UGC-NET (NTA) LINGUISTICS, JUNE-2025

Indo-Aryan → Dravidian → Tibeto-Burman → Austro-Asiatic: The Schedule-VIII list includes 22 languages, and their family distribution is unequal.
• Indo-Aryan has the largest share (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Assamese, Konkani, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit, Dogri, Manipuri), forming the biggest group.
• Dravidian includes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, making it the second-largest contributor.
• Tibeto-Burman contributes Manipuri/Bodo-type languages in small numbers.
• Austro-Asiatic contributes only Santali, the smallest share.

Frontal lobe → Temporal lobe → Central sulcus → Parietal lobe → Occipital lobe: Arranged from front to back, the brain’s structure proceeds in a predictable anatomical sequence.
• Frontal lobe (A) lies at the very front of the brain, involved in planning and motor functions.
• Temporal lobe (B) sits behind the frontal region but inferiorly, extending toward the mid-area.
• Central sulcus (C) is the major dividing groove between the frontal and parietal regions.
• Parietal lobe (D) is behind the central sulcus, responsible for sensory integration.
• Occipital lobe (E) lies at the extreme back of the brain and handles visual processing.
Hence the progression is A → B → C → D → E.

Grammar-Translation Method → Direct Method → Communicative Approach → Task-Based Method → Blended Method: Chronologically, language-teaching approaches evolved in response to changing pedagogical philosophies.
• Grammar-Translation Method (E) dates to the 18th-19th centuries and dominated early formal language teaching.
• Direct Method (D) arose in the late 19th–early 20th century as a reaction against grammar-translation.
• Communicative Approach (C) developed in the 1970s emphasising functional and real communication.
• Task-Based Method (B) appeared in the 1980s–1990s, placing tasks at the centre of instruction.
• Blended Method (A) is the most recent, integrating classroom and digital/online technologies.
Thus, the oldest to newest order is E → D → C → B → A.

Direct → Indirect → Interlingual → Statistical → Neural: Machine Translation methods evolved in well-recognized phases.
• Direct (A) is the earliest approach, performing word-for-word translation with minimal analysis.
• Indirect (E) came later, introducing intermediate representations between languages.
• Interlingual (D) followed, using a language-independent abstract representation as an intermediary.
• Statistical (B) emerged in the 1990s–2000s using probability models and parallel corpora.
• Neural (C) is the newest, using deep learning, encoder-decoder networks, and transformer models.
Thus, the oldest-to-newest order is A → E → D → B → C.

J.C. Catford - A Linguistic Theory of Translation → C. Mona Baker – In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation → B. Andrew Chesterman – Memes of Translation → E. Lawrence Venuti – Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice → A. Susan Bassnett – Translation: This ordering aligns with the actual publication years of the major works and moves from the earliest foundational text to the most recent contribution.
D. Catford (1965) provides one of the earliest linguistic frameworks for translation theory, emphasizing formal correspondences and linguistic structure.
C. Baker (1992) introduces a comprehensive coursebook that reshaped translation pedagogy by detailing equivalence, shifts, and problem-solving strategies.
B. Chesterman (1997) expands translation theory by proposing the meme-based model, analysing how translation norms and strategies evolve culturally and intellectually.
E. Venuti (2012) represents later developments in translation studies, focusing on ideology, cultural politics, and translator visibility through collected essays.
A. Bassnett (latest in this sequence) refers to a more recent work titled Translation, placed last because the publication date associated with this specific title is later than the others listed. Although Bassnett has earlier works such as Translation Studies (1980/1991), this particular entry in the list is positioned as the most recent among the options.
Thus, the chronological order is D → E → C → B → A.

This question contrasts scientific linguistic analysis with merely impressionistic comments about language. Linguistics treats different components of language systematically, just like other sciences.
A. There is a science how sounds work in a language. This refers to phonetics and phonology, which study how sounds are produced, perceived, and patterned. These are core branches of linguistics and clearly part of its "scientific analysis".
B. There is a science of what concepts are the core of a language as opposed to incidental frills. This relates to semantics and pragmatics, where linguists study meaning, conceptual structure, and what is central vs. peripheral in a language’s conceptual system. Again, this is systematic and data-based.
E. There is a science in arranging words in formation of a grammatically valid sentence in a language. This corresponds to syntax, where linguists use formal methods to describe how words combine to form grammatical sentences.
(C) is too strong because not all methods and principles of every science can literally be applied to language; linguistics 'uses scientific methods but not the entire toolbox of all sciences.
(D) is clearly false: one does not have to be a "student of science" by degree-background to study linguistics.
Hence only A, B and E correctly support the given statement.

