BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2008

TOPIC 1: LANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND WRITING.

The following points are recommended for discussion:- Syntagmatic and paradigmatic. - Distribution, variation, minimal pair. - Spelling and pronunciation. Spoken and written language

Exercise 1.1. The indefinite article: a or an?

Write a or an in the spaces:

...... book ...... apple ...... union ...... honour...... history ...... uncle

...... hour ...... yell ...... onion ...... EU member ...... European

Discuss:

– What is the distribution of a/an? How is their appearance conditioned?

– Is the distribution sensitive to spelling or to pronunciation?

– How many indefinite articles appear in the data above? Distinguish between lexeme and word-form.

Exercise 1.2. The definite article: the = /ðə/ or /ði/ ?

Write the appropriate pronunciation of the (/ðə/ or /ði/) in the spaces:

...... book ...... apple ...... union ...... honour...... history ...... uncle

...... hour ...... yell ...... onion ...... EU member ...... European

Fill in the table. Write spelling and pronunciation in each box:

__#C __#Vindef. art.def. art.

Discuss:

– Is the distribution of the two pronunciations of the the same as a/an?

– Judging from the above data, how many articles are there in English: 2, 3, or 4?

– What are the allomorphs of the two articles? Can they ever contrast with each other?

– The articles are in paradigmatic relationship, as they must take each other’s place in the sentence. What is a paradigm?

Exercise 1.3. Minimal pairs

The following pairs differ in only one sound in pronunciation. Underline or circle the letters which represent the difference. (Some examples are tricky because of the unphonetic spelling of English!) The first two are solved for you:

send –sand sex – sacks lead ‘vezet’ – lead ‘ólom’right – white reason – risen wind ‘szél’ – wind ‘teker’cold – called niece – knees live ‘él’ – live ‘eleven’verse – worse cursed – coast tear ‘tép’ – tear ‘könny’son – sung wash – watch use ‘használ’ – use

‘használat’

Discuss:

– Why are these called “minimal” pairs?

– Why is the right-hand column more problematic?

– What is your natural pronunciation of Hung. súly, súlyt, sújt, súlytalan, sújtalak? Is the ú long or short? Is there any variation between speakers? Any minimal pairs here?

Exercise 1.4. Syntagmatic relations

Give the word class (= ‘part of speech’) of each word, using the labels Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Other.

1. This mushroom strikes me as dangerous.

2. Strikes mushroomed everywhere in Italy.

3. The cook made use of his excellent training.

4. This school is training cooks.

4. The Norwegians woke up the German.

5. Uggs woggled diggles. (!)

Discuss:– Syntagmatic relations connect elements in the “syntagm” (phrase or clause). Where does the

word order show the word-class in the above examples?– Where and how does the word itself show its word-class?

Exercise 1.5. HOME ASSIGNMENT. The regular Past Tense suffix.Form the past tense of these verbs, and classify them in a table according to the spelling and the pronunciation of the -(e)d suffix.

to press – to grin – to care – to occur – to note – to hike – to stir – to enrage – to slap – to precede – to fire – to dance – to trim – to allot – to engulf – to prefer – to embed – to happen – to vomit – to sketch –

to control – to smear – to finish – to boo – to unearth – to marry – to defy.

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 2

TOPIC 2: THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

The following points are recommended for discussion:- arbitrariness- codability- translation; what is equivalent?- linguistic relativism: does our mother tongue influence our thought?

Exercise 2.1. Arbitrariness

Decide whether Hungarian has alma or almák (or either?) in the blanks.

1. three apples — három ......5. many apples — sok ......

2. one apple — egy ...... 6. those apples are bad — az... az ...... rossz...

3. the apples — az ...... 7. we’ve bought apples — vettünk ......

4. all apples — minden ...... 8. every apple — mindegyik ......

Discuss:– How does Hung. behave here? What is the rule?– Where does English use the singular?– Is there a reason for the difference between the two languages? Which system is more

logical?

Exercise 2.2. Codability

Consider E man, person, people vs. H ember, férfi, fiú.● Translate into Hungarian:

1. The soldiers were attacked by guerrillas. Two men were killed.2. Man represents a danger to the environment.3. Men represent a danger to the environment.4. Half of my students are men.5. I can only put two people in Room 5.6. There was another person sitting in the bus.7. Sue is more interested in men than in politics.

