英语词汇学复习题.doc

英语词汇学复习题 (一)
I. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. Circle T or F as you see fit on your answer sheet. (10%)
1.       The basic word stock of a language is changing rapidly all the time.
2.       A free morpheme is a word in the traditional sense.
3.       The total number of functional words is very limited in English.
4.       Every English word has its motivation.
5.       All the affixes in English are very productive.
6.       The meaning of a word, especially that of a polysemous word, is often determined by the context in which it appears.
7.       Some synonyms are connected with euphemisms and vulgarisms.
8.       The interaction between American English and British English is largely from west to east nowadays.
9.       If a native word has a borrowed synonym, the foreign word is always more literary than the native one.
10.   A synchronic dictionary is a dictionary of contemporary words.
II. The following are multiple-choice questions. Mark your answer by circling A,B, C or D on your answer sheet. (20%)
11.   The history of the English language began with the conquest and settlement of what is now England by the _________.
(A)   Romans
(B)   Danish
(C)   Angles, Saxons and Jutes
(D) Normans
12.   The sentence “Feeling fatigued, Tom retired early” is stylistically __________.
(A)   colloquial
(B)   slangy
(C)   literary
(D) neutral
13.   A morpheme is a two-facet language unit, which possesses both ________.
(A)   function and meaning
(B)   letters and meaning
(C)   syllable and meaning
(D) sound and meaning
14.   A hybrid is a word made up of elements belonging to two or more _________.
(A)   foreign languages
(B)   different languages
(C)   Germanic languages
(D) Romance languages
15.   In English the most productive type of conversion is conversion __________.
(A)   from verb to adjective
(B)   from adjective to noun
(C)   from noun to adjective
(D) from noun to verb
16.   The majority of back-formed words are ___________.
(A)   nouns
(B)   adjectives
(C)   verbs
(D) adverbs
17.   “Statesman” is an appreciative word whereas “politician” is a _________.
(A)   colloquial word
(B)   derogatory word
(C)   purr word
(D) neutral word
18.   “Happy” and “unhappy” are ____________.
(A)   non-gradable antonyms
(B)   root antonyms
(C)   derivational antonyms
(D) conversives
19.   The language brought to North America by the British explorers in the seventeenth century belongs to the early stage of _______.
(A)   Old English
(B)   Middle English
(C)   Modern English
(D) Contemporary English
20.   “Corpse” originally meant the human body. Now it means a dead body. This is a case of _______.
(A)   restriction of meaning
(B)   extension of meaning
(C)   degeneration of meaning
(D) elevation of meaning
III. Decide whether each of the following words is a A)simple word, B) compound word, C) derived word or D) shortened form. Mark your answer on the answer sheet.
21. taxi 22. lady
23. modernize 24. eager
25. friendship 26. warship
27. German 28. Frenchman
29. crocodile 30. photo
IV. Explain the following terms with appropriate examples. Do it on the answer sheet. (10%)
31. allomorph
32. derivation
V. Give a short answer to the following questions. Do it on the answer sheet. (30%)
33. The meaning of a ploysemous word is often determined by the linguistic context in which it appears. Illustrate this point with examples.
34. What are the four commonest tendencies of the change of word meaning?
VI. Give a longer answer (150-200 words) to the following question. Do it on the answer sheet. (20%)
35. How are antonyms classified in English?
英语词汇学参照答案 (一)
I. Some of the following statements are true, the others false. Mark your answer by circling T or F on your answer sheet. (10%)
1 F 2 T 3 T 4 F 5 F 6 T 7 T 8 T 9 F 10 F
II. The following are multiple-choice questions. Mark your answer by circling A,B, C or D on your answer sheet. (20%)
11 C 12 C 13 D 14 B 15 D 16 C 17 B 18 C 19 C 20 A
III. Decide whether each of the following words is a A) simple word, B) compound word, C) derived word or D) shortened form. Mark your answer on the answer sheet.
21. D                                 22. A
23. C                                 24. A
25. C                                 26. B
27. A                                 28. B
29. A                                30. D
IV. Explain the following terms with appropriate examples. Do it on the answer sheet. (10%)
31. An allomorph is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds. For example, the allomorphs “–ion/-tion/-sion/-ation” are the positional variants of the same suffix.
32. Derivation or affixation is a process of forming new words by addition of a word element, such as a prefix, suffix or combining form to an already existing word. For example, the word “unfair” is formed by adding the prefix “un-“ to the already existing word “fair”.
V. Give a short answer to the following questions. Do it on the answer sheet. (30%)
33.The meaning of a polysemous word is often determined by the linguistic context in which it appears, including the lexical, grammatical, and verbal context in its broad sense. For instance, the verb make can be used in many different senses when it is combined with different lexical items, e.g.: The regulations were made (enacted) to protect children. We made (had) a good lunch before leaving. The train was making(traveling at a speed of) 70 miles an hour.
34.The four commonest tendencies of the change of word meaning are:
1) Restriction of meaning/Specialization: a word of wide meaning acquires a narrower, specialized sense which is applicable to only one of the objects it had previously denoted. E.g. the word meat originally meant “food”, but now means “the flesh of animals used as food, excluding fish and birds”.
2) Extension of meaning/Generalization: the widening of a word’s sense until it covers much more than what it originally conveyed. E.g. the word bird meant a young bird before, but now means “feathered creatures with two legs and two wings”.
3)Degeneration of meaning/Pejoration: Degeneration of meaning is a process whereby words of good origin fall into ill reputation or non-affective words come to be used in derogatory sense. E.g. “accident” once meant an occurance or an event, but now it means only “bad occurance”.
4) Elevation of meaning/Amelioration: Elevation of meaning refers to the process by which words rise from humble beginning to positions of importance, or a word meaning takes a turn for the better in the course of time. E.g. “minister” once meant a servant, it now means “a person at the head of a Department of State”.
VI. Give a longer answer (150-200 words) to the following question. Do it on the answer sheet. (20%)
35.Antonyms may be classified on the basis of semantic contrast or of morphological structure. Semantically antonyms fall into three types:
1)Contraries/Contrary terms: they display a type of semantic contrast, illustrated by such pairs as rich and poor; heavy and light; deep and shallow, etc. They are gradable antonyms.
2)Complementaries/Contradictories: they represent a type of binary semantic opposition. In this case, the contrast is absolute. Examples are: alive and dead, married and single, present and absent. In this case, sb or sth is either A or B, there is no compromise between.
3)Conversives/Relational opposites: another type of binary opposition as shown in lend and borrow, husband and wife, employer and employee. In this case, the relationship between the two words is interdependent, one member of the pair presupposes the other member.
Antonyms can also be classified morphologically into root antonyms and derivational antonyms. Words like deep/shallow, love/hate, up/down are root antonyms, for they are words with different roots. Words like happy/unhappy, possible/impossible, loyal/disloyal, code/decode, etc. are derivational antonyms, each pair has the same root.