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Self-study course linguistics University of WürzburgDr. Ch. Schubert

1. History of the English Language

1. The analysis of the history of the English language with respect to a comparison of different stages ofdevelopment is taken by a __________ approach.

� synchronic� diachronic

2. Within the indo-european language family the English language belongs to the subcategory of the ______- Germanic languages (the Gothic language does not belong to this subcategory).

3. Some of today’s languages like ________ belong to this subcategory within the Germanic language familyas well.

1.2.

4. The Germanic languages have developed out of the Indo-European language family by means of the________ , by which plosives were affected.

5. French, which has influenced the English language enormously, does not belong to the Germanic languages,but to the category of ________ languages.

6. The English language can be divided into four historical periods. The first period, _________ , may be datedfrom approximately _____ until ______ .

7. Basically, two dates could be given for the beginning of this period. The first year refers to _______ , thesecond to ________ .

8. The second period is ____________ , with its temporal margins _______ until _______ .

9. The third period, during which William Shakespeare lived, is __________ between ______ and ______ .

10. The last of the four periods, which includes today’s English, is called _________ and starts in the ________century.

11. When the Romans came to the British Isles they encountered and quickly subjugated the _________ andmade Britain a Roman province from _____ till ______.

12. In the history of the English language there are altogether four important periods of Latin influence on theEnglish language. The adoption of Latin words by the Germanic tribes when they were not yet on the BritishIsles can be called the _________ period. Examples for this period are words of everyday usage like________ and _________.

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13. The second period is concerned with town names with the ending ______ , e.g. _________ and __________,which the Germanic tribes took over from the Celts as the Romans had already left the British Isles.

14. The third period refers to the influence of _________, which had been spread by missionaries in the6th / 7th centuries. Words like __________ and ____________ were adopted.

15. The last period of Latin influence took place in the 16th and early 17th centuries, which are known as the ageof the ____________, in which the classical knowledge was rediscovered. An example could be___________ .

16. With respect to the sentence structure, Latin promoted the ________ sentence in Old English. The result isreferred to as loan syntax.

� simple� complex

17. The Benedictine monk Beda Venerabilis reported that the Germanic tribes arrived on the British Isles in theyear ________ .

18. This information can be taken from his historical work ______________ , which was finished in the year______.

19. Among the Germanic tribes were the Jutes. They came from the area which is still named after them:_____________. And the majority of them settled (in England) in _____________.

20. The name England is derived from the name of the _________, and the name of the county Essex can beetymologically decoded as ____________.

21. Important works in which Old-English is handed down to us are the heroic epic ____________ and thechronicle _____________ .

22. 'Old English' did not constitute a consistent language in itself. It was split into many dialects due to thedifferent tribes. The most famous works of Old-English are written in the dialect of _______.

23. The English language of medieval times is to be classified as ___________ , in contrast to today’s English. � analytic� synthetic

24. Other languages belonging to the same classification are for example __________ and __________.

25. Within the development of the English language, the deletion of the ___________ of nouns and the____________ of the definite article enforced the rigid word order to clarify the function of the sentenceelements.

26. Hence, Modern English has the word order _______ in main and subordinate clauses. In German, the wordorder of the subordinate clause is _______ .

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27. Time and modality in Present-Day English are rarely expressed by inflectional endings. Instead, they areexpressed by ___________ .

28. In the phrase die schönen grünen Bäume the plural is unnecessarily expressed in every single word, which iscalled _______. The English language has given up this condition in the course of the history of thelanguage.

29. English also gave up on other grammatical oppositions. Adjectives, for example, have lost ___________ and____________ in the course of the history of the language.

30. There were different possibilities to express the plural in Old-English: a in suna, e in Engle etc. Today theregular plural ______ exists. Irregular plural endings like –en in ________ or vowel change in _________are remainders of the old endings.

31. The number of Old English verbs that constitute the past form with the ablaut are called ___________ verbs.They were more frequent in Old-English than they are in Modern English.

� strong� weak

32. The Vikings, frequently invading the British Isles since the 8th century, mainly came from the area of today’scountry of __________.

33. The area of Scandinavian rule in the North East of England was called __________.

34. The contact between the Germanic tribes and the newly settled Scandinavians was close. This can be seen bythe fact that many Scandinavian function words (e.g. pronouns) like ________ (4 examples) were adoptedby the Germanic tribes.

35. Besides function words, place names with the endings _______ (3 examples) refer to Scandinavian origin.

36. Which of the following words are of Scandinavian origin? � they� Withby� judgement� street� skull� pork� till

37. In the year 1066 the _________ under the command of ___________ crossed the English Channel andconquered England.

38. French influence on the English language did not commence directly following the conquest, but after the_______________ (historical event) in the year _______.

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39. Most of the French words were adopted by the English language even later, approximately between theyears _____ and _____.

40. French was the language of the aristocracy. It took until the year _____ that the parliament was opened inEnglish.

41. Especially the Germanic ___________ is concerned by the French influence. � basic vocabulary� elaborate vocabulary

42. The French language spoken by the conquerors influenced the English vocabulary especially in thefollowing semantic fields:

1.2.3.4.

43. However, the French vocabulary was not compatible with the Germanic one because the primary stress of aGermanic word is usually on the __________ . In French this stress is on _________.

