Saturday, May 28, 2016

Chapter Six

 After reading the chapter, I expect you to understand the following concepts:

1. Morpheme: free, bound, inflectional and derivational with examples
2. Types of dictionaries
3. One example of componential analysis
4. Synonymy vs. antonymy vs. hyponymy
5. Abbreviation vs. Acronyms
6. You should cover all aspects of Deixis in detail

 

Monday, February 22, 2016

محاور الامتحان الشامل 2016

     

Jadara University
Department of English Language and Literature
Comprehensive Exam 2016
Major subject areas for the comprehensive exam 2016:
A.  Linguistics
1.      Advanced Grammar
Qurik, R. & Geenbaum, S. (1973). A University Grammar of English. Harlow: Longman.
2.      General Linguistics
Mayer, C. (2009). Introducing English Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
3.      Phonology
Roach, P. (2009). English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical Course (4th Edition). Cambridge: CUP.
4.      Applied Linguistics
Lightbown, P. & Spada, N. (2013). How Languages are Learned (4th Edition). Oxford: OUP.
Ps. There will be six questions from all or any of the fields above and you will be asked to answer only three

                  B. Literature
1.      16th Century British Poems or Plays
2.      19th Century American Novels
3.      Modern Literary Theory
References for B:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Volumes 1 and 2 (8th Edition)
The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Volumes 1 and 2 (8th Edition)
Hans Berton. Literary Theory
Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory: An Introduction
Ps. There will be six questions from all or any of the fields above and you will be asked to answer only three.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

For students of General Linguistics 2016

In chapter five, you should be able to recognize and discuss the following terms:

  1. Sentence vs. clause vs. phrase vs. word
  2. Subject vs. predicate
  3. NP vs. VP
  4. Count vs. non-count
  5. Plurals: regular, archaic, borrowed, same form, no-singular
  6. Personal pronouns in English: person, subjunctive, objective, reflexive, possessive, indefinite
  7. Lexical, auxiliary and modal verbs
  8. Open classes vs. closed classes
  9. Aspect in English
  10. Main vs. subordinate clauses

Monday, January 6, 2014

For Students of General Linguistics

What is Grammar? What are the basic units of grammar? What are variable and invariable words? What are the differences between free and bound morphemes and roots and affixes? Is word-order important in English? What is word-class analysis in English?
Until fairly recent years, many linguists divided grammar into morphology and syntax, but Chomsky and the transformational-generative linguists divided it into morphology, syntax and phonology. Grammar is concerned with the description and analysis of stretches of utterances or stretches of writing and is organised on two dimensions: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. It seeks to discover the grammatical linguistic universals shared by all languages, i.e., universal grammar.
          In the European tradition grammar has been built on the word as the basic unit. But linguists have pointed out that within the grammatical structure of words, smaller units must be recognised. These are called morphemes. Grammar operates between the upper limit of the sentence and the lower limit of the morpheme.
          Variable words are those in which ordered and regular series of grammatically different word forms are found, wherein part remains relatively constant and the variations in the other parts are matched by similar variations in other words. In English WALK, WALKS, WALKING, WALKED, CAT, CATS, etc., are variable words. Words appearing in only one form are invariable words, such as English SINCE, WHEN, SELDOM, etc.
          A free morpheme is one that may constitute a word (free form) by itself; a bound morpheme is one that must appear with at least one other morpheme, bound or free, in a word. In English CATS, ‘cat’ is a free morpheme while ‘-s’ is a bound morpheme. Morphemes may be divided into roots and affixes; the root is being that part of a word structure which is left when all the affixes have been removed. Root morphemes may be bound or free and they are not limited in number. Affixes are bound morphemes and they are limited in number. All words may be said to contain a root morpheme and some words contain more than one root. In the English word LOVELY, ‘love’ is the root and ‘ly’ is the affix. Bound roots are relatively few, but some are found, such as –ceive, -tain and –cur in receive, retain, and recur. A few English roots have bound and free variants, such as sleep and slep- and child and child- . Affixes may be divided formally into three major positional classes: prefix, infix and suffix. In English re- and pre- are prefixes while –s and –ly are suffixes. English does not have true infixes except in one mode of analysis of some plurals like foot-feet and colloquial Singabloodypore and guaran-damn-tee. Compound words in English may include one or more bound roots as in ‘ethnobotony’ (ethno-botan-y, bound root+bound root+suffix).
          Word order in English is essential to syntax. Changing the word order may change the meaning of English sentences and sometimes can render them ungrammatical. 
The men eat
†Men the eat
The hunter killed the tiger
The tiger killed the hunter

