3.3　考研真题与典型题详解

I. Fill in the blanks.

1．The ______ is the minimal distinctive unit in grammar, a unit which cannot be divided without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether lexical or grammatical. (北二外2008研)

【答案】morpheme

【解析】语素是最小的语言单位，不能再进一步分成更小的单位而不破坏或彻底改变词汇意义或语法意义。

2．Some morphemes like -ish, -ness, -ly, -dis, trans, un- are never words by themselves but are always parts of words. These affixes are ______ morphemes.

【答案】bound

【解析】粘着语素指不能单独出现，必须跟至少一个其他语素共同出现的语素。

3．There are two fields of morphology: the study of ______ and the study of ______. (人大2006研)

【答案】inflectional; lexical/ derivational

【解析】在形态学中，有两大主要研究方面，一是词的屈折变化，一是词的派生。

4．______ is a branch of linguistics that studies the interrelationship between phonology and morphology. (南开大学2007研)

【答案】Morphophonology

【解析】形态音系学是语言学的一个分支，主要研究形态学与音系学的关系。

5．______ is a relatively complex form of compounding in which a new word is formed by joining the initial part of one word and the final part of another word. For example, the English word smog is made from ______ and ______. (人大2006研)

【答案】Blending

【解析】混成法是指一个词由两个单词混合而成，一般把第一个单词的开头部分和第二个单词的最后部分连接起来，或者是把两个单词的开头部分连接起来。

6．An ______ is pronounced letter by letter, while an ______ is pronounced as a word.

【答案】initialism; acronym

【解析】首字母缩写和缩略词的区别在于，前者是一个一个字母读，后者是按单词读。

7．Words are divided into simple, compound and derived words on the ______ level.

【答案】morphemic

【解析】从词素的角度来讲词可以划分为简单词、合成词和派生词。

II. Multiple Choice

1．______ other than compounds may be divided into roots and affixes. (大连外国语学院2008研)

A. Polymorphemic words

B. Bound morphemes

C. Free morphemes

【答案】A

【解析】多语素词可被分为词根和词缀，而合成词是不可以被这样分的。

2．______ refers to the way in which a particular verb changes for tense, person, or number. (西安外国语学院2006研)

A. Affixation

B. Inflection

C. Derivation

D. Conjugation

【答案】D

【解析】屈折变化是通过附加屈折词缀表现语法关系，如数、人称、有定性、体和格。它并不改变所附加词干的语法类别。

3．Compound words consist of ______ morphemes. (北二外2003研)

A. bound

B. free

C. both bound and free

【答案】B

【解析】合成词是由自由词素组合而成的。

4．Which of the following words is formed by the process of blending? (对外经贸2006研)

A. WTO

B. Motel

C. Bookshelf

D. red-faced

【答案】B

【解析】混成法是指一个词由两个单词混合而成，一般把第一个单词的开头部分和第二个单词的最后部分连接起来，或者是把两个单词的开头部分连接起来。Motel是由motor与hotel二词的缩合。

5．Bound morphemes do not include. (西安交大2008研)

A. roots

B. prefixes

C. suffixes

D. words

【答案】D

【解析】粘着语素指不能单独出现，必须跟至少一个其他语素共同出现的语素。词根，词缀都可能是粘着词素。

6．Which two terms can best describe the following pairs of words: (table—tables, day + break—daybreak.(大连外国语学院2008研)

A. inflection and compound

B. compound and derivation

C. inflection and derivation

【答案】A

【解析】屈折变化是通过附加屈折词缀表现语法关系，如tables。合成词是由词根语素按一定的规则组合起来构成的,如daybreak。

7．Point out which item does not fall under the same category as the rest, and explain the reason in ONE sentence. (Focus on the type of word formation)(南京大学2007研)

A. burgle

B. fridge

C. auto

D. math

【答案】A

【解析】A是逆构词法变来的，其他的是缩写词。

8．There are different types of affixes or morphemes. The affix “-ed” in the word “learned” is known as a(n) ______ .

A. derivational morpheme

B. free morpheme

C. inflectional morpheme

D. free form

【答案】C

【解析】-ed在learned中改变了learn的时态 ，故为曲折变化。

III. True or False

1．Some linguists maintain that a word group is an extension of word of a particular class. (清华2001研)

【答案】T

【解析】词组是指一组具有一定词性的词的组合扩展，且此过程并不改变词原来的词性。

2．Words are the most stable of all linguistic units in respect of their internal structure. (大连外国语学院2008研)

【答案】T

【解析】具有词汇意义(指代物质、动作和性质)的词称为词汇词，例如名词、动词、形容词和副词。

3．The words “loose” and “books” have a common phoneme and a common morpheme as well. (北二外2007研)

