Mindrys' homework assignments

Chapter #17 study questions

1.      What are cognates?

R: is word in other language that has a similar form and is or was used with a similar meaning.

2.      Languages groups reated from a historical point of view:

R: Bengali–Urdu, Breton–welsh, English–Swedish, French–Portuguese, Kurdish–Pashto, Ukrainian–Czech.

3.      On the basis of the following data, what are the most likely proto-forms?

Language

1                             2                3

Cosa              chose           cosa      _ (“thing”)

Capo              chef             cabo     _ (“head”)

Capra            chevre         cabra   _ (“goat”)

Number 1 is most likely to be proto-forms.

4.      The following words are likely to be from Old English and which from French: Venison, ox, veal and calf.

5.      What types sounds changes are illustrated by the following pairs:

(a)   Thridda – third =    metathesis           

(b)    scriber – escribir = prothesis       

(c)     glimsian – glimps = epenthesis

(d)    hring – ring =   epenthesis             

(e)     slummer – slumber = metathesis   

(f)     beorht – bright = metathesis

6.      The Old English verb steorfan (“to die, from any cause”) is the source of the modern English verb starve (“to die, from lack food”).  What is the ethnical term used to describe this type of meaning change?

R: Is the most obvious way I which Modern English differs from old English is in the number of borrowed words that have cone into the language since the Old English period.

  

Study questions chapter #7

1.      Identify all the parts of speech used in this sentence:

The woman kept a large snake in a cage, but it escaped recently

R: The     woman   kept     a         large         snake         in             a      cage,

   Article    noun    verb   article   adjective    object    preposition   article 

but                   it           escaped   recently

Conjunction    pronoun       verb            adverb

2.      What is the difference between grammatical gender and natural gender?

R: the difference between these two is that the natural gender is derived from a biological distinction between male and female and grammatical gender is based on the type o noun (masculine and feminine) and is not tied to sex.

3.      What descriptive of the “proper” use of English are not obeyed in the following sentence and how would they be “corrected”

(i)                 The old theory consistently failed to fully explain all the data.

R: The old theory consistently failed fully to explain all the data.

(ii)               I can’t remember the name of the person I gave the book to.

R: I can’t remember the name of the person to whom I gave the book.

4.      What was wrong with the older Latin-influence definition of English pronouns?

R: In the older definition, pronouns were described as “words used in place of nouns.”

5.      Given these other Gaelic words, translate the following sentences into English.

Mor (“big”)       bead (“small”)      bhuail (“hit”)      duine (“man”)

(i)                 Bhuail an gille beag an cu dubh. = the small boy hit the black dog

(ii)               Chunnaic an cuduine mor. = the dog saw the big man

Study Questions Chapter #5

1.      What is the difference between etymology and entomology?

R: The difference between these two is that etymology is the study of the origin and story of a word while entomology is the study of the insects.

2.      The following pairs contain an example of calque:

a)      Footbooru (Japanese) – Football (English)

b)     Luna de miel (Spanish “moon of honey”) – honey moon (English)

c)      Jardin d’enfants (French “garden of children”) – kindergarten (German “children garden”)

3.      Can u identify the different word-formation processes involved in producing each sound of the underlined word in these sentences:

a)      Don’t you ever worry that you might get AIDS? = Acronym

b)      Do you have a xerox machine? = Coinage

c)      That’s really fundamntastic! = Blending

d)     Shiel still parties every Saturday night. = Convercion

e)      These new skateboards from Zee Designs are kickass. = Compounds

f)       When I’m ill, I want to see a doc, not a vet. = Clipping

g)      The house next door was burgled when I was babysitting the smiths’ children = Backformation

h)      I like this old sofa = Borrowing – it’s nice and comfy = Clipping

4.      Identify the prefixes and suffixes used in these words:

a)      Misfortune, carelessness, disagreement, ineffective, unfaithful, prepackaged, biodegradable, reincarnation, decentralization.

5.      Processes involved in each sentence:

a)      Are u still using that old car-phone? = Compounding, Blending.

b)      Can you FedEx the book to me today?  = Conversion, Coinage

c)      Police have reported an increase in carjacking in recent months. = blending ,Compounding,

d)     Welcome, everyone, to karaokenight at Cathy’s bar and grill! = Borrowing, Blending.

e)      Jeeves, could you tell the main to be sure to hoover the bedroom carpet? = Conversion, coinage.

f)       Would you prefer a decaf? = Clipping

Study Questions chapter #6

1.      Functional morphemes in the following sentence:

R: When he arrived in the morning the old man had an umbrella and a large plastic bag full of books.

2.      a) Bound morphemes: fearlessly, misleads, previewer, shortened, unhappier.

b)      Bound stem: construct, deceive, introduce, repeat.

c)      Allomorph of the morpheme “past tense”: are = did, have = had, must, sitting =sat, waits= waited.

3.      Inflectional morphemes in these expressions:

a)      Have u eaten yet?

b)      Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?

c)      She’s younger than me and always dresses in the latest style.

d)     We look through my grandmother’s old photo albums.

4.      Allomorphs of the morpheme “plural” in this set of English words: criteria, dogs, oxen, deer, judges, stimuli.

5.      What is reduplication?

R: reduplication is repeating all or part of form.

6.      Provide the equivalent forms, in the language listed, for the English translation shown on the right below:

a)      Ganda           omulongo     (“twin”)      –  (“twins”)          =      abalongo

b)      Ilocano        tawtawa       (“windows”) –  (“windows”)    =     tawa

c)      Kanuri         nemkeji        (sweetness”) –  (“sweet”)         =     keji

d)     Tagalog       bili              (“buy”)        –  (“will buy”)     =     bibili

e)      Tagalog       kain             (“eat”)         –  (“eat!”)           =      kumain