PG TRB - ENGLISH


1.Which theory’s speech was produced by man’s attempting to imitate some characteristics sound?
a).The Pooh – Pooh theory
b).The bow-wow theory
c).The ding – dong theory
d).The gesture theory

Answer : b).The bow-wow theory

2.Which of the following theory is associated with the German scholar and philologist Max Muller?
a).The Pooh – Pooh theory
b).The bow-wow theory
c).The ding – dong theory
d).The gesture theory

Answer : c).The ding – dong theory

3.Which is not included in the Primitive Germanic group of Indo European Language family?
a).Rumanian
b).Gothic
c).Scandinavian
d).West Germanic

Answer : a).Rumanian

4.Bulgarian, Serbian, Czech,Russian, and Polish are languages of ________ group.
a).Armenian
b).Albanian
c).Balto-salvonic
d).Celtic

Answer : c).Balto-salvonic

5.Historian of the English language distinguish three main stages in its development. 1. Old English or Anglo-saxon period. 2. Middle English period, 3. Modern English Period. Old English Period is __________.
a).100 to 599
b).600 to 1100
c).1100 to 1500
d).1500 to present

Answer : b).600 to 1100

6.Most of the literature of Old English period written in the dialect of ________.
a).Wessex
b).Kentish
c).East Midland
d).Cornwall

Answer : a).Wessex

7.Academic or learned words – vacuum, apex, radius, dictum, quantum are entered into English from ___________.
a).Latin
b).Scandinavian
c).Greek
d).French

Answer : a).Latin

8.The dialect of Wessex attained to the position of a kind of ‘Standard’ one in Old English (Anglo - Saxon) period. Which one dialect came to occupy a similar position in Middle English?
a).West Midland
b).East Midland
c).Cornwall
d).Kentish

Answer : b).East Midland

9.How many gender system in Old English ?
a).1
b).2
c).3
d).4

Answer : c).3

10.It is the name given to that process, seen most clearly in the principle parts of verbs, by which vowel sounds undergo a change according to whether they occur in a stressed or an unstressed syllable.
a).gradation
b).mutation
c).umlaut
d).inflection

Answer : a).gradation

11.The mutation merely means __________.
a).Cancel
b).Change
c).Imitate
d).Deification

Answer : a).Cancel

12.English and Norman-French languages mingled to give what is known as ____________.
a).Old English
b).Middle English
c).Modern English
d).Classic English

Answer : b).Middle English

13.The Reign of Henry II in_______.
a).Old English
b).Middle English
c).Modern English
d).Classic English

Answer : b).Middle English

14.Who declared that ‘except a man knows French men speak of him but little, but low men yet hold to English and to their own speech’
a).Henry II
b).King Alfred
c).Geoffrey Chaucer
d).Robert of Gloucester

Answer : d).Robert of Gloucester

15.1450 or thereabouts ‘English’ had become synonymous with and almost all written documents showed traces in this dialect.
a).West Midland
b).East Midland
c).Cornwall
d).Kentish

Answer : b).East Midland

16.Which of the following is not consisted with East Midland?
a).In most dialects –en became a stock plural termination
b).Dialects showed a prediction for –es
c).Nouns formed their plural in -as
d).Chaucer uses –es for the most part

Answer : c).Nouns formed their plural in -as

17.Which of the option is not consisted in Middle English Period.
a).–an regular for ending of plural
b).–en is became the regular ending for the verbs
c).Chaucer’s day the infinitive without the prefixed to us almost obsolete
d).Greater simplification of the language, was the reduction of inflections

Answer : a).–an regular for ending of plural

18.The definite article ‘the’ introduced in place of ________.
a).Old English
b).Middle English
c).Modern English
d).Classic English

Answer : a).Old English

19.Loan words have come into the language by
a).They may have been brought by foreign invaders who settled here.
b).They may have come through foreign contacts originating in war, exploration, trade, travel.
c).They may come through scholarship, learning and culture.
d).All of the above

Answer : d).All of the above

20. Which of the following right option for ‘serviette’ has become a synonym of
a).Table-napkin
b).Scop
c).Maker
d).Fakir

Answer : a).Table-napkin

21.Phenomenon, phenomena; criterion, criteria are from
a).French
b).Latin
c).Greek
d).Spanish