● Translate into English:

8. Kéne még egy ember a recepcióba.9. Róbert észrevette, hogy az egyetlen fiú a bárban.ő10. Az ember nagyon hasonlít a majomra.

Discuss:

– how can you characterize the use of these words, especially man and ember?

– do we find the same situation in the singular as in the plural?

– make diagrams (using circles) to show the inclusions and overlaps of these words.

Exercise 2.3. Gender

Consider these nouns, and supply the personal pronouns used to refer to them:

German der Mann / er die Frau / sie das Haus /es

English the man /...... the woman /...... the house /......

Hung. a férfi /...... a nő /...... a ház /......

German der Lehrer / er die Lehrerin / sie

English the teacher /...... the teacher /......

Hung. a tanár /...... a tanárnő /......

German der Tisch / er die Tür / sie das Fenster / es

English the table /...... the door /...... the window /......

Hung. az asztal /...... az ajtó /...... az ablak /......

Discuss:– what are the names of the three genders?– why do we say that, for example, German ‘door’ is feminine?– does English have gender? and Hungarian? what is grammatical gender?– do speakers of German think of a door as something female or woman-like?– do speakers of Hungarian think that sok alma is really one huge apple?

Exercise 2.4. Translation

Each expression below is given in two translations. Which is better?

1. Jó étvágyat! Good appetite! Enjoy your meal!

2. I’m sorry, teacher! Sajnálom, tanár! Elnézést, tanár úr!

3. Nincs testvérem. I have no brothers or sisters. I have no siblings.

4. Ötlakásos ház. A five-flat house. A five-flat building.

5. I write short stories. Novellákat írok. Rövid történeteket írok.

6. Where do you live? Hol él maga? Maga hol lakik?

7. Azt hittem, belga. I thought she was Belgian. I thought she is Belgian.

Discuss:– Why are the “better” translations better? Is it the choice of words, or something else?– Point out in each case what is wrong with the “bad” translations.– Can you imagine situations in which the “bad” translations would be acceptable? Or are they

“bad” regardless of the situation?

Exercise 2.5. HOME ASSIGNMENT. Lexical coding: H üveg and pohár.Find the English equivalents of these expressions, and make a diagram to show the meaning relationships between üveg, pohár, and their English equivalents. Try to argue that English has no word for ‘pohár’, and so speakers of English do not really know what this thing is.

borosüveg – m anyag üveg – lekváros üveg – üvegajtó – szemüveg –ű pohár – m anyag pohár – üvegpohár – papírpohár – kávéspohár.ű

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 3

TOPIC 3: GRAMMAR AND GRAMMARSThe following points are recommended for discussion:

- Prescriptive and descriptive grammar.- Notions of “correctness”.- Levels of analysis and their hierarchy: phonology, morphology, syntax

Exercise 3.1. Prescriptive grammar.The following sentences are all used naturally by native speakers, yet each contains something that prescriptive grammarians would find objectionable. Can you point out these “incorrect” features?

1. There’s five or six pubs in our neighbourhood.

2. My mother don’t like such stupid jokes.

3. The situation is much worser now than before.

4. The local council didn’t ought to have closed the hospital.

5. Say you don’t need no diamond ring, and I’ll be satisfied.

6. The government have decided to increase taxes.

7. This library has less readers than the one in the city centre.

8. The police will find out who done it.

Discuss:– What can be the basis of the condemnation of these forms?– Are there similar cases from Hungarian (forms used by many people, yet considered “incor-

rect” by other people)?

Exercise 3.2. Levels of analysis.Write the forms of these verbs in the table according to what irregularity they show (if any):

play /ple /, plays /ple z/, played /ple d/ pay /pe /, pays /pe z/, paid /pe d/

say /se /, says /sez/, said /sed/ have /hæv/, has /hæz/, had /hæd/

sauté* /so te /, sautés /so te z/, sautéed /so te d/ lie /la /, lies /la z/, lay /le /* hirtelen kisütni

3rd person singular past tense

Quite regular

spelling deviation only

Phonologically irregular

Morphologically irregular

Discuss:– has, had could go into either of two boxes: on what grounds?– What is the rule for adding these suffixes in speech and in writing?

