UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
EXAMINATION FOR INTERNAL STUDENTS
MODULE CODE : ENGL0075
ASSESSMENT : ENGL0075A7PC
PATTERN
MODULE NAME : ENGL0075 – Modern English Grammar
LEVEL: : Postgraduate
DATE : 04/05/2021
TIME : 14:30
This paper is suitable for candidates who attended classes for this
module in the following academic year(s):
Year
Suitable for all
Additional material n/a
Special instructions n/a
Exam paper word
count
The answer to each question should normally not be less than 1000
words, and must not exceed 1500 words.
TURN OVER
ENGL0075
MA in English Linguistics 2021
Paper 1: Modern English Grammar
Answer three questions.
The answer to each question should normally not be less than 1,000 words, and must not exceed 1,500
words; any words beyond the 1,500-word limit will not be marked.
Candidates must not present substantially the same material in any two answers, whether in this paper or
in other parts of the examination.
Candidates must submit their three answers in the form of a single document by the end of a 24-hour
period from the release of the examination paper.
They are reminded that the examination has been designed to follow as closely as possible the format of
the normal three-hour paper, and should not take significantly longer than the desk exam to complete.
The 24-hour format allows flexibility for candidates about when to begin the examination. Candidates in
different time zones, and candidates who for a variety of reasons have an allowance of extra time, will
thus be accommodated within this same format. Candidates must not discuss the assessment with other
students and all work submitted must be the candidate’s own. All submitted work will be checked for
similarity by Turnitin. Apart from quotations from primary or secondary texts, no answer in the
submission may replicate material from any tutorial essay. Submissions will be checked against tutorial
work. At particular points an answer may make use of research and thinking that informed tutorial essays,
and comments received in tutorials, but the general design of the answer and most of the content thereof
must amount to new work responding to the question. Thus, candidates are reminded that they must not
‘cut and paste’ material from tutorial essays (except quotations from primary and secondary texts) into
work submitted for this assessment. It is also forbidden to ‘cut and paste’ material from online teaching
resources (this includes transcripts or audio files of lectures and postings on Discussion Forums).
Since the 24-hour online assessment replaces a desk exam, no formal bibliographies are required, nor
full publication references either in notes or in parentheses, but candidates should identify the texts from
which quotations are drawn.
1 TURN OVER
ENGL0075
1. Discuss how we can test whether the subject of a catenative verb is an ordinary subject or a raised
subject.
2. Write short essays on any two of the following concepts:
a. matrix clause
b. case
c. perfect tense
d. plain form (of verb)
3. Discuss how adjuncts are accommodated within tree diagrams in the X-bar syntax framework.
4. Evaluate the evidence that syntactic priming is lexically-mediated.
5. ‘From the standpoint of what has become traditional in American linguistics, the question is not
whether there are such things as continuous phenomena in parts of human behaviour that lie close to
linguistics – many would grant that there are – but whether such phenomena should be regarded as
the object of linguistic study.’ (Dwight Bolinger)
Discuss.
6. Either:
(i)
‘[R]esults from elicitation tests […] suggest that the mandative subjunctive may be on the increase
in British English (Johansson & Norheim, 1988: 34).’ Write an essay on the mandative subjunctive
construction.
Or:
(ii)
Using the examples below (and others if you wish), discuss the syntactic differences between
integrated and supplementary relative clauses.
a. Parliament voted against the new law, which led to public protests.
b. Parliament, whose role is to challenge the work of the government, voted against the
proposal.
c. I was in central London where I saw Benedict Cumberbatch.
d. We forgot to pass on the message, which was amusing.
e. We forgot to pass on the messages, which were amusing.
f. We forgot to pass on the messages that were amusing.
g. No person who is over 30 listens to K-pop.
h. That’s the woman who spoke at the conference who collects postcards.
i. A: I don’t watch the news.
B: Which explains your limited knowledge of current affairs.
2 CONTINUED
ENGL0075
7. Discuss the difference between modifiers and supplements in Huddleston and Pullum’s
grammar framework.
8. Write an essay on cleft sentences in English.
9. Provide a motivated formal and functional analysis of the following sentence:
They forced the crowd to leave the pitch.
10. To what extent do the patterns of language deficits observed in developmental and acquired
language disorders support the proposal that syntax is based on innate mental structure
11. Write an essay on the notion of equality and inequality in comparative clauses.
12. Identify the lexical morphological operations in the following examples, and discuss the
processes involved in their formation. Discuss the bases and affixes involved in their
formation.
a. These are 5 podcasts you really need to hear.
b. Trump weaponised social media.
c. The pub was burgled as the landlord slept upstairs.
d. It’s never a good idea to microwave ice-cream.
e. The court hears the Duchess of Sussex’s claims over invasive paparazzi.
f. For his trip, he packed his toothbrush, a silk pillowcase, shoe-polish and a few beauty products
from various well-known brands.
g. It is important to edit all drafts prior to submission.
h. The situation has snowballed out of control.
3 END OF PAPER
