Special Christmas Entertainment
from James Martin
Instead if just wishing people joy and merriment at Christmas
why not make them really merrry with this fresh crop of gems from
our students' exams?
On phonetics
- - sounds are produced when we breathe out in the English
language
- - the Primary Cardinal Vowel System is language free
- - we also look at the decree of the tongue raised
- - air finds the vocal cords wide open, so it does not
disturb them.
- - the circumstances surrounding the articulation of this
sound is such that air is suppressed from the upstream
and more pressure is compiled behind the closure
- - compressed air is waiting for the lips to part for the
escapement and the sound comes out like a hissing snake
- - once lips have parted rapidly, air escaped abruptly
causing explosion with suddenty like a tyre busting
- - vibration of the vocal cords can be heard when the ears
are plucked
- - labialisation is a process in which when somebody is
speaking you watch the position of their lips
- - thick vocal folds found in men produce bass sound and
thin vocal folds produce high pitched sounds as in ladies
On syntax and semantics
- - when we separate morphemes accordingly we result in
morps. The morp 's' is said to be generative as it shows
possession e.g. Tom's keys
- - there is contrast in the medieval position of a word
- - if an utterance breaks down it shows it is an
acceptable sentence
- - in that linear order, some words belong together with
others but not with others
- - if the parts moved demands to be moved with the other
parts, then, they are believed to form a unit in that
they are inseparable.
- - 'The child in the house will return the drink into the
refregirator'. This sentence can be splilted into various
parts of speech that every sentence belong.
- - it is clear from the above example that if a main verb
gatecrushes the tag, the results are disastrous in that
the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
- - in conclusion, the tag and question formation rules
cited so far can cater for all the examples in English no
matter how stubborn that the other rules cannot cater
for.
- - a person cannot be married and not be unmarried at the
same time
- - you must be demonstrative to join the riots
- - an example of structural ambignity is: 'The dog saw the
duck while in the pod'
- - 'John was looking for the glasses?' One meaning of this
sentence is that John was looking on behalf of the
glasses.
- - unfriendliness: - liness: an affix to show concern
- - trunk - a container for storing clothiers
- - finally, the points covered in this essay were readily
comprehended during the research and thus those left out
were not in any way being descriminated against. Perhaps
the limitation of the length of this essay has also
contributed to the failure to include other points as
well. Lastly one needs to point out that there is a lot
of literature on the above topics though all the materiel
could not be comprehended because of limitation of space.
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Last edited: 05/22/02