44. The difference between foreign words and loan words is that the former are _____________ into thelanguage which integrated them.

� assimilated� not assimilated

45. The word change is an example for phonetic assimilation. It was taken from French, whereby the typicalFrench _________ vowel /ã/ was exchanged.

46. One feature for the distinction between Middle English dialects is the 3rd person singular ending of verbs. Insouthern dialect areas, this inflectional ending was not {-s} but ________.

47. The process by which words like ox and beef, which used to have the same meaning, now describe differentthings is called ____________ .

48. Another example for this process is the word pair ______ and ______.

49. An example for synonyms on three levels (Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin) in English is ___________ .

50. Furthermore, word families were torn apart, as was the case with town – urban, which lead to the _________of the vocabulary.

51. Another example for this phenomenon is ________________ .

52. In contrast to English, the German word families like Stadt – städtisch are intact. That is the reason why theGerman vocabulary is called a _____________ vocabulary.

53. There are many words in the English language which are difficult even for native speakers. Examples areLatinisms like illegitimate and illiterate. They are also called ____________.

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54. Confusions of words, e.g. of oracular and vernacular, are called ___________. The name originates from acharacter in Sheridan’s comedy __________.

55. Phrases such as put up with and put down to, consisting of more than one element, are called _______ byErnst Leisi.

56. Such phrases are often semantically ambiguous; to take sb. in, for example, has the literal meaning__________ and the figurative meaning _____________.

57. The Latin word asparagus, which was transformed into sparrowgrass due to its articulation, is an examplefor the phenomenon of ________________.

58. The fact that the inflectional endings were lost over the course of Middle English favoured the wordformation type _____________. Its feature is that a word changes into another word class without a changein form.

59. The historical type of word formation by which the verb laze was derived from the adjective lazy is called___________.

60. Some words are formed by a native element and a foreign one because of the transfer of foreign words. Suchformations are called ____________.

61. An example for this type of word-formation is the adjective eatable. It consists of {eat} from _________and {-able} from __________.

62. Another example is the noun ex-king, which consists of {ex-} from _________ and {king} from__________.

63. If every word of the English language is counted once, one can see that there are overall more___________words in the English vocabulary.

� Romance (Latin)� Germanic

64. Synonyms such as deep – profound or hut – cottage show that the French loan word belongs to a__________ stylistic level.

� higher� lower

65. The most famous poet of the Middle English era was ____________ , and his work with the name_________ is an important source for this language.

66. This poet lived in the ______ half of the ______ century.

67. The English orthography became rigid especially with the introduction of ___________ by William Caxtonin the year ____ .

68. The reason why English orthography today represents articulation relatively ________ has its source in the

sound change of long vowels in the 16th /17th centuries, which is called ____________

� clearly� ambiguously

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69. In Shakespeare’s English the use of periphrastic do in the instances of _______ and ______ was not yetobligatory.

70. Reading Shakespeare’s plays, it is interesting to identify the usage of the 2nd person personal pronoun______ (in the subject case) and _____ ( in the object case).

71. The use of the inflectional ending _____ in the 3rd person singular present tense is another archaic element ofShakespeare’s language, which is shown by the use of _______ instead of does.

72. Besides the works of Shakespeare, the ______ , published in 1611, strongly influenced the use of the Englishlanguage in Renaissance England.

73. In Renaissance times, the English language borrowed words like transcribe and exact from _______.

74. Purists of the English language called those newly adopted words ‘inkhorn terms’ in order to express___________.

75. Words like opera and sonnet came into English from ________ , where Renaissance occurred earlier than inEngland.

76. During the Renaissance numerous synonyms came into being due to the influence of the Latin language. Thesynonyms ______ for youthful and ________ for readable originated in that time.

77. The first half of the 18th century is also called _________. The features of this time are a strong sense oforder and the desire for conformity, standardisation etc.

78. Jonathan Swift spoke in his proposal of 1712 _____ the introduction of an academy to regulate the Englishlanguage.

� for� against

79. In contrast to Italy and France, England introduced __________ . � no academy� an academy

80. Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary was published in the year ______ under the name of __________.

This dictionary is based on a ___________ approach to language. � descriptive� prescriptive

81. Dr. Johnson uses quotations from famous authors like _______ and ________ to show the meaning andusage of the words. Also the _______ , as the most important religious work of Christianity, has deliveredquotations.

82. The ________ language was seen as an example for the English language by Dr. Johnson and in general inthe 18th century.

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83. Words like bungalow and nirvana came to the English language from __________.

84. Words like yacht and schooner were borrowed from ____________.

85. The _______ language gave words like sherry and embargo.

86. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) shows and describes every word that exists in the English languagesince the year _______.

87. The dictionary shows details about the historical development of a word, in other words about its_________.

88. The first volume of the dictionary was published in the year ____. It took until the year ____ that the lastvolume of the first edition (without supplements) was published.

89. The OED was originally published (until 1895) under the name of ___________.

90. The OED gives the following information for a word: 1.2.3.4.

91. Words which are reconstructed and not verified in a written form are signified by an _____ before them.

92. The different meanings of the words are given in short definitions and additional __________ . It wasintended to give one out of every century in the dictionary.

93. Besides many editors, among them for example ___________ and ___________ , many __________participated in the compilation of the dictionary, e.g. by sending in evidence for the existence of words.