Answer : c).Greek

22.Terminus, termini; formula, formulae; stratum, strata are from
a).French
b).Latin
c).Greek
d).Spanish

Answer : b).Latin

23.Which is not right one along with the word ‘Index’?
a).Indices is plural
b).Indexes used of books and documents
c).Indices used in scientific or mathematical sense
d).Indices and index are Hebrew plurals

Answer : d).Indices and index are Hebrew plurals

24.‘Seraphim’ is the plural of ‘seraph’ and ‘cherubium’ is the plural of ‘cherub’. These are __________.
a).Greek plurals
b).Latin plurals
c).French plurals
d).Hebrew plurals

Answer : d).Hebrew plurals

25.Creda (creed), cometa (comet), idol (idol), sanct (saint), cleric (clergyman) these words are mostly used in Christianity, introduced in Anglo-Saxon period. These words are originated in _____.
a).Latin
b).Hebrew
c).Greek
d).French

Answer : a).Latin

26.Which of the following foreign contribution have the great influx at the time of Renaissance and Elizabethan period?
a).Latin
b).Hebrew
c).Greek
d).French

Answer : a).Latin

27.The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history is __________.
a).Ontology
b).Philology
c).Anthropology
d).Etymology

Answer : d).Etymology

28.Etymology : The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. The words ‘senior, junior, animal, interim, curriculum, genius, axis’ are etymologically comes from ______.
a).Latin
b).Scandinavian
c).Greek
d).French

Answer : a).Latin

29.The word ‘recipe’ is actually a Latin verb in the imperative mood, it’s meaning is ________.
a).Throw
b).Order
c).Take
d).Serve

Answer : c).Take

30.Choose not right match
a).brunch = (breakfast + lunch)
b).infotainment = (information + entertainment)
c).modem = (modulation/demand)
d).knowledgebase = (knowledge/database)

Answer : c).modem = (modulation/demand)

31. malicious + software =
a).Malsoft
b).Waremal
c).Malware
d).Maliciare

Answer : c).Malware

32. A minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function is called_____________.
Semantics
Syntax
Pragmatics
Morpheme

Answer : Morpheme

33. How many minimal units have in the word ‘reopened’?
one
two
three
four

Answer : three

34. How many minimal unit in the word ‘tour’
one
two
three
four

Answer : one

35. Free morpheme can be
Stand alone
Not to stand alone
Dependent
allomorph

Answer : Stand alone

36. Bound morpheme can be
Stand alone
Not to stand alone
Independent
allomorph

Answer : Not to stand alone

37. ‘A dim religious light’ is the phrase appears in Milton’s _____________.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
Il Penseroso
Samson Agonistes

Answer : Il Penseroso

38. ‘travail’ meant for ___________.
Labour
Book
Voyagers
Passengers

Answer : Labour

39. The phrase ‘squire of dames’ comes form ________.
Pilgrims progress
Faerie Queene
Canterbury Tales
Vicar of Wakefield

Answer : Faerie Queene

40. The word ‘homekeeping’ is used by ______.
Ben Jonson
William Shakespeare
Samuel Johnson
John Milton

Answer : William Shakespeare

41. Who invented the word ‘elfin’?
Shelley
Tennyson
Edmund Spenser
Chaucer

Answer : Edmund Spenser

42. ‘she drives her car in city’. Which of these following is GENITIVE CASE?
She
drive
her
in city

Answer : her

43. Which case is alternative for possessive?
Nominative case
Objective case
accusative case
Genitive case

Answer : Genitive case

44. A term used to describe a pidgin after it has become the mother tongue of a certain population
Creole
dialect
accent
parole

Answer : Creole

45. Each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings is
homorganic
homophone
homograph
homonym

Answer : homonym

46. A new word in the vocabulary of a language
opaque
lexeme
neologism
metalanguage

Answer : neologism

47. Northwest of Greece on the Eastern coast of the Adriatic is the small branch named_____
Albanian
Italic
Balto – Salvic
Celtic

Answer : Albanian

48. Norman, Picard, Burgundian are the dialects of __________.
English
French
Chinese
Latin

Answer : French

49. Which of the following dialect is a variety of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France?
Picard
Ile-de-France
Norman
Provencal

