全国2011年7月高等教育自学考试
英语词汇学试题
课程代码：00832
I. Each of the statements below is followed by four alternative answers. Choose the one that best completes the statement and put the letter in the bracket. (30 %)
1. Grammarians insist that a word be a __________ form that can function in a sentence.
（　　）
A. small
B. large
C. fixed
D. free
2. In the earliest stage of English, the written form of a word should ________ that of the oral form. ( )
A. agree with
B. disagree with
C. be the same as
D. be different from
3. ____________consists of technical terms used in particular disciplines and academic areas as in medicine, mathematics, etc. （　　）
A. Terminology
B. Jargon
C. Slang
D. Argot
4. Social, economic and political changes bring about such new words as the followings EXCEPT_________. （　　）
A. fast food
B. TV dinner
C. Mao jackets
D. Watergate
5. Reviving archaic words also contributes to the growth of English vocabulary. For instance, “loan”, which was prevalent in the thirteenth century, was replaced by “ __________ ” in American English. （　　）
A. own
B. let
C. rent
D. lend
6. If we say that Old English was a language of __________ endings, Middle English was one of leveled endings. （　　）
A. full
B. short
C. long
D. paralleled
7. The plural morpheme“-s” is pronounced as /z/ in the following words EXCEPT ______________. （　　）
A. bottles
B. eggs
C. zoos
D. maps
8. There is/are _____________ free morphemic word(s) in the following words: wind, man, reddish, collection. （　　）
A. l
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4
9. The following words have inflectional affixes EXCEPT ____________. （　　）
A. likes
B. dislike
C. liking
D. liked
10. The most productive means of word-formation are the following EXCEPT _______________. （　　）
A. affixation
B. blending
C. compounding
D. conversion
11. Prefixes generally do not change the __________ of the stem. （　　）
A. meaning
B. form
C. word class
D. pronunciation
12. The word “dorm” is formed by _________clipping. （　　）
A. back
B. front
C. phrase
D. front and back
13. The word “reading-lamp” is _______ motivated. （　　）
A. onomatopoeically
B. morphologically
C. semantically
D. etymologically
14. The synonymous pair of “ask－question” has the same___________. （　　）
A. motivation
B. value
C. function
D. concept
15. In the sentence “East or west, home is best”, “home” has its __________ meaning of “family, safety, love”, etc. （　　）
A. grammatical
B. connotative
C. stylistic
D. collocative
16. Semantically, a word which is related to other words is related to them in____________。 （　　）
A. sense
B. spelling
C. morpheme
D. root and stem
17. _____________, the derived meanings, no matter how many, are secondary in comparison. （　　）
A. Synchronically
B. Diachronically
C. Etymologically
D. Onomatopoeically
18. The antonyms used in the proverb “Speech is silver; silence is golden” are ____________. （　　）
A. speech-silence
B. golden-silver
C. speech-silver
D. silence-golden
19. In Shakespearean line ‘Rats and mice and such small deer’, ‘6deer’ obviously designates ‘animal’ in general. Therefore ‘deer’ is a typical example of _________. （　　）
A. extension
B. elevation
C. narrowing
D. degradation
20. Observation shows that it is much more common for word meanings to change in denotation from neutral to ____________ than it is for them to go the other way. （　　）
A. important
B. agreeable
C. respective
D. pejorative
21. Among the following words only“________ ” expresses the property of elevation. ( )
A. lust
B. criticize
C. knight
D. silly
22. Which of the following is NOT one of the main functions of context? （　　）
A. Elimination of ambiguity.
B. Indication for referents.
C. Understanding of cultural background.
D. Provision of clues for inferring word-meaning.
23. Which of the following is NOT a context clue? （　　）
A. Definition.
B. Example.
C. Synonymy.
D. Sentence structure.
24. The sentence “The ball was attractive” is ambiguous due to_______________. （　　）
A. grammatical structure
B. lexical context

C. homonymy
D. polysemy
25. Which of the following is one of the characteristics of idioms? （　　）
A. Semantic unity.
B. Lexical manipulation.
C. Phonetic unity.
D. Structural variation.
26. Which of the following is NOT one of the rhetoric characteristics of idioms in general?（　　）
A. Stylistic features.
B. Syntactical features.
C. Rhetorical features.
D. Occasional variations.
27. The idiom “bed of dust” is a ___________ as far as figures of speech are concerned. （　　）
A. simile
B. metaphor
C. metonymy
D. personification
28. Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary is a(n) _____________ dictionary. （　　）
A. unabridged
B. desk
C. pocket
D. encyclopedic
29. When we choose a dictionary, we should not pay attention to whether it is _____________. （　　）
A. monolingual or bilingual
B. general or specialized
C. early or late
D. unabridged or abridged
30. Readers will usually find in a general dictionary the following areas of information of a word EXCEPT _______________ . （　　）
A. spelling
B. definition
C. pronunciation
D. difference with its synonyms

II. Complete the following statements with proper words or expressions according to the course book. ( 15% )
31. The jargon of criminals is generally referred as _____________.
32. From the historical overview of the English vocabulary, the language spoken from 1150 to 1500 is called _____________ English.
33. The morpheme is the smallest _____________unit in the composition of words.
34. The formation of new words by joining two or more stems is called __________________.
35. Unlike conceptual meaning, __________________ meaning is open-ended and indeterminate.
36. From the _______________ point of view, polysemy is assumed to be the result of growth and development of the semantic structure of one and same word.
37. Changing in word ______________ has never ceased since the language came into being and will continue in the future.
38. Based on the ______________________ context, we can determine the meaning of “do the flowers” as “ arrange the flowers”.
39. The stylistic features of idioms are ___________________, slang and literary expressions.
40. The user-friendly features of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English are its clear grammar codes, ____________________ and language notes.
III. Define the following terms. ( 15% )
41. free morphemes
42. allomorphs
43. affixation
44. polysemy
45. linguistic context
IV. Answer the following questions. Your answers should be clear and short. Write your answers in the space given below. ( 20% )
46. What is the difference between root and stem?
47. What is collocative meaning of a word? Please take “pretty” and “handsome” as an example to illustrate your point.
48. By the criterion of grammatical functions, idioms may be classified into five groups. Name the five groups and match the following expressions with them as their examples respectively.
“white elephant” “look into” “beyond the pale”
“tooth and nail” “Never do things by halves. ”
49. What contextual clues do you often use to help you in guessing the meanings of new words?
Demonstrate these clues with examples.
V. Analyze and comment on the following. Write your answers in the space given below. ( 20% )
50. Analyze and comment on the following TWO sentences to illustrate the differences between blending and clipping.
The program will be telecast simultaneously to nearly 150 cities.
It sounds much better in stereo.
51. Analyze the following dialogue and comment on the rhetoric use of homonym in italicized font.
A: “Why is Sunday the strongest day?”
B: “Because all the others are week days. ”