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2. Phonetics and Phonology

94. The sounds of a language are analysed by ___________ and ___________. The first is concerned with thematerial aspect and the latter with functional aspect of sounds.

95. The smallest unit distinguishing meaning in a language is called ___________ .

96. These units can be identified by the test of ___________.

97. In this test at least two words of the same language are taken. They differ in only one sound in the sameposition of the word. The two (or more) words are then called __________ .

98. Examples to identify such units distinguishing meaning (in British English articulation) are: � rough - reef� food - wood� through - crew� wrong - song� rite - write� ship - hip� bough - cough

99. Phonetics can be divided into three different research approaches. ___________ phonetics describes theproduction of sounds by the organs.

100. _______________ phonetics analyses the physical and technical features of the transmission of sounds.

101. The reception of sounds is centre of attention of _______________ phonetics.

102. Today’s internationally used system of transcription was introduced by an organisation by the name of______ , which was founded in 1886 by Henry Sweet, Otto Jespersen and others.

103. The 'standard' form of articulation of British English is known as ___________ , short RP.

104. This corresponds to the articulation which was taught in educational institutions by the name of___________ in the 19th century.

105. The course of the pitch in spoken language is known as _____________ .

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106. Two types of pitch change are especially common. Statements usually end in a _____ tone.

107. However, interrogative sentences must be divided into two types. Yes/No-interrogative clauses are normallyindicated by a ________ tone.

108. Wh-clauses typically have a __________ tone.

109. The pronunciation of word pairs such as air – heir and tale – tail is ___________ . � identical� different

110. They are therefore called ___________.

111. On the other hand, words which differ in meaning but not in their orthography are known as _________. Anexample for this phenomenon is the word pair ___________.

112. There are also words with the same orthography and articulation, which are known as ________________.

113. The phrase ten percent is typically pronounced /tem p�'sent/. This phenomenon by which a sound is madesimilar is called __________. In this example the succeeding sound /p/ influences the preceding one.

114. Due to this influence, the /n/, which is a __________ consonant according to its place of articulation, takesthe feature ___________ of the sound /p/. Therefore it becomes [m].

115. The opposite instance of making a sound similar is the _______________ , when the preceding soundinfluences the succeeding one.

116. The example shows this: chicken has the pronunciation of [t�Ik�]. The velar, nasal sound [�] at the end of theword is caused by ___________.

117. The question about the possible combinations of sounds of a language is the centre of the discipline of___________ .

118. It analyses for example the combination of consonants at the beginning of words. Words like ___________(3 examples) are monosyllabic and have three consonants at the beginning.

1.2.3.

119. There are often different ways of graphically displaying one sound in orthography. The sound /�:/ forexample has six different ones: (name them with one example each)

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120. Minimal pairs for the following sounds are (in regular orthography):a) /r/ - /m/b) /I/ - /�/

a)b)

121. Different phonetic realisations of the same phoneme are called ____________. The best-known example isthe case of the two realisations of the sound /l/ in British standard English.

122. The occurrence of these two different realisations follows certain rules by depending on the phoneticsurroundings of the /l/. The realisation of the /l/ in lack is called __________ and it occurs in the positions_______ and _______.

123. On the other hand, the /l/ in milk has the name _______ , and it appears in the following positions: ______and ______.

124. Realisations of a phoneme are in writing expressed within _______ brackets.

125. The rule of distribution is known to be ____________ since one realisation can only occur in positions inwhich the other cannot and vice versa.

126. However, there are also regional differences influencing the realisations of /l/. General American Englishuses _______ in all positions.

127. There are also different realisations of a phoneme on the basis of __________ ('behaucht') articulation andnon-__________ ('nicht behaucht') articulation.

128. Thus the plosive sound /p/ is usually _________ when in initial position and before a stressed _______ .

129. The sound /p/ shows a different articulation (non-_________) when preceded by the consonant _______ .Consequently, the ___________ of the sound /p/ constitutes the different ______________ of the sound.

130. The phonetic transcription shows the graphic representation of the sounds, and it is distinguished intodifferent types. The ________ transcription shows the phonemes without their concrete realisations.

131. The ________ transcription is phonetically more exact. This type does display the concrete realisations of aphoneme.

132. Two different classes of sounds are distinguished, i.e. vowels and consonants. The difference between thetwo is the following:Vowels ________ an obstacle in the mouth.Consonants on the other hand __________ an obstacle in the mouth.

� do / � do not have� do / � do not have

133. Vowels are also distinguished from consonants in that they do not have noise components, but____________ . These can be shown in an acoustic analysis.

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134. The centre of a syllable is usually a _______ while the margins are taken by __________ .

135. Exceptions are for example words like bottle and button. The centre of the second syllable is here constitutedby ______ and ______.

136. Which three features are necessary for an exact description of a consonant? 1.2.3.

137. Since these features have a differentiating characteristic for the consonants, they are also called __________features.

138. What are the features of the following consonants?a) /d�/

b) /�/

a)

b)

139. Which of the consonants does not belong in the group due to one different feature?a) /b/, /z/, /t/, /k/ � It is the consonant _____ because _________.

b) /s/, /p/, /f/, /n/ � It is the consonant _____ because _________.

a)

b)

140. The consonants /f, v, �, �, s, z, �, �, h/ belong to the group of the ____________.

141. These sounds are indicated by an audible ___________ produced by the stream of air during the articulation.

142. When sounds are voiced, __________ of the vocal cords occurs.

143. Within the group of consonants, there are how many pairs concerning the feature of voice and voicelessness,while they are identical in the other two features?