Exercise 3.3. Notions of correctness: the “Etymological Fallacy”.

Write next to the English words their Hungarian translation, and vice versa. (The original is given when the word does not derive from English.)

Original English Hung. transl. Hungarian Eng. transl.

1 bar bár

2Greek sympathikos ‘együttérző’

sympathetic szimpatikus

3Fr. menu‘menü’

menu menü

4Latin realizare ‘megvalósítani’

to realize realizálni

5 farmer farmer

6 smoking szmoking

7Greek lexikon ‘szójegyzék’

lexicon lexikon

8Latin concertus‘versengés’

concert koncert

9 dumper dömper

10 hall hall (noun)

Discuss:– Which language preserves the original meaning in each case, English or Hungarian?– Some people think that words should not change their meaning but should be used today as

they were used centuries ago.– What is etymology? What is a fallacy?

Exercise 3.4. HOME ASSIGNMENT Verb forms

a). Give the grammatical name of each verb form, using the verb TAKE as an example:

(to) take — (I) take — takes — took — taken — taking

b). Now identify each italicized verb form below in the same way:

1. Joe works a lot. — 2. Liz has kept the keys. — 3. Tim cut the bread. — 4.

Rob must find his passport. — 5. The film was shown on TV. — 6. She saw

Ed kicking the ball. — 7. We interview famous people. — 7. Agnes had

phoned earlier. — 8. I helped Dan open the box. — 9. Ben hid in the cellar.

— 10. Dogs were barking everywhere. — 11. I write and translate novels.

— 12. Beauty impresses me. — 13. Let the others do as they like. — 14.

Nobody read anything.

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 4

TOPIC 4: PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGYThe following points are recommended for discussion:

- Phonetics and phonology: “etic” and “emic” approach. Sound and phoneme.- Transcription: phonemic (“broad”) vs. phonetic (“narrow”).- Rules of phonology and rules of spelling.- Double Articulation of language: sounds have their separate rules, muchlkie “grammar”.

Exercise 4.1. The suffix -ity.

The list below contains words in their base form, and suffixed with -ity. Their pronunciation is given too (BrE). Formulate the rules. To start, here is some help:

The Basic operation should say: “To form a .... from a ...., add the suffix -ity, pronounced /..../”.

Rule 1 should say: “When you add -ity, the following change must happen: ....”On the right-hand side, state if any of the previous rules apply to the word in question. (Some have been filled in to help you.)

Basic operationother rules:

odd ‘fura’ / / oddity / / —Rule 1false ‘hamis’ / : / falsity / : / —nude ‘meztelen’ / : / nudity / : / —immune ‘védett’ / : / immunity / : / —scarce ‘gyér’ / / scarcity / / —Rule 2complex ‘összetett’ / / complexity / / ......personal ‘személyes’ / : / personality / : / ......valid ‘érvényes’ / / validity / / ......subjective ‘szubjektív’ / / subjectivity / / 1Rule 3secure ‘biztonságos’ / / security / / 1popular ‘népszerű’ / / popularity / / 2pure ‘tiszta’ / / purity / / ......minor ‘kisebb’ / / minority / / ......Rule 4sane ‘épeszű’ / / sanity / / ......senile ‘szenilis’ / : / senility / / ......sincere ‘őszinte’ / / sincerity / / ......divine ‘isteni’ / / divinity / / ......Rule 5public ‘nyilvános’ / / publicity / / ......toxic ‘mérgező’ / / toxicity / / ......electric ‘elektromos’ / / electricity / / ......opaque ‘matt’ / / opacity / / ......

Exercise 4.2. Homophones.

The following phoneme strings all correspond to (at least) two different words or word forms, spelt differently. Find the words and write them in the table.

Pronunc. Word 1 Word 2 Pronunc. Word 1 Word 2/ : / meet meat / // / / // / / // :/ / // / / /

Discuss: – can these be called minimal pairs?– are there any such examples in Hungarian?

Exercise 4.3. Word stress.

