meanings of all its components because it cannot be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its constituent words. For example; bit the man.
(B) The man bit the dog. If the meaning
(A) The dog of a sentence w
ere 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 meanin gs. As we know, there are two aspects to sentence meaning:
grammatical me
an-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 le
xical and grammatical meaning. It is the product of the meaning of the consti tuent words and of the grammatical con struct ions that relate one word syn tag matically to another. 49. What is componential mples.
Componential
analysis,
analysis? Illustrate it with exa
pro-posed by structural
semanticists,
is a wa
y to analyze word meaning. The approach is based on the belief that the me aning of a word can be divided in to meaning comp onen ts,
which are called s
emantic features. Plus and minus sig ns are used to indicate whether a certai n 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 wo
features of [+ HUMAN,
between entailme
rd “ man ” is ana-lyzed as consisting of the semantic + ADULT, + ANIMATE, +MALE] 50. nt and presupposition lusion.
How do you distinguish
in terms of truth values? Entailment is a relation of inc
Suppose there are two sentences X and Y: X: He has been to Fran
ce. Y: He has been to Europe. In terms of truth values, if X is true, Y is n ecessarily 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 may be true or false, e.g. If he has been e been to France.
If Y is false, X is false,
not been to Europe. If Y is true, X to Europe, he may or may not hav e.g. If he has not been to Europe, we conclude that X entails Y or Y
11
he cannot have been to France. Therefore
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is an entailment of X. The truth conditionsthat we use to judge presuppositi
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on 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 n ot need repairing. If Y is false, no truth value can be said about X, e.g. If Jo hn does not have a bike, nothing can repairing or not. Therefore, 51. How do you account onymous relation, truth condition,
be said about whether his
bike needs
of X. as syn
of
X presupposes Y, or Y is a presupposition for such sense relations
between sentences
inconsistent relation in terms of truth values? In terms
of the two sentences X and Y, if X is true, Y is true; if X is
with Y e.g. X; He was a bachelo
false, Y is false, therefore X is synonymous
r all his life. Y: He never married all his life. Of the two sentences X and Y, i f X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true, then we can say A is inconsist
ent with Y e.g. X: John is married. Y: John is a bachelor.52. According t o the ways synonyms differ, how many groups can we classify
o? Illustrate them with examples. According to the ways synonyms ynonyms can be divided into the following groups. i. Dialectal ey are synonyms which are used in different and American
English
synonyms
int
differ, s
synonyms
Th
regional dialects. British English
are the two major geographical varieties of the Englis
British English
fall
lift
with in British, or \
American English
elevator The n dialectal s
or American
English
itself. For exa
is call which tend to
h Ianguage. For examples:
autu mn
ynonyms can also be found mple, \ed \differ in style or degree of
Scottish dialect,
They are
and \synonyms synonyms
ii. Stylistic synonyms formality. Some
of the stylistic
be more formal, others tend to be casual, and still oth-ers
old man, daddy, dad, father, male pare nt For example:
style
are neutral in .
chap, pa
l, friend, companion iii. Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative m eaning 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
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what he is talking about . For exam-ple, “ collaborator ” a
13
nd “ accomplice ” elps another\
are synonymous, sharing the meaning of \h
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 some one has done someth in
g wrong or even crim in al,
but they are used with differe nt
preposi-ti ons accu different synonym that differ slight-ly i are very close in me
in meanin
se. . . of, charge. . . with, rebuke. . .for. v. V. Semantically s Semantically different synonyms refer to the synonyms n what they mean. For example, \
aning to the word \
g. While amaze suggests conf usi on and -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
bewilderment, \
es difficulty in believing. \How do they differ? y, proposed
One of the oldest was the naming theor by the ancient Greek scholar Plato, who believed
that the words
used in a Ianguage are taken to be la-bels of the objects they stand for. The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between
a lin-guistic for
m and what it refers to. The form and the meaning are linked through the m ediation of concepts in the mind. Contextualism
is based on the presumption
con texts.
and the lin guisti
that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable Two kinds of con text are recog ni zed;
the situati onal con text
c con text. For example, the meaning of the word \seal could n ot be found\
determ ined ac-cord ing
to the con text
i
n which the sentence occurs: The seal could not be found. The zoo keeper b ecame worried. (seal meaning an aquatic mammal) The seal could not be fou nd. The king became
worried. (seal meaning the
king's
stamp) Behaviorism
drew on behaviorist psychology when he tried to define the meaning of ling uistic forms. Behaviorists attempted to de-fine the meaning of a Ianguage for m as \which
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in f
14
the speaker utters it and the response it calls
orth in the hearer\
语言学教程复习题与答案(胡壮麟版第六章)
Historical Linguistics I. Decide whether each of the following statements
is to explore
is Tr meth
la of
ue or False: 1. One of the tasks of the historical linguists
ods to recon struct lin guistic history and establish the relati on ship nguages. 2. Language change is a gradual and constant process, ten in discernible to speakers of the same gen erati on. nglish Ianguage is divided into the periods of Old English,
betwee n therefore
3. The history of the E
Middle English
an
d Modern English. 4. Middle English began with the arrival of Anglo-Saxons, who invaded the British Isles from northern nouns are s. 6. In Old
Europe.
nomin ative, gen itive,
5. In Old English, all the dative and
accusative the subject
case rather
in flected to mark En glish, the verb it. 7. A
direct
of a sentence often precedes
consequenee
tha n follows of the Ren aissa nee Moveme nt was t
change in
he revival of French as a literary Ianguage. 8. In general, linguistic grammar is more noticeable
than that in the sound system and the vocabula
ry of a Ianguage. 9. The sound changes include changes in vowel sounds, a
nd in the loss, gain and movement of sounds. 10. The least widely-spread morphological changes in the historical
development
of English
are the loss
rule of adjec
and addition of affixes. 11. In Old English, the morphosyntactic
tive agreement stipulated that the endings of adjective must agree with the h ead noun in case, number and gender. 12. The word order of Modern Englis h is more variable than that of Old English.
13. Derivation
refers to the proc
ess by which new words are formed by the addition of affixes to the roots, s tems, or words. 14.
“ Smog ” is a word formed by the word-forming process
called acronymy. 15. “ fridge ” is a word formed by abbreviation. 16. Mode
rn linguists are able to provide a consistent account for the exact causes of all types of Ianguage change. 17. Sound assimilation may bring about the lo ss of one of two similar
syllables
in sequenee, as in
phonetically the case of
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语言学教程复习题与答案(胡壮麟版)