144. Which consonant is articulated in post-alveolar position?

145. The system of the cardinal vowels was developed by ____________. How many of these cardinal vowels arethere?

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146. Which phonemes belong to the group of affricates?

147. The place of articulation for the English affricates is called _____________ .

148. The semi-vowel /j/ is pronounced at the _____________.

The term refers to the Latin word __________ .

� hard palate� soft palate

149. Three English consonants that the German language does not have are _______ . (Give at least one exampleeach!)

1.2.3.

150. A colon (‘:’) following a vowel signals that it is a _______ vowel.

151. The difference between monophthongs and diphthongs is that there ______ a change in the quality of thesound in the former.

� is� is not

152. In the phoneme system of the British Standard English (RP) consists of ______ long monophthongs.

153. The length of the stream of air is a distinctive feature only for the monophthongs ___ and ___. That meansthat the other features are the same in these monophthongs.

154. Which are the different types of the diphthongs in the English language?

155. We can even analyse triphthongs in words like ______ and ______ .

156. The vowel phonemes in ______ are phonologically long vowels. � bit and bid� beat and bead� bit and beat� bid and bead

157. The length of the vowel depends phonetically on whether a voiced or voiceless consonants follows. That isthe reason why the vowel in bid can be longer (phonetically) than in ______ , even though the latter is a longvowel, phonologically speaking.

� bead� beat

158. Accent is the phonetic emphasis of a syllable as is the case on the _______ syllable in words like today,consider, and relax.

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159. Accent can be divided into two types: ________ and ________ , according to the grammatical level in whichthe syllable is stressed.

1.2.

160. There are also differences among accent types according to intensity, e.g. in the word entertainment the_________ stress is on the first, the __________ stress on the third syllable.

161. How are the these two types of accent graphically symbolized in phonetic transcription?1. ________ as ____________

2. ________ as ____________162. Within a sentence, words like she, the and have are usually not realized as /�i:/, /�i:/ and /hv/, in other

words as _________ forms, but as /�I/, /��/ / und /h�v/, i.e. as _______forms.

163. The sound /�/ is characteristic for the second type of form. What is the term for this sound?

164. It is characteristic for these words to be in ___________ position. � accented� unaccented

165. What is the term of the feature of sounds which lets us perceive them as 'high' or 'low'?

166. In Gimson’s Pronunciation of English, A.C. Gimson divides the single chapters for each consonant usuallyinto five subchapters. Which are they?

1.2.3.4.5.

167. The chapter for each consonants includes an illustration of the position of the tongue in the mouth (in the 5th

edition) and a ___________ , which graphically shows the contact points of tongue and palate.

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3. Morphology and word-formation

168. A morpheme is defined as the smallest unit ______________ of a language.

169. Morphemes can be divided into different types. Two types can be differentiated according to formal criteria.Morphemes which can stand by themselves are called ________ morphemes. On the other hand, the name ofthose that need other morphemes is _________ morphemes.

170. The words {house}, {by}, {of} and {berry} belong to the group of _____________ , while {-ness} and{un-} belong to the group of _____________ morphemes.

171. Morphemes can also be divided according to content. Those morphemes which are not independent withregard to content and rather emphasize grammatical relations are called ______________ .

172. What is the name of those morphemes that are independent with regard to content and can stand alone?

173. Morphemes such as {-s}, as in cats, and {-ed}, as in looked, are analysed as ____________ according tocontent and form.

174. These morphemes are also called _________ . Their appearance in the word classes _______ and _______ isnamed declension, while their appearance in the word class _________ carries the name conjugation.

175. These morphemes express grammatical categories, e.g. {-s} can symbolize three morphemes (2 categoriesfor nouns and 1 for verbs):

1.2.3.

176. The morpheme {-ed} shows the grammatical category __________ of a verb.

177. The morphemes {-er} and {-est} express the grammatical category ___________ and ____________ for theword class ______________.

178. What is the name of bound, lexical morphemes which are used for prefixations and suffixations?

179. Which of the following words has a bound, lexical morpheme? � houses� happiness� unkind� walked

180. According to the position where these morphemes are added to the word, they are called ________ (beforethe word) and ________ (after the word).

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181. Function words belong to the group of ____________ morphemes with respect to the criteria of form andcontent.

182. Different grammatical morphemes can have the same meaning even though they have different degrees ofindependence. For example, the comparative form in quicker is formed by a ________ morpheme, while it isexpressed by a _________ morpheme in more rapid.

183. How are morphemes graphically symbolized?

184. Allomorphs are defined as the ____________ of morphemes.

185. Allomorphs can be found with the regular plural morpheme {-s}. It is added to words like cow, dish, andclock to form the plural. In spelling a ____ or ____ is added to the end of the word.

186. The pronunciation follows a different rule. It is influenced by the principle of __________ .

187. In the word hands the last phoneme preceding the plural morpheme is the consonant ______ , which is a__________ sound. � voiced

� voiceless188. The plural morpheme has to be realized accordingly, i.e. as a __________ sound. � voiced

� voiceless189. The letter at the end of clock is _________.

