MEG 04
ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment July 2021 & Jan 2022
Write short notes on the following:
(i) Langue and parole
Ans. Langue and Parole: The distinction between the French words langue (language or tongue) and parole (speech) enters the vocabulary of theoretical linguistics with Ferdinand de Saussure’s ‘Course in General Linguistics or ‘Cours de general linguistics.
Langue denotes the abstract systematic principles of a language, without which no meaningful would be possible.
Langue represents the “work of a collective intelligence,” which is both internal to each individual and collective, in so far as it is beyond the will of any individual to change.
Parole, on the other hand, designates individual acts, statements and utterances, events of language use manifesting each time a speaker’s ephemeral individual will through his combination of concepts and his “phonation”—the formal aspects of the utterance.
Saussure pointed out that there would be no coherent and meaningful utterance without the institution of norms that Saussure calls langue.
So it is this that forms the object of study for modern linguistics. Such an object could not ever be made visible but one can in principle establish the rules and conditions that make it possible to speak and write in meaningful ways.
Saussure claims that the langue (language) system is “social in essence and independent of the individual, it is the product which the individual registers passively,” whereas parole (speech) is purely individual and subjective. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Marxist Mikhail Bakhtin (1929) criticized the splitting of langue and parole as separating individuals and society where it matters most, at the point of production.
He developed a dialogic theory of utterances where language is understood in terms of how it orients the speaker/writer to the listener/reader.
Words are subject to negotiation, contest and struggle. Language is strongly affected by social context.
(ii) Types of Negation and its interaction with scope
Ans. Negation as a Logical Operator: In English negation has its impact on the structure and the complete meaning of the sentence simultaneously.
Words used as negation are: no, not and n’t: indefinite pronouns like nothing and nobody; adverbs like nowhere and never; adjective no as in ‘no one’, ‘no money’, etc.; conjunction like neither and nor.
Negation has its effect, usually, on the truth and falsity of a sentence. When a true sentence is negated it becomes false sentence and when a false sentence is negated it become true sentence. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Therefore a negation works a logical operator at the level of meaning. For example:
(a) Sun rises everyday. We accept this as a true sentence.
(b) Sun does not rise everyday. We accept this sentence as a false sentence.
There are times when negation can be a cause of paradox. In sentence, “This sentence is not true”.
If we consider it to be the true than we have to accept that it is not true. And if considered it to be false then we have to accept that the sentence is true. This is called Russell’s paradox.
(iii) Code mixing vs code switching
Ans. Mixing Codes
Code-mixing simply refers to the mixing of two or more languages or language varieties in a speech.
Some scholars use the term ‘code-mixing’ especially in the study of syntax, morphology, and other formal aspects of languages. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Other assumes more specific definitions of code-mixing but the definitions may be different in the subfields of linguistics, education theory, communication, etc.
Code-mixing is similar to the use or creation of pidgins; but while pidgin is created across the groups that do not share a common language, code-mixing may occur within a multilingual setting, where speakers share more than one language.
Mixing of linguistic codes or languages happen due to following reasons:
Borrowing: When two languages exist at the same time in a given place or if there is frequent interaction between the speakers of different languages, it is inevitable to have influence of one language over another or vice-versa.
These influences can target grammatical structure, vocabulary, style, the way of pronunciation and the sounds of the language concerned. These languages use each other features for their enrichment and effectiveness.
Such a process of acquiring grammatical features and vocabulary from other languages is called borrowing. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
The features which are borrowed by the one language from the other language become the integral part of the borrowing language.
The interesting fact is that, a speaker of borrowing language while using the borrowed features may not even know about the donor language.
Mixing: In a multilingual setting where speakers are bilinguals and use more than one language for the purpose of communication may start mixing the languages used for reasons like proper expression of thoughts, ease of communication, etc.
This mixing of languages is called code-mixing as two different linguistic codes are being mixed by the speakers,
A common example could be bilingual speaker of India, who often mixes Hindi or for that matter any other Indian language with English.
Usually, the language used for mixing is called Supra language (or source language) and the language in which it is mixed is called the Base language.
Switching Codes
Switching and Mixing: Code-switching is different from code mixing. It is a term denoting the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversations. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Multilingual, people who speak more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other.
Thus, code-switching is the syntactically and phonologically appropriate use of more than one linguistic variety.
Numan and Carter briefly define the term as a phenomenon of switching from one language to another in the same discourse” (2001:275).
Trudgill once said, “Speakers switch to manipulate or influence or define the situation as they wish, and to convey nuances of meaning and personal intention” (2000:105).
