Preparing for the Final Exam
1. Go to Test and Test 2 papers. Find your weaknesses and start with working on them first.
2. Now study Chapter 8 (Syntax, which was not covered in either test. Please note that you will only be required to work with English sentences; other languages are not included at this stage. Make tree diagrams. Use the symbols on pp. 100 and 101. Go to the Pink links under Syntax on our main webpage and study tree diagrams and structural ambiguity.
3. Move to Phonology and Phonetics. This is most students' weakness. Make use of the book first and then any videos you haven't watched on my webpage (the pink links). The videos should make it easier for you to remember the rules. Study the vowel charts and the many examples I provided of different sounds. Transcribe random words from the GS list and then check your transcription online (Cambridge Online Dictionary) or in dictionary that uses the same IPA system. Remember the two slashes / / when you transcribe a word or a voice. With a friend, practise the opposite: that you get transcriptions and then you write their orthographic form (i.e. as they are spelled in English). Memorise the description of each sound, consonant or vowel. Now study coarticulation. Remember to use it automatically in transcription if it happens in a single word (e.g. handbag, friendship, etc.)
4. Go to Grammar Chapter. Study the part up to Grammatical Gender intensively. Understand the rest. But you will be supposed to analyse sentences using Bracket analysis. The same sentences you are practicing for tree diagrams exercise under Syntax can be used for Bracketed analysis.
5. Study Word Formation. Memorise the definition of each of the nine processes and all the examples in the book for each process. Study the multiple processes too and its examples. Now study the links with additional examples I provided online under Word Formation.
7. Morphology. This needs you to be focused too. Definitions, examples, use random words from the textbook (or any book) to analyse words into morphemes. Use my online handout to guide you too. Make sure you can explain the part on allomorphs and provide examples (practice examples from the book and also bring in your own examples).
8.Chapter 2- memorise the definitions of human language properties and examples (animal language is NOT included)
What to focus on while studying
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Definitions- useful particularly in essay questions when you explain a linguistic point.
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Being able to provide examples of any term (nouns, inflectional morpheme, allophones, proper noun, abstract nouns, suffixes, backformed words, coinage, allomorphs, verb phrase, ... etc.) and to provide technical terms for any given examples.
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To compare two related points (e.g. grammatical gender vs. natural gender; morpheme vs. allomorph; free vs. bound morpheme; clipping vs acronyms; article vs. preposition; etc.
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Be read to analyse any word to its basic morpheme or to transcribe it- and the other way round: to write orthographic form of transcriptions provided.
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Be read to explain (using technical terms) a group of words at the phonological level (as in the last question in Test 1) or morphological level (as the last question in Test 1) or the word formation level (as in the question before the last in Test 2).
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To analyse sentences using tree diagrams
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To identify parts of speech of certain words in a a sentence
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To provide interpretations (or the deep structures) of ambitious sentences or phrases
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To be able to use your knowledge to answer a question similar to the last questions in Test 1 and 2 in which you explain something