The same applies to the phonetic realization of the plural morpheme.� voiced� voiceless

190. The word dish ends in a ______________ .

191. As a result the plural is pronounced with the allomorph _______.

192. The sound at the end of cow is a __________ .

The articulation of the plural must therefore be ______.

� vowel� consonant

193. Since the allomorphs follow phonetic rules, this kind of conditioning is called ______________ .

194. The distribution of allomorphs of the past tense morpheme {-ed} adheres to the same rules. According to thepreceding sounds, there are three possible forms:

1.2.3.

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195. The English word __________ derives from the combination of {dear} and {-ling}. The lexical, boundmorpheme {-ling} influenced the form of the preceding morpheme.

196. This process is called __________ because the variant of the morpheme is influenced by adding anothermorpheme.

197. The same phenomenon occurs with irregular plural forms, e.g. _______ (ox) and _______ (datum). Theplural forms of these words are influenced by the preceding lexical, free morpheme.

198. To this same category belongs the plural formation with vowel change, e.g. in nouns like __________ and_________ .

1.2.

199. A morpheme which is formally not realized but still carries meaning is known as _________ .

200. Such a Morpheme can be analysed in the noun ____________ , which is in singular and plural formallyidentical.

201. The ______________-morpheme ('Kleiderständer-Morphem') is a special case because two morphemes arehere united in one.

202. One example is the past tense verb form wrote. It unites the lexical morpheme _________ and thegrammatical morpheme ____________.

203. A series of inflectional forms of one word, e.g. sing – sang – sung, is called a _____________ .

204. If one of the forms of such a series is formally/morphologically completely different from the others, thisphenomenon is known as ________.

205. Examples for this can be found in:a) the formation of tense of verbs, e.g. ________b) the comparative forms of adjectives, such as _______

a)b)

206. The term ________________ ('Ableitung') comprises three different types of word-formation. One of themcan be exemplified through words like uncertain and preselect. The name of this type is __________ .

207. In this type, the word class usually does not change (certain – uncertain, etc.). However, words can changethe word class, e.g. in __________ and __________.

208. According to the class of the word it is affixed to, the morpheme {un-} can express different meanings.While in the word unfair, it has a _______ meaning, in to unwrap the meaning is _________ , because itdenotes the reversal of an action.

209. The second type of derivation is represented by examples like cleverness or realize and is called ________.

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210. Here, the word class mostly changes; the derivations ______ and ______ , however, are examples for caseswhen it does not.

211. Words from several classes can result from this second type of derivation.

a) Two examples for nouns that were produced in this way are ________ and _______ ,b) two adjectives ______ and _____c) and two verbs ______ and _____ .

212. Certain suffixes are characteristic for certain word classes.a) {-ize} and {-ify} form words of the class of _____ ,b) {-able} and {-less} produce words of the class of _____ andc) {-hood} and {-dom} are typical of the class of _____.

213. The suffix {-er} serves as a good example to show that a suffix can produce several meanings. While theword teacher, for example, denotes a _____ , Londoner indicates the _____ .

214. Examples for the third type of derivation are to bottle, a walk and to fish. This type of word-formation iscalled _____ or _____, because it can change word classes without any formal changes.

215. In the case of to bridge, the word class changes from _________ to _________ ,while in a rise, the word class changes from _________ to ________.

216. The meaning of a newly formed word cannot always be recognized unambiguously by the form of the word.The word to dust, for example, has the contradictory meanings _____ and _____.

217. Another type of word formation is demonstrated by the following examples: to beg, to burgle and to sight-see. This type of word-formation is called _____ (name the English and the German term!).

218. The name of this type of word-formation describes the process that took place in this word-formation.Accordingly, the original nouns that correspond to the verbs quoted in the preceding question are _____ ,_____ and _____.

219. There are three minor types of word-formation that produce shorter words. The examples FBI, NATO, DCEand OED illustrate the type of _____.

220. Here, the word-formations can be pronounced as individual letters, as in the case of _____ , or as onephonetic word as in _____ .

221. Exam, lab and pub are examples for the type of word-formation ___________ .

222. The third type is represented by examples like smog and brunch and is called _____ , because the process isa fusion of words.

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223. The possibility to connect two almost or completely identical elements is a rather rare case of word-formation that is called _____. Examples include words like tick-tock, wishy-washy or _______.

224. When lexical morphemes are combined, the processes of word-formation result in new _____ .

225. If a lexical morpheme is combined with a grammatical morpheme like {-s}, however, the result is only a new_____ of the same word.

226. A morpheme that is used in only one word-formation is called _____.

227. Two examples for this phenomenon are _____ and _____.

228. Some bound elements can be used for both inflection and derivation.a) In the sentence He is sleeping, {-ing} has the function of _____.

b) In the noun phrases a building and a painting, {-ing} has the function of _____.

c) In the noun phrase a charming woman, {-ing} has the function of _____.

d) In the noun phrases a bearded man and a conceited person, {-ed} has the function of _____.

e) In the sentence He walked home, {-ed} has the function of _____.

a) inflection derivation b) inflection derivation c) inflection derivation d) inflection derivation e) inflection derivation

229. In the field of morphonology, processes of _____ and _____ act together, as already implied by the term.

230. That is to say that combinations of morphemes or word-formations produce phonological changes. Thesuffixation of the morpheme {-ation} to acclaim, for example, causes two phonological changes, a change of_______ and of ________.