Below is a connected text in phonetic transcription. The teacher (or a student who knows the symbols) will read it out. Then observe how stress is marked in the text.

/ :

: : :

: : /

Discuss: – does every word have a stress-mark? does this depend on the number of syllables?– which words have no stress in the text?– on which syllable of the word does the stress mark fall?

– are there words with two stress marks? how are the two stresses positioned?– compare the stress marking here with that of the isolated words in Exercise 4.1.

Exercise 4.4. HOME ASSIGNMENT Transcription.

Transcribe the following phrases, using a dictionary with IPA symbols to check your work. You may follow either a British or an American model, but try not to mix the accents.

1. James returned from Finland. — 2. The pasta was nice but the meat was

raw. — 3. The policeman checked everyone’s luggage. — 4. The food is

good, though the beds are bad.

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 5

TOPIC 5: MORPHOLOGYThe following points are recommended for discussion:

- Inflexion and derivation. - Word formation. - Tree diagrams and bracketing. Constituents, branching, nodes, labels.

Exercise 5.1 Morphological analysis

(a) Cut these words up into morphemes: unkindnesses, distasteful,

activate, membership, downloading, piglet, arrangement,

teachers, outnumbered, desirability, hospitalization

(b) draw a tree diagram for each word, as shown in the examples:

unkindnesses distasteful N

N Aff Adj

Adj Aff Aff Adj

Aff Adj N Aff

un kind ness es dis taste ful

Discuss: the equivalence of trees and bracketing: [ [ [ un [kind] ] ness ] es ]– nodes, branching, sister nodes, constituents, labels– why do we choose the analysis [[unkind]ness] rather than [un[kindness]] ?– compare the alternants desire ~ desir- and -able ~ -abil-.

– the rightmost affix in unkindnesses is different from the other elements in this word. What is this difference, and does the diagram show this in any way?

Exercise 5.2 Allomorphy: the plural suffix of nouns

Observe these plural nouns. Group the allomorphs of the {PLURAL} morpheme in some logical fashion. (In English, the allomorphs are often „invisible”, not shown by the spelling. It is advisable to use phonetic symbols, especially in the words marked „!”.)

two books two plays two places two potatoes (!)

two boxes two bridges two cliffs two

phenomena

two oxen two analyses (!) two sheep two ballets (!)

Discuss:– which allomorphs are phonologically conditioned?– which forms of the {PLURAL} morpheme may be regarded regular and why?– which words show a deviation in spelling only, but not in pronunciation?

Exercise 5.3 Derivational morphology

The words below are all derived with the help of some affix (pre- or suffix). Decide whether the word class changes or remains the same in the derived form. Fill in the table. Show the derivational affix with a hyphen, and underline it.

boyhood, motorize, gentlemanlike, swimmer, darken, dramatic, violinist, happiness, re-write,

modernism, mountaineer, solidify, yellowish, debatable, actress, insurance, unbutton, signify,

accessible, de-ice, possibility, Turkish, unkind, original, sublet, agreement, prepay, finalize,

choosy

Base word Derived wordNoun Verb Adjective

Noun boy-hood motor-ize gentleman-like

Verb

Adjective

Discuss: which is the more frequent affix type in English: prefixes or suffixes?

Exercise 5.4 HOME ASSIGNMENT Morphological analysis

Analyse the following words in the same way as in Exercise 5.1. When you feel that something is doubtful or ambiguous, write down your doubts and point out the ambiguity. Mark also interesting allomorphs.

1. reelection 6. princely

2. opponents 7. discouragingly

3. opposing 8. nervosity

4. beggar 9. unbuttoned (= ’with its buttons open’)

5. unmarried 10. unbuttoned (= ’having no buttons’)

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 6

TOPIC 6: SYNTAXThe following points are recommended for discussion:

Phrases (= structures) vs. sentence constituents (= functions)Tree diagrams.Word-classes. Sentence structure is built of phrases, not words.Subject, predicate, object. Adverb and Adverbial. Prepositional Phrase. Determiner.

Exercise 6.1 Syntactic analysis: finding the Subject and Object

Bracket the subject and (if there is one) the object, following the models provided.

