Notes (Berndsen)

Semantics

(Additional materials to Fromkin & Rodman Ch. 4)

Some varieties of meaning (Akmajian et al. 1993:197)

Ambiguity

• You should have seen the bull we got from the pope.
• Competent women and men hold all the good jobs in the firm.
• Jane claims that Sarah saw her duck.
• Someone loves everyone.

• She called me last night.
• Did you know that he is a Nobel prize winner.
• If she calls, please tell Teresa I've gone to bed.
• The computer repairman insists that he found nothing wrong.
• She is proud of herself.
• She thinks that Karen is sick.
• If she is sick, Karen will stay at home.

Example

From: Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, p25 in Leech (1974).

I went to the pictures tomorrow,
I took a front seat at the back,
I fell from the pit to the gallery,
And broke a front bone in my back.
A lady she gave me some chocolate
I ate it and gave it her back;
I phoned for a taxi and walked it,
And that's why I never came back.

Some exercises

1. Explain the following examples of polysemy: leg, mouth, branch, tail.
2. Give examples for context in which the following combinations are synonymy: target/goal, shallow/superficial, think/believe.

Exercises from Fromkin & Rodman Ch.4.

1. (F&R:Q1) For each group of words given below, satat what semantic property or properties are shared by the (a) words and what semantic property or properties are shared by the (b) words and what semantic property distinguishes between the classes of (a) words and (b) words.
   A
   1. bachelor, man, son, paperboy, pope, chef
   2. bull, rooster, drake, ram

   B

   1. table, stone, pencil, cup, house, ship, car
   2. milk, alchohol, rice, soup, mud

   C

   1. book, temple, mountain, road, tractor
   2. idea, love, charity, sincerity, bravery, fear
2. (F&R: Q4) There are several kinds of antonymy. Indicate whether the pairs are complementary, gradable, or relational opposites.
   1. good bad
   2. expensive cheap
   3. parent offspring
   4. beautiful ugly
   5. false true
   6. pass fail
   7. hot cold
   8. legal illegal
   9. larger smaller
   10. poor rich
   11. fast slow
   12. asleep awake
   13. husband wife
   14. rude polite
3. (F&R: Q11) The following sentences make certain presuppositions. What are they?
   1. The police ordered the minors to stop drinking.
   2. Please take me out to the ball game again.
   3. Valerie regretted not receiving a new T-bird for Labor Day.
   4. That her pet turtle ran away made Emily very sad.
   5. The administration forgot that the professors support the students.
   6. It is strange that the United States invaded Cambodia in 1970?
4. (F&R: Q5) The following sentences consist of a verb, its noun phrase subject, and various objects. Identify the thematic relation of each noun phrase:
   1. Mary found a ball in the house.
   2. The children ran from that playground to the wading pool.
   3. One of the men unlocked all the doors with a paper clip.
   4. John melted the ice with a blowtorch.
   5. The sun melted the ice.
   6. The ice melted.
   7. Broken ice still melts in the sun.
   8. The farmer's daughter loaded hay onto the truck.
   9. The farmer's daughter loaded the hay with a pitchfork.
   10. The hay was loaded on the truck by the farmer.

Student Group Report

Student Group Report: Melanie Weick, Iris Dörnies