Inflection

Question 1

Syntactic/grammatical categories:?

Answer 1

Tense, Aspect, Number, Person,

Gender, Case

Question 2

What is Exponence?

Answer 2

The realization of morphosyntactic features via

inflection: simple or cumulative

Question 3

What is simple exponence?

Answer 3

1 form = 1 morphosyntactic feature
common in isolating and agglutinating lgs.
buen+a+s –> BUENO + A (Fem) + S (Pl)

Question 4

What is cumulative exponance?

Answer 4

1 form = several (>1) morphosyntactic features

Latin cant-ō (1st Pers Sing+Ind+Act) = I sing

Question 5

what’s extended exponance?

Answer 5

a single
morphological feature is realized on more
than one form at the same time:
E.g. Perfective Aspect in the Latin verb
rexisti
re:k-si-s-ti: ‘you (Sg) ruled’, is realized in the
three suffixes -si, -s, and -ti.

Question 6

What is context free inflection?

Answer 6

One-to-one mapping between morphosyntactic feature and its phonological representation.

• E.g. English [Progressive] > /-ıŋ/ walking
  jumping
  crying

Question 7

What is context-sensitive inflection?

Answer 7

No one-to-one mapping; the phonological realization varies.
- E.g. English [Past Tense] "
- /-d/ + allomorphs: helped, wated
-  /-t/: Sent
- Ø: Hit

Question 8

define and give Example of suppletion? (full and partial)

Answer 8

the occurrence of an unrelated form to fill a gap in a conjugation

Full: Go - went
Partial: Think - thought

Question 9

Ablaut (define and example)

Answer 9

a change of vowel in related words or forms

ex. Sit - sat

Question 10

in what two ways ca inflection be assigned?

Answer 10

agreement and

government;

Question 11

Define agreement

Answer 11

one element takes on
the features of another element:
determiners and adjectives take the
categories of the noun.

Question 12

Government

Answer 12

one element requires 
that another element takes on 
certain features: verbs and 
prepositions require certain case 
from nouns.

Question 13

Define valency

Answer 13

the
capacity of a verb to take a specific
number and type of arguments (noun
phrase positions).

Question 14

give examples of univalent, divalent and trivalent

Answer 14

uni: she DANCED
Bi/Di: She ATE the apple
Tri: She GAVE the book to the man

Question 15

What’s an ergative language

Answer 15

a language that treats
the Agent of transitive verbs distinctly from the
Subject of intransitive verbs and the Object of
transitive verbs.

Question 16

What are analytic tenses?

Answer 16

use auxiliary words and are therefore secondary:
- Future: I will write/be writing two exams next
month
- Past: I have/had written two exams before I left.
- Future Perfect: I will have written this exam by
this time tomorrow.

Question 17

what is indicative mood?

Answer 17

indicates a state of
affairs:
¢ He was here.
¢ I am hungry.

Question 18

What is imperative mood

Answer 18

expresses commands 
or requests. 
The understood subject of imperative 
sentences is you. 
¢ Be here at seven o'clock.

Question 19

What is the subjunctive mood

Answer 19

expresses a wish
or something that is not actually true.
It uses the past tense or past perfect tense;
when using the verb ‘to be’ in the
subjunctive, were rather than was is used:
- If he were here…

Question 20

What is verbal modality?

Answer 20

deals with the modal
verbs and the mood of verbs.
- These include the assertion or denial of
any degree of belief, certainty, desire,
obligation, possibility, or probability on
the part of the speaker.

Question 21

what is voice?

Answer 21

describes relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments
- active vs. passive

Question 22

what is active voice

Answer 22

the unmarked case, where the Subject
represents the Agent of the action:
e.g. Bill bought the car from John on eBay

Question 23

What is the passive voice

Answer 23

the marked case,
where the DO of the action has been promoted to the Subject
position and the verb is marked as Passive.
e.g. The car was bought by Bill