S O O1. [George] invited [Jane]. 2. [Each guest] slept well.

S O3. [The angry officer] questioned [us] immediately.

S4. [That girl with long hair] plays in our orchestra.

5. We remembered his wise words quite often.

6. The furiously barking little dog chased him along the fence.

7. Everybody believed the strange story about the ghost.

8. These photos appeared in a magazine for women.

9. With some help you can make your own website.

Discuss: - the subject and the object are always Noun Phrases (NPs)- one method to test what is the subject and the object is passivization. Try it where appro-priate, and show how it helps our analysis.- another useful test is replacement by a personal pronoun, which often shows case. Try it.- the subject requires person and number concord with the verb. Show where this is useful in our analysis.

Exercise 6.2 Syntactic analysis: drawing tree diagrams

Draw a tree diagram for the above sentences, using the models provided:

S S

NP VP NP VP

N V NP Det Adj N V NP Adv

N Pro

George invited Jane. The angry officer questioned us immediately.

S

NP VP

Det N PP V PP S

P NP P NP NP VP

Adj N Det N Det N V Adv

That girl with long hair plays in our orchestra. Each guest slept well.

Discuss: - check if your diagrams show the following relations correctly. Find the examples:- the subject and object are always NPs (even if they consist of one word)- the subject NP is dominated by S, the object NP by V- a PP can act as attribute (or modifier), or as adverbial.- a PP is always made up of a P(reposition) plus an NP- the function of adverbials can be performed by PPs or Adv(erb)s

Exercise 6.3 Structural ambiguity: PPs in two roles

The following sentences all have two „readings” (= meanings), as shown in the example. Analyse the sentences, drawing tree diagrams for each reading (10 diagrams altogether):

1. (a) Betty [[hit] [the boy] [with the saxophone.]] = „she used a sax to hit the boy”

(b) Betty [[hit] [the boy with the saxophone.]] = „the boy she hit had a sax with him”

2. The organizers invited a violinist from Japan.

3. My uncle washed the car in the garage.

4. Leo was watching the girl from the café.

5. Everybody preferred the book without illustrations.

Discuss: - does the passivization test help to shwo the different readings?- another good test is the Question Test: What did Betty hit the boy with? - (a) or (b)?

Exercise 6.4. HOME ASSIGNMENT Preposition vs. Adverbial Particle

Analyse the following sentences by drawing tree diagrams:

1. Jeremy let down his friends. — 2. Jeremy climbed down the ladder.

3. The tourists used up the petrol. — 4. The tourists ran up the hill.

5. Dr Brown sat on my hat. — 6. Dr Brown put on my hat.

7. Eric believed in his younger brother. — 8. Eric called in his younger

brother.

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 7

TOPIC 7: SEMANTICSThe following points are recommended for discussion:

Word meaning. Synonyms, antonyms.Homonymy, polisemy.Nonsense, anomaly

Exercise 7.1 Referential identity

The following sentences contain two underlined words or NPs. Decide if they have a “reading” (= sentence meaning) according to which the two words are referentially identical (= co-referential), i.e., they can refer to the same entity. If so, mark both with a subscript “i”.

1. Margareti translated heri article.

This can mean that Margaret translated her own article (of course, it can also mean that Margaret translated another woman’s article.)

2. She translated Margaret’s article.

This can only mean that she and Margaret are two different people.

3. George couldn’t go in because the idiot had forgotten the keys.

4. The idiot couldn’t go in because George had forgotten the keys.

5. Tom had a shower when he got up. 6. He had a shower when Tom got up.

7. When Tom got up, he had a shower. 8. When he got up, Tom had a shower.

Discuss:– Reference (Hung. jelölet, Latin denotatum) is not the same as meaning: can we say that George and idiot mean the same in 3 above?– In these sentences he, she, idiot are used as substitute words. Sentences 1 to 7 show a regularity as to when co-reference is possible and when it is not. What is this regularity?– Sentence 8 shows that it is not just the order that counts. How should we modify our rule?

