"Questions about English 311"

| What does morphological and syntactic frames mean? |

| Descriptive rules of grammar/transcription questions | Question about allomorph "in" |

|Examples of inflectional derivational, free and bound morphemes| Drawing tree diagrams of words |

| Questions:  morphemes, allomorphs, morphology, why speech is primary form of communication, content and function words |

  | Questions about second language acquisition | What are the pronunciation patterns of the "ed" ending?| 

|What is the spelling rule for words that end in "ed?"| What is phonology? | How do I teach listening? |

| How are words added to the dictionary? | What are phones, phonemes, and allophones? |

| Quiz One questions: syllabic consonants, minimal pairs, and separate phonemes |

Question:  I am reviewing the questions on your web page in the Lexical Categories Preparation Exercises, and I have a question about question number 12.  I always thought  the word "were" was an auxilairy verb. Could you please clarify this? 

Answer:

Question:  I was reading the Files book, and I came across morphological and syntactic frame. I was trying to see the difference between both, but I was not able to understand if there is even a difference between both.  

Answer: Most languages can be grouped into one of two categories:

1.  Morphological frame based language: the position of a word with respect to the bound morphemes that can attach to it in a word. In this type of language the word order may be less rigid.

2.  Syntactic frame based language: position in which a word occurs relative to other classes of words in the same phrase. In this type of language the word order may be stricter.

Question:  I do not understand the definition of the descriptive r. of grammar.

Answer:  A descriptive approach to linguistics implies there are no judgments about the correct or incorrect way to use language. Rather, linguists describe how language is used. For example,  in the case of  "I don't want nothing,"  the descriptive rule is that in some dialects of American English double negatives are sometimes used for added emphasis.


Question:  I  don't understand question # 6 quiz # 1

Bright ice [brayt ays]; this is the way I would write it: [brayt ayz].

Answer:  If you transcribe it this way, it means "bright eyes" (i.e., [ays] "ice" versus [ayz] "eyes" )

Question:  Would you please help me understand this rule? I understand that I use [ Z ] when the [ s ] sound is preceded with a voiced consonant.

Answer: I would modify your rule specifically to help speakers understand how to pronounce the inflectional plural "s" ending. Observe the following words:

The inflectional  plurals "s" ending is phonetically represented as:

Thus, we can say that the  [ s ],[ z ],  and the [ I z ]  are allomorphs of the plural "s" inflectional  morpheme

Question:   I  have a  question about question # 7 quiz # 1 . Crumbs: [krzmz] first z you have it as a z haceks.  This is the way I would write it: [Kr^mz] with the wedge or stressed schwa.

Answer:  The correct answer is choice "a" [kržmz], so I agree with you.  I think you have misunderstood the answer to this one (or perhaps your browser displays the symbol differently, which is why I wrote "wedge" to the side of the answer).


Question:  I do not remember the number of this question, but I also have a problem with this: resign [rizayn].  This is the way I would write it [rizay+sigma]

 Answer:  I think what you are saying is that you would write [rizay+engma].  But since the final sound is not a "k" or a "g,"  I would not use the engma.  Phonologically, the "n" becomes the velar consonant "engma" when it is followed by the velar consonants "k" or g." Note that in this word the "g" has no sound at all.

Question: I am desperate to solve this problem. This is the exact text from the professor!

The following pairs of words have prefixes that all act as negatives so they must be allomorphs.  Which allomorph is the underlying representation of the morpheme?  Write the rule to derive the other allomorphs.

possible   impossible       probable  improbable    opportune   inopportune decisive   indecisive         edible    inedible         tangible    intangible         literate      illiterate           legal           illegal             

reversible irreversible      responsible  irresponsible

Answer:  "in" is the underlying derivational morpheme  (It seems to occur in all other situations not listed below.)

1. "im" occurs before a root beginning with a bilabial voiceless stop consonant "p"

2.  "il" occurs before a root beginning with a lateral alveolar voiced consonant "l"

3.  "ir" occurs before a root beginning with a retroflex liquid voiced consonant "r"

Note that all the roots are adjectives.

Question:  I'm stuck on the examples of inflectional, derivational, free, and bound morphemes.
Could you give me an example of each? Thanks!

Answer:   Here are  some examples of each:

Question: I'm very confused with drawing tree diagram. Once I found the noun and if the noun is on the middle, how can I tell if I go to my right side first or left side first. Please help me with this.

Answer:  Whether you go to the right or left side depends on whether it a makes a word. For example, consider the word dehumidifier ---- de + humid + fy + er

I would first start with humid. I would not go to the left of this word because "dehumid" is not a word, so I would have to go to the right side since "humidify" is a word. In the next step, you can go either way, for "dehumidify" and "humidifier" are both words. I hope this explanation helps you.

I have a few questions regarding the Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology  test on Saturday, please help if you get a chance. 

Question:  1. An example of free morphemes is the word "straight," so what would be an example of bound morphemes? 

Answer: "re,"  "s,"  "ing,"  "ment,"  "tion,"  "er," and "est" are examples of bound inflectional and derivational morphemes.  Simply  put, these types of morphemes cannot stand alone.

Question:  2. What is an example of an allomorph, morphemes, and morphology?

Answer:  

Allomorph: stopped, grabbed, and handed, i.e., all three have the inflectional past tense ending function but are pronounced "t," "d," and "ed" respectively. 

Morpheme: "hot,"  "re,"  "ment,"  "car,"  "s,"  "ed,"  "er," and  "ly" are examples. 

Morphology: an applied example would be a class that teaches children how to discern vocabulary words by learning the meanings of prefixes, roots, and suffixes.

