Semantics Questions and exercises
1. Distinguish between denotative and connotative meaning, and give examples of each. 2. What distinction can we draw between sense and reference? 3. What is the difference between lexical and grammatical meaning?
4. Explain the ambiguity of the following sentences by providing two sentences that paraphrase the two meanings: 1) She can't bear children. 2) He waited by the bank. 3) Is he really that kind? 4) You should see her shop. 5) Jan saw the boy with a telescope. 6) They are moving machines. 7) They found the peasants revolting. 8) He met his professor at his house.
9) Challenging wrestlers will be avoided at all costs.
5. Give an opposite for each of the following words, and then divide the pairs into different types of opposite relations.
true, inaccurate, sister, teacher, partner, alive, married, always, failure, above, give, asleep, better, permitted.
6. Explain and exemplify hyponymy.
7. Analyse the semantic components of the following pairs:
man/woman, policeman/cop, goose/gosling, chopstick/fork, rock/pebble
8. Study the following jokes and try to decide weather it’s a case of homonymy or polysemy: 1) Q: Why was the teacher cross-eyed? A: Because she couldn't control her pupils! 2) Q: Why do teachers wear sunglasses? A: Because their students are so bright!
3) Q: What's an eight letter word that has only one letter in it? A: An envelope!
9. For each of the following pairs of sentences, say whether a entails b, b entails a or neither entails the other.
1) a. Cyril the swan is white. b. All swans are white. 2) a. Most fish have scales. b. Barry the goldfish has scales. 3) a. This chalk looks funny. b. The light is bad.
4) a. I invited some of my friend. b. I didn't invite all of my friends. 5) a. John got 40 on all his papers. b. John failed his exams.
10. What are the presuppositions that the following sentences may contain? a. She regretted not accepting the gift from Tony.
b. The Vice-chancellor forgot that the professors supported the student. c. He believes that Mary is home. d. She wants more popcorn. 11. Presupposition or entailment?
l) a. The minister blames her secretary for leaking the memo to the press. b. The memo was leaked to the press. 2) a. He walked to school slowly. b. He walked to school. 3) a. He ate four cakes today.
b. He ate more than three cakes today. 4) a. She regrets leaving Europe. b. She left Europe. 5) a. I saw a dog today. b. I saw an animal today.
6) a. He stopped singing in the shower. b. He used to sing in the shower.
7) a. Dave is angry because Jim crashed the car b. Jim crashed the car.
8) a. Rodney talked to Paul and Sally. b. Rodney talked to Paul 9) a. Rodney has quit smoking. b. Rodney smoked before.
10) a. Rodney went to Philadelphia again. b. Rodney had been to Philadelphia before. 11) a. Mary's husband is a fool b. Mary has a husband.
Key for reference Questions and exercises:
1. Denotation is a straightforward, “literal” meaning of the word every member of the language speaking community will agree on. Connotation is not the basic meaning of the word but some emotive or evaluative meanings associated with the word by individual language users in their
mind.
2. Reference is the arbitrary and somewhat indirect relation between words or expressions and extra-linguistic reality. Reference meaning indicates what a word or an expression refers to in the real world. Sense meaning is conveyed by words or expressions themselves, related to the meanings of other words or expressions within the same language system. For example, \"a unicorn\" and “the present French king\" have senses but they do not have reference. They do not refer to anything in the real world. \"George Washington\" and \"the first president of the United States\" have different senses but the same reference, since they both refer to the same man.
3. Lexical meaning is the meaning conveyed by individual words. Grammatical meaning is the meaning conveyed by the structure of the sentence, in which the function words and the word order play a very important role.
4. 1) She can get pregnant and give birth to a child. She can stand those unpleasant children. 2) He waited by the river bank
He waited by the bank where people invest or borrow money. 3) Is he really as helpful and caring as you have described? Is he really the sort of person as you have described? 4) You should visit the shop she has opened. You should see bow she buys things. 5) Jan saw the boy carrying a telescope, By using a telescope, Jan saw the boy. 6) They are machines that are moving. They are trying to move the machines.
7) They found that the peasants were taking violent actions against authority. They found that the peasants were disgusting. 8) He met his professor at the professor's house.
At his own house, he met his professor who has come to visit him. 9) To challenge wrestlers will be avoided at all costs.
The wrestlers who are very challenging will be avoided at all costs. 5. Gradable antonyms: inaccurate/accurate, better/worse, always/never
Complementaries: true/false, alive/dead, married/single, failure/success, asleep/awake Relational opposites: sister/brother, teacher/student, partner/rival, above/below Reversives: give/receive, permitted/forbidden
6. Hyponymy is the relation between a superordinate and its hyponyms. A hyponym is a subordinate and specific word whose meaning is included in the meaning of a superordinate and general word. For example, the meaning of cook includes toast, boil, fry, grill, roast, bake, etc.（图略）
7. man [+human, +adult, +male] woman [+human, +adult, -male]
policeman [+law-enforcing officer, +male, -informal] cop [+law-enforcing officer, +male, +informal] goose [+animate, -human, +duck-like but larger bird, +adult] gosling [+animate, -human, +duck-like but larger bird, -adult] chopstick [+tool used to eat food, -with points, +used in pairs] fork [+tool used to eat food, +with points, -used in pairs] rock [+stone, +large, -smooth] pebble [+stone, -large ,+smooth]
8. 1) and 3) are cases of homonymy, for pupil1 means \"a child at primary school\" and pupil2 \"the circular black area in the eye\and letter1 means \"a message\" and letter2 \"one of the set of symbols used to write a language\". 2) is a case of polysemy, as bright has two senses, \"shining\" and \"clever\".
9. 1) a entails b. 2) b entails a. 3) Neither entails the other. 4) a entails b. 5) a entails b.
10. a. Tony gave her a gift but she refused to accept. b. The professors supported the student.
c. There is a person called Mary and he knows her. d. She has got some popcorn. 11. Presupposition or entailment? l) presupposition 2) entailment 3) entailment 4) presupposition 5) entailment 6) presupposition 7) presupposition 8) entailment 9) presupposition 10) presupposition 11) presupposition