231. In the course of language history, the status of a morpheme can change. Today, for example, {-ly} is a _____morpheme as regards form and content.

232. In earlier stages of language history, it was an independent word with the meaning _______ .

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233. The morpheme {-dom}, as in kingdom, is an example for a similar case; in earlier stages of the history of theEnglish language it had the meaning _____ .

234. The words receive, deceive and conceive also experienced changes in their status as morphemes. In today’sEnglish, these words consist of ________ .

one morpheme two morphemes

235. Historically, however, this is a case of word-formation by _____, which can still be concluded from theelements ‘re’, ‘de’ and ‘con’.

236. The part of a word that can be expanded by affixes, but that does not contain affixes itself is called a _____.

237. The part of a word-formation that can be expanded by affixes and that can already be a word-formation iscalled a _____.

238. Thus, one can pronounce the rule that _____ is also always _____ , but that this is not always the case viceversa.

every stem ... a base every base ... a stem

239. The type of word-formation called compounding, in which two _____ are combined, is called _____ inGerman.

240. A word-formation of that type consists of two immediate constituents; the first constituent in snowflake, forexample, is called _____ , while the second constituent is called _____ (Latin terms).

241. In a classification according to semantic aspects, compounds can be divided into three groups. The firstgroup contains compounds like rattlesnake or teapot. This group is called ________ , because the firstconstituent gives more specific information about the second one.

242. The second group consists of compounds that describe a prominent attribute of the signified, e.g. paleface orpaperback. This group is called ________ .

243. Thus, the paraphrase for paleface is _____ , i.e. a paleface is not a *'type of face'.

244. The third group, represented by examples like author-collector and bittersweet, is characterized by the factthat semantically, both constituents are of equal importance. These compounds are called _____.

245. Compounds can be classified not only according to semantic aspects, but also according to _____ criteria,identifying whether the constituents relate to each other like a subject, object etc.

246. Relations of that kind emerge from sentence paraphrases. The compound sunrise, for example, stands for thesentence 'The sun rises', i.e. the clause elements present in the compound are _____ and _____.

247. The compound toothache is a parallel case; its paraphrase is _____.

Two other examples for compounds of that kind are _____ and _____.

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248. On the other hand, the compound haircut contains the clause elements _____ and _____ , as the paraphrasecontains 'sb cuts sb's hair'.

Two other examples for this type of compounding are the words _____ and _____ .249. The type verb + adverbial is represented by the compound swimming pool, as it can be paraphrased by the

sentence _____.

250. There are various tests that can be employed to differentiate between compounds and syntactic groups (nounphrases). First, compounds have only one primary accent, which is usually on the _____ constituent.

251. Second, no element can be inserted between the two immediate constituents, as the example _____ shows.

252. Third, the modification of a noun compound by a preceding adjective always affects _____ ; this isillustrated by the adjective black in the examples a new blackboard (compound) and a new black board(syntactic group).

the whole compound only the second constituent

253. Word-formations like bibliophile and telegraph are called _____ compounds, as their constituents are wordsfrom the ancient languages _____ and _____ , while the compounds were formed in modern times.

254. Their constituents cannot be considered bases, because they do not appear _____ anymore today, but theseword-formations are called compounds nevertheless.

255. Their constituents cannot be regarded as bound morphemes, i.e. as _____ , because they can be compoundedwithout any further base.

256. Apart from the 20th century, this type of compounding was also often used during the age of the _____ , asmany new discoveries and inventions were made then and science was under the influence of the knowledgeof classical antiquity.

257. There are types of word-formation (e.g with –dom) that do not produce new words anymore. On the otherhand, {-ism} in Thatcherism or Majorism is an example for a suffix that is still used to form new words. Thisis why word-formations that are still in use are called _____ types of word-formation.

258. The content of the suffix {-ism} mostly describes _____; this is demonstrated by the examples communismand nationalism.

259. An element of word-formation that cannot be used anymore today is {-th} for the formation of nouns fromthe word class of _____ ; this is apparent in the words length, strength and width, whose type of word-formation can still be recognized as _____.

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260. Another change in word-formation during language history is the process of _____ , which implies that theoriginal meanings of the constituents cannot be recognized in the word-formation.

261. One example for this case is breakfast, which originally meant _____.

262. The phenomenon that certain words often occur together is called _____ ; the literal translation into Englishwould be 'placing together'.

263. The adjective pretty, for example, is more likely to be found with a noun like _____, while handsome is morelikely to occur alongside the noun _____.

264. An even closer association of words with figurative meaning (like to kick the bucket for 'to die') is called an________.

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4. Syntax

265. Grammatical meaning is expressed through grammatical categories like aspect, tense, gender, etc. Thegrammatical category of aspect refers to the difference between _____________ and _____________form, which is expressed in John walks vs. John is walking.

266. Verbs like know or belong cannot form an –ing participle. They are therefore called ___________ verbs.

267. The opposition of perfective vs. non-perfective also belongs to the category of aspect. In order to form aperfective verb form the primary auxiliary ________ is used.