Drawing upon this quotation, it may be suggested that code-switching can be used for self-expression and is a way of modifying language for the sake of personal intentions. An Illustration
Another function of code-switching is that it may be used in order to build intimate interpersonal relationships among members of a bilingual community.
In this respect, it may be claimed that it is a tool for creating linguistic solidarity especially between individuals who share the same ethno-cultural identity.
In order to clarify the subject, the following dialogue which is observed and transcribed by Holmes may be given (1992:275): MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
(The Maori is in italics. THE TRANSLATION IS IN CAPITALS)
Sarah: I think everyone’s here except Mere.
John: She said she might be a bit late but actually I think that’s her arriving now.
Sarah: You’re right. Kia ora Mere. Haere mai. Kei te pehea koe?
(HI MERE. COME IN. HOW ARE YOU?)
Mere: Kia ora hoa. Kei te pai. Have you started yet? (HELLO MY FRIEND. I AM FINE)
Analysis
Following this example, it is observed that Sarah and Mere code switch from English to Maori during their conversation.
The language shift these people perform reflects their ethnic identity and functions as a bridge that builds solidarity among them, which is also related to the high intimacy level concerning their relationship. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
There is switch in the language to build an interpersonal relationship because of the person identity linked with the language, native language.
(iv) Generative grammar
Ans. The generative approach towards the description of language was introduced in 1957 with the publication of Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structure.
Generative approaches include meaning in the study of language, and look for patterned relationships between deep” structures of meaning and “surface” structures of linguistic forms actually used by the speaker.
Principal Goals: The principle goal of generative approach towards language (generative grammar) can be summed up as following:
(a) The elements of universal nature, which contribute in making up the grammar of a particular language,should be characterised in formal terms.
(b) Grammar of different languages should be characterised by formal statements.
Transformational Generative Grammar: 1957 Model
The term “transformational generative grammar” is used to refer to Noam Chomsky theories about syntax. These theories were first put forward in a book entitled “Syntactic Structure”.
In this Chomsky tried to find out certain rules which would create well-formed sentences and define the relation between them. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
According to Chomsky, it is generative because it can generate infinite number of sentences and it is transformational because a basic and simple sentence like, “I read the book” can be changed or transformed into number of sentences with either the same meaning like “The book is being read by me”, or the different meaning like, “Do I read the book?”, “I read the book. Don’t I?”
Transformational generative grammar (TG) has two interesting properties,
(i) it only generates the well formed or grammatically-correct sentences or language. It will not generate a sentence which is ill formed or incorrect.
(ii) It has recursive rules. This property of recursiveness is the capacity of a rule to be applied again and again in order to generate infinite set of values. In this case value means new combinations of words which are grammatically correct.
By using Chomsky’s transformational rules, we can show the similarity of the passive to the active mood by showing how a phrase marker for the active mood can be converted into a phrase marker for the passive mood.
Thus, instead of generating two unrelated phrase markers by phrase structure rules, we can construct a simpler grammar by showing how both the active and the passive can be derived from the same underlying phrase marker.
Q. 2. Languages enrich and evolve through borrowings. Discuss the various borrowings in English language by giving examples.
Ans. The abstract noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language into their native language. “Loan” and “borrowing” are of course metaphors, because there is no literal lending process.
Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities. Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other.
In this case the source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language community. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted numerous loanwords from Latin as they adopted new products via trade with the Romans.
Few Germanic words, on the other hand, passed into Latin.
English borrowed it vocabulary from various different languages. Let us have a look at the brief description of different languages which helped English to build up its modern vocabulary base.
Celtic Borrowings
Celtic peoples who invaded Britain are believed to have integrated with the people who previously inhabited the island, absorbing elements of the language spoken by this group, much in the way that the Normans were later to adopt many English words in order to adapt to their new homeland.
Celtic influence on the English language is mostly apparent through place names. For generations, the language of the Celts was referred to as “British’- the language of the Britons, the native inhabitants of the land.
Some names that survive are the names of rivers such as the Thames and the Yare, and important Roman towns such as. London, York and Lincoln.
A number of names are compounds of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon words. Two Celtic words for “hill” bre and pen appear in a number of names. Brill in Buckinghamshire is a combination of bre and OE hyll. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire is a combination of bre and dun, both Celtic words, and Brewood in Staffordshire is combined with OE wudu.
Pensax in Herefordshire means “hill of the Anglo-Saxons”, which gives an indication of the proximity, but isolation in which Celtic communities would have existed until they were gradually pushed to the corners of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons.
The use of “Combe” or “Coombe” as part of many place names comes from the Celtic word kumb, which meant “valley”, and was adopted into OE.