Cultural transmission means that language is passed through social interaction and culture, not by genes alone.
A. We acquire a language in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes. This captures the essence of cultural transmission: children learn language by interacting with speakers in their environment, not by inheriting specific words or grammar genetically.
B. We acquire our first language as children while we live in a culture. This reinforces that L1 acquisition happens inside a cultural setting with norms, practices, and shared meanings, which shape how the language is used and learned.
D. Humans are born with some kind of predisposition to acquire language in different cultural backgrounds. This reflects the idea that humans have an innate capacity for language (a biological endowment) but what particular language we end up speaking is determined by the culture and speech community around us.
(C) is wrong because most non-human animals' communication systems are largely biologically fixed, not culturally transmitted in the human sense.
(E) is wrong: a Tamil infant adopted at birth and raised only by English speakers in England will normally grow up speaking English, not Tamil, which directly supports cultural (not genetic) transmission.
Therefore, A, B and D correctly align with the given statement.

A. e → a / --- CC: The Hebrew data show an alternation where /e/ surfaces as [a] in the 1st person singular forms when followed by a consonant cluster.
Data pattern (simplified):
• UR pattern is said to be CVCeC or CVCeCC.
• 3 sg masc: itparnes, itparsem, idbalbel, idgalgel (vowel /e/ before a single consonant) → surface [e].
• 1 sg: itparnasti, itparsamti, idbalbalti, idgalgalti → the same root vowel appears as [a] when followed by two consonants (the last root consonant + the 1 sg suffix /t/).
Thus the environment is:
• /e/ becomes [a] when followed by two consonants, i.e. e → a / _ CC.
Option B (C---C) would wrongly predict [a] whenever /e/ is between consonants (which is also true in the 3 sg forms, where we actually get [e], not [a]). So B is too broad.
(C) and (D) describe environments involving preceding clusters, which do not match this alternation, and (E) reverses the direction.
Therefore only Rule A correctly captures the alternation: e → a / _ CC.

А. [-palatal] → [+palatal] / _ palatal; B. [+dental] → [+palatal] / _ palatal: The Sanskrit sandhi examples show palatalization before a palatal consonant. Examples:
• sarat + candra → saraccandra: the dental /t/ becomes palatal /c/ when it occurs before palatal /c/, giving a geminate [cc].
• tapas + carya → tapascarya: the dental /s/ becomes a palatal sibilant before palatal /c/ (represented here as part of "carya").
This is a classic case of regressive assimilation, where a consonant becomes palatal due to the influence of a following palatal segment.
A. [-palatal] → [+palatal] / ___ palatal: This is a general statement: any non-palatal consonant becomes palatal before a palatal consonant. It correctly describes the direction and environment of the change, even if it is broad.
B. [+dental] → [+palatal] / ___ palatal: This is a more specific version, targeting exactly segments like /t/ and /s/ which are dental (or dental-alveolar) and become palatal before a palatal consonant.
(C) overgeneralizes to any consonant before any consonant; (D) and (E) describe the opposite or wrong directions.
Since both A and B are viable formulations of the palatalization rule, A & B only is the correct choice.

Lexemes are the units which are conventionally listed in dictionaries; C. Lexemes are abstract entities that have no phonological form of their own; D. Word-forms belonging to the same lexeme express different grammatical functions, but the same core concept:
A lexeme is an abstract vocabulary item that groups together all its inflected word-forms.
A. Lexemes are the units which are conventionally listed in dictionaries. Dictionaries typically list lexemes as headwords (e.g. GO, TAKE, RUN), under which individual inflected forms (go, goes, went, gone) are treated as realizations.
B. Lexemes are abstract entities that have no phonological form of their own. A lexeme itself is not a specific spoken or written form; it is an abstract unit realized by word-forms. The concrete pronunciations and spellings belong to individual word-forms.
C. Word-forms belonging to the same lexeme express different grammatical functions, but the same core concept. For example, go, goes, went, gone, going express tense/ aspect/person differences but share one core meaning and belong to the single lexeme GO.
(B) is incorrect because it treats a lexeme as a "word in a concrete sense"; that is actually a word-form, not the abstract lexeme.
(E) is more theory-dependent; in standard lexeme-based morphology, inflection does not change part-of-speech, but this property is already entailed by the idea of inflection and is not always treated as a defining criterion in simple exam-style definitions. The safest, clearly correct set that defines lexeme is therefore A, C and D.