By William B. McGregor
1) There is no limit on the variation that is possible within human languages.
True False
2) A sample of 200 languages represents a better basis for doing typological linguistics than a sample of 50 languages.
True False Possibly, but not necessarily
3) Which of the following is not an implicational universal? (Note that you are not asked whether or not they are valid, just whether they are implicational universals.)
If a language has voiceless nasals it has voiced nasals All languages with a trial number distinction in nouns also have a dual distinction All languages have consonants and vowels All languages with affricates have fricatives
4) Which of the following is a non-absolute universal? (Note that you are not asked whether or not they are valid universals.)
All languages have vowels and consonants If a language has affricates it usually has fricatives If a language has clicks, it has nasals All langauges have at least one phonemic stop
5) Which of the following implicational universals is better formulated as a non-implicational universal:
If a language has verbs, it has adpositions If a language has more than two consonants, it has more than one vowel If a language has clicks, it has lexical tone If a language has a large number of consonants it usually also has a large number of vowels If a language has lexical tone, it also has stress
6) Based on your knowledge of linguistics, which of the following is least likely to be an absolute universal?
Languages have vowels Languages have stop phones If a language has a dual category for pronouns it will also distinguish singular from plural in pronouns Languages have a voicing distinction for stops
7) Based on the data shown in the following figure, which of the generalisations below is not valid? (Each balloon represents a different language.)
The verb tends to occur before the object If a language has prepositions it has VSO word order If a language has SVO word order it has postpositions If a language has postpositions it has SVO word order If a language has VSO word order it has prepositions
8) Based on the data in the figure in Question 7, is it the case that languages have initial subjects if and only if they have postpositions?
Yes No
9) Based on the data shown in the following figure, which of the generalisations below is valid?
The verb tends to occur after the subject If a language has prepositions it has VSO word order Languages tend to have both prepositions and initial subjects If a language has postpositions the subject precedes the verb If a language has SVO word order it has prepositions
10) Based on the data in the above figure, is it true that languages have prepositions if and only if the verb precedes the object?
11) Which type of language is characterised by morphologically complex words in which it is not easy to separate morphemes from one another?
isolating agglutinating fusional polysynthetic
12) Given that təwalamnagʔak means 'I sharpened the knife' in Chukchee, what morphological type would you expect this language to be?
13) If three number distinctions are marked on nouns in a language by inflections, which category will normally be the unmarked one?
singular dual plural
14) In a language that distinguishes number inflectionally on nouns, if an irregular noun does not make the distinction, which regular form is the irregular noun most likely to resemble?
singular plural
15) Which of the following is not normally a feature of the unmarked category in an opposition?
Smaller in phonological size than marked category More frequent in use than marked category Admits fewer distinctions in cross-cutting dimensions Tends to occur where the oppositon is neutralised
16) Is it true that the unmarked category in an opposition tends to be found most frequently across languages?
17) Supposing that the following hierarchy accounts for the use of alienable and inalienable possessive constructions cross-linguistically, which end would you expect inalienable possession to extend out from?
Left Right
18) If in a given language we find that kin are treated as alienable possessions, what does the above hierarchy indicate about clothing?
It is also treated as an alienable possession It is treated as an inalienable possession No conclusion can be drawn
19) If in a given language we find that kin are treated as inalienable possessions, what does the above hierarchy indicate about clothing?
It is also treated as an inalienable possession It is treated as an alienable possession No conclusion can be drawn
20) Supposing that body part nouns in a given language were treated as inalienable (if attached to people or aninmals) or alienable (if detached or amputated), and all other nouns as alienable, what modification would you make to the hierarchy of Question 17?
Replace body part in the hierarchy by attached body part > detached body part Replace body part in the hierarchy by detached body part > attached body part Nothing: the hierarchy must be rejected as invalid
21) Which case is normally unmarked in ergative-absolutive case systems?
ergative absolutive neither
22) Is it true that in the majority of fixed word order languages S precedes O.
23) Which of the following case-marking systems is inconsistent with Silverstein's hierarchy?
Nominative-accusative system for pronouns; ergative-absolutive for all nouns Nominative-accusative for pronouns, proper nouns, kin terms, human nouns and animate nouns; ergative-absolutive for inanimate nouns Nominative-accusative for first and second person pronouns; ergative-absolutive for third person pronouns and all nouns Nominative-accusative for pronouns, proper nouns, kin terms, and human nouns; ergative-absolutive for inanimate nouns; no marking for animate nouns Nominative-accusative system for pronouns; ergative-absolutive for all nouns except inanimate nouns, which get no case-marking
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