The word tor is used mainly in the south-west of Britain, means “rock”, and is used in conjunction with the granite peaks on Dartmoor and Bodmin moor – Hay Tor, Hound Tor, etc., and was incorporated into the name of the coastal town ‘Torquay’.
Bodmin itself is a compound of the Cornish words bod “dwelling” (which may have come into English as “abode”) and monegh ‘monks’.
The name Cornwall is an Anglicised form of the original name for the people who inhabited the far south-west of Britain kern either being a tribal name, or a word meaning “rock”, and “wall” coming from OE weahlas meaning (rather inappropriately) “foreigners”.
Parallel names are common in the south-west as well-for example, St. Ives is also known by its Cornish name of Porthia. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Latin Borrowings
Latin is one language which influenced English throughout the ages. It would be better for us to understand its influence in English vocabulary in three different ages.
Borrowings in the Old English Period: Latin (L) influenced the development of Old English (OE) more than any other non-West Germanic language with which OE came into contact. Most scholars divide the influence of L chronologically into three time periods.
The first time period concerns such influence as occurred on the continent prior to the arrival of Anglo-Saxons in England and which arose from contacts between West-Germanic speaking peoples and L speakers.
The second period of influence spans from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in England up to their Christianisation ca. 600/650. The last period of influence spans from the time of Christianisation up to the arrival of the Normans in 1066.
The adopted words naturally indicate the new conceptions which the Teutons acquired from this contact with a higher civilisation Next to agriculture the chief occupation of the Germans in the empire was war, and this experience is reflected in words like camp (battle), segn (banner), pil (pointed stick, javelin), weall (wall), pyti (pit), straet (road, street), mil (mile), and miltestre (courtesan).
More numerous are the words connected with trade. The Teutons traded amber, furs, slaves, and probably certain raw materials for the products of Roman handicrafts, articles of utility, luxury, and adornment. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
The words cêap (bargain; cf. Eng., cheap, chapman) and mangian (to trade) with its derivatives mangere (monger), mangung (trade, commerce), and mangung-hús (shop) are fundamental, while pund (pound), mydd (bushel), seam (burden, loan), and mynet (coin) are terms likely to be employed.
From the last word Old English formed the words mynetian (to mint or coin) and mynetere (money-changer).
One of the most important branches of Roman commerce with the Teutons was the wine trade; hence such words in English as wîn (wine), must (new wine), eced (vinegar), and flace (flask, bottle).
To this period are probably to be attributed the her bottle), cyrfette (L. curcurbita, gourd), and sester (jar, pitcher).
A number of the new words relate to domestic life and designate household articles, clothing, etc.: cytel (kettle; L. catillus, catlnus), mese (table), scamol (L. scamellum, bench, stool; cf. modern shambles), teped (carpet, curtain; L. tapêtum), pyle (L. pulvinus, pillow), pilece (L. pellicia, robe of skin), and sigel (brooch, necklace; L. sigillum).
Certain other words of a similar kind probably belong here although the evidence for their adoption thus early is not in every case conclusive: cycene (kitchen; L. coquina), cuppe (L. cuppa, cup), disc (dish; L. discus), cucler (spoon; L. cocleårium), mortere (L. mortârium, a mortar, a vessel of hard material), linen (cognate with or from L. linum, flax), liîne (rope, line; L. liînea), and giiimm (L. gemma, gem).
The Teutons adopted Roman words for certain foods, such as ciiese (L. câseus, cheese), spelt (wheat), pipor (pepper), senep (mustard; L. sinapi), and mintie (L. mentha, mint).
Roman contributions to the building arts are evidenced by such words as cealc (chalk), coipor (copper), and tigele (tile), while miscellaneous words such as pâwa (peacock), the adjectives sicor (L. sêcûrus, safe) and calu (L. calvus, bald), segne (seine), pipe (pipe, musical instrument), cirice (church), biscop (bishop), câsere (emperor), and Saeternesdaeg (Saturday) may be mentioned.
The greatest influence of Latin upon Old English was occasioned by the introduction of Christianity into Britain in 597. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
A few words relating to Christianity such as church and bishop were, borrowed earlier. The great majority of words in Old English having to do with the church and its services, its physical fabric and its ministers, were borrowed at this time.
The list includes abbot, alms, altar, angel, anthem, Arian, ark, candle, canon, chalice, cleric, cowl, deacon, disciple, epistle, hymn, litany, manna, martyr, mass, minster, noon, nun, offer, organ, pall, palm, pope, priest, provost, psalm, psalter, relic, rule, shrift, shrine, shrive, stole, subdeacon, synod, temple and tunic.
Thus we that extent and variety of the borrowings from Latin in the early days of Christianity in England and show how quickly the language reflected the broadened horizon which the English people owed to the church.
