Domande e risposte esame Lingua inglese I - Pulcini

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

b)Explain the difference between main and subordinate clauses and give examples of different

types of clause. (50-100 words)

Main clauses are clauses that can stand alone, while subordinate clauses can’t because they always

depend on a main clause. Main clauses always have finite verbs, while subordinate can have both

finite or non-finite verbs. Other types of clauses are: finite and non-finite (depending on the verb),

simple, compound or complex clauses, depending on whether they consist of a main clause only (I

go home), of main and coordinate clauses (She locked the door and went to sleep) and of main and

dependent clauses (He wanted a job because he didn’t have money).

b)Provide examples in good English for each of the following noun phrase patterns:

head house

determiner+modifier+head+post-modifier (prep phrase) the yellow house in the country

determiner+head my house

modifier+head old house

modifier+head+post-modifier (relative clause) the house which we built

b)What is the difference between word, lexeme and word-form? Illustrate with examples.

A word is a linguistic unit which is preceded and followed by a pause, in terms of meaning it can

express one single concept. A lexeme is a word in a dictionary, it is an abstract unit of the

vocabulary which underlines different variants known as word-forms.

b) Discuss the concept of “tense” and “aspect” in the English verb and illustrate with

examples.

English has two tenses: present and past. Tense is marked in lexical verbs endings or in auxiliary

verbs (She likes dancing, She didn’t like dancing). Tense is not the time, but is the verb form, while

time is meaning. English has two aspects: perfect and progressive. Perfect refers to completed

actions, while progressive refers to ongoing actions. The perfect aspect may combine with tense, so

we have present perfect (which refers to present ongoing actions that started in the past; I have lived

here for 5 years) and past perfect (which refers to completed actions finished at or before a given

time in the past; By the time she was 25, Sara had already visited all North America). Also the

progressive aspect can be combined with tense, so we have present progressive (refers to ongoing

actions at the time of speaking or planned plan; She is working in Milan/Tomorrow we’re going to

Rome) and past progressive (refers to ongoing action at a given time in the past; She was living

alone when I met her).

b) Number in English nouns (regular and irregular)

English nouns usually have two number forms: singular and plural. The singular carries no

inflection since it is unmarked, whereas the plural is infected. Regular plurals of countable nouns

are formed by adding inflectional suffix -s. However, uncontountable nouns, proper nouns do not

have plural form.

Several nouns have a irregular plural inflection or undergo different processes, such as child-

children, mouse-mice, foot-feet.

b) Comment on the importance of word order in Present-day English and illustrate with

significant examples (50-100 words)

Word order in Present-day English is very important, since the order of constituents specifies and

signals their syntactic function. The grammatical function of subject in English is not expressed by

case, but by the position of the word or phrase in the clause and its relation with other constituents.

For example, the simple clauses

1) Sara beat Jane at tennis

2) Jane beat Sara at tennis

have the same form, however they have different meanings: 1) means that Sara won the game,

while 2) means that Sara lost and Jane won the game. Inverting the order of constituents, the

meaning of the clause changes.

b) Discuss the use of the passive voice in English and explain the reason why in particular

circumstances a passive clause may be preferred to an active one.

Voice concerns transitive verbs which can be attive or passive. The passive voice is constructed

with the auxiliary BE followed by the -ed particle form of the lexical verb.

A passive voice clause may be preferred to an active one when, in the sentence, the agent of the

action is unimportant or unknown, to emphasize the agent of the action, or to emphasize the action

itself.

b)Define and illustrate the grammatical category of gender and number in English with

reference to nouns in particular (100 words)

Unlike Italian nouns, English nouns do not express the category of gender (Italian bambino-

bambina, English child-child).

English nouns must be inflected to express the grammatical category of number, they usually have

two word-forms: singular and plural. The singular carries no inflection since it is unmarked,

whereas the plural is inflected. Regular plurals of countable nouns are formed by adding inflectional

suffix -s, while uncountable nouns and proper nouns do not have a plural form. Several nouns have

a irregular plural inflection or undergo different processes, such as child-children, medium-media,

mouse-mice, woman-women, fish-fish.

b) Briefly define “tense”, “aspect” and “voice” (100 words)

English has two tenses: present and past. Tense is a grammatical category marked in lexical verbs

endings or in auxiliary verbs (She likes dancing, She didn’t like dancing). Aspect is a grammatical

category related to time, since it shows the speaker’s attitude towards the time of an event. English

has two aspects: perfect and progressive. Perfect refers to completed actions, while progressive

refers to ongoing actions.

