A speaker says, 'My grandmother grew up on a farm that was sold forty years ago.' Which design feature does this sentence most clearly show?
ADuality of patterning
BDisplacement
CInterchangeability
DRapid fading
The sentence describes people, places, and events far removed in time and space from the moment of speaking. That ability is displacement.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
The English word 'dog,' French 'chien,' and Spanish 'perro' all name the same animal. Which feature does this best illustrate?
AArbitrariness
BProductivity
CCultural transmission
DDiscreteness
Nothing about the sounds of these words resembles a dog. Different languages pair different forms with the same meaning, which shows that the link between form and meaning is arbitrary.
Question 3 True / False
Because Hockett's original list included the vocal-auditory channel, linguists today do not consider sign languages to be full human languages.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Research on sign languages, beginning with William Stokoe's work on American Sign Language in 1960, showed that they have phonology, morphology, syntax, and all the structural design features. Linguists treat them as full natural languages; the vocal-auditory channel is not considered a defining feature.
Question 4 Short Answer
What is duality of patterning, and why does it make human language so efficient?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Duality of patterning means language has two levels: a small set of meaningless sounds (phonemes) and a large set of meaningful units built by combining them. English uses a few dozen phonemes to build tens of thousands of words, so a small inventory produces a very large vocabulary.
Without duality, every meaning would need its own distinct signal. Combining reusable meaningless parts is what lets a vocabulary grow without limit.