Bài giảng Tiếng Anh Lớp 9 - Exercises on semantics 1

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1. EXERCISES ON SEMANTICS Mr. Anh
2. Exercise 1: Reproduced below is a well-known passage from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. Pick out all the instances of the word mean (or means, or meant), noting which lines they occur in. (Some line numbers are given in the margin for convenience.) After the passage there are some questions for you to answer. 1 “. . . that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents.” “Certainly,” said Alice. “And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for
3. 5 you!” “I don’t know what you mean by “glory,” ’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knockdown argument for you.” ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean ‘a nice knockdown argument,’ Alice 10 objected. ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ 15 ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’
4. (1) What word is the subject of the verb mean in line 5? (2) What is the subject of the verb mean in line 9? (3) What is understood as the subject of the verb mean in line 12? (4) List all the instances (by line number) where mean, means, or meant has a personal subject, e.g. I or you. (Include instances already listed in the questions above.) (5) List all the instances (by line number) in which mean, or means, or meant is understood as having as subject something linguistic, e.g. a word, or words. (Include instances mentioned in questions above.)
5. Answer: (1) you (2) the word glory (3) it, or a word (4) lines 6, 8 (5) lines 9, 12, 12, 13
6. Exercise 2: (1) Do the following two English sentences mean (approximately) the same thing? Yes / No I’ll be back later and I will return after some time (2) Is the answer to the previous question obvious to a normal speaker of English? Yes / No (3) In the light of your reply to (2), if I ask ‘What did John mean when he said he’d be back later?’, would you be giving the helpful kind of answer that I probably want if you said ‘He meant that he would return after some time’? Yes / No
7. (4) In asking ‘What did John mean when he said he’d be back later?’ is the questioner primarily asking • (a) what the SENTENCE I’ll be back later means, or • (b) what JOHN meant in saying it? (a) / (b) (5) A dictionary can be thought of as a list of the meanings of words, of what words mean. Could one make a list of what speakers (e.g. John, you, or I) mean? Yes / No (6) Do you understand this question? Yes / No
8. Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) No, this would be a statement of the obvious, and therefore unhelpful. (4) asking what JOHN meant in saying it, most usually. (5) No, speakers may mean different things on different occasions, even when using the same words. (6) Assuming you are a competent English speaker, yes, you do understand the literal meaning of the interrogative sentence in question (6); but at the same time you may not clearly understand what we, the authors, mean in asking you this question. We mean to point out that understanding, like meaning, can be taken in (at least) two different ways.
9. Exercise 3: Read the following conversation between two people, A and B, at a bus stop one morning. (The lines are numbered for reference.) Then answer the questions (1)–(8). 1 A: ‘Nice day’ 2 B: ‘Yes, a bit warmer than yesterday, isn’t it?’ 3 A: ‘That’s right – one day fine, the next cooler’ 4 B: ‘I expect it might get cooler again tomorrow’ 5 A: ‘Maybe – you never know what to expect, do you?’ 6 B: ‘No. Have you been away on holiday?’ 7 A: ‘Yes, we went to Spain’ 8 B: ‘Did you? We’re going to France next month’
10. 9 A: ‘Oh. Are you? That’ll be nice for the family. Do they speak French?’ 10 B: ‘Sheila’s quite good at it, and we’re hoping Martin will improve’ 11 A: ‘I expect he will. I do hope you have a good time’ 12 B: ‘Thank you. By the way, has the 42 bus gone by yet? It seems to be late’ 13 A: ‘No. I’ve been here since eight o’clock and I haven’t seen it’ 14 B: ‘Good. I don’t want to be late for work. What time is it now?’ 15 A: ‘Twenty-five past eight’
11. (1) Does speaker A tell speaker B anything he doesn’t already know in lines 1, 3, and 5? Yes / No (2) Does A’s statement in line 7 give B any new information? Yes / No (3) When B says ‘Did you?’ in line 8, is he really asking A to tell him whether he (A) went to Spain? Yes / No (4) Is there any indication that A needs to know the information that B gives him about travelling to France? Yes / No
12. (5) Does A’s ‘That’ll be nice for the family’ in line 9 give B any information? Yes / No (6) Do A’s statements in lines 13 and 15 give B any information that he (B) needs? Yes / No (7) At what point does this conversation switch from an exchange of uninformative statements to an exchange of informative statements? (8) At what point does the information exchanged begin to be of a sort that one of the speakers actually needs for some purpose in going about his everyday business?
13. Answer: (1) probably not (2) Yes, probably (3) No (4) No (5) probably not (6) Yes (7) with B’s enquiry in line 6 (8) with B’s question in line 12
14. Exercise 4: Consider the following strained exchange between husband and wife. Then answer the questions (1)–(8). Husband: ‘When I go away next week, I’m taking the car’ Wife: ‘Oh. Are you? I need the car here to take the kids to school’ Husband: ‘I’m sorry, but I must have it. You’ll have to send them on the bus’ Wife: ‘That’ll be nice for the family. Up at the crack of dawn, (ironically) and not home till mid-evening! Sometimes you’re very inconsiderate’ Husband: ‘Nice day’
15. (1) This conversation includes three utterances which were also used in the polite bus stop conversation between A and B. Identify these three utterances. (2) When the wife in the above exchange says ‘Are you?’ is she thereby in some sense taking up a position opposed to that of her husband? Yes / No (3) In the bus stop conversation, when A says ‘Are you?’ (line 9), is he in any sense taking up a position opposed to B’s position? Yes / No (4) When the wife, above, says ‘That’ll be nice for the family’, is she expressing the belief that her husband’s absence with the car will be nice for the family? Yes / No
16. (5) When A says to B at the bus stop ‘That’ll be nice for the family’, is he expressing the belief that going to France will be nice for the family? Yes / No (6) Is A’s remark at the bus stop ‘Nice day’ a pointed change of subject for the purpose of ending a conversation? Yes / No (7) What is the function of this remark of A’s? (8) When the husband uses these same words about the weather, above, what does he mean by it?
17. Answer: (1) ‘Are you?’, ‘That’ll be nice for the family’, and ‘Nice day’ (2) Yes (3) No (4) No, she is probably being sarcastic (5) Yes (6) No (7) part of a polite prelude to more interesting conversation (8) In the husband’s case, the remark is used to end a conversation, rather than initiate one.
18. Exercise 5: Look at the following utterances and state whether they are intended to be taken literally (Yes) or not (No). (1) Tired traveller: ‘This suitcase is killing me’ Yes / No (2) Assistant in a shop: ‘We regularly do the impossible; miracles take a little longer’ Yes / No (3) During a business meeting: ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog situation’ Yes / No (4) During a heated argument: ‘Don’t bite my head off!’ Yes / No (5) Hungry person at the dinner table: ‘I could eat a horse!’ Yes / No
19. Answer: 1) No (2) No (3) No (4) No (5) No
20. Exercise 6: (1) Can two people hold an ordinary conversation without knowing the meanings of the words they are using? Yes / No (2) Is it reasonable to say, if I use such English words as table and chair in the normal way in my conversation, communicating the usual messages that one does with these and other words, that I know the meanings of the words table and chair? Yes / No (3) If one knows the meaning of a word, is one therefore necessarily able to produce a clear and precise definition of its meaning? Yes / No (4) Conversely, if several speakers can agree on the correct definition of a word, do they know its meaning? Yes / No
21. (5) Do you happen to know the meaning of the word ndoho in the Sar language of Chad, Central Africa? Yes / No (6) Would a sensible way to find out the meaning of ndoho be to ask a speaker of Sar (assuming you could find one)? Yes / No (7) The word ndoho in Sar means nine, so it is not a particularly rare or technical word. Would any normal adult speaker of Sar be an appropriate person to approach to ask the meaning of the word? Yes / No (8) If a native speaker of Sar insists that ndoho means nine (or the number of digits on two hands, less one, or however he expresses it), while a distinguished European professor of semantics who does not speak Sar insists that ndoho means ten (or dix, or zehn, however he translates it), who do you believe, the Sar-speaker or the professor?
22. Answer: (1) No (2) Yes (3) No, being able to give the definition of the meaning of a word is not a skill that everyone possesses. (Studying semantics should considerably sharpen this skill.) (4) Yes, it would seem reasonable to say so. (5) Probably you don’t. (6) Yes (7) Yes, although some speakers, possibly through shyness or embarrassment, might not be able to give you a perfectly clear answer. (8) the Sar-speaker
23. Exercise 7: Mark each of the following statements true (T) or false (F). (1) Alive means the opposite of dead. T / F (2) Buy has an opposite meaning from sell. T / F (3) “Caesar is and” is not a meaningful English sentence. T / F (4) “Caesar is a prime number” is nonsensical. T / F (5) “Caesar is a man” is nonsensical. T / F
24. (6) Both of John’s parents are married to aunts of mine is in a sense contradictory, describing an impossible situation. T / F (7) If the sentence John killed Bill is true of any situation, then so is the sentence Bill is alive. T / F (8) If someone says, ‘Can you pass the salt?’, he is normally not asking about his hearer’s ability to pass the salt, but requesting the hearer to pass the salt. T / F (9) If someone says, ‘I tried to buy some rice’, his hearer would normally infer that he had actually failed to buy rice. T / F
25. Answer: (1)T (2)T (3)T (4)T (5)F (6)T (7)F (8)T (9)T
26. Exercise 8: Think carefully about each of the following general statements, and try to say whether it is true (T) or false (F). (1) Proper names (like English John or German Hans or French Jean) have a different kind of meaning from common nouns (like English man, or German Mann or French homme). T / F (2) Prepositions (like English under, or German unter, or French sous) have a different kind of meaning from both proper names and common nouns. T / F (3) Conjunctions (like English and or German und, or French et) have yet a further kind of meaning from both proper names and common nouns, and prepositions. T / F (4) Articles (e.g. English the, German der, or French le) have a different kind of meaning from proper names, common nouns, prepositions, and conjunctions. T / F
27. Answer: (1)T (2)T (3)T (4)T
28. Exercise 9: This practice assumes a knowledge of French and German: do as much as you can. Mark each of the following statements true (T ) or false (F). (1) In German, lebendig means the opposite of tot. T / F (2) In French, acheter has an opposite meaning from vendre. T / F (3) Cộsar est et is not a meaningful French sentence. T / F (4) In German, Caesar ist Primzahl is nonsensical. T / F
29. (5) In French, Et la mốre et le pốre de Jean sont mariộs à mes tantes is in a sense contradictory, describing an impossible situation. T / F (6) In German, if the sentence Hans hat Willi getửtet is true of any situation, then so is the sentence Willi ist tot. T / F (7) If a German speaker says, ‘Kửnnen Sie mir das Salz reichen?’, he is normally not asking about his hearer’s ability to pass the salt, but requesting the hearer to pass the salt. T / F (8) If a French speaker says, ‘J’ai essayộ d’acheter du riz’, his hearer would normally infer that he had failed to buy rice. T / F
30. Answer: (1)–(8) T
31. Exercise 10: (1) Is there an exact equivalent in French for the English word parent ? Yes / No (2) Can the English phrase aunts of mine (as in married to aunts of mine) be straightforwardly translated into French? Yes / No (3) Explain the difference between the two German sentences Kửnnen Sie mir das Salz reichen? and Kannst Du mir das Salz reichen? (4) Can a similar nuance of meaning be straightforwardly conveyed in English? Yes / No
32. Answer: (1) No, French parent means something broader, translatable by English relative or kinsman. (2) No, mes tantes and plusieurs de mes tantes do not quite translate the English aunts of mine exactly. (3) A speaker of the first sentence would be on less intimate terms with his hearer than a speaker of the second sentence. (4) No
33. Exercise 11: Look at Hecataeus’ map of the world below (after Grosser historischer Weltatlas, ed. H. Bengston, 1972), originally drawn about 520 B.C.; then answer the questions.
34. (1) Is there enough similarity between this map and a modern map to conclude that they are both attempts to represent the same thing? Yes / No (2) In what areas would a modern map coincide most closely with this? (3) In what areas would a modern map diverge most from this? (4) Does it seem reasonable to assume that a modern map is generally a better representation of the actual geographical facts? Yes / No
35. (5) Is it conceivable that a modern map could be wrong in some respects? Yes / No (6) How must the correctness of a map ultimately be checked? (7) Are climatic conditions or geological facts represented on a typical modern map? Yes / No (8) Are there new techniques, invented outside the immediate domain of the map-maker, available to the modern mapmaker, but unavailable to the ancient mapmaker? Yes / No (9) Have the actual geographical facts changed in any way since 520 B.C.? Yes / No
36. Answer: (1) Yes (2) in the central areas, around the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean (3) in the peripheral areas, West Africa, Africa south of the Sahara, Northern Europe, the Far East, and the New World (4) We have no alternative but to assume that our modern account of the facts is more likely to be correct than the ancient one. (5) Yes (6) by comparing it with factual data gathered from the site of the map itself (7) No, these dimensions are usually absent, so even a modern map is far from representing ‘all the facts’. (8) Yes, for instance, aerial photography, photographs from satellites, etc. (9) Very slightly – the odd river might have changed its course, and man-made objects, e.g. cities and canals, have appeared and disappeared.
37. Good luck!