mechanism and give examples.
  2. Now you've become more sophisticated, and you have a stock of words that refer to mental processes: see, know, remember, forget, believe. The problem is that what is known (seen, remembered, etc.) is sometimes not a thing like a fish, but a whole event or state. That is, now you need to take a sentence referring to an event (like what you made for part (1)) and put it inside another sentence which refers to the mental process. Explain how you will accomplish this in your language, and give examples. You also need to indicate the role played by the knower (seer, forgetter, etc.). Again you should make the mechanism different from English.
  3. Now you have the problem of distinguishing similar things from each other, for example, one fish from another. One way to distinguish them is by features such as color (you would use adjectives for that). Another is by referring to events in which they participated. So one fish could be distinguished from another because Mary, as opposed to John, caught it. This means that you need to be able to modify a noun like fish with a whole sentence referring to an event that the thing was involved in. Explain how you will accomplish this in your language, and give examples. Again the mechanism should not look like English.

• Representations

  Throughout linguistics we encounter the notions of surface vs. underlying (deep, abstract) forms.

  1. Give examples of surface and corresponding underlying forms from phonology or morphology and from syntax.
  2. How are underlying and surface forms related to each other in linguistic theory?
  3. Give two reasons for positing underlying representations. The reasons should apply to linguistic forms in general, not just to syntax, for example.
  4. A small number of people have argued against underlying representations, or at least those which are relatively abstract. What do you think one of their arguments might be?