Basic Linguistics | 10 Question Humanities Multiple Choice Quiz

Owing to the fact that my other linguistics quiz is too hard (!), I have decided to write a simpler one. It concentrates less on the theoretical side of linguistics.

A multiple-choice quiz by Matve. Estimated time: 5 mins.

Author
Matve

Time
5 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
98,997

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Tough

Avg Score
6 / 10

Plays
7379

Awards
Top 10% Quiz

Last 3 plays: emmal2000uk (2/10), Guest 192 (7/10), Autrement (8/10).

This quiz has 2 formats: you can play it as a or as shown below.
Scroll down to the bottom for the answer key.

1. Firstly, to which of these language groups does English belong? Hint

Romance

Baltic

Slavonic

Germanic

NEXT>

2. In the sentence 'I took my big brown cat to the vet yesterday', which of the following does *not* appear? Hint

Conjunction

Adverb

Adjective

Preposition

NEXT>

3. True or false: English has no inflections for grammatical case.

True

False

NEXT>

4. What is defined as 'the study of sentence structure'? Hint

Syntax

Phonology

Morphology

Semantics

NEXT>

5. Three of these languages do not have definite articles. Which one does have a structure that serves the purpose of a definite article? Hint

Russian

Finnish

Latin

Swedish

NEXT>

6. In dialectology, what is the line on a map called which divides areas with different forms of a word? Hint

Isogloss

Isotherm

Isobar

Isomer

NEXT>

7. The sounds of a language change over time. English spelling does not always reflect this change: how was the 'gh' in 'night' originally pronounced? Hint

Like English 'ch' in 'church'

Like German 'ch' in 'ich', but voiced

Like German 'ch' in 'ich'

Like English 'y' in 'yellow'

NEXT>

8. Which of these words describes the changing of the form of a verb in order to reflect person, number, tense and mood? Hint

Conjugation

Subordination

Declension

Inversion

NEXT>

9. The combination of sounds 'ms-' is not acceptable as the beginning of a word or syllable in English. In which of these languages is it acceptable? Hint

French

Russian

Finnish

Dutch

NEXT>

10. And finally... Old Norse is almost the same as which modern Scandinavian language? Hint

Icelandic

Swedish

Norwegian

Danish

(Optional) Create a Free FunTrivia ID to save the points you are about to earn:

Select a User ID:

Choose a Password:

Your Email:

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Firstly, to which of these language groups does English belong?

Answer: Germanic

English belongs to the West Germanic branch, along with German, Frisian and Dutch. The North Germanic branch consists of Icelandic, Norwegian, Faroese, Swedish and Danish. East Germanic is extinct, the only attested member being Gothic.

2. In the sentence 'I took my big brown cat to the vet yesterday', which of the following does *not* appear?

Answer: Conjunction

'Big' and 'brown' are both adjectives, 'yesterday' is a temporal adverb and 'to' is a preposition. A conjunction would be something like 'and' or 'but'.

3. True or false: English has no inflections for grammatical case.

Answer: False

English has a genitive/possessive marker of sorts: it is the 's' that appears on the first noun in 'the butcher's shop', for example. In addition, personal pronouns are still inflected for case: in the phrase 'I hit him', 'I' is in the subjective/nominative and 'him' is in the objective/accusative (note the change in form if the roles are reversed: 'He hit me').

4. What is defined as 'the study of sentence structure'?

Answer: Syntax

Morphology is the study of the internal composition of words. Phonology is the study of sound systems (with reference to language rather than to the physical speech act), and semantics is the study of the meaning of words or sentences.

5. Three of these languages do not have definite articles. Which one does have a structure that serves the purpose of a definite article?

Answer: Swedish

In Swedish, the definite article is attached to the noun. So 'flicka', meaning 'girl', becomes 'flickan' when you want to say 'the girl'.

6. In dialectology, what is the line on a map called which divides areas with different forms of a word?

Answer: Isogloss

I hope that was easy, if only because the other options were rather improbable. An example of a possible isogloss would be one dividing areas of England that have a long back 'a' in 'bath', and those that have a short front one. Unfortunately, as sociolinguistics has shown, the picture is more complicated: such variation is social as well as geographical.

7. The sounds of a language change over time. English spelling does not always reflect this change: how was the 'gh' in 'night' originally pronounced?

Answer: Like German 'ch' in 'ich'

English did originally have this sound, believe it or not. Old English was very similar to German.

8. Which of these words describes the changing of the form of a verb in order to reflect person, number, tense and mood?

Answer: Conjugation

Declension applies to nouns and adjectives, rather than to verbs. Subordination and inversion are completely irrelevant!

9. The combination of sounds 'ms-' is not acceptable as the beginning of a word or syllable in English. In which of these languages is it acceptable?

Answer: Russian

It is found in the word 'mstit', meaning 'to get revenge', and also in the name of the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Finnish, by the way, does not allow syllable-inital consonant clusters at all. Many African languages are also like this, and so words like 'screwdriver' have been borrowed into languages as 'sukurudireva'!

10. And finally... Old Norse is almost the same as which modern Scandinavian language?

Answer: Icelandic

It's hardly changed since the Middle Ages. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish have all lost a lot of their inflectional morphology, so that, for example, all the present tense forms of a verb are now identical.

Source: Author Matve

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor coolupway before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Most Recent Scores

Mar 21 2023 : emmal2000uk: 2/10
Mar 20 2023 : Guest 192: 7/10
Mar 19 2023 : Autrement: 8/10
Mar 18 2023 : Guest 104: 4/10
Mar 18 2023 : Guest 162: 4/10
Mar 16 2023 : Guest 216: 2/10
Mar 15 2023 : Guest 188: 2/10
Mar 14 2023 : Guest 146: 3/10
Mar 12 2023 : Guest 175: 6/10

Score Distribution