1 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG 2016-17 CUHK Recruitment Test MA in Linguistics MA in Chinese Linguistics and Language Acquisition Name _ Email _ Phone _ University _ City _ Province _ 2 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Section One Answer all the questions in this section. Question 1 Spanish Focus on r and . 1. kro I run 12. pa pear 2. esto strange 13. kro car 3. pefe prefer 14. bar sweep 4. kwl cruel 15. te art 5. ra rare 16. rwo I beg 6. bjos several 17. pra bitch 7. je air 18. ba cabbage 8. ko dear 19. onro honest 9. d give 20. enrike enrich 10. rko rich 21. peon forgive 11. ko choir i. Describe the distribution of r and : where are they distinctive and where are they not distinctive? ii. Are they allophones of the same phoneme, or allophones of different phonemes? 3 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Question 2 Hebrew Consider the following data from Hebrew: tarbut culture mturbat cultured koxav star mkuxav starry pilpel pepper mpupal witty petam cow mputam fat a. What are the category and meaning of the derived word forms on the right? How were they derived? b. How would you derive similar forms from the following bases? Lamed knowledge _ educated tipe fool _ foolish kavod honor _ honored Question 3 English Consider (1) and (2) 1. John wondered if Peter would join us for lunch. 2. John will be angry if Peter declines the offer. How are the two instances of “if” the same or different semantically and syntactically? Support your arguments with more examples. 4 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Section Two Discuss one of the topics below in detail in either English or Chinese: Question 1 Focus on one interesting feature of Putonghua in terms of its syntax or morphology, and discuss in depth how this feature is similar to or different from a similar feature in a language you have acquired or learnt. Question 2 Formal grammatical models such as Generative Grammar or Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar are rarely referred to or adopted in study of pedagogical grammar in language teaching. In your opinion, why is this the case? 5 THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Section Three Choose one of the following questions and write a one-page essay in response to the question. Please follow the style of academic discourse, and conventions for citation and reference (if any). Please use English only. Question 1 What are the differences between childrens first language acquisition and adults second language acquisition? Please identify and elaborate three major differences from cognitive, environmental, and affective points of view. Question 2 If you are currently not in an area of linguistics or language-related studies, describe how your previous training will facilitate your study at our department and how the training at our department will contribute to your future career. Also describe how our programs will benefit from your previous training. If you have any knowledge about an interdisciplinary area where linguistics plays an important part, describe this area in some detail if you can. Please provide specific examples in your discussion. -End of Paper-