IGNOU MEG 4 Solved Question Paper | December 2024

Table of Contents

Welcome to our blog, In this post, we’re sharing the IGNOU MEG 4 Solved Question Paper of December 2024 examination, focusing on Aspects of Language.

This guide is here to help you prepare for your exams with clear answers and explanations. Whether you’re just starting or revising for your exams, this resource will make studying easier and more effective. 

In this post, we’ll discuss all the answers including the short and long answer questions.

You can also download all previous year question papers of MEG 4 from our website.

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Question 1

1. Write short notes on any two of the following in about 200 words each : 
 
(a) Difference between Diachronic and Synchronic linguistics
 
Diachronic and synchronic linguistics are two approaches to studying language. Diachronic linguistics focuses on the historical development and evolution of language over time. It analyzes how words, grammar, and pronunciation have changed across different periods. For example, studying the shift from Old English to Modern English is diachronic in nature.
 
In contrast, synchronic linguistics examines a language at a specific point in time, without considering its historical background. It looks at structure, usage, and rules as they exist in the present or a fixed moment.
 
In summary, diachronic deals with language change over time, while synchronic analyzes language at a given moment.
(b) The Articulatory System
 
The articulatory system is a crucial part of human speech production, involving the organs that help produce sounds. These organs are classified into three main groups: respiratory, phonatory, and articulatory. The lungs provide airflow, the vocal cords in the larynx vibrate to produce voiced sounds, and the articulators shape those sounds.
 
The primary articulators include the tongue, lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate (velum), and glottis. By adjusting their positions and movements, we produce different speech sounds like vowels and consonants. The articulatory system, therefore, plays a key role in enabling spoken language.
(c) Speech Community
 
A speech community refers to a group of people who share a common language or dialect and follow similar linguistic norms and practices. Members of a speech community may differ in age, gender, or social status but are united through shared rules of language use, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.

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Question 2

2. Write a note on the chief characteristics of human language.
 
Human language is a complex, rule – governed system of communication that distinguishes humans from all other species. It possesses several unique characteristics that allow individuals to express ideas, emotions, and abstract concepts. Some of the chief features of human language include the following:
 
1. Arbitrariness:
 
The relationship between words and their meanings is largely arbitrary. For example, there is no inherent connection between the word “dog” and the animal it represents. Different languages use entirely different sounds for the same concept, indicating that meaning is assigned by social convention rather than by logic or necessity.
 
2. Displacement:
 
Human language allows speakers to talk about the things that are not present in the immediate environment. This includes events from the past, predictions about the future, hypothetical scenarios, and abstract ideas. This quality of displacement makes human communication flexible and expansive.
 
3. Productivity (Creativity):
 
Language users can generate an infinite number of sentences from a limited set of rules and vocabulary. This creative aspect allows speakers to produce and understand sentences they have never heard before, which is not generally possible in animal communication systems.
 
4. Duality of Patterning:
 
Human language operates on two levels. At the first level, basic meaningless sounds (phonemes) are combined to form meaningful units (morphemes and words). At the second level, these units are combined to form larger meaningful structures such as phrases and sentences. This dual structuring is crucial to language flexibility.
 
5. Cultural Transmission:
 
Language is not biologically inherited like animal calls; it is learned through interaction with other speakers in a cultural environment. Children acquire the language spoken around them regardless of their biological lineage.
 
6. Discreteness:
 
Language is composed of distinct and separate units — sounds, words, and rules — that can be rearranged in systematic ways. These units do not blend into one another and can be analyzed and manipulated independently.
 
7. Reflexivity:
 
Humans can use language to talk about language itself, a feature known as reflexivity. This metalinguistic ability enables speakers to discuss grammar, vocabulary, or language usage.
 
