Ⅰ. Each of the statements below is followed by four alternative answers.Choose the one that best completes the statement and put the letter in the bracket.
1. Which of the following dictionaries is a specialized dictionary? ______
A.The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology.
B.Webster's Third New International Dictionary.
C.Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
D.The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition.
A B C D
A
[解析] 《韦氏新国际英语词典》(Webster's Third New International Dictionary)是一部大型词典,即未节略词典(unabridged dictionary);《朗文当代英文词典》(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)是一部案头词典,即中型词典;《简明牛津词典》第九版(The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition)也是一部中型词典。
2. The overwhelming majority of blends are ______.
A.adjectives
B.verbs
C.adverbs
D.nouns
A B C D
D
[解析] 大部分的拼缀词(blends)都是名词,其次是动词,形容词更少。
3. Semantic field is also an integral part of ______.
A.word formation
B.word meaning
C.meaning change
D.sense relations
A B C D
D
[解析] 语言中的词汇可以按语义关系划分语义场。人们普遍认为语义场是语义关系的有机组成部分。
4. The prefix "fore-" in the word "forehead" is a ______ prefix.
A.negative
B.reversafive
C.pejorative
D.locative
A B C D
D
5. Which of the following about extra-linguistic context is true? ______
A.It can be subdivided into extra-linguistic context and non-linguistic context.
B.It only refers to the physical situation or environment relating to the use of words.
C.It embraces the people, time, size and place.
D.It may extend to embrace the entire cultural background.
A B C D
D
6. ______ belongs to the sub-standard language, a category that seems to stand between general words including informal ones available to everyone and in-groups.
Ⅱ. Complete the following statements with proper words or expressions according to the course book.
1. Perfect homonyms and polysemants are fully ______ with regard to spelling and pronunciation.
identical
2. The prefix "ultr-" means ______.
extreme
3. ______ of the total number of new words in English vocabulary were produced through affixation.
30%-40%
4. "Fall" in American English and "autumn" in British English have the same ______.
sense
5. The surviving languages accordingly fall into eight principal groups, which can be grouped into an Eastern set: Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Albanian; a Western set: Celtic, Italic, Hellenic, ______.
Germanic
6. Nowadays Anglo-Saxon is generally referred to as ______.
Old English
7. In the word "preschool", " pre-" is a prefix of ______.
time
8. It can be concluded that English has evoked from a synthetic language (Old English) to the present ______ language.
analytic
9. Usually, people use "tremble with fear", not "quiver with fear"; this can be an example of______.
collocative meaning
10. Instead of changing the ______ of the stem as a general rule, the main function of the prefixes is to change its meaning.
word class
Ⅲ. Define the following terms.
1. amelioration
Amelioration is also called elevation, a term referring to the process by which words rise from humble beginnings to positions of importance, e. g., "nice" used to mean "ignorant", then changed to "foolish" and now it is elevated to mean "pleasant, delightful".
2. alien
Aliens are borrowed words which have retained their original pronunciation and spelling, e. g. ,kowtow, intermezzo, emir, rajar etc.
3. juxtaposition of antonyms
Juxtaposition of antonyms refers to forming or achieving emphasis by putting together contrasting ideas.
4. prefixation
Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to stems. Prefixes do not generally change the word-class of the stem but only modify its meaning.
5. translation-loans
Translation-loans are words and expressions formed from the existing material in the English language but modelled on the patterns taken from another language.
Ⅳ. Answer the following questions. Your answers should be clear and short. Write your answers in the space given below.
1. Decide whether the following statement is tree or false, based on your understanding of the stylistic features of idioms. As far as stylistic values are concerned, most idioms are formal.
This statement is false. A large proportion of idioms were once created by working people of various occupations, and these expressions were all colloquial and informal. But their usefulness has made them enjoy significant popularity among people so that they have become part of the common core of language. Despite the fact, idioms are generally felt to be informal and some are colloquialisms and slang, therefore inappropriate for formal style.
2. What are acronyms? Please illustrate it with at least two examples.
Acronyms are words formed from initial letters but pronounced as normal words. For example, NATO (/'neitəu/); AIDS(/'eidz/).
3. What is compounding and what are the relative criteria of compounds?
Compounding is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems. The criteria of compounds are: phonetic criterion, semantic criterion and grammatical criterion.
4. Please illustrate the grammatical meaning of a word with at least one example.
Grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships, such as part of speech of words, singular and plural meaning of nouns, tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms. Grammatical meaning of a word becomes important only when it is used in actual context. For example, in the following sentence "The dog is chasing the cat." the words "dog" and "cat" are nouns and both are singular and used as subject and object in the sentence respectively; "is chasing" is the predicate verb in present continuous tense; "the" and "a" are determiners restricting the referent and indicating number.
Ⅴ. Analyze and comment on the following. Write your answers in the space given below.
1. She is very skinny and beautiful. Are all the words in the sentence used appropriately? If not, why? Then improve it.
(1) "Skinny" is not proper and is pejorative. (2) In this sentence, praise is expressed, thus "skinny" is not proper. (3) "Skinny" should be replaced by "slim" or "slender". This sentence should be: She is Very slim/slender and beautiful.
2. A ball rolled into the ball suddenly. Explain the meanings of the two "balls" in this sentence. Which kind of sense relation do they belong to? Give the explanation of their origins.
(1) The first "ball" means a round object to play with. The second "ball" means a dancing party. (2) They belong to homonyms. (3) The former was borrowed from "beallu" in Old English. The latter was borrowed from "baller" in French.