Answer : Provencal

50. Wallon is a dialect of __________ spoken in southern Belgium.
French
English
German
Polish

Answer : French

51. Which of these languages are not a Baltic branch
Prussian
Latvian
Cornish
Lithuanian

Answer : Cornish

52. King Alfred’s English had all the grammatical complexity which exists in modern ________
German
French
Latin
Greek

Answer : German

53. In Old English, it had irrational system of genders: ‘hand’ was feminine, ‘foot’ was masculine. Wife , woman were _________
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
None of these

Answer : Neuter

54. Which of the following is not a characteristic of Old English.
Some nouns made their genitive singular in –es, other in –e, other in –a, and others in –an
The endings which marked the nominative Plurals were –as, -a, -u, -e, -an
Inflections were strictly followed in using nouns and verbs as modern English
We now say ‘I sing, we sing, I sang, We sang’, the old English forms were ‘ic singe’, ‘we singath’, ‘ic sang’ ‘we sungon’

Answer : Inflections were strictly followed in using nouns and verbs as modern English

55. Zaun(German) means
Tree
Tide
Thread
Town

Answer : Town

56. The word ‘pipe’ which originally meant a simple musical instrument and afterwards was applied to other things resembling this in shape. It thus became a general name for a hollow __________.
Resembling box
Cylindrical body
A narrow instrument
Separate joints

Answer : Cylindrical body

57. The verb ‘bend’ is derived from ________ word which in English has the two forms band and bond.
French
Latin
Germanic
Greek

Answer : Germanic

58. The verb ‘carry’ is an adoption of Old French word which meant to convey something in a wheeled vehicle. In English it was applied other modes as people speak or ‘carting’. At presently carting is used for
Carting object from one room to another
Throw the object from top to bottom
To build the house
To stop the work progress

Answer : Carting object from one room to another

59. The name a material often become the name of several different articles made of the material. In this sense, ‘Iron’ may be ________. (Except)
An instrument smoothing linen
A steel part at the end used to hit the ball in golf
A harpoon
A barometer

Answer : A barometer

60. Which is not right one for the meaning of book
A key for ignorance
Light of knowledge
A candle of dark
An instrument to drag towards dark

Answer : An instrument to drag towards dark

61. Urdu is by origin and present structure closely related to ________
Marathi
Tamil
Hindi
Bengali

Answer : Hindi

62. Avestan is the language of Avesta. In which group does Avestan belong?
Iranian
Armenian
Hellenic
Albanian

Answer : Iranian

63. Persian has been the language of an important culture and an extensive literature since the ninth century. Persian is also known as________.
Avestan
Pahlavi
Farsi
Pali

Answer : Farsi

64. Which language group is found in a small area south of the Caucaus Mountains and the eastern end of the Black Sea.
Armenican
Indian
Sanskrit
Albanian

Answer : Armenican

65. Ironic, Aeolic, Arcadian – Cyprian, Doric, Northwest Greek. These are the five principal dialectal groups. These dialects are belongs to the language of __________
Hindi
English
Greek
Latin

Answer : Greek

66. A particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group is called.
Idiolect
dialect
Pidgin
Syntax

Answer : dialect

67. Which of the following is plosive consonant sounds
/f/
/k/
/m/
/n/

Answer : /k/

68. IPA stands for
Internal Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonemic Acoustic
Inter-sound Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet

Answer : International Phonetic Alphabet

69. A branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in spoken languages and signs in sign languages is called.
Morphology
Sociology
Phonology
Philology

Answer : Phonology

70. A combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable is called.
Monophthongs
gliding vowel
zero vowel
null phoneme

Answer : gliding vowel

71. ‘Caviare to the general’, ‘men in buckram’, ‘coign of Vantage’, ‘a tower of strength’, ‘Full of sound and fury’, ‘a Daniel come to judgement’, ‘yeoman service’, ‘the sere and yellow leaf’, ‘hoist with his own petard’, ‘to eat the leek’, ‘curled darlings’, ‘to the manner born’, ‘moving accident’, ‘a triton among the minnows’, ‘one’s pound of flesh’, ‘to wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve’, ‘Sir Oracle’, ‘to gild refined gold’, ‘metal more attractive’, - all these phrased by ______.
Samuel Johnson
John Milton
Ben Johnson
William Shakespeare

