Ling 1 Practice

Mattyas Huggard, UCLA

1-In the context of this class, what is a linguist?

a- one who speaks several languages.
b-one who teaches people to speak prescriptively correct.
c-one who studies a natural language for its properties.
d-one who is a specialist of the tongue.
2- Here are two sentences of English:
(i) John is tough to love (some one else has a hard time to love John)
(ii) John is willing to love (John is the one doing the loving)
With respect to these sentences, Chomsky poses the questions, How does every child know,
unerringly, to interpret the [subject] differently in the two cases? And why does no pedagogic grammar
have to draw the learners attention to such facts? The reason that teaching grammars would not
specifically teach this is...
a-this is an uninteresting question not worth being discussed in a grammar class
b-the ability to interpret these structures comes from principles of grammar acquired through
innate processes.
c-these structures are too complex to be taught. Only simple structures are taught in a grammar
class.
d-This is not standard English. Only prescriptively grammatical structures are taught in
grammar classes.
3-The film Discovering the Human Language has a segment on the Warlpiri, a group of hunter-gatherer
people in Australia, of which the narrator says, [Warlpiri] has been spoken in isolation from nonAustralian languages for possibly up to 60,000 years. When linguists began studying the language of
these people, they found...
a-the language had grammatical categories such as N and V, followed morphological and
syntactic rules.
b-due to the early and long separation from modern civilization, the language is a form of protolanguage: they found the missing gap.
c- Australian aborigine languages had loose pidgin like properties.
d-the people speak in word-salad and rely on context alone in order to determine who is the
agent and who is the patient in a sentence.
4- Pinker compares the case of Mr. Ford, who can speak only with great difficulty in chopped phrases
because of trauma in a certain area of his brain, to Denyse a hydrocephalic cognitively impaired
woman, who speaks fluently and grammatically about fantasies such as a non-existent bank account.
What was the point in comparing these two linguistic behaviors?
a-Mr. Ford, of normal intelligence, and Denyse, severely impaired, processed language in
different areas of the brain.
b-the area(s) of the brain specialized for language is distinct from general cognition.
c-Denyse was speaking out of automatic reflex, whereas Mr.Ford's utterance required more
cognitive processing.
d-There was no point: it is a known fact that smart people have higher linguistic abilities than
someone of low intelligence.

5- The fact that ChiBemba speakers have many forms to express the past and future tenses shows that:
a-the language causes them to perceive time in discreet slots.
b-unsurprisingly, a people shape their expressions to express what is important to them.
c-many languages including ChiBemba show diversity in expressing tense.
d-the main interest in the study of a language is its inflectional verbal morphology.
6- It has been argues in this class that a"word-chain device" is an inadequate model for human syntax.
The WCD below could account for many grammatical sentences such as the cat is chasing mice, the
cats on the farm chase mice:

cat
the

chases{
is

on the farm

cats

chasing mice

{ are
chase-

Which one of the following ungrammatical sentences show the inherent fault with such a model?
a-The cats on farm chase mice.
b- The cats chases mice.
c-The cat are chasing mice.
d-The cat on the farm are chasing mice.
THE NEXT 4 QUESTIONS ARE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING PSRs AND TREES:
A.

B.

C.

7-Which of the following sentences would NOT be accounted for using just the PSRs above?
a- The snow in Montreal morphed into dangerous ice.
b-We shoveled the snow from the paths.
c-We shoveled the snow from the blizzard.
d-The Mounties aided the population quite efficiently during the evacuation.
8-Which sentence has the same structure as tree C in the premises?
a- Who aided whom quite efficiently during the evacuation?
b- The Mounties aided the population quite efficiently during the evacuation.
c-Who acted quite efficiently during the evacuation?
d- The Mounties acted quite efficiently during the evacuation.
9-We have defined GRAMMATICAL to mean "conforming to the rules of a grammar". Referring just
to the rules of the grammar above, how would you characterize the following sentence?
The snow in the North suddenly interred Montreal
a- meaningful and grammatical
b-meaningless and grammatical
c-meaningless and ungrammatical
d-meaningful and ungrammatical
10-Below are four sentences where rules have been applied in recursive fashion but ONLY ONE OF
THE SENTENCES COULD BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY THE GRAMMAR ABOVE. Which of the
sentences COULD BE accounted for by this grammar?
a- Snow induced a paralysis of the city during the winter.
b- Snow induced a paralysis of the city in Canada.
c- Snow accumulated in the city over the night.
d- Snow snowed snow on snow.
11- The following sentence is ambiguous:
We shoveled the snow from the pathway
Which of the phrase structure tree below is the best representation of this sentence when it has the
meaning "We shoveled out of the pathway the snow that was located there" (as opposed to, "we
shoveled the pathway-snow, as opposed to the street-snow."
ab-

