DEPARTMENT OF H&SS, IIT BOMBAY

HS309: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

Mid-Semester Exam (30 marks + 10 marks) Sept. 16 th, 2017; 3-5pm
INSTRUCTIONS:
 Write your name and roll numbers on each sheet. (minus 2 marks if that is not the case)
1. Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost
Answer the questions that follow with respect to the poem
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.
a. What is the rhyme scheme? AAA-BBB [1]
b. Give an example of assonance: STARS-HEART; STAR-START [½]
c. Give an example of alliteration: STAR-START; ALSO STARS-SKIES, STARS-SIZE[½]
d. How many syllables are there in each line? 10[½]
e. Identify the type of metrical foot used: IAMB[½]
f. Identify the metre used: IAMBIC PENTAMETER[1]
g. Scan line 2, i.e., show the use of the foot and metrical structure you identified above: (Use brackets
to show the feet, and accent/caps/underline to distinguish between stressed and unstressed syllables). [1]
(And here)( on earth)( come e)(mula)(ting flies)
2. Many English phonemes are written down (spelled) in various ways. Show three different ways in
which the following sounds are spelled using real words of English: [2]
i. [k] C-OOL, CH-ORD, Q-UORUM, A-CC-ORD, K-ITE, CRIT-QUE, LI-KE, CLI-CK
ii. [u]BOOT, RUDE, CL-UE, BLEW, TWO (!)

3. Consider the following pairs of singular and plural nouns of Agta (Phillipines):
tak-ki taktakki “leg(s)”
lab-áng lablabáng “patch(es)”
uf-fu ufuffu “thigh(s)”

Formulate the morphological rule that accounts for the formation of the plural in the most general
terms possible – your rule should potentially generate all plurals:
WORD INITIAL (C)VC STRING COPIED – NOTE THAT THIS CODA CAN COME FROM ANOTHER
SYLLABLE, SO THE ANSWER IS NOT COPY THE FIRST SYLLABLE![1]

What is this process called? Prefixation with partial reduplication; ½ if only reduplication is written;
only prefixation then again only ½ [1]

Generate the plural of the word wer ‘creek’ werwer_[½]

4. English words borrowed into Korean are modified to conform to the Korean rules of syllable
structure. Look at the words given below and answer the questions that follow.
[ɨ] is an unrounded [u], a phoneme in Korean.
English Korean
happy hæpʰi
napkin næpʰɨkʰɪn
apple æpʰɨlɨ
test tesɨtʰɨ
stop sɨtʰopʰɨ
strike sɨtʰɨraikʰɨ

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 a. What is the onset rule? [½]
SINGLE ONSET at the most (SO ONSET CLUSTERS ARE BROKEN UP WITH VOWEL INSERTION TO CREATE
NEW SYLLABLES)
b. What is the coda rule? [½]
NO CODA other than nasal
c. What are the permissible syllable types in Korean? [1]
V, CV, CVN OR CVC WHERE C IS [N] – NO MARKS FOR WRITING HA-PI-NA ETC!
d. Predict the forms for: [1]
Notebook notʰɨbukʰɨ (aspiration needed – no marks if form is partially right)
Trump tʰɨrumpʰɨ
(nasal has to be left in coda), NO INSERTED vowel where an original vowel exists
5. The following words are from Finnish (with the English meanings). Are the following alveolar
sounds [t], [d], [s] and [z] phonemes in Finnish? [1] [: indicates long vowels]
[ku:zi] six [li:za] Lisa
[li:sa] Lisa [katot] roofs
[kadot] failures [kade] envious
[kate] cover [ku:si] sixty
a. Provide evidence: kate-kade, li:sa and li:za etc. two pairs needed
b. What is the name of the test? Minimal Pair Test
6. Notice from the Electric Company: [1]
We would be delighted if you send in your bill payment. However, if you don’t, you will be.
Which word is critical to the joke? Delighted
How? Delighted is split as de(prefix)-light (verb) and then past tense :: de-accelerate, de-capitate etc.
Meaning the consumer will be without light if they don’t pay the bill
7. Read the following passage:
After losing the final battle before the Supreme Court, Al Gore soon departed Washington to brood in
Nashville. He grew a beard. He grew fat. He seemed, at first, perceptibly lost. A few years later, when he
received me there, he said he would eventually seek liberation from that bitter experience, just not yet. He
never fully did so, certainly not at book length. Instead, with time, he became a globe trotter, giving
lectures and making a documentary about climate change, and, in 2007, shared the Nobel Peace Prize
with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He made a fortune as an Apple director, a Google
adviser, and a venture-capital partner. He found his way. And whenever someone brought up the election
of 2000 he always remembered to lighten matters, saying, “You win some, you lose some, and then there’s
that little-known third category.”
Find one example of each of the following from the passage above
a. bound function morpheme -ed , -s etc [½]
b. bound content morpheme liber-, -cept, [½]
c. free content morpheme anything mono-morphemic [½]
d. free function morpheme the, and, then etc… [½]
e. a compound little-known, globe trotter, climate change, supreme court, nobel
peace prize etc. [½]
f. a derivational suffix-ary, -ly, -er, -tion [½]
g. an inflectional suffix–ing in giving and making, -n in known and all else in (a) [½]
h. Show the internal morpheme structure of the word perceptibly by drawing a tree; indicate the part
of speech at each level: [1]
Percept-ible-y or even per-cept [N]-ibl-y [per[cept N]N] –ible ADJ]y ADV]
N-Adj-Adv
i. What is the word formation rule that creates the word lighten? Give two other words that are
formed thus (not from the passage!). [2]
Add –en to adjectives to make verbs (i) darken, silken, pinken, shorten, deepen, lengthen etc. (ii)

