IPES-CO
LINGÜÍSTICA Y ANÁLISIS DEL DISCURSO
4TH YEAR
TEACHER: Carina V. Bujardón
Assignment 11
Study Questions - Semantics
I. Using semantic features, how would you explain the
oddness of these sentences?
(a) The television drank my water.
In this first sentence, the verb to drink requires a subject who can
carry out this action, but the subject in this case is television, so
although syntactically it is fine, semantically it is not.
(b) His dog writes poetry.
The same happens in this second sentence, the verb to write
requires a subject that can carry out this action (human), but the
subject in this case is dog, so although syntactically it is fine,
semantically it is not.
II. How is the term “prototype” used in semantics?
The prototype is the characteristic instance of a category. The
concept of a prototype helps explain the meaning of certain words,
like bird, not in terms of component features (e.g. “has feathers,”
“has wings”), but in terms of resemblance to the clearest example.
III. Identify the semantic roles of the seven noun phrases in
this sentence.
With her new golf club (instrument), Anne Marshall (agent)
whacked the ball (theme) from the woods (source) to the grassy
area (goal) near the hole (location) and she (experiencer) suddenly
felt invincible.
IV. What is the basic lexical relation between each pair of
words listed here?
(a) assemble/disassemble: antonymy (reversives)
(b) damp/moist: synonymy
(c) deep/shallow: antonymy (gradable)
(d) dog/schnauzer: hyponymy
(e) furniture/table: hyponymy
(f) married/single: antonymy (non-gradable)
Jerez Joaquín
