I.

Read the following questions and then answer them by choosing the letter that
contains the correct answer.

1. Which of the following statement is NOT TRUE?

A. Language is a means of communication
B. Language is symbolic
C. Language is structural
D. Language is the only means of communication.
2. Which of the following is NOT characteristic feature of Language
A. Language is systematic
B. Language is arbitrary
C. Language is dynamic
D. Language is instinctive
3. The theory which is based on the assumption that language originated as human instinct to
imitate sound:
A. The ding-dong theory
B. The bow-wow theory
C. The pooh-pooh theory
D. The gesture theory
4. The ding-dong theory of the origin of language was advanced by:
A. Noire
B. Max-Muller
C. Wilhelm Wundt
D. Otto Jepersen
5. The Yo-He-Ho theory of origin of language was proposed by:
A. Noire
B. Max-Muller
C. Wilhelm Wundt
D. Otto Jepersen
6. The musical theory of origin of language was forwarded by:
A. Wilhelm Wundt
B. Noire
C. Max-Muller
D. Ott Jepersen
7. The phrases ‘zoom of an aeroplane’, ‘bang of door’, ‘splash of water’ , are examples of:
A. Onomatopoeia
B. Homophones
C. Homonymy
D. Portmanteau
8. Among the following, which one is an exception to the property of arbitrariness of language?

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A. Onomatopoeia
B. Homophones
C. Homonymy
D. Portmanteau
9. Human language is structured at the level of phonemes and morphemes and at the level of
words. This property of language is:
A. Duality of structure
B. Displacement
C. Transference
D. Recursiveness
10. Using finite set of rules a speaker can produce innumerable grammatical utterances. This
property of language is:
A. Duality of structure
B. Recursiveness
C. Displacement
D. Cultural transmission
11. It is possible to write spoken language and to read aloud the written material. This property of
language is:
A. Displacement
B. Transference
C. Duality of structure
D. Recursiveness
12. A type of linguistic study which devotes itself to language changes over a span of time is:
A. Diachronic linguistic study
B. Synchronic linguistic study
C. Historical linguistics
D. A & C can be answers
13. ____________refers to a linguistic norm specific to a geographical area, social class or status
affecting mutual intelligibility
A. Dialect
B. Idiolect
C. Register
D. Glossolalia
14. _____________is the totality of speech features of an individual
A. Dialect
B. Slang
C. Isogloss
D. Idiolect
15. A person who uses only one language is:
A. Monologue
B. Monolingual

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C. Trilingual
D. Dumb
16. ______________is the study of how mentally represented grammar of language is employed in
the production and comprehension of speech
A. Socio-linguistics
B. Computational linguistics
C. Psycho-linguistics
D. Neuro-linguistics
17. Acoustic phonetics is concerned with which of the following:
A. The production of sounds in human languages
B. The generation of speech sounds by computer
C. The perception of sounds of human languages.
D. The properties of the sound
18. Articulatory phonetics is the study of
A. speech organs
B. physical properties of speech
C. Phonemes
D. physical production of speech sounds
19. Although both semantics and pragmatics are concerned with meaning, pragmatics focuses
more on
A. The conventional meaning.
B. The lexical meaning
C. The intended meaning
D. The grammatical meaning
20. Connecting one utterance to another previous utterance unconsciously is known as
A. Prototype
B. Gesture
C. Collocation
D. Implicature
21. Slapping your forehead with the palm of your hand is a visual sign that could be equivalent to
saying.
A. "I am sleepy"
B. "I forgot"
C. "I smell something"
D. "I don't know"
22. This character role can be defined as "the entity undergoing an action or movement"…
A. The experiencer
B. The theme
C. The location
D. The goal

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23. How can you determine the meaning of an utterance, such as "I'm hungry"?
A. through the meaning of the sentence only
B. through the individual word and the grammatical construction in which they occur
C. through the meaning of the sentence in addition to the physical-social context
D. through the construction of words in a particular meaningful sequence
24. Identify the pair of non-gradable antonyms among the followings.
A. Dress and undress
B. tall and short
C. male and female
D. old and young
25. Converseness is one type of antonym. Which among the following examples are
Converseness antonyms?
A. happy and unhappy
B. pack and unpack
C. safe and unsafe
D. lend and borrow
26. What are the semantic features required for the subject of this sentence?"________ is traveling
with his wife to Addis Ababa this week."
A. [+Animate, +Human, +Female, +Adult]
B. [+Animate, +Human, -Female,-Adult]
C. [+Animate, +Human, -Female, +Adult]
D. [+Animate, -Human, -Female, +Adult]
27. It is understood as using names associated with things to refer to people. What is it?
A. Reference
B. Prototype
C. Referent
D. Inference
28. What is the thematic role of the noun ‘poor man in “a poor man is driving a car "?
A. Goal
B. Theme
C. Experiencer
D. Agent
29. What is the thematic role of the noun ‘side walk’ in “the sidewalk is destroyed"?
A. patient
B. Goal
C. Source
D. instrument
30. Which among these sentences involves a referring expression?
A. The bigger cat is pale
B. How big is the pale
C. The big cat is pale
D. This rose is pale

