An interactive guide to
Linguistics for Natural Language Processing

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INTRODUCTIONtest

The questions that follow are based on the Introduction handout.

1. The set of words and grammatical rules which an individual characteristically uses is called

2. The set of words and grammatical rules which is used by a group of people from a particular locality is called

3. Swiss German and High German are often called dialects of German, whereas Hindi and Urdu are often called separate languages. This is because:
(A) Swiss German and High German belong to the same language family, whereas Hindi and Urdu do not.
(B) Swiss German and High German are more similar than Hindi and Urdu.
(C) Speakers of Swiss German consider that they speak a variety of German, whereas speakers of Hindi and Urdu consider that they speak different languages.
(D) Swiss German and High German are written using the same alphabet, whereas Hindi and Urdu are written using different alphabets.

4. The study of the actual sounds produced in speaking a language is called

5. The study of the meaning intended by a language user (rather than the literal meaning of the words and sentences) is called

6. The study of the sub-components of words is called

7. The study of the set of distinctive sounds produced in speaking a language is called

8. The study of the meaning of words and of the literal meaning of sentences treated as combinations of words is called

9. The study of the way in which words are ordered to form sentences is called

10. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false.
a) We'm here is illogical because we is plural and 'm (short for am) is singular.
b) We'm here is syntactically incorrect in SEE ('Standard English English').
c) We'm here is syntactically correct in the dialect of English spoken in the Black Country.
d) We'm here is semantically incorrect in SEE ('Standard English English').
e) We'm here is semantically correct in the dialect of English spoken in the Black Country.

11. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false.
a) The sentences I eat fish and Ich esse fisch have the same syntax.
b) The sentences I eat fish and Ich esse fisch have the same semantics.
c) The sentence I eat fish has a more limited meaning than the sentence Ich esse fisch.
d) The verb to eat and the verb essen (which means 'to eat') have the same morphology.

12. Six of the following are Indo-European languages. Select them.
Czech
English
Finnish
German
Hindi

 Hungarian
Japanese
Mandarin Chinese
Spanish (Castillian)
Urdu