Questiones for Chapter 5 Semantics

1 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.

8. Most languages have sets of lexical items similar in meaning but ranked differently according to

their degree of formality.

9. “it is hot.” is a no-place predication because it contains no argument.

10. In grammatical analysis, the sentence is taken to be the basic unit, but in semantic analysis of a

sentence, the basic unit is predication, which is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.

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 _______. 2 A. the conceptualist view B. contexutalism C. the naming theory D.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. _________ deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic

world of experience.

A. Reference B. Concept C. Semantics D. Sense

28. ___________ refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same

form.

A. Polysemy B. Synonymy C. Homonymy D. Hyponymy

29. Words that are close in meaning are called ______________.

A. homonyms B. polysemy C. hyponyms D. synonyms

30. The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by _______.

A. grammatical rules B. selectional restrictions C. semantic rules D. semantic features

IV. Define the following terms:

31. semantics 32. sense 33 . reference 34. synonymy 35. polysemy 36. homonymy