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FLHS, AC
Department of English Studies
Semantics and Pragmatics,S 5
Professor Dr. M. Afkir
Semantics
Exercises
I. Which one of the following statements is correct and which one is not?
1. Reference is a relationship between a word or a sentence and the world.
2. No word can have more than one sense.
3. Reference is a relationship between parts of a language and things outside
language.
4. All words have a sense.
5. All words have reference.
6. The meaning of a word in a dictionary is its reference.
7. The words ‘but’, ‘easy’, ‘if’, and ‘on’ have referents.
II. Comment on synonymy in the light of the following lexical items.
1. die
2. pass away
3. pop off
III. Name the type of semantic relation between the following pairs.
1. cup
handle
2. bring
take
3. strand
hair
4. breeze
wind
5. uncle
aunt
6. even
odd
7. prey
predator
8. moist
dump
9. poodle
dog
10. unusual
odd
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IV. Which one of the following statements is true and which one is not?
1. Oasis is a myronym of desert.
2. Sparrow and vertebrate are co-hyponyms.
3. Tumbler is a hypernym of glass.
4. Lamb is a hyponym of creature.
5. Ship is a myronym of fleet.
6. Lemon and tomato are co-hyponyms.
7. Offspring is a myronym of parent.
8. A pie is a myronym of slice.
9. Bank and bank are homonyms.
10. Conceal is an antonym of reveal.
11. Fare and fair are homonyms.
12. Trout is a hyponym of vertebrate.
13. Spaniel and corgi are superordinates.
V. The relation of hyponymy is transitive. If A is a hyponym of B and B is a hyponym of
C, then A is a hyponym of C. Use the following sets of expressions to investigate
whether meronymy is also a transitive sense relation.
1. knuckle, body, arm, finger, hand
2. country, street, house, city, handle, door