Descriptive Linguistics Assignment, 5th May 2017

I. Read and do the instructions.

A. Read the following data:

1. a. A horse eats grass.
    b. Horses eat grass.
    c. *Horses grass eat.
    d. *Grass eat horses.

2. a. Rudy sent a bar of chocolate to Liza.
    b. Rudy sent Liza a bar of chocolate.
    c. *Rudy Liza sent a bar of chocolate.
    d. *Rudy Liza a bar of chocolate sent.

B. Answer the questions:

1. a. Do sentences 1.a. and b have the same or different meaning?
    b. Do sentences 1 have the same elements?
    c. Why are sentences 1.a & b are legitimate (grammatically correct)?
    d. Why are sentences 1.c & d are not legitimate?

2. a. Do sentences 2.a & b have completely the same meanings?
    b. or sentences 2.a & b have similar meanings but they have slightly different ones?
    c. Why are sentences 2.a & b are legitimate (grammatically correct)?
    d. Why are sentences 2.c & d are not legitimate?



II. Read the following texts and answer the questions.

1. a. Bukit rumah itu mengambil sendiri semua kembalian dari alas kaki besok yang lalu.

    b. These colourless green ideas sleep on no where very soundly silent.

2. a. Eats one apple every morning the man.

    b. Iwan’s Budi car Tom’s drove office to.

Task One.

1. Do you know the meanings of all words in (1)?
2. Can you find parts of the sentences in (1) which can be supposed to be functional elements of the sentences (S V O A)?
3. Write each parts and identify the category (NP, VP, AP, PP).
4. Based on each category of the phrases, try to identify the meanings. Can you get the meanings of every phrases?
5. Identify the meaningful phrases and meaningless ones. Try to discuss with your friends and references, why are certain phrases meaningful and not meaningful?

Task Two

1. Do you know the meanings of all words in (2)?
2. Without any manipulations, do you get the meanings of the strings of words as a whole?
3. Without any manipulations, can you identify parts of the strings which are supposed to be elements of the sentences (S V O A)?
4. Is there any relation between the orders of the words and meanings?

Task Three

1. Do you find different reasons that cause sentence (1) and (2) meaningless?
2. Related to the way you think, what makes sentence (1) meaningless?
3. Related to the way you think, what makes sentence (2) meaningless?
4. For sentence (1), is it the orders of the words or the combinations that cause meaninglessness?
5. Or, is it your mental condition that causes meaninglessness?