Exercise 7.2 Semantic opposites

Here is a list of word pairs with opposite meanings. They represent two different types of op-position. Group them accordingly:

tall – short open – closed deep – shallow married – singlealive – dead good – bad male – female honest – corrupt

Discuss:– complementaries are word pairs that satisfy both of these statements:

(a) “ ‘being X’ automatically means ‘not being Y’ ”; and(b) “ ‘not being Y’ automatically means ‘being X’ ”.

– the other group, antonyms only satisfy one statement: which one?– which type can be “compared” grammatically (“A is Xer than B”, “A is the Xest”) ?– which type can be used in the question form: “How X is A?” Is there a preference for one

member of these pairs when forming a question (how tall? how short?)?– metaphorically or humorously, even complementaries can be “compared”. Give examples.

Exercise 7.3 Semantic Features.Fill in the table by writing “+” if the feature is a necessary part of the meaning of the word:

Features(semantic components)

kill destroy

execute

assassi-nate

murder

cause not to exist further + + + + +cause to diehuman agentunlawfullyas lawful punishmentpatient is livingpatient is politician, political motive

Discuss:– which word has fewest pluses, i.e. is the most general in meaning?– which word has most pluses, i.e. is the most specialized (the most restricted!) in meaning?– the table ignores metaphoric uses, which however are quite frequent. Comment on these:

(a) Some people think that to execute is to murder.(b) Our hopes have been killed.(c) The neighbours have assassinated our dog.

Exercise 7.4 Dictionaries and prototypes

What is the meaning of a simple noun like leg? Here is the definition of leg from three dic-tionaries (we only quote the beginnings ot the articles):

● leg “organ of support and locomotion in animal, especially human, body; part of this from hip to ankle” (COD, Concise Oxford Dictionary 1964)

● leg “(1) a limb on which an animal walks and which supports its body; (2) that part of this limb above the foot” (LDCE, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 1978)

● leg “(1) your legs are the long parts of your body that are attached to your hips and have your feet at the end of them; (2) the legs of an animal, bird, or insect are the thin parts of its body that it uses to stand on or to move across the ground.” (Collins CoBuild Eng Dict 1987)

Discuss: – compare the three dictionaries: is there a difference in their style or level of difficulty? Who

can be their target audience?– do they agree in what are the two (most important) meanings of leg?– what further meanings of leg can be added?– compare leg with its with Hungarian equivalent(s). You may check in a couple of English-

Hungarian dictionaries.

Exercise 7.5 HOME ASSIGNMENT Semantic Features

Taking Exercise 7.3 as a model, analyse the nouns poem, writing, work, sonnet, fiction by making a similar table and finding appropriate distinctive features.

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 8

TOPIC 8: VARIETIES OF ENGLISHThe following points are recommended for discussion:

Standard, substandard, accent, dialect, traditional-dialect.Geographical (“horizontal”) and social (“vertical”) variation.“Received Pron.” (RP), the Pygmalion story; Queen’s E., Oxford E., BBC E.BrE – AmE, GA (=General American). Regional standard (vernacular), Southern Hemisphere English.Pidgins and creoles.(Style, slang and taboo, if not discussed in Topic 1, may be mentioned here.)

Exercise 8.1 Accent: BrE (RP) and AmE (GA)Below is a GA version of the text given in Exercise 4.3.

/

/

Discuss: – is this narrow or broad transcription?– collect the differences between RP and GA in the text– there are no length marks in the above transcription. Does this mean that GA has merged long and short vowels?– can you mention some features in which GA differs from RP but which are not apparent in the transcription above?– give the transcription of the words best and based in RP and GA.

Exercise 8.2 Vocabulary diferences BrE–AmE

Find the British or American equivalent of the following words and fill in the table.

BrE = AmE BrE = AmE BrE = AmE

railway dormitory presently

luggage dormitory zip code

downtown subway elevator

lumber subway flyover

MP sales clerk martini

drugstore bloke first floorExercise 8.2 Cockney

These sentences are from G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion, and represent Liza Doolittle’s words when she comes to visit the professor, asking to be taught “genteel” speech (that is, the RP accent).

Each line is given here in three types of notation. (Notation “B” is basically Shaw’s own.)

1. A: : B: weo, if ya was a gen’leman, ya moy’ ask me to si’ dahn.

C: Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down.

