Ling 315/Psych 315 - Semantics

Honor Code policy: You are free to discuss the assignment orally with others taking the class (making sure you are contributing and not just absorbing others' ideas). But don't share written work with one another until after the assignments are graded. Also don't use written work from students in previous years of this class. If you wish, you can test out data on native speakers of English from outside the class (who haven't taken the class and/or are NOT linguistics grad students or profs). Do not consult a dictionary for this assignment. Careful thought probing your own and/or other speakers' native intuitions is the main vehicle to an insightful analysis.

Assignments should be typed/computer-printed. Total points 40.

Suggestion: allow yourself time to think about the assignment before writing, but leave plenty of time for writing. An analysis that seems perfectly straightforward when you talk or think about it may be hard to 'put into words'. Part of the exercise lies in sharpening your ability to clearly get across what you mean about meaning--not a simple task.

1. What semantic features (or components or meaning properties; terminology is flexible at this point) are present in the meanings of the following words in (a)-(b) below? For each case, give justifications for your features. In your justifications, support your claims by citing normal, odd, and abnormal uses of the word in phrases or sentences (as for example the following sentences with assassinate in them:

Several U.S. presidents have been assassinated while in office.
??The cat assassinated the bird.
???He slowly assassinated the prime minister.

Use some reasonable way of indicating degree of normality/acceptability, e.g. question marks as above, or words such as ODD).)

You can also support your analysis by citing other words which contrast with the target word with respect to particular features. Focus on the literal, motion verb senses of the words. (60)

a. plod
b. scurry

A tip: Don't be scared of 'semantic fuzziness'. Try to identify the meaning properties that seem to be most important at getting at the essence of the word. These are the ones that, if omitted, would give a distorted idea of the word's meaning.

If you notice other properties that seem to you to be conventionally associated with the word, discuss them too. These may be more variable across speakers, but you can argue for their validity in your speech (or the speech of other native speakers you consult) by citing relevant examples of normal, odd and distinctly abnormal usages.

2. For each of the following pairs of partial synonyms in (a) and (b), determine the semantic features or properties that are shared by members of the pair, and determine the features/properties that distinguish the words in the pair from one another semantically. Provide evidence for your features as above. (40)

a. float -- drift
b. look -- watch

(Your analyses for this problem will be limited to shared and distinguishing properties, rather than a full semantic description as in the previous problem.)