Question 3. What do you mean by, understand why linguists regard speech as the primary form of communication??

Answer:  Speech came first, not all languages are written, and writing must be explicitly taught, whereas speech can be acquired naturally.  Because of these reasons, linguists focus more on speech than they do on writing.

Question 4. On the study guide there is nothing about function and content words, we do need to know this for the exam correct?

Answer:  Yes you do, specifically know 

Content words carry meaning in a sentence; they are the stress words: nouns (car), adjectives (happy), adverbs (very), and verbs (eat) 

Function words are words which do not carry much meaning; they are the unstress words in a sentence: determiners (the), prepositions (to), and auxiliary verbs (is)

Thank you so much for your help...

Example:  ban  --> banned  (cvc) --> double consonant
(**note: This rule does NOT work with words ending in w,x,y,z)

Question: I have a  about the definition of Phonology. In the back of the book there is a good, albeit very long definition of Phonology. In file 4.1 on page 88 there is a concise definition which consists of about one sentence. Would the one sentence definition be o.k., or do you want the longer one? 

Answer:  The one sentence definition should suffice. 

Question: I have a question. I'm having a problem finding an answer to one of the questions. The question is: According to Phonology, what are the three organizational sound patterns in a language? I've looked and looked, but to no avail. Could you please help me or give me a hint, like maybe the page that it is located on in the LF
book? 

Answer: Take a look  at page  32 in my wkbk.   Anyway, Linguists look at three organizational sound patterns in a language:

What sounds are meaningfully distinctive?  (phonemes)

The different forms or possible realizations of the phonemes in a language.  (allophones)

The environment in which allophones occur in a language. (complementary distribution)

  You can read about  phonemes,  allophones,  complementary distribution in the Language Files textbook.

Question: Hello. Are there practice test/quizzes we can take, or are there only study guides on your Web Site?

Answer: Both the study guides  and the practice exercises are on my Web Site. 

Question:  My name is Jose Ricardo Sosa and I took the English 311 course with you on the Fall Quarter of 1999. Today, I am contacting you because I need your help. I need to tutor a low intermediate ESL student, who is closer to the low level, who needs to improve her listening skills. The main limitation I have to achieve the task is that there is no language lab available. As a result, I would like to know what can be done to achieve my task without the help of a language lab. What kind of sessions I can make up to help this student? It will just be me to do the job.  I will really appreciate any help you can give me.

Answer:  Interactions Two is a listening/speaking skills ESL book that would prove useful in her case.  Instead of using the language lab, you could simply use a tape deck to play the audio.  In addition to that, you could also  have her  do some voice recordings.  Read through my Oral Language Class for advanced students  , Listening Class for intermediate students, and Listening Class for advanced students to get an idea of what types of activities you can have. 

Question: When and who decides when a new word is officially added to our venacular, i.e. the dictionary?

Answer:  One way is by solicitation by some of the major dictionaries of English. For example, Oxford English Dictionary asks for readers to send in new entries. Then the Lexicographers at Oxford University Press will try to determine if there is a need to add this word into the English language. If indeed many people seem to be using the word, then it will probably be added into the dictionary. Here is a message from them:

Appeal for readers

Your language needs you!

John Simpson, Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary:
‘I would like to invite readers to contribute to the development of the Dictionary by adding to our record of English throughout the world. Everyone can play a part in recording the history of the language and helping to enhance the Oxford English Dictionary.’One hundred and twenty years ago, James Murray, original editor of the OED, launched an ‘Appeal to the English-Speaking and English-Reading Public of Great Britain, America and the British Colonies’ for words for the Dictionary. The appeal proved that dictionary-making is an exception to most fields of scholarship; anyone can make a valuable contribution. From Minnesota to Melbourne, scholars and readers came to Murray's aid. Without their help, the Dictionary would never have been published. Since that time, many more people have made valuable contributions to the Dictionary. They have been of all ages and from all walks of life (among them writers, teachers, a stevedoring superintendent, a Nobel laureate, a retired businessman, a cryptographer, and, perhaps most famously, Dr William C. Minor, inmate of Broadmoor Asylum). Now, Murray's appeal is being relaunched to mark one of the most important events of the start of the new millennium - the creation of a record of the English language unlike any other.Lexicographers at Oxford University Press are now engaged upon the huge task of completely revising the OED by 2010. The first complete revision in its history, it is projected to cost £34 million (US$55 million). Oxford has taken a big step towards that goal by publishing the OED online, which will incorporate at least 1,000 new and revised entries every quarter. John Simpson: ‘There is no longer one English - there are many Englishes. Words are flooding into the language from all corners of the world. Only a dictionary the size of the OED can adequately capture the true richness of the English language throughout its history, and the developments in world English. Now that the online edition has been launched, I would be delighted to have a host of new readers helping us to map the past, the present, and the future of English.’Information on how to contribute and a submission form may be found here. 

Question: I am still not understanding the exact meaning of what a phone is and  what allophones are. Can you enlighten me? In the book, it says a phone is speech sound. So is it what comes out out mouth when we talk or something else? Phone refers to the  speech sounds in general. I understand an allophone to be nondistinctive realizations of the same phoneme. What does this mean?

Answer: First, it is important to note that a phoneme, unlike a phone, is a meaningfully distinctive sound (i.e., /p/, /b /, /f /, /v / and so on.  But we also have, because of certain pronunciations depending on the environments,   variations of phonemes which  do not change the basic identity of the phoneme. And those are called allophones. All languages have this to some extent.   In English, we talked about the aspirated and unaspirated "p,"  which are allophones of the same phoneme /p/.

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