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2. Define the syntagmatic characteristics of the ita­licized verbs in the following extracts:

a) In the 1786 Sir William Jones (a British scholar who found it best to reside in India because of his

1

sympathy for the rebellious American colonists) delivered a paper in which he observed that Sanskrit bore to Greek and Latin 'a stronger affinity ... than could possibly have been produced by accident'. Jones suggested that these three languages had 'sprung from a common source' and that probably Germanic and Celtic had the same origin. The classical philologists of the time attempted to disprove the idea that there was any genetic relationship between Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek, since if such a relationship existed it would make their views on language and lan­guage development obsolete.

b) For many languages there are historical records that go back more than a thousand years. These records are studied to find out how languages were once pro­nounced. The spelling in early manuscripts tells us a great deal about the sound system of older forms of modern languages. If certain words are always spelled one way, and other words another way, it is logical to conclude that the two groups of words were pronounced differently, even if the precise pronunciation is not known.

c) In Tolstoy's masterpieces all is probable and typical of human life. These are the sort of things that might happen to anyone. Things like them have probably happened to thousands. These are such people as we might meet any day. We can say without reservation, This is what life is like'.

d) But we cannot help noticing that until quite mo­dern times nearly all stories were of a different type. Just as all except bores relate in conversation not what is nor­mal but what is exceptional, so earlier authors told of the exceptional.

e) No one knows exactly how or why languages change. Certainly linguistic changes do not happen sud­denly. It is not the case that all speakers of English awoke one morning and decided to use the word beef for «ox meat». Nor is it true that all the children of one particular generation grew up to adopt this new word usage. Changes are more gradual, particularly changes in the phonological and syntactic system.

3. Define the forms of conjugation of the italicized verbs below:

a) Strictly speaking, metaphor occurs as often as we take a word out of its original sphere and apply it to new circumstances. In this sense almost all words can be shown to be metaphorical when they do not bear a physi­cal meaning; for the original meaning of almost all words can be traced back to something physical; in our first sen­tence above, for instance, there are eight different meta­phors. Words had to be found to express mental percep­tions, abstract ideas, and complex relations, for which a primitive vocabulary did not provide; and the obvious course was to convey the new idea by means of the nearest physical parallel.

b) A chronological investigation most obviously begins with the native tongue that was brought to these islands in the fifth century by the Germanic tribes who eventually overran the native Britons. The importance of this purely Germanic basis is often overlooked, largely because of the great number of foreign words incorporated in our present-day vocabulary. But an examination of

actual usage, as opposed to mere presence in a dictionary, shows how important the native words are.

c) While Nathaniel Hawthorn was still living, he took ' a place among the greatest American authors, a position he shows no sign of losing. During the last three decades, in fact, his achievement has been valued higher than ever before. As his works have been reassessed by standards which have been revised to accord with the critical view and tastes of recent years, enthusiastic recognition has been given to the consistency of his total thought, to the balance and perception of his social outlook, to his understanding of human character, particularly the darker elements, to the mastery he displayed in the use of indefiniteness, ambiguity, and suggestion, and above all to the richness of metaphor and symbol he achieved.

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