The perfect aspect may combine with tense, so we have present perfect and past perfect. Also the

progressive aspect can be combined with tense, so we have present progressive and past

progressive. Voice, instead, concerns transitive verbs which may be attive or passive.

b) List the five closed classes of words existing in English and provide one example for each

class.

Closed class words are also called grammatical words, since they don’t carry a lexical meaning.

pronouns The pen on the table is mine

auxiliary verbs I have listened to you all day!

determiners This is an interesting question

prepositions (simple) We found love in a hopeless place (complex) She came out of the woods

conjunctions She locked the door and went to sleep.

ENGLISH LEXICON (write about 150 words)

a) Discuss the sense relations that exist in each of the following sets of words:

1. lexis, lexicon, vocabulary

Synonyms, words that share the same referent and meaning, in particular there are near synonyms,

because they are used in different contexts

2. brother and sister, husband and wife

complementary antonyms, imply a contradiction

3. cats, dogs, birds, lions, animals

Hyponyms (cats. dogs, birds, lions) and hypernym (animals)

4. to cook, boil, fry, barbecue, bake, simmer

lexical field, lexis of an area of knowledge. In this case are expressed different types of cooking

5. long and short, small and big

opposite antonyms, opposite words on a scale

b) Present the mixed nature of the English lexicon and illustrate with examples in Present-day

English.

The present-day lexicon shows traces of its precious historical layers, mainly Germanic and

Romance. English belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages and

has a core of words of Anglo-Saxon origin (40% of the total) which are usually monosyllabic or

short words that refer to object of everyday life such as house, food / go, come, see / find out, give

in / old, new, good, high. PdE also contains a very important lexical component from classical and

romance languages (60%). These words of Latin, Greek and Romance origin are usually

polysyllabic and refer to academic discipline or science terms, such as government, biography /

psychology / discover, continue / beautiful, fantastic. For this reason, in English is easy to find

doublets or triplets of near-synonyms of Germanic and Romance origin respectively. (find out-

discover/ royal-regal-kingly).

a) Identify the phraseological phenomena that are underlined in the passage below and

comment on them.

John’s father said: “I am sick and tired. Last night John came home dead drunk once again. It is the

last straw that breaks the camel’s back. This time I’ll give him a piece of my mind.”

Sick and tired: binomial, a lexical pattern made up of two (or more) fixed elements, often

conjuncted with “and”

Dead drunk: collocation, the preferred co-occurrence of two lexemes that belong to two different

word classes and retain their independent meaning. In this case Dead drunk is a restricted

collocation because several collocations with “dead” are possible, according to the idiom principle

(dead right/dead easy).

it is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back: proverb, an expression usually fixed, which

expresses popular wisdom or cultural heritage. In this case it has an Italian counterpart, which is “la

goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso”.

a piece of my mind: idiom, a lexical fixed pattern, longer than a word and shorter than a sentence,

whose meaning can not be derived from the sum of the meanings of its components. In this case, the

idiom is culture-specific and means to tell somebody exactly what you think, in a particularly angry

manner.

b) Discuss the issue of the size of the PDE English lexicon and the different ways to measure it.

The measuring of the lexicon of PDE is not an easy task, but three approaches can help provide

some answers: reference to the numbers of entries in dictionaries, counting the different lexemes in

corpora and evaluating the lexical competence of native speakers.

a) Identify the word-formation phenomena that are highlighted in the passage below and

comment on them.

Tom’s girlfriend has lived in the USA for some years now. Eventually she has managed to obtain

the green

card. She is currently working as a trainee doctor in a day-hospital. She lives in a nice

neighbourhood. On Sunday she has a big brunch in a local cafeteria and goes for a run along the

river

USA is an initialism, i.e. a word composed of the initial letters of the components of a complex

expression.

Green card is a compound, i.e. the combination of words which has acquired a new meaning. A

green card is in fact a document that allows non-American citizens to work and live in the United

States.

Trainee represents the phenomenon of derivation by suffixation. Trainee derives from the verb to

train and the suffix –ee which together form the noun trainee.

Day-hospital is a compound word made up of the nouns day and hospital. Together they denote

hospital treatment during daytime for patients.

Neighbourhood is an instance of derivation, obtained with the combination of the noun neighbour

and the suffix –hood

Brunch is a blend of the nouns breakfast and lunch. This word-formation process consists in the

merging of two longer words to form a new one with a corresponding fusion of their meanings.

a) Discuss the phenomenon of lexical collocations and illustrate it