8. Consider the following data from Korean:

Note: NOM is nominative case affix marking subjects and ACC is accusative case affix marking objects. These will not
affect your answers below.
 1. Terryka ku yecalul coahanta
Terry-NOM that girl-ACC likes
Terry likes that girl
2. I noini hakkyo ey kassta
This man-NOM school to went
This man went to school
3. Sueka chinkwu eykey chaykul ilkessta
Sue-NOM friend to book-ACC read
Sue read the book to a friend.
4. Inho-ka Bill-I kimchi-lul mekessta-ko malhayessta
Inho-NOM Bill-NOM kimchi-ACC ate-COMP said
Inho said that Bill ate kimchi (pickled cabbage)

Complete the phrase structure rules or rewrite rules that will generate Korean sentences [3]:
NP Spec/Det (Comp*) N PPNP P [½x2=1)
VP (PP) (NP) V (they should include both – no parantheses, is ok; optionality is not something
that I have discussed with respect to rewrite rules. But no marks if only one is there.) [1 for VP rule]
TP Spec/NP VP T[½x2=1)
CP Spec TP C
Head final, complements precede, spec initial; no evidence for N complement, but generalisation can
be made from other categories

Draw the complete phrase structure tree for the sentence in (iii). Label the nodes. [2]

Or some version of this –If XP rewrites as XP

then that is wrong. Heads final, complements
initial. Spec left as well.

9. In the following sentence, there are three (error, should be 2) prepositional phrases (PPs). The
interpretation varies depending on their structural positions (attachment ambiguity).
Jerry Mouse ate the cheese on the towelPP1in the bathtubPP2.
Provide two different interpretations of the sentence. Use a constituency test to demonstrate that
the meaning that you attribute is verifiable. [4]
Interpretations: The cheese was on the towel which was inside the bathtub (both PPs are
successively embedded and describe the object cheese)
Constituency test: Jerry ate it; It was the cheese on the towel in the bathtub that Jerry ate etc.
Interpretation 2: Jerry ate the cheese while on the towel in the bathtub
Constituency test: Jerry ate it on the towel in the bathroom; it was the cheese that was eaten by
Jerry on the towel in the bathtub
Other possibilities – in the bathtub describes the towel where Jerry was or where the action took
place. Or cheese was on the towel and Jerry in the bathtub.
What you have to show is that (a) the interpretation is available and (b) that the test actually picks
out that particular hierarchy.

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ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: [10 marks] This question was compulsory too!
Mark the correct answer clearly and unambiguously.
1) The typical number of displays in an animal's repertoire is said to be
(a) about 3 (c) about 300
(b) about 30 (d) about 3,000
2) Which of the following is true of human languages?
(a) Languages vary in complexity; some are less complex, and some more so.
(b) Languages must have both a spoken and a written form, otherwise they are dialects.
(c) Languages vary in the grammatical features that are expressed.
(d) Languages are highly conditioned and ritualized behaviour systems.
3) Which of the following sentences does not help to test the constituency of eat the apples in the
sentence John could eat the apples?
(a) What could John do? Eat the apples!
(b) John could eat them
(c) John could do it.
(d) Eat the apples John certainly could!
4) The consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet are organized according to:
(a) the dominant frequency components in their spectrum
(b) the auditory perceptual features that are used to recover the sounds
(c) their alphabetical order in French, the official language of the IPA
(d) the location and degree of primary vocal tract stricture
5) Honeybees perform a waggle dance to indicate the direction of-
(a) the food source (c) the hive’s vertical surface
(b) the Sun at its zenith (d) the queen bee’s location
6) Which of the following English words is not ambiguous as to part of speech?
(a) act (c) book
(b) pen (d) luck
7) In syntactic terms, which of the following is the odd one out?
(a) Belle regarded the Beast as incompetent
(b) Belle identified the Beast as incompetent
(c) Belle struck the Beast as incompetent
(d) Belle viewed the beast as incompetent
8) Which of the following sets illustrates onomatopoeia in English:
(a) flash shine sear glimmer
(b) flash dash bash crash
(c) duck suck luck tuck
(d) forte piano allegro fine
9) Which of the following is not demonstrated by studies with Great Apes like Koko and Washoe and
Sarah?
(a) the capacity to produce rule-governed, novel messages
(b) the capacity for symbolic communication
(c) the manual dexterityfor signing
(d) the ability to teach other members of the species
10)Which list includes the three languages with the most speakers?
(a) English, French, and Russian
(b) Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic
(c) Mandarin, Spanish and English
(d) Hindi, English and Mandarin