Chapter5Semanticsrcises.doc

Chapter 5 Semantics I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False: 1. Dialectal synonyms can often be found in different regional dialects such as British English and American English but cannot be found within the variety itself, for example, within British English or American English. 2. Sense is concerned with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience, while the reference deals with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. 3. Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations. 4. In semantics, meaning of language is considered as the intrinsic and inherent relation to the physical world of experience. 5. Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. 6. Behaviourists attempted to define the meaning of a language form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer. 7. The meaning of a sentence is the sum total of the meanings of all its components. II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given: 11. S_ can be defined as the study of meaning. 12. The conceptualist view holds that there is no d_ link between a linguistic form and what it refers to. 13. R_ means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. 14. Words that are close in meaning are called s_. 15. When two words are identical in sound, but different in spelling and meaning, they are called h_. 16.R_ opposites are pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items. 17. C _ analysis is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components. 18. Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called s_ restrictions, which are constraints on what lexical items can go with what others. 19. An a_ is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal element(s) in a sentence. 20. According to the n _ theory of meaning, the words in a language are taken to be labels of the objects they stand for. III. There are four choices following each statement. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement: 21. The naming theory is advanced by _. A. Plato B. Bloomfield C. Geoffrey Leech D. Firth 22. “We shall know a word by the company it keeps.” This statement represents _. A. the conceptualist view B. contexutalism C. the naming theoryD.behaviourism 23. Which of the following is not true ? A. Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. B. Sense is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form. C. Sense is abstract and de-contextualized. D. Sense is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are not interested in. 24. “Can I borrow your bike” _ “ You have a bike.” A. is synonymous with B. is inconsistent with C. entails D. presupposes 25. _ is a way in which the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. A. Predication analysis B. Componential analysis C. Phonemic analysis D. Grammatical analysis 26. “alive” and “dead” are _. A. gradable antonyms B. relational opposites C. complementary antonyms D. None of the above 27. The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by _. A. grammatical rules B. selectional restrictions C. semantic rules D. semantic features 28. _ refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form. A. Polysemy B. Synonymy C. Homonymy D. Hyponymy Define the followin