268. The only two possibilities of the grammatical category of tense according to the Comprehensive Grammarof the English Language (CGEL) are ____________ and _______________.

269. Hence, the future in English is not expressed through tense (verb inflection) but for example by the modalauxiliary _________ or other means.

270. In Old English – like in today’s German – the __________ gender was predominant, which means thateach noun has its gender, which does not necessarily coincide with the natural gender (e.g. das Mädchen,but die Tür)

271. The three genera masculine – feminine – neuter cannot be found in today’s English word class nouns, butthey still exist in the word class ____________.

272. The grammatical category of case does also hardly exist in today’s English anymore. Only the word class______________ still has three cases.

273. These three cases are:1. _____________ (e.g. I, she, he)2. _____________ (e.g. me, him, her)3. _____________ (e.g. my, his, her)

1.2.3.

274. The difference between singular and plural is expressed by the grammatical category of _____________ .

275. Which difference does the grammatical category voice deal with?

276. The verbs of the following sentences differ with respect to the grammatical category __________:a) She plays the flute – the verb has the form of the _____________.b) God save the Queen – the verb has the form of the _____________.c) Open the letter! – the verb has the form of the ______________.

a)b)c)

277. English auxiliaries can be divided into two groups, the __________ and the ___________ .

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278. The three verbs be, have, do can belong to the group of ___________ verbs as well as to the group of___________ verbs according to their contextual use.

279. In the sentence John is going to school, what kind of verb is going and what kind of verb is is? is –going -

280. In the sentence He has a car the verb has is a __________ verb.

281. What is the name of the group of verbs like may, might, could, will, etc.?

282. One of their features is that they _____ an –ing participle. do have do not have

283. Additionally, they do not have the inflectional ending ____ , in contrast to other verbs. That is way theyare called defective.

284. There are three non-finite verb forms in English: 1.2.3.

285. These non-finite verb forms are not marked with regard to grammatical categories such as _____________or ______________ .

286. Non-finite forms are given in the examples _______ . To be or not to be,… Permission granted,… She talked to a friend,… Calling early,… He reads a book,…

287. In his book Das heutige Englisch Leisi classifies the following grammatical categories among thestrengthened ones:

1.2.3.

288. On the other hand, Leisi claims ________ to be weakened grammatical categories. 1.2.3.

289. Word classes can be divided into two groups. The ________ word classes can still grow in number due toword-formation. The _________ word classes on the contrary do not have this ability.

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290. Name five members of the parts of speech that belong to the latter classes: 1.2.3.4.5.

291. Adjectives are characterized by features of their position in the sentence.a) The position of the adjective in the sentence The painting is ugly is the __________ position.b) The adjective in the sentence It is an ugly painting is in the ___________ position.

a)b)

292. However, not every adjective can be put in both positions. Adjectives such as afraid and asleep can onlybe found in ____________ position.

293. Similar to the parts of speech, phrases are ________ categories since they are classified by their outwardappearance.

functional formal

294. The obligatory element of a phrase, which can occur by itself, is called the ________ of the phrase.

295. In the example extremely difficult, which is the obligatory element of this adjective phrase?

296. What kind of phrase is very hot water according to its obligatory element?

297. The exception to this rule is the prepositional phrase. The preposition cannot substitute the entire phrasebut has to be complemented by a _______________ , as in the example over the rainbow.

noun phrase adjective phrase

298. There are four sentence types realized in the following sentences. Sort the letters accordingly!a) What a nice doll he gave her!b) He gave her a doll.c) Did he give her a doll?d) Give her a doll!

____ interrogative sentence____ imperative sentence____ declarative sentence____ exclamative sentence

299. What are the five elements of sentence structure? 1)2)3)4)5)

300. If there is only one object in a sentence, this is always a _________ object. direct indirect

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301. What is the direct object in the following example, and through which part of speech is it realized:What do you want?

302. Indirect and direct object can become the subject of a corresponding passive sentence.a) Forming the passive with the indirect object, the sentence He showed her a picture can be

converted into:

b) Forming the passive with the direct object, the same sentence can be converted into:

a)

b)

303. The underlined noun phrases occur as different sentence elements and thus have different functions:a) She showed him the way. The personal pronoun him is a __________ .b) She called him an idiot. The noun phrase functions as ____________ .c) She offered him a job. This noun phrase is a _____________ .

a)b)c)

304. The sentence He called … could be completed by: (Sort the letters according to the alternative examples!)a) a direct object.b) an indirect and direct object.c) a direct object and an object complement.

___ her a liar.___ her a taxi.___ her.

305. The sentence They left Jim a wreck is syntactically and semantically ambiguous.a) If Jim is the wreck, Jim would have the function of the sentence element ______ and wreck that of a

_________ .b) In case Jim is not the wreck Jim would be the sentence element _________ and wreck a_____________.

a)

b)

306. What kind of information do adverbials typically give in a sentence? 1)2)3)

307. The complementation of verbs by sentence elements is called verb complementation. According to theircomplementation verbs can be divided into different types. Transitive verbs differ from intransitive ones inhaving ________.

308. Which are examples for intransitive verbs? come raise hit rise

309. Transitive verbs themselves can be divided into three subtypes, which are exemplified by the followingsentences:

a) They ate the meat.

a)

b)

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b) He offered her some chocolate.c) They made him chairman.

