Introduction to Linguistics; Exam 2
questions with complete solutions
*What is the definition of linguistics/linguistic theory? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of the
psychological system that underlies human language production and interpretation
*What is the definition of pragmatics? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of how language is used
to communicate meaning with situational contexts
*What is the definition of semantics? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of the linguistic meaning
of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences
What is the definition of syntax? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of the internal structure of
phrases, clauses, and sentences
What are syntactic categories? - correct answer ✔✔ Parts of Speech (POS)
What are included as POS? - correct answer ✔✔ Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Pronouns
Adverbs
Conjunctions
Preposition
Interjection
, Lexical categories: - correct answer ✔✔ "Cat" (noun)
"Fat" (adj)
"Really" (adv)
"The" (det)
Phrasal categories: - correct answer ✔✔ "The cat" (NP)
"The fat cat" (AP)
"The really fat cat" (ADVP)
What order does phrase structure (PS) rules follow? - correct answer ✔✔ Left-to-right ordering
Constituent structure: - correct answer ✔✔ Tree diagrams
Recursion
Structural ambiguity
What are tree diagrams used for? *look at test 2 review on notability - correct answer ✔✔ This
structure is used to visually show interrelations among elements of a sentence
What is recursion used for? - correct answer ✔✔ This structure is used to show how two
different types of phrases embed indefinitely
What is structural ambiguity used for? - correct answer ✔✔ This structure is used to how show
more than one structure can be assigned to a constituency
(Example: Purple People Eater)
What are transformations? - correct answer ✔✔ Transformations move lexical/phrasal
categories from one location to another within a larger structure
questions with complete solutions
*What is the definition of linguistics/linguistic theory? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of the
psychological system that underlies human language production and interpretation
*What is the definition of pragmatics? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of how language is used
to communicate meaning with situational contexts
*What is the definition of semantics? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of the linguistic meaning
of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences
What is the definition of syntax? - correct answer ✔✔ The study of the internal structure of
phrases, clauses, and sentences
What are syntactic categories? - correct answer ✔✔ Parts of Speech (POS)
What are included as POS? - correct answer ✔✔ Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Pronouns
Adverbs
Conjunctions
Preposition
Interjection
, Lexical categories: - correct answer ✔✔ "Cat" (noun)
"Fat" (adj)
"Really" (adv)
"The" (det)
Phrasal categories: - correct answer ✔✔ "The cat" (NP)
"The fat cat" (AP)
"The really fat cat" (ADVP)
What order does phrase structure (PS) rules follow? - correct answer ✔✔ Left-to-right ordering
Constituent structure: - correct answer ✔✔ Tree diagrams
Recursion
Structural ambiguity
What are tree diagrams used for? *look at test 2 review on notability - correct answer ✔✔ This
structure is used to visually show interrelations among elements of a sentence
What is recursion used for? - correct answer ✔✔ This structure is used to show how two
different types of phrases embed indefinitely
What is structural ambiguity used for? - correct answer ✔✔ This structure is used to how show
more than one structure can be assigned to a constituency
(Example: Purple People Eater)
What are transformations? - correct answer ✔✔ Transformations move lexical/phrasal
categories from one location to another within a larger structure