Latin Borrowings in the Middle English Period: The Norman Conquest of 1066 gave England a two tiered society with an aristocracy that spoke Norman French and a peasantry that spoke English.
From 1066 until King Henry IV ascended to the throne in 1399, the Royal Court of England spoke French. However, the Norman rulers made no attempt to suppress the English language.
In 1204, the Normans lost their land-holdings in France and became wholly English. By the time we see Middle English in the 14th century the Normans had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English, of which 75% remain in use.
The combination of a French speaking aristocracy and an English speaking peasantry gave rise to many pairs of words with a Latinate word in the higher register and a Germanic word in the lower register. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
For example, the names of barnyard animals tend to be Germanic, from the names the English farmers and herders used: chicken, cow, ox sheep and swine.
The names of the animals when they appear on one’s plate, as the aristocracy saw them, are of Latin origin: poultry, veal, beef, mutton, pork.
Other such doublets include: bellicose/warlike; benediction blessing; close/shut; commence/begin; decapitate/behead; desire/wish; gentle/mild; labour/work, novel/new; verity/truth.
During the reign of the Normans, many words related to the ruling classes and the business of government entered English from French.
Among these words are: attorney, bailiff, baron, city, conservative, countess, county, damage, duchess, duke, empire, executive, felony, govern, judicial, jury, justice, legislative, liberal, marriage, nobility, parliament, perjury, petty, prince, prison, regal, representative, republic, royal, senator, sovereign, state, traitor and viscount.
A few words retain the French construction of noun followed by adjective, in contrast to the typical English construction of adjective plus noun: attorney general, court martial, and malice aforethought.
Latin Borrowings in Modern English Period: During the English Renaissance, ca. 1500-1650, some 10,000 to 12,000 words entered the English lexicon, including “lexicon’.
Many of these words were borrowed directly from Latin, both in its classical and medieval forms.
Some examples include: aberration, allusion, anachronism, democracy, dexterity, enthusiasm, imagination, juvenile, pernicious, and sophisticated.
The dawn of the age of scientific discovery in the 17th and 18th Centuries created the need for new words to describe newfound knowledge. Many words were borrowed from Latin, while others were coined from Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
While English has also made liberal use of Greek roots and affixes, Greek word elements are only combined with other Greek elements.
Latin word elements, in contrast, freely combine with elements from all other languages including native Anglo-Saxon words. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Some of the words which entered English at this time are: analysis, apparatus, aqueous, atomic, carnivorous, component, corpuscle, data, dynamic, experiment, formula, incubate, machinery, mechanics, molecule, nucleus, organic, ratio, structure, synthesis, theory and vertebra.
Greek Borrowings: Greek was also a language of learning, and Latin itself borrowed words from Greek. Indeed the Latin alphabet is an adaptation of the Greek alphabet. But there were no direct borrowing from Greek.
The three of the oldest borrowings from Greek are church, angel, and devil. But these words were borrowed through Latin.
Many of the Greek loan-words were through other languages: through French-agony, aristocracy, enthusiasm, metaphor; through Latin – ambrosia, nectar, phenomenon, and rhapsody.
There were some general vocabulary items like fantasy, cathedral, charismatic, and idiosyncrasy as well as more technical vocabulary like anatomy, barometer, microscope, and homeopathy.
French Borrowings
The Norman Conquest of 1066 left England as a trilingual country, although most people would only speak one or two of the dominant languages. Latin was the language for record-keeping. learning and the church.
French was the language of the Norman aristocracy and therefore also the language of prestige, government and polite social intercourse. English was the language of the common folk and menials.
When the Normans took over England, they changed the language of government and the court almost overnight and disregarded existing institutions.
Instead, they took on almost wholesale institutions de the feudal system which guaranteed strong control by the king MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
There were three periods of French borrowings. The first, from about 1066 to 1250 represents the height of Norman power.
The language spoken by the Normans, known as Norman French (different from Central or Parisian French) was the language of the King’s court, the nobles’ castles and the courts of law.
Norman-French was therefore the language of honour, chivalry and justice. Indeed, Matthew of Westminster said, “Whoever was unable to speak French was considered a vile and contemptible person by the common people’ (1263).
There were not many French borrowings, since English continues be used, largely in its own, low-level arenas and French and English speakers were kept separate.
The second period, roughly from 1250 to 1400 represents the period of English-French bilingualism in individuals (not just in the nation). The number of French loanwords ballooned in this period. Why was this?
Very briefly, this is what happened. In 1204, Normandy in northern France, where the Normans came from) was acquired by the French king.