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31. A waiter at a restaurant asked: "Where's the potato sandwich sitting?" this utterance is best
interpreted as:
A. Just a potato sandwich
B. Money paid for potato sandwich
C. A customer ordered potato sandwich
D. The restaurant manager
32. The referring expression "a luck" is considered to be:
A. a unique referent
B. a non-unique referent
C. a fixed referent
D. an abstract referent
33. Only one sentence among the followings has a TEMPORAL DEIXIS. Which one is it?
A. I'm busy now
B. You can't stay here
C. Put them near that
D. These boxes are heavy
34. A change from one speech style to the other by an individual is:
A. speech style
B. overt prestige
C. style shifting/code switching
D. sociolinguistics
35. Groups of speakers are found to have common characteristics based on ___.
A. social dialects
B. social groups
C. social markers
D. social class
36. When studying "prestige", one must examine ___.
A. social groups
B. social class
C. social markers
D. social dialects
37. A social feature of language use and is divided into two sub-categories: formal and informal
is:
A. speech style
B. a register
C. formal speech style
D. informal speech style

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38. Anyone is capable of code switching, but the idea of ___ explains the frequency in which
populations actually change their speech.
A. overt prestige
B. group solidarity
C. covert prestige
D. "prestige"
39. The relationship between language and society is closely examined in ___.
A. Sociology of language
B. Sociolinguistics
C. Social groups
D. Bilingualism
40. A personal dialect (or ___) tends to sound like others with whom we share similar educational
backgrounds or occupations.
A. Jargon
B. Sociolect
C. Idiolect
D. Bidialectical
56. When speakers move back and forth between dialects, we refer to them as ___.
A. Idiolect
B. Bidialectical
C. Bilingual
D. social class
41. Specific, technical vocabulary associated with a specific area of work or interest is:
A. Jargon
B. Idiolect
C. Patios
D. a register
42. Situational, occupational, topical, legal; a funeral language such as plaintiff talking to the
witness stands to:
A. Jargon
B. Idiolect
C. A register
D. speech style
43. Language planning typically consists one of the following stages;
A. Selection
B. Codification
C. Implementation
D. All of the above

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44. When the language is spoken only by grandparents an older generations; while the parent
generation may still understand the language, and they typically do not speak it to their
children, the language is said to be:
A. Safe language
B. Severely endangered language
C. Critically endangered language
D. Extinct language
45. When the youngest speakers of a language are the great-grandparental generation, and the
language is not used for everyday interactions it is said to be:
A. Safe language
B. Severely endangered language
C. Critically endangered language
D. Extinct language
46. _________tend to have a core meaning which is in some way modified by the affix
A. Inflections B. Roots
C. Morphemes D. Derivatives
47. ____________ is a morpheme which only occurs when attached to some other
morpheme or morphemes such as a root or stem or base.
A. Infection B. Affix
C. Morph D. Derivative
48. The ____________ is that part of a word that is in existence before any inflectional affixes
have been added.
A. base B. morpheme
C. stem D. allomorph
49. Morphology is the centre of linguistics because it is;
A. The base for linguistics B. The principal study of morphemes
C. The basic for meaning D. The interface between meaning and form
50. What is the main difference between free and bound morphemes?
A. Free morphemes are dependent and must be attached to another morpheme whereas bound
morphemes are independent.
B. Free morphemes belong in the open class and all bound morphemes belong in the closed
class.
C. Neither of free morphemes can stand alone, but bound morphemes have to be attached to a
base morpheme/root.
D. All the choices cab be the answers for the questions
51. Which is NOT an example of “allomorph”?
A. The plural morpheme in English (-s, - ɪz, z)
B. The negative morphemes in English (un-, im-, il-, in-)
C. Some derivational morphemes in English (-ment, ly, -able)
D. None of the above

…..

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52. Which is NOT an example of derivational morphemes?

A. Jump > Jumped B. Move > movable

C. Establish > establishment D. farm > farmer
53. A process in which a multi-syllabic word is reduced to shorter forms like gasoline > gas,
influenza > flu, condominium > condo, telephone > phone is:

A. compounding B. infix
C. clipping D. blending
54. A word formation process which combines 2 separate forms to produce a single new term;
typically that uses the beginning of one word and the end of the other (smoke/fog = smog,
breakfast/lunch = brunch, modulator/demodulator = modem)

A. blending B. borrowing
C. clipping D. compounding
55. A type of reduction where a word of one type (usually noun) reduced to a word of another type
(usually verb) like donation > donate, television > televise, babysitter > babysit, worker >
work, burglar > burgle are examples of:

A. backformation B. conversion
C. derivation D. borrowing

Answer:

1. D 2. D 3. A 4. B 5. A
6. D 7. A 8. A 9. A 10. B
11. B 12. D 13. A 14. D 15. B
16. D 17. C 18. D 19. C 20. C
21. B 22. D 23. C 24. C 25. D
26. C 27. A 28. D 29. A 30. D
31. C 32. D 33. A 34. C 35. A
36. B 37. A 38. D 39. B 40. C
41. B 42. A 43. D 44. B 45. C
46. B 47. B 48. C 49. D 50. B
51. C 52. A 53. C 54. A 55. A

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