I. Choose the correct term for each definitions. There are extra terms you do not need to use.

A. Binary antonymy E. Figurative meaning I. Homonymy M. Definiteness

B. Gradable antonymy F. Connotation J. Hyponymy N. Paraphrase
C. Constant reference G. Generic sentences K. Reference
D. Variable reference H. Semantic field L. Referent

(Terms nào học rồi thì làm)

1. Sentences that make a statement about a whole unrestricted class of individuals, as apposed to
particular individuals
2. The sense relations in which two sentences express the same proposition
3. A feature of noun phrases that conveys the speaker’s assumption that the hearer can identify the
referent of the expression
4. The organization of related words in a system which shows their relationship to one another
5. The additional meaning that shows people’s attitudes towards what the word refers to
6. The relationship between the word and the object, the person, the action, etc. it refers to
7. The sense relation between words in which the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of
the other
8. The sense relation between words that are at two opposite ends of a continuous scale of values
9. An object or an entity in the real ( or imaginary ) world that is being talked about
10. The type of reference when the same linguistic expression refers to different referents

II. Choose best answer

1. Which of the following statements is true?
A. The denotative meaning of a word is the meaning that the speaker wants to convey.
B. The denotative meaning of a word cannot be described in terms of a set of semantic features.
C. The denotative meaning of a word describes the speaker’s feeling or attitudes.
D. The denotative meaning of a word is the central meaning of that word found in a dictionary.

2. Which of the following is NOT a term used to describe denotative meaning?

A. literal meaning B. referential meaning
C. affective meaning D. descriptive meaning

3. Which of the following belongs to the connotative meaning of woman?

A. generous B. female C. human D. mature

4. Which of the following does NOT belong to the denotative meaning of pig?
A. animal B. domestic C. hairy D. stupid

5. Which of the following utterances would be the most appropriate?

A. Please bring me a cup of coffee.
B. Please take me a cup of coffee.
C. Please take him to me.
D. Please go to me with a cup of coffee.

6. Which of the following can be in a particular regional accent?

A. sentence
B. utterance
C. proposition
D. Both A and C
7. Which of the following expressions is a proposition?
A. My sick cat that is lying in the armchair over here.
B. John Lennon who was assassinated in 1980 by a madman.
C. A man is walking along the street
D. A lovely cat (not understood as an elliptical sentence)

8. Which of the following is NOT a generic sentence?

A. The bear never eats the dead body.
B. The bear in that cage cannot swim.
C. The bear likes honey of the bee.
D. Bears typically hibernate during winter.

9. Which of the following expressions of the sentence My son moved to Da Nang in 1997 has variable
reference?
A. my son B. Da Nang C. move D. in 1997

10. Which of the following is a correct statement about sense?

A. If two expressions have the same reference, they always have the same sense.
B. All words in a language may have reference, but only some words mat have sense.
C. The sense of an expression is its relationship to semantically related expressions in the same
language
D. The sense of an expression is a relationship between a particular object in the world and an utterance

11. The expression William Shakespeare in the sentence William Shakespeare is one of the greatest
playwrights in English Literature has constant reference because
A. it occurs in an equative sentence
B. it can refer to different potential referents.
C. it is not a referring expression.
D. it never refers to different things or people.

III. Explain why the following sentences are said to be semantically anomalous.
a) What are your intentional plans for the summer holidays?
b) He stormed out of the room, slamming the door silently behind him.
c) My brother is an only child
d) The bachelor is pregnant
e) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

IV. For each group of words given below, state what semantic features are shaped by the (a) words and
the (b) words, and what semantic features distinguish between the classes of (a) words and (b) words.
1. (a) lobster, shrimp, crab, oyster, mussel
(b) trout, sole, herring, salmon, mackerel

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

2. (a) widow, mother, sister, aunt, seamstress

(b) widower, father, brother, uncle, tailor

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

3. (a) bachelor, son, paperboy, pope, chief

(b) bull, rooster, drake, ram, stallion
 The (a) and (b) words are:
The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

4. (a) table, pencil, cup, house, ship, car

(b) milk, tea, wine, beer, water, soft drink

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

5. (a) book, temple, mountain, road, traitor

(b) idea, love, charity, sincerity, bravery, fear

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

6. (a) rose, lily, tulip, daisy, sunflower, violet

(b) ash, oak, sycamore, willow, beech
(c) pine, cedar, jew, spruce, cypress

The (a) and (b) and (c) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:
The (c) words are:

7. (a) book, letter, encyclopedia, novel, notebook, dictionary

(b) typewriter, pencil, ballpoint, crayon, quil, charcoal, chalk

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

8. (a) walk, run, skip, jump, hop, swim

(b) fly, skate, ski, ice, cycle, canoe, hang-glide

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

9. (a) ask, tell, say, talk, converse

(b) shout, whisper, mutter, drawl, holler

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:

10. (a) alive, asleep, awake, dead, half-dead, pregnant

(b) depressed, bored, excited, upset, amazed, surprised

The (a) and (b) words are:

The (a) words are:
The (b) words are:
 V. Identify the semantic features in each of the following words.
1. Child:
2. Aunt:
3. Hen:
4. Oak (-tree):
5. Flower:
6. Palm:
7. Bachelor:
8. Actress:
9. Plod:
10. Ewe:
11. Fly:
12. Stallion:
13. Police-officer:
14. Beauty:
15. Imagine:
16. Doe:
17. Drive:
18. Home:
19. Elm:
20. Chalk:
21. Rose:
22. Chick:
23. Pap:
24. Tiptoe:
25. Pine (-tree):
26. Owe:
27. Computer:
28. Honesty:
29. Maid:
30. Spinster:

VI. Explain why the two members of each of the following pairs of sentences do not share the same
proposition
1. (a) John is the parent of James.
(b) James is the parent of John.
2. (a) The fly was on the wall.
(b) The wall was under the fly
3. (a) The hunter bit the lion.
(b) The lion bit the hunter.
4. (a) Jack was injured by a stone
(b) Jack was injured with a stone

VII. Fill in the following chart given with ‘+’, ‘-‘ as appropriate.

Utterances Sentences Propositions

Can be loud or quiet
Can be grammatical or
not
Can be true or false
In a particular regional
accent
In a particular language
Unit 2: Sentences, utterances, and propositions
2. Is semantics concerned only with complete sentences? Explain.

3. Indicate the conventions used in the text to distinguish a sentence from an utterance. Give an illustration
of each.

4. Indicate whether each of the following sentence pairs expresses the same or different propositions.
a Mary read the book / The book was read by Mary
b Fred took back the book / Fred took the book back
c The cat chased the rat / The cat was chased by the rat
d The chef cooked the meal / The chef had the meal cooked
e Hondas are easy to fix / It’s easy to fix Hondas

5. Explain the following from the text (p. 22): ‘Normally, when a speaker utters a simple declarative
sentence, he commits himself to the truth of the corresponding proposition: i.e. he asserts the proposition. By
uttering a simple interrogative or imperative, a speaker can mention a particular proposition, without
asserting its truth.’

6. In each of the following, indicate whether a proposition is asserted or not.

a John left yesterday
b Did John leave yesterday?
c Can John leave this afternoon?
d John, get out of here
e John!

7. Decide whether each pair of sentences below has the same or different propositional content. If they have
the same propositional content, identify the proposition that they both share.
a Can John have some cake? / John has some cake
b Take out the garbage / You will take out the garbage
c Can you pass the salt? / The salt shaker is nearly empty

8. Utterances can be loud or quiet, in a particular regional accent, and in a particular language. Can you
think of other characteristics of utterances?

Unit 3: Reference and sense

2. Can different expressions have the same referent? Give an example not found in this unit.

3. Can the same expression have different referents? Give an example not found in this unit.

4. Give an example of an expression not found in this unit that has an invariable referent and of one that has
no referent.

5. Explain this sentence from this unit in your own words: ‘Every expression that has meaning has sense, but
not every expression has reference’.

6. Characterize a typical dictionary definition of a word. Does the definition include everything a typical
native speaker knows about the word’s meaning? Is it possible to write such an entry which is complete?

7. Comment on the following examples, making reference to concepts introduced in this unit.

a) the Evening Star / the Morning Star

b) the President of the United States / the Commander-in-Chief / the Leader of the Republican Party
c) Visiting relatives can be boring
d) the planet Mars
e) Smoking grass can be dangerous

Unit 4: Referring expressions

2. Which of the following could be used as referring expressions? Be able to explain why or why not.
a my table
b a unicorn
c no love
d travel
e or
f Mary
g a book
h Abraham Lincoln

For sentences 3–6 below decide whether the italicized noun phrases are referring expressions or not, and
explain why (or why not). If the sentence is ambiguous explain why it is ambiguous.

3. His father married a dancer

4. John wants to marry a dancer
5. The whale is the largest mammal
6. The man who shot Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald
7. Explain the ambiguity in: I am looking for a pencil

8. Create a set of circumstances under which the sentence Dan believes that . . . signed the bill is an opaque
context. Use the referring expressions George W. Bush and the President of the United States in your
answer.

9. Which of the following are equative sentences? Explain why.

a Fred is the man with the gun
b William the Conqueror is the current King of England
c Detroit is a nearby city
d Mary is a genius
e A box of cookies is what I would like
f Detroit is not the largest city in the USA

10 Consider the sentence It’s a tree. Assume that this sentence is uttered by a particular person on a
particular occasion to pick out a particular tree. Briefly explain how each of the following technical terms
introduced so far in this book apply to the utterance of this example sentence: sentence, utterance, reference,
referent.

11. Which of the following are generic sentences? Explain.

a Americans like to eat apple pie
b Fred likes to buy Uzis
c A bird lays eggs
d My pet finch just laid an egg

Unit 7: Deixis and definiteness

2. What parts of speech can function as deictics? List them and give an example or two of each, preferably
different from the ones given in this unit.

3. Are deictics a useful device in language, or are they a burden to the speaker? Explain and illustrate.

4. Identify all the deictic expressions in the following sentences and be able to explain why they are decitic.
a You noticed me standing there
b This book was written by that author over there
c Just set your briefcase to the right of mine
d Now we have to make plans for next week
e Her best friend was standing behind John
f All the guests arrived two hours ago

5. Use an utterance of your own to report the following utterances from a vantage point distant in time and
space. Be sure to change the deictic expressions as needed. Assume the people are speaking to you.
a Fred: ‘I will do that assignment tomorrow.’
b Mary: ‘I don’t see any good books here.’
c Fred: ‘Why couldn’t you help me last week?’
6 Is it possible to know the truth value of a sentence with a deictic expression independently of the context
in which it is uttered? Give an example and explain.