What kind verb complementations are to be found in a, b, and c?c)

310. In the sentence Everybody considered him a genius the verb (consider) is used complex-transitively. In thecorresponding passive sentence the object complement (of the active sentence) would be __________.

311. Complex-transitive verbs can have the sentence structure __________. � SVOA � SVOO� SVA

312. A separate group is formed by the copular verbs, which display an ‘is’-relationship between the subjectand the following sentence element. This sentence element following the copular verb can have differentfunctions in the sentence.a) In He is an engineer the noun phrase (an engineer) is a __________ .b) Quite differently in He is in the kitchen, the prepositional phrase is an obligatory __________ .

a)

b)

313. Which of these verbs belong to the group of the copular verbs? cut want become seem

314. The group of the so-called multi-word verbs, which consist of a verb and a particle, can be divided into twotypes: phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. In the sentence She looked up the word, look up is a___________, while apply for in the example He applied for the job belongs to the ______________.

315. There are criteria with which phrasal and prepositional verbs can be separated. One of these is that theparticle in ____________ verbs can be moved into a position behind the object.

phrasal prepositional

316. Another possibility to distinguish between the two groups is the fact that only with _________verbs theparticle has the primary stress.

prepositioinal phrasal

317. Besides those two types, there also exist multi-word verbs called phrasal-prepositional verbs, whichconsist of three elements, e.g. the verb _________________.

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5. Varieties of English / English as a world language

318. Different manifestations of a language (social, regional, or other aspects) are called _________ of thisparticular language.

319. The linguistic discipline which analyses the relations between language and society (economic levels, agegroups, ethnic groups, etc.) is called ________________ .

320. In A University Grammar of English Quirk and Greenbaum distinguish six classes of varieties. 1)2)3)4)5)6)

321. A typical social dialect (i.e., a sociolect) in London is the English of the _____________.

322. Two phonological features of this dialect are ______ and _________. 1.2.

323. Empirical tests have proven that especially the language of _____________ differs from the standardlanguage.

socially lower class socially higher class

324. Today’s British received pronunciation or BBC-English originates in the pronunciation taught at_______________ in the 19th century.

325. The variety of English which is used inter-regionally, which has a high prestige, and which is used in writtenEnglish is called _______________ .

326. The English language has been exported to America since the _____ century.

327. British and American English are two different national standards.a) Two examples for phonetic differences are _____ and _____ (also give words as examples).

b) Two lexical differences are _____ and _____.

c) A grammatical difference is _____.

d) Two differences in orthography are _____ and _____.

a)

b)

c)

d)

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328. There are homophonous word pairs in the pronunciation of American English that are not homophonous inBritish English. The two word pairs _____ and _____ are examples for this phenomenon.

1.2.

329. American English is more conservative than the British variety inasmuch as it has preserved certainpronunciations since the 17th century, for example _____ and _____ (also give words as examples).

1.2.

330. Apart from American and British English, there are other national standards of English, as for example in_____ and _____ .

1.2.

331. Today American English exerts a strong influence on the German vocabulary. In German, anglicisms can befound in areas like _____, for example.

1.2.3.

332. Isoglosses are _____ that are used to define the distribution of regional dialects.

333. The phenomenon of fricatives becoming voiced at the beginning of words (like in /zevn/ for seven) ismainly found in the dialect area of the _____.

• Southwest • eastern Midlands• North

334. In the 17th/18th centuries the but-sound /�/ evolved from the short //. The fact that dialects preserveelements from earlier periods of the English language can be seen in the dialect of _____, where // is stillused in words like butter, come or up.

335. Different dialects not only differ in their phonology, but also in their _____ and _____.

336. A large-scale survey of the British dialects in the 1950s resulted in the SED (=_____), in which dialectaldifferences are presented in tables.

337. In dictionaries, different labels state the “stylistic value” of a word or which area of reality or activity it isused in; examples of these labels are _____, _____ and _____.

1.2.3.

338. The word _____ denotes the language of a group (often of adolescents) that contains very emotional, crude,humorous, but often short-lived words.

339. An archaism is a word or feature of pronunciation that _____.

340. The lexicographer who published An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828 is called _____.

341. Three grammatical features of the Black English Vernacular (African American English) are: _____. 1.2.3.

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342. As the first settlers in Australia came from the urban lower classes of southern England, the social dialect ofthe ______ came to be very widespread there.

343. In countries like Nigeria or India, English serves as a _____, i.e. it is used by persons with different nativelanguages.

344. In western Africa, the Caribbean and in other regions of the world, the contact between the natives andEuropean sailors led to the formation of hybrid languages to facilitate communication; these languages arecalled _____. If a hybrid language becomes a native language, it is called _____.

345. Compared to the vocabulary of the spoken language, the vocabulary of the written language can be calledrather ______.

• formal• informal

346. Three elements of spoken language that are hard to represent in written language are _____, _____ and_____.

1.2.3.

347. The so-called 'pointer words' are also called _____ . Their meaning depends on the respective viewpoint ofthe speaker, just as here changes its meaning depending on the position of the speaker.

348. A speaker always has a certain position concerning the three categories of place, time and person. Twoexamples for 'pointer words' of the category of time are the adverbs _____ and _____.

349. The 'pointer words' have the greatest effect in _____ language. • written• spoken