ANSWERS CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

c-

d-

12- In terms of "basic" word order, the most common typologies are (from most common to least
common)
a- SOV, SVO, VOS
c- VSO, SOV, SVO
b-SVO, SOV, VOS
d-SOV, SVO, VSO
13- Garifuna a native American language spoken in Central America is a VSO language as shown by
the following sentence:
dg-ti mtu ba unli
"the man is kicking a dog"
kick
person one dog
Which of the following would be INCONSISTENT with the head ordering suggested by the basic VSO
order in the example above?
a- l-au fgiedu
"with a fork"
with fork
b- lu-bmena mtu "the man's banana"
banana
person
c- fun-ru bmena "ripe banana"
ripe banana
d- t-ma Wrou "with the Indian (woman)"
with Indian(f)

14- Which of the following signs of American Sign Language is th BEST illustration of the arbitrary
relation between form and meaning?
a-monkey
b- elephant
c- sheep
d-crocodile

15- Below are names of a few board games. Which one has a name that most clearly violates the type
of name predicted by the WHOLE OBJECT PRINCIPLE?
a-scrabble
b-snakes and ladders

c-monopoly
d-trivial pursuit

16-How many affixes are in the word contraindications?

a- one
c-three
b- two
d-four
17- How many morphemes are in the word contraindications?
a- one
c-three
b- two
d-four
18- Which of the following contains a bound root?
a- contradict
c- dictation
b- contraindicate
d- dictating
19- Which word in the previous question contains an example of derivational suffix?
a-

b-

c-

d-

20- Which word in the second question above contains an example of inflectional suffix?
a-

b-

c-

d-

21- Which of the following diagrams would be the correct representation of the word discontentment?
abcd-

22-

The joke in the cartoon above is based on...

a- an unexpected interpretation of an inflectional affix
b- an unexpected interpretation of an derivational affix
c-an unexpected interpretation of a compound
d-an unexpected interpretation of an idiom
e-an unexpected interpretation of a root
23-

The joke in the cartoon above is based on...

a- an unexpected interpretation of an inflectional affix
b- an unexpected interpretation of an derivational affix
c-an unexpected interpretation of a compound
d-an unexpected interpretation of an idiom
e-an unexpected interpretation of a root

24- Which of the sentences in a-d would be depicted in the following wave form?

a-The echo might mar it.

b- The echo may mar it.
c-The arrow might mar it.
d-The arrow may mar it.

25- In which pair do both words begin with a sound pronounced at point of articulation #8
a- cart-chart
b-chart-character
c-character-caesar
d-character-cart
26- What is the articulatory description of the first vowel sound in caesar ?
a-high front unrounded
b-low central unrounded
c-low front unrounded

d-mid front unrounded

27- what is the articulatory description of the last consonant in the word enough?
a-voiceless glotal fricative
b-voiced velar stop
c-voiceless labio-dental fricative
d-voiced alveolar nasal
28- Which of the following is the correct transcription of the word unit?
a- [unt]
b- [yunit]
c- [yunt]
d-[unt]
29- [pik] is the phonetic transcription fo which of the following words?
a- pike
b- pick
c-peck
d-peak
30- Which of the following sounds would the person in the figure on the right be producing?
a- [g]
b- []
c- [k]
d- []
e- none of the above