【答案】F

【解析】有共同的音位，但语素[s]在两个词中的意思不一样，前者没有任何意义，后者表示复数。

4．Free morpheme may constitute words by themselves. (大连外国语学院2008研)

【答案】T

【解析】自由语素指是能够单独出现或独立成词的语素。

5．All words contain a root morpheme. (北二外2006研)

【答案】T

【解析】所有的词都必须有词根。

6．Root also falls into two categories: free and bound. (北二外2006研)

【答案】T

【解析】词根是构成词的基础成分，它可以是自由语素或粘着语素。

7．The word of “impossibility” contains four morphemes. (对外经贸2006研)

【答案】F

【解析】包括三个语素：“im-” “possibl-” “-ity”。

8．We can always tell by the words a compound contains what it means because the meaning of a compound is always the sum of the meanings of its parts.

【答案】F

【解析】合成词的词义不一定是两个单词词义的和，也可能是成为惯用语的其他意思。

9．All roots are free and all affixes are bound.

【答案】F

【解析】词根可分为自由词根和黏着词根，所以并不是所有的词根都是自由词根。

IV. Explain the following terms.

1．morpheme (四川大学2006研；武汉大学2008研)

【答案】Morpheme is the smallest unit of language in terms of relationship between expression and content, a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical. For example, in boys, there are two morphemes: “boy” and “-s”; in international, there are three morphemes: “inter-” “nation” and “-al”.

2．inflectional morpheme (南开大学2004研)

【答案】Inflectional morpheme: It is also called inflectional affixes, which attaches to the end of words Inflectional affixes and only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem. The plural suffix is a typical example of this kind.

3．free morphemes (西安交大2008研)

【答案】Free morpheme is an element of meaning which takes the form of an independent word. They may occur alone, that is, they may make up words by themselves. For example, “dog”, “nation” and “close” are free morphemes. And such words are called mono-morphemic words. Thus all mono-morphemic words are free morphemes.

4．bound morpheme (上海交大2007研)

【答案】Bound morphemes refer to those morphemes that cannot occur alone and must appear with at least another morpheme. For example, in the word “careless”, “-less” is a bound morpheme since it could not occur by itself as a word.

5．bound root (四川大学2006研)

【答案】Bound root refers to the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total loss of identity, and this base form could not occur alone, such as “-ceive” in “receive”.

6．functional morpheme (上海交大2005研)

【答案】This is a subtype of free morphemes, which one consists largely of the functional words in language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns, for example, “and, about when, on, near, the” an so on.

7．inflection (四川大学2007研)

【答案】Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationship through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case, which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached. For example, the past form of the verb work is realized by the addition of the inflectional suffix: “-ed”; the plural form of the noun child is realized by the inflectional suffix: “-ren”

8．allomorph(四川大学2006研)

【答案】Allomorph: A morpheme may take various shapes or forms, and an allomorph is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds. For instance, the morpheme of plurality {-s} has a number of allomorphs in different sound context, as in “cats” /s/, in “bags” /z/, in “matches” /iz/.

9．blending (四川大学2008研)

【答案】Blending is a relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining together the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word, or by only join the initial parts of the two words. For example, telephone + exchange→ telex; transfer + resister → transistor.

10．acronym(北航2010研)

【答案】Some new words are formed from the first letters of a series of words and they are pronounced as a single word. Words of this kind such as NATO, UNESCO are called acronyms.

V. Short answer questions

1．Complete the words with suitable negative prefixes. (四川大学2007研)

(1) rational

【答案】rational: irrational

(2) moral

【答案】moral: immoral

(3) regular

【答案】regular: irregular

(4) political

【答案】political: apolitical

(5) effective

【答案】effective: ineffective

(6) human

【答案】human: inhuman

(7) relevant

【答案】relevant: irrelevant

(8) legal

【答案】legal: illegal

(9) proportionate

【答案】proportionate: disproportionate

(10) resistible

【答案】resistible: irresistible

2．(a) List the ‘bound’ morphemes to be found in the following words:misleads, shortened, unhappier, fearlessly

【答案】misleads: mis-, -s; shortened: -en, -ed; unhappier: un-, -er; fearlessly: -less, -ly

(b) In which of the following examples should the ‘a’ be treated as a bound morpheme:a boy, apple, atypical, AWOL (上海交大2005研)

【答案】Among these examples, the “a” in “atypical” should be treated as a bound morpheme.

3．In English, the suffix “-able” as in “X + able” means “able to be X-ed.”

(1) Use an example to illustrate this rule.

【答案】applicable, which means “able to be applied”.

(2) What kind of words can function as “X”?

【答案】The words that can function as “X” are probably verbs.

