Handbook for Undergraduate Concentrators in Linguistics

The General Examination

The general exam is normally given during the Spring Reading Period, with the exact time and location announced in April. It is intended to help students consolidate the knowledge they have gained during their years as Linguistics concentrators. The questions on the exam are designed to test the students’ understanding of linguistic concepts, rather than specific details of the different linguistic areas. Two sample exams follow.

In preparing for the generals, we suggest that students review class notes from Linguistics 110, 112a, 115, and 120/122. In addition, students are encouraged to read the following three texts:

1. Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct. New York: William Morrow & Co.
2. O’Grady, William, Michael Dobrovolsky, and Mark Aronoff. 2001. Contemporary Linguistics, 4th edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
3. Meillet, Antoine. 1966. The Comparative Method in Historical Linguistics. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion.

Copies of these materials as well as sample questions and answers are available in the Assistant Head Tutor's Office.

As stated in the Linguistics section of the Handbook for Students, “special permission to take the general exam at the end of the junior year may be granted if all the coursework required by the concentration (except for Linguistics 99) has been completed.” Juniors who plan to take the general exam need to let the Head Tutor know of their intention in advance, so that their eligibility may be confirmed.

Sample Exam #1

Answer three of the following four questions (A, B, C, D):
A. General (50 minutes)
Provide two arguments, illustrated with examples, against the following hypothesis:

“Children learn language by mimicking their parents and peers. Their mistakes
are corrected, and their correct outputs are reinforced. They then extend what
they learn by analogy.”

B. Phonology (50 minutes)
The regular English past tense morpheme (normally spelled -ed or -d in English orthography) has three different surface forms.

a. Identify the three surface forms, and state the sets of sounds after which they occur in terms of natural classes defined by feature bundles. (To give you an idea of how to formulate your answer, the productive plural suffix has three surface forms, [-s], [-z], and [-åz]; [-s] occurs after voiceless stops (i.e. [-voice, -continuant] segments), [-åz] occurs after fricatives and affricates (i.e. [+continuant, +consonantal] segments), and [-z] occurs elsewhere, i.e., after voiced stops and vowels.

b. Provide arguments against the following analyses of the English past tense rule:

i. There are no rules for forming the past tense. All we do is memorize
present tense and past tense forms.

ii. We have 3 rules:

[t] is used with words ending in p, k, s,...
[d] is used with words ending in b, g, z,...
[åd] is used with words ending in t, d, ...

C. Syntax (50 minutes)
Observe the following active and passive sentences, some of which are unacceptable, as indicated by asterisks:

(1) a. The doctor will examine Mary.
b. Mary will be examined by the doctor.

(2) a. The terrorists assassinated the politician.
b. The politician was assassinated by the terrorists.
c. *The terrorists assassinated the caviar.
d. *The caviar was assassinated by the terrorists.

(3) a. John put the baby in the crib.
b. The baby was put in the crib by John.
c. *John put the baby.
d. *The baby was put by John.

(4) a. John has made some headway.
b. Some headway has been made by John.
c. *John has achieved some headway.
(cf. John has achieved some progress.)
d. *Some headway has been achieved by John.
e. *John’s headway has been slow.
(cf. John’s progress has been slow.)

Discuss the pros and cons of (i) generating passive sentences directly by phrase structure rules, and (ii) deriving them by applying a transformation (NP movement) to their underlying structures, where the surface subject occupies the object position.

D. Historical Linguistics (50 minutes)
1. We reconstruct on the basis of exceptions, not of rules. Discuss.

2. Discuss each of the following popular misconceptions about the history of languages:
a. “Lithuanian is the oldest of the living Indo-European languages.”
b. “They still speak pure Elizabethan English in the Appalachians.”


Sample Exam #2

You will have three hours to answer three of the following four questions.

1. General (50 minutes)
When you graduate and leave this department you will inevitably be inundated by your friends and family with the following claims:

“I think in English” (or whatever the native language of your interlocutor is).

“Children learn language by imitation and correction."

“Vietnamese [Ebonics, etc.] has no grammar."

Drawing on all of the linguistic expertise you have acquired during your years in the Linguistics Department, formulate a substantive response to two of these fallacies. Your answer should include both specific case studies and general reasoning designed to leave your wayward interlocutor with no choice but to concede that you are right.

