PREVIOUS QUESTIONS

Introduction to Linguistics

2015

English

Subject Code: 1178

(Introduction to Linguistics)

Time: 4 Hours                                                                                                       Full Marks: 80

Part-A

1. Answer any ten of the following questions                                                           1 × 10 = 10

a) What is Idiolect?

     Ans: An idiolect is a person's specific, unique way of speaking.

b) What is LAD?

     Ans: LAD stands for Language Acquisition Device which is a hypothetical tool hardwired into the brain that helps children rapidly learn and understand language.

c) What is Recursion?

     Ans: Recursion is the repeated sequential use of a particular type of linguistic element or grammatical structure.

d) What is ‘zero morph’?

     Ans: Zero morph indicates plural sense of the same singular form. That is, Sheep + 0 = sheep.

e) What is Sociolect?

     Ans: Sociolect is the variety of language used by a particular social group or class.

f) What is allophone?

     Ans: An allophone is any of the speech sounds that represent a single phoneme, such as the aspirated /k/ in ‘kit’ and the unaspirated /k/ in ‘skit’, which are allophones of the phoneme /k/.

g) What is stress?

     Ans: Stress is the degree of emphasis on a sound or syllable in speech.

h) What are bilabial sounds?

     Ans:  The bilabial sounds are /p/, /b/, /m/.

 i) What is SLA?

     Ans: SLA stands for Second Language Acquisition.

j) What is a ‘minimal pair’?

     Ans: Minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings.

k) What is phonetics?

     Ans: Phonetics is the scientific study of the production, transmission and perception of speech sounds.

1) What is competence?

     Ans:  Competence is the system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language.

Part-B

Answer any five of the following questions:                                                               4 × 5 = 20

2. What are voiced and unvoiced sounds?

3. What is PS Grammar?

4. What are the main differences between ‘Language’ and ‘Parole’?

5. Distinguish between phonetics and phonology.

6. Define Diphthong. Mention eight diphthongs of English Language.

7. Explain the difference between Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes.

8. Transcribe the following words phonetically (any four):-

Language, Civilization, Student, Business, Farmer, Charity

9. Show the difference between Creole and Pidgin.

Part-C

Answer any five questions:                                                                                        10 × 5 = 50

10. Who is Chomsky? Evaluate his contribution to linguistics.

11. Discuss the different branches of phonetics.

12. What is syntax? Discuss the major syntactic process elaborately.

13. Discuss different varieties of socio-linguistics.

14. Discuss the rules of stress placement of English words.

15. Describe cardinal vowels and show their positions through a diagram.

16. What is word formation? Discuss the general rules of word formation.

17. How is spoken language different from written language?