Introduction to Linguistics - Assignment 2 James Madison University

[This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.] After reading Chapter 2, do your best with each of the following excercises.

1. List at least 5 content words in English (other than those examples mentioned in your text or in other such references) that you believe to be monomorphemic, including at least two that are multisyllabic.
2. List at least 5 content words in English that you believe to be polymorphemic, including at least two that are monosyllabic.
3. Find and write down a sentence at least 12 words long from a written source (a favorite novel or story?) and then write a second version but leaving out all the words in that sentence that you think may be in the category of so-called "function words" in English.
4. Here is some practice with the distinction between prescriptive grammar rules and descriptive grammar rules. Put a (P) next to the rules that you think are rules of a prescriptive grammar for English and a (D) next to all those you think are rules in a descriptive grammar of English.
   
   1. Do not start a sentence with "however."
   2. An adjective comes before the noun it modifies.
   3. Nouns can be modified by specially constructed clauses that come after them in the sentence (i.e, "relative clauses" :) ).
   4. Use the subjunctive form after verbs like "prefer" (eg, "I prefer that Manny apologize to his friends," not "I prefer that Manny apologizes to his friends."