2. Historical (50 minutes)
A. (30 minutes) Latvian, like Lithuanian, is a descendant of Proto-Baltic. Even the latest stage of Proto-Baltic, which we may call Late Proto-Baltic (LPB), differed from modern Latvian in a number of ways. LPB, for example, had distinctively nasalized vowels (here denoted [ã], [ã:], etc.), and a contrast between relatively high ([e], [o]) and relatively low ([´], [ø]) mid vowels.

i. Below are given some representative case-forms of six LPB nouns, together with the forms they would have yielded in Latvian by regular sound change. (Note: [ai], [uo], and [ie] are diphthongs.)

LPB Latv. LPB Latv.
1. ‘hand’ 2. ‘bend’
nom. rã:ka: ruoka nom. le˜:ke: lietse
acc. rã:kã: ruoku acc. l e˜:k:e˜ lietsi
instr. rã:kã: ruoku instr. l e˜:k e˜: lietsi
nom. pl. rã:ka:s ruokas nom. pl. l e˜:ke:s lietses

3. ‘god’ 4. ‘cow’
nom. d´:vas dievs nom. gø:vis guovs
acc. d´:vã: dievu acc. g ø:v ¦˜: guovi
instr. d´:vø: dievu instr. gø:vimi: guovimi
nom. pl. d´:vai dievi nom. pl. gø:vi:s guovis

5. ‘mother’ 6. ‘beast’
nom. ma:te: ma:te nom. Ωve:ris zve:rs
acc. ma:ter¦˜: ma:teri acc. Ωve:r ¦˜: zve:ri
instr. ma:terimi: ma:terimi instr. Ωve:rimi: zve:rimi
nom. pl. ma:teres ma:ters nom. pl. Ωve:res zve:rs

To the extent the data allow, state the sound changes that marked the develop-ment from LPB to Latvian.

ii. Not all the above forms in fact occur. Specifically, the case-forms of ‘hand’, ‘bend’, and ‘god’ (nos. 1-3) are as given above, but ‘cow’, ‘mother’, and ‘beast’ (nos. 4-6) are declined somewhat differently. The actual Latvian forms of these words are listed below, with unexpected or “irregular” forms shown in boldface:

‘cow’ ‘mother’ ‘beast’
nom. guovs ma:te zve:rs
acc. guovi ma:ti zve:ru
instr. guovi ma:ti zve:ru
nom. pl. guovis ma:tes zve:ri

Account for the forms in boldface.

B. (20 minutes) In each of the following pairs of words or constructions, briefly explain the rela-tionship of the first term to the second. State any general principles that apply.

a) Latin centum, Welsh cant, Greek (he)katón '100' vs. Sanskrit, Avestan sat\m, Lithuanian są '100'


b) Eng. melted vs. molten


c) Standard English feet vs. child language foots, feets


d) Eng. fowl vs. Ger. Vogel ‘bird’


e) Eng. I was given the book vs. Middle English Me was given the book


f) Latin duo, Greek duo ‘2’ vs. Indonesian dua ‘2’


g) Standard English She’s happy vs. Black English/Ebonics She happy.

3. Phonology (50 minutes)
Consider the following data involving the trill [r] and the flap [@] in casual Spanish (as described by Harris 1983). These two sounds are contrastive intervocalically ([pero] ‘dog’ vs. [pe@o] ‘but’), but in complementary distribution elsewhere.

orthographic form surface form gloss
bravo bRaBo brave
drama d@ama drama
otro ot@o other
hombre omb@e man
Africa af@ika Africa
Israel izrael Israel
honra onra honor
alrededor alre∂e∂or around
martes ma@tes Tuesday
arbol a@∫ol tree
Carlos ka@los Carlos
rápido rapi∂o rapid
raro ra@o rare
rubor ru∫o@ blush
mar ma@ sea
amor amo@ love
sur su@ south

Given the data above, formulate an analysis that account for the surface distribution of [r] and [@]. Be as general and as formal as possible; i.e. make your analysis as predictive as possible, use feature and syllable notation, etc.

4. Syntax (50 minutes)
A. The following sentences seem to be structurally identical:
(i) a. John ran up a huge hill
b. John ran up a huge bill

Part 1: Explain the difference in their behavior, as seen in (ii):
(ii) a. Up a huge hill John ran.
b. *Up a huge bill John ran.

Part 2: Do the sentences above provide evidence against the claim that sentences are flat strings? In your answer, give at least one more example supporting the hypothesis that sentences have a hierarchical structure.

B. Consider the following phrase:

(i) A Japanese teacher.

Part 1: Give paraphrases for its two possible interpretations, and draw an X' tree corresponding to each.

Part 2: Can we capture this ambiguity with Phrase Structure Rules? Explain why or why not. Give one more structure that X' rules can generate and Phrase Structure Rules cannot.