2. A: : B: Oy wan’ to be a lidy in a flah-shop

C: I want to be a lady in a flower-shop

3. A: : : B: but they wown’ tike me unless Oy can talk more genteeo.

C: but they won’t take me unless I can talk more genteel.

Discuss: – Compare the three types of notation. What are they? What is their purpose?– Where does the grammar of the passage deviate from Standard English?– Where does Notation B deviate from Standard English?– Notation A is just a broad approximation of Cockney pronunciation. Find the words which

are pronounced (and therefore transcribed) as in RP.– Where do we find / / and / / respectively? How does Notation B show them?– How would Liza pronounce the words bee, bay, by, boy?– Observe the Cockney treament of the phoneme /l/.

– Observe the occurrence of the sound // (called “glottal stop”).

Exercise 8.4 HOME ASSIGNMENT Words/expressions meaning ‘to die’.

Collect English words or expressions meaning ‘to die’ and group them according to some criteria that you find interesting. Comment on your findings. For example,

– stylistic diffferences (official, familiar, literary, slang...);– regional differences (Scottish, Australian, USA West Coast...);– temporal differences (Shakespearean, current, old-fashioned, archaic...).– syntactic differences (one word or phrase? transitive or intransitive?)

Use at least five dictionaries, including:– a Hungarian-English dict.– a dict. of English or American Slang– a learner’s English-English dictionary (e.g. Longman, Hornby, Collins...)– a very big English-English dictionary (Oxford, Webster, Random House)

Write up your findings in a mini-essay of about 2 pages, and hand it in to your instructor for correction. Please type your text, or write in very clean handwriting!

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 9

TOPIC 9: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICSThe following points are recommended for discussion:

Regular/patterned nature of sound change. Change in syntax and meaning. Etymology. Borrowed vs. inherited words.Relatedness of languages.

Exercise 9.1 The regularity of sound changeThis list contains words in English, Dutch, and German, which belong to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Observe the initial consonants. (The Dutch and German forms are given in spelling and in pronunciation.)

English Dutch Germanspelling pronun. spelling pronun.

sea zee : See :smear smeren : schmieren :soap zeep : Seifesleep slapen : schlafen :stone steen : Steinsilver zilver Silberso zo : so :spare sparen : sparen :snow sneeuw : Schnee :-self zelf selberstand staan : stehen :sing zingen singen

Find the answer to the following questions:

Q1. Why are some of these German words spelt with a capital letter? Does this have to do with the phonology?

Q2. Now look at the pronunciation. What initial consonants can we see in English, in Dutch, and in German, respectively? Write them in the table below:

E Du GInitial C (in pronun.)

Q3. English shows the original Germanic word-initial */s-/ without change. Dutch and German have split this sound into two. Write the conditioning factors in the boxes marked “?”. (Technically speaking: what is the distribution of these sounds?)

? ?Germanic word-initial */s-/ becomes Dutch...Germanic word-initial */s-/ becomes German...

Q4. Look at the spelling of the initial consonant in Dutch. Does Dutch indicate the phono-logical developments?Q5. Look at the spelling in German. What is the situation there?Q6. Compare the spelling of initial sibilant consonants (if they occur) in the data above:

E Du GInitial / -/Initial / -/Initial / -/

Q7. Does English have word-initial /z-/ at all? Think of a few examples. In what kind of words does /z-/ occur, in your opinion?

Exercise 9.2 Grammatical change

These sentences are in Early Modern English, taken from the King James Bible (1611).

1. When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do.

2. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

3. Judas said, “Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he.”

4. The high priest said unto Jesus: “Answerest thou nothing?”

5. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet.

1. Explain their meaning (possibly with an exact Hungarian translation). 2. See if there are vocabulary items that are no longer used. Do they represent grammatical change?3. Point out where the sentences would violate some grammatical rule if someone said them today. Try to use grammatical terms to capture the differences between EMoE and PdE.

