Semantics and pragmatics

Question 1

Literal and figurative meaning:

Explain semantics.

Answer 1

Semantics looks at how meaning can be recovered from linguistic forms such as; morphemes, words and sentences. Which basically means that semantic plays the role of studying the signified of linguistics signs.

Question 2

Explain metonymy.

Answer 2

Metonymy are words that are related to each other in one way or another and also work as a figure of speech to refer to something in different words (that are closely related to it). “Wall St. closed the day on top”, or “the White House reported the latest news on…”

Question 3

Explain synecdoche.

Answer 3

Synecdoche are words that have a part-whole relation, which in turns means that if you refer to a woman by saying; “the pregnant one with the pink top”, you are simply talking about “the/a woman who is pregnant”.

Question 4

Explain metaphor.

Answer 4

A metaphor is a word that is use in figurative speech, i.e. “I’m drowning in work”, which from a grammatical point of view might sound off, but actually makes perfect sense in its figurative speech, since “drowning in work” means that you are overwhelmed by all the work you have to do.

Question 5

Semantic ambiguity:

Explain homophones.

Answer 5

Homophones are two or more written forms that are pronounced the same but have different meaning: meat/meet, to/too/two, flower/flour.

Question 6

Explain homonyms.

Answer 6

Homonyms are words that are spelled the same but have different meaning: address->house/address -> speak to), mean -> bad behavior)/mean -> to mean something.

Question 7

Explain polysemy.

Answer 7

Polysemy are words that have the same form and related meanings: sound, which can mean a loud noise (noun), sound, which can mean to cause sound (verb), sound, which can mean someone is healthy (adjective).

Question 8

Explain vaugness.

Answer 8

Vaugness are sentences which can be interpreted broadly: “He’s a good boy (dog)” which can mean that he is both kind and behaves well.

Question 9

Semantic relations:

Explain synonyms.

Answer 9

Synonyms are words that mean the same thing, or at the very least, the same thing: angry/furious, beautiful/attractive.

Question 10

Explain antonyms.

Answer 10

Antonyms are words in two forms of opposite meaning: dead/alive, little/big, fast/slow (fast is the opposite of slow).
Gradable antonyms: Small->smaller, big->bigger, fast->faster.
Non-gradable antonyms: dead, married, true, and false.

Question 11

Explain hyponyms.

Answer 11

Hyponyms are words which form are included in the meaning of another. Animal->dog->Rottweiler. Dog is a type of animal, whilst Rottweiler is a type of dog.

Question 12

Explain meronyms.

Answer 12

Meronyms are words that refer to a part of something, which in turn refers to the bigger part of it: basically, if you talk about needing “more hands to lift a coffin”, you are basically, by “hand” which is a part of a person, referring to people (a hand is a part of a person, and the hand of a person”.

Question 13

Pragmatics:

Explain pragmatics.

Answer 13

Pragmatics looks at the meaning that is recovered from the context. It studies utterances and the way their meaning is determined by where/when the conversation takes place, who the speakers are, and what information they already have.

Question 14

Explain cooperative principle.

Answer 14

cooperative principle was defined by a British-American philosopher, Paul Grice, and stems from the expectancy of other people following Maxims.

• Maxim of Quantity: [we expect other speakers to] be as informative as needed.
• Maxim of Quality: [we expect other speakers to] try to tell the truth.
• Maxim of Relevance: [we expect other speakers to] be relevant.
• Maxim of Manner: [we expect other speakers to] be clear.

Question 15

Explain speech acts.

Answer 15

In the language we use when we want to reach certain goals, as in when we want to inform, request, command, promise, warn, apologies etc. When one, for example, says that “I will be late”, one is not only uttering a sentence, but also informing and stating that one will be late.

Question 16

Explain direct speech act.

Answer 16

Direct speech act is when you say something straightforward with an interrogative structure – a question. When you use an interrogative structure, you are communicating by using an direct speech act, which means that you really want an answer to your question. For example; “Did my father drop you of at the airport? “.

Question 17

Explain indirect speech act.

Answer 17

Indirect speech act is when you make either a request or a command. For example, asking someone to lend you a hand, is in its shape an interrogative question that expresses a request instead of a question (you want someone to lend you a hand). The same goes with a statement as “I will win!”.

Question 18

Explain deictic expressions.

Answer 18

Deictic expressions are directly linked referents to the context of a speech act. Examples: me (the speaker), you (the listener), now (as the speech act is unfolding), yesterday (the day before the speech act), soon (not a very long time after the speech act), over there (at a certain distance from the participants of the speech act), this (what the speaker is pointing at) etc.

Question 19

Explain presupposition.

Answer 19

Presuppositions are utterances based on certain assumptions that have to be true for the utterance to make sense. For example: “Eddie drove the car to the hospital”. Eddie exists, and he drove the car, and was headed to the hospital – the hospital also exists.