Ling 301: Final Exam

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This exam must be submitted by 11:59pm on 19 May.

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I. Syntax

1. Being as specific as possible, what syntactic property is violated in the following sentence? "*The cat is sitting the table on." *

2. Give an example of a sentence that violates the co-occurrence syntactic property of its verb. *

3. Identify the subject, object, and verb in the following sentence: “The whole world enjoys pizza.” *

4. Identify the complement(s) of the verb in the following sentence: "James gave his sister a bicycle." *

5. Give an example of a verb that takes a complement which is not a noun phrase, and give an example sentence. *

6. Check off the argument(s) of the verb in the sentence "My beautiful cat chases shadows in the morning sun." *

my beautiful cat

shadows

in the morning

the morning sun

"chases" has no arguments

Required

7. In the sentence, "I bought bread for the house," is "for the house" a constituent? Tell me what constituency test(s) you used, and show your results. *

8. In the sentence, "I brought my brother his suitcase," is "my brother his suitcase" a constituent? Tell me what constituency test(s) you used, and show your results. *

9. Which of the below sentences is ungrammatical because of a problem involving word order? *

*I poured myself a glass water.

*I can't believe I saw the!

*Catherine lives in great big house.

*Susan saw dogs those.

10. Which of the below sentences is ungrammatical because of a problem involving co-occurrence? *

*Please give your cousins.

*Don't ask more for.

*I let outside the dog.

*Likes he the new computer.

II. Historical Linguistics

11. When we posit that two languages share a common ancestor, we are making a: *

cleft test

Swadesh list

relatedness hypothesis

groundless assertion

12. True or false: Different dialects of one language can eventually give rise to different languages. *

True

False

13. What are two regional dialects of English as spoken in the United States today, other than Northern and Southern? *

14. In New York City, we call carbonated soft drinks 'soda.' What word is used for them in the regional dialect called the North? *

sodapop

pop

fizzy water

coke

Questions 15 & 16

To answer the following two questions, use the Swadesh list at this url: https://ling301spr2021.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/16170/files/2021/05/swadesh-final.pdf

15. What are some words on this list that seem like they might be related? *

16. Based on this list alone, would you say that these two languages are related? Why or why not? *

17. Which of the following is true? *

Core vocabulary words are often borrowed between unrelated languages

Not all languages have core vocabulary

Core vocabulary words are unlikely to be borrowed

Core vocabulary is a term used only when discussing Afro-Asiatic languages

18. Which of the following is an example of borrowing? *

The English word 'house' and the German word 'Haus,' which both mean the same thing, and share a common ancestor.

The English word 'much' and the Spanish word 'mucho,' which have different origins, but similar meanings.

The English word 'sushi' and the Japanese word 'sushi,' which have different origins and mean the same thing.

The English words 'happy' and 'happiness,' which are morphologically related to one another.

19. Which of the following is true of the dialect spoken in North Carolina's Outer Banks? *

It is a sub-dialect of Southern US English, showing that regional dialects are not monolithic.

It is a specific kind of Northern dialect, coincidentally spoken in the South, showing that regional dialects can be spoken in surprising areas.

It is derived from the accent of French-speaking Arcadians who relocated to the United States after World War One.

It is not different from the other dialects spoken in the South, showing that regional dialects are rigid and unchanging.

20. Spanish and Italian are: *

Related, because they both descended from Latin

Unrelated, because Spanish is most widely spoken in the Americas, and Italian is most widely spoken in Europe.

Related, because each language borrowed a lot of words from the other.

Unrelated, because we cannot know what their origins were.

III. Extra Credit

5 possible extra points!

Imagine that you are a linguist conducting research on Xyzzy, a language that has never been written down. The people who speak Xyzzy live in a part of the desert that borders other areas where people speak several other, well-documented but unrelated languages. Part of your goal is to figure out which of these languages Xyzzy might be related to. How would you do this? Think through this process, and be specific.

A copy of your responses will be emailed to the address you provided.

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