          Word class analysis has long been familiar in Europe under the title PARTS OF SPEECH, and for many centuries grammarians have operated with nine word classes or parts of speech: noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, article, and interjection. Words in frequent use have to be classified under more than one head. The English classes NOUN, VERB and ADJECTIVE are required respectively for words like ‘death’, ‘pursue’ and ‘malicious’ each of which belongs to one class only. Words like ‘work’ belong both to the NOUN and VERB classes. Words like ‘mature’ belong to the VERB and ADJECTIVE classes. Words like ‘choice’ belong to the ADJECTIVE and NOUN classes (choicest flowers; you may take your choice). The English word ‘round’ belongs to five classes:
1.     One round is enough = noun
2.     You round the bend quickly = verb
3.     A round tower = adjective
4.      He came round = adverb
5.     He wondered around the tower = preposition
Word classes may be OPEN or CLOSED; an open class is unlimited in membership, such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs in English. A closed class contains a fixed and limited number of members, such as pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions in English.

Source: Robins, R. (1964). General linguistics: An introductory survey.

London: Longmans.

Friday, August 19, 2011

New Phonetic Link

Click on the link below and enjoy phonetics!

http://www.llas.ac.uk/materialsbank/mb081/page_10.htm

Friday, February 11, 2011

Cleanliness

الثلاثاء 06 صفر 1432 ھ 11 يناير 2011 العدد 11732
جريدة الشرق الاوسط
الصفحة: آفاق إسلامية
د. عائض القرني