Among other things, it meant that the Norman aristocracy in England couldn’t travel back and forth between their lands in England and France anymore. They had to choose whether they wanted to remain in England or in France.
Those who remained in England began to see England as their home. This led to the reassertion of English as the language of the realm. As English was on its way in, the gaps in En had to be filled by loanwords from French.
These include items pertaining to new experiences and ways of doing things introduced by the Normans. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
So whilst the English already had kings, queens and earls, terms taken from French include count, countess, sir, madam, duke, marquis, dauphin, viscount, chevalier, servant and master Other domains which became enriched with French loanwords include:
(a) Government: parliament, chancellor, government, country; crown.
(b) Finance: treasure, wage, poverty.
(c) Law: attorney, plaintiff, larceny, fraud, jury, verdict.
(d) War: battle, army, castle, tower, siege, banner:
(e) Religion: miracle, charity, saint, pardon.
(f) Morality: virtue, vice, gentle, patience, courage, mercy, courtesy, pity.
(g) Recreation: falcon, covert, scent, chase, quarry.
(h) Art, fashion, etc.: apparel, costume, gown, art, beauty, colour, image, design, cushion.
(i) Cuisine: stew, grill, roast
(j) Like bake, bacon, mutton, pork, veal, venison.
(k) Household Relationships: uncle, aunt, nephew, cousin (form from OE: father, mother, brother and from Scandinavian sister).
The third period of French borrowings is from around 1400 onwards.
The borrowings of the first two periods tend to be more elegant and sophisticated, but yet not too far away from the core and several became quite nativised (dance, April, native, fine, line, punish, finish).
These later-borrowings were more, distant from the core, with attention being explicitly called to their sophisticated, well-bred, cultivated, even arty *French texture: notice the spellings and pronunciations of some of these iteme balle tableau statnes,que,dlichenoil format, lingerie.
Scandinavian Borrowings
The Scandinavian influence on Britain can be thought of in terms of three episodes. First period was 750-1016 when the Vikings (Scandinavians) began attacking the northern and eastern shores of Britain and settling in those parts of Britain.
So, not many Scandinavian borrowings took place; these include husbonda (husband) and lagu (law). MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Secondly, we can consider the period 1016-1050, where the conditions were more or less similar to the earlier period, only that King Alfred the Great had succeeded in uniting the Anglo-Saxons through actively promoting the English language (among other things).
There were more borrowings, including cnif (knife) and diegan (die).
Finally, we have the period 1050-1480.
The French-speaking Normans took over Britain in 1066, and both the English and Scandinavians were given the same fate and were subdued by the Normans.
Naturally, the English and the Scandinavians come together and interact with each other more closely.
It is very difficult to pick out Scandinavian loan-words in English. This is because they seem to have the same quality and texture as Anglo-Saxon words.
They are ordinary, everyday words, and quite often mono-syllabic and include grammatical words (like the verb are to be), or the pronouns their them and they and some of the commonest words in English today like bag, dirt, fog, knife, flat, low, odd, ugly, want, trust, get, give, take, raise, smile and though.
A good number of sc-or sk- words today are of Scandinavian origin (scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, sky). Scandinavian loan-words are therefore more usefully considered as core items, under these conditions:
(a) the English word sometimes displaced the cognate Scandinavian word: fish instead of fisk; goat instead of gayte; MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
(b) the Scandinavian word sometimes displaces the cognate English word: egg instead of ey, sister instead of sweoster;
(c) both might remain, but with somewhat different meanings: dike-ditch, hale-whole, raise-rise, sick-ill,skill-craft, skirt-shirt;
(d) the English word might remain, but takes on the Scandinavian meaning dream (originally ‘joy’, ‘mirth’,”music’, ‘revelry’); and
(e) the English words that were becoming obsolete might be given a new lease of life, e.g. dale and barn.
Q. 3. How is inflectional morphology different from derivational morphology? Discuss by giving examples.
Ans. The Inflectional Morphology of English
Let us discuss in detail the inflection morphology of English by describing the paradigm of all regular parts of speech. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Inflection Morphology of English Nouns: English nouns can be categorized into two major categories – proper nouns, and common nouns, Proper nouns are those which have a unique identity and common nouns are those which refer to a person, place, or a thing.
To understand inflectional morphology of notin, let us first examine tyo grammatidal cules that apply on English nouns:
(a) The Number Rule: According to this rule, one can choose between singular and plural references. If a noun is supposed to be singular, we can choose a Singular bound morpheme and if it is supposed to be plural,we can choose Plural bound morpheme.
(b) The Case-formation Rule: According to this rule one noun can be combined with other in order to signify possession. In case we want to express that noun N2 belongs to NI, we can choose bound morpheme Possession with NI.
