2023年全国自考英语词汇学试题和答案.docx

全国2023年4月高等教育自学考试
《英语词汇学》试题和答案
课程代码：00832

I. Each of the statements below is followed by four alternative answers. Choose the one that best completes the statement and put the letter in the bracket. (30%)

1. Words of the basic word stock denote the most common things and phenomena of the world around us. Which of the following words is related to the natural phenomena?
A. Father B. Fire
C. Evil D. Old

2. The differences between sound and form are due to the following EXCEPT .
A. the fact of more phonemes than letters in English
B. stabilization of spelling by printing
C. influence of the work of scribes
D. innovations made by linguists

3. There are functional words in the following sentence: It is fun to play with children.
A. 3 B. 4
C. 5 D. 6

4. The surviving language fall into eight principal groups. Blato-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Albanian belong to the-------- set.
A. Eastern B. Southern
C. Western D. Northern

5. With the growth of------, British tentacles began stretching out to every corner of the globe, thus enabling English to absorb words from all major language of the world.
A. civilization B. revolution
C. colonization D. industrialization

6. Which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. English is more closely related to German than French
B. Scandinavian languages refer to Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish.
C. Old English vocabulary was in essence Germanic with a small quantity of words borrowed from latin and Scandinavian.
D. Middle English absorbed a tremendous number of foreign words but with little change in word endings.

7. The word “ recollection” comprises----------- morphem s(s)
A. 1 B. 2
C. 3 D. 4

8. The following words have inflectional affixes EXCEPT---------------
A. happier B. worker
C. harder D. taller

9. Which of the following words is a root?
A. International B. Nation
C. National D. Internationalists

10. The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on----------
A. borrowing B. sematic change
C. word-formation D. reviving archaic words

11. The word” brainstorming” belongs to------------
A. adjective compounds B. noun compounds
C. verb compounds D. adverb compounds

12. ---------- does not generally change the word-class of the stem but only modifies its meaning.
A. Prefixation B. Suffixation
C. Affixation D. Derivation

13. A word is the combination of form and ---------.
A. spelling B. pronunciation
C. meaning D. sound

14. ------------ is the result of human cognition, reflecting the objective world in the human mind.
A. Reference B. Concept
C. Sense D. Motivation

15. The meaning given in the dictionary and forming the core of word-meaning is-------.
A. grammatical meaning B. lexical meaning
C. conceptual meaning D. associative meaning

16. The opposite of semantic elevation in meaning change is called-----------
A. derivation B. deterioration
C. purification D. pejoration

17. One of the interesting features about a language is that there are a great many more----------than--------- in it.
A. hyponyms… homonyms B. homonyms…. hyponyms
C. synonyms… antonyms D. antonyms……… synonyms
18. Relative synonyms also called----------- are similar or nearly the same in denotation, but embrace different degree of a given quality.
A. close- synonyms B. respondent- synonyms
C. near- synonyms D. dependent- synonyms

19. Angel, martyr and paradise have their meaning---------- because of the influence of Christianity.
A. elevated B. degraded
C. narrowed D. extended

20. Word- meaning changes by modes of extension, narrowing, degradation, elevation and --------
A. sense B. reference
C. association D. transfer

21. The well- known semanticist Ullmann notes, “ language is more----than civilization, material as well as moral.”
A. creative B conservative
C. radical D. constructive

22. Which of the following is NOT one of the types of context?
A. Linguistic context B. Non- linguistic context
C. Extra- linguistic context C. Intra- linguistic context

23. Which of the following may NOT lead to ambiguity?
A. Grammatical structure B. Polysemy
C. Antonymy D. Hyponymy

24. Which of the following is NOT true about linguistic context?
A. It can be subdivided into grammatical context and lexical context
B. It embraces the people, time and place
C. It refers to the words, clauses, sentence in which a word appears
D. It may cover a paragraph, a whole chapter and even the entire book

25. The idiom” live by one’ s pen” is a ------------- as far as figures of speech are concerned.
A. simile B. metaphor
C. metonymy D. personification

26.” Cut and dried” is an idiom------ in nature.
A. verbal B. nominal
C. adjectival D. adverbial

27. The change of idiom” A round peg in the squarest of holes” from the original form is---------.
A. dismembering B. position- shifting
C. addition D. shortening

28. According to the textbook , the best-known unabridged dictionary is-----------.
A. The Word Book Dictionary
B. The Encyclopedia Americana
C. Webster’s New World Dictionary
D. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

29. Which of the following dictionaries is NOT a bilingual dictionary?
A Oxford Advanced Learner’ s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation.
B. A New English- Chinese Dictionary.
C. Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
D. A Chinese- English Dictionary(1995).

30. Which of the following is true about an American Dictionary?
A. It is always better than a British dictionary.
B. It contains more encyclopedic information in the main body.
C. One can never expect to find British usages in it.
D. It includes more grammatical information.

