Graduation Examination in Linguistics 8 - March 17, 2013 and October 2011 at USSH

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Graduation Examination in Linguistics 8 - March 17, 2013 and October 2011 at USSH

Duration: 150 minutes

Kids in India © MULKT

Part 1: SEMANTICS (6 marks) 

1. If a woman says she has 3 children, while in fact she has 5, what maxim(s) of conversation does she break ? Is she cooperative ?

→She violates the maxim of quanlity or quantity.
(She doesn't say that she has 5 children.)
→She is not cooperative.

2. Identify one felicity condition that must be sastisfied for the following utterance to be appropriate.

" I fine you 200 dollars for dangerous driving."

→Illocution: fining.
→(one felicity condition) The speaker has authority to fine the hearer. (or) The hearer has been driving dangerously.

3. Identify the sense relations between the words in each of the following pairs. If the words are antonyms, specify what kind of antonyms they are.

a. ravage - destroy → synonymy
b. present - absent 
→ binary antonymy)
c. cat - kitten 
→ hyponymy
d. mango - banana 
→ incompatibility 

4. Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it is an entailment of the sentence printed before it. ( → is used to show one-way entailment and ↔ to show two-way entailment)

a. The blimp was over the house.

↔The house was under the blimp.b. Tom sold a computer to Mark.

↔Mark bought a computer from Tom.
c. John killed Bill.

→Bill is dead.
d. Annie baked a cake.

→Annie baked some food.

5. Identify the word(s) used figuratively, name the figure of speech and provide its meaning.

I can't get the pump back on because this bolt is being uncooperative. 

→Personification. →I can't get the pump back on because I can't control the bolt.

(or) →The bolt is described as being able to have intent and be uncooperative, which means this bolt doesn't work well.

6. Write down one IMPLICATURE that can be drawn from the second speaker's response in the following exchange.

A: "Do you know where Billy Bob is ?"

B: "Well, he didn't meet me for lunch as he was supposed to."

→B may implicature that B doesn't know where Billy Bob is.

Part 2: WRITING (4marks)

Write an essay of 250 - 300 words on One of the following topics

1. Which is more important to you: your career or your family happiness ? Explain.
2. " When people succeed , it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success." Has your personal success come more from hard work or from luck ? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position.