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篇一:《《语言学导论》第05章练习及答案)》
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.Behaviorists 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.{Customer,service,is,generally,presumed,to,be,a,means,by}.
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.{Customer,service,is,generally,presumed,to,be,a,means,by}.
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.{Customer,service,is,generally,presumed,to,be,a,means,by}.
46. Predicate： A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.{Customer,service,is,generally,presumed,to,be,a,means,by}.
47. Two-place predication： A two-place predication is one which contains two arguments.
V. Answer the following questions.
48. Why do we say that a meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components？
The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components because it cannot be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its constituent words. For example：
（A） The dog bit the man.
（B） The man bit the dog.
If the meaning of a sentence were the sum total of the meanings of all its components， then the above two sentences would have the same meaning. In fact they are different in meanings.
As we know， there are two aspects to sentence meaning： grammatical meaning and semantic meaning. The grammatical meanings of “the dog” and “the man” in （A） are different from the grammatical meanings of “the dog” and “the man” in （B）. The meaning of a sentence is the product of both lexical and grammatical meaning. It is the product of the meaning of the constituent words and of the grammatical constructions that relate one word syntagmatically to another.
49. What is componential analysis？ Illustrate it with examples.{Customer,service,is,generally,presumed,to,be,a,means,by}.
Componential analysis， proposed by structural semanticists， is a way to analyze word meaning. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components， which are called semantic features. Plus and minus signs are used to indicate whether a certain semantic feature is present or absent in the meaning of a word， and these feature symbols are usually written in capitalized letters. For example， the word “man” is analyzed as consisting of the semantic features of [+ HUMAN， + ADULT， + ANIMATE， +MALE]
50. How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth values？
Entailment is a relation of inclusion. Suppose there are two sentences X and Y： X： He has been to France.
Y： He has been to Europe.
In terms of truth values， if X is true， Y is necessarily true， e.g. if he has been to France， he must have been to Europe.
If X is false， Y may be true or false， e. g. if he has not been to France， he may still have been to Europe or he has not been to Europe. If Y is true， X may be true or false， e.g. if he has been to Europe， he may or may not have been to France.
If Y is false， X is false， e.g. If he has not been to Europe， he cannot have been to France. Therefore we conclude that X entails Y or Y is an entailment of X.
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