31- Suppose a child born into an Arabic-speaking community can put the following pieces of
knowledge into practice to produce utterances in Arabic. WHICH ONE of these general features of
Arabic would the child have to learn by hearing speakers of arabic rather than drawing on the language
instinct to acquire it?
a-Arabic utterances can be analyzed into phrases such as VP, NP, PP, each of which comprises a
head and modifiers. For example, kataba kitban kabran he wrote a big book has a VP
with kataba (he) wrote as head and an NP with kitban book as head.
b-The ROOT of an Arabic word is the consonants of the word without the vowels. Evidence for
this is the fact that many inflectional patterns are formed by changing just the vowels of the
word, e.g. rajulun man, rijlun men, kitbun book, kutubun books.

c-Arabic groups words into categories including Verb, Noun, Preposition, and others. Evidence
for this is the fact that different categories use different inflections, e.g. VERBS ya-ktabu (masc.)
will write, ta-ktabu (fem.) will write, but ADJECTIVES karm-un (masc.) generous, karmatun (fem.) generous.
d-Arabic speakers group certain sounds as the same by automatically adjusting for context
when hearing the sounds pronounced. For example, the as in tlif [tlif] damaged and t lib
[tlib] student are different because of the influence of the emphatic t in the second, but
Arabic takes them as the same vowel.
32- In English, word pairs such as five/fifteen, goose/gosling, south/southern are spelled with the
same underlined symbol, but have different pronounciations because...
a- Old English differentiated these vowels already and they further evolved into Modern
English.
b- the vowels differentiated from Old English to Middle English and remained unchanged in
Modern English.
c-the vowels were pronounced the same in Old English, but underwent different sound changes
on their way to Modern English.
d-There is no historical connection between the pairs, this is simply spelling conventions due to
the limited number of symbols of the alphabet system used to represent English sounds.
33- Old English had the word frfran 'comfort, console' which fell out of use in the language. If this
word had survived into Modern English, by normal sound change it would be pronounced... [The final
-an was an ending that would drop or become [] ]
a-frfr
b-frifr
c-frefr
d-frayfr
34- When we say that two languages, say Hittite and Luvian, or Icelandic and Danish, are "genetically
related" this means that...
a-we believe the one descended from the other
b-we believe that they originate from the same part of the world
c-we believe that they descend from a single common ancestor language
d-their speakers are genetically related
35- Which of the following pairs of French and English words illustrate regular sound correspondences
between French and English which could serve as evidence that these two languages are genetically
related? (consider only the word-initial consonant sound)
aplein [pl] "full"
full [fl]
foot [ft]

pied [pye] "foot"

port [port]

porte [port] "door"

b-

pool [pul]

poule [pul] "hen"

fool [ful]

foule [ful] "crowd"

foe [fo]

faux [fo] "false"

coffee [kofi]

caf [kafe]

coco [kowko]

coco [koko]

c-

d-

36- The nine languages in the table below have been genetically classified into THREE separate
families as indicated:

Which statement would best characterize the use of the method of mass comparison to reach the
classification of the languages in the table above?
a-Indo-European languages are spoken in Europe, Altaic languages are spoken in central Asia
and Afroasiatic languages are spoken in the near-East/northern Africa.
b-The sets of words within each family resemble each other and have the same meaning, but the
sets do not resemble each other across the families.
c- One can find regular sound correspondences within each family that are not shared by the
others.
d-One can reconstruct the proto-sound of the parent language.
37- In the previous question, we classified the nine languages into three families. The words for 'coffee'
are similar to each other in all the languages. WHAT IS THE MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION FOR
THIS SIMILARITY.
a. All these languages have borrowed the word for 'coffee' from the same source in relatively
recent times.
b. The word for 'coffee' is merely a chance resemblance of the type that can be found between
any pair of languages.
c. Although the languages seem to fall into distinct genetic groups, at a more deep time level,
they are all related to each other. The word for 'coffee' has come down into all these languages

from a common ancestral language.

d. Coffee is an important part of many societies. For example, it is drunk on first dates.
Although the languages have undergone changes over time, their social networking and terms
used in these social events, like coffee, have remained the same.