Exercise 9.3 HOME ASSIGNMENT Lexical changeThese words were used in older English in a different meaning than today. Find out the original (archaic, old-use) meaning. Try to explain how the new meaning developed.Use a dictionary with etymology (e.g. Concise Oxford Dict.; OED; Online Etymological Dict; Webster’s International Dict., etc.)

meat, starve, corn, engineer, car, silly, minister, lavatory, very, liquor

BBN-ANG-132 INTRO TO ENG LING Seminar – Autumn 2006 10

TOPIC 10: PRAGMATICSThe following points are recommended for discussion:

Sentence types vs. language functions.Time and tense. Deixis.Sex and gender. Speech acts. Presuppositions.

Exercise 10.1 Indirect Speech

Note. Indirect Speech is also called Reported Speech.

(1) Observe and compare these examples. Make sure you understand the terminology:

Reporting Clause Reported Clause

1. Timothy said, “I know the music scene here.” direct speech

2. Timothy said (that) he knew the music scene there. indirect speech

– What changes happen in reporting, and what makes them necessary?

(2) Hungarian.Draw a similar table with the following Hung. sentence, both in direct and indirect form:

Géza kijelentette: “Én ismerem az itteni zenei életet.”

– Compare the data of the two languages. Are all changes parallel?

– If we wrote Hung. “... hogy ő ismerte...”, what English tense would this correspond to?

(3) Deixis.What is the actual meaning of the words I, you; here, there; now, then; this, that? Discuss why

they are called deictic (pron. /da kt k/) elements. (The phenomenon is called deixis /da ks s/).

– Does the Past Perfect tense express that something happened a long time ago? Consider:(a) The guide said that dinosaurs ate only plants.(b) The guide said that he had received the tickets.

– What is the meaning of ‘Present Tense’? Does it mean a particular day, hour, and minute? Why can we say that “tense is a deictic category”?

– Now you can answer the question: What elements must be changed in indirect speech?

(4) Backshift.– Re-write these sentences in two versions: once with Joe says... and once with Joe said... Consider which changes are obligatory, and which optional, in the reported clauses.

(a) I’m answering these letters this afternoon.

(b) My uncle will arrive next Tuesday.

(c) I was sick yesterday.

(d) I was upset last week because I hadn’t received my salary.

(e) People fall into five psychological types.

Exercise 10.2 Pragmatic Functions vs. Sentence Types

There are 3 basic pragmatic (= communicative) functions, and 5 traditional sentence types. Their standard matching is shown in the table:

Language Functions(= Pragmatic/Communicative

Functions)

Subtypes for PolaritySentence Types Positive

(=affirmative)

Negative

A. referential (= cognitive) (H. utaló/megismerő)

statement = declarative sentence 1 2question = interrogative sent. 3 4

B. directive (H. irányító/akciókérő)

command = imperative sent. 5 6

C. expressive (H. kifejező)

exclamation = exclamative sent. 7wish = optative sent. 8

– Write under each term in the “Sentence Types” column its traditional Hung. name.

– The sentences fitting into boxes 1, 3, 5 are called Affirmative (or Positive), those in 2, 4, 6 are called Negative. What is the Hung. equivalent of these two terms?

– Write a simple English sentence for each box 1 to 8. For example: 1 – John is a doctor.– The pragmatic functions can actually be expressed by practically any sentence type. For example, an interrogative sentence with directive function could be:

B3 – Can you tell me the time? (= Please tell me the time!)Write five such cross-matched examples (e.g. C2, B4, etc.)

Exericse 10.3 MoodObserve the underlined verbs and verb-groups, and comment on their mood.

1. Everybody knows that Thea is working on her novel.

2. I would go anywhere to be with my love.

3. If Michael was/were American, he would need no visa.

4. The manager insisted that Albert leave at once.

5. I wish I knew the answer.

6. God bless Ireland!

Discuss the relation (and difference!) between mood, pragmatic function and sentence type.

Exercise 10.3 HOME ASSIGNMENT Tag Questions: Positive or Negative?

Tag Questions (also called Question Tags) show interesting polarity relations, that is, they can be positive or negative, as shown below. Use three different English grammars or usage handbooks or dictionaries to clarify what rules govern polarity choice in Tag Questions.

(1) Eve sings quite well, doesn’t she? (2) Jane finds Tim attractive,

does she?

(3) James doesn’t know this, does he? (4) The book won’t be a success, won’t it?