DLAB Cross-Linguistic Comparison 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: English says 'the red big house' sounds wrong, preferring 'the big red house.' This shows that English has a fixed adjective order where size comes before color. Which type of language rule does this demonstrate?
- Phonological rule
- Syntactic ordering constraint on adjectives (Correct answer)
- Morphological rule
- Semantic rule
Correct answer: Syntactic ordering constraint on adjectives
English has a rigid adjective ordering rule: opinion-size-shape-age-color-origin-material-purpose. Size ('big') must precede color ('red'). This syntactic constraint is unconsciously followed by native speakers and differs across languages — French, for example, has more flexible adjective placement.
Question 2: Japanese uses Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order: 'Tanaka-san hon-o yomu' = 'Tanaka book reads.' English uses SVO: 'Tanaka reads a book.' What percentage of world languages use SOV order?
- About 10%
- About 25%
- About 45% (Correct answer)
- About 75%
Correct answer: About 45%
Approximately 45% of the world's languages use SOV order, making it the most common basic word order. SVO (like English) accounts for about 42%. Together, these two orders cover roughly 87% of all languages. VSO, VOS, OVS, and OSV are all much rarer.
Question 3: In Mandarin Chinese, 'ma' can mean 'mother,' 'hemp,' 'horse,' or 'scold' depending on the tone used. What type of language is Mandarin in terms of its use of pitch?
- A stress-timed language
- A tone language where pitch distinguishes word meaning (Correct answer)
- An intonation language
- A pitch-accent language
Correct answer: A tone language where pitch distinguishes word meaning
Mandarin is a tone language with four tones plus a neutral tone. Each syllable's pitch contour (high level, rising, falling-rising, falling) is an integral part of the word's identity. Changing the tone changes the word entirely, unlike English where pitch mainly conveys emotion or sentence type.
Question 4: Turkish 'ev-ler-im-de' means 'in my houses.' Each suffix has one meaning: ev (house), -ler (plural), -im (my), -de (in/at). What type of morphological system does Turkish use?
- Isolating
- Fusional
- Agglutinative (Correct answer)
- Polysynthetic
Correct answer: Agglutinative
Turkish is agglutinative: each suffix carries exactly one grammatical meaning, and suffixes chain together transparently. You can clearly segment 'ev-ler-im-de' into four meaningful parts. This contrasts with fusional languages where a single suffix may encode multiple meanings simultaneously.
Question 5: Arabic forms words using root consonant patterns: k-t-b relates to writing (kitab = book, katib = writer, maktub = written). What is this word-formation system called?
- Compounding
- Root-and-pattern (templatic) morphology (Correct answer)
- Reduplication
- Prefixation
Correct answer: Root-and-pattern (templatic) morphology
Arabic uses root-and-pattern (templatic) morphology where a consonantal root (k-t-b = concept of writing) is inserted into vowel patterns (templates) to create different words. The root carries semantic meaning while the template carries grammatical meaning.
Question 6: English has prepositions ('in the house'), while Japanese has postpositions ('ie ni' = 'house in'). What typological correlation exists between word order and adposition type?
- No correlation exists
- SVO languages tend to use prepositions; SOV languages tend to use postpositions (Correct answer)
- All languages use prepositions
- SOV languages use prepositions
Correct answer: SVO languages tend to use prepositions; SOV languages tend to use postpositions
There is a strong typological correlation: head-initial languages (SVO like English) tend to use prepositions (head before complement), while head-final languages (SOV like Japanese, Korean, Turkish) tend to use postpositions (complement before head). This reflects the broader head-directionality parameter.
DLAB Cross-Linguistic Comparison 1
English says 'the red big house' sounds wrong, preferring 'the big red house.' This shows that English has a fixed adjective order where size comes before color.
Which type of language rule does this demonstrate?