Modern Grammar - Assignment 2 James Madison University

Instructions: [This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

1. For each of the following rules, state whether it is a prescriptive rule or a descriptive rule for English:
   1. Don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
   2. The preferred third person singular reflexive pronoun form is "himself" rather than "hisself".
   3. Adjectives precede the noun they modify.
   4. Regular count nouns are made plural by the addition of a suffix.

2. For the same four rules above, which are rules concerning syntax and which are rules concerning morphology?

3. Give an example of a sentence that is truly ungrammatical (not just prescriptively nonstandard/dispreferred).
4. Give an example of each of the following (not one from a textbook or other grammar reference source):
   1. A pair of homophones in English.

   2. Two words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. (homographs)

   3. A word spelled with one or more silent letters.

   4. A word that starts with a voiceless sound.

5. Make up four new "words" that each both sound like English (don't worry about meaning) and could be spelled in more than one way. Write down your own spelling choice for just two of these four "words". Then recruit at least three friends as anonymous volunteers and do the following:
   Show your two written "words" to your volunteers and ask them how they'd pronounce them. Were they sure? Was it what you expected?
   SAY the OTHER two words aloud and ask your friends how they'd spell them. Write down the results, labelling your friends just person1, person2, etc.

6. Based on the chart on page 48 in your textbook,which one of the following sounds is a voiced stop? (/t/, /z/, /d/, /s/) Which is a voiceless fricative?