Graduation Examination in Linguistics 35 (NEW) – December 08, 2013 at USSH

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Graduation Examination in Linguistics 35 (NEW) – December 08, 2013 at USSH 

Duration: 150 minutes 

Lizard ©  Jwischka

Part 1: SEMANTICS (6 marks) 

1. State whether the following statements are true or false.

a. An utterance can carry out several illocutionary acts simultaneously.

→ True

(Ex: “Can you open the door?” can be both a question and a request.)

b. Paraphrase is two-way entailment.

→ True

c. Analyticity is a relation between sentences.

→ False

d. The meaning of the hyponym is included in the meaning of the hypernym.

→ True

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

a. reptile – lizard ( bò sát - thằng lằn)

(Oxford Dictionary : lizard means a small reptile with a rough skin, four short legs and a long tail.)

→ Hyponymy

b. dangerous – safe

→ Binary Antonymy

c. host – guest

→ Relational Binary

d.  intelligent – smart

→ Synonymy

3. Identify presuppositions of the following.

a. I was eating popcorn when Tom came home.

→ The hear knows who “Tom” refers to.

b. They wish they could take some time off now.

→  They can’t take some time off now

c. John doesn’t regret that he accepted the offer.

→ The hearer knows who “John” refers to and what “offer” it was

→ John accepted the offer.

d. Her boyfriend lives in London.

→ The hearer knows who “her” refers to.

→ She has a boyfriend.

4. State whether the following statements are true or false.

a. I saw a girl entails I saw a person.

→ True

b. She took an umbrella entails she stole an umbrella.

→ False

c. He saw a big mouse entails he saw a big animal.

→ False (b/c: A small elephant is still quite a big animal, whereas the big mouse is not.)

d. The hunter killed the deer entails the deer is dead.

→ True

5. State whether the following statements are perfomatives or constatives.

a. “ I admit I didn’t notice it.”

→ Performative

b. “ Smoking is strictly forbidden.”

→ Constative

c. “ I doubt that it was what he wanted.”

→ Constative

d. “ She has promised to lend me some money.”

→ Performative

6. For the following utterances, give 2 situations so that the utterance performs two different types of acts. Then interpret the utterance in the light of the situations you provide and classify it according to the intended acts.

“ How long will it take”

  

Part 2 : ESSAY WRITING (4 marks)  

Write an essay of 250 – 300 words on one of the following topics.

 1. A sense of humour is the most important of all human qualities. Do you agree ?

2. In very large city in the world, public transport is of great importance. Discuss why this is so.