These are the two rules which apply in the paradigm formation of English nouns. In the case of a proper noun, only the second rule is applicable because we do not have the choice of numbers in the case of proper nouns.
But a proper noun can also be used in a plural form, only it is used as a common noun. This gives us two paradigms of a proper nouns:
• Common Case – Proper noun + COMMON, examples – Ram, Sam, etc
• Possessive Case – Proper noun + POSSESSIVE, examples – Ram’s, Sam’s, etc.
The paradigm of Common Nouns: Common nouns can be categorised in to ‘count’ nouns and ‘mass nouns. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Count nouns are those which can be counted, thus count nouns, for example house, bikes, cars, etc. and mass nouns are those which cannot be counted like love, peace, anger, etc.
Paradigm of count nouns involves both the rules stated above, i.e. number and case rules. This can be made clear with the following chart:
| RULE I | SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| COUNT NOUN +SINGULAR | COUNT NOUN +PLURAL | |
| Cat+SINGULAR=’Cat | Cat+PLURAL = ‘Cats | |
| Dog + SINGULAR=’Dog | Dog + PLURAL = ‘Dogs | |
| Horse + SINGULAR = “Horse | Horse + PLURAL = “Horses | |
| RULEe II | COMMON CASE | POSSESSIVE CASE |
| COUNT NOUN+COMMON | COUNT NOUN + POSSESSIVE | |
| Cat + COMMON=’Cat | Cat + POSSESSIVE=’Cat’s | |
| Dog + COMMON=”Dog | Dog + POSSESSIVE=”Dog’s | |
| Horse + COMMON = “Horse | Horse + POSSESSIVE=’Horse’s |
Rule I and II (Apply in that order)
| Singular Number + Common Case | Singular Number + Possessive Case |
| Cat + SING+COMMON=’Cat | Cat+SING+POSSESSIVE=’Cat’s |
| Dog + SING+COMMON=’Dog | Dog + SING+ POSSESSIVE=’Dog’s |
| Horse + SING+POSSESSIVE”=Horse | Horse + SING+ Possessive = “Horse’s |
| Plural Number + Common Case | Plural Number + Possessive Case |
| Cat +PLU+COMMON = ‘Cats | Cat +PLU+POSSESSIVE=”Cats |
| Dog + PLU+COMMON= Dogs | Dog +PLU+POSSESSIVE=”Dogs |
| Horse + PLU+COMMON = “Horses | Horse + PLU+POSSESSIVE=”Horses |
Paradigm of Mass Noun: The máss nouns do not haye any plural inflection, as these nouns cannot be counted.
Mass nouns are, however, different from zero plural count nouns. Some count nouns do have zero plural, but they can still be counted. Mass nouns do not have case inflection either. Thus mass nouns do not have any paradigm form.
Inflection Morphology of English Pronouns: Pronouns are the words used as a replacement of noun. For example, words like-he, she, it, they, I, me, mine, you, yours, etc. Such pronouns are called personal pronouns.
There is another form of pronoun which is called indefinite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns refer to the words like somebody, someone, etc. Personal pronouns are marked by following grammatical rules: MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
(a) The Case Rule: According to this rule a personal pronoun can be used in nominative and objective or possessive forms.
Such use of pronouns depends on the function of noun, which may vary from the subject of verb to the object of verb or it may combine with pronouns to show that N2 is the possession of NI (N2 = Pronoun, NI= Noun)
(b) The Person Rule: According to this rule pronouns can function as a first person (the speaker), the second person (the addressee) or the third person (the third party).
(c) Gender Rule: According to this rule pronouns can function as a masculine, a feminine, and a neuter.
(d) The Number Rule: This rule allows pronoun to be two different forms, i.e. singular and plural. Thus keeping in mind these rules we can present the paradigm of pronouns as followings
| Person Number Gender Case |
| Nom. | Obj. | Ist Poss | 2nd Poss | |||
| First | Singular | I | ME | MY | MINE | |
| Plular | we | us | our | ours | ||
| Second | you | you | your | yours | ||
| Third | Singular | Masc./Fem. | he/she | him/her | his | hers |
| Neut | It | its | ||||
| Plular | they | them | their | theirs |
Indefinite pronouns do not have any number inflection; they only show case inflection like someone-someone’s, etc.
Inflection Morphology of English Adjectives: Degree rule is the only grammatical rule with morphological result that applies on adjectives.
According to this rule the base adjective morphemes can combine with degree morphemes i.e. superlative degree and comparative degree, to show inflection.
There are several adjectives which do not add nay suffixes in their superlative and comparative state, instead they add most’ and ‘more’.