38- As children acquire pronunciation, they apply quite consisten rules of adaption to make the
pronunciation they hear from adults fit their current capabilities. Here are some words as pronounced
by Sarah at 1.8 years (transcribed in the phonetic alphabet): [dyu] 'juice', [da] 'dog', [mo] 'more', [ri]
'read', [bani] 'Barney', [yayaw] 'yogurt'.
Which of the following pronunciations would MOST LIKELY NOT be a pronunciation that
Sarah would produce?
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)

[te] 'take'
[nana] 'grandma'
[fit] 'feet'
[wawa] 'water'
[k] 'cat'

39-At 3.8 years, Melissa referred to the author of a book, saying, It's wroted by Breanna. Her verb
form shows that...
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)

she is imitating the speech of the adults around her.

she is randomly using verbal markers she has heard adults use.
she learned to read at a very young age.
she is combining the input from adult language with her grammar rules she has constructed.
she has not yet learned the difference between past tense and passive constructions.

40-In a HEAD-TURN EXPERIMENT used to test language abilities of a pre-language baby, the
child will...
a-learn to look at the experimenter when one sound is played and his/her mother when another
sound is played.
b-after a training period, when s/he hears the target sound, they will look to where a flashing toy
will be before the toy appears.
c-look longer at a video screen when the target sound is played than when any other sound is
played.
d-suck more vigorously when played familiar sounds than unfamiliar sounds.
e-learn to look at the experimenter when s/he calls the child's name.
41-Here is a slightly edited transcript of a video-clip of my nephew Manakel talking at the two-word
stage:
Manakel: e' rigolo! ( is funny)
Manakel: Ah tomb monsieur (ah fell the mister)
Manakel: dans l'eau (in water)
Manakel: e' rigolo! le monsieur l. hop! dans l'eau. (is funny! mister there. oops! in water)

Manakel's speech at this stage shows that...

a-he is forming two-word phrases using parts of adult phrase structure rules and meaning
relationships.
b-he is forming two-word phrases using adult-like meaning relationships, but exhibits no sign
of adult syntax yet.
c-he is using French words and combines them according to innate structures.
d-he is using French words but his utterances are unstructured.
e-he is imitating the speech of his parents (mother and uncle).
42-Which of the following is the BEST way to localize various linguistic processes in specific parts of
the left hemisphere of the brain?
a-ERP (Event Related Potential or Evoked Response Potential) experiments.
b-study the differences in language loss among different types of aphasia.
c-observe the correlation between aphasic speech and right-side paralysis
d-study split brain patients.
e-study PET scans of subjects completing linguistic tasks, such as reading sentences or
producing synonyms for words flashed on a screen.
43-In a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) administered to native speakers of English, subjects first see a
PRIMING stimulus, then briefly a see a target stimulus. Which of the following TARGET stimuli
would we expect to evoke the quickest response time (averaged among all subjects)?\
PRIMING STIMULUS
a-star
b-star
c-star
d-star
e-star

TARGET STIMULUS
far
sun
sar
soup

44-In an ERP Evoked Response Potential procedure, which of the following would most likely be the
cause of an N400 spike?
a-Sally drove her car to the mall.
b-Sally car her drove mall to the.
c-Sally drove her car to the MALL.
d- .
e-Sally drove her car to the fish.
45-Which of the following most resembles Broca's aphasia?
a-(Question: And have you been going home on weekends?) Why, yes... Thursday uh.... uh...
uh... no... Friday.... Bar...ba...ra... wife... and oh car.... drive... purpike... you know... rest.. and
TV.
b-(Question: Are you a doctor?) Me? Yes sir. I'm a male demaploze on my own. I still
know my tubaboys what for I have that's gone hell and some of them go.
c-The only thing I can say again is madder or modder fish sudden fishing sewed into the
accident to miss the purdles.

d-(Asked to repeat the statement Sally drove her car to the mall) Sally drove her record to the
ocean.
e-(Asked to read the word act) Play. (Asked to read the word Applaud) Cheers. (Asked to
read the word example) Answer. (Asked to read the word heal) Pain.

