Linguistics 101
Practice Test
1. We discussed several properties of language acquisition which led to the hypothesis that there is an innate Language Acquisition Device. Which of the following is not such a property?
- a. All languages are equally easy to acquire.
- b. All children receive the same linguistic input.
- c. Children go through an invariant sequence of stages in language acquisition.
2. A hypothesis that uses words like 'precedes' or 'first' is
- a. structure-independent.
- b. structure-dependent.
- c. backwards pronominalization.
3. What kind of learning can we expect from rats using behaviorist stimulus-reinforcement training?
- a. The rat can only learn to do things which are modifications of his natural behavior.
- b. The rat can learn to do anything his body is capable of, though he will not learn to use his thinking in new ways.
- c. The rat can learn to do anything his body is capable of, and also to think in new ways.
4. Which of the following would be needed for language to be acquired by trial-and-error?
- a. explicit teaching of the rules of the grammar
- b. input consisting of just the grammatical sentences
- c. positive and negative corrective feedback
5. The sentence, "Who do you wanna win the game?" almost never occurs in child or adult speech. This can be explained on which of the following assumptions?
- a. Children never hear any sentences even vaguely resembling this one.
- b. Although children contract "want" + "to" in some cases, people correct them for contracting these items in sentences like this one.
- c. Although children contract "want" + "to" in some cases, some
principle of Universal Grammar prohibits contraction in sentences of this form
6. Suppose George and Bob are watching the news together on TV. George yells and screams whenever Dan Rather is talking. Bob just sits there. According to the Behaviorist theory:
- a. only George understands the news.
- b. only Bob understands the news.
- c. both George and Bob understand the news.
7. When we described some properties of language acquisition, which of the following claims was made?
- a. children's errors lead to misunderstandings which drive language acquisition
- b. children make many different kinds of errors, but eventually
converge on the same grammar
- c. language acquisition is relatively error-free
8. In English, the pronoun she in "She thinks Rebecca is tall" cannot refer to Rebecca (i.e., the sentence cannot mean that Rebecca thinks
that she herself is tall.) This fact follows from:
- a. a rule found only in English.
- b. a backwards pronominalization constraint in Universal Grammar.
- c. parental correction of children's errors.
9. Our linguistic 'knowledge in the absence of experience' includes
knowledge of:
- a. ambiguity
- b. ungrammaticality
- c. both of the above
10. The mental grammar we are attempting to discover contains:
- a. a list of all the sentences of our language
- b. rules to describe our linguistic performance
- c. rules to describe our linguistic competence