There are some other adjectives which in their comparative and superlative forms are completely unrelated to their base adjectives. For example, ‘good’ in comparative and superlative forms is better? and best. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
These adjectives are not taken into consideration when presenting the morphological paradigm of adjective as:
Base positiver comparative tedy Superlative caring
Sweet sweet + POSITIVE=sweet sweet +comparative=sweeter sweet +Superlative=
sweetest
Inflectional Morphology of Adverbs: Like adjective, adverbs also have only one rule for morphological consequence, i.e. the degree rule.
Adverbs share their inflectional paradigm with adjectives, in fact there are number of adjectives which function like adverb without any change in form like fast, short, hard, etc., and thus also have same degree of inflection.
Inflection Morphology of English Verbs: In English language verbs can be categorised into three categories:
(a) Full Verbs: These are the main verbs in the sentence for example jump, hit, eat, walk, etc.
(b) Modal Verbs: These are the auxiliaries like can, could, shall, should, etc.
(c) Primary Verbs: These are both auxiliaries and full verbs. There are only three primary verbs, they are be,have, and do.
Grammatical rules of morphological consequence which applies on English verbs are:
(a) The Person and Number Rule: According to this rule there is a change in the form of primary and full verbs depending upon the number and person of nouns.
(b) The Tense Rule: This rule refers to the change in the form of verb depending upon the reference of time in the sentence, i.e. past and present.
Verbs do not undergo any changes in future tense. Thus we have only two bound morphemes for this – PRESENT and PAST.
(c) The Aspect Rule: This rule refers to the continuous and perfect form of tense.
(d) The Voice Rule: This rule is about the active and passive voice of the verb. In active voice, noun is the subject of verb by whom action has been performed and in passive voice noun becomes the affected person and corresponds to the object of verb:
Paradigm of Full Verbs: Full verbs can further be divided as regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs are those which have four forms, i.e. base (work), -s (works), -ing (working), and past (worked). MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Irregular verbs are of two types:
(a) Those which appears in all five forms. For example verbs like ‘write-write, writes, writing, wrote and written.
(b) Those which appear in only three forms. For example, verb like ‘cut’ has only three forms—cut, cuts, and cutting.
Paradigm of Modal Verbs: Modal verbs do not show any inflection due to the above four rules, and thus they cause change in the forms of full verbs.
Paradigm of Primary Verbs: Primary verbs are used both as main verbs and auxiliary verbs. Consider as sentence “What did he do?” here did is the auxiliary and do is the main verb.
These verbs change their forms according to the above rules.
For example in person singular number ‘be’ becomes ‘am’ in present tense, ‘was’ in past tense; in first person plural number, second person singular and plural number, and third person plural number it becomes ‘are’ in present tense and ‘were’ in past tense
Q. 4. Discuss case, thematic roles and theta theory by citing relevant examples?
Ans. The understandings of cases of NP are very crucial towards the understanding of semantic features and rules.
For example, in sentence “He is intelligent”; “He is in nominative case because ‘He is the subject. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
In sentence “John saw him yesterday, him is in Accusative case because him is the direct object of the verb ‘saw’. And in sentence, “This is house”, this is the possessive or genitive case because there is a notion of possession attached to it.
The Notion of Thematic Role
To understand the concept of thematic role let us consider two sentences, (A) The door opened (B) The guard opened the door.
In sentence A, the door’ acts like a subject whereas in sentence B ‘the door becomes the direct object’.
So that we can say that the door is in thematic role in respect of both sentences. However the NP ‘the guard’ is the thematic role AGENT who in real sense performed the action of opening the door.
Case
Case Assignment and Case Theory: It is not necessary for a syntactic case to be represented by different case form.
For example, common noun such as book, cat, dog etc. do not have different case-form for Nominative and Accusative forms.
In English language it is necessary for a NP to have a syntactic case, though it might not express in different form. If a NP will not have a case form it won’t be able to connect itself with the sentence. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
This is what generative grammarians called case – filter. According to them, “noun phrase is ungrammatical if it does not have a syntactic case”. This further give way to another term called Case Theory.
Case Theory is a sub part of generative grammar which deals with case filter and case assignment in a NP or sentence. Case and NP-movement
Case is also important in a movement transformation called NP-movement. Passivisation movement is the sub part of NP movement.
Therefore a passive sentence like, “the mangoes were eaten (by the children) is derived from “- past + be eaten the mangoes (by the children)”.
Subject to subject raising is another kind of NP-movement, which is also known as raising to subject.
This movement is responsible for the upward movement of subject of a complete clause to the subject position of the next higher clause.