II. Complete the following statements with proper words or expressions according to the course book. (15 % )

31. A world is a-------form of a language that has a given sound and syntactic function.
32. In the Middle English period, the Norman Conquest started a continual flow of----------
Words into English.
33. The basic form of a word which cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity is a called a -----------.
34. The method of creation words by removing the supposed suffixes is called-------------.
35. Words such as “ vicious, tyrant, determined, famous, notorious” usually indicate the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing in question. They have---------- meaning in themselves.
36. A word which is related to other words is related to them in----------.
37. Car which used to be a “ two- wheel cart drawn by horses and used in------------- “ has taken on the meaning “ automobile” with the development of modern car industry.
38. In the sentence “ Copernicus believed in a heliocentric universe, rather than in the geocentric theory. “ , the word “ heliocentric “ is explained by the clue of ------------ structure.
39. Due to structural ---------- of idioms, the word order of the idiom “ by twos and threes” cannot be turned into “ by threes and twos”.
40. Against the traditional practice of lexicography, --------- creates an extra column arranged alongside the definitions.

III. Define the following terms. (15%)

41. archaisms
42. stem
43. grammatical meaning
44.amelioration
45. rhetoric characteristics of idioms

IV. Answer the following questions. Your answers should be clear and short. Write your answers in the space given below. (20 % )

46. What are the three periods in view of the development of English vocabulary?
47. What is the difference between partial and full conversion? Explain them with examples.
48. The word “ happy” has two different types of antonyms at the same time, one being negative and the other opposite. What are they?
49. Can you determine the meanings of the following sentences? Explain and make some alterations in the context so as to pin down the meaning.
(a) The fish is ready to eat.
(b) I like Mary better than Jean.

V. Analyze and comment on the following. Write your answers in the space given below. (20 % )

50. Comment on the following groups of words to illustrate semantic features and grammatical features of compounds.
Group 1 : ” a green hand”, “ flowerpot”
Group 2: “ bad- mouth”, “ new- borns”

51. Analyze and comment on the following sentences based on the concept that antonyms differ in semantic inclusion.
[ A ] How tall is his sister?
[ B ] How short is his sister?

2023年4月全国自考英语词汇学答案

一

01-05：B D A A C
06-10：D C B B C
11-15：B A C B C
16-20：D C C A D
21-25：B D C B C
26-30：C A D C C B

二

31 minimal free 32 French 33 root 34 back- formation 35 affective
36 sense 37 war 38 word 39 stability 40 CCELD

三

41 Archaisms are words or forms that were once in common use but are now restricted only to specialized or limited use.
42 A stem can be defined as a from to which affixes of any kind can be added.
43 Grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such as part of speech of words, singular and plural meaning of nouns, tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms.
44 Elevation or amelioration refers to the process by which words rise from humble beginnings to positions of importance.
45 Apart from the stylistic features, idioms manifest apparent rhetorical colouring in such respects as of phonetic manipulation, lexical manipulation and figures of speech.

四

46 The three periods of the development of English are 1) Old English, which is the language used between 450and 1150 and which has a vocabulary of 50000-60000 words; 2) Middle English, which refers to the language spoken from 1150-1500;3) Modern English, which is divided by early modern English(1500-1700) and late modern English (1700 up to now).

47 When adjectives are concerted into the nouns, some are completely changed, thus known as full conversion, and other are partially changed, thus known as partial conversion. Adjective which are fully converted can achieve a full noun status, e.g. , having all the characteristics of nouns,, that is , they can take” a/an” or “-s/-es” to indicate singular or plural forms: a native, a Republican, a pair of shoes, finals. Adjectives which are partially converted can still keep adjective features. They should always be used with” the”, and they cannot take”-s/-es” to show plural forms. Moreover, the words can have comparative or superlative degrees: the poorer, the poorer, the young, the very unfortunate.

48 Of the two antonyms of the word “ happy”, the negative one is “ unhappy”, the opposite one is “ sad”.

49 Yes. On a grammatical basis, both sentence can have two interpretations. The first sentence may mean “ The fish is cooked or served, so ready for people to eat” or “The fish is ready to eat things”. However, in the context of” What a nice smell! The fish is ready to eat “,”fish” definitely means the former. To achieve clarity, we can say “ The fish is ready to be eaten”. The second sentence can be regarded as an elliptical one, which gives rise to ambiguity:” I like Marry better than I like Jean” or “I like Mary better than Jean like Mary”. To achieve clarity , we can either say “ I like Mary better than Jean dose” or “ I like Mary better than I do Jean” or “ I like Mary better as Jean is untidy”, etc.

五

Compounds are different from free phrases in semantic unity. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word. For instance,” a green hand” is an” inexperienced person”, not a hand that is green in colour. The meaning of such example cannot be easily inferred from the two components of the compound. Nevertheless, a lot of compounds are transparent, that is, the meaning can inferred from the separate elements of compound. The compound ” flowerpot” can be an example. But the two elements are inseparable and the change of element will result in the loss of original identity.

A compound tends to play a single grammatical role in a sentence, for example, a verb, a noun, or an adjective. “ Bad-mouth” used as a verb can take the third person singular”-s” and the past tense marker”-ed”, e.g., “He bad-mouthed me.” Compounds can show their plural forms by taking

inflectional”-s” at the end,e.g., “ new-borns”. Of course, there are exceptions such as brothers-in-law, lookers-on. In spite of this their single grammatical role is apparent.

51 Pairs of antonyms are seen as marked and unmarked terms respectively. In many pairs, we find that one member is more specific than the other and the meaning of the specific is included in that of the general. So far as the meaning is concerned, sentence A includes the meaning of B. The use of “ tall” does not exclude the possibility of “ his sister being very short”. But sentence B is much more restricted in sense and is considered semantically abnormal unless the speaker is particularly interested in how short his sister is.