46-What was the primary factor leading to the Gardner's choosing of American Sign Language for their
experiment with Washoe?
a-The Gardners were native speakers of ASL.
b-Because ASL is a visual system, the Gardners would not need to use audio recording
equipment to document Washoe's progress.
c-ASL is a natural human language.
d-Chimpanzees already have a vocal language, so the Gardners were concerned about
interference errors if they taught her a spoken language.
e-Chimpanzees can extend the meaning of abstract symbols to novel usages.
47-What feature of American Sign Language is a chimpanzee unlikely to be able to acquire?
a-The duality of patterning
b-Inflectional morphology
c-Hierarchically structured syntax.
d-Derivational morphology
e-all of the above.
48- Which of the following would be considered by Pinker to be ANALOG (as opposed to DIGITAL)
features of spoken human language?
a-Adult speech normally has a lower pitch than child speech.
b-The different volume you might use to say Don't touch that to a person about to touch wet
paint versus a child about to touch a hot stove.
c-Most English statements end at a lower pitch than they begin at, while questions normally end
on a higher pitch. Compare: You ate already. to Did you eat already?
d-The different places of articulation: bilabial is much farther forward in the mouth than velar
is.
e-Talking to yourself versus talking to other people.
49-The designers of Yerkish (the system of buttons linked to a computer) claimed that if Lana the
chimpanzee could master Yerkish, she would demonstrate that a chimpanzee could master a system of
syntax like that of human language. Why did Lana's performance NOT demonstrate such an ability?
a-Lana was interacting with a computer rather than human beings.
b-Yerkish is not a spoken language.
c-The grammar of Yerkish is based upon a word-chain device and not hierarchically structured
syntax.
d-Lana did not acquire Yerkish naturally, but was rather trained to push buttons to get rewards.
e-Lana could not make abstract associations.

50-Although the closest living relatives to humans are the great apes, such as chimpanzees and gorillas,
their communication systems do not give us information on intermediate communication systems
between animal communication systems and language because...
a-the great apes do not use tools and therefore could not have language abilities.
b-the vocal tract of apes cannot produce all the sounds of human language.
c-the great apes do not have the complex social structures needed for language to develop.
d-the great apes are not the direct ancestors of modern humans, but are more like cousins.
e-the communication systems of great apes are comprised of fixed calls.
51-Early theories on the origin of language proposed that humans invented language in response to
environmental or cultural factors such as the need to communicate in order to cooperate in hunting.
Such theories are inadequate as explanations for the origin of language because...
a-it logically follows from them that all humans should speak the same language.
b-writing came earlier than speech, so we should concentrate on how writing was invented.
c-such theories presuppose that the physical and mental properties of language evolved first and
then humans learned how to use them, creating language.
d-humans have words for items not native to their own cultures.
e-such theories ignore non-spoken varieties of human language.
52-"Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states (...)to oneself and others and to understand
that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own." (wikipedia)
Which of the following statements would best link the presence of human language with
archeological findings?
a-Since Neanderthals left no cultural artifacts, they therefore must not have had a complex
communication system like humans had.
b-the findings of symmetrical tools and prehistoric artcave paintings, beads, flutes made out of
vulture bones, for exampleinfer that early humans produced tools for purposes beyond survival
necessities and had a conception that went beyond the present, and used language to transmit
their knowledge to the next generation.
c-Children's art resembles cave-men drawings and display proto-language like properties.
d-tool making and cultural artifacts reflect hierarchical structure in a social setting. This
hierarchical structure is also present in human language.
53-Noam Chomsky said "Maybe physical laws produce results of a certain type when you pack 10 to
10th power neurons into a container the size of a basketball. and Steven Gould said: "Maybe a big
brain that developed for other reasoning abilities turned out to be good for language, too." Although
both are great scholars in their respective field, their speculation is lacking in that...
a-Whales have big brains too, hence they should have language.
b-It is a know biological fact that males have larger brains than females, hence should be
linguistically more apt than females.
c-They ignore the evolutionary development of the brain: precursors to Broca's area and
Wernicke's area are also present in other complex organisms, and like all other things developed
into the human state by incremental adaptive changes.
d-They do not consider the"gap" between animal communication and human language.

ANSWER KEY
1-c
2-b
3-a
4-b
5-b
6-d
7-a
8-c
9-d
10-b
11-d
12-d
13-c
14-c
15-b
16-c
17-d
18-a
19-c
20-d
21-a
22-b
23-c
24-a
25-d
26-a
27-c
28-c
29-d
30-b
31-b
32-c
33-a
34-c
35-a
36-b
37-a
38-c
39-d
40-b
41-a
42-e
43-b
44-e
45-a

46-c
47-e
48-b
49-c
50-d
51-c
52-b
53-c