Introduction to Linguistics - Assignment 1 James Madison University

[Your answers to this assignment should be written out clearly (or typed :) ). As an "ungraded" assignment, your work will be collected but will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

1. What are Professor Cote's currently scheduled office hours?
2. What is the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that appears with other quotes below the tentative schedule on our syllabus? Do you know the prescriptive rule for "proper" English that it does not obey? (If, yes, state the rule.)
3. Write down one example of each type of sentence below.
   1. A grammatical sentence never before heard in the English language.
   2. A grammatical sentence you usually say at least once a day.
   3. A sentence that sounds like grammatical English but doesn't make sense.
   4. A sentence that is understandable but also ungrammatical.
4. Listen closely to a conversation or conversations, perhaps by your friends, at the bookstore, on television, or wherever, and write down at least two examples of people speaking perfectly naturally in less than a full sentence. (Example: "Nice pants.") Also find one additional written example. What are your intuitions about why these utterances were okay?
5. Write down an example of something in English that you have either spoken yourself to an animal or which you have heard someone else do so. To what extent do you think this is evidence that some animals speak English?
6. Do exercise 2 at the end of Chapter 1 in your textbook.
7. Also do exercise 3 at the end of the Chapter(but only for two new words).