سافرنا إلى دول الغرب، وانتقلنا برا بين مدنھا مرة بالسيارة ومرة بالباص ومرة بالقطار، ووجدنا الطرق
المعبدة والأرصفة المنظمة والحدائق المتسقة والمقاھي المرتبة والأحياء الراقية والمطاعم الجميلة والحمامات
النظيفة، كل شيء في عالم الدنيا منظم ودقيق ورائع.. ثم سافرنا لدول شرق آسيا، فوجدنا الصورة قريبة
حضارة وتطورا وازدھارا ورقيا.. ثم سافرنا إلى غالب الدول العربية وھي الدول النامية في العالم الثالث،
فكانت غالب الطرق حفريات وإنشاءات، والحمامات على الطرق البعيدة مخلّعة الأبواب، مكسرة الكراسي، لا
ماء ولا ھواء ولا صابون ولا عطور، والمقاھي معدومة أو قديمة يملؤھا الذباب والفراش والصراصير إلا في
بعض العواصم العربية، وھذا استثناء، أما جوانب الطرق فزبالات وقمائم، مع اختلاط المواشي بطرق
السيارات، أما القطار فمعدوم أو نادر، وإذا وُجد فقطار قديم خربان تربان كحيان ھريان من الحرب العالمية
الثانية، وغالب المدن العربية حتى كثير من العواصم ليست فيھا مقاه متقاربة في الأحياء، بل معظمھا على
الطرق العامة فقط، والحمامات في غالبھا بلا رعاية ولا ذوق، بل تجدھا مھشمة، جدرانھا مشخبطة وأسيابھا
ملخبطة ونوافذھا مُشطّبة. والإنسان العربي يحتاج إلى تطبيق تعاليم الإسلام في النظافة، فبينما تجده يتغنى
بمجد آبائه وأجداده وإنجازاته الوھمية ومفاخره الخرافية وفتوحاته الخيالية، تجد أظفاره طويلة متسخة، وثوبه
لم يُغسل من أيام، وشعره أشعث بعيد العھد بالماء والصابون والشامبو، وليست عنده مشكلة في أن يحضر
المجلس والمسجد بروائح الثوم والبصل والجوارب والعرق والمرق وروائح الجريش والقرصان والمنقوشة
والتبولة والكبة، وإذا تكلم صاح، وإذا بكى ناح.. صخب وضجيج، وصراخ وصجيج، فأين ما تعلمناه في كتاب
لله وسنه رسوله صلى لله عليه وسلم من النظام والرتابة والنظافة والطيب والأناقة والسكينة والھدوء؟ فولله إنَّ
في ھذه الأبواب مئات الأحاديث عن معلم الخير رسول الھدى صلى لله عليه وسلم، آمل من الشعب العربي
العظيم أن يھتم بالنظافة.
والنظافة لا دخل لھا بالفقر؛ فقد تجد الفقير نظيفا، والغني وسخا مبتذلا. النظافة أيھا الشعب العربي العظيم لا
تحتاج إلى أموال طائلة، بل تحتاج إلى ضمير حي، وقلب سليم، وذوق عال، مع شيء من الصابون والماء
والشامبو والعطر الطائفي أو الفرنسي. النظافة أيھا العرب تحتاج إلى وعي حكومي، واستجابة شعبية، وحملة
وعي في الإعلام والمدارس والجامعات. لماذا نحن فقط في الدول العربية والأفريقية وضعُنا مأساوي في عالم
النظافة والنظام والدقة والترتيب؟ لماذا نجد غيرنا مرتبين منظمين يغتسلون ويمتشطون ويفرّشون أسنانھم
ويقلمون أظافرھم وينظفون حماماتھم ويرتبون حدائقھم ويرصفون طرقھم، ونحن الشعب العربي العظيم في
غالبنا لم نأخذ بنظام الإسلام في النظافة والنظام، ولا بالنظام الغربي؟ فحياة العرب في الغالب حياة مبعثرة،
ليس ھناك اھتمام كبير من الحكومات ولا من الشعوب. كلما جلست مع زملائي في مدينة عربية في مقھى أو
مطعم أو سافرنا في طرقھم البرية تذكرنا ما شاھدنا في الشرق والغرب من حياة راقية، فظھر لنا البون
الشاسع، ولھذا لم يظلمنا العالم أبدا حينما سمانا بالعالم الثالث، ومن شك في كلامي فليسافر برا من باريس إلى
ليون، ومن ميونيخ إلى فرانكفورت، ومن جاكرتا إلى سورابايا، ومن كوالالمبور إلى جنوب ماليزيا، ثم يسافر
بعدھا بين المدن العربية برا ويحكم ھو بنفسه.
أرجو من الحكومات العربية أن تُوزّع قيمة الصابون والشامبو والماء على المواطنين الكرام، وأرجو من
المواطن العربي أن يغتسل كل يوم ويتطيب ويغسل ثوبه ويقلم أظفاره ويُفرّش أسنانه ويرتب بيته ويمسح
سيارته ويحترم مواعيده.

الشعب العربي العظيم بحاجة إلى نظافة

Monday, December 13, 2010

Lecture on Monday 13/12\2010

  • Why do you think people might want to maintain their minority language when they move to a new country? Because language is closely connected to the individual's self-esteem, identity and culture.

  • What are the factors which seem to contribute to language maintenance? 1. The patterns of language use: the more domains the better. 2. Demographic factors: if minority groups lived together in isolated areas or in rural areas, this would help maintain their language. 3. Attitudes to the minority language: if the attitudes of the minority groups toward their language were positive, their language would be maintained and preserved.

  • Institutional support to maintain minority languages: 1. The use of the minority language in education. 2. The right to use the language in court and other government institutions 3. the use of the minority language in places of worship 4. the use of the minority language in the media, such as radio and TV.

  • provide one example on language revival. Hebrew was effectively dead for more than 1700 years before it was revived in Israel. 

Book: Holmes, J. (1992). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman.