胡壮麟_语言学_复习及答案

胡壮麟语言学复习及答案

Chapter I Introduction

IV. Define the following terms:

41. Linguistics 42. Phonology 43. Syntax 44. Pragmatics

45. Psycholinguistics 46. Language 47. Phonetics 48.

Morphology 49.Semantics 50. Sociolinguistics 51. Applied Linguistics 52.Arbitrariness 53 Productivity 54.

Displacement 55.Duality 56. Design Features 57. Competence 58 Performance 59. Langue 60 Parole

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary:

61. Language is generally defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Explain it in detail.

62. What are the design features of human language? Illustrate them with examples.

63. How is modern linguistics different from traditional grammar?

64. How do you understand the distinction between a synchronic study and a diachronic study?

65. Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written?

66. What are the major distinctions between langue and parole?

67. How do you understand competence and performance ?

68. Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole seems similar to Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance. What do you think are their major differences?

69. Do you think human language is entirely arbitrary? Why?

IV. Define the following terms:

41. Linguistics: Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language.

42. Phonology: The study of how sounds are put together and used in communication is called phonology.

43. Syntax: The study of how morphemes and words are combined to form sentences is called syntax. .

44. Pragmatics: The study of meaning in context of use is called pragmatics.

45. Psycholinguistics: The study of language with reference to the workings of mind is called psycholinguistics.

46. Language: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

47. Phonetics: The study of sounds which are used in linguistic communication is called phonetics.

48. Morphology: The study of the way in which morphemes are arranged to form words is called morphology.

49. Semantics: The study of meaning in language is called semantics.

50. Sociolinguistics: The study of language with reference to society is called sociolinguistics.

51. Applied linguistics: In a narrow sense, applied linguistics refers to the application of linguistic principles and theories to language teaching and learning, especially the teaching of foreign and second languages. In a broad sense, it refers to the application of linguistic findings to the solution of practical problems such as the recovery of speech ability.

52. Arbitrariness: It is one of the design features of language. It means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds

53. Productivity: Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the con-struction and interpretation of new signals by its users.

54. Displacement: Displacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker 55. Duality: The duality nature of language means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structure, or two levels, one of sounds and the other of meanings.

56. Design features: Design features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication 57. Competence: Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user's knowledge of the rules of his language,

58. Performance: performance is the actual realization of the knowl-edge of the rules in linguistic communication.

59. langue : Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community; Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow; Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently

60. Parole: Parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use; parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules; parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary:

61. Language is generally defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Explain it in detail.

First of all, language is a system, because elements of language are combined according to rules. Secondly, language is arbitrary because there is no intrinsic connection between form and meaning, or between the sign and what it stands for. Different languages have different words for the same object in the world. This fact is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. This also explains the symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention . Thirdly, language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for all languages, no matter how well - developed their writing systems are.

The term "human" in the definition indicates that language is possessed by human beings only and is very different from the communication systems of other living creatures. The term "communication" means that language makes it possible for its users to talk to each other and fulfill their communicative needs.

62. What are the design features of human language? Illustrate them with examples.

1) Arbitrariness

As mentioned earlier, the arbitrary property of language means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. For instance, there is no necessary relationship between the word elephant and the animal it symbolizes. In addition, different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages, and even within the same language, the same sound does not refer to the same thing. However, language is not entirely arbitrary. There are words which are created in the imitation of sounds by sounds, such as crash, bang in English. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. But the

non-arbitrary words are quite limited in number.

The arbitrary nature of language makes it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions.

2) Productivity

Language is productive or creative in that it makes possible the construction and interpretation of new signals by its users. This is why they can produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences, including sentences that they have never said or heard before. They can send messages which no one else has ever sent before.

Productivity is unique to human language. Most animal communication systems appear to be highly restricted with respect to the number of different signals that their users can send and receive.

3) Duality

The duality nature of language means that language is a system, which consists of two sets of structure, or two levels, one of sounds and the other of meanings. At the lower or the basic level, there is the structure of sounds, which are meaningless, discrete, individual sounds. But the sounds of language can be combined according to rules into units of meaning such as morphemes and words, which, at the higher level, can be arranged into sentences. This duality of structure or double articulation of language enables its users to talk about anything within their knowledge. No animal communication system has duality or even comes near to possessing it.

4) Displacement

Displacement means that language can be used to refer to things which are present or not present, real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future, or in far-away places. In other words, language can be used to refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker. Animal calls are mainly uttered in response to immediate changes of situation.

5) Cultural transmission

Human beings were born with the ability to acquire language, but the details of any language are not genetically transmitted or passed down by instinct. They have to be taught and learned, but animal call systems are genetically transmitted.

63. How is modern linguistics different from traditional grammar?

Traditional gram-mar is prescriptive; it is based on "high "(religious, literary) written language. It sets grammatical rules and imposes the rules on

language users. But Modern linguistics is descriptive; It collects authentic, and mainly spoken language data and then it studies and describes the data in an objective and scientific way.

64. How do you understand the distinction between a synchronic study and a diachronic study?

The description of a language at some point in time is a Synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A synchronic study of language describes a language as it is at some particular point in time, while a diachronic study of language is the study of the historical development of language over a period of time.

65. Why does modern linguistics regard the spoken form of language as primary, not the written?

First, the spoken form is prior to the writ-ten form and most writing systems are derived from the spoken form of language.

Second, the spoken form plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed and it serves a wider range of purposes

Finally, the spoken form is the medium through which we acquire our mother tongue.

66. What are the major distinctions between langue and parole?

The distinction between langue, and parole was made by the famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early this century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow while parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use, but parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable; it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation.

67. How do you understand competence and performance?

American linguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950’s proposed the distinction between competence and performance. Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language. This internalized set of rules enables the language user to produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ungrammatical and ambiguous. According to Chomsky, performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. Although the speaker’s knowledge of his mother

tongue is perfect, his performances may have mistakes because of social and psychological factors such as stress, embarrassment, etc.. Chomsky believes that what linguists should study is the competence, which is systematic, not the performance, which is too haphazard.

68. Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole seems similar to Chomsky’s distinction between competence and performance. What do you think are their major differences?

Although Saussure’s distinction and Chomsky’s are very similar, they differ at least in that Saussure took a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a mater of social conventions, and Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of vies and to him, competence is a property of the mind of each individual.

69. Do you think human language is entirely arbitrary? Why?

Language is arbitrary in nature, it is not entirely arbitrary, because there are a limited number of words whose connections between forms and meanings can be logically explained to a certain extent, for example, the onomatopoeia, words which are coined on the basis of imitation of sounds by sounds such as bang, crash,etc.. Take compounds for another example. The two

elements “photo” and “copy” in “photocopy” are non-motivated, but the compound is not arbitrary.

Chapter 2：Phonology

IV. Define the terms below:

45. phonology 46. phoneme 47.allophone

48. international phonetic alphabet

49. intonation 50. phonetics 51. auditory phonetics

52. acoustic phonetics 53. phone 54. phonemic contrast

55. tone 56. minimal pair

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give ex-amples for illustration if necessary:

57. Of the two media of language, why do you think speech is more basic than writing?

58. What are the criteria that a linguist uses in classifying vowels?

59. What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics?

60. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning.

61. In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not?

IV. Define the terms below:

45. phonology: Phonology studies the system of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.

46. phoneme: The basic unit in phonology is called phoneme; it is a unit of distinctive value. But it is an abstract unit. To be exact, a phoneme is not

a sound; it is a collection of distinctive phonetic features.

47. allophone: The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phoneme.

48. international phonetic alphabet: It is a standardized and internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.

49. intonation: When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as intonation.

50. phonetics: Phonetics is defined as the study of the phonic medium of language; it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world' s languages 51. auditory phonetics: It studies the speech sounds from the hearer's point of view. It studies how the sounds are perceived by the hear-er.

52. acoustic phonetics: It studies the speech sounds by looking at the sound waves. It studies the physical means by which speech sounds are transmitted through the air from one person to another.

53. phone : Phones can be simply defined as the speech sounds we use when speaking

a language. A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. It does not necessarily distinguish meaning.

54. phonemic contrast: Phonemic contrast refers to the relation between two phonemes. If two phonemes can occur in the same environment and distinguish meaning, they are in phonemic contrast.

55. tone: Tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords.

56. minimal pair: When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give ex-amples for illustration if necessary:

57. Of the two media of language, why do you think speech is more basic than writing?

1) In linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing.

2) In everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.

3) Speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his mother tongue, and writing is learned and taught later at school.

58. What are the criteria that a linguist uses in classifying vowels?

1) Vowels may be distinguished as front, central and back in terms of the position of the tongue in the mouth.

2) According to how wide our mouth is opened, we classify the vowels into four groups: close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels, and open vowels.

3) According to the shape of the lips, vowels are divided into rounded vowels and unrounded vowels.

4) The English vowels can also be classified into long vowels and short vowels according to the length of the sound.

59. What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics?

They differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature; it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified. Phonology, on the other hand, is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.

60. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning.

1) The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, such as `import and import. The similar alternation of stress also occurs between a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same elements. A phonological feature of the English compounds is that the stress of the word always falls on the first element and the second element receives secondary stress, for example:

`blackbird is a particular kind of bird, which is not necessarily black, but

a black `bird is a bird that is black.

2) The more important words such as nouns, verbs adjectives , adverbs,etc are pronounced with greater force and made more prominent. But to give special

emphasis to a certain notion, a word in sentence that is usually unstressed can be stressed to achieve different effect. Take the sentence “He is driving my car.”for example. To emphasize the fact that the car he is driving is not his, or yours, but mine, the speaker can stress the possessive pronoun my, which under normal circumstances is not stressed.

3) English has four basic types of intonation, known as the four tones: When spoken in different tones, the same sequence of words may have different meanings. Generally speaking, the falling tone indicates that what is said is a

straight-forward, matter-of-fact statement, the rising tone often makes a question of what is said, and the fall-rise tone often indicates that there is an implied message in what is said.

61. In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not?

A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one sound for other results in a change of meaning. If it does, the two sounds then represent different phonemes.

Chapter 3：Morphology

IV. Define the following terms:

31. Morphology: Morphology is a branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed.

32. inflectional morphology: The inflectional morphology studies the inflections

33. derivational morphology: Derivational morphology is the study of word- formation.

34. Morpheme: It is the smallest meaningful unit of language.

35. free morpheme: Free morphemes are the morphemes which are independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves or in combination with oth-er morphemes. 36. bound morpheme: Bound morphemes are the morphemes which cannot be used

indepen-dently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form

a word.

37. Root: A root is often seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself al-though it bears clear, definite meaning; it must be combined with another root or an affix to form a word.

38. Affix: Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional affixes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories, while derivational affixes are added

to an existing form to create a word.

39. Prefix: Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word . Prefixes modify the meaning of the stem, but they usually do not change the part of speech of the original word.

40. Suffix: Suffixes are added to the end of the stems; they modify the meaning of the original word and in many cases change its part of speech.

41. Derivation: Derivation is a process of word formation by which derivative affixes are added to an existing form to create a word.

42. Compounding: Compounding can be viewed as the combination of two or sometimes more than two words to create new words.

V. Anwser the following questions:

43. What are the main features of the English compounds?

Orthographically a compound can be written as one word, two separate words with or without a hyphen in between. Syntactically, the part of speech of a compound is determined

by the last element. Semantically, the meaning of a compound is idiomatic, not calcu-lable from the meanings of all its components. Phonetically, the word stress of a compound usually falls on the first element.

44. Discuss the types of morphemes with examples.

Free morphemes: They are the independent units of meaning and can be used freely all by themselves, for example, “book-”in the word “bookish”.

Bound morphemes: They are those that cannot be used independently but have to be combined with other morphemes, either free or bound, to form a word such as “-ish”in “bookish”. Bound morphemes can be subdivided into roots and affixes. A root is seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it has a clear and definite meaning, such as “gene-”in the word “generate”. Affixes are of two types: inflectional and derivational. Inflectional morphemes manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as “-s”in the word “books”to indicate plurality of nouns. Derivational affixes are added to an existing form to create a word such as “mis-”in the word “misinform”. Derivational affixes can also be divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes occur at the beginning of a word such as “dis- ”in the word “dislike”, while suffixes occur at the end of a word such as “-less”in the word “friendless”.

Chapter 4：Syntax

IV. Define the following terms:

35. syntax 36. Sentence 37. coordinate sentence 38. syntactic categories

39. grammatical relations 40. linguistic competence 41. transformational rules

42. D-structure

V. Answer the following questions:

43. What are the basic components of a sentence?

44. What are the major types of sentences? Illustrate them with examples.

45. Are the elements in a sentence linearly structured? Why?

46. What are the advantages of using tree diagrams in the analysis of sentence structures?

47. What is NP movement. Illustrate it with examples.

IV. Define the following terms:

35. syntax: Syntax is a subfield of linguistics. It studies the sentence structure of lang uage. It consists of a set of abstract rules that allow words to be combined with othe

r words to form grammatical sentences.

36. Sentence: A sentence is a structurally independent unit that usually comprises a nu

mber of words to form a complete statement, question or command. Normally, a sente nce consists of at least a subject and a predicate which contains a finite verb or a ve rb phrase.

37. coordinate sentence: A coordinate sentence contains two clauses joined by a linkin

g word called coordinating conjunction, such as "and", "but", "or".

38. syntactic categories: Apart from sentences and clauses, a syntactic category usually refers to a word (called a lexical category) or a phrase ( called a phrasal category) t hat performs a particular grammatical function.

39. grammatical relations: The structural and logical functional relations of constituents are called grammatical relations. The grammatical relations of a sentence concern the way each noun phrase in the sentence relates to the verb. In many cases, grammatic al relations in fact refer to who does what to whom .

40. linguistic competence: Universally found in the grammars of all human languages, syntactic rules comprise the system of internalized linguistic knowledge of a language speaker known as linguistic competence.

41. Transformational rules: Transformational rules are the rules that transform one sent ence type into another type.

42. D-structure: D- structure is the level of syntactic representation that exists before movement takes place. Phrase structure rules, with the insertion of the lexicon, generat e sentences at the level of D-structure.

V. Answer the following questions:

43. What are the basic components of a sentence?

Normally, a sentence consists of at least a subject and its predicate which contains a finite verb or a verb phrase.

44. What are the major types of sentences? Illustrate them with examples.

Traditionally, there are three major types of sentences. They are simple sentence, co ordinate( compound) sentence, and complex sentence. A simple sentence consists of a single clause which contains a subject and a predicate and stands alone as its own se ntence, for example:

John reads extensively.

A coordinate sentence contains two clauses joined by a linking word that is called coordinating conjunction, such as "and", "but", "or". For example:

John is reading a linguistic book, and Mary is preparing

for her history exam.

A complex sentence contains two, or more, clauses, one of which is incorporated in to the other. The two clauses in a complex sentence do not have equal status, one is

subordinate to the other. For exam-ple:

Before John gave her a lecture, Mary showed no interest in lin-guistics.

45. Are the elements in a sentence linearly structured? Why?

No. Language is both linearly and hierarchically structured. When a sentence is utte red or written down, the words of the sentence are produced one after another in a s equence. A closer examination of a sentence shows that a sentence is not composed o f sequence of words arranged in a simple linear order with one adding onto another f ollowing a simple arithmetic logic. In fact, sen-tences are also hierarchically structured. They are orga-nized by grouping together words of the same syntactic category, such as noun phrase (NP) or verb phrase (VP), as can be seen from the following tree di agram:

NP VP

Det N Vt NP

Det N

The boy likes the music.

46. What are the advantages of using tree diagrams in the analysis of sentence structu res?

The tree diagram can not only reveal a linear order, but also a hierarchical structur e that groups words into structural constituents. It can, in addition, show the syntactic category of each structural constituent, thus it is believed to most truthfully illustrate the constituent relationship among linguistic elements.

47. What is NP movement. Illustrate it with examples.

NP movement in-volves the movement of a noun phrase. NP-movement occurs when, for example, a sentence changes from the active voice to the passive voice:

(A) The man beat the child.

(B). The child was beaten by the man.

B is the result of the movement of the noun phrases "the man" and "the child" fro m their original positions in (A) to new positions. That is, "the man" is postposed to the right and "the child" is preposed to the left.

Not all instances of NP-movement, however, are related to changing a sentence fro m the active voice to the passive voice. For example:

(D) They seem quite fit for the job.

These sentences are identical in meaning, but different in their superfi-cial syntactic re presentations. It is believed that they have the same underly-ing structure, but (27b) is

the result of an NP movement.

Chapter 5 Semantics

IV. Define the following terms:

31. semantics 32. sense

33 . reference 34. synonymy

35. polysemy 36. homonymy

37. homophones 38. Homographs

39. complete homonyms 40. hyponymy

41.antonymy 42 componential analysis

43.grammatical meaning 44. predication

45. Argument 46. predicate

47. Two-place predication

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?

49. What is componential analysis? Illustrate it with examples.

50. How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth values?

51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous relation, inconsistent relation in terms of truth values?

52. According to the way synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples.

53. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How they differ?

Chapter 5 Semantics

IV. Define the following terms:

31. semantics 32. sense

33 . reference 34. synonymy

35. polysemy 36. homonymy

37. homophones 38. Homographs

39. complete homonyms 40. hyponymy

41.antonymy 42 componential analysis

43.grammatical meaning 44. predication

45. Argument 46. predicate

47. Two-place predication

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?

49. What is componential analysis? Illustrate it with examples.

50. How do you distinguish between entailment and presupposition in terms of truth values?

51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous relation, inconsistent relation in terms of truth values?

52. According to the way synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples.

53. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How they differ?

IV. Define the following terms:

31. Semantics: Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language.

32. Sense: Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de -contextualised.

33. Reference: Reference 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

34. Synonymy :Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning.

35. Polysemy :Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have more than one meaning.

36. Homonymy :Homonymy refers to the pheno广告网址n that words having different mean-ings have the same form, i.e. , different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both.

37. homophones :When two words are identical in sound, they are called homophones

38. homographs :When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs.

39. complete homonyms.:When two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are called complete homonyms.

40.Hyponymy :Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word.

41. Antonymy :Antonymy refers to the relation of oppositeness of meaning.

42. Componential analysis : Componential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was pro-posed by structural semanticists. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a -word can be divided into meaning components, which are called semantic features.

43.The grammatical meaning : The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, i.e. , its grammatical well-formedness . The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by the grammatical rules of the language.

44. predica-tion :The predica-tion is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.

45. ar-gument : An ar-gument is a logical participant in a predication. It is generally identical with the nominal element (s) in a sentence.

46. predicate : A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.

47. two-place predication : A two-place predication is one which con-tains 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 mean-ing 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.

Componential analysis, pro-posed 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 ana-lyzed 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.

The truth conditions that we use to judge presupposition is as follows:

Suppose there are two sentences X and Y

X: John' s bike needs repairing.

Y: John has a bike.

If X is true, Y must be true, e.g. If John' s bike needs repairing, John must have a bike.

If X is false, Y is still true, e. g. If John' s bike does not need repairing, John still has a bike. If Y is true, X is either true or false, e.g. If John has a bike, it may or may not need repairing. If Y is false, no truth value can be said about X, e.g. If John does not have a bike, nothing can be said about whether his bike needs repairing or not. Therefore, X presupposes Y, or Y is a presupposition of X.

51. How do you account for such sense relations between sentences as synonymous relation, inconsistent relation in terms of truth values?

In terms of truth condition, of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false, therefore X is synonymous with Y

e.g. X; He was a bachelor all his life.

Y: He never married all his life.

Of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true, then we can say A is inconsistent with Y

e.g. X: John is married.

Y: John is a bachelor.

52. According to the ways synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify synonyms into? Illustrate them with examples.

According to the ways synonyms differ, synonyms can be divided into the following groups.

i. Dialectal synonyms

They are synonyms which are used in different regional dialects. British English and American English are the two major geographical varieties of the English language. For examples:

British English American English

autumn fall

lift elevator

Then dialectal synonyms can also be found within British, or American English itself. For example, "girl" is called "lass" or "lassie" in Scottish dialect, and "liquor" is called "whisky"

in Irish dialect.

ii. Stylistic synonyms

They are synonyms which differ in style or degree of formality. Some of the stylistic synonyms tend to be more formal, others tend to be casual, and still oth-ers are neutral in style. For example:

old man, daddy, dad, father, male parent

chap, pal, friend, companion

iii. Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning

They are the words that have the same meaning but express different emotions of the user. The emotions of the user indicate the attitude or bias of the user toward what he is talking about . For exam-ple, “collaborator” and “accomplice” are synonymous, sharing the meaning of "a person who helps another", but they are different in their evaluative meaning. The former means that a person who helps another in do-ing something good, while the latter refers to a person who helps another in a criminal act.

iv. Collocational synonyms

They are synonyms which differ in their collocation. For example, we can use accuse, charge, rebuke to say that someone has done something wrong or even criminal, but they are used with different preposi-tions accuse. . . of, charge. . . with, rebuke. . .for. v. V. Semantically different synonyms

Semantically different synonyms refer to the synonyms that differ slight-ly in what they mean. For example, "amaze" and "astound" are very close in meaning to the word "surprise," but they have very subtle differences in meaning. While amaze suggests confusion and bewilderment, " astound" implies difficulty in believing. "

53. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning? How do they differ?

Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized; the situational context and the linguistic context.

For example, the meaning of the word "seal" in the sentence "The seal could not be found" can only be determined ac-cording to the context in which the sentence occurs:

The seal could not be found. The zoo keeper became worried.

(seal meaning an aquatic mammal)

The seal could not be found. The king became worried.

(seal meaning the king's stamp)

Behaviorism drew on behaviorist psychology when he tried to define the meaning of linguistic forms. Behaviorists attempted to de-fine the meaning of a language form as " the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer".