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Revision
Sentence meaning
A – Questions for discussion:
1. What is compositionality? Assertion? Presupposition?
2. What is entailment? The differences between paraphrase and entailment?
3. The basis for the distinction of types of process.
4. Discuss the different functions of participants in terms of sentence representation.
5. Discuss the kinds of modality?
6. What are ways of expressing modality?
7. Some lexical verbs like “believe”, “suppose” are said to be expression of modality.
Discuss.
8. Discuss different semantic roles and give examples for illustration.
9. The difference between the affected and the effected. Give examples for illustration.
10. Distinguish between the truth-value and truth conditions of a proposition.
11. Give an account of the four logical operations.
12. Discuss the degrees of predicators. Give examples for illustration.
B – Exercises
I. True/false
1. Two sentences are synonymous when they express the same proposition.
2. Whether a sentence contains any referring expressions or not depends on the time and
place at which the sentence occurs.
3. The meaning of the sentence is determined mostly by the meanings of the words of
which it is composed and partly by its grammatical structure.
4. Marking may be semantic. The unmarked member has a more general meaning.
II. Give a componential analysis of the representational meaning available in the
following sentence:
a. William came to see his coach yesterday, complaining about his loss of the gold
medal.
b. He was thinking hardly about the job offer.
c. He sensed a hidden plan in her words.
d. The president shook everyone’s hands except for his.
e. Long long ago, there lived an old woman with her little granddaughter in the faraway
wood.
III. Under what circumstances are the following composite propositions true:
a. If he fails this test, he will not be allowed to take another during the next three
months.
b. Either Frank or Marry can be the chairperson of the boarding meeting.
c. He kicked the dog and flung it out of the door.
d. You can use either my car or Jim’s motorbike.
IV. Represent notionally the proposition below:
a. I believe that he will come back to you soon.
b. Beautiful girls can be dangerous.
c. All the fruit are on the table already.
V. Epistemic (E) or Deontic (D):
a. You need to deliver all the papers before 7a.m
b. There must have been a severe fight here last night.
c. Move this mess out of my way!
d. She might or might not come, we are not sure yet.
e. It is compulsory that everyone fill in this form before entering the entrance gate.
VI. Sentence types and their possible functions
Sentence
a.
I wish I could reach those stars
b.
If I were you, I would take that offer.
c.
Can you pass the salt please!
d.
Could you pass the salt please!
e.
Look at the mess you’ve made under
your chair!
f.
Note that the female cell has two Xshaped chromosomes.
g.
Is it right to increase the income tax?
h.
I’d like a day return ticket please!
i.
Alice came home late yesterday for the
first time.
Sentence type/mood
Function
VII. Identify the semantic roles of the underlined arguments:
a. The milkman delivers milk for the whole town every early morning.
b. The huge machine crushed the old cement building down yesterday afternoon.
c. She cooked the meal and put the children to bed.
d. The Browns arrived at Heathrow airport at mid night.
e. He tossed the question back to me for revenging.
f. Not every audience felt happy with the ending of the play.
g. It is he who took me cross the fierce river.
h. He was the principal of this school ten years ago.
i. She was speechless on hearing the news.