(3) In words like “unthinkable,” the suffix -able means more than “able to be X-ed.” Think of TWO more words of this type. (南京大学2007研)

【答案】unbelievable, undefeatable.

4．What can this rule mean in English grammar?

{D} →(-id)/(t) ─(北师大2004研)

【答案】This rule reveals two points: first, it shows one possible allomorph of the morpheme {D}, and this allomorph has the phone (-id) as its element; second, it shows the according phonetic environment in which that allomorph can occur, that is, it will be pronounced as (-id) when it appears after the phone (t). In this rule, the arrow means the realization, and the bar indicates the environment of the target element.

5．What are phonologically conditioned and morphologically conditioned form of morphemes?

【答案】Some phonological factors can affect the appearance of morphemes, namely, the form of a morpheme; and there could be assimilation, and dissimilation. For example, the negative morpheme could be realized as “in-” or “im-” followed by different phonological environments, as in “inefficient” and “imperfect”, as a result of assimilation.

Morphemes can also be conditioned by morphological factors; for example, the allomorphs of the plural morpheme, as could be seen in “oxen”, “cows”, and “feet”.

6．Analyze the morphemic structure of the English words gentlemanliness and unlockable, using a labeled tree diagram to illustrate the morphemic structure of the word under analysis.

【答案】

VI. Essay questions

1．What is the distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes? (四川大学2007研)

【答案】The distinction between inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes could be illustrated in the following four aspects.

Inflectional affixes very often only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem, for instance, those inflectional affixes in words such as toys, walks, John’s, etc. Therefore, they serve to produce different forms of a single word. In contrast, derivational affixes often change the lexical meaning, e.g. cite, citation；generate, generation．

Inflectional affixes do not change the word class of the word they attach to, such as flower, flowers; whereas derivational affixes might or might not, such as the relation between small and smallness for the former, and that between brother and brotherhood for the latter．

Very often inflectional affixes are conditioned by non-semantic linguistic factors outside the word they attach to but within the phrase or sentence. Whereas derivational affixes are more often based on simple meaning distinctions．

In English, inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes, which are always word final. But derivational affixes can be prefixes or suffixes.

2．How are affixes classified? (四川大学2008研)

【答案】Considering the free and bound morpheme, affix is the collective term for the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme, so it is naturally bound.

Depending on their position with reference to the root or stem of the word, affixes are generally classified into three subtypes, namely, prefix, suffix, and infix. For examples, “para-” as prefix, “-tion” as suffix, and “-bloomingly-” in word “abso-bloomingly-luty” as infix.

Affix can also be classified depending on the distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes. The formal often only add a minute grammatical function to the stem and do not change the word class of the word they attach to; while the latter are very productive in making new words and often change the lexical meaning. For instances, “-s” in words “toys”, “walks” and “John’s” is inflectional affixes, while “-tion” is a derivational affix in word “recitation”.

(本题考查词缀的种类。可以从两个角度对词缀进行分类：一种是前缀、中缀和后缀；另一种是屈折词缀和派生词缀。)

3．In what way do we say English is an inflectional language? (厦门大学2006研)

【答案】The inflectional language is a term as opposed to the isolated language, in which the morpheme has no inflected form; such as in Chinese, there are only isolated characters, which cannot be added to with an inflectional affix. English is regarded as an inflectional language in the sense that the inflectional affixer serves important grammatical function in the English vocabulary. In English, inflectional affixes indicating tense, numbers, case and so on usually manifest the grammatical relationships between the elements of the sentences.

4．Illustrate lexical change proper with the latest examples in English, covering at least four aspects. (大连外国语学院2008研)

【答案】New words or expressions are created through the following processes excepted compound and derivation, which are called lexical change proper.

(1) Initialism

Some new words are composed of the first letters of a series of words and pronounced by saying each letter in them. Words of this kind such as VIP, WTO are called initialisms.

(2) Abbreviation

Many English words have come into being through abbreviation. This phenomenon is also called clipping: a new can be created by:

i. cutting the final part, for example, ad for advertisement.

ii. cutting the initial part, for example, plane for aeroplane.

iii. cutting both the initial and final parts accordingly, for instance, fridge for refrigerator.

(3) Blending is a relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining together the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word, or by only joining the initial parts of the two words, for example, emotion + icon → emoticon; car + hijacking→carjacking.

(4) Acronym is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization, which has heavily modified headword; an example is EU for European Union. This process is also widely used in shortening extremely long words of word groups in science, technology and other special fields, for example, SARS is short for “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome”. What’s more, people also use this process in internet chatting or e-mail communication, such as BTW for “by the way”, ASAP for “as soon as possible”.

(本题考查特有的词汇变化。作答时任选四个进行描述，并举例说明。)