Answer : William Shakespeare

72. ‘Darkness visible’ is the phrase appears in Milton’s _____________.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
On His Blindness
Samson Agonistes

Answer : Paradise Lost

73. ‘To hide one’s diminished head’ is the phrase appears in Milton’s _____________.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
On His Blindness
Samson Agonistes

Answer : Paradise Lost

74. ‘The human face divine’ is the phrase appears in Milton’s _____________.
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
On His Blindness
Samson Agonistes

Answer : Paradise Lost

75. Prefix and suffix come to under the category of which morpheme?
Free morpheme
Bound morpheme
lexical morpheme
Inflectional morpheme

Answer : Bound morpheme

76. Which can be identified as set of separate English word forms such as basic nouns, adjectives and verbs?
Free morpheme
Bound morpheme
Derivational morpheme
Inflectional morpheme

Answer : Free morpheme

77. The basic word forms are technically known as _______
semantic
stem
partial
bound morpheme

Answer : stem

78. Identify the stem in the word ‘undressed’
un
dress
ed
undressed

Answer : dress

79. Identify the stem in the word ‘carelessness’
care
less
ness
carelessness

Answer : care

80. In old English ‘tun’ meant a piece of ground enclosed by a fence, and specifically a farm with building upon it. The old English farm-house, surrounded by the cottages of the labourers, later it gradually developed into villages, grew into still larger collections of habitations. The word ‘tur’ means ________in modern English.
Zaun
Town
Village
Farm

Answer : Town

81. The English ‘tide’ is the same word as the German Zeit, and in Old English it had the same meaning namely _________. In Middle English its application was restricted, so that it meant chiefly the time of the periodical rise or fall of the sea. Additionally the words Christmastide, Whitsuntide helps to get the meaning of tide.
Column
Sea
Time
Wave

Answer : Time

82. What is the sense of ‘tide’ in the Old English from the words ‘Christmastide ’, ‘shrovetide’, and ‘whiutsuntide’?
Time
Village
Place
Wave

Answer : Time

83. ‘Centum’ is the ________ word. In English it means ‘Hundred’.
German
French
Latin
Sanskrit

Answer : Latin

84. How many morphs are consists in the word ‘buses’
One
Two
Three
four

Answer : Two

85. Who explained Grimm’s Law consequently?
Karl Varner
James Eyre
William Greenfield
Robert Scott

Answer : Karl Varner

86. Choose odd one from the list which has language groups and family.
Armenian
Hellenic
Germanic
Indo-European

Answer : Indo-European

87. ‘kernel sentences’ means
A sentence has multiple verbs
It is a complex sentence
A simple declarative construction
A sentence is formed using noun words only without verb

Answer : A simple declarative construction

88. 'Syntactic Structures' is a major work in linguistics by American linguist. It was first published in 1957. Who is writer of this book?
Noam Chomsky
Roman Jakobson
Nikolai Trubetzkoy
Charles Sanders Peirce

Answer : Noam Chomsky

89. ‘Aspects of the Theory of Syntax’ is a book on linguistics by
Noam Chomsky
Roman Jakobson
Nikolai Trubetzkoy
Charles Sanders Peirce

Answer : Noam Chomsky

90. Whose poetry must that his language, ‘pseudo-archaic’ as it may be called, was the only fitting vehicle for his tone of thought and feeling?
Samuel Johnson
Chaucer
Edmund Spenser
William Wordsworth

Answer : Edmund Spenser

91. Control, credent, dwindle, illume, lonely, orb (sense of globe) were used by _______ and have not yet been found in any earlier writer.
Ben Jonson
William Shakespeare
Samuel Johnson
John Milton

Answer : William Shakespeare

92. The familiar word ‘braggadocio’ is an allusion to the proper name of the vainglorious knight in _______.
Pilgrims progress
King Lear
Canterbury Tales
Faerie Queene

Answer : Faerie Queene

93. In whose work does the adjective word ‘blatant’ appear first?
Edmund Spenser
John Milton
William Wordsworth
William Shakespeare

Answer : Edmund Spenser

94. lexical morpheme comes under the _______
free morpheme
bound morpheme
functional morpheme
derivational morpheme

Answer : free morpheme

95. Functional morpheme comes under the ______
free morpheme
bound morpheme
functional morpheme
derivational morpheme

Answer : free morpheme