Exceptional Case Marking: Till now we have seen that it is essential for a NP to have a syntactic case. But there is certain class of construction wherein NP is unable to find a syntactic case for itself through usual channel.
The assignment of syntactic case to these NPs is called Exceptional Case Marking, or ECM. Consider the sentence: “My mother wants (me to go to the market).
In this sentence ‘me’ bears Accusative case instead of expected Nominative case. It is Exceptional case marking which is responsible for the accusative case of ‘me’. THEMATIC ROLES MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Basic Thematic Roles: The thematic role expresses the meaning that a noun phrase plays with respect to the action or state described by a sentence’s verb.
For example, in the sentence “Susan ate an apple”, Susan is the doer of the eating, so she is an agent; the apple is the item that is eaten, so it is a patient.
It is often convenient to identify arguments of (Fregean) predicates in terms of the following thematic roles, which are: agent, instrument, cause experiencer, recipient, path, location, measure and theme.
Thematic Role and Theta Theory: In generative grammar (in particular Government and binding theory and the Standard Theory of Transformational Grammar),
a theta role or role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure (the number and type of noun phrases) required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments (ie.it is rivalent).
The formal mechanism for implementing this requirement is based in theta roles. The verb put is said to “assign” three theta roles.
This is coded in a theta grid associated with the lexical entry for the verb.
The correspondence between the theta grid and the actual sentence is accomplished by means of a bijective filter on the grammar known as the Theta Criterion.
Thematic Role and Case: It is easy to find a lot of correlation between certain cases and certain thematic roles. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
For example, if an argument NP is in Nominative case it must acquire the thematic role of AGENT or EXPERIENCER, and if an argument NP is in accusative case it must acquire the thematic role of THEME (OR PATIENT).
But these correlations between the case and thematic role, is not always uniform. An argument NP can have the same thematic role but different case.
For example, “They often like amusing toys” and “Amusing toys are often liked by them”. In first the sentences ‘they’ bears the role of experiencer and in second sentence them’ bears the role of experiencer.
But the cases are different in both the sentences.
The notion or concept of thematic roles or thematic relations plays a significant role in English.
Thematic roles are closer to actual meanings of noun phrases than either grammatical functions or cases are. Thematic roles are also called theta roles.
Basically, the theta role is a semantic role played by a Noun Phrase (NP) in its capacity as an argument to a verb or preposition, or sometimes an adjective like fond (of) or worth.
The lexicon in the generative grammar of a given language carries S-selection information about the thematic (theta) roles required by a given lexical item.
The Theta theory states that every argument Noun Phrase (NP) must be assigned one and only one thematic role. This also means that every thematic role must be assigned to one and only one argument. MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Two basic thematic roles are Agent and Theme. For example, in the two sentences. The story is good and I read the story.
The Theme is story and Agent in second sentence is I. There could be many such thematic roles for a given noun phrase.
Thematic Roles and the Theta Theory: The part of generative grammar that deals solely with thematic roles is called Theta Theory (also written as “-theory”).
Thematic roles are also called as O-roles or theta roles for short. Theta theory is based on the principle of Theta criterion.
Theta Criterion: Every argument noun phrase (NP) in a sentence bears one and only one theta role, and each theta role is assigned to one and only one argument NP.
This criterion ensures that no noun phrase that is selected by the lexical entry for a given verb or predicate adjective, or even preposition can be in a sentence without being given a proper thematic role.
Q. 5. Fill in the blank spaces in the following sentences:
1) A consonant during the articulation of which the vocal cords vibrate is called a
____ consonant.
2) A consonant during the articulation of which there is no velic opening or the oral
cavity is closed then it is called a ________ consonant.
3) The difference between a plosive and an affricate is that during the articulation of
plosives the release of air is ______ and during the articulation of
affricates the release is ______.
4) Allophones are ____________of the same ____________.
5) Vowels are more _____ than consonants. There is little or no
__________________in the production of vowels.
6) ____ is a sound which is present in your mother tongue but not in
English. (use IPA to indicate the sound)
7)__ _ is a voiceless bilabial plosive and __ is a voiced alveolar
lateral phoneme in English. (use IPA to indicate the phoneme)
8) A speech sound which patterns like a consonant but is phonetically a brief vowel
such as /w/ in win is called a __-.
9) Fricatives are produced by a ____ in the vocal tract so as to____
10 ) The ___ vowels serve as points of reference for identifying real
vowels in actual languages MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
Ans. 1. voiced,
2 voiceless,
3 blocked, Open,
4 sounds, set of sounds,
5 sounds, construction,
6 Jargon,
7 b, d, MEG 04 Free Solved Assignment
8 syllabic speech sound,
9 hissing, produces sound,
10 cardinal.
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