Answers to Discussion Questions, In APS Reader

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• Final exam study guide

• Language relatedness and methodology of language classification (APS page 18)
• Sound change: a "movie" to explore changes in Latin "c" > French (see APS 25-26)
• Sound change, relative chronology, and phonemic effects of change (APS pages 42-43)
• Sound change types and strength hierarchies (APS page 49)
• Grimm's law: borrowings vs. native words in English (APS page 52)
• Comparative reconstruction (APS pages 58-61)
• Internal reconstruction (APS pages 66-68)
• PRACTICE QUIZ

  Web version (with answers)

  Downloadable pdf (without answers)

• Analogy (APS pages 82-84)
• Grammaticalization (APS pages 93-94)
• Semantic change (APS pages 101-103) (pdf file)
• Writing and the evolution of writing (Not included in APS reader Spring 2006)
• Genetic Inheritance, Areal Contact, Typological Convergence (APS pages 114-116)

• Practice problems for genetic, areal, and typological classification (pdf file)
• KEY to Practice problems for types of classification (pdf file)

Final examination study guide

For the most part, the best way to study for the 110 final exam is to review your assignments for that correspond to the respect sections of the final (go to assignment keys). Problems on the final will be structured very much like the comparable problems on the assignments--they will require the same types of reasoning and the same types of answers. For further practice, you might want to review the discussion problems from the APS reader by following the links in the menu above.

I currently working on the final, so there may be some revisions, but the things that you should be prepared to deal with are the following:

• Genetic, areal, and typological grouping of languages: you should be able to group languages through lexical resemblances, as in Assignment 1, and you should be able to distinguish resemblances between languages has having their source from inheritance (genetic affiliation), contact (areal affiliation), or convergence (typological contact. You may download a practice problem and its key.
• Comparative reconstruction and sound change: you should be able to reconstruct a proto-sound system by setting up correspondence sets of cognate items in related languages, as in Assignment 5 and formulate sound changes as in Assignments 3 and 4.
• Internal reconstruction: you should be able to reconstruction an earlier stage of a language by "undoing" phonological alternations that resulted from sound change, as in Assignment 6.
• Analogical change: You should be able to distinguish sound changes from analogical changes and to recognize models for the analogical changes as well as like motivations for the analogical changes, as in Assignment 7. You should be able to identify types of analogical changes, such as "leveling", "replacement", "back formation", etc., as in question IV of Assignment 7. However, on the final this question will be a "matching" exercise, where you are given a list of change types and must match them to examples of the types.
• Grammaticalization: you should be able to explain the process of grammaticalization of "substantive" lexical items through fading/bleaching of meaning and reinterpretation of function, as on Assignment 8.
• Semantica change: you should be able to explain semantic change as an application of the "one meaning, one form ideal, as in analogical change, and/or as fading/bleaching and reinterpretation, as in grammaticalization. A key to the practice exercises in the APS reader is available.

There will be no questions on Indo-European sound laws or on types of sound change, such as those that you saw on the mid-term.