Bài giảng Tiếng Anh Lớp 9 - Exercises on semantics 2

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1. EXERCISES ON SEMANTICS Mr. Anh
2. Exercise 12: Now decide whether the following could represent utterances. Indicate your answer by circling Yes or No. (UNIT 2) (1) ‘Hello’ Yes / No (2) ‘Not much’ Yes / No (3) ‘Utterances may consist of a single word, a single phrase or a single sentence. They may also consist of a sequence of sentences. It is not unusual to find utterances that consist of one or more grammatically incomplete sentence-fragments. In short, there is no simple relation of correspondence between utterances and sentences’ Yes / No (4) ‘Pxgotmgt’ Yes / No (5) ‘Schplotzenpflaaaaaaargh!’ Yes / No
3. Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) Yes, even though it would be a bit of a mouthful to say in one utterance (i.e. without pauses). (4) No, this string of sounds is not from any language. (5) No, for the same reason given for (4)
4. Exercise 13: Some examples will help to get the idea of a sentence across. Indicate your answer by circling Yes or No. (1) Do all (authentic) performances of Macbeth begin by using the same sentence? Yes / No (2)Do all (authentic) performances of Macbeth begin with the same utterance? Yes / No (3)Does it make sense to talk of the time and place of a sentence? Yes / No (4) Does it make sense to talk of the time and place of an utterance? Yes / No (5) Can one talk of a loud sentence? Yes / No (6) Can one talk of a slow utterance? Yes / No
5. Answer: (1) Yes (2) No (3) No (4) Yes (5) No (6) Yes
6. Exercise 14: (1) For each of the following label it as an utterance (U) or sentence (S), as appropriate, by circling your choice. (a) “The train now arriving at platform one is the 11.15 from King’s Cross” U / S (b) The pelican ignores the linguist U / S (2) Given our conventions, say what is wrong with the following: (a) John announced Mary’s here in his squeakiest voice (b) “Mary thought how nice John was”
7. Answer: (1) (a) U (b) S (2) ‘Mary’s here’ should be in quotation marks since it represents John’s utterance, i.e. the event of his using those words on a particular occasion. (b) A sentence, which is not a physical thing, cannot be part of an utterance, which is a physical event. ‘How nice John was’ should not be italicized. (Alternatively the whole example should be italicized and the quotation marks removed.)
8. Exercise 15: (1) Does it make sense to ask what language (e.g. English, French, Chinese) a sentence belongs to? Yes / No (2) What languages do the following sentences belong to? Le jour de gloire est arrivé Alle Menschen sprechen eine Sprache
9. Answer: (1) Yes (2) French, German
10. Exercise 16: Which of the following utterances are tokens of whole sentences (S) and which are not (NS)? (1) ‘John’ S / NS (2) ‘Who is there?’ S / NS (3) ‘Mine’ S / NS (4) ‘It’s mine’ S / NS (5) ‘Where shall I . . .?’ S / NS
11. Answer: (1) NS (2) S (3) NS (4) S (5) NS
12. Exercise 17: Given below are some sample conversations. In each case the second utterance is not a token of a sentence. Write out a full sentence expressing the intended meaning more fully. (1) Magnus: ‘When did Goethe die?’ Fred: ‘In 1832’ (2) Hostess: ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ Guest: ‘Coffee, please’ (3) A: ‘Who won the battle of Waterloo?’ B: Wellington’
13. Answer: (1) Goethe died in 1832 (2) I would like coffee please (3) Wellington won the battle of Waterloo
14. Exercise 18: Consider the following pairs of sentences. In each case, say whether there are any circumstances of which one member of the pair could be true and the other false (assuming in each case that the same name, e.g. Harry, refers to the same person). (1) Harry took out the garbage Harry took the garbage out Yes / No (2) John gave Mary a book Mary was given a book by John Yes / No
15. (3) Isobel loves Tony Tony loves Isobel Yes / No (4) George danced with Ethel George didn’t dance with Ethel Yes / No (5) Dr Findlay killed Janet Dr Findlay caused Janet to die Yes / No
16. Answer: (1) No, these are always either both true or both false. We cannot imagine any situation in which one is true and the other false. (2) No (3) Yes, one could be true and the other false. (4) Yes (5) Yes, for example in the situation where Dr Findlay had caused Janet to die, but not intentionally, say by sending her to a place where, unknown to him, she was attacked. Someone else could in fact be guilty of killing her.
17. Exercise 19: In the present-day world, (1) Is it a fact that there are lions in Africa? Yes / No (2) Is the proposition that there are lions in Africa a true proposition? Yes / No (3) Is it a fact that the state of Arkansas is uninhabited by human beings? Yes / No (4) Is the proposition that the state of Arkansas is uninhabited by human beings true? Yes / No
18. Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) No (4) No
19. Exercise 20: (1) If John wonders whether Alice is deceiving him, would it seem reasonable to say that he has the proposition that Alice is deceiving him in his mind, and is not sure whether it is a true or a false proposition? Yes / No (2) If I say to you, ‘If Mary came to the party, Phyllis must have been upset’, do I thereby put in your mind the proposition that Mary came to the party, without necessarily indicating whether it is true or not? Yes / No
20. (3) If I say to you, ‘Was your father in the Navy?’, would it seem reasonable to say that I have the proposition that your father was in the Navy in my mind, and wish to know whether this proposition is true or not? Yes / No (4) Is there something odd about the following sentence? If so, what? Pamela considered the fact that her mother was alive and realized that it could not possibly be true. (5) Is there something similarly odd about the following sentence? If so, what? Pamela considered the proposition that her mother was alive and realized that it could not possibly be true.
21. Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) Yes (4) Yes, there is a kind of contradiction here, in that the same thing is said to be both ‘a fact’ and ‘not possibly true’. (5) No, there is nothing odd about this sentence, because we stated that propositions can be either true or false.
22. Exercise 21: (1) In the following utterances, is any proposition asserted by the speaker? (a) ‘Have you seen my toothbrush?’ Yes / No (b) ‘Get out of here this minute!’ Yes / No (c) ‘I’m afraid that I’ll have to ask you to leave’ Yes / No
23. (2) Would you say that the members of the following sentence pairs have the same propositional content? (a) Go away, will you? You will go away Yes / No (b) Pigs might fly I’m a Dutchman Yes / No (c) I am an idiot Am I an idiot? Yes / No
24. Answer: (1) (a) No (b) No (c) Yes (2) (a) Yes (b) No common proposition is involved. (c) Yes
25. Exercise 22: (1) Fill in the chart below with ‘ + ’ or ‘ - ’ as appropriate. Thus, for example, if it makes sense to think of a proposition being in a particular regional accent, put a ‘ + ’ in the appropriate box; if not, put a ‘ - ’. Utterances Sentences Propositions Can be loud or quiet Can be grammatical or not Can be true or false In a particular regional accent In a particular Language
26. (2) Can the same proposition be expressed by different sentences? Yes / No (3) Can the same sentence be realized by different utterances (i.e. have different utterances as tokens)? Yes / No
27. Answer: (1) (2) Yes (3) Yes
28. Good luck!