These features make human language a highly advanced, symbolic, and efficient medium of communication that reflects and shapes human thought and culture.
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Question 3

3. What are the factors which influenced English spelling through the ages ? Answer with appropriate examples.
 
English spelling has undergone significant changes over the centuries due to various historical, social, linguistic, and technological factors. These influences have resulted in a system that is not always phonetic and often appears inconsistent. Several key factors have shaped English spelling:
 
1. Influence of Foreign Languages:
 
After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French became the language of the ruling class in England. This brought many French words into English, often with their original spellings intact or only slightly modified (e.g., government, court, ballet, buffet). Latin, the language of the Church and scholarship, also contributed to the English vocabulary and spelling, especially during the Renaissance. Words like science, agenda, and formula reflect Latin influence.

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Question 4

4. Write an essay on the vowel phonemes of English.
 
The vowel phonemes of English form a crucial part of the language’s sound system and play a central role in speech production and word differentiation. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound capable of distinguishing meaning. In English, vowel phonemes are sounds produced without any significant obstruction to the airflow in the vocal tract, and they vary based on several articulatory factors, such as the position of the tongue (high, mid, low), the part of the tongue used (front, central, back), the shape of the lips (rounded or unrounded), and the degree of muscle tension (tense or lax).
 
English vowel phonemes are commonly categorized into monophthongs (pure vowels) and diphthongs (gliding vowels). Monophthongs have a single, steady sound quality and do not change during articulation. Received Pronunciation (RP), a standard accent of British English, contains 12 monophthongs:
 
Front vowels: /iː/ (seat), /ɪ/ (sit), /e/ (bed), /æ/ (cat)
 
Central vowels: /ʌ/ (cup), /ɜː/ (bird), /ə/ (sofa)
 
Back vowels: /ɑː/ (car), /ɒ/ (hot), /ɔː/ (saw), /ʊ/ (put), /uː/ (food)
 
The schwa /ə/ is particularly notable as it is the most frequent vowel in spoken English, typically found in unstressed syllables.
 
In contrast, diphthongs involve a movement or glide from one vowel sound to another within the same syllable. English RP has eight diphthongs, which are:
 
Closing diphthongs: /eɪ/ (say), /aɪ/ (my), /ɔɪ/ (boy), /aʊ/ (now), /əʊ/ (go)
 
Centring diphthongs: /ɪə/ (near), /eə/ (air), /ʊə/ (pure)
 
These diphthongs enhance the dynamic nature of English pronunciation and often pose challenges for non-native learners due to their complexity.
 
Vowel phonemes in English are also subject to variation across different dialects and accents. For instance, in American English, the distinction between /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ found in RP is often neutralized. Additionally, regional accents may merge certain vowels or pronounce diphthongs as monophthongs, influencing both comprehension and identity.
 
Phonologically, vowels contribute to syllable structure and stress patterns, while orthographically, English spelling inconsistencies can obscure vowel pronunciation (e.g., “seat” vs. “great”). Grammatically and lexically, vowel changes may indicate tense or word class shifts (e.g., “sing” vs. “sang”; “record” as noun vs. verb).
 
In conclusion, English vowel phonemes are integral to the sound system, and understanding them enriches one’s ability to speak, comprehend, and teach the language effectively. Their complexity, variety, and regional adaptability make them a fascinating area of study within English linguistics.

Question 5

5. Discuss the inflectional morphology of the English noun.
 
Inflectional morphology refers to process by which words change their form to convey grammatical information such as number, case, gender or tense. In English, nouns have a relatively simple inflectional system, especially when compared to more inflectionally rich languages like Latin or Russian. For English nouns, the primary inflectional categories are number (singular/plural) and case (possessive/non-possessive). Gender is natural rather than grammatical in English, and definiteness is marked by articles rather than noun inflections.

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Question 6

6. Write an analytical essay on clauses and sentences.
 
Language is structured hierarchically, and two of the fundamental building blocks of this structure are clauses and sentences. Understanding the distinction and relationship between them is essential for mastering grammar, constructing clear communication, and analyzing linguistic meaning. Both clauses and sentences consist of words arranged according to grammatical rules, but they differ in complexity, function, and syntactic independence.

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