Module 11: Got some change, mate?

Here are some possible answers:

  1. Speakers make incomplete sentences because it “saves time”. If it is clear what is meant, there is no need for a sentence to be complete. Incomplete sentences are frequently used when answering questions. Contrary to what is often believed, incomplete sentences are not considered to be wrong in linguistics. Quite the contrary, incomplete sentences are often more appropriate than complete sentences: “What’s the score?” – “2:1”. This is much more “natural” than “What’s the score? - “The score is 2:1”. There is normally no need to repeat what is already said in the preceding utterance. An incomplete sentence is technically known as ellipsis.
  2. The use of some and any much depends on the speaker’s expectations. If the answer is expected to be favourable, some is likely to be used in questions. Actually, any could be understood as eliciting a negative answer. It would be rather impolite to ask someone if they wanted “any coffee”.
  3. In British English, Have you got…? is more likely to occur in cases like this, with Do you have…? being reserved for different cases (Do you have a party every week?). In American English, Do you have…? is perhaps more frequent.
  4. The use of mate, a colloquial word, is a more familiar form of address.
  5. The beggar uses change to avoid the rather more direct word money and to minimize the amount of imposition made on the addressee. The use of change is slightly euphemistic. Both the structure of the sentence and the context indicate which meaning of change is intended. It is quite normal for words to have multiple meanings, much more normal than is normally assumed (cf. head, foot, mouse, paper, smart, play, run, tomorrow, etc.) A word with different but related meanings like change is technically known as polyseme. Most current words are polysemes.
  6. The utterance basically means “Give me some money!”. It is a request. This is technically known as an indirect speech act. It is indirect because form and function (question and request) do not coincide. If the question was a question it would be a direct speech act, but then the passer-by could just say “Yes” or “No” and move on. But this is clearly not the intention of the utterance.
  7. This form of pronunciation is typical of the speech of lower class London. It is an example of socio-geographical variation. Eliza Dolittle, the flower girl in Shaw’s Pygmalion, pronounces this sound, a diphthong, just like the beggar. Since her teacher, Professor Higgins, wants her to overcome this accent, he trains her speech by making her say sentences like “The rain is Spain falls seldom in the plain”.
  8. Words often sound different when spoken in isolation and when used as part of an utterance. This is known as connected speech. You often find the strong form of a word, e.g.         in isolation or when the word is stressed, and you often find the weak form of the same word, e.g.        in connected speech.
  9. In general, the form         is preferred in Britain, the form         in America. This is an example of regional variation.
  10. In order to understand the utterance, the addressee has to mentally identify the borderline between the words. This is one of the main reasons why understanding a spoken text is so much more difficult than understanding the same text in its written form.
  11. Some letters in English which are not pronounced now used to be pronounced at some stage in the past. The spelling system somehow reflects an older stage of the language.

How do you think these items can be classified? Which of them belong together, and which different areas of language are affected? Is there also anything that these items have in common?

» Solution