© 2010 George Yule 
             
            The Study of Language (4th edition) 
            Study Guide 
            This guide contains suggested answers for the Study Questions (1-6) and the Tasks 
            (A-F) following each chapter in The Study of Language (4th edition). 
             
             
            Contents 
             
            1 The origins of language (Study Questions)                            3 
            1 The origins of language (Tasks)                                      3 
            2 Animals and human language (Study Questions)                         8 
            2 Animals and human language (Tasks)                                   8 
            3 The sounds of language (Study Questions)                             14 
            3 The sounds of language (Tasks)                                       14 
            4 The sound patterns of language (Study Questions)                     17 
            4 The sound patterns of language (Tasks)                               17 
            5 Word formation (Study Questions)                                     20 
            5 Word-formation (Tasks)                                               20 
            6 Morphology (Study Questions)                                         24 
            6 Morphology (Tasks)                                                   24 
            7 Grammar (Study Questions)                                            27 
            7 Grammar (Tasks)                                                      27 
            8 Syntax (Study Questions)                                             31 
            8 Syntax (Tasks)                                                       32 
            9 Semantics (Study Questions)                                          36 
            9 Semantics (Tasks)                                                    36 
            10 Pragmatics (Study Questions)                                        40 
            10 Pragmatics (Tasks)                                                  40 
            11 Discourse analysis (Study Questions)                                45 
            11 Discourse analysis (Tasks)                                          45 
            12 Language and the brain (Study Questions)                            49 
            12 Language and the brain (Tasks)                                      49 
            13 First language acquisition (Study Questions)                        53 
            13 First language acquisition (Tasks)                                  53 
            14 Second language acquisition/learning (Study Questions)              57 
                                                                                      1
            14 Second language acquisition/learning (Tasks)                        57 
            15 Gestures and sign languages (Study Questions)                       62 
            15 Gestures and sign languages (Tasks)                                 62 
            16 Writing (Study Questions)                                           67 
            16 Writing (Tasks)                                                     67 
            17 Language history and change (Study Questions)                       72 
            17 Language history and change (Tasks)                                 72 
            18 Language and regional variation (Study Questions)                   77 
            18 Language and regional variation (Tasks)                             77 
            19 Language and social variation (Study Questions)                     81 
            19 Language and social variation (Tasks)                               81 
            20 Language and culture (Study Questions)                              86 
            20 Language and culture (Tasks)                                        86 
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
                                                                                      2
        
        
       1 The origins of language (Study Questions) 
       1 First, his conclusion was based on very little evidence and, second, it seems more 
       reasonable to assume that the children in his study were producing a goat-like 
       sound from their immediate environment rather than a Phrygian sound from a 
       distant language.  
       2 Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds that early 
       humans heard around them and all modern languages have words that are 
       onomatopoeic in some way (like “bow-wow”). 
       3 Interjections contain sounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech 
       production. They are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the 
       opposite of ordinary talk, produced on exhaled breath. 
       4 The pharynx is above the larynx (or the voice box or the vocal folds). When the 
       larynx moved lower, the pharynx became longer and acted as a resonator, 
       resulting in increased range and clarity of sounds produced via the larynx. 
       5 If these deaf children do not develop speech first, then their language ability 
       would not seem to depend on those physical adaptations of the teeth, larynx, etc. 
       that are involved in speaking. If all children (including those born deaf) can 
       acquire language at about the same time, they must be born with a special 
       capacity to do so. The conclusion is that it must be innate and hence genetically 
       determined. 
       6 The physical adaptation source. 
        
       1 The origins of language (Tasks) 
       1A The Heimlich maneuver  
       The Heimlich maneuver, named after an American doctor, Henry J. Heimlich, is a 
       procedure used to dislodge pieces of food (or anything else) that are stuck in the 
       throat, or more specifically, the upper respiratory passage. The procedure is also 
       known as an abdominal thrust. The danger of getting things stuck in the 
       respiratory passage, making it difficult or impossible to breathe, is connected to the 
       lower position of the larynx in humans. The lower larynx is believed to be one of the 
       keys to the development of human speech and the Heimlich maneuver is a solution 
       to a life-threatening problem potentially caused by that development. 
        
       For more, read:  
       Crystal, D. (2000) The Cambridge Encyclopedia (512) Cambridge University Press  
        
        
        
                                             3
       1B The Tower of Babel 
       According to chapter 11 of the book of Genesis in the Bible, there was a time “when 
       the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” The people decided to build 
       “a tower whose top may reach unto heaven.” God’s reaction to this development was 
       not favorable:  
       “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men 
       builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one 
       language: and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from 
       them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound 
       their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord 
       scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off 
       to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did 
       there confound the language of all the earth. (Genesis 11: 5-9) 
       The usual interpretation of these events is that humans were united in a single 
       language and working together to build a tower which represented a challenge to 
       God, and God intervened in some way so that they couldn’t understand each other 
       and dispersed them to different places. This can be viewed as an explanation of how 
       humans started with a single language and ended up with thousands of different, 
       mutually unintelligible languages all over the world. 
           Apparently there were many large towers built in Mesopotamia (part of modern 
       Iraq) which all had names suggesting they were perceived as stairways to heaven. 
       Robert Dunbar (1996: 152-3) describes one of these towers from a historical point of 
       view. 
       “The Tower of Babel was no myth: it really did exist. Its name was Etemenanki 
       (meaning “the temple of the platform between heaven and earth”), and it was built 
       some time in the sixth or seventh century BC during the second great flowering of 
       Babylonian power. It was a seven-stage ziggurat, or stepped pyramid, topped by a 
       brilliant blue-glazed temple dedicated to the god Marduk, by then the most 
       powerful of the local Assyrian pantheon. A century or so later, in about 450 BC, 
       the Greek historian Herodotus struggled up the steep stairways and ramps in the 
       hope of seeing an idol at the top. Alas, there was nothing but an empty throne. 
        
       For more, read:  
       Dunbar, R. (1996) Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language Harvard 
       University Press  
        
        
        
        
        
                                             4