English Linguistics Worksheet 10 Name: St. No.

UNIT 10: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS & MODALITY

After reading Aitchison, pp.159-190, do the following exercises.

1. Explain, with examples, the regularity of sound change.
2. Explain, with examples, the therapeutic tendency of language.
3. Give lexical examples of chain shifts in figure 13.2.
4. Explain two criteria for language classification.

After reading Poole, pp. 123-176, do the following exercises.

5. Give English examples of metathesis, metanalysis, assimilation and mutation.
6. How did the arrival of Normans to England change English?
7. What is the genealogical relationship between English and French?

After reading Fromkin et al., pp. 442-86, do the follwing exercises.

8. Explain the morphological change from Old English to Modern English using
noun cases.
9. Explain the syntactic change from Old English to Modern English in terms of
word order.
10. How is word meaning narrowed and broadened?

After reading Finegan, pp. 500-533, do the following exercises.

11. Express Chaucers quotation in Modern English.
12. How have articles developed through the history of English?

After reading Lock (192-218), answer the following questions.

13. What do modal auxiliaries reveal about the information in a clause?
14. How are degrees of requirements revealed in clauses?
15. What devices can be used instead of modal auxiliaries?
16. What grammatical devices are used to express likelihood?
17. What are required for making predictions?
18. What are required for making deductions?
19. What does the modal should introduce?
20. What does past likelihood mean?
It means that modals of likelihood can be combined with relative past tense to express
deductions and predictions about past situations.
21. How are real conditions different from unreal conditions?
Real conditions are reffered to the situations which are presented as possible
situations. On the other hand, predictions are based on hypothetical situations as called unreal
situations, in which the speaker or writer predicts a situation that would result from different
conditions from those which actually exist, existed in the past, or are likely to exist in the
future.
22. What do the adjuncts without doubt and in all probability realize?
Modal adjuncts.
23. Give a sentence indicating an impersonal judgment of likelihood.
It is probable that the earth is just as old as the moon.
24. What modality is shown in Hell walk past you without even saying Hi?
Frequency
25. What modality is shown in I will go and you cant stop me?
High Inclination.