English Language Questionnaires
Questionnaire 1
1. How many people speak English as their first language? 400 million
2. What tribes settled in England? The Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes
3. What old languages besides Latin are mentioned? Sanskrit, Greek, Old English
4. What century was the island populated? 5th century
5. When were the two main universities founded and which were they? Oxford and Cambridge in 1209
6. Besides Britain, which countries became colonial powers and why? Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands for naval power
7. What is RP (Received Pronunciation)? Accent of the queen, a way of pronouncing British English often considered the standard accent
8. How did Old English begin? When Anglo-Saxon England was absorbed into the Church of Rome
9. What event marked significant changes in handwriting? The Norman Conquest
10. When did the first newspaper appear in London? 1621
11. What are two technological developments that made possible the availability of books? Parchment and vellum, paper and printing
12. What are the three main types of language change? Structural, social, and functional
Questionnaire 2
1. What is another name for morphology? Inflection
2. Lexical morphemes are in charge of coding categories or lack grammatical relations
3. Give an example of a velar stop sound? K, k, G, g
4. Give an example of a voiceless fricative? The fiction- voiceless f, f
5. What is the great hiatus? Interruption of written English production
6. What was the ending of the third person singular instead of an -s in the Middle English pronunciation? TH
7. What are the moods from Old English? Indicative, imperative, subjunctive
8. What is the Great Vowel Shift? Opening of vowels/are vowel sometimes have another sound
9. What is monophthongisation? From a diphthong, one came stronger
10. What are two main books that help people understand the language between the XVII and XVIII century? Ben Jonson 1640 English grammar, Tom Sheridan 1780 A general dictionary of the English language
11. What is stress? Accent
13. How is the loss of postvocalic -r given? Phonemic of stress
Questionnaire 3
1. What are the components of the head of a noun phrase? Noun, pronoun, or name
2. What is a property typical modifier? Adjectives, they save many characteristics of another noun or verbs
3. What is the typical finite past modifier? The form element that served to introduce the clause, relative clause
4. What is syntax? The arrangement of words and phrases to create a well-formed sentence in a language
5. What is tense? Specific things, verbal form which has a relation with the notion of time
6. What is aspect? Characteristics of verbs such as perfect and progressive, function in a sentence grammatical category that gives the action of the verb
7. What is mood? A category connected with the verb used to express the attitude of the speaker
8. What is voice? Describes the relationship between the action that the verb
9. What are three clausal constituents? The recipient of experiencer
10. Which are the Latin cases? Normative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative
Questionnaire 4
1. What are the means by which we make direct reference to extra-linguistic? Lexemes
2. What is extra stratification? A linguistic variation
3. What are the main reasons for borrowing? To make the language stronger, enrich the vocabulary, and expand language
4. Lexical structures: What are the characteristics of grammar? Systematic structure, rule governance, and therefore predicative
5. Which are the most important means of expanding vocabulary? Word-formation
6. What languages have contributed to the English vocabulary in Modern English? French, Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish
7. What is hyponymy, antonymy, complementarity, and reversativity?
8. What are the major categories of word formation? Compounding, prefixation, suffixation
9. What are some relevant acronyms used today? ASAP (as soon as possible), ATM (automatic teller machine), CD, DJ, DVD, EU (European Union), HIV, PC, VAT (value-added tax)
10. Why is it important to study vocabulary? The study of vocabulary is a reflection of the external history in terms of political and cultural changes, language contact, and language conflict
Questionnaire 5
1. How many people speak English as their first language? 400 million people
2. What tribes settled in England for the first time? The Angles, The Saxons, and the Jutes
3. What languages besides Latin are mentioned? Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit
4. What century was the island populated? 5th century
5. When were the two main universities founded and which were they? Oxford and Cambridge in 1209
6. Besides Britain, which countries became colonial powers and why? Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands because they had ships
7. What is RP? Received Pronunciation, the accent of the queen
8. How did Old English begin? When Anglo-Saxon England was absorbed into the Church of Rome
9. What event marked significant changes in handwriting? The Norman Conquest that caused the development of letters and phonological values
10. When did the first newspaper appear in London? 1621, provincial form 1690
Questionnaire 6
1. What is the study of proper names called? Onomastics
2. What is an important characteristic of all proper names? Morphosyntactically definite, but most in English have no definitive article
3. What is the patronymic name of the Middle Ages? It comes from the fathers, is the name that adds another name prefix and suffix, e.g., father’s name
4. What are the two categories for typical English names? French-mediated ones of CWG (Commonwealth Games) MC origin, French-mediated ones of customary saints, Germanic ones included William, Robert, Richard, Gilbert, Christian names; biblical personages James, Matthew, Thomas (German names and Christian names)
5. Who was the popular of names like Jessica and Cordelia? Shakespeare
6. What was another name for King Cuthwulf? Cutha
7. What was hypocolistics? A diminutive of a name, nicknames, abbreviation of names
8. Give an example of surnames derived from location: An expression descriptive of where the original lived and therefore strictly metonymic: Newhouse, Green Street, De Pisa
9. How are surnames classified in 4 categories? Descriptive surnames are usually plain adjectives, location surnames, patronymic (relationship), occupational
10. What is a serious issue probably unresolvable about the 1st element of words? It is unclear whether the first element is a personal name or a related lexical word
Questionnaire 7
1. What is LALME? A linguistic Atlas of late Medieval English by Angus McIntosh, Michael Benskin Samuels
2. What is Ausnahmslosigkeit der Laugesetze? Exceptionlessness of sound change, equality phonology, and syntax
3. What are the present difficulties in the context of the written languages? Overwhelmingly written texts are produced by men of the upper classes
4. What are the four well-known manuscripts? The Varselli Book, Exeter Book, the Beowulf Manuscripts, and the Junius Manuscripts poetry
5. What are the four well-marked dialects? Northumbrian, Mercian, West-Saxon, and Kentish
6. What is the meaning of the ending -shire in the following words Leicestershire, Yorkshire? County
7. What is the name of Halliwell’s dictionary published in 1847? Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words
8. What is the importance of social linguistics in Modern English? Sociolinguistics brought new methods of working and permitted an investigation of a much wider segment of the population
9. What is the relation of Welsh and Irish dialects towards English? In the case of Welsh English, the local dialects are all quite subordinate to the English dialects. English has become the dominant language over the whole country
10. What is BBE? British Black English, it refers to the creole-type of English used by English descendants from Caribbean migrants who came to Britain after the 2nd World War
Questionnaire 8
What was the more common 17th-century past participle and where was it favored?
Gotten past part of get in American favored
How many people what origin they have and approximate and what years they conform the New England settlement? In The 1 migration 21,000 Puritans chiefly from East Anglia sailed to Massachusetts between 1629 and 1640. Puritans between 1629-1640
What was their home to speakers of sixteen languages in 1644? Manhattan – NY
What was the first settlement and what year was founded? Virginia settlement between 1642 and 1675 James Town
What were the 13 colonies? Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and the plantations, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
What was the census of these 13 states in 1790? In the 1st US census, the 13 states and three districts included 3.9 million people. Virginia, the most populous, had nearly 750,000 residents, including 293,000 slaves, while Rhode Island and Delaware had fewer than 70,000 residents each, including slaves
What was the pronunciation of the Webster American dictionary in 1828 of these words? In his dictionaries and spelling books, he propelled American preferences for -or in color, labor, parlor, behavior, -er in center, meter, meager, but without “u”
What was the base for describing usage in the 19th century? In Oxford, citations were being gathered as the basis for describing usage in the Oxford dictionary. Prescriptivism
What language is the most prolific continue in the New World English words? Spanish
What is the US population in 1900 in 2000? At 7.5 million, one million of whom had been born in England or Scotland and 1.6 million in Ireland. By 1950, it would double to 150 million and by 2000 to 281 million
Questionnaire 9
What process of radical change is English undergoing and where does it lead to? Fragmentation into a family of languages
What is an important factor that comes and influences the English Language? Fashions
What is Singlish? Hybrid of English, Chinese, and Malay (Singapore)
What community has accrued a new name being recognized as standard? Scots
What kind of common English emerges when German, French, and Greek come into contact? Euro English